#art was once fucking new isn’t that insane

[ryderdire]

I do often Wonder who first figured out things that have become seccond nature to us. Like making tools who figured out obsidian is so sharp who first made fire, who figured out seeds. I have no doubt in my mind that they could and they did. I guess I’m just more curious on the specifics of how they figured it out.

#ryders rambles #like how did they come across this discovery #how did they spread that information who helped them figure it out was it a Group effort solidarity did some kid drop a plum and notice 10 #years later there was a tree there #I don’t wanna come off as #oh conspiracy theory aliens or whatever more I’m saying wouldn’t it be so cool to know the exact details of how we first figured out how to #make a knife #like it’s wild man #this shit that’s so seccond nature to us was once new and exciting isn’t that WILD like the wheel was once invented #I don’t think we give early early civilian enough credit man if I looked at a rock my fist through wouldn’t be #what if i sharped that to a point and threw it at things I want to kill it would be OH SICK LOOK AT THAT ROCK #I could fucking never so impressive. #like everything that is familiar to us was once new and I know that’s a simple concept but in action it’s wild to think about #writing system where once new (multiple times tbh denpending on where u are) #cooking meat was once new #I’m jumping around here time wise but I hope u get the picture #art was once fucking new isn’t that insane

[simpjaes]

ONE OF THE DAMNED GIRLS PT. 2 (P.SH)

Moving to a city with wild nights and charming days felt like the perfect choice in your head upon finishing college. Hours away from home, you accept a job at a local museum ironically placed dead between a large historic cathedral and a booming gothic nightclub. You were meant to curate the art, not be curated yourself by a local priest who found you with buckled knees outside of said goth club. ― part one | MINORS DNI

PAIRING ― vampire park sunghoon x afab reader  

WORDCOUNT ― 21.8k

CONTENT ―  modern vampire sunghoon, cathedral/chapel settings, blasphemous behavior, false holy facades, the main vampire trope i use is the act of drinking blood, luring, and living forever, heavy manipulation and toxic behaviors, mentions of reader being alt/goth

SIDE CHARACTERS―  jungwon as your very very best friend who has an installation at the museum (you guys are attached at the hip), jay as the hot bisexual bartender at the goth club, some goth guy named balor 

!WARNINGS! ― dubious consent (due to the act of mind manipulation), hunting and playing victim, a lot of blood: blood sucking, wounds/puncturing, menstruation in a sexual light, manipulation, near-death experiences, fainting, talk of death, acts of mind control/luring 

NOTE ― you must read part one to understand the story. anyway i did not mean to go in so deep with jungwon, i just really fucking adore him please forgive me. anyway, this is briefly edited. if you see a typo, shhhhhh, i don't wanna know.

tags under cut

smut tags [ these tags refer to both parts of the fic] ― big meat sunghoon, biting, A LOT OF BLOOD, sucking and drinking of blood obv, pussy eating (once while reader is menstruating, and another time where she isn’t), deep penetration, rough sex, unprotected sex bc like…he’s dead so lmfao, missionary, scratching, dirty talk, body worship, praise, jungwon is involved in a bit of an erotic situation but there is not smut involving him, 

other tags [ these tags refer to both parts of the fic]― depictions of death, anti-religious language, the act of dying including intense descriptions of the feeling, mentions of pimping and human trafficking, corrupt government, dead nuns, funerals

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

“My love, let me.” 

You sit up only to be eased back onto the soft mattress. Pillows plush against your head as Sunghoon dabs away at each puncture he’s left on you. 

“You know you can’t sit up so quickly, just rest and let me.” 

You’re littered with his bites by now and you only grow more and more enamored with the feeling of it. Or, perhaps you just enjoy the fact that he’s fixated on drinking from you. Multiple times a day, until your fingers and toes are numb, until you can barely stand without dropping to the floor. 

Enamored through all of it, really. With the way he bites so gently only to suck harder and harder until his fingers grip and pierce through your skin much like his teeth do. He’ll hold you so hard through it, forcing arousal to run through you every single time he goes for that artery in your thigh. You think that’s his favorite spot to bite, if the dozens of wounds there are anything to go by. Truly, you’re enamored with him, always wanting to give him more just so he stays with you longer. 

You seem to have lost yourself in the lust of it all. The fantasy, the desire. On the brink of insanity, you know you’ve grown obsessed with what Sunghoon does to you, and it’s to the point that you don’t question yourself like you normally would. Your desire for this is too strong, far too intimidating to doubt. 

But since that night, he always leaves you with blood against his lips. Aroused, frustrated, confused. Never once letting a hand stray too far, never letting his lips trace anywhere but to your wounds or new expanse of skin that needs to be bitten. 

For days now you’ve been here. You lay here one full day since you were supposed to be back at work too, just waiting for the moment Sunghoon will do more than just drink from you. Mostly for a confirmation. It feels like you’re forcing yourself to go missing for this alone and every night you lie awake in this room waiting, wanting more from him now than you think you ever have.

The room you're in now is lonely, though adorned nearly as beautiful as the one you were in the night Sunghoon stole you away. You know the place you want to be is just down the hall, but your legs won’t carry you there no matter how much you try. He’s rendered you bed ridden and you miss it there, with his silk sheets and candle lit walls. 

Then again, maybe it’s not the room at all that you miss. Maybe it’s just Sunghoon.

You can’t help but note that when he’s on you or next to you, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. But when you’re alone, you feel your skin crawl with such immense anxiety that you nearly want to scream out for him to come back. Several times already you have called out for him mere moments after he’s left the room. It gives you hope in knowing that each time, he does return to you even if just for a moment. 

All of it is very arousing when he comes to you, but it’s killing you inside to know that he does nothing more than feed off of you. You get nothing out of it but his presence, and perhaps he expects that to be enough. It’s driving you insane to give everything you have to him so willingly, knowing he hasn’t offered anything back to you. 

The fact that you want this, you want him, and you want to be the only blood he craves? It’s a feeling you’ve had to accept, because trying to deny it at this point would only lead you down a more destructive path. As if the one you’re on now isn’t already killing you, if not physically, emotionally. You want to be the person lying in his bed again so badly. You want to show him that you’re no longer terrified. You want to give him equal arousal and interest. 

But he doesn’t offer it. No, he simply bites. 

“I can do it.” You say to him in a frustrated sigh. “I’m not helpless, you know.” 

He’s taken aback by the way you rip the gauze from his hands, sitting up and scooting away from him when you dip it into the bowl of alcohol. Your head spins at the act, but you push through the weakness anyway, knowing he doesn’t like the distance you’re creating between him and you. 

You don’t like the distance either, but it’s helpful to know he doesn’t ignore it. 

“I’m aware.” Sunghoon narrows his eyes at the way your heart is beating for him right now, taking the gauze back from you and gripping your arm to pull you back and against him. “Why are you being difficult?” 

He cleans a wound just under your jaw as he looks at you, waiting for you to answer him. You stare back as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, not wincing at all like you previously had when he lets the alcohol burn the swollen punctures.

“Hah, so you can’t read minds?” You confirm for yourself, though you had the suspicion that he couldn’t. “You just keep doing this–” You continue, trying not to sound as if you’re nagging. “And nothing else.”

He tilts his head as he moves the gauze to another part of your neck, knowing full well what it is you want. 

“Nothing else?” He repeats in a sly question. “Is there more you want?”

You nod slightly, feeling the cold alcohol send a shiver across your skin, your head finally clearing of the dizziness just from sitting up.

“Name it.” 

Somehow, you lose the ability to ask for what you want. It feels silly to be mad that he hasn’t given you any sexual pleasure despite feeding off of you for days now. Is it insane that sex is all you want in return? Should you ask for financial compensation or something? 

“Ah.” He answers for you with an all-knowing smirk, his nostrils flaring as he inhales your scent. “You want pleasure, yes?”

“Do you not?” You ask simply, and he pulls back with the gauze to look at you dumbfounded. 

For a solid twenty seconds the two of you stare at each other before he’s dropping the gauze into the bowl and pulling you against him in full, turning your body so that your back is to his chest. His strong arms are still cold, but you feel warm enough against him like this.

“It pleases me to know you want it.” He smiles against the top of your head. “Unfortunately, I have other things to tend to.” He continues, pausing to hold you a bit closer. “I still have to feed, love, and I still need to maintain order here. I cannot just spread your legs every waking minute.” 

You’re not asking for him to fuck you every waking minute. It makes you feel as if he’s annoyed to even use such words regarding this. Still, your cheeks warm at his sweet voice. 

“As much as I’d like to.” 

Oh. Your cheeks aren’t just warm, they’re on fire at those words. You’d grasp at anything right now, despite feeling like an afterthought. You don’t like that you’re not a priority to him, even though he fucking feeds on you consistently. To the point you can’t even stand for a full minute without fucking fainting from blood loss. Still, you accept his words and try to think of the positives over the negatives. 

Unfortunately, you’ll never be satisfied with just his words and a mere ten seconds later you’re right back to questioning, doubting, and feeling upset. 

So he can feed this often, but not even slip a finger into you through it? 

Priorities. He has to feed, he said? Does he not already?! 

“Wait, Sunghoon, you do feed.” You argue. “On me.” 

He shakes his head at your ignorance of believing he’ll ever truly have enough of you. Even past death, he’ll never have enough. Which is precisely why you’re still breathing. 

“There are needs I have that you’ve yet to understand. You satiate the hunger, yes, but that is nothing more than a feeling, not a truth.” 

You try to comprehend his words but fall short. Only because that would mean–

“You’re becoming afraid again,” He comments on your heart rate. “Calm yourself, darling, the need within me is no fault of my own and I’ll continue to keep you from seeing the act take place.”

There’s silence from you as you try to calm yourself down. Of course he has to feed, but…is that not what he’s already been doing to you? Your heart isn’t racing from fear, it’s racing from–jealousy.

“So, mine isn’t enough?” You feel your heart shatter a bit when you voice it, knowing full well that for him to be full, he likely has to kill.

Why are you jealous? Well, if you’re so irresistible like he says you are, why does he hold back? Why are you still alive? Does your blood not taste as good as whoever else he’s been having at? Why does he keep you around, but no one else? Maybe they’re the ones who are irresistible, and you’re just a placeholder for if he can’t find his meal for the night. Maybe he’s just using you. 

“Hmm.” Sunghoon thinks hard at your question. “You’re feeling envious?” 

You don’t respond to him or the way he clocks your jealousy, and instead shake his grip off of you before grabbing the gauze yourself again.

He watches you take the material and dip it into the liquid, moving it down your legs and to the assault of wounds against your thigh. 

“You’re truly strange.” He licks his lips at the sight of your thighs, listening closely to the artery you have there, always so hungry for more but knowing he need not drink for the time being. After all, he’s just eaten. “Almost as unnatural as I am.” 

You have to force back a smile at the truth of his words though, softening at the way he compares you to him like the two of you fit together perfectly. The jealousy rages within you, but so does this strange adoration you have for him. 

“To think I don’t crave you? Have I not shown you already?” 

“Hmm, you might need to remind me.” You’re being playful now, trying to get what you want. Entirely thankful for the way he solves every problem you have with him in your head even if just for a moment.

You think you’ll always miss him on a deeper level than just sitting and speaking though.

“When can I leave the room?” You ask now, suddenly. “When can I come back to your room?” 

Sunghoon doesn’t fight his own smile, loving the way you stay of your own free will, even while upset with him for not giving you more than that single night of love making. 

“Not yet, love.” He mutters now, knowing that it’s not likely for you to be able to make it down the hallway without calling for his help, also knowing that he can’t give you what you want again so soon. 

“Oh.” You look at him, face falling. “Let me guess, because you have better shit to do.” 

“Still so envious.” He shakes his head with a laugh. “You’ll learn soon enough how I need you.” 

Just, not yet. 

After all, he drinks you until he has no choice but to stop. Multiple times a day, draining you until it’s near dangerous. The fact that you enjoy it drives him to do it more and more. 

You think it’s easy for him to utilize self-control around you? You think he doesn’t want to experience you in every way you can offer? With those pretty sounds you make? God, he misses the way your body hugged his cock so much. You’re out of your mind to think he’s holding out on you because he doesn’t want it. Because you're not good enough? Stupid, stupid girl. 

He needs it. He wants it. He’s fucking obsessed with what you do to him.

You’re truly not the only one trying to adjust to this situation. He has to be very careful with you, and having sex with you could very well break the resolve he’s forced into himself. A simple touch from you that feels too good could have him acting on a split second decision, drinking until you’re dead and cold, just like him. 

