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snowdice · 3 years

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 39]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Alright. Time to get a bit of studying done.

Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

“Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

“…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

“We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

“He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

“So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

“Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

“Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

“What?” asked Pat.

“Either I put on the wrong jewelry this morning… or my timepiece isn’t working.”

“Well, then I’m guessing we’re in the right place,” Janus said. He turned to Pat. “Your stuff still working?”

Pat brought up whatever device was on his hands. “Yeah,” he said, “and it looks like something is just starting.” Just as he said it, there was a violent crash of thunder.

“Well,” Janus said. “We should probably find the source and soon. Which way?”

Pat glanced around himself and then motioned with his wrist. Suddenly there was a 3D display of the church in front of them.

Janus could see immediately where the problem had to originate. There was a swirling mass of some sort of energy centered at the top of the bell tower of the church. As he watched, he saw the picture of the church glitch out a bit. He had a bad feeling about that.

“Is there something wrong with your display?” he asked, or more hoped.

Pat shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so…” The room seemed to shift suddenly underneath their feet. It felt a bit like time travel, but also wrong. The picture on the display flickered harder, part of the building fracturing and dissolving before appearing back in place. The room settled after a moment, but Janus’s stomach did not.

“Whatever is going on,” Janus said, “We need to stop it right now.”

Pat nodded. “The quickest way up would be that way,” Pat said pointing. The display closed as he did.

“Then, let’s go,” Janus said.

The world was eerily calm as they all started off in the direction Pat had pointed out. In fact, it was almost too quiet.

“Where’s the nearest window?” Janus asked when they came out on the second floor.

Pat glanced at his hand. “There should be a couple a few feet that way.” Janus nodded and left them standing there. When he glanced out of the first window he came to, it appeared to be night. Yet, when he walked to the next window, he saw daylight.

26606

“Time is fracturing,” Janus informed them. “We need to be careful.” This time distortion was much more intense than any of the other ones the agency had been tracking down over the last few months. It had also come on much faster. Usually there was some time between when the time distortion began and it started having extreme effects on the environment. He was suddenly very glad that he and Remus had not split up today. He was even glad for Pat’s company, no matter how aggravating he may be sometimes. Not to mention, he was glad for the man’s technology that seemed to circumvent whatever was blocking Janus and Remus’s timepieces.

He backed away from the windows and returned to the others.

“Whatever you do,” Janus said. “Don’t let anyone be in a room alone.”

“I know what time fractures are this time,” Pat promised.

“It was as much for the idiot as it was for you,” Janus said.

“You accidently bring a bubonic plague infested rat to 900BC one time and you never live it down.”

“I’d say I should put a leash on you, but you’d twist it into something disgusting.”

“Probably,” Remus agreed.

“Where next?” Janus asked, ignoring him.

“That way,” Pat said.

They walked together to the door he’d indicated. “Please don’t be bullshit,” Janus prayed. He opened the door and immediately got bowled over by a stream of salt water.

Chapter 19

Janus landed flat on his back, a wave of water splashing over him and then quickly retreating, but still leaving him absolutely drenched. He sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Don’t,” he warned, “say a word.”

Of course, he was with the two most impossible people in all of space and time, so neither of them headed him.

“I thought you said we were far from the ocean, Jan,” Pat said.

“Yeah, Janny,” Remus immediately jumped on board because he was an asshole. “I thought we were far from the ocean!”

“Maybe I’ll achieve my goal of finding the Flying Dutchman after all!”

“Ooo ghost pirates! I’ve never gotten to fight ghost pirates before. Any good with a sword Patty?”

“My friend has a sword and he let me use it before… but all I did was cut a hole in our couch, and then Lo was mad at us.”

“I mean… just pretend the pirates are a couch and we’ll be good!”

Janus slowly sat up. There was still water on the floor and every so often a wave would crash into the room as though the door frame signaled the edge of a beach. Pat reached down to offer him a hand up and Janus slapped it away.

“Rude!” Pat claimed, but his eyes were alight with mischief.

Janus shoved himself to his feet on his own power.

“You deserve it,” he hissed. “For all of this!” he waved his arms around.

“Water you talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You are on thin ice.”

He looked down at his feet with a contemplative expression. “Looks like water to me.”

“Arg!” Janus spat, throwing up his arms.

“I don’t sea why you’re screaming, Janus.”

“Yeah,” Remus contributed. “You seem overally emotional to me.”

“Yes, yes,” Pat replied. “Very em-ocean-al.”

“One may even say he’s pretty salty.”

“I know where you live, Remus,” Janus reminded.

“Alright, alright Remus, reel it in,” Pat said.

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but Janus cut him off. “Why don’t the two of you dedicate all of that brain power to figuring out how to cross the literal ocean in the next room,” Janus suggested hotly.

And it was a literal ocean. If one ignored where they were and the fact that there was a staircase climbing out of said ocean about 80 or so meters away. There was sand being washed up across the door frame and a seagull flying in the distance. At least it looked like a nice day in the room with the way the sun was glinting off the water. At least it wasn’t storming there. Yet.

Janus’s head throbbed with the thought of what had to be happening with the time distortion to plop a piece of the ocean into one single room in a church. Usually they’d be calling the TPI for backup or at least for information, but that was a loss. Even if they tried to get out of range of whatever was disrupting their timepieces, time was so unstable, they’d very possibly get dumped somewhere dangerous. It was better to just get to the time distortion as quickly as possible and stop it.

“Hmm,” Remus said. “I wonder how deep it is. Do you think there are man eating sharks in the water? Or giant jelly fish? Remember that one time I got stung by a jelly fish and almost died?”

“Yes,” Janus said, lips pursed, “and it was entirely your fault.”

“I just looked so squishy!” he declared, “I didn’t know it was a murder blob.”

“I think I have a boat,” Pat said.

They both turned to him. “What?” Janus asked. He was looking at his hands and just hummed in response to Janus’s question. The next thing he knew, Pat made some motion with his hand and a yellow raft started to autofill from his palm. “...Why?” Janus asked.

“I… recently started carrying a wilderness survival pack in my time device.”

“I’m not going to question it. It’s better than swimming.” By the time the raft was completely deployed, they’d all been shoved into the walls by it.

“Huh, on second thought. I probably should have put the raft in the room before blowing it up.”

“You think?” asked Janus.

Pat glared at him over it. “I never really thought about how to open it in a narrow second floor corridor.”

“Just try to shove it through the door without popping it.”

“Why are you looking at me?!” asked Remus.

