#and also a fun line in the one-shot i'm going to post later today that i also really enjoy
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winners are grinners c.f
plot: arsenal women are asked to join the sidemen for a collaboration video and you and your girlfriend are asked to come.
warnings: none really, might come out with a harry version later for fun
You had your arm around your girlfriends shoulder when they pressed the record button and one of the seven boys who's named you found out was JJ started yelling at the camera.
You had known about the sidemen, you did live in London after all their fans were everywhere and almost all their videos went viral.
You smiled when you felt Caitlin laugh at one of their jokes and looked at her "ya happy we came?" you whispered and she turned to you "I reckon we smash em" she smiled and you laughed at her enthusiasm.
It was early in your relationship and you hadn't made anything public yet in terms of media-wise, you tried to keep it a secret from the team but the captains clearly latched on to your closeness and beat it out of you.
When they were discussing the 'discount code' you slipped your arm off Caitlin and started playing with the soccer ball underneath your feet "What about Gunners" you said when they didn't like their first word.
"Oh yeah Gunners!" KSI said with a shrug as Josh celebrated behind him.
You all went to your spots as one named Ethan just explained the first game. "Someone throws the ball in, touch it once, and then kick for a goal," he said and you all agreed.
"I don't think we need to ask if we're partners right?" Caitlin joked, her Aussie accent popping through as you laughed "yeah but you're going first"
JJ went first, kicking a fairly easy shot but your goal keeper and friend Manu must have been day dreaming cause she watched it go through without moving.
"Manu babe!" you called out "You just watched it go in!" you called out to her which made the girls laugh "I'm warming up" she defended herself and all the girls laughed again.
You were happy you agreed to come now it seems more fun than you thought.
The boys were still celebrating as you patted Ruby "your turn Rubesicle" you told her as she and Noelle went over.
You looked at Caitlin whose competitive nature had taken over her as she started to squint around "You're going to get lines if you squint Catie" you teased and she shook her head "Shut up".
You smiled, proud of yourself as Ruby took her shot and Toby caught it, next was Harry who had an impressive kick but Manu shot up and tapped it away which left you speechless.
All the girls erupted in cheers at your friends talent and all the boys clapped whilst complimenting her save.
"Care to do that against Chelsea next time?" you called out and smiled when you saw Manu look at you with a deadpan expression.
Noelle went next and also kicked an incredible shot but Toby blocked it in the same mannerisms as Manu.
Everyone went into shambles again and Noelle went to her knees, you got so excited that you clung on to Caitlin that let out a loud gasp.
"That was the save of his lifetime!" Noelle yelled and everyone laughed.
Next was Ethen who hit the post and you and Caitlin walked up to the camera which you smiled at.
"Hi my names Caitlin Foord" Caitlin introduced herself "I should score but we'll see" she shrugged, you laughed at your girlfriend as you repeated her words to her "C'mon Caity" you encouraged before throwing the ball up and watching as she touched it with her knee and kicked it into the middle and straight into Toby's hands.
"Caitlin!" you yelled knowing that she could kick a better goal in her sleep "It is scarier than you think" she defended herself to you as you both laughed going back.
You watched Josh go next as he tried to do something cool but failed...miserably.
You couldn't hold in your laugh as he whipped his head around to see where the ball was and Simon who was next to you laughed harder from your reaction.
"We brought grandad with us today, sorry" Ethan yelled out and for a second you felt bad for the man but he was also laughing at himself so it seemed fine.
You and Caitlin walked up again as you looked into the camera.
"Hi my names y/f/n but if I miss it's Caitlin Foord" you smiled before Caitlin yelled out a 'hey' as you smiled cheekily at her.
Caitlin threw the ball as you touched it with your right foot to keep it on the ground but went back a little to smash it, it seemed like it was going to go in before Toby stretched out his leg and hit it out with his foot.
You groaned as Caitlin laughed at you and grabbed you to take you to the line.
"You almost made me do the splits!" Toby called out and you laughed "be more flexible then" you defended with a smile.
A couple more shots later and a failed trick shot the whole fourteen of you were smiling ear to ear as you all had fun. Simon got another one in and now you and Caitlin were going up "I reckon low corners he's expecting high shots" you told her as you looked at the goalie.
"hey, no team chatting!" JJ called out as you both laughed and separated, you threw the ball and Caitlin touched it before kicking back left corner which he thought would go high, just as you predicted.
You cheered for Caitlin before she opened her arms for a big hug as you ran back to the girls "on the map" you sang out to them.
It was your turn soon enough and you did the same thing as Caitlin but switched to your left boot so it would go the other way which Toby got confused by and dived the other direction.
"Oi she's strategic!" Simon yelled out towards you as you gave an innocent smile to them which they laughed at. When you were walking back Caitlin whispered in your ear "such a smart girl" she praised as you blushed.
Once it was your turn again you completely smashed it with your left foot making the ball go fast so Toby wasn't quick enough to stop it as it hit the net.
"Let's go!" Noelle yelled out from her spot on the side and Ethan clapped "beautiful!" he hyped as a smile formed on your face and Caitlin laughed.
The boys ended up hitting 5 before the girls and next was a crossbar challenge which Caitlin ended up being a gun at, scoring three of the five you and Ruby being the other two to score one.
You looked at the camera before sighing "something about the boys crying out in defeat is empowering" you shrugged and walked off, you didn't know that clip of you would become viral in a couple of days.
Penalty's were next and you put yourself up second in line, before Caitlin, you were first to get one in for the girls and Caitlin quickly behind as you both clapped hands.
"They're like a dynamic duo" JJ whispered out loud "if only you knew" you joked back and Caitlin pulled you away before you could see the look on their faces.
Your next one you ran towards the left but kicked it to the right making Toby confused and go to the left making your shot clear and easy.
"I'm quite proud of myself there" You smiled at Caitlin who smiled "You're too adorable," she told you before going up herself.
It was now 9 - 7 and you only needed one more goal for the girls to win the round and it was your turn.
"This is really nerve-wracking" you admitted before the boys started yelling things out about 90-minute goals and champion leagues.
You winked at Caitlin before taking your shot when it hit the net all the girls came running at you with cheers and you jumped up and down.
Next was free kicks and everybody kinda sucked at it but the boys eventually scored three, even if you accidentally hit Harry in the chest and had to apologize six times as he said 'It's fine' with a clearly winded voice.
It was two all and we decided to end it on rock paper scissors which you elected Caitlin for.
"Why me?" she asked "Cause I will end up forgiving you if you lose," you said as the others nodded Caitlin just rolled her eyes and went against Vik.
Vik went rock and Caitlin paper so we won and all the girls went into cheers and you jumped on Caitlin's back "Oh yeah!" you yelled out as she laughed at your excitement.
When she put you down she covered her microphone "Am I going to get rewarded for this miraculous win" she said with a smirk and you just smirked back at her.
"maybe".
#woso#woso community#woso soccer#matildas#matildas x reader#caitlin foord#woso x reader#arsenal wfc x reader#arsenal wfc#katie mccabe#alanna kennedy#sam kerr#mackenzie arnold#australia#arsenal women#chelsea women#wsl#leah williamson#ellie carpenter#england lionesses#jessie fleming x reader#hayley raso#katie mccabe x reader#lucy bronze x reader#katrina gorry#kyra cooney cross#kyra cooney cross smut#kyra cooney cross x reader#sam kerr x reader#ksi
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I feel you with being sick lately, I’ve been sick all week plus I got the ol’ red tide happening so I’m not having a good time T-T. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the A-17 & Fordo combo, so if you want and have time and feel able could you please do another Alpha-17xReaderxFordo fic where the boys comfort and care for a busy reader who won’t stop to take care of herself? Thanks for your time and i hope you’re feeling better and having fun!
Take A Break
Summary: As a post war Senator, you've been working hard to make sure that the clones remain safe...perhaps too hard.
Pairing: Alpha-17 x Reader x ARC Captain Fordo
Word Count: 719
Warnings: None
Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni
A/N: I am feeling a lot better, thank you for asking, I'm just tired, so my brain doesn't want to make words work today, lol. I also do have your other request! Thank you for your requests, and your patience.
You’re exhausted. Down to your bones.
You feel as though you’ve been going non-stop for years now. And at this point maybe you have been. And now that the war is over, you should be able to rest and relax more, not less.
But for every person who supports your Clone Rights Bill is another person who opposes it, which means that you’re working just as hard now as you were when the war was at its height.
You haven’t even managed to go home in the last three days. Though, at least, you’re not alone. None of the other Senators who are working on this bill have been able to leave either.
You caught Bail staring at a blank wall earlier today with a cup of caf in each hand and a straw in each cup, allowing him to drink both at the same time. Personally, you think it’s brilliant, but the look on Commander Thorn’s face when he gently escorted Bail back to his office makes you think that maybe you’re too exhausted to really judge that.
You thread your fingers through your hair, and you stare at the datapad laying on the table in front of you. You’ve been reading the same argument for the last hour, and you haven’t managed to retain a single word of it.
You drop your hands from your hair and press the palms of your hands over your eyes. They’re burning from exhaustion and strain, and you really should dig your glasses out of your desk to help with at least some of that, but that sounds like work and you’re so tired of work-
For a moment, just a moment, you consider taking a break. And then your datapad dings as a new message crosses the screen.
It’s from Padme. The subject line simply reads, “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
You open the message and it’s a message forwarded from Senator Burtoni. The basic idea being that she’s claiming that the Clones are Kaminoan property and so they should be returned to Kamino for repurposing and decommissioning.
And that sends a shot of awareness through your exhausted mind, and you start typing rapidly. And you note, absently, that you’re not the only one.
About an hour later, you notice that Bail is no longer online. And then neither is Padme.
And then your office door slides open and you blink, blearily, at the two men that enter your office. Alpha looks unimpressed, and Fordo doesn’t look much happier, actually.
Alpha folds his arms over his chest, “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since you’ve been home?”
That’s a silly question, of course you do. It’s been…uh…
You blink at him, and decide that it’s a dumb question and ignore it, “This is important.” You finally say, “Senator Burtoni wants to decommission-”
“That’s normal. Senator Burtoni has always wanted to decommission us.” Alpha says with a roll of his eyes, “Have you slept at all in the last three days?”
“Uh…I closed my eyes for an hour yesterday while listening to a speech?” You offer as an answer, and then you squeak when Fordo crosses the room and gently pulls you from your seat, only to pull you into his arms.
You slump into his embrace, the exhaustion becoming almost overwhelming now that you’re not actively staring at your work.
“Have you eaten, cyare?” Fordo asks, his voice soft.
You nod mutely, because you have. The Senate Droids have been bringing you meals, which is part of the reason that the senate has droids, honestly.
“You just haven’t been home…or sleeping.” Alpha says, and you can feel his fingers against the back of your neck, rubbing soothing circles there.
“...’m sorry.”
“Shh. We’re not mad. We’re worried.” Fordo lightly squeezes your hips, “This isn’t healthy, cyare.”
“You need to take a break.” Alpha interjects, “It’s time to go home. You can take a bath and curl up in bed and sleep until you’re not tired anymore.”
“And maybe we’ll cuddle with you.” Fordo adds with a small smile.
You sigh softly, and rest your head against his chest, “What did I do to deserve you both?”
Alpha chuckles and presses a light kiss to your shoulder, while Fordo drops a light kiss to your forehead. “Come on, cyare. Time to go home.”
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MLYID Update
Decided to post this today bc well why not, it's porbably going to become the posting day lol. For anyone unaware: "Maybe Loving You is Dangerous" (aka MLYID which is the shortened name until I think of a better one) is a Wanderrose one shot I wrote and posted like a solid week ago. If you haven't read it yet and like the ship, I would highly appreciate it.
I'm officially going to continue the story (yippie!) and I know how I want to format it now!
☆ I am going to be posting it as a chapter based story on AO3 but the chapters are going to be more like seperate stories that follow a similair main goal/plot (The boys being gay for eachother) and a funky little subplot to keep things intresting. This means that the chapters won't always line up with each other- but them sneaking off during parties to be gay seems way more fun to write than just a day by day type of thing. ☆
☆ Every chapter will have it's own title based on a song lyric from the song that gave me the inspiration for that chapter :) You don't have to lisent to the songs during reading but I will link them to the chapter updates ☆
☆ I'm going to try my best to post a new chapter every saturday but I have no idea how life will treat me during the postings so you might get some chapters earlier and some later. Who really knows. I can almost certainly say that Chapter 2 is coming out next saturday! Also the chapters might be looonnngggg so writing that takes a lot of time. I don't have a set amount of chapters yet though, that'll come later (I do already have the end figured out somehow tho) ☆
☆ A lot more coaches will be included, including an OC, so keep an eye out you might see one of your favourites pass by (maybe I'll include them if you ask nicely) ☆
☆ The ao3 tags will be edited if nessecairy per new chapter that comes it because sometimes shit just happens, so keep an eye on those aswell! ☆
I really do hope that you are even a slither as excited to read this story unfold as I am to write it. I am so immensely for all the positive reactions it has gotten so far. I am so happy you guys enjoyed chapter one and I hope the rest live up to its standarts.
If you haven't yet and would like to before chapter 2 is posted, here's the link
☆ Sorry that this is such a wordy post, I have no idea how to explain it otherwise. Thank you so much for reading lol ☆
#I cannot wait for them to actually kiss LMAO#I cannot thank you guys enough for reading my little gay fanfic#and actually liking it#jd#just dance#just dance fanfic#jd wanderlust#wanderlust#jack rose jd#jack rose#wanderrose#just dance 2024#just dance 2023 edition#just dance fandom
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Chenford REWIND- Lucy Chen / Tim Bradford - The Rookie - Season 5 - Ep 6 & 7
*phew* almost all caught up on this REWIND of Chenford! And with today's edition, we will be completely caught up to date of current airing (5x11 being the most recent to air).
I'll put together a Master Post later to make things easier to find. For now, it's time to talk about another favorite of the season.
SPOILER ALERT: This is not one of those reviews where people tip-toe around spoilers. I will spoil every last morsel in these episodes without restraint. Please know that going in! I do try to write these as though I were seeing them for the first time.
Alright, with all the red tape out of the way, let's dive into the fun!
The Reckoning
"Hello. Good morning!" "Chen. Sanford." "What's up with him?" "He's just grumpy with everything he's got going on." "Wait. What? What's going on? "Nothing." "What." "He's fine. I'm fine. We're just eager to protect and serve." "Aaron." "I have to go. I'm so sorry." "What?"
Cackling during this scene the first time I watched it.
Aaron's doe-eyed, assuming that Lucy would know everything going on in Tim's life already (because he's not Nolan-level oblivious) then realizing oops, he should've kept his mouth closed.
Side Note: "Nothing" is never a good cover... just sayin'.
I also find it fascinating that Chris is framed out of most of the scene. Yes, he's there in the establishing shot and brief interaction with Tim, but as soon as Tim departs, this is Aaron and Lucy's conversation.
Lucy's worried. She could tell something was up with Tim because he was about to walk by without even acknowledging them. When he did, he could barely look Lucy in the eye, and he stuck to last names without salutation.
At first, she thought it might be something trivial, but Aaron's words affirm something is definitely up with her husband.
"I think the radio belonged to the broody one." "The broody... Tim forgot his radio? Tim Bradford, 'Super Cop'? You know, this guy will not let me forget that I was once three and a half minutes late to Roll Call. Can you believe that?" "I guess." "This feels like Christmas. Thank you."
Oh, I know that glint in your eye, Lucy Chen. You're cooking up something. But, she pauses as she considers exactly what to do.
And this is the difference between a Tim/Lucy prank earlier in the show versus now. Now, Lucy wants to do something that will be fun... not just funny. Lucy decides to go the same route my husband did when he proposed—scavenger hunt.
"What the hell?" "What is it? ... Who sent that?" "Someone who's about to get in a lot of trouble." "You know you could just file a incident report and get a new radio." "And get written up? That's one day suspension without pay."
I love you, Tim Bradford (platonicly. I'm happily married and he's fictional... so...). He truly is the Super Cop who wants to do everything by the book.
"I think I know where this is."
And what I LOVE about this is that Lucy Chen has already been to these places, and timed it out to know how long it would take Tim to get from one to the next.
She knows him so well. ("too well", anybody?) Lucy knows that she needs to break through his walls by getting him active.
Paintball? He loves it. Shooting range? Totally something he did with his ex as a date. Tim isn't one to open up about feelings easily.
This is a way to prime him, and help him think about something other than whatever is bothering him.
"Man, this is one sketchy-ass looking coffee truck."
Side note that I love that someone had to look at that line in a script, then either find or design the perfect coffee truck to make Aaron say that. It gives me such special pleasure to think about.
"It's where I get my coffee every morning. No oatmilk mafia hipsters rewriting screenplays. A buck for coffee and you go to work." "You sound like the old dude from Up!"
My husband was over my shoulder when I first watched this on Hulu, and he was rolling at that. But, it's so true. Tim is a creature of habit. He likes what is comfortable because it's stable, and his life often lacks stability.
It started in childhood... not knowing if Dad was going to ignore him or lay into him at any given moment. He learned to constantly be on guard, to be slow to trust, and to find what comforts he could to get through until he could get out of the house.
So many of Tim's life choices are informed by the abuse he survived.
"Damnit. They're running us all over town." "Okay, so, like, what's the point? I mean, they haven't asked for money or anything. And if they really want to screw with the police, they could do a whole lot more with that radio." "I don't know. We gotta figure out what studio lot that is."
First off, my hat's off to Aaron, who wants to be a detective. He's diving into the why right off the bat. Tim, though... he's in the game.
Right where Lucy wants him.
"My favorite movie was shot right here on this lot."
Woah, woah, woah. Your favorite movie is Shane!? I mean, it tracks for Tim's character, absolutely. In high school, my US government teacher spent a whole semester having us watch US Westerns and writing about them. I aced that semester if you can imagine.
While I'm not a fan of Shane personally (I don't like most Westerns), I get why it appeal to Tim. And it's heartbreaking.
Shane is a Western where a man is hired to help a family of homesteaders, gets into many a gunfight, befriends the son of the homesteaders, and then when injured protecting them... he leaves. The boy stands at the door crying out for Shane to come back... and that's how it ends.
This is not a happy story. It's a story of a man who did the right thing. He took out the bad guys, then abandoned the people he'd connected with to protect them from retribution. And this is Tim's favorite movie.
"Wait, your favorite coffee place. Your favorite movie. Whoever's doing this knows you really well." "Chen."
Again, Aaron with the Detective cap on. And it takes only seconds for Tim to realize who would know all of these details about his life... Lucy.
When did they talk about his favorite movie? The coffee would be an easy one, but I bet there's some fanfic out there about how Lucy conned Tim into telling her his favorite movie, possibly by guessing terribly on purpose to draw him out.
Much as Tim tries to avoid talking about personal things... Lucy has always drawn him out. He has helped refine and sharpen her, but in the same manner, she has helped pull him out of his darkness. And she's doing it again with this distraction.
"Where's my radio?" "Did something happen to your radio? Oh, you know what, Halloween is tomorrow. Maybe a vengeful spirit took it."
This flirty banter is giving me major end-of-season-4 Chenford vibes. I don't know if Lucy even realizes she's doing it. But sitting together in that hospital room, they erased all the awkwardness—or so she thought.
Because Tim's had time to think about Lucy, now, in the absence of the all-consuming vortex that was Ashley. Without the distraction of his girlfriend, all he sees is Lucy.
"Why are you doing this?" "I don't know what you're talking about." "Is holding my radio payback for how tough I was on you as a Rookie?"
Tim's playing a game of 21 questions and Lucy hasn't answered a damn one. Well done, girl!
But I also like the quirk to Tim's lips at the end of that statement. He's having fun. Even arguing with Lucy (playfully), he is having so much damn fun.
"Were you? I hadn't noticed."
Oh, yeah. Definitely flirting.
"Okay." "But, again, I don't know what you're talking about. But I might be able to help you look for your radio if you tell me what's going on." "Nothing is going on with me." "Please. I rode with you long enough to know when you are being you, and when you're upset. I mean, are you okay?"
How do you tell the woman of your dreams that you're falling in love with them while they're dating another man? I don't know, and Tim certainly doesn't either.
Because this isn't just about Ashley. Yes, he is hurting because yet another person walked out on him. Hell, she practically trampled on his oxygen line on the way out the door.
Without Ashley to redirect his thoughts, he's having a harder time ignoring how much he wants to be with Lucy. And her being soft with him makes it even harder because he starts to question himself. "Is it possible she could feel something? Should I ask?"
His attitude totally shifts as he makes the decision to play it off.
"It's nothing. I'm fine."
Tim, someday, someday, I hope you realize that "nothing" is a terrible, terrible cover story.
"Then I don't know where your radio is."
She storms off, and we can hear she's really frustrated. Lucy hopes that this game is helping loosen him up because she wants to help him.
Last week, she didn't get to be there for him as much as she wanted. Now, she has a chance to help him, and she feels like it's failing.
Lucy is drawn to Tim as much as he is drawn to her. It's all a matter of getting on the same page. And right now she feels like they're flipping back and forth instead of landing on the same spot.
"Hey. Hi. What the hell is going on with Tim?" "Well, he lost his radio." "I will give you his radio if you tell me what's bothering him." "Honestly, I don't know. He won't tell me either." "What?"
Maybe Aaron should do all the lying for the team, because he's the only one who's any good at it. We know he knows what's up with Tim. But, he's being a good Gofer and keeping his trap shut.
But Aaron also knows that Tim and Lucy know more about one another than most cops he's met. Even if Aaron hasn't sniffed out the romance angle, he knows that there's something there. And he ain't getting in the middle of it.
"Hi. Good morning." "Good morning."
Everything is shifting! Did you clock that? Oh, I totally clocked that. Tim's graduated from monosyllabic greetings for Lucy to an actual phrase! Progress! But he's still not looking her in the eye.
"Still missing your radio?" "No, it's in the shop." "Where's your standard issue?" "This is it." "That hasn't been standard since the sixties... Wait, let me get a photo of you with it, first!"
Peep Aaron looking ANYWHERE other than Tim and Lucy? He knows better than to get in the middle of this.
Tim and Lucy have a tendency to take embarrassing photos of one another. It's a quirk they share... one of those places where two seemingly very different people overlap. And I so hope Lucy got her shot so we can see it make a comeback at some point.
Can you imagine their wedding slideshow? Half of it's just going to be shots of them pranking one another.
"Uh, here. I thought torturing you would be more fun, and getting your mind off of whatever has been bothering you."
First off, coworkers don't need to hold onto the object they're passing that long. Y'all are being obvious right outside the station. Second, she clues him in on why she was doing this... it wasn't revenge. It was concern.
Damnit, that's hot. You know Tim's thinking it. Lucy Chen did all this for him.
"I should know better than to get into your personal business."
This is another deflection. Back in 5x02's opening scene she talked about having a lot going on in her "personal life" and we know that involved Tim. But after 5x02's breakup scene, she's convinced that he isn't interested.
"Goodnight." "Night... Ashley and I, uh, broke up. Well, I guess, technically she broke up with me."
Did you see how Lucy's head whipped around? Because Tim Bradford just let her in. It's been a while since Tim has let her in on anything. He's been keeping her at a distance for a while—even last week when he was injured.
But here he is, letting her into his personal life. She had given up, and he just let her waltz right in. Lucy knows what a big deal for Tim this is, even if she doesn't understand what's going on in his head and heart. Could you two just TALK!?
"And just so you know, I did appreciate your whole radio gag, a little. Took my mind off things." "Well, good."
See that little size up and shimmy? Because Tim Bradford complimented Lucy Chen. And she has a thing with Praise. He basically told her that her whole plan worked, and that he understood and appreciated it.
And for some reason, that little affirmation cracks open something between them that they've both tried to bury since their "breakup".
Looking at the woman of his dreams, radio in one hand (a literal communication device), Tim considers another leap.
And, oh, you know he has to have it bad to try this, again, after how badly he fell the last time. But he feels that connection between them, again. And there's no Ashley, anymore, to distract him from it.
And look. At. Lucy. Her face reminds me so much of the end of season 4 when she and he stood in this parking lot looking at one another, her anxious of what he might say. Some part of her knows.
But before Tim can open his mouth, the door opens, and out parts Mr. Professional Chenford Blocker himself, Chris Sanford.
Lucy and Tim both look caught. Because even if they weren't playing tonsil hockey, they were in an emotionally-charged moment that shouldn't happen when she's dating someone else.
And Tim just got the second coldest shower of his life (nothing tops bleeding-out Chris).
"Do you wanna join us? We're gonna go get a bite to eat." "Oh, no, no. I'm good. I'm beat. You two have fun."
And he means that. He wants Lucy to be happy, even if it isn't with him. But that fake smile is so heartbreaking. Because, here he was, considering a huge leap... and now he's clamming back up because he thinks Lucy is truly happy with someone else.
You know who isn't happy about this interaction? Chris, that's who! Early on, he clocked something between Lucy and Tim, but she was able to shove it off.
Think about it. She never called or texted anyone when she decided to spent the evening at the hospital by Tim's side. But likely she told Chris later about it, not thinking anything of it.
Now, Chris comes out to see Tim and Lucy chatting, and she invites him on their date!? Chris might think things are good between him and Lucy, but a part of him definitely sees Tim as a threat. He no likely.
Good.
Lucy and Chris walk off, arms wrapped around one another, but the camera stays on Tim, offering us a shot of him from a distance, defeated, looking back at the opportunity missed with the woman he's falling for.
