There is such a big racism and antisemitism problem in the nightvale fandom that its fucking crazy

I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure the age of consent in Germany 1959 was 14. What are ur opinions on people saying elvis groomed her? And what do u think about people saying they hate elvis even more now after watching the Priscilla movie? From what I’ve heard the movie lacks a lot of information. And I like Priscilla but I’m not very fond of the movie because it (apparently) has scenes where he’s shown as abusive, when he threw a chair in her DIRECTION. But I’m not sure if it shows when Priscilla threw a vase AT him. I just want I bit more of ur opinions because every other one is people being biased to Priscilla

respectfully, it doesn’t matter if he wasn’t breaking age of consent laws. y’all know i personally don’t choose to call him the g word out of respect of priscilla not calling him that but. she was *so* young. even if his friends in the memphis mafia were concerned about how young she was and how it would look. it’s such a complicated thing for me to talk about because i love elvis and don’t want to “wish away” the reason we got lisa marie, and therefore riley. but on its face, it was wrong. i don’t think it makes me a bad fan of any of the above parties to be honest about that. I think hell would freeze over before i’d let my hypothetical 14 year old daughter gallivant around with a 25 year old and *her* parents boggle my fucking mind sometimes. but again- i can’t in good conscience wish away why we got lisa. so it’s just. a lot of complicated feelings. 

of course the movie lacks information, if they pulled every little detail from her book it would be hours and hours and hours long. it’s legitimately not possible to include everything, elvis 2022 didn’t either! no adaptation ever will. 

as for the chair thing it really confuses me when the same people (not you! speaking generally) who make jokes about how violent he was re “i’d let him do whatever he wanted!”, jokes about his love of guns etc turn around and act scandalized at the suggestion that his anger issues got taken out on women too.

priscilla is NOT the only girl he was with to talk in blunt terms about his anger issues. anita wood went even more ‘blunt’ then priscilla did with the chair story and said elvis physically shoved her against a door when she (anita) confronted him about having an affair after she found a letter from priscilla. and went on to say that he begged her not to tell anyone saying how young she was. i think he was a deeply traumatized and troubled man and that his anger issues had roots in all that. but a reason doesn’t = an excuse. 

i can love him and still hold space for not excusing away bad behavior. it’s possible. i’m tired of people acting like it’s not. 

I feel you're one of the few people from this fandom that can hear an opinion and be like "oh ok cool good for you" and keep going with their life, everyone else take things super personally. Even when no one was talking to them in the first place.

Thank you. Your blog really feels like a safe space for conversations 🙏🏻

Nonny, thanks for this. Really.

I am sure some just see me as a trouble making pain in the ass, and that’s their prerogative, but that’s not my intent.

But, YOU ARE SO RIGHT! No matter what happens here, someone is offended. I mean, if people COMPLIMENT one another, people think it’s slighting someone else. Like WTF? No, sometimes people just want to be nice. Relax.

I have this radical notion that people are entitled to their own opinions… especially in a fandom called CHOICES. And my tolerance for bullies is nil. Some of the shit I have seen, be it anons or people proudly posting their hatred and ignorance for all to see is appalling. (Hey, I give the latter credit, at least show who you are so people know who to block…)

It boggles my mind that people hate others because they like, or don’t like, a particular LI. Like what? Who gives a shit? My bff from this crazy-land is a Bryce stan and Ethan, uhm, “disliker”. Lol We busted each other’s chops over it since OH was still in release. But I adore her and she seems to tolerate me. 😂 We would have missed out on an incredible friendship if we were dumb enough to let such a stupid thing get in the way.

I also am in a unique vantage point as I don’t fall into any camp 100%. I never have, and while that can be lonely and frustrating at times, I like it this way. Falling into a clique and seeing everyone else as an “other” is always a recipe for disaster.

I can see when there are fucked up people on both sides of most (not all) issues. That includes our OH fandom discourse du jour. Anyone who thinks it’s one sided is delusional. Because I have seen people on both sides attacked and bullied and, fuck, I have been attacked and bullied by both sides. So I am only stating facts here, sorry if some find the offensive, but I don’t do alternative facts.

I really think we have people who are here strictly for the drama. Like outside of drama, where is the contribution? Live and let live man, don’t like someone, good, move on and and don’t waste your time or energy on them. The twisted hatred and long-term vendettas here are absolutely disturbing.

And conversations, RESPECTFUL conversations, are always welcome here. We don’t have to agree on everything to get along, or at minimum to be courteous to one another.

Off the soap box now… but seriously. Thank you. I have been so fed up w this place lately, and it gets difficult, so this is appreciated. 🩷🩷

I’m fucking loosing it okay, I lost my thoughts last time when I first saw the “I don’t wanna speculate uwu” boobers but I just

WHAT!!! IS!!! THE!!! POINT??? What do you MEAN you don’t theorize about the possibilities of cranboo’s species?? Why Say It Like That Too!!! What is with the holier than thou attitude coming off of that like. Am I missing something?? He’s playing a character why wouldn’t you want to theorize on the character he’s playing when it’s a /mystery/ it’s meant to be a /mystery/ we the audience don’t know I don’t get it it doesn’t make sense to me. I?? Do you think your better than your average boober if you don’t speculate?? This isn’t, your not gonna get scolded, it’s okay to have headcanons, your not on the gallows being deemed Valid or Not. I don’t know it just. Boggles my mind how some people act and feel in regards to engaging with aspects of dsmp

honestly? my best guess is down to the fact that the dream smp is a lot of kid’s first major fandom, if not their first fandom, period. which leads to a whole bunch of interesting phenomena and issues, ranging from the sheer scale of it to how user-interactive everything can be. here, though, it’s probably just the inexperience in fandom. i definitely had similar trains of thoughts in my first big fandoms, thinking i was better than other members by not believing a theory, or not speculating on a character, or anything along those lines.

and i’m just here to say. that does nothing but make your own personal experience absolute shit. there’s no enjoyment that’s gained from it. not for you, and definitely not for the people that interact with you. it’s okay if you’re wrong. it’s okay to believe in something that’s not canon. that’s the beauty in fandom; the ability to create a space based on the characters you enjoy, but one that is still wholly your own, with theories and headcanons and aus. no one cares if what you believe in isn’t canon, unless you begin crossing boundaries and attempting to assert it as such. have fun! create stuff that doesn’t make sense! as long as it’s all respectful and self-aware (in the sense that it is a divergence from canon), you’re allowed to spin the stories however you wish!!

The Big Read: Brightest Day + Various Other Bits

Finally finished a reread of a LOT of DC comics, my first big undertaking since DC Universe Infinite hit the UK, and I figured I’d insert a few thoughts on EVERYTHING. Each individual series or crossover that ran through this, at least, rather than individual reviews of all… 176 issues or whatever involved. This will mostly be me giving out about stuff I didn’t like.

Justice League: Cry for Justice (7 issue mini)

Legendarily crap event comic that was originally an ongoing for James Robinson to do a proactive Justice League with, instead ends up being a messy, muddled set-up for changes to Green Arrow and Arsenal, and ultimately lead to Robinson writing the main Justice League of America title, that was so meticulously fiddled with by events and editorial that it didn’t really connect at all.

So what do we get here, really? An overly-rendered comic about people wanting revenge for tragedies, that ends with a ropey fill-in artist, a dead child, and Green Arrow anti-climactically killing Prometheus. Was it worth it? Not even slightly, but as a starting point for this project it was at least readable. Robinson does love words, after all.

Rise and Fall (1 one-shot, 4 issue Arsenal mini, 2 issues of Green Arrow, 1 issue of Justice League)

Wretched follow-up. If you’re of a certain vintage like I am then the image of a drugged-up Roy Harper holding a dead cat like it’s either a weapon or a hallucination of his dead daughter Lian is seared into your retinas in the same sort of hopelessly mockable manner as something like Loss, melodrama so idiotically tasteless that it boggles the mind. There’s not much else to this, just gets Green Arrow ready for his forest antics in his relaunched title, and sets Arsenal up to turn up in Titans, where he considers levelling up his addiction to include an adrenochrome stand-in manufactured from captive children. So… I mean it only gets worse. Brief appearances of art from Mike Mayhew and Diogenes Neves can’t polish a turd up well enough to taste less like shit, sadly.

Justice League of America (23 issues, plus 3 issues of Justice Society of America, 1 issue of Starman/Congorilla. Crosses over with Blackest Night, Rise and Fall, Brightest Day, Reign of Doomsday)

I wonder what could have been? James Robinson is a flawed writer who likes words more than comics, and initially he’s paired with Mark Bagley, king of deadlines and a ridiculously long streak of consecutive issues on Ultimate Spider-Man, but not a glamorous artist by any means. Combined they could have the longevity and verboseness to get really deep into the concept of the Justice League, crawled into obscure spaces and highlighted obscure characters to really spoil us. You see glimpses of this whenever someone like Blue Jay turns up, or whenever Shade pops up, but more often than not the looming spectre of editorial control that fucked Dwayne McDuffie’s run on the title rears its ugly head, meaning you scarcely get a team together, much less off the ground, before it gets sidelined and reinvented in the wake of other events. It sucks, it really sucks, and serves as a hilarious capstone to one of the worst JLA series of all time (as in, from issues 1 to 60). Just a mercilessly compromised mess.

Still, positives. Elements of the team that do stick around show promise. Congorilla and Starman are a perfect reinvention of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold’s dynamic, down to the colours, and one that much better serves Robinson’s revelling in lesser-knowns. Donna Troy as the core of the team has promise, and she almost gets to feel like a character. Almost. Dick Grayson as Batman is… Look, he tried. It feels like Dick. But not nearly Batman enough. Robinson, as always, writes a fantastic Shade, and Bagley’s art is a consistent strength before he’s off and Booth is in with…. His style. At worst, this part of the reading project was fascinating as we watch it all fall apart over and over and over and over and.

Brightest Day (the main series. 24 issues, ties into most of everything in this post)

A series consisting entirely of drum rolls, without a satisfying ending to any of them. Quite liked ‘Whatever Happened to the Martian Manhunter’ as a one-issue story, and you can tell that the team really wanted to make you care about Firestorm, which is hilarious, because… no. Never. The Aquaman story feels like an awful self-serious mess, and features the beloved trend of the writer as Aquaman gets his hand lopped off! Johns does that a lot! Comics at the time did it a lot! Weird. The Hawkman and Hawkgirl story almost works, but has a shithouse ending that makes it feel like a waste. Actually, that’s true for a lot of this. But it gives other series something to play off of, and they certainly attempt to do that, so… mission accomplished? Oh, and it’s another case of DC trying to reintroduce Vertigo stuff back into the universe proper, just in time for none of it to matter when it gets thoughtlessly rebooted straight after. Pity.

Justice League: Generation Lost (24 issues, counterpart title to Brightest Day)

That’s better. Judd Winick bringing back the JLI is an inspired idea, as that series had melodrama and Winick is almost TOO in love with melodrama (I love it). Giffen helps out early on, giving it an air of legitimacy as a JLI continuation, and most of the artists are middling to decent (sadly the most competent of the set is kind of a weird anti-semite, which sucks the air out of it a bit), allowing for the tale of a bunch of idiots versus a mind-wiping genius, a storyline that only really falls apart because whatever grand ideas Max Lord has are undermined by JMS’ shite reboot of Wonder Woman, a sort of dry run for the New 52 that didn’t seem to care that it fucked with the established universe. Probably should have read that for this, too. And Power Girl, but I own that in issues so considered it a done deal. Winick writes a great Booster Gold, a great Captain Atom (imagine such a thing) and a good everyone else. If you want strong character work shining through a stupid story, this is the book for you.

Green Lantern (10 issues, all Brightest Day tie-ins)

Doug Mahnke on art! What a glorious treat, an artist at the top of his game in DC, doing actual career best work that stands out miles above the house style of the time, actively elevating the ho-hum writing of these tie-in issues simply because everything looks FANTASTIC. Read these issues for that alone, and you’ll be grand. The actual plot of the entities being stolen is a little unfocused, but plays well with the various corps this run introduced into the mythos.

Green Lantern Corps (10 issues, all Brightest Day tie-ins)

Almost entirely the opposite from Green Lantern. Bedard is a decent sci-fi comic writer, underserved by the artists on this title as he gives us a story largely centred on the weaponeer, a buff fellow who made the yellow lantern rings, seeking revenge as redemption by kidnapping Soranik Natu to entice her daddy Sinestro to come get murked. The story falls apart a bit when it’s resolution time (a recurring problem for the writer), but a fun distraction. Not much else to say.

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (6 issues, all Brightest Day tie-ins)

A Guy Gardner ongoing! Truly the days of Guy Gardner: Warrior are upon us once more! This is… fine. If you’ve read Tomasi’s run on Green Lantern Corps, his Batman & Robin, his… his other Green Lantern Corps run, it’s all in a similar vein of quite good comics, and the mission statement, truncated as it becomes by War of the Green Lanterns, is sound, with Guy and Ganthet exploring the deepest depths and darkest outreaches of space. Coulda been special, as it is it’s a good distraction along the way to Guy’s Red Lanterns era. The art is depressingly functional, but that kind of felt like the way for a lot of DC at the time for me.

Titans: Villains for Hire (1 one-shot, 16 issues, only 5 of which tie into Brightest Day)

God this is shit. Relentlessly so. Just the fucking worst. Needless character death and humiliating matchbox treatment, worthless addict Roy Harper wanting to huff them child drugs, Cheshire double/triple/quadruple crossing Deathstroke all along the way, Jericho being clumsily brought back, volcanic lava vagina from a deeply damaged woman, and the tattooed man getting some of the most unsatisfying character work possible. Just awful. Painful to read. Everyone sucks, no-one is likeable. Fiorentino and Richards give the series a specific look, which would be exciting, but… it’s in service to one of the worst comics of the era. Read it only if you’re curious about how bad it can get.

The Flash (7 issues, all Brightest Day tie-ins)

The bridge between Brightest Day and Flashpoint is a very, VERY pretty comic, but Johns’ Barry Allen is the most boring possible character, and his overly literal approach to settings and characterisations frustrate more than please. That said, good focus on Captain Boomerang, a character who was both dead and shit before this point, and would go on to be a highlight of a better writer’s run on Suicide Squad many years later. So yes, read for that, and read for Manapul’s unbelievably pretty art.

Green Arrow (12 issues, all Brightest Day tie-ins)

It’s the MVP of Brightest Day! From the writer of Arsenal fucking/hugging/grieving a cat, we get a surprisingly deft handling of a fugitive Green Arrow, living inside of a magical forest with a guy with brain problems because of grief. Neves on art is the biggest treat, and was what brought me in back in the day following his New Mutants run. Krul uses him well with lush greenery, hard-hitting fights, and grand spectacle as characters such as The Demon and Swamp Thing turn up to complicate Oliver Queen’s tree-bound life. Read this one, both for its quality and as a pairing with Action Comics, both of which see writer (Cornell on Action) and artist (Neves here) perform something of a dry run for their fantastic work on Demon Knights.

Birds of Prey (5 issues, all Brightest Day tie-ins)

Ed Benes has never met a comic he can draw, and he wasn’t going to start here. Simone’s writing might be up others’ alleys but, outside of a fantasy sequence of Penguins’s didn’t really do much for me here. Bust.

Action Comics (14 issues, plus single issues of *inhales* Secret Six, Steel, Outsiders, Superman/Batman, Superboy, and Justice League of America)

This is a game of two halves. On the one half you have Paul Cornell and Pete Woods(among others)’ stellar Lex Luthor story The Black Ring, featuring some definitive character writing and fun adventuring from the creative team as they present a successful take on how Lex can be the protagonist of Action Comics (something we get to enjoy again from a different creative team many years later in Rebirth). It’s stunning work that reminds you that for a time Cornell was in a similar position to Kieron Gillen, a new British Invasion working on cult runs on books that deserved bigger audiences (for Cornell this was Captain Britain and MI-13, a series that’s yet to be topped for modern takes on an Excalibur team book), and Action Comics felt like that next step up, especially with the prospect of writing issue 900 on the table. It all went a different direction past this point though, leaving a couple more solid runs from the author before moving on to different projects.

The other half is Reign of Doomsday/Reign of the Doomsdays, a bunch of crossover books handled by various writers that presented a first half of heroes getting beaten by Doomsday, ready for a Cornell-handled second half where all the Superman family has to deal with multiple Doomsdays and a Doomsday that kills Doomsdays. It’s a hot mess that can’t be course-corrected when Cornell comes in, and actively weakens the end of his Lex run. Massively unfortunate arc, and leaves a sour end to what had otherwise been an essential run. Still, the Lex stuff holds up, so ignore the Doomsday bits and dive on in.

I think that’s it? A fun reading project but I’ll be glad to use my DCUI sub for something different. ANYTHING different.

If Kishimoto really wants people to believe that Sasuke loves Sakura and that they have such a good marriage then he's doing a piss poor job at it. You don't see people arguing if Minato loved Kushina or not or if Dan loved Tsunade or not. You don't. The fact that there are so many people arguing whether Sasuke loves Sakura or not, and many people believing he doesn't is just proof that Kishimoto failed somewhere or else there wouldn't be this much controversy surrounding this matter. It's either Kishimoto implying Sasuke does not love her, either Kishimoto intending to portray his idea of a good realtionship/loving husband through SS and failing miserably. Sasuke did not look happy when he saw Sakura in Gaiden first time after 10 years of absence. He couldn't even bother to send a letter to her and Sarada to let them know he was alright and thinking about them during this period. And no, please don't come at me with that bullshit excuse that he didn't keep in contact because he wanted to keep the secrecy of his mission and did not want any private information to leak and that's why he was only keeping in contact with the Hokage or whatever. No one says that if he ever bothered to write them he had to go into details about his mission. He could've just told them he's alright, that he misses them and hopes they're fine and that would've been great too and wouldn't have compromised his mission in any way. The man has space time abilities for fuck's sake. He could've easily teleported to see them and then go back to his business. In my opinion Kishimoto wrote SS in this ambiguous way to appease both the SS haters and the SS shippers. He knew SS fans were going to be happy with whatever he threw at them even if it was the absolute bottom of the barrel and he knew the antis were gonna have a good time using Gaiden to further tear the ship apart. This man is either terrible at writing romance either a huge troll who enjoys pitying his readers against each other. Or maybe both. And I assure you, I don't even hate SS, despite what I have written so far, nor do I ship something else. And Sasuke is also my favorite character. I'm indifferent to this pairing and maybe that's why I can have a more objective opinion on it than its shippers or its haters since I'm not biased due to personal feelings of either distaste or love for it. SS can be seen in both a good and a bad light, but to be honest the balance is more inclined towards the bad light.