They managed to somehow squeeze the raft through the door into the other room after a few minutes.

Pat squinted at the tottering raft he was holding to the door frame. “After you,” he offered.

Janus glared at him.

“You’re already soaked!” Pat defended himself.

Janus sighed and very carefully climbed into the raft. It tottered dangerously, but he didn’t immediately fall out, so that was a plus. The other two of them slowly also climbed onto the raft with him. They then sat in it for a few seconds. “Is there an oar?” Janus asked.

“Oh right!” Pat did something else with the device in his hands and an oar slowly unfolded from his hand.

“Seriously, I want one of those,” Remus said.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Janus said, snatching the oar. The staircase luckily wasn’t too far away. They probably could have swam it if necessary, but the raft gave them some modicum of protection. Everything seemed to be going in their favor, which of course meant everything was about to go incredibly wrong.

They were about halfway across the water when the entire world around them rumbled.

“…I hope that was a giant jellyfish,” Remus said.

It was unfortunately not a jellyfish or any sea creature at all. The world around them fractured, the ocean seeming to split right down the middle so the water right of the staircase was 6 feet higher than on the left. The sky flashed red and yellow before the water split completely like Moses splitting the Red Sea.

There was a millisecond as the split widened until it was only a few feet from them, to decide whether when they landed they wanted to be on the side with the water or on the side without it. On one hand, going towards the side without water could mean they fell to their deaths or the water crashed back down on top of them when it settled. On the other hand, if the fissure was closing or shifting to a new area, it was very possible that they’d end up trapped in the middle off the ocean with no connection to the church.

Well, the best chance to actually get to where they were going was probably the side without water. It seemed everyone had the same idea at once because as he grabbed for both of them, they both grabbed for him and they all went tumbling off the raft into what could have very well been a bottomless pit.

Janus learned after a couple of seconds of free fall, that it was definitely not a bottomless pit. He landed hard, flat on his back and saw stars. The next moment something landed on top of him, squeezing all of the air out of his lungs.

Something else fell half on top of his legs.

“Ow,” Pat said from near his ear.

“Yeah, well you’re the one on the top,” Janus groaned though his teeth.

“Wow, I never took you for a bottom, Janus,” Remus said from near his feet. Janus kicked up his legs into whatever part of him was on top of Janus and he gave an “oof.”

Pat snorted a bit and Janus glared at his… shoulder? He shifted around a bit so he was less thrown across Janus and more just on top of him. Janus blinked. There was a wooden ceiling above them, so that was a good sign, though there was also a giant dark hole of nothingness directly above them which was not as good.

Janus moved slightly. He could tell he was going to be bruised later, but he didn’t seem seriously injured. “We should,” he started, but was interrupted as the hole above them pulsated and dumped a bunch of sea water.

Pat shrieked as they were all drenched with the chilly water. Luckily, they seemed to be on higher ground because, while water kept pouring out of the hole, it drained away just as quickly instead of drowning them.

Water still hitting his back relentlessly, Pat peeled his head up to look Janus in the eyes. A giggle bubbled out of his mouth.

“It isn’t funny,” Janus informed him. Pat just giggled more, leaning his head against Janus’s chest and cackling.

Janus just rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, this is an entirely appropriate reaction. Thank you for your contribution to our very important mission.”

Pat seemed incapable of stopping laughing completely, but he did calm himself enough to peel himself off Janus’s chest and lean forward so their noses almost touched. “It’s hilarious and you know it,” he claimed.

“In what way is this ‘hilarious’?”

“In many waves,” was the joy filled answer.

“You’re horrible.”

Pat hummed. He hadn’t moved to get off of him even though they really should be moving in case something worse than water came through the hole in the ceiling. He hadn’t even moved his face away.

“No, no, you two just tell me when you’re done being gay for each other,” Remus interrupted. Janus was surprised to see he’d stood up at some point and was now hovering over them.

Janus flipped him off even while Pat laughed once again. Pat finally drew away and rolled off of him so Janus could sit up. Pretty much everything hurt when Janus moved, but he was able to stand up, so he was probably fine enough. “So,” he said looking around. “Where are we now?”

Chapter 20

Janus looked around himself while Pat booted up his map to try to figure out where they were. They were in a small room that may actually be considered a large landing as there were staircases on either side of it. The water that was still coming out of the ceiling was running down the staircase that led down from the room.

Something was stopping the water, creating a pool on the steps that was already about to overflow into the room. With the speed the water was flowing, they should have enough time before the room completely filled up with water and drowned them.

Janus wondered if they were in the church or not. It was not out of the question and there was church like décor around them, but who knew? He could feel a strange vibration in the ground and the one window in the room shone with green light.

“Hmm,” said Pat. “That looks not good.” He’d projected his map so they could all see everything.

The map itself was moving. Rooms were phasing in and out of focus and fracturing down the middle. One room was even spinning lazily around in circles. Janus could see the room they were in. It was connected to the bigger blob of rooms, and there was a black line connecting it to another room from the top which was obviously the hole spewing water at them.

“Well, at least the time distortion is still coming from the bell tower,” Remus said. Janus shot him an unamused glance. Said bell tower was currently upside down and shuddering as well as divided from any other room by at least two inches of empty space.

28842

“How are we supposed to get there?” asked Pat.

“We don’t,” Janus said. “It’s literally impossible.”

“There has to be some way,” Pat argued with a frown.

“If we try to use time travel, we’ll definitely get shredded by the warping time and space around it and walking there isn’t an option. There aren’t even any entrances!”

“Well, there were at one point.”

“Yeah, before,” he gestured wildly to the ceiling that was still pouring water into the room.

“So?” Pat asked.

“’So’?! What do you mean ‘so’?!”

Pat shrugged. “When one door closes, cut another one.”

Janus froze and looked at him for a long moment. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

Patton raised an eyebrow. “You.”

“I don’t think like that anymore.”

“Well then I guess we’ll die,” Pat said lightly. “Of course, that’ll make an even worse time loop considering I’ve met older versions of you.”

“Fuck,” Janus spat. “Fuck. Fine. Give me a minute to think. Not that I even know if we have a minute because,” he gestured once again to the room.

“Okay,” Janus said. “The room with the source of the time distortion is separated from us by a swirling pool of dark nothingness and there is no way to get to it. But, the only way we’re going to stop the distortion from ripping apart time and killing us as well as probably a bunch of other people is to get to it. That is an impossible situation. There is no solution. That door is closed to us. What other ways are there to look at it?” He looked at the visual representation of the rooms. One of them suddenly went spinning out and his eyes tracked it. We need to be in the same place as the source,” Janus said. “That is fact, but we don’t have to get to it.”

