#nervous to post in a new tag but im being so brave about it
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#anyways coming out as a liker of the funny train guys (<- desperately hoping the autism isnt showing)#i spent so much time trying to make the colors as accurate as possible just to slap a filter on it anyways#but i like it better this way so.#nervous to post in a new tag but im being so brave about it#submas#pokemon bw#been reading the manga for myself and tbh i rlly like the artstyle. it's very. yk. yeah.#colored manga#manga coloring#never doing this again it took way too long <- liar#h personal favs#edits#pkmn
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Im excited about finally getting a dyspraxia diagnosis so pls could I request Geralt feeling the validation of discovering he could be autistic or Jaskier getting diagnosed with adhd or anything along those lines!! 🥰
Sorry this one took a while dear nonny!! I hope you like it! 🥰
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Jaskier’s leg bounced without him really realising it. He was sitting in the passenger seat in the doctor’s car park in Geralt’s old truck. He didn’t want to go inside. If he went inside and they told him there was nothing wrong then he was going to go insane. He couldn’t do this. He could just go home and carry on writing his new album.
Geralt’s hand squeezed his knee. “Hey?”
Jaskier turned to face him, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. “I’m thinking of bringing in a cellist for my next album.” He muttered. “I have Valdo on the violin but it doesn’t have the same depth.”
Geralt tilted his head but didn’t say anything. Instead he kept stroking circles on Jaskier’s knee. Jaskier tried to focus on that. The soft gentle grounding touch of his lover.
“Essi can play cello. We used to play in jazz band together. I played the double bass and she played cello. We used to make fun of the brass section together.” Jaskier giggled at the memory.
“What was funny about the brass section?” Geralt asked in a soft voice.
Jaskier pulled a funny face and puffed out his cheeks before making a farting noise. Geralt chuckled and shook his head. “What?” Jaskier pouted.
Geralt smirked and pulled him into a kiss, it was a little awkward in the car but they’d had plenty of practice. “You’re lucky you’re cute. Come on, we need to go inside.” Geralt stroked Jaskier’s cheek before opening his door and jumping out of the truck.
Jaskier whined and slumped down in his seat. He really really didn’t want to do this. His door opened and Geralt hauled him out of his seat and over his shoulder. Jaskier, who normally loved being man-handled by his boyfriend hissed. “Geralt, you brute! Let me go!”
“Come on, Jask. You’ll feel better once you know.”
Jaskier settled and pressed his face against Geralt’s back. “But what if it comes up nothing?” He pouted even though Geralt couldn’t see him.
Geralt sighed and dropped him onto the floor. “Then I’ll love you.”
Jaskier whined and leant his head against Geralt’s chest, too overwhelmed to use words.
Geralt laughed softly and kissed Jaskier hair before tilting his chin up. “Hey? Remember when I came out to you?”
Jaskier pouted but nodded. “Yeah.”
“Was really nervous.” Geralt cupped Jaskier’s cheek and stroked his thumb along his cheekbone. “Didn’t want you to think I was… less.”
Jaskier whined. “Geralt! Dear heart. I could never. I love you, my handsome darling boyfriend.”
Geralt blushed and kissed Jaskier’s nose. “Not everyone thinks that way, Jask.”
Jaskier rolled his eyes. “The only reason I would judge you, Geralt, is that you tried to call yourself ‘Geralt Roger Eric du Haute-Bellegarde’. What are you a knight?”
Geralt grinned. “Your knight in shining armour.”
Jaskier laughed and kissed Geralt’s cheek. “Brave, Sir Knight.”
Geralt rolled his eyes. “Point is, Jask. I was nervous but I felt so much lighter once I’d told you I’m trans. It’s better to know.”
Jaskier blinked and then looked at the doctor’s surgery. “Oh… yeah.”
“You forgot didn’t you.”
Jaskier scoffed. “Haha! Nooo. Course not.”
Geralt grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the doors. Jaskier sighed but it was no use fighting. Geralt was too strong. Jaskier scuffed his feet as he was dragged along the tarmac. It was time to find out the truth.
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Jaskier flopped onto the sofa with a big grin on his face. “I have ADHD!” He trilled. “I wasn’t making it up!”
Geralt rolled his eyes but laid down on top of his boyfriend, humming as Jaskier’s finger began to tug at his hair. Geralt knew that by the time they were finished cuddling he would have at least two small plaits in his hair; probably more. “Happy, love?” Geralt mumbled into Jaskier’s chest.
Jaskier sighed. “Thrilled!”
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Tag list: @alwenarin @slythnerd @davidtennan-t @flippinfricks @awitchersbard @innocentcinnamonpun @marvagon @elliestormfound @geraskier-trashh @panerato @moonysourenza @artistsfuneral @victorieschild @hailhailsatan @wherethewordsare @havenoffandoms @bitchy-witchy-post-mortem @electricrituals @geralt-of-riviass @00qtee @kittynannygaming @stinastar @scribblesonmapleleaves @thecomfortofoldstorries @fontegagrilledcheese @anythinggoesfandoms @veritasrose
#the witcher#geraskier#geralt of rivia#trans geralt#adhd jaskier#jaskier pankratz#julian alfred pankratz#wolfie's witcher writing#Anonymous
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forever rain | knj | m
Being dead isn't anything exciting. Just a lot of walking the same halls of the same apartment day after day after day. Things change when the new tennant arrives, though. Kim Namjoon isn't anything you could have expected; not the way he's so careful and gentle with his plants because he breaks so many other things, not the way his friends joke that he's psychic because you refuse to let him get in the face one time, and certainly not the way he comes home after literal months spent moving things away from table edges for him and announces that he knows he's being haunted and he has some questions for you. You didn't know ghosts could fall in love, but he makes you feel alive again, like you're standing in the rain while thunder crashes around you. You should've known nothing good would come of falling in love with someone living, though. You should've known that heartbreak was the only way this could end...that the rain doesn't last forever.
part of the Love Yourself Collab, please please please go check out the other fics. Everyone involved is so freaking talented and I have been vibrating out of my skin with how excited I’ve been to read all of these.
pairing | kim namjoon x reader (unspecified gender, even!)
word count | 18.8k | cross posted to ao3
genre/warnings | ghost!reader, slight fluff, hard angst, literally the most angst ever it gets fluffy for a bit but litERALLY this is an angst fic, major character death, unprotected sex (idk what the etiquette for ghost sex is but you should still wrap it before you tap it fam), depictions of terminal illness (v mild), mentions of blood (several, but not graphic), major character death, allusions to violence, namjoon is a klutz whats new, depictions of terminal illness, major character death, i added that tag three times pls dont read this if you aren’t comf with mcd bc i literally tagged it three times so y’all would definitely see it, also probably have some tissues ready bc i cried while writing it so
a/n | this is, to date, the saddest thing i have ever written in my entire fucking life. formal apologies to this joon bc oh my god you poor soul. i’m not kidding when i say you might cry, because i’m a big baby wuss and cried while writing the fucking outline when i first decided to write this for the collab so like......rip my own heart. i was really honored when i was approached about the LYA collab, bc like,,,,,mE? WHAT? and i was really nervous because i’ve never been part of any collabs in any fandom ever, and to have to do something like forever rain and mono as a whole justice, like,,,,,,, *screaming* y’know?? so i went on mono lockdown and just had the whole thing on repeat and was like “alright. what emotions does this make me feel.” and i eventually settled on the loneliness and isolation that he expresses, and feeling like no one understands what you’re going through, but that ultimately the album as a whole and forever rain give off this feeling of like. things get better, you’re not as alone as you feel, and you just gotta get through the bad stuff to find the good stuff. basically i just got really in my feels about it and was like ‘lets make myself cry ahahaha’ and,,,i dID i cried several times while planning and writing and editing bc im a Soft Bitch and don’t read much angst for that exact reason lmao. so buckle tf up y’all, this a helluva ride!!
Of all the things you'd heard about death, all the different possibilities that existed in the world, the one thing you hadn't been prepared for was the boredom. You hadn't been prepared for any of it, really, too surprised by your own demise to plan at all, but even if you'd been able to, you don't think that this is what you would've counted on. An eternity - or however long ghosts existed - of being stuck in the same studio apartment you'd lived in when you died. The same walls, the same floor, the same view out the only window of the alley beside the building. It's boring and lonely and boring.
You've found more creative ways to entertain yourself as time passes. First, you started by figuring out just what being a ghost meant. You can't really communicate with anyone, haven't figured out how to make sure everything you say is heard, but you can manipulate objects pretty easily these days. The most difficult thing is becoming fully corporeal - completely visible and able to interact with things at the same time. It's hard enough to be visible, and you aren't really sure what the point of it would be when it would just scare whoever's living in your apartment; that's the last thing you want to do, run them off when they're the best source of amusement you've found.
You won't lie, you were a little offended when the first tenants moved in after you. It was difficult to watch your things get packed up and moved out by your friends, hard to lose all of the little things you loved in your apartment, like the shitty bead curtain you'd gotten as a gag gift or the photo collage of all of your loved ones. It's frustrating to not know how they're all doing these days; the one time you got brave enough to fuck with a laptop to check on them, you nearly broke the thing, and you haven't tried since. Still, it seemed cathartic for them to clear out your apartment, and it was a bittersweet sight, but you tried to focus on the positive side of it.
And then the couple moved in.
Not only did they fuck like rabbits - which is something you're going to stay pissed about, because there's no satisfaction to be had by you anymore, and it's the one thing you can think of that would be endlessly entertaining - but the couple was also grossly obnoxious. They had zero respect for your apartment , or you, and while one could argue that they didn't actually know you were there, it still made the sting of losing your entire life that much worse. You spent you don't know how many nights hovering awkwardly in the bathroom while they fucked, would constantly wander in to see them going at it on the kitchen counter at ass o'clock in the morning, and once you came in to see them tossing actual literal eggs at the ceiling like the absolute fucking weirdos they were.
So, naturally, you got a little mad. How dare they treat your apartment like that? They had no respect, but they were going to learn it real quick if they were going to live there with you, whether they wanted to or not.
They didn't last long after the first night of slamming cabinets and squealing hinges, but the thrown picture frame of their family was the conclusive end to their stay.
There have been others, since then. They haven't all been terrible, not like that first couple, but most of them have been sub-par roommates, and if you decided early on that if the rest of your immortal life is going to be locked in one shitty apartment with the absolute worst view in the city - because no one wants to see the drunken hookups and potential body dumps that take place in that alley - then you're at least going to share said apartment with someone nice to exist with.
You release a heavy sigh, staring at where your hand disappears through the shower wall. You've taken to testing the boundaries of the apartment again; you already know what the result will be, learned in the first few hours that you're stuck here, but you can't help trying when you get really bored. You just got distracted fucking around with the pipes in the meantime, because you're literally too bored to even focus. It's part of why you miss the last tenants so much, because you weren't ever really bored with them around.
A single mother and her two kids, crammed into a much-too-small apartment because it was all they could afford, and they were the light of your un-life. One a budding teenager that wrote angsty poetry who loved your trick of making things float around, and one an adorable toddler who adored playing peekaboo with you and coloring, and a mom that was too busy to notice anything out of the ordinary. It was like having a family again, made you feel useful when you could pull the meat out of the freezer for her to make dinner with or scratch a quick 'do your homework' on a steamy bathroom mirror. It was fun and it made being dead that much more bearable.
You really should've known that letting the toddler draw the two of you would be a bad idea, especially since there were several artistic liberties taken. It's not your fault the kid thought you'd look cool with fangs and bloody holes instead of eyes and claws that reached the floor. It was art, it was supposed to be a little different from reality. Still, you can't blame her for seeing the picture of her kid and 'my new best friend' and immediately calling the landlord. And a priest.
So, perhaps you gave the apartment a bit of a reputation. Maybe it's been a couple of months since the mom moved out and took your two buds with her. There might be the possibility that you've been the slightest bit salty about losing your friends and you've been extra-ghost-y whenever someone comes by to view the place in an attempt to make yourself feel a little better. Can you really be blamed for that? You just want a decent damn roommate for your life after death, and if that means putting the potentials through a little bit of a test, then so be it. You only feel a little bit bad for the landlord.
The creak of the front door pulls you from your thoughts, and the echo of a voice makes you narrow your eyes. Your first instinct is to slam some windows to scare off whoever's in your apartment, but you repress the urge. You'd die of boredom if you could die again, and whoever this is could provide a few hours' entertainment at the least.
You pop your head through the bathroom wall to see what's going on, and wow , who let an actual giant into your apartment? Fucking with the pipes could definitely wait for this guy.
"I know it's last minute, yeah," He says into the phone that's held carefully between his cheek and shoulder. His arms are loaded down with boxes and he's angled away from you just enough that you can't see his face, but he's tall and broad and wearing what looks like the world's comfiest sweater, and you want to badly to wrap yourself up in him. "But you know Joon needs the help. Don't pretend you aren't constantly willing to put off your thesis, I know for a fact that you went out to look at stationery with Tae last week, and everyone knows that's the most boring thing on the planet."
He's quiet, listening to the soft crackle of a voice from the other end. You slide through the wall completely, hovering as close as you dare to try and hear what the other person is saying. Tall, Broad, and Comfy scoffs.
"He can stare at one sheet of paper for at least ten minutes, Yoongi. Do I need to remind you of the time he spent an entire fucking hour debating which set of holiday scrapbook to buy because, and I quote, 'this one has the really nice rose pattern on it that would look great with the invitations, but, oh, look at the pinstripes in this one!'" His voice morphs into what you guess is an approximation of whoever Tae is, and you laugh at the high-pitched, nasally tone.
Tall and Broad spins, eyes narrowing as he looks around the room, and fuck , he's literally gorgeous. You've never seen someone more attractive in your life or your death and it would probably knock the wind out of you if you actually had breath. Comfy McGorgeous turns back around and sets the stack of boxes in the corner, continuing his tirade about Tae and stationery while simultaneously trying to talk Yoongi into coming, you assume, to help Joon move. You don't know who any of these people are, but they're already proving to be the most entertaining bunch that's ever graced these walls.
The door to your apartment flies open, making both you and Boyfriend Material whip your head around.
"Christ, Jin, you couldn't hold the fucking door open for us?" Someone grunts. Beauty Von Softness - or, Jin, as you should probably refer to him - winces and strides over to do just that as two more guys stagger in with a couch suspended between them. The second they're in the door they drop it to the ground and flop onto it, panting and sweaty.
"Listen, I was busy trying to get our resident hermit out of his cave to help us carry some of this shit," Jin spits back. "And you all know what it's like getting him out and about."
"Did you tell him that there's pizza after we're done? Because I've found that food is the best motivator for him," the guy closest to the door says. His hair is soft-looking and long and you wish you could pet it.
The other guy, the one who cursed Jin out and has the softest pink hair you've ever seen, laughs. "Jeongguk, you always think the best motivator is food."
"Well, yeah, because it is."
"For you, maybe. Other people require actual rewards."
"But food is a reward," Jeongguk mutters into the fabric of the couch. Jin tsks and smacks As Yet Unnamed on the back of the head.
"You're lucky I hung up on him when you bombarded your way into this place, or he'd definitely not come help us," Jin says as he leans against the back of the couch.
Unnamed starts to say something else but is cut off by someone running straight into the end of the couch. They all shoot to their feet, spouting apologies as the three of them maneuver the couch into the apartment properly.
"Sorry, sorry, Jimin distracted us from properly finishing our job," Jeongguk says quickly. He looks to the stranger with a small apologetic smile, and you're pretty sure if it were humanly possible, there would be actual literal stars in his eyes.
"Oh, it's okay, Jeonggukkie. I should've been looking where I was going." New Challenger walks straight towards where you stand, and you realize seconds before it's too late that he is not aware there is a massive stack of boxes in his path. Instinctively, you shove them to the side with your foot. Tall And Oblivious sets his boxes down without any trouble, none the wiser about any of it, and the three near the couch are too busy bickering in hushed whispers to have noticed you doing anything.
The newcomer straightens and turns to look at them all with a bright smile, and you think you might actually see The Light in the way his cheeks dimple. If you thought the other three were beautiful - which they are, no doubt about that, you're seriously wondering why the hell a bunch of supermodels are moving stuff into your apartment - then this guy is easily an Actual Fucking God or something. His brown hair is soft and shiny, his smile is warmer than the sun, and you're fairly positive that for the first time since you died, you feel goosebumps along your arms.
"Seriously, Namjoon, we should've realized you'd be up soon. You stay, start unpacking while we go get the rest of the furniture." Jimin shoves Jeongguk out the door while he's speaking, ignoring the taller's complaints, and Jin just shakes his head at the sight.
"Yoongi'll be here soon, he's finishing up another draft of his thesis. Hobi and Tae are stopping to get the pizzas and then they'll be here, too." Jin's voice is calmer than it was Jimin and Jeongguk, more soothing, and it makes you curious. Not only because of the tone change, but because you know Hobi, he owns the building and is the one who rented you the apartment when you first moved in. One of your favorite things to do is scare him when he comes by to make sure everything’s ready for a viewing.
"What? No, I said I was gonna pay for pizzas!" Namjoon looks distinctly more upset about this than someone should over not having to pay for pizza, at least in your mind, and it only makes you more curious.
"Yeah, but you also just moved out of your old apartment because it was too expensive, and had like an hour to load everything into a truck, so you're gonna let their trust fund asses pay for pizzas. We're seven adult men, and Guk could eat an entire horse and still be hungry. I'm not letting you pay for that."
Silence hangs in the apartment for a while before Namjoon gives a soft thanks to Jin. They share a smile before Jin makes his way back out. You follow each step, shadowing him all the way to the door before you're stopped. You lean your entire body forward, struggling against the invisible barrier keeping you inside, and the force of it nearly slams you back into the wall when you sag in defeat.
You aren't sure why you try anymore, but you know yourself well enough to admit that you're not going to stop until you can at least make it to the hallway.
Whatever you expected Namjoon to be like as a roommate, however unknowing he is about the situation, you don't think you could've guessed what he's actually like.
Out of the seven boys you saw the day he moved in, he's the only one living there. Not a complete surprise, considering it's a studio apartment, but you remember when there were nine people living there at one point, and there was barely room for anyone to breathe even if it had been pretty consistently amusing. Still, for one person, he's got a ton of stuff, and it's a shock it all fits. His bed is massive and comfortable and the best place to lay during the day because it's shoved between the brick half-wall and the large windows that take up one wall. The area's supposed to be for a dining table, you think, but you'd had your bed there, too, and the familiarity is nice.
His couch is small and old but manages to fit five of them, and it's a pleasantly jarring difference from the coffee table that looks like - and might actually be - an old steamer trunk. The exposed brick wall you love holds his mounted TV, a feat that took Jeongguk and Yoongi a solid hour and a half because they kept stripping the screws, and it's got one of those 8-cubicle bookshelf things under it that stores a frankly obnoxious amount of books.