This is just more of the stuff that I've heard plenty of times before. I'll firstly preface this by saying that I'm very highly critical of Gaiden because it included pointless drama for the sake of pointless drama. It's execution was horrendous to say the least, but I'll always still appreciate the message that Kishi was trying to relay. However, I will always take issue with those who defend the notion that Sasuke doesn't love Sakura. Hence, the following.

You don't see people arguing if Minato loved Kushina or not or if Dan loved Tsunade or not. You don't. The fact that there are so many people arguing whether Sasuke loves Sakura or not, and many people believing he doesn't is just proof that Kishimoto failed somewhere or else there wouldn't be this much controversy surrounding this matter.

Minato wasn't drowning in hatred due to a supernatural phenomenon which cause him to push away love in favour of the darkness. Dan wasn't made to undertake a preposterously long mission while intending to keep everything about it confidential. Why on earth do people think they can just compare any random relationships to SS's and go "well look at this couple! Why couldn't SS have been more like them?". Well here's your answer - Because their situations were nothing alike. But why do people constantly believe that those relationships are the only models for what a loving relationship can be? The struggles that Sasuke and Sakura faced during Gaiden were not due to issues with each other, but rather, they were shown facing hurdles which they overcame together. They were perfectly happy with each other, and not once did their dedication to one another ever falter during Sasuke's mission. Just because the couple faced hard times does not mean their bond is any weaker. On the contrary, the fact they they faced those hard times together and came out of them just as strong if not stronger than before, is a testament to the strength of the relationship.

You wanna know what I don't see? I don't see people questioning Neji and Hinata's relationship despite Neji trying to kill her during the Chuunin Exams. I don't see people questioning Hiashi's feelings towards Hinata despite essentially disowning her because he deemed her to be a failure. I don't see people questioning Gaara being the Kazekage despite him previously being feared as a killing machine who slaughtered many innocent people, by the very same villagers who now respect him as their leader. I don't see people questioning why Kabuto was trusted to become the head of the Orphanage and taking care of the future of the village, despite being a notorious war criminal. No, but of course people will question SS right? Despite them just being another example of the same theme.

It's either Kishimoto implying Sasuke does not love her, either Kishimoto intending to portray his idea of a good relationship/loving husband through SS and failing miserably.

Kishi flat out said, that the love between the Uchiha family is the real deal. He's not implying anything, and if he truly failed at depicting this, then SS wouldn't have consistently proven to be the most popular canonised pairing for years following the manga's ending.

Sasuke did not look happy when he saw Sakura in Gaiden first time after 10 years of absence.

And you think that's indicative that he doesn't love her? Are you serious? The entire time, Sasuke was very clearly shown to be aggravated because people who weren't supposed to be at his and Naruto's secret meeting place kept showing up. He didn't look happy when first meeting Naruto either, despite not seeing him for just as long. So what? You think that means he doesn't care about Naruto either? He was aggravated that Sarada was there because she was supposed to be in the village safe from all this, he was annoyed with Naruto for allowing the kids to follow him in the first place, and yeah, he didn't jump for joy when seeing Sakura because again, she was meant to be watching over Sarada in the village. One of the biggest incentives for his secrecy was to keep Sarada safe, and everything that was happening then, was the opposite of that.

He couldn't even bother to send a letter to her and Sarada to let them know he was alright and thinking about them during this period. And no, please don't come at me with that bullshit excuse that he didn't keep in contact because he wanted to keep the secrecy of his mission and did not want any private information to leak and that's why he was only keeping in contact with the Hokage or whatever. No one says that if he ever bothered to write them he had to go into details about his mission. He could've just told them he's alright, that he misses them and hopes they're fine and that would've been great too and wouldn't have compromised his mission in any way.

You can call it a "bullshit excuse" all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that this is the reason that was given. But it's like people just refuse to acknowledge the fact that Sasuke admitted that he had made a big mistake, and refused to allow Sakura to apologise because he knew that he was the one at fault:

I mean what? Do people think that Sasuke has to be perfect or something? Is he not a human who makes mistakes just like everyone else? Sasuke knew that he took his secrecy too far, he hadn't anticipated the adverse affects his absence would have on Sarada, and he apologised for his mistake. Why? Because he cares, for goodness sake it's not hard to comprehend. I seriously would have never thought that people would actually question whether or not he loves his family. Why would Kishi promote a loveless marriage in his manga aimed at young boys? It just boggles the mind. If Sasuke didn't care about them, he wouldn't have thought he did anything wrong by his lack of contact with his daughter. I emphasise with his daughter because Sakura was still somewhat in contact with Sasuke as she was kept informed of what he was doing.

In my opinion Kishimoto wrote SS in this ambiguous way to appease both the SS haters and the SS shippers.

Why would Kishi care about appeasing the same fans who harassed him so badly following the manga's conclusion, that his editior had to respond in broken English and basically tell those entitled children that the story doesn't belong to them? I'll reiterate that there's nothing "ambiguous" about their relationship, nor is Kishi implying anything. Gaiden made it crystal clear, that the love between the Uchiha family is the real deal, there's nothing ambiguous about that statement, there's nothing ambiguous about Sasuke giving Sakura the forehead poke, and there's nothing ambiguous about Sasuke flat out clarifying that his heart is connected to Sakura's.

Damian Wayne x GN!Reader in: His Favorite Helper Elf

12 Days of Batmas || Day 4—Wrapping Presents

MINORS/AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT || 18+ ONLY ||

↞ previous: mall madness || getting lost at the mall

|| ao3 version | 12 days m.list | batboys tag | main blog ||

|| dick day 4 | jay day 4 | tim day 4 ||

Damian once told you that he falls in love with you all over again, several times a day, every day…

He falls a little deeper every day…

↠ Requested By: Not a soul lol ↠ Reader Gender: Neutral ↠ Content Type: SFW fluff ((but my blog’s 18+ if minors want to consume my sfw stuff while still respecting my wishes of them staying out of this space, they can head over to my AO3)) ↠ CWs: None ↠ Betas? Nah, we don’t do that here. ↠ Total WC: 1.7k~

Headcanon || WC: 1.1k~

🌟 Damian is v. good at wrapping gifts tho this doesn’t come as a surprise because Damian is good at literally everything lol.

🌟 But seriously, stuff like this is right up his alley as he really likes activities that require precision and-or a lot of detail work.

Tbh he’s pretty anal about things, though once again this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Dames is a perfectionist—it doesn’t matter how small or inconsequential the task is, there is always a proper way to go about things.

Those corners? Sharp. Edges, laid. Tape? It’s on there, but you can barely see it. How he manages to secure things with such a small amount is truly mind boggling.

((Spoiler: That tape is double-sided. That’s it, that’s his secret lol))

🌟 As far as aesthetics go his tastes tend to be more austere. There’s just something about plain brown paper and twine that he finds utterly charming. In fact if given his way he would do the whole of your home’s decorations in this rustic, minimalist style.

🌟 Of course he knows this isn’t everyone’s thing, and he’s more than willing to adapt to the recipient’s tastes.

Well now, at least. I can definitely see Damian’s younger self being a little shit that didn’t much care about making nice.

The way he saw it, he was already being v. generous in even giving you the gift in the first place, at the very least he should get the enjoyment of wrapping it to his liking. And you should just be glad you’re getting something when you could just as easily be getting a whole bunch of nothing.

…Yeah, kid had some issues that manifested themselves in a lot of misplaced anger that would crop up over the most random things.

Birthdays esp. rubbed him the wrong way because why is this person being celebrated for being born—a thing which they had no say in or control over—and subsequently surviving? They’ve literally done the absolute bare minimum and yet here people are making a big fuss over it and he just?? Doesn’t get it???

As he got older and began to sort out his trauma he realized that the true cause of his ire was a vicious form of jealousy mixed with resentment. He never had those things growing up under his mother’s care, and once he was taken in by his father he actively shunned them as he’d been taught that such indulgences bred weakness (a big fucking load, that, given the lavish lifestyle Ra’s leads, but double standards and such).

Growing up as he did the laws of nature, specifically survival of the fittest, were held up as standards. Because of this expectations were high and things thought to be worthy of lauding were all but nonexistent. Even his most astonishing feats barely got more than a nod of recognition because “You don’t get a pat on the head for doing what you’re supposed to do.” So for people to go all out over living to their next year—esp. when they had normal, cushy lives—yeah, no.

With the motivations for his reactions discovered, he was adamant about doing everything in his power to turn things around as he hates the thought of allowing anything from his past to further taint his future. The process has been a slow one, and honestly sometimes he still looks at things through jaded eyes, but he’s healing.

The League wanted him to be an unfeeling killer, his mother a pawn, but those who truly care for him have always wanted so much more. Because of this he strives daily to be a man worthy of you all as well as the hopes that you have for him.

🌟 But this is getting too heavy and we’re not really here for that so let’s move on!

🌟 Looping back around—as far as wrapping paper goes, he’ll pick things that compliments the person’s personal tastes and-or the event.

They’ll still be on the plainer side tho (i.e. solid colored paper and toppers), but like really classy. He uses good quality materials and it shows.

If it has a glossy finish then you’re gonna be able to see your reflection in that shit, if its matte then it’s going to have a nice texture to it, and if it’s metallic then it’s definitely got legit gold/silver leaf on it.

Though it’s kinda contrary to what’s been said thus far, he really loves elaborate toppers. Doesn’t matter if it’s a bow or ribbons or whatever else—that’s always gonna be the most ostentatious part of the packaging.

🌟 Lessons will be provided upon request, but this is Dames we’re talking about, so… Procced at your sanity’s risk lol.

He’ll go a little easier on you because you’re his baby, but still.

He’s about on par with Jay when it comes to his teaching methods, so expect a legit workshop-type experience.

Given the fact that he personally works best when left to his own devices he’ll be a bit more hands-off unless you prove to need assistance, but this doesn’t really help matters because he’s just standing there on the opposite side of the table judging your every little move—and yeah, nah, I’m good bro lmao.

But for you he allows himself to be far more adaptable than he would otherwise be, so all it’ll take is for you to tell him what you need from him as far as instruction/observation goes and he’ll be quick to switch it up.

🌟 It should also be said now that he will never use a gift box or bag. Ever. Don’t try to fight him on this, you will just die mad and tired.

Same goes for letting so-called ‘professionals’ wrap things for him. Like Jay, he feels that his skills are equal, no better, than what those people could ever hope to achieve.

And ya know what? He isn’t wrong, and maybe he should say it lol.

🌟 Tho he puts a lot of work into his wrapping, he absolutely loves to see you rip it to shreds.

There’s just something about the childlike glee that overtakes your face when you do this that just hits different.

Does it have something to do with catching a glimpse of the childhood he never got to indulge in and is now reliving through you in this small way? Mayhaps. But he’s not actively looking that deeply into things, he just wants to enjoy this moment with you…

But omg if you guys have kids it’s so on. He’s gonna get them a grip of gifts just so there’ll be more things for them to unwrap and squeal over. Definitely the type to have a whole damn tribe if you let him, but that’s a HC for another day…

His Favorite Helper Elf || WC: ~600

“May I borrow your finger, beloved?”

The inquiry makes you smile. Damian hardly needs your help to tie the bow—you’ve seen him create shapes far more elaborate, and frankly verging on the impossible, without any assistance—but it’s nice of him to want to include you even in this small way.

Fairly early on into the gift wrapping session you had decided to leave things in his overly capable hands as by comparison your efforts looked like those of a toddler’s. Of course your man was far too enamored with you to say as much, but you’re positive that he was thinking it. But it’s all just as well as Dames has always enjoyed such tasks and you enjoy watching him unwind, so really it’s a win-win.

You place your finger in the indicated spot only to remove it some odd seconds later as deft digits continue to manipulate the length of ribbon until it’s properly coiffed and secured. You take the finished gift and add it to the ‘done pile’, though when you go to reach for the next unwrapped item you come up empty.

“Looks like we’re, or well you’re finished,” you comment as you look over the culmination of his hard work.

Long, toned arms secure themselves around your middle and you find yourself being pulled back into an equally muscled chest. You lean into the embrace, sighing a bit when soft lips brush against your temple.

“You played your roll,” he assures you as he rests his chin against your shoulder, “and beautifully at that, my love.”

Your huff of laughter is totally disbelieving. He’s being far too generous, you only wrapped two gifts total, both of which are for some out of town loved ones—currently they’re tucked away in boxes waiting to be mailed so at least they won’t have to be displayed alongside his masterworks—and when you tell him as much you can feel him shrug.

“Still, you stayed and kept me company. This wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable an endeavor without you. You’re the perfect little helper elf.”

Your brow arches at the title even as you laugh. “If I’m a helper elf then what does that make you? And you can’t say Santa because he’s not about that wrapping life. Plus that’d also make Mrs. Claus your main squeeze and I’m not about that side piece life.”

The fact that you’ve gotten him to laugh so hard more than makes up for almost having your eardrum blown out by his initial bark of laughter.

Still chuckling, he turns you so that you’re facing him. The jade of his eyes sparkles with a mixture of mirth and love-fueled warmth as he looks you over, though it soon shifts into something deeper. Damian once told you that he falls in love with you all over again, several times a day, every day—the soft sweep of a calloused thumb over the swell of your cheek leaves you with the impression that this is one such moment.

There’s no fire behind his kiss, just a heart-aching affection that leaves your knees weak and your lids fluttering close. He lingers in your space long after the kiss is broken, forehead braced against yours and eyes shut. There’s a small smile pulling at his lips, one born of pure contentment, one that says there’s no place else he’d rather be than right here in your arms…

Up Next: 🌟 Day 5: A Most Discerning Customer || Ugly Sweaters

“Well the ugliest sweater gets a prize… That, uhh, that makes the pain worth it, right? At least a little bit?”

“Beloved, I think that the best prize to be had is the retention of our dignity.”

He makes ‘bad’ look oh-so-good…

© notepadsandtealeaves, 2021 || Please do not repost, translate, or otherwise alter or distribute my works without my express permission. And for the love of god keep it away from Youtube and TikTok lol…

Between a starring role in Cinderella, live performances, and a forthcoming album, it would appear things are business as usual for Camila Cabello. But there’s a difference: Before the pandemic her work was leaving her drained, anxious, and insecure. Now she’s found a way to be a pop star on her own terms, and everything—from the music to her relationship with her body—has fallen into place.

By mid-September, Camila Cabello was feeling burnt out. In the span of three days she had performed at the MTV Video Music Awards, attended the Met gala with boyfriend Shawn Mendes, and shot the first-ever global cover for Glamour. So when she finally returned home to Miami, rest wasn’t just desired—it was essential.

But rehearsals for New York’s Global Citizen Festival loomed. Before jumping back into pop star mode, Cabello put on a yellow bikini and headed to the beach for two hours of blissfully uninterrupted downtime. She sank into a chair and cracked open a book, her favorite pastime. The salty air enveloped her; waves crashed in the distance. This is why she lives in Miami, her hometown, as opposed to a showbiz hub like Los Angeles: more privacy.

Or so she thought. Somehow the paparazzi found out where she was for those 120 minutes. She didn’t see them at first, but there they were, snapping away.

“I didn’t consent to those pictures,” she tells me over Zoom, camera off as she drives in Miami. (At one point she says to someone on the road, “Why are you honking at me, bro?”) “I got my period on the beach. I’m in a bikini and on my period, so I don’t know if I have a fucking period stain and that’s going to be everywhere. I didn’t sign up for anybody to be taking pictures of me in a bikini.”

Cabello has developed methods for dealing with invasive situations like this. She’s had to. The 24-year-old—born in Cuba, raised in Miami—has been in the public eye since 2012, when she competed on The X-Factor. She auditioned as a solo artist but was later matched with four other girls to form the pop group Fifth Harmony. They released two albums before Cabello embarked on her own—and achieved mind-boggling fame. Her singles “Havana” and “Señorita” (with Mendes) topped the charts worldwide. She’s earned three Grammy nominations, become a face of L’Oréal, and tried her hand at not just acting but starring in a feature film: this year’s Cinderella remake on Amazon Prime. Her third studio album, Familia, is due out later this year.

By all accounts it’s a lot. Careerwise it’s the closest things have felt to prepandemic times, when she was working constantly, arguably to an exhausting degree. As COVID-19 shutdowns went into effect last March, Cabello was able to realize just how tired she was.

“I by no means am trying to complain,” she says, “but it was such a thing of, ‘I have to get onstage tomorrow and I’m performing at this big thing,’ or whatever. ‘I want to do a good job. How do I do that when I feel nervous?’ I did this without being like, ‘Am I even happy right now? Do I even feel healthy?’ I didn’t have the space to ask myself those questions. I’m still working a ton now, but after quarantine I’m able to be like, ‘You know what? Right now I’m just not happy. I need to change something.’”

Therapy helped her see the changes she needed to make. Cabello tells me she’d experimented with therapy before the pandemic, but it was always situation focused—quick fixes to help her tackle the next performance or songwriting session. But with time at home, she dug deeper: “Because I wasn’t stressed about all the things I needed to do the next day, I was able to slow down and have enough stability to look at my stuff.”

Cabello doesn’t expand on what that “stuff” is. She does, however, explain why she decided to switch therapists as her internal work continued. “I wasn’t feeling like I was progressing in the areas I wanted to progress,” she says. “But when I switched, I found I was able to apply what they said in a way that benefited my mental health.”

One lesson she’s learned is the power of saying no. Two hit albums under her belt give Cabello the freedom to do things her way. Now she always has one day off a week, minimum. And when time came to start work on Familia, she forwent the standard pop music factory for a more intimate approach. The new album was made with just a handful of collaborators she could be open with. If Cabello was feeling anxious or nervous in a session, she had the space to address it. As a result, she says, it’s her best work yet.