“Um, what do you mean?” Remus asked. Pat shushed him.

“If you want thing A and thing B to be in the same place, there’s more than one way to do it. If you can’t move thing A to thing B, you might be able to move thing B to thing A. Pat, you have a working time device. We can’t travel with it because that would kill us, but if we can make it do a stutter warp, it could draw the time distortion to it.”

“You…” Remus said. “Want to create another time distortion in hopes that the original time distortion will be pulled into this room?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sounds good to me!” Remus said.

He maybe had expected Pat to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved his hand to his wrist. There had been nothing there before, but when he touched down on his wrist with two fingers, there was suddenly a metal bound around it that Janus immediately recognized from the times he’d seen Pat’s timepiece before. How was it made invisible? He shook the thought off as Pat offered it up wordlessly. Janus took it and Pat leaned over his shoulder to look.

Despite the fact that the device looked nothing like his own, the interface was surprisingly convenient. “I assume you have safety setting to prevent a stutter warp,” Janus said. “How do I turn those off?”

Patton pointed at a gear icon on the screen. “You put it under your normal settings?” he asked.

“I have to put in my password or use my fingerprint!” Pat defended.

“It doesn’t matter right now.” He navigated through the settings. He was interested to see that there were many different saved default security settings, but he didn’t get much of a chance to read what all they did. He just turned them all off.” It popped up with a message to put in the password and Pat pressed his fingertip to it. Another message popped up warning them that turning off these settings could cause damage to the machinery, the person using it, and time itself. Janus pushed “okay.” A message popped up that asked “Continue” and Janus pressed “yes.” One last message popped up that said “Security functions disabled.” Janus pressed “okay.”

“Anything else I’d need to disable?”

“Nope,” Pat confirmed.

He navigated back to the main screen and then bought up the manual travel input screen. Yet another message warning him not to do this flashed and Janus once again ignored it. He copied the space time coordinates that the device said they were currently at and put it in the ‘travel to’ location. “Well,” he said. “Here it goes. Let it be known that if I die, it’s my own fault for allowing Remus into a church.”

“Really?” Remus said. “That’s what you’re choosing to be your last words?”

Janus just raised an eyebrow.

“Love you too Janus.”

Janus nodded and hovered his finger over the travel button. He quickly mashed his finger to the button 22 times.”

The device warmed in his hand enough that he almost dropped it. Time literally froze for a few breaths as whatever Deity that may or may not exist processed their stupidity.

Janus was not a scientist or technician, but he had a good idea of how badly they were fucking up right now. The timepiece was attempting to travel over and over again to the exact same place and time. This basically punched a small hole through time, that if left unfixed would grow and disrupt space time all around them. As it was, their current position, all gathered around it and staring at it while one of them had it literally in their hand, was perilous.

There was a rumble under their feet and the world tilted on it’s axis. The all went tumbling down in a pile of limbs to new floor of the room which had once been a wall.

Of course, this change of gravity caused the water that had been building up in the staircase to dump on top of them.

Janus would have cursed, but he was too busy being under the water. He maneuvered himself away from the other two flailing bodies and managed to shove his feet against the wall turned floor. His head popped above the water in time to see the ceiling, or well, it would be the opposite wall, rip in two and the other walls/floor/ceiling start to fold in.

“Give me a boost!” Pat called over the noise of water rushing and walls crunching.

“Give you a boost where?” Janus asked.

“Up!” Janus wasn’t sure if ‘up’ really existed right now, but he still nodded. The water was a few inches over his head, so he held his breath and interlaced his hands so Pat could put his foot in it. He was shoved down into the water, but it gave Pat enough leverage to shoot up out of the water. When Janus resurfaced, he saw that the man had grabbed ahold of the crumbling wall and was pulling himself up into what for all appearances seemed to be absolutely nothing.

It took a moment, but then Janus blinked, and he was suddenly in a new room entirely or perhaps it was the same room. He honestly didn’t know at this point. Remus was next to him. He couldn’t recall if he’d been there before the shift or not, but they were both treading water. Pat crashed into the water next to them. Janus’s wrist buzzed as his timepiece came back online. “Got it!” Pat declared when he resurfaced, holding a device up. It looked almost the same as the device they’d found in France, but this one was definitely different if it was able to cause that much chaos that quickly.

Janus looked around and pointed at what appeared to be a set of stairs. The three of them swam over and pulled themselves out of the water.

“Where are we?” Pat asked.

“Looks like a basement,” Remus replied. “A flooded basement.”

Janus pulled up his timepiece and pushed some buttons to stabilize Pat’s timepiece. It slowly stopped vibrating and cooled. “Here,” he said, handing it over to him. “I suggest you put the safeties back on now.”

Pat nodded and took it.

“We’re still in Cuba,” Remus informed them, looking at his own timepiece. “Same church too, but in the basement and… two and a half centuries later.”

“Remy is going to be pissed,” Janus said.

Remus shrugged. “He’s always pissed… at least at me.”

“Well,” said Pat, slipping his timepiece back onto his wrist. “Thanks for being willing to pool our resources.”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Stop.”

“Ah, mi sirenito-”

“I hate you.”

“-never.” He disappeared with a pop which was when Janus realized, he’d never handed over device that had caused the first time distortion.

“…You bastard!” he yelled at thin air as though the man could hear him.

“Well,” said Remus, “that mission went swimmingly.” Janus reached over and shoved him back into the water.

Chapter 21

“We should probably get out of here,” Janus said, very much not helping Remus out of the water. Remus pulled himself back up onto the staircase and shook like a dog. Janus crinkled his nose as water droplets hit him. They didn’t smell salty anymore, he noted. In fact, there was a broken pipe spewing out water on the other side of the room.

Janus and Remus cautiously snuck out of the church, not wanting to be seen and blamed for the flooded basement. They came out on a city street that was much different than the one they’d entered from.

They walked down the street a bit, Janus’s eyes scanning the buildings. His eyes caught on a sign and he tugged Remus towards it.

They entered the small paladare and the person delivering food to one of the tables blinked at them both. Right. They were in clothing from the 1700s and were soaking wet. He met eyes with the woman, challenging her to say something. She did not.

They found a seat at one of the tables.

“Ah…” the worker said, approaching them. “English?”

“Ron,” Janus said, “por favor.”

