#also *slaps top of post* I fit so many different AU's in here

[popularjust]

Remind me reddit

#REMIND ME REDDIT SERIES#

Let’s say while talking with said hermit, he hears those two words, So let’s say Grian heads to the Shopping District to meet up with a hermit unaware that Sam is nearby. Let’s also say Grian doesn’t see the message because he’s doing something like building and by the time he next looks at his communicator the chat message is long gone. Well let’s say Grian’s trauma from yhs made it so his fear response is faun.Īnd let’s say we have the plot of Sam somehow getting onto the Hermitcraft server. Faun is a fear response where in the person tries to appease the object of their fear, and it’s a common response for trauma victims. Faun however is a response not as known about. You’ve heard of the fight or flight responseīut have you heard of the other fear responses? Freeze and Faun, you’ve likely heard of freeze and it’s pretty self explanatory. There are also a lot of headcanons and stuff I could get into but those are the main ones you’ll see coming up! y'all remember 2016 YHS Wattpad where? Grian was almost NEVER relevent? like just there to be sassy and a target for Sam to kill because he liked taurtis or something? supposing he actually showed up at all in the fic smh grian into the grianverse hermitcraft s6 hermitcraft grian hermitcraft s7 watcher grian winged grian grian au hermitcraft au hermitcraft hermitblr mika-posts tw kov kov yhs and the universe shifts Some AUs switch it up a bit but that’s the “vanilla” version of it Grian being a run-away demigod of sorts with wings and admin abilities, and the like. Watcher!Grian, which gained traction MOSTLY from And The Universe Shifts I believe? Generally Watcher!Grian is universally just. (for reasons i’ve specified many times, most people aren’t comfortable with KOV and I am personally on the bandwagon of almost never mentioning Grian was in the series, ever) Evo, Watcher, “classic” aka Hermitcraft, YHS, and most of the time KOV. Into The Grianverse, of all the different versions of Grian ending up together in Hermitcraft. There are far to many Grian AUs to count but here’s a few: slaps roof- this bad boy can fit so much angst into it! Which is hella ironic to me at a YHS stan from 2016, when for the fandom Grian was a supporting character at best who usually was the first to die.

#REMIND ME REDDIT SERIES#

The starchild of Hermitcraft angst and fanfiction because of how many series he was in. There are… a LOT of AUs for Grian, he’s like. I give you two months, tops, before you end up caving and watching at least one other Hermit. Oh!! Congrats on being pulled into Hermitcraft!! I sold my soul to it in April.

#Remind me reddit

[rezdogsyonder]

Changing

Pairing: Peter Parker x Tall!Reader

Summary: Peter has found his soulmate but does she feel the same? Basically a soulmate au but different

Warnings: kidnapping, drugging,

A/N: Peter is aged up. Also I changed his powers just a tiny bit just one thing and the rest is the same.

This peice is unfinished and it will remain unfinished because I’m leaving tumblr and will not be returning. If you wish to continue this you may.

*********

Fuck. Not right now. Not today.

That’s all you can think as you’re nearly late for your first day as an photographer. It isn’t the first place you wanted to work for but you need the money. Well probably not a “real” photographer. You’re not hired for the job on a regular basis, but for their front page photos of Spider-Man. It’s cool, Spider-Man won’t let anybody else take his photos.

Well, it’s not really your first day but it’s the first day that Jameson is actually considering you as his official Spider-Man photographer. Before you usually would email him asking if he needed more photos and now he is finally now telling you that you’re going to be the official photographer for the weekly Spider-Man pieces.

You have started a blog for the hero and hopefully it will gain traction and maybe you’ll get to make an income from it. But for now you have to sell your photos to the Daily Bugle.

The rent is due Friday and you get a check from the gas station you work at that day, it won’t be enough to cover it though. But with a check after each batch of photos you provide will put you way over the green this pay day.

You’re rushing about your medium sized 1 room apartment. This place was a gem, the only reason this place was as cheap as a studio is because a billboard was directly across from the extremely large windows. Lighting up your entire apartment. It didn’t bother you much, it saved on electricity from never having to turn on the lights and all you needed was blackout curtains in your room.

You are not changing shirts but you squeeze into a pair of black pants. The grey boyfriend cardigan getting tucked in the back, but it doesn’t deter you from running to the bathroom and vigorously brushing your teeth. You’ll have to forgo the entire makeup routine but you have time for foundation and mascara.

Rushing back into your bedroom you pull a pair of socks from the top drawer of your dresser and look at your alarm clock. 9:42. 18minutes till you’re late. Well you know in Jameson’s eyes you are already late but he screams at you no matter what.

Your second shoe is tied, you got your purse and it has your wallet, phone, and keys already. You run out of your room and in the hallway of the complex. Fuck, locking these doors seems to be the longest part of leaving. 3 locks, self installed with the extra long screws. Never needed this much security before but some blind asshole next door seems to always be getting into fights. Like what the fuck, how hard is it to not fight someone, and then he leads them here.

Once the doors are locked and you’re out of the building you look at your phone. 9:44. 16 minutes to go around 2 miles. Well broadway cuts across, so probably less, but anyways you gotta run it. Now you’re not the most fit person, but you are able to push yourself more than what others would think you’d be able to.

Dodging people and avoiding running into the road, you make it to the first turn. Basically a straight shot now, but it seems as though people are wanting to be in your way today. You would love a bike right about now. Though you’d have a really high chance of getting hit by a car. But it’s right about the same risk since you are not stopping at the do not walk signs.

One car almost did hit you, but it braked in time but not without you slapping the hood as you went by. Not on purpose but from loss of balance. Well you probably would have slapped it anyways. Your face burns from the run, and the heat, it is the end of summer but it is still pretty hot out.

Oh god, this is awful, you’re just a more than halfway and you nearly ran into an old man and his wife outside of m&m world.

“Sorry!” You shout back but it’s not very loud and sounds winded. You won’t stop though.

Just a couple more turns. Just two more turns. Just one more. You keep telling yourself that you’re almost there, legs straining the muscles from the over exertion.

You get into the building and run to the elevator. You know you probably look unprofessional right about now but you don’t care. You just need to catch your breath.

You press the right floor and dig through your purse. The small mirror being a lifesaver as of recently, since being late is seeming to become a common ovccurance. You pat your forehead with the sleeve of your cardigan. You don’t look too bad, but not the best. You check the time, 9:58. Not bad, you’ll be just 1 minute early. The elevator ride giving you just enough time to breath properly.

The elevator doors open to the busy floor, and you go over to Jameson’s assistant, not even reaching her desk before she points her pen behind her to his office.

“L/N!” He immediately shouts, “Where are those photos?” He is still looking out the window behind his desk.

“Right here sir,” you pull the envelope out of your purse holding it out for him to take it. Which he does, ripping the lip of the envelope and begins examining your photos.”

“850. Tell Betty on your way out.” He plops you’re photos on his desk.

“850? That’s not my rate, there are 12 photos there.”

“These just aren’t worth your usual rate. 850.” He argues back, you’ve seen this before, had you been any smaller or even sitting he would have put his hands on his desk and leaned towards you to seem intimidating, but right now he looks like a child with his hands balled at his side.

“65 per photo or I go to The Post.” You won’t back down. That’s nearly a thousand, and you don’t want to let it go, even if it is less than 200 more than what he offered but you need it.

He stares at you, he’s turning red now in the ears. You collect your photos calling his bluff.

“Fine,” he grumbles, he presses a button on the small speaker on his desk, “Betty, write out a check for L/N for 975.” He released the button and you put the photos down. “Get out of here, she’ll call when we have another piece.”

“You’re a peach,” you smiled as you back out of his office. “Hey Betty, how’re you doing this week?”

“Just fine, but his wife wants me to control his anger as soon as his meds are sorted. Not looking forward to that.” She finishes filling out the check on her computor, and with one last click that is so familiar to you now, you know she printed it.

“Jesus, I do not want to be here for that.” You step back four steps to the printer and rip off the receipt at the bottom that she needs to keep and hand it to her. “Good luck, because you will need it. Thanks, see you next week!” You wave bye as the doors close.

Letting out a sigh of relief, and tucking your check into your wallet. You’re glad you won’t have to worry anymore. With this check you’ll have four or five hundred more than you’ll need for rent, meaning you won’t have to scrape by for grocerys.

You better hurry though, you have an hour till your next shift at the gas station and you still need a shower.

**********

The hours are going by slowly, with few customers to keep you distracted. Just 4 more hours and you get to call it a night. It has already been 6 hours since you clocked in and there had only been a handful of customers, making the day uncharacteristically slow.

Your phone begins vibrating on the small fridge below the counter, the shift managers name on the display screen. Seeing as there’s no customers you think it is fine to answer.

“Hello? Debby?” You greet subconciously.

“Y/N I have some bad news.” She pauses, “the person who is supposed to relieve you is refusing to come in. She quit.”

“What am I supposed to do? I’ve been here since 11:30, I don’t think it’s allowed for me to work past 1. Wasn’t her shift supposed to last till 8?”

“Yes I know but you are legally allowed to work till 4:30, and that is when I’ll take over because I cannot find another person to cover her shift. It’s only alright because I’m switching your shift tomorrow with Alex and you’ll have the day off to recuperate. Then it’s your usual day off the next so I think that’s enough time to get back to normal.”

“So I’m leaving at 4:30?” Disbelief evident in your voice.

“Yes, I’m sorry, I would get there now but John doesn’t come home until late tonight because he took the graveyard shift at his job and I can’t leave J.C. alone.”

“Yeah I understand, family comes first.”

“Thank you, you’re the best. See ya later.”

“Yeah, see you.”

You put down your phone and mentally prepare yourself for another 11 hours.

**********

Three red bulls, and a seasonal pumpkin spice coffee from the dispenser and it was almost midnight.

Many more customers has came in after the call, the universe seemingly wanting to tire you out further. Then it began slowing down again after 9. The time you were supposed to be going home if Patricia didn’t fucking refuse to come in.

It was about that time that a young man came in, wearing a dark suit but without the blazer. Sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Light brown hair and pale skin, he looked breathtaking. He quickly rounds to the back grabbing three of the big bottles of water.

“Just these for me...” he trails off as he sniffs, then he looks up and makes eye contact with you.

You two are staring at each other for a few seconds, his stare becoming unbearable and you look away.

“Ok sir... that’ll be 5.97.” You still feel his gaze. Refusing to look up, you bag his things. You hear his card slide through the machine.

“Thank you sir, have a nice night.”

“Yeah... you too.” And with that he was gone. Leaving you to think about this stranger for the rest of your shift.

**********

As promised, Debbie came at 4:30. You left to walk home. It was nice living basically across the street from your work. A short walk, but you still felt a sense of unease.

Looking all around you, you don’t spot any suspicious people. Not even one heading in the same direction as you. You let out a small sigh as you cross the road. But it does nothing to calm your nerves.

You’re trying not to seem panicked as you try to get through the door to your building but it might be obvious with how you’re shaking.

Past the door you let go if your breath that you didn’t know you were holding. Finally able to calm down. You walked to apartment, using the elevator instead of the stairs.

Once at your door your heart beat seems to have gone back to normal, but before you even put your key in the door you feel the hairs at the back of your neck stand up. You don’t know what it is, maybe it’s just a chill.

Unlocking all the locks you go inside, greeted by the bright pink fluorescent lights. You shut the door behind you and drop your bag on the floor. Too tired to care. Moving to go into your room, knowing that you’re not going to change into pajamas either.

Well probably take of the pants. Yeah, jeans are never comfy.

Shoes kicked off, pants off, bra off with some difficulty from your long sleeves, blankets pulled back and you’re ready for bed. You’re getting in when you hear a creek in the living room, but you don’t see anyone so it’s maybe the upstairs neighbours.

You turn around once more to lay down and you feel a pinprick at your neck. You slump over and you feel hands at your shoulders, picking you up in their arms.

Eyes won’t open, and you are quickly losing consciousness.

“Shh, you’re safe with me.”

*********

Your head is pounding, that’s what wakes you up. You still feel groggy and it makes your eyelids feel incredibly heavy. You want to sleep for more but your eyes keep fighting to open.

Once they do you are met with a room that is not your own. Everything is white, except the headboard which is a light grey, matching the bedside table. You look around, about 6 feet from the foot of the bad is a back door and there’s a bathroom to the left of the bed with the door wide open.

You run to the closed door, you grasp the handle but you get a head rush and are unable to turn the handle for a good 5 seconds. It’s no use though, the door was locked, and it doesn’t seem like a regular lock. It seems more advanced, it’s a regular handle but it’s warm, and doesn’t have any keyhole. It’s also not as big as a hotel handle, like the ones with the scanners. Irrelevant, but your mind is running a million miles an hour and you’re trying really hard to not panic.

You realize that you aren’t wearing your pants but a pair of sweats were at the edge of the king bed. You quickly pull them on. Your kidnapper has already seen your ass, but it’s a little bit comforting. Your bladder is full and it is more apparent now than a couple minutes ago.

They aren’t here yet, better be quick. You half jog into the bathroom it has a large sink and a nice looking shower, but you don’t want to use it due to there being no lock on the bathroom door and the shower door is glass. Not even one of those blurred glass doors, it is crystal clear.

You had already peed and we’re washing your hands when you hear a small beep and the locks opening. You’re drying your hands when you hear a knock at the door. You don’t answer.

Another knock, you stared at the door, a low sigh is heard and the door swings open.

It was the man from last night, except now he was covering his eyes with his hand.

“I swear I’m not looking but please come out right now.”

“... alright.” You’re voice is a little rough and just above a whisper.

“Thank you.” He turned around leaving the door open and you follow.

“Come with me.” he waves his hand over the lock and the beep is heard again.

He leads you through the door into a long hallway, when he turned to the left so did you. There’s no point in running when he would catch you in less than 2 seconds.

You pass by 4 doors, one on your left and three on your right. The fifth door on the right you entered and it was an office.

“Sit.” And you did, he sat behind the large desk and leaned forward with his elbows on it. “I need to tell you something that would be hard to hear. Hell, hard to believe, but just know that everything I’m telling you is true.”

You nodded when he paused and looked at you. You felt so out of place and uncomfortable. Heart beating so fast and hard, it feels as though it’s bursting out of your chest. Your hands slightly shaking and feet tapping where you sat on the edge of this obviously expensive chair.

“I’m going to be frank with you alright? You are my soulmate.”

You freeze, “wait... what?” You didnt believe it, he was right. He’s crazy. Soulmates were a rare thing in this world. How would he know? He only knew you for 5 seconds so why does he know? Why would he take you?

“We are soulmates. I felt it when I first met eyes with you, I know that you did too. I took you here because, to put it simply, you would be safe. There are many people after me and if they learned of your existsence they would find you and use you against me.”

“H-how do I know your not lying?” You stare at the lines in the wood of his desk, refusing to look up. When you look him in the eyes you feel the same pull that you did back at the gas station. You hear rustling and you glance up for just a second, then you look back when you realize it’s just his arm that he wants you to look at.

He begins rolling his sleeves like the way you saw last night. Or was it even still the next day? You don’t know. Not seeing any clock or any windows since you were at your home.

Beautiful lines are spread across his forearm and you realize it wasn’t there before. “Can you look at your arm?” His voice is gentle, like he’s trying to be comforting.

You stare at his arm as you pull your sleeve up, then you look down at a blank arm. You pull up your other sleeve just as roughly and see the same tattoo that he has. You touch it gently as though it’ll smear if you are as rough as you were two seconds ago.

“Mine showed up a little after I stepped out of that store. I guess you didn’t notice yours.” You rub at yours and it won’t come off, and the skin isn’t raised as though you have a regular tattoo.

“What does this mean?”

“This means that you are now mine.” You feel tears welling in your eyes.

“So I can’t go home?”

“No, and some things are going to change.” You look at him wide eyed, fearful for the changes that he has in mind.

“So I’m sure you have heard of the powered people of New York, and I am telling you that I am one of them. Not only that, but I am a member of the avengers.” He pauses, you feel his eyes on you and you can only assume he is trying to gauge your reaction. “But I didn’t achieve my abilities through government testing or anything of the sort. I was bit by a mutant spider and I gained the spiders abilities.”

“You’re... Spider-Man?”

“That’s right. Now that you’re here, I will have to give you the same abilities I have so that we will be on equal grounds.”

“How are you going to do that?” You look up at his face.

“I will bite you of course.”

#avengers #marvel #avengers fic #marvel fic #peter #peter parker #spiderman #soulmates #soulmate au #dark!peter #dark!peter parker #dark!peter x reader #dark fic #dark fandom #dark fanfiction

[wherevermyway]

bittersweet lullabies // binchan // oneshot // 16+

❄ part of yuki’s favourites! ❄

pairing: bang chan x seo changbin rating: mature! 16+ warnings/tags: angst, friends-to-enemies, enemies-to-lovers, symphony AU, implied sexual content (seriously, it’s barely even there and probably very easily missable), alcohol, referenced underage drinking, past seo changbin x jung wooyoung (ateez). word count: 15,000 also on AO3

originally posted: 07 february 2021

Several years ago, Bang Chan and Seo Changbin were best friends in middle school. They quickly became rivals in high school, starting not long after Changbin got the lead first chair for the viola section, something Chan had also been vying for. When Changbin became valedictorian, they got into a heated argument and Changbin swore he would never talk to Chan again.

After university, they both received offers to work in the same symphonic orchestra. When they run into each other for the first time in four years, conflicting emotions bloom, tensions arise, and it all comes to an apex when Changbin storms off into the Seattle rain, and Chan can’t let him go, not after the guilt he had after all of these years.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are  interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do  not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of  the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable,  please stop reading now.

“I earned this, Chan!” A voice shouted in a cold, empty hallway. “Do you understand how many sleepless nights I pulled to get here? The sacrifices I’ve made?” There was a loud clattering against metal lockers that echoed against the linoleum flooring and the bland drywall. Papers fell, scattering about the floor as the overhead lighting flickered, illuminating two young men dangerously close to one another.

A scoff came from the slightly taller, blonde man. “Do you think I didn’t work hard?” He slapped his hand against the metal locker behind the brunette man leaning up against them. “I tried so hard, had the same grades as you, the same SAT score, and yet you somehow got valedictorian? What’s your secret, Changbin?”

“Can you leave me alone, dude?” The smaller man gave the blonde a shove, and attempted to storm away, before he was tugged back by the wrist. “Come on, man, they could only pick one person for valedictorian. You still get a speech, now let me leave. I’ve got stuff to take care of.”

Chan, the blonde, shook his head, looking down to the floor. “You really think I only want a stupid fucking speech? I didn’t want to be salutatorian; I don’t want to play second fiddle to you for one more goddamned thing.” He looked back up to the brunette, Changbin, and his eyes were glistening and tinted red. “I just wanted this one thing, to be better than you at something for once. You got lead first chair for orchestra. You got lead tenor for All-State. You’ve always been better than me, and this just proves it and it hurts.”

The two of them exchanged a painful glance, but said nothing. Changbin tugged his arm away, glaring at the other man, pity hidden behind his stare. If this were some sort of coming-of-age, poorly-written Hollywood dramedy, this would be the part where they would make out against the lockers. He would ruffle his hands through Chan’s hair, tell him some cheesy line, like “fuck what everyone else thinks, I may be valedictorian, but you’re the top of the class in my heart”.

However, this was real life. Nothing worked like the movies.

“What’s done is done, Chan,” the brunette sighed, rubbing his wrist. “Grow up and get over it. I’m tired of doing this shit with you every time I earn something and you throw a fucking fit and get jealous.” Changbin turned away, stepping on some of the discarded papers as he quickly walked away, down the corridor. “Don’t ever talk to me again,” he shouted, his voice firm and bouncing against the hard surfaces, echoing loudly in the emptiness.

Chan shook his head and let a tear slide down his face. “I miss the old us.” He remorsefully whispered to himself, dropping to his knees and collecting up the papers he dropped when he shoved the younger man into the lockers. He missed his former best friend, lamenting over how much he let his competitive nature ruin their friendship, the only friendship that really mattered to him.

Four years after Chan and Changbin graduated high school, they still found themselves thinking about each other as they graduated from university. Changbin had somehow completed a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in four years during his time at Yale, and Chan finally got his coveted valedictorian title at Dartmouth. They may have hated each other, not speaking at all in four years, but they were polite enough to give each other half-hearted congratulatory messages on social media for university graduation.

Everyone did it, right? It was the thing to do for birthdays and graduations, like some unspoken rule. Perhaps it would bring them closer, start the path of building up the bridge back to friendship that they had burned years ago. It was unlikely, but he’d never know if he never tried.

Chan wondered how much Changbin had changed in the previous four years. He had typed up an apology that spanned several pages of text, had it saved in his message drafts for weeks, but never built up the courage to send it. The overwhelming guilt and shame for treating his former best friend so poorly would never allow him to send that message.

Changbin appeared to be happy for once, losing himself in his studies and performances, happy and in love with his fiancé Jung Wooyoung, a classmate of theirs that also ended up at Yale. Everything seemed to be going well for him; Changbin had just accepted a job with some renowned symphonic orchestra that he was moving cross-country for.

Perhaps they would never mend, and this was fate telling Chan to move on.

Changbin saw Chan’s polite “congrats, man” timeline post, and couldn’t help but scoff at how insincere it came off to him. He had stalked Chan’s profile for the entire four years they didn’t speak to each other, seeing some bad drunken frat party photos, reading interesting concepts he proposed about the transformational theories in music, and watched a couple of short-lived relationships bloom and subsequently fizzle out within only a couple of months. Chan was always chaotic, and Changbin kind of missed that unpredictable nature about him. Someday he’d reach out, he figured, but that day wasn’t today.

It had been a couple of months since graduation. Changbin had a stressful time planning a move cross-country that his now former fiancé didn’t support. Fuck it, he figured, a career with the symphonic orchestra in Seattle was worth it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, something that was incredibly selective, that he was invited to be a part of, and he deserved it. Wooyoung was halfway out of the door, anyway. They were always picture-perfect online, but Wooyoung stopped putting in any effort into the relationship well over a year ago, something about “focusing” on some technical project that he’d likely never complete.

Wooyoung never completed anything, and when Changbin broke off their engagement, the younger man simply shrugged it off.

It didn’t matter. Out with the old, in with the new. Whatever it took to convince Changbin to stay sane, to feel like he hadn’t wasted three years on someone not worth his time. He didn’t resent Wooyoung, but their relationship felt like it was lacking from beginning to end. Maybe he would find someone that would light a spark within him on the other side of the continent.

From the week he spent in Seattle during his interview and audition, Changbin deemed that Seattle was far superior to Connecticut, anyways: something about its dreamy, rainy, “chronically sipping lukewarm earl grey tea while listening to chill synthwave” vibe excited him. It was something completely different than what he was used to, and it was going to be drastically different than the uptight nature that the east coast gave off.

Connecticut was vivacissimo. Seattle was andante . It was time for something calming and slow paced for once in his life.

It only took Changbin an hour to bring in everything from his car and settle into his new apartment. The human resources team was kind enough to help him find a cozy, furnished apartment that was a short walk away from work. It was nestled in the bustling Capitol Hill neighbourhood, and he knew he was going to love sitting inside and watching people scurry about from his third-floor balcony. He had a few days to settle in before he would show up for orientation, and he couldn’t wait to explore the area.

For now, though, he would unpack a bit, then sleep. A week and a half of driving cross-country, while beautiful, was exhausting. Three thousand miles. Constant playlist shuffling. Talk radio while driving through Illinois and Wisconsin to hear asinine political commentary. Getting carsick and vomiting where I-90 met I-35 in Minnesota. Nearly breaking down close to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Almost hitting a coyote in Montana. Seeing the sunrise as he drove over a mountain pass as he approached the Idaho state border. The thrill of finally approaching Seattle and getting lost as he made a wrong turn, somehow ending up in Tacoma. It was an adventurous trip, but it sapped the life from him.

There was one thing, however, he could rely upon to restore his drained energy: his viola.

He took his prized, cherished viola out of its well-maintained case, running his thumb over the chip under his chin rest, and Changbin felt like he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. This viola got him through so many hard times in life, keeping him grounded and sane regardless of how hectic his schedule was from the last half of high school and all throughout university. If he was stressed, he would simply take the viola out of its case and let something flow from him.