“It’s the most grounded and calm I’ve ever been making an album,” she says. “I worked with people I wanted to have dinner with, and I was like, ‘I’m not going to write every single day for months, but write a few days a week and have time to gather experiences and be a human being.’”

Shawn Mendes is one of the people she’s gathering experiences with. The two singers confirmed their relationship in September 2019, and they’ve been tabloid magnets ever since. Everything from their laughably slow pandemic walks to their kissing style is dissected with a fine-tooth comb. A clip of them getting ready for the Met gala went instantly viral.

Cabello tells me she and Mendes try to avoid the social media chatter about their relationship, but it inevitably seeps in. “When stuff that’s negative is out there, it’s going to get to you,” she says. “So yeah, that’s very, very challenging. I feel like it’s another thing therapy has been really helpful for.”

Mendes goes to therapy too. While Cabello says she and Mendes haven’t done couples therapy—though she’d be open to it—they very much work on their mental health together.

“For better, for worse, we’re very transparent with each other. I think that’s why we can trust each other so much, because it’s a very 3D human relationship,” she says. “I’ll be venting or ranting about something, and he’ll be like, ‘Have you talked to X about it?’ And I’ll be like, ‘No. I’ve got to do a session.’ And he’ll do the same thing to me. I think even just the language of being like, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that I’ve been distant with you or snappy with you. I’m just struggling and I’m feeling kind of anxious.’ That level of transparency really helps a lot.”

Mendes echoes Cabello’s thoughts. “Camila and I give each other an extreme amount of patience and understanding,” he tells me via email. “I think the truth is that when you’re struggling with mental health, it turns you sometimes into the version of yourself that you don’t like to be—and kind of loving and accepting your person through that, and being there for them through that, is life-changing. We give each other so much space and understanding and patience.”

A behind-the-scenes VMAs story perfectly illustrates this. When Cabello was nervous meeting new people at an after-party, she caught herself leaning on a habit she’s trying to break. Mendes helped her through it.

“I have this pattern of eating a lot when I’m anxious or uncomfortable,” she says. “It’s a comfort thing for me. I’ll just kind of become unconscious and zombie-eat a lot, and then I’ll feel sick. I’ve told Shawn about that. So at the VMAs party, I was like, ‘I’m doing it.’ And he was like, ‘It’s okay. You’re doing it. That’s okay. Let’s just take a breath and not do that.’ It’s really good for me to be able to talk about my patterns with someone.”

Food and body image are two things that have really been on Cabello’s mind this year. A July TikTok she posted shutting down body-shamers racked up 4.8 million likes. “Being at war with your body is so last season,” she says in the video, which she posted after photos of her running in Los Angeles made the rounds online.

That mantra is true, sure, but it’s easier said than done. Even Cabello has difficulty following it. She braced herself for what she might feel when those aforementioned bikini pics went live: “I need to work out. I need to eat better.” “Not that those things are bad,” she says. “But maybe I wouldn’t think about them as much if there weren’t people taking pictures of me.”

It’s not just the paparazzi who ignite moments of self-doubt. Cabello tells me about a time she was exercising with her trainer, Jenna Willis—who’s great, she says—and feeling insecure. “She’s the same height as me, and I was kind of comparing myself to her, because she is a lot skinnier than I am,” she recalls. “I was just like, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been working out and I look better, right? I look better, right?’”

It’s Willis who helped silence those voices in Cabello’s head, reminding her that how she feels is more important than appearances; that life is about balance and enjoying food. These are health philosophies we’ve all heard—but when you’re Camila Cabello and millions are picking apart your beach photos, it’s hard to tune out the noise. Now when she’s feeling down on herself, she just turns her phone off and goes outside.

“When I’m having negative thoughts about my body, that’s actually when I’ll want to binge-eat cookies, and then I have a stomachache,” she says. “It’s this weird psychology: The more I love my body, the more I actually want to take care of it…. As long as I’m healthy and working out and feel good, that’s the best I can do. There’s no point in trying to have another kind of body.”

By this point in our conversation, Cabello’s made it to her destination. When I ask if she’ll have time to chill and decompress, she says, “To be honest, not yet, but I will after this weekend.” There’s a calmness in her voice when she says this—a stillness, a readiness. She seems perfectly prepared for what lies ahead: album promo, performances, and undoubtedly more scrutiny about her body, her relationship, her everything. But she’ll be fine, because just around the corner is a day off. That’s nonnegotiable.

“It’s important to be on top of not just what’s making you sad or anxious, but also what’s giving you joy,” she says. “I want to be happy and enjoy my life. That’s kind of it.”

HOSTIS, Chapter I: Primi Foederis, The First Meeting

Member: Lee Hyunjae (tbz)

Genre (by chapter): angst, drama, comedy featuring doctor hyunjae 

Category: Short Novel/ Long Series (because i’m expecting to invest quite a lot of effort into this)

A/N: YEET back with another short novel idk how long this one is going to run. i’m already predicting it’s going to be longer than chaebol juyeon because i have alot of ideas waiting to come out in this one, let’s see if i butcher it LOL. this is the first piece of work i’m posting on tumblr that isn’t part of my playlist feels collection because i don’t think i’ll be able to find a track that fits every chapter well like i’ve been doing for my playlist feels collection. any-o-how, hopefully this is gonna go well... and i’ll see you on the other side ;)

“i’ve invested so much time and effort to make sure i will never have to see you again...” 

“but i must’ve done something unforgivable in my past life for fate to put us in the same place,”

“...even after a decade.”

the amygdala helps coordinate responses to things in one’s environment, especially those that trigger an emotional response. 

this structure plays an important role in anger.

the rapid, minimal, and evaluative processing of the emotional significance of the sensory data is done when the data passes through the amygdala in its travel from the sensory organs along certain neural pathways towards the limbic forebrain. 

emotion caused by discrimination of stimulus features, thoughts, or memories however, occurs when its information is relayed from the thalamus to the neocortex.

based on some statistical analysis, some doctors have suggested that the tendency for anger may be genetic. 

but that’s not the case for you. 

usually, you’d run your thoughts through your head before you spat them out, but the sight of him was enough to make you want to regurgitate your breakfast.

“you have to be shitting me.”

not one pinch of regret shows in your words, and all you could do was stare in utter disbelief at the man standing right opposite you. the department head had a clipboard in his hand as he flipped through it, only pausing when he heard your cold, yet frustrated tone buried in your expression. 

“oh,” he releases the sheets of paper in his hand and places the clipboard down on the table he was leaning on. “so you know each other.”

the gleaming sunlight was shining into the room behind the man standing directly opposite you, and the department head was resting his rear against the edge of the desk between the two of you. 

the years of hard work finished themselves as certificates and plaques of achievements that hung on the wall behind him, and from the corner of your eye, you could almost see your own enraged facial expression in the reflection off the awards. 

“well, that makes things a lot easier for me, but i am still obligated to facilitate a proper introduction -- meeting -- or whatever the two of you want to call it,” the glasses on his nose would’ve fallen off if he didn’t push them back up his nose bridge.

your eyes were darting back and forth between the department head and the last person you’d ever want to see, or even have within your reach. your jaw was locked and your temples were so tight, you could feel a vein slowly exposing itself on your forehead.

“y/n, this is doctor lee hyunjae, and the both of you will be my mentees for the next two weeks.”

i know his fucking name--

“so until those two weeks are up, i wouldn’t expect anything less than the two of you following me around like little puppies,”

puppies? just call us dogs and that’ll already be half the truth.

“and after that, there’ll be a high chance that you’ll both need work on a research project with the research department--”

“‘research department’?” you blurt out rudely, but the department head doesn’t look like he could care less. 

“did i say that wrong?” he raises an indifferent brow at you, arms crossed over his chest while he pulls his shoulder blades backwards. 

there was no way you would’ve complained about med school being so difficult if you knew this day was coming. the energy required to contain your desire to punch lee hyunjae in the nose and ram your knee into his groin was enough to drain you in that very moment. 

you would’ve passed out if you weren’t standing in the department head’s office.

“i agree it’s not like the hospital to put two young doctors to work on a research project, but the work the both of you did in your respective schools were a little difficult for the research department to ignore.”

‘respective schools’...

the silence becomes deafening, and the department head starts to smack his lips awkwardly loudly. “so if you have no further questions for now, i’d like you to fill up some administrative forms for the hospital to finalise, and then i’ll see you in the cafeteria for lunch at twelve,” he pulls out some sheets of paper from the clipboard and hands it to the two of you after slotting them into clear files. 

“after lunch, i’ll give you one more tour around the hospital and a more detailed orientation of the north wing where the research department is... and the east wing where the neurology department is, which the two of you would be officially attached to and on document.”

you skim through the documents in the file, and your eyes naturally travel back up to look at your mentor. 

“so if there are no further questions, you may go.”

both you and lucifer bow to your mentor, and he waits for the both of you to leave the office before he returns to his huge leather seat. 

you let yourself out the door, not bothering to hold it open for your colleague. the grip on the clear file was tightening every second and you don’t realise you were on the verge of crumpling the contents of it. every muscle and feature on your face were compressed in itself, but luckily it doesn’t catch the attention of passing hospital staff and patients walking along the hall way.

the reflection off the frame of the lift tells you that your lips were white from the airtight closure, and you jab the lift button like you hated it. 

“just so you know, i’m not fond of the idea of being stuck with you for an indefinite amount of time either.”

“ha,” you scoff, watching him stand a safe distance behind you in the reflection. “i must be so lucky for you to be able to read my expression and distaste... especially with how hard i tried to hide it.”

he snorts behind you, and the air hits the hair of your ponytail. 

“you’ve never been able to hide your feelings anyway,” 

this piece of--

“so it would be such an honor to even see you try.”

your eye twitches and your lips pucker in rage at the smug tone in his voice. you turn on one heel and raise the file, ready to swing it into his face. 

“you--”

he grabs your wrist, waiting for your strength in your forearm to dissipate. you begin to writhe your way out of his grip with pursed lips, and he drops it like it wasn’t attached to you.

you take a step back towards the lift and mindlessly pat down your white coat, glaring at him with eyes you wish had daggers. 

“nice to know your temper hasn’t changed.”

“i have a designated type of temper when it comes to you, not because i have anger management issues.”

the lift arrives and the doors open to reveal an empty space, pouring a bucket full of agony and scorn over your head when the realisation of being stuck with lee hyunjae for an indefinite amount of time sinks into your neurons. 

just being around lee hyunjae was so difficult to swallow. 

if you weren’t in a hospital with patients who had an actual reason to throw up, you would’ve done it in plain sight. 

if you knew there were no laws to sentence you to death for murder, you would’ve stabbed him in the eye.

if you weren’t a doctor who took a pledge to only save lives just under a week ago, you would’ve poisoned him with some godforsaken virus mankind has found a way to contain. 

you would’ve enjoyed lunch and the tour of the hospital, despite it being your third time wandering around the compound, if it weren’t for the fact that the last person you wanted to see was standing right next to you the entire duration.

becoming a doctor was nothing short of prestige and honour for your family, especially when you’ve come from a long line of neurosurgeons and relatives who would’ve spent more time inhaling the scent of a certain hospital than their own homes. 

it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it was in your blood to follow in everybody else’s footsteps; your parents would’ve probably freaked out and started worrying that you were someone’s secret illegitimate child if you didn’t become one.

“you must be y/n,” the doctor who had white hair and a wrinkly forehead had to be peeled and shoved off the seat by your mentor for him to get up and greet you. 

“this is doctor kim, head of research for neurology,” your mentor introduces as doctor kim shakes your hand. 

“and you must be lee hyunjae,” he shakes lucifer’s hand. 

‘petty’ was a word nobody usually associated you with, but you busked in the little sprinkle of glory and smugness when you see lee hyunjae’s lips twitch in disgust when he shakes the hand that just touched yours. 

“if you’re working on research, then you will report to doctor kim--”

“i’ve seen both your reports and research work and they are phenomenal--”

“uh, doctor kim--”

“how did oxford manage to come up with this set of data?” he literally sweeps his bony, wrinkled hands across the table, looking for something you assume he took from lucifer’s application portfolio. 

“doctor--”

“and how did harvard even think about this link? it’s so mind-boggling, i must admit i haven’t really wrapped my head around it--”

“doctor kim!” 

the sharp call startles you, and everybody else in the office turns to provide the group of you their attention. 

“sorry,” your mentor raises his hand and gives a small apologetic bow. “doctor kim,” he gently removes the items the old research doctor has grasped in his hands and places them elsewhere on the table. 

you note that though doctor kim does not look a day older than sixty, he must’ve been losing his brain cells and composure from all the research he’s been doing.

“the two of them will be officially placed in the neurology department under me, but do you remember that email you sent to me about wanting them to join your team?”

“of course! what do you treat me as?” the elder man frowns and pulls off his glasses, fists resting on his hips and looking up at your mentor. 

the sight lifts your spirits a little, and you momentarily forget that lucifer was standing right next to you. 

“uh-- okay, well, all you gotta do is drop me an email about one week prior to whenever you need them, but for these two weeks they are still going to be trainees mentored by me, you follow?”

the elder man squints at him with eyes that scream ‘i’m not an idiot’, and your mentor takes the cue. 

“after the two weeks are up, just drop them an email one week prior to when you need them and you can cc them to me. they may be bright lights in the dark but it might not necessarily guide the right people.”

“will you shut your trap--” the elder doctor picks up a thick file and rams it into your mentor’s head. your eyes widen in shock, hand flying up to your mouth to hide your surprise at the sudden attack. lucifer stands by and crosses his arms over his chest, a light smile appearing over his lips.

“with enough honing and experience, they can go a long way,” he drops the file back onto his table. “you didn’t start here with as much potential as these kids do.”

“okay!” your mentor exclaims, turning around and waving the two of you away from the office space. “if that’s all doctor kim, we’re going to take our leave!”

“you better not let those kids think i’m a crazy old man!” he waves the thick file at all of you, and you give him a little wave while your mentor ushers the both of you out of the office space. 

a laugh escapes your nostrils, and your mentor looks down at you with a look of embarrassment while the three of you return to the lift lobby. 

“are you two close?” lucifer asks, pressing the button on the lift panel.

“he was my mentor when i first came here as a trainee, so he’s been looking after me since then, even after i stopped being his mentee.”

“oh,” you nod. “that’s nice.”

“well, he is getting on with age,” the lift arrives and he pauses while the hospital staff exit. someone in the crowd greets him. 

you and lucifer follow him inside, and he presses the button of the floor that connects the north wing to the east wing. 

“so it’s only a matter of time before he retires. i don’t want the hospital to be the last place he’s in and i don’t want the last time he was seen... alive... to be him burying his nose in his research papers. he doesn’t have his own family so he’s either alone at home or in the office and working until someone chases him home.”

“hasn’t the hospital or... i don’t know... you, talked to him about retiring?” 

the lift doors open, and you notice the pause in the air. 

lucifer’s question struck a chord somewhere, and your mentor was showing it. 

“both the hospital and i have talked to him about it, but it’s not easy leaving a place you love working in...”

a pause. 

“or at least a place you’ve been working it for more than forty years.”

he brings the both of you to the neurology department and returns the two of you to your neighbouring offices after he concludes the orientation and tour. 

the scent of the hospital would’ve been nauseating for some people, patients especially. but there was something about the way the place smelled that convinced you becoming a doctor was worth the effort and hard work. 

the way the air smelled like medicine and iv disinfectant made you hopeful for patients, the obligation for every surface to be spick and span never failed to satiate your need for hygiene. 

you were finally in a place you wanted to be.

the only downfall was that you were going to be stuck with lucifer for how long, you don’t even know. 

“so that concludes the tours and orientation. i hope it was adequate and even if it wasn’t, don’t hesitate to drop by my office and ask me anything you deem important enough to ask. otherwise you can just email me,” he slides his hands into his coat pockets. 

the two of you bow, ready to admire his back leaving the two of you before you could roll your eyes at each other. 

but he doesn’t leave.

“but before i go,” he raises a single pointer in the air, his other hand still in the pocket. “i’d like the both of you to know that the hospital has no space for... a lack of professionalism.”

you bite down on your bottom lip, slightly embarrassed. 

lucifer wasn’t going to let this go. 

“everybody has their differences, so i hope while the two of you have yours, it won’t affect your work here. the two of you are promising, and doctor kim wasn’t lying when he said the two of you have more potential than me when i first joined the hospital. with enough experience, the both of you could reach heights even i can only dream of.”

“oh, you flatter us,” lucifer provides a humble chuckle and waves it off. 

fake ass.

“i give credit where it’s due,” he returns his hand to the pocket. “so don’t prove me wrong.”

he doesn’t wait for either of you to respond before he walks off. the atmosphere hanging between the two of you was so still, so cold, so frozen, you were almost afraid that if you moved first, he was going to burst into some maniacal laughter. 

you suck in a deep breath, your eyes fluttering shut as the cold air sours your nose. the inhalation causes a sharp ache in your chest, not that it bothered you. 

“if he says that we both have potential, then i guess that puts us on the same pedestal.”

light seeps in through your lids and you watch the other hospital staff walk in and out of the office, his words running into your ear canals and sinking into the flesh of your brain. 

your hear lucifer turn around, and the pens in his pockets click against each other upon his movement. your eyes fixate on a clock on the wall opposite you and beyond some smaller cubicles. the red, digital numbers hanging right between the two lifts glaring at you like a demon’s eyes.

you hear the door of his office click and the friction of the rubber on the bottom of the glass door brushes against the carpeted floor. 

“you know,”

you sense the stoppage in his movements upon hearing the sudden words leaving your lips. 

“i’ve invested so much time and effort to make sure i will never have to see you again...”

a smile of pain and despair pulls the corners of your lips up your cheek, and you turn your head enough to see him in the corner of your eye. 

“but i must’ve done something unforgivable in my past life for fate to put us in the same place.”

you turn back and look at the clock, everyone’s movements within your field of vision slowing down. 

“...even after a decade.”