Remus turned and started ordering the both of them food in Spanish. Janus didn’t pay attention to what he did.

After his second shot of rum, Janus sighed and brought up his timepiece to ping the TPI. The reaction was almost instantaneous from their perspective. Remy all but kicked down the restaurant’s door and walked over to them. “How the fuck?”

“Ah, Remy,” Janus said calmly. “Have a seat. We’re waiting on our food.”

He did, but probably only because people were looking at them. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s been a long day,” Janus answered, “and I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, it certainly looks like you’re interested in the food,” Remy said, eyeing the empty shot glasses.

“Let’s just say, I’m glad Cuba started letting paladares legally serve liquor a few years ago.”

It’s clear that Remy wanted to ask them what had happened, but he also was cautious enough not to make a scene here and Janus wasn’t planning on getting up until he’d at least gotten his food. “Why are you soaked, by the way?”

“Turns out the ocean isn’t as far away as we thought,” Janus said.

“Also, a church basement is flooded,” Remus said.

“Fantastic,” Remy replied.

They sat there mostly in tense silence until their food came, and then Remus and Janus ate. Remy slapped down some pesos once they were done and then proceeded to all but physically drag them out of the restaurant.

They were led to an alley way and then through an old almost hidden door. Remy immediately rounded on them. “What the hell happened?” Remy asked.

“The time distortion caused level 5 time fractures in its vicinity, we almost drowned three times, and the worst person in the universe fucked me over again.”

“To be fair,” Remus said. “He did save our lives before that.”

“I saved our lives first,” Janus said. “I don’t have to be fair.”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Curl Up In A Ball And Perish. I’m sure we would have been fine without him.”

“Anyway,” Janus said to Remy. “If you want your lump of flesh, I suggest you take it now, because Khalid is going to murder me, and then fire me, and then rehire me so she can put me on desk duty and make me do paperwork until the end of time.”

#not writing #study break stories

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wulfies-corner · 7 years

Text

Bad Boy (High School AU)

Kwon Jiyong was the ultimate bad boy, the most popular kid in school, and a huge player. (Y/N), on the other hand, considered herself to be on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, unnoticeable. However, she remains oblivious to the fact that Jiyong only ever had his eyes on her.

How could you describe Kwon Jiyong?

He was everything. Jiyong was nothing short of a lion. He was a trendsetter. When Jiyong shaved the side of his head in the 9th grade, nearly everyone followed along in the weeks after. When he dyed his hair, you saw different people the very next day with equally crazy colours in their hair. When Jiyong started to wear black-rimmed work boots, everyone suddenly started wearing them too.

Jiyong was arguably the most popular guy in school, having his own set of blonde-hair-blue-eye groupies and everything in between. Everyone begged for invitations to his legendary parties, and everyone wanted to be his friend. Girls wanted to date him even though he was one of the biggest players anyone had ever seen. While you didn’t want to admit that you were one of those girls, you couldn't deny it, either.

Even if Kwon Jiyong was the epitome of a bad boy, you still loved him.

How could you describe yourself? You were nothing.

You were a mouse. You would never follow any trends, wearing only hugely baggy sweaters and straight cut jeans, sticking to wearing themed high top shoes since even before the 9th grade. You left your hair in its normal pixie cut when Jiyong set the hair trends, going against the sea of people that began to sport sickly yellows and too-bright pinks. You considered yourself to be the least popular girl in the whole school. Nobody invited you to parties, and nobody wanted to date you.

You were the epitome of a good girl, an antisocial nerd. Above all, you were completely oblivious to the fact that Jiyong only ever had his eyes on you.

“Hey (Y/N), are you going to prom?”

You snapped out of your thoughts. Sitting beside you was your best friend, Rhiannon. She was your complete opposite. Outgoing, beautiful, witty and confident. How she stayed your friend all the way from the 1st grade was a complete mystery to you. Rhiannon was the link that dragged you into Jiyong’s friend group when she and Daesung started dating in the 9th grade. Every year the two were voted ‘best couple’ in the yearbook, and for good reason. It was often that you felt sick from the amount of sugar the two projected when they were together.

While you considered Daesung and the others to be your friends, you were often too shy to talk to them on your own. There was also the added stress of Jiyong's apparent indifference toward you. You never outwardly pined for his attention, but you were still jealous of whoever happened to be on Jiyong's arm every week.

“I don’t know, honestly. I don’t see the point,” you reply, looking up at the board and continuing to copy down the note being written by the teacher, who was so absorbed in their work that they didn’t notice that you and Rhiannon had started talking.

“Of course there’s a point,” Rhiannon exclaimed. “Jiyong will be there!”

You sigh. “Why are you so obsessed with him?”

“I want you guys to date! It’s sooooo obvious that you still like him! Come on, please. For me?”

“You just want someone to double date with. It's no secret that both you and Daesung hate Taeyang’s girlfriend.” You roll your eyes.

Rhiannon nodded shamelessly. “That still doesn’t change the fact that you’ve had a crush on Jiyong since grade 7.”

“And that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a major player,” you protest. “If he actually did ask me out, we’d last less than a week before I’d catch him with Tanya or some other girl that's prettier than me.”

“Come oooooon, what makes you think that he’d do that to you?” Rhiannon whined. “He does it to everyone else. I’m no different, probably worth less than everyone he’s ever been with. I’ve never been invited to any parties, I haven’t even had a complete conversation him since we were paired together for the science fair in grade 9, and even then he was too busy scrolling through his phone to do any work!”

“(Y/N)...” She groaned. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. People change. Besides, you hate parties. You never let us invite you.”

“Ugh, just drop it, Rhiannon! Jiyong doesn’t like me, and you can’t convince me to do something stupid in front of him! Leave it!” You shout, causing everyone to turn and look at you, even the teacher. Rhiannon recoiled backwards in her chair, surprised at your outburst.

“Keep it down in here!” Your teacher scolded, turning back to the board once as you turned away from him. Tears welled up in your eyes from embarrassment and humiliation, something that would definitely turn Jiyong away. He only wanted confident girls.

Rhiannon remained silent for the rest of the period, and unbeknownst to you, she had a plan formulating in her head. She would tell Daesung about it at lunch.

~ “Look, Daesung, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think I need you,” Jiyong commented as they walked home from school, setting a quick pace in the hopes that the group of girls behind them would eventually stop following. Jiyong didn’t have time for them anymore. Any other day, Jiyong would have found it exhilarating to turn around and watch them fawn over the smallest smirk or wink, but all he wanted now was to fawn over the smallest smile from you.