As he brought the viola up to his chin, strategically placing his fingers at the end of his bow, he looked out the window taking in the view of the sunset, and aimlessly started playing something. It somehow slowly blended into his part from Lament, which was a duet that he and Chan had performed their junior year of high school.

Perhaps it was because Chan had been invading his thoughts lately, but his improvised practices always turned into Lament . It was a beautiful duet; they had won first place at the state competition for it, earning a perfect score, which was something that was incredibly rare; it helped them pad their resumes to get into Ivy League universities. They practiced for months, starting the summer before their junior year, because they wanted to actually take home an award for it. “We’ll show them,” Chan arrogantly smirked as he puffed out his chest. “We’re better than just some deeper violins stuck in the middle of the orchestra. That’ll teach them all for making fun of us.”

Changbin remembered being nervous about it. The sweat beading on his palms as they waited in the wings of the stage prior to their performance, the pounding of his heart against his ribcage, the sound of the blood rushing between his ears. He was so nervous that he would trip, or he would drop his viola, maybe that everything would go impossibly wrong. However, the minute he and Chan looked at each other as they prepared to start their duet, a sense of calm overtook him, and he lost himself within the music.

Somehow, they managed to make it through the entire performance without faltering. As soon as they were hidden behind the black curtains of the stage, Chan gave Changbin the closest, warmest hug he had ever received in his life.

“I told you we’d do it, man!” Chan excitedly whispered into Changbin’s ear. “You fucking killed it!”

“You did really well, too,” Changbin had shyly whispered back, offering a couple of nervous pats in between Chan’s shoulder blades. He remembered feeling lucky that the backstage area was so dark, because it was very obviously apparent that he was blushing.

He pulled himself from the memory, unable to finish playing his part from the duet, the notes sounding correct, yet feeling dissonant in his heart as he played. His shoulders drooped as he stared off into the skyscrapers far off in the distance. Sure, the relationship he had with Wooyoung was tumultuous, but Changbin wasn’t entirely innocent, either, often daydreaming about Chan during the most inopportune times.

When Wooyoung would dance his fingers against Changbin’s bare flesh in the darkness of their room, he was guilty of letting his mind wander to the what-ifs: what if Chan were there? Would Chan nip at Changbin’s neck with the same passion? How warm would Chan’s breath feel against his earlobe as his teeth dug into the tender flesh? Would he take Changbin in his arms and pepper his skin with soft kisses and haphazard ‘I love you’s as they tangled themselves up in each other?

It was insufferably suffocating, being weighed down by the ghosts of his past as he tried to move forward with his life.

For a long time, Changbin was infatuated with Chan. Starting in seventh grade, he wanted to spend time with only Chan; they would spend their weekends and summer vacations together, text each other until they fell asleep, and they were a part of all of the same extracurricular activities. To most people, all the way up until their junior year, they were essentially brothers that weren’t related by blood.

Nobody could have been closer than them.

One night, not long after they received the results that they had gotten a perfect score on their duet, Chan invited Changbin to a party at their friend’s house. Changbin, being the shy introvert that he was, would have said no otherwise, but he couldn’t bring himself to say no to Chan. There was nothing special or memorable about the house party itself, not until they both drunkenly stumbled into an empty bed together.

They had slept next to each other several times, but this was different. Changbin wrapped his arm around Chan’s chest, tucking his head underneath the elder’s chin, letting himself get lost in the warmth of their embrace. The alcohol convinced him it was a great time to be honest — perhaps a bit too honest.

“Chan,” Changbin had slurred out in a near-whisper. “Can I, uh, tell you something?”

“What’s up, dude?” Chan responded, sleepily rubbing his eyes.

Changbin took in a deep breath, and sat up, staring down at Chan in the dark. “I think…” his voice trailed off and he swallowed audibly, “I think I kinda like you?”

Chan just laughed, patting Changbin’s thigh. “I like you too, dude. It’s why we’re friends.”

“Nah,” the brunette huffed, smelling the stale, cheap beer on his breath and shuddering as he shook his head. “Not like that.”

“What do you mean, then?”

“Like,” a moment passed and Changbin recoiled into himself. “I like you, dude. I wanna take this to the next level. I dunno, man, this shit’s awkward and hard to admit.”

The two of them sat in silence for a while, until Chan sat up and leaned in close to Changbin. “Bin,” he sighed, firmly gripping his junior’s thigh, “I like you, too, but I don’t know. We could, like, seriously fuck up our friendship. I mean, you saw what Seonghwa did to Hongjoong when they went from friends to boyfriends.” He hiccupped and awkwardly chuckled to ease the tension blooming between them. “I don’t wanna ruin what we’ve got, since we’re basically brothers and shit.”

Changbin shook his head. It really was stupid, after all. The alcohol, however, gave him confidence that he didn’t ask for and didn’t need right now. He batted his eyelashes and brought his face in, up close to Chan. “Can I at least kiss you to see how it feels?”

Chan giggled, likely out of nervousness and drunkenness. “I mean, I don’t see why not. But neither you nor I have kissed anyone, ’s probably gonna be weird.”

“I don’t care.” The words left Changbin’s lips as he boldly reached up to Chan’s neck, pulling them closer to each other. It was awkward, painfully obvious that they really didn’t know what they were doing. Their lips were a little too dry for it to feel as magical as Changbin expected. Still, they continued; a tiny spark igniting between the two of them. It may have been awkward, but it didn’t feel wrong.

Chan brought his hand up to Changbin’s soft, brown hair, letting his fingers grip the strands gently. He brought his other hand up to the small of the brunette’s back, pulling him in. They couldn’t quite figure out which side their noses should be on, and when they opened their mouths to let their tongues adventure around, they clashed their teeth together one too many times, causing pain to echo throughout their heads.

Regardless of the awkward nature of their kiss, it was perfect for them. It felt like they kissed each other for hours, eventually rolling around the sheets, fingers skirting around on warm, flushed skin. Changbin didn’t even remember falling asleep, just the comfort of losing himself in Chan’s touch.

The next morning, however, was far from perfect. They were both grossly hungover, and Chan was oddly distant. “I dunno, dude,” he had sleepily grumbled, avoiding looking at Changbin at all, “I still don’t know if this is right.”

Chan was going to say more, but Changbin waved him off in a panic with feigned confidence. “Nah, dude, it was just us being drunk.” He let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry for being weird, I guess I was just a little too curious to have a kiss. Shame our first kisses were while we were drunk, huh?”

“Yeah,” Chan awkwardly smiled, “little weird, but whatever.”

Unsurprisingly, they started having problems not long after that. Chan had started getting irritated with Changbin putting more and more focus into his studies, starting to surpass him academically. Then, Changbin got first chair for the violas in orchestra. He beat out two seniors, and Chan was right behind him. Chan was always right behind him in everything. They were so close, they were like minor seconds in a chord: just two notes right next to each other that sounded uncomfortably dissonant when played together.

When Changbin got stressed, he focused. Conversely, when Chan stressed, he brooded.

“Come on, man,” Chan had whined right after practice one day, “you and I both got that perfect score on our duet. How’d you get lead first chair over me?”

The annoyance of Chan’s constant negative behaviour was draining on Changbin, causing the younger man to grow more and more irritated by the second. “I don’t fucking know, okay?” He snapped while opening his viola’s case. “Someone had to get it, and it was me. Stop taking out your shit on me, man, it’s exhausting.”

Chan frowned in response. “I’m not taking it out on you,” he huffed, “you’re just getting a lot of good shit lately, and it’s not fair.”

“You should have fucking tried harder, then!” Changbin shouted, taking a step towards Chan, clutching the neck of his viola tightly. “You know what’s not fair? What’s not fair is the fact that you’re being a broody sack of shit at me because you’re just not practicing as hard or studying as hard and that’s not my goddamned fault! You need to grow the fuck up, dude.”

Chan scowled and shoved Changbin back in anger, harder than he anticipated. He didn’t expect it to be such a rough shove, but Changbin didn’t always have a good sense of balance. The younger man tumbled backwards, and his viola hit the ground with a thud, a discordant twang coming from the delicate instrument and echoing throughout the room.

The silence that followed the scuffle was deafening. Chan tried to apologize, knowing just how important Changbin’s viola was to him, but he just incoherently sputtered and panicked. Changbin stared up at Chan in horror, blinking away tears that were budding up in his eyelids.

“How could you?”

It was the last thing that Changbin said to Chan for months.

The memories flooding up in Changbin’s head caused a gnawing pain to bloom within his stomach as he stared out the window, the sky now a deep shade of indigo. He sighed, then put his viola back into its case. He thought playing it would make him happy, more comfortable in his new apartment in a new town, but it just made him feel cold and alone. It felt like there was nothing but dissonant chords reverberating inside of him.

Changbin stared down at his viola, hesitating to close the case. The chip from the day it collided against the ground was still there, glaringly obvious as the memory burned itself into his head. He recalled that the musician that repaired his viola offered to fix it up, even though it was just a surface blemish and wouldn’t cause any musical problems. “No,” Changbin had told the man, “it’s right under the chin rest, so I’ll see it every time I go to play it. It’ll remind me to be more cautious.”

Cautious of his instrument, that’s probably what it sounded like to the musician. What Changbin really meant, however, was how he’d be cautious of letting anyone close to him in the future, no matter who it was.

Uncertainty rushed over him, but Changbin was certain of one thing: he needed to get Chan out of his head. Sooner, rather than later. He couldn’t afford to be distracted when he started with the symphony.

Maybe he’d be alone forever.

Monday came quickly, and Changbin was running early. He had left far too early, showing up nearly an hour before he needed to be at the practice hall. He shrugged the nervousness from his shoulders as he made his way to a nearby cafe to grab something caffeinated to help perk him up. Seven in the morning was far too early for his schedule after all of this time off from university.

It was a brief walk, maybe only a couple of minutes to the cafe down the street. Changbin opened the door, inanely scrolling through his emails as he walked through the front door and got in line. There was one email from the conductor, Lee Minho, sent out to everyone earlier that morning, welcoming the new members of the orchestra. Names, ages, instruments, and where they were from.

“What can I get for you?” The barista at the counter politely asked, causing Changbin to look up from his phone, his face flushing in embarrassment.

“Oh, sorry,” he whispered, locking his phone, sliding it into his pocket. “I’ll take a shot in the dark, medium, three shots, please.”

“Your name?”

“Changbin.” He was curious to see how terribly the barista would butcher his name as he tapped his card against the payment terminal. A minute later, he stepped off to the side, grabbing his phone to scroll through the email again. Since he was early, he might as well try and learn who was who and where they sat, what they played.

The wind and brass instruments were first. A new French horn player, a new trombonist, a new bassoonist, a new flautist. He was about to scroll through the percussion and string players when the second barista mumbled something that sounded kind of like his name. He walked up and grabbed the paper cup that was placed on the countertop, eyeing the scribble on the cup that barely resembled his name, rolling his eyes at the attempt.

Changbin took a cautious sip of the hot liquid as he made his way towards the front of the cafe, taking a seat at the window bar, placing his viola case down on the ground and his cup on the table, looking through his email. He didn’t care about the percussion section, but when he got to the strings, he perked up a bit. Two new violinists, two new violists, and a new cellist.

There was another new violist along with him, and Changbin bit his lip in excitement. He wondered who they were, where they were from. Then he saw the name, right under his. He stopped tapping his toes in excitement and his jaw dropped. If he was holding his coffee cup, he would have dropped it in shock.

Viola: Changbin S., 22, Connecticut. B.A., M.M., Music: Yale University.

Viola: Chan B., 23, New Hampshire. B.A., Music Performance: Dartmouth University.

“Holy shit,” Changbin whispered as all of the colour drained from his face. He had to have been hallucinating. There was no way that Chan was actually in Seattle. There had to have been another Chan from Dartmouth that was coming all the way here, right? That it wasn't just some crazy fever dream that Changbin was having?

He sat and stared at the email on his phone until the screen automatically turned off from inactivity. If Chan was seriously going to be in the symphonic orchestra with him, right next to him, what was he going to do? The two of them hadn't said anything more than polite passing phrases over their birthdays or for their graduations over social media, for fuck's sake. What the hell was going to happen when — no, if, it had to stay as an if — the two of them met?

The soft bell of the front door opening made Changbin shake his head, crashing back to reality. He turned his phone over, putting it down on the counter so he didn't have to look at it, and brought his cup back up to his lips. The coffee in the cup was nice, a bit more mellow and mild compared to the coffee he was used to on the east coast, like this was brewed with care and love, not in a hurry for someone just trying to get their fix.

“That's the third symphony,” a quiet voice came up behind Changbin, his ears twitching a bit as he heard something related to music. Perhaps this person was another musician, part of the orchestra? Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he turned his head over his shoulder and actually dropped his cup, spilling the warm liquid all over the table and into his lap. In a rush, he grabbed his phone as he stood and let out a crisp, sharp interjection.

As the coffee cooled in his lap and the barista from earlier approached him with a towel, his brain caught up to the realization that his former best friend-turned-rival, Chan, was right behind him. Before he could fully process what that meant, Changbin found himself madly dashing back to his apartment, phone in one hand, viola case in the other. Reality hit him in the face and burned as much as his scorched legs as he collided into the door of his apartment.

This wasn't a dream.

Changbin was thankful that he was always early to things. After rushing to apply some burn cream to his legs and change into a fresh outfit, he had somehow made it back to the concert hall with fifteen minutes to spare. He gripped the handle to his viola's case tightly, palms sweating as he tried so hard not to panic. Beyond the doors of the practice hall, he knew that Chan was going to be there. Nothing he did could prepare him for that, and he knew it.

He took in a deep breath, and let off a quick exhale as he pushed the door open. The crowd of other players was massive — there had to be nearly a hundred people crowded up in small circles. The newer people were very obvious, awkwardly off to the side in their respective sections. Some people were off in random seats, tuning their instruments. Then, in the middle of the room, he saw someone seated, alone, anxiously scrolling through his phone. It was the same brassy blonde that was in the cafe.

Chan.

Almost as if the energy in the room cooled as Changbin entered, Chan shifted in his seat and aimlessly scanned the room, looking at the other members, until his eyes landed on Changbin, and his lips parted. They stared at each other, seemingly like they were frozen in space and time, that there was no one else around. A conflicting rush of warmth, excitement, and terror washed over Changbin all at once as he stared at his former best friend.

Changbin shook his head, letting his eyes fall to the floor for a moment. “This is going to be fine,” he quietly reassured himself as he walked towards the middle of the room. “You two don't have to look at each other, speak to each other, just be civil. If you're lucky, you won't even have to interact much. Hopefully.”

That was a boldfaced lie, but it helped reassure Changbin in the slightest way possible.

“Hi,” Chan awkwardly whispered as Changbin got close. “Long time, no see, huh?”

He simply couldn't resist looking up at Chan and somehow wrinkling his face up into an uncomfortable grin. “Hi, Chan.” His tone was a bit cold, but what else could he do? They left each other on horrible terms, not even speaking to each other during their high school graduation ceremony. Changbin had given his valedictorian speech, and remembered Chan walking up to the podium, giving him a pitiful expression as they crossed paths.

“Looks like your assigned seat is right next to me.” There's a tapping noise as Chan's fingernail repeatedly strikes the plastic seat next to him. A large, black binder sat atop the chair, with "Changbin S., Viola’ emblazoned on the top of it in silver, serif lettering.

Fate was a cruel bastard.

Changbin stifled a sigh under his breath, placing his viola's case underneath the chair as he grabbed the binder. He sat down in his seat, pretending to rifle through the paperwork. There was simply no way that he could focus, knowing that Chan was right next to him. It was completely awkward and uncomfortable. Changbin could practically feel the warmth of the blonde sitting next to him, even though they were about a foot away from each other.

“We're gonna pretend like all that time together never happened, huh?” Chan's voice was cold, and he tsked as he brought his phone back up to his face. “I really thought four years would've changed you, Bin.”

Changbin slammed the binder shut and leaned into Chan's face. His eyes darted around, knowing that he was getting some strange glances from people that weren't preoccupied, but it didn't matter. “You're the one that refused to grow up and handle things responsibly like an adult. I don't want to hear another fucking passive aggressive word about this from you.” His tone was hushed, but venomous and seething. “You had all this time to apologize, but you never did. I sincerely hope we don't have to interact much, because this two year contract is going to be hell on me if you're here.”

Chan scoffed. “Whatever, dude,” he shook his head and looked back to his phone. “I just wanted to try and be civil, but if you wanna play that game, then you can. Go right ahead.”

This was outrageous. Changbin opened his mouth to say something, but a man with a calm demeanour walked into the room, his presence demanding attention from everyone as they scattered to their seats.

“Good morning, everyone,” his voice boomed throughout the corridor. It was soft, inviting. “Welcome to your first day of the season. If you would kindly find your seats, we'll get started in a few moments.”

Changbin awkwardly fumbled with his binder, resting it on the music stand in front of him, then bent down to pick up his viola's case. He undid the latches, and pulled out the instrument, his eyes fixated on that damned chip under the chin rest. Naturally, after he stared at the chip for longer than necessary, he lifted his eyes up to Chan, who was rubbing his bow against the brick of resin in his hand.

Chan was always delicate with his instrument. He put in so much love when he polished his viola prior to competitions and performances, always lovingly eyed the hairs of his bow as he carefully watched the resin coat each strand. Typically, he would hum some inane melody to himself as he got lost in the process, in the care of what he did.

Today, Chan wasn't humming.

It felt like the energy around him had gone from its usual bright cheerfulness, and turned into a dark, gloomy cloud.

“Please,” the instructor spoke yet again, looking up from his stack of paperwork on the podium, “if you haven't done so, begin tuning your instruments. Hopefully they're all tuned up, but I'm sure some of you have been slacking since we last practiced together, hmm?”

Changbin didn't need to tune his viola, since he tuned it last night in anticipation, but he went along and pretended to tune it with his plastic electric tuner. The light shone green as he kept strumming against the C string. Changbin tried to stare at the light, but he couldn't take his eyes off of Chan. While he wasn't humming, the elder still put in so much tender energy while he cared for his viola.

It had been all this time, but Changbin still felt his abdomen and chest light up with fire when he saw Chan, no matter how much it hurt. It was apparent that Changbin was still so madly in love with him, even after all of these years and all of the emotional torment they had put each other through.

This man was going to be the death of him.

The beginning of the first day with the symphony wasn't eventful. There were some warm-ups and some scales practice, but that was simply to get everyone prepared for the performance season. After all of that, the conductor, Minho, went through each section and asked the new members to introduce themselves. Percussion went first, then woodwinds, brass, strings. Second-to-last was the viola group, and Chan went first.

“Chan,” he said with a smile, his dimple prominently on display, “I'm 23, originally from New York, but I've been in New Hampshire for the past four years thanks to university. I recently graduated, with honours, top of my class, from the music performance faculty at Dartmouth. I hope we all get along well and you'll treat me kindly. Let's have a great season!” He sat down, and his smile faded as Changbin rose.

“Yeah, uh, hello,” Changbin awkwardly stuttered, folding his hands together behind his back. “I'm Changbin, 22, also originally from New York, but I've been in Connecticut for the last four years where I matriculated at Yale. I have a bachelor's and master's in music, specifically: music performance for viola and piano. I've been playing the viola for most of my life, and I hope I will serve everyone well here. Uh,” he paused, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. “Thanks.”

There were a couple of polite chuckles as Changbin sat down. Despite having a penchant for giving well-manicured speeches, he hated giving unprepared introductions. He felt tense enough already, knowing that Chan was right next to him, making him all the more uncomfortable.

The new violinists introduced themselves, and Minho clapped once. “Excellent,” he praised. “Now that introductions are out of the way, please split off into your respective subsections until I'm able to get to each individual group and assess your skills for placements. Those of you that have finished by your lunch break are welcome to leave, unless your principal seat deems otherwise.”

A couple of musicians groaned.

“It's nearly autumn,” Minho said with a soft smile as he adjusted his necktie, “you all know that placement seats, other than principal seats, aren't guaranteed.”

Changbin nervously swallowed. He knew that placements were, yet again, going to be a source of contention for both of them. Chan was top of his class at Dartmouth; Changbin was top of his class at Yale. Both of them were going to be a force to be reckoned with, especially up against other top-class talent.

This orchestra recorded for multiple high-budget films and would perform in the pits of renowned theatrical performances. There were just over a hundred seats in the orchestra, but thousands applied for open spots after contracts ended and spots opened up. It was nerve-wracking, and Changbin wasn't confident that he, for the first time since high school, would be placed in one of the first viola chairs.

“Hey,” a voice perked up as everyone started to shift around and break off into their own groups. “I'm Seungmin,” a young man stood in front of Chan and Changbin, probably about the same age as them. “I'm the principal chair for the viola section. Changbin and Chan, right?” Both of them silently nodded once in affirmation. “Nice, Ivy Leaguers like me. Cornell, graduated last year. Anyway, don't worry too much about placements. Not much you can do until you actually have to perform, and Minho is pretty great about making you feel comfortable if you're nervous. Why not come meet everyone in the section?”

There were polite greetings and less-formal introductions shared, a couple of people made jokes to ease the tension, as to be expected. Seungmin discussed the projected schedule for the season, going over some of the pieces that they would need to practice together and individually. They went over all of the general housekeeping, discussed the placement procedures, and that they were free to go after they were done, since there was no real point in sticking around for the rest of the day.

“Alright, well,” Seungmin stood up as his alarm went off, “lunch starts now, so I'm gonna head off. See ya in an hour; just meet up here and don't be late. For strings, the violin section goes first, then us.”

Changbin looked down to the floor, an uneasy pit growing in his stomach. Part of him knew he should stay and practice, just to get his mind in the right order, but he couldn't pull himself away from the fact that Chan was still there, right next to him.

“Get up,” Chan muttered, lightly tapping Changbin's chair with his foot, startling the brunette to attention. “Look, dude,” he tucked his hands into his pockets and huffed with discontent, “I know we haven't spoken in years, but there's some things I wanna talk to you about before we go in and compete against each other for yet another stupid thing. Come grab lunch with me, alright?”

“I'm not hungry.” Changbin's eyes darted to the side, furrowing his brows in frustration. He just wanted to focus on practicing his piece for placements; there was no time to worry about eating at a time like this.

“No,” an exasperated sigh came from Chan as he folded his arms and rolled his eyes. “You're just nervous and you don't wanna talk to me. Unless you've drastically changed, you do this shit before performances, too. Just come on, it's not gonna be that bad, I promise.”

Changbin wasn't sure why he agreed to this. The two of them sat at a table in the hipster pho shop next to the cafe, awkwardly poking at their warm bowls of noodles and broth as they sat in silence for at least a good five minutes. “So,” the younger man sighed, “what did you want to talk about?”

The blonde sucked his lips in between his teeth and chewed on them for a second before he set his chopsticks down into the bowl and looked up, meeting Changbin's gaze with a hint of nervousness behind his eyes. “Changbin,” he huffed, tilting his head to the side, “all those years ago, I was horrible to you.”

“I know.” The brunette abruptly cut him off, seething through his teeth while he sat back in his chair.

“Bin,” the older man shook his head, his eyes wincing with pain, “dude, I had this big ass draft saved in my messages that I wanted to send to you after we graduated.” He brought an elbow to the table and nestled his head into his palm. “For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to ever send it. I don't know why; it was probably out of embarrassment and cowardice. The way I treated you all that time, over some stupid competitive shit, I'm sorry, Changbin. Honestly, I'm so sorry.”

A tsk left Changbin's lips as he rolled his eyes away, looking at the wall to his side, just for a moment. He leaned in, pressing his arm into the table, mere inches away from Chan. “Yeah, you did a lot of shit, and yeah, I know you’re sorry or whatever. But you know what hurts me the most, Chan?”

Chan nervously swallowed and bit his lip.

“You did all of this shit to me after I kissed you. None of this started until then.” Changbin shook his head in disappointment. “I'm not upset about the way you reacted, not really, at least, but I am upset over the fact that you kissed me back so hard, like you actually wanted me as more than a friend. After all that, you started treating me so horribly, like you had to prove that you were better than me. Like our years of friendship suddenly didn’t matter anymore.”

