#i was reading it over yesterday and damn it hurts yikes
Text
The Exam
→ [1/7] of the Society Series
→ summary: Three societies. Two dead lovers. One test. In a world that prioritizes intelligence and the ability to regurgitate textbook information, will you choose love and poverty or splendor and solitude?
→ pairing/rating: taehyung x reader | PG-15
→ genre: 99.9% angst, 0.1% fluff (if you squint) | dystopian!au & utopian!au
→ warnings: profanity, death, mentions of tuberculosis and leptospirosis, blood, extreme poverty, extremely brief mention of cannibalism and overdosing, undiagnosed depression and mild anxiety, brief mentions of the afterlife and physical violence, this shit ain’t happy pple
→ wordcount: 21.4k
There's a strange stench that permeates the air in the city of Dystopia.
It is the odor of death. The dark, muddy soil reeks of decaying bodies, of rotting rats and excretions. Deteriorating child flesh even has its own distinct smell, but you've become so used to it, you don't really mind it as much anymore.
Every day is a festival for the unusually large rats that inhabit the city. With their matted-fur and worm-tails, the rodents feast on decomposing human bodies, ripping apart the dark, putrid meat and leaving dried blood splattered on the barely-paved streets.
Bodies are everywhere.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if a fallen child is dead or asleep in the towering masses of waste. There are too many orphans wandering lost on the streets with no bed or home to conceal them in warmth. There are too many people who never know when their next meal will be, or if there will be clean water to drink for the day. Hell, most of the huts in the dystopian city are on the very verge of crumbling down.
You're lucky.
Your home has semi-working electricity and plumbing. But every now and then, the lights will refuse to turn on and the pipes will leak—or even burst if it was a bad day.
Most citizens of Dystopia, however, roam the streets, homeless, until death finally whisks them away. Nobody knows what happens after death. But everybody knows it is better than Dystopia.
This place, this Dystopia, was home for your childhood memories. Shamefully enough, it was also your birthplace. But you don't live there anymore, thank goodness. You live in Purgatory now, a smaller city with slightly more opportunities and fewer rats.
But Purgatory isn't that much different from Dystopia either. Death still hangs over the heads of the weak, ready to take their hands and lead them away when the time comes. Purgatory is a wild place full of children and teenagers from ages ten to eighteen. They're there for one sole purpose: education. Rigorous education that may come with the price of death.
It's how the whole damn system works.
Every Dystopian-born must suffer ten years of life in that hellhole; if they are still alive by then, they are relocated to Purgatory where "equal opportunities" are given to all with mercy. At least, that's what the authority claims. Really, you see it more as a ruthless competition. It's not "equal opportunities" or whatever bullcrap the government was trying to sell to the people. You see it as a game of sharks and minnows—a game of exceptionally robust predators and abnormally frail prey.
Annually, every student who is eighteen in Purgatory is required to take an exam. An exam that determines their entire future.
Every year, the highest-scoring students—or student—are whisked away by the government with silk draped around their hunched shoulders, layers of soft mink coats keeping their frayed bodies warm and their dirty tresses bathed with the richest, fragrance oils. Then they are granted access to Utopia.
Utopia, the city of the rich. They breathe expensive air there, bathe in priceless tea and wear extortionate silks and furs. They deserve it. Because they're the most intelligent people in all three cities of Atna. At least, that's what the government says.
It is merciless when they throw every other eighteen-year-old who 'failed' the Exam in the city of Dystopia. You'd think they'd spare their precious Utopian-borns—the children of the men and women who proved their intelligence by reigning over every other student in Purgatory. But they don't. The Utopian-borns are dumped into Dystopia as well. Into a foreign place where the air is dead, baths are infrequent and clothing is for the greatly fortunate.
Yet that's rare. Most often, Utopian students always tie for the highest-score and are taken back to their luxurious birthplace. It's too advantageous for them. It's unfair. Unreasonable. They train from their birth until the last second before they leave the warmth of their Utopian homes for the Exam. Of course, they would score the highest.
One year, out of the hundreds of eighteen-year-olds who took the Exam, twenty-three of them made it back to Utopia. All Utopian-borns.
Still, a handful of Utopians are tossed into the slums—they are a disgrace to all of Atna for they had the advantage and didn't take it.
You've seen those sad individuals your whole childhood. They were the ones who weren't used to horrifying conditions. Consequently, they were always the last to eat and first to die.
When you were the adventurous age of nine, you and your best friend Jimin would sit outside the shabby, repulsive place that you called home and would watch the Utopian-borns straggling across the streets.
They wailed and begged as their eyes reflected one sole emotion: fear.
"I bet she's Utopian-born," Jimin huffs as he points at a girl frantically cramming her mouth full of scraggly weeds that had somehow sprouted from the fetid grounds. Both of you silently watch as her bloody fingernails pierce madly through the mud, uprooting the plants with surprising success. "Doesn't she know those are poisonous?"
You shrug, staring blankly at the girl. "No, she's not Utopian-born. Doesn't look over eighteen. Maybe she doesn't want to take the Exam." Taking Jimin's hand into yours, you sigh, "I bet he's Utopian-born, though." Your small finger points at a young man huddled up against a pile of rubbish, completely naked and rocking back and forth, as if that action would save him from the wraths of Dystopia. He had stripped off his tattered clothes and had unskillfully attempted to wrap them around himself to combat the harsh weather. A simple but deadly mistake.
A Dystopian-born would know better.
"He's going to die," Jimin says, cocking his head. "Let's go help him." He starts to tug you towards the unclothed man but you forcefully pull your friend back, eyebrows twisting downwards into a deep frown.
"Leave him." Your cold eyes stare right past the Utopian-born, gazing at the bright neon poster behind him. It reads Utopia, a wondrous place for deserving people.
And below is an image of a gorgeous, healthily plump woman in a spotless, white bikini, skin sparkling and well-tanned and her hands immaculately manicured. Her hair is loose, glossy and looks like it smells of flowering spring roses. She's holding a gleaming bottle of fizzing golden liquid in one hand and a handsome man's hand in the other. The man smiles brightly, revealing a row of pearlescent teeth as he boasts shiny, black sunglasses and wears a watch made of dazzling rubies and diamonds.
Behind the couple is a house—actually, a mansion made of polished glass with luscious trees decorating the purlieu and the pool filled with glimmering water tinted a light shade of azure. The sky is cerulean blue, and the clouds resemble cotton candy.
Everything speaks perfection.
These identical posters are littered everywhere across Dystopia. It is a painful reminder for the Atnatians who have failed the Exam—even more so agonizing for the Utopians who had been banished from their previous home.
The propaganda posters are the only clean, resplendent objects in the slums. But personally, you think they're revolting.
Your unsympathetic eyes trail back to the naked man. You take another glance at the stupid government propaganda poster behind him before you squeeze Jimin's hand. "Yeah, let's leave him," you repeat.
The pick-the-Utopian-born-from-the-crowd game abruptly halts soon after when Jimin comes over to your small hut one day, crying profusely, his tears leaving clean streaks on his dirt-covered face.
"He's dead!" he cries, fat droplets of tears dribbling down to his chin.
You frown in confusion, eyebrows knitting into a small frown. With the mortality rate of Dystopia, your best friend could either be talking about your neighbor from the next hut over or the other fifty bodies left dead and abandoned on the streets. "Who's dead, Jiminie?"
"T-That Utopian-born," Jimin whimpers, dirty hand reaching up to wipe away the tears obscuring his vision. Although there were many Utopian-borns roaming around Dystopia, you had a clear idea of who he was talking about. "The rats... they—"
You grab his filthy hand before it reaches his eyes. "Don't rub your eyes, remember?"
Jimin nods dejectedly, his head dropping low as his tears dripped to the floor, leaving wet puddles of brown dirt. "Sorry, Y/N, I forgot..." He sniffles, which didn't help the snot that was leaking out of his soot-covered nose. "But the rats..." he trails off, hand reaching up again to wipe away his tears. But he pauses, thinks better of it and tries to blink them away instead.
You nod, knowingly. "And it's not the first time you've seen that happen, Jiminie. Don't cry..."
Your friend whimpers, kicking the wet dirt beneath his feet. "But if we had helped him... The rats wouldn't have eaten right through his guts! They wouldn't have bitten him to pieces or drunk his blood!" he wails. You are silent, never great at solacing. "If we had helped him..."
Time is running out for both of you. You'd soon be relocated to Purgatory and you know Jimin is starting to get anxious for the both of you. He would cry in fear and grief for every dead corpse on the street, bite his nails hard enough to draw blood even though you would tell him not to, and try to help all the suffering Utopian-borns, despite your avid protests.
Jimin had always been too soft-minded, too kind. Death frightened him.
But you weren't afraid of death. Never have been. Never will be.
You are fucking terrified of death. It is the only occurrence that will keep you from scoring the highest, and as a seventeen-year-old, the Exam was looming closer than ever. You couldn't die now. Not after all the years of rigorous studying. You'd skipped nights of sleep, countless meals to get to this position.
To you, Purgatory would always be a second Utopia; for one, the conditions are immensely better than that of Dystopia, maggots no longer crawling in your food and clothes not as battered and ravaged by irritable rats or insects. This city is your one chance where you can prove yourself deserving to live in Utopia—to confirm that you can outlast, out-study and outsmart everyone in your year.
You eat, sleep and breathe your studies, something only a few students can manage to do. One of the only things that keep you motivated to wake up at the crack of dawn and open up a dusty book is the fact that no one's ever secured a perfect score on the Exam.
But you know you'll be the first.
You'll be the first and only person to obtain a perfect score. And thus you will be the only eighteen-year-old going to Utopia in your year.
It is a fantasy. A dream. A goal. But you thirst to achieve it.
In fact, you haven't left the library in weeks. You've practically been glued onto the same hard, wooden chair for what seemed like days now. You have also never ceased to flip the pages of your colossal textbooks. You're quite happy to say that the other students aren't studying as hard as you—most of them have given up by now.
Logically, it makes sense to surrender to the Exam.
Although you're given eight whole years to study in Purgatory, most students use that time to stuff themselves full of savory victuals, sleep in cots instead of in fetid mud and live without the shadow of death appended to their feet. Obviously, the conditions aren't as astounding as Utopia, but anything's better than the slums of Atna. It isn't worth it, they say. It isn't worth the eight years of miserable studying, only to be beaten by someone better (there's always someone better) and thrown into Dystopia without ever being able to live. But 'surrender' isn't in your vast vocabulary.
As much as you hate cheesy platitudes, you're in it (ahem, forcibly) to win it. Besides, your competition is dropping like flies on a scorching hot day. You suspect it's from that nasty tuberculosis that's been going around for a while.
There's only a year left before the Exam now. It's such little time for you to finish reading everything in that library, and such little time alike for the other students to live their last year to the very fullest in Purgatory, the downgrade of Utopia but the upgrade of Dystopia.
But especially for you, a year definitely isn't enough. You're just a tad bit off schedule—you were supposed to finish reading and memorizing everything in the library last year so you'd have two good years to review. Now you only have one.
It adds on to the multitudes of problems that no one truly knows what's on the Exam. They say anything in the grand library is fair game, but besides that, you don't know much. And because of that, you and what's left of your competitors have been reading everything in the library from novels to textbooks to published theses.
As a matter of fact, you're just one book and a page shy from reading everything in the damned library. Your eyes bore into the paper overlaid with equations and one too many graphs, forcing your brain to memorize every detail, every print and word. You know you shouldn't frown when you study. Someone you'd once loved had told you an unpretty, permanent crease would be etched on your forehead—but now you can't help it—frowning helps you concentrate.
Especially now. The library is usually dead silent except for the soft crinkles of paper as students flip the pages of their reading materials, yet you swear at least half of the students in the room have tuberculosis. There's heavy coughing every ten seconds, the infected splattering crimson blood on the thin, worn-out pages of the textbooks. And that's how the disease has been spreading.
They're going to die before the Exam. You swear they are—how pathetic of them to spend the last days of their lives cramming study material in their heads.
You don't care much for the infected, as long as they keep their distance from you. You don't know what you'll do if you catch the disease as well. But in your mind, nothing is worse than the mortality rates of Dystopia. At least no one in Purgatory dies from famine.
Still, there are never adequate treatments or vaccines and you can recall at least ten people who you haven't seen since tuberculosis first broke out. Not that you care, though. In the end, you're just glad you're not one of the diseased. You've always had a strong immune system, anyway.
You let out a soft sigh, feeling the urge to rub your dry, tiresome eyes but thinking better of it. Shutting the heavy textbook with a gentle thud, you place both hands on the wooden table, steadying yourself. You slowly close your eyes, relishing in the comfort of the darkness—you haven't slept in nearly three days, haven't left your seat to eat either. Your empty water canteen stares back at you, begging for it to be refilled. You swallow, your throat feeling unbearably scratchy, but you don't succumb to its desperate demand.
Now you only have one more book to read. Just one more and you'll be done. You'll treat yourself to an actual meal and a few hours of sleep (not too much because you still need time for review). With the Exam inching closer every minute, every second, you really don't have time to waste.
Water will have to wait for later.
Besides, you know for a fact that the last book you have to read isn't too long—just a hundred pages or so. You slowly open your eyes, vision slightly blurry as you force yourself to stand. Immediately, your legs threaten to give out and you have to stagger forward to use the dated bookshelves to steady yourself.
Step by step, you carry your barely responsive body to the special corner in the library that you haven't touched in the seven years you've lived in Purgatory. The unfamiliar, gray, tattered book catches your eye and you continue to wobble closer and closer to it. Family Studies, it should say.
Quite the ironic book to read about in a world where families are ripped apart by the government and their indecent tactics. But it's not like you have a choice. You need to get to Utopia—you've made promises...
You may be broken on the inside and out, but you won't let yourself break a promise.
Wearily, you force yourself to lift up your shaking arm to touch the book's spine. But you gasp, nearly jumping back with the little energy you have as your cold hand comes in contact with something warm.
Flesh, you finally register in your head. I've touched flesh.
Your head jerks up rather painfully, leaving your eyes struggling to adjust to the sight in front of you. A boy. A tall boy. His figure towers over you, and he frowns deeply, eyes bloodshot as he looks you up and down. In one hand he clutches a frayed brown blanket draped comfortably over his shoulders and the other stubbornly grasps the book—your book.
But you don't acquiesce, glaring at him as you tug the book closer to you. The boy glances your way tiredly, no emotion displayed on his malnourished, sculpted face. "Excuse me," he croaks, tugging the book closer to himself.
"Excuse you." Your voice comes out much raspier than you had expected, making you instantly regret opening your mouth to speak. But the desire to have the last book in your hands is far greater: "I need that." You pull the book back.
The boy scoffs—even that comes out as a dry cough that makes you flinch back just a bit. "I need it too."
You hate the parched feeling tickling the back of your throat, and you let out a little scream of frustration before instinct gets the better of you. You quickly slap the boy's hand, taking advantage of his surprise as an opportunity to snatch the book from the shelf. Once the book is safely cradled in your arms, you turn to the boy and give him the side-eye. "Well, I need it more."
With that, you attempt to hobble away with the best of your ability, but you fail when the boy grabs the back of your threadbare shirt, stopping you from moving any further. "Please."
He sounds so desperate, voice dripping with misery—something you were once so familiar with. His hands shake, grasping the fabric... You hate yourself for turning around to see his forlorn face. His eyes are full of suffering, of so much pain—that too is so familiar to you."Please..." he whispers again as his grip loosens on your shirt.
You're silent. It hurts. It physically pains you that the only human interaction you've had in months, maybe years, reminds you so much of him.
"Pleaseeee!!" Jimin drags out, a burst of giggles leaving his throat as he tugs excitedly at your arm. "Please! Let's go, let's go!"
You grumble, begrudgingly dragging your feet as Jimin pulls you towards unfamiliar territory. "I'm not hungry," you whine. "Can we just stay in the dorms?"
"We've got eight years to stay in the dorms, Y/N. Eight! Please? Just a few minutes in the cafeteria? I heard they serve actual food! Maybe if we're lucky, we'll get to snag some snacks!" Jimin exclaims, his cheeks tinged pink with elation.
"Where did you hear that from?" you mumble in protest before giving in to Jimin's persistence.
"The ones who failed," he answers lightheartedly. "I've been asking around."
"Oh."
You can't really say much more. There's nothing more to say.
The cafeteria is larger than at least ten Dystopian huts combined; there are rows and rows of rusty lunch tables and a long, metal countertop with a few baskets of bread on top. You and Jimin manage to salvage some before the rats get to it. You force yourself to ignore the angry squeaking and chattering around your bare feet.
The slices of white bread are only slightly moldy, which already makes it better than anything one can forage from your birthplace. You take each bite slowly, chewing steadily to keep the flavor on your tongue just a little while longer. But all too soon, it's gone. Though you'd denied it earlier, you are definitely hungry. Maybe even starving.
You look up to see Jimin swinging his feet back and forth, his hands grasping the side of the old bench, keeping his body balanced. He notices your eyes on him and looks at you, giving you a small smile. You smile back.
"This is already better than Dystopia, isn't it?" he says, small hand tentatively moving towards yours to encompass it. You nod your head in agreement. "We have eight years..." You nod again. "Then we'll be able to go back home."
You don't hesitate, a faint smile appearing on your lips. "Of course."
"Not dead, yet, huh?" you sigh, facing the boy next to you, scrutinizing his every movement. When he doesn't answer right away, you slam the textbook down in the middle of the table to get his attention—and to spite him, of course.
The boy scoffs as he glares at you through the tired slits of his eyes. Any sense of the weakness he had shown from practically begging you to share the book with him yesterday is gone. The feebleness might've been just an act—a sly trick to get you to help him. "Sorry but I plan on going to Utopia as well. That, we have in common," the boy bites right back. "Our only difference is that I'll actually make it there."
You blow air through your nose, prying open the previous book titled Family Studies and muttering death threats under your breath. You clear your throat before you speak again. "Yeah, right. Please shut up before I regret sharing my textbook with you."
"For your information, that's not exactly yours," the boy snorts. "It's the government's. And you've seen the shit that happens when you mess with them."
There's a sadder undertone to his voice that you pick up immediately. He sounds cocky but ruined at the same time—you would know because that's the façade that you had put up for yourself for years now. You can't stop yourself from asking the question that falls from your lips quite easily: "Why? Someone you know messed with them?"
The boy averts his eyes from you, looking down at his feet covered up in tattered shoes. "More like someone I knew." He shrugs, turning his head up so that his dark eyes pierce through yours. "But it doesn't really matter anymore."
Something stings inside. You wish you could say the same.
"It's only been a week," you giggle, watching Jimin stuff his face full of soup made of mystery miscellaneous ingredients. "Shouldn't you have gotten used to having enough food by now?"
Jimin pauses his vehement eating to give you a 'duh' look. "Silly, I'm going to store all the food now when I can. You know, before we have to go back. When's the last time Dystopia had meal times, anyway?"
"Never, of course," you laugh. The rats or some other pesky rodents chatter right along with you. But they only sound as if they are wryly laughing with you and Jimin. A bit embittered, you kick your feet in an attempt to shoo the rats away—or at least shut them up. "Too bad this place still has rats."
Jimin nods. "I've seen some of them around our food too." He makes a disgusted face. "Think about it. What if this mystery soup is made of rat droppings and piss?"
"Oh shut up. Don't be like that," you sniffle, turning up your nose in complete distaste. "That's disgusting."
"I'm only joking," Jimin chuckles, taking another spoonful of his soup, exaggerating the action and making you mock-gag in repugnance.
As annoying as he sometimes is, having Jimin around is something you always have been thankful for. It was everything to have a friend be by your side. You've seen what happens when people are left alone for too long. They go bat-shit crazy. Completely bonkers.
Being tossed back to Dystopia is inevitable; neither of you was going to stop it. Yet even just your best friend's presence is your very own incentive to wake up the next day with a hopeful smile on your lips. He matters so much to you.
"Let's have the time of our lives in Purgatory," he'd told you over and over again. So much so that you can still hear his voice today, tainted with hope and faith. "Then we can go back to Dystopia together."
You grit your teeth, catching your lip between them and biting so hard you taste blood. The strong taste of iron drives you to focus. You furrow your brows, staring at the pages of the textbook and reading thoroughly, mulling over every word in your head with careful precision. When your eyes reach the end of the page, you're just about to look up and ask the boy if he's done reading, but he's one step ahead of you.
The boy flips the page over and smiles at you smugly. You frown at him disdainfully, but without another word, you concentrate on the content once more. Until—
"Taehyung."
You sigh, reluctantly looking up at the boy. "What?"
"Taehyung. My name's Taehyung," he says. "Just thought you ought to know. There are 98 pages left in this book, so I just thought it'd be better to introduce ourselves. We'll be sitting together for a while."
You squint your eyes at him, pondering over his words. But he does make quite a good point. You suppose you and the boy—Taehyung—had gotten off on the wrong foot. Although he was kind of a cocky asshole, you guess it wouldn't hurt to at least tell him your name.
"Fine," you say, upturning your nose. "I'm Y/N."
"Cool." Taehyung grins. For a guy who's been living in unkempt conditions for several years, his teeth look pretty near to goddamn perfection. It's a little irritating if you do say so for yourself.
You're about to pick up where you last left off in the textbook when Taehyung scoots closer to you. You lean away, frowning at him as you shoot him a 'what the fuck are you doing' look.
He seems oblivious to your stone-cold glare. "Sooo, Y/N," he says. "What's making you study this hard?" he asks. "I thought I was the only crazy one here." He laughs wryly. When he sees that you're ignoring him and still reading from the damned book, he huffs and slams it shut.
"What the fuck, Taehyung," you spit out, jerking your head towards him. "Can't I study in peace?"
"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to ignore?" he counters.
"Give me the book back."
"No." He grins, pushing the book away from you as he crosses his legs confidently, leaning back in his chair. "Answer the question. Please," he adds hastily. "C'mon. If we stay cooped up reading all day, we'll die before even getting to live in Utopia."
You let out a frustrated groan, but he's right in a way. You should take study breaks now and then—possibly to keep your sanity. "What's making me study so hard? Fine," you huff. "We all have our mad-person reasons. Happy?" But upon Taehyung's disappointed look at your vague answer, you let out a deep sigh. "And I made promises I don't want to break," you elaborate reluctantly.
"Promises?" Taehyung says. "Interesting... You look like you've been through some rough shit."
You scoff. "Me? Says you. You're Dystopian-born too, right?"
"I'm that obvious, am I?" He grins. "It's true though. I've seen bad shit in Dystopia."
"Yeah, well, I've seen the worst shit right here in Purgatory," you mutter. "So I think I win."
"Oh?"
You ignore him. "Give me back my book," you demand.
"First of all, it's not your book," Taehyung laughs. "And secondly, worst shit in Purgatory? Must be an interesting story behind that. Do tell."
"No."
Taehyung huffs as he leans back even further in his chair. "So you've lost someone you love, then."
You freeze. How did he—
Biting your lip again, you contemplate whether to answer. Finally, you let out a small, "Yeah. Two, actually."
"Damn, two?" Taehyung gawks. "Wow. Um, I'm sorry. You weren't kidding about the bad shit you've seen here."
"I really wasn't." Now you're definitely not in the mood to study. Not when Taehyung, single-handedly, in just a few minutes, reminded you of them. "It's dumb, but I use them and the promises we made together as an incentive to study. That's my mad-person reason," you confess.
Why does it feel better to tell someone else about yourself?
"That's not dumb," Taehyung offers, his eyes mirroring your own sadness in them. "It's good to have someone you love to be your incentive." He pushes the textbook back towards you. "Sorry for pestering you. You can study now if you want."
You nod curtly as you quickly open the book to the page you had left off. It seems that Taehyung does have the smallest bit of sympathy in him. You suppose he's not a completely horrible person (as you had thought before).
Sighing, you try to read through the sentences on the page, but you find yourself reading the same phrase over and over again. Damn. Your stomach flips and you begin to feel a little queasy as melancholy washes over your head. Shit. Now you really can't concentrate.
"You're, okay, right, Jiminie?" you beg, frown lines appearing on your forehead as you take both of the sick boy's hands in yours, watching his tense face relax ever-so-slightly from your soft touch.
"It's probably just something I ate. I'll be fine!" he manages to answer enthusiastically. "I'll throw it all up by tomorrow and you'll see me stronger than ever!"
He was wrong.
As the long days rolled by, he got sicker and sicker. Most of your week was spent in Jimin's room. It became a daily routine to watch him throw up whatever you suggested he eat. It became a reoccurring attempt for you to try to calm his sweltering fever. Every day you were more exhausted than the last. And so was he.
You were losing hope, but you tried not to show it. You knew he was dying, but neither of you mentioned it. You were losing your best friend and you couldn't do anything about it.
No one cared either. Everybody turned a blind eye to the ten-year-old boy suffering in overwhelming pain. They either had been preoccupied with studying or didn't want to catch whatever Jimin had. To them, Jimin, your light and life source was nothing but another body to be tossed in the graveyard at the end of the day.
And just like that, he passed away.
You can still recall the misery reflecting in his eyes, his quiet whimpers, his delusional words. You can still remember him. Quite clearly, too. He didn't know who you were the last few minutes before he blinked half-way and never woke up again. The moment you knew he was dead, you'd cried, clinging to his body and letting out the sorrow, the weakness, that you had hidden from him when he was alive.
To the ten-year-old you, his death was a mystery.
But it was leptospirosis. You know that now, after years of flipping the pages of those medical textbooks. It was a rare disease from animals, but mostly rats. Those damn rats. You wish you can kill them all.
"Those fucking rats!" Taehyung slams his fist hard on the wooden table, immediately stopping the persistent chattering of the damned rodents. "I swear to god, they're one of the worst things about Purgatory, other than the goddamn Exam itself!"
You nod in silent agreement, sighing as you play with the leftover crumbs of your breakfast. "I'd even argue that they're the worst things to ever exist. Besides the Exam."
No matter how annoyingly vocal Taehyung is about his pure hatred for rats, it feels good to have someone to talk to while eating your breakfast. You haven't had company in years.
Taehyung lets a smile loose, a boxy grin that has some sort of weird way of making you feel calm. It's impossible to believe that he's supposed to be your competition when both of you have developed a friendship over the past several days. It wasn't easy for Taehyung to befriend you—especially since you've shut out every other person in your life since... since Yoongi. But he was persistent, and you admired that about him. So slowly, very slowly, you began to open up to the boy.
You told him about Jimin, and you have to admit, it felt fucking fantastic to have someone else mourn for Jimin—to have someone else besides you who didn't ignore his death. And now you're just beginning to tell him about Yoongi upon his stubborn urging.
"You should continue," Taehyung says. "You were telling me about your preteen boyfriend?" he asks with his mouth full of bread—his words are just barely discernible and you crinkle your nose in disgust.
"Gross. Haven't you read those etiquette books? Thought they would've taught you a thing or two about not talking with your mouth full," you huff. "And don't call him my preteen boyfriend. That sounds wrong. Not to mention... it takes away so much of the meaning of my relationship with him."
"Okay, okay, sorry," Taehyung says, but chewed up bread crumbs escape his mouth and land on the metal lunch table. You make a face. "But," Taehyung continues, paying no mind to your disgust, "at the end of the day, I just wanna know if all Utopian-borns are bastards or not."
You roll your eyes. "Oh, c'mon. Do you really think I'd love a bastard?"
"Well, you're quite unpredictable, dear," Taehyung swallows his food (thankfully) before he laughs. "You thought you were going to study alone for the rest of your time here. But look at you, with me, sharing a textbook."
"You better not tell me shit like 'you didn't know love when you were ten,' Taehyung," you say as menacingly as you can. "I'm not gonna tolerate shit talk. And besides, Yoongi was definitely not a bastard. He—" you pause abruptly. "Ah, shit," you say, trying to blink away the tears that had suddenly sprung upon your eyes. Your fingers grip the hem of your shirt and you clear your throat before you continue. "He died so he didn't have to deal with bastards."
"Oh, shit," Taehyung breathes when he realizes you're close to crying. "I'm sorry... You don't have to tell me about him if it's gonna make you feel bad. I was joking about the whole Utopian-born-bastard thing anyway."
"No, I want to tell you," you say. "I need to tell someone. I can't just pent these things up inside of me, Taehyung. Don't you know? I'm using you as my personal rant-listener." You grin at him, though your tears roll down your cheeks.
Taehyung looks confused at your juxtaposition of tears and happy grin. "Okay then," he says. "If you're really sure." He frowns, tilting his head. "I just don't get the part when you said he died so he didn't have to deal with bastards. He can't choose when he dies or not—"
"Oh, yes he can," you cut him off. "Think about it," you say as more tears trip down your face. Taehyung gives you a perplexed look, his confused eyes meeting your sad ones. You sigh. "You can choose when you want to die sometimes," you whisper in a shaky voice. "Intentional death."
You've lost your appetite ever since Jimin passed away. But you come to the cafeteria every day to pay tribute to your best friend, who had announced one too many times when he was alive that the cafeteria was his favorite place in the whole world. So you sit down by yourself on the lunch tables, staring at the bread but never reaching out to take it.
Without Jimin, your world is drained of color. Life loses its meaning. There is no point. You were supposed to go back to Dystopia as adults—together. That had been your one wish. Your only wish. And now it couldn't happen. Not when Jimin's not with you anymore.
Large men in spotless white suits had dragged his limp body off of the small cot as you were begging, wailing on the side. You asked them to bury him, to give him a proper memorial. But they ignored you, pushed you away to the side. They didn't even have the decency to respect him, to cover him up with a blanket or sheet. You had to watch his clothes collect dirt and his face drag in the mud as they pulled him by the legs.
Even after they'd yelled at you, you'd watched, followed them as they flung his body into a deep pit reeking of death.
They burn the bodies in the pit every Sunday; then the week starts fresh with an empty abyss for the dead.
You want to jump in the pit after Jimin. Maybe you can conveniently dump your body in the hole a few minutes before they set fire to it—maybe you can be with Jimin that way.
It feels like a knife in your heart when you think about his last few delusional words. He'd told you fitfully, in a full sweat, that he was in so much pain, but he'd rather be in pain than die. He was afraid of death.
You aren't. You are in so much pain, you want to die, unlike him. Ten years of life is enough, you decide. Whatever is waiting for you after death has to be better than what you are living in right now.
So you plan it out. You wait until Sunday, until five minutes before they're supposed to come to burn the pit of bodies. You're going to jump in. Find Jimin. Burn to death with him. Simple.
Not so simple.
You stand exactly three feet from the pit (you measured it yourself, with your own feet), thinking it would be better to have a running start of some sort. But your feet are frozen as well as your mind is. You just can't seem to get yourself to move. You've pictured yourself jumping into the pit at least a hundred times before, so you can't help to wonder why you can't seem to do it now.
It frustrates you. Your mind tells you to run, to jump, but your legs are glued to the ground.
"Gonna jump?"
You nearly lose your balance at the sudden voice that comes from behind you. You quickly whirl around to see a lanky boy with tousled black hair. He's leaning against the exterior of the common building, staring at you with cold, judgmental eyes. He's taller, bigger than you, so you discern that he must be one of those older kids. You scowl at him. "And what if I did jump?" you retort.
"Wouldn't recommend it, kid," the boy says. He laughs coldly. "First of all, they're not going to burn that shit for several hours. Do you really want to lay around rotting bodies before you die?"
"What if I don't care?" you answer defiantly, crossing your arms.
"What are you? Dumb?" The boy scoffs, leaving his place against the wall and starting to walk towards you as he casually stuffs his hands into his pants pockets. "Get out of here," he says menacingly, eyes narrowing and mouth set stern. "And don't come back."
You admit you're slightly scared, but you don't back down. "No." You glare. "I don't want to."
The boy laughs, shrugging. "It's always the dumb Dystopian-borns. You can't be more than ten-years-old. What's got you so suicidal, huh?"
You narrow your eyes. "I'm not dumb!"
"Hm... Prove it... idiot."
You fume, face turning bright red as you stomp your feet. "Shut up! Leave me alone!"
The boy laughs. "I will if you get out of my sight."
Angry tears slip from your eyes as you grip your fists tight. "I don't want to! I-I want to die! My best friend's down there. And I'm going to be with him!" you yell as snot runs down your nose and your cheeks are wet with hot tears. You feel pathetic. But you need to get your point across to this mean, older boy who isn't leaving you alone. "You can't make me leave!"
There's an uncomfortable silence that follows, yet you stand your ground and glare at him. But to your surprise, the boy lets out a small sigh and begins to walk up to you. He crouches down to your level and he wipes your tears (and embarrassingly a bit of your snot) with the sleeve of his frayed (but obviously high-end) sweater. "It's okay kid," he says. Before you know it, he's pulling you into a tight hug. "Stop crying, hm? It'll be all right, kid."
Nobody's ever hugged you like that before. Not even Jimin—because he knows how much you don't like physical affection. But you needed his hug; it was long overdue.
You hiccup, crying out the rest of your tears as the boy holds you into his arms. It takes you a few minutes to calm down, and when you finally pull away from the boy, you notice that your shirt is slightly wet as well. And not from your tears, but from his. You look up to see the boy's back turned on you, hiding his face from your view.
"Let's go get something to eat, kid," he says, and you can hear just the hint of tears behind his voice. And when he sniffles, it confirms everything.
Cocking your head in curiosity, you begin to follow him—
"Wait, wait!" Taehyung interrupts. "Before you go on any further, you need to address the elephant in the room, Y/N. Why the fuck is he crying?"
"Yeah, well, I didn't know then either," you say. "It's complicated. I mean, I only found out the reason way later. If you'd just let me continue—"
"Oh, sorry. Continue, then."
"Yes, thank you—"
"Wait, lemme interrupt just one more time," Taehyung interjects again. "Just one last question." You groan, but you nod, telling him you're all ears. "Exactly how much older is he than you?"
You sigh. "He was three years older."
Taehyung sucks in a deep breath. "Right... He's, uh, dead. But damn. You were into a Utopian-born that was older? You really broke all the boundaries."
You shrug. "I guess I always didn't really give a fuck about societal norms or whatever the shit people call it."
"And yet you're conforming to the largest societal norm in Atna by studying for the Exam," Taehyung points out. "Times have changed."
You smile sadly, shaking your head. "I'm only doing this for Yoongi. He made me promise... So, here I am, trying to fulfill his wishes. Will you let me continue now?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Anyways..."
Yoongi watches you devour the bread, but you're too hungry to care about his incessant staring.
"You should slow down," he says. "We don't want you to choke to death or anything—" he pauses, eyes turning wide before he mutters a "Shit, I gave her a fucking idea."
"I heard that," you say.
Yoongi visibly pales.
"It's okay," you assure him, setting down a loaf of bread to stare right back at the boy. "I feel better now. I don't think I've eaten for days."
"Damn," Yoongi mutters under his breath. "What kind of best friend was he for you to be this distraught over his death?"
"Distraught?" you say, blinking blankly at him.
He sighs, "Right, right, you're only ten. Distraught means sad. Upset. Depressed. All those fun words."
"Oh," you murmur. "Jimin was everything to me," you say shyly. "He promised me that we were going to go back to Dystopia! Then we could share a house and live together as adults..." you trail off, losing yourself in the figments of your wildest imaginations. "We were supposed to have so much fun in Purgatory..."
Yoongi cocks his head. "Kid, I think you liked him."
You frown at this strange comment, crinkling your nose. "Of course I liked him, he was my best friend."
"No, kid. You like liked him. Maybe you loved him. I don't know," Yoongi says, shrugging. "Think about it. Wait no, don't. Forget about him. Don't make yourself sad. Talk to me. What do you wanna do? Wanna go to my room? I have some stuff back from home there. You can play with them if you want."
You squint your eyes at the boy, staring at him suspiciously. "Why are you trying to be nice...?"
"Nice?" Yoongi scoffs. "I'm just, uh, I'm just trying to get rid of stuff that I don't need anymore. I'm definitely not being nice. So you better follow me 'cause I don't want a lot of things."
You don't buy his lie, but maybe that's a good thing. In your eyes, this boy is, indeed, nice and he's trying to help you take your mind off of Jimin. He even prevented you from leaping off the ledge and falling to your own death. You hope he sticks around.
And stick around he did.
Yoongi is bossy, straight-forward and frankly rude sometimes, things that Jimin totally wasn't. But he is also generous, thoughtful and emotional (on a good day), and that's all you needed to stick by his side.
He is so generous that in the first week that you met him, he gave you nearly a closet-worth's supply of thick sweaters and jackets for the upcoming winter. In that same way, he is thoughtful. You took the clothes gratefully, never once having held such expensive material before in your life.
On late nights when you slept over in his room, he always asked if you could tell him stories of your childhood. And you'd gladly oblige. That's when he got emotional. Though you never see him cry, you always hear it when you tell your stories. Yoongi tries to hide his emotions to the best of his ability, but frankly, he's a loud crier, so you hear him every time. But you let him think he's good at hiding his tears for the sake that he's your friend.