“Yes, you do! (Y/N) doesn’t think she’s worth enough to even be friends with you. She has a confidence level below zero. What makes you think that she knows you like her? If anything, she’ll only think you’ll be there to play her without us to help you.”

Jiyong scoffed. “Nobody else has cared about that before.”

“There’s always a first for everything. Come on, Rhiannon’s in on this too. You can only do this if we help you.”

“I already told you, I don’t need it.”

“Sure you don’t. Fine, whatever, you can try to get her on your own, but don’t come crying to me when she thinks she’s not good enough for you and thinks you’re joking.”

“What makes you think she would think that?” “Ok,” Daesung started sarcastically, “you must really be naive. How often do you catch her looking at you to only have her turn away before you can smile at her? How often do you see her standing at her locker, waiting for you to walk by after school, only to run away before you can approach her? How often do you work up the courage to talk to her, but never do it because you're afraid of facing your first rejection?”

“All the time,” Jiyong answered with an exasperated sigh, opting to look at the pavement of the sidewalk instead of Daesung.

“See? Now, are you going to get in on this or not?” Daesung asked, pulling out his phone to text Rhiannon.

“Fine. What do you have in mind?”

~ The next morning when you arrived at school through the front doors, keeping your earbuds in as you walked to your locker. You hadn't slept well the night before, so you were not in the mood to listen to other people. You arrived at your locker, opening it up and collecting your English binder, stuffing it in your backpack as you nodded your head to GOT7. You were lost in your own little world until you closed your locker door, revealing Daesung and scaring the daylights out of you.

You yelped in surprise, eyes wide with shock. You paused your music and dropped your backpack, clutching the fabric of your sweater over your chest. Daesung only smiled charmingly at you in return, rubbing the back of his head bashfully.

“Morning, (Y/N),” he greeted, patting your shoulder. “I really got you there! I'm sorry.”

You sigh. “It's okay. If you're looking for Rhi, she won't be here til later.” You silently hoped he would leave you alone. After being scared like that, you didn’t exactly want to have any social interaction.

“I know, she texted me. I came to talk to you.”

“What? Why?” You ask, confused.

“Well, for one, we’re friends, so why wouldn't I want to talk to you, and second - I wanted to extend an invitation to Jiyong’s place tonight. His parents are away on another business trip for the weekend, so all of us are gonna order pizzas and maybe dance a bit to some good tunes, you know, just the seven of us, if you want. We’re not inviting Hana, so you don't have to worry about her.”

‘Of course, you wouldn't invite Tae’s girlfriend. I know that they're fighting,’ you mumble in your thoughts. You raised your eyebrows at him. “You really want me to come? To a party?”

Daesung shook his head. “It's not a party.”

“If it's not a party, then why are you asking me and not Jiyong?” You place your hands on your hips. Then again, you thought, maybe Daesung asking instead would be better, considering that Jiyong never looked your way.

Daesung paused. He thought for a moment. He didn't want you to think that Jiyong was avoiding you, he was just too shy to ask, which was an indeed surprising feat considering the image he put out.

“It doesn't matter. Just don't tell anyone else about it, okay? We don't want anyone else showing up.”

“Um… Okay?”

Daesung grinned toothily at you. “Okay, see you tonight!”

Daesung disappeared into the depths of the hall shortly after, leaving you to wallow in a confused haze. Shaking your head, you picked up your backpack and closed the door to your locker completely, walking back into the forum. There, you saw Jiyong, who was surrounded by a multitude of other girls. Jealousy welled up in your chest and you turned back around to take the long way to class instead.

As soon as you turned your back, you failed to notice Jiyong's gaze on you, trying to push back the crowd so he could run and catch up to your retreating form. But once again, you slipped through his fingers like fine sand.

After school, you walked home with Rhiannon, who was incredibly insistent that you dress up for the night at Jiyong's. She pushed past you and scrambled up to your room as soon as you unlocked the door.

“Don't you want to win him over with your stellar good looks?” Rhiannon asked excitedly as she rummaged through your closet. You sat on your bed helplessly, watching Rhiannon tear through your closet to try and find something that wasn't a black hoodie, which were most of the clothes you owned in general.

“Good looks?” You question. “Who do you think I am?”

“I think you're (Y/N),” she answered with a sly grin. “You're super adorable, you just need the right clothes.”

“Yeah, because the right clothes will fix my stomach pudge and huge thighs,” you counter sarcastically.

“Aw, come on!! You need to strut your stuff. Guys like thighs.” She finally pulled out a shirt from your closet. It was the loose fitting Reaper shirt you bought off the Blizzard store a while back. You loved Overwatch and had an impressive SR, at least for a Reaper main that was still in high school. You often thought about signing up for the Overwatch league, whenever it was supposed to come out. A lot of your Twitch followers insisted that you did.

The shirt had wide elbow length sleeves and the seams of the shirt were rippled. It was the perfect shirt for a slightly bigger girl like you, but you almost never wore it.

“What makes you think that Jiyong will even look at me, to begin with? I mean, what's the point of dressing up?”

“Oh believe me,” she started. “He’ll notice you. Ah, this is perfect!” Rhiannon exclaimed, tossing it to you. “Do you have any mini shorts?”

“Again. Who do you think I am?” You ask. Mini shorts? On your legs? Yeah right.

“Ugh, come on! You'll look so cute in them!” Rhiannon moved to the other side of the room to start digging in her purse.

‘Oh no,’ you thought. Soon enough, Rhiannon pulled out a pair of high-waisted dark blue mini shorts decorated with a multitude of gold coloured buttons. “Rhi, I can just wear jea-”

“Put these on! They're your size.” You reluctantly took the bottoms from her, slipping out of your school clothes and into the outfit Rhiannon put together for you. You inwardly cursed yourself for giving away your pant size the last time the two of you went shopping. Once you buttoned up the crotch of your pants, Rhiannon moved to fluff out your shirt with a grin.

“Are you sure this is necessary?” You ask when you looked into your full-length mirror. It had been so long since you had worn anything other than jeans and your black sweater. You looked at yourself and huffed, pulling the bottoms of your shorts down.

“Of course it is! Jiyong is going to realise how hot you are! Much more than the other girls. How do you feel?” Rhiannon countered your move by holding the upper hem of your shorts and pulling them back up to where they were supposed to sit.

You turned slightly to look at the curvature of your backside. You had to admit that wearing these clothes brought your spirits up. You actually did look cute in this outfit. “I feel… good.”