Essentially, he has to train himself to your scent and taste. Sure, he’s been fucking nearly every victim since his cock started working again, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’d rather it be you. In fact, the only reason he’s fucking them is to satiate the need to destroy everything that you are for his own desire of having you. 

The issue is that his drive to kill is insanely high, smelling you just down the hall makes every new victim taste better. It makes his cock fuck harder, it makes their bodies feel almost good enough for him to release. But they’re not you, and it’s rendering him unable to control himself. 

His recent victims? Oh, it ends so gruesomely. He feels overheated in the moment, drenched, fucking feral when he makes his kill. Wishing it was you, ignoring the scent of the person beneath him just to smell you from a different room. 

If he gets his hands on you when he’s in that state of mind again, you’ll be gone forever. That’s something Sunghoon wouldn’t be able to live with. Already he’s controlled himself through it once and that may very well have been the hardest thing he’s done in his life. He can’t promise that he can hold back again.

Until he can feed and fuck without feeling his instinct grab him by the throat, he cannot do more than small feedings with you. That alone is training all on its own, because every single time he feeds, he struggles not to take all of it. 

Bit by bit. Sunghoon has to take you piece by fucking piece. And your willingness to do it, entirely awake and aware, makes it all the more difficult. 

He can’t tell you this. Not yet, at least. You’d know the danger you’re in. Nor can he pretend like he will let you leave out of fear. He needs to keep this peace with you until he can truly enjoy you in a way that will ensure you’ll be alive and well after the fact.

And so, he changes the subject, grabbing you even tighter and hugging you in the way any modern boyfriend would. This. This is something he can handle.

“Are you bored of me carrying you across the room?” He asks. “Do you miss walking on your own two feet that much, if just to make it to my room?” He smiles now, making jokes with you that feel a bit dry when it hits your ears. 

“Are you implying that I’m a slut?” You laugh at his attempt to make you smile, slapping against his cold arm playfully. “That the only reason I want to leave this room is to come into yours and fuck you?” 

He shrugs from behind you, hugging tighter, wanting to be under your skin with that beating heart.

“Am I not right to assume? You little harlot.” 

Well, he got you there. 

And you laugh with him about it, living in your little fantasy world like this never has to end. Reality looms taller than Sunghoon does, unfortunately. 

He can feel your heart rate pick up when your laugh slows down. 

“But, Sunghoon, I can’t stay here for much longer like this.” You drop it on him like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and oh how he wishes you could just disappear with him. “I haven’t been home, my phone is there and I’m sure people have been calling.”

His eyes darken at your words as he pushes you from his grasp. Already you wish to leave? After complaining to him about what he doesn’t give you? Is that why you’re saying this right now? No sex means you’ll leave? 

Serves him right for not using the pull on you. He should have kept hold of your mind rather than relish in your willingness. 

“I’ve missed work already.” Your voice gets smaller as you watch him move from the bed and stand in front of you, the scent of cinnamon assaulting your nose along with his darkened and intimidating facial expression. “I– I’ll–come back. I promise.” You cower immediately.

Sunghoon shakes his head at you. 

“Did I not make myself clear?” He deepens his voice, unsure of how to handle his own internal panic. “Never have I let a commoner leave this cathedral alive and knowing the truth.” 

“Are you–threatening me?” You ask, scooting away from him and accidentally knocking over the bowl of alcohol with your foot. 

“Did you not just say you envy the others? Envy dying by my hand?” He questions you back, looming over you in an intimidating stance. Suddenly much, much taller than reality.  “Every time you’ve said you’d come back, you’ve done no such thing. Have I upset you this much?”

You frantically shake your head. 

“No, no!” You lift your hands in defense, reaching out to his towering figure. “I want to be here with you! You just said yourself that you have things to tend to, so do I! If I don’t show up at work, or at least have my phone, people will have the fucking cops out and looking for me!” 

Sunghoon softens, cinnamon air fading out within a second. He feels only slightly ashamed of his immediate outburst when all you can offer back to him is truth. Perhaps you’re the only one living in the real world, even if he’s been living in it for far, far, longer. 

You’ve pulled him into a fantasy, just like he has for you. He truly let himself forget that you’re no victim that’s meant to die. You can’t just disappear without question, and already it has been days. 

Still, you can’t just leave him. 

“I see.” He says, reaching down to grab at the hands you have clinging to his clothes in an attempt to calm himself more than you. “Shall I retrieve your device for you then?” 

You slowly nod, looking away from him and ignoring the fact that as much as you do want to be here with him, the fact that he just implied that you can never leave is a bit– um, intense. So, you don’t argue when you nod to him. If anything, to keep the peace.

“I’ll see to it that you have it in your hands by tonight. And in time, I’ll invite you back to my quarters.” Ending his sentence with a bribe to keep you here felt fitting, and he’s thankful for the way you accept it. 

You nod quicker now, entirely satisfied with his words when he steps back and away from you. 

“Now, please finish cleaning your wounds. I don’t want to taste infection in you.” 

Despite feeling better about it, wanting him still, those words hurt you. You feel insulted by the time he leaves you alone in the room. Like if you got an infection he’d simply lose interest in you, or perhaps end this love of your blood he has. 

He may even just go ahead and kill you if that were to happen.

It drives you to clean yourself twice over. Three times over. Unwilling to lose the feeling of someone biting you so gently, unwilling to die because your use to him has run out. And it feels like you clean yourself all day. To the point you’re probably making yourself more susceptible to infection rather than protecting yourself from it. 

And in this room, time doesn’t exist. There’s a window indicating where the sun is in the sky, but hours and minutes are meaningless. Only when the sun is up do you start counting, knowing that Sunghoon will only visit you during nightfall. 

You clean yourself for what you assume to be hours upon hours, all the way up until the sun falls and you hear the door creak open. You expect to see Sunghoon coming in for his routine of drinking from you, but instead, you find a pale-eyed nun rush to you with your phone and immediately leave after. 

A quick presence is gone within a moment, but you pay no mind as you look down at your phone. You’re thankful for the fact that it’s probably been on the charger all four days you’ve been gone. Considering, well, there’s no electricity this high up in the cathedral, you’ll have to save your battery as best as you can. 

So many missed calls. 

Even more missed texts. 

Dozens of emails. 

Jungwon.

In the morning after you left your apartment, he checked in with you. All throughout the day too. It wasn’t until that same night where his texts became frantic. A little, “i’m coming over, fuck you if you get mad at me for it.” followed by “are you mad at me? why won’t you respond?” 

You couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

Really though, it hurts your heart to have forgotten about him entirely during your time here. Reading through his texts, you see him fight with himself over your absence. Up until yesterday, where he texts you from the museum. 

A glaring “stopped by again today only to realize your apartment was unlocked this whole time. i’m with your boss now, we are calling the cops if you don’t respond within the next ten seconds.” 

A full day late, you respond quickly. 

You: wonnie!!! i’m sorry! I got sad and went home to see my mom. totally ignored my phone…and forgot to lock the door i guess

You: you know, hormones lol 

Immediate spam. Your phone vibrates aggressively back to back with his frantic texts. 

Wonnie: you have to be fucking JOKING

Wonnie: NOT A SINGLE WORD FROM YOU. YOU COULD HAVE CALLED WORK OR

SOMETHING FROM SOMEONE ELSE’S PHONE. I WAS AT YOUR PLACE EVERY DAY.

Wonnie: i CANNOT believe you!!!!!!!!!!!

Wonnie: your whole ass apartment was unlocked and you weren’t there! anyone could’ve walked right in!!!!! are you stupid or something? 

Wonnie: are you home now?

Wonnie: i’m so mad at you FUCK

Wonnie: i got so scared

Wonnie: im coming over

You panic. 

You: wait, i’m not home yet. I didn’t mean to stay so long, I promise ill be home soon and fill you in on everything. 

Wonnie: call your boss. 

Wonnie: ill deal with the cops, then im gonna be waiting outside of your apartment

Wonnie: don’t ever fucking do that shit again, been crying all morning

Wonnie: i hate you so much right now, im never talking to you again

Wonnie: get your stupid ass back home 

You smile fondly at his worry, but the smile is short lived as you know you probably can’t leave here. Not only from the fact that Sunghoon appears to be unwilling to let you leave but you…don’t want to.

Still, you do need to call your boss, and you make quick work of it. Sitting dissociated through the mindless scolding of your terrible lie of an excuse, and then the following call from the local police department. 

Arguably, speaking to the police was easier than knowing you’ll have to lie to Jungwon again. At least the police are aware that you’re a grown woman who can disappear if she wishes. Jungwon, on the other hand, requires a little more care and consideration. 

You’re tired by the time you lay your phone down, unable to keep your eyes open as you drift off. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Some time later, you wake to the same familiar scent of Sunghoon wafting from under your door. It doesn’t process yet in your brain that you’ve not smelled it since the night you wandered from your apartment. But now? Oh, it’s strong. 

It’s very, very strong. 

Your drowsy eyes look to the door as your legs carry you there, and out you go. Down the hallway, straight to those big doors, straight through those big doors.

The scent burns in your throat the moment you step inside, blurry eyes witnessing two figures right there on the floor. The only clear thing you can make out are his darkened narrowed eyes, only because your brain refuses to process the act taking place in front of you at first.

He looks…rabid. Hair is a mess, sticky and dripping with thick metallic liquid. 

Oh, it sounds so loud. The squelching and the smacking of skin. Your stomach drops, the pit inside of it flourishing with nothing short of rotted desire. 

Right there on the floor of his room lies a woman seemingly experiencing god. Sunghoon is moaning with his eye trained on your shocked figure. He ignores the woman’s aroused grasps against his arms to keep his eyes trained on you. And he just…smirks through it, licking his lips, rolling his eyes back only for them to fall right back to you.

The squelching rings in your ears as he moves faster, feverishly chasing a hunt he’s already got lying beneath him. Almost as if catching him in the act aroused him more than he already had been. Like he’s showing you how much more he’d prefer someone else over you. 

He moans your name inwardly again and again, as if to call you forward to him but your feet can no longer move as you process the act with each call of your name. 

He’s fucking her. He’s devouring her. 

Not you. Her. 

You can feel your heart shrivel at the act when you stumble back, a twisting pain in your chest that you feel silly over. You barely know Sunghoon, but somehow it feels like he’s given you more of himself than he has anyone else. He speaks that way to you, anyway. Always with the words of “I’ve never done this, until you.” 

That was a lie. You’re seeing it now with your own two eyes and you’re paying for believing that you, somehow, could be special. And the pain in your chest travels all throughout your body at the fact that you let this man bite you. You let him take and take until you could barely stand, until you could barely think, until you were right on the cusp of death. 

And you still want to do that for him. But now? He’s grown bored of you. Perhaps he intends to let this woman live too. Perhaps she’s silly enough to fall for a sweet vampire’s words too.

You stumble back more, forcing your legs to work with you rather than against you. It’s like your body has a mind of its own when he smells so welcoming. Cinnamon, spicy, sweet, painful cinnamon. Such a suffocating smell, easy to give in to and grow weak for. At least for you, that’s how it feels. 

When you force yourself to turn around, only to continue stumbling down the hallway, your eyes work against you now too. You knew it would happen though and it’s not something you can stop. The burn and blur of tears prickling at the corners, your throat scratchy and sore. 

You try to hold it in, feeling as if life is being suffocated out of you all the way down. Down, down, down. Past the nuns, past the beautiful and intricate interior, and straight out of the big front doors of the cathedral. 

No goodbyes. 

The breezy night air smacks you hard, forcing a sobbed breath out of you. You dry heave for a moment, squeezing your eyes shut so tight just to try and regain control of yourself and your emotions. The images behind your eyes flash back and forth. You’ve not just witnessed death, but the pleasure of death. Well, if he kills the woman, anyway. 

And you still can’t fathom it. The way you feel, the way you’re reacting, the intense desire for death if it means Sunghoon wants you that badly. Never would you have guessed that a feeling so deeply terrifying exists. But it does, you’re witnessing it overtake the deepest parts of you right now. 

Fuck, you didn’t want to leave but you did. And now here you are, freed from a grasp that you still want so badly. 

Your lungs burn and your chest hurts more than the swollen puncture wounds all over your body. Everything is burning. It’s too, too, hot inside of your skin right now and there’s nothing more you’d rather do than to crawl out of it and freeze. 

Still, you do your best to control the emotions within you. You take a short look around only to feel the head rush hit you now like it should have when you stood from your bed. Right, the blood in your body likely isn’t enough to keep you upright for long and you know you’ll likely not make it to your apartment in this state. 

But you try. Your eyes are out of focus and your legs are clumsy as you try to walk. Down the sidewalk you go, until–

“Woah, little lady.” 