He's got mugs for days, an adorable if odd collection of figurines and mini-statues scattered around the apartment, a strange obsession with some reclaimed wood shelf he's got hanging above his bed, but the absolute highlight of it all is The Wall.
It took them three hours to get it installed and set up the way he wanted, between the placements and the thick wooden shelf they’re perched on with supports and a small safety bar along the edge to keep them from falling off, but along the entire windowed wall and partway after it turns the corner runs a long shelf absolutely covered in plants. There are some elsewhere, like the one he keeps hanging from the bathroom ceiling and the couple in the kitchen, but most are on The Wall. Each one is in its own special pot, each a unique color with a name painted carefully along it, and most of them look half-dead. They're all distinct and unique from each other and they all surely have different needs and ideal conditions, but you'd never guess because Namjoon is so wholly committed to them all. He takes time every day to water them and prune them if he needs to, he checks on them constantly. He even reinforced the safety bar for the ones that sit beside his bed, so there was less chance he'd accidentally knock them around while sleeping.
It's fascinating, watching him tend to them. He's so careful and gentle, with absolute precision in every moment. He cares for his plants the way some people would care for a pet or a child. He doesn’t believe any of them are past caring for, slowly nurses all of them back to health and frequently turns up with more he’s saved from some department store. The most endearing thing, though, you decide as you sit curled among the haphazard blankets of his bed and watch, is the talking. It's every day, for as long as it takes him to care for the plants, and it's the cutest thing in the world. He's talking to some succulent as you just stare at him, filling the comfortable silence of the apartment with his soft, soothing voice, and you wish he could hear you when you talk back to him.
"I know they mean well, but at some point, I've just gotta live my own life, y'know? I can't study something just because everyone expects me to, and I can't pursue some dream just because people think I'd be good at it. I've gotta do what's right for me, don't I?" His tone is positive and bright, a contrast to the gloomy sky that casts shadows across the apartment.
You float over, hovering beside him to look at the plant he's lovingly stroking with his thumb. It's in a pretty periwinkle pot, with the name 'Mang' painted in careful but shaky black handwriting. It's not your favorite - that's the one in the bathroom that hangs over its light blue bowl, a quickly scrawled 'Koya' on the bottom - but it seems to be one of Namjoon's personal favorites based on how often he talks to it specifically.
"I think it's nice you do things for yourself," You tell him. He doesn't react, unable to hear you, but it's nice to hear your own voice after so long. You slide one of the plants - Chim, in a small yellow bowl - to the side and away from his elbow, and he doesn't notice. "You know yourself better than they do. You should trust yourself."
He keeps mumbling to Mang, something about everyone following their own dreams and doing what they need over what people want or expect, when you lay your hand over his.
Thunder cracks through the sky and the first raindrops hits the window as your non-existent skin hits his, and it's the most real thing you've felt in a long time. It's as if the scent of ozone and electricity is in the apartment itself, crackling in your hair and filling your nose with the overpowering scent of the sweet summer rain. You can almost feel the water hit your skin, the way the wind whips at your hair, and it's so intoxicating that you almost miss the sharp inhale from the man beside you.
He's not looking at his plant when you look up, but instead at the window in front of the two of you. You glance at it, and for a fraction of a second, you can see yourself in the reflection. The glimpse has you jerking towards it before you can stop yourself, desperate to know if something has changed. You haven't seen your reflection since you died, not in the mirror or the window or the toaster, and maybe, just maybe, it means something's changed.
Your hand stops against the glass of the window as you reach forward. You can't feel the cool of it under your palm, but it's no less a barrier for you as it would be for Namjoon. Something in you breaks as you watch the raindrops race each other to the ground.
"Ah, I forgot the forecast called for rain today," he mutters, eyes focused on the lightning that streaks by. He doesn't react when your fist slams against the glass, nor when you let out the scream that's been building in you for however long it's been since you died. You're so close, not even a hair's breadth from feeling something new yet familiar for the first time in so long, and you can't. You're still stuck in these four walls, unable to even reach the air outside.
You just want to feel the rain again.
You move dejectedly away from the window, ignoring the way Namjoon shivers as you pass. The temperature in the apartment has dropped considerably, you think, between the storm and your own mood. You can't tell, really. You haven't felt warm or cold or hungry or anything since you died that isn't the oppressive loneliness of life after death.
A dry sob tears itself from your throat and you hurry to hide in the bathroom as Namjoon turns to look around him. He mumbles something you can't hear and after a few minutes, he returns to tending to his plants, leaving you to your tear-less cries in peace.
It becomes quickly apparent to you that Namjoon should really have a roommate, if only to save him from himself. It takes a few weeks for you to realize this, but luckily he seems to narrate his life as he goes through it - which is overwhelmingly adorable to you, and you refuse to acknowledge that - and that means that you hear it every time he goes, "Ah, Namjoon, be more careful next time," or "Oh, shoot, that's not, fuck, I gotta buy more eggs now." It's painful to watch, even for you, and at some point, you just couldn't take it anymore. No one else is around to help, but someone needs to you, and clearly the universe means for you to be that someone.
It's a full-time job, protecting him from himself. You've saved countless mugs, pushing them farther away from the edges of counters and tables, and been just in time to shove bowls or vases an inch over so that his elbows glide harmlessly past them. It's almost exhausting, if you could get tired you would, but it's worth it, you think, as you catch the bookshelf under the TV as it tilts. You slide it gently to the floor, glad that Namjoon is distracted by how close he came to losing a toe to notice.
Because that's the other thing about this tree of a man: he's the most oblivious person you've ever fucking seen. It doesn't matter what it is you do, whether it's bouncing his spray bottle of water so it doesn't break on the hard floor or shake the counters so that the knife he's about to drop on his fucking hand falls the other way, he doesn't see a single fucking thing. You'd think he was blind if he wasn't so attentive to the way his plants grow. He notices nothing and you're glad for it because you really aren't sure what he would do if he knew you were going around haunting him just to keep him alive. You just want to help, want to keep the soft smile he wears more often around for as long as possible.
You don't dare to look into why you want that, too afraid of what you might find there.
It's also just fun to watch him and his friends, relaxed and unreserved. You never had many friends when you were alive, just a small handful that you really truly loved and whom you miss every day. Watching these seven boys fills you with nostalgia and a strange sense of joy because they really are some of the funniest people you've ever been around.
Like now, with four of them sprawled on the couch while Jeongguk and Hoseok make themselves comfortable leaning against the bookshelf under the TV - which has been bolted to the wall since it almost broke Namjoon's foot - and Namjoon watches them all from his bed since it's the only other place to sit. There are beer bottles scattered around and decorating the half-wall that separates the bed from the room proper, everyone is varying levels of drunk, and you're curled up close to Namjoon, leaning against the wall so you can stop him from knocking over any of the bottles nearby because you know him too well at this point.
"I'm just saying, I don't understand why they made him so over-powered in the new movies, because he's supposed to be some kid from Brooklyn! Giving him the high-tech suit essentially strips him of the friendly neighborhood persona that he's always relied on!" Jeongguk has been ranting for a while about the newest release in the Spiderman franchise - apparently, he's part of the actual Avengers now, which is a shock to you since the last thing you heard before you died was that the franchise was canceled until further notice or something.
"And I'm saying that if they didn't give him the suit then it would've made no sense how he was able to do those things," Yoongi responds. You're pretty sure he's just arguing to be contrary at this point, because you remember him telling Namjoon the other day that he prefers DC over Marvel.
"Garfield's Spiderman could do those things," you mutter, "And he didn't have a fancy suit."
"Okay, then how do you explain Andrew Garfield's version being able to do that stuff? He doesn't need the suit, he never has!" You preen at the way Jeongguk echoes your thoughts. "I'm telling you, I don't care how good the relationship with Holland's Spidey and Iron Man is, by giving him the tech and the advancements they did, they've undermined everything that Spiderman is supposed to be about."
"Jeongguk come off it, everyone knows Garfield's Spidey was just all bad writing. I mean, what kind of person can do all that stuff, realistically? He's the one that really needed the Stark suit." Taehyung's voice is slurred and quiet, definitely as drunk as the rest of them.
"What-! No! I could do half of that without being bitten by a weird science spider!" Jin scoffs at Jeongguk's words.
"Yeah, sure, Guk. The same way you can do that bottlecap challenge."
"Bottle cap challenge, and yeah, I could!" The youngest stands and you don't bother to hide your grimace.
"This isn't going to end well, is it?" You ask. No one acknowledges you, too busy finding something Jeongguk can kick the cap off of as the boy readies himself. He's steady on his feet but his face is red and he can't seem to stop giggling.
"If I do this, you gotta call me SpiderGuk from now on, okay?" He says. No one agrees, but it doesn't stop him from laughing again and doing a couple of roundhouse kicks to warm up.
"Okay, okay, Joonie doesn't have any regular water bottles, but we found a screw-top beer in the fridge so ya gotta use that," Jimin says as he stumbles over with said bottle. Jeongguk just nods, an adorable focused expression on his face. Jimin holds the bottle in the air, and you can already tell his grip isn't tight enough to keep the bottle still when Jeongguk kicks it.
The next ten seconds happen in slow-motion. Jeongguk's leg flies out to kick but his drunken body isn't able to handle the sudden shift in balance, and he slips. His foot hits the bottle slightly too low, and it goes flying out of Jimin's weak grip into the air. Everyone in the room watches as it hurtles straight towards Namjoon's face, and you react out of habit and instinct, catching it in one hand before you even realize you've moved.
Everyone freezes, staring at where the bottle hovers in front of Namjoon's face. You're the only one able to see your fingers wrapped around it. A shock jolts through you at the realization of what you've done and you drop the bottle as if it burned you. Fuck, they were all going to freak, then Namjoon would move out and you'd be stuck alone once more. You should've just shoved him out of the way, what were you thinking, you're so fucking stupid-
"Dude," Hoseok mutters from where he's perched on the arm of the couch. "Holy shit, Joon, you're fucking telepathic."
Yoongi rolls his eyes and smacks his chest. "Telekinetic, you fucking-"
"Holy shit, you've got fucking superpowers!" Jeongguk squeaks. "Do it again!"
Namjoon isn't even able to get a word out before there's a book flying at his face, and you panic. You can't catch it, too rushed, but you manage to deflect it so it hits the bed with a soft thump instead of braining Namjoon straight in the nose.
"Woah, you really do have superpowers," Jimin whispers. He lobs a bottlecap at Namjoon, and you catch it in your palm before letting it drop onto the half-wall.
"I don't have...what the fuck you guys," Namjoon insists. His eyes are as wide as saucers behind the thick glasses he has on. He looks freaked out and you want nothing more than to hug him. Your hand reaches out of its own accord, halfway closing the distance to stroke his hair before you catch yourself.
"Hey, levitate your plants," Jin demands. Namjoon looks panicked as he glances at the wall of plants, and you heave a sigh. With any luck, they're so drunk that they'll remember this as a strange fever dream, but you can't just let them keep throwing things at him. You crawl over to the wall, avoiding Namjoon as you do, and grasp one of the plants tight. It's a white pot with red polka dots, a simple RJ on the side, and it's fucking heavy. You only get it a few inches off the shelf before you're forced to put it down.
"Oh my god, catch this!" Taehyung throws a coffee mug straight at Namjoon's head and you panic again. You catch it, and you've decided you're fucking sick of them throwing things at him, so you lob it back and dart across the room to bounce it safely to the counter before it can break.
Everyone in the room stares at the mug and then looks back at Namjoon, who hasn't moved from his spot on the bed.
"Oh my god, you're a superhero," Jeongguk whispers, awe in his eyes.
"That's fucked up," Yoongi mutters, wincing when Hoseok elbows him.
"Maybe we should get some sleep," Namjoon says quietly. The others look like they want to disagree with him, and you have no doubt they want to explore the newfound 'abilities' of their friend, but they still start gathering trash together before they head out.
Namjoon lays awake for a long time that night, glasses folded and sitting atop the half-wall beside you. He's oblivious to the way you watch him, too lost in thought to feel the weight of your stare or the chill in the air.
"I don't understand," He says after a while. "I really don't, but there's got to be a reason for it." He doesn't elaborate, merely turns over and evens his breathing out until he starts snoring, but you watch him for most of the night. He's fascinating, this human, and you wonder what makes him so different from the others you've met.
He apparently decides to experiment. You've known Namjoon is intelligent since he first moved in and you saw his collectible encyclopedias, but you hadn't realized just what it would be like in actuality.
It starts simple. He'll toss something in the air and let it clatter to the ground. Nothing big, just little things like pencils or bottlecaps, and not far, just enough that his eyes narrow as he apparently tries to use his telekinetic abilities to manipulate them.
It slowly graduates from there. Next comes the way he stares at something across the room, hyper-focused on whatever it is until you notice and move it around for him. It's a guessing game, sometimes, trying to figure out just what he wants to move or how he wants to move it, but each time you're successful, he smiles so brightly, dimples on full display. Who wouldn't want to make him smile like that?
It's hit or miss, sometimes. You're only so strong, and while you've had a lot of practice, you still get tired. You lifted his bookshelf almost a full inch before blacking out. Next thing you knew, a couple of days had passed and Namjoon was staring at a coffee mug. That was a significantly less fun day; between losing time and having to catch coffee mug after coffee mug, you were exhausted and a little shaken.
So when he stops staring at things for extended periods of time, when he starts to go back to reading and scrolling the internet and bingeing all the completed shows that Netflix and Amazon had to offer, you're grateful for it. He still occasionally tests it out; he's always subtle about it, choosing to stare quietly until you notice and make whatever it is float around for a minute. Once you wandered around looking for him - a feat in a studio apartment - and found him just sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at a shampoo bottle.
You'd like to say that you don't move things entirely because he wants you to. It's a good test of your abilities and how far you can push yourself until it becomes too much, and it's always nice to have actual evidence that you still exist - in some form, at least - in the world. The validation that comes from seeing him smile every time you lift a pencil or slide a coffee mug to the side, it's not for any reason but the satisfaction of knowing that you have some kind of existence. Some kind of impact on the world, even if you can't be seen and can't leave the apartment.
It's part of why you start moving things around yourself more often; you're hoping he just blames it on his overactive 'abilities' if he notices because you really aren't sure what he would think otherwise. But you also know for a fact that just seeing that you have some kind of sway over the world still - over the things inside this tiny apartment - makes you feel just that bit better about being dead.
Which is why it's such a fucking shock when the door to the apartment slams open one evening just for Namjoon to slam it closed again and announce into the air, "So I know you're haunting me, please don't try to deny it, I only want to talk to you."
You freeze where you are, halfway through the closet door from where you were reorganizing his clothes because they made no sense and you were bored. He's looking around the apartment, almost desperate in the way he's searching, and you can't bring yourself to move. It's obvious he can't see you, and you aren't even sure if he's being serious, but the way he huffs and clenches his jaw before moving into the kitchen tells you that he probably is.
You follow him, curious, and watch as he pulls a small package out of his bag and starts ripping it open. You float the remains of what looks like gift wrap over to the trashcan, because you know Namjoon will forget, before going back to watching him. He's only a little careful as he cracks something in his hands and then slaps it onto the fridge, and you peek around him to see that it's some kind of words or something. There’s a wide variety, with no clear theme to them, as well as at least one of each letter of the alphabet. It's then you remember the throwaway comment Yoongi made during that night - "You need, like, poetry stuff, like those magnets that go on the fridge that people write that deep shit with, y'know? I'm gonna buy you one," - and realize that he'd followed through on his vow.
"Alright," Namjoon says, leaning against his kitchen counter and staring at the magnets. "First and foremost, am I really being haunted or is this some kind of hallucination?" His gaze never falters, doesn’t ever drift from the magnetic words now spread across his fridge doors. It takes several minutes to build up the energy and the courage to move closer to the fridge.
You don't look at him as you move the words around, but you can hear the sharp intake of breath. That's likely all the confirmation that he needs, but still you clear a spot and let the words ' I am here ' sit where he can see them clearly. You wrinkle your nose, disliking how formal it sounds, but you have to make do, you suppose.
"Okay," Namjoon breathes. "Okay, prove it. My brain could work this into a hallucination. How do I know you're really a ghost?"
"Seriously?" You huff. "What the fuck am I supposed to do that wouldn't work into a hallucination, dude?"
He gets fidgety in the few minutes that you spend wondering how the fuck you're going to prove that you're a real actual ghost to someone who clearly doesn't believe in them. His foot taps at the floor and he scratches at his hand, which only makes you want to wrap your own hands around his until he stops, much like your best friend used to lay her legs across your lap to get you to stop shaking your knee.
The realization comes in a flash, and you're moving letters around before you can stop yourself.
Face book, Park Jihyo, best friend.
Namjoon stares at it for a long while before he brings his phone out of his pocket and begins to tap at the screen. You don't get too close; you've got a history with shorting out electronics, and you aren't sure you want to know what your best friend is up to without you there with her.
"Okay," Namjoon says. "Okay, I've never seen her before, so I don't think my brain could work her into a hallucination. Okay. Alright. I'm being haunted. This is fine."
"Calm down, I'm haunting the apartment, not you." He doesn't react to your words, as usual, but it still makes you feel the slightest bit better. He stares at his phone for a little longer, and the curiosity burns under your skin, but you resist. You know from experience that if you try to get too close, his phone will stop working. Just like TV, the stereo, the laptops, everything. You've had enough experience with that kind of thing to know what will happen.
"Okay, Casper," Namjoon huffs out after several minutes of waiting. He looks up and his eyes dart around the apartment, and you wonder if he's just nervous or if he's trying to spot you. "Where are you right now? Can you make yourself visible? I mean, I know you're a ghost, but it feels rude not talking to you to your face."
You huff a laugh but reach for a coffee cup. You know you can't just make yourself visible at will; you've only done it a couple of times, to your knowledge, and none of them have been on purpose. It's even more difficult to make yourself corporeal and physical, harder than just manipulating objects, but you did it once. Back when the single mom still lived here, when her toddler was falling and you had no way to cushion the fall except with your own body; you still aren't sure how it happened, but you remember being able to feel the floor against your back and the warmth of the baby on top of you for a split second before you were gone again. You won't forget that any time soon.
You float the mug towards where you stand, holding it in front of your face long enough that when you pull it away, Namjoon's eyes don't follow it. It's a strange feeling; you know he can't see you, can tell by the way his brow furrows and his eyes slide around the space, but it feels like he's looking straight at you. It feels like you're being seen for the first time since you died.
"So, where are you from, Casper?" His tone is forcibly conversational, as if he's trying his best to keep himself calm. You roll your eyes and move the magnets to show ' here ' and he nods. "You're not gonna try to possess me, or kill me, or run me off, are you? No offense or anything. I figure you would've already at this point, but...cover my bases."
No. Am nice. I think.
