#there are only a handful (like. maybe 3) bands whose tour i would even think about considering. ya know. pan-fucking-demic.
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If someone could fucking slap me that'd be great
#hashtag first world probs or whatever i know i know#i keep crying about green day 🙄🙄🙄#this is like 5+ times recently beginning with the announcement of Saviors and the tour#then i cried listening to a track#then i cried because i looked at the tour and saw they were gonna be with one of my partner's fave bands#and then that two stops were less than 6 hours from me and one of those they would be with smashing pumpkins (partner fave but i also like)#now crying because of an additional single dropping before the release day#but I've also cried at least twice i think because i won't be seeing them#I've waited so fucking long for them to go on tour again with new music#there are only a handful (like. maybe 3) bands whose tour i would even think about considering. ya know. pan-fucking-demic.#and I'm ngl. if i could afford to go i would be incredibly tempted and might actually do it (masked and boosted)#I've only seen one live performance in my life afaik (cage the elephant and silversun pickups and some band i hated)#and green day is one of my all time faves and one of about 5 that I've really wanted to see live#i know this is stupid omg i know#it's just that my disappointment is tied up with covid emotions too and how much we were all failed by the push to go back to normal etc etc#i see so many people acting like the pandemic has been over and i want to scream#you think we (people who actually take it seriously) DON'T want to be able to enjoy life again? but we fucking can't#because of government failing and selfish assholes who can't be bothered to mask up and get vaccinated etc#I'm so tired of this
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.𖥔 ݁ ˖ WAS I SUCH A FOOL? — NANAMI KENTO
summary . . . two years after breaking up with nanami kento, he shows up at your concert
contents . . . 70s rock band, NSFW 18+, fem!reader, brief discussion of drug and alcohol addiction, exes, singer!reader x drummer!nanami, rival bands, secret relationships, infidelity, reader is in a relationship with toji, smut, piv, creampie, “angry” sex, angst, complicated relationships — 7.5k
notes . . . inspired by many things, including silver springs by fleetwood mac, daisy jones & the six and nana <3 so if you like any of those things and kento, this is for you!
It was the final stretch of your tour.
A finale that led to the conclusion of months spent in nothing but a cloud, one where you lingered only on the outskirts of your memory. Hazy traces of drawn-out celebrations, sweaty sex in the bathrooms during a house party, camera flashes from paparazzi—they were the only glimpses that you got from the weeks that had gone by, images that weren’t quite cohesive.
There had been days where you didn’t quite remember your name, stumbled over the recollections of the night before, the weeks before, but you didn’t mind so much. It would all be fine, as long as you never forgot your lyrics up on the stage, where millions of eyes watched your every move carefully, would judge you for even the most minor slip-up.
You could forgive yourself for almost anything, but you’d rather die than embarrass yourself in front of them, your fans, the only ones whose love you had left.
The list of people you’d disappointed in your life couldn’t be condensed; even those who spared their affection like it was a necessity held some shred of bitterness towards you. They couldn’t be blamed, really. Not when your life was one to scorn, and you were a dying star, burning bright and burning fast.
Still, you couldn’t think of a better way to live life. The warmth of drugs and alcohol and the music spared you from surviving every day in misery.
Of course, singing seemed to do the trick better than anything. It was more of a high than anything else had ever been, and the way you felt on stage was close to the same sort of love you’d felt two years ago. The adoration of fans was innocent enough to fill the void in your gaping heart.
You clasped your hand around the microphone, closing your eyes as you leaned forward, sultrily singing the rhythm before you would come to the crescendo at the end of your song.
Years of work had led up to this—the grandeur of singing to a venue filled to the brim with fans, each of them knowing the words to your creation. Every crack in the audience was taken by a body, one rank with sweat, contributing to the thick air, cloaked in smoke. A crowd of people that seemed undesirable, and yet, they tolerated the smell, the feeling of a stranger pressed up against their backside, just for a few moments of seeing their favorite album played live.
They were here for all of you. A band that was never supposed to make it this far, and yet, held the number one single in the country, a few gold records, and covers on magazines that some could only dream of being in.
Yet, with your ego the size of the sun, and the dreamy haze that you put yourself in, you couldn’t help but feel like the crowd was always rooting for you. Hearts formed in their eyes as they watched you sway behind the microphone, and it brought a smile to your lips, one that always came with the rush of performing.
The words you wrote took you elsewhere, transported you to a place where you could truly spill your soul out, your ink on the page as permanent as the mark you’d leave on the world. You were important, weren’t you? Maybe not in the way you wanted to be, but still in a way that mattered.
The bass played steadily behind you, strumming, deepening, sinking into your veins. Although you focused, it was easy to forget yourself and where you were. The lines and the chords were too familiar from all your late night practices, from the cigarettes you’d shared in bed with Toji Fushiguro, who played the bass like he bled honey.
The lyrics you’d penned from your very own hand, sang deeply from your diaphragm, always led to a flash of memories in your mind like a film screen, each word punctuating another moment in your life that had pushed you into a mess of a woman.
Toji’s name might have been next to yours on the songwriting credits, but this song, the one you belted, belonged to you and you alone. It put you on display, stripped you bare; if anyone really bothered to search deep enough, they’d see you for what you were.
They’d see that, contrary to the opinion of the public, these songs were not about Toji at all.
A tear dripped off your lashes, and you clenched your jaw, refusing to let sadness overpower the anger that you should’ve felt towards the man you’d left behind. For months, you’d blamed yourself—but it had taken two to weave the web of hurt that still ensnared you.
Shaking off the despair, you stared out into the crowd, digging deep into your lungs for the breath that would sustain the powerful note, the punctuation of your song, the climax of the pain and fury you’d never get rid of. The lingering emotion that had you questioning if you’d been the one to ruin the best thing you’d ever had, or if, perhaps, you’d just been bad for each other all along.
You traced your gaze through the faces, soaking in the love in their expressions, the praise that came with their reactions to your lyrics. How that sort of love didn’t make you feel whole, but it certainly put you back together in a way that made you believe you weren’t so broken anymore either.
Then—the world stuttered, momentarily, halting to a screech as brown eyes, just as steadfast and tender as you remembered, stared over dark glasses.
You fell behind in the song, just a note, a pause that lasted less than a second. Your lips turned dry as your heart fell down to the floor, dropping into your stomach, twisting your insides. You almost convinced yourself it was an illusion, until he blinked, shifting, though not uncomfortably, disguised just enough so that no one else in the crowd knew who he was but you.
Nanami Kento, there, right before your very eyes. It was the first time you’d seen him in person since you’d split up two years ago—a breakup that would’ve made the headlines for weeks, if anyone had known about it.
You squeezed the microphone harder, the sound in your voice dripping with emotion, raw and raspy, but in a way that was beautiful. You’d never sang like this before, but the muse of your song, the man you always wrote about, stood before you.
Kento didn’t look much different—but you wouldn’t have noticed the changes anyways. You saw him in the papers constantly, unable to avoid him as much as you were certain he was unable to avoid you.
You sang the few notes of the song; Toji brought you to a crescendo, and your voice nearly cracked from rage, the breath ripped from your lungs as Kento dared to watch you with pity at the mess you’d made of yourself. After all this time, you couldn’t stand to see that sort of compassion on his face.
The lights suddenly seemed too bright, the crowd too wild, Kento’s eyes too deep and sad and unreflective of those around him.
One of your other bandmates closed out your evening, and though the crowd demanded an encore, you refused to get back on the stage, couldn’t do it even if you tried. The contents of your stomach emptied out right as you stepped out of their sight.
“Shit!” one of the stagehands shouted, jumping out of your way as you heaved again, wiping your eyes. There was another round of cursing, and sure, they were used to stars indulging too much in things they shouldn’t, but that wasn’t the only reason for you vomiting all over the floor.
“Hey, hey,” a voice said, calming and steady as a hand traced up your spine, rubbing soothing circles. “Everything okay, baby? Need some water?” Toji was concerned, deep eyes scanning your face for any signs of weakness.
You shook him off, and Toji whispered to another one of the men over his shoulder, telling them to close the final curtain. Even though you wanted to protest, you wiped your mouth, and accepted the water that a dark-haired woman had rushed to you.
“I’m fine, Toji,” you said, breathing heavily, wondering if there was any ounce of truth to your words. Nanami’s appearance had been the last thing you’d expected, and you didn’t want anyone to notice, out of the fear that someone would start digging into your past with him.
You could only hope that your shared glimpse had gone unnoticed, a plethora of emotions spelled out there, ones that you’d been horrible at hiding.
Toji directed the stagehands around, dragging your manager over, even as their conversation fell on your lifeless ears. Everything sounded like static, and you didn’t want to speak, sweaty and hot, a panic rising up in you.
“I’m going to the dressing room,” you said, needing to get away from the shouting, the wave of anxiety that was arising. It was quickly becoming too much; even Toji’s presence was too much. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”
“You want me to stay with you?” Toji asked, his eyes flashing with an emotion you couldn’t discern, perhaps possessiveness, perhaps something else. He’d always been more jealous than you would’ve liked, but his presence was a comfort from time to time.
Not now, though.
Shaking your head, you drew away from him, Toji’s large palm falling off the small of your back. “I’m fine, really.” Nothing you said could’ve convinced him completely, and you didn’t bother. Instead, you left the stage without listening to the rest of his protests, climbing down the stairs and disappearing out of view.
Surprisingly, he let you go. After nearly four years of sharing a band, it seemed Toji Fushiguro was starting to understand you.
The truth was, with your shaky hands and the rampant nervousness that seemed to heighten only after a show, you knew you needed something. Toji had forced you to flush everything that you’d kept locked up, but you always kept a back-up, just in case, for times where the music wasn’t enough.
You went to the dressing room, hands shaking at your sides as you tried to regain some control of your breathing, rid the rancid taste from your mouth. There was still a box of cigarettes in your pocket, and you lit one, the smoke easing some of the emotions that spun wild circles in your chest.
As you returned backstage, your bodyguard, Itadori, a young man that you’d hired on the spot, smiled softly, falling away from the door to the dressing room. There had been too many close calls, too many incidents in recent years that you didn’t want a repeat of. Ever since you’d gotten enough money to hire proper security, you’d put it in Itadori’s pocket.
“Anyone try to sneak back here?” you asked; you’d heard horror stories of fans trying to steal items, even trash, things like used tissues with snot dripping off it. It’d been a nightmare of yours since you first started going on tour.
Itadori shook his head, and let you in, released you into a room that wasn’t quite silent, but was better, worlds better, than the blaze of music that had followed you off the stage, bursting your eardrums. Sometimes, you forgot how loud it truly was out there. The ring in your ears and the deafening quiet were the sole reminders of the difference in sound after the shows.
You smoked to the end of the cigarette, filling the room with a cloud as you calmed yourself, rummaging through your bag for the spare bottle of pills that you’d hidden away from Toji. For emergencies only, you’d promised yourself.
And, well, this was certainly one of those times.
Without any water, you swallowed it, feeling a lump in your throat before it slid down, dissolving into your stomach. You’d wait for it to take effect before you left, called a car. Perhaps, you’d be able to forget this evening had ever happened. You’d go back into the studio in a couple weeks, start on your next album, and this would all just be a dream. Surely, you convince yourself of that.
There were just a few weeks left in the year anyways. You’d be able to put it all behind you, and maybe, you’d be a new person in the new year. A stupid idea, but a hopeful one, and one that would propel you through the holidays, the end of the tour, and the rest of your life.
A sound on the other side of the door caught your attention, a conversation taking place that you hadn’t heard at first. Hushed voices, under frustrated breaths. For a moment, you couldn’t register that it was Kento’s words that were rushing through the cracks in the plaster, the wood-paneled door, but it shouldn’t have come as any surprise to you.
He’d been the one to seek you out. Why would he come all this way just to watch you play, without so much as a conversation? You’d been a fool to think otherwise, that you could escape the grasp that the blonde man always seemed to have around you.
“Please, Itadori. I know you remember me. Don’t treat me like a stranger.” Kento sighed heavily, the irritation leaking into his voice as he lowered the tone. “Just let me talk to her.”
“You can’t be back here,” Yuuji answered, but the hesitation in his tone had you wondering if he was contemplating the opposite.
After all, Yuuji had been the only one to know about you and Kento; it was hard to keep it a secret from someone who was around you almost always. It was why you trusted him so sincerely. He’d never spilled the truth to anyone, even when he could’ve made thousands with a story like that.
“I just need to see her.” Desperate, almost. The strain of the syllabus tugged at your chest, and though you willed him away, the other part of you, still rancid with sentimental emotions for your ex-lover, begged him to keep pushing. To stand out there until you couldn’t hide any longer.
“I’m sorry, Nanami. I am, but you’re not authorized. I don’t want to let you in without her permission, and she hasn’t given me that.”
Kento took a long breath, and didn’t say anything for a moment. His voice went even quieter, and you pressed your ear against the door, straining to hear it. Even the slight inflections of the sighs in his chest had something unfurling within your stomach, comforting and familiar. “Fine.” A shuffling, closer to the door, his shoes against the wood, before his words were nearer to your ear. “I’m sure she’s in there listening to every word anyways. Running as usual.”
There was no response from Itadori. You could hear the self-satisfaction in Kento’s voice, and he could probably see your shadow under the door, sense you just inches away, somehow.
You exhaled, and snuffed out the cigarette. Then, you threw the door open.
Even knowing he’d be there, the sight of Kento still caught you off-guard, but this time, you anticipated it, and remained composed. He stood with his arms crossed, the corners of his lips pulling up smugly, like he’d know that snide remark would be enough, because he’d always known you better than anyone.
“What the fuck do you want?” you said, narrowing your eyes, darting them all over his face. Still as handsome as you remembered. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”
“You should fire your security team,” Kento said simply, pushing past Yuuji to barge his way into the dressing room. With judgmental brown eyes, he glanced around it, even though you were certain he’d played at this venue before, knew exactly what secrets hid in this room. “They accepted my bribe way too quickly.”
You stared at him, slammed the door behind you, hopeful that the sounds of the crowd that still rampaged would be enough to drown out your conversation. “Right.” A bitter laugh escaped you, the door rattling on its hinges. “You must feel pretty proud of yourself right now.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” Kento’s eyebrows raised, and finally, he stopped perusing the room, crossing his arms over his chest to stare at you. “I know we haven’t seen each other in a while, but I haven’t changed much.”
What he meant was that he was still an honest man, despite the backwards practices and corruption of the world the two of you lived in. Nanami Kento was a specimen in the scene of music, someone a bit too perfect, seemingly too straight-laced, serious almost to a fault in front of a crowd. He lost himself in the songs, just as you did, but he held himself with some sort of dignity.
Maybe, for that reason, it never made sense for you to be together, anyways. Not when you were an endearing mess, and he was the leader of your band’s closest competition. The group that Toji hated almost as much as the family he’d run away from.
It should’ve been obvious that the two of you were doomed from the start.
“You can’t just show up, Kento, and demand a conversation. I haven’t talked to you in two years for a reason. Do you really think I want to see you?”
“I don’t know.” His eyes narrowed, matching your anger. “You let me in, didn’t you?”
“Because you’re pissing me off, and you’re a stubborn asshole who won’t leave until you get what you want.” Stalking towards him, you poked your finger in the middle of his chest, the touch doing nothing to move him, so strong and statuesque. “Jesus. Nanami fucking Kento, bribing security members, just to talk to me.” You laughed bitterly, a snort leaving you. “After two years, you really must be desperate.”
There wasn’t any sincerity, and the laugh he returned was hard and mirthless. “I see time has made you kinder.”
“Fuck off.” You were dangerously close to him, your hand splaying across his broad chest, the scent of him as familiar as ever, his mouth so near your own. It was infuriating how comfortable this felt, how you could slip back into time with him in a way you’d never been able to with Toji. “I never wanted to see you again. Don’t come back to ruin my life. I don’t deserve that.”
You shoved at him again, and again he didn’t move, his frame hard beneath your palm.
Kento grabbed your wrist as you tried to pull away, his already deep irises darkening. “Funny. That’s funny.” He searched you for something, and he was sure to find it, even as you schooled your expression into something neutral. It was too hard to hide from him—that’s why you’d run in the first place. “I remember being the one that was left with no explanation. I wanted to marry you, but you disappeared without even a word. Did I deserve that?”
Though his words didn’t crack, they came close to breaking at the end of the sentence. The silence was sharp, deadly, almost as if you could reach out and touch it. But you didn’t. Kento’s soul-searching gaze dissuaded you from any movement.
“That’s what you think?” You shook your head, yanking your wrist free as you took a step back. Laughter bubbled out of you, and the anger made it sound crazed, like something that wasn’t quite your own. “You think it was my fault.”
“Wasn’t it?”
You scoffed once more. “Please. You never would’ve married me. All our time and work would’ve been wasted. Your band means everything to you, and I refused to let either of us drown for something as stupid as love.”
A beat passed as Kento faltered, conflict twisting his expression before the frustration pulled back, tied up with a fiery bow. “Stupid?” He was cornering you, crowding you to the side of the room. You hadn’t registered your feet moving, but in just a few, quick steps, your back had hit the wall with a thump, his breath fanning across your nose. “That’s what you thought it was? Just a waste of time?”
“Maybe.” you spat, raising your voice, pushing at his shoulders. “Maybe I just wanted someone better than you.”
“Well, then, I hope you’ve fucking found it,” Kento’s hands shook at his sides, his eyes twitching with anger. “I hope you’re happy.”
“I am.”
“Good.” Heavy breaths left him. Somehow, he seemed relieved, as if he thought you’d be the one still holding on, when it was him that had shown up unannounced, staring at you with stars in his eyes. “That’s good. You can hate me all you want, but I want you to be happy. I want you to move on.”
“God, Kento,” you said, rolling your eyes. “It’s been two years—”
“I’m getting married.”
The remark slammed against you, the guarded expression dropping from your face to reveal one of utter bewilderment. For a moment, fleeting as it was, you had no protection against Nanami Kento, who caught it smoothly, the stricken glaze of your eyes, the way your lips had parted without any words to dispel.
Semi-satisfaction reflected in his own, finally stripping you bare, allowing him to see the truth for what it was—and it was a truth you weren’t sure you’d even accepted yourself.
“You’re right,” you finally said, and though only a second had passed before you schooled your features back into an impassive position, a second was too long for a man who knew you so sincerely. “I don’t care, Nanami.”
Kento blinked.
Gaining the upper hand, you tried to skirt around him, cowering away from his knowing glare, but you couldn’t go anywhere. Kento pinned his hands to the wall beside your head, looking at you through his lower lashes, as if he’d known you would try to escape him.
Heat bounced between your bodies, the space boiling, passion and rage and a hundred scarlet emotions twisting up in the air you exhaled. Would Toji have been able to read the conflict that manifested between your brows, the way your irises had changed colors, fading into a gradient of listless melancholy?
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that.” Kento said, harsh, cruel, but nothing less than the truth.
“Is that so?” Your face was forced dangerously close to his own once more, inches between you. “You wanted a different reaction?” A glimpse in his guarded features, and you wondered how anyone could say Nanami was stoic man, when he wore a thousand different emotions on his sleeve. “I’m sorry you deluded yourself into thinking I’d still be in love with you.”
“Right.” Kento’s nose brushed against your own, his eyes so dark. Still, there were flecks of gold visible, just barely, only when you were this close. “All those songs on the radio, all those lyrics you’re getting paid millions for… Those aren’t about me?” he demanded, shaking his head, his expression pinched. “You think I’m an idiot? I know. I know, and you can pretend all you want, but you can’t pretend like you’re not the one who fucked it all up.”
You scowled, but neither of you moved. “Get out of here, Kento.”
“No,” he said, breathing heavily, the movement of his tongue over his lip short-circuiting your competence. “Tell me why.”
“Get out,” you said through gritted teeth.
His face was more severe than you’d ever seen it before, cheekbones sharper from his pinched jaw. “No,” he repeated, glowering down at you, speaking slower, punctuating his words. “Tell me why.”
“I—” but you couldn’t think straight with his mouth that close to yours, his eyes penetrating your soul, so angry, but not without their usual sweetness. No one had ever loved you the way Nanami had, and you were a fool, but he deserved better than you. He deserved the love he’d wanted, to not settle for someone who wanted fame more than she wanted him. “I hate you.”
“Funny how, even now, hate still feels a lot like love.”
You blinked up at him, your expression twitching, lips parting with more poisonous words, fingers shaking with the need to slap him away. Yet, when you moved, planning to push him out of your orbit, Kento moved quicker; the strategy sketched in your mind didn’t quite match the one enacted by your hands.
“You’re so naive, Kento.”
His lips were on your own, and you melted instantly, tugging him hard by the lapels in a bruising kiss. It tasted like a familiarity that couldn’t be replicated, tainted by the heavy heat that soaked into you.
Kento’s hands wrapped around your waist, jerking you forward, fingers easily finding the space between your hipbones, tracing them with a tenderness that was equally filled of devastating need. He tasted strongly of alcohol, like he’d drowned in it hours before, if only to fill himself with the bravery he’d need to speak with you after so long.
And you were equally a coward; walking naked into a crowd would be easy compared to the feeling of vulnerability that came from Kento’s sweet mouth on your skin. The way he shoved you further into the wall, fingers brushing along your waist, hateful and loving all at once.
“Stop, Kento,” you said, but it was weak to your own ears, not an ounce of honesty there. His mouth flitted across your neck, warm and tender, and it was different. It was nothing like Toji, who cared about you, maybe even loved you, but had never understood you.
Not like Kento did.
“Say it with a little more conviction.” Kento kissed beneath your jaw, hopefully with enough sense not to leave any marks there. “Tell me you want me to leave. That you never wanted to marry me.”
“I do,” you insisted, but it was breathless, your eyes fluttering closed as his hand drifted up your stomach. “I didn’t.” Kento’s palm was warm, burning a hole though the thin material of your top. Before you could protest further, his fingers traced across your breast, thumb dragging across your nipple.
You shivered, but made no move to push his hand back down.
“Convincing.” Kento smiled. His eyes were melted chocolate, the sort of unmatched comfort you’d never again receive. “Tell me you never loved me.”
A burning itch started in your nose, foreboding the wave of emotions that would succumb you. You sorted through the hostile regret, forcing yourself not to feel such nostalgia from his embrace.
Things were better now, weren’t they? You never would’ve made it as a star, had you not escaped the desperate hold of your love for the blonde drummer.
“It’d be a lie. I loved you once.”
“But not anymore?”
You didn’t let him get much further than that, kissing him without thinking—needing to stop thinking, before you spiraled into the endless cycle of wondering why you’d ever left him at all. The feelings were never-ending, latching on and holding tight, reminding you at inopportune moments of all the mistakes you’d made: him, the worst of all.
Kento groaned into your mouth as you parted his lips, remembering what he tasted like. His hair was longer now, thick between your fingers, bangs falling in straighter strands over his forehead. Had there ever been a place where you felt safer, than when his arms were warm and secured around your waist?
“You didn’t answer my question,” Kento panted into your mouth, his cheeks flushed, skin warmed from the way that your hands roamed all over his chest.
“No more talking.” You pushed him backwards towards the sofa, this one a deep, velvety green, a contrast to the orange hues of the rest of the room. “I’m tired of talking.”
Kento seemed like he wanted to protest, but his anger had melted, and his eyes were soaked in lust, pupils blown wide. Objections about how you never talked, always beat around the bush, erupted, then died. For once, he relented. “Fine.” Kento’s voice had deepened, the irritation coated by whatever semblance of affection he still held for you. “If that’s what you want.”
You tugged at his belt buckle, wishing you could move faster, even as Kento undid the ties that held your loose top together. It fell off your shoulders, and you finally ripped the belt from the loops, unzipping the tight slacks that had paired well with his worn jacket.
His skin was hot beneath the garments, and Kento’s muscles were even more defined from all his years of playing the drums. He’d kept himself healthy as the time had passed, never indulging in anything as often as his bandmates.
You felt sick with need for him, confused as you sorted through how much of your aching chest was love, and how much was a desire that you could’ve felt for anyone.
“Fuck,” Kento muttered against your mouth as you slipped a hand under his shirt, feeling your way across his abdomen. “It’s been so fucking long.”
He was so perfect. How could you ever have forgotten? Not even the magazines with their fancy cameras could do him justice. Kento was a work of art, a masterful creation, and you were jealous of anyone else who had gotten close enough to see it.
“I—” you opened your mouth to say you missed him, or maybe something else, but you bit it back down, not wishing to showcase yourself so openly. Instead, you pulled at the hem of his shirt, frustrated when it wouldn’t come off.
Kento’s knees hit the back of the sofa, and he fell, pulling you onto his lap, gazing up at you with an affection you didn’t deserve. His fingers covered your own, and he helped you jerk the tight shirt off his chest, the material doing little to cover his marbled figure.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he said into your ear, low and husky, his hands slipping down your jeans, shifting you up to ease the material off your thighs. “The whole word knows it; you’re an angel on the covers of all those magazines. Can’t stand it when Satoru and Suguru talk about you,” he grumbled against your mouth, throwing your jeans to the ground as you wiggled out of them.
You laughed, wondering why it was always so easy with Kento, to smile, to shift your palpable anger into something less fragile.
“Yeah?” you muttered against his mouth, his fingers dipping into the waistband of your panties, so cold against your bare skin. “I bet you go home and jerk off to the covers of me, don’t you, Kento?”
Kento grinned against your lips as you traced your fingers against his jaw, somewhat tenderly, and with a possessiveness you’d always struggled to reign in. The bulge in his pants was more than obvious, straining against the tight cloth. “What gave you that idea, sweetheart?”
Your eyes fluttered shut, mouth drifting across his own, tasting the air between you as you tugged his cock free. It was warm and familiar in your palm, and though it wasn’t like fucking Toji, you’d never forget exactly how to touch Nanami Kento.
“I know,” you said, stroking him, feeling the length in your hand, the vein running along it, “because that’s exactly what I do.”
The admittance left you before you could think to refute it, and Kento didn’t let you, kissed you harder, realizing that no matter how far you strayed from one another, there would always be a cord attaching you together.
“Shit,” Kento rasped, his head falling backwards as your thumb grazed over the tip of his cock, your thighs straddling his own. “That sweet mouth of yours always knows just what to say.”
Your cheeks warmed, a smile gracing your expression as you dragged your hips across his thigh, leaning forward to kiss him. It’d been a while since you’d wanted anyone so badly, a craving soaking into every vein of your body, buzzing with desire. Need settled deep in your stomach; your kisses grew sloppy. Your lips were coated and glossed with Kento’s own saliva, puffy from how hard he pressed his hand to the back of your neck.
“Do you think of me when you fuck your fiancée too?” you asked, stroking him without even looking, the movements from memory, his pre-cum glistening on your palm. “Do you look at her and wish it was me instead?”
Kento groaned deeply in the back of his throat, his face flashing with the anger you’d intentionally put back there. Quicker than you’d anticipated, he’d flipped you onto your back, towering over you. His face was pinched as he kissed down your neck, across your collarbones, down your stomach.
You wanted him to regret this, to feel every ounce of the infidelity he was committing. To make him admit to himself that whatever pretty woman was waiting at home would never compare to the one he had never stopped wanting.
“I could ask you the same question,” Kento said, his mouth on your thighs, squeezing his fingertips into the soft skin of your knees. “Fucking Fushiguro. He always wanted you so bad, and I couldn’t stand it.” Genuine hatred dripped off his words as he leaned back over you, his fingers hovering over your clothed cunt, contrasted with the satisfaction of his expression. “Now he has you,” Kento said, dropping his fingertips over your panties, feeling the spot where you were already soaking through the material, “but I still own this pretty pussy.”
You gripped his biceps as his fingers rubbed small circles into your clit, a sideways grin forming onto his dark lips. “Kento,” you breathed, nails digging into his arms. “I want you to fuck me.”
“You make it too easy, baby,” he said softly, even when his cock was painfully hard, leaking between the two of you. “Just have to say a few words and you’re already soaking wet for me.”
Your lips parted as Kento slipped his fingers underneath your panties, and the contact of his hands on your cunt, after so much time, had a sharp exhale leaving your chest.
“N-no, wait—” you stuttered, pushing his hands away as you slipped the lacy material off your hips. “Just fuck me, Ken, I can take it.” You reached for his cock, but his eyes flashed, annoyance sparking in his eyes. “I just want you inside.”
“I’ve got you all to myself finally, and now you want to rush it?” Kento glared, forcing your hands back down beside you. He was so much stronger than you, and though you needed him to touch you, he spread your legs further instead, let nothing but the cool air kiss your bare cunt. “Don’t.”
You whimpered as he released your wrists, leaned down to brush his tongue through your folds. Your eyes fluttered closed, and he gathered the slick up into his lips, tasting you, his nose brushing against your clit.
A deep sigh reverberated in the room as you felt your love for him wash over you, a love that was once hidden away, but not eradicated. It coated you, made your lust only double, and sentimental blabber began to leave your mouth, as Kento forced his tongue deeper into your aching hole.
“I missed you, Ken,” you said, tears pricking at the corner of your eyes as your gripped his blonde hair, hatred for yourself just as strong as adoration for him. You weren’t supposed to be crying, not now, not when this wasn’t supposed to be sex at all, but some sort of hateful fucking that was slowly turning into desperate lovemaking. “I missed you.”
Kento smiled softly against you before pulling away, his mouth soaked from your arousal. “I know, sweetheart,” he said, looking at you tenderly; it made you sick to think that there would be a ring on his finger soon. You’d go back to your hotel room with Toji, and he’d go back to the fiancee that deserved him more than you did. “My pretty girl.”
“Don’t say things, like that.” You steadied your emotions, as, finally Kento pressed the head of his cock against your entrance, the wrinkle between his brow forming as he watched you carefully. “Don’t be sweet to me.”
You’d gotten used to fucking Toji, who was thicker and longer than Kento; and Kento slid right into you like he was meant to be there, your body relaxed and willing. A groan left him, and he laced his fingers with your own, squeezed your hands together against the armrest of the sofa.
“Why?” Kento asked, emotions guarded by curiosity. You swallowed, leaned your head back with a heavy breath as he inched inside of you. “Don’t want to admit you’re still in love with me?”
“I’m not—” But you were cut off, your objections falling flat as Kento’s eyes fluttered closed.
“Fuck, fuck,” he said, drawing out the word like it was more than one syllable, his deep, throaty tone parting your lips. There was a flush on his cheeks, pink, his forehead sweaty as the blonde strands stuck to it.
You’d always loved his hair down—maybe, it was because of you that it became his signature.
“You feel so good,” he said, drawing himself out of you, thrusting back in, pushing further and further until he had bottomed out completely. “God, I don’t remember you ever squeezing me so tight before.”
He sounded drunk on the feeling of you; you couldn’t help the start of a smile that formed on your face as he fucked you, losing his sanity while he succumbed to pleasure. There were sinful sounds between you, and you felt a little outside of yourself, knowing that you still had a hold on one of the most famous drummers in the entire world.
Kento kissed you all over your face, and you lifted your hips to meet him, wishing you could take him deeper, let him soak into your entire body.
“Do you regret it?” Kento whispered, his thrusts growing faster, cock throbbing inside of you. “Or do you just regret me?”
You opened your eyes to meet his dark, sweet irises. A man like him shouldn’t have fallen for someone like you, should never have stooped down to love you. The truth rested on your tongue, but when Kento hit deep a spot within you, dizziness sparked at the back of your mind, and a lie slipped out instead.
“I don’t regret anything, Kento,” you said, smiling lazily, like you didn’t have a care in the world. “Least of all, leaving you.”
To your surprise, Kento laughed, light and carefree, even though it was stuttered, raspy from his need. “You always were a good liar,” he reached between you, brushing his thumb over your clit with a hazy expression. “Much better than me.”
Once again, Kento saw right through you, reminding you of why you’d gone your separate ways. It was dangerous to have someone around that you couldn’t hide from.
“Ken,” you whimpered, gripping his wrists when you realized how close you were. There was anguish interlaced with your arousal, but your orgasm was approaching all the same. You clenched around him a little harder, swallowing, and Kento smirked, his voice husky.
“I know, sweetheart,” he said, his tone dropping, almost commanding, in a way that he knew always had you writhing helpless under him. “Pussy’s clenching me so tight. You gonna cum for me, baby?” he said into your skin, fucking deeper into you. “Let go.”
The instant relief washed over you, and you groaned, loud into the room, coming hard around Kento’s cock, your body shaking as he worked you through the orgasm.
A smile formed as he kissed your mouth, forcing words down your throat. “That’s it,” he hummed. “Always so perfect for me. I missed you, I love you so much,” and his words turned desperate while he dragged himself out of you, forcefully, trying hard not to let himself go.
“It’s okay, Kento,” you said, stupidly, crazily, running your hands all over him. “You can come inside me.”
Kento's mind drew a blank, and he groaned deeply, nearly collapsing on top of you as he came, spilling his thick, hot cum into your cunt. And you were an idiot, a fool, because you’d never let Toji do that, never let him fuck you without a condom, but Toji wasn’t Kento—
and you would’ve let Nanami Kento do anything to you.
Kento held you close to him, squeezing you to his chest as you both breathed heavily, remembering what it was like to be in each other’s arms. His cock grew soft, and his cum spilled out of you, soaking your thighs, ruining the sofa beneath you.
“Did you mean it?” you asked, running your fingers through his blonde hair as he rested his head on your chest, arms warm around your body. “Do you love me?”
The air grew stale, thick with the sins committed in the room. Kento smiled, kissed your neck, and said nothing.
“Do you love her?” you asked, begging for an answer, not knowing who she even was. Not knowing if you cared.
“I do.”
“But not as much as you love me.”
He tipped his chin up on your chest, looking at you with sad, dark eyes. “I don’t know,” he admitted, tracing his fingertips across your stomach. “But I love you enough to do this to her. That must mean something.”
Maybe, you thought, running an analog through your mind of all the reasons that could lead anywhere but affection. You’d both been under a lot of stress recently, times changing as you reached fame. It was nice to think back to a life before all that, when all you’d had was some cash in your pocket, and a dingy nightclub to play to.
Perhaps you reminded each other of that.
You craned your neck, looking up at the ceiling, your hand stilling against his scalp. “What does it mean, Kento?”
The moment passed between you, where things were hollow and empty. You could see a lifetime stretched out in front of you, but it was all in shades of grey, nothing sketched in a thick, black outline. Nothing concrete.
What you knew for sure was that you would break his heart again.
Maybe not soon, but eventually. Toji would hate you when he found out, your bandmates would hate you for lying to them. You and Kento would never live in peace, and instead, you'd spend the rest of your life stalked by the press, flashes blinding you, tabloids written about you, paranoia spiking in your chest as they tried to convince you that he was cheating on you with his bandmate.
It would be a disaster.
It would be even more heartbreaking than saying goodbye.
“It means that if you say you want me, I’ll break it off.” Kento sat up, bringing you with him, suddenly serious. “I can live without you, but I don’t want to. I love you, I’ve always loved you. Just say the words.” He kissed you softly, pleading with you, lips all over your face. “Say that you still love me, and we can get through anything.”
You exhaled a breathy laugh, tracing his features, wondering why that made you feel so sad. It was a good thing, wasn’t it? Kento could live without you, and you wanted him to.
Even if you couldn’t live without him.
“It was good to see you,” you said, letting his hands fall off your face as you slipped away, begging the tears to just stay put, to stay gone until you could get Kento out of the room. “Hard to believe I’ve made a cheater out of you, Nanami Kento.”
His face fell, smile dropping as he stared back, like that was the last thing he’d expected you to say. You turned your back to him, slinking away as you picked your clothes up off the floor, tugging your jeans back on. “Why—”
“Don’t let me ruin your marriage,” you continued, ruffling your hair to put it back into position, plaster a grin on your face despite the agony you felt. “I know I’m pretty, but I’m just not worth it.”
“Stop that,” Kento stood, taking two strides to you, his eyes desperate, wild, but you stopped him, your arm outstretched, keeping your distance. "Don't stay that."
“I meant what I said, Kento. I’m happy with Toji, I’m happy with the band, and you’re happy with your fiancée. I’m not going to let you fuck any of that up.” You pushed him away, and this time he stumbled, didn’t bother to chase after you. “I missed you, but I don’t want to be with you.”
Kento searched your eyes, but you kept your face neutral, hard, emotionless. He couldn’t doubt your sincerity, and for once, he couldn’t spot your lie.
Finally, he sunk back in on himself. Nodded once. “I should go, then.”
"You should," you said firmly. “Take care of yourself.”
Kento licked his lips. He sorted himself back out, jeans zipped, shirt tucked. His hair looked every bit as perfect as it had when he walked in, even if he looked twice as sad.
“I love you,” he tried, once more, pausing with his hand on the door handle.
Sometimes, though, love wasn’t enough.
You smiled, and wrapped an arm around yourself, knowing that, people could call you a lot of things, but they could never call you selfish.
“Please don’t send me an invitation to your wedding, Kento.”