You hear Balor’s voice echo in your ears. The sound of safety feeling so, so far away. 

You can’t even thank him for it because your vision blurs more at the feeling of big, leather clad arms holding you upright, and then– you’re out.

You’re not sure how much time has passed by the time you’re able to hold your eyes open again, but when you do, Jungwon is here and so is that hot bartender you forgot existed. And as you try to comprehend where you are, you learn very quickly that you’re in the back room of the club with concerned eyes focused on..not your face, your body.

“Let’s get you home.” Jungwon’s concerned voice settles in your ears, and only now do you feel his warm hands soothing you against your shoulders. 

“Or maybe a hospital?” Jay offers, also inspecting your skin and the weak state of your body as you try to sit up. 

“No, no. I’m okay, really.” You say, immediately starting to cry out. “Please, just take me home.” 

And so, home is where you go. Jay drives both you and Jungwon there with a kind voice and worried eyes. You see him make the attempt to hug you before leaving, but Jungwon is quick to stop him with a small shake of his head. 

“Let me know when you’re feeling better.” Is all Jay says when he leaves, which, you’re sure he didn’t intend to leave but of course, Jungwon. You can see that he wants to be the one here with you and he insisted to Jay that he’s got you. 

It heals your heart a little bit, but doesn’t change the fact that you’re embarrassed for not only Jungwon to be pulled into your mess, but Jay too? 

You’re humiliated. 

And by the time Jungwon has undressed and redressed you, ignoring the intense smell of alcohol against your skin for now, he’s immediately lying next to you, clinging to you really. 

 You’re aware of what he saw when he removed your clothes. You heard the breath he took in, you saw his confusion at how the clothes you had on were very much not from your closet. He’s going to ask, and you knew he would.

“You’re really cold.” He says in a cracked voice, gentle and sweet as he tries to warm you up. “You weren’t with your mom, were you?” 

You weakly shake your head. 

“You were with that guy you told me about before.” He says now, grabbing you tighter pretending he doesn’t know just how many wounds you have under your clothes. He can’t help but hold you tighter, even if it hurts you.

“What did he do to you?” 

Your throat starts to burn as you cry again. You can barely process what’s happened yourself and explaining it to someone else only feels that much harder. 

The pulsing in your head is too much, you can’t even think straight right now. 

“It was–” You try to calm down, breathing in deep but avoiding eye contact. “It was consensual, don’t worry.” 

Jungwon’s eyes narrow, staring at the deep bite marks on your neck. He’s quick to lift himself up, ripping your shirt up and off of you without so much as trying to be gentle. His panic is blatant and he’s entirely unable to hide how pissed off he is right now.

“No, it wasn't.” He dead-pans as he presents your own body to you, his voice coming out harsher than usual. “You’d be out of your fucking mind to think i believe that this was consensual.” 

He glares at the swollen marks, unsure as to what to do with himself. 

“Fuck,” He scoffs your name along with the curse, throwing his hands up. “Fucking look at them.”

You turn away from him now, wrapping your arms around yourself protectively in an attempt to not peer at what you wish you could have more of. You know what this looks like though, and you’re really trying to see things from his perspective. 

But…It’s hard after everything you’ve witnessed yourself. 

‘It was.” You say again. “I practically begged him to keep doing it.” 

Jungwon falls silent as he counts. 1, 2, 3, 13, 25, 56, 72, still more.

“I wasn’t going to come home, you know.” You sigh out at the silence of his counting. 

More silence. 

“Was gonna stay and never leave.” 

“What? Why?” He panics more at the admittance, dropping down over you and forcing your arms from yourself, trying to pretend he didn’t re-open some of your wounds by tearing your shirt off of you. 

You can hear your best friend crying at the way you hide from him, all bloodied and bruised, but you keep your eyes closed even tighter. All he can do is lend you the entire weight of his body, enveloping you in all of his warmth and care, using his entire body to shield you from even the air in your room. 

“What did he do?” Jungwon pleads for an answer with a cracked whisper. He needs context. Anything to explain the state of you right now.

“You wouldn’t understand.” 

“What did he do?” He presses again, voice only cracking more as he cries along with you. 

“It’s more so what he didn’t do.” 

Silence again. 

“What did he fucking do?” 

You take in a deep breath, sighing out against your best friend’s fluffy hair, humming at his warmth and how much you’ve missed it. 

There’s nothing you can say to make him understand, all you can do is try because hearing him like this is, arguably, just making it more painful.

“I just really liked him, and I guess he didn’t like me so much in the end.” 

Jungwon chooses to take that at face value, opting to not let you out of his sight from this moment forward if he can help it. At one point with you, he was worried about being too clingy. Truly, he was afraid he would annoy you by attaching himself. Never has he grown so close to a person so fast and never has he gained such comfort within someone else’s bubble like he does with you. The comfort is still there, but no longer does he give a single fuck about clinging too much. You clearly cling too.

If you cling enough to let a man abuse your body like that, you’ll be able to handle him clinging just as much, enough to care for you, and enough to not fucking leave your side. He’s not going anywhere, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

After all, he’s not stupid, but he’s willing to act as dumb as you need him to if it means you’ll let him keep you within arms reach. In his head, there’s no way you fell into something with someone who could do this to you without reason, and it appears it’s not a question he’ll get a clear answer from you any time soon. 

It doesn’t matter if his installation will come to an end at some point. He can’t just leave you here when there’s some strange man running around biting the fuck out of people like a rabid dog. Abusing his best friend? No. He won’t have it and he doesn’t care if he has to force you to accept his protection.

He can’t do much for you, but he’s willing to at least be here with you. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Jungwon soothes you, clinging tighter just to feel some of those reopened wounds bleed onto him. His voice is a stark reminder that there’s more to feel in your body than just pain. “I won’t let him near you again, okay?”

You nod, still crying as you cling back, trying to ignore the images in your head of Sunghoon. 

“Okay.” You lie, missing him too much already, the faint scent of cinnamon still in your nose. 

And you fall asleep like that. Warm. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

You hate calling it an “escape.” You carried yourself out of that beautiful cathedral against your body begging you to stay. Still, even now with Jungwon clinging so warmly at night, you wish you had never left. 

Even the pain of seeing what Sunghoon does behind your back, the jealousy that came with it, you would have stayed if only to prove your worth to him. Being so close to death is exhilarating, and you find yourself feeling entirely empty and void of any emotion that brings joy because of it. 

This isn’t depression, nor is it simple envy. This sadness within you sinks lower than you thought possible, so deeply rooted within you that you feel death itself couldn’t even allow a safe escape. After all, if vampires are real, who's to say you won't end up as a tormented ghost forever searching for a man who can never die?

Damned if you live, damned if you die, so to say. You can’t have Sunghoon either way, you can only have him while suffering. 

And oh, how you miss the cold. You miss his cold. You miss the fear too. You miss the way he’d laugh with no breath against you and drink from your thighs like he needed more. You miss the way your wounds would pulse in pain and lend little reminders of the teeth that pierced them. Even now, they’re healing so well.

And it still hurts.

It hurts to know he said, while holding you, that he craves you. That he very much wants you but has things to tend to. The fact that he needed to tend to fucking other women while drenched in their blood? Things to tend to. 

Because to Sunghoon, real life women, breathing women, are minimized to things to tend to.

Fucking vampires. 

It’s been a week now since you left and it hasn’t gotten easier. During the week, Jungwon hasn’t so much as let you shower without the bathroom door open. You guess that’s fair. 

Still, it has only been a week. A week of everything moving fast, a week of Jungwon, a week of slow and dreadful acceptance, and a week of smelling nothing but faint, ever so slight, cinnamon. 

By now you know it’s him. Like he’s truly dug his claws into you and doesn’t intend to let you forget all that he took from you. Always that fucking smell, from the first night you met him until now. Yet he is nowhere to be seen, even when you stare at the cathedral after the sun goes down. 

No one has left. No one has gone inside. 

Part of you even found yourself worrying if he’s eaten. Hah. Funny.

Still, you’re forced to live in reality now. Nothing but healing wounds, meaningful days, and reminders that you let yourself fall as quickly and painfully as possible. 

You’re entirely dissociated, as if you’re gliding rather than walking, as if each day passes in a second rather than a twenty four hour time span, as if you’re truly empty now and not filled with the blood you thought meant so much. 

Somehow, you find comfort in the emptiness though. Jungwon fills the space as best he can too. He always accepts your rejections of going to update Jay at the club just to sit between your legs on the living room floor and try to make you laugh through silly faces riddled with concern.

You assume he’s in contact with Jay anyway, letting him know that you’re not quite dead yet. 

The days blur together now, up until two weeks pass, three weeks, four, five weeks.

Thankfully, by the fifth week, it’s gotten easier. Each day you just have to remind yourself that you can never forget Jungwon again like you did before. He’s the one who helped you through this, and to think you’d ever make him go through this again is insane. In fact, he’s the reason you finally feel good inside again. 

He’s like medicine, which is cringe and lame as fuck to say but it’s true. Internally, he’s made you feel better. Yet, right beside all those happy warm feelings lies everything else. Distress, sadness, anxiety. 

They still seep out of you too. Every night, really, after the daytime wears off and Jungwon runs out of things to distract you with.

“Why do you have to look at me like that?” Jungwon says sweetly, sprawled out on your bed in his pajamas as he watches you pace around your room. “I swear, it’s like everything I say to you goes through one ear and out the other.” 

You pause in your step, sad eyes reaching his face. 

“I already told you I’m not going home.” He repeats himself for what feels like the thousandth time to you. “I’m still getting paid, I have enough to last me if you let me stay here before finding work.”

After all, it’s not like Jungwon has anything to go back home to. Save for an annoying sister who probably wanted him to move the fuck out of her space anyway. He’s the last person on this earth to be afraid to up and move out with a near stranger.

You’re not so much a stranger to him though, and the need to be by your side far outweighs anything else right now. 

“Yeah, but, eventually.”

Never have you been one to worry about fleeting time. Never until you met that dead motherfucker. You worry about not what is happening, but what will happen. The inevitable. You no longer welcome it. 

It’s not death that brings the anxiety though, it’s just…the clock. 

With the ticking, the tocking, and the changing of seasons. Everything lasts both too long and not long enough. At this moment, the fear is Jungwon leaving at some point in your life. For any reason at all, really. 

He’s been by your side since you found your way back to him. A nuisance at times, yes, but you’re attached. To an unhealthy degree, you are fucking attached to him at the hip. He’s your only grounding force on this earth and you think he’s picking up on it. 

To the point he’s offered to drop his entire life an hour away just to stay for you. 

Yes, Jungwon recognizes how toxic and unhealthy the friendship has become, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t just leave, nor does he want to. Even if he’s the one who leaves to get your mail, he’s the one who cooks, and he’s the one who holds you close at night, reminding you that time doesn’t have to mean a damn thing if you try hard enough to forget about the man who doesn’t experience it at all.

There’s no way you can get through a single day without him right now, and the thought of having to do it in the future scares you. 

You know it’s pathetic. You know you have no right to keep him in a box next to you as a comfort, you know he’s still got a life to live and romance to find. But…you hate it. 

“Eventually what?” He quirks a brow at you, having been concerned for you and the shift in your entire personality yet again tonight. You’ve changed for the worse, and it terrifies him to see you act so gone. 

“You’re gonna leave me here alone.” Your voice is small, cracking when you say it only because you hear the words ring in your ears. 

A pathetic whine, as if you’re speaking to someone else and not Jungwon. You’re not you anymore. No, you’ve become obsessed with the looping memories and feelings that took a mere four days to fall in love with. 

Addicted to emptiness but begging for Jungwon to forever be the crutch you stand on. 

You’re selfish and you have no fucking right to do this to him.

“Hey…” He rolls out of bed and steps up to you, easily putting a soothing hand against your shoulder. “Do you want me to stay?”

You nod. Knowing this same situation happens nearly every night. You panic, he soothes. You beg, he reminds you that he’s the one who offered in the first place. You ask him to stay, he confirms by asking you to let him.

And to him, he knows this is anything but a romantic partnership. You very much need someone here who is willing to play dumb but remain hyper aware. He wants to be this person for you because of his own selfish reasons too. 

It’s not all for you.

For one, he wants the girl back that he met last month. Secondly, he wants to see you learn and grow, because he knows you have a long and beautiful life ahead of you (and he better be fucking part of it.) And lastly, he’s never felt needed like this and there’s something in him that craves to be important too. 

It’s not too difficult for Jungwon to find people that’s important to him. Really, it never takes much. Perhaps someone held the door open for him, he’d probably jump in front of a bus for that person not two seconds later. But to feel just as important to someone else? 