“Changbin, I just couldn’t—” Chan started, but Changbin sat back and shook his head, speaking up and cutting off the blonde.

“You hurt me.” There were tears budding up in the brunette's eyes. “It's taken you four and a half years to apologize. Chan, I’ve waited for fucking years for this. I wish you would have sent me some bullshit, half-assed stupid text message apology that summer. It would have hurt less than this. All of this time, I thought you hated me. That my best friend wanted nothing to do with me. Nothing else hurts more than that, to have your favourite person in the entire world suddenly hate you, and it’s all because you thought he had feelings for you, too, but he just threw them back in your face and laughed at your pain.”

Changbin stood up and grabbed his phone from off of the table. “I'm not ready to forgive you, Chan. Not after all of this shit. So, please,” a couple of tears rolled down his face as he bit his bottom lip, “just respect me enough to leave me alone for a little while. I need to think about this, about us.”

He stormed off before Chan could attempt to stop him. An overwhelming fear of nervousness took over: partially due to the unsteady ground their relationship was on, and partially due to the fact that his placement exam was going to take place soon, and Changbin was nowhere near the right mental capacity for that.

“Shouldn’t have done this,” Changbin whispered to himself as he wiped the tears from his face, his footsteps hard and heavy against the concrete sidewalk. “Fuck you, Chan.”

“Capriccio,” Minho smiled, his face relaxed and expression warm. He held his clipboard in hand as Changbin eyed the sheets of music in front of him. “Composed by Vieuxtemps. I picked this as the sight reading for today’s placement exams.” The conductor was welcoming enough, but his calm demeanour didn’t ease the nervousness vibrating throughout Changbin’s body.

All those years ago, I was horrible to you. Chan’s apology still sounded so clear in his head, Changbin constantly replaying the memory unwillingly as the notes on the sheet music danced around, tangling itself up into an unintelligible mess.

“Changbin?”

I’m so sorry, Changbin. He was so angry: at Chan, at himself, at the fact that he ran away, that he couldn’t concentrate on the important task at hand in front of him.

“Hey,” Minho’s voice was layered with concern as it pulled Changbin from his thoughts. “Are you feeling alright? It’s just a standard placement exam, nothing to be too nervous over.”

Changbin stood in the empty office, viola carefully cradled in his hands as he blinked his way back into focus, the sheet music suddenly becoming clear and normal. “Sorry,” he shook his head, trying to rid Chan’s voice from the depths of his ears, “I guess I’m just nervous.” Capriccio. It was a piece Changbin had heard, but he had never played it before, as to be expected for sight reading, but the anxiousness in his stomach blossomed like a large black lily of doubt, poking its petals at his ribcage. “How long do I have to look at this?”

“I’ll give you two minutes to look over it,” Minho leaned against the back of his chair and rubbed his chin with his thumb. “Once you’re ready to start playing, I’ll take notes. We’ll do the scales exercise before that, as well as a piece of your choosing. Are you sure you’re ready, Changbin?”

“I’ll be fine,” Changbin huffed, trying to calm the nerves inside of him as he readied his viola. He had to be fine, he had to beat out Chan with this. “Let’s do the scales, then.”

Changbin kept telling himself that had to beat Chan, but he didn’t know exactly why.

“Hey, man!” Seungmin said with excitement as he patted Changbin on the back, right outside of the practice room. “How'd it go?”

Changbin groaned and rolled his eyes, gripping the neck of his viola a bit tighter. “It was alright,” he grumbled, walking to where his case laid on his chair. Chan had gone before him, and was deliberately looking away from Changbin as he approached. As soon as he started shuffling with his case, Chan got up with an exasperated sigh and walked away.

“Are you two,” Seungmin pressed, lowering his voice as he approached Changbin, “do you know each other or something? I'm getting some weird vibes from you both.”

The brunette gritted his teeth as his bottom eyelid twitched. “We were classmates, yeah,” he admits, “back in high school.”

“Oh! That's exciting!”

“No,” Changbin sighed, “I wish it was more interesting than that, but we stopped talking after we both got into different universities”. It wasn't a complete lie, yet it wasn't a complete truth, either. Changbin quickly weighed the options of being honest with Seungmin about how strained their relationship was, and chose to just fake it for the greater morale of the group. They were both too new to start something so petty so early on in the season.

Seungmin grinned as Changbin turned around. “Well, hey,” he bopped his head back and forth to the side, humming a bit, “it's kinda cool when you've got people that know each other and work well together in the same group. Maybe the violas will be a bit stronger this year.”

“We'll see,” Changbin said with a fake smile. Whether he was talking about the group or about his relationship with Chan was uncertain.

It was nearly a full day until placement results were revealed. Both Changbin and Chan got first chair, but they were at the bottom of five. What stung the most, however, was that Chan had beaten Changbin, likely due to nerves.

Changbin was at the bottom of something for the first time in his life, and he didn't know how to handle the whirlwind of emotions raging inside of him.

“Sorry,” Chan whispered as they both stared at the sheet. “At least we're both first chairs, not second, though, yeah?”

He shouldn't have been upset, because these were some of the best performers in the entire country, but Changbin was seething. Fists clenched, teeth gritting, and he was sweating with how infuriated he was at being in the bottom for the first time. Ever. Seos were never anything but first, and this was going to eat at him from the inside out for a long time, especially since he was beaten out by Chan of all people.

“Hey, guys,” Seungmin leaned up against the wall, causing them both to break their gaze at the sheet of paper for a moment. “Congratulations on getting first chairs during your first contract year. Not many people get that.”

Changbin didn't care if “many people” got first chair or not, he was still fixated on the fact that he got beaten out by Chan. He wanted the assistant principal seat, but wasn’t even remotely close to it. So, he determined he’d have to work harder, to set his eyes on the principal seat when placements opened. This step backwards could cost him that opportunity when it came up in the spring, and he hated it.

Chan elbowed Changbin in the side, causing the brunette to snap back to reality.

“What?” The younger man bit back, viscerally reacting as his eyes widened and he bared his teeth. He wanted so desperately to throw Chan up against the wall and yell at him for distracting him right before his placement exam, when he knew he should have just stayed back and practiced. Chan broke his routine and all Changbin could think about during the exam was how angry he was at his former best friend.

“Chill out,” Chan sighed, eyes widening for a brief moment in shock. “Seungmin just asked if the two of us had any plans after practice.”

Seungmin shook his head. “It's cool if you do,” he smiled awkwardly, sensing the tension blooming around them, “a bunch of us, including most of the newbies, are all going out to Vivace. It’s that little bar down the street. Could be a good chance for everyone to get to know each other a bit better. Seems like you two have a head start on that, but now it's time for us to get to know you.”

His voice was sickeningly optimistic. Changbin gritted his teeth together under pursed lips and was about to decline, until Chan spoke up for both of them. “Yeah,” he said in a fake pleasant voice, “Changbin and I are down for that.”

“Don't speak for me,” Changbin said through his teeth, but Chan turned to look at him and frowned.

“Team morale. Be a good player, dude.”

Brooding. Failure. Fucking failure.

Changbin never was one to brood, but he was never one to fail, either. Today was a day of firsts, none of them good. He frowned as he leaned over his glass of warmed cognac, staring down into it in disgust at his reflection. The entire group was bonding with each other, smiling and laughing without a care in the world, and he was being the awkward loner in the corner again, silent and reserved.

“That didn't seriously happen,” a young man with short platinum blonde hair drunkenly giggled. Felix, probably. That's the name that Changbin thought he heard him mention when they all introduced themselves. He was the new French horn player. “Hyunjin, dude, you've gotta stop it with picking up random people in clubs.”

“It's Cap Hill, baby,” the man with long, black hair half-heartedly whined, martini against his lips. Hyunjin. Second chair cellist. “Sometimes you see someone hot, and you just gotta take them home, y’know? Of course you don’t, you’re too prudish to get fucking laid.”

A laugh bubbled up from the group, but both Chan and Changbin were staying relatively quiet. “Hey,” Chan said in a low voice, leaning against the table that Changbin was resting his elbows on. “You should come participate with everyone.”

“Why?” Changbin rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Nobody here really cares about each other. It's all polite bullshit anyways.”

“Seriously, would you just fucking stop with this mopey shit, dude?” Chan tried to keep his voice down, setting his pint of stout on the table. “Come on, you're not a kid anymore.”

Changbin tilted his head back and sighed. “I never lose, man,” he brought his head back upright, staring down Chan as the alcohol loosened his lips. “You know I've never come in second, much less last, for anything. Let me just be down for once.”

As Chan opened his mouth to retort, another short, young man came up to the table. Jisung, the lead second chair violinist slammed his lager on the table with a wide grin. “What’s up, newbies? We're doing shots. Team bonding, yeah?”

Changbin's lip curled up in disgust, already annoyed by how chipper the other man was. “I don't do shots,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jisung dismissively waved his hand in the air and scoffed. “We get it, you’re pretentious and better than us or whatever. You're doing a shot with us anyways, a'ight? If you're drinking, it ain't optional.”

Seungmin, Felix, and a quiet brunette carried a few small glasses of amber liquid, setting the tiny shot glasses down on the table. “I don't know why you recommended Fireball for this, dude,” Hyunjin grumbled as he shook his head, taking a shot glass from the table and stepping right behind Jisung.

“It's good!” The smaller black-haired man shouted with a wide smile. “I've met nobody that doesn't like this stuff.”

“I hate it,” Changbin grumbled in protest, vaguely recalling memories of getting hammered on the foul liquid during a house party his sophomore year of college. A layer of regret gripped at his ribcage, thinking of the way Wooyoung’s boozy breath lingered on his lips as they made out on the patio of some stranger’s house. The regret clawed at him while he recalled how he looked up at the stars and wished that it was Chan there instead of Wooyoung. “I hate it a lot,” he repeated, unsure if he was still talking about the liquor or if he was talking about the memory creeping into his head.

His quip earned him a finger in the face from the loud young man, pulling him from his lamenting. “Not tonight, you don't. You can hate it after our fifth shot of it. Hate it tomorrow morning. Yeah?”

Everyone grabbed a shot glass, several reaching out in reluctance, and Seungmin puffed his chest out. “Alright,” he proudly said with a triumphant grin, holding his glass in the air, “we're gonna have a great year. Newbies and violists may be outcasts, but we're all a family. Yeah?”

The group let out an affirmative, albeit jumbled, noise.

“On three,” Jisung said with a smirk, then counted to three. All of the men lifted their glasses to their lips and chugged down the cloyingly sweet and uncomfortably spicy cinnamon-flavoured liquor.

“Oh, that's horrid,” Changbin shuddered, nearly dropping the shot glass as he recoiled. Chan nodded his head as he hissed, while Seungmin and Felix scrunched their faces in discomfort.

“You're disgusting, Ji. Let's get more!” The brunette from earlier perked up, the first time Changbin caught him speaking during the gathering. “It's not a good night unless someone pukes before we leave, yeah?”

Jisung slapped his hand on the table and collected the empty glasses from everyone. “Hell yeah, Jeongin, that's my dude!”

It wasn’t until the cool, late summer breeze hit Changbin as he stumbled outside that he realized that that fifth shot of Fireball that Jisung convinced everyone to take was, in fact, not a good idea. He groaned to himself as the cool air gradually revitalized him. “That shit was horrible.”

“Yeah,” Chan's aching voice slurred up from behind him. “You gonna be good getting home, Bin?”

Changbin wouldn't have responded if he was sober. He would have, and should have, just walked away, waved Chan off with an insincerely polite farewell, but the alcohol gave him a slight boost of confidence. He shrugged and sighed. “Probably. I live just down the street, uh,” he brought one hand to his temple as he blinked, eyeing his surroundings, eventually slinging his right arm up and pointed lazily towards the right, “that way. Somewhere.”

“You've never been a good drunk, have you?” Chan sighed, walking up to Changbin and interlocking his arm with the younger man’s, gently pulling him towards the direction he pointed in.

The brunette shook his head a few times and whined. “What're you doing?”

“Making sure you get home in one piece.”

“You dunno where I live, man.”

Chan tugged Changbin’s arm a bit and sighed. “You said this way, so I'm making sure you go that way. Besides, I live over here, too. It's on the way.”

“The Bushnell Apartments.”

The blonde stopped in his tracks and stared down at his drunken compatriot in shock. “How'd you know?”

“What?” The younger man lazily lifted his head up and knitted his brows together in confusion.

“That's where I live, dude.”

“No,” Changbin scoffed, “you big dummy, that's where I live.”

“Wait a minute,” Chan chuckled inwardly, “you live in the same complex as me?”

“Sounds like it, yeah,” Changbin nodded once, bringing his free arm up to rub the back of his neck, “third floor, room 325.”

“Holy shit. I'm in 324. I wondered who was playing music a few weeks ago when I was moving my stuff in.”

Changbin laughed nervously as the realization that Chan lived so close to him, not only in the same apartment complex, but right next door to him, slapped him in the face. “Fate's a real bastard, innit?”

“What?”

As much as Changbin wanted to say something, a look of discomfort quickly washed over his face. “Oh shit,” came out instead of the quip he was planning on, and he quickly, awkwardly dashed to the curb of the sidewalk, violently emptying the contents of his stomach all over the pavement instead.

A drunken laugh came up from behind him as Chan cackled maniacally. “I knew you were a lightweight.”

The next morning, Changbin woke up and even the most ambient of sounds were painfully louder, every light was uncomfortably brighter. He let out a weak whimper, and curled into himself as the world spun around him. “Goddammit,” he grumbled. “Fuck Jisung and fuck last night. I'm never drinking again.”

As if fate was teasing him, taunting him with how unfair it truly was, there was a knock against the door, the faint rapping pulling him out of his daze. He sighed heavily, rolling over onto his back, coming to terms with the fact that he was going to have to get up in a moment. “Be there in a sec,” he attempted to shout in the most decent, cognizant way possible.

It took Changbin a few moments to reorient himself as the walls spun around him. He stumbled his way through his bedroom, out to the front door, not bothering to look through the peephole. Changbin fumbled with his deadbolt for a moment, scolding himself as he realized he forgot to do the chain-link before he passed out at some point earlier that morning. He pulled the door open, instantly regretting leaving his bed as he saw the man at his door.

“Chan?” He rubbed his eyes and grumbled. “How'd you find out where I live?”

“You told me last night, dude.” The taller man offered a plastic bag around his finger, almost as if it were some sort of physical apology. “Figured you could use some of this, especially since you don't remember all of last night, do you?”

Changbin stepped back, opening his door wide. There was no way he had the energy to yell at Chan, not when the man had brought him food as a peace offering. “I'm still upset with you, you know.”

“You told me last night,” Chan shook his head, tutting in feigned irritation as he took a couple of steps into Changbin’s apartment. “Several times, actually.”

The two of them sat on the couch in awkward silence as they ate their lukewarm, greasy diner takeout. Changbin curled up into a ball, clutching his sports drink to his chest as he rolled his face into the couch cushion. “God, I feel like shit,” he whined. “How are you so okay after all of that? You ended up drinking more than me.”

Chan chuckled. “I was part of a frat, dude,” he took a sip of water from his glass, then set it back down on the table. “Beer was an acceptable substitute for water in Sig Ep. Practically its own food group. Ah,” he stuck a finger in the air and his face turned stoic, “unofficially, of course.”

In all honesty, Changbin never realized that Chan had become such a different person after he went to university. He was still caring and kind, but to picture him as a typical frat boy was jarring. “You still got honours and valedictorian after all that shit?”

“Yep,” the older man clasped his hands together, bringing them behind his head as he leaned back into the couch. “Don't know how I did it, though. Talent probably got me far enough.”

“You were always really good at playing the viola, dude.” The compliment was sincere, Changbin rolling his eyes up to catch the profile of his best friend, staring longer than he should’ve.

Chan turned slightly, sucking in some air through his teeth as he looked at Changbin. “Never as good as you.” His voice was low, like there was something hidden deep under his words.

The two of them were quiet again. Changbin couldn’t help but ruminate on Chan’s words, memories of their constant rivalries and the night of their drunken kiss violently replaying over and over in his head. Chan always wanted to beat Changbin out on one thing, and Changbin was afraid it would cause Chan to look down on him as somehow lesser than.

Oh.

A sour, queasy feeling rolled up the back of Changbin’s neck as he realized he had probably treated Chan poorly in everything they competed for when he beat him out. How could he have treated his childhood friend so terribly for something so petty and trivial? Changbin had no other friends, not since he and Wooyoung split up, and the loneliness he felt bubbled up in his chest, commingling with how horrible he felt for the way he had treated Chan after all this time.

He should have apologized, too.

“Hey, Bin,” Chan leaned further into the back of the couch, drawing his arm out against the frame and he stared down at his sickly junior. “If I had reached out to you and apologized, do you think you would’ve forgiven me? We said some horrible shit to each other and, honestly, I never thought we’d see each other again. I’m glad we got to see each other after all this time, but I can’t help but think we’d never talk to each other otherwise.”

Changbin couldn’t help but look away, staring off into the tiny chip on his wall next to his calendar. He chewed on his teeth, unable to resist thinking about all of the stupid, petulant rage he felt over their trivial fights. He brought his thumbnail to his teeth and anxiously nibbled at it, honestly unsure if he would’ve forgiven Chan if they didn’t end up in Seattle together after all this time. “I dunno,” he muttered, words coming out with a slight lisp against his nail. “I think you’re probably right. I mean, we hadn’t talked in four years, why start now? What’s the point of resurfacing old wounds just to tear into them?”

A heavy sigh came from Chan as he looked up towards the ceiling. “I guess you’re right. I figured you had everything going perfectly for you. You graduated with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, were happily engaged, and had just accepted some prestigious job somewhere. You were succeeding and surpassing me in so many ways yet again, and I couldn’t even come to terms with the fact that I—” Chan quickly cut himself off.

Changbin lifted one of his eyebrows at the sudden silence, turning to look at Chan in confusion. “The fact that you what?”

The blonde shook his head, quickly standing up and brushing his shirt off. “I-it’s nothing.”

“Wait,” Changbin reached out to grab Chan’s arm without thinking, loosely grasping at his thin wrist. “Chan, I know it’s been years, but you can tell me anything.”

“No,” Chan shook his head, refusing to look at Changbin. “I promise, it’s not that important right now.” Almost as if he could sense Changbin opening his mouth to protest, Chan spoke up again. “Look, eat the rest of your food and drink a lot of fluids. We can talk about this all later, I just,” Chan offered a quick smile over his shoulder before he tugged his wrist free of Changbin’s grasp and made his way towards the door, “I can’t talk about it right now. Sorry, man.”

Changbin cursed himself for drinking so much the night prior, his hangover preventing him from chasing after Chan. As much as he wanted to know what Chan was about to say, he figured he would just drop it for now, then press for more information later.

Chan’s ‘talk about all of this later’ turned into a lot longer than Changbin expected.

It should have been days, weeks at the most. However, the end of summer resigned itself to Seattle’s torrential autumn rains, the symphony’s first performance of the season came and went, they all worked through their planned Thanksgiving break to finish recording a score for a film with an unbelievably large budget. All of that came and went, and there was still no conversation broader than casual discussion between the two of them.

Every time they passed each other, Changbin’s eyes lingered on the blonde. What was Chan thinking? What was he going to say that caused the energy between them to shift so drastically?

There were polite conversations in passing between Chan and Changbin off and on. Occasionally, they would walk to the practice hall together, but it was by sheer accident, only because they had left their apartments at the same time. Every interaction between them seemed accidental, too pleasantly sterile for what had to have been harbouring beneath the surface.

Autumn bled into winter. Rain turned to sleet, which morphed into snow a few times during January and February. February blended into March. March blossomed into April. More performances, more anxiety, more productions, more nervousness, more expectations, more, more, more. More from the symphony, and less, less, less from Chan.

The sleepless nights brought on by extensive late-night practices were tolerable; tired mornings after these were easily remedied with a few cups of coffee. Conversely, the few times Changbin had gone to bed at a reasonable hour, he found himself tossing and turning, restlessly thinking about Chan, unable to sleep. His heart pounded with nervousness, Changbin swearing he could hear his heartbeat echoing against the beige drywall of his bedroom. He reached his fingertips up and brushed them against the wall behind him, where he assumed Chan was laying on the opposite side, peacefully slumbering away.

So close. So far away. Chan was always right there, but so far out of reach.

I couldn’t even come to terms with the fact that I—

What exactly was Chan going to say on that day? Months had passed, but Changbin could still hear every syllable that came from Chan’s lips, the way that his tongue punctuated each hard consonant with a staccato against his teeth, haunting his dreams. He could picture the moment that Chan’s expression changed, shifted from ease to uncertainty, how his eyelashes twitched when his eyes went wide with fear.

Late one sleepless April night, Changbin had found himself staring upwards yet again, lost in the grooves and valleys of stucco against his ceiling. His nervousness of the upcoming principal seat exam weighed him down, forcing him to sink further and further into his mattress, heavy with doubt. Earlier that day, Chan stepped back, saying he wasn’t interested in fighting for the position, which Changbin read as neither truth nor fiction.

“I just want you to have the best chance possible,” Chan had told him with a seemingly fake smile. “You’re so incredibly talented, Bin. You’ve got the leadership skills, and I support you all the way.”

No. Something about that wasn’t right.

Changbin frowned, knitting his eyebrows together as he bit down on his lips. He tried to recall exactly what the expression was on Chan’s face while he said those words with a layer of insincerity. The insincerity was juxtaposed with honesty and pain, so many conflicting and contrasting things said without words.

Then, it hit him.

You’re so incredibly talented. It sounded so familiar, the layered pain and genuine jealousy.

Never as good as you.

It had been months since Chan told him that, when they were sitting on the couch nursing their hangovers at the beginning of the season. Months had passed, but the words were suddenly so crisp and clear, as if Changbin was right in that moment again.

It wasn’t jealousy. No, it was never jealousy.

In a near panic, Changbin reached out for his phone on his nightstand, bringing it up to his face. The bright light burned his retinas, but it didn’t matter. He started scrolling through Chan’s social media page, down countless months and years, endless photos that started with him in various spots in Seattle, then to his graduation, followed by various frat gatherings and university happenings.

It was like Changbin was travelling backwards in time, seeing several familiar names and faces pop up, partially reliving the moments he had spent over the years angrily scrolling through his timeline on the nights he where Wooyoung was sleeping soundly next to him. Names that caused Changbin’s stomach to tense with varying degrees of jealousy started popping up with each season he travelled through.

Senior year: Son Chaeyoung, five months.

Junior year: Minatozaki Sana, seven months.

Sophomore year: Im Naeyon, three months. Hirai Momo, two months.

Freshman year: Park Jihyo, two months. Yoo Jeongyeon, two months.

Changbin recalled all of the people — all of them women — that Chan had dated, how none of them really seemed like they were serious relationships, that they were maybe friends with benefits at most. The photos Chan had taken with them were all stiff and felt rushed, like he was putting on a show that he was happy with them, when he clearly wasn’t genuinely happy.

It wasn’t jealousy. Of course it wasn’t jealousy.

Chan was hiding something, and Changbin’s heart sunk into his stomach as he found himself staring at the ceiling yet again. All he could find himself thinking about now was a single word ruminating, burning into his head.

Why?

Changbin made sure to leave well in advance prior to the start of the day. He didn’t want to risk running into Chan, not when the principal seat exam was today. He had spent too much time ruminating and worrying over Chan and the what-ifs the night prior, his lack of sleep apparent as his limbs ached with fatigue.

The walk to the practice hall was uneventful; drizzle had languidly fallen from the sky, embedding itself into Changbin’s jacket, temporarily turning the crimson fabric just a few shades darker. After several months, Changbin had gotten used to the nonstop Seattle rain, varying from drizzle to torrential downpours with occasional reprieves of sunshine peppered in throughout the year.