One day, though, you come down with some sort of throat sickness, and Yoongi practically orders you not to speak for the next 24 hours. He had his own medicine cabinet in which his rich parents gifted him before their only son was shipped off to Purgatory from their grand mansion. So you were getting the best treatment anyone in Purgatory could get.
Yoongi even offered to tell you stories that night. To repay you for being an amazing storyteller.
"I've always wanted to hear about Utopia," you croak despite having a painful burn in your throat. "I hate that place. But I want to know more about it."
"Stop talking so much," Yoongi sighs. "Do you want to get better or not?" When you're silent, (having passed his rhetorical question test in which the correct answer was to stay quiet) he smiles to himself and continues. "I hate Utopia too. It's not as great as it seems. You know that every Utopian-born is a slave to education? I think the moment I was born, I got tossed in tutoring. From six in the morning to eleven at night I was tutored. Seven days a week, no breaks. It's probably illegal, but my parents had a lot of copies of the books in the library in Purgatory. They made me get a head start on everything. After a while, you start to think about what the whole point of education is...
"My parents always told me that I was only suffering in my younger years—that I'd only have to suffer until I'm eighteen and if I scored well on the Exam, I'd be able to come back home safely and have the time of my life in Utopia. But I just didn't want to become a slave to education," Yoongi says. "I was sick of it. Sure, I'm privileged. Sure, I had everything I wanted growing up, but I didn't have one thing you Dystopians have—freedom.
"When you're studying all day every day, you don't get a lot of chances to make friends," Yoongi says. "I grew up with adults breathing down my neck and telling me to memorize useless facts. That was the closest thing to friends I ever got. I'm not sure if every Utopian-born is forced to live like this, but I can damn well infer it. Anyways, my parents aren't here now, so I can do whatever the fuck I want."
You laugh. "You don't want to go back home?" you say in your sick, gravelly voice
"I'm just tired, Y/N. I'm tired of everything," Yoongi exhales. "You'll understand when you're older."
"You're only three years older than me, though," you pout. "Do three years change that much?"
"Yes," Yoongi replies as a matter-of-fact-way. "I don't even want to take this stupid fucking test. But I also don't want to rot in Dystopia—no offense. I know I won't last there."
"Yeah, you won't last," you tell him with a giggle.
He huffs. "That's real comforting, Y/N."
"I know," you rasp. "Please tell me about Utopia, now. Are the skies really that blue? And does everyone have a pool? What do you eat there? Do you get your own room??" The last question throws you in a coughing fit, and Yoongi looks at you worriedly. He waits until you stop before he continues.
"It was always blue outside, yeah," he says, slowly, carefully as if he was taking his time to form his words to match his visualizations. "Sometimes we had scheduled rainy days for the private gardens and stuff," he says nostalgically. "I think I had about three pools in my home in Utopia, but I’m not sure if other families had them too. You know, I didn't get around much. Always stuck inside and studying." He sighs. "At least the food there was good. Way better than the crap we're forced to eat here. Barbecue ribs with generous amounts of sauce, slow-cooked potatoes in a bonfire, roasted lamb chops, fresh fruits and vegetables picked up from the nearby food-growing facilities... Caviar, licorice, cotton candy, chocolate, cakes, pudding... And if I ever ate bread, it was with fresh strawberry jam and smooth almond butter."
You don't understand half of the stuff he's saying, but whatever it is, it sounds delicious.
"I could talk about the great food there forever," Yoongi says. "The only thing I miss about Utopia is the food... It's really lonely there. I had my sleeping chamber, my pool room and my study room, but I was always in there alone. Whatever. Do you want to hear more?"
You nod. "Yoongi?"
"Yeah?"
"You cried when I first met you. Why?"
Yoongi visibly stiffens. Knowing him you expect Yoongi to wave off your question or ignore you altogether, but to your surprise, he doesn't.
"You made me feel bad," he confesses bluntly.
"Me??"
"It was just so strange for me to see someone else get upset over a friend..." he trails off. "You were going to die for him. You were going to leap into a pit because you loved your friend that much. You couldn't bear to think of a life without him. So you were going to die with him. And that just..."
"It was stupid, I know," you pout. "You don't have to say it again."
"It was stupid, yeah," Yoongi agrees. "And I'm saying it again because I can. But at the same time, it hurt me. You know, I made up my mind to jump that day too."
"You did??"
"Yeah and imagine my surprise and annoyance when I see some ten-year-old Dystopian-born in my way," Yoongi sniffles. "Pissed me off."
You huff. "Well—"
"And I was still pissed off at you until you told me you were going to do it to be with your friend," Yoongi says. "Do you know why I was going to do it?" You shake your head no. "Because I'm selfish and I didn't like my life and I didn't want to continue living in this hellhole by myself. Because I wanted to give up. And also because I didn't have a purpose to wake up to another day, but that's just one part of a plethora of other reasons. They were all selfish. It made me just... feel something when I saw you. And you were just willing to die for someone who wasn't yourself. Even though that's fucking stupid, it made me realize how I've never really lived before. And maybe you were the key to my first friendship? I don't know."
"Wow," you mutter.
"Is that all you have to say?"
"Yes, well, no? My throat's hurting again, Yoongi," you whine. "You told me to stop talking minutes ago."
"Oh, well, in that case, just go to sleep," he says. "You'll feel better in the morning."
"Thanks," you whisper against your cotton pillow. You snuggle in your cot below Yoongi's bed and let out a small sigh. "You're not that selfish, Yoongi," you say.
And you mean it. Yoongi's shown you nothing but generosity. He's shown you that he's caring when he tries to be. Even though he's unbelievably bossy sometimes, he does it for your own good. His quiet demeanor is a façade to the overwhelming emotions inside, and you can see right through it.
Yoongi doesn't answer for the longest time, so you wrap your arms arm yourself to preserve warmth and fall asleep. You wake up the next morning with an extra layer of blanket on top of you.
Taehyung begins to tap his feet on the ground restlessly, consequently making your chair shake underneath you. You try to ignore it for minutes, but the constant shaking is making it hard for you to concentrate on the textbook sitting between the two of you.
"Taehyung," you say.
"Hm?" he asks, his eyes boring into the pages of the book. "What?"
"Can you stop?"
"Stop what?"
"You're shaking my chair."
"Oh," Taehyung says. He finally looks up from his reading and makes eye contact with you. "Sorry," he apologizes hastily. "I didn't mean to do it... I just got nervous. This book is just... It's weird. I mean, when was the last time we put emphasis on family?"
"Never, of course," you say. "I barely even remember what my parents look like."
"Really?" Taehyung's eyes are large as he stares you down with curiosity mixed with just the slightest bit of pity. "Do you miss them?"
"No."
"What? Really?" Taehyung gasps. "You really don't care at all?"
"They're not prominent figures in my life," you say. "It was always Jimin. And then when Jimin died, it was Yoongi..." you trail off. "I do regret not being close to my family. I don't think I said goodbye when I had to leave to Purgatory."
"God, well, that's harsh."
"I know. What about you? Were you close with your family?"
"Oh, very," Taehyung replies. "I had three older brothers and one younger sister. My sister and two brothers didn't make it out in the world. So in theory I only had one older sibling."
"I'm sorry," you say.
"It's fine. It was in Dystopia. Too many people die so the deaths start to become irrelevant," Taehyung shrugs. "I miss them, though. My brother's dead now, but I miss my parents."
"Dead?"
"He tried to start a revolt in Purgatory eleven years ago," Taehyung says. He frowns, shaking his head in disbelief. "I didn't think he was that dumb to actually go through with the rebellion. It was a man-slaughter, by the way. Everyone in his year was killed."
"Everyone?" you say. "Even to me, that sounds severe."
"Yeah, well, it was easier for them. Assumed that everyone in that year was a rebel. And rebels deserve to die, apparently," Taehyung says. He grits his teeth, fisting his hands in slow-coming anger. "You do know why they have the fucking Exam, right?"
"To choose which people are worthy of being in Utopia?"
"That's part of the reason," Taehyung says. He leans into you so suddenly that you gasp quietly. "The government does it to weed out the feeble-minded ones. Haven't you heard rumors? In a few years, they might just exterminate Dystopia and Purgatory altogether. There aren't enough resources to keep everyone alive," he whispers with urgency, and you can feel his hot breath on your cheeks. "So they're trying to grow a stable society with highly intelligent individuals. They want to get rid of the excess. The unworthy. They do it by hosting the Exam."
He looks satisfied at your rather shocked face and decides to give you some space, leaning away and taking away the warmth on your face.
"They're going to get rid of Dystopia?" you whisper. "And Purgatory? That's not fair to the people living there. They're gonna close off Utopia forever? That's bullshit."
"It's rumored." Taehyung shrugs.
"Is that why you're studying so hard to go?" you say, cocking a curious brow at him. "To avenge your brother?"
"Maybe," Taehyung grins. "I mean, I'll see what I can do."
"You shouldn't," you tell him with a frown. "They're gonna kill our whole year because of you."
Taehyung raises an eyebrow at you. "You know what they're doing is wrong," he says. "Don't you want to right the wrong?"
"No," you say. "I don't. I'm not going to risk my life or any other lives to fix this stupid system. The only fool-proof way to beat them is to beat the Exam—by that, I mean get a perfect score. Think about it. It's a huge middle finger to the government. Imagine if only one person out of hundreds gets to go to Utopia for scoring the highest, and, you know, assuming that only one person gets a perfect score because it's that unheard of. If that keeps up year after year, Utopia will die. They'll be underpopulated. The government will realize the system is flawed with time."
"That would take years and years. And a lot of assumptions to make," Taehyung scoffs. "You're talking about one person from every fucking year having the will and intelligence to score perfectly. Statistically impossible."
"So what?" you say. "You think a bloody revolution will solve everything?"
"A bloody revolution would obviously take less time than what you're thinking of," Taehyung says. "There are people fucking dying out there. There are people eating dead bodies. One bloody revolt can do a lot for the future."
"It won't do a lot for the present, though," you argue.
Taehyung sighs. "You know what? I'm sorry we even fucking got into this damned conversation. Whatever. Let's just finish up the book."
You clench your teeth but you don't say anything, merely nodding to show your agreement.
For the next thirteen hours, it is completely silent. After the small argument, neither you nor Taehyung feels the need to speak to the other. There is obvious tension and awkwardness between the two of you—like it had been in the beginning. You try to ignore it, immersing yourself into the contents of family studies, no matter how tedious you found it. Night rolls around and both of you end up skipping dinner.
Breakfast the next day is skipped as well.
By the time lunch comes, you and Taehyung have finished reading and reviewing the last book in the whole library. He slams the textbook shut and slides it across the table. The sound isn't as jarring as you expect it to be. So you just blink your dry eyes and try to steady yourself to prepare to stand up from your seat. Maybe you should leave Taehyung alone for a while... Maybe he doesn't want to talk to you anymore. And maybe you shouldn't hang around him... He could get you killed. He could rope you around in his master plan that his older brother had left with loose ends. You don't want to die; you don't even want to think of the possibility of death.
The only way you can beat the goddamn Exam is to be the only person to score 100 percent. And you're going to accomplish that. For years you've set your mind on this one single goal. Sacrificed food, water and sleep for it. You're not going to let it slip from your hands this easily—not when you're this close to it.
You wobble away from the chair, never looking back at Taehyung as you try to walk away from the table.
"Wait."
His tired voice echoes in the nearly empty library and it rings in your ears. You stop walking but you don't turn around.
"What, Taehyung?" you say through gritted teeth. Though you try to hide the slight waver in your voice that would indicate your exhaustiveness, it shows quite obviously.
"Let's grab lunch together. Please," he says—no, pleads.
God, he must know how much that word affects me. He knows about Jimin, so it probably wasn't so hard to use that knowledge to his own advantage.
After contemplating for what seemed like minutes, you finally turn around to face Taehyung. It surprises you when you meet his eyes almost immediately.
"You didn't finish telling me about Yoongi," he says. "I hate cliffhangers."
It occurs to you that both of you are too proud to apologize over an argument; in fact, this was Taehyung's way of apologizing to you without uttering the words, 'I'm sorry.' Your apology would be something similar.
You nod. "C'mon," you say. "Let's go to the cafeteria."
For two whole years, you were the happiest you've ever been with Yoongi. He made you almost forget about Jimin, but you made sure you honored your dead best friend by visiting the pit every now and then. It had been the last place you'd seen him.
Yoongi likes to come with you when you go to the pit. He's been getting anxious these days when you're not by his side.
Actually, you notice that he's been acting a bit strange. In the past few months, he began lecturing you about famous inventors and world leaders. He taught you the locations and capitals of countries you didn't know existed. He's been telling you the events of history as if he'd lived through them himself. The most annoying part was when he tried to make a damn math problem out of everything.
You only assumed that the pent-up knowledge inside his head was finally getting to him and he had to let it out to someone before he exploded. So you went along with it. And you suppose that sometimes, the lessons Yoongi taught you were enjoyable.
Until it got to the point that he began to quiz you on the material you learned from him.
You groan, eyes fluttering open to greet the morning sunlight that floods through the faded curtains in Yoongi's room. You had a rough night with a bad dream. You've never been this glad to finally wake up from your sleep.
Aside from the sunlight, you're also greeted by Yoongi's loud voice the moment he catches you awake. "Capital of Senegal?" he demands, pointing at you as if you had just committed a crime.
You squint your eyes at him, frowning as you stifle a yawn. You're still cranky from having a bad dream (that you can't remember now that you've woken up), so without so much of the slightest blink of an eye, you tell him to "Please, stop."
Yoongi snorts. "No, seriously," he says. "What's the capital of Senegal?"
"I dunno," you lie even though there's no way in hell that you don't know at this point in time because Yoongi's been making you memorize the world capitals for weeks now. But frustration starts to bubble up inside of you. You thought Yoongi would know a thing or two about maintaining personal space. Making you answer stupid geography questions the moment you wake up for six days in a row was downright mean and he deserves to hear a mouthful from you. "Yoongi what the hell is up with you?" you huff. "What does the capital of Senegal have to do with anything??"
"It's Dakar!" Yoongi yells, throwing up his hands. "Fucking Dakar, Y/N! Is that so hard to remember?"
"Why does it even matter?!" you yell back at him.
"I'm trying to help you!" Yoongi shouts. "I'm helping you learn, goddammit!"
"Why would I have to learn??" you say absolutely confused out of your mind. "You know how much you hated being stuck in tutoring. Well, I hate it too!"
"Oh, shit," Yoongi curses, collapsing on his bed with his hands buried in his face. He realizes that you'd just made an extremely valid point, and it puts him to shame. "I was just trying to help..."
"What? Help me pass the Exam?" you snort half-jokingly. "Yoongi, I want to go back to my home, Dystopia, with you."
"No, Y/N," Yoongi says. "I'm not going to Dystopia."
"Then wha—"
"I've been thinking, Y/N," Yoongi cuts you off, patting the spot next to him for you to sit. You do, rubbing your eyes and trying to tame your bed hair as you wait for him to continue. "I've been thinking a lot..." Yoongi says, "about the future. I've thought about every scenario in my head, and I don't think I'll ever be content."
"Aren't you happy with me, here?" you say. "I thought we were having fun..."
"Sooner or later, Y/N, I'll have to take the Exam," Yoongi says. "I'll fail, as expected. I'll be tossed into Dystopia and I'll have to wait until you come back home. But I'll most likely die in less than a year so you'll never actually get to see me again."
"Don't say that!" you shriek. "Don't even—"
"I'm obviously not going to make it in Dystopia. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and waking up in this dingy room in Purgatory every day disgusts me. Think about how horrible it'd be for me in Dystopia when I can't even stand it here. Then the only solution left is for me to go back to Utopia," Yoongi explains. "And that's not going to happen because I don't intend on learning new material anymore. I'm not a scholar. Was forced to be, but never wanted to be. I give up."
"You're giving up??"
"I'm giving up."
"But Yoongi..." you breathe but no further words come out of your mouth. You don't want to put words in his mouth, but you're scared of what he's thinking of doing to himself in the future. Yet you don't have the guts to ask him about his plan out loud.
"I know, Y/N," Yoongi sighs. "But I'm not bringing you down with me."
"What??"
"You're going to Utopia, Y/N," Yoongi says. He's so nonchalant with an atrocious statement that you wonder if he has a concussion. But when he's staring at you so intently, you realize with a heavy heart that he's dead serious.
"It's too late, Yoongi," you protest. "I would never beat the Utopian-borns... I'm already two years behind the game, and if you factor in the time the Utopian-borns have studied, I'm twelve years behind!"
"It's not too late," he argues. "Think about it. Utopian-borns like me—unless they're batshit crazy—aren't trying as hard anymore. Their parents aren't there to supervise them, and they're probably insanely cocky about how much they already know."
"What's your point?"
"You can easily beat them with willpower," Yoongi says. "And I already tried teaching you some stuff that I remembered too—whether you were paying attention is solely on you, though."
You huff. "I was paying attention," you say. "And that's impossible. I'm not a genius, Yoongi. Intelligence is genetic. You told me so yourself."
"I did," Yoongi admits, "but it doesn't matter how innately intelligent you are. What really matters is willpower. And I have none. But you have a lot. I'm just saying, Y/N. Utopia... it's not really a life for me. I don't really give a shit about education and being intelligent. I don't really give a shit about anything. But I think Utopia is a life for you. It's a life you deserve."
"I can't just accept what you're telling me, Yoongi," you say.
"Yes you can," he says. "I want to leave soon, you know. I don't want to distract you from your studies... And besides, Purgatory's food fucking sucks. I bet they have better food in the afterlife."
The afterlife. It's then when it truly dawns on you of the atrocity that your friend would commit to himself.
"You can't just kill yourself," you scoff, twisting your body towards Yoongi in complete bewilderment. "What about me? I never agreed to any of this!"
"You've wanted to go to Utopia the moment I started to tell you about it," Yoongi says. "You think I wouldn't know? I'm helping you get there."
"But I don't want to be alone!" You sniffle, chin pointing to the ceiling so the tears that are starting to well in your eyes dry away. But it's no use. The more you think about being abandoned again, another person you genuinely cared for leaving you into the afterlife... it makes you feel broken.
"Well, I don't really want to live," Yoongi says. "We're all selfish. It's human nature."
"I thought you cared about me!" Your voice rises two octaves. "We were supposed to spend the rest of your time in Purgatory together! You can't just leave early because you feel like it! What am I going to do without you??" You're sobbing now, the tears running down your face in fat droplets that blur your vision.
"Hey..." Yoongi murmurs. "Y/N..." He gives you some space to cry, to let out the worst of your emotions. Then he encompasses you in a warm hug in which your face is up against the soft material of his sweater and he pats your back comfortably. "You'll get over me."
"I won't," you whimper. "That's a promise."
"C'mon don't waste a precious promise on that," he whispers.
"I will so waste a stupid precious promise on that," you whisper back. You hate him for doing this to you. For telling you that he was going to leave you so you knew what was coming—now you were dreading the moment he was going to abandon you instead of relishing in his presence, his embrace, his warmth.
For hours, the two of you bask in complete silence. You've calmed yourself down to the point that the tears roll down your face sporadically, but not in steady streams anymore. Yoongi runs his fingers through your hair, an act that he only does to ensure you that everything will be all right. It's rare that the two of you are ever this close in proximity, and you want to cherish this moment before he's gone. But curiosity pulls at the strings inside you and you just have to ask—
"W-When are you going to do it?"
"Hm?"
"When are you going to commit suicide?"
"I'm not going to tell you."
You pull away from Yoongi, scowling at him. "Why not?"
"You'll try to put a stop to it," he says. "I need to get through with this, Y/N. You can't change my mind."
"I want to say I hate you, but now I feel like I need to be nice to you," you confess, running a hand through your hair in confusion.
Yoongi smiles, shaking his head. "Act normally." He hesitantly reaches out for your hand, and when you give it to him, he holds it perfectly—not too tightly nor not too loosely. "Just promise me one thing." When you don't answer, he turns to you, squeezing your intertwined hands for emphasis. "Get to the top for me, will you?"
"I can't promise tha—"
"And please don't frown when you study. You're gonna get a permanent crease on your forehead."
"Fuck, Y/N," Taehyung chokes, blinking away a tear that was starting to become too heavy for his eyes. "That's it? You let him just... leave you like that?"
"I feel like I should've put up a bigger fight too," you admit, playing with what's left of the bread crumbs on the lunch table. "I should've helped him. Nursed him back into a healthy mental state. But what did I know? I was fucking twelve then. I didn't know shit about mental health or psychology."
"You know now at least," Taehyung offers.
"I'd rather not know," you say. "Now that I know that I could've helped him... it just feels worse." You let out a deep sigh that takes the heavy weight off of your chest. "He overdosed about four days later. They found him before I did... And since then, I've been alone, studying my ass off."
"I can't help but admire your determination," Taehyung says. "You honestly can't beat human willpower. Yoongi's right."
You smile, shrugging nonchalantly. "I just want to keep my promise with him... And maybe I want to live in glory for the rest of my life, but who am I to blame? Everybody wants that life."
"Everybody deserves that life," Taehyung says. "No one should have to go through near-death experiences to get to it."
"Life's never fair," you say. "Deal with it."
Taehyung snorts. "I know. I'm trying." He pauses, placing a pensive hand on his chin and looking off into the distance as if he were thinking hard about something. "Hey, you know, the best way to retain information is to repeat it out loud or teach it to others."
"That's exactly what Yoongi made me do," you say. "All those random quiz questions throughout the day... I didn't appreciate it then, but I'd sure appreciate it now."
"Then we can be study buddies," Taehyung declares. "We'll quiz each other. We have about a year left before the Exam. We'll review every concept in the whole damn library together. Two heads work better than one!"
"Aren't we supposed to be competitors?" you say. "I'm looking to get a perfect score, Taehyung," you grin. "If you can't keep up with my rigorous schedule, you shouldn't even be proposing this plan to me."
"Oh yeah?" Taehyung cocks an eyebrow as he grins right back at you, revealing his perfect teeth and boxy smile. "Bring it on, Y/N."
Bring it on? Oh, you'll bring it on, all right. Taehyung won't even know what hit him.
Having someone else to study with you doubles your competitiveness, which is a feat in it of itself because you are definitely more competitive than at least one hundred of your peers combined.
Every day, you've been trying to wake up earlier than Taehyung to get to the library first. The only problem is, he's been doing the same as well. You thought you had him beat when you sauntered into the library at 4 a.m. feeling quite refreshed after an hour night's sleep, but it turned out that Taehyung never even left the library. He'd grinned at you, practically staring into your soul with bloodshot eyes and croaking, "I win!" so victoriously that you really had to accept his triumph over you.
But when the two of you start to play a little game of who-can-stay-awake-for-longer, Taehyung has to put a stop to the madness when you start to mumble jumbled sentences in Latin after he asks if you need some water.
You and Taehyung look out for each other almost by habit at this point. It's become a routine for you to wake the other up if you were the first to awake. Now morning trips to the library are done together, and you have to admit it feels much better to be able to walk side by side next to someone who is willing to babble his head off to wake you up a bit more.
Dinner is skipped Mondays through Fridays to make extra time for review. On Saturdays, you and Taehyung indulge in the full three meals that Purgatory has to offer while also finishing up your studies. But Sunday, Sunday is the holy grail of the week. No studying, no library, just you and Taehyung taking some time off (for once).
Surprisingly, you'd come up with Special Sundays, after Taehyung had a huge mental breakdown over plumb-forgetting how to graph polar curves on one typical Saturday night. And the special day has stayed since. Neither of you wants to get rid of something that is the only non-study related activity of the week.
Most Special Sundays are spent in either Taehyung's room or your room. Taehyung prefers your room because you have extra blankets that Yoongi left for you, and as winter comes by, any additional coverage is very much appreciated.
This Sunday, however, you managed to convince Taehyung to hang out in his room—only because his mattress is softer than yours and you've been getting bad back and neck pains these days.
"By the time I'm twenty, I'll be suffering from a fucking herniated disc," you tell Taehyung as you groan, shifting your position on his bed for what seems like the hundredth time. "I feel so fucking stuffy. Like I need to crack my back but I can't. Don't even get me started on my fucking neck."
"By the time you're twenty, you'll be in Utopia and the special doctors will be all over you to treat Atna's very own princess," Taehyung snorts. "They'd do anything to keep the perfect scoring girl alive and well."
"Princess my ass," you laugh. "I'd like to wish. How's the cot, by the way? Kinda feel bad about making you sleep there while I take your bed."
Taehyung shrugs. "I don't mind. I honestly don't even feel a difference," he says without skipping a beat. "And we don't want your back messing up your chances. On the day of the Exam, it'd be worse to have your body betray you than your mind."
"I'd literally fucking cry if my stupid back is still like this before the Exam, Taehyung," you say. "All these years I spent with my nose buried in a book... Only to fail because my body couldn't handle it."
"That's the worst," Taehyung sighs. "But if you stretch every day, it might get better. Honestly, we need to start taking care of ourselves better. We need to reserve time to rest... to take our minds off of studying. Even if it's only one day per week."
"Yeah," you agree. "You know what's fucking sad though? We're still talking about the stupid Exam even now. It never escapes our heads."
"We're slaves to the system," Taehyung bitterly murmurs. "What do you expect?"
"That's true," you say, wincing as you try to shift your position on the bed again. "I don't expect much at this point. Not from the people who've turned the library into a battlefield and the students into soldiers."
"The Exam is the war," Taehyung says. "Losing the war means death, mostly. I see no difference."
"We are so depressing," you sigh. "But it's all true."
"I know," Taehyung says. He turns over on his side to look up at you on his bed. "You ever think about the worst-case scenario?"
"You mean like... we don't make it to Utopia?"
"We?" Taehyung smiles. "So you think we'd get perfect scores together? What happened to being competitors?"
"Oh, shut up," you snort. "We're a team. I thought it was obvious. And I am not talking about not making it to Utopia. We are not going to self-sabotage months before the fucking Exam."
"You're just going to ignore the chances? You're going to ignore the chance of failure?"
"Yes!" you say, turning on your side to face Taehyung. "Of course I am. Do you really want to lie here talking about failure? We shouldn't even plant the thought of that in our heads right now. It's all about victory. We're the smartest, most capable people in our year, so if we don't get to Utopia, no one will. Understand?"
Taehyung belts out a laugh that has you frowning. "Your confidence deserves a gold medal sometimes," he says. "I do understand you..." he continues, "but only to a certain extent."
You scoff, "Oh, come on, Taehyung. What happened to the cocky bastard I met months ago??"
"That was such a mask behind the real me, Y/N," Taehyung laughs. "I thought you knew that by now. I'm fucking terrified of failure and even the slightest thought about failing makes me want to crawl in a hole and just... vanish."
"I swear to god, Tae, if you talk about vanishing like that again, I'll seriously make you want to vanish," you threaten him with the most menacing voice you can muster up. "We're already victors to this stupid game, winners of the war. Don't you dare think otherwise."
Taehyung smiles, eyes twinkling when he realizes you'd called him by his special nickname (that he kept trying to get you to call him) for the first time. "I'll try not to," he says. "But I'm not making any promises."
"Well, that's still good enough for me."
Four months until the Exam.
You're both physically (your back pains are gone) and mentally (you've always been) ready. But your friend is another story. As more days pass, the more anxious Taehyung begins to feel. He's never able to sleep, so he steals a couple of library books back to his room every night to read while everyone else is salvaging every hour of shut-eye they can get.
His insecurities are catching up to him. And you've always been quite loud-mouthed and confident, so you don't understand him very well. Yet, you're a team, and you do not leave team members stranded.
Motivational pep talks are not really your thing, but they have become your thing these past few days. You walk Taehyung to his room from the library every night, telling him that he had nothing to worry about—that he was going to do superbly well on the Exam. Sometimes, you feel like you're repeating the same phrase over and over again to him, but Taehyung reassures you that whatever you say helps him calm down.
But the mental breakdowns are becoming more and more frequent. Taehyung can't seem to sit still for ten minutes without starting to shake his leg and vibrate the whole table. He has to stop reviewing the Exam material to catch his breath, wipe away his tears and relax the tensed muscles on his face.
You let him take his time. You're always there for him to lean on, to help him catch up on the study time that he missed. And he's forever grateful to you.
"I don't think anyone's been this understanding of me," Taehyung sniffles as you pat his back comfortingly as he blows his nose on a scratchy napkin you handed him before. "Back home, my brother used to tell me to man up when I started to have my panic attacks. He was always the mentally stronger one of us."
"That wasn't very nice of him to say that," you remark. "It's normal to feel uneasy, especially at a time like this. The Exam is four months away... Not too close but not too far either..."
"God. I wish I wasn't so anxious all the time," Taehyung sighs, crumpling up his tissue and pocketing it. "I wish I was like you. Not afraid of losing... Not afraid of failing... Just so confident all the time."
"You can be like me," you say. "Just stop worrying so much."
"Easier said than done," Taehyung scoffs. "You're going to Utopia for sure. There's literally no doubt, Y/N."
"You're coming with me," you argue. "Not to avenge your brother's death or whatever. But just to enjoy the wealthy living since we both deserve it at this point."
"I'm not a charismatic leader," Taehyung shrugs. "I would've never been able to help start a revolt like him. I'd really like to go with you to Utopia... If we both got in, do you think we'd keep in touch?"
"Of course!" you exclaim. "We kept each other company in the loneliest of times. Have you seen anyone else in our year who's serious about taking the Exam making friends now? Everyone's too busy thinking about competition."
"What did I say?" Taehyung grins. "Teamwork works, and two heads are definitely better than one."
"Very true," you smile. "Remember when we fought for that book? The very first time we met?"
"How could I forget?" Taehyung laughs. "I thought you were going to murder me with that look of yours, honestly."
"Oh, wow. I'm not that scary, am I?"
"Oh, yes you are," Taehyung argues. "Do you know how hard it was for me to literally act tough in front of you in the beginning? So you wouldn't take me as some kind of wimp?"
"You acted tough for me?" you giggle, resting your hand on your cheek as your elbow sits on the table. You stare at Taehyung with an amused look on your face. "So you're just actually a big ol' softie?"
"W-Well, I wouldn't call myself a softie per se," Taehyung blushes. "I'm just uh..." he trails off. "Damn, Y/N. You put me under the spotlight."
You shrug, grinning as you watch Taehyung squirm under your intense gaze. Maybe you're a little mean, but making him blush is pretty funny. Teasing him is even funnier.
"It wouldn't be the first time. And definitely not the last," you say with a mischievous grin playing on your lips. Taehyung huffs, but his face looks much more relaxed than it had been several minutes ago—even the redness of his eyes are slowly fading away. He looks much better. He looks ready. "Hey, wanna go back to where we left off now?" you say. "If you're feeling better?"
"Yeah, sure," Taehyung smiles. "Thanks."
Goddamn. His smile is insanely contagious. It must be those perfect teeth and that boxy smile.
"No problem," you manage to murmur, feeling yourself start to blush thinking of Taehyung's immaculate smile. "Um," you hesitate, "yeah, so as I was saying before about Einstein's theory of relativity..."
Three months.
Something fishy is going on here. The closer the Exam looms over your head, the more you expected yourself to become miserable—stressed about the last-minute study material you could've forgotten over the years. Yet you find yourself rather relaxed.
It occurs to you, however, that you're only this relaxed because you have to be—for Taehyung. One of the two of you has to show strength to help the other. Pretending to be so strong-headed and confident (even when you fell into the familiar pit of self-doubt), helped you actually become confident in your knowledge and predestined success. There's really nothing to worry about, you tell yourself and Taehyung. If it's not the two of us, then it can't be anyone else.
The more you comfort Taehyung, the more he opens up to you, and the more you open up to him. Your friendships in the past have always been a little lopsided—with Jimin, you constantly comforted him, cared for him, and with Yoongi, he had been the one to take care of you. For once in your life, you had a relationship in which you both gave and took; Taehyung is your balance. The in-between of Jimin and Yoongi.
The platonic relationship with Jimin is mirrored in your relationship with Taehyung, but sometimes blush creeps up your cheeks when Taehyung teases you back or when your hands graze each other. So maybe you're not completely platonic with him.
And maybe you're just missing someone to love.
"Do you think we'd be happier if we just... never studied for the Exam?" Taehyung whispers to you as you lie side by side on your bed. The midnight moon is bright enough to illuminate just a sliver of Taehyung's face as he stares at the ceiling of your room pensively. "We would be hanging out... never going to the library... Making friends..."
You hum thoughtfully. "I don't know," you say. "I guess maybe we would be happier—just for the eight years we're in Purgatory, anyway."
"That's right," Taehyung says. "That's a good point, actually. I feel like what we're doing right now is right. We're suffering now to make gains later. And..." he trails off. "And... um, if we don't make it, at least we'll know that we tried."
You nod. "Yeah, I guess. It would be better than being tossed back into Dystopia and wondering for the rest of our lives what would've happened if we did study for the Exam."
"Exactly," Taehyung says. "I think it's crazy that we only have three months left," Taehyung says. "But weirdly... I feel less stressed than before. Maybe your optimistic preachings are getting to my head," he laughs quietly, nudging your shoulder playfully.
"Me? Optimistic?" you snort. "That's the first."
"It's true," Taehyung muses. "My anxiety isn't as bad as before, and I'm pretty sure you had a part to play in that."
"In three months, you won't have any anxiety ever again," you reassure him. "You won't even need to hear me babble on about optimism and self-confidence."
"And we'll be having the time of our lives in Utopia," Taehyung breathes.
You smile to yourself, nodding silently. The two of you let the silence consume you, letting Taehyung's last words echo in your head; it's a good way to end the conversation—on a positive note. A lasting note of hope and faith.
It's then when you feel something warm on your hand. It takes you a moment to realize it's flesh. It takes another moment for you to realize it's Taehyung's hand. When you don't flinch away, he quietly almost hesitantly encompasses your hand in his. Delicately, your fingers intertwine and lock perfectly together.
Immediately, your cheeks heat up but you refuse to speak about it. Reassurance floods through you as the two of you lay side by side in the comforting darkness of your room with your hands held tightly together.
And neither of you speak until the sun peeks out from the horizon to paint the skies with another morning, another day. You don't need to talk to Taehyung to know he's thinking the same thing as you.
We'll have the time of our lives in Utopia.
Two months.
The last-minute crammers crowd the library so much that there is a line to enter it. You and Taehyung found a very effective way to battle the sudden influx of students, though. Every day, the two of you enter the library as early as three in the morning (to ensure that little to nobody was there) and take six to seven books with you, hiding them under your jackets and sweaters.
Studying in your rooms is much better.
There are less judgmental eyes, fewer chances of catching a stupid cold that's been making its way through the younger kids in Purgatory and you and Taehyung can lounge on the beds when you get tired of sitting straight.
Two months to the Exam is shockingly close, so close that your back pains have been plaguing you once more. Taehyung tells you to stop slouching when you sit, but you find it hard to sit straight and read the tiny text of the textbooks. So you end up ignoring him.
But on some days, it hurts for you to turn your body, your back aching to the extremity that you started believing one uncalculated movement could leave you paralyzed for the rest of your life. It's on those days that you wish you listened to Taehyung earlier. You push on though, too stubborn to admit to Taehyung that he's right and too impatient to try to fix your pain at such an urgent time.
Except you're not too good at hiding your discomfort and Taehyung catches onto you.
"We should take a break," he says, closing an astrophysics textbook and practically tossing it over his head.
When you hear the loud thump of it hitting against the wall, you gasp. "Tae! You can't just throw the fucking book. We're not even supposed to have these in our rooms!"
"Maybe that was a bad idea," Taehyung says, fidgeting his hands. "A little too late now, though, isn't it?" He shrugs. "We need a break."
"I'm fine! I swear!" you say. "We'll study for a few more hours."
"Your back's killing you, isn't it?"
You scoff. "N-No!"
"You stuttered."
You groan, wincing quietly as you try to sit up straight. "I'm not gonna die because of this. I think I can keep going."
"If you don't fix that now, you probably won't be able to sit down for four hours to take the Exam," Taehyung tells you. He takes your book and throws it over his head, making you grimace when it thuds against the wall. "I'm gonna loosen your back muscles!" he declares.
"What are you gonna do? Step on my back and make it crack?" you snort. When you see that Taehyung actually looks like he's contemplating it, you quickly say, "Please don't."
"Don't worry. I'll try not to make it hurt," Taehyung grins. You look at him so threateningly that he has to raise both of his hands defensively. "Oh, c'mon! I'm trying to help."
You give him a nervous look. "So what? You're gonna give me a massage?"
"It'll help!" Taehyung says. "Just get all comfy and lay flat on the bed. Stomach on the covers, please."
The mere thought of his hands roaming on your back makes your face heat up. God, this is going to be intimate. Maybe that's why Taehyung suggested it... and maybe that's why you're actually complying with him.
Hesitantly, you situate yourself on the bed, laying your face on your arms. "Just my back," you tell him.
"Yeah, of course," he says. "I have credentials, technically."
"Oh?"
"I found a magazine about it," Taehyung says. "So I'm very much qualified."
"Oh god."
You hear Taehyung rustle behind you and you try to twist your body to see what he's doing but your back prevents you from moving. In frustration, you ask, "What are you doing?"