He needs to be here with you. As toxic as it may seem to outsiders, Jungwon sees nothing wrong with being the person you need simply because you’re the person he needs too. 

“Then stop saying stupid shit.” He mopes now as he pulls you back to your bed and holds you much like he always does, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re always okay at work, but I swear the second we come home you’re falling apart.”

You freeze, falling apart instantly. 

“I wish you’d tell me what happened.” He says now, jumping into the typical routine of calming and soothing you. “I don’t know what to do when you get like this.”

You wish you would tell him too. 

But if he knew, that hope of ever seeing Sunghoon again would crumble. Already, Jungwon swears to you that he will never let this happen to you again. But you want it to, so, so badly. 

Even if you’re taking advantage of his care by letting him treat you like a child who can’t escape a tantrum, he really flipped his whole life because you chose to live in a crisis. 

You chose to do this to yourself and to Jungwon. 

Finally, you look up at him with your fingers gripping him.

“I ask so much from you.” You sniffle when you say it, immediately calming yourself and feeling like a fucking idiot for doing this. “I feel like I’m going insane.” 

He nods.

“You kind of are.” He confirms for you. “And you have to talk about it eventually, it’s just going to keep hurting if you don’t.”

He’s right. He’s always right. 

And like always, every single time you imagine how you’ll tell him, nothing in your brain can form a sentence. But you do try and by now, accustomed to your pain, you feel like something needs to be said before he grows tired of you too. 

“I don’t know why, but I wanted him to kill me so badly.” 

Saying it out loud doesn’t feel as good as you wanted it to, not with the way Jungwon’s face immediately contorts into panic.

“Wha-”

“But he wouldn’t do it.” You shake your head, refusing eye contact. “He’d do it to everyone else, but not to me.” 

“Wait, what?”

Maybe choosing to say that of all things was a mistake. After all, you did appear stumbling down the street near death already. Jungwon isn’t going to take what you’re saying lightly and you were stupid to believe otherwise.

“Have you ever smelled cinnamon?” You continue, trying to skew the conversation from his panic.

Jungwon is flipping his shit trying to make sense of your words. You wanted this guy to kill you? Well, he damn near fucking did and even now, while he’s not around, you’re practically dead already in terms of everything but breathing. And what the fuck do you mean he’d do it to everyone else?! 

Are you referring to an emotional death? Trying to make this shit sound poetic? Or did you really want to die? 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jungwon’s voice is stern but shaky. “Kill you how?” 

You shake your head.

“I don’t know.” You offer, knowing you’re just making it worse. “I wanted him to want me that badly.”

Jungwon drops his arms from you to pull back, dead-pan staring at you because he doesn’t know what to do or say to that. He forces himself to think of the reality of the situation. You’re just being poetic. You’re just being dramatic. 

He’s the same way when someone hurts him too, but still. Using such heavy words scares him, and he can’t just sit here and tell you it’ll be okay anymore. 

“But he doesn't.” Jungwon musters up the courage to say it, knowing you’re going to cry. “This weirdo literally tried to eat you alive, and he still doesn’t want you.” 

And you do cry again. 

“And now, you’re letting him kill you anyway?” Jungwon scoffs. “You’re begging me to stay here with you, just so I can watch you not even make an attempt to fucking get over it?” 

You know he’s telling you what you need to hear, doesn’t change the fact that you don’t want to hear it. The only thing you want to hear is Sunghoon and his lying words, telling you that Jungwon is full of shit. 

The worst part about it is that, it’s not even that you’re suicidal. You’re not. You like being alive. You’re just…you don’t know. You don’t fucking know why you wanted and still want Sunghoon to kill you.

Perhaps it’s because it would mean he needs you that much.

But he doesn’t need you, you’re not irresistible. 

And that hurts you. That man fucking slithered into your heart and made a nest there. You can’t get him out no matter how much you try. 

“He broke up with you. You were together for like, what? A few days?” Jungwon minimizes the situation unintentionally, panicking at the way a person he’s grown so close to has managed to be utterly fucking ripped apart by a singular man. “He broke up with you. That’s it. It’s time to stand up and move on, there’s better people out there that–”

“No.” You shake your head. “I broke up with him, I guess, if you can call it that.” 

Jungwon softens, tilting his head. Now he’s getting somewhere. 

“Why, then? Why did you break up with him when you didn’t want to?” Still, Jungwon is glad you chose to. Clearly you’re not as absent minded as you pretend to be. Seeing how littered your body was with pain, you knew you needed to leave, right? You weren’t really just going to let this guy wither you away, right?

“He was with someone else.” 

Jungwon shakes his head in pity. 

“What a scumbag. A total freak.” 

“But like, he needed to do it, I guess.” You try to explain without truly explaining. “I got mad and left because he was doing something he needed to do with someone that wasn’t me.” 

“He needed to cheat on you? Are you hearing yourself?” Jungwon questions, throwing his arms up. “He’s a nympho, babe, he probably manipulated the fuck out of you to make you think this way.”

And at that, you give up on talking about it. You feel too tired to continue. 

“I guess so.” You whisper out with a shrug, sniffling up the tears.

“He doesn’t deserve you. You can’t just…die for people.” Jungwon says, realizing that even he doesn’t follow his own advice. He’d probably die for you himself, but not because he craves it.

He’ll never understand why you wanted this man to “kill” you. In whatever way you meant, no one is worth owning that much of you. 

Jungwon hums though, knowing you’re tired now. He isn’t exactly being as soothing as he’d like to be right now but never has he seen a person act like this over a break up. Cheating hurts, of course, but you barely knew this guy. There’s no way there isn’t something else going on for you to say such insane fucking things. 

“You must’ve lost your damn mind to let someone do that to you.” Jungwon says against your hair, his soft voice not matching his words in the slightest. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“Me either.” You admit, feeling the insanity bubbling in your stomach and hating it. 

Still, the scent of cinnamon. 

“Do you smell it though?” You ask now, voice even weaker. 

Jungwon inhales deeply, releasing his breath with all of the frustration in his gut.

You feel it fan across your cheek warmly, minty, and you smile. 

“Cinnamon?” He asks, remembering your question from before. “Yeah, sometimes I can smell it.” 

You smile bigger now. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Another two weeks pass, only this time you are coming back to yourself. Which is strange, really. You were beginning to think you’d never feel like a person again after the first month passed. Then, within another few weeks you’re almost entirely back to yourself. 

You’re still a bit dissociated, which is likely due to the trauma of what you experienced and put yourself through but thankfully, the ticking-time spans you grew to hate forces itself now to be your new form of comfort. With each passing second, hour, day, and week, you’re slowly able to not forget, but accept and move on. 

Still, you know it’s going to fuck you up for years to come. You’ll always have the feeling of emptiness deep inside no matter how much the space shrinks. You have no choice now but to try and fill your life and time with things and people who matter to you. At least this way, you know that you matter too. 

And with this time spent away and healing, the scent has faded too. You can even go to work now without holding your breath or your eyes being forced to look at the source of the smell. In fact, you avoid taking even a glimpse of the looming cathedral. You don’t keep cinnamon in your apartment now either. You don’t take it with any of your beverages or food items, and you certainly shouldn’t be smelling it in the air anymore. 

Sometimes it’s still there though, turning your stomach in a way that’s both needy and sick. You still miss him and the feeling of ice, but you know better now. Why give up the ability to breathe without your throat burning? Why give up being a person that Jungwon actually wants to be around now? 

After all, you’ve started feeling so much better to the point that even he feels okay leaving you alone from time to time. Showers are back to being private, you can check your own mail, and a few times you were even able to go to work without him trying to force his way inside like his installation was still sitting on display. 

Which, it isn’t, by the way. Your boss had his name and face blacklisted, but still on most days he waltzed in like he owned the place. Every single time buckling the knees of your boss, every single time being allowed to stay. 

Thankfully, push came to shove and he landed himself a job there with you, his employment became official just today, actually. And as professional as the place was for you when you approached with your resume, it’s definitely not professional at all. They did pay Jungwon under the table several times just for doing shit you were supposed to be doing. 

The point is, even if Jungwon wasn’t able to make the effort to keep good on his word regarding moving into your apartment to stay beside you, he still likely would have pushed to at least work with you. 

Thankfully, he gets to do both those things. 

And despite the fact that he feels okay leaving you alone from time to time, there’s still an immense amount of anxiety about being away from you for too long. He knows that in time, it’ll pass and the two of you can live both near each other and apart, but for now? Might as well call him your husband because there’s no way in hell he’s gonna be doing his own thing without you. 

That leads to now. The same day Jungwon secured his employment, the same day you made it through without a single breakdown, the same night Jungwon needs to actually go back home to move his shit into this apartment with you.

“Come with me.” Jungwon comments, but you know it’s more of a demand. “You can meet my sister, just ignore if she makes jokes about us dating or something.”

You laugh. Genuinely, you laugh.

“Jokes? We both know you’re in love with me Jungwon. I’m just waiting for the ring at this point.” 

He laughs with a shrug, knowing he probably would marry you at this point, if just to protect you from all the people who wouldn’t care for you as much as he does. 

“Really though, come with me?” He asks again. “I’m still a little worried about leaving you here.”

“You’ll be back in the morning,” You start, trying to calm him down. You genuinely do feel okay right now. “I’ll just be sleeping the whole time, I'm tired anyway.”

Jungwon nods fondly, aware that it’s only practical that he make the move during the night hours. After all, his sister won’t be home otherwise and he does miss her. It’s true that you’ll probably just go to bed and he’ll be back before you even wake up tomorrow.

Still.

“You could just sleep in my old ro–”

“Wonnie.” You walk up to him and grab his face with both hands. “I’m fine.” 

He smiles at you, always loving the way you do your best to reassure him even through your worst breakdowns. You’re not breaking down right now though, and he can’t help but believe every word you say when you’re looking at him like this. 

“I swear to god if I come home and you so much as have a single bite mark on you, I’m burning this fucking city to the ground.” 

You roll your eyes, the memory stinging only a little bit. By now though, you’ve almost entirely forgotten how it felt in the first place. 

In fact, you’re shocked by the way you acted after leaving. So outside of yourself. Truly, you think you were going insane and Jungwon was right to confirm that for you. You’re lucky you had him here with you, because you likely would have ran right back into that fucking cathedral and–

Yeah. You would have done something dramatic. 

You didn’t though. And sure, you now know vampires exist or whatever but Sunghoon has not bothered you even once since you left. You hope he’s simply moved on so that your resolve doesn’t break. Jungwon worked so hard to make you feel better, and you worked just as hard. You can’t just feel bad that you don’t remember what Sunghoon’s fangs felt like against your skin.

If anything, you hope Sunghoon is freaked out by you leaving and knowing his secret. Maybe he thinks that if he tries to approach you again, you’ll tell everyone about what he is and what he did. Not that it would end with him in jail or anything. You’d probably end up in an asylum, actually, but still. 

And to Jungwon’s threats of arson, you simply pinch his cheek, being sure to sit your thumb right in his dimple. 

“Strictly no vampire kinks.” You smile at him, crossing both of your arms in front of yourself to create an X. 

“Good.” Jungwon nods back as he puts on his shoes and heads for the door. “Call me if you need anything, I’ll keep my volume turned up. You’ve got Jay’s number too, he can be here quickly if it’s an emergency.”

He feels content knowing that you’re about to be stuck with him for as long as he can manage. It’s just one short trip back home. A mere six or seven hours spent away while he packs the shit his sister probably “forgot” to box up for him, loading up the rented van, and then unloading it here. 

It’s just a short trip. You’ll be sleeping through it anyway. 

And when he’s gone, you feel tired. Keeping good on your promise of going to bed almost immediately. The feeling of being alone for the night is a bit uncomfortable, so sleep comes easy as a means to escape the inevitable over-thinking you’d probably do otherwise. 

No overthinking. 

It’s just a short trip. 

Jungwon will be back before you wake up. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Ah, to think it’s over. 

To think he’d leave you be? To think he wouldn’t be looming around every corner watching, waiting? If it weren’t for Jungwon, these weeks wouldn’t have passed so easily for you, that much is certain.

As if they were easy for you to get through at all. Jungwon, the very person who got you through it, was the reason he stayed away, the reason you were able to heal. 

Jungwon was the ward.

Was. 

Deep in your sleep it’s like your body knows. The same scent fills your nose just seconds after your sleep brain feels the goosebumps spread across your skin. Instantly, you wake up and back to insanity you go

You truly wake up. 

Your legs aren’t being carried by any force other than you own, and your mind is crisp and clear in your thoughts as you jump out of bed. 