"You think? You don't know if you're a nice ghost?"
Does anyone truly know if they are nice? You frown, trying to figure out how to say what you want to say with the limited words available. I can only try. It's still not perfect; there's more that you want to say, more that you want to be heard, but this has to do for now.
"I can accept that. Alright. Just talking to a ghost in my kitchen. Okay. This is totally normal." He rubs a hand over his face, and you're a little impressed. Everyone else that's lived here has freaked when presented with the knowledge that you're a ghost. Namjoon looks very much like his world is exploding, but he doesn't have the same fear and apprehension in his eyes. He's certainly coping better than the single mom.
"Are you the only ghost? Here, I mean, are you the only ghost here?" He breathes a sigh of relief at your 'yes.’ "Can you see other ghosts? Do you know any other ghosts?" The 'don't know, no' that you move around on your fridge seems to unsettle him a little, but there's a curiosity burning behind it that makes your skin tingle.
Can't leave, is what you say next, cutting off whatever question he was about to ask.
"You can't leave at all? The building, or the apartment?"
The second.
"Wow. You're really stuck here?" He looks around the apartment as if seeing it for the first time and sucks in a breath. "What do you do all day?"
Watch. He cocks a brow. You are... You hesitate. The word you need isn't there, everything that comes to you is too poetic or corny for you to actually say, but the weight of his eyes is heavy on your hands. Fun is what you settle on, but it's not right either. 'Interesting' isn't there, nor is 'fascinating' or 'lovely,' and you don't want to scare him off by telling him that part of the reason you watch him so much is that he's so full of life that you feel less dead when he's around.
He laughs at your words though and shakes his head ever so slightly. "Alright, well, I'm gonna shower, so just, don't...watch that?" You squawk at the insinuation that you would, quickly rearranging the letters to spell ' privacy' and making a large angry face out of the rest of the words. He's already turned away, though, and it makes you angrier.
You don't want him thinking that you would peep at him. You already make sure that you're facing the windows when he finishes showering, you've been determined to not be creepy since the day he moved in, and to have him think otherwise is like a slap in the face. You slam the mug against the counter and he startles, turning to gape at it. You carry it to where your words and make-do emoji sit waiting for him to notice them.
"Okay," He says quickly. "Okay, privacy, yeah, got it. You respect my privacy. Appreciated."
"How fucking rude," You mutter as you set the mug back down. You don't adjust the magnets as he disappears into the bathroom. You want him to see them, want him to be reminded of the fact that being dead doesn't mean you don't have basic decency.
You can't get him to shut up now that he knows you're there. He still forgets sometimes, mostly when he's talking to his plants or narrating the way he carefully constructs some origami creation, but more often than not, he's talking to thin air. He spends a lot of time perched on his counter, watching you move magnets around his fridge through the thick lenses of his glasses before he spouts off some other question for you to answer.
He covers the basics first: how old you were when you died, when your birthday is, your favorite color, what you were studying in school, and of course your name, though he insists on calling you Casper. You aren't sure why but you also don't get a chance to question it, because he hits you with more and more questions every day. Sometimes you don't answer because you can't, too limited by the poetry magnets to be able to really converse; sometimes you just don't have the energy to move the magnets around, but those are days are rare. The only times you use the tired magnet are when you find your limbs too heavy to move, weighed down with the memories of what it meant to be alive.
Those are the bad days, but his questions make them just a little easier.
"How do you move around? Do you just float everywhere?" Walking, but different. No weight. Soft.
"How are you able to manipulate things in my world? Are they different from things in your world?" Focus. Takes time. Same.
"Do you sleep at all? Do ghosts dream?" No sleep. Just existing.
"You don't eat, do you? Should I be stocking up on snacks for you?" No. Save your sustenance. "What was the last thing you ate?" Don't remember. "Huh. I hope it was something good." Same.
"Were you ever in a relationship?" Once. A long time before. "Do you miss them?" Not anymore.
"What did you do while you were alive?" School. "Oh, really? Do you remember what you studied?" Boring. Important then, but it made me forget to live. Not important now. Namjoon goes quiet for a long moment after this one, staring out the window at something you can't see. He nods but doesn't ask any more questions, and he reads for the rest of the night.
It only takes a couple of weeks for both you and Namjoon to get tired of standing in his kitchen fucking around on the fridge. His legs get tired and he gets distracted by his thoughts, and you can barely keep up with the rapid-fire questions you get.
So Namjoon buys one of those cheap cookie sheets with the slightest lip at the edge and dumps the magnets on that. He leaves it on the coffee table, usually, there for you to pick up if he asks something but out of the way for when he stretches out to nap lazily in the afternoon sun.
You like the cookie sheet more than the fridge. He watches you as you work out your responses, can see the way you start to move one word before moving another instead; it makes it feel more like a conversation.
It becomes a favorite pass-time of Namjoon's, curling on the couch and putting some sort of music on in the background and just talking to you. A lot of nights his questions stop with a lingering silence from one or both of you; yours because you don't have the ability to share the words running rampant through your mind, and his for reasons still unknown to you. Still, you've missed it. You've missed talking to someone, being heard when you speak, having someone ask how you are at the end of the day.
It's the little things.
"You said you can't leave, right, Casper?" Namjoon's curled up on his couch, tucked into the arm with a blanket thrown over his lap, a mug of something warm in his hands to combat the chill of the season, and some R&B track playing lightly from his phone. You knock your fist against the cookie once - a sign for yes that you'd both agreed on. "So, are you just always here then? You don't go anywhere else?"
"Fuck, how do I explain this?" You mutter. You stare at the magnets in front of you for a long time before rearranging them. Not always. Tired sometimes, disappear.
"Disappear?" He reads. "What do you mean? You just, what, stop existing?"
Don't know, you respond. Only happens when tired. When used too much of me. He hums an acknowledgment, eyes focused on where the cookie sheet sits on the couch between you. You? What entertains you?
"Everything," he answers without hesitation. "I'm trying to work through my stack of books I want to read and finish all the shows I'm interested in, but the guys would have my head if I didn't get out and do things like a normal person."
That's where you leave to?
"Yeah." He sets his mug - now empty - on the coffee table and settles into the blankets. He looks cozy and soft and you would wrap yourself up with him if you could. "I take a lot of walks, and bike rides. I like to see the river, the trees, all the animals that live there. The beach is always fun, I get to see all the crabs and whatnot that wander in and out of the ocean."
"I wish I could go with you," you whisper.
Fun is what you spell on your sheet.
"I guess," he mutters. "It's enjoyable, at least. I'll bring you some souvenirs, or pictures next time."
You let the sheet settle on the couch as he turns the TV on, setting up a drama that he's on recently. He doesn't say anything else for a few hours, waits until the sound of rain hits the windows and stifles the apartment in an otherworldly haze.
"How long have you been dead?" His voice lingers in the air. You've been expecting these questions, and you're honestly impressed he's held them back for as long as he has. That angsty teen hadn't hesitated a single second to start asking you questions.
A while. Years. I think .
"Do you ever get tired of being a ghost?" There's something in his voice that you can't place, something that tells you this is more than just his usual morbid curiosity. Every part of your soul - whatever's left of it, anyway - is screaming at you to lie to him, to tell him that no, being a ghost is great. You've never wished he could hear you more than this moment, when all you want to is wrap your arms around him and ask him why he looks so much older than he is.
Sometimes, you tell him. It is lonely here, and boring. Fun to be unseen, but unable to do much more.
He nods like that makes all the sense in the world to him, and he brings the blanket up around his shoulders. "Do you ever miss your friends, or your family?"
Would you not? He huffs out an unamused chuckle, nodding again.
"Yeah," He says softly. "Yeah, I would. Do you want me to help you check on them? See what they're up to?" The single knock that echoes in the room is deafening to you, filled with a hope that you haven't felt in years. You've never let yourself think about them for long; if you did, you don't think you'd be able to come back from whatever that place is that you disappear to when things become Too Much.
Namjoon pulls his phone closer and starts fiddling with it. He doesn't hesitate when he types in your name, and you feel an emotional blush fill you when you see that he doesn't even have to finish typing for your profile to pop up. You glance at him, the way his brows are furrowed behind his glasses and his tongue pokes into his cheek just a little while he concentrates, and you wonder how many times he's looked at the pictures of you when you were alive. How many times has he scrolled through, reading the words people shared after you were gone, scrolling through the grief and loss to get to the words you posted yourself, the little snippets of your daily life that you would give anything to be able to relive?
"Do I still look like that?" You wonder aloud. As expected, he doesn't react, just continues tapping at his phone.
You two spend the rest of the night like that, each curled at opposite ends of the couch while Namjoon slowly looks up your friends and family and updates you on each of them. Jihyo got married, to someone she'd gone on a date with a few weeks before you passed, and she's apparently trying to start having kids; Your mother and father aren't very active, but they never were. They both share pictures of you when you were a baby each year on your birthday, and more recent photos of you on the anniversary. They have a dog now. It's cute. You wonder if it helps them cope with the loss.
Your other friends are doing well, too; most of them are still figuring out their lives, but it seems like all of them are settling in their skin and finding comfort in who they are. They're out there, navigating the world and doing things they enjoy, meeting new friends and making new memories.
You stand by the window for a long time, cookie sheet of magnetized words pressed against your chest as if you can feel the cool of the metal against your skin, and watch rain drip down the panes as you imagine what your life could have been.
You can always hear Namjoon before you see him. He whistles as he walks down the sidewalk, his small way of letting you know he's on his way back from wherever he's gone that day, and today isn't an exception. Relief sags through you and you move away from the windows, let your fingers trail against the ceramic of the newest succulent he'd bought, and head towards the kitchen. The kettle is turned on and heating a few moments later while you pull a mug down from your cabinet and set it carefully on the counter where Namjoon will see it.
It's a regular routine, for the two of you. He heads out, usually in the early morning after turning on some music or a show for you, and when he comes back, you make sure there's hot water for his tea or cocoa or whatever he feels like drinking that day. The sound of his whistling gets louder the closer he gets, a simple way to let you know he's safe and he's home. You glance through the cabinets and quickly make a note on the fridge that he needs to buy more of his special tea blend soon.
The lock turns and you smile, waiting patiently as Namjoon saunters into the apartment. He sets something down on the kitchen counter just as the kettle starts to scream, and you wait while he pours the water and gets it ready.
"The cherry blossoms bloomed," He says. You grin. "They look great. I got some really nice pictures while I was there, I'll show you tonight. I was thinking we could try to finish Voltron tonight if you want. We'll have to go back an episode though, I think I fell asleep during the last one." You knock once against the counter beside you, and he turns with a wide grin to glance at the spot where you stand.
It's ridiculous for your heart to speed up in your chest, for the hair on the back of your neck to rise, for breath to catch in your throat; you don't have a heartbeat, you don't have breath, you're a shadow of the person you used to be, and yet...
And yet, seeing his dimpled smile focused so naturally on where you are, as if it's just second-nature, is like a breath of fresh air after years underwater. It smells like flowers, like dirt and earth and a new beginning. It feels like you're alive again, and you don't want it to end, but too soon he's turning away to finish steeping the tea. Something lingers in the air for a moment after but it's gone too soon for you to place it.
You both settle on the couch, Namjoon tucking whatever he brought home with him under his arm, between his body and the arm of his ratty old couch. Your cookie sheet is in its place on the coffee table, unneeded at the moment. You can't help the glare that you give it; the things you would give to be able to just speak and be heard are endless.
It rattles a little and you look away.
Namjoon is quiet as the show plays. He doesn't react when you move to turn the oven on, but he does laugh quietly and thank you for it when he goes to put his dinner in. He eats and you don't bother him, though the way he keeps his little package hidden away makes curiosity burn through you. Eventually, once he's eaten and washed his dishes and laughed at the way you rubbed them dry before setting them carefully in their places, he settles back into his blankets and turns on the music he loves so much.
He's got a book balanced in his hands and your cookie sheet rests on the coffee table, and you both just sit like that for a long while, enjoying existing.
"You remember your life, right Casper?" You thump lazily against the wall in response, eyes drawn from where you watch the gloomy sky slowly get lighter with the dawn. He isn't looking at his book anymore; he probably hasn't been for a while, based on the way the pages have migrated around his thumb, too busy staring at the wall across from him. "Do you remember your death?"
You hesitate. You've tiptoed around the subject before. He's always been too afraid to ask directly, and it's too painful for you to offer it freely. You thump against the wall once more, and he nods like he already knew the answer.
"Are they very different?" His glasses are falling down his nose and your fingers itch to push them up. Instead, you reach for your cookie sheet. He makes a sound in the back of his throat when he sees it moving, reaching under him for his package. "I forgot, I got you this. Thought it might be easier."
He sets it down and you slide the contents out of the wrapping easily. Inside is a small dry-erase board, complete with markers and eraser, small things that should be easy for you to manipulate. You beam at him; he can't see it, but you think he might be able to feel it because he perks up and smiles a little.
"You don't have to answer," He adds. "I was just curious to know if being dead is really as different as everyone makes it out to be." You nod and thump once against the board before you uncap a marker and start writing.
It's a bizarre feeling, after so long. The muscles in your hand don't ache, no matter how much you write, and you can't feel the smooth surface of the board under your fingers or the weight of the marker in your palm, but it glides against it cleanly and leaves a thick black streak behind.
It takes you a minute to write everything out, get it worded how you want. Namjoon doesn't interrupt you, just watches the marker move against the board and smiles every time you go to erase something that isn't right. Eventually you show it to him.
There are similarities. I'm still me, I still enjoy TV and music and books. Things are duller now, like there's a filter over them, and it's harder to do things. Like when you're in water, or mud, like that. Resistance.
"Oh," Namjoon replies, "That's not what I expected. It makes sense though I guess." His hand moves against his chest, rubbing lightly as he looks over your words again. "Is there anything you actually like about being a ghost?"
"Well, being invisible is pretty cool," You say, writing the words as you do. "And it's actually really fun being able to walk through walls and stuff, even if I can't go anywhere outside of the apartment."
"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Namjoon says. You startle a little, looking up at him. You think he actually heard you for a split second, but his eyes are locked on where you're writing your words out on the dry erase board.
"Yeah, me too," You tell him. He stares at the board for a long moment, chewing nervously on his bottom lip as he does. "Ask what you want to ask, Joon," You write as you say it.
"How did you die?" He blurts. You sigh and he jumps a little, looking fully at where you sit. You're shocked; you know that sometimes little noises cross over, like when Jin heard you laughing, but it's still rare. You can't figure out how it works, but you want to.
You write for a long time, letters small so they fit on the board. The whole thing is crowded together, looks like one long string of letters instead of the story it is.
There's a lot of violence in this neighborhood. You probably know that by now. People are always getting robbed or mugged or something around here. Someone tried to break into my apartment by banging the door down. It didn't work, luckily, but I got really paranoid afterwards. One night I was cooking, and someone's door slammed really hard. I spilled the water I was boiling, slipped. Blacked out after a while, and when I came to, there were police everywhere. I guess I hit my head harder than I thought, because they carted me away, and I couldn’t follow.
"I'm sorry," Namjoon says softly. "You deserved more time."
Yeah. The universe had a different plan, I guess. He smiles at that, and it settles the anxiety thrumming under your skin. Wouldn't have met you, so I guess that's a bonus. He rolls his eyes at you but he laughs softly, so you consider it a win. You doodle on the board then, simple little designs that don't mean anything beyond being able to see your effect on the world.
Namjoon sucks in a breath beside you and you look up at him. He's always been good about looking towards where you are, doing his best to make eye contact with someone he can't see, but he still always tends to look through you.
Not this time.
This time, electricity sings through the air as your eyes meet his. You don't know how, but you know he can see you. His eyes roam over you, taking in the crumpled sweater you were wearing with the stain you like to think is pasta sauce on the arm, the hair you can't ever really tame, the way you sit cross-legged on his old thread-bare couch with a dry erase board in your hands.
Neither of you moves. He looks torn between fear and amazement, every emotion in between flitting quickly over his features, and you're terrified that if you move, whatever spell that's been cast will fade. It had been so long since you talked to anyone when Namjoon slammed those magnets on the fridge, and the conversation has been a reprieve, but to be seen for the first time in years...
It's invigorating.
Watching Namjoon just look at you is something you won't ever forget, not for as long as you exist in the world. He looks at you like he's memorizing every detail, every hair and wrinkle and pore, and just knowing that he can see you fills you with something new.
"Namjoon...?" You call hesitantly. His eyes fall on your lips.
"Again," He says. Your brows must furrow, maybe you frown, you don't know because it's been so long since you've needed to pay attention to your facial expressions, but he notices your confusion. "Will you say something again?"
Breath you don't have catches in your throat, wraps itself around a heart that doesn't beat, but you smile a little. "I'm glad I met you."
Namjoon smiles. It's big and blinding and knocks everything out of you except for that emotion that's been sitting in your chest since the first time you watched him talk to his plants. You lean forward, and you can tell the exact moment you disappear, because his smile falls and his eyes unfocus. A whimper leaves your throat, but he doesn't react, and that may be the most painful thing that's ever happened to you.
"Can I feel you?" His voice is hushed but the words reverberate in your head. His eyes dart around, looking for any glimpse of you, and your hand trembles as you reach out.
Goosebumps raise on his cheek where your hand touches him and his breath stops for a moment, but he smiles again and leans into the chill. You bring your other hand up to cup his other cheek, your dry erase board lying forgotten on the ground, and Namjoon's eyes flutter closed.
"I think I might love you," You say quietly just before you press your lips to his. He doesn't react to your words, but he lets out a soft sigh at your kiss. Thunder cracks through the apartment, a torrent of rain unleashed on the windows, but you don't move.
The two of you sit like that for hours, until he starts shivering and his nose turns red, like it does when he forgets his scarf on the cold days, and his breath puffs in the air. When you finally pull away from him, he smiles, and the blush on his cheeks has nothing to do with the cold air that makes up your form.
"Yeah," He says softly, voice nearly drowned out by the storm raging outside. "Yeah, I can feel you."
If you expected things to change much after that, you were wrong. At least a little. Namjoon still disappears to go on his walks, you still start the kettle the second his whistles drift up to the apartment. He still asks you a million questions, but they're more normal now. Your favorite music, color, what you wished you'd done with your life, if you've been able to corporealize again recently, what you wanted to watch that night.
"Come on, Casper," Namjoon groans. "I promise you can do it." You huff and he smiles, clearly having heard it. You're tempted to just disappear somewhere, rattle some pipes in the bathroom or the kitchen so he thinks you're in there and leaves you alone, but he smiles at you again and you're weak for that dimple.
You grip the watering can again, doing your best to lift it and manipulate it the way you need to. It's heavy, and something about the metal makes your skin itch, but the more you struggle the more you're able to pour the slightest bit of water where RJ - a giant plant that you don't even know the name of - sits in the corner of the room across from Namjoon's bed. It's the twentieth-something time you've tried this today, and you're ten seconds from just giving up completely, but you can tell this is important to Namjoon.