Rhiannon cheered. “Yes! Now, all we need is a touch of makeup-” she began to rummage through her purse again.

“Rhiannon, no.”

“Rhiannon yes!”

“Woah, our Jiyong is finally gonna get the girl~” Taeyang sang cheerfully as the four friends fawned over Jiyong. He stood by the mirror in his bathroom with a towel over his head, recently having washed the excess dye from his newly coloured hair.

“Shut up, Youngbae,” Jiyong muttered, vigorously drying his hair.

“Why should he? I mean, you're going to so many lengths to impress her! (F/C) hair? Isn't that a bit obvious?” Seunghyun commented, leaning against the doorframe to the sizeable bathroom.

“Aw, give him a break. This is the first time he’s actually had to put in any effort to get the girl,” Seungri defended, crossing his arms. “He's never had to do any of the whole courting thing.”

“Not helping, Seungri,” Jiyong commented, removing the towel and taking up a brush to get the tangles out of his hair.

“I think this is good,” Taeyang added. “I mean, that girl is bright but completely oblivious to him. These hints might help her along, although…”

“I'm kind of concerned that she will think this is all a joke,” Daesung completed Taeyang’s thought. “I mean, is this really the best plan?”

“Doubting your dear beloved girlfriend, are you, Daesung?” Seunghyun asked with a smirk.

“No!” Daesung defended. “I don't doubt it, I'm just afraid that (Y/N) will take it the wrong way.”

“It's too late to change any of it now,” Taeyang said, pointing at Daesung’s phone as it lit up with a text from Rhiannon. “They're on their way here.”

Jiyong sighed, exasperated. “Then all of you need to scram! Get the door when they show.”

“Did you remember to get cranberry juice? Rhiannon says it’s (Y/N)’s favourite,” Daesung asked.

“Yes, I got the juice, I got her favourite chips and the tulips are in a vase in the kitchen. Don't worry, guys. I've got this,” Jiyong reassured.

You muttered to yourself nervously and picked at the cuticle of your left thumb as you and Rhiannon approached Jiyong's house. It was maybe twice the size of your place at least, and you could definitely see his parents’ wealth even more in his home than his extremely lavish clothes.

“Don't pick at your nails,” Rhiannon scolded as the two of you walked up the path to Jiyong’s front door. “You'll ruin your nail polish.”

“I didn't want to wear nail polish,” you protest.

“It completed your look! Come on, you've got to doll up at least a little bit.”

“But I still don't see the point! I mean, there’s a 95% chance that he will have another girl there with him. All I'll do is stand around saying nothing until you forget I'm here and then I'll just end up going home.”

“Then why did you agree to come?” Rhiannon asked, ringing the doorbell, you falling behind and standing at the steps to the porch.

“Because,” you sigh, “even if I'm jealous, I still want to see him and hope on that 5% chance that he will see me, just once.”

“They're here,” Taeyang called. Daesung and Seunghyun went to open the door, while Jiyong stood in the kitchen with Taeyang and Seungri, pacing.

“It's gonna be fine,” Seungri said. “You were fine 10 minutes ago.”

“I know, but… what if she never even looks at me? She never does anymore.”

Taeyang scoffed loudly. “Hah! Yeah right. She’s always looking at you. Ever since middle school. You've just been too busy holding up your rich and suave image to notice.”

“Don't put yourself in a bad mood. If I know anything about (N/N), she's going to need a lot of reassurance.” Seungri said, patting Jiyong on the shoulder.

Once you and Rhiannon were situated with the guys in a wonky circle on the floor in the living room, Seunghyun had already downed a beer. You sat next to Seungri and Taeyang with a cup of cranberry juice, surprised but happy that Jiyong had any of it in the first place.

“Let’s play a game!” Rhiannon exclaimed, pulling a metal water bottle from her purse. You eyed her with a curious look. That gesture could only mean trouble.

“What game?” Daesung asked. Rhiannon turned to him and whispered something in his ear. They both smiled slyly and Rhiannon placed the bottle in the middle of the circle.

“7 minutes in heaven.”

Everyone didn't seem opposed to the idea except for you. You looked over at Jiyong, who had surprisingly been quiet all night. He seemed nervous and was looking past you at the couch you were leaning against. It was a complete 180-degree turn to how you saw him act normally.

“7 minutes in heaven?” You exclaim. “That's something 7th graders play! Can’t we just watch Into the Badlands or something?”

“We can spice it up a bit, then,” Taeyang countered. He seemed adamant that you all played. “We’ll set up rules to make it less like the ‘7th grader’ version.” Everyone looked at you, even Jiyong. You sigh. “Come on, is that what you all really want to do?” You didn’t want to sound rude, but this wasn’t exactly something you were planning on doing tonight. Everyone nodded their heads at your question.

“What are the rules going to be?” Seunghyun asked.

“You spin the bottle like any other game. Whoever the bottle points to is who you have to spend the time with alone. You will be locked in Jiyong’s room for 1 hour. The lights need to at least be dark or dim, to set the mood. You have to talk, so no silence! You need to kiss at least once, you can do whatever your mind decides other than that. We’ll know if any of you lie about it.” Rhiannon explained with a suspicious smile. You narrowed your eyes at her. There was something going on behind the scenes.

“Ok everyone, hands on your knees, don’t move them,” Daesung said, looking at Rhiannon and waiting for the following nod. Everyone placed their hands on their knees. You did so reluctantly, remembering the chrome polish attached to your nails.

“JiJi, why don’t you go first~” Rhiannon called teasingly, jabbing his ribs with her elbow. You raised your eyebrows at them as Jiyong promptly spun the bottle. The bottle spun quickly past everyone a few times, and you noticed quickly that each time the bottle passed you, it would slow down a little bit.

You bit at your cheek and hoped nobody else realised that your nail polish was magnetic. You knew that Rhiannon had done your nails for a reason: it was to get you and Jiyong together alone. You didn’t know if you were angry or thankful of her creative and sly planning that most certainly involved Daesung at one point. Everyone’s eyes were on you in a knowing manner, making you even more nervous. You and Jiyong finally made complete eye contact when the nose of the bottle stopped at you. His eyes widened for a moment, but he relaxed again when Rhiannon whispered something in his ear.

“Whooo, (Y/N) and Jiyong are first!” Taeyang exclaimed. “Up you go! Go on!”

“I’ll go wait for you,” Jiyong finally spoke. “It’s the first room on the left up the stairs.” He then stood up and jogged into the kitchen.