Not walking, running to your apartment door. You swing open the door and don’t even look at him before slamming your entire weight against his chest and clinging like a lost child. You can feel the familiar cold fear filling your body, knowing that if he truly wanted to, he could kill you right now. 

All of the progress you made burns away within seconds. You’ve never felt so elated to ruin your own life. 

Even when he pushes you away, nothing at this moment could make you let him go. He’s here, he’s standing right there. Your fingers grip as he pushes you back in silence, stretching his garment out far beyond the bounds of which it was sewn to withstand. It rips, and still he shoves you further back from him all while stalking forward. 

Walking you back into your apartment, just to let the door slam behind him as he stands with a narrowed gaze fixated on you. 

You glance up at him only for a moment, loving the crazed look in his eye. Adoring that he must have missed you to appear so full of life like this. You can only compare his eyes now to the same eyes you saw when you ran away from him. 

As if they were burning on you. Or perhaps, for you? 

He’s dangerous, your body feels it instantly and all you can do is lean into it.

“That’s all it took for you to leave me?” Sunghoon bellows out in a spiteful voice, the sound sending pleasant shivers down your spine. “Had your blood boiling over some minx? I told you I didn’t want you witnessing it.” 

You soak in his voice like it’s your last supper, missing it so badly, adoring it even more. He speaks as if weeks haven’t passed, as if it’s a mere hour after you ran from him. You move forward to cling again, unable to think of words to say and opting to show how much you regret leaving through your actions.

Still, he pushes you away from him. A bit harder this time, to the point you almost topple over onto your back. You keep your balance only because it feels like you’re fucking floating just looking at him right now.

“I tried to pull you back to me, why did you fight it so hard?” He continues to fuss, as if he’s been thinking over and over again about all the words he wants to spit at you. Like he’s punishing you, and yet still struggling himself not to cling back. “Never has your aroma been so empty, so faint.”

You’re in shock but your body yearns for him, thankful to go back to square one. Like you’re special. Like you meant something enough to him that he’s here looking like he may give you what you’ve wanted all along. 

“Countless women. Countless men. Never you, and now you manage to hide from me?” His hand shoots to your neck, pushing you back further into your apartment. “How?” He grips dangerously tight as he continues to spew his breathless words. “You masked yourself with that– that floral boy, didn’t you?” 

You listen to his spiteful words like your favorite song, falling into each vibration of his vowels and consonants. Never has he spoken so much, and never have you heard his voice waver the way it is now. You can’t help but follow his movements with a smile on your face, swallowing through this tight grip on your throat. 

“You cannot fathom how hard it was to stop. Do you understand how much I want to fuck every last drop out of you? You should be thanking me.”

Oh, you’re so proud. So, so, fucking proud. The glee runs through you at his needy words, even if you know better. He’ll always feed on people who aren’t you, and he’ll always probably fuck them too. 

But does he show up at their house? Does he grow frustrated with them like this too? 

“Did you kill her when you were done?” You ask out through his choking hand, so confident that it makes him freeze on the spot.

He’s genuinely shocked that you’re not scared. You’re not intimidated. You don’t feel bad. No, you feel proud of being hunted. Like you take enjoyment out of his suffering, much like he does for you. 

On his part, it’s not intentional. You have to suffer to be next to him. 

Never has a person made him suffer too though. Fucking never would he have allowed it. God, he’s infatuated with you, utterly obsessed.

“Of course I killed her.” Sunghoon admits with his brow rising up, feeding into your ecstatic reaction of his death grip on you, only gripping tighter now. “Does that please you?” 

You’ve never been happier. 

And he moans out at the way you shyly nod, seemingly experiencing euphoria at his admittance of murder. Oh, if only you knew how good you smelled that night. Blood pumping for him, blood boiling in emotion for him. The woman didn’t last more than a minute after you left him. He couldn’t resist at that point. 

Seeing you, smelling you, fucking someone who he wished could have been you. 

He’s not prepared at all for this, for you. So willing, wanting what he’s trying to avoid doing to you.

That’s why he’s here though. Unprepared, but unable to resist any longer. He has pulled and pulled, every single day trying to lure you back to him against your will. He thought he was going to have to take you tonight against your wishes. 

But your eyes are sparkling for him. 

“No one’s heart has ever beat quite like yours when looking at me.” Sunghoon whispers now, falling and spiraling into this moment with you, losing his composure entirely. “So loud, each pump fucking gushes.”

“And I'll chase it every time.” He continues to ramble in a way that sounds like he’s in physical pain, like the amount of time you’ve stayed away from him genuinely hurts him. 

You still can’t respond though, your words are caught up in your throat right where his hand squeezes and you couldn’t even if you wanted to. He knows it too, and he didn’t intend to let you answer anyway because genuinely, he’s fucking losing himself. 

His hungry lips chase forward near instant after saying those words to you, not biting, just kissing. Tasting you rather than the blood that drives him. 

Because for some reason, that’s what he craves right now. 

“I beg.” He cries out against your tongue, relishing in the feeling of your life clutched in his hands, not even sure himself of what he’s begging for.

“Sunghoon,” You choke out his name with a gentle voice, pulling back from his bruising lips and throwing your arms up around his shoulders. “I bet you could smell my heart shatter too.” 

He moans at the strained words first and the out of body experience you lend to him second. His soul is always trapped within this dead skin, but you ascend him. 

Here, standing with his hands on your throat, you hold him? You say sly, mocking words? Oh, he can give you the world. He can give you anything you want. He can be whatever you want. Never has a person had this hold on him, and never could another person be able to do what you do. 

He can’t just let you go. He tried already. He’s supposed to be the one with the ability to hunt, lure, and pull. How is it that you do it to him? Your blood alone does it. The fact that all you need to do is exist within the same city and he’s ripping his bedroom walls apart wanting to get at you? He needs you. 

No. You’re not going anywhere this time. He’ll give up the taste of your sweet blood if he has to. The taste of your wet tongue is enough to satiate him by this point. The feeling of your neck beneath his hands, your pretty eyes urging him to strangle the life out of you.

He’d do it too. All you’d have to do is ask. He would do anything for you at this moment, no matter the cost. He will take anything you offer.

“Oh–” He groans first, licking his lips. “I could almost taste it.” His eyes darken more, somehow, as he leads you through the apartment. All the way until that same gaze causes your legs to buckle. He can’t help it by this point, after all, he knew coming here would end up this way.

There’s no self control when his hands release your neck, your buckled legs forcing you to fall against the floor, and he gladly topples with you. His hands immediately shoot to either side of your head, holding himself up just so he can dip down and inhale you. 

Fuck, he missed the way your skin smells more than he remembers. And trust, missing you was a daunting experience for him before he got here.

He inhales all over you, again and again. He trails his nose against both sides of your neck, up your cheek, into your hair, down to your neck again.

“So delicious.” He moans mindlessly. “Never have I missed someone so terribly.” 

“You were with someone else.” You continue your confident scolding with a scoff, only because of the way he’s losing himself on you. This is all you could ever want and reminding him of why you left feels elating. 

“My love,” He starts, speaking right up against your ear as one of his hands trails from your cheek to your waist. “My loyalty to your life is what I offered.”

Goddamn the confidence running through you smells stronger than anything he’s ever experienced. As if you didn’t already drive him to do things he never once considered. Oh, now? With you like this? He would die ten times more for you and you alone, if he could, anyway. 

“Do you not recognize that I would have drained you to death, if I didn’t want you here with me?” 

He lifts his head now, looking at you with so much adoration. 

“You’re not a simple meal, when will you understand that?”

And when you snicker at his desperate praise, he cannot fucking control the feelings within him.

“Your little floral friend is going to be devastated,” He admits with a rumbled voice, alluding to the inevitability of him coming here tonight. “You’ve begged me for this, and now I’m begging you.” 

You pause, feeling the butterflies in your stomach release in a deep breath. 

“Die for me.” Sunghoon whispers, dragging that same wandering hand straight between your legs and dipping into the wet heat he’s been missing so badly. No blood, just thick, hot, wet slick. “I beg.” 

You can barely comprehend his words through that ice cold feeling of his fingers pressing into you. He hums in the silence, looking straight into your eyes with the question. He’s very aware of the weight behind it too. 

“My love, please.” He continues, losing composure by the seconds as he feels how warm your wet walls are hugging his fingers. “Not in a thousand years have I wanted someone more than you.”

He continues pressing his fingers in, moaning himself at how good it feels, only to feel your moan fan against his cheeks in turn. It’s something that drives him only further from the self-control he fought so hard to keep. That warm breath represents the life within you that he intends to snuff out. If at all, to keep  you forever. 

“And not for a thousand years more–” He’s starting to babble, his once clear thoughts racing at being surrounded by everything that is you. “Please.” 

And his fingers only quicken with his thoughts, rendering you unable to answer even if you tried. The idea and confirmation in his head of not truly killing you drives him wild. It would be death, nonetheless, but not true death. For weeks he has suffered over the thoughts, always telling himself that he would never fate someone to a death such as his own. 

But you, oh you. The sublime blood within you pulled him harder than he believes he pulled you. Never in his thousands of years has he experienced such a thing, nor did he know such blood existed within a person. It drives him to feel for you. To adore you. To be entirely enamored with the fact that you have shattered him from within at both the thought of losing your blood, but wanting to take all of it. 

Still, he craves the taste of you to such an extent that you truly will die tonight, whether it’s against your will or not. It’s too late for him to reason with himself, feeling your walls wrapped around his fingers, seeing you act so mischievous towards his antics from before. At this point, just a blink of time compared to how long he’s lived, the decision is clearer than anything he thinks he’s ever had to choose. 

If he can’t have all of your blood, you’ll waste it on a death not nearly as beautiful as he can offer. 

If he can have all of your blood, perhaps he doesn’t have to lose you along with it. After all, it’s not just the blood at this point that makes him feel like a blood-drunk beast. No, no, no. It’s everything that is you. Your skin, the secretions of your body, the way your hands grip and the way your eyes blink. Blood-drunk, yes, but more so just drunk on you.

He can settle without the breath and without the blood if you’re willing to share meals with him for the remainder of time this earth has in the universe. 

Sunghoon’s mind is racing at the thought. Working too fast for him to focus on everything at once, but he tries. Tucking his fingers deep, nuzzling his nose into the crook of your neck and inhaling as deeply as he can. 

You’re feeling like you’re on top of the world in the way he falls apart on you, unable to comprehend that this is actually happening. Every word he’s said to you rings in your ears as if it were spoken in a language you can’t understand. With his fingers working you open, with his lips on your skin rather than his fangs…

You feel…different. Like he feels differently. 

And you can’t stop yourself from basking in the thought that he killed that woman. What was once jealousy that he didn’t want you enough to kill you has twisted and morphed into the thought that he kept you alive because he couldn’t stand not having you.

Every whispered word confirms it, and still you can’t comprehend fully what it is he’s trying to say. 

So, you focus and try to comprehend the feeling in your body that he’s offering instead. You have yearned for this cold within you. Missed it so badly you went insane. 

To think you’d ever truly get over him is arguably more insane than wanting him to kill you at all.

“Did you hear me?” He whispers against your ear, shoulders shifting with each plunge of his fingers, other hand clinging to your waist so tightly, almost pulling you to him. “You could be beside me,” He moves his lips across your neck, resting his lips against the moan you let out. “Forever.”

Oh, it clicks. 

And just as it clicks, he can hear your heart rate gushing the same blood he intends to take from you in full. Gushing, rushing through each vein and valve within you. Oh, he could truly devour you whole with how you’ve deprived him of this. He could leave not a trace of you left for the world to remember, but no. That would be worse than the beheadings that haunt his nightly visions. 

The sound of it rushing through you, god, it makes him feel like a mad man. He can’t help but prevent your timid answers in the midst of red hot desire. He pulls his hand out of you, spreading his palm against your healed thighs instead and spreads your legs out wide from under him. 

He’s quick to move down. No kissing, no biting, nothing like what he wants to do. He needs to satiate his desire somehow, and he doesn’t want to waste a single drop of your blood until the time comes. 

And when he pulls your sleep-shorts and panties off of you, he’s immediately licking a languid stripe up your glistening cunt. He remembers how it looked in red, the thought sending his body into overdrive at the taste of you now compared to that night. 

Still so sweet. Almost as good as the blood. Ah, it serves as a reminder that perhaps he can give up the blood after taking it from you. This alone is enough. So creamy, so slippery. 

Yes, yes. A confirmation. It’s you, not just your blood. It’s you he won’t live without. Your mind, your voice, the wet you spill, the cum you’ll let him fuck out of you. 

It’s always you. 

