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taetaesbaebaepsae · 4 years

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Snake Skin

A/n: This took me FOREVER to write, and yes, there will be a sequel to Jimin and Y/n’s story! This is a commission for @kpopnoobsstuff who was also my very first Patron! Thank you, baby! This is of course in the Villainous Universe so also tagging @k0modob1ue because she’s been keeping up with the verse!

Summary: It’s different with you, you’d met Jimin in his real face and he doesn’t feel like he needs to shift, exists in his natural state, or at least what he thinks is his natural state. He’d started shifting so young that he couldn’t even be sure.Everything’s fine. Everything’s perfect, until it’s not.

Warnings: big angst, a hint of smut, some murder bc my villain boys have been through a lot, a bit of female!Jimin x reader bc shapeshifting hijinx, some violence bc you shouldn’t fuck with the Snake of Busan’s girl

Word Count: 4617

Jimin is usually good at knowing when he's being watched. It's something he'd had to get used to, given his powers, given that he'd grown up in various foster homes where anyone would pickpocket you given the chance.

You take him by surprise, though. He sees you the first time when he's ordering chicken and beer for the boys. You're wearing a hoodie but he can see your bright eyes peeking at him from around the corner.

When he smiles at you, you disappear, running off into the night. He doesn't think much of it until he sees you twice more over the course of a week, hanging around the same spots, and finally, he huffs out a breath and walks over to you.

You seem to disappear into your hoodie and he sits down next to you at the table.

"Are you following me?"

You make a little squeak in the back of your throat and peer up at him from your hoodie.

It's cute. You're cute, and he smiles at you to disarm you. He stays wary, though, he knows what had happened to Taehyung and he doesn't ever want to take that risk.

"Did someone send you to follow me?" He asks, voice lower, and you shake your head frantically.

"N-no! No, I just...I just think you're nice."

Jimin can't help but chuckle a little at how your cheeks flush. "Nice?"

"You... you're handsome," you say in a cracked whisper.

Jimin can't help but smile at how you shrink into your hoodie, embarrassed. "You're pretty cute yourself. I'm Jimin. What's your name, cutie?"

You look up at him with those wide eyes and later he thinks he was lost right then and there.

Jimin has never had a girlfriend, not really, at least not one that he wasn't using for money or sex or to survive, and he's not sure that's what you are, either.

After your initial shyness, you'd warmed right up, even making the first move on your third date, placing his hand on the swell of your breast when he kissed you goodnight.

"Angel," he calls you, murmurs in it into your skin, hoping you feel it there like a brand. "Angel doll."

He had a foster sister who used to call him that, used to say he looked like a little angel, but it fits you better, the way you almost glow when he runs his hands down your body.

It's different with you, you'd met him in his real face and he doesn't feel like he needs to shift, exists in his natural state, or at least what he thinks is his natural state. He'd started shifting so young that he couldn't even be sure.

Everything's fine. Everything's perfect, until it's not.

He brings you gifts, jewelry, anything you want.

When he lifts a Tiffany bracelet for you, you raise an eyebrow.

"Jiminie...what do you do, anyway?"

He shrugs, grabs you from behind, nuzzles into your neck. "This and that."

You let it go, and he's grateful, because he's spent his whole life lying and he doesn't want to lie to you.

Not telling you isn't lying, at least that's what he tells himself. You don't see him as an orphan, or a street kid, a thug...a freak. He's just a guy, and you're his girl, and he'd do anything to keep it that way.

Yoongi doesn't ask questions, even when Jimin so more nights at your apartment than at home. Jimin does his job, and more, and sure things get a little dicey, especially with the extras he's lifting for you, but what's a couple of broken ribs and bullet grazes when it makes you smile like that at him?

But he's stupid and he lets one of them get infected and he wakes up burning with a fever and with his shirt stained red and you notice and shit, he can't take this look on your face, your lips tight, brow furrowed with worry.

Jimin ends up calling Hoseok and he drags him back home and Jimin's too weak and sick to stop you from following.

Next thing he knows he's curled up in bed and he's sick and he can't stop crying because it's over now. It's done, now you know what he is, a criminal, a loser, and he'll never see you again and that hurts so much worse than his shoulder.

He thinks he's dreaming when he feels your hand on his face.

"Y/n?"

"Why didn't you tell me? You got hurt getting me these stupid gifts, Jimin-"

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, and he's still not quite sure it's real between the fever and whatever Hoseok had given him for the pain. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't want them," you're trying to tear off your tennis bracelet and he puts his hand over yours.

"Don't. Don't leave me, yeah?" He can barely move but he struggles to get up and you climb onto the bed, kissing him over and over and he can't do anything but whimper into your mouth.

"Never. Never, Jimin. I don't care what you do. I don't care. I just don't ever want you hurt like this again."

He knows he's dreaming now, knows this can't be real but he wants it to be so badly that he holds you as tight as he can, gritting his teeth against the pull in his shoulder.

When you're at there when he wakes up he's crying all over again and kissing you everywhere he can reach, making you giggle, and it's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard.

You still don't know about his powers, though, he can't bring himself to tell you that, can't stand to think of how you might look at him.

"Will you be careful?" You ask him, when he's just about better, restless and bored.

"Aw, angel. I'm always careful."

"Jimin." You give him a look, and he scoffs, rubs at the back of his neck.

"It doesn't matter," he mumbles.

"Of course it matters," you cry, and your voice is so fierce, your eyes so wet and he pulls you close, murmurs comforts, because he doesn't know how to make you understand.

His life has never meant much to him, but the brothers, these boys who took him in, put up with how wary and scared he'd been, taught him how to live with who he was...theirs did. Jimin came from nothing, abandoned by a dumpster when he was hours old, a freak, an orphan, but you ...you were something bright and special and when it all falls apart, it's his fault, just like everything else.

You’re tracing his tattoo with the tip of your finger in bed when you ask him. Jimin loved the way you touched that tattoo, the snake wrapped around his ribs, the head ending up right at his hip bone. It made him feel like you knew him, somehow, and he wasn’t sure why.

Jimin had loved the idea of himself as a snake, someone stealthy and sly that could shed his skin every so often and grow new ones, become someone else. It helped that that’s what Shin and his people called him, it made him smile because they didn’t know his name or his face, just called him Yoongi’s snake, and it pleased him.

When he’d mentioned the idea of a tattoo to Yoongi, knowing that he’d given Taehyung his, a simple sun on his collarbone, Yoongi had been happy to oblige.

It’d taken days to do, and Jimin wondered if it was something about Yoongi’s mental powers that made the tattoo stay when he shifted, but he knows it’s probably him.

There’s something about having something uniquely his, something that can ground him, remind him he isn’t just a pile of nerves and flesh that can be sculpted into whatever he wants.

You trace it all the way down to his hip, but when he gasps, you stop, kiss him on the tip of his chin.

“Do you have powers like your friends do?” You ask, almost in a mumble, tired.

Jimin stiffens. “Ah, no, I’m nothing special.”

Your mouth ticks up at one corner. “You’re special to me.”

You kiss the tip of his nose and Jimin suddenly feels miserable, hates lying to you, but he’d seen your reaction when you’d seen Seokjin snapping his fingers, calling flames from his thumb. You’d been shocked, afraid.

Jimin kisses you and kisses you, sliding inside you to quiet the voices in his head.

It’s almost half a year before everything falls apart, just like he’d known it would, just like everything did.

It’s Jungkook who comes to him, nervous, wringing his hands.

Jimin looks up his phone and his breath catches in his throat. He knows, instantly, knows it’s about you, and he leaps to his feet.

“Where is she?”

“She’s okay, she’s just a little shaken up-”

“Where is she?” Jimin repeats, and Jungkook swallows.

“She’s in Hoseok’s room. He’s patching her up.”

Panic climbs in his throat, making his skin heat, and he’s pounding on Hoseok’s door in moments, Jungkook trailing behind him.

Hoseok comes to the door with blood on his shirt and Jimin feels like he might faint.

“She’s okay,” Hoseok says, adjusting his sunglasses with one hand.

Jimin bursts past him, sees you sitting up on the bed with a cut on your cheek, your nose swollen and bleeding.

“Angel,” he whispers, his hand shaking as he strokes your unmarked cheek.

“I didn’t let them take me,” you choke out.

Tears roll down Jimin’s cheek as he perches on the bed beside you, takes your hands in his.

“They caught her coming out of here this morning,” Hoseok says softy. “Seokjin was coming back from getting breakfast and stopped it.”

“Did he burn them alive?” Jimin asks, voice rough, eyes flashing as he looks up at Hoseok.

“Jimin.” You squeeze his hand. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Jimin’s heart sinks when he realizes what has to happen, how to make you safe, and he wonders why he ever had any hope at all.

He figures out who did it, that it was the banshee girl. Areum, who’d lured you in, but that it’d been Dohyun who’d hit you when you tried to leave, who’d stretched his arm out several feet to wrap you back up, given you the bruises all over your upper arms.

It takes days to find out, takes him shifting into a moderately attractive blonde and flirting with Areum and he can’t bring himself to hurt her, not when she gives him a scared look when he mentions Dohyun, asks about him. Shin was manipulating her the same way he had Namjoon, and that was clear.

She’s his way in, though, takes him to the dorm, and he’s coy when she tries to kiss him, plies her with alcohol in her room until she falls asleep.

It’s easy, then, to shift into a slight, tomboyish girl, leave his lips full and his eyes bright, and Dohyun is putty in his hands.

Dohyun’s all smiles when Jimin wraps his thighs around his neck, grabbing at his ass until Jimin squeezes and squeezes. His strength doesn’t change when he shifts, and he isn’t afraid to get up close and personal.

Besides, there’s a certain thrill in how Dohyun’s eyes widen, how he realizes something’s happening, his air shutting off.

“Who...who are you?”

Jimin leans down, almost doubles over but it’s easier in this small frame, to hiss in his ear. “Maybe you’ve heard of me. They call me the Snake.”

Dohyun can’t make words at this point, Jimin’s thighs crushing his larynx, but Jimin sees the fear in his eyes, squeezes harder.

“Have you ever killed a man, Dohyun?”

Dohyun wheezes and Jimin takes it as a no.

Dohyun just claws at Jimin’s thighs but Jimin barely feels it, adrenaline pumping through him, rage fueling him as he thinks of your swollen nose, the big bruises on your arms.

“I have. I won’t hesitate to do it again. You know why they call me the Snake?”

“Please-” Dohyun chokes out, and Jimin puts his hand over his nose and mouth, squeezing tight, hoping he breaks his nose.

He lets go and loosens his thighs just long enough for Dohyun to draw in a ragged, short breath, wants him to hear him.

“You touch Y/n again, you'll find out.. You’ll never see me coming.”

He doesn’t kill him, but it’s a near thing, later Jimin thinks about how Dohyun’s eyes had bulged, his lips turning purple, and he doesn’t feel remorse, tracing the snake tattoo with his fingers. He thinks maybe that should worry him, but it doesn’t. He wasn’t sorry when he’d jammed a pen into his foster father’s jugular, when the blood soaked the pretty dress he was wearing, all dolled up as his late daughter.

Everyone had a breaking point, and Jimin guessed that was his. He’d sworn to never let anyone touch him like that again, and he’d be damned if he let it happen to you.

He’s wary for the next few weeks, but there’s no retaliation. He shouldn’t be surprised, Shin doesn’t give a fuck what happens to his people, as long as it doesn’t affect his income or his reputation.

Surely Yoongi hears about it, hears whisperings about the Snake, but he doesn’t say a word.

He keeps you close while you heal, as the bruises around your nose purple and then fade. He waits, tells himself he's just waiting for the right moment, but he knows he's just putting it off. He has to think about it sideways, what he has to do, because it seems too big, too awful.

Jimin has spent his life being someone else, anyone else, and he'd been himself with you, or at least as close as he knew how to be.

Losing you, pushing you away was the hardest thing he'd ever done. It was made all the worse by how he did it gradually, stopped responding to your texts, acted disinterested on dates.

You show up at the dorm, finally, hair wet from the rain, eyeliner smudged, near tears, and Jimin's heart cracks through at the sight of you.

You say his name and your voice cracks and Jimin can’t look at you.

“Can I come in?”

Instead of letting you in, he walks outside to stand against the door, his back to it. He makes himself look at you, right in your eyes.

“What’s happening, Jimin? Are you….are you tired of me?”

He shrugs, looks away again because he can’t lie right to your face.

“Dunno.”

Your chest is heaving, your face wrecked when he glances back at you, and his chest aches.

“Jimin. Look at me.”

He clenches his jaw, looks away.

“So this is it? After everything?”

He shrugs again, tears pricking at the backs of his eyes. “Guess so.”

Jimin can’t stand to hear the tears in your voice, the way you choke out a sob, so he goes inside, shuts the door against your protests, locks himself in his room when Jungkook asks what’s wrong.

It didn’t feel like an ending, so sudden, such few words exchanged, but he couldn’t tell you why, couldn’t let you know what he was, what he’d done.

He’d nearly killed a man because of a few bruises, and he can’t imagine what he’d do if something happened to you, if you were hurt or killed because of him…

Jimin isn’t sure why he goes back to the street where you’d met, where he knew your apartment was, in a different face, the same slim girl he’d been when he’d confronted Dohyun.

He only watches, wearing a beanie and a mask, not that he had to worry about being recognized. You go to get chicken and soju from the restaurant you’d always frequented, always takeout, with your shoulders slumped.