In a way, it was oddly calming. The rain kept people from lingering in the streets too long to chatter, but there was also a stubborn resiliency as people just accepted the downpours. Umbrellas and ponchos were only seen with tourists, people that seemed afraid that the slightest bit of drizzle would cause them to melt. There was an influx of tourists in March, when the cheap cruises up along the coast to Alaska started. With the influx of tourists, there were more and more performances that were crammed into Changbin’s schedule.

Honestly, the transition from March to April seemed so minute, like the drizzle turning to heavy droplets of rain, the rainstorm he constantly found himself in. It was a beautiful time of year, and Changbin hadn’t ever truly appreciated the fact that there were so many varying shades of grey along the spectrum of white to black.

The transition from August to April seemed to be so subtle, too. Within a few months, the barista at the cafe got better with his name, eventually able to speak it with confidence at about February. Changbin assumed she was flirting with him a few times when she passed his cup to him with various doodles and scribbles on them, but he shrugged it off.

Today’s cup holding his shot in the dark had a heart next nestled up to his name. Perhaps it would bring good luck for the principal seat exam.

Practice was uneventful, since the entire group was only together for the first half of the day. As the group disbanded into its respective sections for individualized practice, nerves bubbled up in Changbin’s veins as he steeled himself in preparation for the principal seat exam. Seungmin had wished him the most polite “good luck, man,” he could muster, even though they were both competing against each other.

Changbin had been in the middle of practicing his solo piece when a familiar voice pulled him from his concentration.

“Fantasia Cromatica?” The voice was layered with nervousness and anticipation.

The brunette sighed, trying to bite back his irritation at the loss of his focus. “Yeah,” he turned his head over his shoulder, eyeing the man that approached him. “Surprised you recognized it, Chan.”

Chan’s hand twitched as he lifted it for a brief second, like he was about to reach out to Changbin. “I’ve eyed that piece several times,” he brought his hand up to the back of his neck, awkwardly chuckling as he stood a respectable distance away from the brunette, “it’s intimidating, but it’s such a well-known viola solo. I guess I’m not surprised you picked something without accompaniment with how independent you are.”

It was supposed to be a compliment, but Chan’s words struck a sour chord within Changbin. The younger man shook his head once, eyeing the floor before he turned to look at the blonde. “I’m trying to practice,” his voice came off harsher than he had meant it to. Chan’s expression fell from nervously optimistic to slightly hurt, and Changbin rolled his eyes with a huff as he tried to pedal backwards. “Look,” he started, making awkward eye contact with Chan for a brief moment, “after I’m done with all of this, can we talk? I’ve got some stuff on my mind I wanna discuss with you.”

Chan looked excited for a moment as he nodded rapidly. “Sure,” he bit back a smile, “yeah, I’ll be here.”

“Thanks,” Changbin half-smiled as he turned back to his sheet music.

“Good luck, Changbin,” Chan brought his hand up to the brunette’s shoulder, offering a quick, warm squeeze that didn’t last nearly long enough. The slight touch caused Changbin’s breath to hitch in his throat, all of the air around him turning cool as Chan left.

Somehow, the younger man felt revitalized with the well wishes of his friend still lingering on his shoulder and dancing in his ears.

“So,” Minho greeted Changbin with a warm smile as the brunette entered the room. “You’ve decided to audition for the principal viola seat. After the initial chair placements, I didn’t think you would try, in all honesty.” The auburn-haired man smiled, tipping his wire-rimmed frames down his nose slightly, red pen in his hand.

Shit. Nerves lit up all over Changbin as he started to doubt himself, like he wasn’t supposed to be here.

“I’m glad you did.” Almost as if he could sense Changbin’s nervousness, Minho offered kind words in his usual soft, gentle voice. “Listen, I should be clear about something. I specifically sought out both you and Chan, as well as a few others, for this year’s contract placements. I don’t think you recognized me during the interview process, and I’m surprised you didn’t notice after the season started.”

“What?” The brunette cocked his head to the side, eyelids squinting upward in confusion.

Minho set the clipboard down on his desk, leaning forward as he rested his elbows on the table. He interlaced his fingers together and rested his chin on the backs of his hands. “I used to live on the east coast. I was in New Jersey for a while until I moved to Seattle a couple of years ago for this job. You and Chan performed Lament at the state competition in New York a few years ago. I believe you were both juniors back then, correct?”

Changbin’s throat went dry as he recognized Minho from so long ago, feeling somewhat dumb for not realizing it sooner. All those years ago, he was sitting in between two other judges, wearing the same wire-rimmed glasses as he wore today. “Y-yeah,” he stuttered. “That’s right.”

A smile crept up Minho’s face. “You both earned a perfect score, which was a rarity in and of itself, but what really captured me was how well both of you worked, the way you both blended together so naturally, beaming with raw, unadulterated talent. Such balance can’t be taught, only naturally weaved together by fate.”

Uneasiness came over Changbin in waves, like he was about to be judged far more critically than he anticipated.

“Anyway,” Minho brought his hands to his desk and sat back a bit. “The details of it all aren’t important. Just know that I’m happy that you’re both here. I’ll admit, however, that I was disappointed when Chan told me that he wasn’t interested in auditioning for the principal seat.”

A jolt surged up against the length of Changbin’s spine. “What?” He pressed, taken aback, unsure if what he just heard was accurate. “Chan told you he wasn’t interested?”

Minho nodded once. “He told me that, if given the opportunity, you deserved it more than he did, that he believed you were more talented and had the right leadership skills for the position.”

Changbin knitted his brows together. Nervousness had been replaced with a rush of anger. He initially found it odd that Chan wasn’t going to audition for the seat placement, sure, but the fact that he deliberately told Minho that Changbin was more talented and deserved it? That they didn’t even get to have a fair chance of competition between the two of them?

He felt strangely hurt, like Chan had somehow betrayed him. All for what, a seat placement? Something so trivial, after all these years?

His eyes looked down at his viola, eyeing that familiar chip one more time. The familiar word that echoed against Changbin’s head the night prior was so loud yet again.

Why?

Chan was pacing in the hallway when Changbin emerged from Minho’s office. “Hey!” He perked up with a smile on his face. “How’d it go, dude?”

Changbin shook his head, unable to look at Chan. A scowl curled up his lips as he bared his teeth, briskly walking to where his viola’s case rested. Practice was supposed to be for another hour, but he couldn’t bear another minute of being under the same roof as Chan, in the same claustrophobic space as him, not when he was seething with anger.

“Changbin?” Chan’s voice was closer, but quieter than before. “Was it that bad?”

The brunette’s fingers trembled as he shakily rested his viola in its case, eyeing the chip one last time before he slammed his case shut. He didn’t say anything as he made his way over to the instrument lockers, deciding to leave his viola in the practice hall overnight. Chan trailed behind him, his voice growing more and more concerned as Changbin paced away.

“Dude,” Chan pressed, reaching out to grab Changbin’s wrist as he slammed his locker door shut. “What the hell happened? Are you okay?”

“Why?” Changbin wanted to say so much more, but the single syllable was all he could muster.

Chan winced, shaking his head in confusion. “What are you talking—”

“Why didn’t you audition for the principal seat?” His voice was terse, yet was still draped in a layer of fragility. “No, why did you tell Minho you didn’t deserve it? We’re supposed to be rivals, right? Push each other and make ourselves better, like when we were kids. What the fuck happened?”

“Changbin,” the blonde’s composure dropped with his shoulders, a look of pity washing over his face. “I didn’t mean for it to be like that. I just… I didn’t want you to worry about it.”

“Tch, typical. You know, Chan,” the younger man scoffed, rolling his eyes before he stared down the blonde, “I don’t understand you. I’m not some fragile thing that needs to be protected, not by anyone, not by you. I deserved a fair shot at the principal seat placement, I deserved to compete against you, and you just insult me like I had no chance if you competed.”

Chan curled into himself slightly, hurt by Changbin’s words. “I didn’t realize—”

“Of course you didn’t.” Changbin shook his head and spun on his heel, padding off towards the exit in anger.

After a moment, Chan heard the downpour come through the door as Changbin ran off. He rushed to his locker, grabbing his jacket and his umbrella. “Changbin, wait!”

Seattle rain was never forgiving, especially during spring. The precipitation clattered against the ground at near-torrential speeds, the heavy noise only amplified as it reverberated against the concrete and the walls of nearby buildings.

“Changbin, please,” Chan shouted as the younger man stormed out of the practice hall and into the downpour that enveloped Capitol Hill in a dark haze. He took a few long strides as he chased after the seething brunette.

Changbin spun on his heel, shouting at the top of his lungs as he stared down Chan with wild eyes, his voice barely carrying along the heavy pattering of rain against concrete. “I don’t understand why you keep hiding, Chan! Why did you turn me down all those years ago?”

Chan shook his head, avoiding eye contact as he motioned for Changbin to come back. “Come here, Changbin, get under my umbrella before you get sick.”

“No!” Changbin shrieked in anger, tears streaming down his face as all of the emotions he had bottled up over the years suddenly erupted all at once. “Do you not understand how much I’ve loved you all these years? Ever since we were kids?”

“Bin, please, I—” The blonde’s shoulders sunk down as he recoiled into himself, eyes darting around as he was frozen in place.

“Everything! Everything I did was because of you, Chan!” The words burned as they came up from Changbin’s chest, the black lily of nervousness entangling its petals in between the empty spaces of his ribcage. “I put myself through hell to distract me from you, to get all of these thoughts out of my head, to stop fucking thinking about you for once!”

Chan was quiet, lips parted as he stared at Changbin in disbelief, tears unknowingly spilling from his eyelids.

The brunette refused to relent, shouting over the Seattle rain. “You were the only person that believed in me. You pushed us to do that duet, even though I thought it was stupid. You’re the reason we got the perfect score. You keep saying that I’m so much more talented than you, that you’d never be as good at me, but you’ve always been the one that’s naturally better at all of this.”

A beat passed between them before Changbin let out an anguished, angry shout. He was so tired of all of the pain and anguish he had felt over the years, and letting it all finally explode after so long, like a rubber band wound up too tightly, felt unnaturally liberating. Regardless of how Chan felt about Changbin after all of these years, he could finally let go of his agony, which was equal parts terrifying and relieving.

“Why? Why the fuck did you never apologize to your best friend, Chan? I have been in absolute fucking misery since you and I kissed so long ago and I don’t think you understand how much I wanted you to be there. How you kept creeping into my thoughts, even after all of these years, all I could think about was you.”

The blonde advanced, his face pulled into a downward scowl as his footsteps were heavy against the slick concrete. “It’s because I didn’t want to admit something,” Chan spoke in as low of a voice as he could while he pulled Changbin to his chest. “When you kissed me all those years ago, I was terrified about all of the what-ifs that started rushing around in my head. Like, what if I ruin my friendship? What if you’re not actually into me? What happens when I’m not good enough for you? What if I was actually straight and I was going to cause you nothing but pain after all this time?”

“Chan, stop.” Changbin shook his head, bringing his damp hands to Chan’s clammy face, rubbing away the tears that started spilled over, down his chilled cheeks. “You’re always good enough for me. You’re the only one that’s good enough for me; the only one I ever wanted.”

“What?”

“Listen,” the brunette sighed heavily, trying to ease the tension in his shoulders. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved Wooyoung, but, the thing is…”

Chan watched the expressions on Changbin’s face cross a spectrum from confusion, to anguish, to regret.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you, as horrible as it sounds. Sure, we were drunk when we had that one kiss, but it was the best kiss of my life. Hell,” he hiccuped, trying to swallow back tears, “I thought I lost my chance with you forever after high school. So, I settled. Wooyoung was the only other friend I had, and he was interested in me. I took a shot with him and, yeah, we were fine, but it wasn’t anything spectacular. I was ready to settle for a life of mediocrity until he decided he didn’t want to come to Seattle with me. I was finally free of both of you when I got here. I could leave you both behind.”

Changbin brought his forehead down to Chan’s wet shoulder, the fabric squishing against his skin as he rolled around and sighed. “It’s horrible,” he dropped his hands and clutched at the lapels of the blonde’s jacket, pulling himself closer into the older man’s embrace. “I was so glad to be free of both Wooyoung and the ghost of you. So, when I saw you that day at the cafe, it was like all hell had broken loose; everything came rushing back and I was overwhelmed by the weight of my past. I was forced to reconcile with the one person I hurt the most, the one who hurt me the most, and the one I never thought I would be able to forgive.”

A soft chuckle echoed around Chan’s chest as he rested his cheekbone against Changbin’s sopping wet brown hair. “We can’t escape each other.”

“I guess not,” Changbin quietly relented, releasing Chan’s jacket from his grasp, his arms languidly falling to his side in exhaustion. He was tired of being angry for so long, for harbouring such a deep-seated resentment against his best friend, for being mad at himself for never forgiving Chan after all this time over something so minor. So fucking tired. “I’m sorry, Chan. For all of this shit.”

The tapping of Seattle rain against Chan’s umbrella seemed so muted as the men stood up against each other, lost in their little bubble as the world disappeared around them. Nothing else mattered but being warmed by each other. Chan dropped his hand from Changbin’s back for a moment, then brought his fingers up to the underside of Changbin’s chin.

“Changbin,” his voice was timid as he tilted the younger man’s chin upward, both of them making awkward eye contact for a moment. A few drops of rain fell from Changbin’s hair, mingling against the tears that were rolling down his face, the droplets joining to become something greater, a small river down the valley of his cheek. “Even if you don’t forgive me after all this time, I forgive you. We were both idiots back then. What matters is that we’re here now. We can leave everything behind and move forward — together.”

“Together.” Changbin repeated, his voice cracking in between the syllables. He hated feeling so weak, but he couldn’t help it. All of the emotions from the past few years coming up, burning in his chest as the realization that what he yearned for all this time settled. After all this time, he was finally where he felt comfortable, secure, happy, with no strings attached.

Chan.

His arms were warm, a shelter to protect him from the weakness he was feeling. The happiness in his eyes and the bright smile on his face was Changbin’s sunshine during the overcast, dreary Seattle days.

Chan was home. His home.

The pattering of rain against Chan’s umbrella was suddenly so quiet, a rush of warmth blossomed up from Changbin’s cheeks to the tips of his ears. The black lily of anxiety that rested in between the spaces of his ribcage blossomed from black, to crimson, to a vibrant pink. All of his feelings for Chan became crystal clear, and he couldn’t hold them back any longer.

There was nothing left to lose.

“I love you. Still, after all of this time. I love you so much, Chan.” The words left his lips before he crashed them against Chan’s, much less awkwardly than their kiss so many years ago. His hands reached up to Chan’s blonde locks with a sudden renewed, yearning energy, grasping at the strands and tugging at them as if he would sink into the ground if he let go.

Rain came pouring down all around them as Chan dropped his umbrella, bringing one of his hands down to the small of Changbin’s back, the other hand softly cupping the younger man’s face. “I love you too, Changbin,” he whispered breathlessly as he pulled back for just a split second. Chan brought the brunette closer into his grasp, droplets of rain falling between them, rolling down their faces and in between their lips.

Like Connecticut, Changbin was vivacissimo, as wild as the hustle and bustle of the east coast. Like Seattle, Chan was andante, languid and calming.

Chan was his home, where Changbin belonged all along.

#bittersweet lullabies #skz fics #binchan #bang chan x seo changbin #seo changbin x bang chan #chan x changbin #changbin x chan #wherevermyway

[dust-broken-berry]

This is more an extra and a lot people aren't gonna like it cause it's a NightHorror. But here it is anyway, second post up soon.

Part 12: His Hopes, His Dreams

    Nightmare and Horror walking out of the hospital, Horror asking-

“So when did you want to go and look at those books?”

“Well I’m not doing anything unless you are?”

“No but you want to look at them now?”

“Well no I need to get some things first but yes I do.”

“Oh ok, what do you have to get?”

“You ask a lot of questions”

    Nightmare said, making Horror grumbled

“It’s just because I wanna know”

    Nightmare walked as he kept talking, so Horror followed.

“Ya I suppose that makes sense, well I need to retrieve some documents, and I may have passages and books about It.”

“Ok….can I ask where?”

“In my AU…”

    Horror was surprised and asked-

“Wait, wasn't that place destroyed?”

“It was but it is Ink’s job to fix AU’s so I can only assume that’s why it’s still there.”

“Ya I guess, but don’t they kinda hate you? Like a lot”

“Yes but regardless I need to get those things, they could be important so a little while of scrutiny is fine.”

“Will they try and stop us?”

“Us?”

“Ya sure why not”

    Nightmare looked away for a moment then back at Horror as he spoke

“Nothing, I just never said anything about there being an us.”

“Well I could go with you, hell I may even be useful.”

“Ya I suppose you could be, the people there won’t take very kindly to...us.”

“Well they will if they know what’s good for them.”

“I would hope”

    Nightmare said as he opened a portal

“Come on let’s go”

    He said as him and Horror entered his AU. As they did Nightmare shed his tar body, Horror looked over confused and asked-

“Why are you doing that?”

“I don’t know, maybe they won’t have that much of a stick up there ass if I do.”

    They both laughed, as Horror said-

“Haha, hey don’t these monsters not like swearing, fighting, and you know all that junk?”

“Ya but they’ll need to get over themselves. Come on now, unless it’s just me.”

    Nightmare said, as the two began to walk through the AU as the portal closed behind them. They were walking on a cobblestone path with many heads turned towards them, Nightmare just put his hood up.

    Horor on the other hand was amazed as he looked at the olden styled town

“Holy shit man, are we back in the eighteen hundreds?”

    After Horror said that some lady with a child slapped him, he was angry and confused to say the least.

“Hey! Watch it lady!”

“Then you watch your tone, demon!”

    The lady said as she walked off, Horror screamed back

“HEY I’M A SKELETON JUST TO LET YOU KNOW!”

“Horror I’ma go ahead and tell you now that if you’re associated with me, then you're gonna be called demon, or evil, or anything else they can think of.”

“Eh not the first time”

“Ya I guess… Come on we might need some new clothes.”

“Why? We never have before?”

“Horror, look at everyone else then look at us. We don’t need the attention looking like this.”

“Fine, just don’t make me look ridiculous”

“Ha don’t worry you want look any worse”

“Haha good…”   

    Nightmare waited a minute, then Horror yelled-

“HEY WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!?”

    Horror angrily yelled and chased Nightmare as he laughed, they then made it to some store. Nightmare trying to calm Horror down.

“Alright, alright it’s time to stop yelling.”

“Ok fine…”

    The two walked up to the clerk at the counter, the clerk said-

“Hello there sir, madam”

“PPfff- who’s madam?”

    Horror asked trying not to laugh, the clerk confused answered-

“Why the lady next to you?”

    Horror could hold it anymore and burst out into laughter, while Nightmare tried to keep himself from screaming. The clerk was even more confused now so he asked-

“Did I say something funny?”

“Ahaha oh ya man. The ‘lady’ over here is actually one pissed off dude!”

“O-Oh, my dearest apologizes s-sir.”

    The clerk tried to apologize, and Nightmare just grumbled

“Ugh...it doesn’t matter right now, we need clothes!”

“Y-Yes um is there anything that you two are interested in?”

    The man asked nervously, Horror thought about it and looked around the store then back at the guy.

“Well I don’t really care so...uh...anything like red? Or something? But I don’t know about the ‘lady’ though.”

    Nightmare looked angrily at Horror as he grumbled

“I would like a vest, formal fitting. Either black or dark purple.”

“Ok, and ok, I’ll be right out with that. You can get anything else you need while I’m gone.”

    The clerk practically sprinted into the back room. Nightmare and Horror started looking at other things in the store. Horror looked over at Nightmare and asked-

“Hey, why are you getting something with such poofy sleeves?”

“Because we’re skeletons, anything tight looks stupid trust me.”

“Well ok then but why are we looking at shirts, isn’t that guy doing that for us?”

“He’s gonna bring you a vest, jacket, and maybe pants but not likely. And since you weren’t very specific he’s probably just gonna bring you something red.”

“That may look stupid”

“Eh not always”

    They got some shirts and some pants just in case as the clerk ran back out of the backroom.

“Ok you can go try these on”

“Thanks…”

    Nightmare grumbled as the two monsters went ahead and put the clothes on-

    Horror had a dark red vest with a dark brown coat, he had on a normal pair of black pants on with it.

    Nightmare had a loose sleeved white shirt that was cuffed at the bottom, he had a dark royal purple vest on over it. He had a gold chain from one of his buttons to his pocket. Like Horror he also had on a normal pair of black pants.

    Horror angrily groaned-

“I feel like a fucking clown”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just pay and we’ll go.”

    They walk back over to the counter

“How much?”

    Nightmare asked, the clerk turned and looked back at Nightmare and freaked out.

“AH! YOUR NIGHTMARE AREN-!”

“Uh no I get that a lot though, my names actually uh...Jack...ya, so how much?”

    The clerk kinda calmed down

“Oh...Er sorry then Mr. Jack… Uh it’s gonna be fifteen coins”

“Ok here”

    Nightmare handed the man some coins as he opened a portal, he told Horror

“Horror throw are clothes in here”

“Where is here?”

“My house, I’ll give you your clothes back later.”

“Uh ok?”

    Horror said as he threw the clothes through the portal as the clerk cashed them out.

“H-Have a nice day”

    Nightmare looked down at his cufflinks and asked-

“Can I swap these out?”

“Oh ya sure, what would you want instead?”

“Really Ni-”

    Nightmare gave Horror death stare before he could finish his sentence.”

“Jack…”

“Oh don’t worry about it. This’ll just be a sorry for earlier, so what would you like?”

“Moons”

    Nightmare said, confusing the clerk a little bit

“Hm moons?”

“Yes, unless you don’t have any?”

“I think we do...let me go check”

    The clerk said as he went to the backroom again, Horror asked-

“Why do you want those?”

“I don’t know...I guess…”

    Nightmare pulled his old crown out of the portal as it closed. He put it around his collar, like an emblem or a necklace.

“Nostalgia…”

    Nightmare said as the clerk ran back out. He handed Nightmare the cufflinks.

“Wasn’t sure if we had any but I found them. They’re a bit old but they should work fine.”

    The clerk looked at Nightmare, and the new golden emblem around his neck.

“Hm? Where did that come from?”

“I just had it”

    Nightmare put the cufflinks on, he said-

“Have a good day”

“You to sir’s”

    The clerk said as the two left the store. They walked and Horror want ask something so he said-

“Hey Nightmare, can I ask something?”

“Shoot”

    Horror hesitated a bit, but still asked-

“Are you and Dream getting along better or somethin’?”

“That’s a bit random”

“Well I just wanted to know since you brought up nostalgia and all.”

    Nightmare paused for a moment, then said-

“No...we have petty differences and yet now more than ever we neglect to try and solve them…”

“So you’re saying that you wish you were on better terms?”

“Eh I don’t really know anymore...some days I wish he were dead with his dust six feet under… While other days I wish I were fine calling him my brother, and maybe him the same…”

“Dude I think that’s just how siblings are-”

“You know why it’s different…”

“If I’m being honest…I really don’t”

    Nightmare sighed

“Just take are time here for example. Dream was practically put on top of a throne and given gifts, friends, and more importantly he was given kindness, respect… Me on the other hand was put in the dirt, treated as rotten as the food and trash the people threw at me, the only thing they felt for me was hatred. And the only reason they liked Dream was because he put off positive feelings, and they loved that. As for when I was near I put off negative feelings...and worse when I felt empty and bitter. And with how they treated me, it always made it so.”

“Geez…”

    Horror said, then asked-

“Then how come I don’t feel more like shit around you when you’re angry or something?”

“You and everyone else I found...they all seem to be much less affected by my aura.”

“Ha well maybe that because we’re all already depressed as balls! But hey maybe that’s just me!”

    Horror said in a jokingly trying to cheer Nightmare up, he failed.

“Then how does that explain Outer, he’s generally happy around me. Hell even the baby is…”

    Horror did really know what to say anymore, so he just decided to say-

“Well...you never know, maybe we all did something different. Something better…”

“Hm?”

“I know for a fact that we didn’t treat you like garbage, or as some kind of freak. We thought of you as an equal, a boss, a friend, we even thought some of that when we first met you and frankly we still do now...hehe hell I guess you could say we all might’ve cared.”

    Horror said as he looked over Nightmare, he was smiling and even crying a little bit. Horror chuckled a little bit and asked-

“Why are you crying?”