"Rolling up my sleeves and staring at your back. Why?"
"Why the fuck are you staring at my back?"
"I was trying to figure out where it hurts," he answers, "but I guess I could've just asked you instead."
You snort. "God, Tae. It honestly hurts everywhere. But especially around the shoulder blade area."
You can just imagine Taehyung nodding professionally, with his sleeves rolled up and his hair slicked back to prevent stray strands from poking at his eyes.
"Okay, I'm gonna put pressure there," he says. "Deep breath out..."
You obey him, closing your eyes and blowing air out of your lips, simultaneously relaxing your body. The moment you feel his hands on your back, goosebumps checker your arms. No one's ever been this close to you; no one's bothered to be this intimate with you.
"Feel good?" Taehyung asks.
He sounds closer to you than you expected him to be, and your breath hitches quietly. "Y-Yeah," you stutter. "A little lower."
Taehyung listens, rubbing your sore back with such care and calculated pressure that you have to bite your lip from letting rather embarrassing sounds from escaping your mouth. You don't realize how tense your body was until Taehyung calls you out. "You're so tense, Y/N," he remarks, his hands dealing with the clumped muscles on your back. "Try to relax."
You're red-faced, unable to admit to him that if you do as he says, you might just let out a moan and it'll really be game over then. You are not going to embarrass yourself in front of him because Taehyung would never let you live that down. And if you're really going to spend your days in Utopia with him, you'd rather not let him have any memories he can use to tease you.
"I am relaxing," you lie through your teeth. But when Taehyung gets to a particularly sensitive part on your back, you hiss through your teeth. "Ow..."
Taehyung immediately stops his ministrations. "Do you want me to stop for a second?" he asks with so much worry laced into his voice that you almost feel guilty for making him question himself.
"No!" you exclaim. "I mean, no. I'm fine. I guess my back was much worse than I thought..."
Taehyung laughs. "Well, if I do this for you occasionally and you stretch every day, you'll be in good condition again."
"Thanks," you mutter. "Really, Tae, I mean it."
You can just imagine the boy grinning ear to ear behind you. Though you expected him to say something cocky or silly, you received silence in response. "Tae?" Gritting your teeth, you try turning over on your back, which was easier than expected—Taehyung's massage had already done wonders.
With a little oof, you flip over to finally get a good look at Taehyung. "Cat got your tongue??" you tease him, raising an eyebrow and gazing at his rather blank face.
"No... no," he answers right away. "For a second I thought..." he trails off. His handsome face morphs into a look of worry, of nervousness.
"You thought...?"
"I thought I..." he trails off again, much to your impatience.
"Oh, come on, Tae," you sigh. "Spit it out!"
The boy grins, shaking his head. "For a second, I thought I heard you moan, Y/N. Enjoying yourself a little too much, aren't we?"
Okay, you had not expected that. The color quickly drains from your face and your mouth drops open rather unflatteringly. You sputter to think of an excuse, any excuse that would whisk you away from the embarrassment consuming you at this moment.
"I'm just kidding," Taehyung says as he nearly falls over in a fit of laughter. "You should see your face!"
"That's not funny!" you yell, sitting up on your elbows and glaring at the laughing boy.
"No, it was definitely funny," he says, grabbing your hand and helping you sit up. The action brings heat to your cheeks and you have to look away. "Oh, c'mon," Taehyung whines, "learn some humor, Y/N."
He must mistake your embarrassment as anger. You'll play along.
"You can literally shut up," you huff.
"Damn, you're not very scary when you pretend you're mad," Taehyung says, grinning mischievously at you.
"I am not pretending!"
"You're still holding my hand, Y/N," he teases.
Oh shit. He's right. That's the second time that's happened in one month. Is it strange to seek physical comfort? Or is it strange to feel so comfortable with Taehyung? "I-I," you stutter embarrassingly, unsure if you can even finish your own sentence when Taehyung interrupts you.
"It's okay, Y/N," he says. "I don't mind holding your hand."
You gape at him in shock—so much so that you're sure you don't look too attractive at the moment with your mouth hanging open and your eyes bulging.
Taehyung tightens his grip on your hand as he tugs you closer to him. His eyes sparkle with something you recognize as mirth, which is funny to see in a student's eyes just two months before the Exam.
Hm. You like the way his warm hand encompasses yours, and you adore the way he stares into your eyes as if he knows you and cares for you.
Before you know it, you're breathing out a rapid, "I don't mind holding your hand either."
You didn't know it was possible for Taehyung to grin even wider but sometimes even you're wrong.
One month.
This is the official crunch time. The time when existing contenders of the Exam become vicious and violent to ward off competition. The time when those who never cared for the Exam begin to host parties to live their best and lasting moments in glee. The time when some cocky Utopians begin to study—they think they're so above everyone else that they only need one month to prepare.
But you and Taehyung relish together in the time left in Purgatory together. You'll see him again in Utopia, but Purgatory is the place where you met him and got to know him. It's special, no matter how much you hate the dingy library and cramped dorms. It's special because, without the given situations, you would've never even met Taehyung. You would've spent the last year in Purgatory alone, haunted by the thoughts of Jimin and Yoongi. You couldn't have survived. Or maybe you could've. But Taehyung's helping you survive with a huge smile on your face. And happiness has never been so close to your fingertips.
Your hands are intertwined with his larger ones as the two of you stand against the wall of the building, staring into the empty pit of the dark abyss.
At this point, you're not quite sure where you stand with Taehyung, but you don't care as long as he's here to comfort you every day and you're there to hold his hand.
The cozy wool of Yoongi's sweater keeps you warm in the brisk night air as does Taehyung's presence right next to you. You look out at the pit, and for once, your stomach does not sink with misery. Paying your respects to the dead loved ones has never been this peaceful before.
"Do you think they're watching over you?" Taehyung whispers, judging you softly as he gazes up at the sky dotted with nighttime stars. "Maybe they're wishing you the best on the Exam."
"I actually have no idea..." you say, looking up at the sky with Taehyung and squeezing his hands. "But I miss them."
"You'll reunite with them one day," Taehyung tells you.
"Yeah," you say, "I definitely will."
"In the meantime, I bet Jimin's having the best time eating good meals and getting good sleep on a comfy bed..." Taehyung trails off as he looks at you. "And I hope Yoongi found his happiness by now."
You nod to yourself. "Me too, Tae."
"Only a month left, Y/N," he answers. "And strangely, this is the most peaceful I've been in my whole life."
When you look up, you find that Taehyung's already staring right back at you. A small smile stretches across your cracked lips. "Trust me, it'll be even more peaceful on the day that we're finally admitted into Utopia. We're in this together, right?"
"Definitely," Taehyung says. "I'm not nervous anymore. Not since you convinced me that I don't have to be afraid."
"Still gonna start a violent revolution?" you whisper. "Follow in your brother's footsteps?"
"Not now, not ever," he answers. "The system works. Why would I bother changing it when the people who truly deserve it are going to Utopia? I'm not brave enough to revolt... And I'm not putting you at risk for my dead brother."
"Thank you... Tae, that means a lot," you say. "Do you ever think there will be another revolution, though?"
"There are always revolutions," he replies. "There will always be more revolutions. Not everyone can always be completely satisfied with the authority's actions. It is what it is. Even if I have to take the brunt of it."
"You won't," you tell him. "We'll be long gone in Utopia before that happens."
"Y/N..." Taehyung mutters. He turns you around to face him, studying your features before pulling you in for an embrace. "I know you don't like it when I talk about this... but," he pauses, unsure. Yet he takes your silence as the cue to continue on. "In the case that we are separated after the Exam... In the case that something goes wrong... we... we should just continue on with our lives."
"And ignore whatever separated us?" you murmur against his shoulder. "We won't have to worry about that though. I told you not to worry. We're going to Utopia."
"I'm saying, just in case," Taehyung whispers. His hands run through your hair as he rests his chin on your shoulder. "But I'm sure you're right. We'll be in Utopia in no time."
You hum, basking in the warmth of Taehyung's arms. "Of course."
One week.
The library is swarming with teenagers in your year, desperately fighting over books and arguing over facts. It's funny only because you and Taehyung had once been in that state of animosity. It seems such a long time ago, though.
You and Taehyung lounge about in your room, reiterating textbook information out loud to each other over and over again so the material is ingrained in your memories. After a while, it occurs to both of you that you know too well about every book in the whole library. It's no use regurgitating the same information repeatedly when you already know it. So the two of you spend more and more time talking about your futures.
"Do you think they'll let me work as a family counselor when we get to Utopia?" Taehyung asks as he tosses another textbook against the door to your room.
You laugh when he hits the target on the door and shrug. "I don't know, honestly. Do you think they even have family counseling there?"
"You're right," Taehyung scoffs, shaking his head. "We know so little about the place we want to be in so badly."
"Maybe the more we know of it, the less we'll want to be in it," you say. "It's like that thing... that saying..."
"Ignorance is bliss?"
"Yeah, that," you say. "I'm sure we'll have good things to do in Utopia, though. Whether there is a family counselor position or not."
"But I guess we'll have to find out in a week."
One day.
You feel sudden unrest in the air. People are biting their fingernails so hard, they bleed. Others are pulling out their hairs. Some are picking at their scabs.
You and Taehyung hold each other the whole day, whispering little facts here and there to ensure complete memorization. You would be lying if you said you weren't the slightest bit nervous. Yes, you're intelligent, yes, you deserve to be in Utopia and yes, you've been diligent for years... but Taehyung's right. There are some scenarios that might just happen.
Maybe you and Taehyung earn perfect scores along with six others. Or maybe you and Taehyung earn the same scores as fifteen others. Or maybe you and Taehyung don't earn the same scores at all, leaving you separated forever.
You try not to dwell on the negativities too much. After all, it's no use to think of such thoughts anyways, they'll only distract you while taking the most important test of all time. Positive thoughts, only.
Tomorrow will be the very last day in Purgatory. For four hours, you and the hundreds of other students in your year will take a life-changing test. The Exam results will be kept confidential for a painstaking two hours after the final student finishes the Exam. Then men in white suits will whisk away the highest-scoring ones without another word. You will know when you didn't score the highest. Because the men in white will not give you a second look. They will walk past you like you are the scum of the earth. You've seen it happen; you've seen how much that can break someone.
You swear that you will not be broken. You will be the victor who is escorted out with the men in white. You will be accepted into a wealthy society. You promised Yoongi. And Jimin would've wanted to see you like this.
Most of all, you and Taehyung are in this together.
You visit the pit with him in the dead of the night one last time. There are already a few dead bodies piled up in the dark abyss and the stench of death protrudes up your nose quite uncomfortably, but you manage to ignore it. This will be the last time that you will see the last place you saw Jimin and Yoongi. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't be here, so confident about acing the Exam with another man you see your future with.
When you close your eyes, you can imagine your ten-year-old self standing at the edge of the pit, contemplating jumping to be with Jimin. You can see Yoongi scoffing at your stupidity before taking you into his arms and reassuring you. You can see your ten-year-old self crying. You can see a younger version of Yoongi crying. And every year after Yoongi's death, you've visited the pit by yourself. Until this year. Until you met Taehyung. And now you're not so alone anymore.
"Are you tired?" Taehyung asks, placing a warm hand on your cheek.
Your eyes flutter open immediately and you shake your head. "No, I was just thinking. I don't think I'm going to miss this place, but I'm going to miss the memories I made here." You fist the fabric of your sweater—Yoongi's old sweater, which is surprisingly still pretty large around your frail, petite frame. "It's too bad I don't really have a token of remembrance with Jimin..."
"He was all of your childhood," Taehyung soothes you. "I'm pretty sure you don't forget your childhood best friends."
"That's true..." you sigh. "God, I really don't want to forget anything that happened in my life. I need to remember all of this," you gesture towards you and Taehyung. "So we can recall it in the future."
"You'll remember us for sure," he says. "How can you forget? When you'll see me every day, pestering you for the rest of your life?" Taehyung teases, poking at your cheek playfully.
You roll your eyes. "Fun."
"Damn right," he coos, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "We deserve the fun."
"I know," you say, smiling at his unfiltered flirtiness. "C'mon," you tell him, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the building, "we should sleep early today."
"Good idea," Taehyung giggles. "To getting perfect scores tomorrow!" he yells to the sky, his eyes squeezed shut as he dwells in the last few euphoric moments of being in the fresh, night air before being tugged into the dorms by you.
Your heart flutters when he grins widely at you, revealing his row of pearly whites. Damn. You used to hate those too-perfect teeth, but now you love them as much as you... god, as much as you might love him.
To getting perfect scores tomorrow indeed.
One hour.
One hour before the Exam, everyone is lined up to enter their own private room, which is barely a room at all from what you've heard. The space is hardly enough to fit a desk, but it's decorated with bright fluorescent lights and spotlessly white walls. Apparently, it looks more like a mental asylum than an Exam room.
Some may be sensitive to such a small, suffocating place, but you don't really mind. As long as the information is in your head and you don't come down with amnesia in the middle of the Exam, you're fine. You're more than fine. You're going to win this thing—with Taehyung of course.
You and Taehyung hold each other's hands, strangely not as nervous as the jittery teens around you. It's strange for the two of you to be in silence for so long, but it seems fitting in such a loud environment. You probably couldn't hear each other even if you did speak.
There are peers who are already crying. Those who are missing because they jumped into the pit the night before. Those who are physically unwell and have failed to take care of their bodies. Those who look confident on the outside but their eyes brim with fear and uncertainty. And then there is you and Taehyung—radiating confidence.
Taehyung squeezes your hand when the men in white come into the halls, starting to drag the students away by random to shove them into the private Exam rooms. The process takes forever, according to the others, given that there are hundreds of students and hundreds of small rooms.
"It's hilarious how they haven't come up with a more efficient system," you whisper to Taehyung, shaking your head in disdain. "You'd think after taking away the smartest people in Atna that they'd somehow make this process less time-consuming. But they didn't."
"What?" Taehyung whispers back, looking confused as he sees you talking but he can't hear a single word.
"It's hilarious how—" you stop yourself, "NEVER MIND," you say, raising your voice. He wouldn't be able to hear you even if you did yell. And you weren't going to risk a sore throat before the Exam.
Taehyung nods at you, squeezing your hand. The two of you are reduced back into a state of silence as you watch your peers being taken away before you. The men in white are getting closer and closer, and for the first time, you're nervous. You've waited six years for this moment. Four hours are going to decide your future.
Taehyung must sense the tenseness building up in your shoulders because he places his hands on them, wordlessly telling you to relax. You thought in the last moments, you'd be comforting him, but you suppose it's the other way around.
The tables have turned.
The two of you are closer to the men in white than ever. Both of you are going to be whisked away any second now. Taehyung turns you to face him and hands you a tiny ball of paper, grinning.
He mouths something that you do not hear over the incessant roar of students, but you can make out exactly what he says. 'I'll see you in Utopia.'
The small amount of pressure on your shoulders is immediately lifted. 'I'll see you in Utopia,' you mouth back, tightly clenching your fist around the tiny ball of paper he had given you. He gives you a bright, reassuring smile before a man in white takes him away. You watch him leave, mirroring his smile and letting out a deep breath.
When a man in white finally whisks you away into your cramped Exam room, you can't help but feel reinvigorated. Even if your desk is shaky and your chair squeaks when you shift in it, you're absolutely hung up on the fact that you need to finish the Exam as quickly and carefully as possible to read whatever Taehyung had written on the small piece of paper.
The countdown commences, the camera in the room zooms in and out to check if you were keeping your integrity... the Exam booklet sits in front of you.
God, you're so ready.
Confidence surges through your body. You're going to make it out alive. You're sure of it.
Well, that wasn't so bad at all.
You don't want to brag, but the Exam was a piece of cake. The questions were never about understanding the material—instead, they focused on the specifics. The stuff you couldn't common-sense your way out of. The stuff that you either knew or didn't know. But you're a strong memorizer so the questions—even the oddly specific ones—were easy.
The men in white already took your Exam booklet away to score it. Now you're forbidden to leave the testing room for two hours while they grade it. But it's boring in here.
Your neck is a bit sore from looking down at the paper and your fingers ache from gripping your pencil. Maybe once you get to Utopia, Taehyung can give you one of his insanely therapeutic massages?
There's nothing really to do in the room except stare at the camera that's still watching you or counting the number of cracks on your desk. You contemplate for a short while whether to open the note Taehyung had handed you, but you don't want to risk an accusation of dishonesty.
If you're accused, you're likely to never be seen again.
So you make use of your time and doze off. After taking the Exam, you realize that there's no doubt you scored extremely well (you might've even gotten a perfect score!) and all the nervousness you had over the past several years (which wasn't that much) have vanished into thin air. You're confident enough to sleep.
In your dreams, you see Jimin, Yoongi and Taehyung. The four of you are best friends in a world that looks like Utopia but isn't. There is no Exam that determines your whole future. There is no Purgatory, no Dystopia... No horrible education system. No rats... No pit... It's a utopian world that's better than the Utopia that you know today.
And you're only woken from your heavenly dream when there's a knock on your door. It opens before you can stay anything and a man in white gestures for you to walk out of the room. Rubbing your eyes and shaking away your drowsiness, you obey him. The man closes the door once you are out of the room.
Left and right of you, there are hundreds of students standing outside of their rooms. The tension, the nervousness in the long hallway could be sliced with a knife. But you don't contribute to the sea of worries. You lean against the door, waiting for you to be whisked away, waiting to meet Taehyung at the end of the hallway. Waiting to be driven away in some grandeur vehicle.
You wait for only two people to be taken away. Or maybe there are others who scored a perfect score? No matter. At this point, you only care if you and Taehyung made it.
Everyone holds their breaths as the men in white start to walk through the halls. You see Taehyung ahead of you, already giving you a silly look and smiling confidently at you. You breathe a huge sigh of relief before turning your head to watch the men in white.
So far, they haven't taken anyone from their stance in front of their Exam rooms. Your heart beats loudly in your chest when they come closer and closer to you. God, they must've passed at least two hundred people to get to me. And still no high-scorer.
You and Taehyung have an enormous chance now.
You hold your breath as the men in white come closer and closer.
Any minute now...
You grit your teeth, tensing your shoulders when they're so nearby, if you reached out to them, you could touch their white suits. Your ears ring, drowning out the cries of the students who were standing behind you and were left stranded by the men in white.
Closer and closer and closer...
Your nails dig into your skin.
Closer...
You nearly scream in victory when a man in white stops straight in front of you. He nods in your direction and then places a hand on the small of your back to escort you away.
You can feel the burning eyes of jealousy digging daggers on your back as you begin to walk. But you can't help feeling like royalty. This is the moment you've been waiting for. You've been selected. You've scored the highest. You're going to be Utopian.
Taehyung catches your eye and gives you a huge thumbs up from afar. You're grinning from ear to ear as you begin to approach him. As soon as a man in white officially deems that he is coming with you, you're going to proudly hold his hand and walk through the hallway like you owned all of Purgatory. You're going to spend the proudest moment of your life with him by your side. Knowing that you made it through with him. And then you're going to read his note in the vehicle, on the way to Utopia. You have it all planned out in your head. It's going to be wonderf—
Wait.
The man in white who is escorting you is not slowing down, and the other men around you aren't looking to stop either. Wait.
You're going to pass Taehyung at this rate. Wait a fucking minute.
You suddenly break out in cold sweat as you and the men come closer and closer to Taehyung.
There's no way.
He had to have done extremely well. He has to come with me.
Taehyung looks a bit taken aback as well. His eyes reflect fear and the worry lines pressed on his forehead indicate no less than that.
You don't lose eye contact with him as the men continue to escort you down the hallway.
"Taehyung," you murmur when you're directly next to him. "Taehyung!" you yell. Your voice echoes eerily across the corridor.
"Y/N!" Taehyung yells back.
He's behind you now. The men won't let you stop walking.
"Taehyung!" you scream again, trying to turn around to look at him. "Tae!"
"Don't turn around, miss," the man escorting you speaks gruffly.
"There's been a mistake!" you cry. "Tae-Taehyung is supposed to be with me! Taehyung!"
"Don't make this difficult," the man answered. The hand on your back suddenly seems threatening.
"Y/N!!" Taehyung shouts again. His eyes brim with tears and he sinks to his knees.
"Get up!" someone yells at him. "Stand up, boy!"
"Y/N!" He ignores the command, sobbing with his hands reaching out for you and eyes pleading for safety, for your comfort.
You twist your body around, shaking off the grasps of your escort as you yell his name so loudly that your voice echoes across the vast expanse of the hallway.
"Behave," your escort grunts with gritted teeth as he tugs you away, gesturing the other men in white to block your view from Taehyung.
Tears stream down your face as you beg the men in white to let you see Taehyung one last time. They don't budge. It's not until you hear the beatings and Taehyung's agonizing screams that you try to kick the men's shins and escape. But they catch you, hoist you up and carry you away.
You thrash, scream, "Please don't hurt him!" but the screams, grunts and kicks never stop. You always thought your walk down this hallway would be glorious—the glory only lasted for a few minutes. You were supposed to walk down here hand in hand with Taehyung. Now Taehyung might be dead for disobeying orders.
You were supposed to be draped in silk and mink coats. You were supposed to be spritzed with sweet fragrances and treated like a princess. But everyone—even your peers—look at you with what you recognize as pity. Or maybe even disgust.
They must think you're crazy for not being thankful for being a high-scorer on the Exam. Some would kill to be in your place right now.
You hadn't expected—after your eight years in Purgatory—for your journey here to end like this. You're embarrassingly carried across the shoulder of the man in white, forced to dangle over him like a dead animal. You can feel the scrutinizing gazes of your peers. The ones who didn't get chosen.
It strikes you that you're alone now.
No more Jimin. No more Yoongi... And no more Taehyung.
You squeeze your eyes shut, praying for another person who scored the same as you. Maybe you'll find a new friend? Maybe you won't be alone again.
But the hallway ends and opens up to a door and you're still the only person the men in white have escorted. Your heart sinks. You're alone.
They shove you in a shiny black vehicle where the inside is air-conditioned and smells of roses. There are unfamiliar snacks in elaborate wrappings and ice-cold fizzy drinks around you—all for you—but you aren't hungry. The tears won't stop.
Were the riches and wealth worth the loneliness that will consume you for years to come?
You are a legend. A model figure. A genius.
The first to ever score 100% on the Exam. You're dragged from here to there, paid by the richest of Utopians to tutor their young children before they're sent off to Purgatory.
Frankly, you're upset at the lavishness of Utopia. There is always more to eat—so much so that one-fourths of every meal goes into the trash. The people here put ice cubes in their water to cool it. In Dystopia, there was never enough to eat and water was scarce. Purgatory never had a diverse array of food, and water was always lukewarm.
You're not sure if you belong here.
You miss Taehyung more than ever these days. Your new home is far too large for one person. You feel empty, cold inside. Even basking in the sunlight shining through your gold-rimmed window isn't enough to warm you. You tug the sleeves of Yoongi's sweater over your hands. Even after all these years in Utopia, you can't get accustomed to the fancy, frilly clothes here. You like Yoongi's old, frayed sweaters much better. And it's your only token of remembrance of him. You feel like you did him well because after all, you kept your promise. But Yoongi was wrong about one thing: the life of a Utopian did not suit you.
You can't help but think back to the days of Dystopia—of you and Jimin. Taehyung's right, you never really forget your childhood best friend. You've written down all of your memories about Jimin in a black leather-bound journal, which you keep out in the open by the window sill. On harder days, you like to read through the entries to refresh your memories and recall the stories that make you laugh or tear up with nostalgia.
The magnificent garden outside your home looks empty despite the plethora of flowers and colorful vines that sprout and bloom across the expanse of the healthy, verdant grass. Sighing, you clutch the silver locket resting between your collarbones. You've been wearing the necklace ever since the day you were first admitted into Utopia.
Inside the locket is a neatly folded up note. The piece of paper is old and crinkled and it has obviously been ripped out from a textbook called Family Studies. Taehyung's writing is etched onto it in black ink. You've read over the note so many times that you know exactly what it says by heart.
Y/N,
I was saving this to tell you in Utopia, but I can't wait for that day, even if it's tomorrow. I need to tell you now that I love you. Thank you for being by my side. Thank you for dealing with me. Thank you for calming me down.
You're welcome for those back massages. You're welcome for listening to your stories about Jimin and Yoongi. You're welcome for being by your side. I do it so much because I hate seeing you lonely.
Utopia will be great, Y/N. I think we'll live a great life there, don't you think?
I just want to say that if anything happens, we need to continue on with our lives. Because whatever the Exam decides, we deserve the results.
Nevertheless, I'll see you in Utopia, Y/N~
You tear up every time you open up your locket and study Taehyung's handwriting and his last words to you. Of course, you love him too. And it kills you that you don’t even know whether he's alive.
How cruel it is to live in such a wealthy place but feel worse than you had been in Dystopia and Purgatory.
The Exam is a curse. There is no way you could've beaten it, but you'd very much rather be hauled back into Dystopia with someone you care about than being stuck in this fast-paced, artificial world with no one but yourself.
It dawns on you horrifyingly. You did not beat the Exam. You did not win. You survived it.
And for the rest of your life, you must suffer the casualties.
—masterpost
—masterlist
#ficswithluv#btswritersnet#btswriterscollective#bangtanfairygarden#bangtanidx#tae#taehyung#kim taehyung#taehyung imagine#taehyung fanfic#taehyung fanfiction#bts#bts fanfiction#the exam#this story kinda hurts lmao#i was reading it over yesterday and damn it hurts yikes#some of the details are important to remember for the secOnd part of the series (:
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if i find a way would you walk it with me
characters: dabi, shigaraki tomura
genre: hmm a healthy mixture of fluff and angst, i think
notes: weeee set in the break my bones but act as my spine universe!! ever wonder how dabi’s apology to the reader goes??? how he ‘makes it up’ to her???? well here u go! bit of tomura at the beginning because i couldn’t help myself yikes!! -sigh- poor dabi <33 | title credit: star shopping by lil peep
warnings: uhhhhh one (1) mention of cum in that very first paragraph (nice) but other than that i think it’s all good??? OH oh + use of the word Daddy (u shouldn’t be surprised by this point lol)
words: 3.7k
synopsis:
“I’m sorry for being an asshole,” he says, and to the untrained ear his voice would sound flat and monotonous, maybe even rude, like he doesn’t give a fuck about the words tumbling from his lips. But you—you can hear it, the sheer honesty embedded in his tone, the rawness bleeding into his voice, the way it’s ever-so-slightly rougher around the edges than it normally is.
✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰
It’s rare, nowadays, that you wake up to Tomura still at home. He’s sure to give you goodbye kisses every single morning before he leaves for work—kisses that last way longer than they should, kisses that are slow and messy, that manage to pull little mewls from you and leave you breathless, kisses that more often than not turn into your hands fisting in his dress shirt, little fingers playing with the buttons as you sleepily pull him closer, pleading in soft whimpers for him to fill you with cum before he goes—but he’s rarely still around by the time you actually wake up.
So, naturally, it startles you when you hear his voice, deep and gentle, murmuring that it’s time for you to wake up, princess, as slim fingers brush your hair away from your face, tracing along your cheek and jaw. Rolling onto your back quickly, your eyes snap open and you breathe out his name, heart pounding in excitement as you push yourself up onto your elbows, bleary gaze finding his.
Your near instantaneous reaction pulls a little chuckle from him, crimson eyes shining as they study your face, voice tender when he tells you that he finds your eagerness cute.
A pout settles on your lips briefly at his teasing, evaporating the moment your foggy brain realizes that he’s still home.
“Daddy! What’re you—A-Are you taking me to school today?” you gasp, sitting up a little straighter, a tiny glimmer of optimism in your eye.
And, God, the sheer, unadulterated hope on your face, eyes bright and as they search his, a tentative little smile tugging at the corner of your lips as you anxiously await his answer…it breaks his heart to shake his head slowly—he swears it fucking cracks in his chest when your expression absolutely falls, makes it feel like his ribcage is caving in, yielding under the weight of the ache that settles deep at the very core of his body.
A large hand cups your face, calloused thumb caressing your cheekbone, your eyes closing briefly at the contact, nuzzling into the warmth of his palm.
“No, angel,” he tells you softly, a frown marring his lips. “I have a meeting this afternoon, and it was easier to take the morning off and work from home,”
It’s only partially a lie—he does have a meeting, some fancy lunch with pharmaceutical distributors interested in investing in the drug they’re currently developing—but the ‘work’ he’s doing from home would technically be more productive if done at his office.
Really, he’s worried about how things might go with Dabi. If things get worse, there’s a chance he might just bring you to the stupid lunch with him instead, university be damned.
But you—you can’t help the sudden onslaught of tears that spring into your eyes, emitting a quiet, hurt sound that you nearly choke on as your chest hitches with a tiny sob, head nodding jerkily. Tomura coos, forehead wrinkling in concern as large hands find your hips, pulling you onto his lap and cradling you to his chest.
You shouldn’t be this upset. You know you shouldn’t—not over Tomura not being able to take you to school, and not over Dabi’s sharp words from yesterday. No, Dabi’s words shouldn’t even matter to you, shouldn’t mean anything at all…so why does dread flood your body at the prospect of seeing him, of being stuck in a car with him for a good half hour, at least? Why does it feel like your heart’s turned to corrosive acid, eroding everything around it, when you consider if he actually meant what he said, if that’s how he truly feels?
“I don’t wanna see him, Daddy,” you mumble into his shoulder, eyes squeezing shut tightly against the inexplicable fresh wave of tears the mere thought affords you.
“I know, baby,” Tomura says softly, fingers trailing up and down your spine. “I know,”
He doesn’t want to think about why Dabi’s words, that one simple sentence, have you so torn up.
Nor do you.
✰ ✰ ✰
Dabi arrives just as you’re finishing your breakfast, switching between fork and pen as you annotate a last-minute reading for school.
The entire atmosphere morphs the very instant he steps foot in the penthouse, and you swear you can almost see the tension in the air, heavy and suffocating. You wish Tomura were with you, have half a mind to hop up and run into his home office as you glance over at those thick mahogany doors with your lip caught between your teeth, but then Dabi’s heavy footsteps come to a halt, and your gaze snaps back to him.
He stops a few feet away, staring at you with those stupidly pretty sapphire eyes, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his black leather jacket.
His face used to be unreadable, but you’ve gotten better at deciphering his expressions, at decoding them to reveal fragments of his thoughts or mood, since you began spending more than eight hours a day with him.
So you know what it means when his jaw clenches twice (annoyed and dreading the interaction), when his front teeth nibble at the inner skin of his lip (unsure and nervous), when he readjusts his stance, nudging his feet just a little further apart (anticipating a verbal blow).
Placing your pen down on your textbook, you turn on your barstool to look at him fully, arms crossed over your chest and legs crossed at the ankles.
You steadily hold his gaze, and he briefly wonders if you’re expecting an apology, what Tomura told you about their discussion late last night, if Tomura told you about their discussion late last night.
“Hey,” he says, wincing at how gravelly his voice sounds and clearing his throat.
A beat of silence passes between you.
“Hi,”
“About yesterday…” he begins, eyebrows pushing together as he trails off, exhaling a harsh breath through his nostrils.
God, he fucking hates this. He hates that he spent most of the morning, the drive to and from going to get your apology gift, rehearsing what he was going to say, hates that it completely vanishes from his mind the moment he sees you, glaring at him in expectation or apprehension—he’s not sure, he can’t tell.
He hates that this is stupidly difficult—definitely more difficult than throwing an apology and gift at you should be—can’t fucking stand the incomprehensible feelings swirling around in his chest, the ones that make him feel like he’s inhaling smoke, choking on air, like he can’t manage to get enough oxygen into his lungs no matter how deeply he inhales.
He swallows, throat dry and scratchy, runs his tongue along the front of his teeth, and tries again.
“About yesterday,” he repeats, more sternly this time. “That was—I probably shouldn’t have said that,”
And the face you make as the word probably leaves his lips—features crumpling and contorting, your mask of passivity disintegrating to reveal pained eyes and a little pout—has him quickly backtracking before he even realizes what he’s doing.
“Definitely—I definitely shouldn’t have said that,” his chest heaves with the force of a heavy sigh, raking a hand aggressively through his hair. “I didn’t mean it. I, uh, I promise,” his eyes bore into yours, his stare so intense it takes everything in your power not to look away.
It’s unsettling in the very least, to hear him this unsure of himself. You think you might even be able to detect the smallest hint of a tremble to his voice, but it only seems to be audible on certain words.
It makes your heart ache in the most inexplicable way, bottom lip jutting out further as your pout deepens. Really, you think you should still be furious at him. Really, you wish you were. You shouldn’t be feeling sympathy for him, not after the way he’s treated you the past few weeks. You shouldn’t have to resist the urge to run to him, to take his face between your hands and tell him that it’s alright, it’s fine, you forgive him—anything just to stop the way his voice quivers ever-so-slightly on the word promise, anything to eradicate the melancholy in his eyes.
“Look—what I’m trying to say, I guess, is—”
The tiniest, softest little mewl sounds from his jacket and he looks down sharply, scowling at it. Eyebrows knitting, you laugh a little, head quirking to the side in confusion.
“Do you…Do you have a cat in your jacket, or something?”
Dabi sighs, shaking his head and murmuring something about how this was totally not your cue, furball as he holds his worn leather jacket open, revealing a small kitten stuffed into one of the inner pockets. He fishes it out gently—it’s so tiny that it fits in the palm of his hand—and holds it out to you, a peace offering.
“I’m sorry for being an asshole,” he says, and to the untrained ear his voice would sound flat and monotonous, maybe even rude, like he doesn’t give a fuck about the words tumbling from his lips. But you—you can hear it, the sheer honesty embedded in his tone, the rawness bleeding into his voice, the way it’s ever-so-slightly rougher around the edges than it normally is.
You blink rapidly, shaking your head in disbelief with an odd little smile on your face. “Is it—Is it for m-me?”
Dabi rolls his eyes, but there’s a smirk on his face. “Of course, stupid,”
A surprised giggle escapes your lips as you jump up, rushing forward to take the kitten from him and cradling it to your chest, cooing softly. Dabi thinks it’s one of the sweetest things he’s ever seen, entirely powerless to stop the tender look that settles in his eyes as he observes you.
A thick, silky red ribbon tied in a large obnoxious bow adorns the kitten’s neck, a small tag attached to it with Dabi’s messy handwriting scrawled across it: I’m sorry for being an asshole. It’s fucking cheesy, cliché as hell, and you love every single thing about it.
“It’s uh, a Maine Coon, I think,” Dabi shrugs a little, hand rubbing at the back of his neck unsurely as his eyes dart away. “I paid a fucking fortune for him,” he says with a small self-deprecating smirk. “Three times the goddamn regular price,”
Your head snaps up, wide eyes finding his as the kitten gnaws on one of the drawstrings of your—Tomura’s—hoodie. “What?”
He shifts a little under your intense gaze. “Well, yeah, he technically belonged to someone else. Y’know how with those fancy breeders you gotta fill out those massive application forms and then wait for like, two years and all that bullshit,” he waves a hand in explanation as his voice trails off.
“Y-You paid six thousand dollars for this cat?”
“Just over,” he nods. “Plus a forty-five minute argument with the breeder, all for that damn furball, so you better fucking appreciate him, cause that guy was a jackass,”
Silence blankets the room again. You’re looking at him weirdly, and it’s starting to make his skin crawl, anxiety beginning to rise in his throat as he stares back at you, subconsciously holding his breath. Are you still angry? Do you not like the cat, was it the wrong breed? It was a cat you wanted, wasn’t it? Was this too stupid? Was it too much? Was it not enough? Tomura’s frequent yet random gifts are hard to compete with, but, fuck, he tried his best. He wanted to get you something that he knew you really wanted—he could’ve sworn he’s heard you go off on a tangent about how much you love cats, how you’ve never been allowed to have one before, at least three times in the short time he’s known you. He considered getting you the standard luxury shit women are ‘supposed’ to like, or whatever—he isn’t really into that gendered bullshit—but Tomura spoils you with these things so often and, well, they didn’t really feel like an apology.
Tingles flood your veins, feeling like sparks are coursing through your entire body, the thought of someone doing something so—so considerate making you feel giddy at first, then guilty. How could you not believe him, not believe his apology is sincere, when this gift proves to you just how attentive he actually is? That he doesn’t simply tune out your mindless rambling as he drives you to school, or when he lets you rest your head against his thigh after a long day? You’ve lamented to Dabi countless times about how you’ve always wanted a kitten—a Maine Coon in particular—and, knowing it’s the one thing Tomura hasn’t gotten for you, wouldn’t get for you…
Hastily placing the kitten on the island, you leap up, moving so quick he barely has time to register what the hell’s going on before you barrel straight into him, wrapping your arms around his neck tightly. The force of your unexpected hug causes him to stumble back a few steps, knocking a soft “Oof,” out of him.
His body freezes as you press up against him—you’ve never been this close before. A hand slides up his neck and into the hair at the base of his scalp—an automatic reaction, something you’re so used to doing with Tomura that it’s become second nature now. You don’t even realize you’re doing it.