He's been talking all week, between the late nights where you lay over his blanket-wrapped form and the mornings where he ducks out with a soft goodbye. He's told you everything about his plants that you think he possibly could, teaching you about them and showing you how to care for them. It's interesting, you won't lie, and it's always fun to see him light up when you recall something he's told you, but you're exhausted and every part of you is shaky, and you're more than a little worried of what might happen if you push too far again.
Still, Joon hasn't looked great lately, like he might be getting the flu, and you want to be able to help him with all the things he does in the house. You've already started doing the dishes and folding laundry, since those were the two things he was the absolute worst at, but you feel like you should be doing more.
"Good job, baby, I'm proud of you!" You grunt and let the watering can fall back to the ground with a loud thump that almost definitely has the downstairs neighbors cursing Namjoon's name. "See, and now we're done for the day! C'mon, we can put on Sens8 and cuddle."
He's on the couch before you can stop him, wrapping himself in blankets except for one lone hand that sticks out, expectant. You roll your eyes and sit beside him, close enough that if you had a body you would be cuddling instead of just sitting awkwardly beside him.
You know that this is just going to make your hand all pink and gross, right?
He just smiles when the board flips around to reveal itself and wiggles his fingers. "It's worth it," He says. "I'd rather be pink and gross than never get to hold your hand at all."
You can't even feel my hand, Joon, there's literally no point to this. He huffs and wraps his hand around the marker in your hand, shivering at the chill that runs through him when he does. He grins and gestures down to where the tips of his fingers are already turning red.
"Clearly I can feel it, Casper."
You're glad he can't see you, that you don't have a heart that beats or blood that runs, because if you did, your face would no doubt be red. You have no doubts that Namjoon would tease you about it.
He's quiet as you both watch the show; he makes the odd comment here or there, but his mood seems to have calmed some. When he first got back from whatever place he visited that day, he'd been anxious and jumpy and entirely too on edge.
"Hey, Casper?" He asks quietly. You slide a hand against his cheek to let him know you're there, and he leans into the chill again. "What do you think about me?"
You don't move for several seconds, hand still poised around his cheek.
"Like, your feelings. What are they? Will you tell me?" You knock once on the wall behind the couch. Your hand stays poised over your board for long enough that Namjoon starts to get a little restless. Words refuse to come to you. Every time you start to think you have a way to describe to him what he means to you, they disappear as quick as fog on a summer's afternoon. Frustrated, you let the board fall to the couch and scrawl a quick 'hold on' so he knows you aren't just ignoring him.
It's been weeks since you've seen what you're looking for, your cookie sheet with the word magnets having been basically forgotten in lieu of the more personal and convenient dry-erase board, but right now you know that if words won't come to you, you'll have to go to them.
You finally find it, shoved under several encyclopedias and magazines, and the noise you make is so triumphant that even Namjoon hears it. You curl back up beside him, careful to make sure the blanket is wrapped tight around him, and make sure he can see the words as you move them. It still takes a long time, constantly changing and rearranging and stacking to make sure it conveys the things you need it to convey.
You are like music. A symphony of summer days and peach skies with soft rain. You are a storm in the moonlight. I'm not lonely when I have you pouring around me. You make me feel alive again.
Namjoon is silent for a long time, and you wonder if you've gone too far. It's more poetic than you'd like, too frilly and fancy and emotional than you usually are, but they're the only words you have.
After too long, he exhales. It's heavy and deep and it feels like he's trying to expel more than just air from his body.
"You make me feel alive, too," is all he says, whispered into the softness of his blanket in a voice too small for his long limbs. He shivers, and you hear him choke down a cough, and then he disappears into the bathroom for a long time. When he comes back out, he doesn't say anything, just slides into the mass of blankets on his bed and lays his arm out across the mattress. You spread out across from him, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he looks through you and out the window where the rain is letting up.
"Looks like the rainy season is gonna last longer than everyone thought." You slide your hands around one of his large ones and just hold them like that. His eyes sink closed and something like relief stands on his face for a moment before it's gone, swept away by the peace of sleep.
You wonder what it is that he sees when he looks out the window. If it's the plain brick wall and windows of the building next door, or something more.
You aren't sure you want to know.
Namjoon's flu only seems to get worse. He leaves early in the mornings, as if he thinks you might not notice the way he coughs into his scarf just because the sun hasn't risen fully yet. He stays gone most of the days, and even when he apologizes quietly during the twilight when he slinks back in to the sound of the kettle screeching on the stove and his tea already waiting to be steeped, he still doesn't stop.
You've taken to playing blues while he's gone, mostly the old school stuff, digging out the vintage record player he has buried in the closet and setting it up on the coffee table. It’s the only technology you can use without shorting it out. You don’t know why, but it makes you grateful the record collection Namjoon keeps tucked away inside the coffee table that you’ve learned is in fact an actual steamer trunk that he salvaged and restored himself.
The music fills the apartment, distracts you from the oppressive weight of his absence. He knows you wait at the window for him, you told him that back when the two of you were first getting to know each other.
You're so fragile, you had told him. He had laughed at you, quiet and fond, and waited for you to explain further. You're so full of life and breath and possibility, and the world is so big and so dangerous. I'm scared you won't come back.
"Of course I'm going to come back," he told you. You didn't even need to tell him that you're afraid of what being alone might do to you, now that you're so used to his presence. You're being heard again, sometimes even seen, and you don't know if you can go back to the stagnant depression of solitude. "I'll always come back to you."
That was the first time you thought you might love Namjoon. The feeling has only gotten stronger, and now that you wait at the window with your eyes focused on that tiny section of sidewalk you can see at the end of the alley, it threatens to consume you whole.
You wait at the window for hours. You know because you glance at the clock every minute and a half, mocking you with every tick as it hangs limply on the bathroom door. The sun sinks below the horizon, the moon rises to take its place, and they switch again while you wait. The dawn paints the sky in beautiful shades of pink and red and orange and the faintest purple, but you can't appreciate any of it, because you're too anxious.
He could be hurt. He could be gone, and you wouldn't ever know until his friends came to pack his things. He could have left, too; maybe he finally decided that living with a ghost was just too much for him and just ran. Maybe he figured out that you love him, that you would move heaven and earth if it meant he was safe forever if only you could leave this apartment, and it was too much for him.
What if he knows about how you lay beside him every night? How you tuck the blankets tighter around him, cover him in warmth and comfort before settling on top of them and closing your eyes and pretending that you can feel his arm draped over your waist and his breath on the back of your neck. What if he felt you, that night you wandered into the bathroom while he was showering to write on the steam-covered mirror that he needs to buy more eggs soon and got distracted by the way he looked stepping out of the shower? What if he knows your stomach flipped at the long limbs and the hidden muscles and the sheer size of him? What if he knows the real reason you were quiet that night, the way you kept replaying the moment in your mind and wishing you had a body so you could have just touched him, at least.
It's closer to noon than midnight when his whistle echoes up through the window.
"Hey, I'm home," He calls as he enters the empty apartment. You're upset, but you're more filled with relief than anything because at least he's safe and he's here now. He makes a beeline for where the kettle is just starting to whistle, already reaching for the honey and the tea you set out on the counter for him, and you do your best to calm the storm of emotions inside you.
Did you have fun, wherever you were? You ask him, floating the whiteboard in front of his face so he has to acknowledge it.
"Yeah, I did," he responds as he stirs his tea. "Jin invited everyone over for some end of summer thing. I didn't feel too great at the end of it, so I just spent the night there."
Don't party too hard, you might remember how to have fun, you joke. It falls a little flat based on the grim smile Namjoon gives you. Are they gonna come over here again anytime soon? I've missed scaring Hoseok.
He lets out a real laugh at that. "I don't know, maybe. My birthday's coming up, after Jeongguk's, so they could definitely be planning something. I'm heading over to Yoongi's later to help plan for Guk's party. I might stay there tonight, so try not to worry, Casper."
I'll try, you tell him. You both know you'll stand at the window every second he's gone, but you don't want to tell him why. You don't want to tell him that you love him through a dry erase board, or some fancy poetry magnets. It doesn't matter that you may as well have already said so by telling him that he makes you feel alive again; you haven't said the words to him, he hasn't seen 'I love you' in the messy scrawl that is your handwriting on some stupid board, and therefore he doesn't know.
You don't know if you want him to.
He stays gone that night, as he said he might, and reappears the next day to shower and change before he vanishes again. The next time he shows up, he takes a bag with him when he leaves, which only worsens your fears. He stays gone for three days this time, doesn't apologize when he turns up again and just mumbles a soft hello into the air before he makes tea and sags into his couch. He's asleep in seconds, and as much as you want to scream at him, you can't bring yourself to disrupt how peaceful he looks.
When he wakes, he takes a shower and ignores the ' can we talk ' you scrawled in the steam. He packs a bag of fresh clothes and doesn't say goodbye when he leaves, just disappears and leaves you standing at the window with the pail in your hand, caring for the plants he isn't. The slam of the door sounds like nails in a coffin and breaks what little was left of your soul.
He shows back up nearly a week later, and the relief at seeing him again is overridden by the sheer anger at being left in the first place. You don't start the kettle when you hear his whistle, the quiet and hoarse tune of a familiar song barely reaching the window, but there's plenty of noise when he enters.
The cabinet doors are quaking with your fury, the lights flicker and threaten to burst, and Namjoon just leans back against the door. He’s soaked from the storm thundering outside, even his jacket plastered to his skin, and he’s shivering slightly, but you can’t see anything past the rage.
"Where the fuck were you?" You demand; there's no point, it's not like he can hear you, but the way he sighs makes you feel like he can, so you continue anyway. "It's been almost a week, you didn't even think to stop by for ten seconds so I know you're okay? I thought you were dead somewhere, you could've been, like, shot, or something, I don't know, just bleeding out in some ditch, and I wouldn't know! And what about all the plants? I know how to take care of them, sure, but do you know how hard it is for me to do it?"
Namjoon sighs again, the breath catching in his throat and coming out in a cough, but you don't pay much attention to it.
"Why would you act like this, Namjoon? What did I do, is it because of the things I said? Do you not want me to feel like this about you? Because this a damn good way of making sure I don't, I assure you, so by all means, just keep disappearing and leave me alone with the plants you decided to rescue and save!"
His cough gets worse and he just shakes his head, covering his mouth and making his way towards the bathroom.
"If you want me to hate you, it's too fucking late, Joon!" The slam of the bathroom door punctuates your sentence, and you quiet at the sound of continued coughing. You knew his flu was getting worse, but it's never sounded like that. Even when you were alive, you knew that the wet sound that's muffled by the bathroom door isn't what a cough should sound like. The lock of the door clicks, and it shocks you into movement because he's never - never - locked you out of anywhere. He knows it wouldn't stop you, knows it as well as you know that you'd respect that boundary if he set it, and yet here he is, locking you out even as he coughs up what sounds like a lung in the other room.
You hesitate at the door, torn between respecting his boundaries and knowing what’s happening. You want him to trust you, always, and yet you find your hand disappearing through the door before you can stop it. You stand like that for a long moment, just listening to the sounds of his wracking coughs; the sound of a crash echoes through the apartment, though, and you’re through the door completely in the span of a heartbeat.
Nearly everything that had been on the counter is scattered on the ground, Namjoon himself gripping the sides of the toilet as if he would fall apart otherwise. A single glance tells you that the crash happened as he turned from the sink to the toilet, and if his jolting shoulders didn’t tell you why, the sounds of his retching would. That isn’t what fills you with dread though; the disorientation, the vomiting, all of it comes with being sick sometimes, but the red staining the bathroom sink?
That’s not normal, and you know with every part of you that it’s the reason he’s been gone so much.
The temperature in the apartment drops with the sun, but your arms surround Namjoon as best they can. Goosebumps break out on his arms, shivers run down his back, but you don’t move away from him; he doesn’t say anything, just sits there with his forehead pressed against the cool of the porcelain. He stands eventually, ignores the way he passes completely through your body to rinse the sink and brush his teeth.
You let him stay quiet until you’re both on his bed; you’re pressed up against his side and running your hands along his forearms, idly wondering if you would be able to feel his heartbeat if you were alive.
“It’s not...it’s not gonna get better,” He says eventually. “There’s not a cure, just some things to draw it out and give me a little bit longer even if they come with more pain. I go once a week to see if it’s gotten worse, check how much longer I have. It’s why Hobi let me move in here rent-free. He pays the bills, says it’s the least he can do. I wanted to be closer to him anyway, so that’s a bonus, I guess.”
“I’m so sorry, Joon,” you whisper. Your board lies forgotten, somewhere on the couch maybe, you aren’t sure and can’t be bothered to pull yourself away from him long enough to find it. You don’t need it right now, though; he knows what you mean by the way the cold presses against his bicep with your palm.
“I didn’t want you to know.” You’re not exactly surprised at that; you’d figured as much. You just don’t understand his reasoning. “I didn’t want you worrying about me, or anything like that, like the guys do. They always look at me and it’s all they can see. Like they’re already mourning me, even though I’m still here. I didn’t want to feel like that with you.”
“I know,” you say. You don’t, not really. Your own death was sudden, a shock to everyone you knew; you didn’t get the luxury of saying goodbye, didn’t have the burden of knowing you would be gone soon.
The two of you sit in silence for a while, until you can feel Namjoon’s chest quivering under your palm. When you look up, he looks at you, really and truly at you , and he has tears in his eyes.
“I don’t want to die, Casper,” He whispers. You suck in a breath because he can see you, and you don’t even know why, but you don’t want to lose this moment. “I don’t want to leave all of this behind. I don’t want to leave you.”
“It’ll be okay,” you say softly. His brow furrows and a tear slides down his cheek. “I promise you it will be okay, Namjoon. It gets easier, and people remember but they aren’t stuck forever. And I…” You falter, and it takes his eyes meeting yours to make you realize he can hear you. And there’s only one thing you’ve ever needed him to hear.
“I love you,” You tell him. “I love you, and I will never forget you.”
He surges forward, lips meeting yours in a rush of air. You moan at the feeling of him against you, realizing that for the first time since you died, you can feel something under your fingers. His skin is warm against your fingers, his lips soft against your own, and when he reaches up to cup your jaw with his hand, he doesn’t pass through your form. Instead his hand settles heavy against you, and he moves your head to lick into your mouth.
Tears that won’t fall prickle at the back of your eyes and you climb into his lap before he can stop you. He’s still crying so you wipe away the tears before they can fall, pressing soft kisses to his cheeks, his dimples, his nose, every bit you can reach. A question sits at the back of your mind, and you can see it lingering in his eyes, but neither of you asks it.
“You’re so cold.” His whisper is nearly lost amidst the thunder that shakes the apartment, but it makes you smile a little.
“Warm me up?”
His chest is still quivering with unspoken sobs, but he nods. “Always,” he tells you. “I’m always going to be here.” It doesn’t take long to pry him out of his clothes, takes even less time for him to sink into you. It feels just like it did when you were alive, only magnified; you can feel him hot and warm inside you, can feel the beat of his heart in the firm muscle under your hands. His moans are quiet and hoarse but you wouldn’t have it any other way.
He keeps one hand on your waist and the other on your neck, holding you close enough that he can kiss whenever he wants. “You’re beautiful,” He whispers. “The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” You just press another kiss to his chapped lips and let him dig his fingers in hard enough that it would bruise if it could. When he’s close to his peak, he stops thrusting, just sits inside you as he grinds your hips down to his, and presses his forehead against yours.
“I love you,” He tells you, lightning casting his shadow across the wall for a brief moment. “I love you, I do, I wish-”
“I know,” you tell him before he can continue. “I know, Namjoon, I know, and I do, too. I love you, too.” He comes a few seconds later, the warm seed soaking into his sheets because it has nowhere to go. His warmth disappears from under your hands and his arms fall to his lap when the only thing holding them up is gone. All you can hear is your quiet sobs mixed with his and the rain against the window, and for the first time since you came back, you really, truly, wish you had died. There’s no point in being a ghost when you can still feel your heart breaking in your chest.
“Casper, are you ever scared?”
It’s the middle of the afternoon. Namjoon is sprawled across the couch wrapped in blankets while Lucifer plays in the background and you doodle aimlessly on your board. You don’t need it as often now; you’ve gotten better at focusing your energy into being heard, though being corporeal still eludes you. You don’t know how you did it that night, but you’re grateful for it.
“Of what?” You ask, looking towards him. He’s not looking at you or watching the show, just staring at the ceiling. He focuses at your words, lifts himself up into a sitting position. A shiver runs through him when his legs move through you, and you settle a weightless hand against his knee out of habit.
“I don’t know,” He replies. “Just...whatever comes next. If there’s something that comes next. Being forgotten. Being stuck here forever.”
You aren’t stupid; you know why he’s asking. The question lingers in the air, colors all of your conversations now, but the truth is that neither of you has the strength to ask it and neither of you knows the answer.
“Sometimes,” You tell him. “Sometimes I wonder what Jihyo is doing, if she ever had a baby like she wanted to. I wonder if my parents are still alive, and what they say if they visit my grave, what they tell me now that I can’t respond to them.”
Namjoon nods like he’s already thought of that, and he probably has.
“Most of the time I try not to focus on it, though. It’s not helpful, it only upsets me, and I don’t…” You trail off, unsure of how to word your thoughts. “I don’t know what might happen if I only focus on the negative. I don’t know anything about what’s true about ghosts and what isn’t beyond that I exist now, and I can’t risk becoming something bad. So I try not to focus on it. It’s easier when you’re here.”
He grins and blows a kiss in your general direction, and you pretend not to notice the blood on his cracked lips. He’s quiet for the rest of the episode of half of another.
“Have you ever seen a light?”
“What?” He doesn’t seem to hear you, and you repeat your question on your board for him.
“A light,” He echoes. “Like, the light.Y’know, the light at the end of the tunnel, ‘don’t go into the light,’ that thing.”
You hesitate at that. You knew what he meant, what he actually wants to know here. He’s easier to read now than he was in the beginning.
You watch him as he watches the space where you sit, curled up beside him on his couch. He can’t see you, of course, but he can see where the board rests in your hands. His gaze is heavier than it was when he first moved in; his cheeks are hollower, skin more gaunt with a grey tint that’s only made worse by the constant rain. The sun is just starting to break through the clouds, a brief reprieve after weeks of the dreary stone-colored clouds. It casts shadows along the walls, reflects off something in the window across the alley, and backlights Namjoon beautifully, casts a halo of light around the brittle brown hair you love.
Once, you tell him. Just once.
“Why didn’t you go to it?”
There are so many things you could tell him, so many different ways to answer such a simple question, but you find yourself lingering on the one thing you know is the ultimate truth.