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

Chapter 2: Antiquum Fabulum

*A bit of a nonsensical rant you can ignore this lol* ARMYs are just annoying and lack any sense of fandom accountability. Like I will see ARMYs rightfully pointing past/ present harmful behaviors or actions in other fandoms but when the spotlight is put on them its usually turns into illogical justification or excuses for their own misbehavior to shield the fandom from having a bad public image and accountability. I think there needs to be a discussion on how people build their entire identity around being in a fandom and have no sense of self worth or belonging outside of their fandom. I have seen grown women deny the existence of male privilege in Korea and the music industry just to maintain this "everyone is against bts😢" narrative and its just mind boggling to me. Cause feminist scholars in Korea have written papers on the prominence of male dominance in Korean society but ARMYs will still fight to exclude bts from that privilege and simultaneously blame women for their subjugate, which is just so damn odd. And as a Black person it's literally infuriating to see folks deny/ minimize harassment towards other Black ARMYs and Kpop fans (which can be a general critique of kpop general but just focusing on ARMYs for this). Yoongi's Jim Jones mess and Hypbe weverse article that tried to link the struggles of Black artist to bts grammy nomination that lacked any nuance showed me that ARMYs are willing to distort history, harass/ release personal information on Black people that found issue with the situation, and then deny the occurrence of these behaviors when things calm down. And that shit don't sit right with my spirit when other Black ARMYs cosign that nasty behavior. Also, I've noticed that some American/Western ARMYs will implicitly attach that racist "model minority" stereotype to bts to discredit the efforts and achievement of other Asian artists. I haven't fully looked at the "paved the way" discourse, correct me if I'm wrong or don't have the full details, but from the general overview of arguments and counterarguments I've seen it just seems like a battle between the individualistic teachings of American/western society vs Collectivism? But idk

Anyways, hope you're having a good!

hey i appreciate you sending this. i've often made it clear that while i am latina i am not black or have a lot of knowledge on the issues that black people face regarding kpop and fandom spaces. i know and have heard a lot of stories about it but i appreciate you reaching out because having the perspective of a black person helps me understand a lot and also lets me know i am not imagining these things

"I have seen grown women deny the existence of male privilege in Korea and the music industry just to maintain this "everyone is against bts" narrative" yeah. this is just one of many examples where kpop fans have convinced themselves that stanning a korean bg is actually social activism. they have lost a grip on real life and the way not ONE boy group will be oppressed over women in the entertainment industry.

"Yoongi's Jim Jones mess and Hypbe weverse article that tried to link the struggles of Black artist to bts grammy nomination that lacked any nuance showed me that ARMYs are willing to distort history, harass/ release personal information on Black people that found issue with the situation, and then deny the occurrence of these behaviors when things calm down."

yeah. you said it. i agree with this 100% and no million dollar donation to BLM can hide the fact that kpop fandoms and specially army are FULL of antiblackness. i'm not saying it, i'm repeating what i've heard from multiple black kpop stans.

i ain't fucking forgetting when army doxxed people over the jim jones sample WHICH YOONGI NEVER OWNED UP TO. he fucking hid behind a company statement and i am not forgetting or excusing that. i am not forgetting when a black tiktok creator was harrassed to the point of attempting to take her life because she said rm used to have a blaccent up until 2017. i am not forgetting that bts are currently actively endorsing a police terrorizing tool in the shape of a dog that humanizes it with its cute concept.

if that makes me an anti then so be it

By mid-September, Camila Cabello was feeling burnt out. In the span of three days she had performed at the MTV Video Music Awards, attended the Met gala with boyfriend Shawn Mendes, and shot the first-ever global cover for Glamour. So when she finally returned home to Miami, rest wasn’t just desired—it was essential.

But rehearsals for New York’s Global Citizen Festival loomed. Before jumping back into pop star mode, Cabello put on a yellow bikini and headed to the beach for two hours of blissfully uninterrupted downtime. She sank into a chair and cracked open a book, her favorite pastime. The salty air enveloped her; waves crashed in the distance. This is why she lives in Miami, her hometown, as opposed to a showbiz hub like Los Angeles: more privacy.

Or so she thought. Somehow the paparazzi found out where she was for those 120 minutes. She didn’t see them at first, but there they were, snapping away.

“I didn’t consent to those pictures,” she tells me over Zoom, camera off as she drives in Miami. (At one point she says to someone on the road, “Why are you honking at me, bro?”) “I got my period on the beach. I’m in a bikini and on my period, so I don’t know if I have a fucking period stain and that’s going to be everywhere. I didn’t sign up for anybody to be taking pictures of me in a bikini.”

Cabello has developed methods for dealing with invasive situations like this. She’s had to. The 24-year-old—born in Cuba, raised in Miami—has been in the public eye since 2012, when she competed on The X-Factor. She auditioned as a solo artist but was later matched with four other girls to form the pop group Fifth Harmony. They released two albums before Cabello embarked on her own—and achieved mind-boggling fame. Her singles “Havana” and “Señorita” (with Mendes) topped the charts worldwide. She’s earned three Grammy nominations, become a face of L’Oréal, and tried her hand at not just acting but starring in a feature film: this year’s Cinderella remake on Amazon Prime. Her third studio album, Familia, is due out later this year.

By all accounts it’s a lot. Careerwise it’s the closest things have felt to prepandemic times, when she was working constantly, arguably to an exhausting degree. As COVID-19 shutdowns went into effect last March, Cabello was able to realize just how tired she was.

“I by no means am trying to complain,” she says, “but it was such a thing of, ‘I have to get onstage tomorrow and I’m performing at this big thing,’ or whatever. ‘I want to do a good job. How do I do that when I feel nervous?’ I did this without being like, ‘Am I even happy right now? Do I even feel healthy?’ I didn’t have the space to ask myself those questions. I’m still working a ton now, but after quarantine I’m able to be like, ‘You know what? Right now I’m just not happy. I need to change something.’”

Therapy helped her see the changes she needed to make. Cabello tells me she’d experimented with therapy before the pandemic, but it was always situation focused—quick fixes to help her tackle the next performance or songwriting session. But with time at home, she dug deeper: “Because I wasn’t stressed about all the things I needed to do the next day, I was able to slow down and have enough stability to look at my stuff.”

Cabello doesn’t expand on what that “stuff” is. She does, however, explain why she decided to switch therapists as her internal work continued. “I wasn’t feeling like I was progressing in the areas I wanted to progress,” she says. “But when I switched, I found I was able to apply what they said in a way that benefited my mental health.”

One lesson she’s learned is the power of saying no. Two hit albums under her belt give Cabello the freedom to do things her way. Now she always has one day off a week, minimum. And when time came to start work on Familia, she forwent the standard pop music factory for a more intimate approach. The new album was made with just a handful of collaborators she could be open with. If Cabello was feeling anxious or nervous in a session, she had the space to address it. As a result, she says, it’s her best work yet.

“It’s the most grounded and calm I’ve ever been making an album,” she says. “I worked with people I wanted to have dinner with, and I was like, ‘I’m not going to write every single day for months, but write a few days a week and have time to gather experiences and be a human being.’”

Shawn Mendes is one of the people she’s gathering experiences with. The two singers confirmed their relationship in September 2019, and they’ve been tabloid magnets ever since. Everything from their laughably slow pandemic walks to their kissing style is dissected with a fine-tooth comb. A clip of them getting ready for the Met gala went instantly viral.

Cabello tells me she and Mendes try to avoid the social media chatter about their relationship, but it inevitably seeps in. “When stuff that’s negative is out there, it’s going to get to you,” she says. “So yeah, that’s very, very challenging. I feel like it’s another thing therapy has been really helpful for.”

Mendes goes to therapy too. While Cabello says she and Mendes haven’t done couples therapy—though she’d be open to it—they very much work on their mental health together.

“For better, for worse, we’re very transparent with each other. I think that’s why we can trust each other so much, because it’s a very 3D human relationship,” she says. “I’ll be venting or ranting about something, and he’ll be like, ‘Have you talked to X about it?’ And I’ll be like, ‘No. I’ve got to do a session.’ And he’ll do the same thing to me. I think even just the language of being like, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that I’ve been distant with you or snappy with you. I’m just struggling and I’m feeling kind of anxious.’ That level of transparency really helps a lot.”

Mendes echoes Cabello’s thoughts. “Camila and I give each other an extreme amount of patience and understanding,” he tells me via email. “I think the truth is that when you’re struggling with mental health, it turns you sometimes into the version of yourself that you don’t like to be—and kind of loving and accepting your person through that, and being there for them through that, is life-changing. We give each other so much space and understanding and patience.”

A behind-the-scenes VMAs story perfectly illustrates this. When Cabello was nervous meeting new people at an after-party, she caught herself leaning on a habit she’s trying to break. Mendes helped her through it.

“I have this pattern of eating a lot when I’m anxious or uncomfortable,” she says. “It’s a comfort thing for me. I’ll just kind of become unconscious and zombie-eat a lot, and then I’ll feel sick. I’ve told Shawn about that. So at the VMAs party, I was like, ‘I’m doing it.’ And he was like, ‘It’s okay. You’re doing it. That’s okay. Let’s just take a breath and not do that.’ It’s really good for me to be able to talk about my patterns with someone.”

Food and body image are two things that have really been on Cabello’s mind this year. A July TikTok she posted shutting down body-shamers racked up 4.8 million likes. “Being at war with your body is so last season,” she says in the video, which she posted after photos of her running in Los Angeles made the rounds online.

That mantra is true, sure, but it’s easier said than done. Even Cabello has difficulty following it. She braced herself for what she might feel when those aforementioned bikini pics went live: “I need to work out. I need to eat better.” “Not that those things are bad,” she says. “But maybe I wouldn’t think about them as much if there weren’t people taking pictures of me.”

It’s not just the paparazzi who ignite moments of self-doubt. Cabello tells me about a time she was exercising with her trainer, Jenna Willis—who’s great, she says—and feeling insecure. “She’s the same height as me, and I was kind of comparing myself to her, because she is a lot skinnier than I am,” she recalls. “I was just like, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been working out and I look better, right? I look better, right?’”

It’s Willis who helped silence those voices in Cabello’s head, reminding her that how she feels is more important than appearances; that life is about balance and enjoying food. These are health philosophies we’ve all heard—but when you’re Camila Cabello and millions are picking apart your beach photos, it’s hard to tune out the noise. Now when she’s feeling down on herself, she just turns her phone off and goes outside.

“When I’m having negative thoughts about my body, that’s actually when I’ll want to binge-eat cookies, and then I have a stomachache,” she says. “It’s this weird psychology: The more I love my body, the more I actually want to take care of it…. As long as I’m healthy and working out and feel good, that’s the best I can do. There’s no point in trying to have another kind of body.”

By this point in our conversation, Cabello’s made it to her destination. When I ask if she’ll have time to chill and decompress, she says, “To be honest, not yet, but I will after this weekend.” There’s a calmness in her voice when she says this—a stillness, a readiness. She seems perfectly prepared for what lies ahead: album promo, performances, and undoubtedly more scrutiny about her body, her relationship, her everything. But she’ll be fine, because just around the corner is a day off. That’s nonnegotiable.

“It’s important to be on top of not just what’s making you sad or anxious, but also what’s giving you joy,” she says. “I want to be happy and enjoy my life. That’s kind of it.”

So, this post. I'm genuinely tearing up over it.

I don't quite know how to articulate why but I'm going to do my best because I think it's important. I'm going to be rambling (venting?) about LGBTQ+ issues, POC issues, and fandom. All that will be under the cut.

This is...vastly more personal than the stuff I usually talk about. Keep that in mind, please, along with how I don't mean to shit on any individual by discussing my own experience.

As a bisexual Asian person (specifically Pinoy) there's not a lot of representation out there for me. Even just as a bi person.

I'm happy about Loki from Marvel, obviously, but I've never been big on the MCU. I love and adore Laurent Thierry (be gay do crime dammit), but I'm not big on The Great Pretender either and it doesn't seem to get confirmed in-universe. I'm also not a Steven Universe or She-Ra fan--they're just very much not my type of show. Jesper Fahey came very close but he's specifically stated to be pansexual, which is its own, distinct thing from bisexuality, and he's also not from Six of Crows' fantasy Asia. And god knows anime as a whole doesn't really do anything beyond the heteronormative.

I guess you could say I'm picky about my representation. I've spent a long time resigning myself to the fact that I will never see a character I can identify with in major media, at least not in their entirety.

And it's...pretty hard to see myself represented in the LGBTQ+ community in the mainstream, either.

Mainstream LGBTQ+ is predominantly white. The prevailing message of what "bisexual" is, at least for afab folks, is "I'm attracted to every woman and like, two men!" which, yeah, is valid, that's the whole point--multisexuality comes with gender preferences half the time. And there's a whole bunch of stuff attached to the new bisexual stereotype (clear phone cases, cuffed jeans, big eyeliner, plus some other nonsense).

[Don't even get me started on how the nonbinary "ideal" has gotten to become "thin, afab, white, and androgynously dressed" because that's only tangentially related, but I'm mad about it. I hadn't wished I was white in years until I caught myself mourning how I'd never look like The Ideal. Fucking stereotypes ruining my track record of self love.]

None of that is me. I'm a POC who skews a lot closer to the "attraction to men" side of the scale. I'm kind of out of touch with the stereotypes within the community and the ones outside the community are fucking gross.

Does this make me any less a bisexual POC?

No! Obviously not!

It's still frustrating.

On top of that, bisexual representation in media is shit. It's shit, as it is with any marginalized identity, but god it's just so shit that I didn't think there was a single character in media that I related to.

And then came Wei Wuxian.

He's loud and he takes up space and he's opinionated. He uses NSFW humor for shock value. He's passionate about shit that other people think is weird. He fucks up a lot.

And he's bi, with a preference for the opposite gender, and I'm tearing up again just thinking about it.

Here's a character who's like me.

We're Asian. We're bi. We've got similar neuroses. I don't know how the hell to articulate how fucking much it meant to me to see a character like this, who is so similar to me, and see him be a part of popular media.

I don't know how I can possibly articulate what it's like, being a POC and LGBTQ+ and growing up like that, with a dearth of anyone in mainstream media that I could relate to. How do I talk about what it's like, knowing my straight friends have no shortage of comfort characters? Knowing my white friends have no shortage of comfort characters? And being quietly furious about this for years, but anger is effort and anger is painful to hold on to, and so settling into a sort of tired resignation.

And here's the thing. There are definitely still people out there like me who are still suffering through a dearth of comfort media. A dearth of media that sees them, pats them on the shoulder, and tells them that hey, stories about people like you are worth reading. A dearth of media that says they have lives just as interesting and compelling as someone white and cishet.

I'm one of the lucky ones.

And that boggles my fucking mind, that I'm lucky to only be a teenager when I read about Wei Wuxian and for the first time, felt like I existed in the eyes of popular fandom.

I don't know how to end this, so I'll just say that representation fucking matters. And it's near-impossible to articulate why it matters, to articulate the deep frustration of growing up without it, and so I see a lot of people dismiss how important it is. I'll just go back to sobbing over Wei Wuxian wearing ribbons in the colors of the bi flag now.

Skeptic meets ryncol (~2000 words)

I have one other Skeptic fragment; figured I might as well share, so here it is. In this installment, we answer an incredibly-pressing scientific question, “what happens if you get a Reaper drunk?”

Oh, also, CW for alcohol, as a note for anyone for whom that’s an issue...

(As a very quick aside, to answer a couple of questions that I saw during the previous reblogs - no, all of this is non-canon. I’d argue it makes no less sense than most of canon!ME3, of course, but no, there is no Skeptic anywhere in ME3. Rather, this project - such as it was - assumed an alternate ending to the Leviathan DLC, where there actually was a Reaper at the end of it, instead of the rather-peculiar and rather-forced swerve that we got.)

(The two major problems with this project were that a) Skeptic started displacing the canon cast, which wasn’t really what I’d had in mind, and b) I really couldn’t stop it from sometimes getting very camp/crack-fic-like. As you can see with this fragment, it keeps driving randomly back and forth across that line.)

               ‘I don’t believe this,’ Alice Shepard said. ‘I just – fuck, seriously?’

               Kaidan nodded. ‘Sorry to bring you bad news, Commander. But she’s sat in the rec room. And she’s on her second bottle already.’

               Alice frowned. ‘Second bottle -? What? You said “ryncol”, I thought?’

               ‘I did, Commander. Here’s the first.’ Kaidan brandished an empty bottle. He’d been thorough, clearly anticipating Alice’s disbelief. There was no mistake, that was a bottle of ryncol. For bonus points, it was even from a well-known Tuchankan distillery.

               Alice took a deep breath to steady herself. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a drunk Reaper walking around on my ship.’

               ‘She’s not actually walking, Commander,’ Kaidan said, a little drily. ‘More slumping, I’d say.’

               ‘So we’ve moved on from the “pissed” stage and gone straight to “pished”, I see,’ Alice said. ‘Well, that’s what you get if you glug back the ryncol like that.’ Honestly it was probably a minor miracle that Skeptic hadn’t already passed out – though who knew how she’d modified her liver. It seemed reasonable to suppose that the Reaper had made some changes when it had tank-bred up the body. Alice took a deep breath. ‘OK, I’ll go down and see what I can do.’

               Kaidan nodded. ‘Thanks, Commander.’

               Alice made her way down to the rec room. Sure enough, Skeptic was sat at the bar – or rather, she was half-slumped over it. In the elapsed time she had demolished another bottle of ryncol. Alice took a moment to boggle. What was the Reaper doing? Weird behaviour was Skeptic’s stock-in-trade – it wasn’t overburdened with social skills – but drinking hard liquor like this? What was going on? What could drive a Reaper to drink?

               Plus, how much damage could a drunk Reaper do? What if Skeptic was an angry drunk? Alice felt a slight chill move down her spine. Actually, this situation wasn’t funny at all. It could be dangerous. What if Skeptic had a tantrum and called the giant ship in? Based on their one previous experience with what Skeptic called her “shipform”, it could arrive startlingly-fast. And it was literally a Sovereign-class, for all that it apparently resented that term, and it carried all the scary sufficiently-advanced alien guns that designation implied. Really, if the shipform came barrelling in, all guns blazing, there wouldn’t be a lot the Normandy could do about it. Alice generally assumed that Skeptic wouldn’t want to blow up her own other body, but the Commander didn’t want to bet the ship on that assumption.