But Dabi does.
Your touch burns, fingertips searing into his flesh in the most exquisite way, has him instantly craving more as his head droops just a little further, allowing you more access to move, your fingers instinctively combing through the soft, inky hair at the back of his skull. He wants to feel your touch all over his body, branded into his skin. Hours from now, he’ll still be able to feel it, still be able to feel the scorching warmth from your little hands scathing his flesh, still be able to feel your little fingers tangling in his hair.
Your sweet scent invades the space around him, overwhelms his senses, and he idly wonders if you taste as sweet as you smell, if the rest of your skin, your body, would feel as scalding as your hands do against his bare skin, if—
You squeeze yourself closer, body pressed flush against his, and his mind finally snaps into action, recovering from his initial shock and wrapping both arms around your waist, responding to your squeeze with one of his own.
“Thank you so much, Dabi,” you whisper, lips grazing his neck as you speak, an involuntary shiver coursing through his body. “I already love him,”
“Am I forgiven, princess?” his voice is low, rumbling in his chest and reverberating off of yours, chin resting atop your head.
A pause.
“Yeah,” you nod, eyelashes fluttering a little on his skin. “I—I’m sorry, too,”
“You don’t—”
“No,” you cut him off softly, and he can feel you nuzzling your face against him shyly, his arms squeezing you again in silent encouragement. “I overreacted. I just, um,” you stop, swallowing thickly as you struggle with the words. “I—We were making progress; or at least, I thought we were making progress—What I mean is, I just want t-to be friends with you,” you admit quietly, thankful that your face is buried in his chest, hiding your burning cheeks from his eyes.
He doesn’t respond—not with words, anyway. He doesn’t need to—his actions speak louder than words ever could. Lips press against the crown of your head, first gently, then firm, scattering a few kisses across your scalp.
The kitten knocks your pen off the island, it’s clattering against the hardwood startling the two of you, and you reluctantly break apart. He thinks it should be awkward—No, it should definitely be awkward, when he just dropped several unwarranted kisses to the crown of your head—but it isn’t. He waits for it to come, surprised when all that seems to remain is that same pleasant warmth as he watches you scold the kitten playfully, bending down to pick up the pen and gently tapping it against the kittens nose.
Your giggles, ringing out around the empty penthouse, are the most precious sounds he’s ever witnessed. Thoughts invade his mind, belatedly realizing that he’d do just about anything to hear you giggle like that again, soft and innocent and full of delight. The unfamiliar feeling of contentment settles in his chest, makes it swell so much it’s almost painful, thrumming through his veins and alighting his body.
Later, he’ll be pissed at himself for letting his guard down so easily, for completely losing control of his thoughts and actions, for becoming so fucking soft around you. But for now, he allows himself to bask in the feeling, just for a few moments before those heavy mahogany doors inevitably creak open.
“What should we name him?” your eyes are bright as you back at him, a cute excited smile on your face, lashes fluttering a little as you wait for his answer.
We. We.
And he hates the way his heart skips a beat at that one, tiny two letter word. He hates the way it makes his stomach swoop, makes more unknown feelings—sensations he’s never experienced before—explode in his chest, hates the way that stupid little word pulls a large, genuine smile from him entirely without his permission, a chuckle of disbelief passing through his lips.
We.
“I dunno, princess,” he responds gruffly, finally finding his voice.
“How about…” you stop, humming and closing an eye as you think, little tongue poking at your cheek in concentration.
Dabi isn’t sure he’s ever seen a more adorable sight in his entire life, and he has to physically restrain himself from marching right up to you and kissing you until you can’t fucking breathe, heels digging into the hardwood and hands curling into trembling fists as his body goes rigid.
“Isaac? Or, oh! Clarke?”
Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke, two of his favourite authors.
And, fuck, he can’t help the hearty laugh that bubbles up in his chest at the realization, pleasant tingles of warmth shooting through his veins again—more intensely this time, feeling like tiny shocks bursting throughout his body, his whole figure buzzing, high off your presence.
“Both are cute,”
“Yeah, but do you have a favourite?”
Later, he’ll lay awake in bed tonight, sheets cold and empty as he listens to the muffled sounds of Tomura’s ridiculously massive bed slamming against the wall while he forces the most beautiful sounds from your lips—later, Dabi will think about that sentence, those seven words, uttered so gently, so sincerely from your soft lips as you stared at him in earnest, genuinely interested in his answer. Later, he’ll think about why his opinion matters so much to you—if his opinion matters to you, or if he’s just desperately hoping it does, if he’s overthinking this entire situation, why the name of a dumb overpriced cat matters this much to him…
“I like Isaac,”
Your eyes soften, smile stretching even wider as your gaze flits to the tiny fluff ball now curled in your lap, small hand petting its head gently as it begins to fall asleep.
“Yeah,” you murmur, watching your hand’s rhythmic motions, the kitten beginning to purr loudly. “I like Isaac, too,”
Tomura reemerges then, both of your gazes snapping towards him. He observes the two of you, scarlet eyes slow and careful as they scan the situation, finally landing on the small ball of fur sleeping soundly on your thighs. There’s an odd look in his eyes—something you’ve never quite seen before, and it makes your heart drop.
“Look, Daddy,” you say softly, holding up the sleepy kitten to show him. “Dabi got me a kitty!”
The weird, undecipherable look on Tomura’s face evaporates in an instant as his eyes connect with yours, features softening.
“That’s great, baby,” he says as he walks towards you, coming to stand behind you and placing a large hand on your head. You hum a little, eyes closing at the contact. “Looks like we’ll have to go out tonight and get kitty supplies, huh,”
Eyes snapping open, your head falls back, resting against his stomach as you stare up at him. “Me and you? Just us?” he nods, and you gasp, face absolutely lighting up. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” he laughs a little, fondness settling in his eyes as he gazes down at you. “I’ll pick you up after class today, and we’ll go straight away. We can’t let poor Isaac go hungry now, can we?” Ruby eyes flit up as he speaks, hardening as they connect with sapphire. He holds Dabi’s gaze until the other man nods his understanding.
You’re so excited you don’t even realize you never told Tomura the kitten’s name. But it doesn’t matter—not in that moment, anyway, not when he tells you he’s decided to take the rest of the day off after the lunch meeting, to spend it with his baby and his baby’s baby. Not when you haven’t had a night alone with him in what feels like forever.
Tomura should be happy that it all worked out, right? He should be glad that he doesn’t have to find other arrangements, should feel relieved that you and Dabi smoothed things over, shouldn’t he? He is, isn’t he?
“Go get your schoolbag, sweetheart,” he instructs softly, tapping you on the nose. “You’ll be late if you don’t leave soon,”
You obey immediately, slipping off the barstool with the kitten cradled in your arms, explaining that you’re going to quickly ‘kitten-proof’ Tomura’s absurdly large bathroom and lock Isaac in there. For his own safety while you’re away at school, you say.
He watches you go, waits for you to disappear around the corner, before turning back to his colleague.
“Really Dabi, a fucking cat?”
Dabi bristles, exhaling slowly as he holds his boss’s gaze, and raises his eyebrows. “But she’s happy, isn’t she?”
#dabi x reader#dabi x you#shigaraki x reader#shigaraki x you#dabi#shigaraki tomura#bnha#mha#for my lil star anon!!! <3333#i hope u like it!#tw daddy kink#i ??? guess???
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Not-so-secret boyfriend
Prompt number: 9 “Will you look at this?”
Fandom: Marvel
Paring: Peter Parker x Stark!reader
Rating: T
Word count: 1.1k
Warnings: Swearing. Mentions teenagers possibly sleeping together, no smut. Use of penis Parker.
A/N: Who knew I’d make it to day 4 of fictober? I didn’t know I could be this consistent. First time writing for Peter, so yay and yikes. I don’t know why, but I really love this one!
When FRIDAY said that your father requested your presence in the compounds living room immediately, you instantly were confused and a bit nervous. It took quite a bit to piss off the one and only Tony Stark, he’d been relatively understanding with you and your attitude through the years, you were his offspring so you obviously got his sarcasm.
Your nerves only continued to grow when you came face to face with a nervous looking Peter already waiting in the living room, he should be on patrol and not in his math pun shirt in your home. Your father had enrolled you in Midtown School of Science and Technology two years ago when he was scouting spiderman and had learned it was Peter. Luckily for your dad you're the same age as the spider boy. You quickly realized that he and Ned are pretty funny and really fun to be around and quickly befriended the pair for real and not just for your dad. Because of this you asked him to stay enrolled after Peter was recruited, and your dad agreed claiming it would look great on college applications. As if (Y/N) Stark wasn’t enough to immediately admit you into the college of your choice.
That was about a year ago now, and you and Peter had finally admitted your feelings for each other four months ago, having been dating in secret since then. Your father didn’t question all the time you spent with Peter since you had already been his friend for so long, he thought the statute of limitations for you two having feelings for each other had come to pass ages ago. He slept a little easier knowing his daughter and his prodigy weren’t sleeping together.
Before you can ask Peter why he’s here a fuming Tony Stark enters the room, holding what looks to be a magazine. Whatever was wrong had to be serious since your dad had a physical copy of whatever it was instead of just using his technology to pull up the article.
“Will you look at this?” your dad’s voice is gruff and you know he’s pissed off as he tosses the magazine onto the table- front cover facing up.
You come face to face with pictures of you and Peter at school; one is the two of you at lunch, your holding each others hands, you’re laughing at something he had just told you, and he’s looking at you with what can only be described as a look of love; there’s another where the photographer caught you giving Peter a quick peck on the cheek before running off to class; the third and final photo is the most damning, Peter had gotten gutsy yesterday and grabbed your cheek pulling you in for a kiss in the middle of gym class, and apparently someone had caught your quick exchange. Ned and MJ were the only two that knew about your relationship, and you suspected that Aunt May’s known for a few months now but hasn’t said anything, but other than that you two thought you were being sneaky. Apparently not.
“One of you best start fucking explaining this! Now!” his glare shifts back and forth from you to Peter.
“I-it’s not what it looks like Mr. Stark!” Peter’s voice goes up an octave as he lies. He doesn’t want to ruin his relationship with you or have Mr. Stark, his mentor, hate him.
“Like Hell it’s not!” your dad takes a step towards the coffee table, pointer finger jabbing the picture of you and Peter with locked lips. “That’s not nothing. Or are you just screwing my daughter Parker?”
“No!” Peter practically yells. “There’s no screwing going on! We aren’t even old enough for that yet. And I don’t know how to buy condoms. Can I even buy condoms at this age-”
“Peter, sweetie,” there’s a warning in your voice. “Just shut up.”
“(Y/N), would you care to explain?” your father’s face softens slightly as he looks into your eyes for the first time, he can see the worry swimming in your (Y/E/C) eyes.
“We’ve been secretly for a few months now,” you put up your hand when he opens his mouth to cut in. “We didn’t want you to freak, so we put it off. And then we kept putting it off and I was scared you’d be mad that I hadn’t told you right away. And we wanted to avoid this,” you gesture to the magazine, title reading ‘Major PDA alert! (Y/N) Stark seen canoodling with Stark Enterprises youngest intern Peter Parker! Classmates say they can’t keep their hands- or lips- to themselves!’ “We aren’t even public at school! Those are the only three times we’ve ever slipped up and people got photographs of them.”
Your dad nods at you before turning back to Peter, “so what are your intentions with my daughter?”
“I- uh- I,” Peter stammers, he had planned at least a hundred different things he wanted to say to Tony, but this was the only reaction he hadn’t prepared for.
“If you hurt her,” Tony threatens. “The suit won’t be the only thing you lose this time around.” Peter visibly gulps at your father's words.
“Dad! Stop it!” you whine. “You’ll scare him away! It’s not like the silly little crush I had on Steve, I mean have you seen his ass? Anyway, please don’t scare him away, I love him.”
“You love him?” your dad’s frowning, but there’s a glimmer of happiness in his eyes.
“You love me?” Peter’s jaw practically unhinges as it drops open in shock, his eyes practically popping out of his eye sockets.
“How couldn’t I?” you smile at your boyfriend. “You’re incredibly smart, brave to the point of stupidity, funnier than you’d think, and you’re the most considerate and caring person I’ve ever met. I’d be a total idiot not to love you.”
“(Y/N),” he whispers, hand reaching to caress your cheek. “I love you too. You’ve never looked at me differently when I can’t take you to fancy restaurants and we make a mess of the kitchen trying to make Lasagna. You always defend me when flash calls me penis parker. You take Ned third wheeling in stride- making sure to always involve him in whatever we’re doing. And you’re the most compassionate person I know, always making sure we aren’t hurt when we come back from a mission, homemade chocolate chip cookies waiting to lift our spirits. I’d be crazy not to love you.”
“NO!” Tony practically screams when you lean in to kiss Peter’s soft supple lips. “Not in front of me! I don’t want to see that!”
“Oh please, I’ve seen you do it with countless women,” you roll your eyes, grabbing Peter by the back of the neck and crashing your lips into his. Tony let’s out an overdramatic screech at the sight, slapping a hand over his eyes and struggling to walk out of the room.
Permanent tags: @crimson-knuckled-queen @rexorangecouny
#peter parker x reader#fictober20#fictober#peter parker x stark!reader#tony stark x daughter!reader#fictober 2020#fictober day 4#peter x reader#peter parker x y/n#peter parker x you#peter parker fanfiction#peter parker imagine#peter parker oneshot#spiderman#spiderman x reader#spiderman x you#spiderman x y/n#spiderman imagine#spiderman fanfiction#spiderman one shot#marvel imagine#marvel one shot#marvel
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Title: like nobody’s business
Author: hinadoria / Twitter: @bunniepunk / AO3: bunnypunk
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Mild amounts of swearing
Summary: Shen Yuan had never known what to do about crying people, much less crying men asleep in his bed at ass o’clock in the middle of the night. God, if Jiu-ge knew about this, Shen Yuan would be six feet under. No, he’d be yeeted directly into hell’s abyss. Arguably though, this was all Jiu-ge’s fault.
AO3: Link
It started when his old roommate Shang Qinghua decided to get hitched at Shen Yuan’s 25th birthday party. Disregarding the fact that it was his birthday party in his apartment that he was paying for (Shang Qinghua was only there to keep an eye on him at Jiu-ge’s ever insistent demands), an increasingly hammered Shang Qinghua had decided it was the perfect time to propose to his disappointingly sober boyfriend.
“My LORd, have yOU EvEr ThoughT about Getting HitchED?!” he shouted in Mobei-Jun’s face. Shen Yuan saw the wince on Mobei-Jun’s face before he could smooth it away. Airplane-Bro had that effect on people. Even his boyfriend was no exception.
However, Mobei-Jun had silently pulled the biggest ring Shen Yuan had ever seen out of his pocket like it was a dimension to worlds unknown. Shang Qinghua yanked it out of his grasp, put it on, and immediately started sobbing loudly in his boyfriend's arms, effectively ruining the atmosphere.
If it wasn’t because Shen Yuan was already secretly plotting to escape to his room, he might have been significantly more miffed at this sequence of events.
After all, he had never been one for big, lavish events like a formal birthday party. He’d much rather spend it in the comfort of his room, maybe playing videogames with a few close friends. However, Jiu-ge had insisted, in that stubborn way of his, taking no arguments. As a result, Shen Yuan wasn’t sure he even knew half the people at his own party.
This all didn’t mean he was completely free of indignation, however. Shen Yuan cleared his throat pointedly, but was ignored by both the affectionate couple and the crowd of people politely applauding.
It was a testament to Mobei-Jun’s excitement, if he was a man that felt such emotions, that he leaped up onto the table, which creaked dangerously with his weight.
“I’d like to thank my dear friends and my soon-to-be best man who supported me through this time. Whom I wouldn’t have met without Shen Yuan’s recommendation to work at Cang Qiong’s internship program under Shen Jiu. So a heartfelt thanks to them both,” Mobei-Jun proclaimed.
The attention of the party turned to its host, who began to turn hot under all the attention.
Damn, it wasn’t as if he was Mother Teresa.
He had simply wanted to stop hearing Jiu-ge’s nagging complaints about a lack of competent interns at his company. And he knew that Airplane-bro’s boyfriend was just about to graduate. It was simple math.
Either way, he had to resolve this situation before Mobei-Jun broke the table or worse, made him give a speech. He quickly grabbed an abandoned glass from the table and raised it high. With raucous cheer, the party returned to full swing, and Shen Yuan strategically retreated to his bedroom.
The next day, Shang Qinghua had all but been moved out of his apartment (Mobei-Jun worked fast and efficiently. Shen Yuan had been begrudgingly impressed). In the midst of his soporific haze, a loud banging came from his front door. Reluctant to get up, Shen Yuan nevertheless used every last bit of his willpower to do so. When he opened the door however, he immediately found himself in deep regret.
A pale Jiu-ge, like Bloody Mary summoned from a dirty elementary school bathroom mirror, stood at his door, foot tapping a mile a minute. He stormed past Shen Yuan into his apartment and curled his mouth in distaste at the mess.
“This apartment is no longer acceptable. I’ve put up with it until now, but this is the last straw. It is imperative that you move out immediately to a place not infested by the stench of the poor,” Jiu-ge demanded. Shen Yuan would never tell him it was probably the week-old ramen stewing on his kitchen counter.
“But I don’t want to, Jiu-ge, please!” he whined. Like most things regarding his older brother, would eventually yield, but would put up a valiant effort nonetheless. No one had the right to accuse him of being a pushover, after all.
Jiu-ge sat down at his oily counter with a sigh, hands flying up to bury themselves in his messy hair.
Shen Yuan immediately felt guilty.
His brother looked a lot less put-together than he usually was, now that he was looking more closely. His shirt was unbuttoned and his makeup was smudged, both facets of his appearance he usually controlled with meticulous determination.
“Please don’t fight me on this, A-Yuan.” His brother looked back at him, and Shen Yuan could see the weariness in his eyes.
“Is everything okay?” asked Shen Yuan. He tapped his fingers nervously.
“It will be,” Jiu-ge answered immediately as if he had expected this question. “Once I get a good night’s sleep.” Shen Yuan moved to sit by his brother.
“Mobei-Jun proposed to Shang Qinghua yesterday,” he offered. This made the crease between Jiu-ge’s brows deeper further.
“At your birthday party?”
“I know, I was shocked too!”
“Rude bastard. I knew nothing good could come out of that tight-knit group of rascals the company foisted on me.”
“Don’t be like that. I bet you secretly appreciate their help, big softie.” Shen Yuan poked at his brother’s cheek, and giggled when Jiu-ge pretended to bite at him. A small smile appeared on his brother’s face, and Shen Yuan rejoiced at the sight. He felt like he deserved an award for Best Brother of the Year.
“I suppose they suffice at times.” Jiu-ge wrinkled his nose like he had thought of something particularly disgusting. “Well. Almost all of them,” he huffed. He shook his head when Shen Yuan looked at him in question. But Best Brother of the Year did not do things half-heartedly.
“I know how to cheer you up even more,” Shen Yuan decided then and there.
That was how Shen Yuan found himself moved into the expensive nouveau-riche apartment complex next door to his brother on the third floor. All things considered, it wasn’t too bad. Jiu-ge was too busy to check up on him more than once a week in person, although the daily calls to his office phone were still a requirement.
Shen Yuan had always been a homebody, there was no denying that. As long as he could coop up in his room reading and editing trashy novels, he didn’t care for the particulars of time or place, even if leaving his apartment and chancing upon another human made him feel like Oscar the Grouch having been caught outside of his trash can and committing a crime.
The point was: it had all been going just fine and dandy, until one day a shout disrupted Shen Yuan from his editing of one of Airplane’s terribly written papapa scenes. He roughly yanked open his curtains, hearing a rip in the plush blue velvet. Whatever, what Jiu-ge didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
The scene which greeted him was one of darkness, which okay, he wasn’t quite expecting that but fine, it wasn’t the first time he had lost track of time doing this and that. Shivering, Shen Yuan stepped out onto his balcony and peered over the rails to see a very attractive, very drunk man holding a broken bottle of what looked like Xin Mo liquor.
“Shen Jiu, there you are, you fucking bastard. Fucking coward! What, too afraid to come and see your disgusting student Binghe on this beautiful night? You always thought you were above us mere mortals, didn’t you? I hope both sides of your pillow are always ice!”
Yikes, Shen Yuan thought privately.
This dude was hammered. Despite everything a laugh bubbled its way up his chest. He didn’t know his brother was so unpopular at work but with a sour face like his, he should’ve expected. Briefly, the thought of pretending to be his brother just to hear more of the entertaining insults crossed his mind, but before he could open his mouth the man, probably named Binghe, went on.
“I bet you think you wake up just looking like an angel descended from the heavens! Well let me tell you, scumbag, that I curse you and your descendents to always have shaky eyeliner! Let’s see you keep up that hoity-toity look and scream at me when you come into work looking like a clown!”
Shen Yuan covered his eyes in horror. Not his eyeliner! He had to look sharp for the ladies.
“I fixed that stupid assignment one million times! Your nitpicking doesn’t even make sense anymore, you blind geezer! Come down here, if you’re not a coward and I’ll show you ...” Binghe paused, looking like he was gonna hurl.
“Show me what? You can’t leave me hanging like that, I won’t be able to sleep!” Shen Yuan shouted out, against his better judgement. He had already been collecting Binghe’s flavored insults to use against that traitor Shang Qinghua next time he saw him.
Binghe looked back up, with what seemed like confusion in his eyes, though it could have just been bleary drunkenness. To Shen Yuan’s horror, it looked like Binghe had tears in his eyes.
“All I wanted was for Laoshi to acknowledge me,” Binghe sobbed out. At this point Shen Yuan had missed his chance to tell the poor man that his brother was out of town on a business trip, and that Binghe was shouting at a stranger. He felt something in his chest squeeze at Binghe’s watery puppy dog eyes.
“Why does everyone look down on me?” Binghe cried. “I try so hard, over and over but all you do is scorn me … again and again! What do I have to do, just tell me, and I’ll do it. Anything! Just …” At this point the boy was choking on his sobs. Shen Yuan felt something shattering. He found himself walking down the stairs. He was going to go down and fetch him before the police were called, that was all, he told himself.
By the time he arrived on the cold grass ready to coax the drunkard, he found him passed out, clutching the broken bottle so hard his hand was bleeding. Shen Yuan sucked in a sharp breath.
“Alright buddy, let’s get you warmed up,” Shen Yuan said as he pried the glass from Binghe’s hand and used all his strength to haul him up and to the elevator.
He got several strange looks as he dragged an unconscious man across the fancy lobby, but Shen Yuan just snorted and ignored them. The people here had sticks so far up their ass they were getting free prostate massages. Shen Yuan stifled his laughter at his own wit in Binghe’s dead weighted shoulder and got a few more strange looks by the lady in the elevator. Halfway to Shen Yuan’s room, Binghe woke up and stared at Shen Yuan like he was an alien.
He struggled a bit and whined, “Laoshi, please don’t dropkick me into the Panama Canal, I promise I’ll be a good boy.”
Shen Yuan laughed and patted Binghe’s hair. “Go back to sleep, rowdy boy. We’ll talk in the morning.” It probably wasn’t because of his words, but Binghe managed to walk a few steps on his own before becoming dead weight on Shen Yuan again. He felt the breath knocked out of him.
“For someone who’s such a crybaby, you sure are … heavy!” Shen Yuan panted as he managed to drag Binghe into his apartment and throw him onto his bed. He shoddily wrapped up Binghe’s bleeding hand with several bandages. Novels may have taught him a lot, but he had surprisingly little practical knowledge when faced with a gash like Binghe’s in reality.
The fatigue of the night finally caught up with him as he saw Binghe’s peaceful sleeping face and he barely managed to do his nightly routine before sliding into his bed next to the unconscious person.
Shen Yuan was just about to drift away into sleep until he heard sniffling coming from the other man and turned around to see Binghe crying in his sleep.
And so was his current dilemma. Shen Yuan had no idea how to handle crying people. He stared dumbly for a few moments before kicking himself to do something, anything!
Shen Yuan wouldn’t do this for any random stranger that came knocking to his door, but luckily he had gleaned several useful tidbits of information from Binghe’s drunken speech. For example, he was likely one of Jiu-ge’s new interns at the large Cang Qiong Company he worked at, under the Qing Jing subsidiary. Second, Jiu-ge seemed to be giving the poor boy an extremely hard time, and Shen Yuan knew better than anyone just how sharp his brother’s acerbic tongue could be. Shen Yuan felt mildly responsible for cleaning up his brother’s mess.
Also, Binghe was terribly cute. He reminded Shen Yuan of the little puppy he used to play with in childhood, named Bingbing, after his favorite actress.
It was a combination of these facts, or none of them, that ultimately made Shen Yuan do what he did next; wrap his arms around Binghe and gently stroke his hair, murmuring comforting words to him until he stopped crying.
Somewhere along the way he found himself asleep as well.
Binghe awoke from his drunken stupor sometime between ass and fuck o’clock in the morning. His hand was covered in messily wrapped bandages.
When he saw the face of the person fast asleep next to him, he flinched backwards so hard he almost fell out of the bed.
What did I do last night? He wailed miserably in his head. A worst case scenario flashed through his head, and he made sure that both of them were clothed before exhaling a sigh of relief. That was the last time he let Mobei-Jun get him drunk, bachelor party be damned.
The last thing he remembered was accepting a glass full of alcohol in the bar he’d been dragged to, but everything afterwards was a blur. He didn’t remember how he walked all the way to his boss’s nouveau riche apartment, and he certainly didn’t remember how he ended up in bed with the man he was most fearful of.
There was one thing Binghe knew with full certainty, however; he had to escape this apartment immediately before he lost his job or worse: his life.
He had barely turned around and registered vaguely that the apartment was a lot sloppier than he’d expected of his avaricious boss before a sleepy hum made him freeze in his tracks.
“Mmm… Binghe?”
Binghe froze. Shen Jiu had never called him by name, it was always something along the lines of “scum” or “lad”.
Filled with trepidation, he turned to face his boss against his better judgement.
A sleepy smile stretched its way across the face of the person in front of him just as the morning’s rays peeked through the rip in the curtains and fell across his face.
Angelic, Binghe’s mind vaguely registered. Maybe he hadn’t come to his boss’s apartment after all. Maybe he had died and entered a realm different than the one he’d been in. Maybe he was already in heaven.
The angel’s face scrunched up cutely at the offending rays across his face. He glanced at the curtains before letting out a forlorn sigh.
“Jiu-ge’s gonna kill me for that …” sighed the angel across from Binghe.
Jiu-ge? Who’s that, I’ll fight him so you never have a frown on your pretty face ever again, Binghe thought blearily.
Mr. Angel noticed he was awake and smiled a crooked smile.
��Good morning. You were drunk and screaming outside my window last night, so I thought I’d do a public service and take you in before you hurt yourself, “ the angel laughed nervously. “Binghe is your name, right?”
Binghe nodded, feeling like his body was not his own. Then he had a thought.
“Wait … how do you know?”
The angel’s lips thinned, looking like he was trying really hard not to laugh. Oh, that was not a good sign.
“Well … You dropped your name in the middle of shouting about how you wished your boss’s food was too salty, among other things …”
The wave of relief that was about to pass through Binghe at realizing this person was likely not his boss aborted itself as it was overtaken by sheer waves of mortification.
Binghe covered his face with his hands, letting out an ungodly groan of embarrassment.
“Binghe… I’m saying this for your own good.” Mr. Angel looked into Binghe’s eyes seriously. “Do you know how to use swear words?”
Binghe immediately pouted, feeling like he was being made fun of. He couldn’t find it in himself to be truly annoyed, however, at the angel’s bell-like peals of laughter smothered by his hand. It was such a stark contrast to his boss’s restrained expressions.
“Ah! I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Shen Yuan, Shen Jiu’s younger twin brother.”
And there was the horror again.
Just as Binghe was about to bid farewell to his short, inconsequential life, Shen Yuan continued chattering. “You’re lucky Jiu-ge’s out of town on a business trip, and that you weren’t actually serenading his window but mine. If he was here, I don’t know if I could have even stopped him from personally throwing you into a jail cell.”
Binghe felt like he had gotten off of a life-threatening roller coaster ride. Stiffly, he rose from the bed and bent ninety degrees into a bow.
“Thanking Shen Yuan for his kindness in rescuing this lowly one from his predicament!” Binghe grew so nervous he immediately started speaking as if he were in a period drama. “In order to repay my honorable benefactor, this one will prepare breakfast!” He rushed away before Shen Yuan could speak a single word.
Once Binghe found the kitchen, he allowed himself a mini-freakout session. He! Was in! His boss’s younger brother’s bed! And the younger brother was an angel! Even though Binghe was fairly certain nothing untoward had occurred between the two of them the night prior, he felt every inch of his nerves tingling. He was also fairly certain that any other person that lacked Shen Yuan’s generosity would have immediately called the police on him at the least.
This was the first time anyone had done something so selfless for his sake.
Unbidden, a flush streaked across his cheeks, and Binghe slapped at himself to get out of it. Shen Yuan was his benefactor, and it would be wrong to have indecent thoughts about someone so innocent. There may not be much Binghe was good at, as he had learned from his internship under Shen Jiu, but the least he could do was cook him a decent breakfast.
Shen Yuan was roused from his half-wakeful state by the smell of something good coming from the kitchen. Which was weird because last he checked, there was nothing in there but dust and half-eaten ramen. (Yes, he had a problem.)
Wait … Binghe!
It was a little belated, but the nagging voice in Shen Yuan’s head that sounded suspiciously like Jiu-ge berated himself for falling asleep again while a stranger was in his apartment. A cute stranger, but a stranger nonetheless.
Shen Yuan, the voice nagged. One of these days you’re going to get yourself murdered in cold blood …
Alright, shut up, you. No one wants to hear this in the early morning, Shen Yuan bickered back.
“Sir?” Binghe’s voice nervously called from the kitchen entrance.
Shen Yuan immediately relaxed back into what he thought was a cool pose.
“There’s no need for formalities, Binghe. After all, you’ve already slept in my bed.”
Binghe’s ears flushed red at his words, and he swayed back and forth like a maiden on the morning after her wedding night. Shen Yuan stopped this strange line of thinking once he realized how weird it was.
“I made you breakfast as a thank you for er… handling me last night,” Binghe said softly.
Well, that didn’t help his strange thoughts. The last conscious thought Shen Yuan had was that he’d better go and eat the poor shy guy’s food since he had made it already.
He didn’t recall getting up or sitting down at the kitchen table, but the next thing he knew he was staring down at an empty plate, stomach full of delicious food.
“I don’t know what to think. This is the first time this has happened to me.” It wasn’t, but Shen Yuan had always had a flair for the dramatic. “If you can cook so well, why are you wasting your time under my brother’s wing? You should go be a professional chef, and share this magic with the rest of the world.”
It wasn’t empty praise. Shen Yuan genuinely believed he’d be blessed if he could eat like this every day for the rest of his life. His terrible habit of crappy eating would be forever changed.
Binghe was so red he looked like a tomato.
Abruptly, the sounds of a phone ringing disrupted the nice atmosphere. Binghe’s face paled.
“Oh no, I left Mobei-Jun at the club last night. He must be wondering where I am. The bachelor party got kind of crazy.”
Hm? Mobei-Jun? Shen Yuan slapped his forehead in realization. Of course! Binghe was a part of Jiu-ge’s interns, of course he knew Mobei-Jun. Shen Yuan had no idea how he had failed to make that connection. He might even be the best man Mobei-Jun had mentioned, since he was pretty sure the third intern was a woman. Sha Hualing, he believed her name was?
Either way, Shen Yuan hadn’t realized he and Binghe were so closely connected. Besides, he hadn’t felt comfortable calling Binghe a stranger, now that they no longer were.
Maybe he’d get a chance to see Binghe in a tux at the wedding? That would be so cute! Of course, he’d have to help keep him away from the champagne, especially since Jiu-ge would also be there. That was a nightmare waiting to happen.
While Shen Yuan was off fantasizing, Binghe had gathered all his stuff and prepared to leave. He hovered nervously around the door.
Shen Yuan snapped out of it to bid him goodbye. Binghe smiled shyly.
“Maybe I’ll see you around again sometime?” he asked.
Shen Yuan hid a smile behind his hand, and adopted a lofty expression.
“This immortal does not often descend from his honorable peak. However, if fate wills it to be so, then so shall it be,” he said, imitating Binghe’s earlier style of speech.
Binghe laughed, but kept hovering near the door as if he was waiting for something.
“Alright, your friend must be wondering where you are. Go on, now.” A flash of disappointment crossed Binghe’s face, but he obediently left, looking back like a puppy several times as he did so.
It wasn’t until much later that Shen Yuan would realize he had forgotten to explain that he was friends with Shang Qinghua, and that they would likely see each other again at the wedding. By the time the wedding itself rolled around, it would prove to be an ordeal of its own.
But that would remain a story for another time.