We feel how distanced he is, now, from Lucy. We feel his struggle with that distance.
And as we switch angles to see it from her side... Lucy is looking back at him.
Remember beginning of season 4 when Lucy and Tim stood together in his living room, his left arm stroking her right arm after their hug? Lucy felt the change in energy between them. She saw the look in Tim's eyes.
She loves that look. She's addicted to that look. It's been a long time since she's seen that look, but she saw it at the hospital, and she saw it again just now. She loves when he looks at her like that.
It's hard to say if she knows how he feels about her, but I think she is struggling with the same thing he did with Ashley—Do I risk it all for someone who I think is unavailable to me, or do I stick with what's easy, but not satisfying?
Even though she's still with Chris, Tim being available, more flirty, complimenting her, and showing the slightest bit of interest is sending her spinning.
She shoves it down... but it'll come out, someday. Like a spring wound too-tight eventually snaps.
Crossfire
"If your puppy vouches for her, it could go a long way." "I don't know. Having a kid act as a CI on his own sister? I mean, they might not even be in touch."
I need to point this out. Is it directly Chenford related? Yes. Go with me here.
If you've seen the episode, you know one of the key Chenford-related moments is coming up, but this conversation feeds right in.
Nyla and Angela want to get Lucy in as a UC. But Tim, yes Tim is the first one to reason why it's not the best idea. Why? Because he's concerned for the kid.
He's not thinking about Lucy's career, or even about the possible apprehending of a criminal. He's thinking about this kid. We need this context to see where Tim's head is at.
"How about we keep an eye on the kid, ourselves? Make sure he's safe."
Nyla and Angela are the ones pushing this. Lucy, too. Tim isn't doing any pushing. But he's actually the one hearing Aaron. Because Tim does have a soft spot for kids. He was one, once, and his childhood sucked.
Lucy at Gunpoint
Aaron glances to Tim, aware of how Tim's stopped freakin' breathing and is watching the situation unfold.
"We should pull Tabin out, now." "Nah, he's fine." "Sir, no it's not. You are endangering this career all because it's good for Lucy's career." "Excuse me?" "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
I saw the responses online, "Good! Someone called him out". And, sure, it's good Tim knows his Lucy-o-meter is showing because that's going to get him in trouble someday.
But Tim would never put a kid in danger for Lucy's career. Hell, he hates that Lucy puts herself in danger for Lucy's career.
But Aaron doesn't know Tim's history with an ex-wife who was UC. he doesn't know about Tim's abusive childhood and how he would never want to put a child in harm's way.
Tim is working the op the way it needs to be worked because he is a seasoned cop. In this moment, it's actually Aaron who is operating off of emotion. And Tim is smart enough to know it, so he drops it instead of starting an argument—the work comes first.
"I don't wanna blow my cover." "You got it."
Wow, how far we have come. Tim used to think Lucy didn't have what it took for UC. Now, he's letting her call the shots on her UC op. He respects the hell out of her, and that is earned, and that is built.
Lucy Makes Herself
Look, I don't know what the long-term plan here, was. Did Lucy want to keep using that cover to infiltrate the gang further? I don't know. But the second she saw Tim and Aaron in trouble, she leapt out to help.
Tim and Aaron can absolutely handle themselves. Lucy made an emotional decision. And it got her made.
Was it the right decision? Who knows. Aaron was the only one to get through to Tabin, and Lucy's presence didn't help anything. But she was worried about Tim and Aaron.
"Night."
Lucy doesn't know what went down between Aaron and Tim while she was undercover. But she knows what made her break it. And she's had time to think about their chat outside the other day—what was Tim going to say?
Because she knew he was going to say something. And lately he's looking at her with these soft eyes... What does it mean!?
"Hey, uh, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for what I said, you know, about Lucy. That was totally out of line." "It was."
Because Tim would never endanger a child just for Lucy's career. But, also, calling Tim out about Lucy was out of line—but that part wasn't wrong. And Tim knows it.
"It's all good. Look, sometimes tensions get high, but we get the job done. And you had my back the way you threw yourself in front of mom for me." "Oh, yeah, she was gonna lay you out." "Come on."
Aaron and Tim has become a really unexpected relationship for me on this show. Tim has softened enough that while he maintains authority over Aaron, he listens to him. Of course, this is Lucy's influence in his life. So it makes sense that the three of them are sort of becoming a new OT3 on the show.
In the past, it was Jackson, Lucy, and Nolan who formed the OT3. Common element? Lucy, of course. She brings people together in unexpected ways.
And while Aaron's comments were out of line, it's not wrong for someone to call Tim out about his intentions and choices. He's an authority figure in the station, and a supervisor. People need to know he's on the level at all times.
That's going to play into the rest of a season, I think. But, what do I know? I'm just a girl from the very-near future rewinding back to Chenford classics of ages past.
As ever, thank you for reading and joining me on this journey. We're all caught up! Can't wait to see what's next for Lucy and Tim (and Chenford)!
I'll put together a Master Post to-date later. And I can't WAIT to see what 5x12 has for us all! See you then!
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Yeah. The moment I realised how many voice Japanese actors that I liked were in it, I just had to go for it. I’ve finished the first season now btw and will probably watch the movie later today. I’ll give you my person opinions in the DMs because imo it’s easier like that. Especially since I put some references to certain episodes in there and even use a quote at some point. And I totally understand your feelings towards Mahiru and even though I don’t have those, I do have some protective feelings towards him and some other characters. I like how it was even obvious to you and I’ll tell you that even by the end he’s still one of my faves but in a ‘wants to be there for him’ kind of way. Like I’d want to create a friend for him more above anything else. Yeah. I discovered two in different ways. Mikuni has me intrigued and I want to see more of him and he’s just so fun to watch. Then we have Hyde / Lawless who just… *holds hedgehog gently*. I was looking forward to seeing him because he’s voiced by one of my favourite Japanese voice actors (who is also in Haikyuu!! and makes his first appearance in the second season) and also because of his little dance in the end credits and he gives me so many feelings, none romantic but still all the feelings. I presume the fave that your talking about here is the character you mentioned in our DMs. I like him and understand him and hope that if he appears in the future, under better circumstances. I like how you love both. The opening song is a bit too intense for me so I always skipped it, but I would always listen to the ending song whenever I could.
Also, there’s something I want to ask. I do plan on reading the manga at some point, once I’ve done the first reread of that story I plan on posting later this year, and I was wondering how accurate of an adaptation the anime is. Like can I just start where the anime left off on or should I start earlier somewhere? Also, a few days ago you mentioned in a post that you would like to hear about our favourite friendships and I have to say that Mahiru and Sakuya are now def a favourite of mine. It’s just such a good friendship with interesting layers to it.
That’s all from me for now. Hope you have / had a wonderful day.
C
I'm just so glad you ended up going for it and Jesus, compared to me, you watch so quickly! I'll admit that I didn't watch the movie myself. In an odd turn from how I usually do things, I had watched the first couple episodes of the anime first but knew within the first three episodes that I loved it and really wanted to give the manga a shot too and while I finished the twelve episodes of the anime, I just stayed manga only after that. I might give the movie a shot when I do my reread and catch up of the manga in March and rewatch of the anime. I'll probably talk more about Servamp to you in our dm's, just because, like you said, it's probably easier that way, though as usual, I'm terrible at responding to those quickly and probably will need a couple more days before I respond, especially since (though I adore how much we talk, please don't think I don't) we talk a lot and have so much to say to each other that it normally takes me an hour or three to properly write out my messages to you.
I will say, I was surprised by Lawless so much! I had figured you'd like Mikuni…I love him, I honestly do, he's a fantastic character, especially in the later manga chapters and just I am always so curious about him and every time I think I have him figured out, I second guess myself. But Lawless surprised me. He's truly fantastic too, but I would have guessed you would have loved Licht the more out of the two of them. But that is very cool to learn about Lawless' voice actor! I know how much a good voice actor can mean to you. And see, in a surprising twist here, among my many eclectic music tastes, your girl here absolutely loves metal music or anything along those lines, so the opening really hits me right and it's actually on my hiking playlist because it makes me wanna get up and move and push hard.
As for the adaption of manga to anime, I haven't rewatched the anime fully in a bit, but I think it was a fairly decent adaption, but the ending of the anime was different from manga continuity. I think, but feel free to correct me if it turns out that I am wrong, that it was a case of the anime getting ahead of the manga? I know I personally noticed enough little differences in the manga when I started right from the beginning that I wasn't bored, even covering some of the same territory the anime did, and the art is just a joy in the manga, but I'd love to hear from other Servamp fans. What would you guys say in terms of where to start in the manga??
AND YES TO MAHIRU AND SAKUYA. I love their friendship, I love their bond and connection and how difficult it is for these friends to really have to be on opposite sides of what really is a war. Thank you so much for weighing in and all your wonderful opinions and I hope you're having an amazing day too, my lovely!
#admin chatter#servamp#any servamp fans out there wanna give an opinion on where to start in the manga?#or chime in on your favourite characters or anything
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Day 18 Delayed
After not one, but two pastel de natas before my dance class at the gym, and a homemade sardine tosta I walked 5+ kms to my third language lesson via Clarice, in Alvor, for a proper latte ☕️
I tried to video the garbage collection system near my apartment but failed in my timing. The collectors were also looking at me strangely as I held my phone up to film!
I did get a better shot of the cute dog that looks out over the neighbourhood with interest. I had a brief chat with the owner to confirm he's only two. Noticeably, there are lots of dogs, as well as learner drivers and pastelarias.
After the fun language lesson, practising conversation starters and replies, I had an interesting conversation with a retired fireman, Gary from Ireland 😉 I noticed Gary at the first lesson. He seemed broodish, but I think he may be an introvert, if that's possible for an Irish man? Although my depth of experience with Irish men is limited to one!!! (Yes kids, I know he had a problem with alcohol and you thought he was gay, BUT he did make great duck fat baked potatoes!) Today Gary came with his lesson notes neatly stored in plastic sleeves in a folder, but he said "que interessante" with as much enthusiasm as a wet fish. Rebecca asked him to be a bit more animated. I think his interest must have peaked in me when he heard me saying, in terrible portuguese "sou impragada do estado" which translates to "I am imprisoned by the State". I'll need to check this with Rebecca at the next lesson, I'm sure there's a better way to say "public servant". I'm also "dona de casa" which means investment property owner, but it also means housewife!
Gary wanted to give me lots of advice about superannuation. I’m sure he was well intentioned but I feel quite informed 😂 Sadly the teacher is taking a break next week so I’ll miss Gary, but I’ll ask around, apparently he is a member of a walking group and I need to do some more walking 😜
I’m now getting ready to have dinner with Rosie at Restaurante F in Praia da Rocha. She’s messaged me this afternoon to invite me to a book launch tomorrow night at Irish Rovers, que interessante!! She also said “We will also go tonight to listen to the band after dinner” Stay tuned….
So dinner at Restaurante F was pleasant. I had high expectations (from the number of Facebook comments after I posted the request, “recommendations for best restaurant with ocean views and I don't care for steak!) and also when I saw the selection of breads being wheeled around on a trolley and a separate aperitif menu. The bread (cornbread, pumpkin bread and plain) and two butters were delicious, the shared prawns ok and my first cataplana of octopus, clams and sweet potato (Algarve stew cooked in copper or stainless steel pot) tasty, rounded out with the shared crème brûlée and bottle of rosé, not cheap comparatively at €50 each. But, the company was definitely worth it. Rosie regaled me with fabulous stories about her relationships and the number of suitors she has at the moment. And as a supplier of gummies to some of her cruise tour members (it’s legal in Canada)😂 She certainly lives an exciting semi retired solo life.
We then went to Irish Rovers, and yes that same bartender made a beeline for Rosie and started his lines on me. I reminded him that he'd already made me a cosmo last week and I'd heard his BS! Later I did give him a hard time about how long he'd been using those lines on women at this pub (six years!) and had it ever worked (no) and I suggested it might be time to come up with a new strategy. The band were pretty dreadful, actually it was mostly the lead singer that did have Rosie and I in stitches. His voice was not loud enough to be heard over the instruments (probably for the best), and I couldn't work out if he was Irish, Portuguese or another nationality. Rosie said he looked 100! Are white singlets on tattooed older lead covers' singers still a thing? And he was drinking red wine. It was too many contradictions for me to manage, given I don't go out to these kind of venues at all. I did say to Rosie twice that a strong female lead would fix this situation. Rosie knows the owners, Martin and Jenny. They weren't pub owners in Ireland, but have owned Irish Rovers for 10 years and according to Rosie it's the most successful pub in the Algarve. Martin was in the band on keyboard (and I thought he could actually sing) and Jenny was behind the bar. At one point she quickly came over with three shot glasses of some creamy beverage and said a hurried hello, downed the shot, and went back to the bar. Apparently the book launch is for a Portuguese poet that Jenny doesn't know, but she wanted to be supportive, stay tuned...
Rosie did tell me about a fantastic Thai massage she had, so I've tracked down the salon and the therapist and booked myself in for this afternoon.
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Rewatched Phoenix priestess today (Had a friend who knows only what I've told him and like 70% of it is the au) and I relished in the Gajeel and Thunder legion content.
Like Gajeel was great but can I just focus on Laxus for a moment.
First of all, he was manic when he showed up, don't think I've ever seen him that animated (I know movie equals bigger budget but he doesn't show up in dragon cry from what I remember and I forgot he was in this movie) and also I think my new favourite scene is when he lands a hit and uses his lightning to zip over and float next to Freed and excitedly yell "Yes" like I loved how happy Laxus was post GMG and pre Tartarous and I wish he'd gotten longer for that happiness before literally almost dying and then slowly dying and then going to war and almost dying. Plus I totally relished in the Thunder legion screentime cause they deserve so much more than they got post Tenrou (Like they are least got decent treatment during Tenrou with them all getting at least one good fight (although Evergreen pulled the short straw there) but KOTSH doesn't show us Freed and Gray's fight, just a little of Evergreen, Erza and Max's and Bickslow and Wendy get a good go, gmg they do get to help in the dragon fight but they sorta get less focus cause of the dragon slayer, and they're taken out literally first fight in Tartarous and Alvarez. They deserve better) also Bickslow has amazing balance to be able to stand on only one baby and the movie actually remembered that Freed has wings cause he hardly ever uses them in the series (the Wendy's job episode is an example where Happy is like "I can't carry you both" and I'm just sitting with my eyebrows up my forehead because Freed has wings. He can fly on his own Happy) and I love how pretty Freed's wings are and how unique they look.
Also the fact that during a wide shot scene Gajeel was just blinking the phoenix on the head repeatedly was funny. In fact Gajeel in general was great fun. Getting to see him and Lily being sneaky spies was great plus it does add the fact that Makarov just has Gajeel as his go too spy and that is amazing and I bet Gajeel totally loves it because of his love of mysteries (he absolutely watches and reads detective novels and movies) Plus the end pictures where he's eating a full pipe part then later him and Natsu try to make each other eat their element was funny.
I was also repeatedly pointing out Alzack to my friend whenever he showed up cause I sorta made him stand in a like 40 min line to meet his English voice actor. He didn't speak (despite being credited which I dunno) but I pointed him out anyway.
I'm a little disappointed that they didn't bring in other guilds but I understand that it being an 82 min movie, not even feature length would make it a lot harder to provide adequate screen time to additional characters (also probably why a lot of the side cast didn't get many or any lines like how Jet is there during the Erza and Makarov scenes but is just silent) like it would make a bit of sense to at least get like Rogue since shadows and one of the enemies uses shadow and metal so it would have been cool to see a fight where Gajeel and Rogue team up (Before Acno fight)
I might make a little side story of the two movies for the au cause I do like them (and I'm pretty sure I remember seeing somewhere at least PP is canon to the manga like KOTSH) and there is at least small amounts of world building. (Also noticed that aside from 7, 400 is the other common number featured in the series. Literally so many things are either from or linked to 400 years in the past. Irene, Acno, the dragon slayers and dragons, Future Rogue's plan for the dragons, dragon slayer magic, the dragon cry, Zonia(I think is her name), Anna and so on.)
#fairy tail#phoenix priestess#Laxus Dreyar#Gajeel Redfox#Rant#this movie was a fun rewatch#I'd have to rewatch Dragon cry for a refresher but I'm pretty sure it is still my fav of the two#These rewatches of FT have been great fun and now that im unintentionally hyper analysing every individual frame I'm noticing so much new
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writing asks!
5, 6, 9 [crimson, bright, or under], 25, 26, 48, 57, 63 [His Tenebris Moenibus], 72, 77
Thanks! Sorry, I would have answered this sooner, but I spent most of today doing training modules for work and my brain is friiiiied.
Anyways, let's see what we have here...
5 - How many WIPs do you have? What fandoms/pairings are they for?
All my current WIPs are under the Stranger Things and/or Twilight umbrella.
Necrosis: Diplopia's sequel, a more freeform fic based on the many (...many) wonderful fics I've read. The fic deals primarily with... I'll call it Emily's Involuntary Character Development by Phoenix Wright-Related Means. Posted chapters: 5/?
The Weirdo From St. Valentina's: I know this one was originally a one shot, but someone in the comments flattered me by saying it should be a longfic, and I have more ideas, go figure. So I have another chapter partially drafted and maybe a few more after that? Posted chapters: 1/? (Three or four maybe)
Stranger Things One-Shots: I have a few one-shots I have already written and a few I want to finish/write. As of now I have a total of I think 4 that I have yet to publish, three are done and one I need to finish.
Twilight One-Shots: There are fewer of these, in fact right now I only have one that's in the works, however given that my top priority is the Twilight longfic and I have some of those later chapters done for when I get to them, it evens out. There also miiiiiight be one in the future that doesn't involve Emily at all...
So I don't know how those totals work out. A lot, it's a lot of WIPs.
6 - What is the last line you wrote?
"Lead the way."
Context: Emily says this to a character that she's gonna take a walk with to a location after a very... we'll call it an introspective conversation. I can't say much for spoilers' sake, but this is one of those "later Necrosis chapters."
(I know I posted a one-shot called The Third Rule to celebrate Stranger Things 4's one year anniversary, but technically that was one of those one shots I wrote a while ago, so none of those lines were 'the most recent line.')
9 - Does [word chosen by asker] appear in a WIP?
Crimson - Surprisingly, no lol
Bright - She had just the prettiest, brightest hazel eyes, I could practically see every color imaginable in them.
(That counts, right?)
Under - He hasn't had a singer in 305 years, not since 1593. It's amusing how the humans are still under the impression that the poor man was killed in a bar fight. That's what Chelsea told me, at least.
Dang, those are from the same WIP lol, again, one of my Necrosis chapter drafts (although this one is gonna be on deck soon).
Also I should note the italics are indicating that this is a quote someone is reading. This is a scene of someone reading someone else's writing.
25 - What is your favorite part of the writing process?
Honestly, it depends on my mood. But in general I really like developing characters. Their traits, their relationships, all that fun stuff. It fits together like a nice puzzle and I just get to be creative. Writing aside but in a similar vein, I also like coming up with character concept sketches and making character playlists. Both of those things can be a massive help to the writing side of the equation as well.
26 - What is your least favorite part of the writing process?
...can I say the actual writing part? I mean, I don't hate it, sometimes the act of writing is a huge stress reliever, but the problem arises when I either a) have the motivation but not the time or b) the desire to write but the inability to actually execute the process for any number of reasons. I need to plan more, I don't wanna type, I'm tired and would just rather daydream about the fic... the list goes on lmao.
48 - Who is your favorite character to write for? Has this changed since you've started writing for that fandom?
This is an interesting question since I love writing for all the characters I write for. Some more than others, sure. I mean, obviously I love writing stories about Emily, else I wouldn't keep doing it. But like Emily, I'm very attached to both of her long term boyfriends and love getting to write for both of them. Although I thiiiiiink Henry takes the edge.
It really just comes down to how creative I feel like being on that day. When I'm in the mood to be more creative I like writing for the Twilight characters more since... there's very little canon material to work with, forcing me to fill in the gaps. Giving more depth to characters like Jane or Sulpicia is such a joy, even if it's born of annoyance.
57 - How conscious are you about adding symbolism or foreshadowing in your fics?
Incredibly. I try to make every single thing in my fics very intentional, down to using specific words in simple sentences or dialogue. For example, this excerpt from Diplopia:
If you know, you know, and you know this will be important later... and that it is not gonna be pretty. Foreshadowing is one of my favorite tropes because it gives a fic re-read value to go back and look for hints.
63 - What was the hardest part of writing His Tenebris Moenibus?
Many little things, but it all boils down to balance. Balancing Emily's shitty personality to still make her a somewhat likeable character that you want to keep engaging with. Balancing content and information in the show with keeping the story fresh (i.e. Henry telling Emily his backstory in a different way than he presents it in Episode 7 while still getting the same information across... admittedly in retrospect writing out his entire monologue when we eventually get to the massacre might have been unecessary, but I did it anyways cause I love and adore that scene, sue me). Balancing out how Emily interracts with people like Eddie so her presence in that part of the story doesn't seem forced or weird.
72 - What's your favorite writing compliment you've gotten?
I appreciate and adore every compliment I've ever gotten on my writing since they're all very special to me. Obviously the analysis comments you give me and I get stronger with every "good characterization" comment (I might be able to fight god soon). I even got compliments on Necrosis from someone whos fics I have not only read multiple times but have gone absolutely feral over... It's like publishing a short horror story and Stephen King telling you he felt creeped out reading it.
But I think the greatest compliments I've gotten are from people who've told me my writing changed their outlooks and minds on characters, Henry specifically. You've said this once or twice and I actually got @ohitshoneybee on the full blown Henry hype train... arguably initially because I put him through an emotional ringer with Diplopia and she felt bad for him, but still. This is a character I care about very much, more than I ever expected to, and it gives me a sense of pride that I can essentially make people somewhat see him the way I see him.
77 - Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?
Oh, many reasons. Putting my own creative spin on my favorite fandoms, exploring ideas and adding extra dimensions to pre-existing lore... and making people have emotional breakdowns. Are you really a fanfic writer if at some point you haven't gone full Helmo?
I think the most recent example is the fact that it's allowed me to take my childhood nemesis franchise, Twilight, and give it my own three-dimensional makeover. I basically started with Mopey, Angry, and Creepy with their (remaining) wives, Druggie One and Druggie Two. I put some thought and work into it and now instead of two dimensional, one trick ponies, I have full characters I can mold and play with.
Stephenie Meyer, if you're ever reading this, call me and I can have an entire guidebook whipped up to give your characters a full revamp (no pun intended).
I take cash, checks, or Venmo.
#I always love ask games even if they take me a while to answer#i just love gushing about my hobbies#fishgills speaks#ask game#fanfic writing#writing ask game#fanfic ask game#fanfiction#my inbox is open
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🍦🦅⏳
Thank you, friend!
🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?
Not in this fandom! But years ago I did a fic in the style of one of those old whimsical children's novels--think Chronicles of Narnia, or something like that--and it was almost saccharine sweet, but so fun to write.
🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?
Both. With something like Soul, I have a loose idea of where I'm going, and where I want things to end up, but I don't lock myself down so tightly that there's no room for interpretation or switching things up. For example, the whole uh... thing that happened in the last line of the latest chapter was actually supposed to happen in the Calexico chapter when Eddie's pinning her skirt, but it felt too soon when I was writing it, so I made the decision to cut it and move it later. And, in the original version, Eddie was going to ask if he could, but that didn't feel right, either. I wanted Chrissy to have her own agency, and to make an active choice to do the thing.
Likewise, there are other moments coming up where I think I know what's going to happen, including how I want the ending to play out, but I try not to let the structure in my head dictate my choices in the moment, if that makes sense.
This whimsy holds less true when I'm writing actual books--holding them to around ~80k is important from a cost perspective (editing is by the word, printing costs more, etc.), so I tend to have stricter outlines, and more worked out in advance. It's one of the reasons I love writing fic--I'm not bound to those guidelines, and I can have more of a loosey-goosey approach to things, while still knowing the bones of the story I'm telling.
⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?
Good question! I can usually churn out 1.5-2k words a day. Sometimes more, if I hit my stride and I'm really in the groove (today was one of those days, actually, and I crushed about 3,500 words, mostly on a one-shot). However, I also have days where I'm struggling to even get to 1k. Generally, though, it takes me 3-4 days to write the first draft of a chapter. Then, I let it marinate for a couple weeks so by the time I get back to it, I've written more of the story and I can correct things, or drop in foreshadowing, or whatever needs to be done.
My editing tends to be faster than my writing, and weirdly I just sort of... rewrite the draft when I edit? I used to try and go in and fix individual words or lines, but that just slowed me down. It's easier if I just sort of... re-type and fix as I go? Which is mostly because I type about 120wpm and so it's quicker for me to do that than to hunt and peck with a mouse.
Anyway, yeah, the edit happens over the course of a day or two, then I run it through Grammarly and ProWritingAid to check for major errors (protip: those services are excellent TOOLS but dear GOD do not take their advice on style 98% of the time. They will strip out your voice like Ursula the sea witch, baby.) Then, I run it past my beta to make sure I haven't done anything stupid, and then I post.
So, long answer to say that like... in terms of total time spent, maybe 8-10 hours per chapter, soup to nuts?
These were super fun! Thank you!!!
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It is Wednesday again, friends. Thanks to @forabeatofadrum for the tag!!
I am in the final stages of working on my second wave Klaine bang fic! Draft is done, I'm just going through and making minor edits. I also have a front runner for a title (very annoyingly, I thought of a title that amuses me but I think would actually work better for a sequel/in-universe one-shot a while after the events of this fic. So I might already be planning a sequel???? but who knows if I'll ever get around to that).