You were still going through the process of shock, having figured out Rhiannon’s plot to either get you and Jiyong to hook up or to embarrass you in front of your friends, who you were already shy enough around. You only snapped out of it when Taeyang patted your shoulder.

“Go get him, tiger!” Seungri called with a grin.

You scanned the circle of you friends as you stood, silently absorbing their excited facial expressions when you stalked out of the room and started climbing up the stairs.

‘You'll pay for this eventually, Rhiannon.’

When you walked into Jiyong's room, you noticed that he wasn't there yet. You sighed dejectedly, guessing that you would have to spend the hour on your own. You took a seat on Jiyong’s bed, deciding that you would nap for the hour and just say that he bailed when everyone came upstairs later. You got comfortable, lying on your stomach with your cheek resting against one of Jiyong’s pillows, taking in his smell. The lavish comfort of the silk sheets was the last thing on your mind as you instead imagined waking up in this bed every morning next to Jiyong.

You jumped up into a sitting position when you heard the door close. In what little light was left, you saw Jiyong standing at the other side of the room, hiding something behind his back. You stared at him with wide eyes, your arms moving to sit in your lap.

“Were you going to just take a nap?” Jiyong asked, and you could hear a dejected tone in his voice. Boy, was he being dramatic.

“Um, no?” You tried to look at what Jiyong was hiding from you.

“That hurts, you know.” He commented. You raised your eyebrows at him.

‘That hurts? He should try loving someone that doesn’t notice him,’ your thoughts hiss.

Jiyong stepped forward when you didn’t respond aloud. “I like your outfit,” he complimented.

“You don’t need to compliment me, Jiyong. This is just some stupid game Rhiannon’s trying to play. You don’t have to go along with it. Just kiss me and we can do something else until time runs out.”

“I know what Rhiannon’s getting at. The magnetic nail polish was a nice touch,” he added, looking at your fingernails. “I want to compliment you. After all, I was the one that went along with the idea.”

That sentence shocked you to your core. Did he know about this all along? Was this some sort of joke? Tears welled up in your eyes.

“This is all some… late April fool’s day joke,” you mumble. “Why in the world would you want to participate in all that?”

“I think you know the reason. You just don’t want to believe it,” Jiyong countered. He moved from the entrance to his room toward you, bringing a bouquet of red tulips out from behind his back. They’re your favourite flowers. How did he know? Did Rhiannon tell him? You were speechless as you took the flowers. You had never seen Jiyong make gestures like that before in all the years you’ve known him.

“It took so long to finally get you to look at me. I figured out most of the things about you on my own, but I got some help from Rhiannon to get everything in place. I just didn’t know that she would lock us in my room.”

“Get me to look at you? Jiyong, I’ve been looking your way since middle school. It’s you that never looks at me. I was never good enough for you. What do you want? Am I the last girl you need to date before you say you’ve dated them all? Was it a dare?” You placed the flowers down gently on Jiyong’s night stand.

“What? No! (Y/N), I’ve liked you since Mrs Prentice made us sit together half way through grade 7.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him. “Then… then why did you put out this… fuckboy image? Why did you never talk to me?”

“Because I was afraid of getting rejected. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you have this… aura. The only person you’ll talk to without being forced is Rhiannon. If Rhiannon and Daesung were up here instead of us, would you have talked to me?” Jiyong asked.

“I.. I don’t know. At times, I think that you’ve forgotten that I exist. I was surprised that you knew anything about me at all. Cranberry juice and red tulips…”

“I also have ketchup chips in the kitchen,” he added.

“How do you know all this?” You wonder. Jiyong sat next to you on his bed.

“Well, I asked Rhiannon about your favourite flowers, but you always have a cup of cranberry juice when you stream, and often a bag of ketchup chips.”

“You… watch me stream?” You were taken aback. Your channel was quite small still, only getting about 30-40 people watching it each time you broadcast. You had one fan, by the username G_DRAGON88, that constantly talked to you and showed up for nearly every stream you did. They were pretty good and Lucio and Soldier 76, and participated in every fan custom match stream you set up on Saturdays. You considered them a good friend and told them a lot about yourself that you mostly kept in the back of your brain. It was also quite often when you would vent to them about Jiyong and how jealous you were of other girls, in the confidence that they were an anonymous person and would have no reason to spill your secrets.

“Yeah, I’m G_DRAGON88.”

Your eyes widened. You had been telling 95% of your secrets to your crush. He knew all about how much you liked him, your insecurities, everything. Nearly all your regular viewers ‘shipped’ you and G_DRAGON88 because of how close the two of you seemed.

“I feel like I’m going to pass out,” you mumble. Your body froze up, thinking about all the instant messages you sent to Jiyong thinking he was someone completely different. G_DRAGON88 was sweet and adoring. They gave you multitudes of advice, but you hardly ever followed through with any of it. They were half the reason you kept streaming at all, especially with how many chores you had to do at home. G_DRAGON88 never revealed their name or gender to you, and when you played viewer custom matches, they never joined the voice channels. Now you knew why.

“I'm sorry if it's a little shocking,” Jiyong sighed, smiling at you. “Please don't pass out.”

“I've been telling my crush everything,” you whisper to yourself.

“Hey, at least you're relatively innocent,” he reassured, placing his hand over yours.

You looked up at Jiyong. “Why do you like me in the first place? I mean, I'm completely different from all the other girls you've dated… here I am dressed in a friggin’ Reaper shirt and a pair of mini shorts that make my thunder thighs look even wo-”

Jiyong cut you off by pressing his lips to yours briefly.

“I like you because you're unique. You dress the way you want, you don't care about what other people think, and you're honestly quite funny. You're a bit shy, but I like that.”

You blush at his explanation. You could see the sweet side of him now that you knew. Anything he projected at school was completely different than he really was.

“I even think your thighs are perfect.” He commented, playfully resting his chin on your shoulder, donning a cheesy smile.

“So let me get this straight. You..” You point at Jiyong and then to yourself, “like me.”

Jiyong chuckled. “Yep, that's the gist of it.”

“And you've known that I've liked you for…”

“You told me two years ago after I started watching your twitch channel.”

“Holy crap…” You mumble. “Do you know how embarrassing that is?”

“A little bit, but you've got nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Less talking, more kissing!” You heard a voice shout from the other side of the door. Rhiannon was eavesdropping on you.