#jjk x reader#kento nanami x reader#nanami x fem!reader#kento nanami x you#nanami x y/n#nanami smut#kento nanami smut#nanami x reader#nanami kento x reader#nanami kento x y/n#nanami kento x you#nanami x you#jjk x y/n#jjk smut#jujutsu kaisen smut#jjk x you#jjk x fem!reader#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen x you#xoxo rylie 💌 ୧⋆ ˚｡⋆#nanami angst#nanami kento angst#kento x reader
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l'altra parte
vic de angelis x fem!reader
requested: enemies to lovers with vic
synopsis: tale as old as time. you hate victoria, and she hates you. or maybe you just haven’t heard the other side of the story.
warnings: swearing, my terrible attempts at italian/roman dialect, a single implication of violence, slight angst
word count: 2.6k
a/n: massive thank you to @maneskintookawaymysanity for creating that wonderful post of roman/italian slang, to which i referred excessively (obsessively, even) whilst writing this <3
⭒
It was quite frankly too early in the morning to be yelling at Victoria, but with her, it was unavoidable, an everyday staple you were forced to adhere to by no obligation except your existence and hers.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you got up this early just to piss me off!”
“Victoria, you seriously think I would get up at four-thirty as part of my villainous plot to make your skin crawl?”
“Well you’ve certainly succeeded! We were up until two trying to get that song right, all while you slept soundly on that sofa—”
“Like that was my fault!”
“You and Thomas wouldn’t stop giggling for the first hour of rehearsal—”
The slamming of a door cut Victoria off in her monologue of anger, and out of the bedroom across the hall came Damiano, waving his hands, a mess of hair piled atop his head and a robe thrown around his shoulders.
“Girls! Cosa fai? It’s four in the morning!”
Victoria muttered, “Grazie al cazzo, Damiano.”
“Four-thirty,” you crossed your arms with a pointed look at Victoria.
As Victoria’s best friend since childhood, and your cousin — slash partner in crime — since birth, it was fair to say that Damiano was always torn between whose side to take. He had maintained a diplomatic role since yours and Victoria’s first meeting, when it had all gone horribly wrong.
First impressions are often fallible, but this was one that you just couldn’t shake.
It was seemingly impossible that you’d never met the rest of the band before, given how often Damiano was with them, but fate and circumstance had intervened ceaselessly, and so it wasn’t until two years ago that you’d been introduced.
They were mid-tour when you’d caught up with them, somewhere in the midst of southern Italy. On holiday, you were finally fulfilling the promise to visit your beloved cousin after a year — an age, said Damiano — of separation.
You didn’t speak Italian, but you understood it well enough, and Roman dialect too.
“I don’t want her here!” A rather high-strung female voice, shouting.
“For god’s sake, Victoria!” Damiano. “Relax. It’s only for a few days.”
“After everything we’ve been through, can you not understand that I don’t fucking want her here?”
Damiano sighed. “Yes, but you’re being over-dramatic. I’ve known her for so long, so the least I can do is let her come with us until the end of the trip.”
“Damiano—”
“You know as my best friend you’ve always been my first priority, but there’s got to be room for other people too. So shut up, and let’s go.”
A sickly feeling had settled in your stomach.
Then Damiano had rounded the corner with Victoria in tow, and walked straight into you.
Your first impression of Victoria was with mascara thick on her eyelashes, a dark look in her eyes, her lipstick was bright red and vaguely smudged. Damiano had a hand on her right wrist, below which it seemed her own hand was bandaged. Her blonde hair was tousled. She glared at you.
“Ah,” Damiano swore quietly. He opened in English, “Victoria, this is my lovely cousin.”
You told her your name and offered your hand, then retracted it with a wince.
“Sorry, can’t shake your hand,” she mumbled, barely looking at you.
“That’s fine,” you said quietly, unable to gauge her tone or what it meant. Then you remembered what had been spoken of you by Victoria before she and Damiano had run into you, and decided you didn’t care what she meant. It wasn’t friendly, that was for sure.
Damiano looked uncomfortable. “Maybe not the best time. Cugina,” he addressed you, “it’s late, we’ll see you tomorrow for proper introductions?”
Mutely, you nodded, and with an apologetic look, he swept Victoria away with him down the hall.
But the next morning had arrived sharp and cold, rain pouring down from the skies like there was a singular, humongous waterfall above the region of Basilicata, intent on drenching everyone on the ground. You had been offered no further introductions beyond saying hi to Thomas and Ethan after being seated by them on the bus. You caught the occasional glimpse of Victoria, who was sitting at the back, head leaned against the window, not speaking to anyone.
The rain had not relented by the time the bus reached the next location on the tour, and it was in a confused frenzy that the instruments and equipment were ferried between the bus and hotel.
Victoria, after previously making it clear that she wanted nothing to do with you, now went one step further and decided she thought of you as nothing but a concierge. You had been standing beneath the overhang of the hotel entrance, under Damiano’s orders — because as he had rightfully told you, “You don’t know where we want all our stuff, better just to let us do it.” It was then that Victoria had shouted at you. A few of choice words, and then telling you to get her guitar.
She hadn’t even remembered your name.
She sure remembered it now, though, standing in the villa kitchen, grumbling at you that four-thirty had turned into four-fifty, and still she was not in bed.
“Should put you in a bed together, then you’ll have something to complain about,” Damiano muttered.
“What?” you snapped, at the same time that Victoria spat,
“Cosa?”
Instantly, you glared at her, and she mirrored the expression. How like her to say in Italian what you had just said in English, to satisfy her competitive nature and prove once and for all that she was just that little bit better than you; she spoke three languages where you spoke only one.
“Ah! See,” said Damiano, “you can agree on one thing.” When met with blank looks, he shrugged. “You both think I’m an idiot.”
Victoria rolled her eyes. “I’m going to bed.”
“Sleep well,” you said, without thinking.
But you must have come off as sarcastic, because she flipped you off as she disappeared back into the darkness of her bedroom.
You remembered then why it was you couldn’t stand her.
Only, when you searched for a singular reason, you found yourself scrambling as to why it really was she made your blood boil.
You hated everything about her.
⭒
The next day was the same as many previous: the hot summer sun blazing overhead, Thomas interchanging tutoring sessions with Ethan, video games, and lazing by the pool, where Damiano and Victoria occupied a pair of pool floats and glasses of what they called limonata.
Damiano’s speaker was blaring in the background when you came outside, towel slung over your shoulder.
You thought Victoria peered at you over the rim of her sunglasses, but you blinked, and her glance was gone. Now she looked as though she hadn’t seen you at all, head thrown back against the plastic of the float she was lying on, throat bared to the sun like she was soaking it in. Or maybe the sun was soaking her in, taking her away to forever be wrapped in its rays, a goddess rather than a human being.
You recoiled violently.
What?
Had you really just called Victoria — Victoria — a goddess?
You ran a hasty hand through your hair and resumed your passage toward the pool, because it appeared that you’d stopped somewhere along the way.
“Ciao?”
It would also appear that Damiano had said your name multiple times whilst you’d been staring at Victoria.
She smirked, and your skin felt hot. Too hot. Her glances were scorching, and you hated her.
Hated her. Hated her.
“Going swimming?” your cousin asked.
You nodded, setting your towel down on a sunchair.
Then you proceeded to jump in the pool, soaking both Victoria and Damiano in the process.
When you returned to the water’s surface, Damiano was laughing, but Victoria looked like she was most certainly going to murder you this time.
“Oh, vaffanculo!”
Victoria’s hair was dripping down the sides of her face with pool water, her blue eyes dark like the sea beneath a tempest of a storm.
“Victoriaaa,” said Damiano. “You spoil everything.” Still, he was laughing, and you had joined him.
Victoria rolled off of her pool float and swam toward the edge of the pool, taking the ladder and pulling herself out of the water.
“Victoria!” Damiano yelled, in a pleading tone, as though that would make her see reason. But with her towel wrapped around her lithe frame, she disappeared back into the house, disappeared like she always did.
Damiano sighed. “Aridaje.”
You sat on the pool stairs in an uncomfortable silence.
It was minutes before your cousin turned to you. “Why can’t you just get along?”
You sputtered, “Because she hates me!”
Damiano snorted. “Because she hates you?”
“Yes!”
“Cugina, she was so excited to meet you, years ago, because I spoke so highly of you! And then she was embarrassed as hell because you saw her like that, the first time.”
You blinked. “What?”
Your cousin threw up his hands, “Yet you hated her from the moment you met. It was obvious.”
“What?”
Damiano frowned. “There’s some misunderstanding, I’m sure. You’d better go talk to her.”
“Talk to her?”
He waved his hands, “Get out. Go.”
“But — ”
“No, go. Mó!”
Understanding well enough, you swam to the side of the pool and got out, confusion muddling your head beyond relief. You towelled off and hurried inside, water still matting your hair against your skin.
She wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen, but you thought you could hear someone playing music down the hall, and it couldn’t be Thomas or Ethan, because they’d been in the middle of an intense game of Fifa on the PlayStation.
The door to Victoria’s room was closed when you reached it, but you hazarded a knock, and the deep thrum of bass subsided.
“Come in.” Her voice was quiet, cautious.
You pushed the door open to find Victoria sitting on the bed, leaning on her lap the white bass guitar with Girls bite back written on it in Sharpie. She was still wearing her bikini. Her skin glowed golden in the afternoon light.
You bit your lip, a nervous habit picked up from living with too many circumstances you couldn’t control.
“You?” Victoria said, incredulously.
You could feel the little hairs rising along your spine, hatred settling into your bones like a cold draft on a winter’s night.
You scoffed. “Me. I can’t even enter a room before you start glaring at me.”
Victoria scowled, true to your accusation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Forgoing all of Damiano’s advice to simply talk, you cast your eyes about the room. “You hate me!”
“I hate you?”
“Yes!”
“No,” said Victoria, “you hate me. Ever since the day we met, you’ve hated me. And I can’t figure out why.”
“Because you didn’t want me here!” you cried. “You’ve never wanted me here. You four have been friends forever, and you resent me for barging in.”
She looked affronted, setting down her bass. She stood, her palm against her chest. “I never said anything like that.”
“I heard you and Damiano talking.”
“When?”
“Two years ago, just before I met you. You said you didn’t fucking want me around. Ring any bells?”
Victoria’s puzzlement fell from her face like a penny to the floor. She looked suddenly pitying. “Oh, cara, I didn’t mean you.”
Something in the room had shifted.
You felt as though you’d stepped out onto a stage with no words to say. The temperature had risen again instead of dropped, and Victoria was gazing at you like she’d broken your heart and was terribly afraid of breaking it further.
“You — ” the breath left your lungs. “You didn’t?”
Victoria shook her head, baby blue eyes wide. “No, not at all.” Then she laughed. “I hadn’t met you. How could I have hated you then?”
“But —” you stammered, “you couldn’t look at me, and you ignored me the next day. You didn’t remember me when we got off the bus, just told me to get your bass —”
“How embarrassed do you think I was, to meet you the first time with a bloody lip and a fractured wrist, wrapped up like I’d been in a —” Victoria searched for an expression, “a bar… brawl?” She sighed. “I’d just broken up with my girlfriend. She threw my guitar at me. She was still on tour with us, on the same bus and everything, because Damiano knows her mother.”
You balked for the hundredth time. “Oh... Oh my god.”
Victoria shook her head, seemingly unbothered. “And I’m sorry if I yelled at you. It was raining and I couldn’t hear myself think, and I thought my wrist was going to fall off.” She shrugged. “Not an excuse, but I am sorry.”
“No,” you murmured, your eyes on the floor. “It’s okay.”
“And you were so pretty,” Victoria continued. “I was fucking intimidated!”
Your eyes snapped back up. She was watching you gently, her hands clasped almost nervously at her chest, where she wound her fingers in knots a sailor wouldn’t have been able to untie.
You could hardly breathe.
When had she gotten so close to you — not even an arm’s length away? Her fringe fluttered over her forehead in the breeze that bustled in from the open window.
“So,” you whispered, all too aware of the fact that you were now breathing the same air as Victoria, in the same frantic string of heartbeats. “You don’t hate me?”
“No,” she said. “Never.”
Her lips were the colour of pink summer peaches; she smelled of rain.
“Victoria —” her name was soda bubbles in your mouth.
“Please kiss me.”
Soft words breathed from softer lips were all you needed.
Your hands were on her face and she was in your embrace, wrapping her arms around your middle and pulling you to her as you pressed your mouth against hers.
She was summer itself, the sun curling through leaves and shimmering against the water, and she tasted better than peaches, kissed with more gentleness than the light of the moon.
There was no hatred here. It had all melted away and was unfathomable in the wake of its passing. You could not remember what it was to hate, with the brush of Victoria’s nose against your own, your heart fluttering in your chest, against her heart.
Ire had turned from sour into sweet, and you were addicted to the spun sugar of her lips, the light pressure of her fingertips against your waist, the warmth of her skin and how it felt to hold her.
“Eccallà!” a shout interrupted you suddenly, and you broke hastily from Victoria to find Damiano, Thomas, and Ethan standing in the doorway. Ethan continued, “That’s not hate.”
Thomas was laughing. He sang, “No, that’s amoooore!”
Victoria still had an arm around your waist and her head rested in the crook of your neck, but she managed to flip them off with her other hand.
“Could have fooled me!” said Damiano.
“Well,” Ethan snorted, “you are dense.”
Victoria rolled her eyes. “Get out of my room,” she said, and promptly slammed the door.
You found yourself up against said door, and raised your eyebrows.
“We’re not done, pretty girl,” she murmured.
“No?”
She kissed the hollow of your throat.
“You’re not going to remember how to hate me after today.”
A shiver ran down your spine at her lips, pressed to the shell of your ear.
You smiled and let yourself be enveloped in her arms, deciding it was pointless to tell her that you already couldn’t have hated her if you had tried.
⭒
taglist: @tabi-toast, @hazypoppy, @aprilaady
#vic de angelis#victoria de angelis#vic de angelis fic#victoria de angelis fic#vic de angelis x reader#victoria de angelis x reader#måneskin#måneskin fic#tina’s writing
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Pieces of History
Summary: Bucky’s hesitant about going on a date to the Smithsonian, but being with you makes it a lot easier.
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x female!reader
word count: 1,200
author’s note: thank you to @cherry-season for this request! it was nice to write a cute date fic again <3 hope this is what you had in mind!
warnings: none, just a nostalgic bucky and some fluff!
The museum was bustling with people, more so now that school was back in session. A large group of middle school kids being led by an enthusiastic tour guide, a frustrated teacher, and two very bored looking chaperones passed by you. You always loved coming here on days like today.
Bucky tried to hide it, but you could tell he was a little taken aback when you brought up a museum date to the Smithsonian at breakfast this morning. You both had the day off and you wanted to do something you didn’t normally do together. You really hadn’t thought about it, just brought it up as a casual suggestion, then realized that maybe he didn’t want to go to a museum with a whole exhibit about the man he used to be and his best friend that he used to do everything with. You scrambled and said you could go to any museum, it didn’t have to be that one, but when he saw the excitement on your face at the first mention of it, he insisted it was fine.
As you walked up the stairs to the door, you held his hand and squeezed it. If he was being honest, it wasn’t as nerve racking since he was here with you. You loved history, and watching you get excited about it was one of his favorite things.
You both bought tickets and walked through the museum, past families with children, admiring the history. You marveled at the air and space exhibit, and spent a good deal of time in the Amelia Earhart section.
You ended up in front of the entrance to the Captain America exhibit. It was full of excited kids enamored with their favorite superheroes.
You looked up at him as he scanned the crowd of people. “Good?”
He looked at you and nodded. “Good.”
You walked up to the Howling Commandos display, all of their suits lined up with their portraits on the wall. You grinned as you looked up at his picture.
“You’ve always been so handsome,” you said, knowing he was blushing beside you.
“I don’t know, I was kind of a nerd back then,” he chuckled, though you could hear a sadness in his voice. An aching for the younger version of himself, void of the horrors he experienced for decades.
You scoffed playfully. “You’re still a nerd. And I would have fallen in love with that guy in a heartbeat.”
“Yeah?” he smirked at you.
“Don’t think Steve hasn’t told me about what a ladies man you were,” you nudged him. You walked through the exhibit, both of you taking it all in.
You’d read about Captain America and his brave band of soldiers as a kid growing up in school, and you always found it fascinating. The stories of heroics, of patriotism, of tragedy. Reading through your textbooks in school, you may have even had a small crush on Sergeant James Barnes before you ever met him.
You got to the videos of Bucky and Steve and the rest of the Commandos in their camp. There was one of Bucky and Steve laughing together, like they didn’t have a care in the world. Bucky looked so young, so carefree.
You looked at your Bucky beside you, who was watching the video with a small curve of his lips. He didn’t notice you looking at him; you knew this was him genuinely remembering this moment, and holding it to himself as if the years of misery he went through never happened. This was a man happily reminiscing on memories of him and his best friend. It was the most content you’d seen him in a while. There was a certain calm that came over him, you could see it on his face.
You heard a small voice behind you then, whispering, “Mom, it’s Bucky!”
You both turned and looked at the kid, whose mother had an apologetic look on her face.
“Sorry, he’s just a really big fan,” she said.
“No worries,” Bucky smiled.
“Can I have your autograph?” the kid asked Bucky confidently.
“Spencer--” his mother warned.
“Of course,” Bucky nodded, kneeling down and signing the poster of the Commandos that he handed to Bucky.
“Thanks!” the kid said excitedly, and his mother mouthed a ‘thank you,’ with an appreciative smile before walking away.
You smiled up at Bucky, watching how he beamed after them. You knew even after all this time of freedom, he still wasn’t used to being looked at as a hero. You made your way through the rest of the exhibit, coming across another picture of him with a blurb detailing his younger years, further solidifying him as the hero he was.
You nudged him. “Y’know, the army’s lucky I didn’t know you back then.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “Why’s that?”
“I would’ve stolen you away, wouldn’t have let ‘em have you,” you shrugged.
He laughed and put his arm around your shoulders. “If I had to put money on you or the US military, I’d put it on you.”
You smiled. “Damn right.”
You stopped into the gift shop afterwards, looking at knick knacks that were far too expensive, when you saw a small banner with the Howling Commandos logo on it. You looked at him and smiled brightly.
“Come on, I’m a history buff, this is perfect for my apartment,” you said.
“That the only reason you want it?”
You shrugged. “Maybe.”
He kissed you and smiled. “Let me get it for you.”
“Babe, you don’t have to—“
He waved it off and headed toward the counter. After he paid, and the teenager at the cash register tried to hide the excitement at the fact that he was selling the Bucky Barnes a piece of memorabilia, you stepped outside into the crisp autumn air.
“You hungry?” he asked, interlacing metal fingers with yours.
“I am,” you replied, and you decided to get food from the cafe next door to the museum. You took your lunch to go and sat in a park nearby while you ate.
“Thank you for coming here with me,” you said, taking a sip of your iced tea.
“Thank you for taking me,” he replied. “I haven’t been here since…”
He took a deep breath and sighed. You lifted his left hand to your lips and nodded at him to go on.
“Since I was in hiding,” he said. “After I pulled Steve out of the Potomac. I hid out for a while in DC, and I came here, just trying to remember as much as I could.”
“Did it help?”
He nodded. “I started keeping a journal, and things slowly started coming back to me. Coming here with you now, though—it’s different. I feel like I can breathe.”
You smiled wide at that, leaning forward to capture his lips in a kiss. He smiled against your lips, and placed a small kiss on your forehead when you went to pull away.
“I love you,” you said.
“I love you too, doll,” he replied.
Later on, back at your place, you didn’t miss the proud grin on his face when you hung your new banner over the couch in the living room, visible to anyone who came into the apartment.
#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes fic#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes one shot#my fic#cherry-season#request
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hi hello are u still taking requests for the ~kiss prompts~ !!
if so,,, 47 and vic?
i am yes!! i'll take requests for as long as people want to send them tbh <3
47) A kiss paired with a tight hug, knocking the breath out of the person being hugged.
The airport is crowded and loud, and yet you stay exactly where you are, clutching onto your cardboard sign.
The band had been away for weeks now, touring across Europe and promoting their music, performing on radio shows and giving interviews and saying hello to as many fans as possible. You’ve kept up with their activity on social media, nevermind all the videos and texts they had sent you. But today was the day you would see them again after being separated for so long.
Today you would see your girlfriend for the first time in over a month.
You shift your weight from foot to foot and gaze across the airport. Their fight had landed just a few minutes ago and any moment now, you would see Victoria and the band. You were glad you left Chili at home, if only because the poor pup would be overstimulated with all of the noise and commotion that surrounded you.
You glance at the sign in your hands- homemade, covered in too much paint and glitter. Party for Miss De Angelis it read, followed by a significantly smaller and her boys, I guess. It had earned you a few looks as you stood there and patiently waited for your girlfriend to come back home to you, but you didn’t care.
The seconds tick on and before you can anxiously check your phone to make sure you hadn’t messed up the time, you heard an all too familiar screech.
You whip your head to the left and watch as Victoria- your girlfriend, looking as gorgeous and impeccable as always, a large smile on her face as she sees you- drops her bags and races towards you. You have just enough time to brace yourself before she was colliding into you, arms wrapped tight around you, the force of it nearly knocking the wind out of you.
“Oh honey,” she says in an excited breath, hugging you tighter, her head resting against your neck. “I’ve missed you.”
It’s easy to forget that there’s a world outside of the two of you. All you can focus on is Victoria and how she’s holding you tight to her, her hands clutching at your shirt, her chest pressed against yours. You’re so overwhelmed that you forget how to breathe for a second, but you manage to compose yourself. “I missed you more.”
Victoria laughs and the sound is like music to your ears. She pulls back, just a little, just for a second, and you meet your girlfriend's eyes as she beams at you and shakes her head slowly. “Shut up, that’s impossible.”
And before you can say anything, Victoria grips your chin and kisses you. You melt against her as her mouth moves against you, making up for all the time you hadn’t seen each other. She hugs you as close as she can, given the position, and it’s a little uncomfortable and you can’t take a full breath with how tight she’s squeezing you, but there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.
Victoria teases her tongue against the seam of your lips when you both hear an all too familiar noise behind you, a throat clearing in pseudo politeness.
“Don’t we get to say hello too?” you hear Damiano say, and you smirk against Victoria’s mouth so much that the kiss is ruined.
“Excuse me, whose partner is this?” Victoria replies, holding onto you as tightly as she can, her cheek smooshed against yours as she regards the rest of the band. “Yours? No? I did not think so, so shut up.”
Damiano holds his hands up defensively and you giggle as Victoria starts peppering your face in kisses, taking a second to nip playfully at your cheek. “Hi Damiano. Hi Ethan. Hi Thomas.”
The boys wave to you and Victoria grumbles a little in the back of her throat, dissatisfied that you’re giving them attention over her. You bring a hand up to the back of her head, fingers gently carding through her hair, and it seems to relax her for the moment.
“We’ll catch up later?” Damiano suggests with a twinkle in his eye, and you can’t be bothered to be upset because Victoria hugs you close again and tucks her face against the crook of your shoulder. “Maybe we can get dinner if you two aren’t-”
“We’ll be busy,” Victoria says, loud enough for them to hear, and you can’t be bothered to feel embarrassed, even when the boys laugh and whistle as they walk away, not with how Victoria holds you to her, and not with the way she starts whispering in your ear about how much she missed you.
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Mercury Roadrunner's Interview about Freddie Mercury with Peter Freestone – Part I
Thanks very much to Mercury Roadrunner (Pavel Strashnyy) for letting me share his amazing interviews! Originally shared here. Check the tag "MR interview with Phoebe" to see the other parts.
Here are the 5 topics of this interview, beginning of each topic is written in bold:
1. Live Aid
2. The Works tour
3. "Mr. Bad Guy" album and recording period
4. "Heaven For Everyone", Freddie's habits about listening to music, opinions on Madonna, Montserrat
5. Swimming and memories about Los Angeles, Ibiza, Japan
Mercury Roadrunner: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We welcome you to the unofficial Russian Queen fan club special program. You can find our website at www.vk.com/queenrocks. I am knownn as Mercury Roadrunner. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Queen. And I’m very happy to say that this evening we have a very, very special guest here with us, and it is an opera critic, a book lover, biographer and writer, and close friend, confident and personal assistant of Freddie Mercury, Mr Peter Freestone. Hello, Peter. How are you?
Peter Freestone: Hi. I am… okay. I’m good, I’m good. What can I say? I’m good.
PS: You are good and you are very happy to join the other Queen fans who would be very happy to hear you finally talking.
And the first topic is about your personal memories. It’s a historic date but what are your own personal memories of 13th of July, the Live Aid day, what were your feelings in general on that day?
PF: For me, I suppose, it was just another show… [laughs]
PS: Really?
PF: Because I worked for Freddie and he was going to do a show. I didn’t separate that from all the other performers that were going to be there, that made it such an incredible day. And not only in London, when they were also performing in America as well at the same time. When the satellite was showing something from London, then it showed something from Philadelphia, then back to London again. So to say, for me it was… another day. It wasn’t even as though there were such a big show because we’d played stadiums in South America. So, it wasn’t the size of the audience. I suppose, when it really struck me what was happening was when the band went onto stage. And the roar from the crowd was absolutely amazing. Again, it wasn’t so different from normal shows because they’d actually rehearsed for their twenty minutes. You know, there was four days’ rehearsal. So to say, it was normal, it was normal work, it was a short show. But then, thing is, it was in daylight and Freddie could actually see the audience. And from the back of the stage, we could look through holes in the back, you know, the screen in the back. And we could see what the band could see. And… then it sort of struck me that, actually, this is something very special. And then I was really so very, very proud of them. At the end of their set, when, again, the audience reaction was indescribable. What they had done in those twenty minutes, they had picked up the whole audience, shook it around and put them back down again.
PS: Indeed.
PF: So, yeah, that was what I felt.
PS: And do you remember some of Freddie’s jokes, maybe, during the day, the way he interacted with other superstars, like David Bowie or others?
PF: The thing is, he [Freddie] was just one person amongst his peers, you know. All of the bands were names, they were bands. And the thing I have found, and this goes all the way – the real professionals are the most normal, approachable people on earth. It’s the wannabes who have the attitude of “Don’t you know who I am?” and who behave like stars, because stars behave like human beings. Real stars, they can be just like the rest of us. There was a time when Freddie just wanted to be on his own, you know, with just his friends, with his group of people. But I mean, there’s a few photographs of him chatting with various people, like Elton John and David Bowie. I remember seeing them with him, and Adam Ant. And, of course, he had friends along; I think Wayne Sleep was there as well.
In his life, he [Freddie] needed people around him that made him laugh. And so, he still had that. David Bowie and he had been friends for so long. Elton [and he] had been friends for even longer. So, it was actually a chance for them to sit and catch up rather than, you know, being in front of the world press. They liked to spend time on their own, you know, talking to each other, really talking, not putting on a show.
PS: So, I imagine that backstage on that day Freddie felt pretty much joyful and relaxed, right?
PF: Yeah, on the day of the show, I never really saw Freddie nervous…
because, the thing is, it was too late by then [to be nervous]. You know, there was no point in being nervous anymore because the show was going to go on whether you were nervous or not. So, why be nervous? Just, you know, get on and do the show, enjoy yourself.
PS: And do you remember, where did the idea of Freddie and Roger joining the Band Aid on stage in the final song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, came from? Or was it totally a spontaneous idea for them to join the others?
PF: I think the idea at that point was that anybody who was around, who would stay on to the end – because don’t forget the show had started in the afternoon, so not everybody was going to be waiting – but then anybody who was left, who wanted to join, could go and join. There was no strict “You must do this, you have to do this, you have to be there”. It’s “If you want to, by all means come and do it.”
PS: And we even have a picture of both of you, Freddie and you, on that day when Freddie wears a white shirt for “Is This The World That We Created”, and you stand right next to him and it’s a beautiful picture.
PF: And Queen were the only band that actually kept their dressing room. Because all the other bands had to vacate their dressing room half an hour after they’d performed, so that the next band could come and use it. But because Brian and Freddie were performing “Is This The World That We Created” at the end, they got to keep their dressing room from the time they arrived. [laughs]
PS: So they spent the rest of the day after the show in their dressing room?
PF: Well, in or around their dressing room, yes.
PS: They, like, had their Royal Queen place there.
PF: That’s it. Anybody else had to go into the Hard Rock Café. There had to be a tent, you know, hospitality tent there. And most people ended up in there because they were not allowed into their dressing rooms, they didn’t have dressing rooms after that. So… that also helped Freddie relax. [laughs]
PS: Like, his little bit of his own, right?
PF: Yes.
PS: All right. So, the second topic is about you, Peter. And you are credited as a “band party” member on The Works tour. Can you please clarify what a band party meaning is? Because I am assuming it’s like an entourage but it will be nice to hear the expanded definition from you.
PF: Yeah, the band party, I think, was about ten or twelve people. It was the band members, their assistants – me, Chris Taylor was there, and Paul Prenter was there. If Jim Beach was on the tour at the time, he would have been part of the band party too. And some of the time Gerry Stickells was there. But often he would be ahead, making sure that everything was ready for when the band arrived. But that was it. There was about ten people. And there were baggage tags for each member of the band party. That’s why I know because I had Number 9, I think. And there were about twelve, I think, altogether, because at one point at the beginning I used to have to collect the band party baggage, so that’s why I always knew which were, even though I wouldn’t know whose bag was what. It would have one of these crew tags on it, so I just picked up and I knew that there were going to be twenty bags, so I just picked the twenty bags. But they were easy to identify because of these tags.
PS: I see. And what is your own favourite memory about The Works tour and about this time, like, 1984, 1985? Maybe the Rio shows?
PF: Yeah, I mean Rio was… amazing. The feeling from that crowd… you know, something like 350,000 people. Oh, you can’t beat that. And when you’re flying in a helicopter over that crowd, it was stunning. But the thing is, I know this sounds really, really stupid but [laughs]… one thing I will always, always remember from that tour was, remember, in the back of the stage you had these wheels that turned every now and then, not constantly but just every now and then. That was because there was… the guy looking after Roger’s drums and me who actually turned those wheels. And there was no set cue or anything that, “Oh, it has to start on this bar, on this song.” No, it
was when he wasn’t doing anything and I wasn’t doing anything, we’d say “Ok, let’s go and do it.” And we turned the wheels for a couple of minutes and then left them alone. He had then to do something for Roger and I would just sit there like I always did. And then you’d go back and you’d turn the wheels, like a hamster. We were like hamsters…
So, that’s my memory of The Works tour.
PS: And how technically did you operate those wheels? How was it possible?
PF: With your hands. You just grabbed hold, you know, because it was like cogs on a wheel, and you just grabbed hold of them. Because we would be behind, I mean, I was always on John Deacon’s side, so I was hidden behind his bass setup. And you just pulled on the cogs because the whole wheel was on a metal axle and you just held there and you just pulled it down.
PS: And the wheels actually were the real wheels, the big ones, right?
PF: The very big ones in the back that moved, yeah. And they were made of, I think, polystyrene and plywood. So they weren’t very heavy.
PS: So it was, like, actually you taking a part in the show, like, directing this?
PF: Yes, I mean, you know, this is how things used to work in the old days before half of you were born. [laughs] You had to use your hands. I don’t think that a Queen tour as it is now is manual anymore. Everything is “push buttons” in it.
PS: Yes, so it was indeed like the works, you had to work to make it work, right?
PF: Yes, but nobody knew that’s how it works. They just saw these wheels turning every now and then.
PS: It’s like a kind of magic indeed…
PF: Yes, this was the whole thing with the Queen show – that people saw things happening but didn’t try and think “Oh, how do they do that?” If I see a big show now, I just think “How do they do that?” You’re not listening to the music anymore, you’re thinking “How do they get this to move? How do they get that?” But in the old days, you never did that, you just saw it move and it was part of the show.
PS: You were just enjoying it, you didn’t have the time to analyse it.
PF: Yeah.
PS: I see. That’s a great memory, Peter. So, the third topic is about Freddie’s solo album, “Mr. Bad Guy”
Freddie firstly wanted to name his solo album Made In Heaven and he even mentions that title in an interview with David Wigg. Why did he later decide to call it Mr Bad Guy?
PF: I think he felt that Mr Bad Guy represented him more than Made In Heaven. And the lyrics to that song, everything. It sort of was very much about him. I think that’s why it changed. I actually love that song because it is real orchestra on it. And I was in the studio. I mean, it’s not a massive studio, so what they had to do, they had to record each section, so the strings section was there and recorded all their parts. And they went out. And woodwind recorded all their parts. Then brass recorded their parts. Then timpani came in and recorded. You know, they could not do everything together, so it was actually really quite complicated. But the end result, I think, is great. It reminds me very, very much of “The Carnival of the Animals”, the old classical piece. That was written by Camille Saint-Saëns. But that is what I’m immediately reminded of when I listen to “Mr Bad Guy”, you know. [starts to hum the song] You know, all the different pieces of the orchestra doing it, repeating it. Now, that for me is my favourite part.
PS: I also enjoy it, I adore it. It’s truly a work of art from Freddie.
PF: Yes, definitely, definitely. And I agree with him because it does represent him, multifaceted. You know, you never expect… He never gives you something that you expect. He always gives you something that will surprise you.
PS: Yes. And why bad guy, why do you think Mr Bad Guy? Why bad?
PF: Because… anytime in the press, there was never anything saying what a lovely man he is. So why not live up to his reputation?
PS: Yes, it’s like “Yes, I’m everybody’s Mr Bad Guy,” yes.
PF: Yes, this is it. This is what people want to believe, so this is what I will be.
PS: Yes. And why do you think his first title was exactly not some
other track title but exactly “Made In Heaven”? Why was his first idea about exactly this song, to call the album this way?
PF: I don’t know, I really cannot answer that one for you. I don’t know why he thought of that. Maybe he thought that would be the most popular track. A very popular track.
PS: Yeah, it’s a hit song, totally remindful, yeah. And what was Freddie mostly like during the recording? What’s your favourite memory of him in this period?
PF: That’s a lot more difficult because it was a difficult time. Munich. It took him far too long to create it. In the end, he was more interested in going out and spending time with Barbara Valentin than he was in creating work. I mean, the amount of time… he would turn up in the studio at two o’clock. Because he always turned up at two o’clock. It was pointless staying or coming at ten because he wouldn’t.
And the thing is, it’s a singer’s voice, he’s not really ready to use [it] until later on in the afternoon. Once he’s warmed up properly and everything else. But the thing is, by four o’clock the phone would be ringing and Barbara was bored, so Freddie would run over and go out with her. So it was hard. And sometimes it felt like he was forcing himself to enjoy himself. Because he also felt bad, because he knew he should have been working, but he was letting his arm be twisted very, very, very easily.
Yeah, I mean, okay, yes, he did enjoy himself when he was with Barbara, but he also had in the back of his mind that he was supposed to be working.
PS: But the final result, I think, is totally great, he’s so much presented there.
PF: It wasn’t the commercial success that people were expecting, but I think Freddie was happy with it in the end.
PS: Yeah, it’s, like, his self-portrait songs.
PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It got that music out of his system so that when he was back with Queen he was thinking more of the band stuff than, you know, things that the band would be happy with and just him happy with.
Also, the thing is, Freddie did miss the rest of the band. He would never admit it but if you listen to some of the instrumentals on some of his solo tracks you could imagine Brian playing the guitar, you could imagine John playing the bass. You know, he missed having the band around him.
PS: I see, I see. Even though it was his only first experience as his solo work, he already missed the other boys.
PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the thing is, all his recording before Mr. Bad Guy had always been with other people around. You know, even when he was producing the Peter Straker album, he had friends around him doing things. This was him on his own and it was all on his shoulders.
PS: Yeah, and he worked on this album perfectly, it’s absolutely a masterpiece, yeah. So, the fourth topic is about Freddie’s and Roger’s connection. There is a story that Freddie heard Roger’s song “Heaven For Everyone” and he liked it so much that he wanted to sing it, and in the end The Cross, Roger Taylor’s band, released a version with Freddie’s vocals on it. And do you remember, had Freddie ever listened to Roger’s solo albums at home?
PF: Freddie didn’t really listen to very much of anybody’s music at home. The only thing I remember... well, okay, yes, I remember putting on videos of Prince. But, musically, we would put on, we would buy every one that came out. It was a series of CD’s and albums, of course, before the CD’s, Now That’s What I Call Music. And what it would be, would be the sort of top hits of two months or something. And they would all be on Now That’s What I Call Music 1, then Now That’s What I Call Music 2. I think it’s on to Now That’s What I Call Music 373 at the moment. I don’t know. That was the music that he would put on, it was the music of the time. Because, you know, for his own music, for Queen music, that was work for him. And what concerns Freddie listening to Roger’s albums - probably what it would’ve been he would’ve listened to it when he and Roger met up. But it wouldn’t necessarily be at home they would put on the album. They would meet up and Roger would say,
“Oh, you must hear, listen to this, you have to hear this. This is something I’ve been working on,” you know, that sort of thing.
PS: I see. And, you mentioned Freddie enjoying Prince, and it connects me with the fifth topic and it’s about the musician of the same age as Prince and it’s, like, a connection of Freddie Mercury from Queen and the Queen of Pop who is known as Madonna. What was Freddie’s attitude to Madonna? Because it’s almost impossible to imagine that he never ever mentioned her or never talked about her.