Because I love you.
September comes with even more rain and a bittersweet atmosphere. Jeongguk spends his birthday at Namjoon’s apartment and then comes back a little over a week later, surrounded by the other guys and carrying enough food to last a few months. You stay curled on the bed, one of the only safe places for you to not mess with anyone or anything. Your board is tucked into the blankets, ready to be used but hidden from view just in case. You watch as Namjoon sits on the couch, tucked between Taehyung and Yoongi with both of them leaning into him as much as possible, Yoongi’s hands wrapped in one of his and Tae’s head on his shoulder.
The other’s aren’t far, leaning against the back of the couch and on beanbags they’d brought with them, all laughing as Hoseok does his best to act out whatever he’d been given in charades. He’s not bad at it - you’ve guessed the last few he’s done - but he is utterly ridiculous in his mannerisms. You know why; it’s the same reason everyone kept smiling when Namjoon refused all of the food he was offered, why Seokjin would crack a terrible joke whenever it got too quiet for too long, why everyone is resolutely ignoring the growing pile of tissues on the table.
It keeps a smile on Namjoon’s face, though, and a laugh in his eyes, and you can’t ever be anything but grateful for that.
Hoseok stumbles, nearly falling and whirling his arms to catch himself before eventually falling anyway. You laugh along with the others, grinning at the way Hobi pouts and rubs at his hip. You’re focused on the way Joon laughs, the way it lights up his face and brightens the entire room, which is why you see it first.
The tickle at the back of his throat quickly becomes a cough, wet and wheezing and enough to make him throw the blankets from his lap and stumble to the bathroom.
You’re there before he is, helping him slide the door closed and locking it behind him as he bends over the toilet again. The six of them are quiet in the main room, speaking in hushed whispers that neither you nor Namjoon wants to hear. You turn the knob on the sink, wetting a towel while you drown out the sound of voices, and letting a hand run over Namjoon’s back.
“I’m okay,” he mutters. You ignore the way his voice shakes, the way his lips are redder than before, the way this happens more often than before. Instead, you just press the damp rag to his neck and watch his eyes close in relief. When he stands and flushes the evidence away, you already have his toothbrush ready and waiting, and you stay as close to him as you can until he takes a deep breath.
“I’m okay,” He repeats. “I’m okay. It’s my birthday, and I’m okay.”
He goes back out with a smile on his face and a laugh in his voice, teasing Hoseok about the way he fell and reenacting it, even. When he settles on the couch, he urges the others to continue the game. There’s a brief moment of hesitation before Jimin declares that he’s next and pulls something from the bowl on the table.
You know you aren’t the only one that notices the way Namjoon’s eyes linger on the six men around him, but you are the only one that notices the way they also linger on his steamer trunk, the shelf with his books, the TV, the record player, the scrapbook of his life that they all worked on and Taehyung pieced together over the months, the plants on the wall that he had cared for. He looks around his apartment as if he’s looking at it for the last time.
As if he’s already planning who’s going to get what.
He finally asks the question you both have been thinking about, nearly two months later. His breathing comes in ragged pants, his lips stay chapped, and he keeps several blankets around him at all times to try to hide the shaking of his body. Your soft sobs echo through the apartment constantly; while you reheat the tea he doesn’t drink for the millionth time, while you quietly water and prune the plants he’s saved from death the way you wish you could save him, while you sit curled around him as he sleeps, soothing his coughs with quiet whispers.
Night has just begun to fall, the rain of the day turning into a soft drizzle, and you stare at him blankly, unsure how to process what you’ve just heard.
“Do you think I’ll come back?” He asks again, slightly louder. As if you hadn’t heard his shaky voice the first time. It’s not the question that floors you. You’ve been expecting this for weeks, months even. You’ve wondered it yourself as you prepare tea and ignore the sounds of him vomiting blood in the bathroom, as he disappears to the hospital and returns with a worse prognosis than before, as you’ve adjusted to the idea that you are dead and he is dying and you cannot do anything to help him.
You never would have expected the hope that his words carry though.
“Why does it sound like you want to?” You ask. Your voice is clear in the air and you’re glad for it, because this isn’t something you want to talk about through your board.
“Because I do?” His response is delayed and sounds more like a question than a real answer.
“Why?!” You demand.
“Are you serious, Casper?” His brow is furrowed as he sits up and lets the blankets fall away to sit haphazardly off the couch.
“Are you? Joon, why would you want to come back?”
“You’re seriously asking me that question? Why would I not? I’ve got so much I still want to do, I never thought I’d get the chance to after I got the diagnosis and now I might be able to. Why wouldn’t I want that?”
“Because it doesn’t work like that! You don’t get to just wander the world and fuck around, Joon, you’re dead.”
“Yeah, but you can still read and write and everything. I’d have all the time in the world to read the books I want to read, watch the shows I want to watch, write the music and stories and lyrics that I want to write.”
“Yeah, so long as it all stays in this apartment!” The light in the room flickers slightly with the force of your irritation. “You can’t do anything that isn’t in this room, Namjoon, you can’t use any of the electronics, you can’t read a book unless it’s here, you can’t write music unless it’s on actual paper, you can’t do anything.”
“Yeah, and I could make that work. Why are you so upset about this? I thought you’d be happy.”
“Happy? You think I’d be happy that you’d be stuck in these four walls forever, too? Why would that make me happy?” Namjoon stands, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head.
“Because I’d be with you! We’d be together, forever! Do you not want to be with me?”
“Of course I want to be with you, Joon, but not at the cost of you being stuck here. I don’t want that for anyone, certainly not the man I love.”
“And what if that’s what I want? What if I want to spend the rest of time with you? I’m already spending the rest of my life with you, I’m in love with you, I don’t want to leave you.”
“And I don’t want you to go, but Joon, why would I want you stuck here, too? This isn’t something fun. This isn’t anything that I enjoy.”
“Oh, so you regret it all then?”
“I didn’t say that, I just don’t want you to be stuck in a shitty studio apartment for who knows how long when you can’t fucking do half of the things you love! You wouldn’t go on walks, Namjoon, you wouldn’t go with Guk and Jimin to the movies, you wouldn’t get visits from Hobi, you wouldn’t get to shop with Taehyung or Jin, you wouldn’t get to drag Yoongi away from his thesis or celebrate with them when he finishes it! It’s not like being alive, Namjoon, you’d be dead and alone and in hell!”
“Whatever,” He mutters, shoving his arms into his coat. “Why can’t you understand for one fucking second that it wouldn’t be like that with you? I’d rather be stuck here forever than have to die in some shitty apartment and not even be able to touch the person I love.”
“Why can’t you understand that it’s still death? You’d be dead, Joon, your friends would go to your funeral and disappear from your life, and you’d be stuck staring out that window at that shitty alley for the rest of time. You don’t get it, you don’t how terrible it is to be stuck here and watch life pass you by.”
“Then why the fuck are you still here?” He asks. The door slams behind him before you can answer him, and your scream shakes everything in the room. You just barely catch one of the plants in the kitchen, a brown-potted one with ‘Shooky’ scrawled in Yoongi’s familiar handwriting, before it crashes to the ground. You return it to its place gently and huff another frustrated groan.
You wish you could explain it better, but you know he wouldn’t get it even if you could. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be trapped between four walls and unable to do anything without massive amounts of effort. And he won’t, not unless he experiences it himself.
You’ve already watched him wither away. You’ve watched him become thin and sallow and a shadow of the Namjoon who first moved in, and you don’t know what you would do if he came back. You wouldn’t be alone anymore, of course, and you’d have him here with you, but at what cost? Namjoon was built for cherry blossoms and sunshine and the riverside. He would hate being trapped here even more than you do.
Still, you could have been more understanding of his view. You can admit that even being stuck in a shitty apartment wasn’t so terrible when you had Namjoon there to make you laugh or watch TV or read to you. It may even get better if he turned into a ghost; maybe you could hold his hands in yours, could feel him wrap his arms around you, could press kisses to his skin again.
You move to the window and stand there waiting. It’s not good for him to be out, even if the rain had stopped a few days ago and the forecasters promised it was the end of the downpours. He was still weak, you’d be surprised he even went anywhere to begin with but you know he likes to walk to calm himself down.
You worry for what feels like hours. You can’t focus on anything, not the way the sun starts to set, not the sound of cars passing or the neighbor leaving. You’ve worked yourself into knots by the time you hear his whistle echo up through the streets, nearly lost in the sound of some argument in the alley below you. You catch a brief view of his coat and smile when you see that he’s got some half-dead plant tucked under an arm. There’s the briefest glimpse of what looks like a Ca scrawled onto it, and your heart jumps in your throat.
You make your way to the stove, turning the heat up slightly too high so that it’ll be ready when he comes in. The arguing outside gets louder but you pay it no mind, pulling the honey out and setting it next to his favorite mug. You’re reaching for the tea when you hear something else. It definitely sounds like Namjoon’s voice, but it’s not in the hall or at the door like usual. It’s raised, like he’s yelling at someone, like it was just a while ago when he was fighting with you. A crash startles you and before you can even reach the window to see what’s going on, there’s a deafening bang.
You slam your fist against the window, watch the red mix with dirt, and the kettle isn't that only thing that screams.
“I think that’s the last of it,” Jeongguk says. His voice is scratchy and quiet, but it’s deafening in the silence of the apartment.
“Yeah,” Hoseok replies. His eyes are rimmed with red and his hands shake as he slides the last mug into a box. “Thanks for the help, Guk. I don’t, um.” He sniffles. “I don’t think I could’ve done it myself, y’know?”
“I know,” Jeongguk agrees. They’re quiet again, adjusting the things they’ve boxed and avoiding finishing what they’re doing.
“Oh, can you get that?” You don’t have to look to know what Hoseok is talking about. Jeongguk grunts an affirmation and makes his way over. It’s a strange feeling, having someone pass through you again for the first time since. His hands fly into the air as he tries to lift, clearly not having expected it to weigh anything.
His reflection in the window frowns, and he tries again, tugging on the pot.
“I can’t get it,” He says. “Do you think he glued these things down or something?”
“No,” Hoseok replies as he wanders over as well. “He used to pick them up to re-pot them, remember? And the others came up with no problem.”
“Well it’s stuck or something, you try.”
Hobi takes Jeongguk’s place and pulls hard at the plot, but your grip doesn’t waver. He huffs and disappears. When he returns, he’s got a butter knife in one hand that he does his best to slip under the pot. He tries hard to pry it up, so hard that you almost want to give in. You don’t though.
The knife clatters to the floor with as much force as Hoseok can put behind it, a curse following quickly behind it.
“Fuck it,” Hoseok says. His voice is shaky and you know he’s near tears again. “Just fuck it.”
“But that was-”
“You can try if you want, Guk, but I just-” He chokes back a sob, shaking his head and moving to pick up the boxes he’d set down. “I just can’t, okay?” He disappears out the door in a hurry, and you wish you could follow after him.
Jeongguk looks down at the small plant, with its painted periwinkle pot and soft leaves. He runs a quivering finger over the leaf and sniffles. He doesn’t try to lift it again, just stands and lets his tear soak into the soil.
“I wish you could come back to us,” He whispers. “We thought...we expected more time. It’s not...it’s not really fair, y’know? So if you can hear me, if you can come back to us, please do. Please.”
He turns and leaves, the apartment door slamming behind him like the lid of a casket. Your grip on Mang loosens now that you know no one’s going to try to take it. You’d watched them pack everything else up; you’d let them take the steamer trunk full of records, the shelf full of books and movies, the collection of mugs, the soft blankets, the ratty couch, the rest of the plants he’d cared for so tenderly.
Piece by piece they had packed Namjoon up and walked him out of the apartment, but this was the one piece they couldn’t have. This was his favorite and none of them knew how to care for it like you did, and you had to. You owed it to him. He deserved to come back to at least one familiar thing, never mind that you woke up not even a day later and it’s now been weeks. If there was one thing you wanted him to see when he got back, it was his favorite of his plants.
The sun glares into your eyes from where it shines down on the city. It reflects off something in the window from across the alley, would be blinding if you actually had eyes. You pay it no mind, focused instead on the remains of the broken brown pot down in the alley, the way you’ve pieced them together in your head a thousand times just to trace the word Casper with your eyes. You can almost hear his voice saying it, even now.
You whip around, eyes darting through the empty space of the apartment as your hands tighten around Mang.
All that rests there is empty space, mocking in its loneliness. You remember when he moved in, remember how it felt to test the boundaries of the apartment and wish you were free. The want is still there, to leave and never think of it again, never think of him. You know better, though. You could never escape the memory of him, the way he laughed and smiled and spoke. You could never abandon Mang. Not when he said he’d always come back to you.
You turn back to the window, cursing the sunlight with every other breath. It fades, slowly, into the black of night, before returning again, and again, and again. Days pass, each one feeling like years. Hoseok doesn’t appear to show the apartment, no one comes to collect the small periwinkle pot between your palms, and the ghost of his laugh echoes around you.
The sun blinds you again. You don’t even know how long it’s been, just that you’ve yet to move. Light glints off whatever hangs in the window across the alley. That's when you see it, a vague reflection in the weathered glass of a dimple and a grin, and warmth surrounds you.
“I told you I’d always come back, Casper.”
#namjoon fanfiction#rm fanfiction#bts fanfiction#namjoon smut#namjoon x reader#namjoon angst#rm smut#reader insert#rm angst#rm x reader#namjoon fanfic#rm fanfic#bts fanfic#love yourself collab#ghost reader#clumsy namjoon#unspecified gender reader#bts angst#major character death#fic: forever rain#ddaenggtan
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So here goes nothing....😅😅😅 I have thought of a scenario where a student is studying marketing and has offered herself to promote karasuno's volleyball team. And as she is working with them she makes friendships and developed crushes and love and all that good stuff. With a lot of fluff please.♥️😋♥️ If u can't that's just fine still will love everything you put out your so talented and I love you♥️♥️♥️♥️
Okay so first IM SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG PLEASE DONT HATE ME 😫😫
I had some difficulties writing it because I didn’t know if you wanted reader to come from Uni or simply Karasuno. You also talked about developing crushes and Im a fool for Daichi so yeah it turned out as a Daichi x reader lol But feel free to ask for another one if you don’t like it!! Thanks for your request, you’re so kind and honestly I think there are people here on Tumblr more talented than me but omg thank you I love you please let me know what you think!! 💘💘💘
-L
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*
Sweet lovin’.
Sawamura Daichi x reader.
synopsis: just Daichi helping you open a letter from your University.
word count: 1.6 K
tags: fluff
~~~
"C’mon Y/N, open it!" the boy on your right encourages you.
You're a little anxious, your hands are shaking slightly while you carefully unlock your phone. You can't calm down: you know how important is that email, you've been waiting for two weeks now. You open the inbox, but immediately lock the screen, not feeling brave enough.
You knew that getting into the university you were aiming to wouldn't be that easy, so you immediately took as many courses you could to prepare for the various entrance tests you’d have to do. Even so, when you found out you had to bring a completely new and original project, (the promotion of a product completed with data and graphs concerning sales), you were quite surprised not expecting it and soon you started panicking as you saw the million challenges you’d have to face, not to mention all the pressure you felt: after all it was the task you would have to submit if you wanted to be admitted to the marketing courses in what could be your future University (if you made it).
You are resolute and organised, you’ve been making plans for your future since you were really young, thinking about what your job would be when you grow up. You've always liked to read and recommend books to your friends or parents, so you decided to work for a publisher and evaluate which manuscripts to publish and which to discard. But it is clear that to do such a job you also need to know how to sell a product: it is therefore essential for you a degree in Marketing and Communication. You had calculated everything, down to the smallest detail, and yet in front of that email just over two months ago you had trembled, finding yourself deadly worried. On the other hand you had never done anything like this, starting from scratch, without anyone’s help and that’s what was most likely to have determined your admission.
For days you were scrambled to come up with an idea that could represent you 100%, and then you found yourself one day in the school gym in front of the entire men's volleyball team, on the orange flyer in your hands it was written in capital letters "LOOKING FOR HELP FOR OUR MANAGERS."
"Help us grow! If you are interested, come look for us: Sawamura Daichi (3rd year, section 4); Shimizu Kiyoko (3rd year, section 2)."
You immediately saw the opportunity behind that simple piece of paper. You had found your "product" to advertise, it was the opportunity you were looking for and you could not let it got; that's why you let instinct take over you and you headed straight to the gym; you hadn't given it too much thought, knowing too well that if only you'd stopped for one more moment to reflect, you'd only come out with more doubts.
You were presented to your "project" and they had welcomed you with open arms, especially Nishinoya and Tanaka, happy to have more people in their big family and that could lighten the load of work for Kiyoko and Hitoka. Although at first you had no intention of becoming a manager of Karasuno, day by day you had bonded more and more with those guys, finding yourself one day crying in front of everyone because of how boded you were when Hinata gave you with a beaming smile the team uniform. You had learned to appreciate each one of them, everyone with their own special personality, trying to help them as best you could during their training: several times you happened to assist Kageyama and Hinata till late and help them improving their spikes, or healing the wounds and bruises that Noya got, not to mention all the afternoons spent trying to comfort Asahi, in an attempt to raise his self-esteem a little. Then along with Hitoka and Kiyoko you draw posters and opened a fund for the team, you created a page on Facebook by posting constant updates, just as you had created a Twitter profile where only the three of you, Daichi, Suga and Professor Takeda had the access (coach Ukai refused to take part in something that complicated). You saw how slowly your crows got up again attracting more and more attention, just as you had seen your project take shape and come true.
After about a month of joining the team, you had taken the train to Tokyo along with the three third year and Kiyoko, who had decided to come with you to bring all the necessary documents for the application and the eventual registration. Careless as you are, you would surely have got lost, that's why Suga asked you if he could join you and after hearing him, the others had also offered to keep you company along the way.
Finally, another email had arrived on your phone: for three days you did not even look at your inbox, too scared to find out that you had been refused. Not to mention that of all the possible days Suga, being aware of your crush on the captain, had decided that today was the best day to give his contribution and leave you alone with Daichi to tidy the gym putting the last things in place, hoping that you will muster up courage to take the first step and confess. It’s obvious saying that his hopes are unfortunately misplaced.
Daichi, being the kind person he is, seeing you more nervous than usual asks you if you had heard from the University and suddenly you turn pale, telling him all your concerns.
"Good heavens Daichi, I can't do it, please look instead!" you beg the boy by your side. You have the feeling that, if it’s him the one who's telling you you've failed, it's going to hurt less than reading it with your own eyes. The captain picks up your phone with one hand and yours with other, making you blush instantly.
You don't know how or when you started having feelings for him, you only know that at some point you started paying a lot more attention to what he told you and noticing all the details of his face: how he purse his lips when he scores a point, how he snaps his tongue with frustration when during training he fails to serve or receiving Asahi’s services. Of course, you immediately tried to hide it all, choosing to focus on the first years and prevent Tsukishima and Kageyama from biting each other’s face off.