And he hums into it, licking into you as far as his tongue can manage. He braces both hands on your thighs just to spread them further, skewing his head to reach deeper, deeper, fucking deeper. Tasting you, smelling you, utterly obsessed with you. 

All you can do is shoot your hands down, forever waiting to feel his teeth sink into you but only feeling pleasure. So much pleasure. All of his freezing body parts just send consistent shivers up and down your spine. It’s like you can feel him under your skin when he does this, even with his hair tangled in your fingers as if you’re appreciating him for all of it. 

It’s so good. With the way he doesn’t need to breathe. He keeps his tongue in you, and even still you feel as if you don’t need your clit stimulated at all with the way he’s working his mouth so aggressively. And it’s good with the way his fingernails dig into your skin not yet enough to cause blood, unlike before. Good with the way he hums into you through it all, the same way he did when he’d feed on you.

Ah, it’s just, it’s good. It’s dreamy. All of it feels like a fantasy up until he does pull back. 

You look down in time with him looking up, those pretty eyes no longer looming and dark. Still crazed to an extent but you know they’re for you. 

“Sunghoon,” You whisper out, watching him closely with the way his eyes roll back at even hearing his name on your tongue so prettily. “Why aren’t you feeding?” 

You feel his fingernails leave more half moon shapes in your skin at the question. His eyes open in a half-lidded stare at you now, lips falling slack.

He looks so pretty, with the wet coating of his plush and pretty lips, your hands still tangled in his hair. 

He still just looks at you. He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, and doesn’t answer. 

“You’re so quiet now.” You comment, feeling shy with the way he stares at you rather than your open pussy right in front of his mouth. “Say something.”

And within a single blink, his face is right up against yours, one hand still keeping your leg spread open, the other pinching your chin as he continues to stare.

“Let me have you.” 

You hear his words clearly this time, breath caught in your throat up until he kisses it out of you. He breathes you in deeply, trying to drown himself in all that is your life before what he will inevitably do. 

“Let me.” He pleads again, his eyebrows falling as if he’s in genuine pain to say it. 

Your arms reach around his neck, staring at him with so much confirmation in your eyes. You’d let him have anything he wants. Anything. 

And he groans at you, releasing your chin just to reach down to get his length out, appearing as though looking at you like this alone is enough to make him crumble to dust. He’s been aching this whole time too, since before he even left the cathedral. Borderline edging himself from both the pleasure of your body wrapped around him and the pleasure within you that would satiate his hunger just for a moment. 

He misses the feeling of you so badly. The warmth, the slide, the way you cling to him like nothing he could do would scare you. 

Just….one last time, he wants to feel warm. 

And he chases for the heat inside of you, sliding in without breaking eye contact, without waiting, without savoring it. 

It knocks the breath out of you again, forgetting just how cold it is when he settles in deep. So fucking deep. 

You wince in pain before moaning out to him, whispering his name in a drawn out sigh.

“Ah, my love,” He groans at your reaction, his hips immediately moving. “My pretty, pretty, love.”  Your walls hug him so perfectly, taking every inch with just a tiny wince.  “Will you still sound so lovely?”

You don’t understand the question, but you nod to him, wanting nothing more in this moment than to prove your worth to him. To please him. 

Such an insane woman, he thinks. Letting him take you and have you in whatever way he wishes. Whether living or dead, he truly believes every mindless nod you give to him. It’s clear, you’re just as deeply infatuated with him as he is with you.

Both of you would give and take happily, no matter what it is. 

And fuck he can feel your living pulse against him with each fast and torturous thrust, snapping his hips so quickly into you. He can’t help but fuck hard and with purpose. Slamming in and out with echoed slaps and mindless groans. 

Everything that you are could end him in an instant and all you can do is moan out for more. 

Oh, he gives it. Of course he does. He will give you anything. Everything. 

And it only becomes harder to resist when he kisses against your lips again, swallowing each moan of his name, exhaling it back out to you with the sound of your name. A mantra of two people, facing only death together and loving every heart-wrenching second of it. 

The cold within you flourishes with each sound in his throat, you squeeze around him, your legs hug against him, your arms wrap tightly against his neck as he kisses you. Your body can’t withstand the speed of his cock slamming into you for much longer without coming undone.

And he doesn’t stop, seemingly never growing tired. Up until he feels your body clench entirely around him, he clings back at you at the feeling, whispering handsome words and proud promises. 

“Already?” He grunted out first, hearing your blood rush and your muscles tense. “Ah, can hear it rushing through you, let it go, love.” 

And you do, you let it go despite wanting it to last longer. So, so much longer. 

He lends you a choked and inward groan at the way you react to his relentless thrusts, flexing his abs and pointing his cock as deeply into you as he can reach. And for the second time, Sunghoon feels the warmth of you spill over him. Prettier than the blood, your voice so, so, sexy choking out a string of curses just for his ears to adore.

“There you go.” He coos through it with his own groans, savoring every squeeze and squelch, adoring the sounds you make for him. 

And as he watches, he can’t help the feeling inside of him. Your heart is beating so fast through the pleasure only he can offer you, and he keeps doing it. Fucking you through the orgasm only to not stop after the fact either. 

It’ll be the last time he’ll ever feel heat like this on him. He can fuck any and every victim, but none will feel as good as you. Partially because you aren’t being manipulated, he has no hold on your mind right now. You’re not gripping and moaning because you’re in a daze, you’re doing it because you fucking want it.

God, having sex for the sake of sex is something he hasn’t done in a long time before you. Enjoying in the pleasure, fucking suffering through all of it. Truly, for him, if this is the last time your body will be warm, he’s going to take his goddamn time making sure you’re well aware of just how good you could have it if you let him keep you forever. Cold and dead, he’ll still love the feeling of your body.

So much that still, even with your orgasm dripping all over him, he pushes and he pushes. Thinking only of how he plans to drain you in more ways than once tonight. He can hold off for as long as he can with his own pleasure, because this alone is fucking bliss.

And he doesn’t care if he’s knocking the breath out of you, only because he knows that soon enough, you’ll never have to worry about breathing again.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

You’re unsure as to how long Sunghoon has been lying with you like this, but you were able to get a bit of rest against him. Even with your fingers feeling like ice wrapped up in his, you feel safe and at home here. 

Not because you are at home, but because he’s here with you. 

The night outside your window tells you that you’ve not been sleeping for long, but you can barely recall coming to your bedroom at all with him. He must have carried you here and cuddled himself up against you. 

You stir in his grasp, peeking an eye up at him. 

“You’ve rested enough?” Sunghoon smiles at you with saddened eyes, his pupils still blown and hair an absolute mess.  

You shift against him, turning to face him entirely. 

As he looks at you, all he can do is remind himself that he’s never considered fating someone with this curse until finding you. With your pretty jealous words and your intense need to have him take you out of this world all together. Never has he given the chance for another person to know him so deeply and have them react with only fondness and desire. 

This is his chance, isn’t it? To find forever? 

As monstrous as he is, he does still have desire. The feeling of loneliness isn’t meant to be grown accustomed to. For him at least. All of his fellow vampires have companions, and he swore he’d never do that to another person. 

Perhaps it’s because many of the vampires he has mingled with took their companions by force. He could see the disdain in their eyes, and that’s not something he thinks he could live with. But you don’t look at him like that. You slept soundly next to a man wanting to kill you. Actively struggling not to do it with each and every breath you take. 

And oh, since the start of his curse, the need to taste that last famed drop lured him to every meal he’s feasted on up until now. Such a delicious flavor, truly the best sensation running down his throat. To have you offer that last little sip to him? Ah, fuck.

 The feeling in his stomach flutters at the thought of turning someone for the first time. Knowing that someone will be you. Knowing that you wouldn’t be a companion filled with resentment and agony at your new life. 

It’s electrifying. Like his heart could beat again at any second because you truly make him feel like he’s never experienced death at all. Despite being surrounded by it, despite experiencing it himself, despite taking lives daily for thousands of years. 

It’s amazing to him, to love someone so much he’s willing to fate them with eternal thirst, congealed blood, glitter and gold, beautiful and ugly, accidental lures before intentional ones. 

Death.

Vile, cold, damp skin. Safe light of the moon, dust in the sun. The only threat is that of life itself.

Light. Sharp pointed dogwood stakes. Beheadings. 

But…a companion.

The life he could live with you, oh the joy that runs through him is far too beautiful. The forever life. Eternity. Living through it all, far surpassing the roaches and bacteria of this earth. With you. 

So many things you’ve forced him to understand. Loneliness, despair, want, need, envy. It’s been so long since he’s entertained petty mortal feelings, but you forced them into him and out of him. The only need he’s grown accustomed to was hunger and thirst. Never love, or warmth, or want. 

Oh, forever. The two of you could starve after draining every living soul. All it takes is for him to take that last gush of blood from you. 

Without the lure. Without the manipulation. 

Never would he perform the rite without your pleasant voice telling him to. Never would he want to spend eternity with a woman so luring who would want nothing more than to be the blade slicing through the bone in his neck. 

That legendary, utterly delicious, last drop of blood that he’s tasted so many times before. It’s different this time only because the blood isn’t for him and him alone now. He has to share it, and it pains him to know that none would taste quite like yours. 

The hardest part would be controlling his instinct of swallowing it instantly, rendering you dead and unmoving for the eternity he wishes to have you. 

A new feeling. 

Anxiety. 

Your death would be slow, a cold and dreary one, but it wouldn’t be lonely. He’d make sure you feel so good through it. He wouldn’t spill a drop. You’d be clean, avoiding a gruesome death otherwise. 

And time would be against him, because upon taking that last drop, he’d barely be able to savor it before continuing the rite. A final sip that he can’t even swallow. A final sip that must be fed to you. Blood leaving your veins only to slide down into your emptied stomach through dead lips.

There, a final exhale, and then forever inhales. 

You’d look so beautiful dying next to him. He’d hold you through it. 

Is fate so dreary in a moment like that? Where is he feeling something akin to love for the first time in lifetime after lifetime? Is he selfish to need you so badly? 

“You could have it all.” He inhales the words at your drowsy face nearing sleep again. The silence you lended after his last comment kept him in his head, and now he wants out of it. 

He hugs against you so tightly, trying to keep you awake despite knowing he likely fucked you too long and too hard.  Still, he wants to encourage a life with him for you. 

“I can give it all to you.”

You’re silent at his words as you listen to him. You soak them into your sleepy head and smile.

“Sunghoo-”

“I beg of you.” He answers for you, grabbing your face tightly and landing an immediate kiss against your lips. A deep kiss, one that…oh. He’s crying. 

You feel the cold wet hit your cheeks as he kisses. He does it before you can even move your own lips against him, but you do start to kiss him back. Your brows furrow in concern at this new emotion he’s showing to you, but your handles are gentle when you caress his cheeks through it. 

“Die for me.” He whispers through the kiss, trying not to let you pull back at the words. He knows now that you heard them loud and clear.

Oh.

Why is there nothing in this world that you want more?

“It’ll only hurt for a little while.” He tries to make it sound pretty with his soothing whispers, not yet realizing that he hasn’t cried in several centuries. “You’ll come back.”

“Are you asking me to–?” You breathe out for him, once, twice, and then never finish what you were trying to ask simply because he makes himself very clear.

“You can be like me, my love.” 

Your body pulses in fear, but the adrenaline hits you in all the right spots as you break eye contact to cling instead, this time shoving your nose up and against his neck. Wanting nothing more than this dead skin, needing nothing more than a man who wants to kill you. 

But Sunghoon doesn’t want to end you, no. He wants to keep you forever. 

And forever is different with Sunghoon. It’s never ending. 

Are you even prepared to never see an end? With the man whispering so sweetly to you? Absolutely. 

Would a split second decision like this ruin your life forever? What's forever anyway? When you have many lives to ruin and many more to deem a success if you choose to go with him. 

Die. Only to live forever? 

You nod once, then you shake your head. His arms wrap around you tightly at your indecisiveness. He’s content enough just knowing you’re considering it and truly, he’s trying to be patient. Waiting and well aware that the question is likely the hardest decision you’ll ever need to make. 

“I’ll beg again and again.” He whispers, feeling your panicked lips try to calm your breathing against his neck. Still, you’re clinging to him tightly and it makes him feel…happy. “I cannot fathom a death for you that’s not this. Forever gone from me.” 

You shake your head again, but then…you nod. 

“Will it hurt?” You ask, feeling your heart rate threaten to kill you before Sunghoon even gets the chance himself. 

“Tremendously.” He chuckles at the ignorance, though even he barely remembers the pain himself these days.

 “Only for a little while, darling. I told you.” He licks his lips, anticipating the blood running through you to run through him soon. The hunger is almost overcoming him now and if you don’t agree, he very well may end up killing you regardless.