All that said: this will probably be the last snippet from this fic I share until I'm actually posting it, which won't be until at least July. But here's a non-climactic moment from a very climactic scene:
Kurt vaguely heard the herald introduce the queen, felt the crowd ripple around him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Blaine while he descended the stairs. And just as Blaine reached Rachel and swept his eyes around the room, his gaze met Kurt’s.
They stared at each other, and it felt like the world had stopped spinning.
[...]The small orchestra arranged in one corner began to play a waltz, and Blaine and Rachel initiated the dancing, spending the first several measures stepping elegantly about the dance floor together, before a gesture from the queen encouraged other pairs to join in. Kurt got intermittent glances of the royal twins, his view often blocked by other dancers. He couldn’t push down the wave of envy that rose in his stomach.
ALSO, in honor of the remarkable, phoenix-like return of Scarves and Coffee today, I figured it would be fun to post a few lines from a very old story I had on there, and had not crossposted anywhere else, and therefore I assumed was lost to time. Under a cut because I was sixteen and the writing is not particularly great.
This was just a fluffy, basically plotless one-shot about the boys having a snow day together:
Kurt was already gathering snow as he replied. “You’re gonna regret this.” He hurled a snowball at Blaine, but the short boy ducked, avoiding it completely. Kurt swore softly, quickly making another one. He wasn’t keeping an eye on Blaine, though, who ran up and dumped a handful of snow on the back of his neck. Coldness seeped through Kurt’s scarf, followed by water droplets as the snow melted. Kurt stood, holding a huge snowball with both hands, his face livid. “Get ready, Anderson.”
Blaine, who had retreated and now stood ten feet away, smiled slyly. “You’re so sexy when you want revenge.”
Then he began to run, because an enraged Kurt Hummel was heading for him.
Oof, "the short boy" - I don't think I ever really relied on unnecessary epithets, but clearly I did it a little, which is rough to see. I am still shocked and amazed by S&C's revival, though - I might make a whole post about it later.
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HS ; couples
couples answers questions with the choice of drinking instead of answering
pairings: lee heeseung x gn!reader
genre: fluff, angst if you squint really hard
words: roughly 1.4k
masterlist ⸺ series masterlist
~guides and warnings~
italics - reader speaking
bold - heeseung speaking
[enclosed] - interviewer speaking
italicized bold - both reader and heeseung speaking
[enclosed bold or italics] - question (depends on who's speaking)
heavily inspired by: rec.create lie detector games, cut truth or drink
warning: contains and mentions of !!! drinking, swearing
i don't promote underage drinking, save your livers
-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈
hi! i'm (y/n)
hello, my name is heeseung!
and we're together
we're couples!
[you guys were invited here today as couples for a fun little drinking game, you guys were aware of that right?]
yes
we are
[okay, for this game, questions will be asked and if you refuse to answer, you drink, it's that simple. should we start?]
let's go, i can't wait to drink
so you won't be answering the questions?
i mean, it's free alcohol
*hee shakes his head in disbelief
[how long have you been together?]
we actually just had our 3rd anniversary last week
so 3 years now <33
[how did you two meet?]
pffft- *(y/n) laughs
can we just choose pass
shot!
*hee offers the shot glass to (y/n) and both take a shot, laughing after
we're drinking this early on damn
we met through a mutual friend
i was brought as a wingman
i think you can guess how it went
[but how did you guys become a couple?]
we got closer after meeting and i think it was obvious to the both of us that we were interested in each other
yeah but it still took a lot in me to ask you out
he stuttered the first time he asked me on a date
did i?
*(y/n) laughs at the memory
you went "hey, so uh you wa-"
*hee cuts (y/n) off by squishing their cheeks
we don't need a reminder
*(y/n) swats his hand away
but it was cute, don't worry
*(y/n) pats his head making heeseung smile
[okay, how about we officially start the game now?]
*both nod and played rock paper and scissors to determine who gets to ask first, (y/n) wins
*(y/n) reads the card and chuckles
[was it love at first sight?]
it wasn't
like i said, i was supposed to be a wingman so in my head, they were already off limits
i don't believe in love at first sight so *(y/n) shrugs
[do you have/did you have doubts with us being together?]
goddamn *(y/n) drinks
*heeseung is wide-eyed
no honey, not like that, i will answer, it's just that i need the alcohol boost
*the shock goes away
i was about to shed tears not gonna lie
*(y/n) rolls their eyes
when i agreed to becoming heeseung's significant others, i had no doubts, i knew what i felt was true and i knew his was too. the doubts were mainly on myself?? like "what if he just wakes and he doesn't love me anymore" but everyday heeseung proves to me that that will never happen
*(y/n) smiles at heeseung
*heeseung looks away trying to hide the smile and blush appearing on his face and he takes a shot refusing to meet (y/n)'s eyes
*(y/n) picks up a card and laughs
[if i become a zombie and had to eat people to survive, would you stick by side?]
heeseung gets scared easily i don't think he will
but if it's you...
*(y/n) raises an eyebrow
wait let me think about this more clearly
see! *(y/n) laughs
*heeseung continues to think
omg just say no!
but it's you !!!
i know it's me but baby we both know you'll run the other way once i start to eat people
...... you still love me right?
yes heeseung, i still love you
*hee :D
okay! next question!
*he picks up a card and laughs
oh i like this one.
[would you date any of my friends?]
*(y/n)'s mouth drops in shock
*(y/n) ultimately decides to play with heeseung
i mean.. *(y/n) reaches for a shot
*the grin on his face disappears
yah!
*(y/n) bursts into giggles and takes a shot
yah~ !!
[would YOU date any of my friends?]
*hee's eyes narrows and takes a shot for revenge
*both laugh at their antics
the answer is no guys, i love his friends but they're pretty much like annoying siblings
sorry (y/n)'s friends, (y/n) is the only one for me
but i'm pretty sure someone who used to be in my circle would jump at the chance
really ?? who ??
*(y/n) gives the look
AH! -
*scene cuts as he says a name
moving on.
*(y/n) picks up a card and laughs
[do you wish i offered to pay for more dates?]
MAN I WISH I COULD PAY MORE ON DATES
i like paying for our dates, but arguing with them is hard
yeah there was one time we spent 10 minutes bickering about who will pay, so we just made an agreement
we take turns per month, like for this month i'm the one paying for all the dates, then on the next month (y/n) will be paying
but everytime it's his month, he always tries to go out a lot, and when it's my month he opts to stay in
hehe
hEHE ??
*heeseung picks up a card and reads the question intently
*he is in deep thought
what is it?
[will you agree to an open relationship?]
ohhh
open relationship is when it's okay if you see other people right?
yup and i don't think i'd agree to it. you?
me as well
sorry im selfish, heeseung is mine, i do not share ;)
*heeseung laughs
yeah, sorry it's not for me, i don't think i can stomach seeing another one hold (y/n) , find your own
*(y/n) raises glasses to cheers and both take a shot
[it's okay not to drink if you answer]
yeah we know
but it's free alcohol
and drinking makes it more fun
*they hi-five
okay! next question,
[if i had to move away for many years, would you wait for me?]
yes.
wow no hesitations
yes i would wait for you
*(y/n) :O
yes
okay we get it
*they laugh
but i will, you're worth waiting for
your patience says otherwise
are you doubting my ability to wait?
do you hear yourself when you're playing?
that's with games, you're not a game, you're not something i play
*(y/n) blushes making heeseung laugh
shut up okay i get it
i also do not actually trust my patience
SEE ?!
*heeseung bursts out laughing
so instead of waiting i'd probably just go to them and/or visit them a lot
or just move in with me
*(y/n) avoids heeseung's stare
is this still related to the question or the present
huh? *(y/n) acts clueless
WAIT-
*camera cut
*we see both of them sporting a blush with big smiles on their face, and the alcohol evidently lessened
[freestyle! ask any question you want]
wah, i don't know what to ask
*he is thinking, everybody shut up
just keep it simple
no i want it to be hard
i can just actually follow the rules and drink instead of answering
*hee pouts
no you won't
*(y/n) :P
okay!
[did you like ... when we first met?]
oh the 'friend'?
yeah
*(y/n) drinks
*heeseung :O
*(y/n) xD
no heeseung, i did not like them, i really just saw them as a friend
ohh ouch sorry buddy
*they share a laugh
oh it's the last one
[question for both: what does loving each other feel like?]
awww that's a cute one, i'll go first
loving heeseung feels like the comfort your favorite songs bring you. it feels like the excitement you get whenever your favorite show releases a new episode. it's the deep sigh in content you release whenever you smell your favorite scent. it's just, loving him feels like everything your favorites make you feel.
*heeseung is not tearing up, definitely not, that's just sweat, he is also 100% not blushing, it's just hot
*he takes a shot and (y/n) laughs at his antics
now how am i supposed to beat that?!
let me be more romantic gosh
respectfully, no.
*both laugh
okay uhh, loving (y/n) feels like riding a rollercoaster. from all the emotions while waiting in line to exiting the ride. loving them is like the feeling of hitting a high note you previously couldn't. it's winning multiple prizes at the arcade. loving (y/n) is like the softness of a sunrise and the absolute wonder in staring at a night sky.
*(y/n) takes a shot not even bothering to hide their blush
why are we so cheesy and poetic when we're intoxicated damn
*heeseung laughs and agrees
forgive us if we're cringey
not our fault you're single
heeseung! :O
*he stays unapologetic
and that's it!
thank you for having us~
bye~
»————- ♡ ————-«
bonus: youtube comments
masterlist ⸺ series masterlist
a/n: sorry this took so long, i caught up with everything i missed in my classes, i'll try to update the series more frequently. i will also be posting timestamps later since it's been days since i last posted. i hope you also like this one!! jay's will be posted next, please look forward to it <33
#enhypen#enhypen imagines#enhypen scenarios#enhypen x reader#speak or shot#enhypen series#enhypen heeseung#lee heeseung#enhypen fluff#heeseung#enhypen x gender neutral reader#heeseung fluff#lee heeseung fluff#heeseung x reader#lee heeseung x reader#heeseung imagines#heeseung scenarios
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17, 23 and/or 26 please and thank you! Any ship or pairing, platonic or otherwise!!
Also my god those prompts are hilarious, they're so amazing sofjfkk 😂💗💗
!!! ahhhh okay so I did 17 and 23 since I filled 26 already, but this is so rhodeytony and you cannot convince me otherwise. I'm glad you like the prompts <3
prompt(s): “I ALMOST GOT ATTACKED BY ANOTHER GOOSE. ANOTHER FUCKING GOOSE.” and “Do you drive a Jeep?” “Do I look like the type of person who would drive a Jeep?” (from this list)
Read Wants and Needs here on ao3
~~~
“I ALMOST GOT ATTACKED BY ANOTHER GOOSE. ANOTHER FUCKING GOOSE.” Tony yelled as he stomped into their dorm.
“It’s Tuesday, Tones. Tuesdays always suck. It’s, like, a universal law.” Rhodey didn’t even look up from his astronomy homework until Tony collapsed next to him on his bed.
“Rhodey…” he whined.
“Did you break your bed or something? C’mon man, get up.”
“We could break my bed, if you were so inclined,” Tony said suggestively.
Rhodey threw a highlighter at him. “Menace.”
“Joke’s on you, this is mine now.”
Tony got up and put it in the jar of pens he kept on his desk. Rhodey resolved to steal it back later, he should have known better than to use his favorite highlighter as motivation to get Tony off his bed. He sighed. “Alright, so you almost got attacked by a goose.”
“Why are they so scary?” Tony groaned. “I never got attacked by geese in boarding school.”
“I don’t think they have Canadian geese in Switzerland, actually,” Rhodey told him. “Plus your dumbass is natural prey for geese. My old zoology text book is up on that shelf actually. If you look, your picture is probably right next to caterpillars in the diet section.”
“Ha ha,” he said dryly. “You won’t be making fun of me when one of them murders me in the square and you don’t have a roommate anymore. Do you think they’ll pair you with someone in your class bracket, or someone your age?”
Losing a pillow to Tony’s sarcasm would be unfortunate. He was less likely to get that back. “I hate you. Geese?”
“Right, so I’m walking home from the coffee shop, which is a whole other can of worms by the way, and I went by that little pond where photography students usually hang out, but there weren’t any photography nerds. Because of all the geese. They should post signs when that happens, I’m telling you. Anybody could have walked into that.”
“Maybe you should become friends with one of the photography kids,” Rhodey suggested. “That way they can let you know when that happens.”
“Stop being helpful while I’m complaining. So anyways, I’m walking down the sidewalk there, and most of them were far enough over on the grass that I wasn’t super worried about it, but I didn’t see this one that was right on the edge and she was not happy.”
“Did she have babies?”
“She did have babies as a matter of fact. I moved to the opposite side of the sidewalk to get away from that, but that wasn’t good enough for her.”
“Oh god,” Rhodey muttered.
“I had to run all the way back here just because I wasn’t sure whether or not she would follow me.”
“And you sat on my bed with your sweaty ass? You’re lucky I was planning to do laundry today.”
“You’re mean,” Tony pouted. “I need a better roommate.”
“Liar,” Rhodey snorted.
“I mean it, I’m leaving,” he threatened, reaching for his school bag again.
“That means you have to walk past the geese again.”
Tony stopped. “Shit. After the geese are gone, I’m finding a new roommate,” he amended.
“Don’t be like that, Tones. Who else will tolerate you complaining about your day?” His foot was falling asleep, so he uncrossed his legs and stretched. “What went down at the coffee shop?” Rhodey figured the question would get Tony to settle down.
He was right.
“Okay so it’s Tuesday, which means I go down there to get a midday energy shot since I’ve been up for so long, and while I’m in line, this guy walks in the door and taps me on the shoulder and asks, ‘Do you drive a Jeep?’”
“How dare he!” he gasped, but Tony didn’t seem to pick up on his sarcasm.
“I know! So I turn around and respond with ‘Do I look like the type of person who would drive a Jeep?’ and he agreed that I do not look like that kind of guy.”
“You look like you should still be using training wheels.”
Tony shot him a reproachful look. “Anyways,” he emphasized, “before I could turn around and order, this guy starts prattling on about Jeeps and how they’re such good vehicles and all that, which whatever, they’re fine, I’d rather die than drive one personally, but what do I know? I’m just an overqualified mechanic.”
“I’m choosing to ignore that you said the same thing about my Chevy.”
“College students are allowed to have shitty cars, it’s one of the only times it’s socially acceptable,” Tony conceded. “I trust you to get a better car eventually. This guy was like, dedicated to Jeeps though, and that’s a huge red flag. I finally got him to shut up, and asked why he wanted to know about the car I drove, and he goes ‘Oh, I just hit one trying to park and wanted to make sure it wasn’t you’.”
Rhodey imagined this was why people watched soap operas. “No way.”
“Yes way. The barista looked like she wanted to clock out right then and there, but she called the cops and I bought the rest of the staff coffee.”
“Did they find whose car it was?”
“Oh yeah, you’re not going to believe this. It was the Dean’s car.”
“No shit?” Rhodey asked delightedly.
“I know! I had to stay and give my statement to the cops. The only reason I wasn’t any later getting home is because I ran from the geese.”
“That’s incredible. I can’t believe I missed it. He’s going to be in so much trouble.”
“The head of campus security was on the scene when I left. It was insane. Rumor has it he hit the car because he saw me walk in and wanted to be able to start a conversation with me without seeming like a crazy person.”
“Totally pulled that off,” Rhodey nodded solemnly. “He doesn’t seem like a psychopath or anything. In fact, I give you full permission to bring him back to our room.”
Tony hit him with a pillow, and Rhodey turtled to avoid it. “The only person with a sub-par car that will ever be in this room so long as I live here is you, honey bunch.”
“I’m just saying Tones, word around campus is that you’re looking for a new man. I wouldn’t begrudge you for going for someone so interested.”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t think you heard me. There’s only one man I ever need in this room, period.”
“Okay, well, the option’s there if you want it.”
Distantly, Rhodey knew Tony was being weird, but he decided to ignore it and continue working on his homework. That is, until Tony removed his notebook from his hands and set it on his desk.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.” Tony crawled back up on his bed and sat facing Rhodey.
“Did… something else happen that you need me to know about?”
“Nope.”
“Right, well then,” he reached for his work again, but Tony batted his hand away. “… do you want something, Tony?”
“You’re not hearing me,” Tony stated.
Rhodey vaguely wondered when he’d last slept. “I’m almost certain I did. Geese, guy talking about Jeeps, you not wanting to bring him home. What did I miss?”
“I only need one man in this room.”
Well that certainly cleared things up. “Great, so don’t ask him to come over. Find a woman if you’re so inclined. Can I finish my homework now?”
“Other than me, who is the only man in this room?”
“Me I guess? That’s sweet, Tones, I need you too.”
Tony huffed, and adjusted so he was kneeling over Rhodey’s thighs. “Hey.”
“Hi. What are you doing?”
“Trying to make you not stupid.”
“I’m almost as smart as you, Tones.”
Then Tony kissed him. On the mouth.
“Huh. So you meant ‘need’ like-”
“Like ‘need’? Yeah dumbass.”
He grinned and went to respond, but was interrupted by a yawn. “Damn it, this is why I tell you to not mess with me while I’m working.”
Tony frowned. “When was the last time you slept?”
“Couple days ago maybe? I’ve been busy.”
“Okay, here’s the deal. No more homework, I know it’s not due for a few days, you can wait, and we’re napping.”
“We?”
“Yes we,” Tony thumbed over his chin. “Unless you don’t want this?”
“Who says I don’t want this?” He reached up for Tony and pulled him back into a soft kiss. “Mm, yeah, I want this, definitely. C’mon, I know dealing with idiots and cops and geese probably tired you out too.”
To be honest, Rhodey was ready to dismiss the whole conversation as a hallucination caused by the lack of sleep. Then he woke up a few hours later to a tiny genius’ face tucked into the space between his neck and shoulder, and he breathed a sigh of relief before dropping a kiss into his hair. He didn’t just want this, he needed it.
#ironhusbands#mit era rhodeytony#tony stark x james rhodes#fluff#fluff and humor#getting together#friends to lovers#geese#car accident mention#shaderose01 tag#teddy tag#prompts#ellis writes
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Something To Sink My Teeth Into || he/him pronouns version
Themes: Supernatural AU, Vampire AU, strangers to lovers, angst and fluff (so much fluff), something similar to those symbiotes from Venom and Hanahaki disease combined, interplanar travel, Jaemin and the reader are oblivious and Chenle gets mad about it, long conversations about vampires, vampires can't cry
Pairing: Vampire!Jaemin x Male Human!reader
Warnings: mentions of blood (minor), mentions of eating (human food and vampire food), character death, Chenle is kind of a butthole, in depth conversations about humans and vampires which include biting and blood drinking, Yuta's house gets set on fire
Word Count: 26.4k
Summary: A trip to Poland goes terribly wrong - or maybe terribly right - when you're bitten and kidnapped by a vampire. Between passing out, almost dying multiple times, and falling in love, you have a lot on your plate. Oh, and the magic. Right. Teaser here.
A/N: Okay so uh... this wasn't meant to be this long. I hate my brain sometimes. *sigh*
This has only been edited by myself and a friend of mine, please excuse any errors. I worked hard to make the best experience possible. For that reason, please note that this is the !he/him pronouns version! They/them pronouns may be found here, she/her pronouns here. Please enjoy!
You were on holiday in Krakow, Poland. For your twenty first birthday, your parents had gifted you a weeklong trip over Spring Break, and you had been having the time of your life. You had found Krakow rich in historical influence - it had been the capital of Poland until 1596 and still had remnants of the past, like a Renaissance-era trading post and sections of the medieval walls that surrounded the city. Plus, the section of the city that you were staying in was very close to the city center, where you discovered aforementioned trading post, called the Cloth Hall, and an old cathedral named St. Mary’s Basilica.
The first night of your stay, Sunday night, you had struggled to sleep, because of the time difference and the excitement of arriving. You stayed in Monday morning, trying to at least rest a bit, and then ventured out to the nearest coffee shop when that didn’t alleviate your sleepiness. The barista had whipped up your favorite pick-me-up morning drink, and you went to sit outside in the fresh air, surveying the plaza over the rim of your cup. It was just the right time of year, you thought, because it was nice and warm without being too hot, just how you liked it. The sun had started to rise about the buildings around you, illuminating certain structures and giving them an unearthly glow.
When you finished your drink, you put the cup into the collection bin and walked back out onto the main square, just enjoying the sun on your face (over the sunglasses you had bought in the airport after forgetting to pack yours) and letting the warmth sink through your limbs after the tired night. One of the unfortunate things about the time of year you had travelled was the tourists. There were families and older couples and people your age taking trips with their friends, and most everyone stayed right where you were staying as well: right in the heart of the city. To avoid as many crowds as possible, you had booked a tour of St. Mary’s Basilica for Thursday morning, and reserved entry to the underground museum for this afternoon.
Tomorrow you planned to go and see Grodzka Street, where you were going to try and find a souvenir. In the same neighborhood was an ancient church called St. Andrew’s Church, which dated back to around 1079. On Wednesday, you were going to brave the crowds of people in the Cloth Hall for the same purpose, and also because it was a historical landmark that you just needed to explore. Wednesday afternoon was blocked out to be a rest period, as was Thursday morning. Then on Friday you were planning to go and see the Wawel Castle and Cathedral. From there you would explore the various attractions on the property, and then return to the plaza later to eat. That afternoon, you planned to go to the Jewish cemetery. Saturday was blocked out for a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was a Nazi concentration camp and a Holocaust memorial out of the main town. When you returned to the hotel late that afternoon you would pack and get ready for your flight Sunday morning. It was going to be a very full and very fun week. Or at least you hoped it would be fun.
You explored the main square a little bit that first day and unpacked your things, making sure you had everything you needed for your trip and you didn’t need to walk to one of the convenience stores nearby.
The days passed quickly, and you finished each one completely satisfied. Everything and everyone here was so wonderful and you started to wonder how you had never heard of this place before this trip. It was absolutely one of the best places your parents could have picked.
On Friday morning you got up bright and early (well, actually, it was dark and early) to go to the Wawel Castle. You had heard from a travelling site that tickets sold out fast and it was important to get there early in the day, and you tried to heed that warning. At 7am when you arrived it was already busy, but thankfully not so much that the lines were too long. You wandered through the small exhibits and around the grounds. It was a bit more chilly today and you wrapped a scarf around your neck as you shivered, trying to find a less windy spot to hide out for a second. You found a little spot where you could take a moment and recharge your inner heater and were doing just that, burrowing into your small scarf mountain, when you realized that a person stood next to you. You looked up through your lashes at them and caught your breath - holy cow he had good genes. He had a sharp, sloping jawline that stopped at a chin less pointy than you had expected. His lips were plush and round, although he needed some chapstick. His hair was pushed around by the wind but despite that he looked, well, amazing. Sections were bleached, giving his hair an almost halo-esque look. His nostrils contracted as he inhaled and then his eyes cut down to yours, dark and deep and was that eyeliner?
He smiled then, a smirk that seemed far too self-assured for the situation, and leaned over towards your exposed ear. “I can feel you staring, baby,” he murmured. The top of your ear, which had been feeling rather numb, flamed hot at his words. It almost hurt, the sudden jump into heat. You turned towards him fully, only eyes exposed by the scarf mountain. Your hair whipped around as the wind shifted again, but he didn’t seem cold, although he was in only a pair of black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black jacket. The jacket caught your attention for a second - it was studded with thousands of little rhinestones, like a varsity jacket gone shiny. Then he shifted closer into your space and you were forced to look back at his eyes, glittering in a way that seemed almost predatory. You sucked in a breath through your mouth and started to back away.
“S-sorry,” your breath came out in a whisper. Nobody seemed to notice your interaction. “I didn’t see you there, I’ll just leave.” You turned to go before his hand, surprisingly strong, clamped around your arm and pulled you back into his chest.
His voice came out in a growl as he blocked your scream with his other hand. “I am far, far too hungry for you to leave right now, precious.” The strength in your legs seemed to dissipate at his tone, you knew you needed to defend yourself, but ‘hungry’? What was that about? And precious? The hand wrapped around your arm let go and started unwrapping your scarf, exposing your face to both him and the frigid wind. He started to lean down, and you pressed your lips together tightly. At the very least, he wasn’t getting in your mouth. You may have lost the strength in your legs, but not in your will. Then he bypassed your mouth and leaned into your neck, inhaling and causing cold air to course along the column of your throat. He chuckled when you shivered, then bit into your neck.
The pain was overwhelming, you could feel each individual blood cell crying out, every organ protesting, your head started to pound with it. It hurt far more than even a dog bite should. It hurt like a shot at the doctor going on and on, echoing through your body and you were powerless to stop it. The pain flared in your neck and your brain seemed to slow down as the blood flowed away from it and into his mouth. You crumbled into him, and without detaching from your throat, he scooped you up into his arms, holding you there to be his personal bloodbag. You had long since stopped trying to scream, it was too difficult, too much effort.
Vampires, your thoughts whispered, before the pain covered you and you passed out, collapsing completely.
☽༓☾
You woke up in a... cozy cottage? There wasn’t any sign of your attacker and, in fact, no sign of anything vampire esque either. You looked around the single room at the soft fabric couch (covered in boho style throw pillows), the kitchenette (complete with pre packed food), and the window, through which you could see a combination flower and vegetable garden. There were two doors off of the room you were in, one that led towards the lush green outside, and one that must have concealed the bathroom.