"You have to tell me the passcode, Y/N." he replies with a chuckle, trying to calm you down by caressing your hand in circular movements, causing the opposite effect.
You feel your heart beating wildly, you're not used to having so much skinship between you two, neither being so close with him. Of course, it had happened other times that accidentally in removing the net he touched your hand, but you always tried to pretend as if nothing happened, obviously failing: Tsukishima and Sugawara immediately understood that you had feelings for him, as well as Kiyoko, who immediately encouraged you along with the setter.
You give him the password and watch him carefully swipe his fingers across the screen, opening the inbox and reading the email carefully. After what seems like centuries, he rolls his eyes towards you and with a smile he turns your phone towards you. You rip it out of his hands and read until you find the magic word: ACCEPTED.
"You made it Y/N, you got accepted." He congratulates you and, in a moment of pure euphoria, you throw your arms around his neck, clutching him as tightly as you can as he bursts out laughing and hugs you back.
You feel so comfortable in his muscular arms, you feel warm, feeling almost as if you were home. You would never want to move away, but after a few seconds you two separate, you redder than ever, while he looks at you, smiling, holding once again your hand with his and you look down on the ground regretting being so careless.
"Sorry, I didn't want to jump on-" You interrupt as soon as Daichi raises your chin and brings your face close to his, looking into your eyes, his lips brushing yours, softly, delicately, kindly, almost as if he's afraid of breaking you.
When you separate you look at him surprised, with your mouth agape, unable to say anything, because DAICHI JUST KISSED YOU. You are speechless, trying to understand that what just happened is not a mere dream. The boy meanwhile waits for your reaction, but seeing that you are still silent he lets out a laugh, rather embarrassed by all that courage he showed you just now.
"I'm sorry Y/N, I don't know what’s gotten into me. I'm sorry I should have told you first, but you know I like you so much that seeing you-" he tries to explain you, but you interrupt him right away.
"You what?!" you ask him, your eyes wide open, as he looks at you even more nervous than before, he just wants to sink and disappear sucked into the ground.
“Yes, I've liked you for a while, I thought I'd tell you one of these days. I thought it was pretty obvious..." He tells you, scratching the back of his neck with one hand. You suddenly take the other hand.
“I like you too!" you say with a smile. You remind him so much of a little girl who just got the gift she wanted for her birthday. He can't help bursting out laughing again seeing your happy eyes, wrapping you again with those arms you love so much.
“That’s good, you know? I was dying of shame." He whispers sweetly in your ear, while you smile, letting yourself sink in the warmth of his embrace, chuckling back.
#anime#haikyuu#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu!!#haiky?!!#daichi x reader#hq daichi#daichi#daichi sawamura#daichi sawamura x reader#karasuno x reader#karasuno#karasuno daichi
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themiscyra1983 replied to your post “What if I did some fluff (hypothetically) prompts tomorrow? Would...”
Mercy and Emily hanging out! It feels like they'd be on a similar wavelength, they both have high-strung partners in different ways, and I like the idea that Emily has formed her own friendships with Tracer's friends and coworkers.
I hope I did okay, it’s my first time writing these two together, so FINDING MY FEET. 2,300 words. All of my OW universe is here, this takes place after Powerless.
Pharah was a worrier.
She would never herself have phrased it that way, and if Mercy had put it that way to her, she would have wrinkled her lip in a light scowl, in the way she always did before she took issue with something, shake her head, and tell Mercy that wasn’t true at all, she was no nervous person. But you did not have to quake and shiver to be a worrier, and it was true that Pharah did not sit anxiously, biting her nails and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Instead, she took the shoe out of the hands of whomever might drop it, made herself responsible for the maintenance of all shoes, and refused to delegate much more than whose job it was to turn out the light.
Pharah had a gift for overextending herself and weakness for trusting others with any responsibility. Pharah was loving and steady and conscientious. Pharah would do anything for Mercy, before she even asked, and if Mercy ever had to ask Pharah would count herself a failure and write it down in another line of her Book of Responsibilities, so she would never forget again. Mercy loved Pharah more than she could possibly say, and Pharah had healed her in ways that she had not even known she was broken.
And Angela Ziegler was going to get off of the couch, weak as she was, and murder Fareeha Amari with her bare hands.
It was not that Mercy did not understand. She had come very close to death, and it would be a long, slow recovery, and even as Mercy sat reading her own medical records, she wondered if she would ever be well enough to return to the field. She had frightened Pharah terribly, whatever little Pharah had said about it, and Pharah’s reluctance to leave the house was just another responsibility she gave herself. If Pharah was there, no one would hurt mercy. Not while she still breathed.
But however much she understood, Pharah’s hovering and insistence that Mercy could not so much as sit and read her medical records for more that thirty minutes at a time, despite the fact that Mercy was the one with a medical degree, and felt she knew fairly well the limits of her health, was putting her quite on the edge of her sanity.
She could not tell Pharah to go away for a bit, and the thought of even doing so sent a pang through Mercy’s heart. It was only that Pharah loved her. She could not reject that.
But what she could do, was send a text to Tracer saying Pharah seemed like she might wear a hole in the floor for pacing, and hope that Tracer’s agile little mind would come to a solution.
Help arrived the next day, with a tiny Brit practically bursting through the front door with a bright smile on her face, a workout bag slung over each shoulder.
“Fareeha!” She jumped into the living room, “ere to rescue you, I am. Been without a proper bit of exercise for weeks now--”
“When did we give you a key?” Pharah leaned over the back of the couch where she had been standing by the window.
“--Ang gave me one, don’t interrupt--and isn’t you always saying we ‘ave to be all tip-top, first class, ready for anything? I thought as you might forget that, things being as they are, but--”
“You must let Pharah say yes, if she’s to join you.” Emily gave a giggle from where she was removing her shoes in the entryway, and walked into the living room, kissing Tracer on the head when she reached her.
“Was getting to it.” Tracer nodded “Come on then, ‘ave your bag,” she shrugged her right shoulder, as if Pharah could not see the tag on it herself, “Did the washing for it and everything.”
Pharah shook her head. “Angela still needs--”
“Oh, I’m to stay with her,” Emily gave her shy smile and sat down on the little chair near the window, “You and Lena can go on.” Pharah did not respond, and Emily gave a small nod, “Amn’t I trustworthy?”
“It is not that.” Pharah sighed, “if someone were to--”
“Jesse’s out front there!” Tracer bounced toward Pharah and extended the bag, “Owes me a favor or two, e does, but I will e never does argue the point.” She chuckled, “‘ad to ‘ave ‘im take a bit of an ‘oliday from punching Gabe in the face, as it was. Think ‘e’s working out some emotional issues, tried to tell ‘im there are some lovely therapists in town…., “She looked at Pharah, “well, anyhow, I’m...talk to ‘ear me own voice sometimes, don’t I then, love?”
Pharah’s face had darkened, and grown solemn. Gabri--Reaper, he was, now, was still to be dealt with, held in their cell in the basement of Winston’s home. She had tried not to think about it, the man she had thought of as an uncle, and what he had become. What he had done.
Mercy touched her arm. “Go on.”
Tracer brightened up again, and tossed the bag at Pharah, who caught it with one hand. “I’ve an idea. I’ll run, and if you catch me, you can pummel me, right?”
“I will never run so fast in my life.” She slung the bag over her shoulder and looked down at Mercy, stroking her hair. “You will call me?”
“I do not think I will be needing to call you. But I would.”
Pharah nodded, licking her lip and thinking a moment, then sighed, kissed Mercy tenderly, and headed for the door.
She pushed Tracer playfully as they walked toward the entryway. “You should hope you run fast.”
“Fareeha, love, I know I run fast.”
They left, and Mercy relaxed a little against the high pile of pillows Pharah had arranged on the couch. Tracer was good for her. It was difficult to be too caught up in her own thoughts, the way Tracer needled her and played with her. Mercy had always thought their Overwatch had succeeded when the other had failed, because love had been added. Each of them were members of a family, more than an organization.
The thought made her remember that it was only a few weeks ago, just before all this had happened, where they had been together celebrating Tracer and Emily’s wedding.
“You’ve no need to entertain me, if ye do get a wee bit tired.”
Mercy turned to her voice, and Emily sat perched still on the little chair, her red hair tied back and glistening even in the tiny and sparse patches of London sunlight, her eyes soft and kind, as they always were. When she noticed that Mercy had turned, she got up and walked over to the end of the couch, settling in there, realizing even before Mercy had that it would be less tiring for her to sit straight.
“This should not be your honeymoon.” Mercy smiled apologetically.
Emily shook her head. “Och, we have the rest of our lives, don’t we?” She smiled brightly. “Hana’s gifted us a holiday together, once it all is a bit more settled.”
“I used to say you should not be giving someone so young so much money, but,” Mercy gave a soft shrug, “she is kinder with it than most would be.”
Emily nodded happily. “I dunna think she’d ever say so.”
“And she would call me a liar for saying it is true.” Mercy looked over to the photo on the back wall, all of them tucked tightly together in front of the unimpressive building that was their headquarters, taken the first day they came to London. “But she is kind.”
“Oh!” Emily got up and padded back to the doorway, grabbing a large bag she’d left there. “Had a thought,. It’s only from something Lena told me, when she was hurt, so if ye’d rather no, I understand.”
She set the bag down on the coffee table, and unloaded a large bowl, a towel, pitcher, and a small bottle of shampoo, decorated with flowers up the side.
Mercy was not about to cause herself the pain of reaching up to touch her hair, but she knew it must be limp and greasy, tied in a loose bun on her head. Emily had always been a favorite of Mercy’s. She was quiet and kind and calm, a perfect match for Tracer’s expressive vibrancy and volume, and the way she loved Tracer came out in every thing that she ever did. But as much as she had loved her before, Mercy was not certain she ever had, or ever would again, love her as much as this moment.
She blushed slightly. “It should be very dirty.”
Emily set the towel down next to Mercy and smiled, giving a little giggle. “Day before last, a student handed me a dead bird. Bit of grease to your hair won’t phase me. Would you like it?” She looked at Mercy, waiting. Emily would never have done anything without anyone’s okay, if they were not sure, if they were uncomfortable.
“Please.” She hoped she looked as grateful as she felt, in that moment.
Emily popped over to the kitchen, only a few steps away, and began to let the water come to temperature. It was funny, Mercy often thought, that so many of them fell in love with someone in the same business, in the constant danger, because it was easier to be understood. There were things you did not have to say. But Tracer had often dated civilians, because Tracer was the bravest person she knew. Tracer was not afraid to explain herself, to give words to the things she’d been through, and hope another person could understand. Maybe because there was no one quite like her, even in their work.
But Emily had been brave, too. She was a beautiful woman, with a good job and a gentle heart, but instead of picking a suitor who she might have had an easy life with, one where they came home at safe hours and where the news was not frightening, she had chosen Tracer. Because she loved her. Because she refused to settle for a candle when she could have a firework, whatever the risks. And she had done it all quite calmly.
Mercy admired her.
Emily carefully set the full bowl down on the table, and then took a few of the pillows out from behind Mercy slowly, taking the bowl and easing her hair into it. She massaged the warm water deep into the roots, and Mercy felt the comfort of it wash over her, closing her eyes and enjoying the knowledge that not only was she being helped, but her wife, as well. It felt nice to know Pharah was cared for, when she could not do it herself.
“And how is your married life?” She felt Emily smile even with her eyes closed, “Barely a month in?”
Emily squirted a bit of shampoo into her hands and rubbed it firmly into Mercy’s hair, the rose and violet of the thick, rich shampoo filling the air. She must have gone to special trouble,because of course she did. That was Emily’s way.
“Not much has changed, I suppose,” she took out the shampoo to the tips, “Lena is still my lovely, we stay in the same house.” she chuckled, “Haven’t yet told my parents I’m taking Lena’s name over mine. My brother, Owen, he approves. He’s always thought kindly of Lena”
“I am sure the Oxtons were delighted, however, to make you one of their own.”
“Amn’t they over everything, though?” Emily giggled, happily this time, her parents’ light shadow over marrying Tracer forgotten in the joy of Tracer’s family for them both.
Mercy gave a soft, small, laugh. “It is true.”
The pitcher rinsed her hair, and Mercy felt the grease and grime fall out of it, wondering if it had lightened three shades in the course of a moment. It was an exquisite gift, and one that no one had thought to give, even with all the casseroles Jack had brought, the laundry service D.va sent, and even Ana’s neatly wrapped gift of fresh pajamas and baklava from the Middles Eastern bakery, freshly made, which was not so much for her as for Pharah, but Mercy would rather Ana gift her, anyhow.
Emily gently teased out Mercy’s hair with a wide-tooth comb, slicking the water out of each bit as well as she could.
“Fareeha must be driving you right mad.” She whispered conspiratorially. “I canna be too judgmental, for I know I’ve been the same with Lena, but I know I’ve driven her right mad.”
“Yes!” Mercy gave a laugh so sharp it hurt, and she had to catch her breath for a moment. She continued, softer, “She is so protective and kind, but I do not need the supervision so constantly.”
Emily nodded as she reached for the towel. “A regular border collie needing a job, is our Fareeha.”
Our Fareeha. It did Mercy’s heart such good to hear those things. As she awoke from her injuries, days after, the haze still settling over her, her first thought had been of Pharah. What would become of her if Mercy was lost. How she would always worry that her determined and dedicated wife would take that hurt and turn it into overwork, into procedure, into long nights spent studying engineering and strategy as her only protection against the loneliness.
But today, Emily and Tracer had proven it didn’t need to happen. They would care for Pharah, in their complementary, utterly opposite ways.
Pharah was a worrier, and nothing would change that, but as Emily gently braided her hair, Mercy remembered that they both had love beyond each other, a sprawling family that would catch them when they fell, and Mercy worried just a little less.
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mysterytale story info
a long time ago monster and humans use to live in peace. but something unknown to monster, caused the humans to be angry with the monsters. this reason was because humans had been disspearing, and no one knew where they went most of them were adults, a few handful were kids. when the humans confronted the monster about the recent missing humans, the monsters denied this saying had no clue. what the humans were accusing them for. the humans getting fed up declared war. the monster didn't want to fight the humans as they had no reason too, but when a human killed a monster the king of monster was finally fed up, and began to fight back. the war lasted a year, monster took the most lost, humans only take a few one finally push from the humans made the monster retreat to the ruins that were located in mt.ebott. the humans soon summoned their strongest magic users and sealed away the monster forever. Many years passed and the humans slowly forgot about the monster. one year a small child decided that they wanted to go and explore on their. mostly because they loved the woods and playing by themselves having amazing adventures, but they soon went missing, no one knows where the child went, that child ended up in the undergrounds somehow. the young one had lost its memories not remembering what it had been doing before or even how it got here. after it felt better to walk the child stood up and started to explore these odd ruins, and happened to run into a monster. the monster name was toriel and she was being followed by two younger monsters. her son and a skeleton, toriel greeted the child with a warm welcome and gently took their hand and lead them back to her home, the child was confused but was happy that they were so nice, ounce they brought the child home. they asked if the child had a name, the child nodded and said their name was chara, they had no idea how they got here. sad for the child toriel decided to adopt the child, and chara was fine with that. he had enjoyed spending time with the two kids, soon toriel and her husband the king of monster, asgore asked the young child if they wanted to stay with them and be part of the family, seeing as chara had no where else to go, he agreed to stay with them. toriel and asgore were delighted to have, chara as their adopted son, asriel was equally as happy to hear that chara was going to be part of their family, as he enjoyed having them around. the two of them bonded very easily and became very close friend/siblings. a year or two passed when chara learned about the barrier he felt bad for the monster, and had told asriel what he had planed to do, at first asriel was worried, but soon went along with chara heading to the barre. he was going to free these monster, that had cared so much about him. even though they didnt know his dark secrete not even his closet friend/sibling asriel knew what he was hiding, it didnt take to long for the two of them to reach the barrier that trapped all of the monster in the underground but before he could get any closer asgore and asriel soon appeared, they were worried of coarse as they didnt want their children hurt, when chara told him what he wanted to do, they were shocked but allowed chara to try, though they didnt have hope, they knew the barrie was strong, and didnt think chara would be able to break it. as chara stepped up to the barrie he was nervous and scared cause he didnt know he would be able to break the barrie but he was determined to save these monsters! grabbing asriel hand the two of them together stepped forward and together placed their hands on the barrier, at first it didnt do anything, which made chara sad, but when the barrier started to falter, a bit he turned to asriel and nodded and together with their combined determination the barrier ended up cracking and breaking. but as soon as that happen chara collapsed. it had turned out that chara had been very sick and they were hiding it from everyone, no one knows for how long chara was quickly rushed to their room as trying to head to the head scientist lab, but asgore set out to go and get them anyways, as toriel and asriel tended to chara. but it was no help, before the head scientist could get their, chara ended up passing away their last dying words to toriel and asriel was "dont let me death stop you from reaching what you wanted for so long" a single tear rolled down chara check as they passed away. all monster were upset and devastated that young chara had passed no one knew they were sick, not even asriel. toriel had decided that chara should be barried in the surface world, and thats what they did monster who knew chara attended and help them Barrie young chara. the place they barried chara became their new home. at first humans didnt take notice but when they started to see monster they were scared, but when one brave human went up to the monster he greeted them open arms the rest of the humans start to relax and welcome the monsters. monster use to be viewed as scary or mean but it turned out monster were very kind, sweet and nice, they miss-read and wrongly judged back then. no one really knew what had happen to missing humans....but maybe someone did....someone who took those humans.....10 years passed, those 10 long years humans and monster ounce again lived in peace, living together in the town that the monster(with the help of humans) made, it was called town of ebott, the monsters and some humans became the protector of the ruins inside of mtt.ebott making sure no kids went their, though a certain monster and a two certain monster would follow her, one being couries and not listening to people when they tell him not to follow, and one who was the monster son. toriel always went into the ruins, as the far end of them she had started a garden when she use to live in the underground, asriel always came along cause he enjoyed helping his mother, and the other monster. that followed them was a young skeleton by the name of sans but preferred mystery as his name more, just wanted to tag along, as he didnt want to stay around his brother or father for very long (papyrus is older in this au) as they were walking mystery was the first to hear something off, soft crying. at first he didnt understand it but as he walked deeper into the ruins with toriel and asriel he noticed it got louder and soon took off, wanting to see what was going on. of coarse toriel called after him but he didnt spot. so she and asriel had to go after him. as he ran to the sound of crying he came to an end of one of the tunnels and siting on the ground was a 10 year old, human who looked like she had fallen from one of the holes, she looked hurt. and when mystery approached her she noticed and froze from fear and being scared, mystery didnt care and rushed forward and brought the human close, when she felt that he was safe, she calmed down and just let him hold her, toriel and asriel soon found them, and toriel healed her up quickly, mystery was the first to ask for her name, she quietly replied "fairy" from their toriel wanted to adopt the child. and thats what she did as she coundt remember where she came from. staying with toriel didnt last long, as someone noticed her, and took an interest in her. that person was gaster, the head scientist of the royal family he took an interest to her because of the unique ability that she had, which was the ability to sense a soul and can tell if their ok to be by or evil. fairy has always avoided him cause she never liked what she felt, but when gaster said he could enhanced that power, she never wanted to but gaster forced her too, but what happen to her? no one knows cause they never knew what gaster did to her(experiment wise)....after a few months of being with gaster, she was given a special collar to wear(it got broken when she did something to it, it had to be replaced with a new one). no one knows what it does, but only fairy, mystery, papyrus and gaster know heh~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
note: ive re-tarted to comic to something i like and i know i have posted it here
the story will still be part of the first chapter i will get to where fairy tells her story of being a young one of her au o3o
i thought this would be easier as i did try to learn how to draw smoll ones and im doing better
fairy name might get changed, if i do im not sure what i want x-x
undertale belongs to toby fox
mysterytale is owned by me
#undertale au#mysterytale#mysterytale!gaster#mystery!sans#mysterytale!papyrus#gonna sketch the next page#its been months#no movation#depressing x-x
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6.08, my last commentary™ R I P to me
I wanted to post this right away but my phone died and I broke my charger so I had to handle that but now I’m finally able to. I’m literally dead, I STILL can not process how amazing it was. So I’ll just get on with it post my earlier thoughts
¡¡TODAY IS THE DAY AHH!! IM FREAKING LATE KILL ME
BUT HOW ARE WE ALREADY HERE? IM NOT READY FOR THIS SERIES TO END BUT I NEED TO SEE SHELGAH *SAFELY* GIVE BIRTH TO A HEALTHY BABY. ANYWAY IM LITERALLY GOING TO DIE AFTER THIS EPISODE SO ENJOY THE FINAL THOUGHTS OF MY LIFE, LETS GET IT ..