And the thought pains him. 

If there was ever a time to hold himself back, it’s now.

“Don’t die without me here with you. Now or ever.” He continues in a sweet voice, trying to control the wavering breaks his throat is trying to force out of him. 

“Can I…” You stop yourself, squeezing your eyes shut. “Can I have a minute to think?” 

“Oh course,” He smiles to hide his frustration, pulling you back by your shoulders and sitting himself up against your bed. “But, the sun rises in three hours, and that’s three hours of fighting my urge to do it without your confirmation.”

You pause, finding comfort in the fact that he’s willing to suffer through your inevitable acceptance. There’s no way you’ll end up saying no to him, only because of how badly it hurt when you walked away from him. It rotted within you for weeks, and even when you thought you were better…all he had to do was stand outside your door to have you running to be in his arms.

What’s a bad decision when you could have lifetimes to make up for it? Even if said decision is what gives you those lifetimes. He’s asking for you to stay with him. To be with him. Isn’t that what you want?

But to die…

And you only cling to him through the fear, hoping he can save you from what he’s offering. He’s the comfort and the ultimate end. 

Or, perhaps, the ultimate beginning.

You’re not sure. You only found out vampires are real like two months ago. It’s not exactly something you can comprehend so quickly, but it is something you know you want more than anything if it means you can be next to Sunghoon. 

“Will it ease your fear if I talk about what it’s like to be me?” Sunghoon offers both a reason to give you insight, as well as distract his own mind during this moment of distress.

You nod immediately, hugging yourself so tightly to his side and trying to keep your nose up and against him simply because that brings you the most comfort. Smelling the faint cinnamon, feeling him against you. 

“I’m the first of my family to reside here, but I’ve been here for thirty years. Commoners aren’t aware as I try to remain hidden save for when I need to hunt.” He starts, continuing after hearing the way your heart calms. “But, city officials know very well who I am, and where I come from.” 

You listen, trying to take in his words as truth rather than fantasy. 

“I was born in seventeen thirty eight, overseas. Every few hundred years I’ll relocate simply because it becomes boring watching the same country grow and be destroyed. I ran from many wars, have lived many lives.” 

Oh. Okay.

“I know every language. I’ve lived every life you can imagine, worked every job you can think of to rid myself of boredom.” 

“So you weren’t always pretending to be a priest?” You try to make light of the fear within you, almost, somehow, wanting to snort at his choice of current lifestyle. 

“Ah, no.” He chuckles for you, rolling his eyes at how you mock him in the face of your own death. “I was a banker before this, I despised it. Only lasted about seven years before relocating here.”

A pause, you hear him chuckle. 

“I really despise numbers.”

In the calmness of his voice, within his gentle grasp, you feel comfortable. 

“Did you come for the cathedral?” 

He nods, holding you against him even tighter.

“History is protected, whether it be land, buildings, or people. It felt fitting to be a priest if I was to stumble inside parading as a drunken man needing a place to stay.” 

“How did you become, uh, what did she call you? Master?”

“Ah,” Another scoffed chuckle at your ignorance. “Did you believe them to be alive?” 

You freeze, body stiffening at the shock. They were fucking dead?! This whole time?!

“I slept in a cathedral full of fucking vampires?!” 

“You did.” He smiles. “But they are very well aware of what’s mine.”

He loves the way your face looks when you process words. He is more aware than you think of how insane all of this must sound to you. Yet, still, he has never truly lied to you. 

“They needed an order, so I brought that order. Thus, Master.” He smiles as he motions towards himself with you still in his grasp, as if he’s playfully boasting his own intelligence over the vampire-nuns. 

You pull back to look at him, feeling a bit calmer now in the way he describes countless lives and knowledge. You can’t experience any of that with the life you have right now. In fifty to sixty years you’ll be in an urn on your mother’s fireplace. 

Why would you want that when you could be in a bed with silk sheets? Or perhaps by then you’ll be able to travel elsewhere with Sunghoon, finding new beds with even softer sheets.

And only now do you realize that Sunghoon didn’t put you in danger at all. In fact, he knew he was dangerous and forced you to live. Even when you asked him to kill you. He…

Oh. Wow.

“Now, what is it, you think, that made you so special in regards to that woman you found me with? What is it, love? What do you believe kept me from ending your life to sustain my own?” And goddamn does it feel good to finally say it. Sunghoon loves the feeling of the words coming out of his mouth, finally spilling it all to you and seeing you only react with cheeky curiosity. 

“Why is that? Can you tell me?”

You’re silent as you think of his questions, unable to answer at all.  

“No…” You breathe out, knowing he can feel the hot breath against him only because his hand squeezes your waist. 

“I suppose after how long I’ve wandered this earth, even I am left with curiosities and questions too.” He smiles when he says it, thankful to know he hasn’t yet experienced everything there is. “I’d like to know why you have this hold on me too, darling.”

“Maybe it’s because I want it?” 

“Perhaps, yes. If you didn’t I likely would have savored every ounce of you already and for that, I should be thankful.” 

He shifts now, pressing you down against your bed and hovering over you with dark and sparkling eyes. His lips immediately go to your neck with the hunger he feels. Talking isn’t enough anymore. Holding you isn’t enough. He hasn’t eaten in days, and the fact that he could hold off even until now is strange to him. 

“Unlike many, you do not seek death–” He drags his lips against your skin, relishing in it. “You exist alongside it happily, you welcome it.” He continues to talk, his teeth now retracting against your skin and leaving little swollen scratches with each drag. “Perhaps had I not chosen to be a priest during this lifetime, you’d have already said yes.” 

“A singer? A dancer? Anything you wish for, I’ll become.” He smiles when he feels the goosebumps plump up under his teeth, and it’s so, so, hard not to bite. “So, won’t you stay? “

He listens so closely to your heart and breathing, nearly moaning at the need for it. 

“Watching you wither to death by anything other than my own teeth would surely have me seekinga dogwood.” 

Ah, so the fantasy movies and novels aren’t all wrong? So strange, truly, that he lives in a cathedral of crosses made from the very wood that could kill him. 

“We could be anything, go anywhere, dine on meals you merely taste but never need.”

He nods his head against your skin, hoping you’ll nod along with him, knowing that you will. 

“You could be mine, forever.” 

You’ve accepted him already, you just haven’t said so yet. He doesn’t mind sweet talking you though, reminding you of everything he can and will provide.

And to you, every single word he mutters is pretty, and everything you could ever need or want is right here. 

“I could be yours, forever.”

“I think–” You breathe out, hands now reaching up to scratch through his hair. “there is nothing I could want more than this.”

And the moment he gets that final word of confirmation out to you, he bites. The words you mutter drive him to it. He couldn’t even kiss you in appreciation simply because his instinct takes over. He lets go. 

Finally, he can let go. 

The need to control himself is no longer here, and it feels astounding. 

The sting is deep and it rings within you so loudly that you could hear the puncture vibrate your brain. Your ears burn at the direct puncture, and already you can feel his hands bracing you through it. As if he knows he’s never bitten you so deep in your pulse point like this. 

But the intention behind it somehow feels better than anything you’ve ever experienced. This is what you were jealous of and now you can only agree with your past self. There was good reason to be jealous of feeling this from him. Except, unlike that woman, he’s holding you through it. He’s grunting against your neck and swallowing large portions of your blood as the seconds pass. Losing himself with you. Almost as if he’s dying with you.

And he drinks, and drinks, and drinks, to the point your toes are feeling the sleep overtake them, then your legs, all the way up and down your body until your fingers are too weak to keep gripping against the locks of hair on the back of his neck.

You feel his fingers soothe you through the weakness when he pulls back, keeping his promise of not wasting a single drop. There is no blood smeared on him, only a trace of it on his inner lips as he watches your weakened expressions. 

He isn’t intentionally draining you so quickly, but…fuck. The blood. That glorious scent and taste was already too much to bear, but now? Knowing he gets all of it save for the best and final sip? He genuinely can’t help it. Controlling himself now after how long he’s held back? 

Darling, you asked for this. 

And his body reacts in aroused euphoria. Already he feels an orgasm bubble up just witnessing you die for him. Even then, he barely feels the heightened pleasure because the mind, dead or not, simply cannot comprehend the pure potent pleasure he’s experiencing.

He spills out all over himself, while you spill out for him. Your life, your very being. 

How can he not be terribly, horrifyingly, utterly stupendously in love with you? 

“My love, the light in your eyes will come back soon.” He smiles as he watches what happens to you through this, and then throws his head back in manic pleasure with a deep and animalistic moan. Arguably, even his eyes hold more life than yours right now. 

So, so beautiful. 

You’re too weak to speak, but you shake your head. Nothing is a pain to lose, nothing except him. 

And you find comfort in the way he sinks his teeth right back into those puncture marks. Sucking more and more out of you with a content smile on his face. He doesn’t think he could ever feel happier, knowing you’re giving him everything, and he wants nothing more than to return the favor to you.

Oh, how he wishes it were you sucking the life out of his veins. You’d be so gentle, you’d look so pretty losing your mind like he is right now. 

You continue to feel your body grow numb, up to the point that your heart rate slows at the loss of blood. To the point you can tell he’s sucking harder and harder just to get more. You feel a weight shift inside of your body, it writhes and chokes every inch of your innards. 

Shrivelling, spiraling, cramping. 

If you could curl in on yourself right now, you would, but you’re too weak even for that. You can’t even twitch a finger against Sunghoon at this moment as you feel everything within you dehydrate and search for life. 

It hurts. 

Badly. So badly that at this moment, you can’t remember a single thing that has ever felt good. In fact, everything is painful. Life is painful and horrifyingly full of things that will hurt you. But–Sunghoon is here. That much, you still recognize. Even through the pain, and even through the twisting inside of you, he remains constant. He’s soothing you through it well past the comprehension of your dying brain. 

You can’t shiver at the loss of warmth, but you do try to take a breath. Working your weak body to near exhaustion just at the act of trying to expand your lungs. And oh, you can’t even open your eyes at the way the last breath doesn’t come. You must have lost it already. 

And then, darkness. 

Nothing. 

And it feels like this for an eternity. Nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to fear or love. 

Absolutely fucking nothing. And to think humanity has built governments off promised afterlifes? To think anything ever mattered in the first place? The emptiness soothes and relieves your still working soul, wisping in the darkness for eternities more it seems. 

To the point names and faces leave you, and all you can think, feel, or hear is that of unfilled space and pure, deafening, silence. You cannot feel content, or peace, or happiness here. You just feel nothing. And it truly feels good to be nothing. 

Until there's warmth. You feel it somewhere hugging you, or perhaps inside of you? Do you even have a body to hold warmth now within this vast void of darkness? Why do you hear…?

Feelings come back to you tenfold. Seemingly experiencing everything you’ve ever felt and lived through all at once. That deafening silence becomes louder, louder, louder, until– it flourishes in the pit of your belly.

So much chaos within you. Swirling and bubbling in such a way that it fucking blooms in this darkness. You feel like you’re burning, freezing, dying, living, fucking drowning all at once. 

That flourish forces the nothingness out of you. As comfortable as this place is, there is nothing and you want something. You need something. You crave…something.

A little dribble running down your throat leaving a trail of warm, blooming heat. As if you just swallowed a sun-ray itself. Only now can you feel your body again enough to know where the heat is coming from. It blossoms within you, increasing each sense within your body tenfold. 

It doesn’t hurt. 

Only now do you recognize that it’s silent again, as if you were slammed into a wall by the force of the god you now know does not exist. You feel yourself restrict under skin, you feel cold, you feel…heavy. 

And the silence is still too loud to be so restricted. You miss the sounds of what you must have unintentionally listened to every waking moment of your life. The only true soundtrack of a living, loving, and heat-radiating being. 

No heart-beat. No whirring of blood. No rumbling in your stomach. Nothing.

And yet still, it doesn’t hurt. 

Just a bouquet in the pits in your belly. Your precious life, all summed up in that single diluted sip of blood. 

And somehow, someway, you regain your strength faster than it took for you to lose it. You open your eyes on instinct and the world is glowing. Sunghoon is glowing. As lifeless as you are, and as empty as your brain is at this moment, you reach out to him immediately.

But he has yet to let go of you since all of this started. He stayed. He held you, just like he said he would. 

“Did it hurt badly?” Sunghoon calls out to you, helping your mind awaken again. 

He barely remembers the pain he went through when it happened to him. Truly, pain is so temporary, so meaningless to indulge but, the curiosity still sits with him. 

After watching you for upwards of two hours to both die and come back to life, he can’t help but wonder if it was anything like what he experienced. 