PF: He admired her as… a woman surviving and winning in basically a man’s world. Yeah, because she was a power. And for that he admired her. Some of the music he quite liked. But there’s also the other side of the coin. Freddie, for all he was, had one security with him whenever he went out or everything. And Freddie felt that Madonna was actually attracting attention to herself rather than protecting herself. When she would go running in Hyde Park with ten security, you know, he said, “If she went with one person, people wouldn’t even notice her, but because she’s got ten people around her, then the whole world is going to notice. And you are best safe not like that but if you have just one person.” So, I mean, for that side he didn’t understand her thinking, but for her musical acumen and for her performance he thought she was fine, she was good.
PS: And what is your personal attitude to Madonna? Do you like her?
PF: Again, some of the things she’s done I think are very, very good. I don’t know, the more recent stuff I’m not so keen on. But all the first ten years or whatever of her stuff, I loved it. Yeah. Because, again, she never copied, she always did her own thing, and she never repeated herself. And I love originality.
PS: And what is your own favourite memory about Freddie and Montserrat, Barcelona story in general?
PF: I suppose it would have to be the actual recording of “Barcelona” because that was the first track that was completed. Freddie had sent Montserrat a tape giving her a guide vocal. Mike Moran had written out the music for her and sent it. So when she came in, when she arrived, she was fully, fully prepared for what was going to happen. But I remember being with Freddie after she’d done the first tape of her vocals for Barcelona, and… there were almost, almost, I mean, there were tears down his face. He was saying, “I now have the greatest voice in the world singing my music.” And that will always stay with me, always.
PS: I see, so it was, like, very deep for him. And what is your favourite memory of Montserrat as a person?
PF: Ah, a lot of memories. I went to pick her up at the airport, took her to the hotel, I would go and meet her at the hotel, go with her to the studio, all of that sort of things. And I was only in the studio when Montserrat was there. And when she was actually putting her vocal tracks down, the track was basically finished.
I saw her so many times after the recording as well. You know, I went to see different performances of her. And it was because of her that I was actually at the Palais Garnier in Paris. You know, the opera house in Paris. Because she actually did an AIDS Gala there. And she invited me to go. I think… her laughter. It’s just like Freddie’s. Because whenever people ask me what’s my first memory, what is the memory that first comes to my mind of Freddie, and it’s always him laughing. And it’s the same with her. Whether she’s just finished a performance or actually when she’s doing a recital or a concert. And during her encores, she is always giggling and laughing. Amazing giggle. Because she likes to bring the audience in during the encores. And she’s got this infectious giggle. She invited me to the first night ever of her performing Isolde in “Tristan and Isolde” in Barcelona. And talking with her afterwards, I said, “You must know how wonderful it is for me to be coming here, to be seeing it, to be listening to you.” And she says, “Of course, you’re part of the family.” So, that really has always stuck with me.
PS: So, the next topic for
today is Freddie spending time just making any kind of normal activities. And the question is firstly about his swimming skills – could Freddie actually swim, and if yes, did he enjoy it?
PF: I never saw him swim. Never. I don’t know if he could swim. I’ve often thought about that and I never saw it. He didn’t… thinking about it, we went on a motor boat when we were at Pike’s hotel in Ibiza one time. And he didn’t look the most comfortable. So, I really don’t know if he could actually swim. I never saw him in a swimming pool or anything like that. Even when there was a swimming pool around, I never saw him in it.
PS: But speaking of other activities, for example, you mentioned your staying at Pike’s hotel, he liked to play tennis there, right?
PF: Yes. And, of course, when he was younger he was very good at table tennis. So, yeah, he enjoyed tennis. When we were living together with Freddie in Los Angeles, in that house, there was a tennis court as well and he played there a few times.
PS: I see. And what are your other memories of Los Angeles?
PF: Los Angeles. Also I remember in Los Angeles it was in L’Ermitage hotel when Queen were designing the Hot Space album cover there.
They were there, maybe, even rehearsing for a tour or something. That’s the hotel I was staying in at that time. It was just this concrete glass and… stainless steel… and chrome. It was a very, very modern hotel. I remember, there were all band members, I was there, Chris Taylor was there, Paul Prenter was there. And they were throwing ideas around. And that’s where Freddie came up with the colours. “That’s the hot space, the space is the colours, hot colours.”
PS: Ah, so it has something to do with image, with colour as you see it…
PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PS: The hot like the bright one, right? A definitive one.
PF: Yeah, yeah.
PS: And he drew, like, a draught of the cover, right? Because he is credited as designer.
PF: They were talking about which colours and then who would be which colour and then what they would put on each colour. You know, when they started talking about, not necessarily a profile but just picking out the aspects that people recognize from each artist, like Brian and his hair, Freddie and his moustache, you know, that sort of thing.
PS: And so, each member chose the colour for himself by his own, right?
PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PS: And how do you think, why Freddie chose the red colour?
PF: Because it’s the colour that sticks out the most, although red was not his favourite colour, his favourite colour was yellow. But red is the one that you first look at. If you look at every sale, you know, big sale signs and everything, it’s always red on white. Because red is the colour you notice more. Apparently, whether it’s true or not, I don’t know, but in the old days police stopped more red cars than any other car.
PS: Oh, really?
PF: Yeah. Just psychologically red is the colour that stands out.
PS: And Freddie being so outstanding wanted to strike everybody.
PF: Yeah.
PS: I see. And you mentioned Freddie and you spending time at Pike’s hotel. And what is also your personal favourite memory of this time.
PF: I suppose the swimming pool was actually something nice.
To actually think that we were in the swimming pool where Wham had recorded “Club Tropicana”.
I mean, yeah, Pike’s. It was a nice hotel. They treated you well. They treated you personally, you know, they took care of you. And so it was a nice place. You really felt well-treated.
PS: And what was, like, the top of the top on Freddie’s 41st birthday? What are your memories?
PF: The most ridiculous thing is when guests went off into a corner and started smoking, so they weren’t smoking at the table and set light to the decorations. There were all these paper decorations hanging down the walls and everything. And people were there smoking and not looking at what they were doing, and they set light to them with their cigarettes.
And then they started throwing alcohol to try and, you know, because it was wet they thought they would put the flames out. I mean, some people are not
very, very bright. [laughs]
PS: I see. And what was your favourite memory of his previous one birthday, in 1986, the hat party?
PF: Now, the hat party was a one-off, there was no other party quite like that, in Garden Lodge. Not with two hundred and something guests. Because the thing is, the thing that I loved about the fact was that nothing was put away. None of his vases or, you know, anything was put on tables. All the antiques and everything. Everything was left there. Because, okay, there were two hundred people but he actually knew them. He knew he could trust them.
PS: And what was it like for him when he arrived back from his magnificent journey to Japan?
PF: The thing is, it extended because he was then back home opening up all the packages that had arrived and the crates that had arrived. Because everything was sent over as soon as he bought it. So, the big room, the small room. Everything, all the rooms were full. And these, he had twelve of them. So, it was like Christmas. You know, a six-week Christmas. Because he was away enjoying himself and then opening up and putting it all around the house.
PS: So, he was actually in Japan for six weeks, right?
PF: No, no, he was in Japan, I think, for about three weeks. But then when he came back, he had three weeks of opening up and putting them all out.
PS: So, he had a chance to enjoy his presents one more time, like, actually having them all.
PF: Precisely, precisely.
PS: So, it was, like, double joy – first to buy it and then to enjoy it at home.
PF: Yes, yeah, yeah.
PS: And mostly he bought antiques, right?
PF: Yeah, I mean, he did actually buy some modern porcelain and things, but almost everything was antique. Almost everything.
PS: I see. It was indeed a magic year for him. The Magic tour and the magic holiday…
PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.
PS: I see, I see. So, as we are ending our first part by now, I’m saying to you a very, very big thank you, Peter. It’s amazing to hear all these stories about Freddie.
PF: It’s been a pleasure, it’s a pleasure.
SPECIAL THANKS TO VALUREX FOR CONTRIBUTION AND ASSISTENCE
TO BE CONTINUED
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God Bless the Children of the Beast - Part 13
Previous // Masterlist
Pairing: The Dirt!Tommy Lee x Reader
Word Count: 2.7k
Notes: Sorry this took a minute to get out guys; it’s been a busy week!
God so much happens in this update. We literally jump through like 3 years. 👀
Okay, so I'm changing some history here. (I'm mean I've already done that because, well, the movie did and that's what I'm following; but we're doing it again) I know Thaler took over after Doc, but since they cut him from the movie and made it kind of look like Nikki just sort of ran things, that's the angle I'm going with. 👍 Like I've literally been planning this from the get-go so I'm not changing it now.
Warnings: None
1990
A lot had happened in the last year.
Rehab had been a success for you and the boys, and you all had managed to stay sober through the recording of Dr. Feelgood–Motley Crue’s first number one album. Nikki had surprised you all and gotten married; and while Brandi seems like a genuinely nice girl, you were just glad to finally see your brother happy and committed to someone for a change.
Still, not everything was going so well.
You were back out on the road touring for the new album, and the band was feeling the strain. They had never toured without booze and drugs before, and it was clearly getting to them. Not only that, there was trouble at home for Vince and Tommy, and neither of the were handling it well.
Normally, they'd party their frustrations away–get drunk, do some drugs, then find some chicks to forget their wives with for a little while–but without that outlet to fall back on, they had to find other ways to cope. Vince took it out on his bandmates–usually choosing to argue with Nikki or Tommy–while Tommy chose to either argue with Vince, or bottle up his feelings entirely. Of course, they both still cheated, but without the drinks and drugs it apparently wasn’t enough of a release for them. You tried to talk to them about it, but they both brushed you off for one reason or another.
Vince’s growing animosity with Nikki, and on occasion Tommy, made him start to keep you at arm’s length. He didn’t have a problem with you personally, but your closeness with the other two made it difficult for him to open up to you despite your efforts to talk to him. As time went on, he just kept pushing you further away, becoming more distant, and you worried just how far he would drift from you and the others before he would just disappear all together.
You and Tommy were just as close as always–closer even, since rehab helped you get past some of your old bullshit–he just didn’t want to talk about his problems with Heather. Part of the problem was that he didn’t totally understand what was wrong; what little he would say about it was that she was being ‘weird and distant’ and that she wasn’t answering his calls, so he didn’t really know enough to talk about.
But you also thought part of him was just too scared to talk about it. Tommy had dreamed about true love his whole life, and he found it–it had probably never occurred to him that he could lose it. Things had always gone so well with Heather; for there to suddenly be signs of trouble brewing probably terrified him. You wanted to talk to him about it–comfort him, if you could–but if he didn’t want to talk about it, you didn’t want to force the issue.
Aside from the personal problems, there was also the issue of Nikki running the show.
When Doc was fired, Nikki had taken over trying to manage the band alone. He wasn't doing an awful job, and you helped him out as much as he would let you given his control freak personality. Still, it was the cause of a lot of the fights between him and Vince.
—
You and the boys were sitting at a table in the middle of a strip club, drinking waters and looking miserable. A waitress walks by with a tray of lemon drops, offering you the shots. They look amazing, and you can just imagine the sweet and sour shot burning down your throat, but none of the boys had drank this tour and you weren’t about to be the first to fall off the wagon. Nikki sends her away with an order for another round of waters–Vince looking less than pleased. Trying to escape the tense atmosphere, you glance over your shoulder to look at Tommy.
He was standing at the payphone, looking upset as he talks into the handpiece; Heather must still be dodging his calls. You stare at him a little longer–watch the frustration and confusion on his handsome face–and even though you should be happy that things weren’t going well, you couldn’t help but hurt for him. You didn’t want Tommy to be unhappy, no matter what the reason behind it.
“They’re keeping us on the road–15 new days in Canada.” Nikki says, bringing your attention back to the table.
“I haven’t seen anything about any new days.” Vince says, looking annoyed. Uh oh. This would end in another fight if Nikki wasn’t careful.
“Check your itinerary man.” Nikki replies.
“I would, but apparently someone doesn’t think it’s important to let the lead fucking singer know what the fuck is going on here.” Vince snaps.
“I’ll get you a copy of the new itinerary Vince.” You reply, trying to deescalate the situation. Just then, Tommy plops down in the seat next to you.
“Guys I fucked up. Heather’s being all weird and distant and–I drank.” He says, looking ashamed. “Well, a little–I had one shot and I’m sorry.”
“I’m gonna have a fucking cocktail too man.” Vince says before you have a chance to respond. “What are you gonna do about it Nikki?”
“Okay look everyone falls off the wagon once and awhile–” Nikki replies.
“Oh fuck you man, fuck off! Fuck the rest of this tour! It is the no fucking fun tour, and I am sick and tired of not having any fun.” Vince shouts, standing up.
“Vince!” You call out to him as he walks off, but he ignores you.
“Just let him go y/n.” Tommy says as Nikki chases after him.
You watch as Nikki confronts Vince, who physically pushes Nikki away before taking a shot. Just like that, sobriety was out the window. Nikki comes back up and sits down.
“Shit.” He says, slumping in his seat.
“I’ll get him the itinerary when we get back Nikki, and we’ll sort this out, okay?” You say, trying to be supportive. “It was just one drink; he was just angry because he’s stressed out.”
“I can’t believe I forgot to send him the new fucking itinerary.” Nikki says.
“It’s fine, you’ve got a lot on your plate. Don’t stress about it; I’ll take care of it.” You reply. He looks over at you.
“You probably wouldn’t have forgotten.” Nikki muses, before sighing, hanging his head. “You’re right y/n, I do have a lot on my plate–too much, probably. I’ve been thinking for awhile now that I’m not really cut out for this manager shit–that I should probably hand over the reigns to someone whose better suited to the work so I can get back to just focusing on the music.” He lifts his head to look at you. “So what do you say? You wanna be our manager?” You stare at him like a deer in headlights.
“Excuse me?” You ask, stunned.
“You guys are cool with that, right?” Nikki asks, looking over at Tommy and Mick.
“Fuck yeah dude! That’s awesome.” Tommy says, smiling over at you. Even after everything, his smile made your heart race.
“About time if you ask me; she’s the obvious choice.” Mick says, taking a drink of his water, a smile playing on his lips.
“You really want me to be your manager?” You ask, looking back at Nikki.
“Yeah. You already have experience helping me and Doc, and I mean who’s better qualified to take care of us than you?” Nikki asks, smirking.
“You are uniquely qualified for the position–you’ve got nearly 10 years experience cleaning up our messes.” Mick jokes.
“I don’t know, I made a lot of those messes too.” You reply, smiling.
“Hell yeah you did!” Tommy says, raising his hand expectantly. You laugh, giving him a high-five.
“I’m just saying; yeah, maybe we could hire someone with more experience in management–but we could never find someone we trust more.” Nikki says, putting a hand on your shoulder. “You’ve been with Motley Crue from the very beginning–you deserve this–and we know you’ll always do what’s best for this band.” You had to stop yourself from tearing up.
“Okay, if everyone’s cool with this–I’ll do it.” You say, smiling from ear to ear. “But you have to talk to Vince about it too.”
“Yeah, yeah–I don’t see why he’d have a problem with it, but I’ll tell him tomorrow when I bring him that fucking itinerary.” He says, leaning back and smirking at you.
—
February 1992
The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. You knew there wouldn’t be–Vince had become so flaky since Sharise had left. You look at the others, all looking pissed as you slowly hang up the phone.
“I’m telling you guys everything is fucking all upside down and flipped flopped and while we’re waiting for our lead singer to get his head out of his ass we’re getting left in the dust man!” Tommy says, standing behind his drumset. You sigh. “I’m just saying bands replace their frontmen and it still works okay? Van Halen–”
“I know Van Halen fucking did it cause you say that every single time Vince misses a fucking rehearsal.” Nikki snaps.
“Come on Tommy, he’s just going through a lot right now.” You try to reason with him. “Wouldn’t you be a little off your game if Heather left you?”
“Don’t even fucking say that man.” Tommy says.
“I mean, can’t you all just try and be a little empathetic for once? Please?” You ask.
“Whatever; just call the prick again.” Mick says. You sigh, making your way over to the phone, while Nikki moves over to the fax machine. You have a feeling you’re not going to be happy about the message he's about to send.
—
You’re working on some paperwork while the boys continue with rehearsal without Vince, when the blonde comes marching into the studio.
“Someone want to tell me what the fuck is going on here?” Vince asks, clearly pissed.
“Let’s save us all some time, especially yours Vince as it’s clearly more valuable than ours!” Nikki snaps back. You stand up and move towards them.
“You’d better tell me what the fuck’s going on man.” Vince says again.
“What’s going on is we’re down here, and we’re working, and we wanna be here, but we are tired of forcing you to be here with us.” Nikki says.
“Maybe I’d come in more if I liked the material.” Vince jeers.
“Maybe you’d like the material if you were in the studio making it with us instead of staring at your fucking watch!” Tommy jumps up and shouts.
“Woah, let’s all calm down.” You say, getting between them.
“Yeah, I’m staring at my watch because this album is fucking stupid!” Vince yells back. There’s a silence as the boys all look at each other. “You know what fuck all y’all. You know, I’m done. Fuck this, I quit.”
“Vince!” You call after him as he makes his way to the door.
“Good, ‘cause you’re fucking fired!” Nikki yells back.
“Nikki!” You shout at your brother, looking between him and Vince.
“I quit already, dick.” Vince says, walking out. Nikki slams the door behind him. You look up at him, as the room fills with a heavy silence, the weight of what just happened hitting them. Before anyone has the chance to say anything, you quickly run out after Vince.
“Vince!” You called his name through the rain, but he was already getting into his car. You quickly make your way through the downpour and jump into the passenger’s seat before he can drive off.
“What the fuck?” He looks over at you in surprise.
“I couldn’t just let you leave before we talked.” You say, your wet hair dripping water on the leather of the seat as you look over at him.
“I’m not going back in there y/n–I’m done.” He says, looking out the windshield.
“So what, that’s it? Just like that? You’re just gonna walk away?” You ask, not even trying to hide the tears pooling in your eyes.
“It had to happen sometime y/n–we all knew this was coming.” He said, still not looking at you.
“It didn’t have to Vince–it still doesn’t. I can talk to them, I can–” He puts his hand on yours.
“It’s over y/n. Let it go.” Vince says, looking into your eyes. You feel a tear slide down your cheek.
“So now what?” You ask. “What are you gonna do?” He moves his hand away and looks back out the windshield.
“I don’t know. I’ve still got my racing–and hey, I could always try making it as a solo artist.” He smiles over at you. “You wouldn’t happen to know any good managers, would you?” You laugh.
“Oh the boys would hate that.” You reply.
“Fuck’m–it’s your life, do what you want.” Vince replies. “Just think it over and let me know, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll think about it.” You reply, reaching for the door handle. You stop, looking back at him. “And Vince, I just want you to know; no matter what happens–any of the drama or the bullshit that may come from this–you’re still my friend, okay? You’re important to me, and I love you.” Vince blushes, looking away.
“Yeah yeah, I love you too–now shut up and get out of my car.”
—
1993
You somehow convince the boys it would be fine if you manage them and Vince, and things for him were going fairly well. His first solo album, Exposed, was doing moderately well on the charts. Meanwhile, you were trying your best to deal with a Motley Crue without Vince Neil. John Corabi was brought in to be the new lead singer for the band, and while he was a good singer and a nice enough guy–he just wasn't Vince.
The fans knew it too. As much as Nikki and the others tried to promote John, everyone just wanted Vince back. Of course you did too, but what could you do? The band had succeeded because they were a group of stubborn fools who didn’t know when to give up, but that also meant they didn’t know how to back down from a fight–even when they knew they'd fucked up. No one wanted to admit they were wrong and come ‘crawling back’ to the other, so they were stuck in a stalemate.
—
You were sitting at home in your office, going over some paperwork for Vince, when you phone rings.
“Hello, y/n Sixx speaking.” You say absently as you continue reading over the paper in your hand.
“Y/N?” It was Tommy. He sounded upset. You set the paper down on the desk.
“Tommy? What’s wrong?”
“Y/N, I-I fucked up man, I fucked up so bad.” He stammers. “Fuck y/n, I, I–”
“Whoa, Tommy! Calm down.” You say, clutching the phone tightly. “Just tell me what happened.”
“There was this fucking article–someone got pictures. Damn I’m so fucking stupid!” He shouts.
“Tommy, you’re not making any sense.” After a long stretch of silence, you hear a sob come through the line.
“Heather knows I cheated. She left me y/n–she’s kicking me out.” Your breath catches in your throat.
A rush of emotions hits you like a freight train–too many to sort through at once. Anger, sadness, pity, illation, hope, guilt; each coming one after another. Anger at Tommy for cheating again. Sadness and pity at the pain he must be going through. Illation and hope because finally, finally, you might have a chance with him. And lastly guilt, that you would even consider your own feelings now, when he was in so much pain.
“Y/N?” Tommy calls out to you, snapping you out of your trance.
“Oh, oh god Tommy I’m so sorry.” You say, shaking your head to clear your thoughts. “Um, if, if you need somewhere to stay for awhile, you’re more than welcome to crash with me.” You offer.
“Really? You’re sure that’s cool?” He asks.
“Yeah of course.” You say. “It’ll be just like old times.” He laughs through a sob.
“Yeah, old times.” He repeats.
“You want me to come by? I can help you bring some stuff over.” You ask.
“Thanks y/n. God, what would I do without you?” He replies, and you smile to yourself.
You didn’t want to be this happy about Tommy’s marriage failing, but it had been seven years–seven long years, and you had given up hope of ever getting your chance with Tommy.
Now, you might finally have one–a chance–and that thought alone nearly made your heart leap out of your chest.
#tommy lee x reader#the dirt!tommy lee x reader#mgk!tommy lee x reader#the dirt x reader#tommy lee#the dirt
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17 OF THE 50 WAYS TO SAY I LOVE YOU FOR LALEXIE PLEASEEEE
em, my fellow luke angst lover, my lalexie brain rot-causer, my beloved <3
here is your prompt on ao3. tw for discussions of luke wanting to cross over. please read responsibly💜
Luke’s song book has been through a lot over the years.
It’s had tears soaked into its pages. It’s had crumbs stuck in between its binding. It’s had dozens of songs written on it in fast, messy handwriting, thousands of words based on Luke’s inner thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams.
It’s survived years worth of scribbles, cross-outs, rips and tears; even hugs and kisses, when Luke’s written something he’s sure will be a hit someday.
It’s survived death, some time in a dark room, and a tumbling trip back to Earth twenty five years in the future.
And now, the boy who’s been writing in it for all that time, whose soul is attached to it in ways most people wouldn’t even understand, is using its pages for something else.
Something no one would have ever expected.
A list.
Ways I Can Cross Over.
He thought that maybe, Unsaid Emily would’ve been it. There was a small part of him that had expected to just vanish into thin air the second Julie handed his parents that sheet of notebook paper.
His notebook is almost empty now. Luke thinks that that’s fitting; he’s spent most of his soul onto the pages. He’s a ghost. He’s got nothing more to give. Maybe it’s even a sign -- a sign that he’s not going to need to write music for much longer. The notebook is running out of space. It’s running out of time, just like he is.
He wonders if he could even use a new songbook. It wouldn’t be a part of him, the way his old one was. It would be empty; a blank slate for him to start a new journey in. A whole new marathon to run just as he’s crossing the finish line of the last one.
And… he doesn’t want to.
He’s tired of running. Running from his parents. Running from Caleb. From things that he broke, from things that were threatening to break him. From things that were hurting his friends.
Luke’s always been one for impulsive decisions.
So after he makes his list, he dog-ears the page and gives himself a time limit.
He has until the pages run out in his notebook to figure out what his unfinished business is… and finish it.
~
The problem is, Luke’s life on Earth wasn’t that long. He’s had seventeen years to start things, and practically no time at all to finish them. The possibilities of what his unfinished business actually is are endless. There was that music festival the guys had wanted to play at the end of summer ‘95. Countless world tours they wanted to go on. He wanted to sign an autograph for Dave Grohl, shake hands with Mick Jagger. He wanted to drink chocolate from the world’s largest chocolate waterfall in Alaska.
So few of these things he could actually do, now that he was dead.
Even fewer of them he could do without the guys. If his unfinished business really had to be just for him, maybe the band stuff wouldn’t be enough.
He never finished high school. He never learned how to play the bass -- he’s always wanted to; after all, Reggie could play the guitar, so Luke should know how to play his instrument, too.
And the only other thing he could think of that was absolutely, one hundred percent his business to finish… was his relationship with his mother.
Julie bringing “Unsaid Emily” over to his old house had been something. It filled the hole in his chest just enough that he could pretend it wasn’t there. Having his mom finally see how he felt about her, how much he regretted leaving, was like putting an ice pack on a burn. It eased the pain for the moment, had him thinking maybe that would be enough, that it would heal properly. But the ice pack’s melted, now; it’s gone back to room temperature, and his heart is still screaming.
Luke wonders what else he would have to do to get rid of the guilt.
He knows -- he hopes -- that the guilt won’t follow him to the afterlife. Because it’s really the only thing about this ghost-limbo that he wants to escape from. He doesn’t mind the invisibility, or the intangibility, because those things have never really prevented him from playing music. Music, though, he’ll miss, but Luke thinks it’s a small price to pay. After all, Alex and Reggie should’ve had their whole lives to play music. And even if Luke crosses over, they still can. He’s the one who caused their untimely deaths in the first place.
And he can never undo that, but… something he’s realized as all of them have adjusted to being ghosts is that he’s not really needed.
Sunset Curve could go on as a trio. Julie would still have her found family in Alex and Reggie and Willie. Reggie would have his friends that remained, as well as Ray and Carlos to fill in any gaps.
And Alex and Willie would have each other.
~
For Willie, the whole concept of “unfinished business” is just… not really on his radar. He’s pretty content in his afterlife. He is, as the kids say, vibing. He’s moving along, singing a song. He was never in any rush to figure out what his unfinished business was, and he was especially never in any rush to cross over, to fade out of existence entirely and into the unknown.
He also never really understood why other ghosts would want to do that. Until he met Alex and the others, and realized that sometimes, urgency forces your hand. Outside circumstances throw you out of your comfort zone, force you to do things you never would’ve considered before.
But also, since meeting Alex, the tiny part of his soul that’s always been curious about what his unfinished business was -- curious about crossing over, about what’s on the other side -- has pretty much shriveled away to nothing. Alex gives a whole new meaning to Willie’s life -- to his afterlife, really -- but the drummer makes him feel alive again in a way that he hasn’t felt in decades. Long before he’d forgotten the age-old saying, look both ways before you cross the street.
Willie wouldn’t call himself the most observant person on Earth. Sometimes, he can be a little oblivious. He can be blinded to the truth, only see what he wants to see -- he can deny what’s right in front of him. Give people the benefit of the doubt who don’t deserve it, like he’s done with Caleb so many times before.
He tries not to stress about things. Tries to just be. Live -- or do whatever he’s doing as a ghost, honestly -- with no regrets, no looking back. He doesn’t worry about consequences. But at the same time, he’s also scared of disappointing people. Scared of how he’s coming across to other people. He needs to make sure he’s not messing up too too badly, because he wants the people he loves to love him back -- he wants them to want him to stick around.
So he pays attention. He misses stuff sometimes, sure… but Willie’s mission in his afterlife is simple. Chill out, do whatever he wants to do -- it’s not like he can get caught; he’s invisible. Just don’t get on Caleb Covington’s bad side.
Love whoever he still can, and be loved back.
Willie loves Alex. He’s loved him since the museum. He’s needed him since he ran into him on the street with his skateboard. But lately, Willie’s started to realize that he might also love Luke. Not any more or less than he loves Alex, which is a confusing problem in itself. And not really in a different way than Alex, either. His heart does somersaults when he’s around Luke now, too.
He might need him in different ways than Alex, though. Alex calms him down, grounds him when his head’s in the clouds or he’s too distracted by other things. He brings him back, makes him aware of what’s most important in the moment. He makes him laugh. Makes him think. Makes him stop and appreciate everything around him, instead of just whipping through his afterlife with no concerns. Alex makes him care.
But Luke… With Luke, it feels like he’s stuck upside-down at the top of a roller coaster, but there’s no one else he’d rather be stuck with. He feels more dangerous with Luke, willing to do things that he’s too scared to drag Alex into. He feels like there’s no limits. In one of Luke’s songs, he wrote face first, full charge, and that’s the exact energy he brings when he’s around Willie -- when he’s around anyone, really. He’s passionate, and driven, and so unafraid. Willie doesn’t have to be as careful around Luke.
And they’re both super protective of Alex.
Willie needs Alex for the slow rollercoaster ride to the top of the hill, and he needs Luke for laughter, for thrill, for excitement. For the thrilling, twisty way back down.
Willie’s not sure that anything feels complete without Alex and Luke.
So, since they’re both a part of Willie in ways that he can’t even really explain, Willie watches. He pays attention to both of them, taking in everything about them in quiet, soft, subtle ways.
That’s how he starts to notice that something’s off with Luke.
~
A week goes by, the pages in Luke’s notebook are dwindling, and he still has no idea what his unfinished business is.
It’s frustrating, having to narrow his entire life down to one possible milestone he’s never gotten to achieve. There are far too many. And the nagging voice in the back of Luke’s head -- the one telling him that Alex and Reggie have just as many milestones -- isn’t helping matters at all.
Luke just wants all this to be over. He deserves it -- he’s not sure whether he deserves the questionable peace crossing over would bring; everyone always says death is peaceful, anyway. But he definitely deserves the “no longer existing” part. And Alex and Reggie do deserve it. They deserve everything that life -- or afterlife, really -- can still offer them. Luke’s tired of holding them back. It feels like nothing’s ever good enough -- like he’s wearing shoes made out of lead, or something, trying to walk across a desert, and he’s got a time limit to get there. And Alex and Reggie are chained to him -- stuck in the same predicament, because they just had to follow him to that hot dog stand. He’s tired of getting them into these messes. First death; and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, into the Hollywood Ghost Club with Caleb Covington, all because he just couldn’t let his grudge against Bobby -- Trevor Wilson -- die.
He’s still writing music, but his lyrics aren’t as powerful anymore. They’re not as confident, not as inspiring. And he writes with Julie, but he thinks Julie can tell that his spark has dimmed.
He hopes that she thinks he’s just going through writer’s block, or something. Something fixable.
He’s been working on his list for the past week, too. He thinks he’s got his unfinished business pretty much narrowed down; there’s three things on his list he wants to try. School. Bass. Emily.
He needs Reggie’s help with the bass one, so he’s been putting it off. And Emily…
Luke has tried to steer clear of his old house since Julie gave his parents the song. Because… the fact that it didn’t help, that it didn’t ease the ache in his heart in exactly the way Julie hoped that it would, made Luke feel guilty. And he doesn’t really want to see if the song made a difference for his parents. Because what if it didn’t?
What if they’re like Luke, just wishing for more? More interaction that they can never have -- an actual conversation about the regrets that he touched on in the song? A physical hug, the weight of their arms around each other, a look of real, actual understanding in their eyes that Luke’s never thought he would actually see.
And the thing is… if his parents are Luke’s unfinished business, what the hell is he supposed to do about it?
The prospect of being chained to the Earth forever because of something he’d screwed up beyond repair when he was alive has his stomach churning, almost as badly as it was when he’d eaten that hot dog.
The easiest one for Luke to focus on is school -- which, if someone had said to him twenty-five years ago that school would be at the top of his priority list, he’d have laughed in their face -- and the easiest way for him to do it is through Julie.
Julie’s sufficiently banned him from actually showing up at her school, but that doesn’t mean he can’t do other things. Like homework and studying. So Luke’s plan is this: he’ll study with Julie, maybe convince her to let him do a couple of her homework assignments. And if she aces her next math test because of the work they’ve done together, Luke’ll consider it a win.
It’s the best option he has. It’s not like he can sit in a classroom anymore, or take his own tests.
He sneaks up on her one afternoon as she’s sitting in her bedroom, chewing on a pencil, face scrunched in confusion.
“Hey, Jules. Whatcha doin?”
At the sound of his voice, Julie looks up at him and her confusion transforms into a smile. “Hey, Luke! Just homework.”
“Need any help?” He shuffles a little closer to the bed, mindful of Julie’s distaste for having the boys in her room.
Julie’s face flips back to confusion like a lightswitch. “You… want to help me with my homework?”
“Yeah!” Luke huffs out an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just… was curious, I guess. About what you’re learning in school.”
“Why?”
“You know, I never finished high school!” Luke says. “I’ve kind of always wondered what it would’ve been like if I had. Y’know, walking across a stage in that dumb cap and gown. Um -- accomplishing something. Being able to finish something important!”
He’s saying too much -- he knows by the way Julie’s expression shifts, confusion into curiosity into concern.
“Hey, wait,” she says, placing her pencil down and closing her textbook. “Are you okay? Is there something you want to talk about, Luke?”
“What? No! I’m fine!”
He hates the way his voice comes out, rough and high-pitched and decidedly not fine. Julie looks like she’s about to argue, so he opens his dumb, not-fine, impulsive mouth once again. “Seriously, Jules. I’m good. Gotta go meet the boys now, see ya!”
He poofs away, but he can still see Julie’s worried stare still fixed on him behind his eyelids.
~
“Don’t you think he’s been acting kinda strange?”
Willie is sitting in the garage, Reggie on the couch to his right and Alex behind him, braiding his hair like he does when he gets nervous.
And he’s trying to console Alex, to tell him to relax, that they’ll make sure Luke is fine -- only the confidence that Willie’s normally so famous for is dwindling.
Alex is worried about Luke, and Willie would love to reassure him, except that Willie thinks that Alex has a point. Luke has been acting strange lately; way too over the top during rehearsals, more trips to see his mom than usual -- trips that he thinks they don’t know about -- plus, he’s been reading books.
Julie’s school books, which he takes out of her room sometimes and stashes up on top of the loft. Books that Alex found there earlier that day, when he was looking for his drumsticks. Books that Alex had asked Willie about… and they’d both determined that it was Luke who had brought them up there, because Reggie wouldn’t hide the fact that he was teaching himself Trigonometry, and Luke’s been acting really weird as it is.
“You said he’s doing math?” Reggie asks, eyes wide. Willie figures Reggie must know just as well as he does -- if not better -- what Luke doing math could mean: that he’s not acting like himself.
“Yes!” Willie flails, waving his arms wildly -- to make a point -- and knocking into his boyfriend, who flinches back, tugging on Willie’s hair in the process.
“Ow!”
“Well you didn’t have to jump like that!” Alex hisses back. “Stop moving. I’m trying to stress-braid.”
“Sorry, Alex,” Willie sighs, straightening himself on the sofa. Sometimes, Alex just needs to stress-braid his hair. It gives him something to do with his hands; it’s a way for him to occupy his mind -- to focus on things other than the anxiety. And Willie’s usually all too happy to provide that service (what feels better than having your hair braided, especially by a boy you love?)
“Do you think he’s okay?” Alex mumbles, fingers once again fumbling through Willie’s hair in his unpracticed, clumsy way.
“Why don’t you guys just talk to him?” Reggie asks. “D’you have any idea what could be wrong?”
“No,” Willie huffs. “He’s just been acting so weird. I know it’s something. He’s doing stuff that he’s never cared about before -- like math. But also just… the stuff he normally loves, music. He’s… acting like it’s gonna be taken away from him, or something. Haven’t you noticed how hard he’s pushing you guys in band practice?”
“He’s acting like… like we’re running out of time,” Alex realizes. “But why?”
Just then, the boy in question poofs into the garage -- like he was rushing to get there; his landing’s not clean, and he stumbles around for a moment before catching himself on one of the microphone stands. He straightens up and sees that he has an audience.
“Hey -- hey, guys,” he stammers. “What’s up? We gonna practice?”
His eyes fix on Reggie, then, and he perks up. “Oh! Reg! I’ve been meaning to ask you -- can you teach me how to play the bass?”
“Can I--” Reggie stops, stares at Luke for a moment, trying to piece everything together.
Alex, though, right in front of Willie behind the sofa, looks like he’s already figured it out. He blinks at Luke. “You want to learn how to play bass?”
“I always have,” Luke shrugs. Alex studies him, and Luke twitches under his gaze.
“I just thought it would be cool, ya know, to know all our instruments. So can you teach me, Reg?”
“Um -- I --” Reggie’s eyes dart between Alex, Willie, and Luke, probably trying to figure out what the right thing to say is. Willie doesn’t know, exactly, but he knows one thing for sure: there’s no way Luke’s sudden interest in learning the bass is a coincidence.
Alex seems to be on the same page, but unlike Willie, he’s more inclined to take charge, to do something about it. “Reg, can we talk to Luke alone for a minute?”
“Yes,” Reggie lets out a sigh of relief and poofs away, leaving Willie and Alex to deal with… whatever this is. Willie still isn’t totally sure.
He’s once again enormously grateful for Alex, and the fact that his boyfriend has a pretty good handle on what’s going on in the world seventy-five percent of the time. Because it shocks Willie just as much as it does Luke when Alex says, “Why are you trying to cross over?”
What?