The moment you realized this, you also realized that you really needed to use said bathroom, and struggled to plant your bare feet on the floor. Your legs didn't want to hold your weight, and you crumbled to the rug with a whine. Two seconds later, the door to the outside opened with a swish of fresh air and there, outlined by the sun, stood the most gorgeous person you had ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on. When he saw you on the floor, he groaned and ran a hand through his pink hair. "Shit, I'm so sorry, let me help you!" He ran over and you allowed him to half carry you into the bathroom. It wasn’t like you had any strength to protest, and he seemed nice. He smelled like sunshine on fresh earth.
Once you had finished using the toilet you tried to stand up again, now that you at least had some semblance of strength in your legs. After a few tries you were able to support yourself against the bathroom counter, with more than half of your weight against the frigid tiles. Your legs shook as you started standing more straight up, and you made a high pitched keening sound that you didn’t even know you could make; the man’s worried voice came through the door. His voice was higher and slightly panicked.
“Are you okay? Do you need help? Are you hurting too much?”
Your voice, which you hadn’t managed to make work properly, came out lower than usual and scratchy. A portion of your throat ached as you tried to make the sounds audibly. “Yeah,” you rasped out. “I can’t stand up properly.”
“Do you need me to come and help?” There was something about his voice that just made you want to trust him. It was soft but strong and even though he had toned down the panic, it still had soft tremors of worry running through it.
You thought about it for a second and considered yourself in the mirror. You looked, quite frankly, horrible. Your hair was a mess (more than usual), your eye bags were sagging unnaturally, and your eyes themselves were dull. You did look like you needed help. You sighed. “Sure.”
A moment later he opened the door slowly and stepped into the space with you, putting one arm around your waist to help support you. You relaxed some of your weight onto him and closed your eyes briefly. It would have been a wholly relaxing moment if not for your stomach. It grumbled up at you and you thought for a moment that it sounded like an angry octopus trapped inside of you. Then you blinked to clear the thought away as the man laughed. It was deeper than you expected from a man with pink cotton-candy colored hair, a low chuckle that rumbled through his body and, in turn, yours. You shook against him slightly with the movement and his other arm came to help you lean more against his body. He was stronger than you expected and you could feel the muscles in his arms shift as he reoriented himself.
“Let’s get you some food,” he said, smiling. “Unfortunately I’m not sure I’ll have much you’ll like.” You just nodded. Your throat was still throbbing uncomfortably where you were bitten and you weren’t sure you had the energy to even debate his statement. You were sure you would eat whatever he gave you. He led you into the main room again and helped you settle onto the couch. He walked over to the kitchenette and picked up a can of soup, then walked back to you to verify it was a kind that you liked. Once you had approved it, he went back and put it in a pot on the electric stove, starting to heat it up. As he stood over it, you had some time to think as you sat on the couch. The first thing you realized was that you still didn’t know what his name was, which was an issue. You couldn’t thank him properly without knowing his name. The second thing you realized was that you didn’t know where you were, exactly. The third was that you had probably missed your flight back home and your parents were going to murder you for it when you eventually got back. You shifted so you were more comfortable before trying to speak again. You started with the easiest vocal warmup you remembered and the man looked over at you with eyebrows raised.
“You good?” he asked. You nodded in response, hoping that your throat would relax and stop throbbing.
“Yeah, I think so,” you told him. “The side of my neck really aches where that man bit me.” His eyebrows furrowed at this and you thought maybe you just imagined it, that nobody actually bit you, but the pain was real enough in that moment and it was certainly real enough when he bit you. “Also,” you continued, “I still don’t know what your name is.” He seemed to think about this for a moment.
“I’m Jaemin Na,” he said eventually. “This is my house. And I think maybe we need to take a closer look at your bite, I didn’t realize it still hurt. Usually the throbbing goes away after a day or two.” You found yourself nodding along before his words sank in.
“Okay, uh, nice to actually know who you are now. I’m Y/N,” you said. There were suddenly many more questions floating around your brain. Usually he had said, which meant he had dealt with vampire bitten people before. How? Was he one? Why weren’t you a vampire? And how long had you been asleep for? They circled around your head like a dog chasing its tail until you realized that Jaemin was in front of you. It seemed like he was waiting for you to say something.
“Sorry,” you murmured. “What was that?”
“I said we have all the time in the world for you to ask me the questions I know you must have. Don’t psych yourself out. You’re safe.” Despite the fact that you knew next to nothing about him you found yourself once again trusting him without reason. He just seemed like a genuinely nice person, someone you could believe to tell you nothing but the truth.
“Okay,” you agreed, and it came out like a sigh. Your throat gave a particularly unpleasant throb and you unconsciously brought a hand up to rub at it. Jaemin’s hand fastened around your wrist and pulled it away, looking closely at your skin. He sighed.
“You’ve probably figured out by now that the man who bit you was a vampire. If you haven’t, have your moment of denial now.” You just looked back at him, surprised.
“Denial?”
“Yeah. Usually when humans find out about vampires for the first time they aren’t very accepting of it. I’ve had to replace my windows a few times from thrown objects.” You almost laughed before realizing that he was serious.
“Okay, well, I already got that, so go ahead,” you prompted.
“Great!” His eyes got just a little bit less heavy with your statement and he continued, “contrary to popular belief, vampires don’t actually turn humans all that often. If we had that little self control the whole population would be dead or turned already.” You noted his use of the word we and shuddered a little. He could attack you too? He seemed so gentle.
For the first time you noticed your soup in a bowl on the coffee table. Jaemin reclaimed your attention by speaking again. “We’re also pretty good at choosing who to bite, and when. We’re not heartless. We try to choose people with good metabolisms so that we can return them to Earth quickly.” At this you inhaled so sharply that he paused, looking over at you.
“We aren’t on Earth anymore?” you asked shakily. He shook his head with a quirk of his lips. That distracted you enough to calm down for a moment. He really was a gorgeous person. Was the word person still applicable to vampires? You didn’t know. He sucked you out of your thoughts again with a hand waved in front of you.
“No, we’re not on Earth. Where we are… it’s like a parallel plane of existence. Vampires can live here, do live here, in bigger bunches than we can on Earth. We call it ‘Vahmpyr.’ I always thought that was a really unoriginal name, but I was turned after it was discovered so I didn’t have much of a say. It would be like you trying to rename Earth.” He picked up your bowl of soup and stirred it around, handing it to you, before continuing.
“This is my vacation house of sorts, where I nurse humans who have been bitten back to their healthy selves. Generally we vampires try to keep one certified nurse or doctor in each coven just in case, more if the coven is large. It’s a handy skill to have. Especially if you happen to have parts of your coven who are as chaotic as ours.” He looked over at you and smiled wryly before adding, “I didn’t poison the soup, you know.” You looked down at your lap where the warm bowl sat and laughed under your breath before picking up the spoon and taking a bite. It was delicious. You flashed him a thumbs up with your mouth full and he smiled brightly again.
Once you had swallowed you asked, “how can you bite humans and not turn them? I didn’t know it was possible to not turn us.” He nodded like he was expecting this question.
“It’s kind of a strange feeling,” he told you. “Biting, I mean. It’s not like the human feeling of biting into a piece of meat. It’s just… it’s amazing. It’s like cold fruit on a summer’s day, hot chocolate while snow falls. It’s at once a feeling of absolute power and absolute devotion because tasting a human’s blood puts them above everything else, at least for a few moments. At the same time you’re aware that their body is falling apart and right into you. It’s intoxicating. Every once in a while you’ll bite someone that just tastes extraordinarily good, or meet someone with a unique and, pardon my language, delicious, smell. Then your body sort of automatically realizes you want them to stick around and releases the venom.”
“So,” you said, interested by his version of vampires, “if you bit me right now, I’d be fine?”
His eyes sparked with something new. Anger, you thought, or something close to it. “I just spent four days nursing you back to health and you want me to bite you just to see what happens?” he asked incredulously.
“No! I was just confirming. I’m sorry,” you murmured, and shoved another bite of the soup into your mouth for good measure. He sighed.
“I’m sorry too, it feels so easy to talk to you. I forget that you’re new to this.” You choked on your soup while he and he hurriedly patted your back as you regained your breath. “Are you alright?”
“Did you say you spent four days nursing me back to health?” you asked, head spinning. Four days. Four days. Four days. “I’ve been missing from Earth for four days?”
He deliberated for a moment. “Yes, and no. You’ve been off of Earth for four days, yes, but you aren’t missing.” You raised an eyebrow in response and he hurried to explain more. “I mean, obviously you’re here, and yes, you’ve been here for four days, asleep, recovering from Jisung’s bite. On the other hand, there’s still a you on Earth right now. That’s the interesting thing about Vahmpyr. We can bring humans back, with some effort, and while they’re here, a version of them is still on Earth. It’s still you. And if you go back, from what I understand, you get your other half’s memories back, like you never left. It’s quite the phenomenon.” He seemed completely serious and you were inclined to believe him, but this was insanity. Another you, a perfect copy, walking around on Earth while you hung out with the vampires in their parallel plane? You pinched yourself. It hurt, and you winced. Jaemin looked at you with this horrible understanding glimmer in his eyes like he was saying I know how this is. It’s weird and unimaginable but it’s here. Please don’t break any of my things.
Eventually you just kept sitting and looked back at him. “This really is good soup,” you said. He looked at you in surprise before bursting out laughing, face lighting up like the horizon at sunrise.
“You’re not going to attack me?” he asked between chuckles. “That’s the normal response. And thank you, that’s my favorite kind of soup too.” You shook your head, smiling back at him.
“I decided that there’s no changing it even if this is just a fever dream induced by an infected human,” you explained to him. “And wait, can you actually eat still? Like stuff besides blood?” In response he ran over to the small kitchen and grabbed a spoon of his own, dipping it into the bowl and moving it to his mouth. When he was done he smiled at you.
“I can still eat human foods. Nothing is as good as blood, of course, but I can still enjoy it. It’s just dulled by the transformation. And I’m glad that’s the stance you take on being transported to a different plane, I’ve known humans to react rather badly.” He took a moment to think. “For example, there was a woman who was convinced we had sexually assaulted her, which is a fair thought, but she wouldn’t let me explain anything to her. She ran outside as soon as her legs were strong enough and ran right into Lucas. He’s a really big guy, wide and tall and strong and such. She was so terrified she ran into my bathroom and I had to give her the spiel from through the door. Not the finest of interactions.” In spite of yourself you laughed. You could imagine the woman’s fear, especially if this Lucas was as infuriatingly gorgeous as Jaemin and the man who had bit you. You probably should’ve felt the same way, but something about Jaemin was just relaxing, and you felt safe with him.
“I get it,” you told Jaemin. “All of you guys; the guy who bit me - what did you say his name was? Jisung? Yeah, him. Jisung and you and probably Lucas, you all look like models which I guess goes with the vampire narrative, but it’s a little shocking since I’ve never seen someone so good looking. It’s nearly scary.” You looked back up to see Jaemin looking surprised.
“You think we’re good looking? Even after you got bitten by one, abducted by another, and have only heard of the third in a story about someone running away screaming?”
You shrugged. “All of that doesn’t change the facts. You’re still some pretty perfect looking human beings.” A moment later you realized what you had said and wrinkled your nose. “Sorry, uh, creatures. Is that offensive?” Jaemin laughed again and wow you could get addicted to that laugh. It was so carefree. You supposed that came with immortality.
“Technically ‘creatures’ is more accurate but isn’t very nice-sounding, even if we are unnatural monsters.” He said this as though he had come to terms with it. Even if we are unnatural monsters.
“I don’t think you’re unnatural,” you told him. “I mean, if there is a higher power out there then He or It or They created a whole plane for you and if not then nature did. I don’t think Vahmpyr would exist if you were unnatural.” He looked at you without speaking as you took another spoonful of soup.
“That’s… that’s a new way of looking at it.” He looked conflicted, like he was trying to reconcile your view of him with his view of himself. “I don’t think our plane was meant to exist though, by higher power or nature. Humans are beautiful because they age and there is room for change within your society. It’s hard to change an entire plane full of the unchanging.”
“Maybe so,” you argued, “but you’re obviously gorgeous on the outside, and on the inside it seems like you have a good system too. If I was a vampire I don’t think I’d take care of the humans I had bitten. It wouldn’t have occurred to me. They would all die. I would be dead, come to think of it.”
“That’s true,” he conceded. “You really do have a unique view of things.”
“Thank you?” It came out sounding more like a question than you intended. You finished your bowl of soup, licking the excess off of your upper lip. Setting the bowl back down seemed to break whatever spell had kept you in eager conversation with him. You supposed all of your questions had been answered, for now. Jaemin helped you get set up with Netflix on his TV and went back outside to his garden. He explained that you could call for him through the open window if you needed him, he would be right nearby. You nodded, already distracted by the opening scene of your show.
After a while you realized that there were low voices coming from outside. It sounded like Jaemin was talking to someone. You turned the volume down on the TV a little bit to listen. Maybe you could meet the infamous Lucas or someone else in Jaemin’s vampire family.
“... have to bring him to me?” Jaemin was saying. “You tasted him, you know his scent. This is painful. His scent is all over my things, my bed.” He let out a small groan and the other man with him chuckled breathily.
“Hyung, I didn’t mean for him to smell so good I swear, it was a spur of the moment decision. I was hunting in his area and his scent was so enticing. Plus, I was hungry!” You shuddered at the mention of hunting. This one, who must be Jisung, was far less civilized than Jaemin, it seemed.
Jaemin made an angry noise and his words hissed out when he spoke. “You think it was enticing out in the open air of Poland? On a windy day? I’ve been smelling him acutely on my things, in my house, for four days and it hurts. My venom has been going non-stop for the entire period and it’s not like I can just change him, he’s got a life ahead of him!” Part of your heart went out to Jaemin - he was trying so hard to take care of you and even caused himself pain for it. That explained why he had reacted so negatively when you asked what would happen if he bit you. You wouldn’t have been fine. You would’ve become like him. The thought didn’t cause the anger or disgust you thought it should have. It sounded nice, almost, to be like him. To stay in his safety for eternity.
“Jaemin,” said a new voice. It was strong and rough like tree bark lined his throat. “You can return him back to the real world in just a few more days and you’ll be free of him. It’s not like he’d want to stay here anyway, his friends and family are back on Earth. We can keep Jisung home and have him feed on Chenle until he learns his lesson.”
Someone, presumably Jisung, made a wounded noise. “I can control myself, I promise. Don’t make me feed on Chenle, Hyung, he doesn’t taste anywhere near as good.” Definitely Jisung.
“Jisung,” said Jaemin’s voice. “Don’t argue, you brought this on yourself. And me,” he adds as an afterthought.
Jisung’s sullen voice responded, “fine, Hyung, but Chenle isn’t going to be happy either, you know.” You thought maybe Jaemin must have nodded or something because nobody said anything for a while. You turned off the TV, suddenly bored with the program and head full of new questions. The top one on the list was why. Why did you affect them this way? Why did Jaemin treat you so nicely when you were hurting him? Why did Jisung sound like a puppy who had been reprimanded? Why did Jaemin and the other man have the power to ground him, essentially? Then there were the who questions. Who was the man with the voice like tree bark? Who was Chenle, and why wouldn’t he be happy? Lastly were the when questions. When would you be going home? When would you see them again? Would you see them ever again? When would Jisung be allowed to hunt again?
You were so deep in your head that you didn’t notice the door opening and Jaemin coming in, two men behind him, until he stopped and waved a hand in front of you.
“Y/N, you okay? I brought you some people to meet.” He stepped back and you forced your eyes to refocus on what was in front of you. When you looked up at him, he presented the two other guys like he was a car salesman and these were his favorite models. “This is Jisung, you’ve met him already although I don’t know if you remember him.” You nodded, looking over him. He had on a grey crewneck sweatshirt over a pair of black sweatpants today and looked far less terrifyingly beautiful flanked by his hyungs.
“I remember him,” you told them. “You’re the one who bit me.” You didn’t think it was possible for him to look more sheepish than he already did but he managed to, and shrank back so that he was standing half-behind the other man. The other guy had bleached hair falling messily over his forehead, and even though he was shorter than Jisung, he seemed to command your attention more. He had on a green sleeveless shirt that showed off arms rippling with muscles. You gulped, looking up at him, but then he smiled at you. His whole demeanor changed. He felt less like he was about to kill you and more like he might accidentally strangle you to death in a hug. His eyes scrunched up into little crescents and you found yourself smiling back.
“I’m Jeno,” he said, walking forward to shake your hand. “Sorry I didn’t come to visit earlier.” His voice still sounded like bark lined his throat, but less so now that he wasn’t bothering to limit his volume.
“That’s fine,” you replied. “I just woke up earlier today.” You glanced towards Jaemin; he looked like a proud mom watching you interact with his friend. “Jaemin fed me, and since then I’ve just been sitting here watching TV. I can’t find my phone, and even if I did I’m not sure I could walk over to it. My legs are out of practice.”
Jeno smiled again. “That’s pretty common for Jisung’s victims. We found out he has these little back teeth that make it more painful for the people he bites so they usually need more bed rest to recover from the strain on their bodies and the blood loss.”
You nodded, as though that made sense. They still let Jisung hunt with his unpredictability and extra teeth? That seemed a little irresponsible of them, but you supposed that Jeno and Jaemin weren’t that much older than him in the first place. You tried to bring up your next subject subtly.
“Speaking of recovery, when do you think I’ll be going back to Earth?” The change in the room was immediate. Jeno’s smile faltered enough for you to see his eyes, Jaemin’s shoulders slumped, and Jisung’s foot started tapping against the rug. “It’s not that I don’t like it here,” you interjected, “I'm just worried that my, uh, double self will get up to trouble and stuff. What if someone notices it’s not me?”
Jisung looked at Jaemin. “You either did a really bad job of explaining this or he wasn't listening, Hyung.” Jaemin glared at him in response and chose not to dignify the statement with an answer. Jisung huffed at him and turned to you. “It’s you, y’know, back on Earth. Like… when a starfish gets cut in half, both halves grow into full starfish again. Something similar happened to you. Same organism, same guy, just two different places. Is that a weird comparison?”
“What he means,” interjected Jeno before you could reply, “is that the you down there has all of your experiences and memories and the same brain. It’s the exact same person as you, just two versions of you. When you go back you won't even have a bite scar.” At this you lifted your hand to rub at the mark on your throat. You saw Jisung’s eyes follow the action and he licked his lips. You put your arm back down into your lap and swallowed, the sound echoing in your head.
Finally Jaemin spoke. “And to answer your question, as soon as we get you strong enough to walk on your own you can go back. I mean technically there’s a body waiting for you down there, but we don’t know what would happen if we sent you back faulty, so we like to be careful.” You laughed at his use of the word faulty and nodded.
“Okay. Do you guys have a portal or something that’ll take me back?” At this all three men burst into laughter and a high pitched squeal joined the mix, coming from the doorway. Yet another man was standing there, thin orange-dyed hair flopping as he doubled over laughing.
“A- a portal,” he wheezed out between laughs. “No, we don’t have a portal.” You threw him a disgruntled look.
“I was just asking…”
Jaemin looked equally off-put and said, “Y/N, this is Chenle, Jisung’s best friend and our second child. Sorry about his lack of a filter.” His lips pursed unhappily and you rushed to reassure him.
“No, that’s okay, I don’t know if that was stupid question. No feelings hurt, he’s fine.” Jaemin looked unconvinced, so you sat up more towards Chenle and reached out a hand. “I’m Y/N.”
“Oh is that your name?” he replied breezily, shaking your hand quickly. “They were right, you do smell good.” Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jaemin shift protectively.
“Chenle.” His voice came out a growl, raising hairs on the back of your neck. “Don’t you dare.” It was interesting, you thought, how this dynamic worked. From what you had heard with Jisung, Jaemin had always contained himself, like he was reprimanding his favorite child. With Chenle he seemed almost dangerous, like it was possible for him to hurt a fly, and things much bigger than a fly. You wondered if he was this way with all of his patients, or if Chenle just bothered him more with you than usual.
“I’m not going to, mom, chill out a moment.” Chenle, you decided, must be the bad egg of their group. Every family had at least one, and here was theirs. He seemed the most likely to hurt something for the fun of it, and it almost seemed like he should have been the one to attack you, not Jisung. You wondered, in the distant back of your head, whether he had extra teeth for biting like Jisung did. Maybe it was better not to find out.
“Please don’t call me mom,” Jaemin sighed in response, all of the fight leaving him a rush. His muscles were still tense, though, and he ran a hand through his cotton candy colored hair.
“Chenle,” said Jeno, “I think you and Jisung should go talk. He has news for you.” Jisung shuddered slightly, his nod small and tense. You remembered his reaction earlier, when he had been informed that he needed to feed from Chenle for the time being. Chenle looked between Jisung and Jeno and an expression appeared on his face that didn’t seem natural on him - uncomfortable confusion. What you had seen in this past tension filled minute was that he was self assured and rambunctious. Now you wondered if he respected Jeno, regardless of that. You supposed you didn’t really have time to find out, you would be going home as soon as you could walk on your own. Speaking of which-
“I need to use the bathroom again,” you said as Jisung walked out of the house with Chenle right behind him.
“You should try getting up on your own,” Jeno suggested. “The more you sit around the harder it’ll be for your legs to get strong again.” You nodded and used the arm of the couch to haul yourself to your feet. Your knees started shaking again and Jaemin hurried to support you a little, until you felt a little more steady on your feet. Once you did, you tentatively took a tiny step towards the bathroom. Your arms flew out to your sides to help with balance and Jaemin took the mother bird stance, worriedly standing within arm’s length to catch you if you started to collapse. Jeno watched from a few paces away and smiled at you.
“Let’s see if you can get to me, okay? Then we can help if you need support.” You nodded and gritted your teeth, shuffling forward on your weak legs slowly. The good news: you made it to him without falling or using Jaemin’s ever-there assistance. The not so good news: you practically fell into Jeno when you got to him, using his body for support. He helped you find your center of gravity again before acting as a crutch to get you to the bathroom.
“If you need anything,” Jaemin told you, “I’ll be right out here. Don’t over-exert yourself.”
“I’ll be fine, it’s just like one step to the toilet, and there’s a nice strong counter” you assured him, and closed the door behind you as you stepped away from Jeno’s warm strength. Immediately you felt weak again but you reached out to hold on to the edge of the counter while you walked and got safely to the toilet. Your legs screeched at you as you lowered yourself onto the seat and you relaxed a little bit once you were seated. Recovery was going to be hard.
☽༓☾
Two days passed in a blur of pain and people. You met quite a few new people, like the infamous Lucas (who was a giant baby and who adored you), a woman named Joy who had actual red eyes like the legends said, and a man that everyone called Ten. Actually, you weren’t sure if Ten counted as a man. He dropped by Jaemin’s house the third day, right after Jisung and Chenle had just left after getting some flowers from Jaemin’s garden. He walked in on tentacles, long and thick ones that wrapped around the door frame and curled and uncurled as he talked. He muttered something about wishing they would just admit they were gay and asked Jaemin if he happened to have clams. Jaemin, looking amused, supplied him with an entire bucket of the little creatures. Ten gave him a jar in response and flounced out the door without even looking at you.
“Jaemin,” you asked, “what, or who, was that?” Jaemin laughed happily and the sound was so perfect that you wished he would just keep laughing forever.
“Ten is kind of unique,” Jaemin said. “Obviously, he’s got tentacles, which is unusual, and then he’s also not a vampire so none of us can quite figure out how he can get here, to Vahmpyr. But he can see the future, sort of, which is pretty helpful sometimes. Warns us when we’re getting too active and need to be careful of humans. He’s also convinced that Chenle and Jisung are gay and that they just need some guidance.”
You couldn’t decide on a question to ask about these revelations, so you settled for a very intelligent sounding “huh,” and continued your walking around the house. You were doing a lot better now with your exercises and had been able to make it around the room without holding onto anything for support four times now. Jaemin laughed again and you felt yourself actually flinch from the force of his happiness. It was addicting, almost. He went back to his Gaelic scrolls, which he was translating for a man called Kun, who you had yet to meet.
You had a sudden thought and you found yourself needing to talk, to explain about the other day. “Jaemin,” you said, dropping into the seat across from him at the table with a low groan. “The other day when Jisung and Jeno came, you guys were talking outside, you know?” He looked up from the scrolls, giving you a raised eyebrow like ‘so?’
“So I may or may not have listened to your conversation,” you told him, watching as he gave you his full attention, clicking his pen closed and rolling up the scrolls gently. He didn’t look angry, exactly, more apprehensive than anything. Like he was back to worrying about you throwing things and breaking his windows.
“And?” he prompted, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them you saw something strange there, like fear. But certainly the immortal and beautiful Jaemin couldn’t be scared of you. You must’ve been interpreting it wrong.
“Well you guys were talking about my smell,” you started slowly. “And, uh, you said that you- that I was causing you pain. And I was just wondering, why keep me around? Why not take me to a human hospital, or just kill me? Or turn me? Why did you make yourself suffer?”