“Gimme a minute,” you growl to Jiyong, standing up as he nodded with a knowing grin. “RHIANNON!” You shout, hearing her squeal and scramble away from the door as you opened it and began to chase her. You caught her back in the living room where the rest of the guys were still talking, pinned her down and began to mercilessly tickle her.

“(Y/N)!! Stoooop!” She blurted out through pained laughs. “Help me, Daeeee!”

Seunghyun and Seungri were laughing hysterically as they watched you, and Daesung looked on, unsure of what to do.

“This was all you!!” You accused through Rhiannon’s laughter. “How long have you been planning this?!”

“Long enough for it to work!! Daeeee!!! Get her off meeeeeee!!”

Daesung at this point was inching away, fearful that your wrath would turn to him. The only reason you stopped was Jiyong’s hand on your shoulder.

“I think she at least deserves some credit, (Y/N)... I mean… she’s the reason this happened.” Finally releasing your onslaught, you gave Rhiannon enough time to catch her breath.

“You’re so hostile, (Y/N)! Torturing your best friend when she finally gets you together with your crush! Just in time for Prom, too.” She whined, wriggling out from underneath you and scrambling into Daesung’s arms.

“Alright, fine,” you concede. “Thank you, just… don’t ever do something like that to me again.”

~3 Years Later, At Blizzcon~

You laughed along with your viewers as you were invited by Rhiannon into a custom match. It was your turn to stream from the panel all the way at Blizzcon, trying to shake away your nerves for the upcoming Overwatch World Cup finals. Your team had worked incredibly hard to get to where you were, and your Twitch viewership has grown exponentially since you made it into the top 100.

Rhiannon was back home, and you had planned to do a joint stream with her. You accepted her request and turned your mic on, waiting to enter her custom match. The chatter around you created a different environment that you were used to, but it was still fun to look out on the crowd of people who were trying out all the different games. It still amazed you that you had gotten so far. You were finally a pro video game player, something you had dreamt of doing for a career since your mom bought you a Nintendo 64 when you were eight.

“2v4?” You ask curiously as you and Rhiannon were placed on the attacking side of Temple of Anubis, your favourite map. You selected Reaper (obviously) and went to head out of the spawn, but the doors were closed. On a skirmish?

“We have to wait, we’re still missing a few people,” Rhiannon explained, picking D.VA herself.

“Okay,” you sigh. For the next ten or so minutes, you waited in the spawn room with Rhiannon, spamming your emotes and voice lines at each other, trying your best to keep up with your quickfire viewers. Occasionally you would look down at your Overwatch chat feed to see if anyone else joined.

Mightypants has joined the match.

GDRAGON_88 has joined the match.

Jiyong? He told you that he was working today and would only be able to tune in on your final match later in the evening. You sigh as you notice that Rhiannon restarted the match, putting him on the opposite team. If he had time to play, why didn’t he tell you? You pushed it to the back of your head. No matter. If he had time now, you would cherish it.

Picking Reaper once more, you and Rhiannon were once again pitted only with each other against your friends and Jiyong. Everyone in your friend group had gotten into Overwatch at one point, playing quick matches with you and paying you in sweets to carry them through competitive.

Mightypants was Daesung, KillerPaint was Seunghyun and GoldHawk was Seungri. A few of your online friends, EpicSaxGuy and Seagull were also on the other team. Seagull was often mistaken for the pro player of the same name that you often played against, which made for some fun banter between your viewers. When you hit the tab button, you noticed that all of them had picked Symmetra except for Jiyong, who went with his usual pick of Soldier: 76.

Immediately you tried to run out of the spawn room, but Rhiannon was ahead of you, picking Mei and putting up her ice wall to block you.

“Okay,” you accuse, “what are you planning this time?” You weren’t going to let her beat around the bush if you could help it.

“Just wait a bit and find out,” was all Rhiannon told you, her voice in a playful tone. She sure had a way of dodging your suspicions. You tapped your foot impatiently against the floor, expressing your impatience to an increasingly curious audience.

“I know, guys,” you say into your mic, looking into the lens of your webcam. “It’s weird for me, too.”

When you were finally unleashed upon the map, you hurried along past the first point. Nobody was there. You turned around at the choke to look at Rhiannon’s Mei avatar.

“Teleport up onto the ledge on the left past the choke. Don’t fire at them.”

“Don’t fire? Who do you think I am?” You ask, to the delight of your viewers.

“Just do it!”

“Okay, guys, here we go, re-positioning,” you used Reaper’s teleport ability to get up on the sniping ledge, revealing five Symmetras surrounding a cluster of turrets in the shape of a heart. In the middle was a teleporter.

You raised an eyebrow at the sight, watching Jiyong’s Soldier: 76 come out of the teleporter. You used your ‘hello’ emote, silently watching the scene unfold in curiosity. Jiyong, in turn, used his ‘take a knee’ emote.

“Turn around,” Rhiannon called mischievously, failing to keep a long string of maniacal giggles in.

Your twitch chat lit up. “Turn around! Turn around!” Looking into the webcam feed on your stream, you noticed that someone had approached you, taking a knee once you spotted them. You swivelled your chair around, removing your headset and placing it over your shoulders. The whole area had gone at least a little bit quieter, and tears welled up in your eyes when you saw Jiyong, in the flesh, right in front of you. He was holding open a little box with a simple silver band with a small lapis lazuli embedded at the top.

“Will you marry me?”

Kwon Jiyong, the ultimate bad boy, who you thought would never even lay his eyes on you, was asking you to marry him. The bad boy who you had come to love even more than you thought you ever would, was asking you to marry him. Jiyong, who you saw grow into a sweet, caring man from a reckless playboy, wanted to share his life with you.

At Blizzcon.

Before you achieved your ultimate dream of competing. What else could you say?

“Yes!” You jumped up from your chair to hug Jiyong, barely letting him slip the ring onto your finger. Behind you, your stream was scrolling upwards faster than ever with a number of crazed responses. From your headphones were faint sounds of your friends cheering. From the gaming platform below you, a small crowd had gathered, surrounding your Overwatch team, clapping and letting out cheerful ‘whoops!’.

The moment you saw Jiyong, you knew that you wouldn’t lose the tournament. You were about to become the best Reaper in the world, and nothing was going to stop you with Jiyong at your side.

#g-dragon #g-dragon scenario #g-dragon x reader #reader insert #bigbang scenarios #fanfic #kwon jiyong x reader #bigbang

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snowdice · 3 years

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 42]

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Gotta finish my first draft of my research paper today, so let’s go!