For weeks you look tired and sad, and he wants so badly to go to you, tell you everything, but he keeps seeing the shock on your face when you’d seen Seokjin’s flames, the way your eyes had widened, mouth parted.

He tells himself he’s watching in case Dohyun is stupid enough to make a move and not because he misses your eyes and the way you linked your hands together while you were idle, how your chin tilted up when you smiled.

The day Jimin talks to you, he hadn’t planned on it.

You looked happier, healthier, your cheeks a little fuller. You were even with a friend, and Jimin told himself not to panic when you put your hand on the guy’s arm, laughed a little too hard at a joke he made.

There’s a lump in his throat, and Jimin pulls the beanie down to almost cover his eyes, slumped at a table in the corner as you order double your usual order.

The slow realization that this is probably a date makes something crack in his chest and Jimin casts his eyes down, breathing hard, his chest feeling tight.

He tells himself he bumps into you on accident, drops his Americano.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry, are you all right?” You put your hand on his arm, and his breath catches in his throat.

He’s afraid for a moment, when you look into his eyes, but there’s no spark of recognition.

Part of him is disappointed.

“Fine,” he mumbles, jealousy keeping his words short as your new friend wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“I’ll buy you a new drink,” the guy offers, and Jimin can’t help but scowl.

“I can buy it myself,” He snaps, and you smile at him and he goes a little weak in the knees.

You insist on buying it, and as he stands at the counter he feels uncharacteristically nervous, watches as you link your delicate fingers together, the scent of roses you always wore heavy in the air.

He finds himself swaying toward you, and when he bumps your arm you don’t pull away, just smile.

“What’s your name?”

He blurts out the first name he can think of, his foster sister, the one who’d called him angel.

“Yunhee.” You stick out your hand and he takes it, loves how soft your skin is, how firm you shake his hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Yunhee. I’m Y/n.”

That’s how it starts, and when it all ends Jimin knows it was stupid, this whole plan, staying close to you, how he’d just end up hurting you more.

After that day Jimin tells himself he won't keep looking for you, but it's barely two days later when he ends up back in the restaurant, and of course you come right up to him.

"Yeonhee?" You call, and Jimin can't help but smile.

You offer to buy lunch and he can't turn down a chance to be close to you, see your bright eyes and your smile again.

It's easy enough, to get close to you again, especially in this form, but Jimin hadn't thought it through, appearing to you as a female friend.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" You ask one day while you two are sipping boba.

Jimin chokes a bit on his tea.

"Ah...no, I don't." He takes a beat, looking down at the table, before he asks softly. "Do you?"

"Not really," you say easily, but that isn't exactly no and Jimin feels like bees are buzzing beneath his skin.

He clears his throat. "What about that big guy you were with?"

"Huh? Oh, Mingyu. We've been out a couple times. He's cute, right?"

"He's okay," Jimin mumbles, resting his chin on the table, suddenly miserable.

“He’s so tall,” you say dreamily, and Jimin slumps down further in his seat, if possible.

“Not my type,” he mumbles.

You cock your head at him, and Jimin sits up straighter.

“What is it?”

“Yunhee, do you have a girlfriend?”

Jimin almost chokes on his tea again, but recovers more quickly this time.

“Not...not right now. I used to.”

“Bad breakup?”

You reach over, take his hands in his and it feels like coming home and makes a lump grow in his throat.

Tears prick at the backs of his eyes and he doesn’t stop them, can’t bring himself to yank his hands out of yours to wipe at his face.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I had a bad breakup recently too.” You squeeze his hands and he has regrets about all of this, suddenly everything’s worse, suddenly everything’s too much and he’s dropping his head onto your hands and crying harder, with you murmuring comforts.

“Did she hurt you a lot?” You ask softly when he’s calmed down, sniffling like a child.

He shakes his head. “She would have never hurt me. I just...I wasn’t good enough for her.”

You frown. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

Jimin gives you a weak smile. “Let’s not talk about it. We should talk about something more fun.”

“Why don’t we go out tonight? Take our minds off our exes?”

Half of him wants to decline, but your hands are so soft on his and you look so determined and he finds himself going to buy a stupid dress at the thrift store later that afternoon.

Yoongi gives him a look when he brings it in but when Jimin gives him a withering stare he just shrugs.

At least he has experience with this, having shifted into a female form for months at a time in the past.

The dress fits well, the form he’d chosen is slight but still pretty, keeping a full mouth, a dark bob haircut. He’s weirdly nervous, and he’s never been nervous about his appearance before and he doesn’t know why it matters anyway, it isn’t as if you’ll be looking at him like that, at least not anymore.

Jimin manages to sneak out of the dorm without any of the guys guys seeing and he sees you waiting outside the club in a royal blue dress that takes his breath.

"Yeonhee! You look so pretty!" You gush, link your arm through his, and for a few hours at least, it's almost like old times.

He's tipsy and you're laughing and dancing with him, comfortable, and everything's fine until he loses sight of you for a few moments, sees you dancing with some guy, arms wrapped around his neck.

It's been such a rollercoaster, being friends with you like this, there's happiness but longing, the desire for you to move on but the most bitter jealousy when it looks like you might.

Tonight he's too drunk and lovesick to watch, slips outside, breathing hard. It's only a few minutes before you find him, and your hand on his arm makes tears stand in his eyes.

"Yeonhee... what's wrong?"

"I like you," Jimin blurts, head fuzzy from soju. He looks down at you, the heels he'd chosen making the slight frame he'd chosen a couple of inches taller than you. "I know you don't-"

"Yeah?" You say softly, voice low and husky, and plant a kiss at the corner of his mouth, striking him silent.

He hadn't known you were bisexual but he can't say he isn't grateful, wants you anyway he can have you.

It's different, kissing you in this form, his mouth smaller, but still so familiar it makes his chest ache.

It's all a blur until he has you naked and panting on your bed while he's still fully dressed, licking his lips as he looks down at you.

It’s strange, doing this in this body, and God knows it wasn’t the first time but it’s the first that he’s chosen, first that he’s actually enjoyed, and when you tug up his dress he stops your hands, does it himself. You make this sound in the back of your throat, eyes roving over him, but he pushes you back down onto the bed gently.

"So pretty," he murmurs, running a hand up your inner thigh. "Like an angel. Angel doll."

Your breath catches in your throat but he's too busy pressing his face into your cunt, darting his tongue out to taste you.

You're whining and trembling and you taste so familiar that it hurts. He lifts his head when he slides two slender fingers inside you and that's when you say it, low and broken.

"Jimin?"

He freezes, then plants a soft kiss on your inner thigh, as if he didn’t hear you.

“It’s you. I know it,” you insist, scrambling up on the bed.

“Y/n, what are you talking about-”

“Don’t fucking lie to me,” you say fiercely, chin jutted out, not bothering to cover your breasts. You lean forward to run your thumb over the snake tattoo on his hip and he curses himself.

“Y/n-”

“You think I’m stupid? You think I didn’t notice how sometimes your eyes would change color when we made love, or how all the papers talked about the Snake that can shift into anyone he wants and you have this stupid fucking tattoo?” You almost spit the words, your cheeks flushed from alcohol and rage.

Jimin sighs, lets the facade drop, shifts back to himself in a shimmer and you swallow hard.

“I’ll go,” he chokes out, realizes he’ll have to leave in a goddamn dress when he starts to slide off the bed but you grab onto his forearm, tight.

“Why did you lie to me?” Your lip is trembling when he looks back at you and he wants to look away but he can’t, trapped like a fish on a hook by your touch. “Why did you leave me?”

Your voice cracks and he can’t stand it, reaches out to caress your cheek.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I let anyone hurt you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was...that I'm this…'

"I don't care! I don't care what you are, I don't care about being safe, I love you, Jimin. I just want you."

"Not now," he says miserably. "I've lied to you for weeks I just...I couldn't stand being away from you and then I couldn't stand seeing you with someone else and…. I've ruined everything."

He wants to hide his face in his hands but you put a hand on his cheek, kiss his mouth gently.

“You almost did,” you agree. “You almost fucked it all up, and you better not ever hurt me again, Park Jimin.”

He looks at you in awe, can’t believe you’d be willing to give him another chance. “But...angel...you might get hurt again. You might-” You shake your head, cover his mouth with your hand.

“I can take care of myself, and if I can’t, I trust you to protect me.” You smile a little. “They don’t call you the Snake of Busan for nothing, right?”

“I’ll kill anyone who ever hurts you again,” he says, earnestly, and he’s almost ashamed, but you don’t lose your smile, just climb into his lap, kiss him again, and his head is spinning with how much hope is rising in his chest.

You play with the hair at the nape of his neck, kiss him over and over, before pulling away and smiling down at him. “You know, this power of yours could make our sex life very interesting….you could be any celebrity I want?”

Jimin growls at you playfully, nips at your bottom lip, and your laugh sounds like heaven.

You move into the dorm a couple of weeks later, and things are easier for a while, he gains your trust, tells you almost all his secrets.

When things blow up again, it’s his fault, just like it always is.

#jimin x reader #park jimin x reader #jimin imagine #jimin angst #bts imagine #villainous universe #bts villain au

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ddaenggtan · 5 years

Text

from eden | myg + jhs

you've been in the dark a long time, overworked and exhausted. the only bright point is your gatekeeper, hoseok, your closest friend and the man you love but can't have. you've accepted that loneliness is inevitable for you. when a voice calls to you, though, and moves you so deeply that you rip open the earth to help them, you meet a mint-haired boy that changes everything you thought you knew about your prison. | monsters and gods pt 1 (masterlist)

pairing | yoongi x reader x hoseok

genre/warnings | greek god au, hades!reader, thanatos!hoseok, persephone!yoongi, fluff, angst, smut, mild depictions of violence, mentions of blood (well, blood equivalent, bc gods), pining, depictions of abusive parenting, v v brief panic attack (seriously, I don’t go into a ton of detail, but it’s enough, pls don’t read this if that triggers you at all), love triangle (kind of), polyamory, , mutual masturbation, oral (female receiving), face-sitting, fingering, dick-riding, double penetration, unprotected sex (gods can't get sti's but u can! Wrap it b4 u tap it!), creampie, everyone hates Zeus but what's new, demeter sucks and is the literal worst

word count | 15.6k | cross posted to ao3 monsters and gods masterlis

a/n | hello! i’ve renamed this fic at least ten times, but it’s here!! the first part of monsters and gods!!! i keep seeing hades!yoongi (who i LOVE, don’t get me wrong, seriously you should check out @/seokoloqy’s hades yoongi fics because they’re PHENOM) and while I love hades yoongs, I also keep seeing him in flower crowns and being soft and sweet and, as we know by now, I am ultimately a slut for soft bangtan. so this happened. and then i thought ‘wow this mc is dark af i need some contrast here’ and that’s how thanatos hobi happened, also i couldn’t stop thinking of his Judgement Face, which is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, and how fast he switches between that and his smile, plus.....sope, I mean. c’mon. sope. and then it all kinda spiraled into a whole series of fics, only one other of which is even started tho its close to being finished whoops lmao so yeah!!!! pls tell me what u think, i’m not used to writing angst at all, so it may not be suuuuuuper prevalent in this, but i tried!!! also i really recommend listening to hozier while you read it bc i had his first album on repeat while writing it and from eden fits this pretty well imo!!!

It's dark when you open your eyes. You've spent so long down here, you're used to it, but the shadows always seem to make the air colder than it should be. Though you suppose the land of the dead isn't supposed to be warm.

You stretch and wince at the crick in your spine. Another night sitting at your desk, greek fire burning through the hours so that you can scratch away at the papers in front of you. Your siblings always enjoy doing whatever they want, using mortals and throwing them away however they please, cleaning up after each other whenever they can spare the time.

No one ever seems to think about you, nor do they remember the chaos up top only worsens your constant migraines.

No, instead they start their wars and slaughter their enemies and are absolutely oblivious about the fact that the Meadow is at 80% capacity as it is, with more souls arriving each day. Thanatos did well at his job, as did Charon, and you were always sure to be thankful to them, but you wish, not for the first time, that there was someone - anyone - to help with your work.

Your brothers have the naiads, the winds, and the lesser gods to help them with their oceans and skies. Gods of vengeance and retribution help with war, while the fertility goddesses and the muses aid the lovelorn.

And yet here you are, still alone after all these years. Millenia, you've been stuck down here, forced to live out your days in the cold darkness and manage the dead mortals. You've always been introverted, even before you drew lots with your siblings, but never like this. You've tried to leave, of course; at first making short visits to Olympus or the mortal realm, just to speak to another living soul again, someone else who understands what it's like to be trapped in your own life. It seems like every time you came back, though, the underworld had gotten smaller and smaller, nearly suffocating you in an attempt to keep its claws in your skin. And then, of course, came the curse.

You haven't felt the sun on your skin in nearly a thousand years, and while you've always been one for the shade, you miss it. You miss the smell of the flowers in the temples, you miss the sound of the river as it babbles past, you want to feel the warm summer breeze ruffle your hair as you stand in the middle of a marketplace. You're tired of the Fields, you're bored of walking the streets of Elysium with the weight of their stares at your back, sick of standing at the steps to the Isles and wondering if it is, truly, euphoric and if any mortal would ever find out. You don't wear your sandals around the palace anymore; you don't want to hear the footsteps echo. It's just a reminder that you are, truly, alone.