“Wait what?”

    Nightmare questioned as he put a hand to his face.

“I don’t know…”

“Don’t make me cry t-to”

    Horror said sarcastically. Nightmare just rolled his eyes as he wiped the tears.

“Oh come on I thought you were unassholed for a second there.”

“If I can joke around then I’ll never be unassholed”

“Ha figures”

    Nightmare said, looking down at the ground then back at Horror.

“But then again that’s just you”

    Nightmare said, as he sighed

“And I may regret saying this but for once I think I’m happy that you’re you.”

    Horror smiled, saying-

“I wish I could get that on tape…”

“Haha don’t push it”

    Nightmare said, the two laughed as Horror looked up.

“Oh we’re here”

    Horror said, Nightmare looked up to and nodded

“Ya this tree, where my life slowly became-”

“An existential crisis?”

“Got it”

“Fist bump?”

“What?”

“You heard me”

“But when have you ever done that?”

“Since you’re happy I’m me”

    Nightmare just rolled his eyes again, and gave Horror a fist bump. He said-

“Ok happy?”

“Very, let’s go”

    Nightmare stood there as Horror walked into an invisible magic dome around the tree.

“Ow my fucking nose”

    Nightmare smiled mischievously as he spoke-

“Oh ya I forgot to tell you, Dream made that when we were here so only me and him could get through, and some others when he allowed it.”

“Ya and you just forgot to tell me?”

“Eh maybe so, maybe no”

“Anyways, can’t you just move or whatever?”

“Dream made it, I can only pass through it”

“Then just put your arm on it and make a doorway or something.”

“Can’t”

    Nightmare put his arm through the wall, and it was surrounded by a little circle of bright yellow magic.

“Even if I wanted to I couldn’t…”

“Ok? Then how do we get in?”

“Um well I saw Dream sneak creatures in before so I know how to do it…”

“Ok then, do it”

“It’ll make us both very uncomfortable”

“Oh come on it can’t be that bad”

“Really?”

“Come on it’s fine”

“Ok then...come here…”

“Ok I will”

    Horror walked over to Nightmare. Nightmare made Horror crouch down as he basically draped his whole body over Horror and walked him inside, Horrors face was red the whole time. Since no one had seen anyone get near the tree in many, many years so a crowd began to form. Nightmare got off of Horror when they were inside. Horror screamed-

“I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WOULD FUCKING DRY HUMP ME!”

    Nightmare blushed and screamed back

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN!?”

“I MEAN YOU FUCKING FRY HUMPED ME!”

“NO YOU’RE MAKING IT SOUND LIKE THAT!”

    Nightmare took a few breathes and calmed down

“Ok! Ok it’s time to relax, ok?..”

    Horror looked at Nightmare, and Nightmare seemed genuinely sorry.

“...Ok fine...it’s fine lets just go and get your shit.”

    Horror looked outside and saw the crowd of people, he asked-

“Why is there a crowd out there?”

“Because there hasn’t been anyone near this dead tree for many years.”

“So they know who you are now don't they…”

    Nightmare sighed

“Ya…”

“Sorry about that”

    Horror said as they began to walk up the small hill to the tree.

“What for?”

“For being loud and obnoxious...and drawing them over here. It’s more my fault then anyone else’s…”

Nightmare looked over at Horror and smiled

“Horror even if you weren’t here they would’ve looked over. So just don’t worry about it, ok?”

 “Ok”

    Horror said as they got to the old dead tree.

“Ok we’re here”

    Nightmare said, as he opened his satchel and started old dusty papers in it, along with a book or two. Nightmare said-

“That should be all here, we just need to go to the library and we can leave.”

“Uh how late is that library open?”

“Not very, why?”

“The suns going down, looks like we’re gonna have to stay here.”

    Nightmare looked over and saw the sun had almost set.

“Ya and I don’t think we can get a motel anymore.”

“Can’t we just stay here?”

    Nightmare looked over at Horror confused, Nightmare said-

“Well I guess, but why would you want to stay up here.”

“I don’t really want to. I just don’t think we have any other choice, besides…”

“Hm?”

“The view is kinda nice”

    Nightmare chuckled and said-

“Never took you for a guy that would like the view."

[coolgirl]

Jason expert rate Jason’s designs

sorry for being late i was busy with school but now i’m free so to celebrate. jason indulgence.

pre-crisis not robin

very cute. i like that it has a lil more of flair to it? the collar and the lines on the gloves and the shorter cape.. also love it has pants. king rlly king. wonder if they already knew he was gonna be robin anyways or if they were still considering nightbird. anyways, 8/10 bc its cute

pre & post-crisis robin (bc its basically the same)

i mean its a classic.. however it reminds me jason was the only robin who was simply given dick’s clothes rather than like. have an unique look? which sucks. 7/10 middle child syndrome is REAL

post-crisis robin (winter edition)

OKAY NOW THIS. i absolutely love. is it tacky? oh yes without a doubt. i still love the pants and the sleeves. finally winter clothes for this child, especially considering his new titans scene where he was bitching about the costume not being snow proof. he got what he wanted! 9/10

new 52/rebirth costume by

EPIC. IDC I LOVE IT.the circles on his arms and his boots.. the lines on his legs.. i just love it. i love the red mask too… it feels.. not more unique, but feels more jason-y than the other costume. 10/10

NOW. onto older stuff

hush

as u can see im VERY confusion about the pouches and the straps?? why??? whats the purpose.. generally its fine. the white strand moved a nation and i think the chest piece is cool, but everything else.. uglee. like the long as hell jacket and him looking 40 years old like why r u 19 looking like fifty? ugly white man. 5/10

winicks/utrh version

LITERALLY A CLASSIC. i love this costume sooo much. like jason obviously grew out of it, as in it wouldnt make sense for him anymore to go with something like this as his main costume because i feel like this fit the utrh mood (him not veing a vigilante/hero/villain whatver but trying to be a mob boss n shit) and it just. fucks. i love the helmet just being plain with no stupid mouth or nose shape. i simply love it. 10/10

nigthwing

its just. its just the nightwing costume. didnt even try he just stole that from dick. he still rocks it and looks better than dick, and u gotta give him points for accessorizing with his dagger. 7/10

red robin 

im not. a big fan of this costume.. i think the cowl is ugly, it just does not work for someone as big as jason… however i do like why he took this mantle and what it meant.. 6/10 no words head empty. 

oh brother. furryman

ITS SUCH AN UGLY COSTUME. muzzle batman walked so muzzle red hood could run. its just. ugly like ugly. i dont like the ears or again the muzzle or whatever the hell is going on in the arms.. its just so edgy. 5/10

WANNA KNOW WHAT A SEXY EVIL BATMAN COSTUME LOOK LIKE?

Injustice 2 batman

I2 HAD IT IN THE BAG BABY. i like that its like classic batman costume but again! with some jason touches! the red eyes, the electric tiddies making a comeback.. epic genuinely epic. 10/10

and if ur not into evil jason

100% dad ‘i have my life figured out’ batman jason 

just like the nightwing costume this is just. batman costume. nothing special or different from it so its like did u even try? BUT in this scenario it actually means smth that he stuck to bruces costume.. sweet.. but boring. 7/10

speaking of. evil ugly designs. ugh i hate this.

this motherfucker

ive never. ever. felt as humiliated by a costume than thetime jason wore this. like MORTIFYING RLLY. its DISGUSTINGGG. the helmet shape. the fucking WHITE. the SKULL PLEASE WHO DESIGNED THIS WHO HATES ME IN PARTICULAR SO MUCH??? THIS MAN DOES NOT FUCK! HES UGLY! HE STINKS!!!! the red guns are epic that much i can say. LOOK AT THOSE PANS GOD ITS SO HUMILLIATING. 0/10 WORST COSTUME EVER.

HOWEVER. winick and the artist spun GOLD from it, because next time jason wore possibly my favorite costume to date

this motherfucker…2!

like look how much better it looks with a little of swag.. the helmet without eyes.. the belts.. the fucking leather jacket.. keeping the red guns/gloves.. like seriously i dont know a better man. the skull is still awful and i wouldve replaced the white for black and MWAH best costume. like the black part at the top make it all red and the white make it black.. god this jason fucks massively i love him. 11/10 my favorite by a landslide perhaps

new 52/rebirth red hood

OKAY I KNOW theyre slightly different (rebirth has shorter sleeves and a more padded look) but to me its like. same thing. okay i think its.. fine. its not phenomenal but its not ugly.. i like the brown jacket more than the black jacket i have to admit, its more distinctive and i simply like the color more, however i do not.. like jason having the bat symbol.. but thats also a me thing about how badly written this is. anyways. the helmet with the mouth disgusts me and everytime its drawn like that its humilliating. like. 7/10. maybe 7+. when it has the mouth or like nose ANY FACIAL EXPRESSION RLLY its a 5. 

wingman

oh i absolutely despise that helmet. he looks like fucking. terminator. its the ugliest shape ive ever seen and the visor is.. huge. i dont like the shoulder pads either idk what the fuck its going on with the thing around his neck either.. like hes. knockout batman and i HATEEE IT. damians costume slaps tho. i just… its… ugly. like.. 3/10. 

get damian back arc red hood costume

oh im a HUGE fan of this design.i love how his costume is designed in a way thats like. if jason was a dnd character he absolutely would be a tank. the padding, the red undertones everywhere, i just.. love it. i like how all the costumes were done to reflect their personalities you know.. i like this robin red hood hybrid. 9/10 would even say 10/10 bc i just enjoy how gleason draws jason.

red hood/arsenal costume

its like. i dont hate it completely (i love the way the hood+helmet looks) and thats.. yeah thats pretty much all i like about it. i HATEEEE the vest i hate it fr.i hate how huge the sumbol is and idk this costume just does not spark joy. 5/10

outlaw costume

okay this one. this one drives me insane. because like. okay i dig parts of it. i like the lack of sleeves. i like the gloves thingies. i like the hood. i could get aboard him ditching the helmet - it breaks all the damn time anyways. i like the stripes on his pants in the boots. ALL SEPARATE? NEAT. now i hate. hate. the muzzle. like WHY IT LOOKS SO UGLYYY LIKE SO UGLY like unless the artist GETS IT and is SEXY it looks awful. look at this

AWFUL. also like it made sense for when he was on the run and he had to make do and assemble a costume from what he had but like now hes sponsored by lex, get that man a goddamn new suit already please. anyways. 6/10.. like i said i like many elements from it but its still.. kinda ugly all together and depends A LOT on the artist.

three jokers

im torn on this one.. i think its a bit boring.. i dont rlly like the top part, it reminds me SOO much of that one tt issue where he beat the fuck out of tim while wearing a robin costume like i understad the implications of him wearing a costume thats similar to the robin blouse but im not a big fan.. also i prefer the brown leather jacket. its like not his worst costume by far but not the best.. like pretty basic?  i would say 6/10

NOW SOME AUS.

tiny titans & lil gotham

okay these two are like. pretty much the canon versions of robin and red hood HOWEVER they both have details that are different from the original version and DESERVE a mention. the curls on robin jason and jasons red gloves/belt are ICONIC. whoever designed them knew what they were about, so 10/10 best bapy jason.

arkham knight

does the person who designed this know how much theyve done for the lgbt community? i hope they do. i love.. a lot about this costume. i love the ears, i love how techno it is, i love the layers to it.. im.. not a big fan of the whole military thingy but i have to admit that applying it to the design itself is kind of neat.. i love the colors too and how.. practical it is while being. well. kinda dramatic? the whole bat aesthetic.. yeah. i love it. 9/10

arkham red hood

this one.. when u think about it the outlaw version is VEEERY similar to this one: the pants, the hood, the jacket eve. however i like this helmet so much more, i have a weakness for eyeless (??) helmets.. i like the little details of it as well, i remember that pic going around of it being held together with like. fuckign stitches and bandaids. legendary. i love this look, i would say 9+/10

injustice 2 jason

okay gonna go ahead and say it: not a big fan of the helmet. it looks like.. a bug? the lenses do not spark joy. this bitch has many styles and like toners etc and i will no rate them all. i think its a pretty basic design, not the best but not the worst either. like if it was an exam i would make them pass but make faces at what im reading like eeehhhgh. 7/10.

hag jason

middle one is like literally, on the outside and superficial level, just. his usual costume. the jacket and the grey kevlar and the bat. now the gloves are sexy as hell.. and in the whit ebackground one u can appreciate the under costume better and i really like it?? i just.. like the design. I HATE HOWEVER the bat helmet. WHY IS IT HOLLOW?? BITCH HELLO?? AND THE BATMAN SYMBOL DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! and i like things making sense!!!. we will not talk about jason in this book. like.. 8/10. maybe 9 if im feeling it.

hag jason 2: the hagger and the furious

hes just.. a little old man.. he cannot change this.. i like this design. i like seeing jason grow old. wish it wasnt in this context. my father rlly. 8/10

—-

am i forgetting any jays.. i wont do all animated robins because they all look the same and the one that doesnt i do not like. SO HERES my thoughts..

#Anon #jason todd #jason.txt #THIS has been my weekly jason rant. come back next week for more

[itsbuckysworld]

Merry Heist-mas

Secret Agent!AU

in which Bucky’s heist– I mean, intel retrieval mission, is unexpectedly hijacked by the always lovely, never not witty Y/N, his fiercest rival agent.

Agent!bucky x Agent!Fem!reader

3K words

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I was literally was laying in bed when the random thought of HEISTmas instead of CHRISTmas crossed my head and i was like ok i have to write something with that title before the year is over so legit this was born because i just had to use that title for something, anything. 

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gifs are not mine.

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The satisfying crunch under the weight of Bucky’s tactical boots was like music to his ears. The harsh of the winter was always good for these types of missions. No self-respecting bad guy would have too many a guard outside braving the cold, which meant that Bucky seemed to be the only armored bulky man with a red nose lurking around the stylish building.

Easy, perhaps too easy, but for the moment being Bucky wouldn’t question it. He had spent too many days in the shadows studying just the structure of the building, and if he could avoid having to switchblade his way in, my, would he take that.

Like a choreography he swiftly made his way up the side of the intimidating wall, making it to the modern-looking glass ceiling with a smirk and without a sweat. He shook the snowflakes from his hair and turtleneck, disposing of the scarf. If he had it his way, the room that awaited him would be toasty warm.

A nice pop and the glass window was open, and with a tug he had secured the metal hook around the framing, sliding his body down the rope like any good James Bond would. Movies didn’t get that part too wrong.

Soft feet landed without trouble. The room dark and musky. Moonlight cascaded in, dressing the floors in shapes from the statues littered around the room. Just another museum that hid some bad guy’s lab in its depths and Bucky would unveil its secrets.

He took in the art around him as he ventured further in. A long red curtain framed a huge painting on the wall of some renaissance ball, and some random vase exhibit was decorated with Christmas lights that blinked on and off. There were mistletoes on almost every door.

Bucky searched down the halls, trying to spot any obvious entrances to whatever secret lair was hidden behind the walls of the space. He eventually found it. A large painting of some castle was slightly askew.

He squeezed his way in through the small gap that opened as he moved the painting aside. Funny, they forgot the mistletoe on this little entrance. 

The walls were now covered with some steel plates, bolted shut and secure, surely hiding webs of wiring. This part of the building was suddenly cooler, blue-ish lights illuminated his path, and his silent steps echoed, the clank of cold metal under his heel. 

It took him a second to decipher where the slight beeping was coming from, as he made his way down corridors with his back pressed to the walls. He peeked over each corner, a hand securely resting over the knife that was hidden in a pocket at his hip, next to another pocket that held a taser. Silent but deadly. 

One last turn down a darker hallway and he had reached it, the computer center. He approached it while looking back. With no one behind him, this would be so simple. He kneeled down and opened one of the lower pockets of his pants, retrieving some nifty device Sam had given him prior to the mission. It was a little box with a display of 6 numbers, connected to a bunch of cables with different sized connections. He found the one that seemed to fit the side of the keypad by the door and with a simple click of a button and a turn to the wheel on the side of the box, the display showed four zeros and the door hissed as it slid over allowing Bucky entrance. 

“I’m in” he jokingly muttered under his breath. 

A row of lights and buttons and keyboards sat in the middle of the room, overviewed by an array of monitors that displayed the different areas of the museum. Blind spots, guards on their post – luckily all of them on a different path than the one Bucky used to sneak in and would use to eventually sneak out – and covering every angle of any precious piece. 

He swiftly typed on the keyboard, thanking the heavens Natasha had spent so much time explaining to him how to hack these simple systems. He would have never made it to the level he was at had it not been for her helping him finish his all-around agent training. An agent who can’t hack easily should not be in the field for these types of missions, and that would be a bummer since these are sometimes his favorites.

A click here and a click there, a blue loading bar showing up on the screen, and now all he had to do was wait. 

Bucky’s mind wandered for a brief moment as he spun around once on the chair behind the control station. He thought about what he would have for dinner when he eventually left the place with a USB filled with delicious intel. If he wasn’t too tired, maybe he could make his famous lasagna for him and – he noticed a black blur on one of the monitors.

Eyes squinted, trying to catch a better glimpse of the lump through the greenish hue of the screen. It looked like a body. And he felt the edge of a knife pressed to his temple. Nerve endings all over his body lit up. He’d been caught? But how– Oh... Oh.

Bucky scoffed and chuckled darkly. His tongue found a home in his cheek. 

Much like the silence outside and the lack of guards inside on his way to the secret room, something was amiss, and Bucky had had a long month of non-stop missions, so his tired brain hadn’t made any connections or even worried about piecing things together, but now? Now, as he could actually feel the presence behind him and the cold tip of a knife to his head, it all made perfect sense. 

“Merry Christmas, Barnes” Bucky smirked at the sound of the very familiar voice, and immediately after the confirmation of his suspicions, his body relaxed back into the chair. 

“Nice of you to join me, Sticky” The nickname made him receive a growl in response, just like always, just like old times. 

“You mean nice of you to join me –“ with force, she spun him around, a hand resting on the back of the chair as she leaned in over him, looking at him straight to the eyes, knife now used as a pointer and poked slightly to his chest with every other word – “Where are your manners, Barnes? What would your Ma’ say if she learned you reaped the fruit of my hard labor taking these guys out and didn’t even say thanks” Her tone was mocking, but Bucky had to ask himself when wasn’t it. 

Well…

Another chuckle escaped his lips, and Bucky found himself raising his hands in an apologetic sign. His eyes flickered towards the screen. Transfer at 80%

“My bad. Thank you, my dear, where would I be without you?”

She took a step back and pocketed her knife. Bucky took this moment to eye her up and down. She was wearing the leather tactical suit this time around, he always wondered if it was more comfortable than the other two designs he’d seen her wear before – the dark camouflage one with belts over the chest was his favorite. Admitting to this to her had earned him more than a handful of glares and punches to his shoulder in previous occasions – but he wouldn’t complain. After all, it allowed her to take out all the bad guys and clear him plenty of space. She harrumphed with crossed arms.

“You’d be dead, that’s for sure. Which doesn’t sound half bad” Sitting in front of her in that power stance – oof, what a sight. Bucky couldn’t help but smirk. She scoffed and kicked his shin lightly, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

“Aw come on, Stick, you’d miss me, admit it” 90%, just a little longer. Not that holding banter with Y/N was any hard task. 

Bucky and Y/N go way back. She became a field agent around the same time he did, and the agencies that hired them are rivals in almost every sense, making them coincide in more than a hundred missions. 

At first, it was annoying, not only did Bucky had to worry about the bad guys, but he also had to race Y/N for the same objective more often than not. Although he couldn’t lie, the competition was probably the most fun his job offered. It was fun to keep up the action, to have an extra challenge, someone to one-up. And on the off chances when their objectives weren’t the same, it wasn’t hard to team up with her. And they made a very, very good team. 

100%. Her eyes glanced towards the screen in a flash, before they lay upon him again. She smiled at him. Bucky leaned forward, his hands placed calmly over the armrests as he returned her grin. Game on. 

“Well, I assume you’re also here for the intel...”

“It’s a shock you became an agent with such slow deducting skills, Barnes” Y/N rested her body against the console, half sitting up on it while she unsheathed her knife once more and flipped it around in her able fingers. 

“Slow, maybe…” Bucky paused, letting silence and suspense linger.

In a swift motion, he was on his feet, using the force to hop over her body and, anticipating her flip to meet him, he put his hands up, blocking the down slash of her knife and expertly slapping it out of her hand. He reached to the side and yanked the USB out of the console, but before he could turn around and leave, Y/N had ducked down and with a side sweeping kick, she had made him tumble down on his knees, the USB rattled out of his hands and sliding away from them. 

It took Bucky a beat longer than Y/N to be up on his feet and on the run towards the small memory stick. She had swooped it up before he could, and Bucky did the first thing he could think of and lunged at her. 

The two of them rolled on the cold metal floor, bodies fighting to be on top, hands squeezing to try and pry the USB off the winning hand. At some point in the struggle when Y/N held onto the device, Bucky had taken out his knife, but before he could do any harm, Y/N had his arm twisted behind his frame, causing him to drop the blade. Bucky bent down, flipping Y/N over his body and pushing her away from him, making her drop the pen-drive. It clattered as it slid away from them.

Pause. Bucky and Y/N looked towards the USB, watching it slide away. Bucky’s hair flipped over his face as his head flipped back to look at Y/N. Their eyes met, and another smile was shared between the rivals. 

Almost as if rehearsed they sprung into action. Bucky was sliding on his knees before Y/N could register it and he held onto the USB expertly. Once up on his feet, it was another sparring match for the history books. A punch here, a slap blocked there, kicks and pushes, grunts and tricks. 

Losing the upper hand, Bucky reached around Y/N’s body to try and grab the little stick, but she held it out of his reach. The resemblance to kids fighting over the TV remote was too much not to cause a chuckle to escape Y/N’s lips. 

A deafening alarm surprised the two, and their heads turned towards the closed doors to the hall they were in, approaching footsteps echoing in the distance. With a quick glance around the room, the pair of agents realized the havoc they had unleashed upon the room of valuable art with their fighting antics. 

“Oops,” Y/N said comically “seems I didn’t get all of them”

Bucky used the moment to slap the USB out of her hands and into his, pocketing it in a compartment of his suit on his chest, before she could act. Y/N growled but didn’t attack him. It wasn’t the time. The alarm continued to blare. 

Surviving first, sparring with Bucky later. 

The two split to avoid gunshots as the doors opened, revealing the guards. Whether they liked it or not, it was time to work together if they wanted to get out alive. Bucky sprinted towards them, grabbing random vases from the exhibit and chucking them the guards’ way. As they focused on him, it gave Y/N time to run around and knock out two of them from behind. 

Bucky held onto that red curtain from before and swung himself, kicking a non-suspecting guard in the head and rendering him useless for probably a week. 

More footsteps approached and both Bucky and Y/N took off in the same direction Bucky had come in. It wasn’t time to sit back and knock out every guard that came their way. No matter how good of a team they made together, they weren’t that amazing that they could take on who knows how many guards were headed their way, alone and without heavy weaponry.

They entered the room that Bucky had first entered when he infiltrated the museum and together they tried to close the heavy double doors as bad guys approached. Before closing them completely, almost like mirrored images, Bucky and Y/N pulled out their reserve knives, chucking them at the guards that were closest. With a loud bang, the doors were closed and the two of them pushed a statue in front of it. That should do it for about... 6 minutes they reckon, enough to let them escape. 

“Second knife huh?” He said, huffing and puffing from the exertion. Y/N gave him a smile, holding onto her side and trying to recover her breath. 

“I guess I should thank you for not using yours until now” Y/N sighed, pushing back her hair as she approached the rope Bucky had left after his entrance. The perfect getaway. She tugged on it, testing its hold. 

“Likewise” Bucky’s hand was over hers on the rope as he stepped closer to her frame. She looked up at him with soft eyes and a shy smile. He really liked it whenever she looked at him like so. Turned him into mush. But that was always, really. 