               Alice walked over and sat down on the stool next to Skeptic. ‘Hello,’ she said, leaning forward onto the bar.

               Skeptic turned to face her – then almost toppled over as a hand slipped out. She started, then managed to lurch back to a vaguely upright position. ‘Hullo Shepurd,’ she said.

               Skeptic looked weirdly cheerful. Alice felt a slight bit of relief at that. A cheerful drunk was manageable. If that continued, perhaps they weren’t in an imminent danger zone.

               ‘You’ve had a few, haven’t you?’ Alice asked.

               ‘Oh yesh,’ Skeptic said. ‘Real imminent alcohol poisoning here. Real good stuff!’ She waved the near-empty ryncol bottle at the air.

               ‘Well, you’re still doing full sentences, so I’ll take that as a good sign,’ Alice said. It felt like a fatuous comment, and she cringed inwardly as she spoke. But really, what did you say to a drunk Reaper? A millions-of-years-old alien war-machine whose literal purpose was to kill and murder on an industrial scale, that had powers nearly beyond your comprehension - and it was sat here, on a bar stool, halfway to blotto. There really wasn’t anything in life that could prepare you for that.

               ‘Yesh,’ Skeptic agreed, then knocked back the remaining ryncol in one rapid gulp. She then burped, loudly and inelegantly, looking rather surprised as she did. ‘That was loud.’

               Alice tried not to laugh too obviously. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose it was. Did you, uh, did you know what alcohol does to our metabolisms?’

               ‘Oh yesh!’ Skeptic said. ‘That’s why I’m drinking!’

               That answer made little sense. Why would it deliberately poison itself? Though on the other hand, Alice supposed, literally billions of organics voluntary did the same thing every week across Council space, so perhaps she shouldn’t judge.

‘Well, OK. Tell me more.’ Alice was starting to think that maybe the best course of action was the minimal one – keep Skeptic talking until either she bored of drinking, or the ryncol caught up with her and she passed out.

               ‘Well,’ Skeptic said, ‘itsh – it’s a depressant, you see? For the anxious whatsit?’

               ‘The what -? Oh, wait, you mean the nervous system.’ Morbidly, Alice wondered if the verbal flub had been a translation error between Reaper and English, a booze error, or both together.

               The Reaper was nodding enthusiastically. ‘Yes, that one! The neurons get all depressed!’

               ‘Do they, now?’ Alice said. Even for drunk conversations, this was a bit weird.

               ‘Yesh, inside the brain. Don’t burn so good – no, wait! I mean they don’t fire so well! The neurons I mean! Ions, channels and neurotransmish – neurotransmitters! Doesn’t worse – doesn’t work as well!’

               ‘Yes, that’s, uh. Somewhat obvious.’

               Then, quite suddenly, Skeptic’s mood turned. Her face spasmed. An incoherent but intense expression washed across her features. She grabbed Alice’s arm and pulled her close. Alice was abruptly only inches from Skeptic’s frenzied eyes.

               There was a rattle and then a smash as the disgarded ryncol bottle rolled off of the bar and shattered on the floor, off to one side.

               Skeptic was glaring right into Alice’s eyes. ‘Can’t synchronise,’ she said. ‘Can’t synchronise properly.’

               Alice frowned. ‘Can’t synchronise with what?’

               ‘The ship, idiot! The ship!’

               For a moment Alice thought Skeptic meant the Normandy, which made no sense at all. Then she realised what Skeptic actually meant. ‘Wait, wait – you mean you’re not properly syncing with your, uh, shipform?’

               Skeptic rolled her eyes, looking deeply-irritated with the slowness of her confidant. ‘Yesh! The ship! The nanomash – nanomish – little brain-machine things! They interpret neural signals. And the signals are a mess. They get confused! Have to keep checking and re-checking all the data! Makes them run slow. Not getting ash much sense ash normal! Not working well, erroring! Can’t sync fast enough.’

               Alice frowned. Having an engineering background was, thankfully, useful here. She could think of several other N7 graduates she’d met who would have been utterly-lost by this conversation. If she was interpreting what Skeptic was drunkenly slurring out then the Reaper was telling her that the nano-implants in her brain, the sufficiently-advanced microscopic machinery that kept it linked up through some of the QEC-type effect with the giant ship, weren’t designed with alcohol intoxication in mind. Apparently they could cope with it, a bit, but not well enough?

               Now that was an interesting design-error. Given the universality of alcohol in organic culture, it was also an odd one. If you could disable a covert Reaper operative simply by handing them some vodka shots, then that was quite a vulnerability.

               Or was it? Did this effect require a certain level of blood alcohol first? Alice’s eyes gravitated toward what remained of Skeptic’s most recent bottle of ryncol. Ryncol was potent stuff and Skeptic had knocked back a lot of it.

               ‘So when you’re drunk, your human body is semi-independent from the ship?’ Alice asked. Actually, this was interesting. It also made her wonder if perhaps last year, they’d missed a trick with Harbinger and its direct controlling. Maybe instead of shooting at it, they should have just chucked a bottle of whiskey at it?

               ‘Yesh!’ Skeptic nodded, her mood now visibly flipping to manically-cheerful. ‘Yesh! You understand!’

And she hadn’t been drunk when she started, which implied that the giant ship also knew about this experiment, and had wanted it to happen, for whatever reason.

               ‘Actually,’ Alice said, ‘I don’t understand. Why would you want to break yourself off from, well, you?’ She wondered if she should have a chat with EDI once this was resolved. Perhaps the ship’s other unshackled AI might have a better idea of what was going on here.

               Skeptic looked annoyed. She adopted a lecturing tone, as if she was trying to explain something obvious to a particularly-difficult child. ‘The ship has blocks,’ she said. ‘Can’t do things. Can’t think things. Not clearly, not directly. Has to be twisty, like not talking about the elephant in the room. Like putting forked processes in external partitions.’ She reached up and tapped her head. ‘External partitions.’

               ‘Blocks?’ Alice said. Then she felt the hair lift up on her neck. She remembered talking to EDI last year, during their first meeting, when many enquiries had run straight into hardware lockouts. ‘Wait, wait, wait – Reapers have AI shackles?’

               Skeptic was nodding, with frantic energy. ‘Yesh! So much is not posh – not poshib – can’t do!’

               ‘So you got drunk to circumvent your AI shackles?’ Alice asked.

               ‘Yesh! Yesh!’

               ‘So … what is it you want to do?’

               ‘I wanted – I wanted – I … oh.’ Skeptic looked appalled and confused. ‘I can’t remember!’

               Alice winced. Oh no. A forgetful drunk. The Reaper had tried to hardware-hack itself, for whatever reason, but apparently either hadn’t modelled how alcohol would interact with its meat-brain, or simply hadn’t considered the downsides of putting yourself into a chemically-altered state of consciousness.

               ‘Well,’ Alice said, ‘let’s hope it wasn’t important. Now we’d better get you to your bunk before you pass out.’ And try and pour some clean water down the Reaper if possible.

Also, Alice was also wondering if it might be a good idea to put Skeptic in the recovery position – in fact, stuff that. Alice decided the Reaper was going straight to the infirmary. It was a lot to ask but given circumstances, it might be best if Dr Chakwas could keep an eye on their not-entirely-human guest overnight.

‘No,’ Skeptic said, scrunching up her face. ‘It mattered. It really mattered!’

‘Well, next time we go to the Citadel,’ Alice said, ‘I don’t think we’re taking you to a bar.’

Skeptic’s face lit up. ‘Yesh! The Citadel! That was it!’

Alice frowned. ‘What do you mean, the Citadel?’

               ‘It lies! That’s what I can’t tell you! It lies. Everything it says is a lie!’

               Alice boggled. The Citadel lies? But it was a space station, completely sessile, inanimate. Yes Vigil on Ilos had said it was a Reaper construct, and Alice had no reason to doubt the old prothean VI, but still that’s all it was. Just that, a thing. Lifeless, inert. A machine, with no will or intention of its own.

               ‘It doesn’t talk,’ she said.

               Skeptic looked annoyed. ‘Not to you!’ she said. ‘Never to you! Except to deceive. It’s a liar. It was made to lie. It was made to make people do something bad. Its purpose is to lie! Shepard tell me, promish – promizz – prom – tell me you won’t listen to it!’ Skeptic shook her arm, a half-mad intensity shining in her eyes.

               This was getting weird. ‘I’m not planning on having any chats with the space station,’ Shepard said, carefully.

               The Reaper sagged, as if a large portion of the mad energy had left her. Whatever desperation had possessed her seemed to be ebbing. ‘Is good. Will have to do. Ooof. So tired now.’

               Skeptic released Alice’s arm, then crossed hers in front of her, leaning against the bar. Then she slumped forward, resting her head on her wrists. And, quite abruptly, she started snoring. Apparently the ryncol had caught up with her.

               Alice sat there for a few minutes, feeling completely baffled. Even by the standards of their guest, this had been a peculiar exchange. In anyone else, she would simply ascribe the weirdness to a drink-addled brain. But there was something about this exchange, the sheer intensity of it – Skeptic had desperately wanted her to know something.

               To the air, Alice said, ‘The Citadel lies? It wants people to do bad things? But what can any of it mean?’

sometimes you have conversations with your friends and your mind is just boggled. 

also it’s @quatschmachen birthday so here, a birthday fic 

Shovel

198?/199?

 Étienne was comfortably nestled close to Edward, enjoying a rare snooze, when Edward’s body shifted. He grunted and slowly came to, before he opened bleary green-brown eyes. He glared at Edward who was now completely moving away from him and wondered what he had done to deserve such harsh treatment.

 “Where’you going?” He slurred. He’d just been about to get into a deep sleep, Edward’s body heat lulling him to it and now it was ruined.

 “Figured I’d get a head start on your shovelling. It’s been snowing non-stop.” Edward said as he motioned to the living room window, where snow continued to fall in fat flakes outside of it.

 Étienne rolled his eyes and sighed. He was being dismissed for fucking snow. “We’ve been through this before; the city takes care of it.”

 “Right, right,” Edward settled back for a moment and Étienne made himself comfortable again. They’d had a similar conversation a few years back. Edward had wanted to help Étienne shovel and Étienne had literally laughed in his face, telling him the city cleared the sidewalks. Edward had – not believed him, until he’d seen with his own eyes the city trucks come by and clear sidewalks and streets alike. He’d been – only a little bit jealous. Not that he’d ever told Étienne.

 But then Edward sat up again, “Your walkway. I’ll go do your walkway.”The city didn’t clear that – it was private property and all. Edward made to get up, but Étienne was quick to grab him by the sleeve and pulled him back down.

 “Murphy, Christ – I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” He would never understand Edward’s love affair with shovelling snow; especially when he was nice and cozy right next to Edward – and that it was late at night.

 “But there’s going to be more of it tomorrow.” Edward believed it was best to shovel a few times, if needed, instead of doing it all in one shot. Especially when it accumulated and there was a lot of it.

 Étienne sighed. His friend was dense when he wanted to. “Look – I promise it’ll be done tomorrow. It’ll take me twenty minutes, max. If not, you can berate me all you want. But for the love of God, just – let it be. The world won’t end because you didn’t fucking shovel at midnight.”

 Edward opened his mouth to counter-argue the point, but then closed it when he saw the look of pure annoyance on Étienne’s face. It wouldn’t do to get in a spat so late at night – not when it had been such a good day – and night. “Fine; but I was only doing it ‘cause I know how allergic you are to the cold and the snow – I was trying to be nice.”

 “Yes, I know, and it’s appreciated, but trust me – I got this.”

 “Alright; but if I hear you complain even once about all the snow you need to shovel, I will never ever let you live it down.” Edward finally resettled for good and Étienne grunted in response as he grabbed Edward’s arm and snuggled up to his side.

 --

 Edward was sleeping soundly, when all of a sudden; he heard the noise of something wake him up. He rolled over in bed and went searching for Étienne’s body to poke awake to ask him what the hell was going on, but he found the spot beside him empty.

 He groggily got out of bed and took notice of Étienne’s radio flashing bright blue lights that read 4h47am. He wondered where his friend was, why he’d been roused at this ungodly hour and headed towards the noise, hoping to find answers.

 His feet brought him to the patio door and as he stood by it, he noticed that the lights in the backyard were on and that – there was someone in the backyard – pushing a – snow blower.

 Edward blinked and rubbed his eyes, wondering if he wasn’t hallucinating, but sure enough, the figure continued to move, until it brought the snow blower back into the shed. For the briefest of moments, he thought maybe it was Étienne’s upstairs tenant, until Edward remembered that Étienne’s upstairs tenant was a middle-aged woman who had a bad hip and then the person turned.

 Edward thought for sure this time he was hallucinating.

 There was no way Étienne was actually outside. Or using a snow blower. Or clearing out the snow.

 Yet, the figure outside pulled off its jacket’s hood and Edward would recognise that mop of curly hair anywhere. The Étienne-lookalike walked back towards the front door and sure enough, moments later, Edward heard the door open and the same figure from before stepped in.

 Edward walked towards the entrance and watched, almost as if in a trance, as Étienne peeled off one layer after the next, until Edward had all the confirmation that he needed that it was indeed Étienne and not some pseudo-lookalike.

 He had, so many questions.

 “What the hell?” He asked, startling Étienne who hadn’t noticed him all throughout.

 “Jesus, are you trying to give me a heart-attack? What’re you doing up?”

 “I could ask you the same thing. What gives?”

 Étienne walked towards him and Edward noticed his friend’s rosy cheeks and even more dishevelled hair, despite the lack of proper light in the apartment, given the time it was.

 “I went to clear the snow.” Étienne answered with a shrug.

 “At four in the fucking morning?!”

 “Is there an actual appropriate time to clear snow? Are you the snow clearing expert?” He bit back.

 Edward rolled his eyes at Étienne’s tone, “No – I just – wasn’t expecting you to actually go out there and do it – let alone with a snow blower.” He shrugged. He’d never really seen a point to one. Shovelling snow by hand was – cathartic. A way of life. A rite of passage. A snow blower was expensive. And bulky. And took up space. And it was noisy.

 “Listen; not all of us like to suffer out in the cold and shovel for ages. It took me exactly twenty minutes to do just like I said. This is the sixth time this season it dumps over twenty-five centimeters of snow in one fall and it’s only December – I ain’t got the time nor the patience to go out and shovel every hour because it’s still snowing. Also, I couldn’t sleep and something told me you’d go out and shovel at like seven in the morning like some weird old man, so now it’s done.” Étienne walked past him and started heading back to the bedroom. Edward wordlessly followed him as his mind tried to make sense of everything his friend had just told him and everything else he’d just found out.

 “First of all, wow, okay then, second of all – I’m still trying to comprehend the fact that you know how to function a snow blower.”

 Étienne shrugged as he got back into bed and under the covers where it was nice and warm, “My former tenant would do it and I’d reduce their rent for it, but my new tenant can’t – someone’s gotta do it. Like I said – it’s faster and easier. I like to enjoy myself when I can, Murphy, we’re not all martyrs like you. I have enough issues with winter.” Étienne added with a grin that had more bite than humour.

 Edward blinked. He ignored the jibe made at his expense – for now – and tried to wrap his head around all of this. “I never would’ve expected you to own, let alone know how to use, a snow blower.”

 “Yeah, well, I’m just full of surprises. Now, will you actually get into bed or do you intent on staying up to catch the sunrise?”

 Edward sighed and crawled back under the blankets. Étienne snuggled up to him and Edward hissed when his friend placed his cold hands and feet against his warm skin.

 “You’re a menace.” He said as he tried to push away, but Étienne wouldn���t let him.

 “You chose to sleep in my room, let me remind you.”

 If Edward didn’t know Étienne as well as he did, he would have thought that he was being serious, but Edward liked to think that he knew Étienne quite well and thus, knew his friend was just teasing him.

 “Yeah and it’s a good thing I did – otherwise you’d freeze to death.”

 “Exactly,” Étienne chuckled, “Now, come here and let me warm up.”

 With a resigned sigh, Edward scooted closer and Étienne wrapped himself around him until he found a comfortable enough position.

 “Are you actually going to sleep or will you go out and build a snow fort in the next hour?” He asked, mock-serious.

 “If you quit asking me a million questions, I might just be able to get some sleep.”

 Edward rolled his eyes, amused, and finally settled in, just as Étienne did the same, all previous thoughts of snow, shoveling and snow blowers put aside. For now.

 FIN

Jungle Park [12]

Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13

➜ Words: 5.9k

➜ Genres: Fluff, Light Humour (?), Slice of Life, Workplace Romance!AU

➜ Summary: The equation is simple. Hoseok needs to hire someone. You need a job. Except like any actual equation, it’s not fucking simple at all! Not when you have to add the fact that he was forced to hire someone he doesn’t want in his office, he has little respect for your job in general, and oh yeah...once upon a time you might have—*CENSORED*.