Even the other deities in the Underworld have stopped calling on you. The aura that surrounds you is enough to wilt most any plant, unnerve most every animal, and the gods are no exception. The only exceptions are Hecate, who makes it her personal mission to bribe you into visiting the Meadow if only for a moment, and Thanatos when he can slip away for longer than a moment to distract you from your work. They rarely succeed, but it's the thought that counts, you suppose.

You muse on this as you walk, bare feet skimming lightly over the soil of the Meadow as you make your way to the Gates. You could probably just shadow-walk, if you wanted, you do enjoy giving your Thanatos a fright, but you figure the walk would do you good. There’s no one to bother you as go, thankfully. The dead wander aimlessly around you. There's no acknowledgment as you pass; there's never any recognition of anything in the Meadow, the price mortals pay for being so utterly inconsequential and mundane.

You smile when you see that your friend is busy, and you give a silent command to Cerberus not to alert the man to your presence. The dog whines a little, but sits back on his haunches, shaking the ground as he does so. You're silent as you move up behind the judge.

"You wanted me to tell you my judgment and I have," Hoseok says firmly. "You could have gone straight to the Asphodel Meadow and existed in relative peace for eternity, and instead you request a hearing, and then have the gall to question my decision?" You grimace slightly; perhaps putting Hoseok in charge of judging the souls was not the best idea, but he has yet to be wrong about someone.

"Please, sir," The mortal whimpers. He's on his knees, suit crumpled and dirty where he sits. "I was only doing what I thought was best, please, surely that matters."

"You used children!" Hoseok says in shock. "As slaves! It's 2019 and you had nearly a hundred seven-year-olds sewing clothes together in a cramped warehouse with one bathroom. You seriously expect me to give you leniency because you thought that was best?"

"Their families would have starved without that money," The mortal says. He's on the verge of tears, which has always made you uncomfortable, so you stay hidden for now. "I kept them all fed and safe, didn't I? What would they have done without me? Gone to work in some factory, with dangerous machines and cruel managers, whipped every time they needed to eat?"

"You used children as nearly free labor, barely allowed them time to piss, fed them once every twelve hours, and you expect that to be okay because they could’ve had it worse," Hoseok says. Disgust drips from his voice and you’re inclined to agree with the sentiment. "I respect your opinion, but you are to be punished for your deeds fittingly." Hoseok snaps and two of the Bones come over. These two are in desert camo, one barely tall enough to be an adult judging by the skeletal build, but their grip is unforgiving as they cart the mortal off to the Fields. You don’t even need to mold together a punishment for him; the warehouse you sent others who’d done the same wasn’t quite crowded enough yet.

"Well, that was fun," You call, and delight at the way Hoseok jumps nearly a foot in the air. He glares at you as he turns and you don't bother to hide the smirk on your face. "Child slavery, huh? In this day and age?"

Hoseok tsks. "I know we used to allow some crazy shit back in the old days, but you'd think that people would know better by now. Using children like that, kids…” He trails off, still fuming, and you nod.

“I know.” You pull a piece of lint off his suit with a wrinkle of your nose. “You made the right decision if it helps.”

“I know I did,” He says with a smirk. “I always do.” You roll your eyes and turn away from him, watching the lines of souls head through the gates to their eternal blandness. It's the best way to hide the flush he brings to your cheeks. “What brings you out here, though? Aren’t you supposed to be doing something important?”

“Don’t I wish,” You mutter. “All I’ve got to do is figure out how to expand the realm again without Zeus’ approval.”

“Wait, he didn’t approve the expansion?” You shake your head and step closer to where Cerberus is laying, all three heads focused entirely on you as you rub his middle nose. “Where does he think we’re going to put all of the souls, up your ass?”

“Clearly,” You spit.

“I know it’s not exactly great down here and that they would all rather be thrown into the Pit than visit, but they need to sometimes. If only to see what it’s like. I mean, honestly, what do they expect us to do, just toss everyone in the Meadow and call it a day until there are so many that they’re tripping into Elysium? What the f-”

“Thanatos,” You say quietly, and Hoseok stops. It’s not often that you call him by his title rather than his name, preferring the familiarity of his friendship over the detachment of your positions. “Even here, the gods have ears. You know better than to criticize them like that.”

He huffs but nods his head. You press a kiss to Cerb’s middle nose and coo at him until he starts wagging his tail. When you turn back around, Hoseok is stumbling to keep his balance on the shaking ground. You laugh, which he does not appreciate, but before he can say anything in his defense, another soul is escorted to him by a Bones. The guy is already pleading with Hoseok, who’s returned to the stony mask he usually wears. The silver aura that surrounds him always brings you comfort, reminding you of the moonlight that bathes the surface world, but it has turned colder and is as deadly as mercury. You envy the way he can switch back and forth between his professional mask and the bright, loving man you know; if only it were that easy for you. Without so much as a wave, you weave the shadows around you once more, ignoring the soul's cries to you for mercy, and let yourself disappear into the darkness.

When you emerge from the shadows, you settle at the base of your garden tree. The only living thing that would grow down here, the sole reminder of the world above. Its branches show that it should be close to the harvest soon, maybe a month away at the most. You reach up, weaving through the darkness to pluck a pomegranate from the tree. You don't even like pomegranates anymore, you think as you inspect it. Ripe, juicy, and utterly disgusting; the gods' idea of a joke. The thing that brought about your isolation, your solitude, yet it continues to be the only thing that grows in this wasteland.

You laugh bitterly before tossing the fruit up in the air, letting it fly through the shadows to land beside Hoseok, whatever he's doing. He always appreciates your little gifts, the only real thing you can do to show that you aren't cross with him and are glad for the work he does. He's long been stuck here with you, but the fruit doesn't turn to bile on his tongue the way it does yours. Perhaps the willingness he had that first time made a difference.

Please.

You glance around, looking for the voice that suddenly echoes around you. It's soft, a memory of a whisper. It's not rare for you to hear the voices of the dead in your realm, but this is different. This one strikes you to your core, for this…

This one sounds hopeful.

The prayers that make their way to you are never hopeful. They are sad or angry or scared, always filled with tears and regret and more than a little hesitancy, but never do they have any shred of hope in them.

You stand, eyes narrowed as you look through the darkness for whatever soul may be calling to you.

Please. I don't want to go back. Don't let her take me.

Without thinking, you reach into the shadows. The blackness swirls around your fingers, unsure where you're trying to go. You don't know yourself, and you wish you did. You aren't sure why you're doing this; you rarely answer prayers, least of all the ones that don't mention you specifically, but something in this voice calls to you. It resonates in your chest, shakes your very being because you remember that feeling. You remember the way it felt to be free, standing in the sun and clawing at the earth as Gaia dragged you back down to your post, tears mixing with the dirt as you pleaded, begged her not to take you back down there.

With a jerk, you pull the shadows apart, and the ground quakes above you. You watch, anxiety pooling in your gut, and it's only the intensity of your focus that lets you see it: a figure, falling limply through the earth that you've opened. The string of curses you let out would make even Ares blush, and it's with a rush you haven't felt in millennia that you weave the shadows together into a net and toss it upwards. The figure falls into it with ease, shadows wrapping around the body to glide gently downwards until they can deposit the person with ease at the roots of your tree.

Your breath catches in your throat as the darkness recedes, revealing soft mint hair with flowers woven into it, pale green robes that are sliced nearly in half at the back and caked with mud. The man is beautiful and soft and bright, every inch the antithesis to your own black and grey clothes. You hesitate to even look at him, too afraid of dulling that sun-kissed skin with the death you carry on your fingertips.

His brow furrows and he winces, though his eyes remain closed. You blink owlishly before guiding the shadows around him once more; when you're sure he's secure, you pull him along behind you until you reach the only spare room you have in the palace. You situate him on the bed there, fluffing pillows and smoothing blankets until you can almost pretend he fell asleep there of his own accord. With pursed lips, you assign three of your Bones to watch him; one just inside the door and two outside of it, just in case whatever he was running from attempts to come for him.

You don't want to leave him, but you have work to do, and the land of the dead cannot rule itself.

It's dark when he opens his eyes. There is Greek fire in the corner, and shadows dancing on the walls around it, but he cannot make out much else. When he sits up and slides his feet off what feels like a bed, he hisses. The marble is cold and unforgiving against the bare skin of his feet and he doesn't know of any feeling like it. He's too accustomed to the dirt and grass from his mother's domain, and even the white marble of Olympus was warm to the touch. This is different. Alarming. New.

He eventually works up the nerve to stand fully. Looking around, he doesn't see any kind of light sources other than the brazier in the corner, so he grips one of the coals in his palm and uses that bit of light to find the door. The fire tingles against his skin, but he's long since grown used to holding fire in his palms for his mother. The warmth is comforting for a brief moment before the image of his mother flashes through his mind. He flinches at the memory of her face, twisted with wrath, and the stone drops out of his grip before he can catch it.

The marble of the wall is cool against his back as he slides to the ground, knees brought up to his chest and his eyes screwed shut against the darkness. There's a vice around his chest and he can't breathe and he can't see and he doesn't have any idea where he is or if he's even alive or if she's stuffed him somewhere he'll never be able to escape and the thought makes his head spin as the air catches in his throat and gods don't even truly need to breathe and yet he can feel the cold claws of death tighten around his throat and all he can see in his final moments is the horrifying face of his mother's anger and he can feel the vines and roots around his ankles once more and-

"Who the hell are you?"

He looks up, pushing the sweat-covered hair out of his eyes. There's a man, in the darkness, who exudes a faint silver light around him that illuminates the walls and black marble floor. The man doesn't seem angry that he's there, or even all that surprised; just curiously resigned. There are so many questions on the tip of his tongue, so much he wants - needs - to know but only one makes it past the rock lodged in his windpipe.

"Am I dead?"

The man frowns and shakes his head. "I seriously doubt it, since you didn't cross the river." The man looks him over, taking in the flushed skin and sweat beads and the purple robes he donned the moment he decided to run and seems to decide something. He crouches down so he's eye level, poised on the balls of his feet with his elbows on his knees, and even in a full suit, he looks impeccably put-together. "I'm Thanatos. You can call me Hoseok. If you'll let me, I'd like to take you to someone who probably has a better idea of what you're doing here." All he can do is nod, and Hoseok extends a hand, which he uses to bring himself to a shaky stand.

"I'm Yoongi," He says, hesitant and quiet. "Um, I'm Kore. Or, Persephone. Either one."

"I think I'll stick with Yoongi," Hoseok says. His smile lights the hallway that Yoongi stands in, and it eases something inside him, though he isn't sure what. Hoseok doesn't let go of his hand as he guides Yoongi through the corridors, and talks to him the entire time. He speaks of his duties there, souls he's judged that day, ones he wished he could do more for, comforts Yoongi when a walking skeleton in Roman armor passes him and explains that those are the security force of the palace. By the time they make it to a large room, lit on each side with braziers of Greek fire that give the room an eerie glow, Yoongi has a fairly good idea of where he is, and who Hoseok is taking him to see.

The large ebony throne at the end of the room and the black-robed figure sitting atop it only confirms his fears.

When Hoseok enters the throne room, you're only slightly surprised. It wasn't entirely uncommon for him to take a break from his judicial duties, and so long as there were plenty of Bones to watch the gates, you had no issues. Years would sometimes pass before Hoseok needed to return, relieving the judgment council once more and returning them to their own afterlives.

To see him shadowed by the mint-haired boy you pulled through the earth, however, is a shock.

You set the papers you'd been writing at to the side. Your robes, woven from shadows and dipped in the Styx, swirl around your bare feet as you move to sit correctly with your back straight instead of lounging as you'd been doing before. The darkness you’d brought forth to cushion your chair, plump and fat and soft underneath you, shifts as well, keeping the hard edge of the marble from digging into your skin. Hoseok stifles a smile at the sight and you narrow your eyes at him. You wish he'd say something about it, the punk.

"What can I do for you, Hoseok?" You eventually ask as he and his companion reach the steps just below your throne. Even now, you can barely bring your eyes away from the boy behind him; he's radiant, the light in the room seemingly drawn to him despite the way he's slouched into himself.

"I was just wondering if you knew how this young man came to be in the underworld, my lady," Hoseok says. Your eyes dart back to him and you can't help the way your heart softens at the soft silver shine around him. You look to the mint-haired god again; his eyes dart around nervously as if he expects something to jump out at him, and he's close enough to Hoseok that if the other were to step back, they'd both likely fall to the floor.

You lean forward in your throne, doing your best to project a calm and friendly air to the shorter of the two gods. "Do you not remember?" You ask quietly. Your eyes don't leave his big brown ones, and you can see the moment the panic sets in. "It's fine, you don't need to answer me. Just know that you're safe here."

"Yoongi?" Hoseok says quietly, drawing the boy's attention. "Hey, it's alright. We're not gonna let anything happen." It takes several minutes but eventually the boy - Yoongi, apparently - nods. He hasn't relaxed at all, but he doesn't seem like he's about to bolt out of your throne room, so you consider it a success.

"You were praying," You tell him softly. "You asked for my help, so I gave it, as best I could. I don't think you meant for your words to reach me, but they did." Yoongi frowns ever so slightly as he takes in the knowledge. There's a hint of anxiety in his face, his brow furrowed adorably, but he doesn't startle when Hoseok rests a hand on his shoulder. He looks up, though, and the two of them seem to have a silent conversation. Something settles in your stomach, seeing the ease with which Hoseok interacts with him, and you swallow down the lump in your throat. It's ridiculous to feel anything like this; Hoseok is your subordinate and friend, and you've hardly known Yoongi for five minutes.