“Believe it not Barnes, I don’t actually want you dead. How boring would my life be?” Bucky smiled at that. She shook her hand from underneath his and placed it on the nape of his neck. Standing on her tippy toes she pressed her lips to his. Bucky sighed, melting into the kiss and the familiar embrace. Her hands wrapped around his frame as the kiss deepened. Able fingers dancing over his shoulders and chest, clutching all they could as his hands worked to push her closer into his frame. 

He separated from her with a grin, feeling empty the second she was an inch away “You’d miss me too much, admit it” His lips caressed hers as he spoke, a hand on her chin, keeping her close to him and with her face arched to his. His long lashes kissed his cheeks, and she loved looking at him, admiring his features up close like this. It gave her more butterflies than her first-ever field mission.

Biting her lip to suppress a lovesick smile, she nuzzled her nose to his. She didn’t see herself ever tiring of kissing him. Thank heavens for these types of missions. Stepping back, she hooked the rope to an electric piece on her belt that would rise her up the cable automatically. 

“I’d miss you too much.” she said, blowing him a kiss. She started swiftly lifting away. Bucky held onto her hand for as long as he could, letting her go up and escape the museum first, eyes too busy taking her in. She gave him a wink. When she was a whole body away from him she spun a little stick around her finger. “Oh, and thanks for the intel, babe”

Bucky’s eyes widened when he made out what she was flipping around, a hand immediately shooting up to the pocket at his chest. Empty. 

“...You- Wow, Sticky, what would your ma’ say, stealing from a man like that” Bucky tsked, shaking his head in mock disappointment. Y/N chuckled, head thrown back and everything. Bucky’s smile only widened. He loved making her laugh, probably just as much as he loved her. 

“Oh hush, she did teach me how to share, y’know?”

“Does that mean I get to see you later?” This made her snort. 

“Dork.” Y/N had reached the top and climbed up and over the metal edge of the ceiling, taking her time moving the glass cover out of the way so Bucky could get out quickly and just have to slide it right back in. No sign of them ever being there… Well, other than the obvious. 

“See you at home, sweetheart” He couldn’t really see it but he knew she had winked at him at his words.

“Merry Christmas, Buck” He heard her say before her figure disappeared into the night as she made her silent escape. 

Bucky remained there, looking up after her with a stupid grin across his face. They really did make a great team in every sense of the word. He bit down on his lip, hands placed on his hips. How had he gotten so lucky to have found her? 

He thinks maybe he has to give credit to their agencies for being such fierce rivals that they would go out of their way to put their best agents against each other in missions. He just loved thinking back to when their banter started, all those years when they were fighting each other over targets and their obvious sexual tension. 

And then the first time they worked together to achieve their different objectives, rather than trying to beat the other –

A loud bang brought Bucky out of his thoughts. His eyes flickered to the door, noticing the statue that was keeping the guards out had moved, and the doors were slowly being opened. Soon someone would be able to sneak through the gap. 

Right. Escaping first, seeing your fiance later, Barnes. 

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Sorry for such a long piece, hope that’s ok!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this piece and my little Agents. 

Please, remember that feedback is literally what feeds a writer’s motivation to continue posting their pieces, and it takes two seconds. I read every reblog, reply, tag, and you can always message me or drop anything in my inbox – feedback or whatever else really. I’m open to talking, always.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #my writing #merry heist-mas #secret agent AU #agent AU #AU! #bucky barnes AU #Bucky Barnes fanfic #fluff #MCU

[arofili]

saved post, ignore this

(don’t reblog this)

Smut4Smut Prompts

I didn’t intend to write an actual letter, I just wanted to paste my prompts into the description box for this exchange, but then I got long-winded (as usual) so here are the prompts that were too long for AO3 to handle! If the prompts did fit into the box they’re not going to be here, and I am not restating my DNWs/Likes/etc; that’s all readily available in my AO3 signup.

~~~

Canon Russingon Prompts

(These are optional - if you have a different idea, go for it!)

This is my “Russingon in canon” request, though if you’ve got a canon divergence AU, be my guest.

BDSM - A doms B into being nicer to/taking better care of themself: This just screams Russingon to me. Maedhros asking for Fingon to be cruel to him and Fingon using kindness as the greatest cruelty because Maedhros hates himself so much...

Character Bottoms Who Normally Tops, Character Tops Who Normally Bottoms, Role Reversal: I’m a sucker for role reversal, especially with these two. I lean toward Maedhros bottoming more often than not, but however you prefer their dynamic is completely fine.

Can't Stop Thinking About It - A Accidentally Sees B Naked, Can't Stop Thinking About It - A Hears B Masturbating and Moaning A's Name: I think I’ve written both of these scenarios for these two but I would LOVE to read another take on them! Mutual pining in Valinor? :)

Characters mutually pining finally get together and have amazing sex, Filthy Sex With Feelings,: I just love this in general, and Russingon having filthy but extremely loving sex is my very favorite thing <3

Characters Experiment With Sexy New Ways To Use Detachable Body Parts: Maedhros’ prosthetic. Enough said.

Characters React To In-Universe Smut Written About Them: Listen, someone has GOT to have written some Russingon smut in-canon, that’s just statistically likely. The sillier and less accurate it is, the better, especially if it’s countered with them having the kind of sex they prefer in...protest? Or maybe trying out some of the dumb things, lol.

Cock Slut, Slut Praising: bottom!Maedhros tbh.

Crown kink, Fealty, Throne Sex: The “Fealty Kink” tag is literally half Silm fics, and half of those are Russingon fics. Add some more?

Dom/sub - not 24/7 but reflecting RL power roles: Very much related to the above. Liege/vassal kink? Yes please!

Domesticity - Sex In Bed Before Sleep: Just. Soft married Russingon. ;-;

Devotion: THEY JUST LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH AND WOULD (AND DO) DIE FOR EACH OTHER. AHHH.

First Time: I am SUCH a sucker for first times. Could be their first time together at all, or their first time doing a specific sexual act, or their first time in a certain situation (post-Angband, post-rebirth, etc...)

Getting Together: Another thing I really really love in almost any form, especially if there’s been mutual pining before this.

Fluff and Smut: Russingon just loving each other SO DAMN MUCH...bonus points if there’s some baby Gil-galad fluff involved before/after the sexytimes?

Hurt/Comfort Sex: Their lives are so depressing that there’s so many times this could apply. Right before Formenos? Right after the Darkening or the First Kinslaying? Post-Angband/Ice? Post-Bragollach? Or any other time things get angsty (aka all of canon)?

Magic - using telepathy to cause other person to orgasm: Soul bonds. Dom Fingon. Yes please.

Morning After (Incredible Sex the night before): Fluffy good times. Maybe after their first time, back in Valinor?

Mutual Masturbation With Intent to Watch Each Other in Lieu of First Time Sex: Another fic I have definitely written before but would LOVE to see again! This would make the most sense in a LaCE context, I think.

Mutual Pining: I’ve mentioned this a billion times already, you get the idea.

Praise Kink: Maedhros has a praise kink, that’s just canon. This can be fun and slightly embarrassing in Valinor...or really intensely emotional post Angband. Or post-rebirth...oof.

Pregnancy - Sex to Conceive Heir: Just where DID Gil-galad come from, hmmm? (Trans mpreg is wonderful; I’m not interested in cis mpreg. Either one of them could be trans, I enjoy both.)

Reunion Sex: They’re basically in an LDR in Beleriand, give me some Fingon visiting Himring or Maedhros visiting Dor-lómin and just how horny and desperate they are for each other after being separated for awhile.

Scar Worship: Finno post-Angband finding Mae’s scars Extremely Sexy?

Secret relationship between members of feuding families: This is literally just canon. Lean into the Romeo and Juliet style Valinor shenanigans!

Sex After Taking Revenge on Someone Who Wronged Their Partner: Husbands who murder orcs together and then fuck while still all nasty from battle :)))

Sex Toys - Character Fucks Themselves on a Dildo While Performing Oral Sex: I just think Mae giving Finno a blowjob and fucking himself at the same time would be really hot, okay?

Size - Size Difference: I do love bottom!Maedhros, but I also love size queen!Fingon, and I think they both really enjoy the size difference :))

thank god you're/we're alive sex: I bet this happened SO many times after battles in Beleriand. This could also apply to right after the Darkening, and would be just HEARTRENDING right after the First Kinslaying...

Soul Bond - Sharing Physical Pleasure Through Soul Bond: I am very fond of this trope! Also like. Them feeling how much they are loved through each other’s eyes. Ahhh. But also like, Mae getting off on how good he’s making Finno feel. Or vice versa.

Character A hurts Character B (at their request) during sex but Character A immediately regrets it, Character Thinks Rescue Has a Price Tag, Sex gets paused to deal with PTSD then maybe returned to, panic attack during sex: These are some angstier options! I would love a fluffy/happy story (or a hurt/comfort story) but if you wanted to go a bit darker route here’s some ideas. Just. Post-Angband Mae with no self worth and/or consent issues, Finno having a hard time dealing with Mae being masochistic, Mae flashing back to Angband...all of these are some really juicy ideas.

~~~

Modern Russingon Prompts

(These are optional - if you have a different idea, go for it!)

This is my “Modern AU Russingon” request - though if you see a tag here that you think could be applied to canon, that would be awesome too.

Trans Male Character: Lots of these tags would have at least one of them being trans, which I’m also super happy to see in canon-compliant fic, but I know for me it feels a bit easier to me to write about trans stuff when I don’t have to worry about terminology not fitting the setting, so I put them here.

Cunnilingus to relieve period cramps, PiV With Trans Male Character, Sex Toys - Character Fucks Themselves on a Dildo While Performing Oral Sex, Sex Toys - Giving a Blowjob to a Dildo or Strap-on, Sex Toys - Strap-On: Just all some very excellent stuff if you want to go the trans route. I imagine the strap game would be next level with these two.

Characters mutually pining finally get together and have amazing sex, Filthy Sex With Feelings, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Getting Together, Morning After (Incredible Sex the night before), Mutual Pining, Praise Kink, Size - Size Difference: I requested all these tags for the canon prompt too, this is just the same stuff but modern, where they get to be dorky about how much they’re in love, minus most of the angst.

Character with Low Self-Esteem has Self-Worth Affirmed Through Tender Sex: ...but not minus ALL the angst. Just. Mae having had bad experiences in previous relationships and Finno being extremely tender and loving to him, AHHHH.

Getting off on how much partner trusts them: And this could be the other side of the previous request - Mae is trusting Finno even after all the bad stuff he went through and that’s very sexy to him.

Good Boy/Good Girl Kink: This could apply in canon too but if you want to do the trans thing, it could also be a gender affirmation thing.

Impact - Friendly ass slap unexpectedly turns character on: Mae is mortified that he’s into spanking, Finno is delighted.

romantic sex: This didn’t fit into the previous request but YES PLEASE. Just. They love each other SO much.

~~~

Russurgon Prompts

(These are optional - if you have a different idea, go for it!)

OKAY wow I love this ship, it’s so incredibly fucked up and angsty, hell yeah. This is one request where you really don’t need to bother with anything fluffy or a happy-ish ending, just go full on angst mode, please! Basically, I just think it would be very fun and horrible if Mae seduced Turgon for political reasons post-Nírnaeth when they’re both grieving Fingon :)))))

Character Bottoms Who Normally Tops: I can see Turgon having a hangup about bottoming...which Mae is fine with but one day they get into a Very bad argument and Mae like, puts Turno in his place. (No non-con though. Dub-con would be okay here.)

Characters about to kill each other decide to fuck instead: Kinslaying averted by sex!

Dirty Talk - Character A Gets Off on B Relaying Their Sexual Exploits: Just. Mae growling in Turno’s ear all the filthy things he would do with Fingon and Turgon HATING it and especially hating how hot it is.

Enemies to enemies who fuck, Enemies With Benefits, Frenemies with Benefits, sex between enemies, Sex between rivals: Basically all the same thing. These guys do NOT like each other but they’re fucking anyway.

Fucked with the hilt of a weapon: Look idk man just. Turgon being really mean to Maedhros after a post-battle argument or something?

Grudging/Horrified One-Sided Attraction To Someone Who Annoys You Deeply: I think this would be funny if Turgon realized he was into Mae (honestly, at any point in time, not just post-Nirn?) and that maybe the reason he was so mad about Fingon dating Mae is because he was jealous...lmaooo

Hate Sex Turns Unexpectedly Tender: Like. A moment of understanding between them. That they both refuse to talk about after it happens.

lord/retainer, Political Alliance Confirmed with Sex, Political Debate as Foreplay, Sex as a Negotiation Tactic, Sex As Part Of Diplomatic Negotiations: POLITICAL SEX. It’s showing that they’re serious about this alliance...nothing else, just that...right?

sex as self harm, Sex as Unhealthy Coping Mechanism, Sex as Grief Processing: This could work for both of them but I think it especially works for Maedhros. He unlearned a lot of fucked up shit with Fingon after Angband, but now Fingon’s dead and it’s all coming crashing back down on him...and Turgon hates him so much that if he can tell, he doesn’t care.

A using B as replacement for C who is not present: This is exactly why Mae would fuck Fingon’s brother.

~~~

Anairë/Fëanor/Fingolfin/Nerdanel Prompts

(These are optional - if you have a different idea, go for it!)

OKAY so I don’t like sibling incest EXCEPT for Fëanor/Fingolfin, pretty much, just because the love-hate stuff with them is SO juicy. But I also hate how most FëaNolo fics depict their relationships with their wives, so I would just love it if they were all a polycule or had a foursome or something that didn’t end up with Fëanor and Fingolfin leaving their wives.

Bisexuality: They’re all very hot and they’re all very into each other. Gender who?

Breeding Kink - as dirty talk without risk: Look Fëanor and Nerdanel had SEVEN kids, I think there was probably some kind of breeding kink there...Fëanor applying this to Fingolfin, though? That’s hot. Or maybe he’s dirty talking with Anairë while Fingolfin is Right There.....yesss. But again, no risk, because elf pregnancy is always very intentional.

Character A and Character B Mutually Pine For Each Other While They Fuck Other People Together: Fëanor and Fingolfin just absolutely refusing to acknowledge their feelings even when they’re having sex with each other’s wives.

Double Anal Penetration, Double Penetration - Vaginal and Anal, Double Vaginal Penetration: I just think it’s hot. You can mix up who’s penetrating who, give the ladies some strap-ons or mess around with gender, if you like.

First Time - Getting Pegged: Fëanorians get pegged, it is law, so probably not Fëanor’s first time but... Nerdanel pegging Fingolfin? Or Fëanor and Nerdanel showing Fingolfin and Anairë how it’s done? OR since let’s be real Fingolfin ALSO probably gets pegged regularly, Anairë and Nerdanel fucking each other while their husbands watch, and it’s their first time with another lady.

First Time Having Sex Postpartum: I imagine Nerdanel is unfazed by what pregnancy does to the body, but maybe Anairë isn’t, and her lovers all get together to show her how much they still love her after like, Argon is born?

Fucking Someone While Being Fucked By Someone Else: All the fun things you can do with multiple partners...

Grudging/Horrified One-Sided Attraction To Someone Who Annoys You Deeply: I must admit I missed the “one-sided” part of this when I picked this tag - but maybe they think it’s one-sided but it turns out that it’s not? Regardless, this is exactly how I see Fëanor and Fingolfin if they’re in a ship situation.

Sexy Shenanigans at a Masked Ball: Anonymity allowing a secret relationship to be slightly less secret!! Everyone is like “wow who is that tall fellow dancing with Prince Fëanáro?” or something like that!

~~~

Taeglin Prompts

(These are optional - if you have a different idea, go for it!)

Now this is my rarepair that I completely understand why it’s a rarepair, but also like MATCHING CURSED SWORDS. I generally think of this ship in the context of a “Túrin goes to Gondolin with Tuor” AU, BUT it could also be a “Aredhel and Maeglin go to Himlad, and then follow Celegorm and Curufin to Nargothrond and stay after they get banished” AU, but that’s a bit more convoluted. Or you can have them meet each other on one of Maeglin’s journeys away from Gondolin, or whatever other take you’d like to explore.

Both parties are pining for someone else: Túrin missing Beleg? Or both of them being in love with Idril and upset about her choosing Tuor instead, lol.

In Captivity Together, Bad guys think they made them do it but they really just enabled them: Túrin gets captured alongside Maeglin...or maybe Maeglin gets captured earlier, at the same time Túrin is after Amon Rûdh? (In that case it would probably just be “Bad guys made them do it” without the qualifier because they haven’t had the chance to Pine.) Basically, they finally have an excuse to fuck, and it’s not ideal, but hey they’re gonna take it.

Realizing romantic feelings mid-sex: “Oh FUCK I actually like this guy. Shit. Goddamnit.”

Mating Cycles/In Heat: Maybe heats are an elf thing, and Túrin remembers how Beleg would get, so he knows how to help Maeglin...and it’s not like Maeglin was going to ask anybody for help, he was just planning on suffering through it (again?)...

~~~

eta: an anon asked about smut likes and i was like oops i didn’t make that list so here’s some stuff i enjoy. otherwise just see the kink tags i requested

anal sex, vaginal sex, oral sex (basic but yknow)

fingering

frottage

very romantic sex (especially for russingon)

nonromantic sex (i like aro takes on characters)

trans characters whose gender is affirmed during sex

trans characters without much physical dysphoria

reunion sex

first times!!

hurt/comfort sex

political sex

fealty kink, liege/vassal dynamic

mutual masturbation

double penetration

russingon stumpfucking

dirty talk

healing from trauma through tender sex

dealing with trauma through rough sex

teasing, begging

dramatic miscommunications that get cleared up (such as mutual pining, very brief worries about consent, etc)

praise kink (especially for maedhros)

size kink (especially for fingon)

telepathy/osanwe

dom fingon/sub maedhros

hair kink

possessiveness but ONLY for russingon

sharing a bed

maedhros getting spanked......

role reversal, switching

#tmi anna #exchange letter

[killian-whump]

WHookWeek: The F Word

Hello, and welcome to my TED Talk. I’m KW, and I’m the head mistress of the Killian Jones Bang Train. In honor of Wish Hook Week, I’ve been asked by absolutely no one to provide an in-depth look at our facilities and the special amenities and stations we’ve added to accommodate Old Hook, Wish Hook, and Detective Rogers.

First, allow me to say that we here at the KJ Bang Train have every sympathy for those who choose not to acknowledge the existence of Wish Hook (or his tengential other versions). We have a highly sophisticated protocol in place for such riders on the Bang Train, which we have tentatively titled, “Shut Up and Bang the Other One Then”.

However, for those of you who have adopted a “the more the merrier” or an “if it has Colin’s face, I’ll bang it” approach in your life, we have adapted and expanded all of our stations to allow for this exciting new addition to the KJ Bang Train. Please, come along with me for a veritable word wall virtual tour.

Current KJ Bang Train Stops

Aside from the last 30-40 years of their lives, Wish Hook and OG Hook both had the exact same experiences and relationships. As a result, nearly all stations service both Hooks concurrently - a fancy word that means at the same damn time. However, most stations do have special kiosks and exhibits relating to one Hook or the other. Let’s take a look...

Stop 1: The Liam Jones Lookout Whilst technically a station, this small stop is more of a pause in the Bang Train’s route. We have never witnessed anyone actually getting off at this stop, aside from those few souls who forgot they were riding the Bang Train and thought they’d take in some brotherly love. Generally, these riders return to the Train a little shaken, having seen a bit too much brotherly love for their tastes. Still, the stop is here if anyone ever shows up to man the place.

Stop 2: The Millian Mile This gorgeous, scenic stretch of stations is the second largest stop on the KJ Bang Train’s route. We have canon-compliant banging, canon-divergent banging, and AU banging... all of which service both Hooks equally. We also have an additional station devoted to OG Hook for all your Underworld banging needs. Bang away, you tragic star-crossed lovers T_T

Stop 3: Golden Hook Gateway Don’t be fooled by this stop’s golden appearance. All that glitters is not always consensual. Or maybe it is. But it’s probably not. This stop caters to both Hooks equally, though one’s likely to have a slightly more positive experience than the other. AU bangings, canon-compliant FoeTP bangings, canon-divergent bangings... We’ve got all the dirty, filthy bangings you could possibly want here. Just make sure to wipe your feet before boarding the train again. We don’t know where you’ve been, you dirty fiend friend.

Stop 4: Tinkerhook Terminal This fun, spritely stop is the first of several located in our lovely Neverland Neighborhood. This stop caters to both Hooks with plenty of jungle bangings literally everywhere and anywhere bangings can occur. There’s also a special “Reunion in Neverland” Kiosk that caters solely to OG Hook and S3 bangings, as well as a Storybrooke Kiosk for any of your post-S3 bangings with either Hook (or both, we never judge).

Stop 5: Captain Pan Camps As soon as the Bang Train pulls in at this popular stop, you’ll be asked by our porter if you prefer the Dark Camp or the Light Camp. You’ll want to make sure you choose wisely, my friends, as there is a BIG difference between the two! Both cater to all of your Captain Pan bangings, albeit in very different ways. Both also have an OG Hook specific “Reunion in Neverland” Kiosk, as well as a “Wish Pan” exhibit that promises untold future wonders for both Hooks... or nightmares, depending on which camp you chose ;)

Stop 6: The Lost Boys Layover Stops are rarely as raucous (or dangerous) as this one, which is why we do not allow drop-offs with later pick-ups here. We used to, but no one ever seemed to return, or they showed up late and on death’s door from Dreamshade poisoning. Instead, the Bang Train will remain in station, ready for evacuation, for the duration of your visit. Make sure to check out the “Felix Fracas” exhibit and the Mess Hall, which serves a lovely foie gras. (Please Note: All of our Lost Boys are physically over 18 and mentally deranged.)

Stop 7: Tiger Lily Territory The last of our Neverland stops is a beautiful paradise of nature. Specializing in blow darts, Lost Boy evasion, and bangings, this stop also boasts a lovely Post-Series Kiosk dedicated especially to Wish Hook. If Wish Hook isn’t to your liking, shut up and bang the other one instead.

Stop 8: Hooked Queen Haven The third largest stop on the Bang Train’s route, and the largest non-canon stop, this station has a small Pre-Curse Carriage Ride to greet you as soon as you leave the Bang Train. This rollicking ride is the only part of the Haven that services both Hooks equally. From there, the station diverges down two separate paths. The left hand path is for Wish Hook, comprised of Pirate Queen and HQ Endgame stations, while the right hand path is for OG Hook’s continued pre-curse and post-curse Hooked Queen shenanigans and various AU stops.

Stop 9: Captain of Hearts Cave This rocky dungeon-like stop caters almost exclusively to OG Hook, though there is a small kiosk for those who choose to believe there was some banging attempts before the two Hooks’ paths diverged. Make sure to check out the “History of Male Submission” exhibit, which runs year round for absolutely no reason at all, unless you know what I mean, then you know what I mean, and would surely agree with its inclusion here. For no reason. At all. Have a nice day :)

Stop 10: Captain Gothel Grove This dark, ominous stop is definitely one for seasoned bangers only. Be sure this is where you want to stop before you get off the train, because once you’re here... Well, you might be here for a longer time than you’d like. This stop is exclusively for Wish Hook, as OG Hook refused to touch this stop with a ten foot pole, much to Mother Gothel’s disappointment. Warning: Don’t eat the mushrooms. Or drink the tea. Or... Really, just watch your back, like, the whole time. Forever. This one is a genocidal maniac.

Stop 11: Hookriel Harbor This stop was originally much smaller and in a different place on the route, but it was upgraded and relocated as of Season 7. While the original station was devoted solely to OG Hook bangings, the new and improved station now focuses more so on Wish Hook and Wish Ariel’s relations. There still exists a kiosk for OG Hookriel, of course, along with all the original content from the first incarnation of this much-loved stop. Old Hook also gets some love here.

Stop 12: Sleeping Hook Spot This quaint little stop is centered on OG Hook’s AU/Divergent bangings with Princess Aurora. There is a small kiosk for potential Wish Hook post-series bangings, just in case you have need of it. This quiet refuge is just the place to calm your nerves before reaching the next stop...