#SVSSS#svsss fic#bingyuan#shen yuan#luo binghe#scumbag self saving system#bingqiuweek2021#fanfic#day eight#fanfiction#my works
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all of mcr’s songs ranked out of ten based on whether or not you can strip to them:
romance: could work if you were going for a Super Melancholy smiths-esque vibe but overall too slow and pretty. 1/10
honey: headbanger soundtrack to showcase your revenge body to ur ex. bonus points for underlying ‘gonna murder shitty boyfriend’ context thanks to audition-inspired video. but slightly too angry to be seductive. 5/10
vampires: too goth, too many feelings. reminds me of pot dreads frank. would not work. 0/10
drowning lessons: this song is cursed and cannot be listened to in public unfortunately 0/10
sorrows: if u were going to do a strip routine while beating the shit out of someone for trying to stealing ur tip money this would be a gr8 choice 6/10
halos: it’s about blowing your own head off and taking too many pills to cope w/ wanting to die all the time. 0/10
turnstiles: please do not!!! strip!!! to a song!!! about 9/11!!!! what is wrong w/ you!!! -100000000/10
monroeville: if u were doing a private lil strip dance for your george a. romero-obsessed s.o. where u both cry over the idea of having to kill the other person b/c they turned into a zombie then sure??? but other than that no. .5/10
best day ever: ehhhhhh. too fast. kinda weird to get sexy to unless u have a hospital kink. 0/10
cubicles: wow the thought of doing a strip routine to a song about pining for ur coworker who doesn’t know u exist is too sad to even joke about -20/10
demolition lovers: it’s a long song but it’s got cool tempo changes for variety and if u got the stamina then go for it. 4/10
helena: so, like, i get it. it’s a bop. u could dance to this beat for sure. the costumes and color scheme from the video make for gr8 stage pictures and the dancing corpse lady is v pretty. i could understand why if u were doing an emo strip routine u would want to use helena. but please for the love of all that is holy do NOT strip to a song gerard way wrote about his dead grandmother okay i am BEGGING you -��/10
give ‘em hell kid: FUCK YEAH YOU LOOK PRETTY WALKIN DOWN THE STREET IN THE BEST DAMN DRESS U OWN. 10/10
to the end: this would be a hilarious choice for a bachelor party ngl 7/10 for that alone
prison: absolutely you could strip to this song but u gotta COMMIT okay u gotta light something on fire onstage and challenge gender norms while screaming your head off 8/10 but only if ur not a coward
i’m not okay: it’s a bop, but can u strip to it? no. 0/10
ghost of you: mikey way did not die on a beach in fake normandy for u to strip to ghost of you. seek help -5/10
jetset life: dude this song like. actually works??? for a strip routine??? so long as you don’t actually listen to the words, from a musical perspective, u could totally strip to this 10/10
interlude: what kinda weird catholic shame kink do u need to have to strip to this song. also it’s too short and too pretty. -5/10 (unless ur into catholic shame idk)
venom: this would require such a high energy routine but if u can make being sweaty work then this is a gr8 choice 7/10
hang ‘em high: this is a BATSHIT INSANE choice for a strip routine but if u want to do it then PLEASE do. i like ur style. 8/10
deathwish: u can strip to this only if u introduce ur routine by dedicating it to everyone who ever said eyeliner on dudes was gay. 5/10
cemetery drive: i think not. 0/10
never told you: if u are a highly theatrical highly murderous stripper then yes definitely 7/10
desert song: this song is Way Too Beautiful to strip to sorry you can’t have it -300/10
the end.: the only sexy thing about this song is how good gerard’s voice sounds so no. 0/10
dead!: this is a bold fucking choice but u have to play your cards just right. high risk high reward but SO much to potentially get wrong 6/10
how i disappear: u could. but why. 2/10
sharpest lives: holy SHIT yes ABSOLUTELY u should strip to sharpest lives. the drama. the beat. the spy rock guitar that frank accidentally nailed. this is one of THE choicest options from their catalog. why aren’t u stripping to this right now 50000000/10
wttbp: cute idea but don’t actually 0/10
i don’t love you: again, a bold fucking choice. u could strip to this in an edgy, meta sort of way but it’s missing the trashy factor so it’d have to be part performance art and part strip routine. if ur into that then totally 5/10
house of wolves: i mean i would pay money to see someone strip to this song so 7/10
cancer: LMAO YIKES -2000000/10
mama: this would be GLORIOUS if u fully embraced the sheer insanity and went Bonkers in Fuckin Zonkers burlesque-show-in-hell w/ it. 100/10 but u gotta pound the floor wailing at some point
sleep: i’m conflicted on this one like on the one hand it’s a good tempo for stripping but on the other hand it’s a song about being cruel to ur loved ones in order to force distance between u and them b/c you’re terrified of them getting hurt and it being all your fault. so maybe don’t strip to this one actually 0/10
teenagers: a bop w/ a great beat and fun costume ideas from the video but two major drawbacks being 1. ur getting naked to a song about teenagers which is uhhhh sort of Inappropriate and 2. it’s kind of also about school shooters which is also Inappropriate to get naked to. 0/10
disenchanted: why would u want this. you sad fuck. idek what to say except if you want to strip to this song i’m crying on your behalf -100000000/10
famous last words: don’t????? don’t. Do Not. stop that. -12/10
blood: this is HILARIOUS omg please strip to blood 10/10
kill all your friends: sure?? no objections but it’s an odd choice. this goes for the demo too. 2/10
heaven help us: if u want to strip to this then you definitely just read unholyverse for the first time and while u are valid, Don’t 0/10
my way home is through you: not an especially sexy song but it’s fun!! you do you 3/10
astro zombies (cover): uhhhhhh it’s a no from me dawg. i’d be thinking about danzig, like, the whole time. 0/10
desolation row: sure but u gotta be willing to get punched in the face by the riot squad for maximum effect 4/10
common people (cover): just b/c gerard would strip to britpop doesn’t mean u can. 0/10
emily: NO!!!! -50000/10
party at the end of the world: nah. 0/10
not that kind of girl: literally please consider the subject matter of this song and rethink ur life choices. -10/10
all the angels: it’s a cool song but don’t strip to it that’s weird -2/10
jack the ripper: you and the person who wants to strip to astro zombies can go sit in the suicidegirls corner together how about that. 0/10
na na na: a banger!! strip away my friend 9/10
bulletproof heart: a good song but not a strip song 1/10
sing: sorry this song is [REDACTED] it gets no score
planetary (go!): you could try to strip to this but it’s such a classic four-on-the-floor that i think you’d end up just regular dancing to it and forget to be sexy so 4/10
the only hope for me is you: are you doing a strip tease for michael bay. stop. put ur shirt back on shia lebeouf 0/10
party poison: like this is a hilarious option and i support you but realistically it’s pretty fast for a strip song 3/10
save yourself, i’ll hold them back: this is a safe option. Too Safe. almost soulless. a person who’d strip to this would avoid eye contact the entire time and never smile and later when you went out for a smoke break you’d overhear them on the phone with their ex arguing over child support payments. 4/10
s/c/a/r/e/c/r/o/w: the more i think about it the more fun the idea of stripping to this becomes so i say go for it 6/10
summertime: i’m Certain that gerard would prefer if you didn’t -5/10
destroya: is this objectively the best mcr song to strip to? Absolutely. it’s got everything you could possibly want right down to built-in moans and fever dream drums. but the only person in the universe who Can Must and Should strip to this song is gerard. sorry them’s the breaks. ∞/10 but only if you’re gerard way
kids from yesterday: don’t. 0/10
vampire money: 100% yes you should strip to this. bonus points for stealth twilight references 1000000/10
we don’t need another song about california: do i like this song? yes. is it sexy? no. 0/10
black dragon fighting society: i can’t understand what the FUCK gerard is saying in this song AT ALL so i can’t recommend that u strip to it b/c i have no fucking idea what it’s ABOUT 0/10
f.t.w.w.w.: i mean. this song is about eating pussy. and robots that are built specifically to fuck. so yes you can strip to this but you gotta dress up like a pornbot 100/10
mastas of ravencroft: again i cannot understand most of the fucking words and the ones i do understand are something something RICKETY BONES RICKETY HANDS so like. probably not the one 0/10
boy division: i could go either way on this one like it’s really fast but it’s also about cocaine so??? 3/10
tomorrow’s money: while this song slaps overall violent nihilism does not a strip song make 1/10
ambulance: no. 0/10
gun.: antiwar messages are sexy but not the right kind for stripping 1/10
the world is ugly: PLEASE no. 0/10
the light behind your eyes: oh my god this is so DEPRESSING why would you want to strip to this who hurt you -2000000/10
kiss the ring: yes yes yes it’s got built-in audience participation conceit factor if u let ur audience kiss ur ring, totally works 10/10
make room!!!: again, slaps, but not a strip song 1/10
surrender the night: dude we talked about this!!! dying violently w/ ur loved ones is Not Sexy!!! 0/10
burn bright: i guess you could strip to this but again it’s Too Safe tread carefully 3/10
fake your death: i want frank iero to strip to this song so i can throw tomatoes at him for being a LYING SACK OF SHIT FOR TWO YEARS i’m not gonna rate this one but frank if ur out there i have a basket of slightly squishy heirloom tomatoes and i am COMING FOR YOU
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SCK / Edser Asks - mostly 31
(Asks under the cut, there are some spoilers and speculation in there so tread carefully if you don’t want to read that)
Anonymous said: Based on the photos of epi 31 that were released, I saw a theory online that said maybe Deniz bought Eda a star (picture she's holding a certificate paper). Gosh I hope not. That's an Eda and Serkan thing.
It seems to me that buying a star is so specific to Serkan and Eda it either can't be it, OR if is it then they (Eda and Deniz) are doing it to purposely troll Serkan and push at his jealousy buttons, since even if he doesn't remember it, he knows he bought her a star. I can't imagine Deniz sincerely buying her a star and surprising her with it, because there is no way that goes over well with her, but who knows. I'm done pretending I know the limits of what this show will do, lmao.
Anonymous said: A lot of fans think that Deniz is proposing to Eda but that's one huge box for a ring! I feel like maybe he's been keeping things that are from their friendship over the years and is gifting her that. But I hope not, because I like to think of Serkan being the sentimental one over things related to Eda. Thoughts?
This scene may have to do with Deniz letting Eda know his real feelings, maybe, but why would he propose so soon, in public when they're already fake engaged, and when he knows Eda is still in love with Serkan? And you're right, it's way too big for that, perhaps it's something from their childhood? idk. I'm having trouble working up any interest in what Deniz might put in a box, because zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. He's boring.
Anonymous said: Although I have no context for the situation that leads to Serkan asking if Eda is happy in the next episode, I still need her to answer honestly. Now that they both have calmed down, had time to adjust to the current situation and he is clearly interested in getting to know her, she needs to tell him exactly how she feels about everything. Heck, totally okay with a comment that “she would have fought for him and their relationship if he had ever given her a chance.” He remembers their kiss, he is having flashes of her and wants to spend time with her, her expressing interest & opening up has to hit differently this time. And if he still says he is going to be with Selin then I do not even what the point of this storyline was 🤷🏻♀️.
Yeah, I'm pretty in line with you on this. I would love it if Eda was completely, emotionally honest with him in a moment like that. But my fear is that Eda's pride, understandably wounded by his engagement to the psycho, will get in the way. Our girl doesn't like to appear vulnerable, we've seen it too many times. And being honest about their feelings is NOT how they fell in love the first time around, is it? Nope they were both too terrified to admit it, until push came to shove.
As far as the point of the storyline, its to show us that Serkan will fall in love with Eda even when the circumstances are completely stacked against them. To that end they have STACKED everything they could against them. So I think the only thing we can do is have patience. There’s no doubt what the endgame plan is, in show time it’s only been a few days, we need to give Serkan a minute to let the war between his heart and brain play out. I think this episode is going to show us a Serkan who is drawn to her and SHOOK by her. And Selin seeing all of that.
Anonymous said: yeah, i think the amnesia plotline is especially hard to watch rn because of selin's presence and her and serkan's "relationship" and that's where most of the frustration around current eps stem from. altho, i have seen ppl get mad that he's not remembering from "key moments" in their story and somehow it ruins a part of their story and idk.. i just disagree bc clearly there's a plan there for what triggers his memory and when it happens.. and i feel like something has to be coming soon there
Oh, yes, I completely disagree with anyone who thinks that he needs to be remembering moments to prove his love. What bullshit. HE HAS A BRAIN INJURY. It’s AMNESIA. It’s not a choice. It’s not a diss on their love. I’ve noticee that there are legions of fans out there who don’t get the, “If I lived 100 lives, I’d fall in love with you 100 times,” and keep thinking that him recovering his memories is going to be the silver bullet that fixes thing. I don’t think so. I do think he’ll get them back eventually, but seems to me he’s going to need to fall in love first. Which hopefully will become more fun to watch, because that’s pretty damn powerful.
Anonymous said: I was just thinking, it kinda sucks we never got to see what Serkan's other two wishes were. Obviously that's all gone and forgotten and the way the story is going now, Serkan may have to offer Eda 3 wishes for hurting her after the memory loss. It would be interesting to see how that would go (it could be for humor purpose or could actually be meaningful for their relationship). Your thoughts?
Oh, yes, I wish we could have seen what the rest of the wishes were. It was a really fun construct that they didn’t play out. Probably a victim of the change in writers around that time. Since none of the wishes could violate the contract, I really don’t know what Serkan was going to ask for. I think when all of this is said and done, Serkan’s going to have to grant more than 3 wishes for Eda...
Anonymous said: Think I will take my lead from you and stay positive about SCK. And I am going to believe the next episodes is full of great moments between Eda & Serkan that are actual steps back towards each other. Totally get that it has only been 3 days in the show but the weakest part for me has been how tightly Serkan is holding onto his relationship/engagement to Selin...yikes! It makes me cringe seeing his arm around her. I get that was his defense mechanism but it left Eda heartbroken with nothing to work with. Now he has softened, acknowledged her talent and his interest in her and after realizing he is totally jealous about her being with someone else then he needs to put an end to his engagement with Selin.
Oh yes, CRINGE CITY. I can barely look at her. Ugh. The arm around the waist is the worst! But I think you’re right, it’s his defense mechanism. He’s using it to keep distance with Eda who scares the CRAP out of him. Poor dummy.
Anonymous said: “the barnacle on the ass of this show” 😂😂😂😂 Thank you, I needed that laugh, and never has Selin been better described. Those spoilers I’m reading better not be right 😤
Okay, I'm loath to get into spoilers, but are you talking about the Selin fake pregnancy rumors? I think those are more speculation than spoilers (however the last two weeks the end of the ep hasn't been in the spoiler drops, but then leaked out as prevalent rumors, so.... maybe happening again?)
Anyway @echoapothecary and I talked this through with the spoilers yesterday and I think this rumor does work with the spoilers and it might not be so bad if it happens the way we speculated. Of course all of this is predicated on these spoilers being correct, and who the eFF knows. Spoilers:
The end of the episode is not in the fragman
The end is a bomb
The final scene is bad but it will come in handy because it will serve to unmask Selin (the start of her downfall)
So with those spoilers... I do think the cliffhanger bomb could be Selin telling Eda she's pregnant. But notice that key point... telling Eda.
Selin is going to be freaked out after seeing Serkan's interest in Eda grow all episode, and she’s supposedly going to witness something that happens between Edser on the boat. So by the end of the episode she probably feels him slipping away and will be beyond desperate. So I could see her dropping one big bomb, a hail Mary pass, that she thinks might drive Eda away and even out of town.
So if she did that would definitely be a “bomb” and it would also be “bad” from the audience perspective. Now to it “coming in handy because it will serve to unmask her.” I’m pretty sure she and Serkan have not had sex since the accident. The show went out of their way three times to show us they aren’t sleeping in the same bed. So once Serkan finds out what Selin said, he’s going to instantly realize she told one whopper of a manipulative lie to Eda. And if that happens it suddenly calls into question every single thing she’s told him since he called her after the accident. Hence, unmasking begins.
So if that happens, and Selin tries to manipulate Eda into giving up, I could see Eda deciding to leave town. Selin might even tell her Serkan doesn’t know because its too much right now on top of the amnesia, so it’s up to Eda to step back and so Eda won’t mention it to him and expose her lie. Who knows. If it happens I expect it would be resolved in 32 after some angst and some dramatic Serkan and Eda moments (imagine him going after her if she’s trying to leave and he finds out why from someone like Melo or Deniz).
Anyway, is this what’s going to happen? WTF knows. Speculation is never correct, it could be anything, but it seems right in line with the melodramatics this show has been going for since the plane crash. Selin is rumored to be leaving soon, so if this is how we get rid of her soon, fine by me. I just want her off this show BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
#sck spoilers#edser#sen cal kapimi#Sen Çal Kapımı#sck episode discussion#sck 1x31#sck speculation#sckask#asklizac#anonymous
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Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Ah thanks to those who are reading this story! Love you all ☻
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Y/N Pov:
After getting dropped off by Atsumu, I check my phone to only see 20 miss calls from Semi.
Yikes, he probably thought I died or something...
I decide to call him back.
" Hello. "
" Y/N WHAT HAPPEN TO YOU! I WAS TRYING TO FIND YOU ALL OVER THE PARTY! " he shouted through the phone.
" OK FIRST OF ALL CALM DOWN! I'M OK DON'T WORRY! "
" Thank GOSH! I REALIZED YOU WERE GONE AROUND 3 am?! "
" Wow what a nice friend realizing I was gone after 5 hours at the party! " I say with sarcasm.
" HEY! AT LEAST I REMEMBER?! "
" YEA! You right... " I laughed.
" OH ALSO?! How did you get home your car is still at the Venue?! " Semi asks confused.
" WELL! A guy name Atsumu helped me out when I was completely out! "
" ATSUMU?! THE VOLLEYBALL PLAYER?! LIKE THE REALLY GOOD ONE?! "
" Yea?! The one with the twin! "
Why is he so surprised?
" DO YOU GUYS KNOW EACH OTHER?! "
" No, we just met last night! How do you know him ?" I asked curiously.
" We used to play volleyball together in high school same with his brother Osamu! Also, Osamu catered for the party! "
" Hmm, interesting... Well, I met Osamu at his restaurant."
" Osamu is the calmer twin but he still pretty crazy, on the other hand, Atsumu is a big flirt with the girls watch out!" Semi laughs on the phone.
" Yea not interested. "
" Haha, that's a loss for him! Anyways you need a break from volleyball players. " Semi laughs.
" Yea I do! Alright SEMI SEMI I'm gonna get going now I have to finish a couple of things from work. Also, I need to cure this hangover before tomorrow. "
" Ok then ILL LET YOU GO! BYE! "
" Bye Semi! "
We both end the call.
Now I need to find a way to get my car before noon because I have tons of work to do.
I can't ask Semi to take me there because he staying at a friend's house, I can probably ask Kenma to help me. I haven't seen him in a while so maybe we can catch up a little also.
I shoot a text to Kenma.
Texting on phone:
Y/n: “ Hey are you free right now? “
5 minutes later
Kenma: " yea why? "
Y/n: " Do you think you can come over right now?!
Kenma: " I don't see why not. "
Y/n: " PERFECT! "
I put my phone down on the counter and change into different clothes because I was still in Atsumu shirt.
I guess I'll be keeping the shirt until we meet again, or if we ever.
30 minutes later
I hear my doorbell ring, and it was Kenma.
" KENMAAA COME IN! " I say happily."
" Hey what's up its been a while! " he says as he went in for a hug.
" Nothing really.. "
" Bs I heard you and Kageyma broke up.. "
" FROM WHO?! " I say confused.
" Hinata... "
" OH YEAAA HIS BESTFRIEND... "
" Yea, he didn't really tell him but Hinata suspected when he texts him " how are things going with y/n, " and let's say he didn't take it well. " Kenma said in a conflicted tone.
" WHY did he not take it WELL! He the one who broke up with me?!" I say angrily.
" Did he ever tell you why he broke up with you? " Kenma asked.
" No, he just said I dOn'T LOvE yOu aNyMoRE "
I’m so annoyed right now why is he acting like the victim.
" That's it? " Kenma was surprised.
" YEA! "
" Oh wow, I really didn't think that the reason like... Strange."
" Who cares, I don't like him either. "
Obviously, I was still hurting but it's fine I don't need him.. Screw him.
" If you say so! "
Kenma Pov:
Yea no she still likes him...
Y/N Pov:
" Enough about him... DO you want to help me get my car?! "
" Wheres your car? " Kenma asks confused
" UH well, It's at a Venue.. "
" Did you go to a party or something? "
" Yea Semi had a party yesterday and let's say I got a little too wasted... BUT don't worry someone helped me out... "
" Uh, who helped you out? "
" I don't know if you know him but he is also a Volleyball player, his name is Atsumu the last name is Miya? "
" Wait a minute the one with the twin? "
" YEA HIM!"
" Are guys friends?! " Kenma asks
" No, I literally just met him last night. "
" Atsumu is a nice guy he just a big flirt. "
" THAT'S WHAT SEMI SAID?! "
" Well, it's because he is always out with a new girl every week. "
" Yea no thanks... " I say weirded out.
" Ok, so are we going to get your car?! " Kenma asks in a bored tone.
" Ok, let us go! "
I got into Kenma's car, luckily the venue is only 20 minutes away.
" AHH MY Precious car!! " I shouted.
" SHEEZ be louder next time will ya. "
" Kenma stop being grumpy... " I say as I try to keep in my laugh.
" Yea whatever go get your car now! "
" Already kicking me out... "
" Yes! "
" AH YOUR SO COLD! " I laugh
" Ok well thank you Kenma! We actually need to hang out ok?! "
" Fine... We will one of these days. " he smiles.
I get out of the car, wave to Kenma then I get in my car.
Finally, I can go home now and start working on projects.
After the 20 minute drive, I get in my house and start working on the three projects.
Meanwhile At this time:
Atsumu pov:
I'm sitting on the couch, my phone started buzzing uncontrollably.
What the heck.
I flip my phone over only to see texts from my friends. I open up the group chat and see something unexpected. A PHOTO OF ME AND Y/N IN THE CAR ON “ THE PEOPLES “ TWITTER PAGE.
The big 4 :
Sakusa: Oh so is she another new girl?
Bokuto: Already Atsumu?!
Hinata: Isn't that Kageyama's ex!
Me: NO NO THEY GOT IT WRONG WE ARE NOT GOING OUT!
Me: ALSO HINATA DID YOU JUST SAY?! KAGEYAMA EX?!
So that's who broke her... What a small world.
Sakusa: Sure that's what you say about every girl..
Bokuto: Can we get a Rip
Hinata: Rip.. Also Yes
Sakusa: Rip
Sakusa: Damn already making moves on a girl who broke up with her boyfriend.
Bokuto: Wow..
Hinata: HAHA I WONDER HOW KAGS IS GOING TO REACT TO THIS..
Me: CAN YOU GUYS STOP THAT?! YOU GOT IT ALL WRONG...
Sakusa: Ok then if she, not a random hook up who is she, and does she know she on " the people's " Twitter account label as mystery girl?!
Bokuto: YEA DOES SHE KNOW!?
Oh my, we just met and she isn't going to like this.
Me: NO SHE DOESNT KNOW...But she was some random girl at the party Osamu was catering. I decided to help her out because she was alone and drunk so I took her to Osamu's house, so she can sober up. The next morning I took her home because she left her car at the Venue... I DIDNT THINK THE Paparazzi WOULD CARE SO MUCH?!
Hinata: Wow Atsumu that was nice of you.
Bokuto: ^^^
Sakusa: Well you're going to have to tell her or do something about it because we all know how crazy your fangirls get.
Me: Fine fine let me tell her right now.
After texting the group chat, I was about to text y/n only to remember... I don't have her number, but I think Osamu has her number.
I texted Osamu, now I have to wait for him to respond.
Now back to y/n :
Finally, I'm almost done with this projects...
Then all of sudden I get a text from Tendou.
I looked at my phone and I can't believe what I see... He sends me a screenshot of Me and Atsumu in the car... It was trending on Twitter. The title was " Star setter mystery girl? "
Texting On phone:
Tendou: I didn't know you guys were going out?
Y/n: OH MY GOSH? Please tell me this is a joke?!
Tendou: No I don't think so...
Y/n: WE ARE NOT GOING OUT... I MET HIM LAST NIGHT!
I explained to Tendou what happened last night.
Tendou: this Has to be the most miss interpreted picture ever. LMAO!!
Y/n: YEA IT IS NOW EVERYONE AT WORK IS GOING TO ASK ME... OH NO KAGEYAMA PROBABLY SAW THIS!
Tendou: HAHAHA.. WHO CARES HE BROKE UP WITH YOU... His loss..
Y/n: YOUR RIGHT! BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE KNOW AS ATSUMU ANOTHER GIRL?! I DON'T EVEN KNOW THE GUY!
Tendou: Has he talked to you about it?!
Y/n: No HE DOESNT EVEN HAVE MY NUMBER?!
Tendou: Well this is going to be fun to watch...
Y/n: NO it's NOT..
I stressfully put my phone down on the counter...
What I'm I going to do?! HOW DID I GET INTO TO THIS MESS?
I hear another notification go off on my phone... It was an unknown number.
Text message:
Hey can we talk?
Y/n: Who is this?
Atsumu: Its Atsumu
Y/n: NO WE CANT TALK DID YOU SEE TWITTER?
Atsumu: YES I KNOW THAT'S WHY I WANT TO TALK?
Y/n: Also? HOW DID YOU GET MY NUMBER?
Atsumu: OSAMU GAVE IT TO ME!
oh, yea I forgot I gave him my number.
Atsumu: WELL HEAR ME OUT! This will die down tomorrow, me and the team are leaving for Osaka in the morning so you don't even have to see me again.
Y/n: Sheez that's a harsh way to put it.
Atsumu: I mean if you want to see me you can~
Oh my, I can hear his flirtatious tone from here.
Y/n: NO!
Atsumu: AW you're SO MEAN!
Atsumu: ALSO I DIDNT KNOW Kageyama was your boyfriend...
Y/n: Who told you that?
Atsumu: Hinata! We play on the same team..
Y/n: OH Gosh NOW IT SEEMS LIKE IM JUMPING AROUND Guy to Guy...
Atsumu: YOU THINK IT MAKES YOU SEEM BAD? IT MAKES ME SEEM BAD TOO!
Y/n: Atsumu Shut up! Everyone knows you're a big flirt.. now I'm going to seem like I'm one of your little playthings.
Y/n: WHAT IM GOING TO SAY at WORK PEOPLE ARE GOING TO ASK IF WE HOOKED UP?!
Atsumu: I have an Idea.. What if we pretend we're dating?
Y/n: HUH?
Atsumu: It will fix both our reputation.. I won't be seen as the guy who hooks up with every chick and people at work can stop questioning you. There's a BONUS we can make Kageyama jealous... You can win him back.
Y/n: IF we do this... together in private we don't have to act as a couple right.. I just MET YOU...
Atsumu: Yea don't worry your not even my type, this should be easy because I won't be near you.
Y/n: DEAL!
Atsumu: PERFECT! Just let me know if anything happens tomorrow! Ill fill you in too!
Y/n: Fine.
I place my phone down on the nearby table.
WHAT HAVE I DONE? IS THIS REALLY GOING TO WORK?
Atsumu pov:
Why couldn't have it been with much cuter girl? Now no girl is going to talk to me.. Stupid paparazzi.
Chapter 5
#msby atsumu#atsumu x reader#miya astumu#hq atsumu#fanfic#haikyuu time skip#osamu miya#haikyuu x female reader#atsumu fanfic#haikyu timeskip#msby black jackal#msby four#hq sakusa#msby 4#atsumu x y/n
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It was Wednesday before; Now it’s Wednesday again - AUgust Day 8
Joker Prompt: coffeeshop au
Title: It was Wednesday before, now it's Wednesday again
Card Number: 016
Square Filled: "Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist" for Tony Stark Flash Bingo; I3: Time Loops for the Starkbucks Bingo
Ship: Bucky/Tony, Steve/Nat
Warnings: N/A
Link: Read on AO3
Summary: Natasha and Tony have to figure out how to get out of a time loop
@tonystarkbingo
Prompted by @shrinkthisviolet I hope it meets up to your expectations!
+++++++++++
Wednesday Special… Large coffee & a scone for $4. Natasha reads on the chalkboard behind the counter. Wednesday, July 18th. Natasha hates this day. All it is is bad memories and emotion. This was the day that Clint saved her by jumping in front of a bullet. The day that she quit her job with the CIA. The day that… she needs to focus on something else.
“Large black mocha for Natasha!” The barista calls, and she walks up to the counter to get it. She thanks him. Spinning, she slams into a wall of muscle and spills her blazing hot coffee over said wall of muscle.
“Ow fuck! OW!” The man she runs into yells. “Shit. That’s hot!”
“I am so, so sorry,” She says, grabbing some napkins from the counter and dabbing against his chest.
The man takes the napkins from her and mutters. “You should really watch where you’re… go-inng.” His voice trails off as he looks at her. “I probably should have, too. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Um, sure.” She follows him, surprised, as he takes her hand and leads her to a table. “I had a large black mocha.”
He winks at her and walks back up to the cash register. He speaks a few moments with the barista, who nods. When he gets back to the table, he tells her. “They’ll bring it over, so you don’t spill it again.”
“Haha very funny.” Natasha rolls her eyes. “I’m Natasha. I am sorry for spilling my hot coffee on you. Are you sure you don’t want me to run you to the ER?”
“No thank you, I’m ok. My body can stand a little hot coffee.” The man smiles a blinding gigawatt smile. “I’m Steve.”
“Natasha.”
“Stark! You better have an explanation!” The guy two tables down from them shouts and rises from his chair. Steve turns a bright red.
The barista quickly comes out from behind the counter, a drink in his hand. “Oh, Buckyboo, what seems to be the matter?”
“This is not my fucking coffee. Who the hell drinks pumpkin spice mocha, especially in the middle of the summer?” His glare somehow grows darker as the barista approaches him. “Tony, I swear…”
“Relax sweetcheeks. I accidentally gave you my drink. Here’s yours. Now sit with me while I’m on break.” Tony smiles sweetly, and the so-named “Buckyboo" grumbles as he sits down across from him.
The other barista whistles. “What a way to flirt, dumbass!”
“Don’t be jealous, Platypus! I love you, too!” Tony blows him a kiss. “Platonically,” he says as if explaining to the man across from him.
Natasha is taken aback at the unprofessionalism of the baristas when she notices that Steve’s head has been in his hands since the whole exchange started. “I am so sorry. My friends are the worst. That’s Bucky, my best friend. He and Tony have this – I don’t even know what to call it -”
“Great love of the ages" Tony butts in.
“Anyways, Bucky is all tightly wound because he doesn’t know how to flirt.”
“That’s for damn sure!” The other barista says, and Tony whines. “Rhodeyyyybeaaaar.”
A police car wails past the shop, waking Natasha from her trance. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I have to go.” Natasha puts her hands up. This craziness is not her cup of tea.
Steve puts a hand up but doesn’t touch her. “I’m sorry. Can we just start over? Hi, I’m Steve. I would say I’m sorry for getting in your way, but I think that fate brought us together.”
Well, this guy is very cute. He seems nice. “I guess.”
They sit and talk for a while until Natasha has to leave for work. The day goes by like normal, and she goes to bed. The next thing Natasha knows is she is standing at the counter at the coffeeshop, waiting for her coffee. Glancing up at the chalkboard, she reads: Wednesday Special… Large coffee & a scone for $4. Wait, yesterday was Wednesday…
“Large black mocha for Natasha,” The barista calls, and she steps forward to claim her coffee. What the hell is going on here? Thanking Tony, she spins and slams into Steve, spilling her coffee on his shirt.
“Ow, fuck. OW! Oh shit. That hurts!” Steve yells. Just like yesterday. Natasha looks around wildly.
She grabs napkins and dabs his shirt. “I am so so sorry.”
“Maybe you should just watch where you’re go…inng.” Steve once again trails off when he looks at her.
“Actually, I probably should have, too. Can I buy you a drink?”
Natasha once again agrees, and Steve cracks a joke about her dropping another drink. Bucky angrily yells at Tony, who flirts shamelessly back. The cop car goes past. Steve convinces her to stay. She goes to work, gets home, goes to bed… and winds up back at the coffee shop!
“What the hell?” She mutters under her breath as she sees the Wednesday specials sign again. I cannot be stuck on this date. I cannot! She thinks as her anxiety skyrockets. Tony the barista looks at her weirdly, then calls. “Large black mocha for Natasha.”
She thanks him, spins and runs into Steve yet again. Everything happens the same as it did the past two days. I’m stuck in a fucking time loop! She growls.
As she heads to leave, Tony walks her to the door. “You’re stuck, too, right?” He asks.
“Wait. You’ve been having the same day, too?” She stops. “How long?”
Tony shoots her an exhausted glare. “Three fucking months. All the same, except that two days ago, you walk in. You’ve never been in here before. Why are you here?”
“Three months? I can’t be stuck like this for three months.” Natasha shudders. “I will kill someone.”
Tony’s eyes sparkle. “Oooh, maybe that will work. Want to try it?” He looks around the shop as if looking for the best candidate.
“How are you still so happy?” Natasha groans.
“I no longer care about this world. I can do literally anything, and it doesn’t matter. I’ve been trying to break this thing for three months. I’ve quit my job four times, I’ve cut my hand off on purpose, I’ve fucked Bucky on the counter – Steve was not happy but I was delirious, I’ve proposed to Rhodey like 6 billion times – he always says no and Bucky always crushes his portable cup, I’ve talked all day yike a five yeaw owld, and I’ve even come to work only in a loincloth. Nothing I do matters, and I have to not care, or I’ll go insane.” Tony grins manically. “Welcome to the madness.”
“There has got to be a way to break this, but I don’t know how. I don’t watch a whole lot of movies. How do they solve them in like Groundhog Day?”
“I don’t know. But in Naked, Marlon Wayans has to figure out who is trying to sabotage his wedding. In Palm Springs, they have to blow up the time loop thingy. I don’t know about any other time loop movies. Did someone curse us?”
“I don’t know. Is there someone we both know who hates us? Do you remember pissing anybody off before you got caught?”
Tony snorts. “I’m always pissing people off… it’s part of my brand. We just have to try new stuff, see if any of it works. Go to work and come back tomorrow. We’ll try new stuff. Next time don’t run into Steve. Let’s see if he notices you if not.”
Natasha leaves, goes to work, goes to sleep, and then she’s back in the coffee shop. Tony gives her the coffee, and she takes a step back to narrowly avoid Steve. “Woah! Are you o.. kayy?” Steve again stumbles on his words. “Can, can I buy you a drink?”
“I already have one, but I won’t say no to a conversation.” Natasha lifts up her cup. “Got a table?”
As Natasha and Steve sit, Bucky jumps out of his seat. “STARK YOU PIECE OF SHIT!”
Tony does a somersault over the counter, grabs Bucky’s coffee, and walks over to his table. “Hey sexy, take a seat. Here’s your coffeefee.” Tony pushes him down on the chair and straddles his lap. “Do you want to share it?” He takes a sip of the coffee and transfers it to Bucky’s mouth by shoving his tongue down Bucky’s throat. Bucky moans and reciprocates. Natasha watches in horror as Tony starts moving in Bucky’s lap, back and forth, up and down, until Steve screams “Enough!”
Tony shoots Natasha a smirk and slides off of Bucky’s lap. “Sorry Steve, I just love Bucky so much. I can’t keep my hands off of him.”
Steve shakes his head then turns to Natasha. “So, what do you do?”
“I’m an interior decorator. I’m in between clients at the moment, so I’m just sorting paperwork. How about you?” She knows. He’s a personal trainer.
Steve blushes a little. “Ah I’m a personal trainer. I know, it’s cheesy.”
“It suits you.” She leans on her hands. “You look great.”
She loves how easily Steve blushes. “Gee, well, thanks. You look good, too.” He scratches the back of his head.
They settle into an easy conversation, talking about a book they both read. She gets ready to leave to go into the office, and Steve asks, “Hey I know this is soon, but would you like to go out for dinner with me?”
She smiles and presses a kiss on his lips. “Sure. Let me give you my number. Want to meet tonight?” Tony gives her a thumbs up behind Steve’s back.
Natasha hopes that something different will stop her loop. Steve takes her out to dinner, but when she falls asleep that night, she ends up back in the coffeeshop. Tony gives her a pout when she returns. “Well, that didn’t work.”
“No, it didn’t.” Tony grumbles. “Now we have to think of other things.”
“What if we both reject Steve and Bucky?” Natasha wonders.
He shakes his head. “I thought about that. But I don’t want to do it. I’m afraid that if I do, it will be the time it sticks, and I can’t lose Bucky. He means so much to me.”
“Come on. Just try it. You can blame it on your meds or something. Everyone knows you’re in love with him.”
“Fine.” Natasha throws her cooled-down coffee in Steve’s face, and Tony pointedly ignores Bucky. Natasha goes to sleep, and once more is in the coffee house.
“See? Bucky doesn’t even know.”
He shoots her a glare. “You better be happy he doesn’t. I would kill you.”
A month goes by, and they are still stuck on the damn Wednesday. Natasha falls more and more in love with Steve. She knows he won’t remember her as much, and it hurts her. One day, Tony claps her on the shoulder. “Last ditch effort. You have to sleep with Steve.”
She spits out her coffee. “No, I’m not going to do that. He doesn’t even really know me, and I know too much about him. It’s not right.”
“Fine. But we’re never getting out of here.” Tony groans. Natasha can’t help but agree.
Natasha tries to think of any reason why she would be cursed to live the rest of eternity on this day. The worst date of the year. She hates July 18th with a passion. Tony sits across from her. “So, I had a thought.” He begins. “What if the time loop is trying to tell us something?”
“Did something traumatic happen to you on this date?” Natasha interrupts.
Tony nods. “This was the day my butler died. And then, a few years ago, my uncle tried to kill me. Not a great day for me at all.”
“What if we have to let go? My partner was killed on this day. He took a bullet for me. I have not wanted to face this day ever since.”
“Seems like we’ve got some spiritualizing to do.” Tony comments. “I will see you tomorrow, Ms. Romanov.”
“How do you…”
“Know your name? I’m a tech genius who runs a multi-billion-dollar tech company. And you want to know how I know your last name.” Tony crosses his arms. “Honestly though, your last name is on your credit card.”
“If you’re a tech genius, why are you a barista?” Natasha is confused. She’s usually good at reading people, but Tony was closed off.
He grins. “Community service. I beat up a guy at a bar for hitting on a girl who didn’t want him. I work every Wednesday for about a year. Except that now, every frickin day is Wednesday.” Tony tilts his head and looks at her. “You don’t know who I am, do you. Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, at your service. Well I was a playboy until I met Bucky. He came in every day, and we flirted. I asked him on a date, and it went well, but after that, he seemed to shut me out. Steve told me that Bucky is very… maybe insecure is the word? He gets very nervous when he likes someone, and he clams up. So, I’ve been flirting with him. I love Bucky, Nat. I hope he feels the same when we get out of this.”
“Same with Steve. How fucked up is that – I am desperately in love with a man who won’t even know me?”
Bucky and Steve come in for their evening coffee. Tony latches onto Bucky immediately, leaving Natasha to talk with Steve. She has her normal evening conversation with him, when she hears Tony say to Bucky, “You probably will think I’m fucking crazy, but I’m not. You are because I’m crazy, and you’ve fucked me plenty of times. That’s beside the point. Listen Bucky, I love you. I love you so much, and I would gladly spend the rest of my days living in this hellish day if it means I can spend it with you.”
Steve looks over at them weirdly. “What’s going on with him?”
“He’s right. And I should say it, too. I love you with all my heart. I know you’ve only “just met me” but I have known you for like two months now. I love you, and if I have to “meet” you again every day, I will do so.”
“Okayyyy?” Steve looks at her like she has grown two heads. “I think I’d like to get to know you more before I just declare love to you, if that’s ok.”
“That’s more than fine.” Natasha smiles wetly. She kisses him goodnight and goes home.
The next morning, she wakes up… in her own bed. Pulling out her phone, she looks at the date. July 19th. Hallelujah. All it took was being emotionally vulnerable? She should have done that months ago. Quickly getting dressed and ready for her day, she runs out the door to the coffee shop. Tony is sitting at Bucky’s table, wearing a suit, not a barista uniform. “July 19th?” He asks.
“July 19th.” She confirms. A voice behind her clears its throat. She stiffens because she knows that distinct sound. Steve. Turning, she plasters on a smile. “Hello.”
“Would you believe me if I told you I remember the past three months? It’s kind of confusing because it feels like it’s been three months, but it’s still July.”
“Time loops do that to you.” Tony grins.
Bucky takes his hand. “Did we actually fuck on the counter?”
“Multiple times.” Tony tells him. Bucky nods with an approving smirk on his face. “Awesome.”
Steve shudders. “I’m glad I don’t have that memory. Oh, and Natasha? I love you.”