"He can stay here, right?" Hoseok asks. You look to Yoongi, wondering if he even wants to stay, if he even wants to be here at all or if he wished someone else had answered his prayers. Hoseok calls your name softly and your gaze flicks to him. "Can he stay?"

You find that you're debating with yourself. Yoongi clearly doesn't belong here; he is soft and sweet and gentle and completely at odds with the harsh, depressive atmosphere that lingers in your palace. He looks terrified even now as he takes in the room, eyes lingering on the bones that were fused together to make your throne. And yet...you cannot escape the fear and hope that had echoed in his prayer, the sheer desperation that someone would help him. He had been running and terrified, which could only mean that he was being chased by something or someone, and you couldn't force him out if he was in danger.

"If you would like to stay," You say after a moment too long, "Then you are, of course, more than welcome to do so." You rise from your throne, shadows dissipating as you do, and take a couple of tentative steps toward the pair. He doesn't shrink back in fear, which you take as a good sign. "The guest quarters will be yours to do with as you please. Hoseok can show you around the palace and grounds, so you don't get lost, and the Bones can bring you anything you require." You move to press a hand to Hoseok's arm, and you level him with a careful look.

"Of course, my lady," Hoseok says. He turns to Yoongi with a radiant smile. "And you can leave whenever you'd like."

"Of course," You agree quickly. "Hoseok can take you back and forth across the river as you wish. Charon can be quite fussy about it." Several times, your guests have been stuck on the wrong side of the river until someone brought your ferryman his payment. Yoongi looks slightly less terrified, and in the emerald glow of the fires, you notice how wide his eyes are. "Oh! You're from the surface, of course, I forgot."

With a snap of your fingers, the sconces along the walls light themselves, and the candles ringing the large chandelier in the center of your throne room surge to life as well. Yoongi startles a little, stepping closer to Hoseok.

"Ah, I forget you surfacers can't see as well down here," Hoseok mutters. "We'll get you a candlestick as well, just in case." He nods to you, Yoongi copying him in a most adorable way. They're halfway out of the room when a thought occurs to you.

"Yoongi?" You call after him. He turns, and the green halo around him makes your heart falter. "Don't eat the pomegranates. Not even the seeds." His brow furrows in confusion but he gives a hesitant nod before he turns and hurries after Hoseok.

As much as your chest aches for him, you won't subject him to this life. You watch him go and wonder how long he'll last in this hellscape.

When their shadows have long disappeared from the walls, you turn and retake your seat on the throne. With a wave, a small team of Bones appears in front of you - the same uniforms, with the same unit numbers, stamped on their dog tags, and the same haunted look where their eyes once were - and you do a quick count. Ten should do fine for what you need.

"Scour the earth. Do not speak to anyone. Find out what he was running from, and if it still searches for him. Don't let anyone see you, and don't let anyone know why you're looking. Return if you're in danger. Report to me immediately." They salute, and you watch their forms slowly disappear, becoming more and more transparent until they glide upwards and through the cracks in the ceiling.

You sit back and wonder how long it will take for you to get answers, and if it will be before or after Yoongi realizes he's too good for this place.

Yoongi is quiet. That's the first thing Hoseok notices about him. He doesn't initiate conversation, really, instead content to listen to Hoseok talk about the various souls he's judged and the occasional escape attempts someone has made. At first, when Yoongi speaks, he's quiet, like he doesn't really want - or expect - to be heard, and he always looks pleasantly surprised when Hoseok answers his question or responds to his comments.

It makes his heart ache, and he wonders what exactly Yoongi has gone through to make him so shocked that anyone would actually listen to what he has to say. It takes weeks for him to warm enough to Hoseok to start speaking more often, to ask questions about his day, to actually request specific things. The day Yoongi asked Hoseok, soft and hesitant, if he could show him the Meadow and the tree, Hoseok almost cried. Yoongi was so obviously ready to be told no, fully expectant for Hoseok to decline such a simple request, and it only reinforced Hoseok's need to give the god everything he could ever want.

"What are you doing, Yoongi?" Hoseok asks when he looks up. They're at the gates, Hoseok in the usual position, eyes roving over the lines of souls slowly shuffling forward, and Yoongi sitting nearby. Cerberus is curled up behind him, dwarfing the god with his massive body, all three heads snoring and slobbering as they sleep haphazardly on top of each other. Yoongi glances up at Hoseok as he grabs another flower from the basket beside him.

"I'm making Cerb some flower crowns," Yoongi answers as if it was obvious. Hoseok frowns.

"Flower crowns?" He echoes. "What's a flower crown?"

Yoongi gives him a disbelieving stare. "It's a bath salt. What the fuck do you think it is, Hobi? It's a crown made of flowers." Hoseok is caught off guard by the sarcasm, as he has been every time Yoongi has spouted off some kind of sass to him. He strides over and crouches beside the mint god to watch him.

Yoongi's fingers are sure and steady as he weaves the stems of the flowers together. It's already half-dozen, Hoseok thinks, the crocus blossoms blending together prettily and not straying in the slightest from where he places them. Hoseok hasn't ever seen anything like it, and he's entranced by the way Yoongi's fingers move and the way the flowers seem to just do whatever he wants without much coaxing on his part.

"I had the Bones bring me back a basket from their last excursion," Yoongi says. "Since none grow here." He stops with one last crocus and eyes it critically before apparently deciding it was good enough. Hoseok can't take his eyes off the thing, enraptured even as Yoongi sets it gently on his head. Hoseok can feel his eyes widen and his cheeks flush red.

"Thanks," He says after a second, one hand darting up to steady the crown as he shifts his weight. He smiles, unable to help himself and poses. "What do you think? Does it suit me?"

"Ugh, you wish," Yoongi says. Hoseok can see the smile in his eyes and is satisfied with the mirth threatening to bubble past Yoongi's lips.

"Y'know," Hoseok says after a while, hands in his pockets as he watches Yoongi make the second crown for Cerb. "I bet if you planted some seeds near the pomegranate tree, they'd grow." Yoongi's hands stop moving, his eyes drifting up to look past Hoseok. Something similar to excitement hides behind his eyes, and Hoseok wants nothing more than to bring it out to shine. Yoongi cocks a brow as if to say 'really' and Hoseok nods.

The gummy smile he gets in return, full of hope and light that the underworld hasn't ever seen before, is well worth the potential scolding you may give him for suggesting Yoongi fiddle with the tree's courtyard. And the way he keeps the flower crown nearby, hanging off a hook on the gates long after the blossoms have wilted and died, is worth the shy smile Yoongi gets every time he sees it.

You don't see Yoongi for the first few weeks he's there. Not really. You catch glimpses when he passes through the palace halls with Hoseok, and he sits with Cerberus while you visit Hoseok at the gates, but he makes no effort to seek you out, and you respect that distance. You can't bring yourself to force your company on him. You're an acquired taste; Hoseok has been in this realm for so long that he's accustomed to the darkness that follows you, the aura of death and despair that usually surrounds you. He's been surrounded by the dead almost as long as you have, so you know he can't be affected by it. Yoongi, though…

Yoongi is life. He's the springtime blossoms in a summer breeze, he's the sound of birds chirping in the treetops, he's vibrant and fresh and lovely and you cannot ruin that. You can't watch him wither away like a winter garden, you can't watch the color drain from his skin until he's just as much a ghost as the souls that wander the Meadow, you can't let him become just as dead as everything else in this cursed place.

So you leave him be. You offer curt nods when you see him with Hoseok and polite waves because giving any more of yourself to him without letting yourself get closer would be too dangerous. Even with the distance you keep, your chest tightens with every smile that graces his lips, you ache to hear his voice even just once, and it's too much. It's too much for someone you haven't even had a real conversation with. Someone who looks at you with apprehension and anxiety, yet brings undeniable joy to the man you've always held in your heart.

It's too much for you to feel like this for someone who makes Hoseok smile as if he's seeing sunlight for the first time in thousands of years. You love Hoseok too much to stand anywhere near them.

You've been avoiding both of them for days. You can't bear to see Yoongi's gummy smile and Hoseok's adorable dimples as they gaze at each other, and you're busy enough to make a decent excuse for it. Expansion isn't difficult, but keeping it quiet is. Plus you've been on the hunt to figure out what had been after Yoongi with such ferocity that it sliced right through his robes and had him praying to anyone who would listen.

You had a few helpful leads, but nothing concrete, and it was more than a little frustrating. Which is why you find yourself stepping out of the shadows of the pomegranate tree, hopeful that it could help to ease even just part of the emotions rolling in your gut.

The sight of Yoongi surprises you, even more so when you see that he's on his knees beside the tree with dirt covering his hands and a smidge of something on his cheek. He looks absolutely wondrous, like everything you've been missing from the world above, and it would bring tears to your eyes if you let it because he's so far out of your reach.

"Hi," You say after a long debate with yourself. Yoongi's head shoots up and he fixes wide eyes on you. He reminds you of the ones who come to you with no memory of what's happened to them, scared and alone and about to get the worst news of their lives. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," He says immediately. "I didn't mean to, not really. You just said not to eat them, and I'm not, so I thought it would be okay. Hobi suggested it and you two are so close that I figured he'd know if you'd be upset."

"I'm not upset." Your voice is as gentle as you can make it. "I'm just curious. Hoseok didn't mention anything to me, and no one really comes here."

"Oh." The relief is palpable as it courses through him, and he looks back down at the ground in front of him. "I'm just planting some flowers so I can make more crowns for Hobi and Cerb. The others died so fast, and I don't want to keep sending the Bones out to get more if I don't have to."

"Oh, you made the flower crown for Hoseok?" You'd figured as much. No one else in the underworld knew how to make them, and Yoongi was the only consistently around him. "He showed me that, it was gorgeous."

"Obviously, it was made by me, after all," Yoongi spouts. You gape at him, and he gives you a contrite grimace. "I'm sorry, my lady Hades, I forgot who I was with for a moment. It won't happen again."

"It should," You say before you can stop yourself. He glances at you curiously. "I don't mind if you're relaxed and casual around me. I've never been one to enforce the rules that Olympus has. Hoseok is proof enough of that. And you can use my name, I don't mind."

The way he whispers your name, almost as if he's practicing it to himself, makes your heart flutter in your chest. It's so dangerous to be around him like this, relaxed and casual; it's so easy to forget that it's Hoseok that gets this, that deserves this small piece of sunshine.

"Well," Yoongi eventually says. "In that case, you can get to work. I've got an entire basket of seeds left to plant around this thing, and I can only work so fast. Plus I'm getting hungry."

"Oh. Okay, show me what to do." You don't hesitate to mirror his position, robes bunching under your knees in the dirt as he points at the small holes he's carved out of the dirt with the trowel and rake the Bones nabbed for him.

Yoongi is patient, you learn. Not extremely so, but he walks you through what you need to do with clear directions. The seeds are small in your hands, which amuses you to no end, and there's an odd delight in packing the soil around them and dripping water down onto them after. You're smiling for the first time in...you don't know how long, and the feeling of Yoongi's hands around yours as he shows you how to use the trowel is something akin to paradise.

His hands are rough; calloused and weathered and wonderful against the softness of your own. You start to talk freely to him, asking him about each seed you plant and what they are and how they look. He tells you about each one, the deep timbre of his voice like music to your ears. He rolls his eyes at every joke you make, despite the way he smiles, and hits back with several quips of his own. He listens as you tell him, voice shaking, about the pomegranate tree, and how it curses anyone who eats its fruit to stay trapped in the underworld forevermore. He talks and listens and jokes and laughs and it's only after you've made a particularly ridiculous joke that you realize your mistake.

"You've spent too much time around Hobi," Yoongi says. "He made the same joke yesterday." He's looking down at the last few seeds, plotting where in the courtyard to put them, and doesn't see the way the smile dies on your face. You'd forgotten. For a brief time, you'd forgotten that this is just pretending.

You don't get to keep this. You don't get to stay here, in this courtyard, with Yoongi and his rough hands and the mint hair that falls in his eyes and his gummy smile. This isn't yours. You don't get flower crowns and jokes and soft kisses, no matter how much you want them, just like you don't get Hoseok's bright grin or his dimples or his long fingers intertwined with yours. Your heart aches for these two beautiful boys, both of them everything you could ever want in so many different ways. And yet you have neither of them, you don't get either of them. They are each other's, and there is no room there for the death you bring in your wake. You kill everything you touch; the mortals whisper about the cold grip of your hands on their neck as they pass over.

You look back over the seeds you've helped Yoongi plant and wonder how many you've killed before they even lived.

You stand and brush the dirt off your robes. "Well," You say, careful to keep your voice level. "I've got some things to do. I trust you'll be alright on your own." You can't bring yourself to look at Yoongi, can't bear to see the dirt that smudged along his cheek, can't stand to see the way the orange robes drape along him and remind you of the way the autumn leaves looked coating the grass in the meadows.

He doesn't even get a response out before you flee, but you feel his eyes on your back long after you've hidden in the shadows and sunk down onto your bed.

It's astounding, you think as you rinse the dirt off your hands later, how a single afternoon planting seeds with someone can be so detrimental to the walls you'd put around your heart. Tears blur your vision and your fingers are trembling, but you keep scrubbing until the phantom slide of his hands against yours is gone and there is no more evidence of the planting you'd done. When you finally stop, your skin is raw and throbbing, and there are tears running down your face.

You had long accepted that Hoseok could never be yours. You were in two different positions, and he was much too bright to want to be with someone like you. Your shadows would have suffocated him, so you resigned yourself to being his friend. Friend is safe. Friend is good.