MY HEART IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE ITS BEATING SO FAST
TBH I MIGHT SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST
SCREW THESE CREDITS BUT I NEED THEM BC IM NOT READY OMG
IM SCREAMING
aw baby! & hey val
Does this mean Delia had No letters from pats this whole time??
MY BBY SHELAGH OMG HER BELLY
SHE CANT REACH HER SHOE OMG SO PRECIOUS THOUGH
Sister MJ I love u 😭😂
Family planning clinic!
YES VAL! they’re women not criminals !!
YES TRIXIE THANKS BBY FOR SPEAKING UP
aww poor Barbara
“..There are tales of missionaries served for luncheon in those climes” LMAO OMG SISTER MJ THATS NOT WHAT SHE NEEDS TO HEAR RIGHT NOW
It’s so sweet that Babs really wants her dad, I feel. My grandfather officiated my parents’ and brother’s wedding, I hope he does mine. If someone wants to marry me one day ofc lol 😂😭
SHELAGH IS ACTUALLY YELLING .. WHY DO I LOVE IT?
All the shit she’s been through/delt with and pregnancy sets her off huh..
BUT TRIXE AND SHEALGH INTERACTING YESS NOT THE WAY I WANTED BUT ILL TAKE IT FOR NOW
AWW MY BBY CRYING SOMEONE HUG HER 😭😭💕💕
MY BBY TRIXIE IS SMIRKING AT MY OTHER BBY LOL STOP 😭😭💔
“Hot and bothered” 😭😂 Violet having hot flashes. That’s not funny but i giggled I’m sorry immature of me
I can’t imagine being around when the pill was just coming out(or antibiotics even) like that must have been so wild ? you really would think they were magic *remember Vanessa Redgrave saying that in series 2?*
my mom is a nurse at a gyn/fertility office and she informed me of so much at a young age lol maybe that’s why I’m so curious idk?
lol I remember being like 13 and my friends didn’t know there was more than just the pill when it came to birth control and I really felt I was an expert😂 but *a judge’s voice* irrelevance moving on.
Needing your husbands permisson for a bank account? *sucks teeth* Vete ya!
Aw my bby shelagh 💔💔😭
“And I’ll warrant you’ve never felt more scared” I AM! AND THIS ISNT EVEN MY FICTIONAL PREGNANCY
“Oh lass“😭 PHYLLIS COMFORTING HER OMG I AM CRYING ALREADY, I NEVER KNEW I WANTED THIS
"Phyllis you’ve been a real friend” IM NOT OKAY OMG, THEY’VE COME SO FAR I CRY
OMG SHELAGH BEING SO CUTE WTF OMGGG 💖
PROTECT MY BBY & HER BABY AT ALL COSTS 💕💕
THE NONNATUNs CHEERING SO PURE 😭
“What if something goes wrong?” stop tempting fate Patrick !!
“I’ve made up my mind” MY BBY I CANT DEAL .. once upon a time she couldn’t speak up and was so timid 😭 my bby has grown
Her lipstick is a nice color, wait what’s this lady’s name?
The nurses all together makes me so happy omg why is this so adorable, even Phyllis is there !! SO PURE💕
Lol poor Fred tries his best !
Damn secondment to st Cuthberts, I guess Trixie couldn’t even be considered for to be Shelagh’s midwife
SHELAGH IN THE CARDIGAN >>
OF COURSE SHE CHOSE SISTER JULIENNE WE WOULDN’T HAVE ACCEPTED IT ANY OTHER WAY
“‘MY DEAR” BRB DROWNING IN TEARS
but omg was Phyllis disappointed 😭 no don’t be hurt that’s her basically her mother! (sister j and Phyllis would’ve been a good tag team though)
this montage just reminds me brb #irresponsibleme
Future Hereward’s take a note from the Turners, find out about each other sooner rather than later
LOL TOM’S AWKWARD FACE BC BABS IS GETTING CONTRACEPTION
it’s Wilma! her name is Wilma, noted.
Lol what does she sell? Is the company like Avon ? 😂I’m confused but also screaming too much internally
poor Babs is so nervous and feeling awkward 😂
Her face while on the bed😂 I feel
LMAO BABS TAKING OUT THE DIAPHRAGM & DROPPING IT HA
BUT WAIT THAT WAS THE TURNERS BATHROOM WTF ??
Patrick putting on or tying Shelagh’s shoes my fucking heart is melting
She doesn’t want him there .. for now?
“..We’re a team” 😭😭💕💕 marriage goals
“The minute I look at you I’ll give you everything you ask for” BRB I AM INDEED GOING TO SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST
I CAN NOT DEAL
Phyllis exercising 😭😂
“I have chosen one of my friends” OMG MY HEART
PHYLLIS BE MY BRIDESMAID !??
why does she only have one though? is it more like a maid of honor?
HERES COME MORE TEARS
THE SPANISH AYE DIOS MI CORAZON
Aw good for Wilma being happy with her job! Does everyone call the sofa the settee?
There’s that babycham! Still was never sure if it was alcoholic or nah? sparkling cider maybe?
OMG I HAVE A BOTTLE IN MY BAG THAT I BROUGHT FROM FLORIDA
new drinking came, shots every time the show makes you cry lol jk i’d be on the floor 20 mins in
that sports car aye
My bby looking good 😍😍
she knows what it’s like to be hurt Christopher😭
You’re not supposed to take 3 at a time Wilma, I’ve been scolded enough
Okay so Babs just fell asleep and that’s all?? Preview made it seem more dramatic
Now is Val going to listen and not touch anything? lol probably
Violet always rocking blue eyeshadow haha
Is that a silicone faja?? that looks hella uncomfortable
TRIXIE’S FACE OF DISGUST HAHA
OMG THE FAM HELPING OUT WITH FUNDS MY HEART
I WANT TO BE APART OF THE NONNATUS FAMILY!
PHYLLIS AND BABS DRESS SHOPPING I LOVE THIS
“.. she’ll have me to reckon with” TE QUERIO MUCHO PHYLLIS
I NEED A PHYLLIS IN MY LIFE
SHE HAS A FAV DRESS OMG I LOVE HER
HER FACE OMG I NEED THAT SCREENSHOTTED
SHELAGH MY BBY😭😭
Their new bedroom is so 60s I love it
She still didn’t read the pamphlet !! I love her omg, such pure intentions
OMG SISTER J REMINISCING, AH FINALLY SOME ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT SHE WAS A NUN, I AM SOBBING BYEE IM DYING. MY HEART RATE IS SLOWING DOWN
POOR DEELS AW OMG she doesn’t deserve this, she barely has screen time don’t hurt her
Shealgh’s got another nightgown! 1962/2017 is apparently the year of nighties #thebrinylonforthewinthough
I love pink waffers 😭😂
SHIT WHAT’S WRONG WITH WILMA IM SCARED, IS IT A HEART ATTACK?? BLOOD CLOT??
poor vi!! aww she misses reggie too!
AW FRED HUG HER
and he’s fanning her omg so pure
SHEALGH’S GOING IN TO LABOR ?? AHHHHH OMGG IM NOT READY
but also she has a housecoat how cute
SISTER J SAID “HIS SPINE” OMG HOW DOES SHE KNOW ALREADY
“I knew it” bless u bby😭😭 she is a GEM. WHY IS SHE SO LOVABLE?
omg Wilma don’t die, Trixie can u save her 😭
shit not looking good, maybe this was the death they meant
shelagh throwing up yikes
“She’s smiling and waving” yea we know that smiling and waving😂😂 but omg doesn’t this remind anyone of when you’ve been partying too hard but you’re trying to convince your friends that you’re not ready to tap out yet😂😭
if not nevermind I’ll feel trashy lmaoo
PASS THAT GAS AND AIR SISTER J
AW BBY YOU ARE BRAVE!!!!!!!
IM CRYING BUT RUNNING OUT OF TEARS
HOW TF DOES LAURA LOOK GORGEOUS ALL SWEATY AND IN TEARS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE IN LABOR?? & i’m still a creature?
Poor Patrick! He must be going as crazy as I am!
I DONT HAVE ASTHMA BUT I NEED AN INHALER BC I CANT BREATHE IM SO ANXIOUS OMG
IM NOT A SMOKER BUT I FEEL LIKE I NEED A CIGG BC IM ABOUT TO LOSE IT
Trixie is doing Wilma’s makeup omg I can’t take this 😭💔💔
“I can’t believe I used to dream of this” OMG SHELAGH & SISTER J
“Every woman alive is the sum of all she ever did, and felt, and was.” ..“and how do you know that?” ..“ i wasn’t aware that I did until just now”
¡¡¡IM A W R E C K!!! l o v e that
SHE IS SINGING DORIS DAY’s SECRET LOVE AND I AM F*CKING DEAD GOODBYE
PATRICK SINGING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR SOMEONE SEND H E L P IM DYING I BET IT’S “THEIR SONG” & YOU ARE ALL CORDIALLY INVITED TO MY FUNERAL IMMEDIATELY AFTER THIS EPISODE
I’M NOT GONNA MAKE IT
“We can’t just be like any other couple.. because we’re us”
MY HEART WTF I SWEAR IT IS ABOUT TO BURST BUT IT’S NOT BEATING
IM DEAD INSIDE AND MY BODY WILL FOLLOW WHEN THIS IS OVER
Get in there Patrick!
“The children are here” .. to say goodnight omg no😢
OMG PATRICK HOLDING HER I AM FUCKING SCREAMING
“YOU CLEVER GIRL” OMGG WHO CALLED IT
I CANT SEE WHATS HAPPENING TOO MANY TEARS IN MY EYES
IT’S A BOY I KNEW IT WELL I HAD A FEELING !
BABYTURNERLAND 2.0!!!! QUE LINDO DIOS TE BENDIGA 💖👼🏼
WHAT IS HIS NAME???
THIS IS THE BEST EPISODE OF MY LIFE WOW I CANT PROCESS IT ALL
“May the lord bless you and keep you” OMGGG, JESUS HEIDI WTF ARE YOU DOING TO ME ??!! I’ve never been so invested in a show or fictional characters’ lives like this 😭😭
I NEVER THOUGHT WE’D SEE THIS DAY AND IM HAVING SO MANY FEELS, I BARELY HAVE ANY THOUGHTS I AM S h o o k, I AM NOTHING IN THIS WORLD. JUST USELESS TRASH FOR CTM
WELL, ALMOST 19 YEARS OF LIVING WAS GOOD ENOUGH RIGHT?
HONESTLY JUST PUT ME IN THE GARBAGE BC I HAVE NOTHING OF SUBSTANCE TO SAY IM JUST GUSHING AND DYING
BUT SERIOUSLY LAURA MAIN IS I N C R E D I B L E AND DESERVES EVERY AWARD SO PLEASE GET IT TOGETHER @ THE EMMYS, THE SAGS, THE GOLDEN GLOBES & ALL OTHER AWARDS OF ALL PRESTIGE!! STOP PLAYING GAMES & GIVE LAURA + CTM THE RECOGNITION IT DESERVES !! & no excuses it happened for downton!
NO WILMA IS DEAD NO
The pill is so great and useful and miraculous in a way but I’m glad they showed some of its issues but DID THEY REALLY HAVE TO KILL THE FIRST WOMEN THEY GAVE IT TO? I’m still here tho, I’m rolling
NO TOM DONT SAY THaT WTF? TRIXIE IS OVER U AND U ARE OVER HER don’t ruin the moment
why did I think bab’s dad was the rev Applebee Thornton 😭😂😂😂?? where’s Jane lol
My bby trixie serving looks as always 😍😍
Aw his daughter is cute
CHRISTOPHER LOOKS GOOD TOO UGH😍
What are knickerbocker glories?
lol Boots! lowkey want to go there to satisfy my 15 year old self who liked to watch British youtubers affordable makeup videos (tbh I still do when I’m bored)
REGGIE! OMG HE CALLED VI MUM I DIE
OH YEA THE WEDDING OMG LOL I DONT FORGOT FOR A SEC
IM STILL SCREAMING, MY FREAKING BBY JUST HAD A MIRACLE BABY !!!!! I LEGIT RAN OUT OF TEARS WHAT DO I DO
LOOK HOW FAR WE HAVE COME MY GOD
THE GIRLS SINGING “HAPPY WEDDING DAY” TO BABS OMG THAT WAS GREAT, I NEED FRIENDS LIKE THAT
I NEED TO WATCH THIS AGAIN AND IT DIDNT FINISH YET
LMAO TOM AND FRED HUNGOVER, relatable AF😂😭
SO IS TOM’S SURPRISE IS MONEY? Or is he going to buy her something!?
Barbara’s cape reminds me of Phoebe’s from FRIENDS
The stain glass !! love it
PHYLLIS LOOKS SO ADORABLE OMG HER BOUCLE SUIT AW
WHY A HEADBAND ON YOUR WEDDING DAY BABs? BUT good for them lol 😭 I don’t care enough at the moment but let them be happy they’re so great for each other !
HE GOT A FUCKING CAROUSEL OMG
damn. Nice one Tom. I’m a little jealous, someone needs to love me like that.😭
“At times, the present seems most perfect when it seeds lie in the past. And others, life is rendered flawless when we look towards future, glimpsing from within one golden moment all the joys the days to come might hold” 💕😢😭
THE TURNERS, NOW A FAMILY OF 5 OMGGGGGGG 😭😭
THE NUNS SO PURE ❣️ lol obviously
“We can not stand still because the world keeps turning. Every year must give way to the next and it’s stories must be folded, tucked away like children’s clothes outgrown, cherished and never quite forgotten”
VANNESSA ALWAYS SAYS THE RIGHT THINGS UGH
Aw Angela with Tim!
My BBY SHELAGH IN HER BLUE OUTFIT WITH UNNAMED BABY TURNER ID CRY IF I COULD
“1962 was a year of great change at Nonnatus House, but there’s always change, everywhere, there are always new faces, new tears to shed, new joys to invest in , yet the circle of love is not broken, it expands.” YOU GOT THAT RIGHT🙏🏼👏🏼🙌🏻😭😭😢😢💖💖
I NEED THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL LIKE TOMORROW PLEASE
lol Val screaming it’s snowing 😭 same
PATSY!!!
SHE AND DELIA KISSED OMG
GOOD FOR THEM 😭
ALSO GOOD FOR ME bc I was tired of the same complaints that BBC broke them apart and Patsy was “sent away” nah man Emerald was busy!
“Love bares all things, love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and love never ends”
THIS WAS INCREDIBLE WOW IM A MESS
IF I DIDNT KNOW THEY WERE COMMISSONED FOR 3 MORE SERIES I’D THINK THIS WAS THE END??
BUT UGH NOW WE MUST WAIT
ANYWAY I SEE THE LIGHT FOLKS
IDK IF THIS IS HELL OR HEAVEN BUT I AM DEAD, I SEE THE EARTH BEHIND ME
TBH ITS PROB HELL
Someone throw me in the damn ground already!!
In loving memory of Gabby Nuñez (1998-2017) taken far too soon because of the emotional toll brought by call the midwife, she didn’t choose to get so emotionally invested it just happened. She is grateful for her time on earth, you may leave comments, flowers or send money. Thank you for putting up with her nonsense and foolishness *now someone give my eulogy & someone else may come up and sing a hymn to conclude*
#call the midwife#I am certified TRASH FOR THIS SHOW#IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL#MY GRINCH HEART GREW BEFORE IT DIED#lets get it 1962#MY BBY HAD A BABY#ILL NEVER BE OVER IT#masterpost#my commentaries™
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I'm writing a Riverdale fanfic (Jarchie mainly, with Beronica on the side) which is one of my first proper fanfics ever. Any general tips or maybe even just tips for being brave enough to actually, you know, share it? I'm feeling so awkward about this entire thing!
Can I first start of with saying: so much kudos to you for wanting to put your fic up! Fandoms getting new fics and writers is always a huge YES because we always need more & definitely welcome it ^_^(This definitely ended up being really long, but I made a list further down if you don’t wanna read all my rambling. I’m not sure what specifically you’re feeling awkward about, but I covered a bunch of stuff :))
Reading this I was like, I’m probably not the best person to ask because I have really bad anxiety ?? but then I was like, actually, you know, that’s why I’m probably one of the best people to ask because HOW the HELL do I manage to do this despite that? And honestly it involves a lot of self-talk + bravery + a fuck-it-I’m-gonna-do-it-who-cares mood. And I have a feeling this post is going to be rather long, but I’ll just talk through my own experience and what I’ve told myself, and maybe it’ll help you (or someone else) as well. :D
(I decided to put this under cut IT’S SO LONG IM SORRY (& if you’re on mobile I’m even more sorry t_t)
I’ve actually been writing stuff for YEARS. I started fanfics in middle school, before that I was writing my own little stories. Little me in primary school and early middle school, so badly wanting to be a writer (I RP’d a lot between 07-10 as well). But I never shared my writing. SOMETIMES with close friends, if I bought up an original story and they were interested I would send it to them. Otherwise, I wasn’t about to share it with anyone. ESPECIALLY not my fanfics when I started. A lot of my earliest have gone unseen by the world (and myself for years). I’m sure this may apply to a lot of people if you’ve written stuff for years, regardless what type of writing it is. I don’t know if you’ve written other stuff before anon, but if you haven’t that’s okay because we all gotta start somewhere & if you want to share it right away that’s one hell of an achievement and damned awesome. On the other hand, if it’s taken a while, that’s great too. Either way, sharing can be one hell of an anxiety inducing situation.