Willie hasn’t put the pieces together nearly as well as Alex has -- in fact, he feels like they’ve been working on entirely different puzzles. Why would Luke be trying to cross over? Why would he want to leave all the guys, and Julie, behind forever?
He wouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense.
Except the second the words leave Alex’s mouth, Luke freezes, eyes wide like he’s been tossed into the path of an oncoming train, shoes welded to its tracks.
And Willie starts to think that maybe his boyfriend wasn’t so far off the mark, after all.
~
“There are people who love you, you know.”
Luke blinks up at Alex, still frozen, still thrown for a loop, still… not understanding how Alex figured him out.
“How do you think we’d feel if you crossed over?” Alex continues, his intense gaze still fixed on Luke, Luke squirming uncomfortably underneath it. “Without us? Is that… is that something you want?”
Alex’s voice finally cracks, betraying the emotion underneath it, and it’s almost too much for Luke to take. His wild eyes dart around the studio, looking for something -- anything -- to focus on, to take him out of the moment… and he finds the string lights, hung across the walls and the ceilings. He starts counting the bulbs, reciting the numbers in his head. He only makes it to seven before Willie’s voice breaks his concentration.
“Luke?”
“How… how did you know that’s what I was trying to do?” Luke mumbles.
“Well… the math’s what clued me in,” Willie lets out a half-hearted laugh as Alex takes slow steps around the sofa and sits down.
“Come here,” he calls out to Luke -- and although every bone in Luke’s body is screaming run, get out, get far, far away from this conversation… he finds himself joining them, sitting down in the spot on the couch they’ve made in between them.
“We just want you to know there are people who love you,” Willie says. “People -- people who need you, Luke. You can’t leave us, okay? You can’t cross over. Not without us.”
“But you -- you guys and Reggie and Julie -- you don’t need me.”
“What are you talking about?” Alex asks. “Of course we--”
“You and Reg would still be alive if it weren’t for me,” Luke growls. “So don’t say you need me. All I do is mess everything up. You guys, our careers, my parents…”
“Hang on, Luke,” Alex reaches a hand out, momentarily caught off guard. Luke doesn’t see why; it’s not like what he said was that complicated. He’s messed up. He breaks things. He ruined his parents’ lives by running away. He almost ruined Julie’s life, by getting involved with Caleb. And -- and Alex and Reggie…
“None of that’s your fault,” Alex says with conviction.
“Alex--”
“No!” Alex gets up, suddenly, and starts to pace around the room, fingers digging through his hair. “You have to know that. We don’t blame you for any of that!”
“Luke, Alex is right,” Willie reaches a hand out, cautiously, and takes one of Luke’s. When Luke doesn’t pull away, Willie pulls him even closer, into his chest, and starts gently running his fingers through Luke’s hair.
Luke sinks into Willie’s chest, eyes following Alex’s nervous pacing -- he’s biting his lip, and his hands are shaking slightly. Luke hadn’t realized that it might be hard on Alex, too, dealing with Luke’s current mental spiral.
He pulls away from Willie, ignoring the other boy’s whine of protest, and sits up to face Alex. “Hey, Alex,” he calls out quietly. “Come back and sit down. I’m-- I’m good. You don’t have to worry about me. Just… take deep breaths, okay?”
“Are you seriously trying to calm me down right now?” Alex snaps. A flash of hurt crosses Luke’s face -- one that he must not be quick enough to hide, because Alex’s own face softens at the sight of it.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Luke… I--”
“Just come back here and hold me, please,” Luke croaks.
Luke… doesn’t cry much, if he can help it. He hates tears, both his own and other people’s, and generally tries to avoid them at all costs. But… the look on Alex’s face, the tone of his voice -- his scared, anxious, desperate voice as he snapped at Luke for trying to calm him down -- has the dam breaking, finally, and the tears are bursting out of Luke’s eyes and running down his face before he even knows what’s happening, running down and soaking into the collar of his flannel shirt.
At the sight of Luke’s tears, Alex startles, and makes a beeline for his side. Luke is thrown into a group hug, Alex and Willie on either side of him.
And he just lets himself cry.
~
It takes a while, but finally Luke calms down a bit.
He stays on the couch, sandwiched in between two of his favorite people on the planet. Willie’s hands are still running gently through his hair; Alex’s thumb is rubbing small circles on his wrist.
His tears have finally stopped, but there’s this annoying, puffy ache in his head and behind his eyes that feels like it’s going to linger for a while.
It’s quiet, and the quiet allows Luke to think about everything that’s happened that day -- after weeks of his stupid, ill-advised mission to complete his unfinished business, he’s been found out.
And he found out that people -- Alex and Willie, who are love and sunshine and light and everything beautiful about the world personified -- would actually miss him if he was gone. That people care, that they don’t blame him for the stuff that he’s been blaming himself for for months.
It’s… a lot to wrap his head around, and even though the tears have stopped, the uncertainty and anxiety and desire to not be a burden is still swirling around in his head, leaving him silent and still as he sits there in between Alex and Willie, his head now resting on Willie’s shoulder.
He knows that those feelings, like the ache he feels in his heart and his head, will probably be around a while.
“I’m sorry for making you worry ‘bout me,” he mumbles, burrowing his face even deeper into Willie’s loose-fitting sweatshirt. Willie’s arms wrap around him and hold him there, and Luke takes in a deep, slow breath, inhaling Willie’s musky scent, shutting his eyes in the first moment of contentment he’s felt in weeks.
“I meant what I said, you know,” Alex whispers. “None of it’s your fault. There are people who love you. We…”
He stops, and Luke turns his head as much as Willie’s grip will allow to try to see why. He’s able to just peek at Alex out of the corner of his eye, and he sees that the other boy’s frowning. Like he’s unsure of what he’s about to say. Like he’s nervous.
“Alex?” Luke struggles out of Willie’s grip, and reluctantly, the other boy lets him go. He shuffles to the other side of the sofa, closer to Alex, and the drummer opens his arms for Luke willingly.
Being in Alex’s arms is different than being in Willie’s, too. Alex is sturdier; less teddy-bear like than Willie is, but comforting and warm and inviting all the same. Alex’s arms feel like home just as much as Willie’s do, and Luke melts into the hug instantly, like an ice cream cone on the hot pavement in July. Alex’s hand runs up and down Luke’s back and Luke shivers, eyes threatening to slip closed despite his need to hear Alex’s answer.
“Willie and I love you, Luke,” Alex says softly. There’s no more uncertainty -- a hint of nervousness, but Luke doesn’t doubt what Alex is saying for a second. There’s a conviction in his tone -- a confidence -- that Alex only really uses when talking about people he loves. This… defensiveness, this love, this conviction.
“We don’t have to figure everything out now,” Alex continues -- probably realizing Luke’s been through enough that day. Luke appreciates that, actually. There’s only one answer he would ever give to Alex and Willie -- only one thing his heart’s ever wanted; Luke can see it now, now that the sound of his heartbeat is pulsing in his ears, now that he feels like he’s both standing on the edge of a mountain, about to take a leap of faith into the crisp winter air below -- and at the same time, on solid ground, in no danger of falling, of stumbling, of getting hurt. He feels safe and exhilarated all at the same time, and this feeling is both familiar and completely new, more amplified than it usually is. Not what he’s used to.
But Luke feels like he’s ready to take the leap now. He still feels guilty, still isn’t actually sure whether his friends -- his family -- would be better off without him. But Alex and Willie have never steered him wrong before.
When he’s sitting in between them, their arms around him and their warm, soft hands running through his hair… Luke feels like maybe he can get through anything.
#julie and the phantoms#julie & the phantoms#jatp#jatp fanfiction#jatp fanfic#luke patterson#alex mercer#willie wilbur williamson#lalexie#angst#prompt fill
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Viva Las Vegas, Pt. 16 - Be Careful
Summary: Sunset Curve Alive AU, Willex, can they bear the news?, 2.2k
@trevor-wilson-covington is the bestie who makes these lovely edits, we stan supportive friends
WARNINGS: cancer mention
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15
Julie sat beside Luke at the small table they had set up beside Rose’s bed. A stack of photos, glue sticks, stickers, scissors, and tons of colored paper covered the table, as well as another stack of photos sitting within Rose’s reach.
“Oh, look at this picture of Carlos,” Rose said in her raspy voice. She lifted one of him as a chubby two year old wearing a baseball cap that was too big, clapping his hands together.
“Aww,” Julie looked affectionately at the photo, tilting her head.
“He’s a cute kid, Mrs. Molina,” Luke said. He continued cutting music notes out of a sheet of purple paper.
“Thanks for visiting me today,” Rose said. “I heard you and the boys have been busy in the studio?”
Grinning like the goof he was, Luke nodded. Julie couldn’t help suppressing a giggle. Even though she knew he was tired from long hours and he only had a little time to get away, he’d still been all about coming with her to visit her mom this morning. She wasn’t sure he was that interested in scrapbooking, but it was sweet of him to come along.
“Yeah, it’s been so fun,” he was saying. “I don’t know how the guys in production make us sound so good. I mean, we already sound awesome, but they make it just perfect. I feel like I would go out and buy ten copies of the album when it gets out.”
Rose chuckled. “Really? That’s great to hear. I remember with the Petal Pushers, I could’ve spent hours in production, tweaking everything until it was just right. That’s why it almost took us two years to release our debut.”
“Two years?” Luke sat back, letting it sink in.
“I was a bit of a perfectionist; the rest of my band wasn’t so patient. I don’t mind though, I had other things to put my time into.” She gazed fondly at Julie, who looked back with a similar fondness, if not slightly clouded.
She wasn’t responding to treatment anymore. It had just become official last week and Julie wasn’t ready to break the news to Luke or anyone else. There wasn’t anything she could think of that would make it easier, no matter how much she knew she needed to let them know. It just seemed like everyone else was doing so well: the guys were finally moving on up, Flynn was coming out with her own music, and even she had barely finished a successful tour. But this was more than just a wrench in the gears.
In the middle of cutting out a heart, she was too lost in thought and snipped on the end of her thumb.
“Ow!” she cried, immediately sucking on it. “Do we have band aids in here?”
“Oh, sweetie,” her mom said fretfully. “I can’t remember where they are, but let me call the nurse.” She pressed a button on the remote beside her bed. Luke tried to get a look at the cut, but Julie insisted on sucking on it.
Moments later, the same woman Julie had seen before entered the room. Her hair was in a braid today, and Julie tried to smile at the sight while her thumb remained in her mouth.
“Hey, Rose, what’s up?” she asked, appearing surprised to have gotten a call.
“Sorry this isn’t a big emergency,” Rose apologized. “My daughter just cut her thumb and I can’t remember where you put the bandages.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got you,” the nurse said, going to a cabinet and pulling out supplies to bandage Julie’s thumb. “Here, let me see it.”
Finally releasing it, Julie held her hand out and let the nurse sit down and get to work cleaning and wrapping it.
“What are we working on here?” the nurse wondered aloud, looking at the table of craft supplies.
“We’re putting together a scrapbook,” Julie told her, knowing she was using the conversation to distract her from the pain. “You know, so we don’t forget the good things.” She got a knowing look from the nurse. Her eyes were soft and full of understanding, and Julie offered her a little smile. “I know I’ve seen you before, but what was your name?”
“It’s Renee,” the nurse said. “I was just realizing that I never properly introduced myself, either.” Closing the band aid around Julie’s finger, she patted her hand and stood up.
“Well, it’s good to see you again. This is Luke, by the way.” Julie pointed toward where he was simply watching them, slightly spaced out. He blinked for a minute before smiling at Renee and nodding.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “You’re a lifesaver.”
Renee smiled demurely. “Oh, well, I certainly aim for that at the end of the day.”
Luke could only respond with his dorky grin.
“Luke, here, is a musician like Julie,” Rose piped in.
“Is that right?” Renee replied, raising her eyebrows in interest. “Your family seems to attract the most talented company.”
“Oh, well, I’m definitely talented,” Luke said. “But Julie’s the real wrecking ball. It doesn’t surprise me she got to touring before me and my band.”
She rolled her eyes, but Julie enjoyed the compliment. That was pretty modest for him when it came to music.
“Yes, I remember mentioning my niece is a big fan. I have to refrain from telling her you’re related to Rose, otherwise she would ask for a lot of favors.”
“Oh, how old is your niece?” Julie asked.
“She’s thirteen,” Renee said, leaning on her hand. “Just started middle school.”
“Oh, middle school is rough,” Luke murmured.
“She’s definitely having a rough time,” Renee said to all three of them. “But I think your music has made a difference. Her mom might buy her keyboard for Christmas.”
Julie looked back at Luke, who was already beaming at her, and knew what he would say. He didn’t have to, but she could hear his mantra about the importance of music echo in her brain: it’s about connecting with people, making a difference in their day. She turned back to Renee, whose pager was beeping and made her turn to leave.
“Thanks for the bandage, and of course being there for us,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Glad I could see you, too, Julie.”
“I’ll see you later, Renee,” Rose rasped as she disappeared.
“She seems pretty cool,” Luke said, picking up the music note he was still trying to cut out.
“Yeah, I like her,” Julie told him. “She gave me some good advice.”
“I know she kept talking about her niece, but I think you have another big fan,” Rose said.
“Maybe,” Julie shrugged, trying to focus again on the scrapbook.
As she and Luke left the hospital, Julie had to steal a long glance at her mom, now fast asleep. She had to remember the good things, but there were so many questions she felt like she had to answer. Now that she was off tour and back in school, it was only a matter of time before she had to return to the studio. Once that happened, visits like this would be nearly impossible. She felt a hand slip into hers and fingers interlocking, and she looked up at Luke gently nodding at her to move onward. His puppy-like eyes gave her enough courage to go.
“So how long do you have to be in the studio today?” she asked him, forcing her mind to switch gears.
“Uh...till about seven,” Luke said. “We’re mostly working on Lakeside Reflection today.”
“Aww, I love that one,” she melted into his side as they stepped into the elevator.
“I know you do,” he chuckled softly. She continued leaning on him, feeling his thumb rub over the top of her hand like a lullaby. They remained silent the rest of the way down, just enjoying each other’s company. Julie loved Luke’s calm, quiet moments where he didn’t need to use words. Like the way he used music to speak his mind, he could also communicate with the way he held her. He offered the best comfort. Stepping out of the elevator and to the front of the hospital, Julie saw Bobby’s van already waiting.
“Do you need a ride?” Luke asked.
She shook her head. “No, my tía is taking me and Carlos to see a movie. She’ll be here any minute.”
Forever a pleading look in his eyes when they said goodbye, she shook her head and rolled her eyes at him before he could suggest she change her plans. It happened so often now that she’d had to learn how to say no, no matter how hard it was sometimes.
“Okay, fine,” Luke said, the silent argument over. One hand grabbed onto her head as he planted a kiss on her forehead, letting the other slowly slip out of her fingers as he went to climb into the van. Julie waved at all the guys inside as Bobby took off before looking back down at her bandaged thumb. She still couldn’t tell them about her mom.
Tapping his fingers on the seat, Alex nervously fought to decide if he could break the news to Luke and Bobby. Reggie peeked back, giving him an uncertain glance. They hadn’t exactly discussed it or practiced what they’d say to them, but the clock was ticking. Luke and Bobby needed to know what Caleb was really like now. For some odd reason, Alex’s tongue remained on lock for the whole ride, and it seemed to plague Reggie, too. He felt his muscles twitch as they pulled into the parking lot at the studio. Listening to the squeak of Bobby’s brakes, inertia let them all lightly lurch forward before coming to a full stop.
“Guess who me and Reggie ran into last night?” Alex cried out, almost reflexively. All the guys turned back at him.
“Who?” Bobby prompted.
“Willie.”
The two of them stared at him, stunned, as Reggie took in a deep breath. It was hard to tell whether it was relief or something else.
“Reggie, is he okay?” Bobby asked him.
“Actually, yes he is,” Reggie stated solemnly. “I saw Willie too. He’s here in LA.”
Bobby looked at Luke.
“Caleb said he died. There’s no way he could be here.”
“Well, he is,” Alex said firmly. “Flynn can prove it too, we ran into her as well.”
“Alright, that’s good news, but why are you guys telling us now?” Luke queried.
“Because he knows things about Caleb,” Alex said. “Really bad things.”
Luke and Bobby both blinked and then looked at each other. Alex shot a glance over at the door to the studio. He was already afraid to enter. Caleb wasn’t always there, but he always arrived unpredictably.
“Like what things?” Luke asked.
Later that evening, all the guys sat in the garage where they usually practiced. Luke was lying on the couch, despondent as he gazed at the ceiling. Bobby was sprawled on the floor while Reggie had lain sideways across the armchair. Alex paced, occasionally running his hand through his hair.
“Anyone else never want to set foot inside that studio again?” Reggie offered cheerlessly.
“We can’t just quit making a record,” Luke contested.
“Maybe we wouldn’t feel like we want to if we hadn’t jumped the gun and just signed onto the first place that wanted us,” Bobby said. Luke sat up, clearly bothered by those words.
“Dude, what are you saying?”
“Caleb’s a creep,” Reggie supplied. “I don’t know what his game is, but if what Willie says is true, then working with him is a major no go.”
“If?” Alex retorted, stopping to target Reggie. “If we’re gonna trust anyone between the two of them, I would trust Willie. He’s not the one killing people for convenience.”
“Hey,” Bobby interrupted. “You can defend him all you want. We’re not saying we don’t trust him.”
Alex took back to pacing again. Sighing heavily, Luke sat upright on the couch.
“So what, do we just give up?” he demanded. “We didn’t work so hard to get this far just to drop our dream over one shady guy. I mean, what else could he possibly want with us?”
“Look, I don’t know,” Alex said. “But what if it’s not just about us. I mean, thanks to Caleb, Willie can barely remember who he is.” The guys fell silent and serious as that reality sank in. “I mean, he’s not the only one that Caleb has messed with for years, manipulating them into working under him and giving up almost all of their control. Maybe he doesn’t need to get foster kids for it anymore. What if we’re next?”
“So what should we do?” Bobby wondered. “Break the contract and risk losing the rights to all the work we’ve been doing?”
He had a point. Joining Luke on the couch, Alex rested his face in his hands, feeling the frustration seethe out of him.
“No, guys, we need to think about this,” Luke began saying. “I know this is messed up, but I also know that backing out isn’t the right answer. And I know I’m usually not the one to say this stuff but...we need to be careful.”
#julie and the phantoms#jatp#fanfic#jatp fanfic#sunset curve#alive au#willex#willie#alex mercer#luke patterson#reggie peters#bobby wilson#julie molina#caleb covington#rose molina#viva las vegas#be careful#fiddlepickdouglas
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‘He’s our Satan’: Mega music manager Irving Azoff, still feared, still fighting
(x)PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. —
This is not Irving Azoff’s house. Irving and his wife Shelli own houses all over, from Beverly Hills to Cabo San Lucas, but right now in the last week of October it’s too cold at the ranch in Idaho and too hot at the spread in La Quinta, so he’s renting this place — a modest midcentury six-bedroom that sold for $5 million back in 2016.
From the front door you can see all the way out, to where Arrowhead Point juts like the tail of a comma into the calm afternoon waters of Carmel Bay. More importantly, the house is literally across the street from the Pebble Beach Golf Links, where Azoff likes to play with his college buddy John Baruck, who started out in the music business around the same time Azoff did, in the late ’60s, and just retired after managing Journey through 20 years and two or three lead singers, depending how you count.
(Via LA Times)
Azoff is 72, and this weekend he’ll be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside Bruce Springsteen’s longtime manager Jon Landau. Beatles manager Brian Epstein and Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham are already in, but Azoff and Landau are the first living managers thus honored. Azoff is not only alive — he’s still managing. As a partner in Full Stop Management — alongside Jeffrey Azoff, his oldest son and the third of his four children — he steers the careers of clients like the Eagles, Steely Dan, Bon Jovi and comedian Chelsea Handler, and consults when needed on the business of Harry Styles, Lizzo, John Mayer, Roddy Ricch, Anderson .Paak and Maroon 5. Azoff has Zoom calls at 7, 8 and 9 tomorrow morning, and only after that will he squeeze in a round.
The work never stops when you view the job the way Azoff does, as falling somewhere between consigliere and concierge. “My calls can be everything from ‘My knee buckled, I need a doctor’ to ‘My kid’s in jail,’” Azoff says. “I mean, you have no idea. The ‘My kid’s in jail’ one was a funny one, because the artist then said to me, ‘Y’know, I’ve thought about this. Maybe we should leave him there for a while.’”
Golf entered Azoff’s life the way a lot of things have — via the Eagles, whom Azoff has managed since the early ’70s. Specifically, Azoff took up golf in the company of the late Glenn Frey, the jockiest Eagle, the one the other Eagles used to call “Sportacus.” By the time the Eagles returned to the road in the ’90s they’d left their debauched ’70s lifestyles largely behind, but Azoff and Frey got hooked on the little white ball.
“Frey would insist on booking the tour around where he wanted to play golf,” Azoff says. “We made Henley crazy. Henley would call me in my room and he’d go, ‘Why the f— are we in a hotel in Hilton Head North Carolina and starting a tour in Charlotte? Is this a f— golf tour?’”
Trailed by Larry Solters, the Eagles’ preternaturally dour minister of information, Azoff makes his way down the hill from the house for dinner at the golf club’s restaurant. He’s only 5 feet, 3 inches, a diminutive Sydney Pollack in jeans and a zip-up sweater. In photos from the ’70s — when he was considerably less professorial in comportment, a hipster exec with a spring-loaded middle finger — he sports a beard and a helmet of curly hair and mischievous eyes behind his shades, and looks a little like a Muppet who might scream at Kermit over Dr. Teeth’s appearance fee.
His father was a pharmacist and his mother was a bookkeeper. He grew up in Danville, Ill., booked his first shows in high school to pay for college, dropped out of college to run a small Midwestern concert-booking empire and manage local acts such as folk singer Dan Fogelberg and heartland rock band REO Speedwagon. Los Angeles soon beckoned. He met the Eagles while working for David Geffen and Elliot Roberts’ management company and followed the band out the door when they left the Geffen fold; they became the cornerstone of his empire. “I got my swagger from Glenn Frey and Don Henley,” he says. “No doubt about it.”
Azoff never took to pot or coke. The Eagles lived life in the fast lane; he was the designated driver. “Artists,” he once observed, “like knowing the guy flying the plane is sober.” This didn’t stop him from trashing his share of hotel rooms, frequently with guitarist Joe Walsh — whose solo career Azoff shepherded before Walsh joined the Eagles, and who was very much not sober at this time — as an accomplice.
“This was a different age,” Walsh says of his time as the band’s premier lodging-deconstructionist. “We could do anything we wanted, so we did. And Irving’s role was to keep us out of prison, basically.” He recalls a pleasant evening in Chicago in the company of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, which culminated in Walsh laying waste to a suite at the Astor Towers hotel that turned out to be the owner’s private apartment. “We had to check out with a lawyer and a construction foreman,” Walsh remembers. “But Irving took care of it. Without Irving, I’d still be in Chicago.”
Azoff became even more infamous for the pit bull brio he brought to business negotiations on behalf of the Eagles and others, including Stevie Nicks and Boz Scaggs. He didn’t seem to care if people liked him, and his artists loved him for that. Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker said they’d hired Azoff because he “impressed us with his taste for the jugular … and his bizarre spirit.” Jimmy Buffett’s wife grabbed him outside a show at Madison Square Garden, pushed him into the back of a limo and said, You have to manage Jimmy, although Buffett already had a manager at the time.
His outsized reputation as an advocate not just willing but eager to scorch earth on behalf of his clients became an advertisement for his services, a phenomenon that continues to this day. In August 2018, Azoff’s then-client Travis Scott released “Astroworld,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and occupied that slot again the following week, causing Nicki Minaj’s album “Queen” to debut at No. 2. On her Beats One show “Queen Radio,” Minaj accused Scott of gaming Billboard’s chart methodology to keep her out of the top slot and singled his manager out by name: “C—sucker of the Day award,” she said, “goes to Irving Azoff.” Azoff says he reacted as only Azoff would: “I said, ‘I’m really unhappy about that. I want to be c—sucker of the year.’” In 2019, Minaj hired Azoff as her new manager.
Most of the best things anyone’s ever said about Azoff are statements a man of less-bizarre spirit would take as an insult. When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Eagles in 1998, Don Henley stood onstage and said of Azoff, “He may be Satan, but he’s our Satan.”
An N95-masked Azoff takes a seat on a patio with a view of hallowed ground — the first hole of the Pebble Beach course, a dogleg-right par 4 with a priceless view of the bay. He cheerfully admits that he and his partners at Full Stop are “obviously, as a management business, kind of losing our ass” this year due to COVID-19. In another reality, the Eagles would have played Wembley Stadium in August before heading off to Australia or the Far East. Styles would have just finished 34 dates in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. As it stands Azoff is hearing encouraging things about treatments and vaccines and new testing machines, and is reasonably confident that technology will soon make it possible for certified-COVID-free fans to again enjoy carefree evenings of live music together; he doesn’t expect much to happen in the meantime.
“What are you gonna do,” Azoff says, “take an act that used to sell 15,000 seats and tell them to play to 4,000 in the [same] arena? The vibe would be horrible, and production costs will stay the same.”
He knows of at least six companies trying to monetize new concert-esque experiences — pay-per-view shows from houses and soundstages, drive-in events and so on. But he’s not convinced anybody wants to sit in their parked car to watch a band play. More to the point, he’s not convinced it’s rock ’n’ roll.
“Fallon and Kimmel, all these virtual performances — people are sick of that,” he says. “Your production values from home aren’t that good. And they’re destroying the mystique. I mean, Justin Bieber jumping around on ‘Saturday Night Live’ the other night without a band, and then he had Chance the Rapper come out? It made him look to me, mortal. I didn’t feel any magic. So we’ve kinda been turning that stuff down to just wait it out.”
In the meantime, he says, Full Stop is picking up new clients during the pandemic. Artists with time on their hands, he believes, “have taken a hard look at their careers— so we’ve grown. No revenues,” he adds with a chuckle, “but people are saying, ‘We need you, we need to plan our lives.’”
“IN HIGH SCHOOL,” Jeffrey Azoff says, “I wanted to be a professional golfer, which has obviously eluded me.” He never expected to take up his father’s profession. “But my dad has always loved his job so much. There’s no way that doesn���t rub off on you.”
The younger Azoff got his first industry job at 21, as a “glorified intern” working for Maroon 5’s then-manager Jordan Feldstein. After a week of filing and fetching coffee, he called his father and complained that he was bored. According to Jeffrey, Irving responded, “Listen carefully, because I’m going to say this one time. You have a phone and you have my last name. If you can’t figure it out, you’re not my son.”
“Direct quote,” Jeffrey says. “It’s one of my favorite things he’s ever said to me. And it’s the spirit of the music business, by the way. There are no rules to this. Just figure it out.”
Over dinner I keep asking Irving how he got the temerity, as a kid barely out of college, to plunge into the shark-infested waters of the ‘70s record industry in Los Angeles. He just shrugs.
“I never felt the music business was that competitive,” he says. “It’s just not that f—ing hard. I don’t think there’s that many smart people in our business.”
It’s been written, I say, that once you landed in California and sized up the competition, you called John Baruck back in Illinois and said —
“We can take this town,” Azoff says, finishing the sentence. “Where’d you get that? John told that story to [Apple senior vice president] Eddy Cue on the golf course three days ago. It’s true. I called John up and said, ‘OK, get your ass out here. We can take this town.’”
In the ensuing years, Azoff has occupied nearly every high-level position the music industry has to offer, surfing waves of industry consolidation. He’s been the president of a major label, MCA; the CEO of Ticketmaster; and executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the behemoth formed from Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation. In 2013 he and Cablevision Systems Corp. CEO and New York Knicks owner James Dolan formed a partnership, Azoff MSG Entertainment; Azoff ran the Forum in Inglewood for Dolan after MSG purchased it in 2012.
Earlier this year Dolan sold the Forum for $400 million to former Microsoft CEO and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, who’s since announced plans to build a new stadium on a site just one mile away. Despite the apocalyptic parking scenario that looms for the area — two stadiums and a concert arena on a one-mile stretch of South Prairie Boulevard — Azoff is confident that the Forum will live on as a live-music venue. “People are going, ‘They’re going to tear it down’ — they’re not going to tear it down,” Azoff says. “It’s going to be in great hands. I have many of the artists we represent booked in the Forum, waiting for the restart based on COVID.”
The holdings of the Azoff Co. — formed when Dolan sold his interest in Azoff MSG back to Azoff two years ago — include Full Stop, the performance-rights organization Global Music Rights and the Oak View Group, which is developing arenas in Seattle and Belmont, N.Y., and a 15,000-seat venue on the University of Texas campus in Austin. Azoff describes himself as increasingly focused on “diversification, and building assets for the family that aren’t just dependent on commissions, shall we say.”
But as both a manager and a co-founder of a lobbying group, the Music Artists Coalition, he’s also devoting more time and energy to a broad range of artists’-rights issues, from health insurance to royalty rates to copyright reversion to this year’s Assembly Bill 5, which threatened musicians’ independent-contractor status until it was amended in September. (“That was us,” Azoff says, somewhat grandly. “I got to the governor, the governor signed it — Newsom was great on it.”) He describes his advocacy for artists — even those he doesn’t manage — as a “war on all fronts,” and estimates there are 21 major issues on which “we’ve sort of appointed ourselves as guardians.”
He does not continue to manage artists because he needs the money, he says. (As the singer-songwriter and Azoff client J.D. Souther famously put it, “Irving’s 15% of everybody turned out to be more than everyone’s 85% of themselves.”) Everything he’s doing now — building clout through the Azoff Co., even accepting the Hall of Fame honor — is ultimately about positioning himself to better fight these fights. “I’d rather work on [these things] than anything else,” he says. “But if I didn’t have the power base in the management business, I couldn’t be effective.”
The recorded music industry, having fully transitioned to a digital-first business, is once again making money hand over fist, he points out, but even less of that money is trickling down to artists. That imbalance long predates Big Tech’s involvement in the field, but the failure of music-driven tech companies to properly compensate musicians is clearly the largest burr under Azoff’s saddle.
“These people, when they start out — whether it’s Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, whatever — they resist paying for music until you go beat the f— out of them. And then of course, none of them pay fair market value and they get away with it. Your company’s worth $30 billion and you can’t spend 20 grand for a song that becomes a phenomenon on your channel? Even when they pay, artists don’t get enough. Writers don’t get enough. Music, as a commodity, is more important than it’s ever been, and more unfairly monetized for the creators. And that’s what creates an opportunity for people like me.”
AZOFF’S FIRM NO longer handles Travis Scott, by the way. “Travis is unmanageable,” Azoff says, nonchalantly and without rancor. “We’re involved in his touring as an advisor to Live Nation, but he’s calling his own shots these days.”
I ask if, in the age of the viral hit and the bedroom producer, he finds himself running into more artists who assume they don’t need a manager. Ehh, Azoff says, like it’s always been that way. “There’s a lot of headstrong artists,” he says. “I haven’t seen one that’s better off without a manager than with,” he says, and laughs a little Dennis the Menace laugh.
We’re back at the house. Azoff takes a seat on the living-room couch; Larry Solters sits across from him, his back to the sea. Azoff recalls another big client. Declines to name him. Says he was never happy, even after Azoff and his people got him everything on his wish list. “He hit me with a couple bad emails. Just really disrespectful s—. I sent him an email back that said, ‘Lucky for me, you need me more than I need you. Goodbye.’”
He will confirm having resigned the accounts of noted divas Mariah Carey and Axl Rose. Reports that he once attempted to manage Kanye West have been greatly exaggerated, he says, although they’ve spoken about business. “Robert [Kardashian] was a good friend of mine. The kids all went to school together,” Azoff says. “What I always said to Kanye was, you’re unmanageable, but we can give you advice.
“A lot of people could have made a dynasty on the people we used to manage,” Azoff says, “let alone the ones we kept.”
But he still works with many artists who joined him in the ’70s — with Henley, with Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and with Joe Walsh. Walsh has been sober for more than 25 years; it was Azoff, along with Henley and Frey, who talked him into rehab before the Eagles’ 1994 reunion tour. “Irving never passed judgment on me,” Walsh says. “And from that meeting on, he made sure I had what I needed to stay sober.” If he hadn’t, Walsh says, there’s no chance we’d be having this conversation. “All the guys I ran with are dead. Keith Moon’s dead. John Entwistle’s dead. Everybody’s dead, and I’m here. That’s profound to me.”
The first client Azoff lost was Minnie Riperton — in 1979, to breast cancer when she was only 31. Then Warren Zevon, to cancer, in 2003. Fogelberg, to cancer, four years later.
“And then Glenn,” says Azoff, referring to the Eagles co-founder who died in 2016. “I miss Glenn a lot. And now Eddie.”
Van Halen, that is. I ask Azoff if he can tell me a story that sums up what kind of guy Eddie Van Halen was; he tells me a beautiful one, then says he’d prefer not to see it in print. It makes perfect Azoffian sense — profane trash talk on the record, tenderness on background.
I ask if he’s been moved to contemplate his own mortality, as his boomer-aged clients approach an actuarial event horizon. Of course the answer turns out to involve keeping pace with an Eagle.
“Henley and I are having a race,” he says. “Neither one of us has given in. Neither one of us is going to retire.”
Henley was born in July 1947; Azoff came along that December. Does Don plan to keep going, I ask, until the wheels fall off?
“I don’t know,” Azoff says.
Do you ever talk about it?
“Yeah! He’ll call me up and he’ll go, ‘I really feel s— today.’ And I say, ‘Well, you should, Grandpa. You’re an old man. You ready to throw in the towel? Nope? OK.’”
Azoff says, “I contend that what keeps us all young is staying in the business. I’ve had more people tell me, ‘My father, he quit working, and then his health started failing,’ and all that. Every single — I mean, every single rock star I know is basically doing it to try and stay young. And I think it works. I really think it works.
“I have this friend,” Azoff says. “Calls me once a week, he’s sending me tapes, it’s his next big record. Paul Anka! He’s 80 years old. OK? And my other friend, Frankie Valli …”
“Do you know how old Frankie Valli is?” Solters says. “Eighty-six. And he still performs.”
“Not during COVID,” Azoff says. “I told the motherf—, ‘You’re not going out.’”
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bitter - p.p.
summary: you worked your whole life for this, and peter parker took it away without a single second thought.
word count: 2.5k
warnings: a bit of swearing but for comedic effect i swear
authors note: this is my first (and most likely last) time writing. if its not good blame my C in english <3. this idea randomly came to me in the middle of the night and i though i’d give it a shot. shoutout @hollanderheart for not only motivating me to write and post this but also being my own personal hype woman at all times. enjoy!!
---
You had never had a solid reason to hate Peter Parker. He was smart, quiet, and always kind to you and everyone around him. You thought he was a nice boy, and never had a problem with him. Until now.
Until Peter fucking Parker stole your internship.
The news was initially broken to you through hallway gossip. Not believing the story, you went straight to the only person who you knew wouldn’t feed you bullshit, MJ.
“Did Peter get the Stark internship?” You practically screamed. MJ turned, stunned from your sudden close proximity and your wide, questioning eyes. Closing her locker after grabbing the books she needed for her next class, she answered, “Yeah, he’s had it for like a week, why?”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Your back hit the lockers and you rubbed your face in frustration.
“Well, I didn’t know you were so invested in Peter’s business all the sudden,” she quipped, not realizing you weren’t in the mood based on the death glare you returned.
“You realize I’ve been working on getting that internship for like, my whole life right?” You scoffed and let your head fall back and hit the locker.
“It must’ve slipped my mind, my bad.” she replied coolly.
You groaned, “I can’t believe Peter Parker just destroyed my future.”
“I’m gonna sit this breakdown out, I have to study for my Calc test.” She gave you a sympathetic pat on the shoulder before making her way to the library.
There you stayed, leaning on the lockers frozen with solitude, or was it anger? You couldn’t quite tell.
The rest of the morning passes with a breeze, just going through the motions of your daily routine without even thinking. Everything just felt numb. The final bell rang, allowing you to get away from the possibility of making any contact with Peter. The hatred you held for that boy was unimaginable.
The internship at hand was a once in a lifetime experience. The September Foundation Internship. One high school junior, hand picked by Tony Stark himself, was hired to work alongside the mastermind for an entire year. Rumors claim that if you’re cool enough, he lets you try on the suit. Others claim that if you stay late enough, you can see the Avengers in their daily lives. But no one has ever been able to verify them. Now meeting the Avengers would be cool and all but that's not why you wanted this internship. By featuring this on your applications, it was basically one way ticket to acceptance.
To any school. Anywhere.
Though your resume may be long winded, having the internship on there puts you ahead of any other student there. And if you were trying to get into MIT, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to be friends with an alumni. A very prevalent alumni who donates large sums of money each year.
What irked you the most was that you didn’t even get a letter of rejection. You had to find out through gossip. Like really? How long does it take to write an email?
Hey sorry you sucked so much that you didn’t get the internship. Better luck next time!