You’d known the same when you met Yoongi. Bright and colorful amidst the darkness of the underworld, you wouldn’t dare to get any closer to him, too familiar with the fluttering of your chest and the jumping in your stomach every time you saw him. Just being friendly was enough, ensuring he is safe and happy is fine with you.

But this? Watching the two of them grow closer and closer, able to love each other so wholly while you stand alone in your darkness, watching their bright smiles and soft looks, all directed only at each other, for eternity? This was too much for you to bear. Being hopelessly in love with one man you can’t have is bad enough, but two of them…

You wish for the first time that you were not immortal, but a meager human upon the surface, unaware and blissful in your ignorance.

He never expected this. Not from the moment he woke up, not when he was sprinting through a forest to escape his mother, not for a single heartbeat could he ever imagined everything that has happened to him since he arrived in this cold land.

He’s been alone for so long, hidden away in his mother’s garden with only the rare visit from Artemis or Hestia as he learned how to do anything and everything his mother wished. He’s never had friends before, he’s never had the subtle inside jokes that he shares with Hoseok, familiar enough that even just a quick glance can have them both bursting with laughter. He’s never known a goddess like you, able to weave together the darkness into something tangible, something useful, something real. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen, and Hoseok’s uncanny ability to bend the environment around him and use his silvery aura to turn almost invisible to the naked eye never ceases to amaze him. The two of you are so powerful, so utterly awe-inspiring, and every single thing his mother had told him is so far from the truth that it almost hurts.

Neither you nor Hoseok is standoffish, really; he can see the hesitant friendship in every smile you send his way, and Hoseok’s primary concern at any moment is making sure he’s happy and safe. It warms Yoongi in a way he could never explain, not even in a million years, simply because he’s never felt this way. In all the books he’s read, the plays he’s seen, every mortal he’s watched, he’s seen this.

He’s seen how they turn red with just a look, how their hearts stutter when hands brush, how they smile, soft and private when they think no one is looking at them. He’s seen this feeling, the bubbling in his chest that he gets every time Hoseok laces their fingers together while walking and the moment you step into the courtyard and see the kaleidoscope of colors that you helped plant. He never would have guessed that he would feel it, though, too isolated from the rest of the world until he came here. Until you pulled apart the earth itself to help him escape, without even knowing why or who he was.

The feeling grows inside of him, thorns pricking into his every breath because he knows it can’t last. He’s seen how you and Hoseok look at each other when you think no one is watching, can feel the pull between you and the years upon years of familiarity that lie between you. The two of you are closer than he could ever get, two sides of the same coin, and more suited to each other than he would ever be.

And he can’t stay.

That’s the worst part. He knows it, knows that she will find him before long and wrap her claws around his throat and drag him back into that gilded cage she calls a greenhouse just to leave him. It’s for the best, my dear, she’ll say, it’s to keep you safe.

Yoongi doesn’t want to be safe, though. He wants to be happy and free, and he’s found that place here, surrounded by death even as he carves out his own little area of life. With Hoseok’s warm grin across from him and your own cool fondness beside him. With flower crowns atop his head and Hoseok’s, and the small buds are woven into your own crown of bones and grief as a small reminder that even in death, there is life.

But she will find him. She always does. And though he cannot bear the thought of leaving you, he will, if only to keep you safe.

Yoongi's been there almost a year when you summon Hoseok to dine with you. By the time he gets to your office - a very understated term for the sprawling library - you're already sitting at your usual desk, food pushed aside and forgotten in lieu of the papers stacked in front of you. Even with your head bent low and bags under your eyes, you're the most beautiful person Hoseok has ever seen.

He remembers the first time he met you when Zeus had assigned him to be the gatekeeper for the underworld. You were so young, so skittish and worried that you were going to be a terrible ruler as if the dead could be disappointed in you. You'd been beautiful then, too, but not in the same way. You've grown into yourself since then; you're no longer afraid of being a bad queen. You know that you're competent and capable, you know you can do this, and you frequently prove wrong any Olympian who says otherwise. You're mature now; strong and confident and brilliant, and even with the bags under your eyes and the shadows that lick lovingly against your skin, you are absolutely radiant.

Hoseok is so in love with you that it physically hurts him, and every time he looks at you, he is reminded of how you are just out of his reach.

He clears his throat and you look up. The tired smile that graces your face warms him, and he settles into a chair on your left with practiced ease. This isn't the first time you've asked him to dine with you, and it won't be the last.

"What's the occasion?" He teases, delighting in the way you roll your eyes and gesture to the food and nectar that sits in front of him.

"How is Yoongi?" You ask. It doesn't escape him that you don't answer, but you always have your reasons, so he doesn't call you on it.

"Well. He wanders around on his own and doesn't seem to jump at the slightest sound anymore. He came with me the other day when I judged and managed to pick fifteen people for Elysium in a row." An expression passes over your face that he can't decipher. He continues anyway. "He still won't talk much about what happened, but he also doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to leave. I imagine he'll get bored eventually, and we'll need to give Cerb extra treats when he does, but I'm not concerned just yet."

You nod and Hoseok starts to eat as you rifle through a few more papers. "You know he's Persephone?" You ask, and Hoseok nods. He'd forgotten to share that knowledge with you, but clearly, you had your own way of finding things out. "So then you're aware that his mother is Demeter."

Hoseok pauses for a minute. He swallows the food in his mouth and really looks at you for the first time since he sat down. The bags under your eyes are more prominent, and you're wearing your Hades expression. The one that stays professional and controlled and tells people nothing of your true thoughts. Well, people that haven't known you for more than a thousand years.

"Hoseok, he can't stay here forever," You eventually say. "She's been looking for him everywhere. The humans' crops are ruined, ice and snow have covered the earth, more people are dying than we can hold right now. She won't stop."

"And that means we kick him out?" Hoseok hisses. You close your eyes and he can feel the sigh you're holding back. "You said yourself that he could stay as long as he wants. You can't just rescind that because some wheat goddess is going on a rampage. We still don't know what he was running from, or if it's still out there, and I won't watch him-" He stops, frozen by the way you're pressing your tongue into the side of your cheek. It's the only tell you have and he rarely sees it, because you rarely keep things from him. "What do you know?"

You don't answer, and he repeats the question, louder this time, as he surges out of his chair.

"I was running from her," Yoongi's voice echoes through the library. You and Hoseok both turn to see him standing in the door, and Hoseok's heart swells at the sight. He's in soft, muted pink robes that Hoseok knows he made himself. His cheeks are rounder, and he's no longer curled in on himself. He looks stronger. Confident. Unafraid. "I was running from my mother. That's what you found out, right?" Hoseok looks to you, and the regret in your eyes just confirms it.

"I'm sorry, Yoongi, I was only trying to make sure you were safe, I didn't mean-"

"It's alright," Yoongi says as he moves to run his hand along your cheek. "I know." He smiles at you. Hoseok looks between the two of you - Yoongi's hand resting lightly on your cheek and a soft smile on his lips while his eyes crinkle with rare happiness, your own eyes wide and full of what can only be described as pure, unadulterated love - and his stomach rolls violently. Even after all the time Hoseok has spent with you, and with Yoongi, and the times he's entered a room to find the two of you in comfortable silence, he never expected this. He should've, he realizes; the two of you are a perfect match, complementing each other to near perfection, each fault being smoothed over by the other's strengths.

How could he have thought you wouldn't fall in love with Yoongi? Soft, kind Yoongi, who had just enough snark inside of him to make every word out of his mouth an unexpected joy. Yoongi who braids flower crowns with the flowers he's started to grow in the courtyard, surrounding the pomegranate tree with the beautiful blooms. Yoongi, who encourages Hoseok to judge more and more souls, ones that don't request it, who can somehow pick the good people from the bad just by looking.

And how could he have ever expected Yoongi not to fall for you? Strong and intelligent, determined and kind. You who opened your home to him in his most vulnerable moment and never expected anything in return. You who did everything in your power to find what was chasing him, and find a way to stop it. You, with your lonely smile and your bare feet. You, who Hoseok himself has been in love with for tens of thousands of years.

How could he have expected either of you not to fall in love in the months that you have known each other when Hoseok couldn't even stop himself?

“I’ll go back to her,” Yoongi says softly, finally dropping his hand from your cheek and turning the radiant smile on Hoseok. “She’ll have no reason to continue this if I return.”

“I can’t ask you to do that, Yoongi,” You say immediately. ““You were desperate to get away from her, and...what she almost did to you, that’s unacceptable.”

“Let her rage,” Hoseok agrees. “You’re safe here, no one can get to you without getting through the two of us first, not to mention Cerberus and the Bones. No nature goddess will last in this place, not with our full force around you.”

“Thank you, Hobi, but no. I can’t ask you both to do that, not when it could end so badly for you. You don’t know what she can do, it’s not-”

“You aren’t asking us,” You say. Your voice is as quiet as always, but there’s a firmness there that Hoseok recognizes. It’s usually saved for the throne room when some mortal has been particularly annoying or stubborn, and it’s a shock to see it directed at Yoongi. “We are offering. Let us protect you, Yoongi. At least let me speak with Zeus about this. I may be able to convince him to intervene.”

Yoongi hesitates, the indecision is written all over his face, and Hoseok leans to lace their fingers together. It’s a familiar gesture, done so often to prevent Yoongi from getting lost that it’s second nature at this point.

“Please,” Hoseok pleads when Yoongi looks at him. “Please, Yoongi.”

The reluctant nod is all the confirmation needed. You’re already scribbling out a summons for Hermes to carry to the lord of the gods, and Hoseok is halfway through the halls to reinforce the gates and ensure Cerberus knows his task. He tries not to think about the way Yoongi lingered behind, one hand on your shoulder as he watched you write and the other caressing the flower-riddled braids he’d made earlier that day.

He doesn’t think about it, because in the end, it doesn’t matter. Hoseok is so deeply in love with the two of you, so grossly enamored, that he would go to the end of time itself if it meant keeping the two of you safe and happy. Even if that meant watching you love each other and not him.

“What do you mean, he won’t help?”

You massage your temples without looking up from the letter Zeus had sent back with Hermes. He was, unsurprisingly, not helpful. Hoseok had appeared not long after the messenger had left, and is, also unsurprisingly, irate.

“According to him, he has no dog in this fight, because Yoongi isn’t his son, he’s Demeter’s, and if he were to get involved, he’d side with her since the humans are dying so quickly, which isn’t exactly good for worship numbers.”

“Are you kidding me? He seriously said he’d take her side in this?”

“Not in so many words, but yes. And I get it, Hobi. His job is to keep the peace between everyone in Olympus, and without actually coming here to give me an audience, all he has is Demeter’s side of the story.”

“Which is?”

“That I kidnapped her son and am currently holding him captive in a dungeon down here.”

“That’s absurd. He’s not captive at all, he’s happier here than he ever was up there, and you didn’t kidnap him!” You give a slight nod to show that yes, Hoseok, you’re aware of the truth. “Does he know what she does to him? How she treats him?”

“Hoseok, please,” You mutter. The weight of Zeus’ words is like a blade against your throat and you want nothing more than to help Yoongi. Clearly, the Fates have decided against that. “You know how he is. Do you honestly think he’d care? She has a claim to him, despite what he wants, and unless we find a way to get Zeus down here or go there ourselves, our lord won’t be able to hear any other side of this story.”

“Then we’ll...we’ll go there! We’ll make them listen! You could talk sense into him, make him see that he needs to help.”

“You know I can’t do that, Hobi.” Hoseok flinches, as if just remembering that you are as captive here as the souls you keep. You’re glad, not for the first time, that Death Itself cannot be contained, so that Hoseok, at least, is free to come and go as he pleases. “And before you say it, no, we can’t ask him to go. It isn’t safe. The second he sets foot outside this realm, she’ll pull him back. We’re lucky that he hasn’t already told her where Yoongi is.”

Your statement is punctuated with a muffled thud, and the anxiety that runs through you is mirrored in the look Hoseok gives you. Another thud echoes through the palace, the ground rumbling under your feet, and you stand.

“Where is he?” You ask, already pulling the shadows around you.

“Just past the gate, walking through the Meadow. If we hurry-”

“Go.” You disappear into the blackness, never more glad that Hoseok can sense the living in your land. When you step away from the shadows, Yoongi is there, confusion written across his face and fear in his eyes. “You have to run.”

“No,” He says. “I’m not going to keep running from her. I’m staying here, she can’t take me back.”

“Yoongi, please,” You beg. He’s too vulnerable here, too open, too easily seen with his spring green robes billowing around his feet and flowers woven into a crown atop his head. He takes your hands in his and pulls you close, and you’ve never seen a fire like this in him. It burns hot and strong and it makes your chest ache for what could have been.

“I won’t let her hurt you while I hide away like a coward,” He whispers. His thumb wipes away tears you didn’t know were there, and determination floods through you.

"Please, Yoongi. Let us help you. Let me help you. I-" The words choke in your throat, but Yoongi nods as if they made it out.

"I love you, too." His voice is soft, barely audible over the shaking ground and the deafening sound of hooves slamming into your gates. You feel more than see Hoseok land beside you, and his hand rests on the small of your back without hesitation.

"Take him," You tell Hoseok. "Go to the palace. You'll be safe there. Don't let him leave."

Hoseok's eyes are fire-bright as he wraps an arm around Yoongi's waist. The god's protests fall on dead ears, even as you let your hands brush over the softness of Hoseok's ink black wings. Just one moment, that is all you want, just one single second to pretend.