Okay, so when it came to finally posting stuff up, I’d definitely been writing a while, but at this point I knew I really wanted feedback on my writing, and to see if people enjoyed it, so that was a huge factor in me sharing it online. I’d never find out what people thought if I kept it to myself forever. Critique can sometimes be tough (just before my ImperialRemnant account on AO3 I wrote fanfic elsewhere and definitely had “this sucks” reviews - which isn’t so much a critique, but actually being a dick because they weren’t helpful - and definitely had fics that did rather terribly - still do - but it’s all a learning process & you eventually get used to it).
It’s also important where you post it, AO3 would be best of jarchie and beronica, as well as tumblr. Fanfic.net usually does better with gen fics. They’re the only ones I use, although I have accounts on some other sites I still gotta go on.
So I’ll go through things you should remember if you’re nervous about putting up fics (and things I have to remind/tell myself constantly)::
1. I’ll start with the fact you’ll definitely get reviews/comments/critique like I said previously. But most people are REALLY REALLY nice, so don’t freak out (I tell myself, as I’m trying to rationalise), and I haven’t had anything terrible since making my ImperialRemnant account on AO3 or fanfic.net. And there are always times your fics won’t get any comments at all– and that’s fine too! I’ve had that happen to me, and in the long run, it doesn’t feel like a huge biggy??Also, sometimes people aren’t gonna like what you do and they’ll say that, but that takes me to a second point–
2. It’s not your problem if somebody doesn’t like something. This is really important to know. You wrote the fic because it’s a concept you wanted to write, and something you really wanted to share and that’s amazing. You put tags on everything in your fic, so the person will go in and know what to expect, so if somebody does say something, then it’s like… “it was in the tags/summary? Why did you read this then? Wtf?” then 0% your fault. (Tagging’s important guys! I do find it hard so if you do too then try! You’ll usually be fine).
3. In regards to quality of fic, there’s definitely is a lot of amazing stuff out there, and that’s overwhelming. But you gotta know, there’s a lot of bad stuff too. I hate to say it, because it’s the nice thing to say all fic is good, but the reality is that’s not true. Your fic may not be the best (hey it may be damn amazing I haven’t seen it xD), but there’s a damn good chance it’s not going to be the worst either. Say to yourself this fic isn’t terrible, it’s fine. Your quality will improve over time anyway when you grow as a writer (Lord forbid there’s stuff from a year ago I published and I’m like… why did I do that…but that brings me to the next point).
4. SOMEBODY WILL LOVE YOUR FIC, I GUARANTEE THIS. I didn’t know this at first but learnt it quickly and have to remind myself EVERY TIME. Even if, later, you’re going “oh god that fic was a dumb idea”, there will be someone, at some point, who will have loved it and enjoyed it and wished there was more. It may just be one or two people but goddammit your audience is always gonna start small, and if it stays that way it will always be worth it for someone (that someone can be yourself too!). The best feeling is when somebody gets excited from your updates (HUGE reason why people should leave comments if they love a fic, because there’s a lot of people who are passive readers even when they love love LOVE a fic & just leave a kudos, definite issue. But I hope as a fandom we can not be like that?).
5. Your writing is not going to be perfect to you, it’ll never be perfect, you’ll be sure there’s a way something could be written better, but maybe you don’t know how to make it better (especially if you don’t have a beta!). I never expect fics, when I go in to read them, to be perfect. No writer is perfect, even properly published writers. You’re going to have to tell yourself it’s the best you can do RIGHT NOW for THIS fic. Put it through an editing program maybe if it’ll make you feel better (I use prowritingaid sometimes?) or leave the fic and go through it later. It’s gonna be fine.
6. Don’t expect much at first. Sometimes first fics can be very successful for people, but there’s a shit-ton of people where this doesn’t happen and it takes a while. When I first put fics up on AO3 they only got less than 10 kudos or something? You will eventually write something that a lot of people may love, but it can take a while. I think… well I’ll give you an example with the Star Wars fandom– I first wrote TFA & Kylux on AO3 before The Force Awakens had even come out, so obviously I didn’t get a lot of attention. When the movie came out, there was few fanfics but I was already there so a lot of people would read my fics (dunno if they liked them, but since they were some of the ONLY ones that existed they didn’t have much choice ;P). If you’re writing fics in a growing fandom you might be more likely get more attention later on your fics, if only because there’s few choices. Some of my fics still have barely any kudos, but I have nearly 60 fics and they’re gonna be a hit or a miss (& they eventually gather more kudos overtime, so even the worst fics have at least a few). With Jarchie, I was actually surprised I got as many as I did, but this fandom’s in the process of growing and I assume a lot of people are reading all the new fics?? It’s probably good for you actually, to right now put a fic when people are reading it and into it.
6. It gets easier. Man, I ain’t even kidding, the first time I was putting up a fic I was freaking out like mad, going back and forth between the tag, mouse hovering over the publish button, re-reading a billion and ten times. It was ~kinda~ easier in a fandom where nobody was reading the fics because you definitely don’t expect much, but there were a couple of people who definitely enjoyed the series I was writing once I’d put some stuff up. And as time went on, it got much more easier. There’s a huge gap of time I didn’t put any fics up and it was hard to update again, but now that I did it, it’s once again easier to do it. I still have internal battles with myself over it, but it’s quicker to get over it and much easier to win.
7. I forgot a note so I’m just gonna add it quickly. But if you’re really weird about it, you can first send it to a friend to look over, or a mutual or something. Or, since I myself never could do that, just tell someone about the idea– and I suggest telling someone you know won’t make a negative comment about it. Sometimes a “that sounds interesting” or “that sounds cool” can be even a little helpful. If you’re lucky, might even go a long way.
Honestly, my mind goes through a whole lot of panic, and sometimes it just takes a good mental day, and some excitement about the concept of my fic, to be able to be brave enough to finally put something up. I usually have low expectations when I share it (being a pessimistic person by nature, so as not to disappoint myself), but I’m like… somebody’s gonna like it at some point, it’s not the worst fic I’ve ever seen, it’ll be okay. And if a fic doesn’t do well, then you just need to put it behind and move on (repress memories haha). Leave it up, don’t take it down, somebody may eventually come across it and love it, but there’s no harm done having fics that don’t do well. It might just be that it’s not gonna appeal to most people, and that’s okay.
At the end of the day your fic’s gonna be okay. There’s a bunch of amazing, unique, horrendously weird, terrible, awful fics out there and the last thing you need to feel is awkward. I know this ended up being a monster of an essay but I hope it’s helped, even a little.
tl;dr? No need to feel awkward, sit yo ass down and just fuckin’ do it. Shit’s crazy.
#Anonymous#writing help#feel free to add things#or tell me if it's helped#or just ask me some more questions im willing to answer!#about any writing stuff. Like. I double majored in also writing/literature and have been writing fanfics a while#and seriously guys I love to help i won't bite#I mean this post itself i was freaking over but im having an okay mental day#and the fact somebody's asked me a question I'm just like !!!!#ask
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I feel raw.
(I also feel kinda sick, so I either am Having Emotions because im getting sick, or I’m Having So Many Emotions that i feel sick so that’s uhhh... annoying)
But old ass stuff has been coming for me lately and it’s a pain in the ass??
Like I read a twitter thread about stalking the other day and jesus christ it shot me right back. I hadn’t really thought about that being stalked had felt like in a long time and it’s so fucking gross. I remember being powerless and terrified and I felt for the woman talking about her experiences, I really fucking did.
But that’s some old ass shit!!! I haven’t been fully bothered by my old stalker in like 4 years, those experiences are things that I’ve processed and aren’t part of my life anymore. Like... I don’t... need to worry about this..??? WHy must I have emotions about it?? Now???
And like... christ
Last night i was tag ranting because I always post on mobile and this site is a joke and i cant do stuff beneath a cut like this on mobile. And I... I worked through it all a little by ranting that way but I NEED to express why last night was so upsetting, but even verbalizing it is super draining and the idea of talking to someone else feels like a burden and I don’t want to put that on the people that I want to talk to... And ugh. Okay, let’s do this.
Last night.
I signed up for a risograph printing class.
I was excited.
I waited and splurged on it and I really want to learn riso.
Classes like that are socially scary for me, because new place, new people, new things, but I wanted to do it, so I went out on the limb. This is also something that a younger, less healthy, me would have AGONIZED about before hand, but the me of today didn’t waste time worrying about ahead of time, because that’s not productive or useful.
So, I go to the class.
The teacher seems nice.
My classmates seem okay. 3 out of the 5 of us already knew each other, so that makes stuff a little awkward for the other two of us, but whatever.
I’m making small talk. Again, this is something that a younger me never would have dreamed of. Being brave enough to make small talk with strangers and to start conversations myself is leaps and bounds past the stuff I would have been able to do even a few years ago.
So, the teacher goes over the basics. I’m excited. Nervous, because my work hasn’t been super inclined to sitting down and shooting from the hip lately, but fine.
I start working.
I get excited about my project.
It’s different than what everyone else is doing, but I think I can make it work, and it seems like a fun thing to make. I’d rather try and fail to do something I find interesting and care about than just bullshit around and make art I don’t give a shit about because it’s easy.
Cool, okay.
So, I’m drawing and prepping longer than my classmates. My classmates were all getting up and starting to print while i was still drawing. That’s okay. I have two hours of class left, I can make this work.
I prep my different colored masters.
I go up to the riso for the teacher to help guide me through my first print. I’m the last to start.
(also note all 5 of us are sharing one riso, so we’re all taking turns, and other people are inclined to wait around up close by the machine for their turns-- something that is socially kind of a nightmare for me because uhhh I don’t want to be rude and people waiting like that makes me inclined to rush and make hurried choices.)
I grab a stack of paper to print on. I notice, once the teacher has already loaded it in, that the paper is cut and stacked a little crooked, which seems like it could be bad. It’s kinda too late, printing is already happening. I figure, “okay, whatever. It’ll be okay. I don’t mind the colors being misaligned.”
Also, note, I thought I was playing it cool that I was a little nervous and anxious. I was apologetic and stuff, but not anything that out of the ordinary for a new student. But that teacher, bless her heart, was astute as FUCK and in the worst possible way. She kept comfortingly being like “it’s okay” but in a way that showed me that she clearly saw me as shaky and uneasy, even when I was keeping it together pretty well. Or I thought I was keeping it together. So that’s not a Great sign. I don’t love my weakness being visible when I wasn’t trying to be vulnerable.
I finish printing color #1.
I go back to work on the next level color master. I’m hurrying a little now, the end of class is getting nearer.
Eventually I go up to print this level and the teacher rejects it. It’s the alignment is off. Shit. I wasted all that time and have to start over.
I go back and make another, the end of class is getting TOO close. We have like 30 min. The professor is both hovering a little and avoiding me, clearly worried that I won’t finish. I am RUSHING. I decide to ditch doing a third color. This next level is going to be mediocre and weird, but it’ll be okay. I’m stressing about the time wasted on the ditched layer.
I’m waiting to use the riso with the others. She gets me in between people because I’m so far behind. Which, while nice, puts me on the spot again and doesn’t feel great because I’m clearly the artistic runt of this liter. Which would be fine if it wasn’t being broadcast to everyone else and I wasn’t getting special pity treatment.
We do a test proof. It’s bad. The alignement is awful. But everyone is standing around me and clearly wants to get more of their own prints in and I”m behind and being a pain and clearly getting special pity treatment, I don’t want more special pity treatment or to take more time from my classmates, so even though it’s AWFUL I say to just go ahead and print.
The teacher asks if I’m sure. Her face is full of sympathy and pity and she’s watching me like I’m a wounded animal. She sees the fragility that I’m trying to hide and I hate it. I know that part of anxiety is always over reading what other people are thinking and feeling but I could SEE it on her and that’s what really fucked me up about last night. It wasn’t just my brain, so I couldn’t just write it off as my brain. This woman was seeing things that I didn’t want her to see, and instead of politely ignoring them for my pride, she was treating me like a fragile thing.
I say yes to printing because if this moment lasts any longer i”m going to have an anxiety attack.
I go ahead and print and the prints start coming out and look unsurprisingly awful. She knows this. I know this. The others looking on, sympathetically, know this.
She gives me a pity compliment. “Oh, it looks kind of cool like this. This is one of the cool things about printing--”
All artists have done this. We’ve all tried to be gentle with someone who’s work is a mess and is falling apart and looks terrible but we don’t want to be mean or hurt them so we dig for pity compliments. Pity compliments, while well intentioned are the devil. That makes me feel a thousand times worse than if she’d said “Well, it’s off, but this is your first time. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
I’d rather admit defeat and learn from it than someone pretend something awful is good to protect my ego.
And to make all this worse, the printer starts messing up. It’s grabbing more pages than it should, and misprinting already misaligned pages. She gets me to feed them back through. It does it again. She has me do it again. This is awful. What was already embarrassing and terrible is being prolonged, and each time I get more panicked, which only makes this worse.
One or two of my classmates join in on the pity compliments. I want to die. I thank them, grab my prints, and bolt.
The teacher stops me, “Are you sure you don’t want to do a third color?”
It’s 10 till the end of class and other people who are WAY ahead of me and clearly want to do their own prints. I say no.
I don’t want to take more time from other people. The piece is already ruined. She gives me a pitying look. She’s sympathetic.
Others start printing. Good. Good.
I went and hid in the bathroom for a minute to take a breath and cut down on social stimulation. I’m trying not to cry. I promise myself I will make it to my car before I cry. I wash my hands and fix my hair and pretend I’m okay.
I made it to my car.
But, okay. I know that, in the scheme of things, that this night was nothing. It was a little mess up that shouldn’t matter. But it hit a nerve.
What is the nerve?
Treating me like a weak, fragile thing.
I’ve been that weak, fragile person that she saw. But I thought that I wasn’t that anymore. I thought that I knew that I’m not.
I have come so. far.
But that didn’t matter. How much better I am now didn’t matter at all.
Me as I am now, to her, was the same as the weaker, more fragile person that I once was. She didn’t see the trembling, or the stuttering, or the sweating that I would have been doing 4, 6, or 10 years ago. She didn’t notice that I tried to make small talk with her to alleviate the awkwardness of last night, and didn’t see how much better that was than the lip biting silence and shuffling that I would have been doing a few years ago.
My strong was her weak.
And she fucking saw me.
That’s the worst part of all this.
If she hadn’t noticed, that would have been totally fine and perfect. Or if I had been reading too much onto her, I could have gone home and been like “nah, that was on me.”
No.
She saw my anxiety and fear and reacted the WORST possible way that someone could react to me and it made me want to disappear.
I would have taken her pretending not to notice. I would have taken her actually not noticing. Hell, I would have taken her being rude or openly hostile and cruel. But pity. JESUS CHRIST, pity. Pity means that she doesn’t think I’m strong enough to handle being treated normally, and that makes me want to vomit. She saw me, and she saw weakness, she saw fragility.
I can scream all I want about how strong and solid I am now, but that doesn’t matter a fucking inch because what she saw is so telling.
Regardless of what I think I am, what other people see when they looks at me shows what the world sees. What those not measuring by growth see.
And I... I know I have weak moments. I know that I have moments of fragility or open anxiousness or being obviously sensitive.
But this moment was barely on that scale. I was doing pretty well for me. I thought that I was doing okay.
But she clearly didn’t think so.
So that’s uhhhh awful.
And seriously, she was super nice. I’m not upset with her. I’m just upset, and upset with myself.
Nothing has changed, I’ll keep trying new things and pushing and trying to be brave. But this hurt. This hurt a lot.
I was really knocked down a peg. Didn’t realize that I needed to be knocked down but uuuh apparently I did.
So
I’m okay.
I’m just sore.
But I’m okay.
(Or I will be.)
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i’m so tired and nervous and my body won’t stop vibrating with anxiety bc of my first job interview on sunday and i’m just super tried but i don’t know how to act, what to wear etc.
oh man, i know the feel. try and look after yourself as best you can given the circumstances for me, yeah?
about the job interview: they’re shit for autistic people. i’ve been to easily over 20, and i’m god awful at them. it’s basically all of the awkward uncomfy pointless social things in one- the eye contact, forced face expressions, forced ‘open’ body language, and fucking handshakes. i’ve watched so many youtube videos on job interviews to try and learn how people act in them, but its just???? painful and uncomfy?????? i think of it as being an actor, and that helps a lil, but not really. fact of the matter is, they’re horrible. the best advice i think i can give on that front is watch videos of how nts/allistics do them, ask people around you and even see if a friend or family member would be okay to sit down and act it out with you. whenever im in a new situation i feel like i need to know everything i can, so i also make sure i have all of the public transport n shit sorted out. someone on here actually messaged me with the tip that looking at where you’re going on google streetview helps, and it absolutely has been helping for me ! sometimes if its a big company, someone may have posted questions from their interview or a general guide to how the company structures their interviews.
for clothes: if erring, go for over- rather than under-dressed. but, and im speaking from experience here, make sure its something you’re comfy in. every single other aspect of the interview process is gonna be awful and uncomfy, so work with this. there are few things worse that trying to hold eye contact but being painfully aware of how the tag on your pants is rubbing against your back and its yieks. i tend to go with wide/culotte pants, brogues or decent flat shoes, and a button up (i get these things from dangerfield bc theyre cute and also nice not-scratchy fabrics)
and keep in mind that most jobs have tens, if not hundreds of applicants, and the interview process is shitty and biased and subjective. you’ve done amazing to get to this point. i know that i only got my two jobs (and my first job) based on sheer luck, and the fact that the companies desperately needed multiple people in a short timeframe. plus, there’s the added factor of the entire process being based on a neurotypical presentation; when you hear what interviewers want, things like eye contact, clear speech and confident, open body language are all up the top of their lists. you’re fighting a system that isn’t built for you to properly showcase your strengths, and you’re mighty fucking brave for putting yourself out there. you go, you courageous human you !!!!!
whatever happens, plan something positive to do after. whether that be getting something you like to eat, or setting aside the time to be alone, stim, and watch mindless crap on youtube as a reset. whatever works. just, don’t beat yourself up over the outcome, or how the experience itself goes. you got this, and the outcome doesn’t determine your value as a human
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