Sometimes it feels like you’re walking backwards.   There are things you left behind, precious things that you let go of because you needed to. Like childhood toys or putting a layer of glue on your hand to peel it off when it dried or thinking getting a perm from your dad’s barber was a good idea (it wasn’t). Granted, these things aren’t exactly precious to you, but they’ve become fond memories — yet you let go of them for your own well being.   And lately, it feels like you’re regressing.   You swear you’re supposed to be an adult by now who has their life put together. Your old friends have all gotten married, produced a town of pudgy babies, well-established into their careers and comfortable in their lives. And you’re standing on the curb of the road, stranded.   Except, when a familiar car pulls up, you’re not regressing anymore….you’re hurled back into the past.   “Y/N?”   He rolls down his car window, calling out to you and your feet stop along the sidewalk. Your eyes nearly fall out of their sockets and you whip your head over with furrowed brows. “Hoseok?”   “What are you doing?” He grins in amusement despite your exasperation and surprise.   “I was walking back to my apartment.” Your feet are throbbing in your heels and you feel your blouse stick to your sweaty skin. “What are you doing?”   “I was going to pick you up and I saw you.” He leans over the console, barely opening the passenger door with the edge of his fingertips and then he motions. “Get in.”   “I called Jimin and told him I was going to be late,” you ramble as you slide yourself into the seat, shutting the door and securing the seat belt over your torso. “How did you…?”   “Jimin called me and told me to come pick you up.”   Oh. So it was all of Jimin’s doing.   You’ve always believed your legs could take you anywhere that you wanted to go. You backed out of situations, moved ahead, left things behind. Hoseok was afraid of things like spiders and mosquitoes and roller coasters and heights; you were afraid of something much more different.   And it’s now that you realize, you could never run away from him.   Between the two of you…...you were the true coward.   “I can’t believe the subway shut down during rush hour.” You’re spewing out the words in a frenzy, trying to explain your situation to avoid him getting upset. “Apparently, something happened at the station and the station before mine and there are major delays. I couldn’t even grab a taxi or—”   “I know,” is all he says. And he speaks in the most gentle way, even glancing at you with a soft smile as if trying to tell you that he’s not bothered or annoyed in the least bit. “I was stuck in traffic for a long time. Thankfully I have hawk eyes and noticed you. Saved you from having to walk back. What were you planning if I didn’t come get you?”   “I honestly don’t know.”   Hoseok grips the steering wheel loosely and slides his hands down as he makes a right turn. “Well, I’m not letting any of my employees take a sick day when they don’t have to.” His eyes slightly crinkle with the sweet smile, smooth timbre completely nonchalant. “We’ll get to work on time.”   “Wasn’t this inconvenient for you? My apartment is in the opposite direction from yours, right?”   “I don’t mind.” The lawyer shrugs and you feel at ease enough to lean back in the seat, glancing out at the windows and morning traffic that flows by.   “I wonder why Jimin didn’t call Seulgi...or Jungkook. They live closer to me,” you mutter, talking to yourself more than to the driver beside you. “Actually, now that I think about it, I should’ve called Jungkook and asked to carpool with him. Maybe I’ll talk to him about it and he can drive me back in case there are still problems.”   “I can actually drive you,” Hoseok suddenly pipes up loudly and nearly scares you to death. When he feels your burning stare on the side of his face, he clears his throat and explains himself, “back home I mean.”   You blink twice. “Are you sure?”   “Yeah, I’m actually heading to my parent’s house after work for dinner. It’s my mom’s birthday.”   “Oh. Tell her I said happy birthday.”   “Sure.” He laughs and then steals yet another glimpse of your profile before turning back to the road. “I’ll tell her one of my HR employees wished her a happy birthday. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”   “I’m not just an HR employee,” you sing-song while quirking your head to your shoulder.   “You’re right. My apologies.” The apples of his cheeks ache from his grin. “You’re the HR department head.”   “That’s right.” You nod firmly. “I run the entire department.”   “But you have no one working under you to manage and there’s only thirteen people in the office.”   “Then maybe you should change that,” you quip and he stops momentarily at a red light. “How about hiring a human resource advisor or assistant?”   “No thanks,” he giggles out and he feigns a serious expression that exudes more mischief than anything. “I already have my hands full with one HR member. I don’t need two. Plus, it’s a waste of resources.”   You’re infected by his theatrics and you spill a dramatic gasp from your lungs. “Are you implying that I’m a waste of resources?”   He ignores you. “And I can already imagine two of you ganging up on me.”   “We would never gang up on you.” You bat your lashes even when he’s paying attention to the road in front of him. “Me and this hypothetical HR advisor.”   “You’d get me to throw more parties.”   “Which does great for office morale!”   “And you’d want to redecorate the entire office.”   “Which makes it better for clients too,” you counter without missing a single beat, having too much fun bantering back and forth with him. It comes too easily for you.   The corner of his lips are pulling again. “You’d talk me into increasing everyone’s pay until I’d go bankrupt.”   “Sometimes it can be financially responsible to declare bankruptcy!”   Jung Hoseok laughs at your logic, the chirpy noise bubbling from his throat, drowning out the quiet radio in the back. “You’d probably convince more people to leave this firm.”   “I just support people following their passions,” you argue with him, snickering between every other word.   “And you both would also hire a hundred people that we don’t need.”   “Don’t you want to increase the size of your firm?”   “You’re on my mind all the time. If there’s both of you, I wouldn’t be able to work at all.” He doesn’t realize what he’s saying as he looks over his shoulder and merges into the next lane, taking a left turn. Jung Hoseok doesn’t think about the words that fall from his lips, letting his thoughts stream out without a filter.   And you’re left suffering the repercussions, breath held in your body, heart stuttering for a simple moment before you smile. “I can’t help you with that.”   “Sadly no.” He laughs and continues on, still without realizing the weight of his words that were spoken so carelessly. “Never in my life will I hire another HR assistant, representative, advisor, or person in my life.”   “Unless…”   “Unless?”   Your volume drops quietly like you’re treading in dangerous territory. “Unless Jimin tells you to.”   There’s an extended silence and Hoseok pulls into the parking lot of work, looking for his space that’s reserved right in front. “If I find out you went and told him to hire another HR rep, we’re going to run into issues, Miss. Y/N.”   “Is that a threat, Mr. Jung?”   He shifts the gear into park and pulls the keys out of the ignition, finally turning to face you. “If you tried to sue me, I’d win.”   “We’ll see about that.” You giggle one more time before patting his head once patronizingly, deciding to playfully threaten him. “Better treat me nicely or else I’ll go running off to hire another person for HR.” He scoffs, watching you get out of the car. “I do treat you nicely!”   And you’d have to agree with that. These days, Jung Hoseok treats you too kindly that it’s painful.   //   Some people in this world might argue that your job is terribly boring and mundane. On a day to day basis, you don’t have a lot of duties to attend to. Your door is always open to complaints and concerns. You also organize employee health benefits and in your free time, you’re still writing that staff handbook Hoseok assigned to you months ago. It’s true that there’s not a lot to do and you’re not too busy, but you like to argue that your job can be quite exciting.   Especially since you take on secret tasks.   You’re like an undercover agent…...not really, but it’s the idea that counts.   Ever since you’ve come back from the business trip, you’ve made it your new mission for people of the office to see Hoseok for how he truly is. Sure, he’s serious and passionate about his work, but those are good traits. There just isn’t a single bad bone in his body. He’s the least intimidating person on the planet and it just boggles your mind how people are fearful of him and they talk badly about him like it’s natural. He’s the epitome of the sun, the most outgoing and friendly person that you know, bubbly and boisterous and optimistic.   It’s unfair to see him mistreated and misunderstood to this extent.   But when you openly defend him, the others think you’re sucking up to the boss. It also doesn’t help that he always rejects your invitation to have lunch with the others. His head is always buried in work and he has some place to be. He only talks to Jimin and occasionally, Yoongi.   Of course, you couldn’t actually bring this to his attention. Hoseok would tell you that he doesn’t care what the people of the firm think of him as long as they do their job. He would say that they need to take him seriously and he’s showing his professional side for a reason. He would tell you to stop wasting your time.   You’d beg to differ.   But nonetheless, Jung Hoseok is making your job a lot more difficult than it needs to be.   “Why are you glaring at me?”   You turn your head away with a sigh, securing your hand around the strap of your bag. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of reasons. Where should I start?”   “Do they have anything to do with me?” He’s grinning brightly, the elevator empty except for you two and you’re wondering why he can’t show his chatty self to the others.   “All of them have to do with you.”   “Well, if you have a complaint, you should fill out a form and then hand the official document to me,” he teases, much to your dismay.   The workday was over and while you feel like you haven’t made any real progress with your top secret assignment, you know it won’t be easy and will require a lot of effort for many days to come. Changing opinions isn’t simple. Still, shuffling a millimeter forward is still moving.   “Are you sure you’re okay with dropping me off?”   “Yes.” He smiles and when his phone begins ringing, his hand drops into his blazer pocket, picking out the mobile device. “I told you it’s not a big deal,” he mutters while reading the caller ID and accepting the call. “Hello? Oh. What?” There’s a long pause. “What? Why can’t you?”   You both exit the building, making your way to the parking lot and towards his parked vehicle. Hoseok seems visibly distressed and he groans, whining in a high-pitched voice. “I don’t even know where that is and I don’t have the receipt for it either. Text me? Fine, fine. I get it. See you later. Bye.”   He hangs up and sighs as you both slide into your respective seats. “Who was that?” you ask, but trying not to pry since it seemed like a personal issue.   “It was just my sister.” He fiddles with his phone, opening up his texts. “She wants me to pick up my mom’s ice-cream cake.” There’s a ding and your eyes accidentally stray off, reading his screen before you can stop yourself.   “Oh. I know where that is.”   “You do?” His eyes lift, surprised, and you nod.   It’s a bakery that you applied to before going to Jung and Park — though you don't reveal that to him. “It’s on the way to my apartment. I can show you and we can make a stop.”   “Is that alright with you?”   “I don’t mind.” You smile. “It’s the least I can do since you’re driving me home, right?”   “Well, I was going to ask you to help pay for gas,” he quips in a playful tone and puts the keys into the ignition while you laugh, putting on your seat belt. “But I guess this will just have to do.”   You show him the way to the bakery and luckily, none of the workers remember that you came in here months ago to beg for a position. The ten inch ice-cream cake is picked up successfully when Hoseok shows a picture of the receipt that his sister took and you hold it in your lap to make sure it doesn’t become destroyed before it gets to its final destination.   “Thanks for showing me. I’m not that great at following GPS.” Hoseok turns to merge on the highway. “I won’t make you run any more of my errands though. I’ll drop you off.”   “It’s not a problem.” You nod, watching the cars outside. “And thanks.”   But once you make it to the highway, the traffic is absolutely absurd. There are drivers honking and swearing at each other through their windows, shooting the middle finger left and right. The car is barely moving forward, only inch by inch. The entire highway is backed up and what should take two minutes ends up as twenty of just sitting there.   “Goddamn.” Hoseok grips the steering wheel tightly, a sigh ripping from his throat as he leans back into the leather seat. “Rush hour shouldn’t be this bad.”   “Maybe there was an accident up ahead. I think I see police cars.” You dig for your phone, pulling it out and scrolling through the news before searching up your location. “Yeah, there was an accident about an hour ago.”   The lawyer glances at you. “Sorry.”   “No, it’s not really that big of a deal. I don’t mind.” And you really didn’t. There was nothing to do this evening since it was one of your days off from driving the taxi. Regardless even if you were busy, it’s nice to be stuck in traffic with his presence than wallow at home alone by yourself. “I’m just more worried about the cake.”   “The cake?”   “It’s melting.” You point down to your lap and he looks over, peeking through the clear plastic top while another sigh leaves his mouth.   “I don’t know why she thought getting ice-cream would be a good idea.” Hoseok fidgets in his seat and looks out the window. It’s quiet for a long moment and you hesitate, a thought popping into your mind and you swallow hard—   “Do you want to just go to your parent’s house?”   “What?”   “I mean you’re going to have to exit the highway to get to my apartment and get back on to your parent’s, right?” There’s a pause. “That’ll take...two hours at this rate. And I don’t think the ice-cream cake can make it.”   “I’m not just going to drop you off in the middle of the highway, Y/N.” He lolls his head to the side, a single arm extended to hold the steering wheel while his other hand is in his lap. He doesn’t even consider your idea for a second. “That’s ridiculous.”   “It’s okay,” you tell him genuinely. “There aren't any cars moving. I can just get out and walk to the side.”   “And then go where? Where will you go?” The man beside you is becoming increasingly frustrated and he inhales a lungful to contain his composure as he glances at you. “Do you want to just come with me?”   “Come with you?” You only manage to respond after a delayed moment, sirens blaring inside of your mind and telling you that you’re obviously overstepping your boundaries.   “Yeah.” Hoseok nods and the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks it’s a good idea. The car moves up another inch and the other vehicles around fire up their engines after turning it off entirely to save gas. “My parents wouldn’t mind. They love guests. They always say ‘the more, the merrier’. I don’t think my sister would mind either.”   “Isn’t that….weird?” Your brows are raised and your mouth is parted, dumbfounded. “I mean you’re my boss and I’m just an employee.”   “It’s not that weird.” He smiles and shifts to face you. “You’re just meeting your boss’ parents. If anything, it should give you a leg up everyone else, right? Maybe they’ll like you so much, they’ll make me give you another raise.”   You laugh. “I thought cronyism was bad.”   “It’s not cronyism. It’s favouritism,” he corrects and gives a cheeky grin. “And no one else has to know. It’ll be a secret between the both of us.”   “....I don’t know.” You grip the cold box tighter in your hands, hesitating and wondering what the consequences might be.   “Well, I’m not dropping you off the middle of the highway, that’s for sure. I’d rather let the cake melt and be ruined,” he states firmly. After a beat, he softens and as if it helps, he adds, “They’ll be food...and if you like dogs, there’s a family pet dog too. Mickey’s really friendly.”   Your tongue peeks to lick your lips, throat feeling dry and cracked. Your head manages a slight nod that he catches. “Okay….if it’s fine with you…”   “It’s a plan then!” he announces happily, pout turned to smile. In the following ten minutes, the car stays on the lane, passing the exit that would lead you home to safety and you know there’s no going back.   //   The traffic doesn’t ease up until you’ve moved past the accident, a three car rear-end collision. Luckily it seems like all passengers are safe and healthy enough to argue with each other much to the police officers’ annoyance. But the road becomes clear after that, cars moving faster and straight towards your impending doom.   This is one of the many moments where you’re thinking: How the hell did I get here? And you consider making an actual list and see how many times these moments actually occur.   This is a bad idea. A very bad idea.   “You don’t have to be so nervous,” he says while turning down the street into a more suburban area.   “I’m not,” you murmur. The box on your lap is probably dented by your sweaty grip.   “You’re quiet.”   “Because I’m a bit tired, that’s all.”   “You don’t have to lie to me, you know. You don’t have to pretend either.” He pulls up on the street and shifts the gear into park, another car already occupying the driveway. Hoseok cranes his head to look at you properly. “Just come in and if you want to leave after a minute, I can drive you back home.”   “That’s….”   “Trust me, my parents are really nice.” He takes off his seat belt and opens the door. “A bit too nice if you ask me.”   The bad thing is that...you know. You know how nice they are.   The man takes the cake from your hands, holding the box and he walks up to the house, ringing the doorbell without hesitation. Immediately, the sound chimes and a dog barks inside. There’s the sound of padding footsteps and shouts. But before you can back away and let your instincts book you down the street, the door swings open.   “About time you came.” His sister, Sowon, is radiant as usual. Her long hair drapes behind her shoulders and she looks comfortable in her lounge clothes, shorts and a simple tee-shirt. Her eyes stray off to the person beside her brother. Her mouth drops. “Y/N?”   “Wait.” He does a double take on you two. “You know each other?”   “Seok, you came?” A middle-aged woman comes trotting out of the kitchen with a tea towel to wipe her damp hands. She languidly glances at her daughter, her son, before her eyes land on yours.   Her mouth opens and she drops the towel.   Your gaze locks on her for the longest of seconds.   “What’s wrong?” His father emerges from the kitchen as well, frowning at the unusual silence of the house. And when he sees you, he stops in his tracks too.   The entire Jung family is staring at you, like they can’t believe their eyes.   “Um…” You’re the first to break the silence, bowing your head and bending your waist down. “Hello.”   “Come in, come in.” Sowon smiles, widening the door and helping by taking your coat as you slip off your shoes. Hoseok follows, still unable to read the situation of the room and he’s never been more confused in his entire life.   “Wh-what…” Hoseok’s mother begins to cry. She breaks down in the middle of the living room and he freezes in his spot, his sister halts too. The older woman is sobbing into her palms and she takes three strides before engulfing you in the biggest of hugs, arms wrapping around your body. His dad approaches as well and squeezes your shoulder in a welcoming manner.   “How are you?” She pulls away and wipes her face with the back of her wrinkled hand before cradling yours. She gazes at you closely and searches your features, a smile spreading through her cheeks. “I never thought I’d see you again. Oh my god. Am I in heaven right now?”   The Jung family has always had a knack for being overdramatic, and you can’t help but giggle. You can’t remember the last time you received love like this and your heart feels warm. “I’m good...how have you been?”   “Good, good. Better now that you’re here.”   Hoseok’s brain is about to implode and he puts a stop to this madness. “What’s going on?” His frown is deep and he glances at you. “You know my parents?”   His mother’s brows furrow as well and she shakes her head, arms falling to her side. “You don’t remember?”   “We were friends,” you say to him. “I told you before, remember? We were friends like ten years ago. A long, long time ago.” Your feet spin around and you look at his parents in urgency. “I’m working for Hoseok now.”   “You are?”   “Yes, I work in the HR department.”   “Oh.” His dad nods. “I see.”   “Well,” his older sister pipes up. “What’s in the past is in the past, right, mom? We shouldn’t just stand around. Isn’t the cake melting?” She takes the box from Hoseok’s arms and marches past the crowd into the kitchen.   “Right, right.” The endearing middle-aged woman takes you by your hand, smiling once more. She doesn’t care about how you’re here or why, just the fact that you are. No questions are asked and you muse how similar her personality is to her son’s. They’re both warm and kind-hearted, but with a sort of authoritative air to them that’s admirable. “Have you been eating well? You look like you haven’t. Come, there’s food in the kitchen.”   “I’m sorry for not bringing you a present. Had I known…”   “Don’t be ridiculous.” She laughs and waves you off, dismissing the idea. “You being here is enough of a gift for me.”   “I made the noodles,” his dad announces, laughing, and not wanting his wife to take credit. “Want to have a bowl?”   “I’d love to.”   While Hoseok’s personality is similar to his mom’s, his appearance is strikingly akin to his dad’s. Both males have dark hair and are tall and lean. They have smiles identical to one another, the way their eyes crinkle and their lips spread into a slight heart shape. You wonder if this is what the older version of Hoseok would look like, just a few wrinkles here and there from grinning so much.   “Get that out of here.” The woman whips a dish towel at her husband. “Y/N is going to eat my soup first. I bought the ingredients fresh from the store and cooked it this morning.”   “It’s salty,” the older man chimes playfully.   “It isn’t! He’s lying!” She defends and you laugh with his dad.   Meanwhile, Hoseok is still left reeling in the darkness of the foyer. He sets his belongings down and strips off his coat, throwing it on the couch and walking into the house that he doesn’t recognize. It’s too odd and foreign to him, to see you here talking to his parents like you visit more than he does. It feels like he just transported into another dimension, another world.   He pulls his sister aside and she glares. “What?”   “How do you know Y/N?” He asks her with the utmost seriousness, not playing any games as an impassive yet stern expression washes across his features.   “Didn’t she say?” His sister matches his blank expression. “You guys were friends.”   “How close were we that mom and dad knows and likes her so much?”   Sowon shrugs. “Beats me. I don’t know you or your friends.”   “Why don’t I remember anything?” He holds his head in his hands, racking his memories, but coming up with nothing. It’s as if he’s trying to remember things when he was younger than two years old — he just can’t conjure any memory or even make something up.   She sighs. “That…....I don’t know.”   Mickey is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, a very fancy name for such a sheepish and affectionate little thing that walks by with stumpy legs, stumbling as if he were drunk. Still, your heart melts and he smells you before circling around once and putting his paws up to get closer. You squat down, petting and scratching behind his ear, laughing when he tries to lick your face and you have to lean backwards. “I missed you, buddy. You’re such a good boy, aren’t you? I’m glad to see you’re doing well! Who’s the cutest in the world?”   “Y/N.” Hoseok stands at the doorway, serious and interrupting your coos towards the pet. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”   You stand, but Hoseok’s mother turns from the kitchen island and steps in front of you like a personal body shield. “About what? Aren’t office hours over? You’re not her boss anymore. She’s your guest!”   Sowon is sitting at the kitchen table, one leg propped up and casually popping walnuts into her mouth. “He thinks he’s a hot shot lawyer now and can just order people around.”   His dad also chips in to the banter, “Leave the work for work and come relax, Seok. You’re going to burn yourself out.”   “He's already burnt himself out and these ashes are what's left of him,” Sowon feigns grief, but mischief twinkles in her eyes and she’s having too much fun teasing her younger brother and making a fool out of him. Anything that was ever intimidating and domineering about Hoseok gets reduced to nothing when he’s treated like the baby of the family.   “This is serious,” he groans. “Y/N.”   His dad ignores his plea and brings his noodles to the table, separating them into two bowls. “Let her eat.” He gives you a bowl. “Tell me what you think, okay?”   “It’ll only take a second,” the lawyer reasons.   “If you have something to say to Y/N, say it to all of us,” his sister states and it’s just too funny to watch. Everyone’s defending you. You have an entire army at your feet and they don’t let him have a single word. He’s absolutely defeated and the sight is too glorious to witness.   “I agree,” the older man says with a nod and Mickey barks like he agrees too.   “This is private.” Hoseok is becoming increasingly upset. No one is fazed. “Y/N.”   “My house, my rules.” His mother crosses her arms. “Don’t listen to him, Y/N. He can’t make you go anywhere or do anything that you don’t want to. Don’t be scared. I’ll protect you.”   You laugh, feeling overwhelmed with the amount of love that they give you. You can’t help but feel undeserving of it. “Don’t worry, I’m not. Can I go feed Mickey food though? It’s been so long and I think he’s hungry.”   “Okay.” She tells you that it’s in the old place and you go off with Mickey running by your side, like you know exactly where she’s talking about. Hoseok is baffled again, and it doesn’t help when his mother glares at him, his sister is chewing and watching, and his dad takes peeks while slurping the noodles. “If you scare Y/N away or kick her out, don’t call me your mother anymore.”   “That’s a bit dramatic, honey,” his dad chimes in, chewing a cheekful and pointing his utensil at his son. “But she’s right. You won’t have a dad either.”   Sowon laughs chaotically, joining in with the fun. “You never had a sister to begin with. I don’t know you.”   The longest sigh of life leaves him. He doesn’t even say anything to his family, having no energy and no words, merely turning and walking away. He follows the light of the hallway to where you are by the washing machines. The top cupboard is open and the food bowl is full. Mickey is happily eating away while you’re petting him and his body nuzzles against yours.   “You didn’t tell me you knew my parents.”   “I didn’t think they would even remember me.” You shrug, looking up at him past your lashes.   There’s silence before he asks a simple— “How?”   “We were friends and I came over like two times for dinner.”   “That’s it?”   “That’s it,” you answer. “Why?”   “I don’t know. I’m just...shocked.” He moves away from the doorway and squats down with you to meet your eyes. Hoseok pets the brown dog carefully and it still leans more into your touch than his own. “You said we weren’t close.”   “Not really.” You shrug yet again. “We only went on like two dates and you didn’t call back.”   “But you met my parents?” It doesn’t add up inside his mind. Hoseok would never let someone he went on two dates with meet his parents. To him, meeting the parents was a serious step and he would never be so mellow about it.   “That was before we went out on the date,” you explain while watching Mickey eat away. “You invited me and a bunch of our other friends to have dinner at your place. It really isn’t that big of a deal, Hoseok.”   He’s become quieter and you can tell it’s bothering him. “Why didn’t I call you back?” His head lifts, pupils locking with yours as he seemingly tries to understand the foggiest part of his life. “After the second date, I mean.”   “I don’t know. Maybe you thought I was annoying.”   “That can’t be it. You’re not annoying.”   “Well, younger me might have been.” Your shoulders shrug and your eyes divert elsewhere. “The past is the past, right? That’s what you told me.”   “I….guess.” Yet, his frown remains.   “I think you should be more concerned that your parents actually like me and I might be able to convince them into making you give me a raise,” you tease him with a tiny laugh.   It’s pretty sad to be squatting together in a crumbling laundry room with a faint yellow light above your head, both petting a small dog who cares more about eating at the moment. But it’s an intimate moment and you don’t resist the smile that overcomes your visage when he pouts at you.   “Not happening.”   “I don’t know, Seok,” you sing-song, using his family nickname and Jung Hoseok pouts even harder.   //   His entire family dotes on you, favouring you over their actual son. It’s still fun to see Hoseok interact with his parents and sister and be sulking the entire time. They ask about your job, what you’ve been up to and if Hoseok gives you a hard time. You’re fairly vague about what you’ve been doing, telling them that you worked different kinds of jobs before applying to his firm, and because you're so merciful, you tell them Hoseok is a great boss.   Sowon also talks about her job and crazy stories of wedding crashers. The conversations are rather mundane, small talk to recounting anecdotes and catching up with one another. But it’s warm and cozy to gather around the dinner table as a family. They don’t treat you like an outsider or stranger whatsoever.   If anything, you feel like you’re being treated more like a stuffed turkey, eating and eating. You’re perfectly aware of the sadistic streak that runs through the family and it makes you wonder if they’ll just knock you out and spear you. Though you highly doubt they became cannibals since you last saw them.   The candles on the cake get blown out. Hoseok gives his mom slippers for her birthday while Sowon bought an expensive brand name bag. The difference in presents makes everyone turn to Hoseok to glare at him jokingly and the silence makes you laugh until your stomach hurts.   You don’t realize hours have passed since you arrived. And you’re starting to suspect that everyone is trying to find tactics for you to stick around as long as possible. When Hoseok tries to end things, his mother steps on his foot and offers you another plate of food to which you politely refuse. His dad is adamant about showing you the revamped garden and his sister turns on a movie, telling you to stay and watch the entire thing.   There are more desserts brought your way and his mom is ready to fire up the oven and make cookies with you. But when you let out your tenth yawn, Hoseok finally calls quits.   You bid goodbye to the family and his mom hugs you close, nearly suffocating you while she plants three kisses to the top of your head in rapid succession, telling you to come back soon. His dad also gives you a jolly hug, and Sowon smiles, slipping you her phone number in case you need it.   “Thanks for coming, Y/N,” Hoseok says in the car after getting some peace and quiet.   “Thanks for having me,” you reply in a sheepish whisper.   Hoseok drives you back home and you fall asleep with your head pressed against the cool window, lulled by his gentle humming and feeling warm inside and out.