"I'll see you after, my lady," Hoseok says firmly. You don't have the heart to correct him, nor the time, so you just nod. Yoongi's screams echo in your ears even as you turn, the blackness that lingers at every corner of your realm swirling around your feet and ready to be whatever you need. You let one last year fall from your eyes as the gates crumple, and the furious eyes of Demeter fixate on you and the black-winged figure carrying her son away.

Hoseok flies faster than he ever has, determined to get Yoongi into the palace and relative safety. The god sobs in his arms, still struggling to get back to where you stand in the Meadow, the massive form of Demeter towering above you, but Hoseok doesn't relax his grip. You gave him an order; he hadn't disappointed you yet, and he isn't about to start now. Not with Yoongi caught in the middle.

He doesn't hesitate when he touches down in the palace, wings retracted and brushing ever so slightly against the black marble floor. He turns to the nearby Bones and orders them to the doors, summoning as many others as he can spare from the gates and Fields to help barricade the palace from the goddess.

"Hobi, you have to go, you have to help her," Yoongi sobs. "She's gonna...I can't, Hobi, please, you have to keep her safe."

"I have to keep you safe," Hoseok replies. He's got a vice grip around Yoongi's arm as he pulls him deeper into the palace, doing his level best to avoid any window or door to the outside. "That was the order she gave and that's the order I shall obey."

"How can you say that?! Don't you care that she could-"

"Of course I care!" Hoseok spits, rounding on the shorter god the second the words leave his lips. "Do you think this is easy for me, Yoongi? Do you think I enjoy choosing between the two of you like this? Because I don't. I want nothing more than to be helping her right now, but I can't...I can't leave you alone here. It's too dangerous."

Hoseok isn't stupid; he knows exactly how he feels about you, and Yoongi, and he's not oblivious to the way the both of you look at him. Still, the two of you are powerful deities, worshipped and loved, feared and prayed to. He's just a guardian, content to sit in the background and watch for threats. Yes, he loves you, with every fiber of his immortal soul, but he also loves Yoongi, and he knows you love Yoongi, and you gave him an order.

"Hobi," Yoongi whispers, eyes wet and red and beautiful. "Hobi, please, you have to help her. She needs you. I can manage, I can hide, but she needs you. No one else can help her."

The fact that he's even considering this shows just how easy it is for Yoongi to manipulate him. Hoseok understands now, what you meant all that time ago. Yoongi's voice is rough and lingering and fearful but it carries so much hope that it digs into Hoseok's skin like a hook. He curses and bundles Yoongi into the corner.

"Stay hidden. Don't make a noise. You can't let her find you." Hoseok hesitates for a split second before pressing a quick kiss to Yoongi's forehead. "I will see you after this."

"I know."

It's never been harder for him to turn his back on someone, but Hoseok manages, with only one last look back before he takes to the air and surges forwards to where you stand, keeping Demeter back with every piece of your power.

Yoongi runs. He runs and runs and runs, the bare skin of his feet silent on the cool marble. The braziers have long since gone out, but he stopped needing them months ago. He knows where he is, even as he tucks himself into a small, nearly invisible niche in a corner. He hardly dares to breathe, too scared that the sound will alert his mother of his location. The palace is silent, not a single sound in the entire thing, and it's deafening in the aftermath of the rumbling screams that signaled your battle with her.

He isn't sure how he managed to convince Hoseok to leave him, whether it was the obvious love the god felt for you or the sheer desperation in his own eyes, but he could only pray the two of you made it out. As gods, you're all difficult to kill, but it's not impossible. Not for other deities.

Come out, little flower.

Yoongi stifles a whimper, panic coloring his vision white for a long while before he can breathe again. Memories flash behind his eyelids and he pried them open just to stare into the darkness.

You can't hide forever, little flower. You know that.

Her voice echoes against the marble. It makes her sound like she's everywhere and nowhere at once, able to find him even as he hides. He clenches his teeth and reminds himself that you and Hoseok are the only ones that know this palace better than him.

You're making me very angry, little flower. Why do you run? I only want the best for you, and you insist on causing such a fuss.

The sound of her sandals reaches him, reverberating off the walls and telling him that she's far too close. He slips silently out of the niche and pads across the floor on the balls of his feet. He doesn't make a sound, something he perfected in his time with her, and just as she slips around the corner, he's darting down another hallway.

Look at what you've done, little flower. All this mess, and for what? Do you like it when I'm angry? Do you enjoy this game of ours?

He slips into another hall just in time. Exhaustion has made him slow. The marble of the wall is cool against his heated skin, and he wonders where you are. Where Hoseok is. If you're alright or if you're laying in the Meadow, golden ocher pooling around you. The thought enrages him, and for the first time, he can feel power at his fingertips; real power, not the simple gardening magic she taught him as a child. He's ready to use it, he thinks. He's so tired of running, so tired of being afraid, and he's so fucking angry that the people he loves have had to fight his battles for him.

Found you, little flower.

Warmth circles his ankle and pulls before he can jerk away. Her nails are sharp than before, like sickles at the end of each long finger, and he scrabbles uselessly at the smooth stone floor. She's speaking but the sound of her voice - wind whispering through a field of wheat, a brook babbling in the summer - is drowned out by the blood pumping in his ears.

"No, I won't go back, you can't make me," He hisses, kicking at her hand with his free leg. He doesn't feel the cuts on his soles, doesn't register them at all until he sees the gold dropping onto the floor; the adrenaline masks the pain. She says something else and he stops kicking, though he doesn't know what she's said. He isn't listening, too busy thinking of a way out of this.

It comes to him, all at once, and he relaxes in her grip. His chest heaves in a sob, because he knows exactly what he has to do, and you will never forgive him for it.

"Alright," He says flatly. Demeter stops in her monologue. "I'll go with you. Just leave them alone." The smile that splits her face is more grotesque than any corpse he's seen in the Styx, but the way she releases his ankle is a blessing. He keeps himself hunched and downtrodden as he pushes himself up, into her waiting arms. The hug is bruising and brings vile to his throat, but it is necessary.

It's with a flash of green as he pulls away from her that he makes his move. The flower crown previously atop his head has morphed, grown into thick, thorny vines around her arms and keeping her in place.

Yoongi is gone before she can so much as screech, sprinting as fast he can through the halls to the one thing that can help him. He feels it when she rips through his flowers, his very soul shaking at the pain that rips through him, but he's determined. He's made good ground, he only had a little further to go.

The vibrant colors of the courtyard have never felt so welcome. He's halfway through, blossoms crushed under his feet as he tears through the carefully tended flowers, when she catches up. The blade of her scythe rips through his back, but the adrenaline masks the pain. He's bleeding, he knows, but he can't bring himself to focus on anything but the way the bark feels under his grip, branches reaching down to help him reach his goal.

She tears him out of the tree violently, no longer wearing the carefully sculpted mask of love. The scream that she unleashes when she sees him shakes the entire realm, soft pebbles falling from the ceiling of the cavern miles above his head, but he doesn't care.

The pomegranate is ripe against his tongue, juice tinting his lips pink, and the weight of it against his chest has never been more welcome. Demeter screams for what could be centuries, but Yoongi does not care, because he has won, and he has never tasted anything so sweet in his entire life.

"Come to bed," Hoseok pleads, not for the first time. You look at him with a sigh. His wings are gone, hidden away until he needs them again, and his arm is free of the bandages he's been wearing. It has taken so long for him to heal, and you still aren't sure he should be up and about. There's a small, barely perceptible scar along his forearm, the faintest reminder of what the two of you survived.

"I have to finish this before he returns, Hobi," You tell him, also not for the first time. Hoseok scoffs and comes around the desk to stand behind you, eyes roving over the documents in front of you.

"It's been over six months," He whispers in your ear. "Zeus has approved your expansion requests. I'm fine. You're fine. Yoongi will be back from Olympus soon."

"Hoseok," Your tone is warning despite the way he whispers your name. You deflate, falling back in your chair and letting him rub your shoulders. "I just miss him."

"I know. I do too." You're both quiet for a while. It has been six months since Demeter crashed into your world and rampaged through the Meadow to find Yoongi. You remember it so vividly, the way you struggled against the unbridled fury she had, the way Hoseok screamed as she broke his wing, the pain in your chest as you'd crawled to him and just held him in your arms until the Bones had made it to the two of you and carried him to the palace.

You had been, and still are, vastly proud of him and Yoongi for fighting back, but that didn't change the fact that they had both put themselves in immense danger by doing so. Even with the - admittedly brilliant, if stupid - plan that Yoongi had come up with, things never really worked out for you. Hoseok had been bedridden for weeks, unable to even more because of the pain in his wing. Hermes has helped with the healing process, which you were unendingly thankful for, but Yoongi had been carted off to Olympus almost immediately for negotiations.

Zeus, benevolent leader and incompetent moron that he is, had decided on a compromise: Yoongi would stay with you in the underworld after the harvest was finished, free to do whatever he liked, but until then he had to stay in Olympus. The letter had mentioned something about reparations to the mortals for the utterly obscene amount of crops they had lost - which was ridiculous really, they were doing their level best to kill the planet and you are gods, since when do gods pay reparations to mortals? - that Yoongi was required to use his abilities to help with.

You'd sent Hermes back with several colorful threats of what exactly would happen to the billions of dead you kept here should Yoongi return in any way other than utter perfection, and you've been anxious for days to find out whether you get to follow through on them. It only worsens when you remember that you have a decision to make when Yoongi returns. You remember the way he looked when he said he loved you, returning words you couldn't bring yourself to say, and you remember the elation and subsequent depression that came after the battle at the realization that you could have had him, were he not gone for half the year.

And yet you also distinctly remember the way Hoseok looked, wings splayed over several tables to hold them in place as they healed, vulnerable and shy as he told you that he was sorry for disobeying you. You won't ever forget his face as he explained, the way his lips formed around your name when he told you he couldn't beat to see you hurt, not after so many years spent loving you. The feel of his lips against your skin is like a phantom even now; Hoseok had waited until he was healed to do anything more than press chaste kisses against your knuckles, and even still you've not felt him the way you want, but it hasn't stopped him from trying.

"Come on, my lady," Hoseok says, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. "Just for a while." You grumble under your breath - you really do have work to finish before Yoongi arrives - but you allow Hoseok to pull you from your chair and lead you down the hall to your bedroom.

So lost in your own musings, you don't notice the figure lounging on your bed until he speaks.

"Six months and I don't get even so much as a hello?"

Your eyes shoot up and your breath hitches in your throat. Pale green robes lined in the most beautiful black and silver embroidery pool around him, matching the braided crown that rests atop his head. You didn't know flowers like that existed, let alone that they could look so wonderful on someone.

"I didn't know you were back," You breathe.

"That's the point of a surprise, my love," Hoseok says from behind you, hand tightening around yours. Guilt begins to grow in your chest and Yoongi tsks at you. He rises and comes to stand in front of you, brow furrowed.

"That's no way for a queen to look, is it? What has you thinking so hard?" His thumb smooths the space between your brows and you can't help the glance to Hoseok.

"I can't...I don't want to hurt you." Your voice is barely a whisper, and the familiar sting encircles your heart once more. You couldn't choose between the two of them, not if you tried, not even if it meant getting out of this place.

"You won't," Hoseok tells you with a familiar grin. "Yoongi and I have already talked about what we feel for each other, and for you. The only question now is if you'll have us. Both of us."

Months ago, you would have called them crazy and had them exiled for fear they'd gone mad. You never imagined you could have one of them, let alone both; you had been ready to tell them both that you had been mistaken because having one by your side while your heart still yearned for the other was far more cruel than anything you could put in the Fields of Punishment.

Now? Now you know what the Isles must feel like. It is Yoongi in front of you, thumb brushing lightly against your cheek while Hoseok's warmth is steady behind you, one arm encircling your waist and keeping you steady.

"Both of you?" You echo. Yoongi nods.

"You don't have to," Hoseok says from behind you. "But we know how you feel about us, and we're sure in how we feel for each other. There are stranger pairings in the world, aren't there?"

"Only one of you could be king." You aren't sure why you say that, can't remember why it even matters when Hoseok trails his lips over the shell of your ear.

"I never have looked good on a throne," He says. Yoongi's chest rumbles in a laugh, and you could cry at the sight of that familiar gummy smile.

"Please," Yoongi eventually says. "Please say yes." You search his eyes for any hint of indecision or regret, and when you find none, you turn to Hoseok. He has a soft, encouraging smile on his face, and he holds your crown in his free hand. The cool black metal is harsh against his tanned skin, but what draws your eye isn't the way the bones are fused together or the etchings of historical scenes across each. No, it's the soft pale green blossoms woven in among the metal, a stark contrast to the harshness of the bones, and the silver thread twined around all of it, dipping in and out in various places but clearly noticeable in the light. It's a perfect representation of the three of you and it makes your chest swell.

"Yes," You breathe. They don't move, and your eyes dart between them. "Yes, absolutely. I can think of nothing I have ever wanted more."

Yoongi surges forward, capturing you in a long-awaited kiss. His lips are soft as blossoms against yours, warm and gentle as the hands that cup your jaw and draw you closer. You're aware, distantly, of the soft clink of metal on stone as Hoseok sets your crown to the side, though his arm never leaves your waist.