XOXO Iron Man :)
Sure, Peter Parker was a hard worker with a big brain but there was no way he was more qualified for that job. You had hundreds of hours of community service, a spotless report card, professional relationships with many prominent authoritative figures, and you participated in extracurriculars that Peter hadn’t even heard of. So how did he get in over you? Sure he has marching band, academic decathlon and robotics but in no way could that ever put you a step above him. It’s not like he’s some sort of superhero saving lives.
The fact that you couldn’t come up with a single thing that could make him stand out over you annoyed you to no end. The internal conflict occupied your brain for almost a week until you decided to confront Peter.
You spotted him in the cafeteria, laughing with Ned acting like he did absolutely nothing wrong.
Oh boy did he have it coming.
“So how’d you do it?” you accused, slamming your lunch tray down and sitting down across from him. Ned scootched away suddenly uncomfortable with your closeness and accusatory voice. Since becoming official with Betty, he knew how women’s emotions worked (to an extent) and he knew that tone did not mean sunshine and rainbows.
“W-What are you talking about?” he squeaked, confusion written all over his face. His eyes bouncing all over your features as if it would help predict what you were going to say to him.
“The September Foundation Internship,” you started with a calmer tone, “How’d you beat out all 5000 candidates, including yours truly?” You smiled innocently, but Peter knew that look meant anything but.
He looked around for a second, coming up with absolutely any excuse to satisfy your jealousy, “I did- I didn’t ask Mr. Stark so- so I really don’t know.” He turned to Ned widening his eyes as if sending a telepathic call for help. Ned frantically shook his head, not wanting any part of his problem. He deals with enough angry teenage girls as it is, he wouldn’t voluntarily put up with any more than he needed.
Peter panicked, spouting out the first thing that came to mind, “Well in my application I-I mentioned that I like to build LEGOS, so I guess Mr. Stark assumed I’m good with my hands?” uncertainty prevalent in his voice. He visibly winced at that poor excuse of reasoning.
You were surprised, “Oh, ok. Thanks Peter,” getting up to move towards your typical spot in the cafeteria.
“Real smooth, bet you really fooled her there,” Ned teased his friend, noticing the concern on his face, “What was I supposed to do? Just casually mention I’m Spider-man? She wouldn’t believe me!” Peter weighed.
LEGOs.
A toy that was meant for children beat you out. Embarrassed was an understatement. You played with Barbies and Polly Pockets! You even played with the sexist “girly” version of LEGOs! Granted you probably haven’t picked up a toy in maybe 10 years but still! That just isn’t fair.
---
“Mr. S-Stark could I have some advice?” Peter was quite literally shitting his pants with nervousness.
Tony looked up from his blasters he was tinkering with, “I mean you can ask but I can’t guarantee I can be your Dalai Lama” he taunted.
“Um okay well,” Peter gulped, “This really pretty girl at my school is mad at me and I don’t know what to do”
Tony was stunned, “Girls talk to you? And you hold a conversation? Congrats kid you’re growing up!”
Peter was embarrassed, “Well, not exactly. You know that internship you host every year?” His hands were shaking from nervousness, so he dropped his web shooters and clasped them in his lap so Tony wouldn’t notice. But of course he did, setting down his blasters and turning his chair to put his complete focus on Peter.
Well that totally makes this conversation easier!
“Of course. But I’m not giving it to you. I spend enough time with you already as it is.”
That helped ease his stress, “Well to cover for Spider-Man I just tell everyone I do the Stark internship, forgetting that there is a real internship. So this girl applied for the September Foundation Internship and is mad because she thinks I took it from her. But that's crazy because she's like the nicest person and worked so hard for this internship and there is no one I know that is more deserving of the spot and-,” Tony cuts him off, knowing the boy could ramble for days.
“What’s her name?” He questions, “Y/N Y/L/N, But I’m not asking you to like give it to her because that’s not fair, just give her a tour of the tower or something for her to finally realize I’m not that important around here,” Peter justifies.
“I’ll see what I can do.” With that, he walked out of the lab.
---
You’ve accepted the fact that you didn’t get the position and have continued to build your resume, filling in the space you left for the internship.
“Mr. Harrington? Flash isn’t here today so do you want me to do the lab alone?” You asked, grateful your annoying lab partner isn’t there attempting every pick up line in existence on you. Each one followed up with a denial and you completed the lab on your own.
“No,” Mr. Harrington said. “Ned’s partner isn’t here either so you can pair up with him.”
Begrudgingly, you stood up to join Ned at his lab table. Curious you ask, “Who is your partner?”, Ned hesitates in his answer, “Oh, Peter is busy with the Stark internship.”
Nevermind. Any progress of acceptance you thought you’d made was gone.
“Oh, okay.” You ended the conversation knowing you couldn’t handle dwelling on your failures any longer.
You would’ve been able to juggle the internship and school. Peter can’t even stay a whole day of school without leaving. This was just another reason why you were more qualified than him.
-
Peter was just arriving at Avengers tower to talk to Mr. Stark about how he altered his web shooters to increase the output of webs. He took the elevator up, assuming he would just be in the lab like he always is. And he was there, just not alone. He catches their attention when walking in, embarrassed to be seen so caught off guard.
“Ah Peter! So good to see you! I want you to meet our newest intern, Y/N Y/L/N!” Tony smirks at the boy whose eyes are blown wide staring at the girl in front of her.
“H-Hi Y/N. C-congrats on the internship.”
“Thank you Peter.”
“Well I have to go check on Cap, he gets angry when he doesn’t have his green smoothie. You guys get comfortable with each other! But not too comfortable, I don’t need to see any angsty teenager lovers in my presence.” Tony winked at Peter before he left the lab.
“Well that's awkward,” the girl begins, “I think I just stole your job.”
“Wh-what?” his eyebrows knitted together.
“Well you’re always gone for the Stark Internship so I just assumed it was the September Foundation Internship?” Now they’re both confused, clearly Mr. Stark wasn’t clear on Peter’s affiliation with him.
“N-no I just do a different intern job for Mr. Stark. I-I just clean up the lab.”
He has really gotta pick up his excuse game.
“So you’re a janitor?” She frowns.
“N-no I just make sure it’s tidy for Mr. Stark, organize the supplies and order more when he needs,” Peter stuttered.”
Ok now he's improving with his justification skills.
“Oh ok? Well I have to go, I have a charity thing.” You made a solid attempt at cutting the tension between you both..
---
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
Tony spins his chair, spotting Peter at the entrance. “Well I reviewed her application and you were right, she does deserve it. Plus, I know how you struggle with the ladies, so in a way I was throwing you a bone, whilst still getting a prodigy by my side.”
His jaw set, “I’ll have you know I am perfectly good with the ladies and don’t need your help,” Peter stormed out of the lab like a toddler.
“That’s not what you said in the lab the other day!” He calls after him, knowing full well he was out of earshot.
---
Peter has never felt so relieved than when the quinjet touched down on the top of the building. The mission was a complete disaster. If he had to explain the definition of “abort mission” he’d probably start with that.
After stepping off the quinjet, Peter made a beeline for the kitchen. His throat scratched every time he swallowed, probably from yelling into the coms trying to navigate through the pure chaos.
Passing by Wanda, he could tell by her facial expression he wasn’t in good shape. He could feel the dried blood stuck to his skin and the smell of sweat was unavoidable from even 10 feet away.
After his five minute walk, which would be better described as a limp, he made it to just get a glass of water. Finally, the rush of moisture runs through his whole body. Whilst peacefully chugging his entire cup of water he hears the sound of glass shattering, followed by the words,
“What. The. Fuck.”
He knows the voice from anywhere. Hell, he hears it on the morning announcements with Betty every goddamn morning. Frozen, he doesn’t know what his next move is. Does he run and act like it never happened? Does he just accept it and brush it off like no big deal? His rough draft of an explanation is slowly being put together in his head when you move in front of him.
“You’re not an intern. You’re fucking Spider-man.”
“O-oh hey Y/N, didn’t see you there”
Real smooth Parker. Why don’t you talk about your LEGO skills again. Just try and see if you can make this conversation any more awkward than it needs to be.
“Cut the bullshit. Why didn’t you tell me?”
She always knows how to get straight to the point. Something he always admired about her.
“I-I-I didn’t think it was important?” The apprehension isn’t helping his persuasion skills in the slightest.
“Oh being an Avenger is just a common occurrence nowadays?” You push, determined to get a real answer and not a half assed excuse.
“I mean if you live around here yeah everyone is some kind of super hu-”
“Peter.” You cut him off, annoyance obvious in your tone.
He sighed, “Yes. I am Spider-man. The only people who know are Ned, Aunt May, and the rest of the Avengers. And now you.” Distress was obvious on his face
You began to feel guilty once you saw the panic on his face, “I won’t tell anyone,” you squeak, the first drop of sympathy Peter has ever received from you.
“Thank you, I’m sorry for not telling you. You’re part of the team and deserve a real confession, not finding out by accident.”
The guilt train is on a two way track tonight!
“No, it was your secret. You deserve your privacy.” A small smile tugged at the edges of your lips.
“Thank you for being so understanding. Now that the secret is out maybe we could work together on my suit sometime?”
Peter is nervous. Why is he nervous? Did he just accidentally ask her on a date. Oh god what if she isn’t interested?
“I’d love to Peter! It's a date!” Your smile beaming gave Peter a surge of confidence, and he reached around your waist to pull you into a hug. You were both ecstatic to have finally started to see each other as friends, and even a little more than that.
Your trances were broken when you finally spoke up, “Maybe you should take a shower first,” as you finally realized the stench in your close proximity.
A flush creeping up his face when he realized. “Let me go shower then we can continue this,” he beams.
“See you then Spider-man!”
#peter parker#peter parker x reader#peter parker fic#peter parker fanfic#spider-man#spider-man fic#peter parker imagine
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The Crucible (part six)
[UK Tour; Carrie AU]
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Word count: 10,030
TW: Animal death, blood, the r-slur
--------------
-Something’s In The Air-
“I’m impressed, Thomas. I am impressed.”
Brown, oily bangs gently hung over a craggy, charming face. Round green eyes, set lightly within their sockets, watch the detective closely. A knife left a mark reaching from the top of the right cheek, running towards his upper lip and ending on his forehead, leaving a permanent memory of mischief on nineteen year old Thomas Culpeper’s face.
“Four counts of possession, one with the intent to sell. Vandalism, disturbing the peace, drunk and disorderly.” Mulaney read off from the folder with information on the newest victim of interrogation. “Boy, your parents must be awfully proud of you.”
“My parents died when I was six.” Thomas spat.
Mulaney stared at him in horror. Thomas huffed out a breath and leaned back in his chair, glaring sharply.
“Not so funny now, is it?”
“Well, it sure is funny odd,” Mulaney said, “because I just talked to Constance and Alexander not an hour ago, both very much alive and very concerned.”
Thomas growled softly and looked away.
“Thomas, do you ever pal around with a girl named Anne Boleyn?” Mulaney asked.
“She’s a distant cousin,” Thomas answered gruffly. “We sometimes hung out.”
“What about Catherine Parr?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Katherine Howard?”
Nothing.
Mulaney walked around the table and over to his side, opening the folder in his hands again. “Hey, have you ever been to Irwin Henty’s pig farm up north?”
“No.” Thomas muttered.
“You’ve never been up there?” Mulaney humored him. “Well, see, Henry had no security system, so people were knocking fences down and stealing hogs and all kinds of things!” He laughed. Thomas was sweating.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah,” Mulaney said. “So what do you think he does?” He doesn’t wait for an answer- not that Thomas’s pallor makes him look up to even giving one. “He installs one of those expensive, high-tech security systems. Oh, man, he’s even got one of those really cool cameras that take pictures in the dark! Doggone it, they look like they were taken in broad daylight!”
He slipped out some green photos taken with a night vision camera and slid them over to Thomas.
“Look at this. Look at the detail on that!” Mulaney went on, pointing to the clear image of Thomas, Cathy, Anne, Maggie, Maggie’s boyfriend, and another kid named Thomas Cromwell sneaking into Old Man Henty’s pigpen. “You can just about count the hairs on that pig’s snout, can’t you?” He showed a photo of a closeup of Thomas's face. “I thought this one was particularly good of you.”
Thomas looked away, biting his lip.
“Of course, here’s another one of all six of you. Looking pretty chummy!” Mulaney said with a slight laugh. “Say, how come there’s no pictures of Katherine? Was she waiting in the truck?”
“How should I know?” Thomas asked softly. “She wasn’t even there…”
Mulaney furrowed his eyebrows, exchanging a quick glance with Madeline. He sat back down across from Thomas.
“Well, it was to my understanding that Katherine and Anne planned the whole thing.”
Thomas scoffed lightly. “Dude,” He said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
------
The gym early Thursday morning was flurry of activity as kids moved to and fro to get ready for the prom in two days. Paints splattered, ribbons unraveled, fairy lights flickered, and everyone acted as if it were the end of the world if even the slightest decoration was off. Watching it was entertaining, but now that she was actually a part of the decoration committee, Katherine could see why it was so stressful.
Since she wouldn’t be going to prom, Katherine had decided the least she could do was help set up for it. Their theme that year was Springtime in Greece (whose idea was it to have themes for prom, Katherine wondered), so huge murals of Greek temples were drawn by the art kids on giant canvases and were currently being painted by several other volunteers. The stage, where the band would play and prom king and queen would be announced, was being set up in a way that made it look like the ancient Parthenon, fit with grooved columns, dressings of leaves and flowers, and swathes of white and gold silk. Sculptures were being carved away by extremely focused students, whittling the plaster or rock or ice away into the distinct shape of hands and heads and legs. Katherine walked over to one of them, Maria, who was sweating buckets trying to get what seemed to be a wave to look just right.
“I can’t believe--they’re only giving us--two days,” She grunted, not looking over at Katherine, but hearing her coming over.
“Can you finish it?” Katherine asked. She circled around one of the decorative pillars sitting around and began to smooth down the grooves.
“Yeah,” Maria nodded. “But it’s still STRESSFUL.”
“What even is it?”
Maria frowned at her, then looked back at her sculpture. “It’s a tidal wave of human hopes and dreams. I will be filling it with pieces of writing once it’s done.”
“And what does that have to do with Greece?”
Maria ruffled. “It could fit!” She barked. “Why are you slaving yourself in here, anyway? You’re not even--...” She trailed off, clearly still upset about the news.
“Going?” Katherine finished for her. She shrugged. “I still want it to look nice. And it looks like you guys can use all the help you can get.” She nodded at a puny red haired Year 10 kid wrestling with coils of ivy and vines on the stage and losing the battle. Bessie, head of the Decoration Committee, watched on with a dismayed expression.
“Can I ask about it?” Maria asked softly.
“Sure,” Katherine said, then laughed slightly. “You don’t have to whisper, Mars. It’s not some big secret.”
“Well, thank god,” Maria said. “Because EVERYONE is talking!”
Katherine quirked an eyebrow with a light snort. “Oh, really? What are they saying?”
“That you and Joan Seymour are having a lesbian affair, and you’re having Anna take her to prom to throw people off,” Maria said languidly. Katherine leaned over to a nearby canister of paint and flicked the paintbrush at her face for that. She sputtered, scrubbing viciously and leaving light purple streaks all over her dark skin. “Okay, okay-- I deserved that.”
“Well, you’re right…” Katherine sighed. “It’s just that--Joan satisfies me in a way no other woman or man possibly could.” She finished her sentence with a lewd touch to her breasts; a Year 11 girl that was helping paint the mural looked over at that moment and furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Katherine dropped her hands quickly, and Maria burst into laughter.
“Oh, I bet!” Maria said. “Does she use her crosses as a dildo? Because I bet Jesus’s face feels GREAT against your clit!”
Katherine flicked more paint, this time orange, into Maria’s face. Once again, Maria spluttered and clawed at the colorful tears rolling down her skin. Katherine peered at her thoughtfully.
“Orange really is your color,” She observed.
“Just like how Christian semen white is yours.” Maria replied.
Katherine rolled her eyes and nudged Maria’s side with her foot, earning her a cheeky, paint-splattered grin.
“I just feel bad about what happened,” She said. “I’m hoping it’ll bring her out of her shell a little, you know? Knock down some of those walls she has up. It’s the least I could do after what happened in the showers.”
“Great! So you’re a saint and we’re all bitches!” Maria said.
“Pretty much!”
They both laughed.
“I can’t believe Anna’s going along with it,” Maria went on. “She really wanted to bring you.”
“Well, she’s been very agreeable since we started having sex.” Katherine stated bluntly.
“Ooh!” Maria cooed. “You go girl!”
Katherine was about to reply when a momentary hush fell over the gym. She turned to see her cousin walking in, back to school after her three day suspension, her head held high. She glared sharply at a Year 10 boy dripping yellow paint all over his hands, and he nearly keeled over dead instantly. Katherine looked away quickly, not wanting to face Anna after their falling out at the pub. Her words began to echo in her ears again.
“That’s why you had this bullshit change of heart. You don’t give a shit about Joan Seymour, and everybody knows it…”
She stamped them down and silenced them.
“Has Anne said anything?” Katherine asked Maria.
Maria thought for a moment. “Only that she hates your guts.”
“Ah,” Katherine said, not surprised. “Think she might try something?”
Maria tilted her head at her. “I don’t know.”
A whirlwind of thick brown hair and green polo shirt whizzed by- Maggie scuttled over to Anne, eyes wide, clutching a dark brown folder in her arms. Katherine turned her attention to the pillar she was sanding down, so she didn’t see the way her cousin was pulled to the side and out of sight behind the mural.
“Got your 999,” Anne said, holding up her phone. “Ever so dramatic.”
“Let me reiterate-” Maggie said. “Oh my god!”
“What?” Anne asked, amused. She could see the mischievous light in Maggie’s eyes, and that filled her with a deadly thrill.
Maggie pulled a small slip of paper out of the folder and waved it in the air.
“This,” She declared, “is the ballot for prom king and queen!”
“What?” Anne’s eyes widened in interest. “Let me see!”
Maggie handed Anne the piece of paper and they began to read from it, nitpicking all the choices.
“Jackson and Georgie,” Anne said. “No way, Jackson’s in marching band.”
“Ruby and Leila,” Maggie read next. Their school was very open to LGBTQ+ relationships, so it wasn’t a surprise that a lesbian couple was a choice for prom king and queen.
“Maybe. Everybody likes them.” Anne said. “Miller and Jessie, no. Ren and Alex, maybe. Anna and--”
Her eyes go wide.
Right beside Anna von Cleves’s name was her cousin's name--but scratched out and replaced with “Joan” over the top. Greedy intensity began to bubble up inside of her. She giggled darkly.
“Anna and Joan!” She exclaimed.
“I know!” Maggie agreed enthusiastically. “What are you gonna do?”
A twisted grin curled on Anne’s ruby red lips like a bloody smile.
“Give everyone a night they’ll never forget.”
------
First period with Anne back was...awkward, to say the least. Maggie talked to Anne as she always did, being the loyal little imp that she was, but everyone else was slightly unnerved by the smirk that never disappeared from Anne’s lips for even a second.
About halfway through the class, when Anna got up to go sharpen her pencil, Joan leapt up from her seat to go talk to her. Katherine pricked her ears to hear their conversation.
“Hey, Joan,” Anna said, smiling at the younger girl. “How are you?”
“Good,” Joan answered quietly. She was fidgeting with her sleeves, pulling them over her hands and bunching them into balls, clearly anxious about something. “Umm-- I-I just-- I had to t-tell you that I need to be home by eleven.”
Katherine saw Anna frown slightly. Joan lowered her head, guilt practically radiating off of her body.
“I’m sorry,” She whispered. “B-but my Mama-- She’ll worry if I stay out too long and-- I’m really sorry. I don’t want to spoil your fun, but--”
“Hey, no, it’s okay,” Anna calmed her, noticing that she was getting worked up. “I understand completely.”
Joan nodded slightly. “O-okay…”
“Did something happen?” Anna asked. She gently lifted Joan’s chin and ducked her head slightly to look at something. That’s when Katherine noticed indigo and violet splotches of bruises under Joan’s lower jaw.
“Oh--” Joan looked a little uncomfortable, but didn't pull away from Anna’s hand. “Yeah. I just--fell. On a chair. Yesterday. And I hit my mouth.”
Anna pursed her lips. “Looks like it hurts.”
Joan shrugged. “I’m used to it.” She took a small step back. “Umm-- I’m gonna--go sit back down. Oh, and th-thank you. For not getting mad.”
“I wouldn’t be mad at you, Joan.” Anna said honestly.
Joan ducked her head with an adorably shy blush. She nodded and shuffled back over to her seat.
Katherine didn’t miss the way Anna smiled fondly at her.
------
“Um, 15. High school. I’m in Year 11.”
Joan held the phone close to her ear, listening intently to what the operator was telling her. She kept shifting from foot to foot, trying to keep her nervousness quelled inside of her.
“What kind of counselling? Like a guidance counselor?”
Miss Aragon’s office smelled like apples and cherry blossoms. It was a comforting scent, so different from the locker room just outside the door. And outside that door, was someone coming in. Someone who wasn’t the coach.
“Oh. No. Nothing like that. Would they know what’s happening with me?”
Footsteps, the rustling of clothes, soft clangs against lockers- Joan heard none of it.
“Um, so, if I just think it’s real and it’s not, how would I know? I mean, it feels real.”
“We’re not supposed to use that phone.”
Joan just about jumped out of her skin when she heard the voice. She slammed the phone back down onto the receiver, missing it the first time, nearly flipping it off of the desk the second, and then finally smashing it into place so hard it’s a wonder the entire thing didn’t crumble to dust the third. She whirled around to face Anne Boleyn standing in the doorway, looking like a disdainful emerald with her sparkling green dress and darkly amused expression. Joan swallowed thickly and shuffled back slightly, pressing her spine against the sharp edge of Miss Aragon’s table.
“I-I was talking to my mum.” She stammered.
“Didn’t sound like you were talking to your mum.” Anne said.
“We were having a fight…” Joan said awkwardly. It was the best excuse she could come up with under pressure; telling this girl that she was actually calling a university over the psychic powers she had would probably sound a little strange.
Slowly, she bent down and picked up her belongings off of the floor. As much as she wanted to stay longer and talk more with Miss Aragon when she got back from her current class, Anne was making her extremely uneasy and on edge. She didn’t feel very safe being alone with her.
“I always fight with my mum,” Anne mused. “Always hang up on her, too.” She laughed. “So, I take it you’ve leveled out since last Friday?”
Joan stared at her.
(what does she want what does she want)
“Your little episode.”
(no no go away leave me alone)
“You went all fetal in the shower.”
In spite of herself, Joan felt a blush crawl to her cheeks. She looked away, shifting her weight onto a different knee. She wanted to hide behind her books and hope Anne would be gone when she looked back up again.
“What about it?” She asked softly.
“Well, you have to admit you totally overreacted,” Anne said. She stepped into the room fully. The door clicked shut behind her.
(trapped trapped trapped trapped)
“You know, we were just messing around!”
(what)
“We wouldn’t give you a hard time if we didn’t like you.”
Joan raised her head slightly and blinked at Anne in confusion and shock. Was that really how friendships worked?
“I mean, we all really like you.” Anne said. “You know that, right?”
(friend)
Joan looked her up and down, and could easily locate at least three faults in this statement, but she was so hungry for friends and affection that the hopeful, naive part of her sort of believed it. Still, she kept her walls raised up and tried not to let that vulnerability show on her face.
“What do you want?” She asked warily.
“Don’t get all pissy,” Anne said, and she playfully shoved Joan, although it didn’t feel as playful as it should have been. Miss Aragon’s desk scraped against the floor slightly, its edge cutting uncomfortably into Joan’s spine. “I’m only trying to be nice!”
(nice)
(not nice don’t trust)
(nice)
“So,” Anne examined Joan closely, and Joan wanted to squirm underneath her gaze. “Are your boobs sore?”
Joan blinked at her in bewilderment. She looked down at her breasts for just a moment, then looked back up quickly, opening and closing her mouth like a flabbergasted fish out of water. All she could get out was a dumbstruck, “What?”
“You look a little bloated,” Anne continued, ignoring her question. She tilted her head, seemingly to get a better angle at Joan’s stomach, and Joan felt like there were eels squirming underneath her skin. “When I’m bloated, my boobs get really sore.”
Joan couldn’t help but glance at Anne’s own breasts when that was said.
“You’re only supposed to take, like, two Ibuprofen,” Anne went on. “I take three.” She chuckled. “I got that from Kat! She’s, like, a total junkie. Now that you guys are all cozy, she’ll have you tossing them back like communion wafers.”
“I’m not...cozy with Katherine Howard…” Joan said.
Anne looked oddly surprised, and Joan wondered for a moment if she accidentally ruined a friendship she didn’t even know she had.
“Really?” Anne said. “She’s acting like you’re her new best friend!”
(friend)
“Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great. Just...don’t let her turn you into another one of her ‘projects.’”
That made Joan perk up. She blinked rapidly at Anne.
“Did she say I was a project?”
“It’s her MO.” Anne said. She looked at Joan pitifully. “Maria was a project, Bessie was a project...I was even a project! She practically talked me into getting Botox last summer. Can you believe that?” She laughed.
“Maybe she thought you needed it…”
Something twitched on Anne’s face, like her expression was actually just a mask of plaster that was starting to crumble. She resettled her features quickly.
“I’m just saying that she has a hard time accepting people for who they are.” Anne said. “Being her friend can be a little on the demeaning side, especially when everyone in school knows why she’s being your friend.”
Joan flinched at her words and looked down at her feet. Anne made a sympathetic clucking noise.
“Well, I gotta dip,” Anne said, heading for the door. “Oh, and you can tell Katherine she can say all she wants about me, but at least when I’m being a bitch I’ll cop to it.”
Joan said nothing.
Anne smiled. “Bye!”
And then she was gone. Joan could finally breathe, and she instantly sunk to the floor, trying to tame all the whirling thoughts filling up her brain.
(go)
(don’t go)
(go)
(don’t go)
(trick trick it’s a trick Mama was right)
A door out in the locker room opened and closed. Miss Aragon appeared in the doorway, a sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead and dozens of water droplets shimmering like silver spider eyes in her hair. Despite the chilly weather outside, she was wearing black shorts and a lemon yellow workout shirt, looking like an angelic wasp in the office.
“Joan,” She said, noticing the girl on the floor. Students from her current class were starting to file in to get changed, so she stepped inside fully and shut the door. “You really did skip all of third, didn’t you? Naughty girl.”
Joan ducked her head, feeling embarrassed. After what her mother did to her last night, she had been desperate to see Miss Aragon, one of the only people she felt safe around. Something about the coach’s presence was so comforting to her, like she would never be harmed as long as she stayed by her side. So, she went to her, missing the entirety of her third period Geometry class to hide out in the office after explaining that she was feeling very anxious, which wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Sorry…” She mumbled.
“It’s alright, sweetheart,” Miss Aragon chuckled. She tilted her head at Joan. “What are you doing on the floor?”
“Just...thinking…” Joan replied.
“About?” Miss Aragon asked, sitting down next to her. Her eyes were so caring and loving; Joan wished she could be looked at like that forever.
“I got invited to prom.” Joan said, and something about Miss Aragon’s expression told her the coach already knew. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly. “But I don’t know if I should go…”
Miss Aragon appeared to be a little startled by that. She shifted around and ducked her head so she could look at Joan’s face, and Joan could see all that love and care glow in her eyes once again.
“What do you mean?” She prodded. “Why not?”
“I’m not gonna fit in…” Joan said. “I still can’t wrap my head around why Anna von Cleves asked ME. Katherine Howard is so pretty and muscley and smart and tall and confident and pretty…” She trailed off. “Why would she want to go with me?”
“Because you’re amazing, Joan.” Miss Aragon said, not missing a beat. “Anyone who doesn’t have their head in their--umm--butt can see that.”
Joan giggled softly at her coach’s avoidance of swearing in front of her, but it quickly died off when all her self esteem issues came shoving their way back in. She huddled her knees even closer to her chest and looked down at the floor.
“But...I’m not as pretty as all the other girls…” She mumbled.
“Nonsense!” Miss Aragon reprimanded. “Joan, you are a very pretty girl.” She cupped Joan’s face and lifted her head up. “Just look at those eyes! And those lips! Why, with the right shade of lipstick--”
“Lipstick?” Joan sputtered. “My mother would never--”
“Joan, it could be wonderful!” Miss Aragon went on. “They don’t have the glow you have. The-- the charm! Those other girls may as well just wear garbage bags with the word ‘whore’ spray painted on it. And you wanna know why?”
“Why?”
“Because they’re whores.”
Joan burst out into giggles and had to cover her mouth to try and muffle them. Miss Aragon grinned triumphantly.
“It’s because none of them will be able to do what you can do,” Miss Aragon said. “You have been hurt for so many years, and yet you’re still getting up and going to the prom, despite it all. If one of those girls out there were in your shoes, they would have given up a long time ago. They wouldn’t have said yes and, instead, cried in their bathtub or something pathetic like that. But you,” She cupped Joan’s cheeks again, and Joan couldn’t help but lean into the warmth of her hands, “you’re not doing that. You’re stronger than all of them combined, you know that?”
“I-I am?” Joan asked shyly.
“Yes, silly!” Miss Aragon said with a light laugh. “You’re so brave, Joan. Braver than you let yourself think.”
Joan blushed and looked away. Miss Aragon smiled down at her lovingly.
“And I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing you kill it on the dance floor,” Miss Aragon added, making Joan dissolve into giggles once again.
“Thank you, Miss Aragon,” Joan said. She threw her arms around Miss Aragon’s stomach and hugged her, much to her coach’s pleasant surprise. She heard Miss Aragon chuckle softly and return the embrace.
“Anything for you, sweetheart.” Miss Aragon said.
They sat there together on the floor, limbs intertwined, for a few more minutes until the bell rang, signaling that the fourth period would soon begin. Miss Aragon had to pull away and stand up, but Joan could have sworn she noticed some reluctance in her movements.
“Are you going to stay in here?” Miss Aragon asked.
Joan nodded. She pulled out a notebook and pencil from her nearby bag.
“I have something I need to plan.”
“Oh?” Miss Aragon tilted her head. “What is it?”
Joan grinned. “It’s a surprise.”
------
“Come on, you hotshots!” Aragon yelled, clapping her hands loudly. “I want to see you sweat!”
Although it wasn’t detention right now, she still thoroughly enjoyed making gym class a little more like hell than usual for the week-long punishment. She had the girls playing a rather fierce game of rugby out in the field. Nothing was more entertaining than watching these daisies slip and slide in the wet turf and barrel into each other to evade her scornful words.
“Maggie, get those knees up!” She shouted at the brown-haired student.
“I don’t like running!” Maggie wheedled in response. She narrowly avoided being plowed by a blonde girl much bigger than she was.
“Maria!” Aragon barked, rounding on the next student she caught slacking. “Question.”
Maria raised her head, squinting through a rain of sweat dripping into her eyes. She replied with a loud, bovine-like, “WHA?”
“Did you ride the struggle bus to school this morning?” Aragon asked. “Because you are just one hot mess express over there!”
Maria swallowed thickly and turned her attention back to the ball.
“It’s not a bomb, Katherine!” Aragon said, watching Katherine fumble and avoid the ball so she wouldn’t get hit or run into. “It’s not going to hurt you! Get in there and get some points for your team! You’re better than this!!”
Katherine nodded wordlessly and threw herself into the fray.
“Bessie, hi,” Aragon smiled at the bleached girl, who slowed down to look at her. “Do you smell that?”
Bessie blinked her big dark brown eyes in confusion.
“It’s the smell of FAILURE!” Aragon yelled.
Bessie whimpered loudly, and then whimpered even louder than that when the ball flew into her stomach. She fell backwards to the ground and quickly scrambled across the grass before she could get trampled by her classmates. Aragon watched her in amusement, then noticed Anne whispering to two other girls a few yards away. She locked in on her.
“Anne!” She roared. “Shut your mouth and get back to the game!”
Anne glared at her, but her features strangely evened out and calmed rather quickly. A smile spread on her lips.
“You’re right, Miss Aragon,” She said. “I am so sorry!”
Aragon was instantly suspicious. It wasn’t like Anne to be so agreeable to her scolding when she was worked up like she had been the past week. There was something off about that smile, too…
What was she planning?
------
Katherine could have spotted her from a mile away- Joan stuck out like a sore thumb in the makeup section of the department store.
Per Bessie’s frantic request, she was out getting more paints and art supplies for the decoration committee. However, she didn’t expect Joan to be there, poorly applying ruby red lipstick to her lips.
It was almost painful to watch. Joan’s hand slipped several times and streaked shiny crimson lines over the top of her mouth. There was even a moment where she flicked her tongue out to taste the gloss and instantly scrunched her face up in disgust. Katherine barely managed to muffle a laugh.
A few people were starting to stare. Two small children were giggling over the spectacle. A woman nearby looking through a selection of eye shadow watched Joan with an absolutely dismayed expression, like she couldn’t believe any girl in this day and age didn’t know how to properly apply makeup. Katherine rolled her eyes. Gender expectations.
Joan’s head swiveled around and she looked like a deer in headlights when she noticed Katherine standing there. Katherine gave her a warm smile as a truce gesture of sorts and stepped out of the art aisle she had been going through. She walked over, setting various paints and paintbrushes in the basket she was holding. Joan eyed her warily, poised and ready to run.
“Hey,” Katherine greeted casually.
“H-hi,” Joan replied in a squeaky voice. The overhead lights made her pale skin look very pasty, and the sheen of messy red gloss coating her lips only stuck out even more. She was trying very hard not to look at Katherine, but her eyes kept trailing over to the older girl.
“You come here often?” Katherine asked. Over Joan’s shoulder, she noticed a trio of Year 12’s from her school gliding out from the next aisle over and stopping to ogle her and Joan. She shot them a severe look and they moved on, muttering to each other.
“N-no,” Joan answered. She jammed the lid of the lipstick back onto the capsule and set it back on the small rack of gloss that was used for testing the colors. Although, they weren’t meant to actually be put on the lips, rather just the wrist or example board provided off to the side. Joan didn’t seem to know that, though. Katherine guessed that this was her first time ever being in the makeup section of a store.
There was an awkward beat of silence between the two of them. Joan was looking through the other selections of lipstick, but it was obvious she was watching Katherine out of the corner of her eye. Katherine wondered why she was so untrustworthy around her and seemingly everyone else, but perfectly okay with Anna.
Strange. Was that...envy bubbling up inside of her?
“You have trouble coloring in the lines, don’t you?” Katherine commented, finally breaking the tension between the two of them.
Joan blinked at her obliviously, like a little white calf that didn’t realize it had a rattlesnake wound up its leg.
“Huh?���
Katherine gestured vaguely for her lips. Joan looked in the mirror provided and jolted, only then realizing how messy her mouth was.
“Oh--”
She hurriedly began wiping the lipstick off with her arm. Katherine gave her a napkin from a box on the shelf, smiling in a humored way that she hoped didn’t come off as cruel or mocking.
“You know, you might want to try something a little less drastic.” Katherine said. She wove around Joan to get to her other side and began looking through the selection. After a moment of mentally comparing shades to Joan’s light skin tone, she plucked up a dark pink tube of lipstick. “Like...this one!”
She reached for Joan’s face to apply it, and Joan flinched away as if she were expecting a blow to the head, nearly falling over. Her eyes were suddenly bulging out of her skull in fright. Katherine mentally swore at herself.
Idiot. Of course that would startle her.
“Sorry,” Katherine said softly. “I should have asked first. Is it okay if I put this on you?” She opened her left hand harmlessly, and after a moment of consideration, Joan tentatively placed her chin into her palm. Katherine felt a strange fluttering sensation inside of her.
“So, you curve it around the bow of your lips like so…” Katherine explained, dragging the tip of the lipstick across Joan’s pale lips, giving them color so they wouldn’t look as leached as they always were. Joan watched her with wide eyes the entire time, never looking away. “And...now rub them together.”
Joan obeyed, rubbing her lips together and smearing the color into a darker, more prominent shade.
“And smack them!” Katherine demonstrated with a pop.
Joan blinked and then copied her. Pop, went her lips softly.
“There you go!” Katherine smiled. She screwed the lipstick back into its capsule and put it back before anyone could realize they were actually putting it onto someone’s face. “You can add some lip liner for a little extra drama…”
She trailed off, watching as Joan used a pad to wipe her lips clean. Secondhand embarrassment surged so strongly inside of her she felt her throat close up and face burn with heat. She snatched the pad away from Joan, startling her into bumping into the display of makeup and causing it to rattle. They both frantically steadied it as customers peered over curiously and a worker restocking some markers from the art section looked at them with an exasperatedly devastated expression. Katherine waved at him dismissively to let him know that they had it under control and everything was okay. He looked away, relieved at not having to confront any sort of issue and run the risk of being yelled at (not that Katherine thought she had any kind of Karen vibes… Joan certainly didn’t and didn’t look up to yelling at anyone).
“Sorry,” Katherine said to Joan, standing up fallen tubes of lipstick. “I didn’t mean to, uhh, freak out. It’s just--that’s not what these are for.” She shoved the pad into her purse, hoping the flickers of scarlet flames on her cheeks couldn’t be seen.