He inhaled deeply and then shivered a little bit. When he spoke, his voice was soft and a little scratchy. “For one, we’ve never had a case like this before. I mean obviously there have been people who have smelled good to me before, but usually I’m able to ignore it. With you… it’s like my vampire body can’t get enough of your scent. It wants to turn you, to keep you, in its selfishness. That part of me is weak, in its greed. And of course I couldn’t kill you, I could barely control myself when Chenle- when he-” Jaemin took a deep breath to steady himself. “He wanted to bite you. You smell good to our whole coven, to everyone who’s met you, at least, which is a first. Thankfully you don’t appeal to Jisung the same way you do to me though, because by now you’d be a full fledged member of the family. Jeno is really good at hiding it, but I could tell he wanted to drink from you too, when you used him to help you walk the other day. I think the only ones not affected by it are Lucas and Ten, although that could be because they’re both straight, I’m not sure.” As an afterthought, he added, “actually Lucas is demisexual, I think.”
Skipping over the bit about Lucas’ sexuality, you spoke, horrified. “I’ve been hurting all of you? Seriously, why not just make me go to a regular hospital on Earth?”
“Well it would be a little hard to just give you to a hospital on Earth and be like, ‘here, take this body which may or may not have a vampire bite in its neck,’” Jaemin told you. “And also because I haven’t given up on a patient yet, and I didn’t want the first to be because I can’t control myself. And as to why I didn’t turn you… I didn’t want to take your life away. I still don’t. I think your life is going to be a good one and I don’t want to steal that. That’s why you’re going back tomorrow.”
An empty feeling settled in your chest. “You’re sending me back tomorrow? I still haven’t met so many of your friends though!”
He leveled you with a stare. “The rest of my patients never got to meet any other members of the coven. This was a one and done. You don’t need to know the rest of them. Especially not Yuta or Hyuck, good gracious.”
Who are Yuta and Hyuck? you wanted to ask, but his tone implied the end of the conversation, so you refrained from forming the question. “Okay, uh, I’m going to go sit in the garden.”
Jaemin flashed you a barely-there smile, opening his scrolls again and clicking his pen open. “Mhm. Be careful.”
You went out to sit under a tree in his front yard. Actually there were a lot of trees in his front yard - his house was in a forest. He had neglected to mention that when he first told you about his home and you had found it fascinating how it worked. When you walked out, there wasn’t any path out of the small clearing that housed his cottage. When you imagined a person, though, a tree tunnel would open and you could go any which way you wanted. You had tried imagining your parents the first time Jaemin told you about it and it hadn’t worked. He had explained that it only worked for people on this plane of existence, which made sense. When you had imagined Joy, it had shown you a way to a small town. Jaemin had forbidden you to go anywhere without him in case someone got territorial or hungry and killed you by accident. You respected that, you didn’t want to be murdered, but you wanted to see Lucas, and talk to him. He had fun stories to tell of his best friends. Jaemin seemed a bit huffy. It would be fine to go and see him, right? You’d just go and be back quickly before Jaemin even realized you were gone.
You decided that you just needed to talk to a friend right now and focused your mind on Lucas, finding an apartment building in the largest vampire city you had seen so far. With a little more effort you could find his apartment, although you couldn’t see him. The trees opened and you glanced back at Jaemin’s cottage before setting off.
As you walked down the path you reveled in your ability to walk. After two days of walking in short bursts and trying to regain strength in your legs you were finally able to walk like a normal human being, no flailing arms or stops every few meters to take a break and rest your muscles. It was nice, after so little freedom within Jaemin’s one room cabin. You liked being out here better. You avoided tree limbs and roots as you went, always focused on getting to Lucas. At one point your focus switched from his apartment to a convenience store and you panicked, realizing that you couldn’t go there. There, you might actually get murdered like Jaemin had predicted. He hadn’t nursed you back to health and struggled through your scent just for you to go and get yourself killed. You waited, walking more slowly, until the view at the end of the tunnel switched back to Lucas’ apartment’s front door. You breathed out a sigh of relief and continued on your way.
It was fascinating to you how there was no life in the forest besides the plants. You didn’t hear or see any insects or birds and you wondered if that was because they were afraid of the vampires or if they just didn’t exist on this plane. You decided to ask Lucas when you got to his house. After a while you realized that the image at the end of the tree tunnel was no longer a moving image of where you wanted to go, but rather the actual thing, growing bigger as you progressed down the path. You found yourself increasing your pace in your hurry to see Lucas.
When you left the comfort and relative safety of the forest, you nearly ran across the street separating the apartment complex from the trees. You stumbled at one point and almost fell to the pavement but recovered and kept going. You entered the main door and started up the stairs, still hurrying a little faster than your body thought was necessary. You speed walked until you reached the third floor and started looking through the numbers, looking for a door marked with ‘311,’ the one you had seen in the forest while looking for Lucas. After a good few minutes searching, you located the hallway his apartment was in and walked down it, looking at the odd numbers on the right. They counted down from 39, so you had a ways to go. Part of you wondered if the vampires just didn’t care about your presence, because apparently your scent was pretty strong and you were sure that you were stinking up the whole hallway with your human-ness, but nobody had come to murder you yet.
When you finally got to the door labeled with a faded ‘311,’ you stopped to take a breath before knocking on the door. An uncomfortable pause (where you wondered if Lucas was out after all) later, the door opened and you breathed out a sigh of relief, only for the air to stick in your throat at the sight of a man shorter than Lucas, but much scarier.
He had dark brown hair, obviously lightened but only a bit. It fell over his forehead and stopped just short of his eyes. His lips set in a grim line as he looked over you before they pulled back into what should have been a heart stopping smile, but was instead a snarl, a grimace of distrust and anger. The feature that stuck out most to you were his eyes. You imagined that when he was happy, his eyes would glow with an inner light. Now they were dark and they promised violence.
No sooner had you come to this conclusion before he had you pinned against the opposite wall. “Give me one good reason,” he hissed, “why I shouldn’t just kill you.” His arm pressed into your throat, keeping you pinned against the wall, on your tiptoes to accommodate the height of his arm.
Lucas, I came to see Lucas, you tried to say, but it got stuck on the way out of your throat and instead what came out was a weak, “Lu…” followed by a wispy groan. The man furrowed his brow and moved to hold you against the wall by your arms so you could speak. “Lucas,” you gasped, air rushing back into your body and allowing you to speak once more. “Friend.” The man put you completely down now, on the floor, and you moved to massage your throat before his eyes, dark and threatening, halted your movement. Lucas certainly has a knack for choosing friends, you thought.
“Don’t move,” he growled, “Or I’ll throw you out our living room window. It may not kill you, but it will hurt.” Then he turned around slightly and called, “Xuxi! There’s someone here to see you!”
You heard shuffling inside before the figure of Lucas appeared, tall and thick and seeming like safety incarnate in the presence of someone as terrifying as the man who still had one hand next to your head.
“Yang?” he asked. “Is everything alright?”
The man, Yang, shifted so that Lucas could see your face. “This one just came knocking on our door and said he wanted to see you. Do you know him?”
Lucas gasped slightly and sped up, blurring a little, so that he reached you in less than a second. “Oh my gosh, Y/N, are you okay? Yangyang, this is the human that’s been staying with Jaemin for the past week, he’s my friend!”
“Hey Lucas,” you said weakly, finally reaching up to massage your throat now that you had someone to protect you from being thrown out the living room window. “I’m okay, I think. Just a little lightheaded.” Part of you wanted to add, Is his name Yang or Yangyang? but you figured now wasn’t the time to ask.
A strange look crossed Lucas’ face. “Well, I’m glad you’re alright, come inside and sit down, I’ll get you some water.” You followed him into the apartment, Yang (Yangyang?) behind you. He still slightly scared you and you stayed as close to Lucas as possible. Lucas spoke again as he grabbed a water bottle for you. You noted idly that it was Dasani. “But, uh, didn’t Jaemin tell you to, like, not come out here? So you didn’t get murdered? Cause that could’ve ended a lot worse.”
“Not you too!” you cried, exaggerating the syllables. “I know I could’ve died, but I wanted to see my friend! How hard is that to understand? Did it bother you so much that I wanted to see you?”
Lucas figited uncomfortably. “Well I appreciate that you came to see me, that’s really nice of you. It’s just that Jaemin was right. This really isn’t a safe place for you to be. I mean Yangyang could’ve killed you if he didn’t have such a heart of gold.” You threw a disbelieving glance towards the man in question and he shrugged, mouth tugging up in a mischievous grin.
“Okay, I mean, I can go back if you don’t want me here, I have to be back before Jaemin realizes I’m gone anyway,” you said, drinking more of your water. Yangyang and Lucas both froze.
“You didn’t get his permission?” Lucas asked in a tone that confused you. Was he scared of Jaemin? “Or tell him you were going for a walk? Or anything?”
“No, of course not. He would’ve said no!” you protested unhappily. This was not how you imagined this trip going.
“Okay,” Lucas said. “I’m taking you back right now. Jaemin will- well, he won’t kill me, but he’ll be scarily close if he finds out you came here.”
With a heavy sigh, you stood up. You knew that if he needed to, he could just throw you over his shoulder and carry you all the way back to Jaemin’s cottage. Darned vampire strength. “Fine.”
You got down the hallway and into the stairwell before Lucas tensed up again. “Shoot,” he muttered, looking down the stairs below. You couldn’t hear or see anything, and you were about to tell him so when he sighed and you heard a pitter patter like rain, growing louder by the second.
Moments later Jamin appeared in front of you, pink hair mussed and eyes wild with a mix of fear and anger. For a moment he didn’t even speak, just glared at you. The fear faded from his eyes. When he did speak, the words seemed like poison being spit off the tongue of a snake.
“I can’t believe you,” he seethed. “I kept you in my house, fed you, nursed you back to health. I let you use all of my things and was even going to send you home once you were perfectly healthy again. I gave you one rule. One! Just to keep you safe! And you go and break it. You could have died, Y/N, do you understand that? I did everything in my power to keep you in an environment where you weren’t in danger! I didn’t allow Hyuck to come over, I made sure that you were prepared to meet Lucas and Jeno and even Jisung! But all of my efforts faded to nothing when you opened that doorway to the city. I’m taking you home right now, I can’t bear to keep you here any longer, not when you obviously have no sense of self preservation!”
He picked you up before you could even blink and you felt a sharp wind on your face as he ran home. His steps sounded like raindrops falling on pavement, sharp but small, a pinprick of sound in an otherwise silent stairwell. Lucas had disappeared from view in less than a second and you shut your eyes against the vertigo of being carried at such a speed. Everything blurred, everything was indistinct and most things weren’t even worthy of notice. Jaemin smelled like ink, and you had space in the very back of your mind to wonder if he had spilled his, in his haste to find you. It didn’t seem like a very vampire-like thing to do.
A few moments later you entered the canopy of the forest and every once in a while you heard a stick break under his foot or a rock get catapulted out of the way. Then you felt the sun on your back again and you gasped as Jaemin dumped you onto the warm grass, standing tall before you. He said something in a language you didn’t know - it sounded vaguely like Latin - and the grass fell out from under you as the ground opened up and you fell into space.
☽༓☾
When you woke up the next morning to your alarm, you wondered briefly if your entire experience with Jaemin and the other vampires was a dream. The puncture wounds that had been on your neck were utterly nonexistent, and there was no evidence on you that you had even left the comfort of your bed. On the other hand, you had clear memories of your time in Vahmpyr, short as it was. You remembered how it smelled and how the trees had felt as you walked outside. You remembered the feeling of the cool granite of the bathroom countertop. Mostly you remembered being with Lucas, Jeno, Jisung, and Chenle. You remembered almost dying at the hands of Lucas’ roommate and you remembered the terrifying flight in Jaemin’s arms.
Jaemin.
You grimaced at yourself in the mirror and spit out your toothpaste. There was no way your mind could have made up someone as excruciatingly kind and beautiful as Jaemin was. At the same time you felt anger bubble up inside of you. He hadn’t even given you a chance to say goodbye - he had just put you through to your Earthly self without any words between the two of you. You hadn’t said goodbye to Lucas or Jeno either, nor had you seen the rest of your new acquaintances. The anger flared, hot against your insides, and you could swear you actually felt your chest twinge. You spat out the last of your toothpaste and replaced your toothbrush in its holder, going to get ready for your day.
The next few days were spent alternately missing the simplicity of life on Vahmpyr and being angry at Jaemin. Assignments piled onto your shoulders and in addition to that, you discovered some sort of disconnect between you and the part of you that had stayed on Earth while you were out. That part of you seemed to dismiss your time in Vahmpyr as something it had dreamed up all on its own. It didn’t acknowledge you and liked to take control of your body whenever you weren’t paying full attention to it. Every time it did that you felt the twinge in your chest again, except it got more and more painful. You started having headaches that the other part of you didn’t seem to feel but which pressed against your skull like tiny war hammers thudding into the bone by your temples and occasionally your eyes.
Your vision would go blurry and you started having lapses of consciousness, only to wake up and find yourself doing just fine with your other part in charge. During these lapses you would dream of being in Vahmpyr again, and you saw Lucas smiling with Yangyang, Chenle rolling his eyes at Jisung before hugging him tightly. Other men you didn’t know and other women you hadn’t met also flew across the screen of your eyes but they disappeared quickly. Ten even passed by once, haughtily scrolling past everyone until he sidled up to a tall man with long blond hair who smiled down at him and pressed a gentle kiss to one of Ten’s tentacles. A man with red hair and an eyebrow slit served coffee to a man who chewed like a rabbit. A group of three guys held up a sign that said “Go Taemin!” as a group played football. A woman in a suit jacket over jean shorts sat with a box of papers, crying. Joy played a game with other girls where they tried to push lockers over on each other. Everything (with the exception of the lockers) looked like fun. It was better than Earth, at any rate. Every night you went to bed wondering if you might just die by morning and leave the other half of yourself behind to control the body. You were just along for the ride at this point.
The evening of your fourth day back on Earth you went to sit outside the dorm building on a bench, just for some fresh air. For once you had control of the body and you let your head tip back, closing your eyes and just feeling. The bench pressed up against your back in a way that hurt slightly, but your body had been wracked with pain for two days straight and it didn’t ache so much as behind your eyes or inside your skull. The evening breeze blew across your eyelids and brought with it the scent of sun-warmed dirt.
It smelled like Jaemin, that first morning you woke up in his house. When he had helped you across the cottage towards the bathroom and been outlined by the sun, when he had made you soup and sat with you on the couch while he explained where you were and what he was.
Your body shook with a particularly painful pound on the inside of your ribs. You let yourself relax against the bench again and the sensations enveloped you once more. You felt yourself let go of your body on Earth and float away, less falling and more weightlessness, floating away on a wind that smelled of sun on dirt and felt like arms wrapping around you while rain fell on summer-warmed pavement. You floated away on this wind and it lifted you endlessly until you nodded off, finally free of the pains that had kept you company for the past few days. You wondered if perhaps you had died of it, if being back on Earth had perhaps been more detrimental to you than beneficial.
Then your back hit something hard and the breath was knocked from your lungs, waking you up again and telling you that something had gone very very wrong or very very well. You gasped air back into your body and rolled over weakly, now in a body you recognized as the one you inhabited on Vahmpyr. Grass poked your inner arms and you pushed yourself up to sitting with your legs crossed. You massaged your chest as you inhaled and found yourself miraculously free of pain, aside from the slight burn of breath inhaled too quickly after loss of oxygen. The war hammers in your head had vacated the premises and the aches of your ribs had subsided, making it easier to breath and just sit without drawing in pained gasps.
You registered a return of cold as a shadow fell over you and looked up to see none other than Chenle, with Jisung behind him. Did they never go anywhere without each other? Well, besides hunting.
“Y/N?” He gaped down at you, and you looked back up at him.
“The one and only,” you said, before you realized that didn’t apply to you anymore. “Well, one of only two in existence.”
He laughed that weird dolphin laugh he had again and reached out a hand to help you up. You took it, standing unsteadily on two feet that didn’t ache the moment you put weight on them. “What’re you doing back here? Jaemin-hyung said he sent you back to Earth.”
You feel the corners of your mouth tug down almost instinctively at the mention of Jaemin. “He did. I don’t think Earth agreed with me,” you told him. Jisung walked forward and looked you up and down.
“Maybe we should take you back to Jaeminnie hyung, he’ll know what to do.”
You groaned. “I really don’t want to deal with him at the moment.”
“We can take him to Kun-ge,” Chenle interjected smoothly. “He’ll know better than Jaemin-hyung anyway, he’s been a doctor and a vampire longer.” A side of Chenle appeared that you hadn’t seen yet, a side that took charge in a way that wasn’t just insulting anyone near him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. He took your hand with one of his and grabbed Jisung’s arm with the other.
“Come on, let’s go see Kun-ge!”
☽༓☾
Kun, as it happened, lived in the same building as Lucas. Actually he lived one apartment over, behind the door labeled ‘313.’ When he opened the door he seemed strangely unsurprised to see you there, just breathed out a sigh and let you in. He had nice light brown hair that worked well with his skin tone and eyes that smiled even when he wasn’t. He had this aura of parenting around him, like he took care of everyone he knew. It was comfortable to be around him from the start. Once Chenle had explained where he found you, Kun sat you down and asked exactly what had happened.
“Listen,” he said seriously. “I’ve never seen a human react the way you did. Nobody has ever come back, from what I know. We have to figure out exactly what happened, why you came back, and how to get you back to Earth.”
You inhaled deeply, relishing in the painless breath. “Okay, uh, I’m not really sure where to start,” you told him.
“Tell me about how you got sent home.”
“Okay. So, I left Jaemin’s cottage to come and see Lucas and I guess Jaemin is a lot scarier when he gets mad, because he was not happy when he found out I had left. He did this, like, superfast running thing, very Twilight, and carried me to this random clearing, I guess, I didn’t look around much.” You paused to let Kun write that down on his very professional looking clipboard, but he waved you on. Right, he was a vampire. He could write stuff fast.
“So he sort of dumped me on the ground and said something in a language I didn’t know, it sounded like Latin but I’m not sure. Then the ground sort of opened up and I fell and fell and fell until I rejoined my, uh, Earthly body.” You paused to take a breath and think about how to convey what happened when you got back to Earth.
“When I got back there was this weird disconnect with my body. Like, uh, there was me, in my body, and there was also this other part of me, the part of me that stayed behind when I came here the first time. That other part sort of took the main control of the body we lived in, and it felt like I was along for the ride. It liked to pretend that I wasn’t there, that my time here in Vahmpyr wasn’t real. It was weird. Then a little into my stay, I started getting these super bad pains all over my body.”
Kun interrupted you by holding up a finger. “How long were you home before the pains started?”
You thought back, struggling to pinpoint when they had started. “I think maybe a little longer than twenty four hours? When I got back I woke up in that body, and about one sleep later I started getting the pains, which would be like twenty five hours. Twenty four and a half, maybe. At first it was just these weird twinges in my chest, like my ribs were popping every time I took a breath, then it progressed. I got these horrible headaches, and my chest hurt all the time, and walking felt like attacking my feet, and my neck was always super achy. The thing is, my other half didn’t feel any of that. It was just my half of our consciousness. Then about on my fourth day back I went outside and sat on the bench outside my dorm. I laid back and, uh, it felt like I died or something. I just felt my consciousness leave the body and I guess the other half is still there living down there and now I’m here.”
Kun, Chenle, and Jisung all sat on the couch together, Kun looking over his notes while the other two guys just sat in silence. After a minute Kun spoke. “I don’t really know what happened to you, but I’m almost certain that your connection to your human self is gone. Or at least, your Earthly self. I don’t think we can send you back anymore, I’m sorry.” He looked at you, eyes full of remorse. You expected to mirror that feeling, but you discovered that it didn’t bother you so much. The other half of yourself would keep all of your friends and family from having to mourn you, and you could stay here, painless.
“I’m actually kind of glad about that,” you told them, and Chenle’s head snapped from picking at his jeans to look at you.
“Glad?” he demanded, incredulous. “To stay here?”
“Well yeah, I mean I was in pain most of the time I was back on Earth so it’s not like I’m eager to go back there. Plus, since I didn’t actually die nobody has to mourn me. And part of the time I was like… seeing Vahmpyr. Like is Ten dating this super tall guy with blonde hair? And Joy was pushing lockers over on her friends? And you two!” You turned an accusatory finger at Jisung and Chenle. “You two are adorable together!”
Jisung sighed. “Not you too…”
Kun shushed him. “You could see what was going on here in Vahmpyr?”
“Well, sort of,” you told him. “I saw that Lucas and Yangyang were having, like, a picnic?”
Kun’s eyebrows furrowed and he muttered, “I knew they had one without me.”
“I also saw this guy with red hair giving coffee to a man who sort of chewed like a bunny. And there was this group of three guys holding up a sign that said “Go Taemin!” I think, and I guess Taemin must have been playing football with the others I could see, although I couldn’t recognize any of the people playing. Oh, and there was this lady with really pretty hair who had a box of papers and she was just, like, sitting there and crying. She had the part of her hair near her neck bleached and the outer layers were still black, and she was wearing a suit jacket with jean shorts, which is kind of a weird combination.”
Kun looked over his notes. “That’s really interesting. All of those things have happened since you left, definitely. Joy and her friends like to play games where they try to kill each other, because they’re all immortal. The red haired man was probably Taeyong, and the bunny man would be Doyoung. Ten is dating Johnny, and yes, he is pretty tall and has blonde hair. I haven’t seen Taemin-hyung in a while so I don’t know if he’s playing football again or not. I don’t know about the woman with the cool hair either.”
“Definitely Taeyeon-noona,” Jisung interjected. “She broke up with her boyfriend a few days ago, and she does have hair dyed like that right now.”
Kun raised his eyebrows in curiosity. “Huh, I hope she’s doing okay. Actually I think maybe we should worry more about whoever she broke up with, she’s not exactly good with breakups.”
As though it’s a secret, Jisung’s next words came out in a whisper, and he leaned closer to Chenle and Kun. You had to strain a little to hear. “I heard it was a human. He, like, got super insecure about the fact that she wasn’t aging with him and broke up with her. It’s killing her. She really liked that guy.”
“Why did she get with him in the first place?” Chenle sounded absolutely confused. “She knew it would end like this. That’s how the last two ended.”
“I don’t know, but now I’m really worried for the guy,” said Kun. “We might have to cover up for her.” The implications of his words sank in and you made a small sound. All three men snapped their heads up and it looked as though they forgot you were there.
“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry Y/N! Do you have anywhere to stay where you’ll be safe for at least a few days? Jaemin’s cottage should be pretty easy to stay hidden in.”
“He doesn’t want to go and see him after what happened,” Chenle supplied helpfully. “I’m taking him back to my place once we’re done here.” Kun appeared to consider that, and then nodded his approval.
“That sounds alright. Tomorrow we can go out and get him some things to make his stay more comfortable. Maybe we can find one of the Outer Plots to put him on.”
“Outer Plots?” you asked, because the way he said it demanded capitalization in your head.
“They’re sort of exactly what they sound like,” Kun explained. “There are these pieces of land around the edges of the towns that nobody really lives on but they’re solid places to live, if we can get a good one. It’s a little bit like Jaemin’s land out there, lot’s of forest, so we can set up tree tunnels for you to get here fast, if you need to.”
You nodded. “That does sound pretty good. I don’t know what I’m going to do though, it’s not like I have all that many hobbies. I was midway through getting my bachelor’s when I left.”
“That’s fine,” Chenle said. “I have plenty of things to keep you entertained, and we can get some of the other guys to keep you company if we’re busy. There are a lot of us with a lot of open time. I also have a ton of extra textbooks from learning languages, so if you want you can spend your life becoming fluent in Japanese, Latin, French, German, Scottish Gaelic, Hawaiian, or one of the others I have. Or multiple, if you learn fast.”
“Thanks Chenle.” He wasn’t actually so bad, you thought. He had brought you to Kun and he was offering to let you use his house and his things. “I might just take you up on that.”
“You guys should probably leave now, actually,” Kun said. “At human speeds you’ll get home right on time.”
Chenle checked his watch and nodded. “He’s right. We should get going.”
You thanked Kun again and Chenle led you out the door, Jisung following behind you. You separated ways with him once you left the apartment building, his figure disappearing swiftly into the trees. Once you blinked there was no finding him again.
You walked behind Chenle quietly, choosing to observe your surroundings. You didn’t see much in the way of low quality or old houses here. It seemed as though a lower class had been eradicated entirely and the vampires could choose where they wanted to live. When you asked him how that was possible, Chenle laughed that peculiar screech of his and said, “when you’re reborn into a family of beings that has been around for millenia, you accumulate some shared wealth. Especially when some of the coven members have doctorate degrees and work on Earth full time, and some of us had familial connections as well, like money left in wills and such.”
You nodded. “So you guys are basically like the elite class of the universe.”
“Pretty much. My house is probably the biggest you’ll ever be in, because I like to splurge a little bit. Unfortunately you might get lost, though, and if you do, just call for me. I’ll make sure to be listening all night in case you need me.”
“It’s that big?” you asked in disbelief. “Do you live in Buckingham Palace?”
He grinned, showing off his incisors. “Bigger.”
“And you live alone?”
“Well, I haven’t always. Jisung and I will probably have sleepovers for all of eternity, and whenever a new coven starts they stay with me for a few days while they get their own living quarters set up, but for the most part , yes. I don’t actually spend a ton of time in the house, it’s more just for the sensation of owning a building that large.”
You shook your head. “As a broke college student, I find that completely unfair. I was working two jobs just to keep my head above water and you’re on this alternate plane just chilling in your house that’s bigger than Buckingham Palace.”
He smiled again. “Nobody said life was fair, Y/N. Nobody.”