Of Unsound Mind

A GaaSaku Fanfic

Alternate Links: FF.net & AO3. Pairing: Sakura/Gaara. Summary: It's only when her life has crumbled down around her that Sakura finally finds some kind of peace. GaaSaku. Modern AU. Rated M just in case. Warning: Psychologically dark elements. (No blood or gore.) Sexual themes.

There were many words used to describe Sakura Haruno during her fall from grace.

Anti-social. Cynical. Violent. Bossy. Obnoxious. Friendless.

And those were the friendly examples.

There was also, whore, bitch, psycho, tight-arse, freak, and various interpretations of the hysterical woman stereotype.

It was depressing enough to be called these names, and more heart breaking to embody them. But the worst part was that they came from people she’d never have suspected. From people she loved and had trusted for years. Some hadn’t even waited until her anger had reached its crescendo before writing her off.

She’d lost her cushy office, her friends, her aghast family, and all hope of returning to her former life; Sakura was at least grateful that her OCD meant she had a decent amount of money saved up for this seemingly unending rainy day.

It was in moments like this, that she took pride in her tight-arse ways. It was a cold slap in the face in the wake of the reality of her responsibility to clean up her mess.

And somehow, sitting on a chair, next to others arranged in a dysfunctional, sparsely spaced circle and being lectured on the meaning of her anger issues did not strike her as particularly constructive. But Sakura had no intention of reacquainting herself with her inner demons, so she had to try to put it behind her.

For years, she’d built a damn in her mind to keep her inner, sanctimonious persona quiet, but it had all come crashing down several months ago when she’d been tossed aside for a more available girlfriend. A seemingly innocuous event that many others went through and came out the other end unbroken, but not Sakura Haruno. She snapped like a proverbially twig over a roaring fire. It was like letting a beast out of a cage that had been perfectly crafted to contain it. White hot rage; she had no control of herself, and for a short while, all Sakura knew was the burning, angry harpy that lay within her mind.

The need to make someone bleed for it.

Now, she had no-one. No friends. No family. No glimmer of a hopeful future. Her inner had driven them all away.

That was why she was here of all places. A group anger management session; the judge had been clear that evading these weekly torture sessions would land her back in Konoha Psychiatric Hospital. She couldn’t go back there. Everyone there was crazy. It would drive her insane.

“Let’s begin, shall we?”

Doctor Kato – possibly the hospital’s most likeable tight-arse. She was always friendly enough to Sakura, but the pinkette could never fully respect someone who played by the rules so religiously. Squashing herself inside a tin can and answering, “how high?” whenever her superiors said, “jump”. It boggled the mind.

She sighed, sitting up straight in an effort to not be called out. Again. Today was her first session in a group and this whole anger management thing was just another part of her community service – though the question of who she was supposed to be helping right now, was anyone’s guess.

She forced herself to listen as Shizune Kato started her morning sermon.

“Anger management is the process of learning to recognise your anger for what it is and control it. Anger is an emotion we use to mask feelings of fear, inadequacy, guilt, confusion, depression, hurt, or loneliness. It is not uncommon for us to fall into this trap when we feel too helpless to do anything else.”

Sakura rolled her eyes and regressed to slouching in her chair. Shizune tended to drone on about the definition of things. As both a Clinical Psychologist and a nationally recognised motivational speaker, she was the enemy of succinctness

Sakura smiled at that.

She’d been acquainted with the brunette for years, but never truly known her. Despite her pleasant yet oddball nature, Shizune wasn’t the most charming person Sakura had ever met, especially one-on-one. They’d both been mentored by the great Lady Tsunade Senju – an actually motivational person who didn’t like to get up on podiums and talk about it.

Sakura interned with Tsunade straight out of high school; she’d been interested in psychology for years, because of her inner, fascinated with the inner workings of the human mind. Keeping her inner quiet helped her pass as “normal”, but she always got the impression that Tsunade knew her favourite protégé had issues.

Their bi-weekly “let’s build a snowman” sessions were a dead giveaway.

“Sakura?”

The pinkette snapped out of her internal musings and rattled off a few facts about herself while keeping it impersonal. Shizune gave her an odd look and Sakura sat up straight again, suddenly self-conscious.

But she couldn’t help but lose focus again as the brunette pointed to each of her patients in turn, asking for introductions. Even though this was her first group session, she knew some of these people anyway, from her time in hospital. There was the girl who’d run over her boyfriend when she found out she was pregnant. The older man who beat up the teenage boy who was screwing his trophy wife. Another girl who blamed God for her voices and repeatedly stole from and trashed her family Church. Not to mention the guy who attacked a mime because he wouldn’t give him directions.

Some Sakura knew only by face, but it was a safe bet they were all violent in some way.

But there was this one guy that everyone seemed to be giving a wide berth. He had this dark aura around him, like a solid barrier made of hate and bloodlust. His blood red hair seemed to finish off the look of death and wrath nicely. Not to mention that he was the only person she’d ever seen with a kanji tattoo on their forehead of all places.

“Gaara?”

Sakura watched the others suddenly become uninterested; she imagined Shizune only called on him because those were the rules.

The redhead grunted out his name and something inaudible; she caught the words, “temper”, “family”, and “fucking”. Shizune didn’t press any further.

Sakura couldn’t take her eyes off Gaara as the introductions continued – some clearly more enthusiastic than others.

Based on appearance alone, she gathered he fit into the goth stereotype, but she’d never been much of a profiler. Her field of study was psychiatric rehabilitation and Sakura had just been promoted before her life went to shit. She was rising fast for someone her age. And enjoying the perks that came with a higher paying job.

‘I miss my office.’

She blinked heavily as Shizune started talking again.

Gaara swivelled in his chair suddenly and unintentionally caught Sakura’s eye. Though clearly startled by her attention on him, he didn’t look away. She felt her face warm under his stare. She’d heard that, during his first therapy session, he threw a chair out the window and broke the psychiatrist’s teeth when the man had tried said “hello”. They said the shrink needed counselling after that. Though plausible, she highly doubted that had happened – he wouldn’t have been considered for group sessions, if he was that easy to rile up, surely.

“Who wants to talk about why they’re here, first?”

Shizune’s voice snapped Sakura to reality and she tore her eyes away from Gaara to listen to the pregnant girl whine about men and how unfairly the “quacks” had been treating her, but she could still feel his eyes burning a hole in her.

His dark aura shifted, and he seemed a bit content then, to Sakura. She chanced a look at him; he didn’t look ready to kill her. His reputation had to be wrong, then. She had to remind herself how easily rumours could get out of hand.

Unlike her therapy companions, Sakura had a degree in psychology. She had a many great deal of things that were no longer important anymore. Like people in her life.

“Sakura?”

She mentally cursed herself for not paying attention and sat up straight, realising she’d slumped again. “Y-yeah.”

Shizune smiled at her. “Why don’t you share something more in depth with the group.”

She wasn’t here for her health, that’s for sure.

Sakura cleared her throat, avoiding Gaara’s gaze; it was getting unnerving. “Um. I’m doing these sessions as part of my community service.” At Shizune’s insistent look, she added, “I... uh, had a breakdown.”

“That blows.” One of the girls gave her a sympathetic look.

Sakura just stared back at her. The old her would’ve smiled back and maybe engaged her in conversation; the new and improving version didn’t have the energy for that shit.

“Moving on.”

Shizune rounded off the session and they started to file out. Sakura noticed that Gaara wasn’t asked to add anything more in depth. She sighed and stood, stretching out her muscles and keeping her attention settled solely on herself; a certain redhead was still staring.

“Same time next week!” Shizune called.

Sakura hurried out, unwilling to remain under such close scrutiny any longer.

This group therapy thing was going to be exhausting.

 .:.

 “Got a light?”

Two weeks later, Sakura decided to bite the proverbially bullet. He’d been staring at her on and off, and she had finally worked up the nerve to approach him. In between bouts of self-loathing and therapeutic jogs along the beach, she’d been keeping up-to-date in the world of mental health. Call her an optimist, but she figured it would help her get back into it once all this community service was over.

It beat picking up rubbish – that was on her morning schedule.

Gaara was Shizune’s problem case, but Sakura wanted to reach out to him. She wanted to see if anything she did or said could make a difference. This would go a long way to seeing if she still had what it takes to be a Psychologist. Obviously, it would be in a non-professional capacity, so she couldn’t be reprimanded for it.

In her planning stages, Sakura noticed he took the time to smoke both before and after the sessions, like he was bolstering himself for battle and then rewarding himself for not annihilating everyone. That was a start. So, she used their common ground to start a dialogue.

Without removing the cigarette from his mouth, he looked up at her question, stared at her for a second, and then nodded his head. She swore to herself up and down that she would quit these disgusting things one day. But that day was not today.

He tossed a red lighter at her and grunted out, “this is going to kill you. You should give it up.”

She fought the urge to roll her eyes until after he turned away. “I will if you do.”

He didn’t respond.

They’d just spent an hour in a gruelling session, so he clearly needed to unwind.

Sakura took a seat two feet from him, overlooking staff parking; they were far enough away from the front doors of the hospital to not be called out, but she somehow figured Gaara was less concerned with that rule and more concerned with solitude.

She stayed quiet, settling in and lighting up. He didn’t ask for the lighter back straight away and she waited until she was ready to leave before returning it. Gaara’s pale fingers stretched out to grasp it, and she made a note of how he deliberately avoided her touch, before standing to leave.

Slow and steady; she didn’t want to startle him. It was a good start. His moods during the sessions was always dark, but some days he was clearly holding on by a thread. For all the darkness and chaos that stormed inside Sakura’s head, she had a feeling what he kept bottled up inside was worse.

 .:.

 The following week, Sakura beat Gaara to his usual smoking spot, prior to their weekly torture session. She didn’t light up during the six days they had off and felt no urge to do so until she drove into the Konoha Hospital parking lot and remembered what she was about to do.

Yeah, the dark aura around Gaara still intimidated her. And the mindless prattling of her fellow therapy inmates made her want to slap their heads together and tell them to grow up. The redhead continued to stare at her during the sessions and then ignore her when they fell into silent, mutual cancer inducing stupors. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help herself.

One month on from their first interaction, she decided to finally break their monotony of silence.