“Oh.” Joan said and choked out the slightest laugh, even though it was clear she thought the situation was far from funny. “I-I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” Katherine said. “It’s okay. Not your fault.”
Nobody told you… Her mind went on, and embarrassment was quickly replaced with pity and sadness. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have her biology and own bodily functions hidden from her for so long. No wonder Joan freaked out last Friday. There was so much blood, too, even for her first period… Even she had to think back on it and wonder if something was actually really wrong. Surely there wasn’t, though. If Joan was internally bleeding, she would be dead by now.
“I-I, uhh--” Joan started, and then clamped her mouth shut. She swerved away from Katherine and began walking quickly down the main aisle towards the back of the store. Katherine followed her.
“What?” She questioned.
“N-nothing,” Joan shook her head.
Joan turned, and Katherine saw that she was heading to the fabric area of the store. She tilted her head slightly and watched as the girl beelined for a roll of teal fabric, running her hands over it and rubbing it between her fingers. She turned away after a moment of feeling, going to a darker aquamarine shade, then orange, then purple, and then magenta. Both Katherine and the woman working the counter watched her process in a vaguely interested way.
“What are you doing?” Katherine asked.
“Looking,” Joan replied distractedly. She felt a roll of black mesh and instantly ripped her hand away with an expression of pure disgust. Katherine couldn’t help but laugh.
“Don’t like that, sweetie?”
“It’s too scratchy.” Joan said, shaking her hand in the air as if she were trying to erase the feeling of mesh against her skin. “Do people really wear that? What kind of self-respecting person would put that on?” She touched some fishnets next and recoiled like she had been burned, looking even more appalled. Katherine laughed again.
“Some people do, yes,” She said. “It’s kind of a gothic look.” She decided to leave out how she had a black mesh top that she liked to seduce Anna with when they were alone.
“It’s awful.” Joan stated firmly. She tugged off a waterfall of sunflower yellow fabric off of the wall and it all came tumbling down onto her. She tottered backwards, nearly collapsing under the weight of the material, then steadied herself and held out her arm, coiling a lacing of cloth around it. She inspected it for a moment, then began putting the fabric back onto its hook, much neater than it had been before. The woman at the counter blinked at her with an appraising look.
“So…” Katherine said idly, watching Joan dart over to another rack of fabrics. She’s never seen the girl’s eyes shine so much before. It was like she was in textile heaven. “Have you picked out your dress?”
“No,” Joan replied after a brief moment of hesitation. She unraveled a veil of iridescent green fabric, took one look at it, then wrapped it back up and put it back on its hook. “But I found a style that I like.” She thoughtfully touched her messenger bag.
“What color?” Katherine asked interestedly.
“I can’t decide,” Joan said, holding strips of saffron and azure and wrinkling her nose at the way it contrasted with her pale skin. “I’m--trying to figure out that now.”
Katherine’s eyes widened a little. “You make your own clothes?”
Joan looked a touch shy. “Sometimes.” She said. “It’d be cheaper to make my dress myself.”
“Oh, you are absolutely right.” Katherine said. “Those things are EXPENSIVE!”
A small smile twitched on Joan’s lips, then she got back to looking through the selections. She didn’t seem pleased with any of them offered, even though Katherine spotted at least four different shades she thought would make beautiful dresses.
“Well,” Katherine quickly started again, pouncing on an opportunity that lit up inside of her like a light bulb. “I don’t know if you want to, but maybe we can do a little fashion consultation thing? We could even model! Maria’s coming over Saturday afternoon before prom and she does these little shows to find the perfect style.”
Joan tensed, hands freezing in their process of sliding over a roll of crimson red cloth. She stared at it for a long moment, then pulled away, shaking her hands out like they had blood on them.
“I don’t know if I want to model,” She mumbled.
“Oh--”
Katherine blinked stupidly, now looking like the brain dead cow between the two of them. She didn’t know why she was expecting Joan to say yes. The girl didn’t exactly look like the type to be able to say no to people. Now she just felt bad for seemingly pressuring Joan into the hangout session.
“Sorry.”
Joan didn’t hear her apology, however, because she had already darted to another rack. Her eyes were wide and glowing, and she realized she was looking at a roll of pale flamingo pink silk. Carefully, like she thought it may disintegrate in her hands, Joan picked up the bulk and held it close to her chest, staring up with a dreamy, wistful expression.
That had to be the one.
“It’s so pretty,” Joan murmured as Katherine walked over, running her hand up and down the surface of the fabric. There was a smile ghosting over her lips, which still had remnants of the lipstick splotched over it.
“It is.” Katherine agreed. The shade of pink really fit well with Joan’s pale complexion, light hair, and icy eyes. “You’re gonna look great, I’m sure of it.” Then, idly, as she fiddled with the edge of some scratchy white cotton fabric, “I’m really glad you’re going to prom.”
Joan paused her process of thoroughly caressing the silk and blinked at Katherine in bright confusion.
“Why?”
A piece of Katherine’s heart broke and chipped off.
“I just thought you’d have a good time, that’s all.” Katherine said.
“Why?” Joan asked again, this time softer. Her eyebrows knitted together, and Katherine only now realized they were light brown instead of platinum blonde like her hair. Her pubic hair had been brown, too, which Katherine remembered with an internal cringe and a flash of intense guilt. She would never get over the culpability of harassing this young girl when she was completely naked.
“Why do you care if I have a good time?”
Katherine opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Joan tilted her head at her.
“I mean, you’ve never really talked to me before,” She said, “and the only reason you’re probably talking to me right now is because none of your friends are around.”
Katherine sucked in a sharp breath, but released it softly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the lady at the counter listening with great intrigue, but was pretending to cut some fabric to make it seem like she wasn’t.
“Look,” Katherine said. “If you don’t want to go, then don’t go.”
“N-no, I want to go!” Joan sputtered out hurriedly, like she thought her ticket would be revoked if she didn’t speak fast enough. “I-I didn’t say I didn’t want to, I just-- I wished I was going ‘cause someone liked me, not because they feel sorry for me.”
“This is not a pity thing.” Katherine clarified. She was usually such a good liar, but she could hear the falsehood oozing between her words. Even the lady at the counter widened her eyes in a ‘yeah, okay’ sort of expression. “I don’t feel sorry for you.”
Joan laughed weakly. “Yes, you do.” She said. She gazed down at the roll of fabric in her arms, then hugged it closer to her. “You feel sorry for me--because you think you’re better than me.”
“I don’t think I’m better than you.” Katherine said.
Joan smiled tightly at her. “It’s okay,” She said. “Everyone does.” She turned to go pay for the fabric, but paused for just a moment and added, “Doesn’t mean it’s true, though.”
------
Joan placed a box of buttons and sequins and string down next to all her other sewing materials and stood back proudly, admiring her precise set up for a moment. There was the sewing machine, her rack of different colored threads, a gleaming pile of needles, the fabric, and then her dress sketches. The crucible lifted his wooden head from the floor and placed it heavily on the table, blinking his broken glass eyes at everything.
Joan summoned--was that the right word?--him again--she had decided he was a boy. She enjoyed his company, even if it were just herself who was controlling all his movements. If she didn’t think about it, then he almost seemed sentient.
“Want some tea, Mama?” Joan called into the den.
Most of the furniture and religious decorations were gone, broken up to form Judgement’s body. But Mama’s velvet throne chair remained, and that’s where she sat, sewing a dark grey embroidery and trying very hard not to look at her devil spawn and her horrid creation. She doesn’t reply to Joan’s question. Judgement let out a hiss of static. Joan sighed and went back to her project.
She picked up her sketches. After going through at least ten different designs, she was stuck on two. The first was long and flowing, with off-shoulder sleeves and a fishtail skirt, while the second had a cross-folded bust, loose skirt, and open, draped sleeves that reach down to her elbows and hang low like flamingo wings. She analyzed the two dress ideas for a moment, showing Judgement for his opinion, then looked up again.
“Mama?” She padded over to her mother. “Do you like this one or this one?”
Jane Seymour did not look up from her embroidery as Joan showed her the two drawings.
Joan waited for a moment, expecting a reaction, then smiled down at the second drawing.
“I think this one’s really pretty…” She murmured, already dazzled by it, even in a simple pencil-sketched form.
“It’s Godless.” Mama muttered.
Joan’s smile disappeared in an instant. She gave her mother a look of extreme offense.
“It’s not Godless, Mama.” She said. “I wish you could be happy for me.”
Mama’s dead, dull eyes wandered up to Joan’s face slightly, but almost instantly turned back to her embroidery. She began weaving the needle through the fabric again.
“There’s a mark on you now,” She said bitterly.
Joan blithely ignored her. “This one’s prettier!” She declared, beaming, and pranced back over to her sewing station in the next room.
“Pretty.” Judgement echoed in a high pitched feminine voice that was slightly edged with static. He coiled up into a spring-like formation so he could watch from a higher view point.
“Yes!” Joan bobbed her head eagerly. “It’s really pretty!” She grinned brightly at her sketch.
“Woe to the woman who makes garments for lustful purposes, for she is prideful and curses and rejects the Lord.” Mama said from her chair. She was looking at Joan intently, now, hands knotted and frozen in her embroidery.
Judgement cast her a dark look, his wooden facial features creaking threateningly as his mouth and eyes move. Joan just furrowed her eyebrows at her mother.
“Sometimes I think you make that stuff up.” She said.
“Ezekiel, Chapter 13.” Mama said. “Read it for yourself.”
“I’ll read it later.” Joan said dismissively, unfolding the cloth she got from the store.
“Read it now.”
“I’m bust, Mama!” Joan whined.
Mama set her needle and thread and embroidery aside, and approached Joan cautiously. Her eyes kept darting over to Judgement, who had his bladed tail poised and ready to strike. Joan took a deep breath and looked up from her project to meet her mother’s gaze.
“You’ve gone so far astray that I fear for you.” Mama said.
Joan hunched her shoulders in slightly. “Do you really think I’m going to burn in hell, Mama, just for going to my prom?” She asked meekly.
“I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen to you.” Mama answered. “Sin knows you now. It’ll find you.”
“Mama…” Joan whimpered out softly.
Mama advanced on Joan. Judgement swelled up, his platelets and wooden scales standing on edge to make him look bigger. Mama took a small step back, but didn’t stand down fully, even though Joan could easily see the terror in her eyes. Her mother wanted to run and hide and pray to God.
“Your sin will find you, Johanna,” Mama hissed. “And when it does, not even Jesus can help you.”
“Jesus will help me.” Joan said. “He will help me if I really need him.”
“Not if he doesn’t love you anymore.”
Mama’s words made it feel like the entire world was coming down on Joan’s shoulders. Her eyes widened and she watched, mouth agape, as Mama turned and went back to her chair to continue sewing. Not even Judgement moved- her mind was too shell shocked to control him.
And then, she’s marching forward before she’s even aware of what she was doing, burning flares of anger urging her onward. Judgement slithered after her, his body making a menacing scraping sound against the wooden floor. Mama didn’t look up at her.
“Jesus loves everybody, Mama.” Joan said, clenching her fingers into shaking fists at her side. “Even me.”
Mama glanced up at her and opened her mouth to retort, but Joan narrowed her eyes into slits and silenced her.
“Don’t say a word,” She warned, “or I’ll vibrate your insides so hard they burst, and don’t think I won’t do it.”
Mama became very pale. Judgement let out a pleased hiss. Joan turned her nose up and marched back over to her sewing station, where she got to work on her dress. Judgement played music that wasn’t religious for once, and Mama did nothing to stop it.
She couldn’t.
------
The black G-Wagen jostled violently as it drove up the dark dirt path that night, going twenty miles too fast on the unpaved road. Branches scraped against the room and mud squelched beneath the tires, and if she weren’t so excited for this, Anne might have been dismayed about her car getting all dirty. She made a mental note to wash it before her father saw the mess on the sides.
“Are you sure Henty isn’t around?” Cathy asked from the passenger’s seat. She was white knuckling the overhead handle, looking a lot less mature than she usually did. Anne rolled her eyes at her.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Anne answered.
“Where is he?” Thomas Culpeper, a distant cousin to Anne, piped up. He was crammed in the back with Maggie, Thomas Cromwell, and Anthony Lee, Maggie’s boyfriend, and kept being throwing from side to side with every bump they hit.
“Funeral.” Anne said. “For his mum or something? Doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, okay,” Thomas said. “I just don’t want to get caught.” The car went over a particularly rough pothole and his head smacked against the window. He whined sharply in pain, rubbing the impacted area, while Maggie and Anthony burst into laughter.
“We won’t get caught.” Anne said.
“Seems like a lot of work for a joke…” Cromwell muttered over the peals of giggling.
Anne jerked her head around, not watching the dark road ahead of her, and narrowed her eyes until she looked like a venomous snake.
“Are you pussying out?” She asked. “Do you want to get out?”
Cromwell stiffened. “No! No!” He said. “It’s a good joke!”
Anne made a pleased noise and looked forward again. Her bright yellow headlights cut through the brambles snarled around the road and illuminated the large grey building coming up in the distance. She finally began to slow the car down.
The night air was a strange mix if humidly warm and chillingly cold. The half moon glowed brightly in the bruise-dark sky, its light twinkling on the surface of a nearby pond and bathing the surrounded apple orchard in rays of luscious silver. A cow lowed from somewhere in the distance. Pigs and chickens snorted and clucked inside the barn.
Anne popped open the trunk and pulled out a thick sledgehammer. Anthony armed himself with a wicked-looking butcher’s knife while Cromwell and Maggie both grabbed a steel bucket each. Anne passed the sledgehammer to Thomas, who swung the ten-pound thing idly, making swishing noises in the air. Cathy waited by the front of the car, her arms crossed over her chest.
“What’s wrong, doll?” Anne asked, sauntering up to her. She stood on her tippy toes and nipped at Cathy’s bottom lip, slithering her arms around her waist. “You look a little blue.”
Cathy ruffled ever so slightly, touching her custom made blue leather jacket as her girlfriend giggled. She sighed and wrapped her arms around Anne, returning the embrace.
“I’m not sure this is the best idea,” She said. “Can’t you just forget about it?”
Anne narrowed her eyes. Her shellac green nails curled into Cathy’s lower back.
“No,” She hissed. “I cannot. I will not forget about it.” She stepped back, huffing, not realizing she looked like a child throwing a temper tantrum in the moonlight. “I was humiliated, Cathy! I can just let something like that go! It was AWFUL!”
Cathy frowned at Anne with a pitiful look.
“And you know who I blame?” Anne went on, fuming with rage. “That goddamn freak!” She kicked a rock and sent it bouncing across the dirt before it got stuck in some mud. “Joan Seymour is going to learn not to play with fire sooner or later. And it’s about time someone gave her a real lesson.”
“Yeah!!” Maggie agreed loudly, always backing up her best friend. Anne grinned at her brightly.
“This’ll definitely teach her,” Anthony said, glancing at the knife Cromwell was twisting to catch beams of moonlight on the blade. “I think I would kill myself if what you’re planning were to happen to me.”
A dark thrill crackled through Anne’s body. Joan Seymour? Killing herself? Oh, the image of that stupid cow hanging from a noose or bleeding out from slit wrists or dying from a bullet to her retarded brain sounded like a dream come true. It filled her with a sick kind of euphoria that made her feel tingly and pleasured. A crooked, bloodthirsty smile curled on her lips. She doesn’t notice the wary glance Cathy gave her.
“Hope for that,” She said. “Come on.”
They all approached the barn, with Cathy and Thomas being stupidly overly cautious despite Anne telling them several times that Old Man Henty wasn’t home. They hopped the outer fence and walked inside, where the smell of livestock became much thicker.
“Ugh, smells like shit in here!” Cromwell exclaimed.
“Well, yeah, dumbass.” Maggie said, rolling her eyes at him. She didn’t appear to be fazed by the smell at all, or was just really good at hiding that she was.
Passing by an indoor chicken coop and fenced area for cows, they soon came to the pigpen. There were dozens of pigs, Berkshires and Welshes and British Lops and British Saddlebacks, either sleeping or moseying around listlessly. A flat white snout stuck through the bars of the fence enclosing their pen and grunted at the newcomers.
Thomas nudged Anthony, then Anthony nudged Thomas, and then the two of them vaulted forward over the fence, squealing and snorting and making a complete ruckus. A few of the pigs didn’t even move from the mud they were sprawled in, not even caring about all the noise, while others screeched and sprinted away.
“Idiots,” Maggie rolled her eyes.
“You’re dating one of them.” Anne said and laughed at the way Maggie’s nose scrunched up. She hopped the fence and stepped into the pigpen, while Maggie, Cromwell, and Cathy waited on the other side.
“Hey, piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy!” Thomas cried, bending over and cackling at a lazy British Saddleback with a thick white neck.
“Where’s your leg?” Anthony asked an orange Tamworth that was missing one of its back legs. “This one.” He then declared. “We should kill this one. It’s crippled. We’d be doing it a favor.”
Anne studied the orange swine. It definitely did have a pitiful aura, what with the way it hopped awkwardly when it moved, but it was much too small.
“We need a bigger one.” She said, scanning the pigs grunting around her.
“Pick one that looks like the girl,” Cromwell suggested from the top of the fence he was perched on.
“You,” Anne pointed to him with an appraising look, “are starting to grow on me.”
Cromwell puffed out his chest importantly. Cathy pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything.
Anne looked through all the pigs, and then spotted one that caused a sinister smirk to spread on her face.
“That one.” She said.
It was a big, fat, pink British Lop so light it looked white in the moonlight it was standing under in the outside area of the pen. It had giant, crusty teats and huge floppy ears that it could barely see out from under. Anthony and Thomas lunged at it, shrieking callouts and laughing maddeningly, but the sow just looked up at them dumbly, its ears just barely shifting out of its face.
Just like Joan Seymour.
“Whenever you’re ready, Tommy.” Anne said to her younger cousin.
It was only then that Thomas seemed to realize that he was holding the sledgehammer...which meant he had to kill the pig.
He hefted it in his hands, held his breath, then raised it over his head and--
Thomas faltered. He grit his teeth, staring down at the sow that was now curiously nudging one of his shoes with its snout, then released the tension in his arms.
“I can’t do it.” He said miserably.
Anne glared at him. Maggie rolled her eyes. Cathy gave him a pitying look.
“Are you kidding me?” Anne said. “Really, Tommy?”
“I can’t, okay?!” Thomas cried. He held out the sledgehammer. “Y-you do it.” His eyes wandered to Cromwell.
“Dude, don’t look at me!” Cromwell said sickly. He leaned back so far he nearly fell off the fence.
“I don’t believe you,” Anne said to her cousin. “Does being a little bitch run in our fucking family or something? First Kat and now you?” She shook her head, tutting.
“Take it.” Thomas said, shoving the sledgehammer forward in the air. When Anne just stared at him he said again, “Seriously, take it!”
“You fucking pussy.” Anne hissed scathingly. She snatched the sledgehammer from Thomas and shoved him aside into the fence. She looked over at Anthony questiongly.
“Don’t worry,” Anthony said, touching his thumb to the honed edge.
“Right down the throat.” Anne reminded.
“I know.”
Anne nodded. She twirled the sledgehammer in her hands and gazed down at the sow at her feet. A disturbing smirk crept back onto her lips.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in,” She sang, circling around the sow. She then did an awful imitation of Joan Seymour’s voice, “Not by the hairs on your chinny-chin-chin!” She hefted the sledgehammer, her expression darkening, crooked smile twisting. “Then I’ll huff...and I’ll puff...and I’ll bash your brains in!”
The sow looked up, innocent black eyes peeking out from under floppy pink ears, and Anne put the sledgehammer right in between them.
The sound was like dropping a pumpkin from a great height- wet, gushy, and absolutely magnificent. The sow dropped to the ground, its skull dented and cracked open wide, blood and brains drooling out. Thomas keeled over the side of the fence and vomited. Anne regarded him with a disgusted expression.
“Anthony,” She said, swiveling her head around to Maggie’s boyfriend. “Come on. Maggie, the bucket.”
Anthony nodded as Maggie hopped the fence and set one of the steel buckets down. Anthony lifted the sow by its thick snout, open black eyes angled towards the moon, and slit its throat.
The blood flow was immediate and glorious. Anne, Anthony, and Maggie all got squirted by the cut aorta. Thomas gagged again.
“Good,” Anne murmured. She gripped the sledgehammer tightly, riding the ways of pleasantly gory ecstasy. “That one, too.” She nodded at a large black Berkshire boar.
“Jesus, Anne.” Cathay said. “Isn’t this en-”
“That one.” Anne repeated.
“Annie, can I cut its throat this time?” Maggie asked eagerly.
“Of course, love!” Anne said, earning a sick squeal of glee from her friend. She lumbered over to the boar, unable to stop grinning. “Don’t worry, piggy, don’t worry,” She cooed to it. “Auntie Annie’s going to bash your fucking head in and you won’t have to worry about the fryer no more!”
She raised the sledgehammer again and smashed much harder than before. Mushed brain matter came spilling out instantly, wetting the dirt of the pigpen. Maggie excitedly cut the boar’s throat and began filling up the second bucket.
“Thomas that isn’t a fucking disappointment,” Anne said.
It took him a moment, but Cromwell realized it was him being spoken to. He perked up, attentive, but wary.
“Yeah?”
“Go get the spare bucket in the car.”
“Anne.” Cathy said. “This is enough.”
“Shut up, Cathy.” Anne snapped. She looked back at Cromwell. “Go.”
Cromwell jumped off of the fence and ran out of the barn. Cathy grumbled something as Anne walked over and pulled her into a heated kiss. She wondered if her girlfriend could taste the pig blood spattered on her face.
“Cheer up, my love,” Anne said, cupping Cathy’s cheeks. “This is fun! No need to be so grouchy.” She kissed her again, letting her tongue snake into Cathy’s mouth.
They eventually pulled back, panting, ropes of saliva connecting their mouths together. Cathy smiled flusteredly.
“I guess...it is a pretty good joke.” She said.
“See?” Anne grinned, kissing down her jawline. Her breath was hot on Cathy’s tender skin. “I told you.”
Cromwell soon returned with the extra bucket. Anne thanked him and went back over to the dead pigs. She took the butcher knife from Maggie and cut open the sow’s belly.
“What are you doing?” Thomas asked. He was ghostly pale in the moonlight and leaning against the fence.
Anne shot him a scornful look. “Making this even better.” She replied and began pulling out the sow’s organs. Thomas vomited once again and she rolled her eyes.
Slowly but surely, the third bucket was filled up with pig guts. Intestines, the womb, the uterus, the heart and stomach. When it was halfway full, she cut open the boar, took its intestines, then sliced off the scrotum and removed the testicles.
The smell of blood was thick, rank, and coppery in the air. Anne was slimed up to her elbows in gore. Everyone was staring at her in wide-eyed awe.
“Let’s go,” She said, slinging the sledgehammer over her shoulder and picking up the bucket of guts. “Don’t spill a goddamn drop or else.” She warned Anthony and Cromwell when they lifted their own buckets. She didn’t trust her pussy cousin, Thomas, to do it.
They all walked back to the car, where they poured the blood and guts into a large cooler that was brought along. Anne didn’t bother cleaning her arms when she got back into the driver’s seat; she quite liked the aroma coming from the mess. She breathed it in deeply and smiled, leaning back in her seat.
“Pig’s blood for a pig,” She mused. “That freak is never going to know what hit her.”
#the crucible#six the musical#six the musical fanfic#six the musical fanfiction#six fanfiction#six fanfic#six the musical au#uk tour six#tour katherine howard#tour anne boleyn#katherine howard#anne boleyn#anna of cleves#tour anna of cleves#catherine of aragon#tour catherine of aragon#tour catherine parr#catherine parr#jane seymour#tour jane seymour#joan on the keys#tour joan on the keys#tour maria on the drums#tour maggie on the guitar#tour bessie on the bass#thomas cromwell#thomas culpeper#katanna#howard x cleves#cleves x howard
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Vitreum - The Fusion World
So, like three years ago I was inspired by this art piece on deviantart, called “Fusions world”, and it got me thinking.
Imagine if there was some long lost distant gem colony, inhabited only by colossal Fusions who walk the surface like Titans.
====================================================
Colony History
There are legends abound of the ancient Lost Colony, the Fusion World, Vitreum. A planet overrun with titanic monstrous fusions.
It is a long lost colony from Gemkind's initial expansion phase when Homeworld was first expanding outwards. It was once a major colony, as seen by the many ruins that dot its surface, but why it was abandoned has been lost to time. Perhaps it was a colony that became irrelevant or depleted and was simply forgotten over the ages. Its colonists eventually became stranded and isolated. Those Gems still on the planet were trapped and slowly descended into anarchy.
Some usurpers began using fusions to take control, to which the others responded by forming fusions of their own. As powerful and flexible tools, mixed-Gem Fusions began to norm as a way of countering their rival’s unique powers by developing their own. This escalated into a full blown Fusion arms race as all sides sought to create the most effective combinations and more powerful forms to combat their rivals. Fusions of ten, twenty, or even more Gems were developed, perfected over ages to gain an edge over their enemies. Homeworld never believed such Fusions were possible, but they never devoted considerable time to trying, and the Vitreum Gems had ages to practice.
The conflict would spiral out of control and the Fusion Wars that would rage were so destructive that it would destabilize the entire planet. All across the world, truly titanic Fusions fought in such numbers that solitaire Gem civilization was lost to cataclysm. Mountains were hurled like stones, continents were broken underfoot, and pillars of fire scorched the sky.
Almost all of the remaining Gems on the colony at this point had to fuse together just to survive. The chaotic conditions on the planet were making it impossible to survive otherwise, as either the elements would crush them, or more powerful fusions would. To be alone was to die on Vitreum, and so, hundreds of colossus warred across the surface on a scale that Gemkind had never witnessed.
For centuries the wars raged with great bellicose fusions striding across the surface, but they reached no climatic conclusion. Instead like a burning flame, they would simply peter out over time as the Fusions lost direction as well as their very identities. Over time, many of the largest Titans, the most powerful of them all, would either become dormant or simply choose to wander, patrolling their territories and only occasionally clashing with other Titan Fusions. Eons passed as the colonist’s individual identities were forgotten or discarded, even the existence of Homeworld became only a distant memory.
Today the surface of Vitreum is the image of primordial chaos, wracked by tremendous earthquakes, violent exotic storms, volcanic eruptions, and still occasionally shaken by the rumble of wandering Fusions and their bellicose clashes. It remains all but forgotten by Homeworld, a colony that was abandoned eons ago, and little more, unaware of the world of giants that it has become.
Vitreum Fusions
By most reckoning, Fusions of the size found on Vitreum should not be possible, as the number of conflicting personalities within them would make the Fusion too unstable to even exist. However, the Vitreum Gems fused together because the chaotic conditions on the planet were becoming impossible to survive as anything less than one. Either the elements would crush them, or more powerful fusions would. To be alone was to die on Vitreum. So even the largest numbers of personalities remained together, reforming immediately if they fell apart, or downscaling to more manageable, albeit less powerful, size if needed.
The majority of these Fusions have been fused for so long that they have blended together and developed their own unique personalities and identities. So with eons of need and practice, the Fusions reached size and stability never thought possible by Homeworld, or anyone for that matter, all isolated on Vitreum. Were they to become separated, the component Gems would become incredibly lost and confused and would immediately seek out their other components to reform.
Fusion Sizes
Most fusions on Vitreum are composed of at least four or five Gems at minimum, equivalent to Alexandrite, as the whole planet is in such a constant state of geological upheaval and titanomachy that anything smaller would be at risk of being shattered.
These “smaller” fusions cannot hope to withstand the destruction as anything smaller and so either live either solitary existences or band together in small communities of no more than a few dozen, either residing within caves or deep underground where the big ones can't spot them. These Fusions have been fused for so long that they possessed fully developed and unique personalities and identities.
The “big ones” are Fusions composed of a dozen or more component Gems.
Then there are the Fusion Titans. The Titans are the most powerful and ancient Fusions of them all, beings of incredible power and titanic in the literal sense, they are composed of many dozens of Gems, perhaps even more. With so many personalities merged together over eons, they are more akin to forces of nature than Gems, not talkative and more prone to feeling than thinking. Often territorial and bellicose, when two Titans cross paths they get territorial, resulting in cataclysmic battles that reshape the landscape around them. Mountains are flattened, canyons, seas rise or are boiled away. Fortunately, there are only around a dozen on the planet and most of them remain dormant for long stretches of time.
WIP list of Fusions
I have a lot of ideas for Vitreum Fusions, here are some ideas I have in mind.
A colossal fusion whose head and hair forms the center of a cyclone.
Kosmochlor, another fusion up in the stratospheric mountains, with a dozen hands and can throw rocks like meteors or small mountains like boulders.
Neptunite, a leviathan sea fusion, with a mermaid tail who lurks beneath the waves. Her back could be mistaken for an island.
Vesuvianite, a colossal fusion who sleeps in the heart of a volcano, or essentially is the volcano. Is fiery and angry when woken.
Antarcticite, an ice fusion who freezes the whole region wherever they walk.
Botallackite, spider-like fusion hiding between canyon walls.
Fusions whose designs are inspire by the Naga, Spider, Hippocampus, Desert Colossus, and Kraken.
One-Shot Story?
I hope to be able to make a small story out of this, to explore it. Its Era 3 and Steven is touring the cosmos with the Gems to dismantle the Authority, but they get lost and crash land on Vitreum. Cue adventures!
I think there is fun to be had besides gawking at Giant Woman. I'm sure Garnet would have something to say about this place. On this world of Fusions, the brief Fusion civilization that once thrived here. There are the cyclopean ruins of cities built entirely by Fusions, Amalgam. However factionalism and warfare tore these places apart and the civilization was lost to ruin.
The Diamonds would have zero authority on this planet. Most of the inhabitants barely remember Homeworld and other Gems emerged after Vitreum was cut off. They would also have to deal with the novel sensation of being considered SMALL. Even the smaller non-hostile Fusions wouldn’t be impressed by them.
Actually, someone who would be forced to take center stage would be Alexandrite, since you need to be her caliber minimum to survive the sheer destructive chaos of the planet.
They might meet a friendly Vitreum Fusion who helps them understand this place. Maybe a native Alexandrite. Or something else entirely.
As a for a conflict, maybe a particularly nasty Fusion is about to awaken and they need another to stop them. Its important to point out that most of these fusions, especially the titanic ones, aren’t evil. They are more like forces of nature. Their battles are massively destructive but they also create the landscape.
By the end of it, our favorite Gems escape, maybe some of the Vitreum Fusions go with them. Now that its Era 3 and fusions are not persecuted. But the bigger ones definitely stay and none of them unfuse.
That’s about what I have for now, if anyone has questions about it or ideas just shoot me a message!
Edit: First two chapters are up! See them here on AO3.
#steven universe#gem lore#gem ocs#gemsona#fusion oc#gem fusions#vitreum#gem planet#su fic#?#my stuff
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GIFTENING Bonus Rounds
For each category, I included a “bonus round” question. YOU GUYS KILLED IT. I loved all the answers, but listed below are some of my particular favourites.
Haruka Tenoh is trapped in the wrong anime! Which would you have her visit next?
I want her to earth shake Kyubey out of existence, please and thank you
My bride is a mermaid. She can relate. :P
i think she would THRIVE in bodacious space pirates. gay teenage space pirates whose job is to dress up, be Dramatic, and rob the wealthy??? that shit is RIGHT up her alley
Hamtaro
Princess Tutu - where the world is finally as dramatic as her
PGSM (and Michiru is trapped with her, for REASONS)
Pokemon because everyone deserves to be happy
Any moe-style series so hijinks can ensue at her being baffled by everyone's ages
1960's Speed Racer
is is this a captcha or something i missed oh god
Free! so she can be indifferent to all the hot men and slightly uncomfortable because she still can't swim.
Stick Haruka in a Gundam!
Dump her in Pretear or one of the Precures! It would be hilarious! She's never in the genre she wants to be!
Revolutionary Girl Utena, so she can be offended by misuse of roses.
Initial D, she will out-drive and out-drift all those guys and steal all their girls.
Evangelion. I would feel bad to watch her suffer, but it would be so, so funny for her to be the comparatively most normal person around.
Yakitake Japan! SO SHE CAN HAVE A SNACK OF DELICIOUS RIDICULOUS BREAD BEFORE THE NEXT INTERDIMENSIONAL ANIME STORM WHISKS HER AWAY.
The Holograms or the Misfits? DISCUSS
Holograms
both? both. BOTH IS GOOD
misfits bc Evil Ladies Hot
Steven and the stevens
Misfits. How dare you make us try to think about anything in our lives.
Both, you mad fool. Those combined songs were the best.
The Misfits, their songs are better
The Misgrams: A group of girls who form a singing telegram start up company, but constantly deliver the telegrams to the wrong people.
kimber & stormer
Neither. Limp Lizards all the way. BROKEN GLASS.
I do not know what these things are
Misfits because guitar motorcycle
The Isle of Misfit Holograms
Holograms is just arguably better
I mean, I’m told the Misfits’ songs are better, but my true answer is the band Kimber and Stormer made in that big gay episode you liveblogged (checks) almost four years ago.
I've no idea what these words mean and I hope this does not make me TOO uncool.
this is about jem, right? right?? im hip i swear
Misfits, because Jasper is a member apparently
I don't know from Jem, but I mean...I certainly prefer holographic material to Glenn Danzig? So I guess there's your answer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Stingers
LIMP LIZARDS FOREVER
Senshi Band
You can make me liveblog a full series of any show you want! You also hate me. What do you have me watch?
Pick a GoT rip-off, any GoT rip-off
The Bachelor?
The Bachelor :(
depends on how much i hate you, but....probably the bachelor. quantity AND lack of quality
Critical role, it would take forever
If I were a horrible person who sought only malice? Big Bang Theory. Entire series.
Toddlers and Tiaras
The Mandalorian - Disney would come after you and kill keyofjetwolf just as dead as keyofnik. We would all be very sad, you would have to go through a second round of restoring things to a new tumblr account, and your organizational heart would weep over adding yet another hosting site out of chronological order.
You are liveblogging Eva, and must discuss in full detail Shinji's emotional state at all times.
Hannity & Colmes
The Kardashians. And all of their spin offs. *kisses*
The price is right
the bachelor
Probably something with lots of romance and no friendships. Soap operas are like that, right? My college roommate used to watch General Young Light Restless Hospital of Our Lives (which one had Like and Laura?) And it was torture.
One Piece, because it's over 900 episodes so you could maybe do 10% before you die, also you will hate how the women are treated most of the time.
Fushigi Yuugi. Not only do you hate it but it also comes with you squirming when you admit to watching the whole thing. ;)
Plus belle la vie. It's an ongoing French soap opera that has been airing five days a week since 2004, they're nearing their 4000th episode and there's no end in sight. Imagine all those hours upon hours submerged in French drama, mwahahaha!!
The Bachelor. Or the Bachelorette, maybe - more straight dudes in that.
The Young and the Restless - IT IS THE LIVEBLOG THAT NEVER ENDS. IT WOULD OUTLAST THE INTERNET.
The entirety of the Bachelor franchise.
You can only play one game for the rest of your life. Which game would it be and why?
Kingdom Hearts Complete Collection. A) I love them. B) I beat the system and get like 10 games instead of one.
Gemcraft. This game actually takes a lifetime to finish.
Hatoful Boyfriend. It is the best game ever created. Feel it in your heart.
that's a mean question and you can't make me answer it
Pathfinder, which you could play for the rest of your life and still never finish.
Civ VI , so I can rule the world without leaving my house.
I am legitimately perturbed by this question and refuse to answer it.
Pokemon Go. I would have nothing else, but I would catch them all.
The Elder Scrolls Skyrim: I'll never run out of side-quests.
Mass Effect--it's the only way I'll get full completion.
The dinosaur game on Chrome when the internet doesn't connect because my life is monotonous and it's a welcome relief.
Stardew Valley. Peaceful farmer life and turning my children into doves when I'm bored with them.
Crabs Adjust Humidity
Oh my! A number of things come to mind, not one of them fit for print. Just, you know...*gestures vaguely* sex shit.
I can't even stick to the ones I play now.
This is the worst of all possible things and I refuse to answer.
Monopoly, I hate myself :(
Probably Minecraft! I haven't gotten into it because I know if I start I will NEVER STOP. Who would do things like build a hundred foot tall statue of Mako-chan? A-THAT'D BE ME.
the game. Of LIFE! *shrug emoji*
I don't believe I'll tell you, because I AM a salty little fish and it was HARD to cut that 11th choice off my vote.
Holligay and I are going to be the leads in a new buddy film. What's the premise? How does it end?
Be gay do crimes. Thelma and Louise. Duh. :P
I have no idea but only just surviving disaster is how it ends.
You break down in a small town during a roadtrip- your stay is full of hijinks and ends with you teaching the townsfolk the true meaning of friendship.