#coffeeshop au#time loop#romanogers#steve x natasha#winteriron#buckytony#tony stark bingo#tony stark flash bingo#Starkbucksbingo2020#au_gust_2020#i write!
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Survey #289
“life by life / waste to waste / i’m the harbinger, the master of decay”
How often do you watch the news? Never.
Would you rather read the news online? Yeah.
Speaking of being online, what website do you visit the most? YouTube.
Have you ever held a snake? Plenty.
Ever caught a turtle? What about a crawfish? Turtles, yes, as a kid. Please do not take animals out of the wild for no good reason, people. I never touched crawfish because they looked scary lmao.
Have you ever eaten gumbo? Idk what that is.
Or do you not like spicy food? I enjoy spicy food, but not nearly as much as when I was a teen. Back then, I loved the adrenaline rush, now I just wanna enjoy my food like a normal person, lol.
Do you own a bottle of hand sanitizer? Do you like how it smells? Does anyone NOT at this time? Or even before, really? But anyway, no, I don't like the smell.
Do you own a pool table? What about an air hockey table? Or a foosball table? Okay so one of the coolest things we had when I was younger was this table that had different "tops" to change out to turn it into various games like these. Like, it was all in one. I don't THINK we still have it?
Do you live with your parents? Are you cool with that? I live with my mom, and right now, it's the better idea for many reasons. I feel like shit about it, though. I'm nearly 25. Even if I was financially independent though, I would not be able to handle living all alone with my depression and all.
When did/when do you want to move out? Hopefully when I have a stable job and long-term relationship.
Have you ever been on a cruise? No.
Are you better at catching or throwing? Probably throwing. I can't catch for shit.
Do you ever play computer games? Just WoW nowadays.
Did you used to have a lunchbox? Yeah, I went through a few.
How often do you/did you bring your lunch to school? Whenever I didn't like what was on the menu. And mind you, I was and still am very picky.
What was/is your favorite school lunch? I think the chicken sandwiches.
When was the last time you wore a hat? What kind of hat was it? Oh yikes, who on Earth knows. It has to have been years. Maybe a Carolina Hurricanes one to a hockey game I went to with Dad. I don't really wear hats.
Have you ever tried to ghost hunt? If so, did you catch anything? No.
Do you prefer gold or silver? What about diamonds or pearls? Earrings or bracelets? Necklace or rings? Or are you not a jewelry person? Gold; diamonds; earrings; rings (I think). I don't care all that much about jewelry, though.
Have you ever made jewelry? Not really, just kiddy crafts stuff.
Do you have any unique hobbies? Meerkat RP.
Have you ever broken a window? If so, what with? I don't believe so, no.
Have you ever had surgery? If so, what on? Yeah. I had tubes put in my ears as a kid, and I had a cyst removed from... directly above my ass lmaoooo. Pilonidal cysts are awesome.
Do you know any boys named Ashley or Lesley or Lynn? I don't believe so.
Do you prefer coffee or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate, for sure.
Do you like green tea? Tea is gross.
Do you like to play Freecell? What about Hearts? Or Mahjong? I only know Mahjong, and I've never played that. I used to watch Mom play it on the computer as a kid, though. Idr the rules.
Does your family own guns? No.
Have you ever been given flowers? Were they from a relative or someone special? Both.
Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle? No, and I doubt I will. I'm not like... really scared of them, as a matter of fact they seem really fun, they're just too risky for my liking.
Have you ever seen a dead body? At an open-casket wake, yes.
What does your umbrella look like? It's just an ordinary black one.
Is anyone you know pregnant? HOLY FUCK, I think 90% of my Facebook friends are preggo. It seems like EVERYONE is expecting. Ha, one of my closest friends is legit pregnant with triplets after JUST having a son... She's in for a ride.
Does your family do reunion gatherings? No, we're too spread out.
What would you order to drink if you were in a bar right now? A strawberry sangria sounds pretty great.
When was the last time you had a first kiss? I'm guessing you mean like, my first kiss with the last person I was with? A few summers ago when we were out on the porch making s'mores and dancing like some cheesy fucks lmao.
How many homes have you ever lived in? If you don't count the apartment I wasn't an official resident of or staying with a friend for a month due to homelessness, we just moved into our fifth. Or sixth. It's too early when I'm taking this for math.
Have you ever donated money to charity? Yeah.
What’s your favourite type of exercise? Swimming.
How many jobs have you had? Three or four... I'm not even sure because they were so incredibly short because fuck me and my anxiety, right?
Who do you stalk the most through Facebook? Nobody.
Have you ever deleted your Facebook, then brought it back? No.
Write the first song that pops into your head: Well, I'm listening to "Freak On a Leash" right now.
Has anything interesting come for you in the mail lately, besides bills? Nah.
What is your main responsibility each day? Making sure my cat has food, water, and a clean litterbox.
Do you feel like you fulfill those responsibilities? Yeah. I've slacked on the box before on bad mental health days where I can barely force myself to do anything, but I'm usually on top of it.
Were you in the wrong during your last argument with someone? I don't recall what my last argument was. I think something w/ Mom.
What bands did you used to love, that you don’t listen to much anymore? Hm. It's pretty rare I leave behind bands I've LOVED, so.
Are you counting down to anything? tomorrow crihmus
When was the last time you used spray paint? Oh, I have no idea. Maybe for an art project in HS?
What color are the chairs at your kitchen table? Brown.
Have you ever or do you plan on donating to any charities? Which ones? I've donated to some you would like pass by in the store if I had some spare coins or dollars on me, and when I cut my hair to as short as it is now, I donated it all to Children With Hair Loss. One of my most cherished memories is getting the certificate that it was used. I'm sure there's more, especially for school, but idr them. I 110% want to donate to charity streams when I have my own income source.
Do you believe that life only gets harder or easier? I mean, this depends on your unique life.
Do you know the middle name of the last person you kissed? Hm. I don't think Girt has a middle name, and I don't think Tyler ever told me because he was embarrassed by it. I know Sara's.
Have you ever had sex with 2 different people in the same week? No.
Who is the friendliest person you know? Probably my friend Girt.
Last song you listened to? "Milk and Cookies" by Melanie Martinez is on rn.
Something that annoys you about summer: Just ONE thing???? Just about everything does. The only thing I enjoy is all the flowers. Well hell, that's even mostly a spring thing. It's mostly just... plain green in the summer. At least here. Too hot for damn flowers to survive.
Something that annoys you about winter: The fact that if it snows here, we get barely anything at all. e_e
Are the doors of your fridge side by side or on top of one another? Side by side.
When was the last time you burned a body part other than your hands/fingers? I actually just burned the roof of my mouth yesterday.
If you’ve moved out of the house you were born in, do you know the people who live in that house now? Nope.
What’s one food that you eat more than twice a week? Definitely some form of bread.
Do you like zombie movies? No opinion, really.
What's the grossest/worst thing you’ve ever seen in a public restroom? UGH. This one time I was in the bathroom with Colleen (it's a girl thing lmao) at a gas station, she did what she normally does and checks under the seat, aND IT WAS COVERED IN BLOOD. It was fucking disgusting.
What’s the most wasteful thing you regularly do? Ugh... use plastic bags when disposing of Roman's "business" in the litterbox. I feel absolutely awful using one every other day. If I wait any longer than that, Mom gets mad.
What’s the most difficult apology you’ve ever had to give? Probably to Jason via that letter. That honestly wasn't that difficult after having fully accepted I fucked up too, though. I don't generally find it hard to apologize when I know I was wrong.
Have you ever volunteered in a hospital? If not, would you ever want to? Fuck no. They depress the hell out of me.
What was your worst Halloween costume? Idk, I don't remember almost any of mine.
When was the first time you can remember feeling mature? When I checked into the doctor by myself. Yes, I know how sad that is at nearly 25.
Have you ever had a disappointing Christmas, or any disappointing holiday if you don’t celebrate Christmas? As a kid, there was just one where I was disappointed in what I got. SO fucking ungrateful looking back on that shit. I can't even imagine feeling anything like that now. I cherish Christmas deeply, especially now with nieces and a nephew who experience such joy at Christmastime, and I get to see my dad and his wife and stepson, too. At this age, it truly is about family to me.
Do you have any character bandaids in your house right now, or just plain ones? I think we may have some princess ones and some "boy" kind for if the kids are ever over. AKA never because their dad is far more concerned about only including his family in their lives. I don't think Ryder's ever even visited our house, and he's like, four years old. My sister's husband's parents live directly down their road, but still. It hurts Mom and I a lot that we don't seem to matter when it comes to visiting *us*.
Have you ever had to give a pet away? Yeah, plenty of times with our old cat nest.
What's the junkiest junk food you’ve ever eaten? I dunno, probably something at Disney as a kid.
Did you play pretend a lot as a child? Were there any recurring plots or themes? Yeah. I had my "good guys" - a family of alligators, deer (um they were married and had kids don't ask me, man), and some Pokemon figurines - and three big dinos that were the "bad guys."
How do you feel about runny egg yolks? Egg yolk is fucking repulsive. The one and only way it's going down my throat is in scrambled eggs.
Has a teacher ever tried to teach you something that was undeniably wrong? Not that I remember.
If for some reason you had to give up one of your hobbies, which would you choose? I dunno, I have so few already... Maybe World of Warcraft? I almost quit it recently anyway because I was bored and yet it took up so much of my time, but it'd be hard now with a new expansion having just come out with soooo much to do. Man... I dunno.
Have you ever hidden a relationship from your family? No.
How much do you know about first aid? No more than the average joe, really.
Which of your relatives do you know the least about? Sadly, probably my dad's oldest daughter. I know only two things about her with certainty.
Have you ever meditated? If so, did it do anything for you? Yes, and all it does is make me fidgety and lets me think too much.
When was the last time you got ice cream from a truck? Hm... maybe when I was at a beach when I was on vacation with a friend? I was like, a pre-teen then though, so it's been forever.
Do you know any sex workers? If so, how do they feel about their job? Not that I'm aware of. And honestly, I have mixed feelings, but I think I lean more towards it being just fine so long as boundaries are set and there are very clear understandings with each other. And you ABSOLUTELY need to be safe about it. I'd far rather people get off with a consenting individual than in... y'know, other ways. It's not my business, anyway.
What’s the biggest art project you’ve ever attempted? How did it go? In high school, I did a huge acrylic painting on burlap of meerkats grooming. I am to this day still so proud of it; I worked so hard on it. I love how the fur came out, especially. I do wish I could do over the background, though.
What kind of wild animals do you see most frequently where you live? Excluding the obvious birds, there are tons of squirrels, and you see opossum and racoon roadkill a lot, tragically... Every now and then, you'll see deer in fields in the morning or dusk.
Have you ever cooked anything other than s’mores over a fire? Yeah, hot dog.s
Are there any items in your house that you use for something other than its intended purpose? I'm positive there's something. Probably everyone has an example. OH! Looking in just my room, Venus' terrarium has saran wrap covering the top to help keep humidity in.
What do you hope the afterlife is like? Really, I go back and forth between hoping it's like... this state of nirvana and where you reunite with loved ones and experience infinite peace if deserved, or just the entire lack of existence anymore. I wonder sometimes if I'd want to be sentient forever. But, with me believing in a spirit realm, I don't think the latter is the case.
What’s the worst behavior you’ve ever seen from a child? I think I once saw a kid smack their parent's arm or something? I don't really know.
Have you ever planned an act of revenge? "No, but i daydream about it." <<<< Ha, yeah, I have.
Do you and your parents share any of the same hobbies? Yeah. Mom surprised me when she told me she likes writing (even though I never see her do it), and Dad likes video games.
Do you have any physical photo albums? Yes.
Would you feel comfortable working at a sex shop? NOPE.
Who was the worst friend you ever had? It's funny, Colleen did incredible things for me, but she also fits this description, too...
Have you ever campaigned for a political candidate, or otherwise played an active role in an election? I mean, I voted, does that count?
What’s the coolest hand-me-down you’ve ever gotten? What about the best one you’ve ever given? I have no idea.
Do your parents and grandparents get along with each other? Dad got along perfectly fine with his parents, but my mom and her mother had a rocky history. Grammy treated her awfully sometimes. They'd been fine for many, many years, but Mom could never forget some things and always felt like she wasn't "good enough" in her eyes. I'm pretty sure Mom got along just fine with her dad.
Do you have any framed photos of your pet(s)? Yes.
Do you share photos of your pet(s) on social media? Um, duh.
In 3 words, describe the last male you talked to. Who WAS the last guy I talked to...
Do you own any of your favorite films on DVD? Which one(s)? No.
Have you watched anything on Netflix lately? No. The last thing I did on Netflix was watch the first episode of The Witcher, and even though I liked it, I didn't continue. I just... don't enjoy watching TV, especially if it really requires you to pay attention.
Have you ever heard someone snoring and thought it sounded cute? Besides animals, no.
Are you particular about what you eat? In what way(s)? Yeah, I'm VERY picky, especially with textures.
Is anyone close to you particular about what they eat? In what way(s)? Yes, my niece. She's autistic and has the symptom of being incredibly picky with things like textures, too. She is the one child I have ever known that doesn't really like eating.
Is there someone in your life who can always make you smile? Always, no.
Have you worn lipstick at any time recently? What color? No. I last wore black forever ago just to take pictures.
Do you like wearing eyeshadow to match the color of your clothes? No; in the very rare instance I put on makeup, the eyeshadow is always black.
What song reminds you of your childhood? Jesse McCartney songs, for sure. And Backstreet Boys.
What’s your least favorite month? Maybe August. I'm sick and beyond tired of summer by that point. Nothing exciting going on.
What do you do when you’re bored in class and not paying attention to the teacher? When I was in school, I honestly always paid attention because I wanted to pass.
Have you ever baked a pie? No.
Last person you shared food with? Mom.
Do you know any mechanical stuff about cars? Definitely not.
Were you smiling in the last picture taken of you? I don't think so, if that witchy photoshoot was the last time I had a pic taken of me.
Do you answer the phones at your job? I did at two old jobs.
Were you a hyper or mellow kid? I was kinda hyper.
What are you drinking? Would you believe me if I answered "water"?????
Did you get any compliments today? No.
What last made you laugh? I think a moment in a WoW stream I was watching last night.
Which of your friends is the easiest to talk to? Sara.
What was your best summer ever? /shrug
Do you have a favourite sibling? No.
What color is the blanket/quilt on your bed? Navy and black.
Favorite milkshake flavour? Just chocolate. Sometimes I'm in the mood for vanilla, though.
Best year of your life? 2017. It's funny how that year started with a suicide attempt but wound up being the best year of my life. NEVER hestitate to reach out for help when you need it.
How loud do you like your music in the car? Too loud lmao.
Prefer to write or read? Write.
Favourite apps? Pokemon GO, haha.
What is a fruit you refuse to eat? Absolutely refuse? Maybe like, cantaloupe.
Would you rather gain weight or lose weight? It'd to fuckin fantastic if I could lose 100 pounds. :^) I gained like thirty since moving...
Would you rather gain height or lose height? Gain a tiny bit, I guess? But I'm fine with where I'm at.
Are both your eyes the same color? Yes.
Do you like glittery things? Yes, but not touching them and getting glitter everywhere.
Ever watched a play in the theatre? Yes, at Disney World and also for school field trips.
How many followers do you have on instagram? A depressing amount for someone desperately trying to be a photographer lmaooo. I mean I don't post on it a lot, so that doesn't help, but yeah. My secondary photography account (for roadkill/vulture culture stuff) has more than my main one.
How about twitter? Don't use it.
How much would I have to pay you to get you to do karaoke? I don't know, I'd be terrified of embarrassing myself.
Last time you went ice skating? Never.
Painting or drawing? Drawing, by far.
Art or science? Now that's tough, but art.
Dancing or singing? Dancing.
History or geography? Geography is interesting.
Favourite season? Autumn.
Do you watch Supernatural? I did up to the end of Season 6. I loved it, I just was losing interest in TV, and also Jason and I broke up (we always watched it together) so I didn't want to watch something triggering memories.
If you could change your eye color would you? Yes, to either a pure sapphire blue or emerald green.
Are both your ears pierced? Yes.
Are you lying down? Yes.
Is there a tv in your room? No.
Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Yeah.
Do you like fortune cookies? Yeah, they're oddly tasty.
Do you have anxiety? You fuckin bet I do.
Favorite clothing shop? RebelsMarket.
How do you feel about peeing in a cup at the hospital? Is it embarrassing? No? It's too normal to be embarrassing. I mean I wrap toilet paper around it so you don't actually see, y'know, but I'm not embarrassed carrying that.
Do you prefer fruit or vegetables? Fruit, by a long shot.
What do you hate being called? "Bee." An old best friend who did nothing but lie about her entire life called me that.
What color is the last car you were in? White.
Ever studied abroad? No.
Ever pulled out a tooth? Yeah, when I was a kid.
Three celebrity crushes? Mark Fischbach, Link Neal, Hannah Hart.
Ever been married? No.
Are you proud of yourself? In most ways, no.
Do you like grapes? Yep.
How often do you cook for your family? Never.
Is anyone in your family a lawyer? My cousin is, actually.
Is anyone in your family an architect? Don't think so.
Own any crystals? No.
Favourite thing to write with? (pen, pencil, highlighter) Pencil.
Top 5 favourite alcoholic drinks? I don't know, I haven't tried enough that I actually enjoy.
Would you date someone bald? Yeah.
Would you date someone who doesn’t want kids? I don't want kids either, so that's the only kind of person I'd date. That's something you can't really disagree on if you plan on lasting.
Do you like candles? Sure.
Favorite memory with a sibling? I dunno, probably something from when we were little kids playing together.
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Umbrella Academy
season 2, episode 5
As usual I'm going to put all my reactions and live-blogging in this one post to avoid spamming.
1962, Cape Canaveral
So Pogo is from Congo?
Wait, is that Grace? is Grace some sort of biologist or scientist?
Is Pogo supposed to be one of the chimps for the space program?
I love this song. Oh look, there's Reggie!
Oh, that nod between Reggie and Grace... What are they up to?
Yep, definitely the space program.
Little astronaut Pogo... Wait, what's happening?
Who's the shady guy in the sunglasses behind Reggie?
Aww, poor Pogo...
SO THAT'S WHERE THE SERUM USED ON LUTHER CAME FROM! I figured but it's still interesting to see the origin.
Oh, there's the ancient Greek! Did Reggie read to the kids like this too? I doubt it but one can hope.
So Reggie and Grace basically treated Pogo like their child... And Reggie was actually a decent parent... ? Dude, you couldn't do that for your actual kids?!
Wait, does this make Pogo the seven's big brother? 😆
And there's the Magnificent 12. Oh, Pogo's drawing is so cute.
Five really is onto Lila... and he's right!
Diego onto Lila as well!
Hungover Klaus 😅 and Ben asking what we all want to know but it comes from a place of love and concern. Still sassy though.
Why won't Klaus just tell Allison that he is talking to Ben? Also, cowboy? Is that a comic reference? Or just a Texas reference?
Oh, I love Ben and Klaus banter. XD
Klaus does have a point, Allison.
*Allison throws the flask away* Ben: "attagirl!" Allison: "i have a blender and some much better booze" *cue Ben sulking*
"I love you so much!" Awwww, Klaus-Allison bonding! ❤️❤️❤️ this show is really giving me everything I want, huh?
Sissy and Vanya in bed together 👀😏 that's hot.
So she brought her coffee and then took the coffee away? XD
Is Vanya offering to take Sissy to the future? 👀
Oh no, Carl!
They have a point, Five. Everything starts taking apart at soon as you arrive. Repeatedly. I actually pointed this out yesterday.
You're burning the eggs, Luther.
"That boy stinks" poor Luther 🤣
Where exactly was Luther going? Chicago? Detroit?
Wait, is that the academy pre-academy? Wait, so it's not in Texas??? Then what about Argyle? What the hell? I'm so confused now. 😵
Luther, you need a bath.
Reggie in a party xD that must be an odd sight for Luther.
"The world's never going to end in such a cliché. Believe me. I know how endings feel" -what does it mean???? Does it mean he knows how the world ends? Or does it mean politically as a member of the 12? Is it a double entendre? Foreshadowing? Does he have some sort of prescient power?
Still want to know who the shady guy in the shades is.
"No, you're not" "no, you're not" "no, i didn't" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
"I have a deep dislike of children" -yeah, we been knew. 😒😒😒
"your grotesque simian proportions"??? Those are entirely your fault, Reginald! 😠
"But...i took a bus" - oh, honey... Luther, you adorable, naive, sweet, innocent, awkward little dork... Let me hug you, i don't care if you stink! 😢
Man, Reginald is still such an asshole. (I'm glad for that though, I was afraid this season would try to play the 'he wasn't really so bad, just misunderstood' card and that would piss me off, you can show him actually caring for the children but no excusing goddamn child abusers in this house!)
"At least he didn't shank my ass" "no, bro, he shanked your heart" -awww, dudebro affection. Diego does have a sensitive side!
I didn't realize i needed Luther-Diego bonding this badly but i do. I really, really, really do.
"It's time to get the umbrella academy back together." "hell yeah, family meeting." -since when is Diego so happy to get the family together? 😆
But hell yeah, let's get the family back together!!!
"you two still a thing? Do we need to talk?" (Diego's face though 🤣) "no, she's married." "Whoa, dude. That's rough."
Diego is the new Zuko, it all lines up!
"I can handle it" he nervous chuckles while stress eating in a stolen robe, after ruining his own life and getting in trouble with the mob and getting high.
"can you get Vanya without, uh, squeezing her to death?" - ouch 🤣
I'm loving the boys bonding.
Yikes, Sissy looks so uncomfortable with Carl...
"Harlan doesn't care" -oh, he does, he reeeeally does, you just can't read the signs, you clueless dumbass.
Oh, the powers... Oh, Harlan initiating touch with Vanya! Boy is more perceptive than they think.
Why does Sissy look so scared?
Sissy's reactions to Carl have been suspicious from the start. She's given a lot of red flags (the anxiety, the body language, the hoarding money in secret, the reluctance to speak up, the desperation to keep Vanya near her at all times, etc) and I've wondered if he's been abusive but he seems more pathetic than purposely malicious, he even showed vulnerability and admited to loving her and fearing that she doesn't feel the same, so I was starting to think Sissy's fear and paranoia had more to do with a fear of Carl leaving her (and thus taking away the only income and leaving her and Harlan with nothing).
However, I'm rethinking things and I'm starting to suspect abuse again (at least psychological, if not physical)... I think the only reason we don't see it yet is because Vanya is there and Carl won't act out on front of a witness.
I could totally be wrong though, I could be seeing signs that aren't there because of my own issues. We'll see.
Is... Is Handler actually a good mother?
Nevermind, she's gaslighting.
But she cares enough to give first aid and admit she lied so... Definitely a better parent than Reginald at least. I actually want her to be a decent parent, I'm tired of the narrative where villains all have to be abusive parents, villains can love too and that makes the story so much more complex and dramatic when people finally have to choose sides.
Felt, Diego's knife... what is she up to?
Sandpaper, steel wool, round metal parts, skewers, spray lubricant, and something cylindrical with the name of a plumbing service? Is she making pneumatic canisters? The ones the Commission uses to send messages?
Also, what's with Commission training and using plumber stuff? Five also used a plumbing company's van in season 1.
Elliot really likes Jell-O, huh? Very 50s housewife of him.
"how are feeling?" "Pretty shitty, to be honest" "Where would you say you are on a scale from one to ending all life on this planet?" 🤣🤣🤣 They are never going to let her live this down, are they?
I need more Vanya-Diego bonding. ❤️
Diego accepted Vanya's apology???😲 AWWWWWWWW 🥰🥰🥰🥰
Diego about to ask girl advice from his sister? So cute, why did they interrupt, I wanted to see that! 🥰
I miss Diego's nervous stutter though.
"you don't speak French" -doesn't he? If Allison can read seven languages, logically so can all the others, right? And Klaus is constantly using French and German, how are you telling me he doesn't know French? 😆
"did we all get sexier?" -pretty much and you're not done yet.
Aww, awkward Vanya-Allison hug... Let them bond! 💖💖💖
Klaus and Diego hugging!!! And Diego calling him out on being drunk like the overprotective brother he is 💖💖💖
Klaus hugging the girls! 💖💖💖
So much love. So much growth since all the bitterness from season 1. I NEED MORE OF THIS, DAMN IT!
Who knew it took Vanya snapping and killing everyone for this family to finally bond?
OH COME ON, KLAUS! Just tell them poor Ben is there, that's so mean.
Ah! Allison and Diego with pure sibling banter. 💖
What is with the Handler family and red shoes?
Handler's style changed a bit, went from retro femme fatale on s1 to matronly debutante in s2... Interesting.
Don't hurt the kitty, you bitch! 😡
The Swedes have become crazy cat people. I'm starting to love these weirdos.
Is that their mama?
Pneumatic tube! CALLED IT!
Ah, I see. That's why she wanted Diego's knife. The Swedes are getting set up.
"oh my God, again?" ... "all of you knew? Why am I always the last one to find out about the end of the-- oh, my God. My cult is gonna be so pissed. Five, I told them we had until 2019!" -that's why you're the last one, Klaus, your priorities.
"is it Vanya?" "Klaus!" "What? It's usually Vanya." - one time. you end the world ONE TIME and nobody ever let's you live it down.
"find dad" "kill dad" -well, Diego learned from Five *shrugs*
"has anyone here done anything to screw up the timeline?" -literally everyone except you, Vanya.
( well, unless saving Harlan with your magic lights messed up the timeline...)
Yup, here they go calling each other out. Hilarious 🤣🤣🤣
"THANK you" - I love Ben 💙
Diego, you idiot, saving Kennedy is what wrecks everything! Stop being stubborn.
Aww, traumatized Five... Please just listen to him, he just wants to save you all because he loves you 😢
Five deserves more love from the family. PLEASE.
Wow, Luther is reeeeally bitter about daddy, huh? What is Lila doing?
"I've missed you all... So much" BEN! 😭😭😭😭😭
Ok, now I'm crying.
Klaus, let your brother talk to the rest of the damn family, he misses them! 😭😭😭😭
Yay, more Luther-Diego bonding!
"since the last time I destroyed the world by overestimating my own importance" -I'm so glad he owns up to this, it's very important but he needs to get over his self-hate and gain some confidence again.
Diego, stop acting like you don't have daddy issues, you are riddled with them.
Diego's hero complex again... Which comes from the daddy issues. Luther is right.
"you are so goddamn big that sometimes I forget what a sensitive bastard you are." 🤣🤣🤣 He's absolutely right!
Brotherly bonding ftw!
Oh, they got daddy's attention!
AHAHAH! Allison bitching and rambling while doing Klaus's hair, Vanya miming shooting the bottles ("pew pew" 🤣). I'm sorry but this whole scene is adorable as fuck.
Girl's day!
"wouldn't it be weird if Five grew up all hot?" 🤣🤣🤣 Klaus asking the real important questions here!
Vanya confused by the Luther/Allison crush 🤣 "aren't we all related?"' -yes, honey, that's why it's weird.
"if you have to use the word 'technically' you're already in trouble" -THANK YOU, KLAUS!
Klaus's ENTIRE speech about their love lives is the most perfect thing EVER 🤣🤣🤣👌👌👌💯💯💯
Really alarmed Vanya finding out she dated a serial killer: "what?!" / Allison, whispering casually: "Later." 🤣
"the healthiest long-term relationship in this family was when Five was banging that mannequin." 😂😂😂😂😂 The best part is- HE'S NOT WRONG
Vanya's weirded out face is priceless 👌👌👌
"the only thing the umbrella academy knows about love is how to screw it up" "cheers!" 💯👏👏👏
These babies really need a hug. Let me hug them!
"how do you guys deal with this?" -look at them Vanya, they day drink.
"well, I get reeeeally high, Allison... Allison... Lies to herself. And you supress all your emotions deep, deep down until you... Blow shit up." -Klaus really is serving up all the wisdom in this little outing, isn't he? Maybe being a cult leader actually did him some good? Or maybe it's just that his family is FINALLY listening to him.
"yeah, I'd really like to not do that anymore" 😂 -ah! Is Vanya graduating out of the awkward dork sibling category and into the sassy queen one?
Omg, the drunk decisions...
"I just hate group backups, that's why I stopped dating twins" 😆😆😆😆
"this family is amazing" - DAMN RIGHT, VANYA! ❤️🧡💛💚💚💙💜
Awww, the HUG! The DANCING! MY BABIES! Fav scene, fav scene!
I want to adopt this family so bad.
And here's the Swedes being set up...
There goes baby Swede! I kinda feel bad for them.
Uh oh, now they want revenge of poor Diego.
Gotta hand it to Handler, she played this one very well. Parallels Five tricking Hazel and Cha-Cha into fighting each other in season 1. Very cool.
BAD GUY! I like this version better than the original, great song and fits Lila perfectly.
Holy shit!!!!!!!!! We all knew Five had moves but THESE MOVES!!!!!! 😲
How did Lila do that? Is it with Handler's time stopping thing? I always wondered how she did that too.
Holy shiiiiiiiiit. This whole fight was FANTASTIC! 😲
Oh Vanya... 😢
Oh Sissy... 😩
Sissy has been so desperate to keep Vanya tied to her but the moment Vanya asks her to make the slightest sacrifice for their relationship Sissy balks and pulls away... Not a balanced relationship at all.
I understand Sissy's fear, it's not selfishness, it's literal fear of change, but it's still sad and it's going to wreck them.
Oh, so this is where the swedish cover of "Hello" comes in... Very fitting.
Viking funeral, huh?
Ok, I never thought I'd have feels for the Swedes but I do. 😢
Luther eating AGAIN. But hey, he and Diego didn't the whole day together! Why can't we see that too? I need more brother time between these two.
Oh Klaus, is so uncomfortable but he can't stand disappointing the cultists, can he?
Still shocks me how all those people just invaded his house while he was away and thought that was perfectly acceptable and cool, it shows they really don't respect him as a person, he's just an object to make them feel better and give them purpose... It's terrifying and really sad when you think about it.
"sit your ass down." -you go, Allison! Tell him everything!
This episode gave me SO MANY FEELINGS! It might read like (extremely good) fanfiction but it's exactly what we all needed and it might be my favorite episode so far.
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Happy 2019 all! I wrote up a drabble last year (hehe) inspired by the Christmas MM tree picture, and found the time to finish it recently! Because she is so wonderful, it comes with adorable art drawn by the wonderful @irageneveart!! Please check out her amazing work! I hope you enjoy some doll silliness, and there’s more to read under the cut!
“Yoosung, what is this?”
Zen opened a small box that Yoosung had just carried in. There were more boxes around his apartment, filled with Christmas tree decorations, ones that Zen always offered to hold so it’d be easier to bring to the party tomorrow. This box was new however.
“I bought those from a friendly old lady on the market! When I saw them, I thought it would be super cool to have them on our tree!” Yoosung said, putting down the last box and smiling when Zen held up their latest decoration for their party tree – a doll that looked exactly like him.
“Dolls? Wait, you actually have the entire RFA in here?” Zen grabbed another doll, one resembling Seven way too closely for comfort.
“Isn’t it great? I know we’ll see everyone tomorrow but this way we can all be together for the entire holiday! Err, on a tree, but still!”
The dolls were simple, but detailed enough that Zen could recognize each of them. He especially liked the Zen doll, in its ponytailed glory. Damn, Yoosung has some quality decorating skills, he thought. Taking them out one by one, he came across the only doll that could made him frown.
“Ugh! Yoosung, did you have to have one of the Trust Fund jerk as well?” He dangled the Jumin doll by its leg far away from him, as if it were diseased.
“I knew you’d complain about Jumin, but we wouldn’t have the RFA without him, Zen.” Yoosung calmly stacked the other boxes against the wall. “Please don’t throw him away. I don’t think I’d find that lady again. If you want, I’ll take him with me.”
That made Zen huff. “Why the hell do you think I’m going to throw this away?!” Admittedly, the idea was tempting. The serious look drawn on the doll face made Zen narrow his eyes, locking them a staring competition he couldn’t possibly win. “Leave him with the rest, I promise you’ll have them all tomorrow for the tree.”
Yoosung smiled, clearly not convinced. “I hope so, Zen. Gotta go, good luck babysitting the RFA!” the blond waved and walked out of Zen’s living room, leaving Zen with the array of dolls piled on his kitchen table.
“Humph! Yoosung has no faith in me. You’re just a dumb doll, even if you are Trust Fund doll,” Zen poked the Jumin doll’s forehead. “I bet I won’t even remember you exist.”
***
It had to be Yoosung’s comment that kept him thinking of that damn jerk doll. That’s what Zen told himself when he caught himself glaring at Jumin doll for the 500th time. The dolls were packed back into the box, Jumin lying on top of the rest. Maybe he should bury it underneath everyone, Zen thought, and he picked it up. To his surprise, the doll felt warm to the touch, almost a mini heater.
Did Yoosung pack heat pockets into their cotton bodies?
The warmth was pleasant, especially with the cold winter air chilling his apartment and Zen not wanting to increase his heating bills. Jumin doll’s head was a bit too big for him to hold, but Zen had a good grip on his back, cradling it like a baby animal. The doll certainly was as helpless as one, and he used his other hand to make sure Jumin doll was held upright.
Zen snapped out of his wandering thoughts, realizing he had been holding Jumin for a while. Yikes. Weird. Quickly he dropped the doll. He wasn’t that desperate for heat.
***
He changed his mind once he sat down in front of the tv. Sitting still made him colder, even with two sweaters on. Zen considered surrounding himself with all the dolls, but something in him felt that was too weird. The only doll he had with him was Jumin’s. Jumin doll seemed even warmer now and Zen couldn’t figure out why. He pressed into different parts of the doll, ignoring the reality show on the screen in front, wondering what it was filled with.
“Would it kill you to smile?” Zen asked. The doll’s smile remained a straight line.
Jumin doll’s clothes were really fancy, its tiny suit made from actual suit-like material, complete with black shiny buttons. The cotton hands were smooth and pleasant to the touch, possibly silk. Zen wondered what Jumin doll looked like underneath the fancy clothes. He undid the buttons and started to tug off the jacket covering the shirt before he stopped himself.
What was he doing? Surely he didn’t want to see Jumin, even if it’s a doll, naked. It’s just curiosity over doll craftsmanship, he told himself. But Yoosung would kill him if he ruined the student’s hard work, so he re-dressed the doll.
No harm done, Zen observed. Yet he still felt embarrassed. The reality show had ended long ago by the time he snapped out of his odd mood.
“I’m not obsessed.” he said to the doll. The doll said nothing back.
***
Okay fine, he was a little obsessed. The night made the temperature drop further, and now he was lying in bed with Jumin doll, questioning his sanity. He could just get another blanket. He could fill a hot water bottle. He could exchange Jumin doll for Zen doll, which would be perfect for him. But he didn’t want to.
There was something serene and comforting, the way Jumin doll cuddled close to his chest, large head pressing into his cheek. The part of Zen that was awake wondered if it had been too long since he last dated. The part of Zen that was nearly asleep wondered what it would like to cuddle Jumin, if he’d feel just as warm, if those expensive pajamas he must undoubtedly wear was just as smooth.
His bed must be covered in cat fur. Would he clean it for… visitors?
The sane part of him would’ve loved for Zen to run outside into the cold to kill that curiosity once and for all. One did not imagine Jumin Han in bed of all things, and certainly not what he’d do to bed partners.
Before Zen got to chastise himself further, those thoughts let him drift to sleep, arms wrapped closely around Jumin doll.
***
All the dolls dangled on the large Christmas tree, and Zen found it cute yet slightly morbid to watch them smile in between the other sparkly ornaments. Jumin doll was halfway up the tree, and Zen thanked his lucky stars he didn’t manage to wrinkle the whole thing in his sleep. It was bad enough he hugged a doll like a kid, but Jumin dolls of all dolls… A shiver ran up his spine.
Everyone around him was busy putting up decorations in the large party room. In the corner of his eye, he saw Jumin and Jaehee approach. Jaehee, giant clipboard in her hands, gave him a big smile while Jumin was his boring, serious self.
“Way to be late, CEO-to-be.”
“I had a few last-minute calls to make.” Jumin’s gaze fell on the dolls. “What are these?”
Zen rolled his eyes. “What does it look like?”
Jaehee, visibly unsettled, touched her own doll. “Are these… voodoo dolls?”
Now considering it, Zen could see why she came to that conclusion. He shook his head and laughed. “No way! Yoosung made them.”
“I hear my name.” Yoosung comically poked his head out from behind the tree.
“These are quite well made. Yoosung, have you considered selling custom dolls?” Jumin remarked.
Just as Zen wanted to yell at him for only thinking about money, Yoosung replied: “Oh no, I didn’t make them! Like I told Zen, I bought them from a very sweet lady on the Christmas market. When I saw they looked like us, I had to get them!”
The three of them froze to stare at Yoosung. Zen was the first to react. “Wait a minute. They already looked like us?!”
“Yes?” Yoosung cocked his head.
“And you didn’t think that was incredibly weird?”