Hours could have passed with Yoongi kissing you. You aren't sure. Time runs together and blends, a dizzying whirlwind of slow drags of his lips across yours followed by quick, messy bursts of his tongue. You can barely focus on what is happening, mind split between the absolute euphoria of kissing him and the heat that comes from Hoseok's fingers dancing along your waist and shoulders, his breath ghosting over your neck as he watches. When Yoongi finally detaches from your lips, he ducks down to suck at the exposed skin of your collarbone, and Hoseok turns your chin so you face him.

"May I, my lady?" He asks. His voice is rough and deeper than you're used to, affected by the sight of you and Yoongi. His fingers twine with the strings holding your robes together and you give him a nod. It doesn't even take a full breath before the black material is pooling at your feet. Hoseok stifles something that sounds suspiciously like a moan behind you, and you think Yoongi actually purrs. They both run their hands along your skin, basking in the goosebumps that they raise and the shivers that crawl up your spine.

"Absolutely ethereal," Yoongi mutters. You pull him into another kiss, one hand coming up to rest against his shoulder while your other tangles in Hoseok's hair where he's doing his level-best to leave his mark on your neck.

"Please," You murmur. "I want to make you happy."

"You've already done that, my queen," He says. His smile is soft and the glint in his eye is sharp. You huff a little and tap twice at Hoseok's neck; when he pulls away, pouting but compliant, you push Yoongi until he's falling back onto your bed. He goes with no objections, one hand twining his fingers with yours and you crawl up to straddle his hips. "Let me please you, my queen. I've been waiting six months to taste you, and I don't want to waste another moment if I don't have to."

Your breath hitches as Hoseok steps up behind you. The bare skin of his chest is a shock as it presses against your back, and he slides his hands along your sides before beginning to tease your nipples. You stifle the moan, emitting more of a whine than anything, and you think you nod. All you know is the heat between your legs and the knee-deep ache to make them happy.

Yoongi's between your legs in a flash. You can't be sure how exactly he moved so quickly without jostling you, but the thought is all but shoved out of your mind as he swipes his tongue against you for the first time. You're glad Hoseok is behind you because your legs are already trembling where they're curled under you and your head drops back to rest against his shoulder. As merciless as Hoseok is in his torment of your chest, Yoongi is doubly so.

You imagine a man starving and dehydrated in a desert wouldn't be this invested in a sudden banquet laid in front of him; Yoongi worships you, circling your clit several times before dipping down to dart teasingly in and out of your hole. He laps up every single drop of your arousal, dutiful in his mission even as Hoseok begins to whisper sweet nothings into your ear. The heat of his breath has you closer to the edge than you want to admit, but the sheer love that radiates from his words at the same time Yoongi rumbles out a heavenly moan straight into your folds, tongue buried inside of you, is what drives you over the edge.

You aren't surprised when neither of them stop; you get the sense Yoongi is thoroughly enjoying himself between your thighs, based on the growing tent in his robes. Hoseok grinds against your ass, and his own hardness presses against you with every painless thrust of his hips. A pang of guilt shoots through you and your hands drop. It's a bit of an awkward angle, but you make it work as you glide your hands over him. He's thick, that's for sure, and nearly as long as your forearm. How you're supposed to take that inside of you is anyone's guess, but as Yoongi brings you to yet another orgasm with his mouth, you realize that's exactly what they're preparing you for.

The whimper comes unbidden, walls clenching around nothing at the thought of them filling you, and they both shudder. "Please," You gasp, "Please, I need you. Both of you."

Yoongi graciously lets you rise off of him, and when you settle on your back, he sits up to smile at you. His lips and chin are absolutely coating in your slick, the sight erotic and exciting. The feeling is doubled as Hoseok grips Yoongi's chin, turning the mint-haired god to face him.

"How does she taste, my flower?" He purrs. You don't hear Yoongi's response, just the deep thrum of his voice, but you see the way Hoseok runs his thumb across Yoongi's lips, collecting your juices, before sliding it into his own mouth. You moan at the sight, Hoseok's eyes falling closed as he relishes in the taste of you. Yoongi strips out of his robes while he can, and he doesn't seem to miss the way your and Hoseok's eyes watch hungrily.

"Tell me what you want," Hoseok says, pulling you closer as Yoongi settles behind you. "We're here for you, my queen."

"I…" You falter. You aren't even sure what you want now; you've spent six months trying to figure out how to tell both of the men you love that you can't be with either of them and now you have both of them naked in your bed, waiting to please you. You can hardly think, can't focus beyond the feel of their skin against yours and the heat of their gaze, but you know one thing.

You need them to know how desperately you love them, and with the fire burning between your thighs, there is exactly one way you can do that.

"I need you inside me, Hobi," You tell him. "I need to feel you inside of me. Yoongi, too. Both of you." Hoseok's cock twitches and something in his jaw clicks. You don't wait for more of a response, choosing instead to slide across the sheets to straddle Hoseok's hips. His hands rest lightly on your hips, tentative now, and you smile at him. His hands are gentle now, soft as the smile he gives you in return. His cock is dripping and red, a warm heat in your palm as you guide him to your entrance.

The look in his eyes, the small moan he releases, the hitch in Yoongi's breath behind you as you slowly sink down onto Hoseok will forever be etched into your memory. You're so full that you could cry; he feels absolutely perfect inside of you, and it only gets better as he guides you carefully up and then back down onto him. Your moan is felt more than heard and it only gets louder as he speeds up. His fingers are marble against your his, unmoving and firm as he slides in and out. He doesn't look away for a second and neither do you; all the years you've spent thinking about him, the millennia you've ached to love and be loved by him, it has all led to this. Your hips moving against his, connected in a way you've never been before; if it were possible to read his thoughts, you think you could at this moment, because they must be a mirror of your own.

"I love you," You whisper. Yoongi's warmth presses against your spine as he slides a finger between the two of you to rub slow circles into your clit, and you gasp. "I love you, Hobi, so much." The words are a mantra on your lips, and you think there may be tears in his eyes but you can't be sure because you're coming again, shuddering on top of him, and Yoongi is gently pulling you off.

Hands turn you, and now it's Yoongi between your legs, cock red and throbbing where it sits against his stomach. He isn't as long as Hoseok, but he's wider, and you clench again at the sight.

Yoongi opens his mouth to say something, but you stop him with a soft kiss pressed against the corner of his mouth. You slide down onto him, welcoming the slight burn that comes with the stretch. It takes two breaths for you to become impatient and begin to move, grinding your hips down against his. Yoongi isn't as loud as Hoseok, soft pants and whines where Hobi is echoing moans and groans, but it's just as attractive. He moves his hips in tandem with yours, and the muses themselves couldn't have created a better rhythm. The words fall from your lips again; it's easier, now that you've said them to someone, to let them go. They don't ball in your throat, aren't a lump to swallow down anymore, and you revel in the feeling.

"I love you," Yoongi returns, thumbs ghosting over the skin of your thighs. "So much, both of you. Saved me, can't fucking...fuck, can't tell you enough." You nod and loose another moan when Hoseok slides a finger in alongside Yoongi's cock.

"Do you think she can take us both, my flower?" Hoseok asks. His voice is raspy in your ear and you shudder as you orgasm again. There's a moment when you wonder just how many times you can come from the two of them, but it's gone the second Yoongi speaks.

"I think she could," Yoongi responds. "She's certainly wet enough. Absolutely soaked, aren't you, my queen? Do you want that? Both of us in here, filling you up?" He punctuates every word with another thrust of his hips and you nod. You don't think you've ever wanted anything more.

Hoseok is careful as he fingers you, working you open with one, then two, then three fingers as Yoongi slides in and out. You'd commend them both on their stamina if you could spare a single thought to anything but the feeling of them. Yoongi looks wrecked, covered in sweat with swollen lips, panting and desperate as he writhes beneath you.

When Hoseok finally decides you're ready, he slides his fingers out and asks you again if you're sure. You barely have the presence of mind to nod, too close to coming again, but it's enough for him. He slides in, and all three of you are moaning. You can't be sure what it feels like for them, but you're in absolute bliss. Hoseok peppers your shoulder with chaste kisses, murmuring encouragement as he sinks deeper inside. His cock drags against your walls and Yoongi's dick, and the thought makes you clench around them both. You're so full, you may explode, but it's perfection. When Hoseok bottoms out inside of you, you're all still for a while, just getting used to it.

"You're perfect," Hoseok whispers into your skin. "Both of you, you're both fucking perfect. Fuck, can I-?"

"Yes," You interrupt. You're already grinding down onto them, desperate for any kind of friction. "Please, Hobi." He grunts as he starts to move, and Yoongi does the same. They get a steady rhythm after a while, one sinking in as deep as he could get as the other drags outward, only to slam back in at the last second.

A sob builds in your throat, the sheer pleasure rolling through your body too much to handle as orgasm after orgasm slammed into you. There are hands everywhere, two on your hips keeping you steady, two roaming your body and teasing your nipples, on one Hoseok's neck to keep him close as another rests lightly against Yoongi's throat. You aren't sure which are yours, can't tell where you end and they begin, too fucked out to be able to think beyond the drag of their cocks against your walls and the growing ache inside you.

"Please," You gasp. "Please, need it. Fill me, please, need you both to fill me, make me yours, forever. Mark me. I'm yours, always, please, fill me with you." They both groan at that, and their pace speeds up. They're hitting harder and deeper and brushing against the spot inside of you that makes your vision turn white. Something gushes down your thighs as you spasm around them wildly, hips jerking of their own accord, and you feel it as they come together, hot seed spilling inside of you as you ride out your highs together.

You're panting and sweaty and hot and still, you don't think you'd trade this for even a moment of sunlight. They slide out of you and their cum seeps down your legs before you can stop it. You fall to the bed beside Yoongi, chest heaving even as he wraps you in his arms. A wave of your hand creates a small fan near the bed, shadows churning out cool air that feels like ambrosia on your skin.

Hoseok reappears with water for you both, and you thank him. Your voice is nearly gone, but it's worth it, you think. You pat the space beside you and Hoseok climbs in. His skin is hot against yours; the three of you are essentially a furnace at the moment, but you can't bring yourself to care. You can't count how many orgasms you had or how long you spent with them; it could have been minutes or hours or even days. It doesn't matter to you, really. Sprawled between an already-sleeping Yoongi and a Hoseok that's tracing invisible designs onto your skin, you have everything you could ever want.

Later you sit atop the shadows near your bed, chin in your hand as you admire the card between your fingers. Yoongi and Hoseok are wrapped around each other in your bed, lightly snoring as the sheets rise and fall against their naked chests. As you watch them, Hoseok’s brow furrows and he lazily stretches his arm to pat against the bed in search of you. He snuffles a little, and Yoongi nuzzles deeper into the crook of his neck until they’re both quiet again.

Silver foil glints in the light and you look back at the card in your hand. There’s a stack a hundred high beside you, all of them identical to the next save for the curling letters that make up the recipients, but this one is special. This one is your favorite. If you didn’t absolutely have to send it off, you would frame it and hang it above your throne; ultimately, though, you’d rather bask in the aftermath that’s sure to come.

With a small smile, you set it atop the others and wrap the bit of twine around them all. It’s gone with a wave of your hand, no doubt appearing wherever Hermes is. You wish you could see the look on his face when he realizes what they are, but he’s not the one that you really wish you could watch.

The raspy call of your name brings you back to the present, and you look up to find Yoongi watching you, lids heavy with sleep and eyes dark. “What are you doing?” He asks.

“Nothing.” You grin and stand, letting the shadows underneath you fall away. “Just sending out a quick notice.” You slide in beside him and Hobi, the latter still asleep but turning to wrap his arms around you nonetheless. Yoongi presses kisses to your knuckles and you pull a stray flower petal from his hair.

“You’re gloating, aren’t you?” He mutters. There’s a smile behind his eyes, and it warms you.

“Maybe a bit.” You lean over and kiss him, gentle and tender and you hope that it conveys everything you can’t put into words. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

“No,” Yoongi answers after a long pause in which he moves to straddle Hoseok’s hips in order to get close enough to suck marks into your neck. His lips are slow against your skin, tired and lazy from sleep. “I think I enjoy this side of you, actually.” “I, for one, am very much enjoying this side of you.” You grin at Hoseok’s words, smiling down at him. He’s half-hard again, hands resting lightly on Yoongi’s hips and eyes fixed on the bruises that bloom on your neck. “I thought we were sleeping.”

“We were,” You tell him. “You can always go back to sleep if you want.”

“You wish,” He mutters. Yoongi groans against your neck and you look down to see Hoseok palming him, working him up to fullness as Yoongi fucks into his hand. You wrap one of your own around Hoseok and return the favor; the way his moan echoes through the room is better than anything the nine muses could have created.

It’s slow and tired, each of you already spent from your earlier activities, but when you eventually drop between them, chests heaving from your orgasms and already half-asleep again, you think it’s worth it.

When you wake later and find a card sitting on the flower-woven throne - a new addition to the hall, one most welcome - crumpled and half-torn with a thorn sticking out of it, you know it’s worth it.