Doctor Holligay, Esquire, PhD, renowned Jewish femme of many talents, is assigned one Operative Jet Wolf as her bodyguard on a foreign diplomatic mission/vacation/culinary tour of the world ("same difference, shut up, narrator"). One problem: Operative Wolf needs a bodyguard herself, as the good doctor discovers when in one night her toilet is destroyed ("IT WAS A SECURITY THREAT") and Operative Wolf nearly breaks a leg falling down a small set of stairs ("THEY PUT A CLIFF OUTSIDE THE DOOR"). Worldwide shenanigans ensue as Holligay and Operative Wolf learn the true meaning of friendship, and also how to take care of themselves... by taking care of each other.
I’m not sure about the premise, but DEFINITELY it ends in murder.
Someone posted a major spoiler during one of your liveblogs. The two of you track them down seeking revenge. It turns out it was the original creator of the series trying to stop you. For some reason Holligay is a CGI badger.
It's clearly a buddy cop movie, and like all good buddy cop movies, it ends with Doc almost dying, and you saving her, and slapping her wound in the hospital as the credits roll.
It ends as it began: with Holligay roasting you.
A straight detective and her lesbian partner have to solve the case of the missing cinnamon buns. It ends with nobody getting the guy OR the girl and you drive off into the sunset together, perps behind bars sans cinnamon buns.
I don't know what it's about but I know it will be the only movie that ever existed.
Holligay is the lesbian chief of staff to you somehow being elected President and she's basically running the country while you're the charming face of the administration
Nerd and cowgirl meet at a bar, justifyingly murder some gross dude, go on the run from the law and have a life-changing road trip, on the way Nazis are punched
carrying a delicate object through a forest after your helicopter goes down
Thelma and Louise, but instead of dying, your deaths are clearly faked and you live on a ranch in Montana with your respective spouses and animals. One time a cop comes by the restaurant/bar you joint own with Doc and says, "You look familiar." Doc, in perfect lesbian, answers, "Jet's just got that criminal look, on account of how much she'd love to steal my cheesecake recipe. More pie?"
Queer Eye with a Straight Goy. The two of you do the show but in your own special ways.
Doc Holligay is the wild-west no-nonsense sheriff. Jet Wolf is the all-fun cyberpunk cop from the future. They punch nazis and argue about food. It ends as a tv series ala B99.
Your lives are already a buddy film, don’t get greedy.
Hands and socks. You know how it ends.
See Grumpy Old Men for details. How does it end? Badly.
I can't imagine the premise, but I'm pretty sure the planet explodes.
A Coen Bros film. It ends poorly.
Wait? You're not already living this now?
REI HINO
REI HINO
Sure. Why not?
HINO REI
<3<3<3<3
REI HINO!
Rei who? ;)
REI HINOOOOOOOOO
Plush Is being hugged by Zoisite in your banner.
MINAKO AINO
MAKOTO KINO
The best
SOCKS
MICHIRU KAIOH
It's time tooo.... REI! THAT! HINO!
sponsored by Here! curry
LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI [THIS REPEATS A LOT A LOT AND IS GLORIOUS] [...] LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES JETWOLF
(THE REAL ONE)
Isn't how you spell Makoto Kino!
THE REAL ONE™
obviously
IS NOT A RHINO
In conclusion: Rei Hino
Rei Hino is giving this Giftening finger guns
BEAUTIFUL, STUNNING, SHOW-STOPPING, TALENTED, AMAZING, WONDERFUL
Hot stuff, lights my fire, blazes it regularly. I am out of fire jokes.
PASSION FLAME, SAILOR MARS
These hot feelings are C'EEEEEST LAAAAA VIIIIIIE c'mon rei-chan why aren't you singing along
IS THE BEST (I know who I'm talking to)
Ara!
DID DOCTOR HOLLIGAY PHD NOMINATE THE OPTION OF TALKING ABOUT MICHIRU KAIOH FOR 6 HOURS!!
If Hot Pocket were to plan One Last Heist, what do you think would be his objective? What would be Mina's role in his master plan?
Master Hot Pocket seeks BREAD. His friend and loyal companion, Mina-pup, acts as a distraction, as he has learned the humans are easily distracted by cute. While she does her sworn duty as Best Friend and Cutest Goodest Girl, probably with lolling tongue and glee at all the pets she receives, he picks the locks on the newly childproofed pantry, and Master Howard H. Pocket FEASTS AS NO CAT HAS BEFORE.
Every bag of flour in Montana; Mina runs distraction with her adorable puppy eyes
Open every container, leave none unmarked. Mina is the lookout who greets whoever comes and is completely ineffective at her job.
TAKE ALL THE FLOUR. Do it straight from the source: FlourCo Inc. What does a 10-pound cat do with eighty thousand tons of flour? If you can't figure that out, there's a reason he's the brains of this outfit. Mina would obviously be the bumbling lovable distraction to security or other people.
Bread. Mina is The Face who provides distraction to the Keepers of the Bread by walking up to them and being herself. Mina has absolutely no idea that Hot Pocket is using her in this manner because Hot Pocket is that Machiavellian, but Mina is a pocket full of sunshine in canine form and probably would just be happy to help out.
Hot Pocket knows that no mammal of the floor believes in flour anymore. It went away a long time ago. It doesn't exist. But what he also knows is that they're wrong. A lack of opposable thumbs won't hide the truth from him. He'll find the stash, and when he does, he'll stick his paw in it. Mina, with her limited climbing skills, will lick its remains from his claw and prove his discovery. As well as provide a warm place to curl up on for the aftermath of their adventure.
His goal is to sample every edible thing he can get his teeth on. Mina pulls triple duty as step stool, distraction, and scape goat
The Silver Crystal. Mina would play the role of Sailor V.
He is getting ALL THE FLOUR. Mina is a lovable distraction.
Looting all the carbs in the pantry. mina is distraction.
mina's role would be the "dopey" but talented best friend who it looks like HP is going to betray for the sake of the plan but then it all comes together when HP mounts a dramatic rescue. i dunno i'm still in film mode from that last one.
The Holy Bread Locked Within the Cupboard. Mina would be the distraction, but she'd forget what she was supposed to be distracting from and end up leading you to him.
I am the Void. I am the Night. I am the Darkness with no hope of dawn. The Flour trembles before me in it's bleached fluffiness. It shall not escape my chaos, which will descend upon it like the Terrors of the Deep, claws and teeth and gnashing. It will howl at my claws. It will scream for my teeth, sharp and white, stars in the night of my fur. I shall tend and tear and -- Dammit, Dog-thing! How am I supposed to be terrible and terrifying with you wagging your tail and panting at me!? Oh, you found a good warm sunbeam? I guess I can stalk stuff later. I am the Void. I shall absorb the Sun's light and warmth and bring it into my Darkness where it cannot escape...
I'm new here and don't know all the complex lore of Jetwolf(fairly sure Mina is dog), so I'm going to assume that Hot Pocket is an actual hot pocket and his heist is robbing Fort Knox using Mina as his loyal stead/get away car. Then he explodes a microwave or something.
i lik the bred
Mina as the distraction while he takes one last tastes of EVERYTHING
objective--stealing more chips; Mina--surprise betrayal
The scene: Mama Jet's pantry
The Objective: the bag of cake flour Aunt Doc made Mama Jet buy but she's never used
Mina: confused but excited escape vehicle and/or scapegoat
RAIDING THE KING ARTHUR FLOUR FACTORY. Mina is of course adorable and keeps everyone's attention while Hot Pocket swan dives into the flour like Uncle Scrooge
Hot Pocket would definitely try to steal a monument, Carmen SanDiego style. Mina, of course, is the multi-talented and super cute face of the operation.
I have no idea who Hot Pocket is
HP would try to scale the tallest building in the world. Not to steal anything, just to be up there. Mina would be the adorable diversion.
It would be to get whatever food you've left on the counter. Preferably bread. He would tell Mina that he'll give her some of she acts as a distraction. She's a good dog so she does. He's a cat so she gets no food.
Truly, truly, THE GIFTENING winner is us all.
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this season was kind of whack, but at least we had Eizouken
Heya Camp is just kind of a lazy reminder that Yuru Camp exists, and will continue to exist in the future. You remember these characters?? OK good, just making sure. That said, did I immediately feel the tension release in my entire body when I heard the OST? Duh. Did I sing “it’s coffee time” to the ending not knowing these were the incorrect lyrics? The entire time.
I don’t know what to do with Isekai Quartet because like, objectively, I should hate it. I do not enjoy like 2.5 of the shows involved, and the addition of Shield Hero was not a welcome one. Turns out it doesn’t matter anyway because it was just Isekai Quartet and also Naofumi is Sometimes Scowling in the Background and that’s about as much of him as I want to see anyway. And yet? I do enjoy this Disney Channel Original Crossover. There’s something inherently fun about watching these characters from disparate shows interact with each other, and no matter what the original stakes were in their respective series, they’re all just doing homework and getting part time jobs and that shit’s funny when a big skeleton man is doing it.
After its first episode, Asteroid in Love was kind of a slog. This is your typical seasonal CGDGT show, and apart from that, I really can’t think of anything to say about it. I didn’t learn anything about the Extremely Niche Topic these girls are doing, and it wasn’t even that gay. Disappointing.
I was really looking forward to Toilet Bound Hanako-kun because I am a big fan of the source material, but I was pretty let down by this adaptation. It seems that they prioritized the art style and the color scheme above everything else, but that essentially just meant the entire project ended up being colored manga panels. I wanted to see them move around! There was not a single moment of animation that justified it being an anime. You might as well have been watching a PowerPoint. I can’t think of anything nice to say. Let’s move on.
Bofuri is my power fantasy. I want to play a video game so cluelessly I break it into tiny pieces and bumble into being the most powerful player in the world’s nicest MMORPG. Maple turns powercreep into powersprint. What Bofuri lacks in character development or plot, it makes up for in outrageous Maple feats. She holds the entire world in the palm of her hand and she doesn’t even know it. She named her OP pet turtle Syrup and then turned into an alien abomination unknown to the world and went on a killing rampage. This anime was Maple Crossing Online. Love you, Maple. Wreck shit, Maple.
If My Favorite Idol Got Into Budokan, I Would Die walks a thin line and what separates it from being a slobbering idol otaku engine preaching how Cool it is to Be an Otaku and an Idol Show Watamote is the fact that Eripiyo is a girl. That’s it. If you took her and replaced her with your average Joe Schmoe-san, this show would be insufferably creepy. Every time I was waiting for it to topple over, Jenga-like, it managed to right itself and straddle the tightrope. It’s not a particularly subtle piece of media, nor does it do what I was hoping it would do and engage in any sort of conversation about the obsessive nature of idol otakudom, but you know what it does a good job of doing? Portraying being an idol as a job. Just some adults putting on underground shows and selling the same CD of like two songs over and over again. I was also hoping it would address what happened to Eripiyo, maybe talk about why at the beginning she’s dressed like an office worker and apparently gives that all up to follow this kinda-shitty idol group, why this fanatic escapism is preferable, or even maybe address how gay it is? Not in the cards, though. Honestly Budokan was, despite itself, pretty enjoyable? There are some great background lesbians. Also can we talk about how consistently good the production values were on this show? Why did this have such great dance sequences? Why did this look better than Love “Has More Money Than God” Live? Actually no I take everything back this show was kind of just Idol Otaku Watamote
Hey, let’s talk about the other idol show airing this season: the completely unhinged 22/7. This show is Whack. This show operates on an entire different plane of reality. I know nothing about the actual band, so I came into this blind and oh my god. Hey guys, the plot of 22/7 is that a Wall tells some girls to form an idol unit. A sentient Wall whose orders absolutely must be followed. Why? Dunno! What happens if you don’t follow its orders? Never elaborated on. (Actually, is this a reference to Pink Floyd? I have no fucking clue.) In any case these eight girls, summoned by a letter from the Wall, are all invited to become an idol group, and then they’re magically an idol group. It’s unclear how they become successful, how they book gigs, who’s keeping the lights on at the agency, how they’re getting paid, who HR is, how their gorilla man agent found this Wall and determined that all its directives Must Be Followed, but shit, man. What follows in 22/7 is a one-member-per-episode serial that quite frankly stumbles far more often than it succeeds. One girl’s grandma died and that’s why she came to Japan. One girl had a traumatizing experience where she got lost in the woods for a week and it broke her family apart and now things just suck forever. These things are equal. One poor girl’s entire episode was about how she didn’t want to put on a bathing suit for a photo shoot and how uncomfortable she felt about it, but in the end she was made to apologize for dragging her feet for so long and takes her photo for a pin up. Yuck. Gross. Bad. The only valid girl is Jun, end of discussion. None of this even holds a candle to the finale-- wherein the girls are directed by the Wall to disband, and, defying an order for the first time, the girls return to their agency and throw shit at the Wall until it breaks down. It’s revealed that the Wall isn’t supernatural-- behind it are tv monitors, photos of the girls as children, records of their activities. A person or people are behind this. Why??? Are they being groomed?? Is the Wall a metaphor for the Industry? I’m so concerned. The girls aren’t, though, because after a little side eyeing, they ascend a staircase and wow! A Stage! Our fans are all here for our reunion tour! And then they’re fine and I guess their idol group is back together or something? Did I mention the stage where they perform? It’s at a zoo. I can’t tell if this is the most scathing condemnation of idol culture I’ve ever watched or just completely oblivious. The characters don’t engage in any sort of thought about what they’re being put through, but they are performing their final song, the lyrics of which are about how life is just too hard to keep on living, at a zoo and I don’t think you can have that sort of thing happen unless you’re trying to make a point. Right??? RIGHT?!? Dance and sing, monkeys.
Smile Down the Runway was another show completely divorced from reality. So you got your main character, Chiyuki, whose thing is that she’s Too Short to Be a Model at her father’s very prestigious modeling agency. Which, like, is valid! Let’s see some variation in the modeling industry. Let’s shake it up. Let’s lead the charge for alternative models with bodies outside of the very narrow requirements of the fashion industry. What’s that, Chiyuki? You have no interest in that? You want to be a Hypermodel? I don’t know what that shit is, I think you made it up. Our other protagonist is Ikuto, the destitute, put upon, bobcut boy with a dying mother and 3 younger siblings who is trying to pursue his dream of becoming a fashion designer. Are you beginning to sense the problem here? There is a fundamental imbalance in the presentation of these characters’ goals and situations. Also? Emotions are at an eleven, always. Characters are always acting as if they’ve just seen someone get murdered in front of their eyes even when it’s like. There’s a messed up seam. They are constantly being mortified, crushed, and having their dreams ripped away. One time, two different assholes offered Ikuto magical mom-fixing blood money when he was struggling to come up with funds to pay off his medical debt at the cost of giving up his spot in the fashion show. Wildin’
Haikyuu didn’t exactly come in like a lion, but I’m sure it’ll be more organic upon rewatching. We were laying the groundwork for much of this season so I’m expecting it to payoff later, but the beginning definitely lagged. Every time Haikyuu hints at a women’s volleyball tournament, I want a volleyball anime with girls. Man, those ten minutes we got with Kiyoko? Those were great.
I don’t have too much to say about Somali and Forest Spirit. Abe’s “Make Children” agenda feels at least a little more like a narrative choice in this anime, and I enjoyed Somali and the Golem’s relationship and their travels were in equal turns harrowing and heartwarming. And I did tear up at the end so you got me there, anime.
In/Spectre has some balls being an anime. It’s existed as a light novel and a manga and those are both superior mediums for it because let’s put all our cards on the table here-- In/Spectre is a show about talking. Five whole entire episodes take place in a car. The finale is winning an argument in an anonymous 4chan chatroom. That said, I have such a fondness for In/Spectre. I think Kotoko rocks. I think a show willing to do nothing but talk at you for two hours is badass. Sitting through this anime is like watching a podcast. I think the show engages in some great dialogue about human nature and how we prefer stories that are theatrical, narratively-driven, and have a logical cause-and-effect, instead of the truth, which is more often than not grim, and disappointing, and illogical. I like that Kotoko’s only function, in-story and out of it, is to bullshit so hard she invents alternate realities. Anyway In/Spectre is good.
There’s no praise I can lavish on Eizouken that hasn’t already been said. It’s powerful, it’s strange, it’s energetic, and it’s packaged with such love. It’s repurposed the CGDCT template into something deeply affecting. It’s an anime for people who love animation. I hope everyone watches Eizouken.
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show me your rosettes, baby (g)
summary: The world tour is over and the Bangtan Boys finally get their well-deserved break. When Namjoon suddenly can’t find Jimin anywhere, things take an unexpected and pretty unbelievable turn.
“Kim Namjoon!”
“Hyung. How common is it for people to turn into cats?”
word count: 11.7k
note: sorry for not updating this baby in sooo long. i struggled with this chapter for three months and would have never gotten to this final version without @justanemptydream’s help. you saved me. thank you, love. anyway, last time i thought the chapter was long but now we’ve got an 11.7k monstrosity. let me know if you enjoyed reading it. toodles ✨
masterlist | moodboard masterlist
[ prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven ]
The room is stunningly quiet apart from Jimin’s sleepy hiccups, the soft buzzing of the fish tank and the beeps that signal that the call is not yet connected. Unsure about what to expect, Sihyuk and Namjoon hold eye contact. Then, suddenly, a woman’s voice appears on the other side of the phone.
“Welcome, Bang Sihyuk, Kim Namjoon. I am your automated call agent today. We apologize for not being personally available to take your call at the moment. To continue, please choose an option from the menu. Press 1 to access all gathered data about Park Jimin, press 3 to-“
They both look at each other.
“What the hell.”
A bird caws outside the window. The fish in the tank swim in wobbly circles. Jimin sniffles and fails to lick his side. The silence - okay, it’s more of a shock-state, but the silence seems electric, like any word will change the current and any action will push them to a point of no return.
Namjoon starts a short body-mind check, feels his brain reboot. There are not many updates; he’s still sitting in the same chair in Bang Sihyuk’s office, Jimin is still wriggling around on his lap and they are still on the phone with the weird robot lady whose number they got from a magic business card. But his heart is pounding like it wasn’t before, and his eyes and mouth hang open wide. Actual shivers flow over his skin, matching the light reflexes from the tank, and Namjoon has a weird premonition that he will break something today. The silence is almost damp with shock, and probably only rings in his ears, like he’s a hero in an action movie who’s lost his sense of hearing after the explosion of the century.
Now, Namjoon knows a lot of things other people don’t know. He knows how to make music, great music according to ARMY and the charts, and he knows how to lead a group (although most of the time, he feels like he’s not actually doing anything, thanks to his hyungs). He knows how to survive a 40-event concert tour and he knows how to dislocate a shoulder without trying to. It’s the things Namjoon doesn’t know that scare him.
He doesn’t know how anyone could have possibly found out about Jimin’s condition - he’s been extra careful the past days, restraining himself from posting cat photos on their twitter and only letting Jimin out into their private backyard to avoid prying eyes. The only people he’s told about Jimin are Min Yoongi and Bang Sihyuk. Not even the other band members know about the leopard cub roaming their apartment and gnawing on their cushions. And yet, some company or organization has found out.
Namjoon doesn’t know what to think - on the one hand, it could be very good. It could mean that the other company has no intention of blackmailing them. It could mean that there is interest in the topic but no pressure. On the other hand, this could be bad, very bad. To know that someone else is out there, with unclear motivations (because seriously, they could still blackmail BigHit for this), with an unknown amount of information - it could mean anything. Namjoon knows as well as any other person working for BigHit how fragile success is - no matter the foundation of work underneath. BigHit and BTS have worked years - long years that cost them their all - to rise up as far as they have today and the whole business is based completely on popularity, on opinions. Opinions can change quickly, especially in the music industry. One wrong move and your career is over. Namjoon knows all this. What he doesn’t know is whether Jimin will shift back, become human again (the doubt still lingers despite what Jackson says), whether BTS will be able to go on normally, whether their next shows will happen, whether Jimin will be okay. Because if he isn’t, BTS isn’t, and if BTS isn’t, BigHit isn’t either. That’s how it works. Namjoon knows that. And that’s why he looks up to Sihyuk for help.
Namjoon is sure that Sihyuk knows all these things too, that he’s thinking about them right this moment while Namjoon has to remember to breathe properly and both ways, in and out, to stuff back his rising anxiety (just like his therapist told him, in and out, in and out). Sihyuk stays pretty quiet for a long moment, looking back at Namjoon but not really looking at him directly, more like… through him like he’s not focused at all. Then, he shakes his head and himself out of his trance and grabs his phone. Another thing Namjoon knows (by heart) is this new look on Sihyuk’s face as he looks for the contact and dials. It’s the I’m-concerned-for-my-kids look that he’s been sporting less and less nowadays but that had been a constant companion during their first couple of years.
The voice on the phone reels Namjoon back in from his observations, enough to catch the relieved “Good morning, Mrs. Kang”. It’s enough to let Namjoon know that the situation is very serious but hasn’t quite reached catastrophic levels yet. Mrs. Kang is their lawyer, not their emergency response unit. Mrs. Kang clears things up, does law research and manages their contract details. She’s not responsible for decisions concerning anything related to music or marketing or member conditions, so Namjoon manages to find some hope in the thought that all these things are not endangered. PDnim will take care of any new legal issues. We’ll be fine.
Before he reroutes his full attention back to the words filtering through his phone, Namjoon takes a second to feel himself in the room - he thinks back to his therapist talking to him about unsettling situations and anxiety. Just ground yourself in the sounds and in the feeling of your body in the room - against the chair, against the floor, wherever you are. Feel the air around you and breathe in and out. What is near you? Feel it. Focus on that rather than the anxiety inside. Namjoon breathes in and for a second, he wishes he had Jungkook’s sense of smell because the office scent in his own nose is rather weak. He does smell Sihyuk’s perfume and the lingering residue of his own cologne on the soft collar of his coat. He feels the chair’s armrests that enclose his hips and the way his shoes line up perfectly with the floor. And most importantly, he feels Jimin pawing at his ankles in an eager attempt to be scooped up and cuddled, probably. It forces a pleasant smile on Namjoon’s face that he welcomes - as if the little leopard cub has managed to shush his anxiety completely. Rightfully so, Namjoon thinks as he grabs Jimin’s tiny body, legs and arms flailing around cutely in the air, tail curling around Namjoon’s wrist. Jimin’s eyes are wide and blue and just like a little plushie’s - big enough to stand out from the rest of his body proportions and big enough to lower your defenses to attack you with cuteness. Namjoon sets his dongsaeng down on his lap before picking up the call again only to realize that he hadn’t even responded last time - so now, the robot voice is tirelessly repeating the same menu choices as before.
“-mation we have gathered about Park Jimin, press 3 to apply for a regular membership or a VIP membership, press 5 to request medical or legal support, press 7 to be connected to our Shifter and Hybrid Needs network or press 9 for other issues.”
When his mind registers the options presented to him, Namjoon doesn’t know what to think. In all honesty, those options sound nothing like his paranoia had suggested to him before - it sounds like normal customer service and that bothers Namjoon because this is a magical number that Jackson had given him… right? To be honest, Namjoon doesn’t know what a phone call with a magical number should sound like, if there’s any sample he could go by - is there any K-drama he could watch that is even halfway accurate with these magical things? Maybe he should text Jackson later.
“H-Hi,” he cringes at how shaky his own voice sounds, “w-who am I talking to?”
“Forgive my manners, Namjoon-ssi. I am your automated call agent today. Our office staff is currently not available to take your call-“
It’s so strange. Namjoon has never encountered any automated call agent that responds to his voice, or rather, his words. Normally, those things present the options menu, wait for the number he presses, and react accordingly. He’s slightly confused by how this call goes right now and Jimin whines when the big fingers in the fur on his back still. Namjoon goes back to gently stroking the cub’s fur and frowns. What if this is not a normal machine?
“Are-are you an AI? Or are you a new kind of technology somehow?”
“I am an AMI, Namjoon-ssi, designed specifically to accommodate our many clients’ needs individually.”
An AMI. He isn’t sure if that name was given on purpose, if that is part of the message that the other side wants to transmit - an AMI? Like, ARMY? Is it meant to… be a joke? A threat maybe? Does the female robot voice introduce itself (herself?) as AMI to everyone or just him? Namjoon’s brows are furrowed and he really doesn’t know what to think, only that wilder ideas arise the more he keeps thinking, so maybe he should stop. What if- what if this is not really a robot voice but an actual ARMY that uses some sort of voice contortion device? What if this is a Sasaeng? Alarm bells ring in Namjoon’s head. He isn’t sure whether that’s possible, whether this is a valid idea, but in the handful of years he’s been an idol, he’s learned that the world is crazy. Anything is possible, especially in BTS. He brushes his fingers through Jimin’s soft fur, letting the tail drag through his hands, relishes in the warmth under the fuzz and risks a look at Sihyuk, who is still talking to their lawyer.
“There’s no sense in waiting longer, you’re right. Is there anything you can do to activate the contract clause faster?” and then, “Yeah, same as last time.”
Namjoon sits up a little straighter. A contract clause? What does he mean by that? What kind of contract clause - he sucks in a breath. Does BangPdnim - did he plan this somehow? Was he prepared for this kind of thing to happen? Also, same as last time? Has he done this before? Is there… maybe someone else like Jimin? Another shifter in the group? Wouldn’t Jackson have mentioned that? His thoughts swirl and Namjoon feels like he’s falling through his chair, into the ground, like there’s an endless bottom opening up underneath him. Like his world changes and all his breathing exercises from before have been completely useless. Once again, the voice - AMI - pulls him back into reality. He breathes unevenly and finds Jimin’s eyes. Innocent. Unknowing. Trusting. Namjoon’s heart pounds. It aches from his yearning to take care of Jimin well. To protect him.
“May I ask you to choose from the options, Namjoon-ssi. Main menu. Press 1 to access-“
“AMI, how can I change Jimin back? Is there anything I can give him? Maybe medication, or something?”
It’s a rushed question, a question tasting like panic and helplessness. Namjoon doesn’t know what’s going on, it scares him, and he needs to find a solution. If there is even the tiniest possibility of Jimin’s contract being changed up now that he is like this, and Jimin being at a disadvantage because of it, Namjoon will make sure to make it right. He shivers because normally, he wouldn’t hesitate to ask for Sihyuk’s help, but now? It’s all messed up, he doesn’t know what’s happening and what he can do. He needs to come up with solutions, and fast.
“Shifting is a process induced by hormones, Namjoon-ssi. There is medication to trigger a shift either way but it will majorly affect hormone levels of the patient and is not recommended to be taken on a regular basis.”
“Is there any other way?”
“Would you classify this situation as an emergency?”
Namjoon thinks. He looks at Jimin, then at Sihyuk. Catches the mumbled “Can’t have that happen. No one can find out” from the CEO’s lips. Feels breathless, like endless shame is gnawing through his heart for even allowing the mere thought of Sihyuk doing anything that could harm the members. He wouldn’t. Right? Right? But right now, Namjoon can’t really judge the situation well. He doesn’t have all the information, doesn’t know what a contract clause could do in this case, what it would be for, he doesn’t know. He kind of wishes he had Hobi or Yoongi by his side right now, to help him make decisions but also to help him keep a clear head. It would certainly make things more bearable. It feels like he’s actually stepped into that alternative universe from their Heartbeat music video, where impossible things are the norm and magical creatures float around everywhere. He doesn’t understand.
“Yes, I would say so,” he breathes.
“Understood,” AMI replies promptly, “Emergency response team has been alerted. Estimated arrival in 5 minutes. Please prepare to assist the medical examination by-“
Namjoon rushes to yell into the phone, “What- NO! No, no, no! It’s not that kind of an emergency! Jimin is fine, please don’t, there’s no need-“
Sihyuk sends a worried look into his direction, but Namjoon ignores it.
“Emergency response team on standby. Please confirm your previous directive. Is this an emergency?”
“We don’t need medical attention. Jimin is fine.”
“Understood. Main menu. Please choose from the options. Press 1 to-“
His shoulders sag in relief but he feels annoyed that AMI has moved back to the main menu again without even leaving room for discussion. It beeps when Namjoon presses the 1, maybe because he actually wants to know what this AMI knows about Park Jimin, maybe because he really feels bad for making her read the main menu so often and maybe because he doesn’t know what to do and needs to kill time so Sihyuk can do this phone call together with him and maybe even because he doesn’t know if this is important or not. So, he waits for AMI’s voice with bated breath.
“1,” AMI enunciates, “general data regarding Park Jimin. Nationality: Korean. Date of birth: 1997, June 5th. Gender: female. Species: White -“
“Wait, no. That’s uh, you’ve got the wrong Park Jimin.”
AMI is talking about Park Jimin who Namjoon had first met on the set of the After School Club together with Eric Nam, and he releases a breath of relief - and loses Jimin, who takes the chance to start exploring. Like the little troublemaker his kitty alter ego is (not really a big surprise when you think about how human Jimin’s mind works), he jumps right up where he probably shouldn’t be - on the desk. The desk where documents lay, where electronic devices buzz and where little objects look interesting enough to trigger a little cat’s curiosity.
“I apologize, Namjoon-ssi,” AMI says, sounding a little confused with her robotic voice, “would you like to change Park Jimin’s profile?”
“No, no. It’s just the wrong one. There’s another Park Jimin.”
“I apologize, Namjoon-ssi,” AMI repeats and Namjoon figures it’s just how she’s programmed, “would you like to register a new profile?”
“I don’t want to register anything, I just want-“
“Main menu. Press 1 to access-“
He groans. And there she goes again. Namjoon shuffled on his seat nervously, ignoring the little growls from Jimin somewhere further away. He risks a side glance to Jimin and feels soft amusement riding up his face when the cub rolls around playing and nibbling on a small BT21 Cooky’s ears. But then he hears AMI talking, persistently repeating the main menu and Namjoon isn’t sure if he can go wrong by choosing any of the options so he just dares to ask questions. He hopes it won’t get him into trouble.
“You mentioned legal advice. Why would we need legal advice?”
“Currently, there is very little official legislation regarding the Shifter and Hybrid community in Korea. Our legal department’s services are free and extend toward every member of the Shifter and Hybrid community in Korea. We offer-“
“And what about medical support? What kind of medical support would Jimin need?”
“Our organization connects clients to a network of professional veterinarians from all over the nation. However, we have specific 24/7 on-call staff trained to assess and treat Shifters and Hybrids specifically. We also connect to therapists, nutritionists, and skin & fur care professionals if needed.”
Namjoon isn’t sure what that means, only that it actually sounds like robot lady is trying to sell them something now. Hadn’t she talked about a membership before? He feels his leg bounce impatiently. When will Sihyuk be done? Should I just wait for him? Maybe we should just discuss this before anything else-
“Namjoon-ssi, Park Jimin is currently ingesting Samsung printer ink, which can be very toxic for a leopard cub his age, please-“
As if hit by a sudden strike of lighting, Namjoon feels his body move on its own. His eyes shoot up, focusing immediately on his kitty dongsaeng playing with a dark little ink cartridge by the printer. His thumb smashes that end-call button before letting the phone collide with the table in an ugly crash. He lunges forward to grab Jimin from the desk.
“Jiminie! Don’t do that,” he scolds and feels terror spread at the sight of the little leopard wiggling in his grasp, ears drawn back in shock, cheeks and chest soaked in splashes of blue, magenta and yellow ink. “What are you thinking!”
The cub meows pitifully but doesn’t let his words match his actions with all the feisty squirming. Once again, he seeks out the help of his claws that definitely pierce Namjoon’s skin. With his concentration completely on Jimin - it’s honestly a relief that the call is over so that he can deal with one issue at the time - he jumps when Sihyuk suddenly yells a curse through the room.
“What is happening!? Namjoon-ah, what did you do?”
Namjoon whines. It’s not his fault Jimin is prone to get himself into situations like this - he’s too curious, too adventurous and too tiny for the world right now and apparently, he likes making a mess with colored liquids. The toothpaste had been harmless of course, so it wasn’t a big deal, but Namjoon can’t deny it doesn’t give him a half a heart attack looking at Jimin with those stains in his fur. He looks like a little rainbow-kitty somehow. If this wasn’t so serious, Namjoon would take photos. He knows Jimin would coo and laugh at this later and Taehyung would declare it authentic art.
“I’m sorry, hyung! I didn’t pay attention for a second and- do you have tissues?”
Sihyuk throws him a package of wet tissues from some shelf by the wall, but like Namjoon expects, it basically doesn’t do anything to get the ink out of the leopard’s fur. It doesn’t look like Jimin minds or like he even understands the fuss (he purrs when Namjoon rubs his body down), but the humans certainly do. Namjoon sinks back into his chair and sighs, one of his hands brushing through his own hair in an attempt to calm himself. It takes a second to just calm down from the pulsing shock, so he just lets Jimin play with his hands until the little leopard loses interest and starts nosing Namjoon’s belly, the pockets of Namjoon’s jeans, and puts his tiny paws on Namjoon’s thighs, looking up.
“How are you so tiny and still such a troublemaker, Jiminie?”
Jimin stays in his position for quite a bit as if he wants to say something but Namjoon doesn’t get the hint, doesn’t know what Jimin wants, and realizes AMI is still talking. By now, he considers just hanging up and calling Jackson. Or one of the hyungs. He could really use a hyung now, just a steady, calming presence next to him like in English interviews or Award Shows. Jimin, who still has his nose buried in Namjoon’s jeans (where his pockets are), whines.
“What is it, baby, huh? What do you need?”
The little leopard only snuffles wetly along Namjoon’s pockets (which are empty) and when the rapper tries to grab the cat, Jimin hisses. But then he slips because he’s a clumsy little thing with only a short, shivering tail that doesn’t know how to balance the body attached to it and his paws lose grip on Namjoon’s thigh so he glides off the side. Luckily, Namjoon’s reflexes are quick enough to shoot after his dongsaeng and grab his leg so that he can lift the kitty back up his lap before anything can happen. (He pictures the scene like one of those Dads grabbing their kid falling from the couch in those Dad-compilations. It’s epic.) He yelps when Jimin’s tiny fangs sink into his hand. He receives a vicious hiss on top and feels betrayed.
“Jimin! Don’t bite me like that! I saved you. No need to be so ungrateful.”
But the cub doesn’t seem to feel grateful or repentant and continues his search for whatever it is he hopes to find in Namjoon’s pockets. It’s a tad irritating to be ignored like this when normally, Jimin is so thoughtful and kind.
“If you feel bratty like this, you can gladly spend the rest of our time back in the box.”
At this, Jimin does look up and for a second, Namjoon feels something spark in his chest. Did he understand that? Did he understand me?
“The box? Do you want to go back into the box? Maybe that’s not such a bad idea, huh? You could nap a bit and you’ll feel much better.”
He gets up slowly, trying to grab Jimin on the way, but the little cub struggles too much so that Namjoon has to set him down to not have his hands torn up.
“C’mon, baby. We’ll put you back until you feel better, huh?”
All his hope is crushed when Jimin avoids the box like it’s hell even if he seemed to like it so much before. Any attempt to shoo him near the box fails and after a couple of minutes chasing the kitty around, Namjoon gives up. He goes back to his chair, plopping down and watching as Jimin tapers off to run circles in front of the fish tank and eventually trods over to Sihyuk’s feet. That, in turn, has Namjoon on edge, because Sihyuk is busy and concentrated on the phone call and Jimin is tiny and Namjoon knows from experience how easy the cub is to overlook and almost step on. But the CEO smiles at Namjoon and gives him a thumbs up. He straightens up and stands with his feet planted firmly on the ground, not bouncing on the balls of his feet like he usually does when on the phone. When Jimin starts to roll around, making it his mission to catch Sihyuk’s shoelaces, the man chuckles fondly. It’s a relief and Namjoon can’t believe he thought Sihyuk would somehow maybe make a bad choice just because Jimin turned into a baby animal.
“Yes, please let me know what options we have,” the CEO says. “Thank you.”
Namjoon uses the minute of peace and quiet to send a text to Jackson.
> Hey man, what exactly is the number on the card for? Why do they call themselves an AMI? Is it the same as ARMY?
He doesn’t get an answer immediately, so he stares at the little 1 in their Kakao chat for as long as he can and sighs when he turns his phone back off.
“Who are you trying to reach?” Sihyuk whispers, covering the microphone with his hand.
“Jackson.”
“GOT7 has their promotions in Europe now, don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t text back quickly.”
Jimin seems to get tired of playing with Sihyuk’s shoelaces and goes back to doing his own tour of the office. His little tail quivers in excitement as he sniffs every corner and rolls around on the carpet. Every now and then, there’s a little squeak that Namjoon finds adorable and that he wishes he could save in his heart for bad days. Namjoon focuses back on Sihyuk’s phone call. He can already see the many meetings with managers and staff this change could potentially cause; meetings to accommodate Jimin’s needs and to make sure everything stays under wraps for as long as possible. Or, depending on the outcome of the phone call, (Namjoon has assured himself by now that it will not end in a cancellation of Jimin’s contract because Sihyuk would never let go of Jimin, who is basically one of his fifteen children), a new round of contract negotiations. For the entire group, possibly, depending on the details Mrs. Kang will present to them. Namjoon hopes they can find a beneficial solution for everyone.