“No? Actually, I did think she underpriced them. Do you think I should have paid more?” Yoosung fretted. “I didn’t want to rip anyone off, but I was so happy to find gifts for everyone within my student budget!”
Zen knew if he facepalmed right now, it would hurt his face.
Jaehee was in a state of light panic. “Oh my God, they could be actual voodoo dolls! We should remove them from the tree! What if something happens to them!”
“Hold on, hold on, it might just be a lady who happened to have visited an RFA party and made dolls out of us.” Zen was aware how much creepier he made it sound. “I mean, none of you felt anything strange yesterday, right?”
Jaehee and Yoosung both shook their heads.
“Now that you mention it…” Jumin furrowed his brows, making the hairs on the back of Zen’s neck rise. “Last night, during the evening meeting it got colder for a few minutes, as if I suddenly had no clothes on. And then when I was trying to sleep, I felt something press up to me that I couldn’t see. I would have been more worried, but it was very warm and… pleasant. Different from Elizabeth’s comfort, yet close.” Jumin’s eyes softened for a second before it vanished, but Zen didn’t miss it. “I don’t suppose-?”
“I think that’s just coincidence Jumin. Zen didn’t touch the dolls after I brought them. Right, Zen?” Yoosung asked.
“Y-yeah, of course,” Zen chuckled awkwardly, while inside his mind he was freaking out. “It’s not my fault Trust Fund has an overactive imagination.”
Jaehee’s frown remained but thankfully dropped the subject to check other party details with Yoosung. However, Jumin narrowed his eyes at him and Zen wondered if he knew, that somehow Jerkmin knew what Zen had done last night.
Zen had never excused himself so fast.
At the end of the party, Zen made sure to collect all the dolls. Placing all of them safely in their box, he hesitated when he held the Jumin doll. Then he quietly shoved it in the inside pocket of his jacket, questioning his sanity even further.
Unbeknownst to him, Jumin watched a few meters away, and when Zen conveniently lifted the box to hide what was in his jacket, a smirk formed on his face. He decided to leave early, looking forward to another interesting night.
#juzen#zumin#juminzen#jumin x zen#mystic messenger#mysme#fanfic#fanfiction#fanart#bear is as always the most amazing person#forcing me to put the art in my post lmao!#;D#I have one request for a drabble that I will work on#for the rest I'm in a bit of an arty mood#so you will probably see that more soon :3
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The Stories We Write (Four)
TSWW MASTERLIST HERE
**************************
“Stevie.” Bucky reached out with one hand, flailing about until he caught the seam of Steve’s pants as he passed by. “Stevie, who’s Yoolyn?”
“I dunno Buck.” Steve switched directions the second Bucky tugged at him, more than willing to all but collapse into Bucky’s arms, stretching out on top of him and puckering his lips for a kiss. “Who’s Yoolyn?”
“Hi.” Bucky said softly, more than happy to give Steve the kiss he wanted. “But I’m actually asking. Do you know who Yoolyn is? The name keeps coming up in this fic and I dunno who it’s supposed to be.”
“Is it a crossover fic?” Steve peered at Bucky’s tablet curiously. “Sometimes the X Men crossovers can get weird.”
“No it’s a crossover.” Bucky frowned at the screen. “The characters name is Yoolyn.”
“Bucky!” Steve’s eyes widened. “Are you reading— is that a threesome happening?? You and me and Yoolyn? BUCKY!”
“What?” Bucky defended. “It seemed harmless! We’ve talked about threesomes! Can’t hurt to read them right?”
“It certainly can hurt because that’s super weird.” He declared. “It’s weird that you’re reading about us having sex with some stranger. Why the hell—“ Steve cocked an eyebrow. “What does Yoolyn look like?”
“Dark hair and dark eyes and apparently we like their ass.” Bucky confirmed and grinned when Steve suddenly looked interested. “Yeah, I know. Definitely our type and that’s why I wanted to read it. But I gotta say, having the name Yoolyn is throwing me off! Who is that?!”
“Let me see.” Steve scanned the fic for a few seconds. “This right here? Y/L/N?”
“Yeah. Yoolyn.”
“…have you googled it? I feel like Y/L/N isn’t pronounced Yoolyn.”
“Well what else it could be!?” Bucky wrinkled his nose. “And also? I’m a little shy to google after the whole mpreg incident.”
“Understandable. Yikes.” Steve thought for a minute. “Well you could google which character is named Yoolyn? That way we’ll get some context without turning up anything scary?”
“Okay.” Bucky leaned in for another kiss. “I’ll let you know what I find.”
“I bet it’s an X men.” Steve said confidently. “Yoolyn totally sounds like an X men name.”
*********************
********************
Bucky rolled up a magazine and thwapped Steve on the side of the head as hard as he could, scowling down at his boyfriend as Steve sputtered hot chocolate everywhere.
“Bucky! What the hell?”
“It’s not Yoolyn!” Bucky hissed. “It’s not Yoolyn at all! Yoolyn isn’t a real person! They aren’t an Xmen!”
“Okay, I’m not understanding why you’re so upset right now.” Steve snatched the magazine and tossed it away. “Or why the hell you beaned me with a magazine. What is wrong with you?”
“Do you know what a reader insert is?” Bucky gestured towards his tablet in what could only be consternation. “Do you!?”
“I think it’s fairly obvious that I don’t.”
“Well learn about it!” He dropped his tablet in Steve’s lap and stabbed a finger at the screen. “Read this. Read it.”
“Fine.” Steve cleared his throat and started reading out loud.
“Hi (Y/L/N)” Bucky slapped you on the back as he passed, but it was okay because Steve caught you when you fell.
“The fuck, Barnes.” you scowled.
“What?” he asked.
“I have a first name!” you shouted, crossing slender but strong arms over your bosom, smirking when Bucky’s eyes fell to where your breasts were now straining at your shirt. You might be pissed at him but that didn’t mean you couldn't tease him, right?
“Easy (Y/N).” Steve cut in, his own blue orbs trained on your more than bountiful breasts too. “Bucky don’t mean nothing by it.”
“I sure don’t doll.” Bucky winked charmingly and you went all gooey inside. “Just thought it was more professional to call you by your last name.”
“But we’re sleeping together.” you scowled again, trying to pretend you were still mad. “You can call me something besides (Y/L/N).”
“Well let me make it up to you.” Bucky backed you to the wall and you moaned when his hot stick rubbed into your thigh, an intimate reminder of how he’d taken you so passionately last night, your insides quivering with dewy arousal--
“What in the fuck am I reading?” Steve made a face. “What is this?”
“It’s called a reader insert.” Bucky supplied helpfully. “Apparently Yoolyn? Not Yoolyn. It’s ‘your last name’.”
“My last name?” Blankly, Steve obviously not getting the point.
“Yeah, so you don’t read it like, ‘Hey Yoolyn!’ like I was doing.” Bucky explained, and then added, “You know, like a dumbass? It’s ‘Hey, Barnes’ because Barnes is my last name.”
“Oh.” Steve’s expression cleared. “OH! Reader insert. The writer putting themselves into the story, like they are a part of our every day life.”
“Exactly.”
“And um--” Steve looked back at the fic. “Do all of them have you pushing your hot stick into their thigh or…?”
“I dunno, seems like a lot of them talk about your blue orbs.” Bucky shot back. “And don’t even get me started on dewy arousal.”
“And like, they know we’re gay right? So why does the reader have bosoms?”
“It’s not like we haven’t been with girls, Stevie.” Bucky countered. “I mean, we’re probably more like bisexual than gay, yeah? It’s not that far of a stretch for girls to write stuff about us.”
“Right, right, I know but--”
“And you’re one’ta talk about mentions of bosoms being weird. You got boobies bigger than Tasha, maybe it’s a guy reader who works on his pecs. Guys can have boobs, Steve, it’s the future now. These things happen.”
“Okay first of all.” Steve had to wait for Bucky to stop laughing at his own terrible joke before continuing. “First of all, please don’t call my pecs boobies--”
“Can I call them tiddy knockers?” A wicked smile. “Mebbe you’ll let me thrust wildly between them whilst wearing something scandalous and lacy?”
Steve sent him a look that was just shy of entirely disapproving in a fully Captain America way. “What the hell is wrong with you, Bucky? None of those things are happening.”
“I have been reading a lot of fics today, Stevie.” Bucky sighed. “Lots of them. Reader inserts are fascinating. The way people want to be a part of our lives is sorta… it’s sorta humbling.”
“Humbling.”
“Well yeah. I mean, blue orbs and velvet love stick aside--”
“VELVET WHAT?”
“-- I mean look at this one.” Bucky clicked back through his bookmarks until he found one for Steve to read. “Read this one. It’s a guy reader so no worries about errant bosoms waiting to jump out at you. And they don’t use the Yoolyn format, so it’s easier to get through. Read it.”
Steve grumbled under his breath, but shut up when Bucky budged up behind him on the couch and wrapped thick arms around his waist.
You woke to a light kiss on your nose, a brush of lashes on your cheek that could only be Bucky giving you butterfly kisses as the sun came up.
“You’re dumb.” you mutter and Bucky laughs quietly, the cool metal of his left arm curling tight around your waist to pull you closer. “And you have morning breath.”
“Super soldiers don’t get morning breath, sugar.” he argues, and covers your mouth in a longer kiss just to prove it. “See?”
“Damn it, you’re right.” You’re fighting a smile and Bucky kisses you again. “Super soldiers don’t have morning breath.”
“Don’t lie to him.” A warm, solid body presses up against you from behind, Steve’s voice morning-rough and growly in your ear. “It’s not some side effect of the serum, he snuck out of bed to brush his teeth so he’d be minty fresh.”
“It’s a side effect of the serum that you two are awake at this hour.” You try to hide a yawn in Bucky’s shoulder, but it turns into a shiver when Steve’s lips land on your neck, whisper soft over the dark colored hickey he’d left the night before.
“We’ll let you sleep.” he promises, tongue tracing a line around the shell of your ear. “Just wanted to say good morning.”
“You might let him sleep.” Bucky counters, and the hand resting at your waist falls to slide over your ass. “I fully intend on keeping you awake. Suns up, buns up baby doll.”
“Suns up, buns up!?” You shout with laughter, and Steve rolls away so he isn’t laughing right into your ear. “Bucky, no one says that!”
“I say it.” he argues and pulls you even closer, fitting a thick thigh between your legs and rocking against you purposefully. “Assume the position, sweetheart. Buns up. Let me get at that ass.”
“Oh my god.” Steve is back, pushing his own morning interest into your rear. “Baby, I promise that Bucky is more romantic than this. But when he’s horny…”
“He’s the only one that’s horny, huh?” you push your hips back into Steve playfully, then grind down onto Bucky’s thigh, and both the super soldiers groan in unison. “Well if it’s only Bucky who wants my buns up--”
“Aw, I want to play too.” Steve is mock pouting, and Bucky leans over to plant a solid kiss on his lips, murmuring something that you don’t catch, but that makes Steve laugh anyway.
It's more than a little unbelievable that you’re waking up in bed with Steve and Bucky. Just yesterday morning you had woken up alone, had gotten your coffee alone, had resigned yourself to yet another day pining over the two men you wanted most in the world-- two men that had each other, which meant that they wouldn’t want you.
And yet something had happened during just a regular movie night. A joke that had been a little more meaningful, Steve’s arm over the back of the couch lying just a little heavier on your shoulders, Bucky edging closer and closer as the movie went on. Hands had mixed in the popcorn bowl, a quiet but lewd comment made while you were licking the butter from your fingers, and turning to say something snarky to Steve had ended with your mouths pressed together.
It had happened quickly then, a kiss with Bucky when he turned you his way, Steve running his hands up your back, Bucky feeling up your thigh and wow it had been easy to fell into bed after that.
And now you were terrified that they would want another round for the morning and then disappear back into their own lives, leaving you pining and sad and dreaming of--
“You’re thinking too hard.” Steve interrupts your thoughts by pushing you gently but firmly back into the pillows. “What’s on your mind?”
“Um, nothing.” you lie, and those beautiful blue eyes darken in confusion.
“You’re lying.” he states. “What are you thinking about, sweetheart?”
“We don’t have to talk about it right now.” Bucky interrupts and you sort of definitely love him for it. “I’ll just have to give you something else to think about, huh?”
A hot mouth landing at your navel startles you, but whatever you were going to say next disappears as Steve covers your mouth in a kiss, a strong hand at your jaw, the other woven into Bucky’s hair and resolutely pushing him down your body until the feel of his tongue makes your vision white out.
They don’t have to know you already love them.
Just sex is fine for now.
“Wow.” Steve leaned his head back against Bucky’s shoulder. “That was-- that was pretty good.”
“Right?” Bucky dropped a kiss onto Steve’s ear. “And sorta sad, right? Like it really seems like they love us but don’t think we’ll love them, so they’re just going to sleep with us and hope that works? It’s sad.”
“It sort of is.” Steve checked the author’s name at the top of the page. “@youknowwhoIam. Is that someone we’ve read before?”
“Nah, I found them because another fic was listed as being inspired by them. They’re good, though, you know?”
“So we add reader inserts to the list of things we read now?”
“Uh maybe only reader inserts with male readers and no Yoolyn?” Bucky offered and Steve grinned up at him.
“What do you have against Yoolyn, Buck? Damn.”
“It’s difficult to read!” Bucky fussed. “Like my whole train of thought derails when I see it! Plus, they use weird words for sex. I feel like male readers don’t do that as much.”
“Yeah, quivering moist walls doesn’t really apply to guys butts, huh?”
“Captain America, the public would be horrified if they knew what a filthy mouth you have.” Bucky flicked Steve’s ear. “Also, never say quivering moist walls ever again, you understand?”
“I’ll say what I want, soldier, don’t you forget I outrank you.”
“Yes sir.”
“God, it’s so hot when you call me sir.”
“Yeah well don’t get used to it.”
“Have you ever actually said ‘suns up, buns up’?”
“Nah, but I gotta say, I’m looking forward to working that particular phrase into my every day conversations for sure.”
*******************
*******************
“Hey, don’t be like that.”
Bucky startled when you reached for his hand, linking your fingers with the silver ones and squeezing lightly.
“Uh hey.” he said lamely. “Sorry, I know we were supposed to leave but--”
“But you don’t want to go to the beach and are only going to make me happy?” You finish, and he flushes a dark red. “Bucky, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“You’ve been asking to go to beach for weeks now.” Bucky smooths his thumb over your bottom lip and you turn enough to kiss his palm. “Let’s just go. I’ll just… I’ll just wear a long sleeve.”
“Don’t.” You shake your head, heart breaking over the anxiety and nervousness in Bucky’s eyes. “Bucky, I think every bit of you is perfect, alright? Even your arm, even the scars, all of you.”
“Baby--”
“I’ve got scars.” you remind him, and his brow furrows at the reminder. “I’ve got shitty scars too, but I’m still going to go and people are probably going to look but I won’t care, you know why?”
“Because I’m scarred worse?” Bucky says bleakly and you cluck your tongue in annoyance.
“No, Bucky-bear. I won’t care because the only person I care about looking at me is you and Steve. And trust me, when you see my new speedo? You will ONLY be looking at me. And maybe Steve because I mean come on, who wouldn't look at that guy?”
Bucky finally smiles a little bit. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“Scars are just a reminder that we survived.” you shrug and lean in for a real kiss. “You survived and I survived, and somehow our big blonde idiot has survived everything too. That’s all.”
“Heya, Soldier.” Tony whistled and waved at Bucky and he looked up from the fic with a big smile. “Where’s Big and Blonde?”
“Out running with Sam again.” Bucky put his phone away and patted the couch next to him so Tony would sit. “Sam’s gotten real fast but Steve still feels safe slanging insults and snark as he passes him, so they keep doing it.”
He patted the couch again, raising his eyebrows invitingly and hoping Tony took the hint.
Steve had given him the go ahead to try and flirt with Tony if the right moment came along, providing Bucky didn’t quote fan fiction at the beautiful brunette and that a first kiss didn’t happen without Steve being present.
Steve had the same set of rules, but Bucky had included an extra guideline of no wrestling style flirting since Steve was in charge of the team's fitness regime and definitely wasn’t above trying to get handsy during a workout.
Steve wouldn’t use a headlock as foreplay and Bucky wouldn’t quote fan fiction and hopefully Tony would fall sway to their charms.
“You look tired.” Bucky explained when Tony only looked at him in confusion. “Come sit down, take a load off. I’m comfier than I look, I promise.”
“Comfier than you look.” Tony repeated, and maybe Bucky was reading too much into it, but the smile Tony gave him looked a little bit nervous and a whole lot excited. “Yeah?”
“Come here.” Bucky motioned for him again, and Tony managed a chuckle as he fell back onto the cushions.
“One of these days Sam’s gonna bring a dart gun and tranq Steve’s All American ass if he doesn’t let up.” He said confidently, and Bucky didn’t comment on the wobble in his voice. “Steve’s gonna wake up chained to a tree while Sam runs laps around him screaming on your left or something.”
“Aw I hope I’m there to take a picture.” Tony burst out laughing then, and Bucky smiled as he listened. Damn Tony had a great laugh. “Or at least there to watch Steve panic for a second before he remembers he can break out of handcuffs.”
“Hmm, Steve breaking out of handcuffs.” Tony sounded interested and Bucky’s eyebrows rose. “So tell me, if Spangles and Sammy are out running, what are you doing? I’ve seen you on your phone more in the last few weeks than I ever have. Find anything good?”
“Um--” Bucky coughed loudly. “I uh-- reading. Did you know there’s books online? Just blew my mind, whew. All them books. Right there online. Amazing.”
“Oh you downloaded the Kindle app?” Tony’s eyes widened the tiniest bit when Bucky put his arm along the back of the couch. “Yeah, that’s good stuff. I can get you an e-reader if you want? Who’s your favorite author? Or do you have a favorite genre? I can recommend a few things.”
“I don’t… have one?” Bucky hedged, and curled his fingers just a little bit to encourage Tony closer. “I’ve mostly been reading independent authors. Self published books, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, good for you.” Tony leaned in, then leaned in a little closer, and Bucky blew out a quiet sigh of relief when Tony was finally tucked under his arm, pressed right up against his body. “Um, independent authors definitely need support. Most mainstream literature is all the same, the independent or self published authors have some really great work though.”
“Yeah, I’ve read some pretty great things.” Bucky agreed, and tried to discreetly sniff at Tony’s head. All the fan fics talked about smelling someone’s hair and damn they were right. Tony smelled like something woodsy and maybe pine and--
“Are you smelling my hair?” Tony started to sit up, and Bucky hushed him quickly, pulling him back down.
“Uh nope, not ever. Definitely not doing that, because that’s ridiculous.” Bucky was glad Tony couldn’t see his bright red face. “Why are you so tired, honey?”
“Uh--” Tony tensed for a second and Bucky held his breath, hoping Tony wouldn’t pull away just because he’d been a dumbass and called him honey. “I’ve been in the lab working on a new suit.” he finally finished, relaxing back into Bucky’s hold. “Being picky about it, probably but I’m the one that has to fly it so it’s gotta be perfect right?”
“Oh sure thing, definitely has to be perfect. Makes sense to me.” Bucky lay a very careful hand at Tony’s back, and when the genius only sighed and budged closer, he started running his fingers up and down, over and around, drawing nonsensical patterns until Tony’s breathing started to slow down.
“You are comfier than you look.” The words were muffled into Bucky’s shoulder, Tony’s arm winding carefully around his waist. “This okay?”
“Sure thing, sweet thing.” Bucky whispered and held Tony just a little bit tighter. “Sure thing.”
********************
********************
Steve found them almost an hour later and his eyes widened when he saw Tony snoring quietly, curled tight into Bucky’s side. “Um… what?”
“He was tired.” Bucky knew his smile was a little goofy. “So he’s napping on me.”
“I want to sit too.” Steve kicked his shoes off and sat himself on the other end of the couch, lifting Tony’s feet into his lap. “How long has he been asleep?”
“I dunno, forty five minutes?”
“Lucky.”
“Tell me about it.”
Tony stirred then, blinking up at Bucky in sleepy confusion, then down at Steve with something like alarm. “What’s going on?”
“You’re napping.” Steve said calmly. “And I just got here so me and Bucky were talking. Go back to sleep, Tony. We aren’t going anywhere.”
“I’ll just go sleep upstairs.” Tony pulled his feet from Steve’s lap with an embarrassed smile and got to his feet stiffly. “Sorry for sleeping so long on you, Bucky bear. See you guys a little bit later.”
“No, Tony it's--”
“You don’t have to--”
“Really it’s totally--”
“Tony, wait--”
The elevator to the penthouse chimed and then whooshed as it went up to the top floor and Steve winced apologetically. “Sorry about that Buck. Didn’t mean to ruin the moment.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Bucky scooted over until he could kiss Steve hello. “Small steps, right? It was super sweet that he fell asleep on me, he’ll get used to us.”
Distracted by thoughts of Tony, and then by some hands on time with Steve, it wasn’t until they were in bed that night that Bucky realized Tony had called him Bucky Bear.
“Stevie.” he whispered into the dark. “You awake?”
“No.”
“Okay good.” He flipped on a lamp, and Steve muttered a curse as he hid beneath a pillow. “Stevie, has Tony ever called me Bucky Bear?”
“Not that I can remember, but probably.” Steve groaned over the light. “He’s got nicknames for everyone, you know? He’s got at least a dozen that revolve around Patriotism just for me, I’m sure he’s got a few for you.”
“Right.” Bucky nodded slowly. “I’m sure that's all it is. A nickname. Right.”
“Right. Now turn the fucking lamp off so I can go to sleep.”
************************
************************
“I’ve got you.” Steve’s breath is hot in your ear and it seems like such a simple thing, but you’re so overwhelmed that it still makes you shiver. “Ah, baby, I’ve got you.”
He’s strong and solid at your back, holding you securely on his lap and against his chest even as Bucky spreads your legs further open, hooking your thighs over Steve’s knees so he can see all of you.
“Fuck.” You whimper, and Steve’s teeth close over your ear lobe, tugging lightly to distract you from the way Bucky is just staring at you.
“Look how smooth you are.” he whispers. “You’re so pretty for me, sweet thing, holy shit.”
If you had a drop of blood left anywhere above your waist, you’d blush at such blatant perusal, but you’d spent an entire day getting ready for this, shaving and trimming and waxing until you were clean and smooth and ready for Bucky to do-- to do this.
“I can’t wait to taste you.” he rumbles and when a thick finger presses experimentally at your entrance, you nearly come off Steve’s lap.
“I’ve got you.” Steve is hard against your lower back, his cock thick and heavy where it presses into you, but his hands are gentle, loving as they smooth up your stomach to your chest, teasing and plucking at your nipples, moving back down to your hips to hold you still. “I’ve got you baby, relax, relax.”
You’re stiff, fighting for breath, for some shred of sanity as Bucky buries his nose in your thigh and breaths in deep.
“Hey hey.” Steve is still talking to you. “Baby, breathe out and relax. I’m strong enough to hold you, strong enough to keep you together.”
“Oh.” you breath out shakily and make a concentrated effort to settle down, letting your body go pliant in his arms. “I--I--”
“I’m gonna make you feel so good, sweet thing.” Bucky promises, and his tongue flicks out against your rim, a low moan when he tastes you. “Want you coming apart for me, want you screaming my name, and coming all over Stevie and--”
“Fuck.” Steve grinds up into you, his cock leaking and throbbing, burning a line into your skin. “Fuck that’s so hot. Can’t wait to see you come, baby. Gonna be so pretty.”
“Ready?” Bucky’s smile is wicked and knowing, but you know he wouldn’t even touch you without permission, so you gather your scattered thoughts for long enough to nod.
“Thank you.” he leans up and kisses you hungrily. “I love you.”
“We love you.” Steve corrects, and you laugh a little when Steve shoves Bucky’s head back down. “Now get busy.”
“Stevie.” Bucky hissed in his ear and Steve jumped. “You are definitely NSFW right now, take care of that before Tony comes in to watch a movie with us or things are going to get awkward.”
“Yikes.” Steve crossed his legs in embarrassment when he realized his situation was showing in his pajama pants. “Sorry. Got distracted reading.”
“Stop reading smut on movie night!” Bucky scolded. “For fucks sake, Steve have some self respect.”
Later, as Tony was snuggled between the both of them, knees touching theirs, teasing them in turn, Steve pulled out his phone and fired off a quick text.
To Bucky: Babe. Do you call Tony sweet thing?
From Bucky: Ummmm I did the other day when he fell asleep on me, why?
From Steve: No reason. Just curious.
From Bucky: Fan fiction is making you weird
From Steve: You’re one to talk. I heard you trying to growl the other day because the fan fics say it's sexy
From Bucky: Touche
************************
************************
“Please take the serum.” Steve’s hands are shaking as he holds yours, pressing the bottle against your palm. “Sweetheart, please. Please take the serum. There is no reason why you have to go through this.”
“I don’t want to take it.” You think you sound strong, but a tear tracks down Steve’s cheek and you know you didn’t sound as strong as you meant to. “I’ve lived my life, Steve. Lived it and loved it and I don’t need more.”
“That’s not fair!” Steve shouts and Bucky curses at him when you jump. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry but that’s not fair.” he shakes his head, gathers you closer. “Why should we say good bye when we don’t have to? That’s not fair to you and it’s not-- it’s not fair to us.”
His voice cracks then, and Bucky pulls him away, holding him in an unbreakable hug, whispering into his ear.
You feel guilty. Heartbroken of course, but more than that you feel guilty. You know you should take the serum, know that it would erase the sickness from your body and probably add another fifty years to your life and god do you want another fifty years with your husbands but--
“It might not even work.” you say quietly and it comes out like a sob. “I’m probably too weak to handle the serum and then it would do more harm than good to me. And even if it does work, I wouldn’t be young or fit or any of those things. You two would be as gorgeous as you always are, and I’d still be pushing sixty. You keep saying you want to grow old with me, but Steve it would just be me growing old. I don’t want that.”
“You’re being selfish.” he snaps and you flinch away from the anger in his voice.
“It’s his choice.” Bucky cuts in and you look up in surprise when you realize he is crying too. “It’s your choice.” he says to you this time, still holding onto Steve so he won’t break away. “I know you think the serum will kill you, will rip you apart. I know ya do, baby. I know you’re scared it will ruin you.”
Terrified, you think, but you don’t tell him that.
“And I know you’d rather go this way, than taken away sooner because of a bad reaction.” He continues and Steve makes a sound like his very soul is tearing. “I know you’re not being selfish, sugar but-- but--”
“But you think it’s the wrong choice.” you say, and Bucky doesn’t agree, but you know it’s what he’s thinking.
“Why don’t you just try it?” He is begging now, Bucky who has never begged for anything, who is usually content to let Steve be the emotional one. “Just try it, babe. Just a half dose, see what it does.”
“What if it ruins me?” you argue weakly.
“But what if it saves you?” Steve argues back. “What if it saves you and we don’t have to say goodbye for decades?”
Bucky lets him go and Steve stumbles to you, falls to his knees and puts his arms around your waist.
“Please.” he whispers. “Please don’t make me say good bye to you yet.”
“Stevie?” Bucky dropped his jacket and dove onto the bed, sliding right into full panic mode because Steve was crying on the bed, holding onto a pillow and gasping for breath through a sob and Bucky was panicking. “Babydoll what’s wrong? What’s wrong? Do you hurt? Are you sick? Did your cough come back? Is it your heart? Your lungs? The diabetes? What is it?”
“Bucky.” Steve sniffed loudly and scrubbed the tears from his cheeks. “I haven’t even had a cold since before the war, its certainly not diabetes, I’m not hurting.” He paused, then his face crumpled. “Not physically anyway!”
“Well for fucks sake what’s wrong?” Bucky bellowed, grappling at Steve until the big blonde landed in his lap. “How come I gotta walk into th’ bedroom and you’re cryin?”
“Ireadafic.” Steve mumbled and after a few seconds to interpret the rushed together words, Bucky’s expression cleared in realization, then reclouded in annoyance.
“A fuckin’ fanfic is making you bawl like this? WHY?”
“This writer!” Steve felt around for his tablet. “Whoever this @youknowwhoiam is? They wrote a soulmate fic where they’re in love with us and we’re in love with them and we’re all soulmates? But since we’re super soldiers and don’t really age…”
“We stayed young and they got old and sick and died.” Bucky finished and Steve nodded miserably. “C’mon Stevie, you know ya can’t read fics like that. You remember what happened when you read that one where they cough up flowers because of unrequited love or whatever? You were a mess!”
“I need to tell them I cried over this fic.” Steve blew his nose loudly. “I need an account so I can comment.”
“No one needs to know you’re crying over fanfic.” Bucky said firmly. “Comment anonymously cos I swear to Christ if you comment as Captain America I’ll break up with you.”
“Yeah, I probably deserve that.” He wiped at his eyes. “I just-- I feel like this author knows us, Bucky. They way they write? They get your sass and my emotions and I just--” he made a vague motion. “I dunno. Is it weird to feel like I know them?”
“Maybe a little bit.” Bucky acknowledged. “But you’re right, they write us a lot clearer than anyone else I’ve read. I’ve pretty much stopped reading anyone else.”
“I’m going to message them.” Steve decided. “Anonymously, but I’m still going to say something. This is beautiful writing and deserves a message.”
“You’re ridiculous and I love you.” Bucky rolled his eyes, but kissed Steve anyway. “Don’t come across as a crazy stalker when you write the message alright? And limit the keyboard smashes.”
“I don’t keyboard smash.”
“Aw, sure you don’t honey.”
**********************
**********************
There is mistletoe hanging above the door to the elevator and you smile when Steve and Bucky walk through it and promptly kiss.
Sure, maybe you feel a little weird watching them kiss, but they are both so beautiful, and so obviously in love and just so perfect that you can’t look away.
Steve is wearing a dark green sweater, ribbed and fitted and hugging that body in a way that makes you blush, but that’s alright because you can blame it on the eggnog.
Bucky is in a sweater of the same design, but his is red and his pale eyes seem to glow, his hair pulled back in a messy bun with jingle bells woven through it.
They are hilarious and goofy and this is the first Christmas they’ve spent together since the forties, so you don’t want to intrude on the moment.
You’ve wanted to kiss them forever, and sometimes you think that maybe they want to kiss you too. Sometimes Steve says your name in a certain tone that makes your knees weak and sometimes Bucky smiles and you want to melt, but they’ve never made a move and honestly, why would they want you when they have each other?
So you stand in the background and watch and try to pretend like seeing them together makes you happy, instead of sort of breaking your heart.
But then--
“Come here!” Steve calls for you, holding his hand out. “There’s mistletoe which means you should get a kiss too, huh?”
“Come on, sweet thing.” Bucky holds his hand out for you too. “Been trying to find a reason to kiss you, mistletoe seems like a good one, yeah?”
You blush bright red, but they don’t leave you alone, pulling you out of the shadows and underneath the mistle toe where first Steve and then Bucky tip your head up and kiss you soft and slow.
It’s your first kiss, but god you hope it’s not your last.
“STEVIE!” Bucky bolted off the bed and went charging down the stairs, shouting for Steve as he went. “STEVIE! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”
“Oh my god!” Clint shrieked as Bucky tore past him, his plate of nachos slipping from his hands and splatting on the floor. “Frosty! Damn it!”
“Holy--” Sam flattened himself to a wall when Bucky nearly ran him over. “Slow the fuck down! Where’s the fire?!”
“Stevie Stevie Stevie!” The door to the gym about came off its hinges when Bucky burst through it, and Steve stopped right in the middle of working a punching bag.
“Bucky. Everything alright?”
“I know who he is.” Bucky gasped out. “I know who--” he held up his tablet. “I know who he is.”
“You know who he is?” Steve pulled off his gloves and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Babe what are you talking about?”
Bucky handed over the fic and Steve read through it as fast as he could.
“What the hell is this?” he frowned. “Bucky, this actually happened. Our first Christmas since the war. We bought matching sweaters and kissed under every single piece of mistletoe Tony put up in the Tower. Everything about this is true right up until we kiss the Reader too. What the hell is--”
His eyes widened and Bucky started nodding. “Oh my god, is this--”
“Yes! Yes, Stevie, it's--”
“Someone’s stalking us!” Steve yelped. “Oh my god, they’re stalking us! How else would they know exactly what happened? They must have access to the Tower’s camera’s and use the footage to write self insert fics OH MY GOD.”
“What?” Bucky wrinkled his nose. “No, no you idiot. Fuckin hell, it’s a good thing you’re hot because sometimes you’re sure dumb. It’s not a stalker.”
“Well if it’s not a stalker then who?” Steve thought for a minute. “Oh wait. Wait. Not a stalker so someone in the Tower?”
“Uh-huh.” Bucky made an impatient motion. “Which means---”
“Which means it’s someone in the Tower that likes us, someone that is there all the time.”
“Yes yes yes, get there faster PLEASE!”
“It’s got to be Tony.” Steve said confidently. “He was the one there for this kiss, I remember it perfectly. And he’s got the dark hair and dark eyes. He likes to nap on us and is super smart just like the reader.”
“Right.” Bucky made his eyes very round. “Which means---?”
“It’s Tony.” The enormity of it all hit Steve like a ton of bricks. “Bucky. It’s Tony.”
“Tony’s been writing fan fiction about us.”
“About the three of us being together.”
“About us falling in love and growing old together.”
“About us being happy.”
“And whole.”
“Together.”
“It’s Tony.” Bucky said again, and his hand was shaking as he pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Tony’s in love with us.”
****************************
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Jonah Beck & The Doors
Word Count: 1,870
TW: implied abuse, bruising
A/N: i think i read a fic like this a while back somewhere, but i can’t remember?? anyways i’ve been thinking about jonah’s home life for a while, and i wanted to write a fic dedicated to it!! i hope you enjoy!
also this isn’t ship oriented, just good friends!
Monday mornings were never days that anyone looked forward to. Staying up late on a Sunday proved to be a bad choice, when you walked in looking like a twice-dead zombie.
Monday mornings were worse if you were Jonah Beck and you were walking in with a black eye and bruises down your right arm (his frisbee-throwing arm!). But nobody needed to know why he wasn’t looking like a ray of sunshine.
Just smile, he thought to himself, grinning as he entered the school, his head hung low, smile, and everything is going to be all right.
Before the bell for first period rang, Jonah shuffled to his locker and grabbed his books for Geometry, his least favorite class.
“Jonah, hey!” a familiar voice that could only be Andi called. She bounced over to him, pushing her bangs to the side.
Jonah grimaced; there was no way that he was getting out of this conversation without making eye contact.
Now or never, he thought to himself, picking up his head.
“Hey Andiman,” he greeted, tugging on his backpack straps with nervous energy as Andi sucked in the air that surrounded them.
“Jonah! Your eye...what happened?” she fretted, her soft brows eyes flooding with worry as she scanned his injuries.
“Oh, uh, I was at frisbee practice and I missed it completely!” he lied smoothly, smiling so hard his face was starting to hurt, “yeah, Gus threw it and I guess the sun was in my eyes because the next thing I know BAM!” he exclaimed, “frisbee to the face. I’ll be fine though,”
Andi seemed relieved with this answer, nodding her head. “Well, be careful out there. Put some ice on it to help the swelling,” she informed him, wincing at the shrill bell that signaled first period.
“I will, thanks. See you at lunch.” Jonah pivoted on his heel and hurried away, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. That went...surprisingly smoothly.
“And since these angles are equal, we can deduct that the shape is-”
“Pst!” Buffy whispered, tapping Jonah’s desk lightly, “do you have an extra pencil?”
Jonah nodded, digging through his bag and pulling out a few crumpled papers before handing Buffy a pencil.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, focusing her attention on the problem on the board. Why was geometry so boring? This class was definitely the one that seemed to drag on and on. After several more proofs, the bell rang and the students were never as happy as they were now.
“Remember to do the last few problems in the packet!” The teacher reminded his students, grabbing his eraser and clearing the board of any stray marks.
“Ugh, I don’t want tooo,” Jonah groaned, tilting his head up to face the light from the ceiling. Curse gravity for allowing his hood from his sweatshirt to fall. Curse the university for having Buffy standing right in front of him.
“Dude, your eye!” she gawked, taking a step closer and examining it like she was his doctor, “did you get in a fight?”
Something like that, he thought to himself, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. “No, I, uh, I actually got hurt playing frisbee. I ran to catch one and then tripped over a tree root, and fell,” he lied, curling his toes inside his sneakers. Was that what he had told Andi? He knew it had something to do with frisbee, but he wasn’t sure. Close enough.
“Yikes,” she commented, her brows furrowing, “well, make sure to put ice on that, or use some sort of concealer to make it look less...bad.” She then handed Jonah his now dull pencil and promptly turned to walk to class.
The athlete exhaled shakily, shuffling out of the classroom and back to his locker.
It seemed to get easier and easier to lie to people. Throughout the day, people had come up to him, asking him why he looked like he was beaten in a fight. And he would calmly explain that he hurt himself in frisbee practice, even throwing in a few jokes about him being clumsy in there. It seemed to please people, and by the end of the day, he even made a few ‘friends’, or rather close acquaintances, who had shared their stories about sports injuries.