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deadcatelog · 7 years

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chaha,, this is why i ended up crying on the sidewalk at 12am outside of a public event i’d brought a ticket for because i wanted....... i thought we both wanted to go........ she told me she was in the city then suddenly she says she realized she was actually in longisland and about 2hrs away from the city........ even when.

i thought were going to do something fun together again for once, since it’d been so long...... i sai d i wanted to go see it and she said she wanted to come and i told her where i was.. she has a car and i took the train which is a lot slower and; she never responded? we used to talk for hours.. then about an hour, or a little more than an hour away? maybe 2? from when the event was soupposed to start she told me she was hanging out in a lounge with some of her other friends. drinking and partying? i was nt mad she was enjoying herself but i was peevedshe didn’t even tell me she was back in the city.... even if that was the case that she ever wasn t omg... it wasso close to when the even was soupposed to start. there’s no cell service in the subway and my phone was abt to die. i texted her asking, i don’t remember? omething about the event.i think i told her i was an hr away from it and since we were both in different places and w diff. transportation situations... she took so long to respond... my phone was about to die.. im so fucking easy to fool lmao, i was curled up in the corner of a room after i finally walked in the event charging my phone for 2 hrs (the event was 3 hrs) waiting for anything... she always lets her phone die when shes out late at night. my phone was on 1% so i thought maybe hers was too so i stopped thinking about it and just sat at the bar and listened to the music. i think my last text to her was “are you coming?” i woke up in the middle of the day the next day and there was just still no response.. i should have expected this. she’s been so cold lately. she probably just realized what a fucking mess and a burden i was and that she didn’t have to do that once she saw how normal people acted towards each other. she probably didn’t want to deal with the stress......she was being nice about it and i was being an idiot. last time we hung out i pointed out that there was this function in manhattan while we were in queens after getting something to eat, we spent all day in queens until she led me into a dunking donut and sat down and we sat there for hours. she said she had to charge her phone. she had a portable charger. right before this she kept telling me how tired she was and how she wanted to go home and i protested but then i was like... ok thats fine ur tired lets go to ur car and i’ll see u off but she told me she’d parked really really far away.i didn’t mind, she was the last person whose company i enjoyed. i was so scared of the idea that she wanted nothing to do with me. we stayed in that fucking donut shop for hours. i was tired too so i got a double expresso so we could hang out like we’d sai we’d do.... like i’d traveled 2hrs for to do.... she didn’t even talk to me almost the entire time, she was jst staring at her phone. maybe complaining about how i wouldn’t take a hint. i don’t even know who those ppl r she never told me anything about them besides the fact that some of them were older than her and they went out drinking together often. she sounded like she really liked them. i didnt care that she had other friends whose company she enjoyed so much... it made me happy to see how well she was doing after hs. god im such a fool. i’m so fucking stupid im literally fucking retarded. she;d been acting weird and distant for months. i thought that was just what is was like watching your hs friends grow up when u two were in completel different situations but there were so many times where i’d toss all my plans to prepare to travel/hang out w her just to show up and suddenly she didn’t have the time bc she had something she had to do that ...just so happened to be starting like 10 minutes after i’d traveled all the way across manhattan to see her... im a fucking idiot. she probably decided she didn’t like me anymore a long time ago after nothaving to deal w me every day and was probably trying tolet me go easy by letting me chose not to make the same dumb decisions over and over but i was so desprate to hold onto her bc no one else talks to me. an y sane person wouldn’t have stood up for that... and some times i did say to her that what it wasn’t cool to call me over and say we should hang out only to tell me she’d have to bail for an interview or something she was scheduled for like a week b4 we met up or something. she never responded to those texts. i was so scared she would decide she was mad at me and done dealing with me so i never mentioned them again even though it fucking hurt. i felt like a toy being tugged around when she got bored but immediately threw away when something else, something more important than leisure of course, came up. i dont know how to make friends. looking back on it, were we even really best friends like i thought? we were only friends for a year, maybe that wasn’t enough? i enjoyed her comapny... and S’s comapny, and sometimes A’s company so much... especilly when we were all thogether even if it was just in class. maybe im just being inconsiderate and i cant see why so im jumping to conclusions bcfrom my point of view i’m?? everything hurts again. im always the fucking dummy, the crazy psycho weirdo that even the nicest ppl could see needed to be put down before it hurt anyone or them. even someone as blind as me can see it in their fucking eyes. they get wide, they back up a bit or hunch their shoulders and stop talking and my fucking dumbass just walks forward and keeps running my dumb mouth bc all i think of it is ‘oh! what happened? they wont be able to hear me from that far away i’ll walk closer and keep taling’ ad now im just afucking angry loser screaming like a fucking toddler on the floor about how unfair the world is when the truth is nobody deserves to fucking have to deal with me. mr g was right to fucking hate my entitled guts. ms garia was right to fucking hate my guts too while putting on a huge fake grinthat i just saw as proof that what i thought she was probably thinking of me was just my outlandish brain trying to make me feel like the entire world was fucking against me when in reality that wasn;t the case when in reality that was the case because they have a fucking reason to be. even though i wasbeginning to ate my uncle for basically cornering me all the time and listing off all the ways he thought i was stupid and disgusting and a pain to have around wasn’t he fucking right? it i it cant just i cant just run around being offended by everyone in the world and giving them the silent treatment-- even if i thought i was giving them space,how could they fucking know??

there probably isnt a person on this planet that would feel sympathy for my fucks. ed up situation because they suddenly have to deal with treating this entitled stupid bitch super delicately least she hurt them. i don’t even know what i do to hurt them, but i do it anyways. im 100% sure that its just by being me. my mother always fucking screamed at me since i was little how much of a curse i was on her. i can’t imagine my brother came out of nowhere with what he was thinking when he stomped upstairs and choke slammed me against my fucking bed and screamed in my face while he shook me and stepped on my laptop after i took my food back. he called me ungrateful. he yelled it to me straight in my ear as if to force it into my head. i don’t even remember being ungrateful?? he talked about brining home food he let me eatallthe time like white astle but i thought i’d always expressed my gratitute but maybe i didn’t?? i don’t remember. i always felt like id din.

there’s a fucking REASON why EVERYONE i meet thinks im a fucking liar and more than worthy of their distain and being put in my place whether it meant i’d get my feelings or my fucking face hurt. everyone wants me to apologize to my brother. and my mother. everyone thinks im being an unreasonable cunt. EVERYONE in my family has shown distain or disapointment in me. it doesnteven fucking matter that i was ableto get into one of the best schools in the country. now i just get even more people outright avoiding me or confronting me bout how much of a fucking disgrace they think i am. my fucking exsistance is always a major fucking burden on everyone around me. it just keeps happening again and againandn again and i keep trying to change but the cycle never stops. it doesnt matter how good of a persn i run into, after having to deal w me for a few weeks they’ll start pushing me out of the way if im walking too slow or step on my toes or avoid me and talk about me behind my back. i can imagine it.... i’ve always told myself i was wrong and oerthinking myself but it always turns out to be true and its always worse than i imagned they’re always way more pissed off at me for my bullshit and that hurts more than any ~over anxious thinking~ i could tell myself. they dont deserve to have to deal with a fucking demon like me but im fucking human too and it hurts so fuking bad. i an see how much they hate me or are pissed to have to put up with me. my uncle told me a few weeks ago that he wish i knew how much he wanted to fucking hurt me when he came back to his apartment and saw the mess i made... i swear to god i was letting the fucking meat defrost... it was 1am bu i was up the entire time; i was making burgers. there were two and the first one was fucking raw and frozen on the inside despite deforsting it in the microwave. he asked me over and over again when school was starting again. i wanted to cry at how obvious it was he wanted me fucking out. i thought i just had bad luck witht my mom but that made me realize it wasn’t fucking bad luck it was all my own fault. probably from the very beginning. i couldn’t help that i didn’t want towash the dishes then and did eveything i ould to get out of it with her. i couldn’t help that even though i did wash the dishes and cleaned up after myself that i let everything aroun d me get so bad before i did something about it. back then i just didnt want to do it and i thought it was unfair that i was always the one to clean the dishes all the time while tony only had to tae out th e trash once a week or so. every time she told me to get off my ass and wash the dishes it was so fucking full it made me mad that i was cleaning up after everyone else. and every time i pointed that out of course both of them were aginst me. she and he told me in their own ways they bot h thought it was only fair.

that fucking bitch. she wasn’t even anywhere close to fucking proud when i got into columbia. her voice was flat the entire time, i tried to get her excited so hard. i knew she cared about money, i told her how much money a school like this could help me make and it was basically fucking radio scilence. and i wasn’t even anywhere comfortable, i was at this place in brooklyn (fucking brooklyn, fuck brooklyn) for this other girl i’d just become friends with (that’s a lie, i dont become friends w ppl idk how she just picked me up like a dog off the dtreet. she told me she liked to do that with people once)and this new teacher that got so pissed at me when i wandered off like i wasn’t fucking 30 days off from being 18 years instead of 8 years old... my heart was singing. i’d finally gotten into my dream school and she didn’t care, and then she didn’t care either. they were both probably so fucking annoyed it hurt ind ifferent ways i didnt want to talk about it anymore. i wanted to hug everyone around me, for the first time in so long i felt like my world lit up in a billion colors and i could finally be happy iforever but it was like... no one felt the same way. i get a bigger reaction from strangers who can briefly relate to me off of some superficial shit all the time than i did. i’d lost that feeling after that. it went from winning the lottery to just another academic achievement that nobody but me and a few other poor souls that probably had to feel obligated to say something nice even gave a shit about. those types, i cant even imagine im an entire person to them. i’m just some symbol of like... society as a whole not being... fucking i dont know,? even this sounds fucking arragont and hell coming out my my mouth nowthat i type it out... lmao mr. g just gave me this fucking look after the announcement took place for the rest of the year. i wanted him to acknowledge that he was wrong about me so bad, haha, that he was wrong to hate me but of course why would being the first student in the history of our shitty fucking school to even get in shitting distance of an ivy league mean anything to him? he probably figured i got in bc i was black, and poor and using that + lies to trick the adoffiers to let me in. ms garcia too. she would hardly speak to me after that. her eyes seemed to burn whenever i met them. i... never thought that they were wrong, i couldn’t shake the enthusiasim i’d lost inside of me after the other day. i( can’t imagine they thought i was anything less than absolutely coddled and spoiled athome while my entire family stroked my ego and did my every bidding since it would probably explain why i acted the way i did in class and schooli guess. fuck i cant even remember more than half the shit i did in hs.)but wasn’t going to just so happen to speak about how great if feels to know that i was probably going to be set for life, for a great fanatastic life, when they were alwyas just barely keeping their mouths shut from calling me a a fucking retarded entitled cunt every time i opened my mouth and it pissed them off.

god no wonder they hated me. im losing my train of thought. i hate myself. i hate myself so much. i don’t even know wit when im hurting other ppl andyeti was always this self righteous bastard who claimed i only cared about others bc i did community service (that no one ever saw since i didn’t do it in school.... so it would be easy to just think that im just a lyingbitch trying to get attention and shit i dont deserve.... like w this admission offer lol)

everyone whose nice to me eventually learns it was a fucking mistake.i seethe way people look at me so clearly now, but still its neveruntil its too late i still dont fucking know what i do to piss everyone around me off all the time. everyone i figured was pretty smart around me always tended to avoid me or get angry at me for no reaosn i could explain. lmao. andr saw it too, she couldn’t stand being around me after a certainpoint. i dont have friends. ive never had friends like everyone else had friends. just fucking sympathizers (”why do you even speak to her?” just someone looking out for someone they loved when i did some dumb shit to them) i wish i had a knife so i could slit my throat right here. maybe then someone will read it and understand that i dont mean it but onestly would they?? am i getting anything less than i fucking deserve?? it doesnt matter if i don’t like it, i’m always brining fucking painful unnecessary bullshit into people’s lifes and make even the kindest people want to fucking rip my guts out for it. there’s a noose tied up to my closet right now but i please just please don’t want to suffer anymore.i dont want toknow what its like to be homeless, but idid this to myself. i’ve always fucking did this to myself. all my shit is password protected. i want to see myself as a martyr so bad but a martyr wouldn’t try and force someone to read this shit and try and make them feel bad for shit they barely had anything to do with that im just trying to drag them into bc i want to feel good about myself, and they only was i an accomplish that is by making other people feel bad?? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

a few weeks ag i told myself i wouldn’t do it in my dorm because i didn’t want to make other people comfortable. i dont want anyone to come and see my body next to the fucking pigsty i always seem to create wherever i go. i dont want them to have to see my half naked body, but i didnt have any clean clothes. clothes... i jsut spent over 100 on some fucking jeans and a denim jaket bc i wanted it even though i can’t really afford it. me bac k on my bullshit again, of course.oh my god oh mygod. fucking hell god dammit. but isnt this nothing less than i desevre anyway? for making so many poor innocent people have to endure my fucking insane ly uncomfortable awkwardness and the natural hellfire that surrounds me and i was born with and burns everyone around me except for me. is it really so objectively terrible when they burn me back?? they don’t know that i dont have any idea what im doing. they dont know what goes on in my head. i learned to destroy my own feelingsand shut down my human reactions while i was livnngin that hell hole........the second hellhole i came from,theone here on earthnot the one ispwaned in lol.

i really dont even want to hink about the anger the peoplewhove trulygotten to know me will go through if i did die like this. everyone around them will be superifcially mourning and they wouldnt be able to say anything bad, haha~ about me because of the social pressure or w.e, they’dprobably feel terrible themselves because i know even thoughthey hate me and hurt me or want to hurt me or lie to me to hurt me or laugh ifthey make me flinch they’d probablyfeel bad about how glad they feel and should feel for having thishorriblehellcritter whipe herselfoff the face of the earth. and everyone elsewill think im pathetic, of course. so many people already know howpathetici am. theyll ust roll their eyes in annoyance and grumble how i did everything to deserve the shit i went through, and that it was pathetic how i canttake half the shiti dish out.then they;ll go on with their lives nd i’ll be dead and forgotten and the world can cheer silently that im finally gone.

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