Stop 13: Captain Swan Central Station The largest and busiest stop on the entire Bang Train line, this bustling hub boasts all the amenities one would expect from a 5-star establishment - a coffee shop, a gym, a pool where ill-fitting suits just happen to fall right off, plenty of hotel rooms with only one double bed, etc. There’s also special sub-stations for Lieutenant Duckling, Captain Swan Threesomes (just slap a name on the end of “Captain Swan” and there’s a station for it), Captain Swan 2.0, and just about every other variety of this endgame ship that your dirty little heart could possibly desire. Make sure to check out the special year-round exhibit entitled, “How Many Hooks Is Too Many Hooks?” Spoiler: The answer is none. There is no such thing as too many Hooks for Emma to bang at once.

Stop 14: Captain Charming Cove If you’re looking for a bromance, you’ll have to look elsewhere... for this is the bang train. We got nothing but bangings here, and these two DO bang at this stop. Choo Choo, All Aboard! We also have an MPreg Kiosk for all your mpreg needs. Nobody judges here. All Hooks welcome.

Stop 15: Krakillian Kreek A watery stop full of nothing but HUGS!!! (And tentacles. Please mind the tentacles and keep an eye on your orifices.)

Stop 16: Old Hooks Home This special stop caters to Old Hook, and Old Hook alone. Anyone and anything you might want to have Old Hook bang - it can happen here. Granny, Lady Tremaine, Old Emma, Young Emma, you name it. There’s also Taco Tuesdays and free bingo every night.

Stop 17: Hooking Utensil Utopia This Rogers-centric stop boasts the finest beignets in the world, as well as some top-notch detective work if you’re into that kind of thing. Oh, who are we kidding? You’re here to bang some Hooks... and the Hooking Utensil stop has the sweeeeeetest banging this side of the Pancake House. Wish Hook is also welcome, of course, both pre- and post- Hyperion Heights.

Stop 18: Hook Coven Crossing Still need more Hook? We’ve got you covered. Here at Hook Coven Crossing, your Hooks can bang other Hooks... and still more Hooks... whilst banging still more Hooks... and then a few more. All the Hooks are here, and they’re all waiting for you each other! :D

Stop 19: Last Chance Alley We here at the KJ Bang Train like to see to ALL of our riders’ needs... and that’s where Last Chance Alley comes in. All bangable ships that don’t have stops of their own can be indulged in here. We have kiosks for Red Hook, Black Hook, Wicked Hook, Hookfire, Stubble Sandwich, whatever we call Hades and Hook (why does that still not seem to have a name? maybe Blue Hook? No, that would be Blue + Hook...)... All the smaller ships are here, along with Captain Floor, Captain Bondage, some interactive “Make Your Own Threesome” exhibits and a self-contained Orgy Pile! Make sure to top off your ride on the Bang Train with this one-of-a-kind stop!

Stop 20: Right Back to the Start... The KJ Bang Train is life. The KJ Bang Train is love.

#whookweek #killian jones #wish hook #detective rogers #all the hooks #i meant for this to be more wish hook exclusive #but then it kinda got away from me #but here it is #oc #not whxmp #kw writes a thing #kj bang train #all aboard #choo choo

[redactedfing-blog]

Megamind Modern Cowboy AU (Part 1)

@all-these-trees-stealing-mah-o2 cheers for the motivation I did the thing:

NOTE: It was heavily inspired off of a post by the aforementioned person and in the film, it sounds like Megamind is called “Lee”, so I used it as his name. I also found out cowboys still exist in America so there’s that too.

--------

Usually, it was said that the city was more predictable than the country.

So when Warden John Taylor heard a loud crash coming from the prison courtyard one Christmas morning, he was perplexed. Three prisoners huddled around the foreign object, gawking at whatever was inside.

He expected it to be a bomb, or some failed attempt to smuggle contraband into the prison by some gang member who still had contacts on the outside. Most unexpectedly, though, it turned out to be a rather frightened, and equally confused baby. The shock made him see past the infant’s cerulean blue skin, wide emerald eyes and abnormally large head almost immediately. Why would a child end up here of all places? Not even his brother Shaun, a prison guard, could believe his eyes. Both of them thought they had seen everything down where they grew up in Louisiana, but they were wrong, it so seemed.

The blue infant had a fish, which looked unnervingly like a piranha. Any hand going towards the infant was met with a stern, toothy glare. There was also some sort of pacifier, which glowed with hues of electric blue. John thought it might have been toxic, the way it was glowing, but the infant seemed unharmed when they had it.

Speaking of unharmed, the kid hadn’t managed to come here without a few bruises, much to both John and Shaun’s anger. The infant couldn’t have been more than just a week old, but despite the fact the child appeared bright and well, both feared that they may have suffered some brain damage on their journey here. A long wait in the prison infirmary negated these worries, as well as giving new ones. The infant, (now confirmed to be male), had a strong immune system to the most bizarre of diseases Earth could offer. The more common ones, however, did serious harm. One dose of the common cold wiped him out, leaving John unsure if the kid would even make it to a year old. Luckily, it appeared he would.

Sure enough, John adopted the infant and was very quick to let Shaun know of his new position, which was now Uncle Shaun. The infant, now named Lee, began to grow up into a happy (though not very tall) young boy. For the first four years of his life, he went between staying in the prison and traveling down to the family ranch in Louisiana. John saw it fit that he could grow up alongside the rest of the family, and adopted or not, they were quick to like him. Grandma and Grandpa Taylor were happy to have another grandchild to spoil with treats, and Rodney, his cousin, became his best friend (second to Minion, of course).

There were times where Rodney and Lee could pick up an ice pop, run into the valley and now return for hours, insisting that they were playing cowboys and that they had to go and hunt the thieves. Brandishing their ice pop packets and folding the top, claiming they were ‘guns’. They would dash through the marshes, squealing and laughing as they hid behind trees, clamber up hills, and even go far enough to pet some of the cattle. They would return hours later covered in sweat, boots and their kerchiefs covered in dirt, grinning with traces of sugar around their mouths. They never went very far, only how far their short legs would take them, and Uncle Boe always kept an eye out while they were adventuring.

Lee always began crying when they had to go back to Michigan for the other part of the year.

When they lived at the prison, back in Metro City, John could see that his son was easily influenced by the other prisoners. Most of their “advice” wasn’t too bad, but John didn’t see the need to be telling a young child to hit anyone who got in their face, especially without reason. At least John could be assured that Lee wouldn’t be hurt, given that the prisoners closest to where the kid was were moderately harmless in nature. He didn’t bat an eye when Lee was enrolled in kindergarten the following month and didn’t really think about how the other children would react to his appearance. Not only was he blue, but he had a rather solid Cajun accent, which would be enough to make anyone raise their eyebrows. Now, John himself had that same accent, and he was quite proud of it, but young kids rarely understand how differences work, and this was one of those times they didn’t.

The school was a disaster. Every day John watched his son return to the prison with bruises or cuts, and every dad he came back quieter and quieter. It was odd, really, considering the fact that he had a reputation for being a rowdy child back home. Seeing him barricade himself in his room, without a word to anyone, was incredibly worrying. What was even more worrying, however, was when he returned without the invention he had made that morning, or when a note saying “space-freak cowboy” was taped to his back in what John couldn’t shake looked like the teachers handwriting. Whatever the prisoners had taught him to suddenly came to light, when he was sent home early for punching (or at least trying to) another kid. John was aghast at Lee’s hand because it seemed that his hand had suffered more damage than the other student. The bones were shattered, with multiple breaks and fractures from his wrist to his knuckles. It was almost as if he had punched a brick wall.

The school fiasco went on for four months, with complaints from a parent that Lee was trying to ‘attack’ their child. The complaints only came from one person, and whenever John, or whoever was investigating, asked for proof - the parent never delivered any. They always claimed that it was the ‘emotional’ damage done to her son, who John found out was named Wayne, and not the physical damage, despite teachers reports and the parent originally claiming that Lee had physically attacked him. Whenever John went to speak to his son about this Wayne kid, all he could see was that Lee began to physically tremble, followed by him seething with anger and crying about how horrible Wayne was, but that nobody wanted to see it.

It wasn’t until one day, where Lee set off a blue paint bomb in the school, that John found out everything that had happened. He had been expelled, and through a stream of tears, Lee recited everything that was said and done to him throughout the past number of weeks. This time, it was John, and by extension, Uncle Shaun, who were seething with anger, and remarks that the parents of these monsters of kids were entitled and ignorant. One call back home to the rest of the Taylors sealed it, and a month after his fifth birthday, Lee was told that he, along with Uncle Shaun and his dad, were moving to the Louisiana ranch permanently. John remarked that he had never seen Lee look so eager to go somewhere following going to school, and the sluggish, unwilling attitude that the school had given him had turned into one of excitement. Shaun was worried the kid would fall out of his car seat should he become even more eager.

Once everything was settled, all of Lee’s aunts and uncles were quick to tell him about how he didn’t need to be worried about the ‘dirty rats’ that were the children and teacher of the Lil’ Gifted school, and that the ranch was going to be far more fun. Like Rodney, Lee began to be homeschooled, though his family remarked that they needn’t be bothered given that Lee was exceptional at learning, and could already breeze through physics textbooks intended for college students. This didn’t stop him from teaching Rodney, however, and they would always rush around the ranch afterward. In between the horses, the metalshop, the kitchen, the garage, there weren’t many places where they wouldn’t go.

Rodney, to Lee’s description, looked vaguely similar to Wayne. Though he had more freckles, dotted across his face and arms, and his hair was more wavy and poofy, in comparison to Wayne having rather flat, combed, (“dumb”, as Lee put it) hair. Rodney was two years older than Lee, unlike Wayne only being one year older, and Lee was quick to mention that Rodney was obviously, much cooler and nicer than Wayne could ever be. Rodney took pride in this and said that if he ever saw Wayne, he would deliver him a smack in the face. Lee never mentioned that Wayne was invulnerable, partially because he really did want to see him get slapped across his smug, entitled face, and partially because he didn’t want to bring up what happened to his hand months prior.

As far as Lee was concerned, whatever happened, had happened. It didn’t matter because now he got to stay at the ranch forever and he didn’t have to see his stupid classmates or the loud city or that ugly superman-imitating Wayne again. Still, he missed some of the prison ‘uncles’, and he didn't want to remember how much weight the words that the teacher had said to him held. He wasn’t a monster, nor was he very evil, despite what she insisted. His dad had reassuringly told him that she would lose her ability to teach, and wouldn’t be able to teach anywhere ever again. It had still hurt him, though. Still wounded whatever pride he had. It was the one thing he never mentioned to his dad, even during his outburst. However, that didn’t matter right now. He could do something about that later.

For now, he was going to settle down in front of the (only) television and chow down on the apple pie his grandparents had lovingly made beside Rodney, and watch Tom and Jerry until he could put Minion in his tank, go to his new room and go to bed. As far as he should be concerned, everything was going to be great.

#megamind #megamind fanfic #megamind modern cowboy au #megamind au #cant believe i wrote something #i hope yall like it #cowboy

[anonthenullifier]

A Chance Encounter

Based on the prompt submitted by @thissweetmoment: 1960s/70s AU. Preferably, but not necessarily, loosely based on former Tumblr user quietzombiegirl‘s viral post: “everyone’s grandparents seem to have really cute stories of how they met, and like my grandparents met when my grandma was running away from police during a protest and she jumped on the back of my grandad’s motorcycle and just screamed ‘DRIVE FUCKING DRIVE.’”

Made for the Scarlet Vision Valentine’s Day Event (#svvde2018)

The thrum of the crowd sends vibrations through his muscles, an angry, desperate rhythm that pulsates against the vibranium lacing this body, yet Vision remains calm, still, voice mute and arms hanging loosely at his side as he hovers. This is not his event, he is not a mutant, though he is not a human, caught someplace in between where no legislation will ever reach, where it is easy for both sides, at times, to diminish his autonomy. But that is unimportant as his eyes scan the crowd, the array of skin tones and physical abnormalities, puffs of multicolored powers and pleas in various languages are fascinating to take in. The fight for equality has developed, not quickly, centuries of repression would never allow for such a claim, but in the past six months the voices have grown exponentially louder and angrier, a direct result of the relative success of the Civil Rights Movement and the President’s new initiative to draft mutants in segregated units for the Vietnam War. Serving in the military has been a civil right denied them until recently because they lacked a clear, distinct acceptance as citizens, but now their lives are needed because the non-mutants are dying, failing at reaching whatever the end result of the war is, something no one quite comprehends.  Vision is not here to protest, however, only to observe and step in if things become violent, an edict from Mr. Stark, who is in charge of security at these events.

It is almost imperceptible, the change in the crowd, but Vision tenses as a hush starts at the anterior of the protest and then snakes through each partially formed row. Something must be occurring near the line of militia and so Vision rises slightly higher into the air, the wind billowing his cape now that he is above the surrounding people. There are too many bodies obscuring whatever is happening, even a rotation and zoom of his ocular sensors cannot delineate the source of unease. Then something happens, it is small at first, simply a ripple in the air, then the very molecules around the guards shift, take on a scarlet tinge. His fists tighten, sympathetic system preparing for intervention, yet he is still uncertain the exact culprit or issue. Before he can determine what to do, chaos ensues, an explosion of red engulfs the military personnel, there are screams and cheers, no gunshots, thankfully, but commotion spreads quickly through the crowd. Vision begins flying towards the front, two goals in mind: first is to determine precisely what occurred and second is to intercept whomever caused the display, the guidelines for protest remarkably well-defined when it comes to unacceptable interference.

Vision is scanning the crowd for signs of the person when a hand wraps around his boot, yanking him lower with a slightly frantic, “You fly?”

The speaker is a woman, reddish-brown hair cascading in curls, held in place by a thick headband, and her eyes are hopeful, gorgeous, even, though he should not be focusing on such things. “Pardon?”

She smiles, it’s quick and amused, and then she grabs his cape, presents it to him in explanation. “Do you fly?”

“Oh,” it seems contrary to reason for her to inquire about an action he so clearly is currently doing, toes still a foot off the ground, “Yes, quite well.”

“Good.” Vision enjoys order, logic, always relishes prescience, yet he would never have predicted her next action, a tendril of scarlet lacing around his waist, guiding his body just a touch lower, and then she catapults into his arms, which act independently in hooking under her legs and back to keep her from falling. “Fly,” he doesn’t follow the order, mind racing in its futile attempt to discern what, precisely, is occurring. Then her hand is slapping his chest with an urgent, “Go, go, fly.” And he does just that, though he isn’t certain it is in line with logic.

The woman settles against his chest, hair dancing with the wind created by their journey, and he does his best not to stare, keep his eyes forward, but there is a hypnotic and enthralling aspect to the blissful satisfaction and oddly placed peace embedded deep within the soft upturn of her lips. She gives him no directions, and so he flies them to the top of a tall building, far from the protesting crowd, so high the people below look no different than if he was standing on the ground watching ants busy themselves. Once they land he gingerly places her on the roof, hands retreating cautiously to his side as he watches her stretch her limbs and fix the strands of her hair that are still in motion. “Thanks.”

“You are welcome. What” he hesitates, still ignorant of what he has done and beginning to worry about the consequences if it is ever discovered, and tries to come up with a question that will garner the most useful information, “happened?”

She rubs her hands together, excitement sparking from the friction as she grins up at him. “They cannot seem to understand our perspective. Believe us to be whiny, demanding too much. Our lives can’t be that hard, they say.” Her accent is distinct, thick enough to allow him to understand she has a different background than most, but he cannot place where it is from, though it does not matter. What might be more concerning is the flutter forming in his chest, an appreciation for the husk of her words and the expressiveness of her tone. “So I showed them what it feels like.”

“You,” the scarlet tendril around his waist should have informed him earlier, had he not been distracted by her forwardness, “did something to the guards.”

A satisfied, impishness forms on her face, the right half of her mouth quirking up, a flash of her teeth adding to the overall effect. “I took our feelings,” he cannot bring himself to inform her that he does not fit into the clear box of our, “and I forced them to experience it. Perhaps now they will empathize.”

The action explained, he finds himself in awe, also confused, mind rectifying the terrifying image of red bathing the guards with the knowledge of what she had done, all while hiding away in his mind the sheer, unfathomable audacity of this woman to do such a large action in a public setting. “Do you believe it will work?”

“I hope it does.”

Hope is an odd concept to him, wrought with illogic, far too emotional for easy access, and yet it defines humans and mutants, should be a unifying force. Which means this action, this woman might actually be tapping into a solution. He wants to convey this to her, explain his agreeance with the idea while also cautioning her on such public displays, and yet his words get stuck in his throat, mind too discombobulated by all the information, and, also wholly unhelpful to his sudden lack of verbal skill, is the fact his eyes cannot stop roaming over her confident stance, are caught in a loop going from the corner of her mouth to the defiant gleam in her eyes. When he finally is able to push something from his throat, it is not what he intended and yet it is the truth, nonetheless, “You are a singular woman.”

The effect of his words is immediate, a broad, pleased smile pulling her lips up all while squinting her eyes. “You aren’t so bad yourself.” A unique noise reaches his ears, a heavy, rhythmic pulsing, and it takes longer than it should to recognize the sound of helicopter blades in the air. The woman seems to reach the same conclusion, face falling as she rushes towards the door on the roof, scarlet breaking the lock as she swings the heavy slab open. “Thanks again.”

Vision finds his world suddenly much smaller, only the woman and the desperation clawing at his chest available to his senses, and, in what he will later deem quite uncharacteristic, he hovers to the door, clasps his fingers together while staring directly into the green of her eyes. “Do you intend to perform this maneuver again?”

His synthetic heart races when her fingers brush his arm, “I’m going to the Baltimore protest on Thursday, might need a ride afterwards.”

“I-,” it is an odd sensation, the muscles in his cheek constricting as air hits his teeth, to smile, “believe I am available.”

“Can’t wait.”

He will replay this moment a million times before Baltimore, recall the pressure of her body on his chest and the wetness of her lips against his cheek, then the emptiness that develops once she walks away from him, but most importantly, he will remember and hold on to the feeling of anticipation, of hope in discovering something singular and new.

#svvde2018 #scarlet vision #vision #wanda maximoff #AU #fanfic #mine #i wasn't going to write anything else #Then I was going back through the prompts yesterday and had to do this #hope you enjoy

[astrofireworks]

Kk (possible binu story here we go) so my friend works at a small convenience store and apparently there was this really cute guy that came in once to go to the bathroom so she was like yeah I'll never see him again bUt HE came back and he kept coming back to buy the randomest things and talk to her and then once he walked up to the counter and put five dollars down and asked if he had enough to get her number and they've been on one date so far and they're really cute emergersh

ADSJFHKSDJ THIS IS SO CUTE AND PURE I’M !!!!!!!!!!!!! it’s here it’s your local binu trash coming through w ur daily binu post 

also @binsmoon was talking about a Best Hit AU ehehehehe when you mentioned convenience store I thought of this one scene and their gs25 commercial ayeeee ok to differentiate Myungjun & Eunwoo’s MJ I’ll label Eunwoo as MJ™ 

“Here’s your vest and here’re the keys and yes there you go buddy now you’re prepared" 

Bin shaking because wow his manager seems very blasé 

I mean, he’s been through a training session already so he more or less knows how everything works but 

That's 

That’s it? 

No warnings or ?????

At Bin’s mildly confused look, the manager sighs heavily and pats him on the back 

@ Bin: “Try and last as long as you can, buddy" 

Bin, now slightly terrified: 

@ Bin: “if someone in a hood comes in and you think he’s a celebrity don’t say a single word" 

Bin, now not-so-slightly terrified: 

@ Bin: “ok yep bye" 

Bin, with his vest on, standing behind the counter, staring at a display of banana milk & minion tic tacs: “oh good lord" 

He’s not prepared for this and he’ll never be 

MJ™’s dumbfounded 

It’s literally the second time this week his manager’s had a stomachache on the road & they’ve had to stop at the road side 

He peers suspiciously out the window 

Huh a convenience store 

Recoils because he remembers that last time he went to a convenience store 

Ok but what are the chances it’ll happen again???? 

His CEO should have solved whatever the heck went down 

Also this is an entirely different chain so really he shouldn’t have a problem 

He stretches a bit, grabs his wallet and hops off the car, slapping sunglasses & a black face mask on 

Can’t have anyone recognising MJ™ when he’s on a mission to collect all the limited edition minion tic tac bottles 

Huh he’s heard that the banana milk he did a CF for sold really well maybe he should get some too 

MJ™ pushing open the door and- 

"Hi hello welcome to GS25" 

A really nice voice 

MJ™ peers past his sunglasses 

A cute boy !!!! 

Who’s currently wringing his hands and staring at MJ™ 

MJ™ wincing because he hopes this boy doesn’t recognise him 

Turning away to look for that one minion tic tac box he doesn’t have 

Fhskdhsjhd the worst thing about wearing a face mask with glasses / sunglasses is that when you breathe it fogs up your glasses 

MJ™: heck it 

MJ™ removing the damn sunglasses and mask because choosing these boxes are impORTANT 

Bin being frozen because 

Um ???????????? 

A man in a hood & sunglasses & face mask

Either a celebrity or a criminal 

Bin peers at the man’s jeans and shoes 

Huh

Nice jeans, nice shoes

Probably not a criminal???????

But he might have stolen those 

Might be a criminal???????

But before he decides, the man turns around again, looking at the banana milk display 

Wait

W a i t 

That face

Is the one 

On the banana milk display 

Bin watching as the man warily picks up a banana milk packet and squints at it 

Bin trying to peer at the banana milk display to see if anyone’s put the guy’s name there 

"MJ™”? ???? 

Nah but he looks different 

This one looks a little chubbier and softer 

And looks slightly taller 

Right ????

MJ™ turning around and seeing the cashier squinting at him 

Oh shit did he get recognised? 

He tugs his hood lower over his eyes and walks up to the cashier, depositing his minion tic tacs and banana milk and pulling out some cash

Bin shrugging and scanning the man’s items 

Even if this were MJ™, his manager told him not to say anything so 

But if it isn’t, wow Bin would Tap That 

Eyelashes longer than Bin’s lifespan and bright, bright eyes 

Also soft cheeks that Bin really wants to poke 

Look at them

So soft 

It’s only when the receipt machine beeps that Bin tears his eyes away from the man's 

Wow 

Truly a blessing 

He guesses that if it were really MJ™ he truly is a famous idol singer for a reason 

As MJ™ swings the door closed Bin slumps on his high chair near the cashier 

Truly about to weep 

He’ll never see this beautiful man again, whether or not he’s MJ™ 

MJ™ slumps in his car seat too 

Wow 

He’ll highkey never see the cute cashier guy again 

He felt the cashier’s eyes on him the whole time he was in the store

I mean he was highkey uncomfortable at first but 

The cashier didn’t say anything other than his welcome, goodbye and his total 

So perhaps he didn’t recognise MJ™

But wow 

Reddish brown fringe peeking out from under a backwards cap 

Bright, cat-like eyes 

Shiny, MJ™’s brain notes 

You like shiny things, MJ™’s brain continues 

You like this boy, MJ™’s brain concludes 

Flustered, MJ™ scowls and buries himself deeper in his car seat 

Dammit 

He’ll never see him again though 

MJ™ didn’t even think to look at his name tag so now he can’t even google him 

MJ™ groans 

And groans again the next day because wow truly does his manager never go to the toilet before leaving the broadcast station? 

Until the car slows and he peers outside 

GS25 

Again? 

MJ™ grabs his wallet and clambers out of the car, hollering at his manager that he’d be getting them drinks only to receive a pained nod in reply 

MJ™ strolling into GS25, heart pounding disproportionately hard 

Bin looking up from where he’s reading the latest episode of Tower of God and standing up to greet whoever it is

I highly recommend Tower of God it’s an amazing webtoon

And being stunned because wow here’s maybe-MJ™ here again?????

Bin mumbling out a hello in shock because like

What were the chances ???????? 

The angel is here again????????? 

MJ™ buying milk this time and casually sneaking a look 

Many looks 

At (squints) 운민?

(Squints slightly more) 운빈?

(Squints more) 문빈? 

Bin feeling a little self conscious because wow he’s only here reading his webtoon but

Maybe-MJ™ is squinting in his general direction 

So he coughs politely and asks, “Can I help you?" 