Suddenly, a strange sound moves into his focus, persistently interrupting his strategic thoughts. Scratch, scratch, scratch. It’s a weird scratching, not like a scratch on skin or wood or maybe clothes. It sounds different, like fabric snagging on something sharp and being released and Namjoon turns his head to look for the origin of the sound. There’s something in the corner of his eye that rouses suspicion. Jimin. Jimin is kneading the carpet. Alarm bells ring in Namjoon’s mind immediately. Kneading, scratching, peeing. It’s an established pattern that he’s observed during the past days. So far, his success rate of removing Jimin from a place like this (aka. a place that’s not his litter box) and carrying him some other place (aka. the backyard) stands at a proud 80%. However, the memories of the other 20% spur him on and Namjoon is out of his chair faster than he can even think about a plan.
Jimin startles at the sudden movement and jumps out of the way when the rapper tries to grab him. He’s much quicker than his tiny legs suggest and runs to hide behind the big pot that holds the pretty rosé-blossom tree by the wall that backs against the hallway. He probably thinks the big pot will hide him well until Namjoon shows up again, still aware of what’s at stake here (the carpet, Jimin’s new reputation, and both Namjoon’s and Sihyuk’s sanity). In a determined effort to keep Sihyuk’s office sanitary and welcoming, he sneaks up on the leopard. Hands grab air and Namjoon groans. When he turns around, he notices the little tail peeking out from below Sihyuk’s desk.
The CEO by the window himself doesn’t seem to notice what’s going on and Namjoon kind of feels like he could have used AMI’s emergency team after all. This is the second, no third emergency of the day and maybe, okay just maybe, Namjoon thinks he might have done something bad in his previous life so that the universe thought it would be fair to make him his dongsaeng’s babysitter. Suddenly, a VIP membership sounds tempting… do they offer babysitter services?
“Jimin-ah,” he whispers, “I swear, if you even think about peeing under hyung’s desk…”
Namjoon approaches slowly. If anything, he figures he should approach the leopard in a smart way. He’s aware that he probably doesn’t have much time left before the cat’s urge to relieve itself becomes insurmountable, so he tells himself to get it all over with quickly. What’s the best way to get Park Jimin to do almost anything you want? Sweet-talk. Namjoon approaches slowly and kneels. Before him, he sees the paper bin underneath the desk, a ton of (neatly bound) cables and the wooden legs of the table. Crouching, he grabs around the garbage can, meeting an amused meow that almost sounds like he’s laughing. Again, Jimin flees before Namjoon can get a hold of him.
“Ah, come on Jimin-ah, my cutest, prettiest, loveliest dongsaeng,” he coaxes, “You were doing so good yesterday, kitten…”
But Jimin doesn’t come back. He just sits on the carpet, tauntingly close, with a lively glint in his eyes. Jimin is watching Namjoon and the rapper doesn’t fail to note the excitement that lets the cat’s tail whip around wildly. So this is a game to you, huh?
When suddenly two legs appear right next to Namjoon’s face, he yelps. His hand gets tangled in some cable on the floor. He slips and slams his head against the metal paper bin, making it fall and spill everywhere. A nasty burn hits his temple and when he reaches up to touch the skin there, the cable around his hand pulls taut. Namjoon’s bad luck is endless, apparently, because something tumbles and crashes upon the table. Sihyuk lets out a yelp. Like a miscalculated movement in the shower, a quick burst of water hits Namjoon from above. He shrieks, feeling the wetness settle and hopes Sihyuk didn’t have any important documents out on the table. He doesn’t pay attention, but he can feel Jimin watching him from the carpet with amused eyes. When he looks, the little leopard rolls around, looking the most Jimin-like ever - like he’s laughing so hard that he just has to throw his body against something.
“Namjoon-ah!” Sihyuk yells, albeit more urgent than angry, “where are you? Kim Namjoon!”
“I’m here,” Namjoon groans, still rubbing his forehead. He’s sure the spot’s gonna be blue tomorrow. Yoongi’s gonna have a good laugh for sure.
“Where is here?”
The rapper crawls out from underneath the table. He sees movement from the corner of his eye but focuses on Sihyuk.
“No, I’m talking to Kim Namjoon,” he says into the phone and looks up only to have his eyes widen with a really panicked look in them. He jumps up, pointing into the room. “Don’t let him pee in there! That Sakura tree is from the President!”
When Namjoon whips his head around, making a cascade of water fly everywhere, he finds Jimin not on the carpet like he’d assumed, but in the big plant pot along with the Japanese tree. Jimin is walking around the stem of the little tree like he’s got a monopoly on the spot. From the body language, Namjoon can tell that the cat is calm and relaxed. Ideal for business. Oh no.
“Yes, hyung!”
Namjoon runs like he hasn’t in a long time (the couple days that he’s been on this pseudo-vacation) and finally snatches an unassuming Jimin right out of the tree pot, hands grabbing for the cat with so much determination that he even scoops up some earth. He hears mewling. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters in this emergency, and Namjoon looks around, nerves strung high, adrenaline rushing. He frowns when he realizes that there’s no litter box over here in the office. That leaves him with only one option: A dash for the bathroom.
Quickly, he runs to the door. There’s a moment of hesitation. He isn’t sure how he should hide Jimin from all the people in the building but considering that the bathrooms aren’t really far away, he hopes no one will cross his way. (Especially now that Jimin looks so violently colorful). A thought crosses his mind. What if Sejin is still outside? There’s a possibility that the manager has gone to his own office to get some work done while waiting but there’s also the possibility that he’s out there and springs up at the door opening and sees Jimin right away. It’s nothing I have control over, Namjoon reassures himself. He feels Jimin’s little cry in his heart and nods. Let’s go.
Stepping out into the hallway feels a bit like coming out of the shower - out of the cozy, safe warmth and into the frightening cold outside. When Jimin keeps wriggling, softly crowing his discomfort, Namjoon repositions him so that his hands won’t press on the leopard’s belly so much. He looks to the side and freezes. Sejin is on the sofa. Luckily, he’s got his eyes glued to his phone and doesn’t seem to have noticed Namjoon yet - and Namjoon is determined not to let it happen either. Before Jimin can make any loud sounds, Namjoon turns and runs. He does manage to run with Jimin in front of his torso so he isn’t visible from behind. Even if Sejin were to look after them, Jimin would be out of view. Namjoon keeps his eyes on the hallway door until a yell comes from behind.
“Kim Namjoon! Wait up!”
Don’t stop, keep running, Namjoon tells himself, glad that the 6km are a result on his step counter every day, not Sejin’s. Sure, Sejin jogs and stays in shape but Namjoon dances and runs around and is much younger too, so he doesn’t even pant as he takes the next turn to the left and runs towards the men’s bathrooms. The door doesn’t budge when Namjoon uses the handle. A flare of adrenaline-induced panic drips down Namjoon’s chest and he wants to curse. He finds a sign that says “Out of order”. Great. Now, where to?
It’s a good thing that Namjoon is so familiar with the building. Practically, this is the building’s office level that BTS members don’t necessarily have to visit very often. But Namjoon is a regular guest in all kinds of offices, so he is not at a great disadvantage. He knows the way, knows a couple of bathrooms strewn all over the levels. It takes a few risks to bring Jimin there as fast as possible - Namjoon dodges people but almost knocks the head of the PR department off his feet as he rounds a corner and gets drenched in coffee. He runs on, apologizing with a quick but deep bow that almost makes him stumble, takes the stairs and finally, finally reaches the end of the next hallway, the men’s bathroom, an empty stall, and holds a trembling Jimin over the toilet. The leopard fusses, not liking the feeling of being held like this, in the air over an abyss of water. He whimpers.
“C’mon Jiminie, look at me, I ran all the way over here for you,” he says, “give it some effort.”
It’s a moment of desperation but Namjoon feels warm inside (well, he’s sweating). He’s looking at Jimin and suddenly, he feels like he’s in a film, like he’s a Dad trying to potty-train his kid. Jimin shivers, ears flicking and turning constantly and even Namjoon’s gentle attempts to coax him into peeing don’t help. Those big blue eyes look like they’re gonna burst with tears at any moment. Can cats cry?
“You’re doing it wrong,” someone says behind him.
Namjoon jerks and swears he would have almost let Jimin drop. It’s Sejin and that means that Namjoon’s only got two options. Maybe Sejin knows what’s going on, maybe he doesn’t. In this moment, Namjoon doesn’t even let his fear of being discovered bubble up. He’s here to fix an issue, solve a problem, so he’s gotta get on with it. Sejin is on his side, so whatever happens, he’ll help. Namjoon is sure.
“Sorry,” Sejin says, breathing a little heavy as well, “just let him sit. Cats don’t like to be touched while peeing.”
Namjoon nods, suddenly feeling grateful that it’s Sejin who’s come after him. Sejin is the kind of hyung who just sees the need and helps, no matter what. There’s not a single occasion Namjoon can think of where Sejin has refused to help any member of the group. Of course, one could argue that it’s his job but Namjoon has seen people do their jobs and finds that Sejin is doing more than just a job - he’s taking care of Bangtan with passion and foresight, and sees their relationship as a way to install his substitute-Dad-wisdoms in them.
“He’s too small for the toilet though. He’ll fall in.”
“You need something like a litter box.”
Sejin moves around, drawing out a plastic container from below the sink. It’s a plastic container filled with wet tissues, deodorant the PR people keep in here for emergencies, and some excess paper towel rolls. Sejin fills it up with toilet paper and lets Namjoon place Jimin in it. Jimin circles the container, meows and finally seems satisfied. Namjoon looks away when the cub crouches. He doesn’t need to see that, cause it’s creepy, and rather turns his attention to Sejin.
“Not that I mind, but… why does your cat look like my three-year old’s drawings?”
Namjoon doesn’t know why but somehow, this question is so funny to him that he just starts to laugh - he laughs and laughs and when he’s done, he feels like somehow, a knot around his heart has loosened. He feels lighter than before and breathes. He’s tired but Sejin is here with him, and he knows it will be okay. Here on the cold tiles of the bathroom door, Namjoon finds a revelation coming to him. It approaches as he watches Sejin prepare the litter box for Jimin and unravels as Jimin joyfully runs a circle in it before crouching. It hits, however, in this moment of innocent glee, when Namjoon just enjoys the fact that their manager and friend is here with him. I’m not supposed to do this alone, Namjoon realizes, I was never meant to do it alone. He almost feels stupid that this feels like a revelation to him - he’s the leader of a seven-member group and still, his mind had automatically turned to selfie mode. But then again, he had felt so alone, this morning in the cold apartment, without any of the other members yelling around and sneaking Namjoon’s breakfast off his plate. His heart warms up as he watches Sejin smile at Jimin.
“Thanks for running after me and helping, hyung,” Namjoon says, grateful for the way the bathroom acoustics make it sound so much bigger, “I really appreciate it.”
Sejin smiles. “I’ll always help you, Namjoon-ah. Just let me know what I can do.”
There are some occurrences in life - sort of like déjà-vus - that make Namjoon hold his breath. Maybe it’s not that significant, but the way Sejin sounds like Seokjin almost makes Namjoon tear up right now. In his heart, he feels himself looking forward to the moment Seokjin’s banter echoes through their apartment again, the moment Namjoon steps through the door and looks into his hyung’s face. The moment Seokjin will hug him whether Namjoon wants to or not, and the moment he’ll feel his hyung breathe against his neck in a warm, friendly embrace. And the moment of relief, where Namjoon tells all the members what’s going on, where they talk over one another in an attempt to encourage Jimin and make him giggle in glee. It’s all gaining color and shape in Namjoon’s mind and with the image, hope and courage rise inside of him. Everything will be fine, and even with Jimin’s nagging self-doubt and perfectionism and whatnot, they will find a way. They will push the bad things away. Together.
“It’s great to have you on the team, hyung, seriously. I don’t know if I ever said this, but I’m really grateful for you.”
“Aw, cute. Why are you so sentimental all of a sudden?”
Namjoon shrugs, eyes turning back to Jimin so Sejin won’t see how mushy Namjoon feels inside, how much more he could say but won’t because he doesn’t want his hyung to suffocate under the avalanche of compliments and heartfelt emotions he’s still got in store. The right dosage is important, Namjoon-ah, he remembers Yoongi saying back in the dark, one shared night in their four-year-old studio chairs with takeout in their hands, don’t overwhelm people with your words. You’re too powerful with words sometimes, people don’t know what to do with it. It’s your superpower, so use it responsibly.
“I still don’t know why your cat looks like he’s just come back from a children’s birthday party.”
“PDnim tried to fix his own printer again. He left an ink cartridge on the desk and this little baby,” Namjoon pokes Jimin, who just meows, “was a bit too curious.”
“I don’t understand hyung. I told him he’s got an assistant for stuff like that.”
“He’s stubborn.”
“Yeah,” Sejin chuckles and they both watch how Jimin lifts one leg over the walls of the make-shift litter box, one after the other, very carefully. He catches on the rim with the last paw and lands on his snout with a soft thud. Following the momentum, he stumbles right into Namjoon’s shin and looks up wide-eyed like he can’t believe he just did that. Namjoon isn’t sure why he expects to see tears - probably because Tae is making him watch all those baby and toddler videos lately - but Jimin just whines, stands up and starts climbing Namjoon’s leg.
“Aish, always so clumsy, baby,” Namjoon mumbles, cooing at the tiny cat in his arms. “You scared me, baby. I thought you hurt yourself. Are you okay?” He kisses Jimin on the head but lets him sniff at Sejin’s hands when he tries to. He doesn’t give much of a reaction, which is not necessarily bad - it’s not a rejection. Sejin smiles and scratches Jimin behind the ears. The cub purrs against Namjoon’s hand, happily closing his eyes.
“What’s going on?”
“Didn’t hyung fill you in already?”
“When? In the five seconds when you ran from me?”
“Good point. So, er-“ Namjoon takes a deep breath. There’s something about sitting on bathroom floors, something cold that makes you share your warmth and your inner thoughts, Namjoon thinks as he looks at Sejin. It’s a BigHit bathroom, so it’s clean, nothing like a public bathroom, but still - the floor under his feet makes him feel a bit bare, a bit lonely even if he’s not, and makes him want to not keep secrets.
“So, I uh… Well, Jimin, and I know it sounds er-strange, turned into a cat two days ago and I basically don’t know what I’m doing.”
Sejin does look surprised, looking back and forth between Jimin and Namjoon a couple times, as if he’s trying to figure out whether he’s become a victim to a prank or something.
“Are you serious?”
“I am. It’s not exactly… a great time but I’m glad this didn’t happen during our tour last year.”
“Wow. How are you so calm about this?”
“Well, I’ve had two days to come to terms with this now. But still, it’s a mess, hyung. I think I did well taking care of him so far, but it’s all a mess.”
“Remember when we first met, you and I?”
“Oh God,” Namjoon groans, “I don’t think I will ever forget that.”
“You were a mess back then too. So it’s okay, I can deal with a mess. I’m used to it,” the manager nudges Namjoon in the side with his elbow and Namjoon nods. It’s nice hearing that, and fitting, if Namjoon honestly thinks about their relationship. Yeah, Sejin has seen and has fixed messes left and right. Namjoon’s heart feels a little lighter when he hears those words. Jimin nuzzles into his hand in his lap and Namjoon feels a pang of affection travel through his body.
“Life is life, huh?”
It’s what Jimin and he have always been saying, ever since their first trip to LA. Life isn’t always fair, not always good, actually a lot less than good a lot of the time, but together, it’s not as bad and even great sometimes. Jimin curls into Namjoon’s lap, letting his body drop as if he’s too tired to hold it up much longer. He wants to be carried like the little maknae line member he is, starving for affection and attention.
“Should we go back?”
“What do we do with the litter box?”
“Do you have one at home?”
“Er, no. Jimin went outside for the past couple of days.”
“In the backyard!? Where people walk? Yah, Kim Namjoon! Also, think about your dongsaeng. That can’t be hygienic! Don’t tell me you really let Jimin outside every time he-“
Namjoon has to grin because of the scolding but blushes. “I’m sorry, hyung.”
“Well, that’s not allowed anymore. Do you at least have cat food or anything?”
“Not really. I promise I’ll work harder to be well prepared, hyung!”
“I see. Let’s drop off Jiminie and go cat-shopping. If he is a baby like this, we need to take care of him well, right?”
“Drop him off where?”
Sejin just pulls out his phone and dials a number. Namjoon can’t see the caller ID, but he doesn’t feel the need to ask either. When someone picks up and Sejin starts to rant, he sounds almost like a fake-enraged Seokjin. It’s like the familiar feeling replaces a little cavity-like hole in Namjoon’s heart that’s started to build the moment the members left for their vacations. It forces him to smile.
“Yoongi-yah, I’ve told you a dozen times not to bring your sick children to work.”
“Jimin is here?”
Sejin falters when the enthusiasm that breaks the mumble that is Yoongi’s work voice sounds through the speaker. Jimin squeaks suddenly, asking to be let down, so Namjoon lifts him up and makes him look right into his eyes. For a moment, he ignores that Jimin doesn’t understand and just hopes that his plea will get through. Namjoon tells the cub firmly not to create any trouble right now. Then, Yoongi speaks to him.
“Namjoon-ah, how are you holding up? Everything okay?”
“Honestly, hyung? It’s a mess. I’m a mess. Jimin is fine, but I don’t think I am.”
His thoughts fly back to the office. Sihyuk’s phone call with their lawyer, all that secretive talk about contracts and even the phone call with AMI. He remembers his confusion, his doubts, his fears - fears for Jimin, who innocently tries to climb up Sejin’s shins. There’s a rustle on the other side of the line that makes Namjoon’s heart beat suspiciously fast with some sort of anticipation.
“Okay, stay where you are. Don’t worry, hyung is coming, hyung will take it from here.”
Sejin makes a face and Namjoon feels the exact same way. Baffled. What’s going on? What’s with the sudden rush of affection?
“No need to baby me-“
“Oi, hyung is on his way, yeah? Where are you guys?”
“The bathroom by the PR department.”
Namjoon feels oddly confirmed. As if Yoongi’s sudden overbearing and sweet response was a wink from the universe. You’re not meant to do this alone, Namjoon. His stomach does a little jump at how much comfort Yoongi offers to him just by referring to himself as hyung (which Yoongi rarely does for him). Namjoon’s mind tells him that Yoongi will only baby him now that Taehyung and Jungkook are gone but in secret, behind really thick doors, Namjoon feels a tiny voice wishing for it to be a regular treatment. Namjoon has got Yoongi’s full hyung focus, even if he hasn’t explicitly asked for it. He knows that all the hyungs are attuned to the younger members’ needs but sometimes he forgets that he’s one of them. The leader position can be both a blessing and a curse.
When Yoongi opens the bathroom door and steps in and Jimin pounces forward with a string of excited chirps, not letting himself get held down by anything or anyone, Namjoon’s eyes widen. Yoongi kneels, scooping up Jimin, totally enveloping the leopard baby against his chest.
“Did you miss me, baby? Ah, I bet you missed hyung so bad, huh? Aish, what did they do to you, hm? You’re all messy. Don’t worry, they’re all idiots who mean well. But hyung will take care of you now.”
Namjoon listens to Jimin’s sweet, chirpy responses that really sound like the kitty is trying to answer Yoongi. They look perfect together, Lil Meow Meow and the cub. Sejin seems to think the same because he’s sneakily taking pictures from the side. Namjoon makes the mistake of thinking that it’s all Yoongi is going to say. He doesn’t expect Yoongi to step forward and look right into his eyes even while Jimin keeps rubbing his cheeks against Yoongi’s heart.
“And how’s my other baby? Running around, destroying everything, coloring his dongsaeng? Tell hyung how to fix it, yeah?”
It’s the weirdest thing ever - Namjoon doesn’t know what exactly it is with Yoongi’s words (maybe it’s the way they float over to him like the steam over a cup of his favorite tea, like they aren’t meant to tease when you just allow yourself to feel them properly) but they make Namjoon’s composure crumble. His cheeks feel wet all of the sudden and he’s sniffing (not bawling, thank God) and leaning into Yoongi’s big hand cupping his cheek.
“It’s not your fault, hey,” Yoongi hushes him and he finds himself under the direct but tender attention of his hyung. “I wish you would have let me know that you needed me so I could come to help you out, you know. That’s what I’m here for.”
“You’re here to rap,” Namjoon sniffles, trying to swallow down his wild emotions.
“And yet I dance like a god.”
Namjoon snorts.
“It’s not like I can only do one thing at a time, Namjoon-ah. I thought you knew that.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, hyung. Thank you for your support.”
Jimin begins nosing around Yoongi’s chest and arms now. Namjoon nudges Yoongi.
“Hyung, he’s been doing that since a while, what-?”
“He’s hungry. Did you bring any food?”
Wow. That makes so much sense. Jimin is hungry. How did I not understand that? It makes so much sense now that Namjoon knows what it means.
“I-I brought shrimps.”
For some reason, Yoongi doesn’t look impressed or happy.
“It’ll do,” he mumbles and moves to walk out of the bathroom. “Let’s go.”
“Manager-hyung and I thought we could go shopping in a bit, we wanted to leave Jimin with you. We’ll buy everything Jimin needs.”
“We could definitely need some cat equipment. Bring one of those fluffy little stick-thingies that cats like to play with. Those are fun.”
“Uh, sure,” Namjoon nods, absolutely not sure if a) he knows what Yoongi means, b) stores will have a “fluffy little stick-thingy that cats like to play with” or if c) a store employee will be able to translate the term for Namjoon. He’ll give it a try anyway. “I just need to get my jacket.”
“Maybe buy some rubbing alcohol as well.”
“What do you want with rubbing alcohol, hyung?”
“Clean this little baby. As much as the color explosion is cute, I doubt it’ll be good for him if he licks it up. Isn’t that right, Jiminie?”
Jiminie doesn’t respond. He’s fallen asleep, probably overwhelmed by the chaos around him. Namjoon feels slightly guilty for putting him through so much stress. Yoongi is obviously so much better at this. I should have just asked him to watch over Jimin. Namjoon knows that’s his own shadow talking, his disappointment at his own clumsiness that still haunts him sometimes. But it still feels like a real feeling, even if it’s a lie, and Namjoon’s shoulders sag at the sight of the little leopard breathing softly into Yoongi’s neck.
Namjoon doesn’t say a word on their way back to the office and doesn’t even listen to Yoongi and Sejin discussing which cat toys and foods should be bought and how big their monthly budget should be for cat necessities. When the three of them enter Sihyuk’s office, it kind of looks a bit thrashed - Namjoon’s chair is on its side in the middle of the room (it must have toppled over when Namjoon had rushed to grab Jimin), there’s clearly a wet spot around Sihyuk’s desk, an even bigger mess underneath the table and a trail of earth leading from the Sakura plant to the door. Namjoon’s head threatens to hang even lower at the visible chaos (and the “oh wow, what happened here” that slips through Sejin’s lips) but Sihyuk’s voice cuts through his thoughts.
“Option 1. Let’s hear what you have.”
Namjoon’s brows furrow. How-? Is he on the phone with AMI? Then, curiosity rises. Will AMI tell Sihyuk the same as him?
“Option 1. Park Ji-” AMI pauses, almost as if she is thinking, “Good morning, Min Yoongi, Kim Sejin.”
Namjoon shivers. How does this supposedly automatic robot know who is in the room? How can they know? Maybe it’s this uncertainty that makes him feel so uneasy. Could it be that they are watching us? It sounds a little crazy in his mind, but he honestly doesn’t have a clue how else she would know. Maybe it’s magic. Namjoon sighs.
“Option 1. Park Jimin. Date of birth: 1997, June 5th. Gender: female; Nationality: Korean; Spe-“
“That’s not what I asked. Tell me what you have on my kid.”
Sihyuk sighs, visibly disgruntled with how this call is turning out. But the way he said my kid, it makes Namjoon grin fondly. Even if he’s not the person in question, he feels loved. Namjoon can’t help but smirk at how strictly Sihyuk deals with anything that has to do with the Bangtan Boys. Now that the CEO is on it, everything will be fine. AMI stays silent for a while, almost as if she is processing the request or gathering information or something.
“Option 1. Park Jimin. Date of birth: 1994, October, 13; Gender: male; Nationality: Korean; Species: Korean leopard; Genetic Expression: Dominant; Blood Type: A. Species warnings: strong predatory drive, exceptional senses and strength, possibly sensitive to aggressive behavior, solitary and nocturnal behavior; Species requirements: meat-based diet, extensive territory, regular physical exertion; Currently scheduled appointments: Physical Exam 1 by on-duty Shifter Staff of Seoul District.”
“Finally. Now, I would like to know how you have attained this load of information about Park Jimin and how you justify keeping it without our consent.”
“Sir, may I remind you that I am merely an AMI, and cannot substitute for your assigned customer client. I am however able to book an appointment for you with one of our staff…”
Yoongi makes a noise next to Namjoon. Even Sejin shuffles around on his feet. Namjoon feels slightly nauseous. He goes to sit down and Yoongi chooses to stand by his side, hand touching Namjoon’s neck, a soothing message of reassurance. Which is needed. This is a lot. A lot more than expected and somewhat scary, even in the face of 14 million wild Armys knowing more than is healthy about each member of BTS. As the information sinks in, Namjoon realizes that there are two options with this. Either, this is a terrible situation in which the robot lady and her organization are actually a threat, or they are a help and genuinely assist Jimin without any hidden agenda or contract. Heck, this would be so much easier as a commercial offer. Commercial offers are easy to deal with - you either accept, negotiate, or decline. BigHit gets hundreds of them every month, but this-? This is something else entirely.
“Who is your employer?”
“I apologize, Sihyuk-ssi. I am not authorized to communicate confidential information to clients.”
“I’m not your client.”
“Sir, please understand that the law requires for every shifter to be listed in our registry - which includes the scheduled check-ups and following classes-“
“Classes?”
“Sihyuk-ssi, we are required by law to ensure that every person in our registry knows their rights and understands their body. We are simply providing an educational tool to prevent diseases as well as help Shifters and Hybrids to live well. Our organization was founded with these goals in mind.”
“Let’s talk this through with our lawyer. I would like to make use of an appointment. For now, please do enter Park Jimin into your registry.”
“Very well. I will now propose a date for you with one of our customer service staff.”
“Sorry for making you wait,” Sihyuk says once he puts down his phone (he has to look for a good spot for a few seconds because there’s printer ink all over his desk). He looks into their faces. Namjoon can see how affected he is by this situation - a situation that turns tables and reshapes their group dynamics, possibly.
“Hey Yoongi,” he smiles. “Did you get the USB stick I sent you?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi nods, “I got it. What I’ve heard so far sounded great but I’ll look though it tomorrow. Thanks, PDnim.”
Sihyuk also greets Sejin but Namjoon doesn’t really listen anymore. He just wants to get the box and go home - no, right, he wanted to go shopping with Sejin. Namjoon is so tired. It’s like with a high-focus test where you hold up your concentration for so long but when it’s over, you feel your entire existence slack with exhaustion. He shifts in his chair.
Sihyuk’s eyes fall on Namjoon. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Namjoon, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you’re probably overthinking.”
“Hyung, how are we supposed to have our comeback like this? I looked at the schedules, it’s soon. What if Jimin shifts in the middle of a concert? What if we can’t get him to shift back? Even this robot lady said there’s no medication. It’s impossible to be an artist like us when you turn into a cat like this. It’s impossible.”
“Okay, listen. This situation is not unfixable and not impossible to solve, Namjoon-ah. We can do anything.”
“We can’t do everything, hyung.”
“Did I or did I not set you up to meet Warren G before you were famous?”
Namjoon blushes. Right.
“You did.”
“I did. That was impossible, wasn’t it? You guys became global stars. That was impossible, wasn’t it? You guys are one of the greatest artists in history. That’s impossible too, isn’t it? Raise your standard. RM is impossible. This,” he points at Jimin, who slowly begins to stir against Yoongi’s throat, “it’s just a page in your story. We’ll get through it and it will be okay. Okay?”
Namjoon nods. His head bobs much heavier than usual, as if it suddenly weighs more. He hears Yoongi coo at Jimin and watches him boop the tired little cat’s nose. Then, as if he’s actually attuned to the cat’s thoughts, he reminds Namjoon to look for Jimin’s snacks. He pulls his jacket off the chair, grabs the little plastic bag (the little bag almost rips in his hands but Namjoon manages to just prevent the fourth emergency on the day - a pile of shrimp on his CEO’s office floor) and hands it over to Yoongi, who walks out with the sleepy leopard cub, leaving only Sihyuk, Sejin and Namjoon behind. To some, it might look like disrespect, especially in terms of Korean society rules, but in reality, it’s both an open display of trust towards Namjoon to fill him in on all the important details later, and a display of responsibility as a hyung who prioritizes taking care of his dongsaeng. Namjoon doesn’t care. His fingers smell gross. Like dried shrimp. There’s no sink. Focus, Namjoon. Focus just for a little bit. You’re an adult, behave like one. You can wash up and be tired later.
“Hyung, what does this phone call mean? Do we really have to register Jimin and all that?”
“Yes. We have to take them seriously. That organization does its work well.”
“But what is it that they do? I talked with AMI for at least ten minutes but I still don’t know who they are.”
“They are a government-funded agency who protects shifters and hybrids in different aspects. I only know that they dragged two entertainment companies to court because they had not registered a couple of their trainees. The court decided that it was mistreatment even if they were treated like everyone else.”
“Why?”
“Apparently, there are different laws for shifters and humans but I don’t know much about that yet. I’ll have to go through it with our lawyers.”
“But… if they are government-funded, how did I never hear of this? A court case with other entertainment companies, I’m sure that would have been on the news, right?”
“That was many years ago. I don’t know when this organization was founded, but they must have been working hard to protect every shifter since then.”
“I didn’t even know stuff like this existed…”
“Well, the community is rather small. People don’t talk about it and I’m sure many people don’t know that this stuff exists. As far as I know, most magical creatures are hiding the fact that they are magic. Even the organization runs secretly.”
“Hyung, isn’t that contradictory? How could they be part of the government if they run secretly?”
“I really don’t know much, but I think they aren’t part of the government… just consultants with a special status. And funded. I’m not sure how it works. But they execute laws, like registering shifters and hybrids.”
“Okay… so now Jimin is registered. What now?”
“I’ll take care of the contracts and you take care of Jimin.”
“Okay, I’ll ask Hobi what we can do about-“
“You can’t tell the members, Namjoon-ah.”
Namjoon isn’t sure he’s heard right. All the mushiness and good warmth from before vanishes in a second. His heart actually skips a beat. He feels awfully cold and like he’s been electrocuted at once. At least it wakes him up. What!?
“What?”
“Don’t tell the members.”
“Why? Jimin will need all the support he can get and I don’t want him to feel any less loved than before. I know that all of the members will feel the same.”
There are a hundred issues lining up right now, but Namjoon knows that their biggest problem of all will be Jimin himself. Because in the end, Jimin’s soul is not a bird that nests easily in a new environment. Of the last eight years that Namjoon has spent by Jimin’s side, he’s witnessed the boy go from believing horrid lies about himself to starving himself like even his worst enemy wouldn’t do to him. Sure, Jimin has overcome these things, has found firm footing in the muddy path called identity. He’s come to love himself, riding on the wave of fresh wind that his brothers’ love is for him. Nonetheless, Namjoon can’t stop worrying about every new wave that comes crashing on the shore. Namjoon knows Jimin is particular about his body. Knows the boy is strategic and sometimes painfully pessimistic in his thoughts without even trying to be and prone to driving himself into feeling lonely. Jimin is so precious and Namjoon just wants to see him be happy. The possibility of the truth coming out to the public and at the wrong time almost hits Namjoon harder than he thinks it could hit Jimin. It resonates in his bones with an evil ache. To think that Jimin will face yet another challenge, that the look of desperation and anger might appear again in his eyes. And that Namjoon can’t help, can’t make it better. And even if Namjoon knows that it won’t be bad forever, that Jimin will get through this and feel better about it all someday but Namjoon just doesn’t know the price. And that hurts. But the members - the members should know. Because they won’t judge him. They will carry it all with him.
“He won’t. Listen, I don’t want him to feel pressured by this. It’s a huge change for him and he will need some time to figure it all out. And especially now, with the comeback approaching, I want you all to be focused. I know you guys always work hard and you always do your best. But we all know how fragile such a preparation period before a comeback is and how quickly it can become oppressing if bad news hits.”
Namjoon’s mind wanders back to when he’d undergone surgery and the schedule had only allowed it at a time when their next comeback had been on the horizon already. Like a cloud flying overhead, Namjoon’s trip to the hospital and the slight (secret) complications had thrown a shadow over their preparations. Back then, it had definitely stressed the other members, even if their dance practices and recordings had all been on time and perfect.
“Hyung, we’ve always got stuff going on. After the comeback, we have shows lining up, then the next tour and a hundred different events in between, like the Summer package, like mv shoots. There’s no better time to deal with this than right now. I can’t keep this a secret from the members and then expect them to be happy about it when I tell them later. They deserve to know.”
“I’m sorry, Namjoon. As long as the contracts aren’t renewed…”
“Hyung, I can’t accept that. Jimin won’t do well with this secret. You know how he treats himself sometimes and how difficult changes are for him. Especially Hobi should know since they are roommates.”
“I trust Yoongi and you to be by Jimin’s side until everything is prepared.”
“What do you need to prepare?”
“Well, a change like this… needs to be reflected in his contract. If something happens, he needs to be secure. If there are any special needs he has, we will make sure to provide and help but it all needs to be written out in his contract first. We’ll have to check what laws are relevant for us and align ourselves with it. Until Jimin signs the new contract, I will make sure there will be as little pressure on him as possible. I want him to feel like nothing has changed, like he doesn’t have to feel bad or judged for what happens.”
“What if he shifts again and I’m not there, hyung? Or Suga-hyung? What if he’s left with the maknaes? They should know.”
Sihyuk swivels in his chair and stares at the window for a good minute before answering. Namjoon can hear the fish tank’s soft whirring. He wonders if one day, all this will be the next chapter in a film for Army. Or part of a song. Something to brag about. Because right now, it doesn’t feel that way - not glorious, not beautiful and definitely not comfortable. Sihyuk’s voice sounds quiet, as if he’s had to dig deep for his next words and hasn’t returned from the depths yet.
“You don’t know this because I never told you, Namjoon. But when our Park Jimin signed with us, his parents had one major condition. At first, I thought it would be about money, free time, or maybe dating. Actually, they asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement between me and them. I promised to never tell anyone including Jimin that he was a shifter, to treat him normally and to ensure that he would receive his medication - suppressants.”
“Hyung.”
Namjoon feels like someone has punched him in the gut. He can’t breathe somehow, but it’s like he doesn’t want to either. He never thought Sihyuk would do something like this. It’s so wrong, he doesn’t even know what to say. One look into Sihyuk’s eyes, however, makes Namjoon’s tumbling sea still. Sihyuk knows how wrong it is, to keep such a huge secret from Jimin, to restrict his personal… worldview like this. And he regrets it. Deeply.
“So you knew from the beginning. Did you never think that we deserved to know?”
“I wanted to tell you so bad, especially you, Namjoon. At least the leader should know, right? But that was the condition: I don’t talk. His parents said that there are traditions that needed to be followed and kept in their culture and I believed them and wanted to respect that. I wanted to keep my word.”
“But… Jimin’s parents didn’t tell him either, did they? He doesn’t know anything at all.”
“I believe so, yes.”
Namjoon sighs. That’s - crazy.
“We’ve always made sure Jimin received everything he needed to be in top condition as a normal human being. We constantly supervise his health as we do with all of you. Based on that, I kind of expected his body to build a resistance to the suppressants someday. It took a while until we had adjusted them well - do you remember when he lost so much weight?”
“That was because of the suppressants?”
“I almost canceled that stupid contract back then. Jimin shouldn’t have had to suffer through this - he should have known what was going on with his body, he had every right to.”
“Hyung, that’s horrible-“
“Yeah. He just blames it on that genetic disease his parents say runs in the family.”
“So there’s no genetic disease.”
"I mean, it’s one way to describe your genetic makeup. If you’re trying to suppress it, it probably feels like a disease.”
Namjoon nods. It’s understandable from a logical viewpoint. It’s inexcusable from an emotional one. Namjoon swears to himself that he will never call Jimin’s ability to shift a disease. Even if his parents had used that term to hide their shifter side, Namjoon will never allow anyone to call it that. He wants Jimin to feel like it’s a regular part of his identity, like he doesn’t have to feel bad about it.
“So… will that organization drag us to court? Because we didn’t register Jimin until now?”
“I hope not. I will definitely meet up with them and organize a meeting between all parties. Communication is key, so I’ll do my best to fix this. I apologize for causing such a mess but I still have to ask you to keep quiet about this until it’s all cleared up.”
Namjoon nods. He feels a little burnt out, a little defeated to be honest. How could this all be true?
“May I leave, PDnim?”
“Of course. Please do put all your expenses for Jimin on my card.”
“Thank you, hyungnim.”
When Namjoon walks out, he hears Sihyuk talking to Sejin.
“Please tell our head of staff to give the cleaning staff a raise.”
masterlist | moodboard masterlist
[ prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven ]
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#park jimin#jimin#bts#shifter jimin#bts fanfic#supernatural bts#feb15#smyrbg#chapter 7#show me your rosettes baby (g)#yay#finally#enjoy#please give it love#it's my baby
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