☽༓☾
Three days and a shocking amount of Gaelic verbs later (you only got lost in Chenle’s palace four times), a house was ready for you to move in. Johnny and Ten had furnished it for you, and Chenle had explained that the two of them were the stylists of the coven, for the most part. The mysterious Yuta had also taken part in finding high quality fabrics to fit their vision. You had thanked the whole group of vampires who helped with the house profusely for not only building said house, but also for getting you a bunch of comfortable furniture. They had smiled and said it was their pleasure and all of the typical things, but what really stood out was Ten’s reaction. He had barely paid attention to you - he barely paid attention to anyone besides Johnny and Yangyang, who he called their baby - this whole time. When you had thanked him, however, he wrapped all but four of his tentacles around you in a surprisingly dry hug.
“It’s refreshing to have you around,” he had told you. “I’m glad we could help you get settled.”
Later as you reflected on it, you figured that it probably got pretty boring to know what was going to happen all of the time, and maybe you had disrupted the usual happenings of his visions and the vampires in Vahmpyr. Maybe you made other people happy too, to have a new person around.
One person who didn’t seem thrilled to have you back was Jaemin. Every time you made eye contact with him (twice, over the three days), he grimaced and turned away like the sight of you hurt him. Maybe he was mad that you were back within scenting range. He wouldn’t get near you, so it wasn’t like you could ask.
While settling into your new normal, you discovered that Chenle was actually a good friend. His love language was insults and pointed jabs, but he actually did care for his friends quite a lot. He had watched Jaemin from across your front yard as they were laying down grass seed and sighed.
“I wish he would just talk to you,” he told you sadly. “I’ve never, in all our years together, seen him like this. I’m not sure anyone has, even Taeil-hyung.” He didn’t elaborate on who Taeil was, and you didn’t press him. Was Jaemin really so mad that he couldn’t even look at you?
“Well,” you had said, “I don’t want to talk to him. He dumped me through an interplanar tunnel without warning me and yelled at me like the world was ending when I took a walk. I don’t think there’s much to be talked about. He must hate me.” Over Chenle’s shoulder, you had seen Jaemin flinch slightly. How strange. Part of you hoped that he felt the same pain that you did, a sort of ache that told you that you were unwanted. Another part of you murmured quietly in the back of your mind that you were being petty. You had chosen to ignore it for the time being. You were being petty, but so was he. He had thousands of years on you, so he should be the mature one, right?
“I don’t think he hates you. I think you both need to grow up and talk like adults,” Chenle had said flatly, orange hair seeming to flash in the sun. Jaemin sort of curled in on himself.
“Tell that to Mister Millenia before you lecture me on growing up,” you had replied. Then you reopened your Gaelic textbook and pretended to bury yourself in it, blatantly ignoring Chenle’s judgemental gaze.
“Fine,” he had muttered angrily. “You can both suffer for all I care.” Then he had stalked off and started pounding fence posts into the dirt so hard that Jeno had to tell him to take a break before he broke them.
You found yourself thinking about that moment as you walked through the trees, ironically on your way to see Jaemin. Since you had close to nothing to do , you had offered yourself up as an errand person to anyone that would hire and found yourself working for Kun running scrolls across Vahmpyr while he translated and examined them. It kept you busy and in shape, and Kun seemed happy with your service. This morning he had sent you to get the Scottish scroll back from Jaemin, along with a few other documents to pick up and drop off. You had saved this one for last, procrastinating on having to see him again. As his cottage came into full view, you sighed, preparing yourself for a cold shoulder and a very quick visit.
“Jaemin?” you called, knocking on the front door. It was closed for once, usually he kept it open for better air circulation. A moment later the door opened and there he stood, in all his cotton candy colored glory.
“Y/N? What’re you doing here?”
“Kun sent me, he wants that Scottish scroll back. He said he hopes you’re done translating it since you’re had it for a few weeks now,” you replied, willing your voice to stay professional. You were here for the scroll. When Jaemin didn’t reply, you looked up at him. “So? Where is it?”
“I don’t know why he sent you out like this, but I sent that scroll back three days ago, on our agreed upon date. I know he got it, because he sent me back a thank you with those little stickers he likes to use.”
“Oh. Um, I’ll just go then,” you muttered, turning around as you spoke. “Sorry I bothered you.”
Suddenly a hand was wrapped around your own, keeping you in place. Your breath caught in your throat, remembering the last time that had happened with a vampire. All that came out of Jaemin’s mouth, however, was, “Can I talk to you? Please?”
“Jaemin, please let me go,” you said, trying to keep your tone even. His hand released you immediately and you stepped a pace away from him and turned around so that you could see his face. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, uh, do you want some tea? I have some inside…” It was clear he hadn’t expected you to actually agree and he needed to collect his thoughts, so you nodded and he led you inside, sitting you on the familiar couch while he busied himself in the kitchen.
“I actually wanted to apologize,” Jaemin said after a minute. “I worried so much about protecting you that I forgot to let you enjoy your time here. It scared me how good you were at adjusting to this world, how much you liked being with Lucas and my other friends… I’m not used to humans reacting positively.” The kettle whistled and he took a moment to pour water into the mugs, steam rising gently from them in silvery whisps.
Once he poured the water, he continued speaking. “I wanted to make sure you knew that it wasn’t all fun and games here. I didn't want you to go looking for a place in our community because I was worried that you’d get killed. Vampires are pretty possessive of their property on Vahmpyr, for the most part, and you went right into one of the biggest apartment complexes within a day’s travelling distance - and that’s vampire distance, not human distance. Lucas told me about what happened with Yangyang, and I almost tore Yang’s arm off, I was so mad. He could have actually murdered you, and I couldn’t stomach the thought. What if Lucas hadn’t been home? What if Yangyang hadn’t given you that one moment to explain yourself? What if you had met another one of us on the stairs, without any protection? It terrified me to consider.” He walked over, a mug carried in each hand, and sat on the couch, leaving a large space in between you. It was strangely reminiscent of that first day, when he had explained Vahmpyr to you over soup.
“Of course,” Jaemin started, and you refocused. “That was only after I had sent you home, that he told me about that. When I dumped you in that tunnel, it was just fear of you being unsafe that made me so mad. The fact that you would willingly put yourself in danger, when I valued you so highly? Inconceivable. And yet, it happened. So I made another big mistake: I sent you home. I thought you would be better off there, regardless of what was happening. I knew you were healthy enough to walk to the city, so I thought you were fine. Apparently not. I heard from Chenle and Kun what happened to you back on Earth and it broke another part of me apart. I hurt you, in sending you back, not just in temporary emotional pain, but in physical pain that persisted through your entire stay. We still don’t know why you reacted the way you did, but it scared me to hear of it. I had made yet another mistake that could have killed you.” He paused to take a sip of his tea, and you did too. It was pleasant, not too hot and not too cold, just warming up your insides.
“Then the last straw came when you said I must hate you…” Jaemin’s voice broke slightly. “If anything, it’s the exact opposite, I realized I missed you more than I should, given you should be just a patient. I wanted to hug you the second I saw you, but you looked so mad to see me that I couldn’t do it. I was literally building a house for you and still couldn’t look you in the eyes for more than a moment. So I went home in shame, knowing that you were right, with thousands of years under my belt, I should be the more mature one. I decided that the next time I saw you, I would talk to you, no matter the circumstances. I couldn’t have you keep living thinking that I hated you. I didn’t actually expect you to come in when I asked. I thought I’d have to follow you through the woods, honestly.”
He fell silent, took another sip of his tea, and for the first time, you spoke. “I really didn’t want to talk to you. I wanted you to realize how much I hurt from your actions, but I think maybe I took that a little too far. I knew you were protecting me, but I really wanted to see somebody, and I knew you wouldn’t let me out, so I ran away. I didn’t really know what I was getting into. I probably should have asked you to accompany me, at least. Not my finest moment.”
Jaemin laughed weakly, taking another sip of tea. “Not mine either. I should have trusted you more.”
“And I shouldn’t have run off without even asking for your help..”
He smiled at you, that gorgeous little smile that made your heart smile back.
“Friends?” you asked.
He hesitated for only a moment, a strange sort of disappointment flashing across his face, before he was extending his hand to meet yours. “Friends.”
You grinned at him, finishing your tea. “Great. Now I need to go yell at Kun for sending me out to see you when I didn’t need to.”
“Isn’t it good that he did?” Jaemin asked with a confused frown on his face.
“Well yes, but it was a very Cupid-like thing to do, wasn’t it? I don’t tolerate my friends trying to play Cupid with myself and my other friends.” You stood up and walked your empty tea cup to the kitchen. “Do you want to come?”
He laughed. “No, you can just tell me all about it tomorrow, okay?”
You nodded. “Alright.”
You walked out into the cool twilight and started going towards Kun’s house. He had a big storm coming.
☽༓☾
A few days later, you were sitting in Jaemin’s cottage again, Gaelic textbook open on your lap. Since he was close to fluent in the language, he was helping you learn it. It wasn’t an extraordinarily difficult language, but some of the words were hard to pronounce and he had been eager to help you.
“Look here,” he said, pointing at some words on the page. “Say this for me.”
“Tha gaol agam ort,” you replied. He grinned.
“That’s how it’s written, but not how it’s said. Okay, now listen to me pronounce it. ‘Ha geul akeum orsht’. Repeat that for me.”
“‘Ha geul akeum orsht’? That’s how you say that?” you demanded. “This is like French! They don’t spell things anywhere close to how they’re said!”
“Unfortunately, most languages don’t. The same goes for Korean verb conjugations and English words and, yes, French everything, but it’s just learning new rules. After a while you understand it. I promise that you’ll get it eventually. You have the rest of your life.”
You looked over at him suddenly, questions rising to the forefront over Gaelic words. “Am I really going to stay here forever? Am I never going to see Earth again, just sit here as a useless human surrounded by powerful and immortal vampires, until I die?”
He seemed surprised by the questions. “I’m not sure any of us had really thought about it,” he said carefully.
“You all had just accepted the fact that I was stuck on your plane of existence with nothing worth doing to do? When am I going to use Scottish Gaelic, Jaemin? When will this actually come in handy, except to distract me? I’m here to do nothing, and the moment I go back to Earth, I start suffering. What am I meant to do here, Jaem?”
Jaemin gently lifted the textbook from your lap and put in on his coffee table, then pulled you into his side for a hug. You snuggled into him, inhaling the scent of sunshine and warm earth. Comfort.
“I don’t know exactly how to make you feel better,” Jaemin murmured from somewhere above your head. “But we all like having you around, you know that. It’s nice to have someone young around. We haven’t turned a human in about thirty years, so the novelty has worn off, and here we have this beautiful creature who is new in so many ways. You’re refreshing, and you’re human, so you’ll continue to be refreshing.”
“Well, thank you,” you said, muffled in his side. “But still, I don’t feel like I have anything worth doing here. You can all do anything I can do, just ten times faster. I have no unique skills or brains or anything. So what am I meant to do? I can’t even go spy on the other humans or anything because I can’t go back to Earth!”
Jaemin shifted you a little bit in his arms and started rubbing your shoulder softly. “Is there anything you particularly enjoy doing? Maybe you could do art, or gardening? Or I have this book of old forms of witchcraft?”
You turned to face him. “You have a book of witchcraft sitting around?”
He released you and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I found a papyrus scroll in this ruined Egyptian city, and I kept it just ‘cause it was cool. Then I learned hieroglyphics so that I could translate it and made a copy. Unfortunately, witchcraft is… not my strong suit, and I’m somewhat afraid of giving it away in case I never see it again. I spent a lot of time and energy on that translation.”
“And you want me to use it?” you asked, confused. Why on earth would he give it to you if he didn’t trust the perfectly composed vampires around him? “I mean it sounds super cool, but aren’t you worried about it being in my hands? I am a human, after all.”
“Well-”
Jaemin was cut off at that moment by a sharp knock on the door. At least, you assumed it was a knock, it sounded a little bit more like a wet thwap than a knock. Jaemin blurred slightly as he ran over to the door and opened it, revealing cloudy skies dropping rain onto a harried-looking Ten.
“Ten-hyung?” he asked, sounding as confused as you felt. “I’d say this is a nice surprise, but why are you here? I thought today was your Earth day? Is everything alright?”
“Yes,” Ten said, gasping slightly as he spoke. “I ran straight here from the Pacific.” You took a second to think about the fact that Ten was swimming in the Pacific Ocean before refocusing on him. “-future just completely shifted, a few minutes ago. Y/N-” He turned to face you completely. “Whatever you two just did, it caused you to become a vampire in the future.”
“But we were just talking?” you told him, confused. “It wasn’t like Jaem was about to bite me.” You turned to Jaemin. “Right?”
He looked at you solemnly. “If you were going to have been bitten by me, it would have already happened. Ten-hyung, are you sure that he’s a vampire in your future? Can you see more details?”
Ten closed his eyes briefly like he was trying to focus, and in the meantime a tentacle wrung the salt and rain water out of his hair. Jaemin wrinkled his nose at the growing puddle. Ten spoke, eyes fluttering open slowly. “In the parts I can see, he’s covered in this, like, tree? It’s a little bit fuzzy. It’s green, and looks like it has brown splotches like branches. Maybe a tree falls on him or something. Anyway, you take one look at him and bite ‘im. He goes limp... After that? Fuzzy scenes of him waking up and you taking him running. Like, really running. Vampire running.”
Jaemin took a shaky breath. “Okay, I don’t know why our conversation would have caused a tree to fall on him in the future. We were talking about, like, Earth and art and stuff. Oh, and my witchcraft book.”
Ten’s eyes refocused on him, narrowing slightly. “You’re going to give him your witchcraft book after not letting me touch it? That’s a little underhanded.” His eyes narrow briefly before looking at you. “But maybe that’s it. You’ll just have to make sure that he doesn’t practice any witchcraft under the cover of trees. Otherwise I think you’ll be fine. I’ll keep you updated.”
“Thanks Ten,” you murmured. “For warning us and stuff.”
“Of course. Now I need to go back to the Pacific. Ta ta!” Ten waved to you and walked out the door.
“Well,” Jaemin said, “that’s some news, huh?”
“Yeah,” you exhaled. “Do you think that it’s okay for me to practice witchcraft with this in my future?”
“I do. I think you’ll be fine. We’ll keep you as safe as we possibly can, and if you become a vampire… at least it won’t be because I gave in. I’ll still be strong.”
“Jaem, I don’t think that was ever in question.”
“It was for me.” His voice went dark momentarily, then he brightened up again. “At any rate, I think we can safely teach you some things that’ll keep life interesting.”
You grinned. “Then let’s get started.”
☽༓☾
You were surprised at how easily witchcraft came to you, in the beginning. Jaemin insisted that you had some sort of gift with it, and as much as you told him that was silly, it seemed possible. You could easily understand instructions on Jaemin’s careful translations that even he couldn’t decipher. You gave up on Gaelic after a while, focused more on learning the original Egyptian Hieroglyphs of the spells and potions. You trusted Jaemin’s precise translation, but there was something unique about seeing an instruction in a new language and being able to understand it.
Days turned to weeks as you experimented with the materials growing in and around Vahmpyr. Taeil, who you eventually met, turned out to be a valuable resource. He was an avid collector of ancient written works, including but not limited to an original Greek copy of The Odyssey, Chinese bamboo books saved from the book burnings of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and an exact replica of the Rosetta Stone. Taeil must have been ancient himself to have all of these valuables, but he still had the energy of the far younger members of their coven, which amazed you. He showed you different specialties of different cultures within witchcraft, ideas born from scrolls and tablets, bamboo strips and wax blocks. It was far more information than you could ever decipher or use during your short human life, but every day you got better, starting out small with poultices that you had to injure yourself to try and ward spells that exhausted you but could make your home more secure than any in Vahmpyr (or on Earth).
At one point Chenle gifted you a book covered in old stains and strangely familiar drawings that you started to use before abruptly realizing that it was an old chemistry textbook. You invited him over that afternoon and whacked him over the head with the thick pages. He told you with a disgruntled look that he put a lot of effort into that, thank you very much. And besides, chemistry was a magic in itself. (His words, not yours.) After that you made sure to thoroughly inspect any gifts you received from the more mischievous family members.
Lucas came over and helped you set up more complicated equipment that you couldn’t lift, like a big cauldron, which you actually did use on the regular after you learned how to use it, and after some consideration you set up a chemistry station for the odd experiment. At this point your house was more magical items than actual living space, something that Kun was quick to point out when he came over.
“You know, you should really be more careful about having all of these powders and dusts and-” He cut himself off with a distasteful wrinkle of his nose. “Things.” He pursed his lips, looking at you. “We don’t really know what these things will do to you in the long run. You have to be careful.”
“Yeah, yeah,” you responded distractedly, making his coffee and a drink for yourself. “Maybe I’ll clean it all up sometime, but you know I’m awfully busy these days.” You used a spoon to stir in the milk and sugar, tapping the metal against the china in a soft clink.
He sighed tiredly. “Your health is less important than staying busy?”
You gave him a look that you hoped conveyed your need to stay busy, to continuously learn and improve. “Keeping my schedule full keeps me healthy, Kun. At least mentally.”
Kun didn’t look impressed by your reasoning. “I think your mental health will go down pretty quickly if you get sick and can’t do anything because you’re stuck in bed twenty-four-seven.”
You gave a sigh of your own at that. “And as always,” you announced to the room at large, “Doctor Kun gives amazing advice that I shouldn’t ignore but probably will.”
Y/n,” he said in a warning tone. “Seriously. You need to be careful! No human has ever lived here for so long, and I worry about you catching some mysterious illness that nobody has ever heard of!”
“Kun, I will do my best to keep myself healthy. I’ve put every kind of ward that I can around my house to protect me, I have magically circulated and cleaned air, I have literal superhumans to protect me from anything else, and I’m happy here! I finally have something to contribute. Maybe someday I’ll find some concoction or enchantment that will let me visit Earth, even. I just don’t know. But I’m going to keep trying.”
He took his coffee out of your grasp and walked back into the living room, which housed your indoor plants, magical and earthly. “That’s all I can ask,” he said, voice betraying his disappointment in that fact. “I’ll still give you monthly checkups for a while though, just to make sure.
“Can’t Jaemin take care of me?” you asked, thinking of Jaemin with his warm smile and caring words and the smell of sun on dirt and- well. Jaemin felt like safety in a person. Kun was wonderful, but Jaemin was just that little bit better, that little bit more comfortable to be around.
“He could,” Kun replied after taking a sip of coffee. “But I know he’s been busy lately though, he’s been on Earth for a few days checking on all of his businesses and stocks and his human personas. On the other hand, I hardly go back to Earth for more than a twelve hour shift here and there.”
“I understand.”
“Plus, I’m about two thousand years older than Jaemin, I have a lot of experience.”
“How old are you?” Two thousand years older than Jaemin would make Kun… pretty darn old.
Kun grinned. “I was around before and after Jesus came to Earth. I was around before the Terracotta Army was built. I was born in China circa when the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are said to have been built. Taeil-hyung turned me into a vampire when I was twenty five, and I’ve been twenty five ever since. None of us know when he was born. When you’re as old as he is, even with a vampire’s memory, history starts to blend together. He says he remembers the Pyramids at Giza going up, though, and that was after he had been a vampire for what he thinks was a few hundred years. He’s literally prehistoric.”
“Wow,” was all you could think to say. No wonder Taeil had so many artifacts. He was one. Kun was too, for that matter. And Jaemin… Jaemin would have been born AD, but how far into it? You asked Kun this question and he chuckled.
“Jaemin was born in fourteen forty two. He was twenty when Jeno turned him, and he’s still twenty, five hundred years later.”
“Who turned Taeil, then? I can hardly imagine a vampire older than him, even.”
“We’re not sure. Whoever it was is so unimaginably old now that even I can’t comprehend it. But whoever the original vampire was must have turned a whole lot of people. There are dozens more vampires just within our small community, and an entire plane full of them. From what I can tell, Taeil isn’t even the oldest. There’s this man who lives in the mountains by himself, and from what I hear, he hasn’t been seen by another vampire in nearly three thousand years. He’s almost a myth around here anymore. Taeil knew him back when Vahmpyr was sparsely populated, and he told us that the man - his name is Jinyoung Park - is older than him by so many years that he is to Taeil as Taeil is to me. He probably lived before Mesopotamia existed, even, or was right at the beginning of it. Before him, we have no idea who the first vampire was. If that vampire is still alive, he she or they hasn't been seen since, well, before living memory. If they still exist that would mean that vampires have been around since before modern humanity. I really wish we knew.”
“I wish you knew too,” you breathed. You had never really considered that immortality meant that the same vampires who existed before the Pyramids at Giza still lived among humanity today. It was mind boggling. The history in just their brains alone could fill thousands of textbooks and solve history’s greatest mysteries. But they couldn’t show themselves to the humans without risk. Even the people that they bit and sent back to Earth wouldn’t dare talk about their experiences, for fear of sounding crazy. Their gift to the world would never be wrapped up in gold tissue paper and presented with the proper awe, but here you were, in this modern metropolis of history. It truly hurt your brain to consider everything that came with that sort of age.
Just then a yell came from outside. “Kun-ge! Are you with Y/N?!” It sounded suspiciously like a panicked Yangyang. He never got panicked.
Kun stood up and hurried over to the front door, blurring in his hurry. “What happened?” he demanded.
“Well, uh, we may or may not have set Yuta’s house on fire…” Yangyang’s voice trailed off as Kun’s face reacted. First his eyebrows raised, then his mouth dropped open, and finally his eyes squeezed shut before reopening after a moment.
“You did what?”
Yangyang’s voice was small. “We set Yuta’s house on fire?” His voice was so high and squeaky that it sounded more like a question than a statement.
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Me, and Hyuck, and Taemin-hyung.”
“Oh my,” Kun said, running a hand over his face and through his hair. “I am going to murder Taemin-hyung.” He turned to Yangyang. “I might murder you and Donghyuck too.”
“We didn’t mean to,” Yangyang said. “It just happened.”
“You didn’t mean to set Yuta’s house on fire? How do you accidentally set someone’s house on fire?”
“You put on an impromptu fire show right next to the house, mess up a trick, and accidentally throw a flaming baton on their house. It was surprisingly easy. Anyway, I know that you would know what to do. You and Y/N both.”
Kun ran his hand through his hair again. You watched as a few light brown strands flew to the carpet with the force of it. “Y/N, do you have anything for flaming houses?”
You looked around your living room as though that would help you remember whether you did or not. “I think so, let me check my storage room,” you muttered, already dashing away. You did, in fact, have something that you loosely translated from the Egyptian spell scroll as “Fire Away Goop,” or something similar. It was a green, nearly transparent goop that sloshed in its bottle but it was too thick to really flow. It oozed more than anything. When it hit heat, it tended to solidify into a more solid green that would be easily removable from Yuta’s house, if said house was still there by the time you got to wherever it was. You grabbed the bottle and rushed back to the living room, panting. Kun turned to you.
“Is it okay if I carry you, to make sure we get there in time?”
“Won’t I be too heavy?”
He gave you an unimpressed look. “We’re literally the strongest things known to man. I’ll be fine.”
“Then sure. Let’s go save Yuta’s house!”
Kun carried you piggyback as fast as he could, your face tucked into his shoulder to avert most of the vertigo induced by such high speeds. Trees flashed by in browns and greens, and then you were going through the city, past the city, through more trees, in a rush that you couldn’t quite comprehend but which caused a sinking feeling to settle in your gut. Yuta’s house was far away. By the time you got there, the house was fully consumed by the flames, the fire burning merrily without knowledge that it was ruining a man’s home.
A man, presumably Yuta, stood out front, another man on his knees next to him. Once you were next to them, you realized that the standing man had the kneeling man’s ear in a tight grip. You figured that the man on his knees must have been the infamous Donghyuck.
“Yuta-hyung, Hyuck,” Kun greeted them as he set you on the ground.
“Yangyang,” said Yuta, turning around, “You’re a bit late.” He nodded at you and Kun in acknowledgement, as Donghyuck yelped at the tug on his ear. Yuta had black hair streaked through with neon green, and it framed a narrow face and startlingly pink lips. You wondered, in the back of your head, if he used lip tint. You also briefly entertained the idea that he contoured his face, because there was no way that he looked that good without makeup. He’s a vampire, your consciousness provided. All of them look that good.
“Sorry hyung,” Yangyang murmured. “We came as fast as we could!”
Kun stepped forward. “We brought Y/N, as you can see, and he has something to put the fire out.” Something like hope sparked in Yuta’s eyes as he looked over you again, taking in details of your appearance.
“Do you really? Well, go ahead.” He gestured to the house and the flames danced in your face, leaving you to hope that this gloop worked for fires this big. You took a deep breath and poured the goop onto the grass, where it oozed between the blades of grass like a big blob of snot on the lawn.
“Atlaq alnaar,” you murmured to it, and it rose into the air, following your mental directions toward the fire. The moment they made contact, the goop started to solidify and expand, covering the fire rapidly. Green overtook bright reds and oranges as you focused on the fire and made the goop cover it.
“Y/N!” Someone was calling to you, their voice out of focus as though you heard them from underwater. “You’ll get covered!” You were vaguely aware of a hand trying to lead you away, but the spell kept you rooted in place, your feet seemingly super glued to the lawn. You kept focus on the fire as the last flames were overtaken and put out. Yuta’s house was now a giant green blob. From what you could see through the jello-like goop, it had sustained a minimal amount of damage considering the amount of flames you had seen. You were so engrossed in the green substance that you missed the warning signs before it swallowed you up too, ever expanding.