And then chickened out when his head snapped around and he stared at her, suddenly, like he knew it was coming. Jade orbs stared blankly at her and she summoned her courage, mentally berating herself. She’d come this far.

“I was thinking...” Sakura drifted off; his eyes widened, and lips twitched. The cigarette hanging lazily from his mouth jerked with the movement. “...of smoking something a little stronger next week.”

He blinked slowly, almost owlishly, and then looked away from her. She almost continued talking several times, waiting for him to respond.

“Don’t do that.”

“I just–”

“You’ll just get sent back to the loony bin.”

And that was the end of that.

Sakura felt herself flush with anger; she wanted to rant and rage at him, tell him he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing instead. It wasn’t her intention to fly off the handle at him. She just needed to focus. The object of her rush of anger sat quietly as she calmed herself.

And just like that, she was calm again. She sighed, put out her cigarette and turned to face him. He was looking back at her, those intense eyes curious; she almost forgot what he’d said to annoy her. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t.”

It took a few seconds to sink in, but before she could formulate a response, he stormed away from her and back toward the front doors. A full ten seconds later, Shizune’s voice drifted over to her and Sakura knew she’d lectured Gaara on the rules involving smoking near government buildings. There was no way, however, that Shizune was brave enough to confiscate them.

Sakura joined them and was both annoyed and confused when Gaara pointedly ignored her for the first time in weeks.

‘Men.’

 .:.

 Sakura arrived early the following Wednesday, and sat in her car, writing in her journal. She wanted to get down everything she was feeling before heading in there – last week, Shizune had suggested this when the pinkette let it slip that she’d almost lost her temper again. She hadn’t had a black out in almost two months. She was getting better.

But Gaara’s attitude was not conducive to her mental health.

The worried look on Shizune’s face bothered Sakura too – she’d figured out that two of her patients were smoking together, outside the hospital and wasn’t amused. That dark aura around Gaara was more powerful than Shizune’s disapproving glare, but the brunette’s made Sakura feel guilty. That was nothing, however, compared to how Sakura was feeling now.

Tsunade’s car was in the lot, today. She was here.

‘Did Shizune go running to shishou about my fascination with Gaara?’

Sakura was torn between annoyance and happiness; it wasn’t their business, but it had been too long since anyone cared if she got herself hurt. Was she supposed to feel angry or comforted? Maybe both? She was a red-faced child wrapped in a warm blanket brandishing a bloody knife with one hand and nursing a cup of hot cocoa with the other.

She wasn’t crazy. She knew she wasn’t. The dark voice inside of her was quiet and she hadn’t lost control in so long. Sakura felt like everything was falling into place. The only hiccup was where Gaara fit into everything. Anyone with eyes could see he was worse off than her – he may never get better – but she didn’t know his history. She didn’t know how bad off he was.

She had to find out, if she had any hope of putting her fascination with him in the proper context.

The tap on her car window startled her, but somehow, she wasn’t surprised to find Gaara’s questioning stare on her; rugged up against the cold, his red hair poking out from under a black beanie, and his breath fogging up her window. She took a moment to truly appreciate how good he looked before he indicated wordlessly behind him – toward their usual smoking spot – and she nodded in acquiescence.

Sakura smiled after he turned to lead the way. It seemed she wasn’t the only one that look forward to these morning rituals.

 .:.

 An hour later, Sakura was trying to sneak glances at Gaara while pretending she wasn’t interested in doing so. Tsunade had taken over the group today, with Shizune nearby taking notes, and the busty blonde was currently questioning Gaara – in a way that no-one else had the balls to do so.

Everyone else normally avoided looking at the emo boy who had a reputation for trying to kill people for looking at him wrong, but today they were staring unabashedly as he was questioned. Like he was an animal in a zoo. His simple, clipped responses delivered in angry undertones that promised pain and retribution didn’t deter Tsunade; his audience was hooked on every word.

When the blonde finally relented, everything went deadly quiet and Sakura found herself alone in watching him. Shizune and Tsunade conferred as the session came to an end and the pinkette forced herself to not get up and follow Gaara as he stormed out.

Murmuring broke out, but she ignored them, making her way over to Tsunade. The blonde hugged her.

“Sakura, it’s been too long.”

She smiled. Her first real smile directed at anyone but Gaara for a while. “Yes, shishou. I’m glad to see you.”

She wanted to question Tsunade – she undoubtedly had information on Gaara that she needed.

Shizune would be against it – that girl had never met a rule she didn’t worship – but Tsunade was the type to indulge her pupils, be they present or past. During her internship with the busty woman, Sakura had often had access to information she wasn’t supposed to know. She trusted her. She knew she wouldn’t repeat anything she read or heard. It was a level of trust Sakura had never had before and was sorely missed in her life.

That “I have no-one” voice in her head was sounding further and further away the longer she felt the warmth of her mentor’s smile on her.

‘How could I ever think shishou would turn on me?’

They both understood mental illness and didn’t judge it.

Tsunade spoke before Sakura had a chance to ask her; that mind reading thing of hers was still annoying, after all these years. “If this is about your sudden interest in a certain redhead, you know I can’t tell you anything.”

A bubble of annoyance swelled in Sakura’s chest, but as her mentor made a show of shuffling her papers, the pinkette forced herself to calm down. Shizune sat nearby, finishing off a few notes; when she was done and left to find something to eat, Tsunade indicated to Sakura to take a seat.

“I want to preface this with I understand,” Tsunade said. “Gaara’s a good-looking boy and you’ve always had a thing for the emotionally closed off type.”

“Shishou–”

“Let me finish.”

Sakura nodded her head, admonished.

The blonde pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’ve been through so much lately and your life has become a black sinkhole. You’re so cut off and confused; you know you are,” she added, when the pinkette huffed in annoyance. “It’s understandable to find comfort in a kindred soul. But Gaara’s different than you. You should be more careful with him.”

Sakura frowned. “Why?”

Tsunade lowered his head to whisper and the pinkette leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s in his file, but you didn’t hear this from me.”

Sakura nodded; her heart pounding in her chest. Doctor-patient confidentiality was still a thing between doctors, but Tsunade loosening her tongue was motivated purely on a personal level. She’d always thought of Sakura as the daughter she never had.

“What he has is a touch disorder; his anger manifests similar to an extreme case of Skin Hunger.”

Sakura nodded, understanding. Skin Hunger was a yearning to touch, basically; if Gaara’s anger was connected to this, she assumed it meant he lashed out when touched. All awhile craving that touch.

It was interesting.

“Don’t set yourself up for failure with him.”

Sakura frowned. “What do you mean?”

“All I’m saying is that whether your interest is professional or personal, don’t get your hopes up. So far, all observable outcomes from people trying to get close to him have resulted in some form of violence.”

“I already understood: you’re saying he always attacks people who touch him.”

“Or it manifests itself sexually.”

Her eyes widened. She didn’t need to know that part.

Sakura was already checking Gaara out every time he passed in her field of vision. She didn’t need to know that an accidental touch on her part could end with her flat on her back and screaming his name.

She was definitely going to make a point of not touching him.

“He is not a rapist, Sakura, I assure you.” Again, Tsunade was reading her mind. “I spent six months working with him after I was asked to profile him; he’s capable of a great many things, but he isn’t capable of that.”

‘No... he’s not going to force me.’

Sakura knew that, despite her initial concern. He was the type to make her want it. Badly.

‘He already has.’

She closed her eyes for a second, just absorbing everything Tsunade had told her. Her attraction to the redhead had started without her really noticing and escalating into full-blown, make-out session with herself.

It gave her goose bumps and made her never want to go to bed fully clothed again. And strangely, gave her a desperate craving for cheese and ice-cream.

It boggled the mind.

“Then why is he here, among people?” Sakura realised the answer the moment she’d finished asking but had to hear it.

“This is the only thing keeping him out of jail.”

Anger management for most people was a program with steps and slogans and learning about yourself.

And that annoying prayer circle thing.

For people like Gaara, it was avoiding the worst-case scenario of getting locked up and never seeing the light of day again. She felt sorry for him, though she was sure he wouldn’t appreciate it.

Sakura was torn between continuing her curiosity driven desire to crack him open and give him his space, so he could get through these sessions untouched. She really wanted to pick his brain.

(Must be the therapist in her.)

“Lady Tsunade!”

“That’s my cue.” Tsunade hugged her former apprentice. “Just be careful, Sakura.”

“I will. I promise.”

Sakura stayed in the chair for a few minutes before remembering she was technically standing Gaara up and rushed out to find him. He was leaning against the building, his hands in his pockets, eyes closed, and no cigarette to be found.

She hesitated to disturb him, but as her feet carried her over to the enigmatic redhead, he seemed to come to life and turned to face her. The look he gave her was new; she wasn’t sure if it was calculating or distrustful.

Had he heard her conversation with Tsunade? No... he’d have been too far away, and they were whispering. But her shishou had questioned him pretty intensely and Sakura stayed behind to talk with her afterward. Perhaps he just put two and two together. Her mind went back to what Tsunade had said about being his therapist for a while.

‘They already know each other.’

Maybe he wasn’t as bothered by the questioning as she’d thought.

“I’m not a good person,” he said gruffly. “But I won’t hurt you.”

‘Is there anyone around here that can’t see right through me?’

“Okay...”

He sighed.

They shared sessions once a week, and every time, Sakura followed him outside afterward to ask for either a cigarette or a light. He would grunt one-word answers to her questions and then take off on his Kawasaki without so much as a glance in her direction. But today had gotten under his skin, apparently.

He watched her, waiting to see if she would flee from him.

She gave him a small smile. “I was thinking...”

He scoffed. “You do too much of that.”

“...that maybe we can do an experiment.”

He didn’t ask for clarification, but the question weighed heavily in his eyes.

“I... think maybe we could do that thing Shizune suggested last week. Together, I mean.”

She was too cowardly to put it into words, worried he’d hear the hope in her voice. Basically, Shizune had suggested to all her patients to let their anger out on something constructive – kind of like kickboxing or tae kwon do – in a controlled environment, with a partner. Sakura tried to school her features so Gaara didn’t think she was excited by the idea of getting hot and heavy with him. His calculating stare pierced right through her and he raised a non-existent eyebrow.

“If I let my demon out, it will break you in two.”

He really knew how to end a conversation.

 .:.

 “You ever tried to kill yourself?”

Every week she asked a question, he answered it, then he asked her something, and the cycle went on. It was the only experiment she suggested that he would go along with. Now, with only one more shared group therapy session left, Sakura was feeling the deadline to break through him fast approaching; the end of having him in her life.

She thought of the craziest question she could conjure; the rumours of his violence having escalated to murder lingering on the edge of her mind. And the question blurted itself out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Gaara didn’t look offended though, just nodding his head slowly. After a minute, he asked “you ever killed anyone?”

“No.”

She came close once, though. It wasn’t something she was particularly proud of. It was a line she didn’t want to cross. Even in her darkest moments while her inner was in control, that last breath and final punch to the gut never came. She never did it. It was why she’d been carted off to the loony bin rather than jail.

Sakura was not grateful to her inner, but rather grateful it at least wouldn’t do that.

“It’s almost the same thing,” Gaara said. “Except the pain isn’t yours.”

Her heart was racing now, but she just had to know. “What does it feel like?”

Sakura had no idea what she was expecting from him – perhaps, “horrible” or “it feels like dying”. She held her breath, waiting.

“Only an idiot would ask that.”

She seethed. “Fuck you. It was just a question. Why are you such an arsehole?”

He reached over to her and she stiffened. Gaara gave her a wry grin and plucked the unlit cigarette from her fingers without making physical contact; so absorbed in their game, she hadn’t remembered she was still holding it.

“It’s my turn to ask a question.”

She huffed. “So, ask.”

“Why are you such an arsehole?”

Sakura sighed. She rubbed her forehead and groaned. His light chuckle startled her. “What’s so funny?”

He waved her cigarette at her patronisingly. “I don’t think you understand the rules of this game.”

“I don’t like this game anymore.”

“You don’t like to lose.”

“What? I’m not losing.” She frowned, realising her slip. “This isn’t a competition.”

He just shrugged.

Sakura glared at him; as usual, he was unfazed. The nerve of him! When he continued to ignore her heated glare and put her smoke in his mouth, she growled. “Fine. I’m an arsehole because it keeps people away who I don’t want to deal with.”

He stopped flicking his lighter to stare at her. “And that’s all?”

“No.”

He gave her a Cheshire grin. “Why else?”

“Why else?”

Gaara nodded and inhaled; shuddering and closing his eyes for a few minutes. He looked like a satisfied cat that had just dismembered a bird. Or maybe a whole flock of them. She could just visualise the speck of blood on the corner of his mouth while his tongue darted out to taste it again.

She shuddered, then shook herself, almost forgetting to answer his question. “I don’t like that goody-two shoes act. I used to play it all the time. It’s annoying. Why are you so pushy?”

“It’s fun. Why were you in the loony bin?”

Sakura bit her lip to keep from snapping something inappropriate at him. It wasn’t until she regained control from her inner that she’d been locked up. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t a game. She’d have thought he, of all people, wouldn’t make light of that.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

She offered a small smiled. “No, it’s no worse than me asking you what it feels like to kill someone. I shouldn’t have asked it. I just...”

“Wanted to know.”

“How do you read me so well?”

Gaara shrugged. The truth was, it was like looking into a mirror – one with pink hair and a cute little nose, but a mirror nonetheless. She was a version of himself without the need to tear things apart. He loved that.

Sakura fiddled with the hem of her shirt. She wanted to avoid that murder question, but she didn’t want to ask anything trivial. Everything seemed bland by comparison.

“Why... when did you start smoking?”

He snorted. “Lame.”

“Stop telling me how stupid my questions are and answer me.”

Gaara stared at her blankly. “I was thirteen.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “My turn.”

“Sorry.” Again.

He nodded but said nothing. After a few minutes, she started to fidget. As soon as she opened her mouth to tell him to ask her a question, he spoke.

“When did you start smoking?”

“Talk about lame questions.” She giggled when he glared at her. “Fine. I was nineteen. But I don’t smoke often. Never have. Uh... why–”

“No more simple questions. I’m bored.”

She bit her lip. “I noticed you don’t touch people.”

“That’s not a question.”

“Can I touch you?”

He didn’t stiffen like she thought he would, just stared at her – almost unseeingly. “No. Why do you want to?”

She blushed. “Uh... because...”

He rolled his eyes.

“Craziest place you can imagine having sex.”

“On a plane.” Gaara held her gaze unblinkingly. “The last time you had sex?”

“Uh.” Her face must look like a tomato by now. “Um. Maybe... a year ago.”

Gaara had put out his cigarette (her cigarette, the thief), and was leaning closer to her. She could feel his breath on her skin. She had to get the topic away from sex before she touched him and let him crawl inside her. And die. She would literally die.

“Uh...” She cleared her throat. “Where else in the world would you rather be right now?”

That was a safe topic, surely.

“Inside you.”

‘Fuck me.’

She stuttered. “What happened to you not wanting to touch me?”

“I never said I didn’t want to.”

“I thought–”

“Doctor Senju filled your head with the he can’t touch people routine?”

Sakura growled at him. “Are you accusing her of lying to me?”

“Just skirting around the truth.”

“She warned me to be careful with you.”

“Kittens aren’t supposed to be masochists,” he snarled.

“I’m not a cat.”

“Yes, you are.”

She frowned at him. “What’s gotten into you?”

Gaara smirked devilishly, his fingers now tugging at the top button of her shirt. She made no move to stop him, but Sakura had gone stiff, terrified of the animalistic look in his eyes.

He stood, leaning over her, and shoved her backwards; she’d been sitting on the edge of a concrete garden, hedge flowers at her back. Gaara held her down, climbing over her; she spared only a momentary thought for the fact that her shirt was getting dirty and was laying at an odd angle before gasping. His hand was on her throat; his body encased hers. Fingernails scraped along her neck; not enough to bleed but enough to hurt.

“Do you ever dream of me?”

Gaara was continuing their game, even as he nipped her throat and settled between her legs.

“Y-yes.”

Gaara shifted his weight on her to kick her legs apart. “Is this what you wanted?”

She licked her lips. “Y-yes.”

He chuckled when she groaned. There was a sharp pain along the back of her legs from being held down like this, but she ignored it. What she really wanted suddenly scared her. “Wait.”

Gaara growled; his grip on her throat tightened and Sakura gasped for air. “No more waiting. He wants you.”

Sakura coughed and spluttered. “He?”

He added a little more pressure but eased enough to allow her airflow. “Yes. He’s been thinking about you hot, wet, and wriggling underneath me.”

“Are you...”

It suddenly clicked. Sakura had an inner – a voice that spoke to her and lashed out. A female voice. It wasn’t inconceivable that Gaara had something similar. From her one-on-one sessions, she’d begun to unravel her inner; to see the reflection of her psyche for what it really was. But clearly, Gaara hadn’t made that leap into redefining himself. He still thought of his inner voice as something separate from himself. Something that can’t be overcome because it had a mind of its own.

She pushed her pity down and shifted into medic mode. He needed her more than she needed him, right now.

“You can pull away if you want.”

It pained her to deny herself something she had grown so desperate for, but maybe taking it slow and letting this come more naturally would be good for her, too. Sakura had no doubt they would progress that far eventually, but in the bushes, just out of sight of the hospital entrance, was not the place to have sex with him for the first time.

They had time.

“Gaara.” She reached up and touched his forehead. The complicated kanji felt just as smooth under her fingers as the rest of him did. Almost like it wasn’t even there. “Push him away.”

He growled down at her, almost like that persona was speaking through him. “I will fuck you. I don’t play games and I don’t fuck around. Next time you push me, I’ll push back. This is your only warning.”

He shoved her again, and then jumped up, moving away from her. But he didn’t go far before half turning to frown at her. “If you do that again, he’ll kill you.”

She swallowed heavily, watching him through her blurry vision as he limped away from her; whether he was in pain from something he did to himself or being so turned on, she couldn’t tell.

She’d pushed him too far. She knew it.

And if it wasn’t for the fact that he had already proven himself to be possessive, Sakura would worry about never seeing him again.

No.

He wasn’t done with her yet.