Safe to say, Jonah was feeling a lot better by the time it was time to walk home. Until he realized what home meant, and his happy demeanor disappeared.
“Ready to go?” Cyrus chirped from his locker, holding his history book under one arm and having his bag slung over his opposing shoulder.
“Yeah,” he replied shakily, feeling his Adams apple wobble in his throat. He and Cyrus always walked home together, but today was different. He was terrified that Cyrus would give him one look and all his carefully constructed walls would come crumbling down. And he totally would have made it home without any issue were it not for Cyrus pointing out the fall foliage.
“Look, Jonah! Aren’t the maple leaves just gorgeous in the fall?” he gushed, a huge grin splitting his face.
Jonah peered up at the leaves, being basked by the golden sunlight. Squinting, he tried to make out the colors. “Yeah, they’re pretty nice,” he mumbled, his eyes trailing down the trunk of the tree until something obstructed his view; Cyrus was standing directly in front of him. Staring at him in the eyes. At the one that was bruised.
“Jonah,” he started softly, his eyebrows drawn up in concern, “what happened to your eye?”
Jonah tried to follow his routine that he had perfected at school. First step was to smile, but it was weaker, and faker, than before. Cyrus definitely noticed that. Bless his inner therapist.
“Dude, I totally fumbled at frisbee practice yesterday. Collided with one kid going for the frisbee and we just...clashed,” he lied, grinning so hard that it was starting to physically hurt.
Meeting Cyrus’ eyes, he knew it was over; Cyrus had that ‘look’ that meant he knew something was up, but he was going to wait until Jonah spilled. The Jewish boy wasn’t one to intrude.
“We didn’t have practice yesterday, Jonah,” Cyrus reminded him, “or else I would have been there to hand out snacks and things like that.”
It was definitely over at this point. No way Jonah was going to squeeze out of this situation.
“It-it’s nothing major really,” he lied again, his voice low along with his head. Trying to focus on all the fallen leaves on the ground was not helping; they just made him think of Cyrus and that damned face.
The two walked in uncomfortable silence for a bit, kicking at the brittle leaves under the soles of their shoes. Cyrus finally broke the silence as they pulled up to his driveway.
“I’d really like it if you came inside,” he offered kindly, “my parents definitely won’t mind, and I can text your mom and tell her you’re here,”
Jonah stared at him at first, blinking owlishly, until he softly nodded his head, ducking into Cyrus’ house.
“Mom! I’m home!” Cyrus called, but to no response, “she’s probably in a therapy session, but we can go to my room.” He led the other boy up the stairs, texting Mrs. Beck that he and Jonah were working on a school project, to which she replied ‘thank you for telling me’.
“So,” Cyrus began, ushering Jonah inside and motioning for him to take a seat on his beanbag, “I’m not going to force you to talk. We can just sit here until you’re ready,”
“Your inner therapist is jumping out,” Jonah joked weakly, his lips twitching into a gentle smile, “...I just-I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he admitted after a beat.
“In what sense?” Cyrus pried, crossing his legs, “hold on. Turn towards me, I wanna see your eye,”
Jonah chewed on his lip, biting down so hard that he threatened to draw blood. “Lately I’ve...I don’t even really know why but,” he paused, holding his breath for a few seconds. Now was not when he wanted to cry. He didn’t want to cry at all, but he hadn’t even said what happened.
“Take your time,” Cyrus assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He could feel Jonah tense at the touch, and immediately removed his hand. “Sorry,”
“It’s not your fault, I’m just...clumsy.” He picked the word with caution, his hand trailing up towards his bruised eye, tentatively gracing his skin.
“You’re one of the most athletically gifted people I know, Jonah. You’re not clumsy,” Cyrus promised him, tracing circles into his own palm.
“I...I walked into a door,” he managed to spit out, sucking in all the oxygen that surrounded him and Cyrus. How badly he wished he could have taken back his words. He really didn’t want Cyrus to worry about him.
Cyrus felt like he’d just been punched in the gut, all the air knocked out of him. Jonah, sweet and happy Jonah, was going through one of the worst situations imaginable. “How long have you been...walking into doors?”
Jonah sighed, leaning his head against Cyrus and taking in the comforting scent of his lemon shampoo. “I-I think...for a few months. The first one I walked into wasn’t bad; there wasn’t even bruising. But after that...I became more and more clumsy.” His voice cracked in the middle of his words, tears pushing against his lashes.
Another sickening feeling overtook Cyrus, who gingerly put an arm around Jonah. “Is this okay?” he asked, not wanting to overstep again. He could feel Jonah nod against his shoulder, and slowly rubbed his arm. Jonah winced, and Cyrus immediately stopped.
“I-ran into a really bad door the other day,” he admitted, rolling up his sleeves to reveal a few fading bruises, a few blue, the others yellow in color.
Cyrus swallowed thickly, examining Jonah’s bruises carefully, his dainty fingers brushing against his arm. “If-if you ever find yourself running into any more doors, you know you can always call me and sleepover,” he murmured, a sympathetic smile playing on his lips.
Jonah tried to smile back, but collapsed into Cyrus’ chest, his tears staining the other boy’s light blue shirt. And he wanted to stop so badly but that was beyond his control; he’d slipped into a world where he no longer held the reins.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Cyrus reassured him over and over, “It’s terrible what’s happening, and I’m so sorry, but things will be alright,”
Jonah didn’t know how long he stayed there, tangled in Cyrus arms and bawling his eyes out. It was relieving in a way; it definitely helped to be able to tell someone.
“Thanks,” he mumbled after a while, prying himself off of Cyrus, “for...helping me with these pesky doors,” he sighed, running his hands through his matted hair.
“Of course,” Cyrus replied immediately, a weak smile dancing on his lips, “and Jonah?”
“Yeah?“
“If you ever think you’re going to walk into a door again, your room is a place where you can’t do that. Try and find solidarity,”
Jonah beck smiled genuinely for the first time that day. Things were going to be okay.
tag list: @shortstackofpeaches || @seanna313 || @geekingbeautytx || @heavenlybyers || @ghostswasp || @wlwandimack || @giocondasstuff || @lemonboytyrus || @adorejrizzle || @swingsetboys || @ifellintotyrushell || @idk-dude-17 || @rbf-lesbian || @marianara-sauce || @kaptainjinxz || @alex-poster-pizz
#andi mack#andi mack fic#andi mack fanfic#jonah beck#cyrus goodman#abuse tw#bruising tw#buffy driscoll#pandi mack#andiman#my fics#fics#theo writes
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will this be a legit tumblr fic series? no, absolutely not I just felt like writing something. Everything else will be bullet points since I can knock out like, two to three seasons in one go.
Shannon (Shan) Maywether.
Oc introduction P1
This takes place in between season 1 episodes 10 and 11 in like a mini sode I like to call "Eye of Unfairness" its a play off the fact Shan means unfortunate and unfair in Scottish (something I recently learned)
Also feel free to change out Shannon's/Shans name for your OC if you want to! I don't mind! Keep in mind this fic was made with Shannon's personality and physical condition in mind. I also wouldn't mind feed back!
Third person POV
A day had passed since the reveal of the green ninja. It was a surprise to learn that Lloyd, a kid, was the supposed chosen one. It was shock to, well everyone on board the Bounty.
It was Wednesday, so Shannon was tasked with cooking for the day. She stood, cutting vegetables for the side dish she was wiping up alongside the English breakfast she had made. Her mind was filled with ‘what if's’. As an older sister to 10 younger brothers, 4 of which that happen to be around Lloyd’s age it was startling for her. There was no telling when the 'Final Battle' will take place and what would happen during it, took the focus from the sharp edge of the blade she was holding.
"ow, damn it-" dropping the knife on the cutting board as she cursed. Bringing the cut wound to her lips she sucked on it as she searched for the bandages they kept in the kitchen just incase if kind of thing happened.
After finding bandages and bandaging the cut Shannon finished fixing up the salad. Just as she set the freshly tossed salad on the table the other residents of the ship walked in.
"Morning Shannon" "Mornin' Zane"
The other ninja mumbled a good morning as well as they took their set's at the table and began eating the breakfast prepared.
"Hay Shannon what happened to your hand?" Lloyd asked looking at the older girls hand.
"Oh, accidently cut myself." She replied placing her coffee cup down looking over at the small blonde. She ruffled his hair earning a ‘stop it’ from the boy, and chuckled at how messy his hair was now.
The rest of breakfast went without much problem seeing as how everyone was still riding down from the adrenaline that was yesterday. It all seemed peaceful still Garmadon walked in.
Shannon's POV
Garm walked in, late as usual. And as usual we where all kinda put off with what he was eating. Dark matter grubs I think there called? Never payed much attention to this sorta thing really. I just can't get the truth we uncovered yesterday. Lloyd being the green ninja. Its going to hard for him I can tell.
Letting out an tried sigh I got up with my now empty plate and made my way over to the sink.
"Shannon, the Bounty is landing in a bit. You wanna come run groceries with me?" Nya asked as I passed her.
"Uhh, sure just tell me when you're planning on leaving." "You got it!"
____
Third person POV
As stated by Nya the Bounty had landed not long after they finished washing the dishes. The boys were outside training. Shannon seated cross-legged on the steps just watching with Wu. Garmadon had disappeared back into the ship, probably his room for the time being. Lloyd was hanging around the place too, inside reading. And Nya was getting ready to head out.
It wouldn't be for another 10 minutes till Garmadon emerged from where ever he was.
And unfortunately for everyone he was at the steps of the ship leading to where the ninja were training, and felt like causing some chaos.
Now it's not the man's fault, he has the venom of an equally evil snake brooding in his veins.
He knew he couldn't mess with the ninja, it was like a principle thing seeing as how they where tolerating his presence on the ship. Wu literally came to what might have been hell to most folks and brought him back to Ninjago to save his son. Nyas off limits, and as much as he wants to, his son, Lloyd is probably still shaken from not just the green ninja thing, but the snakes as well.
Which left Shannon.
The young lady had made it clear since there first interaction, that she held nothing against the dark lord. In fact she even played along with his bullshit if she felt like it. Best part, she can hold her own too. She may not train with the boys often but she knows spinjitzu, and has proven to be a good fighter, Shans just lax and a go with the flow kind of person.
With that in mind, he decided to make a comment.
"Not going to change?"
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" Shannon questioned, she didn't bother to look at him, as she took a swig from her tea that Wu had generously offered.
"With the amount of purple you wear you might get mistaken for a snake"
"Phff, at least I don't look like a took a bath in tar"
With that, a swift yet not powerful smack to the back of the teens head was earned. It was supposed to be playful, harmless but as the force of the hit passed through the youngers head, the sound of heavy glass hitting wood made itself known. This caused the boys to stop and turn there attention back over to the steps on the deck. As Shannon looked up, it became evidently clear she was missing her right eye.
Panic ensues.
Jay, Cole, Kai, and Zane screamed at the fact there friends eye was now just gone. Garmadons just standing there questioning if he put more power than he initially thought he did. Wu went wide eyes as he stared at the girl next to him, seeing small streams of blood leak out the now empty eye socket. Lloyd and Nya came running out to only to scream themselves.
With a sigh Shannon picked up her Eye and monical that had fallen.
"Guys, chill out!" She yelled.
"CHILL OUT! SHAN YOU EYE FEEL OUT OF YOUR HEAD" the Blue ninja yelled. Pointing at the eye in the Burnetts hand.
"Its a glass eye bolts for brain's" Shan retorted.
"Glass eye?" Cole repeated.
"Yes, a glass eye! Why did you think I wore a monocle instead of regular glasses? Sure I can't see jack with my right eye but it acts as a shield of sorts!"
"I-im so sorry, are you okay Shannon?" Garmadon asked.
"Ya, im fine" she answered.
____
After that everyone had gone inside. Zane grabbed the medical kit to disinfect and put a temporary patch over Shannon's eye. Garmadon had taken the glass eye and with the recommended disinfectant Shannon just so happen to have on her, put the bloody thing in a black glass cup filled with warm water and the disinfectant liquid mixture, to clean it. He may be the bad guy, but he's never really hurt anyone to the point they lose something like an eye.
Once done he gave the glass to Shannon who was now sitting in the armchair.
"So, umm how'd you uh- you know lose you eye?" Kai asked weirly, he feared there might be some sort of trauma along with it and didn't want to trigger it.
"You don't have to tell us!" Nya quickly added.
"Na its fine" Shannon said as she waved off there concerns.
"I was about seven when it happened. Home invasion. The guy had a gun. I had heard sound from downstairs and curiosity got the best of me. I think your all smart enough to piece together what happened next" she said. Everyone kinda relied back at the mear mental image.
"Yikes" Jay, shivered at the thought of it.
"I mean it’s not all that bad I guess. Altho I didn't have a say in whether or not I got a fake eye"
"What do you mean you didn't get a say in it?"
"It’s exactly as I say it is. When I woke up my depth perception was crap, but I had both my eyes. It wasn't until the doctor told me my parents were admit about me having one"
"So are, you like going to be ok or?"
"I'll be fine green bean, if anything this was a good thing, means I need a new one. Thankfully I shot my brother text about one lot long ago." Shannon said dismissively
"Brother?" Wu questioned.
"Okay, Nya you ready to got out?"
"Ya but it can wait-" "I'm good, I swear Nya lets go" the older girl instead as she got up and dragged Nya out the ship for their planned outing. (She put the glass with the eye in the table as they left)
"Well that was, concerning" Cole said as the two girls disappeared.
____
It was around midday the girls were not back yet. Jay was still unnerved by the eye in the cup being in such an open area, moved it over to the kitchen counter. Training was cut short because of the incident. Wu taking into account not just the mental impact of one of his charges eyes popping up in front of them, but the buildup of stuff they'd been having to deal with since his absence. Besides when the girls get back they all need to talk of a plan to get the Fang Blades back from the Serpentine before they can awaken the Devourer.
Wu and his brother where out front on the deck talking, it felt like forever to the two of them since they last spoke in such good terms. The guys (pluss Lloyd) where inside playing video games as a pass time. It wasn't long after when the sound of a car, a taxi, could be heard coming there way. As the taxi came to a stop the guys had logged off there game and stepped out to grate the return of the only two females on their team.
But instead of the raven and green tipped brunette haired, a blond tipped brunette boy stepped out the vehicle (not before paying of course) and made his way over to the Bounty.
“umm, dumb question since there aren't many flying ships around, but is this the Destiny's Bounty?” The Boy asked as he neared the ship. upon closer inspection the boy was wearing a leather jacket with a white under shirt, and jeans with a pair of black converse. He had a mailman bag slung over his shoulder.
“ya it is, what bring you all the way out here though?” Cole answered as he crossed his arms. attempting to look menacing which seemed to be working.
“uh, I came to drop something off for my sister, Shannon?” The boy answered.
“Shannon, as in the monocle waring Shan?” Jay asked
“yes! that one!”
“Cool, Cool... wanna climb on board?” Kai asked him.
“Would I!” The boy, Shannon’s brother made is way up on the Bounty.
“By the way, what you name” Zane asked as the brunet dorded.
“Shane, Shane Maywather and might I say it’s a pleasure to meet the guys my sister has been staying with after all this time.” He, Shane replied.
____
“wait, so let me get this straight” Cole stood with his hands on his head, clearly confused by what was said.
Its been about an hour since Shane was let on borde and the guy could see why his sister liked it here so much.
“there are 10 of you? including Shane makes 11″ Cole sated. Shane just nodded as he let the earth ninja racape what Shane had told them. Wu and Garmadon where in the kitchen intently listening to the conversation they were having.
“yup, Shan and I are the oldest, there where are the quads; Jason, Mayson, Tyson, Carson.” He started again listing his younger siblings.
“Then the triplets; Asher, Carter and Xavier. Then the last set of twins; Franklyn and Merlyn” Shane finished.
“No wonder Shannon can deal with us so well” Jay said looking astonished.
“ya she had to deal with 9 younger brothers and one older one” Kai remarked. Shane snickered before correcting him.
“Shannon is the oldest, in fact despite us being twins, she’s technically a year older than me.”
“But isn't being twins, like two people being born on the same day?” Zane inquired.
“True, but you see, my mom had Shannon on december 31st 1995, at around 11:55pm, I then happened on january 1st 1996 at 00:02am in the morning” Shane explained.
“dude” Jay commented. Shane laghed.
“yup,Shannons the ‘big sister’ of the house” He said glancing about.
“i'm surprised though, i though Shannon would have at least mentioned something about you guys to us” Lloyd pipped in. He enjoyed Shannons company she made him feel welcome. And when she caught him setting up the prank for Kai as his uncle had asked him to, she gave him some pointers on how to eviscerate Kai’s high score. Even took some pressure off him as she stayed in the room in anticipation for the fire ninja so they wouldn't get too suspicious. To learn Shan had several younger brothers, like Jay commented, meade scene in how she was not only dealt with them but was able to deal with his father so well.
“Honestly,it's do be expected. Because Shannons the oldest our parents are hard on her... We come from a fairly well of family to the point where money is more or less a play thing to our folks” Shane started, the ninja(pluss Loyd)went wide eyed.
“so you're saying you guys are rich?” Jay asked dumbfounded. Shane fidgeted with his fingers.
“Y-Ya pretty much. But Shannon, and our parents, they... They don't get along at all. For all i can remember, the only time i've ever had with Shan was when she wasn't in any of her classes or extracurriculars. They pushed her to be perfect, and at the same time pushed her away. Looking back there where countless arguments over a lot of what they where doing” Shane said looking down at his lap.
“There was this one argument that just hit the nail in the head though, a couple years back, it was during dinner and our parents had invited a business associates family over. They had a son, about three years older then Shannon and I. Our parents had announced that he would be Shannons fiance and thighs went downhill fast” Looking up once more Shane let a had run though his hair as he relieved the memory. The guys were taken aback by this, seeing as how Shan was arguably one of the most level headed people they knew.
“sounds stressful” Kai quipped not really knowing how to respond to that, bur as a brother to a sister himself he could understand the feeling of not wanting your sibling to do be forced into doing something they don't want to.
“You don’t half of it” Shan said with a sigh.
“After that, she stormed out never to be seen scene again. At least physically, she managed to keep contact with me, we talk but not as much as either of us would like...” He finished leaning back and letting the surprisingly soft couch engulf him.
“I’m glad though,she deserves a break after everything” Shane commented.
“ya well if you call fighting an army of skeletons, snakes and eventually Garmadon a brake, then you my friend are in need of a vacation as well” Jay replied plopping down next to Shane with a dorky grin. The tenshin that had been building in Shane dissipated, yup he could really see why his sister liked it here so much.
____
Dropping the topic of who much his and Shannon's parents where that talked about other random things. It was a little bit later when the girl got back. The two where catting about, something girl related when they walked into the main room of the Bounty.
“Hey! Welcome back! And guess how came to visit?!” Jay sang, gesturing to Shane who was seated next to him. Shannon looked over at her bother in shock she thought-
"Good to see you again Sister!~" Shane said as be bolted form where he was sitting to envelope Shannon in a hug. As he did Shannon dropped the bags she was holding, seemingly shocked that her blood brother was here.
“Shane?” She breathed, then hugged him back, leaning into it.
After a bit the two separated.
“It’s good to see you again Shane! How have you been?” “Good, good, what about you? what happened to your eye? Where is it?”
Shan laughed a little and shook her head.
“There was an accident this morning, Garmadon hit the back of my head and it just popped out” Shane stood still. Taking in the information. Once complete he turned and tried to lunged to where Garmadon was, if it wasn't for Shannon having grabbed him in that split second. He probably would have gone into a full on fist fight with the dark lord.
“Lemme go! I'm going to eviscerate him!” Shane hissed struggling against his sisters grip. Thank the First Spinjitzu Master that Shannon trained with the boys ocashinaly.
“Calm down little brother it was an accident” “Like HELL”
The two go back and forth a little more till Shane camls down. Garmadon rightfully spooked at the fact that this, well mannered, e-boy looking, kid was threatened to ‘eviscerate’ him.
“Fine, I won’t attack him, doesn't mean I won’t like it” Shane said mutting that last bit.
“Seriously (1)Balach Milis, if you applied this anger properly, you wouldn't have to deal with what Eric and Lizzibeth right?” Shannon said as she let him go. picking up the grocery bags, and placed them on the counter.
“(2)Flùr Gaoithe, you know when it comes to Mama and (3)Athair I can’t do do that!” He complained like a small child.
“You really need to grow a backbone” Shane said shaking her head.
___
Things had settled down since then.
“It’s getting late, I should get going, I have band practice tomorrow and need the rest.” “boo, skip and just stay here for the week” “Flùr Gaoithe” “Balach Milis“
With that The younger twin got up, gave his sister the new glass eye she had asked for, said his goodbyes, shot Garmadon one last glar, and left.
“Your brother seems like a nice person” Gramadon said looking over the the greet tipped girl.
“Ya, he’s awesome. Wish he was less of a pushover tho”
Jay feeling thirsty, walked over into the kitchen. He spotted the black glass cup, completely having forgot about the eye inside it. Now you can't really see anything at the bottom. And Jay, in his infinite wisdom, thinking it was just some random cup of random water that had been left on the kitchen counter, and drank from it.
“OH GOD”
“Did Jay drink from the eye glass?” Lloyd asked his uncle who was watching from the blue ninja form the table.
“He drank from the eye glass” Wu confirmed. The others erupted into a fit of laughter and giggles.
__________
(1)Balach Milis - Sweet boy
(2)Flùr Gaoithe - Wind flower
(3)Athair - dad
this was translated using google translate, the language being Scottish Gaelic. I know Ninjago was based off of asian culture. But like I said, Shan it scottish for unfortunate and unfair. Also nothing in the lore of the show explicitly states that Ninjago is the only continent on the planet.
I HC that there are different parts of the world. its safe to say Ninjago is the main land where a lot of the exciting things happen, but across who knows how long away there are different countries. And Shannon’s family like immigrated to Ninjago, during it’s early years where big contributors and financial support, in building the city.
but ye this is a mini sode, i came up with. criticism is always welcome! I will be doing bullet notes for Shan and Melody, and maye Gold to since i have an active fic about her that i haven't updated in, forever but yaaaaa.
till next text post i guess lol
#ninjago#lego ninjago#ninja#ninjago original character#ninjago oc#original chacter#ninjago fanfiction
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Anons about Lana’s retweeting debacle
(under the cut)
Anonymous said:LOL at Lana. She probably enjoyed the fact that JMo was not mentioned in the list of actors that helped the show.
I thought the same thing, anon. At least the Lana fan who scribbled that clickbait didn’t put JMo on the “hurt” list, though my guess is that they wanted to. Loyalty and all that to their “queen.”
Anonymous said:It’s her last hurrah, it’s still july remember, her last month of wallowing over her cancelled show
True! Can we really blame her while she’s in her self-inflicted period of mourning?
I mean anyone in that condition can be excused for clinging to any scrap of positive validation they get, right? Lana can’t be expected to think of others or have any modicum or social graces while she feels sad and shocked the show ended!
Anonymous said:It’s funny because those people who “hurt” the show has career after ouat 🤷🏻♀️
Anonymous said:Damn must suck to know that no one wants you, and that the ppl they bashed on that article the lovely lana tweeted all had jobs after their preformance of Once Upon a Time. She must not relate.
At this point she certainly can’t relate to people who are wanted by casting directors, that’s for sure!
Dania is having the last laugh on that one, since she already has a new show and *cough* Lana does not.
Anonymous said:dang I quickly read through the article and... yikes. Typos everywhere, called Joffrey from Game of Thrones "Geoffrey", even trashed actors who's performances they liked. Just all around a disaster
It’s not a real article, My guess is the “reporter” didn’t get paid. Just click bait fan garbage, the only place Lana ever gets praised.
Anonymous said:Can i just say that some of those people trashed are WOC? I bet she just saw her name at #1 and just rt’d it without even reading it
Alert, alert everyone! Who thinks this anon is a Lana fan, trying to excuse her actions? “rt’d it without even reading it.” Perhaps, I put nothing past her, but she couldn't have seen her entry without scrolling the whole article since hers was at the bottom.
However, she doesn’t get a pass on the grounds of “not having read it.” First, would you retweet an article you hadn’t read? (If you would you should really think about being a more critical consumer of media and I’d advise that you care more about what you endorse). Secondly, she’s done this several times before. Retweet fan articles that praise her and trash her costars and/or writers and bosses. It’s a freaking pattern and if the past experiences didn’t teach her to read carefully before retweeting because her vanity is just so strong... then she deserves every ounce of criticism she gets.
Also it’s cute that you think she’s so “woke” and enlightened that she wouldn’t retweet something that trashes WOC. You’re giving her way too much credit for awareness or giving a damn about anyone who is not herself. Or giving a damn about social justice (which is a hallmark of her fandom, over there they view her as some sort of amazing advocate and ally of whatever they themselves deem important, It’s odd.)
(I’m gonna ignore your implication that somehow former costars of hers who are not WOC deserve to have her gleefully retweet “articles” trashing them.)
Anonymous said:I love timing. Lana is retweeting fan articles that trash her friends and praise her yet still can't manage to spell her name correctly but make the bold statement that hiring her was the best decision in ABC history (yet I haven't seen them trying to hold onto her). And the twitter accounts for TV guide and Outlander and Leanne are still bemoaning the tagging mistake from yesterday and asking what they have to do to get Colin on the show. Sounds like the cast, show, and media all want him.
Yes, Colin is better than Lana in every way.
And if Lana was the best decision they ever made it’s puzzling why she couldn’t carry the show once the real leading ladies (JMo and Ginny) left.
Anonymous said:Well, I hope no one from the cast sees that article, especially not Merrin 💅🏻
We disagree, anon. I think it would be hilarious if any of those actors knew that she had gleefully endorsed some random fan’s ill-spirited criticism of their performances.
Anonymous said:New fandom drama, courtesy of LP. She RTed and quoted thanking an article that throwed many actors of the show under the bus, saying their "cast hurt OUAT", but praises her saying that she was the best choice ABC made and the one thing that keept the show going... I just checked again, she just deleted it after having people telling her that was rude (of course not her fans, never her fans; fans of those actor mentioned in the article)
I still see it.
Also, as far as the “article” does ANYONE in fandom remember this happening? Quote from clickbait:
“Turning Bo Peep into a gangster was a peculiar choice to say the least, but what was the final straw was Weigert’s pointblank silly portrayal. Stark fans of the show point to her casting as a blemish on one of their favorite programs.”
I honestly don’t remember overwhelming (or any?) criticism about the casting of Bo Peep, or ANYONE thinking that it was a peculiar choice to turn Bo Peep into a warlord. If I recall, most people thought it was hilarious. Who are these “stark fans” who think her one appearance was a blemish on the show?
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19? Because i'm evil and love your writing
19) “Show off.”
I read ‘evil’ and instantly thought of evil Matt so boom!
I’m so sorry this is garbage. (and that it took me forever yikes) I think i wrote it in like… an hour really? So probably loads of errors. Also forgive if the French is wrong. I did just get slightly hit by a car yesterday. ALSO! I’m gonna finish the other two messages tomorrow after work (so Sunday morning) or sometime Sunday afternoon.
Vladimir.
Buzz.
Vladimir.
Buzz.
Vladi-
“Whatdo you want at this time of the night?” Matt asks, frowning andfeeling his watch. It’s late but Matt still finds himself unable tosleep. So Vladimir calling is a welcome distraction.
Though,receiving calls from the Russian wasn’t an odd thing by any means forMatt. But getting a call from Vladimir at nearly half past three inthe morning is far more rare. Matt wonders for a moment if this hasanything to do with Anatoly or Fisk but then rolls his eyes whenVladimir says, “Found stupid tracksuit mafia in my garage.”
Mattrolled his eyes. “Well that sounds like a you problem.”
Ascoff from Vladimir. A very clear indication that the Russian was notin the mood for Matt’s sass and was growing quite agitated. Anothersign of his annoyance was the grunt of pain Matt heard from who hepresumed to be a member of the Tracksuit Draculas. He snickered as heheard Vladimir swear in Russian.
“Notin a good mood, cher?”
“Goto hell,” is Vladimir’s snappy response. A pause then the sound ofhim taking a breath, possibly to calm himself down then, “I need…help.”
“Doing?”
Athud noise and another yell, this one a stream of sentences inRussian that most definitely is not Vladimir’s voice. It takes all ofMatt’s self restraint to not snap at Vladimir to just answer him andinstead remain silent. And soon enough, after a few more curses fromboth the Russian Vladimir has captive and Vladimir, Vladimirresponds.
“Ihave small problem.” Vladimir gave a low hum and Matt can almostpicture Vladimir rubbing his chin in thought. “Three actually. Fourif you count the blood stains I need to get rid of.”
Asnort-laugh escaped Matt before he could stop it. “What did you do,you idiot?”
Vladimirscoffed and Matt could just barely hear a tinge of hurt in theRussian’s voice as he snapped back, “You are so rude, mudak.” Ayell of pain from the other Russian. “Tu m'emmerdes,” Vladimirscoffed out, kicking his captive once more, this time in the leg. Hesmirked as the other man groaned in pain.
Mattraised an eyebrow. “Who pissed in your cheerios?” He asks,walking around his living room. It’s more for something to do thananything else.
“Ohshut up. Will you come help me get rid of these bodies now? I amthinking I will just throw them into dumpster.”
“Nowwhy would you do that?” Matt asked, suddenly sounding tired even tohis own ears. He blames Vladimir for being very draining at thishour.
Apause then a smug sounding, “Because they are garbage.”
Mattcan tell that Vladimir is smirking in pure glee, as though he’d justtold a hilarious joke. But all it does is make the lawyer sigh androll his eyes.
“S'ilvous plaît, mon trésor?” Vladimir practically coos out.
Heraises an eyebrow when he hears Matt humming a tune, clearly thinkingthis over.
“Whatare you humming?” He asks curious and switching topics easily. Hejust vaguely remembers the song and knows it’s going to bother himuntil he figures it out.
“Noneof your business.” Matt says, picking his cane up from where he’dplaced it on the coffee table a few hours earlier. He’d made his mindup the moment Vladimir had asked for his help but he still wanted tohear the Russian beg a little bit longer. “I’m in my pajamas.”
Ahum of approval from Vladimir. “Good. You are coming here then?”
Mattscoffed. “In my pajamas?”
Vladimirshrugged. “I like your pajamas.” A pause. “Wait your underwearor sweatpants pajamas?”
“Sweatpants.”
Acurse in Russian that Matt recognized as damn.“I can work with that. So you are on your way now?”
Mattthinks it’s almost cute how equal halves hopeful and excited the Russian sounds. It reminds Matt of a puppy. “No. Why doyou want me to help you anyway? You are perfectly capable of hidingyour own bodies.”
Thisis a fact and Vladimir huffs in annoyance.
“Imiss you.”
Vladimir’scaptive scoffs and snaps something that Matt doesn’t understand butthen screams as Vladimir stabs him in the leg. Vladimir snapssomething at him, also in Russian, and Matt exaggerates a loud yawn.
Thisdoes the trick of getting Vladimir back on track. “Matyusha, miliimoi, mon trésor. I am almost begging here.”
Matttossed his cane up in the air, effortlessly caught it, and began toslowly twirl it as he walked around the living room. “You are goingto have to do more than just ‘almost’ begging. Since you want me tocome out in my bare feet-”
“Doyou even own shoes?” Vladimir interrupts, speaking more to himselfthan to Matt. “I do not think I have ever seen you in shoes.”
Mattdrops his cane in mild surprise. “I wear shoes.”
Ascoff from the Russian and he shrugs even though he knows Matt can’tsee it. “Sure. What do I have to do to make you come over here, montrésor?” He drawls out slowly, accent thicker on purpose as heknows Matt would never admit it but he does so love the accent.
Ratherthan give an answer Matt picks his cane back up and begins twirlingit around once more before asking almost absentmindedly, “Why doyou even want my help?”
“Isnot just the bodies. I am also threatening this idiot. I do notlike how they just wandered in here and were stealing my shit. Andyou are much more scary than me,” Vladimir says, fully honest. Hegrins when Matt lets out a happy hum and he can almost perfectlypicture in his mind Matt grinning smugly.
Mattshrugs. “Well, you know what they say. Flattery will get youeverywhere. Now, as for what you can do as payback for me coming tohelp you at half past three in the morning-”
“Ohplease. We both know you were not sleeping.”
“-Iwant pancakes,” Matt finishes, ignoring the interruption. He smirkswhen Vladimir lets out a disappointed groan.
“Fine.”
Ittakes all of five minutes of being in the garage for Matt to growbored. He can’t understand and doesn’t care to understand what thetwo Russians are yelling back and forth. The smell of blood is sostrong from the other three bodies that it takes all of Matt’sconcentration to not gag. He hates the smell of blood. It makes himthink of his dad’s death.
Hejerks slightly as he catches a few insults being thrown from thecaptive Russian to Vladimir. Then raises an eyebrow in amusement as agunshot rings out. A pained scream isn’t too far behind.
“Ithought you weren’t going to kill him?” Matt asks, almost laughingnow.
Vladimirscoffs and looks his gun over in an attempt to calm himself. “Hedoes not need his kneecaps to breathe.”
“Didhe insult me?” The sudden racing of Vladimir’s heart is answerenough. Matt finds that almost sweet that Vladimir cares so much in his own little way. “I understand what ‘suka’ means. I’m not a complete idiot,mon cher. Do you want me to ask him questions now? You can take aquick breather.”
Vladimirwaves his hand, a 'ifyou wish’gesture. And Matt doesn’t think twice. Just swings his cane out andsmacks the other Russian in the face. Vladimir lets out a low whistleas his captive spits out a mouthful of blood.
“Alright!Alright fine! I answer your questions! Just keep him away from me!”He’s not stupid. He knows exactly who Matt is. Everyone knows whoMatt Murdock is. But Matt rolls his eyes and ignores him. AndVladimir tilts his head as he watches the lawyer beat the TracksuitDracula to hell. Matt is enjoying it far too much but Vladimir findsit amusing, and possibly a tad arousing not that he’ll admit that, towatch.
Hewaits just a few minutes more before muttering, “Matvey, I got itfrom here I think.”
Matttsks but steps to the side as he hears Vladimir’s footsteps. He wavesa hand out. “All yours.”
“Showoff,” Vladimir scoffs out. Then turns his attention to the coughingRussian on the floor. His captive seems to be having a hard timebreathing now, arm holding his possibly broken ribs.
Whenthey begin speaking Russian once again Matt just yawns and tones themout. No use in trying to pay attention when he can only understandbasics and insults. He raises an eyebrow when Vladimir turns hisattention back to him.
“Wegive him ride back to his place now.”
“We’rewhat?” Matt asks, eyebrow raised and wondering if for a moment he’djust misheard Vladimir. But Vladimir just repeats what he’d just saidand Matt tilts his head. “Why are we giving him a ride home?”
“Igot what I wanted and I have message he needs to deliver to his otheridiot friends. In case they ever try to steal from me again,”Vladimir explains slowly, as if he wants to make sure Matt willunderstand him.
Mattjust stares straight ahead, not even caring that it unnerves Vladimirwhen he purposefully looks past him when they’re speaking. “Whatwere they stealing from you exactly?”
“Ah.Well…” The sound of Vladimir’s shoes hitting the pavement andthen a light thud noise as he kicks a body over. “This one owed memoney from a game of cards few weeks ago.” Another thud as Vladimirkicks another of the bodies. “And his cousin here did not like that I shot him. So he tried to shoot me and did not work well for him inthe end.” More footsteps as Vladimir walks to the final body thatlies in a pool of blood just a few feet away from Vladimir’s office.“And this bastard tried steal Tolik’s vodka.”
“Pleasetell me you’re kidding,” Matt says dully.
Vladimirjust shrugs. “Alright fine. It was my vodka he was trying to steal.Happy?”
“Ecstatic,”Matt almost spits out. He sighs. This shouldn’t shock him. He knowshow Vladimir is. And yet he still finds himself shocked by the littlethings Vladimir does.
Vladimirgrins. Claps his hands together then pulls his keys from his pocket.“Now, let’s take this asshole home. Go get our pancakes. Then wecan finish our date of ridding this garage of dead people.”
“Thiswas a date?” Matt asks, eyebrow raised.
Vladimirpauses, now standing right next to the slightly shorter man. “Oui,mon trésor,” he says, pinching Matt’s cheek. He huffs when Mattwrinkles his nose and swats his hand away from his face. He looksaround, shrugs, and says, “I think all the red around here now isgood… aesthetic? Very romantic.”
Mattsnorts. “Stick to the roses.”
“Butyou hate their smell?”
“Ihate the smell of blood even more, connard.”
Atsk from Vladimir. “You are so rude today.” He can’t help but to be amused.
#ask me stuff#snippet of a ficlet#mon fol amour#im so tired#i have work soon yikes#i dont wanna go...#mattimir#my writing#also#i forgot the last few sentences oops ill possibly add them later since#i may use this in the fic#at this point anatoly is in jail#and vladimir is just being an ass about matt and his shoes
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