It took your outstretched hands first, pulling you forward into it. Through your panic you had just enough brain power left to be amazed at how thick it was before your feet and legs were covered too, nearly encased in the goop. You leaned your head back as far as you could, trying to keep yourself in the open air, but the goop kept expanding. You felt more than saw the vampires try to dig you out, but while the spell still fueled it, the goop was surprisingly strong. A hand grasped your elbow as the goop grasped your neck and chin, keeping you completely still as it covered more of you. The hand let go. It couldn’t do anything now.
You took a deep breath just before the goop covered your mouth, nose, and eyes. You thought you felt something on the back of your neck but didn’t think much of it until it started burning. Any strength you had left crumbled as your eyes started stinging and your oxygen ran out. You couldn't see, but it felt as though the world was spinning around you, as though you had been disconnected from everything but the pain. Even through your lightheadedness the pain persisted. It had spread now, from your neck over your shoulders like the creeping vines on the back wall of Jaemin’s cottage.
Jaemin.
You realized through your hazy thoughts that you would never see him again. Your eyes and nose burned now, from tears you couldn’t cry and the pain slowly enveloping you.
You couldn’t hold on any longer.
Black.
☽༓☾
Across a forest and a small town, Jaemin was working on his Hindi pronunciation when Ten burst into his home for the second time in what seemed like a very short period. He wasn’t dripping this time, just looked thoroughly terrified of something.
“Jaemin! He needs help!”
“What? Who?” Jaemin stood up and walked over to his friend. Ten’s tentacles curled and uncurled repeatedly as he spoke.
“Y/N! The vision got sharper, which usually means it’s happening. The green blob wasn’t a tree, it was some sort of spell! He’s going to die if we don’t get there fast.”
“Where are we going?” Jaemin demanded as they ran through the trees around his cabin.
“Yuta’s house. Or, at least, where it used to be.”
“What happened to Yuta’s house?”
“Yangyang and Hyuck burned it down.”
“Ah.”
Ten was panting as he continued speaking. “I think that must be what the spell was for. Some sort of fire putter-outer.”
Jaemin tried to think back to all of the books he had given you, recalling a spell that sounded suspiciously like what Ten described. “If the one I think you’re talking about is the spell he used,” he told Ten, “we might not be able to save him by the time we get there.” A pang echoed through his chest. An empty feeling, as though your small human life had affected his own so strongly as to make him miss you without knowing that you were gone. Jaemin ran on, leaving Ten behind when he paused to rest, sprinting at his highest speed towards where you were.
When he arrived on Yuta’s plot, most of his vision turned green, not because things were actually green, but from the sheer size of the lime coloured stuff all over Yuta’s house. He had been correct when he guessed at which spell you had used. His gaze fell on Kun, Yangyang, Yuta, and Donghyuck, who stood at the still-expanding base of the blob, seemingly trying to get something out. He gasped. You were in the thing. He ran up and tried to help the others dig you out, to no avail. They couldn't do anything against the spell so long as you were alive, and he wasn’t about to kill the person he had worked so hard to protect. He tried to hold onto your elbow as it was swallowed, but was afraid of hurting you. They all watched as you took a deep breath and the gloop covered your face.
Jaemin slumped, out of ideas. There was no way to save you that he knew of. Then he thought back to Ten’s vision. He had to change you. It was the only way. You wouldn’t need to breathe, wouldn’t need to do anything. You could still be here with him. It was with that in mind that he lunged forward at the last moment and latched onto your neck, stretching his jar as wide as it would go. His fangs, already dripping uncomfortably with venom in your presence, sank into your veins, and he felt it as you stiffened slightly. You couldn’t move much in your current situation, but your muscles seized all the same. He stayed next to you as long as he could, until he was in danger of being swallowed into the goop as well. He licked the wounds closed as efficiently as possible and stepped back with the others to see what happened.
It was obvious that you had gone unconscious. The goop stopped moving so rapidly and seemed to pause in its conquest of the front yard. It started oozing slowly around again, creating something of a reverse muffin top as the top shell hardened and the bottom bits leaked out. They backed up to the edge of the yard and Jaemin used his (admittedly small) knowledge of spellcraft to create wards that would protect the house down the street and hopefully contain the goo. They watched in silence as the green kept expanding. Then Yangyang spoke.
“Will Y/N die?”
“I don’t think so,” said Jaemin slowly. “He shouldn’t, at any rate. I bit him.”
A collective tremor went around the group, as though none of them wanted to appear surprised but they all were.
“It was the only thing I could think of that gave Y/N a chance, so I had to try it,” Jaemin continued. “But Kun-hyung knows more than me on that subject.”
Kun looked pensive as he considered what Jaemin had said. “It should work, in theory. But between the wards always up around Y/N’s house, this spell, and the venom in his system, his body might now be able to take it. It’s just a game of chance, unless we can find some way to take some stress off of his body.”
They all looked to Jaemin again.
“Is there some way to break the wards that he has up?” Yuta asked.
“I don’t think so,” Jaemin said, frowning. “Not without taxing him further. We definitely can’t affect this spell without killing him, and as far as the transformation goes, we’d need to be able to get to his body in there. That’s obviously not happening either.”
“So what can we do?” Donghyuck’s voice was small and he sounded almost repentant, as though he thought this whole thing was his fault. It sort of was, but it was odd to hear that tone from him.
“We ask Ten what he can see of the future and go from there,” Jaemin said. “There’s not much else that we can do, unless anyone knows someone better with spells than Y/N.”
The whole group shook their heads. Spells could be cast by any human variant creature that they knew of, but spellcraft was a human specialty. You in particular were gifted beyond what they had seen in a very long while.
While they thought about it, Ten burst forth from the trees down the street and ran towards their group. He slowed down as he took in the blob, now pressing against the wards that contained it. Jaemin could feel a subtle sort of pressure in his head as his spells kept the goop within Yuta’s plot.
“So?” Ten asked Jaemin as he walked up. “Did it work?”
“We’re not sure. He’s not dead, or the Fire Away spell would have gone small and liquidy again. On the other hand, none of us know any way to get him out, and Kun-hyung’s worried about the toll that all of this” - he waved his hands at the blob - “will kill him while he turns. We wanted to ask what you were seeing as of now.”
Ten closed his eyes, most of his tentacles going still as he focused. There was one that whacked anxiously against the dirt beneath him, beating a steady rhythm against the earth. After a few minutes, his eyes opened and he refocused his eyes on the group around him.
“Well?” Yangyang prompted when he didn’t speak. Ten sighed.
“Good news is that he’s probably not going to die.”
“And the bad news?”
“He might die.”
“What do you mean, Ten-hyung?”
“I can’t… I can’t tell which future is the one that will come true. It’s like there are two possible ways for the future to go, and neither of them is solid. Either he makes it through, or he dies. The worst part is that I can’t tell what causes his death. It could happen two seconds from now, or two hours, or two days. I just don’t know.”
“I don’t remember your visions ever having two outcomes,” Kun said, brows furrowed.
“I haven’t ever had one like this.”
“Well,” Jaemin said, “I’ll just stay here until he wakes up.”
“And where should I go?” asked Yuta. “Maybe nobody told you, but this is my house that just got burned down.” He threw a glare at Hyuck and Yangyang.
“Go stay with Mark-hyung or something. You sleep over with him all the time anyway,” Donghyuck suggested, and Yuta grinned, a complete change from two seconds before.
“He’ll hate that. See you guys later!” He skipped a few steps before running full tilt, phone in his hands and fingers tapping. The glow of the screen disappeared quickly from Jaemin’s view, and he turned back to their now-smaller group.
“Are you sure that you want to stay here until Y/N wakes up?” Kun asked Jaemin. “I know that you don’t need sleep or anything, but that seems like a waste of time.”
“I have eternity,” Jaemin told him. “I just need to be here to watch it deflate, whether it’s because he’s turned or because…” His voice went weak. He couldn't see you die. He just couldn’t. Kun patted him on the shoulder.
“Okay. We’ll come check on you tomorrow.” As he walked away with Yangyang and Donghyuck, Jaemin heard Kun’s ‘mom voice’ come out as he lectured on the dangers of playing with fire. It made Jaemin smile a little.
His head was starting to feel uncomfortable with the pressure of his wards, so he carefully widened them, centimeter by centimeter, until there was less gloop on them. He couldn’t keep this up until you completed the transformation, he knew, but it would work for now. Maybe he could call Kibum-hyung tomorrow for help.
Until then all he had to do was sit and wait, and look at your form encased in neo pearl champagne colored jello.
☽༓☾
It was exactly twenty five hours, forty minutes, and nine seconds since Jaemin had first settled in when the goop started deflating. The hard casing that had developed collapsed in on itself when the slightly softer insides began to shrink, reminding Jaemin slightly of Honey Lemon and her chemical reactions in Big Hero 6. He sprang to his feet, rushing forward to where he could see the outline of your body inside the collapsing bubble, grabbing the empty decanter that the goop had once been held in. He scooped up the small oozing goop that remained from the spell and plugged the decanter, turning around slowly to look at your body once more.
As your still-limp body collapsed to the ground, Jaemin felt his unbeating heart sink. You didn’t move, there was no rise and fall to your chest. There was no sound of your breath in the air. Your eyes didn’t roll around under your eyelids. You seemed… corpselike. Dead. But it couldn’t be. Ten had said that you would probably survive! Jaemin opened his phone and pressed Ten’s contact to call it. He answered on the third ring.
“Jaemin? What’s up?”
“Ten-hyung,” Jaemin said, and his voice cracked. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Y/N… I think, is dead?”
Ten sucked in a breath, audible even through the phone. “Jaemin I’m so sorry-”
Jaemin cut him off. “Hyung, you said he would make it!”
“There was always that chance that he wouldn’t-”
“But you said-” Jaemin’s voice cracked again and he fell into silence. He couldn’t cry, and he had never wished he could until now. Tears might convey the hole in his chest, the emptiness of his existence without your life to partner him.
“Jaemin,” came Ten’s voice, and it was soft, delicate. “I’m so so sorry. I thought that he would make it, but there was always that second path. I can’t-” He took a deep breath. “I can’t see him anymore. I think… I think he might be gone.”
“No!” Jaemin exclaimed hotly. “He can’t be!”
“Jaemin-”
He hung up. Whatever Ten-hyung had to say wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t bring you back. He was along now, with your body and this stupid Flame Away Goop that had managed to take your life despite Ten’s prophecies and Jaemin’s best efforts. The person that you were was gone. Now you were just a still corpse, a painful reminder of what could have been and what should have been and what couldn’t be.
“I’ll give you a proper funeral,” Jaemin told your body as he lifted it into his arms gently. “I promise.”
☽༓☾
For the next three days, Jaemin worked non-stop. He prepared a funeral for you, ignored everyone except to invite them to the event. He could still picture your smile, the way he had to support you those first few steps. He remembered how you had called him gorgeous, how you had said I love you in Gaelic to him without knowing what it meant. He recalled the trust you had for him despite his own occasional self-loathing, the way you had reminded him of his worth every time you were around him.
He missed you. He missed you a lot.
People had called him, came knocking once an hour. He eventually just shut off his phone so he didn’t have to hear their pleas for him to let them in. All of his hyungs and all of his noonas came to make sure he was okay, but would he ever be? There was a Y/N shaped hole in him that he didn’t think could ever be filled up again. Jeno came around three times a day with hug offerings, but Jaemin shut him out. He knew it hurt his friends, knew they only wanted to help, but you were gone and nobody understood. Nobody had loved you the way he had. Nobody had your blood quite literally on their hands, flowing through their veins.
It hurt to think about that. He “lived” while you were dead; he had gained life through your death and that was the most ironic thing. In his attempt to save you, he may have killed you.
He hurt.
On the fourth day since your death, Jaemin gently dressed your body in the best clothes he could find, brushed your hair, and put you in a casket, standing you in an open clearing, the one where he had tried to send you back to Earth. It was the largest clearing nearby, and all of the vampires that had met you plus Ten came to pay their respects. They spoke about the short time they had known you, and the strong impact you had made despite that. They told of how you had gone back to Earth and suffered until you had returned. They told of your feats practicing witchcraft and most of all they spoke of your kindness, the lack of repulsion towards them. They spoke of your kind smile and the way you had fit in so nicely with their community.
Jaemin started not-crying, as vampires did, and he thought he would be alone, but Jeno joined him. Lucas joined him. Jisung and Chenle joined him. Ten and Johnny joined him. He was not the only one who had loved you. Donghyuck joined him. Yangyang and Yuta and Kun joined him. He was not the only one who felt that your death was his fault.
Jaemin was not the only person who choked out their words in an imitation of crying. Jaemin was not the only person who missed you. Jaemin was not the only one who wanted you back. Jaemin was not the only one.
He hadn’t realized how much he missed his friends until they surrounded him in a huge hug. It wasn’t a warm hug, necessarily, but it was a hug nonetheless and made him feel better. He was not the only one.
He was still dealing with the hole in his chest, but he had others to patch himself up with now. Like each person who had known you could bring a part of you back through their memories of you. It was nice, almost.
☽༓☾
The first thing you realized was that you could hear again. Your ears were uncovered, and you vaguely registered words being choked out somewhere near you. It sounded like a large number of people were very sad about something. You wondered what it could be. The second thing you realized was that you were laying down on some sort of padded… thing. It felt like too much work to open your eyes, so you felt around and realized that you were in a padded box. A padded box? That was new.
You tried to sniff the air and were met with the smell of cologne, not too strong but apparently on enough people that it permeated the air. You got hints of perfume too, but it was far less strong. Something in the box shifted and you felt breaths on your face. Were people looking at you in your sleep? Come to think of it, why were these many people around you while you slept at all? That seemed sort of rude. You tried to remember getting here but came up blank. Your last memories were of the pain before you passed out. You shivered at the memory.
“He’s awake!” someone shouted. The noise hurt your ears after the deafening silence of your previous state, and you itched to get away from them. A murmur of sound rolled through the room and then a familiar scent invaded your senses, that of sun-warmed earth.
“Y- Y/N?” Jaemin asked hesitantly. “Can you hear me? Are you in there?”
He sounded absolutely wrecked, like his voice had been stripped of his usual honey and sunshine. You tried to open your eyes, but it was too bright and you just couldn’t, so you nodded slightly.
“Oh my- Y/N,” he continued. “Can’t you open your eyes for me, please?”
You shook your head no.
“Okay, that’s fine, sweetheart. Let me get you out of there.” There was the sound of something wooden being bonked against a wall, but that faded in comparison to the name. Sweetheart. Sweetheart.
You were lifted gently from your padded box and carried somewhere shady and cold. It felt nice against your skin. He felt nice against your skin. He carried you gently, like you were made of glass, but you felt surprisingly strong, just out of sorts. As though while your mind struggled to catch up, your body had strengthened. It was a very different sensation to that of your first time waking up in Jaemin’s house. He walked you through what you thought must be the forest for a bit before he sat down and nestled you into his side. You felt as though some muscles should be unhappy about the position, but you felt completely comfortable.
“Y/N.” Jaemin’s voice came to you, soft and warm and familiar. It was shaking slightly. “Can you open your eyes for me now?”
You focused on your eyelids, raising them slowly until you could see Jaemin. He had on a suit; black jacket over a white shirt, accented by a thin black ribbon tied loosely around his neck. His pink hair fell neatly in waves over his forehead and you reached up to brush away a piece that had fallen over his eyes, smiling.
“Hey Jaem. What happened?” Your voice wasn’t weak, like you supposed it should have been. It came out like a melody into the air, and you marvelled internally at the sound of it, how smooth it was. It felt nice.
“You-” Jaemin broke off for a second, rearranging your limbs next to him. “You were trying to save Yuta’s house. We had to rebuild part, but it’s fine. He stayed with Mark for a few days. For the most part, your spell worked. But then, it- it swallowed you. I got there in time to watch as you were absorbed by this green goop and I thought I was too late. I bit you, back here.” He brushed his fingers gently over the sides of your neck and you shivered. “But you didn’t wake up… I thought I was too late. You weren’t breathing, and you weren’t awake… I have no idea how you managed to cancel the spell without waking up or dying. So I-” He made a choked up sound and tightened his arm around your shoulders. “We’re at your funeral. Ten couldn’t see your future anymore, so we thought you were dead…” He trailed off.
“Wow,” you said. “I died? Then how am I here now? I feel alive?”
“It worked. It must have. You don’t have a heartbeat, but you’re awake. I don’t know what happened exactly, but you must be a vampire now.”
“Huh. I thought I’d feel more… hungry.”
He laughed. It glittered over your ears and you smiled, an involuntary reaction to him. “It’ll kick in, don’t worry.”
“What about the others? I mean, Lucas and Kun and everyone? Are they just at my funeral right now? Without me?”
“Oh.” Jaemin looked as though he had forgotten about them. “I guess they are. Let’s go see them?”
“Let’s.”
☽༓☾
After that day, it didn’t take you long to realize that the other vampires were purposefully putting you with Jaemin for just about everything. On days where you went to hang out with Lucas, he would ask you how Jaemin was doing. If you didn’t know, he would suggest that you go and visit him. Kun asked you to make sure that Jaemin was feeling okay. Yuta, who you were finally allowed to meet and hang out with, constantly suggested that you should spend more time with him. It was strange. Nobody had seemed to mind that you had your own hobbies before your transformation, but now that you were a vampire, it was as though you were meant to be with Jaemin all of the time. You asked Lucas about it once you got sick of the mysterious treatment and he looked at you heavily.
“When you got trapped in that goopy stuff, Jaemin went all weird. He didn’t move for, like, more than 24 hours, and once he thought you were dead… he didn’t talk to any of us until the funeral. We worry about him, and you seem to make him really happy, so we’re trying to keep you two around each other.”
You didn’t really know what to say to that, so you chose the very eloquent “oh,” as your response. Lucas chuckled.
“I know. It was really weird, I’ve never seen him like that. I think we’ve seen a lot of new sides of Jaemin since you came along.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It’s… well, I don’t think it’s bad or good. It just is. You affect him differently than anyone else we know.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“Y/N, you idiot, he’s in love with you.”
“He’s what?”
Lucas sighed. “He’s in love with you.”
“Why do you think that? This is Jaemin we’re talking about here. Jaemin. He’s, like, beauty incarnate and he’s smart and kind and wonderful in every aspect of everything. He just can’t be in love with me.”
“He’s in love with you.”
“He’s not.”
“He is.”
“He can't be.”
“Why not?”
“I just told you why.”
Lucas sighed again, more deeply. “But you’re in love with him.”
“I-” You consider that. “I guess?”
“That wasn’t a question.” He rolled his eyes.
“Do you think it’s possible that he actually does like me back?”
“Yes.”
Somehow, after that, Lucas managed to steer the conversation onto other subjects and you refocused on those things, but it echoed in your head. He’s in love with you.
☽༓☾
Even with this new information bouncing around the forefront of your brain, you still had to go and spend time with Jaemin. Maybe it was a little strange for your thoughts to short circuit when you saw him, the little whisper of what if in your head. Maybe it was a little peculiar for a vampire such as yourself to stutter through sentences because you were busy thinking about what life would be like if he really did like you back. Maybe you spent less time talking on your walks together because you wanted to lay next to him in a clearing and watch the clouds instead. Just maybe.
If Jaemin noticed any of your strange behaviour, he didn’t call you out on it. He either really wasn’t paying all that much attention, or he knew enough about you to know that you wouldn’t want him to pry. It was strange, really, how well you knew each other in such a short time. You supposed that since you spent so much time together it wasn’t improbable, but he knew you nearly as well as your old human friends back home.
Thinking about your old memories was a strange experience. You could remember everything as clearly as your human self could, but you noticed more the lack of detail within the images, the way your human eyes couldn’t move as fast as your vampire ones, and your reflexes weren’t as fast, and the way you fixated on one part of the picture without taking in the details of the rest of your vision. You had entirely blocked out memories of driving, they were too harrowing. You recalled more easily now all of the times you had nearly hit something or someone, and while you couldn't die now, at least not that easily, you could have easily fallen prey to the fatal blind spot more times than you’d care to admit.
When you told Jaemin about that, he laughed that laugh you loved so much. “I was born in fourteen forty-two, Y/N. We didn’t have cars back then. The only thing on the street that would run me over was a horse-drawn carriage.”
“Well,” you retorted, “you should consider yourself lucky then. Carriages and horses don’t sound half so bad as giant hunks of metal flying at each other at eighty miles per hour.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he mused, stroking an imaginary beard. “Maybe I was lucky to be born in Korea during the 1400s. You may have heard of the emperor Sejong the Great? I was born during his rule. He was one of the best emperors Korea ever had, he introduced hangul and united the country under Confucian principles so that there was more love for the country and the people living in it. Peaceful few years we had there, from what little I remember. After that, though? Lots of killing, children on the throne, et cetera et cetera. Not so fun. And I was actually able to die through all of that, so that wasn’t pleasant. But then King Sejo, the one who did the killing, actually did a pretty okay job of ruling the country and we had a few more years of prosperity. He died six years after my transformation. I missed that event because I was here in Vahmpyr getting to know Jeno, who turned me.”
“How much of the group was around, at that point?”
“Well…” Jaemin closed his eyes briefly in thought. “Here, let me draw you a family tree.” He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote ‘Moon Taeil’ at the top. “Okay so as you know, Taeil is here as the first of us. He turned Yuta-hyung, Kun-hyung, Johnny-hyung, and Taeyong-hyung.” He wrote in their names under Taeil’s, spacing them out across the paper.
“Yuta-hyung turned Sicheng-hyung and Shotaro; Kun-hyung turned Dejun-hyung and Lucas-hyung; Johnny-hyung turned Jungwoo-hyung and Mark, and Taeyongie-hyung turned Hyuck, Doyoung-hyung, and Jaehyun hyung.” He labeled all of these names, then drew more stems leading from Jaehyun, Lucas, and Dejun.
“Jaehyun-hyung turned Sungchan, Lucas-hyung turned Hendery-hyung and Yangyang, and Dejun-hyung turned Renjun.” He drew all of these connections and stemmed Renjun’s name down even farther.
“Renjun turned Jeno and Chenle, then Jeno turned me, and I turned Jisung and now you.” He finished the tree with a flourish, black ink stark against the creamy paper. They were all connected, in some way, to Taeil’s venom. And there was you, at the very bottom, your name small next to Jisung’s.
“You guys are all so… connected.”
“Yep! We’re all one big family.”
“Do you guys have, like, family reunions? And who changed Joy and her friends? Or what’s-his-face? Taemin?”
“We don’t really all get together a lot, just because most of us have jobs on Earth or spend our days doing stuff on our own. Some of them like having flings all the time. Obviously none of us can get STDs or get pregnant, so they can do that, no strings attached. We sort of hang out in our individual groups for the most part, and then hang out every once in a while. As far as the others, we think that they must have come from the same person as Taeil-hyung, a very very old vampire. There are other stories like ours across Vahmpyr, where one vampire created one member of each coven and let us grow from there. The difference is that some of them actually have good relationships with those older vampires, whereas I’ve never met ours. I’ve heard that there’s a man called Park Jae-sang who actually comes around to spend time with the vampires he’s changed. The closest we have to an old vampire is Leeteuk-hyung, and he isn’t really around much, plus he’s not that much older than Taeil-hyung.
“Anyway, to answer your question, when I was turned, nearly everyone was around already. Only Yangyang, Sungchan, Shotaro, Chenle, and Jisung are younger than me. And now you.”
“Wow, so you had to meet everyone right after your transformation? I bet that was chaotic.”
“It was, but it was also fun. I got to be the baby for a while. Then the others came around and I somehow became a mother figure.”
You laughed. Jaemin was a mother figure, for sure. He liked to take care of the people around him, including humans that his brothers had brought home for him to patch up. “That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”
He giggled along with you, that laugh you adored so much, and grinned. “I guess it sort of fits me, doesn’t it? Mother Jaem.” He rolled the name over his tongue and you collapsed into laughter again. “I think that works well, yep.”
The next few days, you called him Mother Jaem, and everyone gave you weird looks, but it made Jaemin laugh hard enough that it was worth it.
☽༓☾
One day after this, Chenle pulled Jaemin aside to ask him what on Earth was going on with this whole “Mother Jaem” thing. Jaemin explained happily how it had come about. Chenle rolled his eyes dramatically.
“When are you two getting married?”
Jaemin just gave him a blank stare. “What?”
“It’s so disgusting how much you guys love each other! When can we shove you two together in a house and call it a day?”
“Um, okay, first of all, that is not how you get rid of somebody. Second, he doesn't love me? And third, there is definitely not enough space in his house for me, even if he did.”
Chenle pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lucas was right, you guys are blind fools. Of course he loves you! He goes to see you all the time! And enjoys it! You’re both in love with each other and both of you are cowards.” He ran his hand through his hair, knocking a piece into his eye. He squinted unhappily but didn’t try to move it.
Jaemin sighed as he got the chunk of hair away from Chenle’s eye. “This is Y/N we’re talking about though! He might hate me for everything I put him through and only stick around because I turned him or something. Plus, he spends as much time with Lucas as with me.”
“My God, your logic is terrible. You love him, he loves you, you need to get together. Watch some dramas and kiss him in the rain or something. Lucas even told me that he loves you!”
“That’s astonishingly specific for someone who doesn’t have a romance under their belt.”
“That’s besides the point!” Chenle grabbed the sides of Jaemin’s face and held him still while he spoke. “You need to confess sometime or another before the rest of us go crazy watching you run in circles around each other.”
With that he stalked away, leaving Jaemin rubbing his face where Chenle’s fingertips had pressed into the skin. It didn’t hurt, but the echoes of his voice and his fingers held Jaemin still for a long time afterwards.