Cue MJ™ flushing red and going "no no no no” and marching up to the counter and handing Bin his milk 

Bin thinks his blush is really very cute 

it stars with maybe-MJ™’s ears and slowly slides down his cheeks 

cheeks that Bin would really like to kiss 

Bin: uh ok anywAY

Bin: “yes ok your total will be 3.4k w" 

MJ™ sliding his milk back across the counter and taking his change and coughing 

Bin: 

MJ™: "uh yes do you happen to have this minion tictac box it’s the only one I don’t have" 

Bin:

Bin:

Bin: oh my god he’s a minion fanatic 

Bin: dammit well nobody’s perfect

Bin: "uh yes hold on I’ll go look in the back for you" 

Looking in the back entails MJ™ trailing Bin to the back of the store to get a ladder & trailing him back to the front to check the boxes at the very top of the shelves 

Also entails MJ™ enjoying a nice view of Bin climbing a ladder because holy shit this boy is fit

Also entails MJ™ blushing when Bin catches sight of him staring 

Bin climbing down with the right tic tac box and heading over to the cashier to ring MJ™ up 

MJ™ staring the whole way because wow cashier boy looks different when he doesn’t have a cap on 

His fringe is combed away from his forehead and he looks older, somehow 

Bin: 

Bin:

Bin: "yeah I’ve heard that quite often apparently it makes me look smarter too" 

MJ™ spluttering because wow he said that out loud???? 

Gre a t jo b MJ™ 

Bin: "ok but to be fair I think you look better without your mask too" 

MJ™: 

MJ™: blushing 

Wow truly he needs to stop blushing whenever Bin says something 

There’s absolutely no reason 

He knows he’s beautiful

Just that 

Hearing it from Bin???????? 

Makes his heart do backflips and scream 

MJ™ casually sliding on sunglasses and rolling his way out of GS25 

Bin staring after him and wondering if that was to cover up the fact that maybe-MJ™ was turning very alarmingly red from blushing 

MJ™’s manager staring at the milk packets in his hand

"You know we have like boxes of these free back at the company after your CF with them you don’t have to go to GS25 for them”

MJ™: 

MJ™: “yes well”

MJ™: “what if I’m going for a different reason”

Manager: low-key freaking out because !!!!! what if MJ™ met someone in there and they recognised him and The Incident happened again !!!!!!!!

Manager: also catches sight of MJ™’s new minion tic tac box 

Oh

Oh well NEVERMIND then 

Best leave MJ™ to collect them by himself 

MJ™ tapping away at his phone trying to find social media accounts with the name Moon Bin

Because there’s no way he’s letting such a fine man pass by without doing something 

MJ™ finding out that he’s only a year younger than MJ™ is and that he photographs really well holy shit because all the photos of Bin he finds are A+++ 

Bin crying in GS25 because wow two days in a row is already a good streak what are the chances that maybe-MJ™ will visit again

Close to never probably 

Next day passes and while Bin’s harbouring a small hope for it, it’s quickly shattered when his shift is over and maybe-MJ™ doesn’t appear 

Isn’t sad or anything nope not at all

:-( 

Day after though, 

MJ™: “manager, stop the car pls" 

Manager: wow ok I don’t even have a stomachache what does he want 

MJ™ grabbing his wallet and hopping out of the car 

Manager, yelling out the window: "don’t gET THE DAMN BANANA MILK" 

MJ™, bursting into GS25: GOTTA GET THE BANANA MILK

Bin: 

Bin: 

Bin: aiyah 

And so he rings up two banana milks and a minion tic tacs 

(He wanted to rip the display out of its base the first day he started working but if it’s what keeps maybe-MJ™ coming back then damn what the world thinks of minions, he’ll keep them just for MJ™) 

MJ™ humming in happiness because he finally got the last minion tic tac box in the collection 

Through no help of Bin’s at all nope he totaly didn’t place an order last night for that last remaining box on the chain’s supply site at all nope 

:–) 

MJ™ realising that this

This is it

This is the last minion box in the collection he doesn’t need to stop by GS25 again

And he wants to say something but his manager honks and MJ™ casts one last look at Bin, smiles charmingly, winks then runs out

Bin nearly has a heart attack 

He thought maybe-MJ™ would protecc but he attACC

Bin’s on a cloud for the rest of the day, truly 

Wow that smile

Crinkly eye smile

Beautiful teeth 

wow i’m so sorry i keep inserting visual aids today but !!!! somE BEAUTIFUL THINGS MUST BE SHARED

Bin, chinhands while thinking about MJ™ & sighing dreamily 

When the store is empty he totally doesn’t talk to the MJ™ banana milk display at all 

Totally not at all

"Hey handsome,,,,,,,,,,,," 

"So uh are you mistaken for MJ™ a lot" 

"If you are,,,,,,,," 

"Haha what does MJ™ stand for,,,,,,,,,, Mr 잘생겼어,,,,,,,,,,,," 

Bin, whacking himself in the head because wow truly this is so dumb he’s so dumb

Doesn’t stop him from looking up excitedly every time someone comes in the store though 

And three days later at the very tail end of Bin’s shift when he’s totally given up hope of seeing maybe-MJ™ again 

MJ™ slides into the store 

MJ™ slapping down a five thousand won note and eyeing Bin 

Bin blinking because son????? 

Bin: "uh I can ring up banana milk but I need you to bring the packets to me so I c-" 

MJ™: "no" 

Bin: ??????????

MJ™, already feeling a flush creep up his neck: "uh" 

MJ™: "is this enough" 

MJ™: "to uh buy your number??????" 

Bin thinks he needs to take a seat 

Bin, coughing to buy time 

MJ™: o my god he doesn’t really want to give me his number he was just being a polite employee the whole time 

Bin, sliding back the five thousand won note after a while

MJ™ crying internally already because wow truly he’s just made a fool of himself time to never step into another GS25 ever again 

Bin: "only if this is enough to buy yours" 

MJ™:

MJ™:

MJ™, eventually unfreezing and laughing in relief and huffing: "well see my number is really expensive but I’d be willing to give it to you along with an autograph in exchange for a date" 

MJ™ trying to cover up the fact that he’s basically floundering inside 

Bin, chinhands @ MJ™ and blinking his bright eyes and smiling 

lmk why when i google moonbin chinhands it’s just pictures of seungjun

Wow truly MJ™’s so so so weak already for his smile but then he remembers Bin hasn’t replied

tsk of course he says yes

He’ll probably say yes to anything MJ™ asks let’s be real

Go on a date with MJ™? yeah sure

Get married to MJ™?? Hell yeah 

Kill a man for MJ™?? Bin is down for it 

Same Binnie same

good lord i’m so in love with both eunwoo and moonbin someone stop me 

#vivi answers stuff #astro #astro fic #binu #hello it me i back w trash #!! #convenience store anon #i am very much earlier than usual today #also anon!! #buddy i think u sent me the same thing twice!!! #team s o a p #i love binu so much wow stopp me #i wrote half a camp counselor au & half the clumsy barista au & another instalment of the mermaid au and ???????? #me being all over the place

[personal-stxff-blog]

The Phoenix

Hey everyone! So, here’s another x-files college au with a weird twist. It’s also on AO3 so I’ll link that here (so far there’s seven chapters but I’ll post them all up here in one bulk - sorry ‘bout that). If anyone on here is interested I’ll continue to update on Tumblr, although I might do that anyway to be honest. Anyway, sorry for the ramble. Here you go! 

It wasn’t Mulder’s idea of a great night out, but they dragged him along anyway.

Ringo had been the one to suggest going, and for once Melvin had actually agreed to one of his ideas. John seemed impartial and rolled with what they were saying. Fox, however, wasn’t too keen on it. They had pored over movies on TV and at the cinema - nothing. None of them were hungry and the angry old farmer at the top of the hill had caught them UFO-spotting a few nights ago and had told them that if they came back one more time he’d set his dogs on them. It didn’t seem to leave them many more options.

“I just don’t see why,” Mulder huffed. “Since when have you guys been into brawling and street fighting? In fact, when have any of you cared about any variety of sport?” Ringo Langley - who, like the other two, preferred to be addressed by his last name - grinned and tapped his nose.

“Ever since we started watching Gladiators,” Frohike sighed, smiling to himself. “Natalie Lennox is an absolute babe.” Langley glanced up from his computer with a frown, opening his mouth to protest immediately.

“Uhh, have you seen Marisa Peré?” he argued. “She was the original Lace -and she was the best!”

“Lennox is way hotter - what are you talking about?” Frohike persisted, throwing his hands up dramatically. “And besides...”

Mulder tuned out the sound of their ceaseless bickering as he approached the crumpled poster on Frohike’s desk. It was torn and dog-eared from some sort of excessive reference which Mulder preferred not to consider. “Got what it takes?” was slapped at the top of the paper in vibrant red writing. He continued down the page, skimming through the information. “The Combat Zone proudly presents...Fight-And-Fantasy REDUX!...Old and new acts every week...sign up if you think you’ve got what it takes...winner wins $500, losers win a broken nose...$10 a ticket. The more the merrier.” Mulder shook his head in disbelief. Did he really have nothing else to do but waste ten bucks watching a bunch of amateur fighters and scantily-clad women beating each other up?

Apparently so. The argument had been cleared and the three boys were reaching for their coats by the door. Byers glanced back at him hopefully. “You coming, Mulder?” With an internal sigh, he nodded, grabbing his jacket from the chair behind him. How bad could it really be?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Pretty bad.

They were stuck in a stuffy room with crowds of people who were primarily drunk or terrifying - sometimes they found men and women alike who happened to fit into both categories. Mulder had never felt so small in his life, or so excruciatingly young. They were the youngest around by far, the rest of the people in the cramped bar/arena starting in their late twenties and drifted into the thirties, forties, even fifties. Many of them looked as though they were part of some type of biker gang. If this bothered the Three Stooges who dragged him through the scary masses, they hadn’t shown it. They smiled and excused their way past the bar and shuffled into a tiny booth with a surprisingly fair view of what was supposedly the ‘ring’. A rickety wire cage that snaked all the way up to the ceiling, the sides concealed by thick curtains that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a theater. Maybe that’s what this place used to be, he thought, staring around absently. It wouldn’t surprise him.

“One of our favorites is coming on tonight,” Byers said excitedly. “She’s called the Phoenix. Just wait ‘til you see her, Mulder. She’s such a fantastic fighter. Nobody knows who she is, or where she came from. That’s why they call her that - she just rose out of nowhere, like out of the ashes, or something. We’ve heard that even the managers and coaches have no idea who she really is.”

“She’s hot, too,” Frohike agrees, sipping on his drink. “Wait until she comes on, she’s got a body like you’ll never believe.” Mulder rolled his eyes, a gentle huff of laughter breaking between his lips. The mention of cute girls made this entire idea seem a little less ridiculous, though he wasn’t willing to admit that to anybody just yet. He wasn’t necessarily pleased with the idea of them beating the crap out of each other.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The widespread clamor of everybody yelling over each other dwindled into eager murmuring as a voice boomed out of the tinny speakers. Mulder opened his mouth but Langley quickly nudged him into silence, his eyes rooted to the spindly cage. He looked around; everybody was hypnotized, under some sort of spell, by the looks of things. He momentarily entertained the idea of witchcraft and laughed to himself. “It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, for tonight we have some wonderful people with us. We’ve got a vicious fight between the deadly Viper and her arch-rival Nemesis -” The audience cheered and clapped, drinking in the MC’s voice. Mulder cringed. “Then we’ve got the Lion and the Wolf up against one another in the second round -” More whooping and hollering. Mulder couldn’t help but wonder if they all had such embarrassing names. Talk about wannabe wrestlers. “And there’s plenty more where that came from folks, but I know what you’re all here for... The ultimate showdown between our much-loved killer queens - it’s the Phoenix and the Widow, fighting once again for the grand prize of $500!”

The room was filled with ear-splitting screams and shouts. Most people seemed to be hollering in the Phoenix’s honor, although there was a scattered undertone of people screaming ‘Widow!’ hysterically. Mulder wondered if he’d even be able to make it to the final fight without taking a couple of painkillers in the bathroom, or just straight-up walking out. His head was pulsing already.

“Is it always this loud?” he yelled into Frohike’s ear, who also happened to be whistling and cheering on the Phoenix. He nodded, patting his friend’s shoulder and laughing. Mulder held his own face in his hands, void of hope.

“Our first fighters of the night are new to the ring, so be nice,” the MC teased through the speakers. Everyone roared with laughter. He introduced them slowly, bringing up fabricated backstories and leaving everyone hanging as he called out their names. “Iiiiiiiiit’s... Storm!” and “Heeeeeeeeeere she is: it’s Athena!”

Mulder watched them both saunter into their corners, throwing furtive looks to the crowd and blowing kisses at nobody in particular. His three friends lapped this performance right up, their tongues practically hanging out of their mouths. He raised his eyebrows and sunk further back into the leather seating. Surely any movie would’ve been better than this, right? Did we really have no other choice?

The fights came and went without provoking any other emotion but pure, consistent boredom from him. It suited his friends, who designated him as the one to buy more cans of Coke and Sprite from the bar. This didn’t improve his mood in the slightest, for he needed to push past all the tough biker guys to get to the bar, which was also tended by a pretty scary looking man. As much as he wanted to leave, he found himself hanging around. There was no real reason why. He felt at though sticking around would be the polite thing to do, but that never normally kept him from running away from whatever his friends had planned out. Screw politeness, there was something else. He figured he’d stick around until the end. Maybe he'd been a little too harsh on the guys, maybe he was making a big deal over nothing. Maybe something good would come up somewhere.

Emphasis on ‘maybe’.

The evening dragged on and the acts were all the same; cute, flirty girls with feisty attitudes and beefy men with cocky smiles and bulging muscles. Blood was spilled on more than a few occasions and hastily wiped away in the intervals between brawls. Lion spat out a piece of broken tooth into the audience mid-fight and it landed at Langley’s feet. Mulder wasn’t a particularly sensitive person but he drew the line after watching Viper’s nose break and seeing her getting carried off the stage screaming and wailing for help. He picked up his jacket and nodded at his friends. They immediately looked disheartened.

“What’s the matter, Mulder?” Byers asked. “The Phoenix is about to come on! Don’t you want to see what all the fuss is about?”

“Not particularly,” he mutters, hurrying his coat on. “It was great guys, but I think I’ve had enough gore for one day. I’m actually surprised you three survive in a place like this.” They have the dignity to look offended.

“Sit down,” Frohike insists. “Trust me. She’s way hotter than Lennox and Peré combined.” Well now I definitely want to stay, Mulder thinks sarcastically. Yet against his better judgment, he sinks into his seat again, propping his elbows up on the table and resting his face on them like a sullen schoolboy. He concentrates on deliberately ignoring the stupid MC bigging the girls up, delving into their non-existent stories. His focus slips, however, and he finds himself listening in on snippets from the Phoenix’s introduction. She swanned out of nowhere, out of the ashes, as Byers said. Young, fiery, not to be messed with. He scoffed under his breath - not that anybody would’ve heard him. The roars of her fans were deafening as she was introduced into the cage.

Mulder squinted, waiting for her to appear so he could see what all the fuss was about. This had better be worth it, he complained internally. He leaned forward, his head resting on his knuckles.

There she was. The Phoenix.

The first thing he noticed about her was that she carried herself differently to the other girls who had previously been. She didn’t flaunt, she didn’t have any flair or glamor or anything that marked her as something of a show-off. She walked like she meant business - like she knew what she was doing. He found himself impressed, for some reason, and found himself sitting up a little straighter in his chair. The second thing he noticed was that she didn’t need to prove her sexuality to the audience, not deliberately at least. Her legs were dressed in skin-tight leather, accentuating every curve of her lower half. Watching her felt wrong, somehow. It felt almost obscene. He found his face flushing, though no one could see for the only lights were those illuminating her arena - and it definitely was hers. She had her audience hanging onto her every movement. She was wearing a tight black vest too, but he tried to skim past for the sake of keeping some illusion of being a gentleman. Then he remembered that they weren’t the only ones in the room and felt stupid. He didn’t look anyway; his shirt wasn't long enough to pull over his lap.

The only thing missing was a face, an identity. She was looking away from the audience; all he could see was a burst of flame which just so happened to be her cropped red hair. As though reading his mind she turned suddenly and abruptly. The only glitzy part about her was the glitter dashed against her cheeks and lips; it sparkled under the lighting like embers.

No wonder they called her the Phoenix. She didn’t just look like fire, she was fire; she was a burning flame, passion, desire, life itself. Mulder found himself captivated, suddenly enthralled by the idea of street-fighting so long as she was involved. She had pulled him into the most wonderful inferno imaginable and he never wanted to leave, only to be surrounded by everything she represented.

He found that he was gaping and immediately stopped himself, trying to regain his composure. Of course, the others had already noticed but they had also fallen into her trap. They were gazing at her like they couldn’t believe their own eyes. Mulder pinched himself. This is not a dream.

He may or may not have been in love, in a wonderfully starstruck kind of way. He decided that the combat zone wasn't so bad after all.

#my writing #my work #my fanfics #writing #the x files #txf #txf fanfic #txf college au #college au #fanfiction #fanfic #msr #mulder x scully #fluff #i write things #ao3 #dana scully #fox mulder #review if you can guys! #it means a lot

[bromadblog-blog]

AUS 230 POST MORTEM BLOG

“Anyways lads that’s me. I’m off for the summer and I’m going to use my time effectively by doing literally nothing for the next 8 weeks. *finger guns* adios amigos” – Stefan McRoberts 2017

This is how I ended my last post mortem, and I would like to profusely apologize. As I lied. I did not do nothing those following 8 weeks. I chose to make my life more difficult by making more music because I’m self destructive and don’t have an off button. That being said, let’s dive in to this sleep deprived, caffeine fuelled, still mourning from the end of Avengers: Infinity War fuelled rant of nonsensical horse crap of what went right and what went wrong in my major project this trimester.

What went right

NIGHTMARE

Now obviously I finished the rough mix of Nightmare last trimester, however I decided it was too good to not have in this EP. That being said however, it didn’t really fit aesthetically with the rest of the EP. How did I fix this? By adding stems, more stems and more stems after that. The result was adding lo fi baseballesque (?) organs to the third verse and the outro. This subtle yet major change truly helped the track blend a lot better aesthetically in to the rest of the EP.

BROTOWN

Out of everything that went right with this track, what went MOST right was the mix and the master. It was mixed so well that it made the difficulty of mastering it almost non existent. I do consider it to be one of the best mixes I have ever done. I also think that recording my best friends baby brothers adlib at the very end of the track was a great way to transition this song into the next on the EP.

MEMENTOS

The decision to add a Rhodes organ/piano over the Psytrance drop was a good example of a VERY bold move but one with a large payout aesthetically. I haven’t ever heard a psytrance drop with a jazz chord progression over the top of it EVER. At first I was like “Can I do this? Is it even legal? Will Vini Vici or Infected Mushroom hire a hit on me if I commit to this?”. Then I grew so attached to it because it was so different I decided to commit. Not only does it blend the song into the rest of the EP PERFECTLY, it also celebrates what the EP is fundamentally about. Sticking the middle finger to genre’s and combining EDM with heavy influences and aesthetics from Urban, Jazz, Soul and R&B.

LAZERBEAM

Lazerbeam was a track that actually started out as an official remix for “Drunk Arcade” by “Bombs Away”. I sent it to them however and they did not think the demo slapped as hard as I did and it ended up getting turned down. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I deleted literally everything except for the drops. I decided to throw down some chords on my organ and write some lyrics for it. After recording, the end result was a heavy electro/dubstep that combines not one, not two, not three, but FOUR genre’s in one track. The tempo change from 128 to 150 BPM was always intended from the start. The Four genre’s being, Urban, into Electro, into Trap, into Dubstep. Once again truly celebrating what the whole EP is about.

THE PHANTOM THIEF

The Phantom Thief is to date on of the most ambitious tracks I have ever had both the pleasure and displeasure of producing. The pleasure lies within how flawlessly Jade’s vocals fit with the track and I’m also very proud of the lyrics as well. It’s no mystery that this entire EP is HEAVILY influenced by the game Persona 5 on PS4. This song is perhaps the most celebratory of it’s source material in this entire EP. Almost (if not) every lyric in this song references the game in one way or another. Not only that, but how unbelievably well the track came together with my friend Nathan (AKA Dexx) who co produced it with me. Also without any iota of exaggeration… Jade. Friggin. KILLED IT. 17 year old with a voice that trumps that of angels. I heard her singing on a youtube video she uploaded and I knew she was the only one that was gunna do this track any justice. All recording was done in a single day, which obviously made this run A LOT smoother as well. The orchestral outro was a last minute decision on the track as well, I was persuaded to add it in by my good friend Chloe. She couldn’t have been more right about it. It was a great idea and considering this is the final song on the EP, it really became a beautiful way to conclude the EP and the final “cherry on top” to make the whole EP feel less like a small collection of songs and more of a single giant movement or composition. Also it once again celebrates sticking the middle finger to genres, merging that which really “shouldn’t go together” but ends up blending beautifully showing that when it comes to art and creativity, the sky is the limit. So when you’re enjoying the orchestral outro in this track, thank Chloe.

What went wrong

I’m gunna be cocky here and say that every problem that rose up, I managed to overcome and solve. You know the drill. You’ve read my post mortems before. Let’s do this.

NIGHTMARE

Once again, the only real “problem” here was that it had a little bit of trouble fitting in to the rest of the EP aesthetically. This was fixed by adding the little “Dracula” organ riff at the start and adding church organs to the third verse and the outro.

BROTOWN

Believe it or not the biggest problem I had with Brotown was that I had no idea what to make for the drop. I made the first minute of the song well before the rest of the song. Then I was listening to one of my previous tracks titled “Hooked” and I was kind of just like… “What if I made the drop a harder more “4 to the floor” style version of Hooked”. The end result was the most “Bromad” sounding track on the entire EP and perhaps I have ever made. Everything about this track celebrates my sound and my sound design.

MEMENTOS

Admittedly the biggest problem I had with this track was the exact opposite I had with Brotown. I had that many versions of this song ALL with different sounding drops, I didn’t know which one to go with. In the end I decided to go with the drop that felt the most true to my sound and go a TOTALLY different direction with the second drop.

LAZERBEAM

Obviously the biggest problem with this one was finding the willpower to essentially start this one from scratch. Also dealing with the rejection of Bombs Away was initially difficult as it was a big opportunity and very disappointing. However I persevered and the pay off was definitely worth it, as I know have a powerhouse in my set list and a mammoth of a track on the EP

THE PHANTOM THIEF

When I said earlier “The Phantom Thief is to date on of the most ambitious tracks I have ever had both the pleasure and displeasure of producing,”. The displeasure came from the difficulty level of mixing a track with 80+ stems and also the mastering. Firstly, the vocals were drenched in WAY too much reverb. And because the track had 80+ stems (ALL BOUNCED TO AUDIO) I had to go repeatedly back and forth into the original project file which had A LOT of VST’s and thus used A LOT of CPU. Rendering the stems again… and again… and again was very VERY time consuming. Eventually once I got it right, the next problem was the mastering (which was mastered using iZotope Ozone 7). The mastering of the track itself sounded great, however a track with an EQ, harmonic excitement, multiband compression and brickwall limiting optimized for dance music, introduces a myriad of problems if in that same track you have say, oh I dunno AN ORCHESTRAL OUTRO. It introduced all sorts of grain, crackling and artifacts into the outro that honestly just sounded god awful. So I had to think outside the box a little bit and came up with an idea. 2 instances of iZotope oZone 7 and split the audio into 2 separate tracks. One with the “actual” track and split the track where the orchestral outro begins and drag it on to a separate bus/channel. I THEN used the second instance of iZotope to master it tailored to how (I imagine) one would master an orchestral/classical piece. The end result was gorgeous.

 That concludes this post mortem and now I’m going to go and write a BS post mortem for my CIU class because apparently they want to know everything about the fruits of your labour and hard work instead of actually looking at and/or listening to it. So away I go to write yet another (SUICIDE JOKE FREE) post mortem. Ciao.

#post mortem