☽༓☾
The next week, Kun and Taeil invited the whole coven to a reunion at Kun’s country estate. Having never been, you looked forward to seeing the giant house as much as meeting the rest of the family. It didn’t disappoint, it was absolutely massive, at least four or five floors and extensive gardens in front. Kun gave you free run of the place, asking you to please not enter rooms marked with a “Do Not Enter” sign. Simple rule to follow. You entered the main hall first, feeling like royalty in such an elegant room. Twin staircases led from the upstairs, leading your eyes to an extravagant chandelier covered in hundreds of crystals, and a mint green ceiling. From either side of the large room extended hallways with lush pale blue rugs and endless vases on platforms. It felt as though you had entered the past, or maybe a very expensive movie set. You moved through hallways and rooms, gazing at velvet chairs and old paintings that screamed money. You wondered if someone in Vahmpyr painted them, or if they were from Earth. You found only two rooms marked “Do Not Enter,” one of which was in a long hallway of bedrooms, so you assumed it was Kun’s.
The other was in the back of a positively colossal library. The library caught your eye because of the sheer size of it. Rows upon rows of books lined the walls and seemingly endless freestanding shelves. It was as large as the main public library back home, taking up at least four average rooms worth of space per floor. Not to mention the height. You estimated that it was at least three floors high, perhaps four. An entire long wall was devoted to Kun’s studies in medicine, dating back to leeches and poultices on open wounds through Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the most advanced of current surgeries. He had records of patients stacked by century, and a desk that popped out of the wall to reveal his own notes on developing vaccines and other medicines. Had you still been human, you were certain that a room like this would have given you a headache, from the size and the amount of books to look at.
From the medicine section you moved to other sciences like forensics, geology (although that section was considerably smaller), and astronomy. You also discovered an entire section on aviation. In the astronomy section, you found cork boards with maps pinned to them, stars drawn in detail, space stations built for both humans and vampires, and more drawings you didn't know how to interpret. You pulled out a few books at random and flipped through them, smiling at the notes in the margins. Past those sections were books on every type of science you had ever heard of, and some you hadn’t.
Beyond those were histories, and Kun’s travel section. He had bins filled with brochures, maps, and travel magazines and accounts of, from what you could tell, every war known to have occurred past Kun’s turning. That blended into social studies, and you found books on language next to copies of the Bible in seemingly every version, translations of the Quran, and more religious texts. Stock market trends were recorded and stored next to books on how to hire smart and anthropology. Cultural studies were stored with ethics and political records. Newspapers appeared as well, although those were fewer than the books by far. They appeared to be from a singular area, a place called Taining County, in China. Kun must have some sort of tie to it. You made a mental note to ask him when you rejoined the others.
You climbed a staircase to the second floor, where you found a fireplace and sitting area within the books. It appeared that the entire second floor was books organized by language, starting each section with children’s books and working their way up to novels. You found all of the Romance Languages, German, Hindi, Greek, Tagalog, Russian, Dutch, Japanese, Cantonese, Thai, Korean, Arabic, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu, Latin and more that you didn’t know. In the back was a small compilation of different countries’ sign languages, as well.
You climbed the next flight of stairs to the third floor, finding the fiction section. These were organized by genre, with horror on one shelf, science fiction hogging four shelves on the opposite walls, romance taking up a large section next to that, et cetera. You spotted a section marked “Transcribed” and walked over to it, finding books handwritten by Kun, presumably taken from other forms and written over to fit in his library. You imagined the wax tablets and stone slabs of old books and shuddered. Even as a vampire, transporting those wouldn’t be easy. This floor was open in the middle, looking down at the second. Above you, the next floor was open as well and housed more shelves.
You walked up the last staircase and came upon a musical archive. There were phonographs on tables next to more recent record turntables, followed by cassette players and CD players. Each one was in impeccable condition, and behind them were shelves of every format that would work with those machines. These were shorter shelves, since the music was thinner than books, but there were still many many of them. You saw cassette boxes labeled with the albums contained within, records in yellowed sleeves, and CDs in thick storage cases. They were organized by decade, with the earliest dating back to the late nineteenth century. You guessed that was when recorded music had been invented. Perhaps Kun could still remember older pieces though; something else you would have to ask him about. You were looking through the most recent music to see what he liked and if you had heard of it when you heard someone calling your name.
“Y/N? Where are you?”
“In the library, fourth floor!” you yelled back.
“Will you come back to the kitchen and help me with this?”
“Sure!”
You weren’t sure who was calling you, but it sounded like Lucas, so you ran towards the kitchen. You weren’t sure entirely why there was a kitchen, since you all drank blood anyway, but you figured there was a good reason. You added that to your growing list of things to ask Kun. You understood why you had a kitchen in your house since you had lived in it while you were still human, but Kun hadn’t been to Vahmpyr before he was turned as far as you knew. Besides, he usually lived in his apartment next to the other guys. Maybe it was just necessary to have a kitchen in a house, you didn’t know. It would have felt weird, you guessed, to live in a house without one.
When you arrived, Lucas was outside as you had guessed.
“Will you run in and grab these things for me?” he asked, handing you a sticky note. “I’ve been tasked with rounding up everyone else.”
“Yeah, no problem,” you replied, walking through the doors into the room. It was industrial, like Kun cooked for dozens of people at a time, and there was a surprising amount of cooking utensils that wouldn’t work on raw bodies, like spatulas. You looked down at the sticky note for the first time. If you don’t confess, it read, I will smack you when you come back out. And you know how big my hands are, I will make it hurt.
“What?” you murmured to yourself as Jaemin walked into the room.
“Oh hey Y/N, did Chenle send you?”
“No, Lucas did. But did Chenle perhaps give you a sticky note with things to get for him on it?”
Jaemin glanced down at a hot pink slip of paper in his hand. “Yeah.” He looked back up at you before his brow furrowed and he looked more thoroughly at the writing on it. He groaned. “I am going to kill Chenle.” He ran a hand through his cotton candy pink hair. “I guess I should just get it over with then.”
He walked closer to you, setting the sticky note on the counter as he came. “I’m kind of in love with you? And I have been for a while? I mean I get if you hate me after everything I put you through, but according to Chenle you like me back? And… yeah?”
You were left speechless. Hate Jaemin? Never. And he… loved… you?
“Y/N? Are you okay?” Jaemin waved a hand in front of your face. “I’m sorry, I’ll go, Chenle must have set up a prank.” He started walking away and you grabbed his wrist.
“Jaem, hold on. I’m just in shock. I thought there was no way you could like me back…” Your voice got steadily smaller until it trailed off at the end of your sentence as a whisper.
His entire face lit up like a Christmas tree plugged in for the first time, glowing and cheerful. “It’s not a prank?”
You rubbed a hand over your face. “No, it’s not a prank. I thought Lucas was kidding when he said you liked me back. Or at least that he was wrong. You- you’re actually telling me that you’re in love with me?”
“I am.”
“Holy shit.”
He laughed, a ringing sound in the quiet of the kitchen. It echoed back at you as though the happiness of the laugh had been multiplied. “They’re going to be so smug,” he muttered.
“Oh yes they are. We’re going to have to get back at them someday.”
“Well, we have forever,” he reminded you. You grinned and held out your hand. He took it.
“Let’s go get the teasing over with then.”
You walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. “What did Chenle threaten you with if you didn’t confess?” you asked.
“Oh, he was going to tell the group about the fling I had with Jeno when we were younger.”
You looked at him in shock. “You had a fling with Jeno? Why would you choose me over him?”
“It was just sexual attraction. While that works for some people, both of us were happier just being friends, so we ended it. I actually am in love with you, which makes all the difference. Anyway, Chenle got that story out of me on a dare once and has held it over my head ever since.”
“I wonder if he’s told Jeno he knows?”
“Probably.”
You had reached the front room, and you took a deep breath as you walked forward, though it did nothing for your undead body. “Let’s throw ourselves to the wolves.”
As you walked out into the sunlight, a cheer rose up that would have sent birds flapping away, had there been any. You heard Chenle’s unique laugh paired with Lucas’ happy shouts of “yes!” and the voices of the other men you had gotten to know, paired with ones you didn’t. They stood in a group in the garden, whooping and throwing up hats if they had any. Lucas was the first to reach you.
“I can’t believe you actually did it! I thought I’d have to smack you!” He sounded far too happy at the prospect for your liking.
The rest of the boys ran over. There was a repeating round of “finally” until someone mentioned the food getting warm and there was a great rush to get back to the patio in the garden. You sat next to Jaemin in patio chairs as the sun slowly sank past the tree line and talked with friends old and new.
There was something new, something warm inside of you. A feeling of belonging more than ever when Jaemin fed you a little and the rest of the guys booed jokingly. Under the rising stars you kissed him for the first time, a quick peck at the behest of Yangyang. There were more cheers and hugs and someone had a polaroid camera out, the flash lighting up the scene as everyone laughed.
This was where you were meant to be.
End.
!!Reblogs and feedback are much appreciated!!
All rights reserved kiri-ah, 2021
#na jaemin#lee jeno#park jisung#nct#nct dream#nct 127#wayv#ten lee#liu yangyang#qian kun#zhong chenle#moon taeil#na jaemin x reader#jaemin x reader#jaemin x you#nct x reader#nct dream x reader#x reader#angst#fluff#nct fluff#nct angst#kpop x reader#reader insert#male reader#nct x male reader#nct dream x male reader#jaemin x male reader
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I'm not sure if I should make this the finale post or not to be honest because I plan on playing some of the DLCs soon, so I'll make this a 'light' finale post because I'm sure I've said more than enough through my playthrough.
Morrowind genuinely surprised me. I heard all the oldguard TES fans saying it's way different and some claiming it was miles better.
Specifically I remember when Oblivion came out I heard from somewhere that Oblivion was just "dumbed down Morrowind" and kid me was like "What the heck are you talking about, Oblivion is the best game in the world (right now)???"
But man, they weren't wrong, but that's hardly what I'd point at in Morrowind in comparison.
Then again my memory of Oblivion is all rose tinted nostalgia and half memories.
What Morrowind is to me today is a fantastic fantasy game with some really interesting lore, a villain I love, a world that feels alien, troubled, imperfect and intriguing, and a gameplay cycle that felt really satisfying to me from the very start to roughly level 20 or so.
I REALLY like how pitiful and overwhelmed I felt at the start of this game- it felt fucking awesome to me and I know for some that's a weird statement and others it's the most obvious thing in the world but man is it true.
Level 1 in Morrowind as a newbie who doesn't know up from down is like waking up in the woods naked with the sound of hungry wolves all around you.
It's brutal, and exciting- every little victory- a potion, a new dagger, a new piece of armor- feels like the world to you.
I LOVED the early game in Morrowind, more than I ever liked it in Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Skyrim, or Fallout 4 (yeah I'm looping the bethesda engine NV in).
Because I constantly felt like I was punching up at a behemoth but I was getting away with it from time to time until I started to feel more on par with the behemoth, and eventually I overcame and hit end game and really became the behemoth and that was fun in its own right.
But I've been "mega end game god" in like 900 dang games at this point, it's always fun! And feeling like I earned it (like here) makes it feel better! But the journey often beats it and Morrowind's journey was so fun to me.
But yeah, beat the main quest. I did a lot in this game, and barely scratched the surface.
Beating it immediately made me think of how fun it would be to challenge myself to beat it- or another objective- right from the start without dumping hundreds of hours into leveling because that early game is a treat.
About the only things I didn't fully love were most of the quest designs showing their age.
Nothing super egregious, but there really was a lot of extremely simple "fetch thing" "Kill thing" "Walk to place" quests that didn't hold additional story value to make up for it.
Not to say simple is bad, but to say having a LOT of my playtime being killing various creatures for no real story reason beyond being asked to makes some actions feel pointless and like busy-work.
There were also quests that DID tie story in, which was really nice to see- things like inter-guild relations becoming a thing for some quests, or some quests having consequences further down the quest chain depending on how you completed it, and of course (as implied) some quests having multiple solutions with some of those solutions being interesting in how you find out about them.
I mean I think it's really neat how the fighter's guild has like 4 quest givers and if you blindly follow them you'll be doing all kinds of questionable stuff with questionable end goals, but if you talk to each of them you'll find that one of them is much more trustworthy and honorable than the rest, and it becomes a common loop to be sent on a quest for the FG and swing by him to ask if the quest sounds legit- AND MANY AREN'T! AND HE OFFERS ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS! THAT'S COOL AND LET'S YOU MAKE THE MISTAKE OF BEING TOO LOYAL AND FORGETTING YOUR MORALS BECAUSE YOU ARE "JUST PLAYING A GAME" BUT REWARDS YOU FOR QUESTIONING THAT LOYALTY AND SEEKING ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS! THAT'S AWESOME! Though the solution almost always being "just talk to the good guy before you do the quest" was slightly lacking, but such a cool idea.
But there wasn't a ton of this, but there also wasn't not a lot of this- it was an idea they clearly considered playing with and did when they could- I just wish there were both more and that it was used more on the menial tasks you're asked to do as well. I'm a sucker for multiple solutions is all, and consequences appearing later and altering how events play out or quests line up is always cool and I think it only happens a couple times in some guild quests if I'm not mistaken-
But again, I didn't do much in the grand scheme of things lol.
A TON of time invested and still, a metric fuckton to do including 100% of both expansions lol.
So- Morrowind. I really like this game :)
I think it's my favorite TES game, though I might change my mind whenever I revisit TES4, but I can at least say it's my favorite early game BY FAR and PROBABLY my favorite TES game.
I wonder if I can get buff enough to kill Dagoth Ur with like potion abuse. I haven't looked into it, all I know about him (and I knew before this gameplay also, I was just attacking out of curiosity) is that phase 2 rapidly regens health at like 2 billion a second or something, so you have to one shot him if at all possible.
Also I knew that he was supposed to be weaker depending on how many ash vampires you killed, but that that wasn't properly implemented (and I don't think the morrowind code patch bothers fixing it?).
Anywho- great game. I've been playing a lot of good games lately now that I think of it. I mean most of this blog is me playing good games, but I feel like, and I could be mistaken, but I feel like there was a stint there where I was playing "complicated" games and "games I don't enjoy but want to see the merit of so I'm being a sourpuss while I play".
Now I feel like the last 10 dang games were strictly good and or great. Can't say that's a bad thing :)
If you haven't ever played Morrowind before but you're familiar with say Skyrim, I'd honestly say give it a look. A look first- because it's a thick game to begin and you might be able to discern it's not for you based off a look- but a look none the less.
It's Skyrim with more RPG nonsense going on and a more brutal "rags to riches" hero story for your protag. Might be up your alley as much as it ended up being up mine :)
So up next is EITHER an entirely different game with some ocassional Morrowind posts as I touch on the expansions, or more direct Morrowind content as I emphasize the expansions until I finish them, but I'm leaning towards the former.
I think beating the main quest has earned Vaksten the Idiot a short break.
#RetPlays#Morrowind#TES#The Elder Scrolls#Also maybe I should make a new character for the expansions so I'm not OP but I dunno#might just crank the difficulty to max instead of leaving it unaltered and say that's good enough :P#Youtube
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Remembering The Roadhouse Part 4
Hey guys sorry this one took so long, but since I saw it as an important chapter I wanted to give it the time it deserved.
Also a disclaimer, I have tried posting this story part once, so if it comes up twice, that's my bad. I appear to be having technical difficulties.
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The sound of the alarm going off made Dewey hurt all over, but there was no time left to rest. He had to get to the school. He stood, and his head throbbed, his stomach hurt with a mix of hunger and nausea. Every part of him ached, and he was absolutely exhausted.
His weekend had only gotten worse. He'd gotten sick after getting off the phone with Rosalie the night before last. Still, he continued to work on the song he was writing for her until he finally finished it well into the next day. Ned had found him in a pile of wadded up paper balls with very dark circles under his eyes and, became even more concerned when it seemed he had no appetite.
"Try to get some rest.“ Ned told him.
He did try, but the doubt swimming around his head, and the pain everywhere else kept him from falling asleep. It wasn't until a few hours ago that he finally managed nap a little. Since music coaching wasn't until after the kids' daily classes, Dewey had a little more time to rest. Still what little sleep he got wasn't enough to make up for the last two restless nights.
Dewey wanted to turn around and crawl back under his warm comforter so badly, but he knew that if he wanted the kids to learn the song he'd written for Rosalie, he was going to have to have them practice it now. They only had three days. He fought the sleepiness and achiness, and got dressed. Since he was still so nauseated, he decided not to eat anything. He dragged himself to the school.
After nearly falling asleep at the wheel several times, he arrived at the school and went straight to work setting everything up as he usually did. Once finished, he walked over to the desk and leaned against it waiting for his students to arrive.
"Mr. Finn, I wanted to talk to you about the Battle-“ Summer paused as soon as she looked up at him. "Mr. Finn are you feeling okay?"
Dewey didn't answer. Mostly because he didn't realize she was there. He was leaning so far onto the desk, he was practically laying on it. Though his eyes were open, he was staring past her, unaware that she had even spoken. That was until she snapped her fingers in front of him making him jump.
"Oh! Summer! How long have you been standing there?" He asked.
"Mr. Finn are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah! Perfectly fine!“
"Are you sure? You look pale, and tired. And you have dark circles under your eyes. Should we cancel practice?"
"No way! I'll be fine, we just gotta get this thing going. Is everybody ready?“
Summer continued to look at him unconvinced. "Yes."
Dewey looked around at all his students, seeing that they had their instruments out, and were ready to start practice.
"H-Hey Guys." That sounded weaker than he wanted. He cleared his throat. "Sorry... Hey Guys!“ He said much more confidently. “Friday night is the big night! The night we get on that stage, and once again show em' what we're made of!"
The band cheered all around him, causing his energy to suddenly spike. That is until he looked at the papers in his hand.
"But today, I wanted to start off with something a little different. Now, our focus is still on Battle of the Bands, but I... kinda... wrote a little something special... for Ros -uh- Mrs. Mullins." He scratched the back of his neck hearing a few of the girls squeal at his announcement.
"I was kinda hoping we could play it for her... on a little date I had planned Thursday."
"Thursday!?" Summer exclaimed.
"I know it's the night before the battle, but it's an anniversary... sort of." Dewey explained.
"An anniversary of what?" Summer asked.
"Um..."
"Oh my God! Did you hook up with her? Is that how we got permission last year?"
"NO! no no no no no... It wasn't anything like that. We bonded I guess, but it was over music! Not anything... like the other..." He trailed off into awkwardness.
"Alright well, show us the song!" Zack requested breaking the uncomfortable silence.
"Right!" Dewey answered. He looked at the papers, and studied the lyrics growing anxious again.
"Mr. Finn, is everything alright?" Tamika asked.
After looking at the papers a moment more, Dewey sighed with a mix of frustration, dissapointment, and exhaustion.
"Nevermind guys... This song is garbage." He goes to tear the papers.
"MR. FINN! NO!" Tamika screamed. Dewey was so caught off guard, he could do nothing when Freddie snatched them out of his hands, and passed them to Summer.
She walked as she read them, and the paused.
"Mr. Finn, this is incredibly sweet. You can't tear this up." She said. The other students gathered around to look at it.
"Well that line's pretty cheesy." Feddie snickered looking at the lyrics. Katie bowed him in the side, and Dewey gave a little sideways smile as if to thank her.
"What do you think, guys? Should we do this?" Summer asked.
A chorus of "yeah" and "yes" erupted from the kids around her. Summer turned to Dewey.
"You've got your entertainment, Mr. Finn. Now, where will you be taking her?“
Dewey's eyes widened. “Um.... where?"
"You don't have a place in mind, do you?“ Summer asked seeming more unsurprised than he'd like her to have been.
"Well... no, I haven't really gotten to that point yet..." Dewey answered.
"What are you going to wear?“ Billy asked.
"Um....“
"Please tell me you've got other clothes than what you've been wearing the past year in your closet."
"Well...“
Billy rolled his eyes. "Oh no. There's no way you're wearing any of those tacky excuses for outfits Thursday night. I'll work on something for you.“
The thought of wearing one of Billy's "creative" outfits in front of Rosalie was a nightmare.
"Thanks Billy, but you really dont have-“
"Mr. Finn, are you going to propose?“ Shanell asked, distracting him from Billy. He was completely caught off guard.
"Well... I mean, we've only been dating a few months." Dewey stammered
"No way! Dewey probably can't afford the ring." Freddie cut in.
"I have the ring!“ Dewey blurted out a bit frustratedly. He realized quickly that that was a big mistake. Every eye was on him now, and there a warmth spread vigorously across his cheeks. He just stood there frozen, looking at them all.
"Are you going to propose then?“ Shenell inquired almost squealing.
"I-I didn't say that... Guys, we've only been going out a few months, and I don't even know that this relationship is going to last... I mean I'd like to believe she would want to... marry me...." He looked down at his hands as his fingers fidgeted. "But I just don't know that it's realistic right now..." He looked back up at them. "Regardless I want Thursday night to be special... very special... for her."
"Then we've got your back Mr. Finn." Summer announced with a smile.
Dewey's gaze cut to her in surprise.
"We'll handle the location, the food, and of course the music. You two just have a good time."
"What?“ Dewey stammered.
"Yeah!" Katie cut in. "If we can put together performances, we can definitely handle a date!"
"Guys, I'm only asking for you to perform." Dewey was getting a little overwhelmed now.
"Kind of hard to perform with no location." Summer pointed out with her arms crossed.
Dewey tried to say something, but realized he couldn't argue. She had a point.
"Y-you guys really want to do this?“ He asked.
"Of course we do, Mr. Finn." Tamika replied with a smile. The other students nodded and voiced their agreement.
Dewey felt a happiness and pride in the kids that they had given him mqny times before. It once again made him happy they were his. His excitement was renewed and his energy rising.
"Alright! Let's start with the song!" Dewey passed around the sheet music.
A few minutes later those familiar chords sounded throughout the room, and Dewey became more enthusiastic as he sang the lyrics. His opinion about song had completely changed it was perfect and perfectly Rosalie.
When they finished they moved onto their song for Battle of the Bands. Dewey had completely forgotten about his previous exhaustion. He laughed, and danced around playing his guitar even doing a short impromptu duel with Zack. Everyone was working hard, but having fun with it, and in Dewey's mind, they couldn't be playing more perfectly.
Six O'clock came way too soon. The students packed up their things, and began to leave. Dewey waved goodbye to them. Now that practice had ended though, he started feeling rough again. The exhaustion was setting in fast as he watched his students leave. There were only two left, along with their parents, in the room when he turned to grab his bag. Everything started to go dark. He panted and bent over.
"Mr. Finn?“ He heard Summer call his name, but it sounded far away now. He fell to the ground, and a sharp pain shot up his shoulder. The last thing he saw was Summer running toward him, and looking very concerned just before everything went black.
#alex brightman#broadway musicals#dewey finn#dewey x rosalie#school of rock bway#school of rock broadway#school of rock#school of rock musical
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Tagged by @adiwriting, @litwitlady and @cosmicclownboy
List which 5 TV shows make you feel better then tag 10 other blogs (I can’t explain to you how much I am unable to do that)
*Disclaimer* I’m bad at re-watching shows because there are so many out there I want to watch that I feel bad if I re-watch, especially a whole TV show. But there are a few that I enjoy but can be stressful or make me angry plot-wise so here are the ones that are just everything is great and nothing hurts shows and I’m following the rules and sticking to TV.
Schitt’s Creek- I can’t explain the love I have for this show. It kills me with laughter every single time and then occasionally punches me in the gut with a poignant line or moment. Just 1000% delight.
The Good Place- One of the few I’ve watched a couple times (minus the last ep because I can’t let it go yet) and it also never fails to hit me with the laughter and then at some point make me cry. How they made a delightfully fun comedy about moral philosophy is astounding. But also, the season 1 finale is the greatest finale of anything I’ve ever seen, ever and I use it in every example I can of a well-done finale because it was literally perfect and made me want to re-watch the whole season immediately. I sat with my mouth agape and stared at the screen the entire commercial break (I watched live and have never been happier with a life decision.)
Parks and Rec- Just jokes and fun at all times. It's lovely to see people being earnestly in love with their work, their friends, their spouse, or in Leslie's case, all 3.
Psych-the taglines say it best! "Fake psychic, real detective", and all of the law, none of the order." While there is 1 episode for sure that wouldn't fly today, in general this show is fun, funny, and still makes me laugh even years later. I don't always re-watch full shows but I can pop in pretty much any episode of this show while I eat and be delighted for an hour. If you've never seen it, check it out because it is so worth the watch.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine- I was totally prepared for this to be a raunchy comedy show in the vein of adult cartoons which is just not my particular brand of humor. But I gave the pilot a shot and holy cow was I pleasantly surprised! I also assumed I would have to put up with a lot of toxic masculinity from Jake where I would really want to like the main character but he would end up being a dick and making that difficult (lookin at you, Max Evans) but his growth and him and Amy's love story is just *chef's kiss*. Plus Raymond Holt is a goddamned delight and gets bonus points for marrying Marc Evan Jackson whom I love and adore (sidebar go listen to his Sparks Nevada podcast. You're welcome), and the rest of the cast is so much fun every single episode. I really want an "it's time for Gina's opinion" hoodie.
As always, tagging is not my thing but if you want to join in, or feel like you never get tagged in these things, feel free to consider this your tag. I'm a Hufflepuff at heart and don't want anyone to feel left out. You can also tag me in your post because I love to read these things.
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