Even with that curiosity though, seeing you open your eyes for the first time in your new life fills Sunghoon with overwhelming glee. To the point he feels like a child, wanting to ask so many questions, thoughts shifting from this, to that, up until all his thoughts run together and all he can do is squeeze you in his grasp. 

He’d have pulled down the stars if he could just so it could be your first view of the afterlife with him. But alas, he couldn’t step away even for a moment. He needed to be with you, not just for your sake, but his own. 

You’re cold now, but oh, the blood within him could satiate him for hundreds of years. It’s gone from you now, and he fears not missing it. Not when you’re here. Not when you chose to be here with him. 

You weakly nod to him, amazed at being able to do it again. Already the pain you’d previously felt feels like a long lost memory as you stare back at him. 

“I’m sorry.” He smiles through the apology, unable to pretend he means the words at all. “I didn’t intend to drain you so quickly. My poor love, you must have felt miserable.” 

You nod again, feeling him so tightly against you.

Only just realizing that he’s holding you. Your body, it’s coming back to you. You can feel sensations again. 

“I feel–” Your voice cracks with a dry throat and you inhale.

On instinct, you try to exhale but your throat just gets drier and drier. 

“I–”

Sunghoon coos, shushing you with a gentle kiss. Lending you his own saliva because if there’s one thing he can remember, it’s the act of learning how to…not breathe. 

“Slowly, love, slowly.” He smiles when he pulls back, watching you swallow around his gift and instantly droop your eyes again. 

“You’ve only just died and you have all the time in this world to speak, no need to do it now.” 

And he’s right. You’re spinning, yet balanced. Fuzzy yet smooth. You are everything and nothing at this moment with your glowing after-death aroma. Sunghoon smiles, cradling the back of your head. 

Finally, he’s gotten to drink you in full. No true death, and he feels more elated than he ever expected. Almost lulled to sleep at the scent of you disappearing. Never will he taste your blood again, but you. He has you now. Knowing you had a taste at all is enough. Knowing that he has broken for you enough to beg you.

To beg you to die for him just to be with him on a level deeper than thirst. 

Never once has he wanted someone like this.

And never once had he expected you to agree with him. 

The moment is sweet with him, and still you’ve yet to comprehend the truth reality of your life now. You know at least, that it could take longer than you’d have had previously to figure it out. You did this to be with someone, and that someone is right here next to you. Smiling, clinging, seemingly ecstatic to know he’s no longer alone. 

A forever companion, truly this time. 

And as sweet as the moment is, time still moves even after becoming ageless. 

“The sun will rise soon,” Sunghoon hums at your reluctant gaze at the window. “Shall we go home?”

You would nod. Truly, you would, if it weren’t for that suffocating scent entering your nose. 

Roses? No, tulips?

Lavender? 

Your belly pangs, a dry and itchy feeling overtaking your entire being. To the point that Sunghoon clinging to you can’t even calm the itch. The world stops at the scent, so strong and sweet. 

Sunghoon smells it too though, and he knows. He’s experienced it time and time again, though he’s long since learned how to control it, clearly. He purses his lips in frustration. You’ve only just come back, and he’d very much like to get you home with him so that you can learn and grow accustomed to this life. You need to realize that you haven’t even experienced the hardest part yet. 

Disappearing. 

After all, his intention was to hunt for you, teach you, comfort you. There’s so much to do now that the deed is done, and he hadn’t prepared for interruptions such as this.

Unfortunately, he knows very well the thirst. You won’t be able to control it, especially considering he knows this scent too. He has to force himself to try and lend you alluring words, but they seem to go through one ear and out the other. 

Your brain is empty at the scent. 

“Ah, what a turn of events.” He tics his tongue with a smile. “I smell him too.”

Your eyes do not reach Sunghoon at all, but he understands. Even with the jealousy in his gut. 

A key clicking into a lock, a turn of the knob. The sound is amplified in your ears along with the scent. 

“Wake up and help me unload all this shit!” 

Oh, what a shame. 

You really loved Jungwon. 

“Can you smell it flowing through him?” Sunghoon smiles at the light in your eye now, endeared by the way scent ignites you entirely. As envious of Jungwon as he is to hold certain parts of you when he couldn’t do it himself, seeing the way you react arouses him beyond belief. 

Your first feeling of thirst. 

“Shall I greet him?” 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Jungwon peers at the stoic figure that appeared from your bedroom. His first thought is that he’s going to kick your fucking ass because number one, this better not be who he thinks it is. And number two–

There is no number two. A mere three seconds after stepping into his new home with you, his mind goes fuzzy. Thinking only of you, of needing to see you, of needing to make sure you’re okay. 

He wants to know if you slept well, and if you were able to have any sweet dreams without him here. 

“Jungwon, I take it?” Sunghoon lends him a lively smile, impressed by the pull you unintentionally lay on the guy. 

“Ah, yeah.” Jungwon weakly scratches the back of his neck before feeling his body move on its own. “Where is she? I need to see her.” 

It’s a pity, really, but Sunghoon has seen it time and time again with his own victims. A weak mind, one that is easily broken and even easier to lure. It’s kind of cute really, seeing how breathing humans cling to what balances them. 

He almost feels bad for taking you from Jungwon, but he doesn't only because he hates that he has to see you drink from someone you were attached to. He knows it’ll hurt you when you realize, and he no longer wants to see you hurt after witnessing your death.

As beautiful as it was. 

Jungwon truly chases you, stepping through the apartment and dropping everything in his hands without care. He heads straight to your room, swallowed in a somber smile and a welcome scent. One that he doesn’t know is death.

“Wonnie.” You rasp sweetly. “Come here.” 

There’s no reluctance within him, even upon hearing Sunghoon close the door behind him and lock it. Even when the man looms at the door, watching, narrowing his eyes at you in jealousy. 

You ignore it as you grow enamored with Jungwon at this moment. Is this what his life smells like? So pretty, it truly fits him. 

And it drowns out all of your thoughts. The flowers, like a fresh spring day with no worry. You think it’s your favorite smell in the world as you inhale him with each step he takes toward you. 

For Jungwon, even upon feeling you grip his shirt, pulling him closer than he’s ever been to you without the excuse of comfort, he pays no mind. He missed this bubble he shared with you, the single night with his sister almost felt like agony to be away from you.

After all, the love he holds for you is truly deeper than romance. There is no need for any physicality between the two of you, yet…he welcomes it at this moment. In fact, he’s entirely aroused, stiffening in his pants at the sheer blissful anxiety your uncanny smile and shining eyes lend to him. 

Did you truly miss him so much? 

“You look so pretty…” He trails off, closing his eyes as he feels you caress his warm cheeks. “Your hands are so cold, let me—ah” 

You’ve never felt an instinct quite like this. You could truly hear it, the pulse of his heart. You can still smell his sweet scent, and you truly weren’t in control of your own body when you gripped him, lifted, and sank your teeth right against his pulse point. 

Jungwon moans at the bite, drifting off entirely at first contact. 

All while Sunghoon continues to loom. Watching with weight in his pants. The way you bite so messily, spilling blood and wasting it as it trickles down Jungwon’s throat. The small sounds your mouth makes as you suck has him throbbing non-stop, to the point he almost needs to hold onto something just to keep from jumping on you, just to keep from tasting Jungwon himself.

And, oh, his pretty love, you have so much to adapt to. 

It appears he does as well. 

As he watches the furrow of your brows at the first taste falling to that of relief and pleasure as you drink, and you drink, and you drink, until–

Sunghoon smirks now, quirking his brow at how you stop yourself before he needs to step in and separate the two of you. In all honesty, he was unsure if he’d be able to give in and stop you either. After all, killing Jungwon now would prove easier than letting him live.

The fact that you stopped yourself though. Perhaps your mind grew more stubborn and strong-willed through death. He nearly cannot believe that you aren’t draining the man dry right now. 

And you aren’t even sure yourself why you do. The feeling in your gut is full and satiated, but the grip Jungwon has on you only grows more and more limp. You love the way he clings as much as the taste, and even through his slumber, he clinged so tight. 

Not so much now though, and that scared you. So, you let go. 

If only because truly, you do love Jungwon. Enough to no longer pull him into your messes despite forcing him to become one at this moment. What’s even more scary is though, even with all of the endearment you held towards him in life, the feeling is only amplified now. These new bitter and floral scents pulsing through him makes you want to protect him from any leech wanting to drink it out of him.

Even if you’re the leech. 

Ah, he tasted like honey suckle, and it dropped down your throat like honey too. Warm, gentle, pretty. Just like him. 

And you have to continue to keep yourself from sinking your teeth into him. Your stomach is greedy, wanting more, but too in love with the life he has and willingly wanted to share with you as a best friend and forever comfort. 

Forever for Jungwon is nothing but a moment to you now, but it’s one you hope he enjoys, at least. 

And when you hold him against you, so weak and sound asleep, you look at Sunghoon. The tears fall so, so, cold against your cheeks. The heightened senses within you become overwhelming with the horrifying silence and intense smell of floral blood wafting through your nose. 

“Much like you, he won’t remember. You lured him deeply, love, did you know that? He was asleep from the moment he saw you.” 

You pause, nodding as the tears continue to fall. 

“Brilliant.” He compliments now, moving to hold you as you cling to Jungwon. 

“Sunghoon, did my blood taste like that?” 

Sunghoon kisses you once, sucking Jungwon’s blood from your tongue. 

“Ah,” He chokes. “Absolutely not.”

You pause at his scrunched nose. 

“You were much sweeter.” He whispers sweetly, fondly, tilting his head to kiss against you again, licking the mess of Jungwon’s blood from your lips, chin, and neck. Still, he chokes it down. “I’ll miss it.”

“What did it taste like?” Your weak and dry voice falters repeatedly, but you need to speak right now.

“You tell me.” 

You only slightly remember the flavor as you were brought back. Warm, blooming, spicy, sickeningly sweet. 

“I have never tasted anything compared to it…” 

“Exactly.” Sunghoon smiles, inhaling deeply and lending no breath against your skin when he scrapes his teeth there. “Like the sun.” He hums, nosing down to your neck and inhaling again, arms only slightly trying to push Jungwon out of your grasp. “Like the one thing that could get me killed.” 

You cling tightly to your best friend though, not wanting any more harm to come to him. Still, you stare at Sunghoon’s sweet words, finding yourself smiling at all that is to be gained rather than lost. 

Your life. The light outside, the light in your eyes, the warmth. 

Not Jungwon though. 

“You don’t intend to leave him be, no?” Sunghoon furrows a brow at how your face rises for him, but falls instantly at inhaling Jungwon’s blood. 

You frantically shake your head. 

“We’ll figure something out, love.” He says now, looking away from you and doing his best to ignore the envy that fills him time and time again when this floral-boy is near. 

He told you he’d do anything for you, give anything to you. 

If that includes Jungwon….

Ah, always so fucking stubborn. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

The sun rises and falls. 

Repeatedly, for months. 

Jungwon wakes himself with the warm sun hitting his face, the bed just as warm from his own body heat. He loves this space, and adores the way that even if it’s only him, he never feels lonely with that pretty smell in the air. 

Every morning when he wakes up, and every night before he goes to bed.

The shock of learning the inevitable still hurts him from time to time, but still, he smiles with that dimple you threatened you’d steal right off his face if he chose not to show it to you. 

His hand reaches to his neck, the single wound you gave him and apologized profusely for after. It’s healed well.

And when his phone vibrates in the middle of the day, he wonders why you’re awake. 

You: wonnie

Wonnie: wat

You: come over

Wonnie: was wondering why you were trying so hard. nearly suffocated this morning. 

You: and you were fighting it? asshole

Wonnie: be over in a few, stinky

And as strange as it is, Sunghoon doesn’t mind that you wouldn’t let Jungwon go. After several conversations needing reassurance that you’re not trying to spend your forever elsewhere, anyway.

Really, to think you’d die for him but want someone else? Sunghoon truly is insane, but so are you. 

And it works. 

Because Jungwon loves insanity, even if he hates Sunghoon with a passion. Even if he can only see you with Sunghoon in the room too. Even if you’re dead. 

You’re still his best friend, and he doesn’t mind helping you disappear as long as it’s not from him. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

not me accidentally making this a sunghoon ft.jungwon fic. 

let me make this incredibly clear. jungwon are reader are not romantically in love, though they do love each other deeply. in a way where finding out one of them is a goddamn vampire doesn’t change a single thing or feeling. 

remember that this is fiction, it isn’t meant to be realistic.

pls do not rant at me about how much jungwon is in this fic either. i wrote it that way on purpose. if you don’t love best friend jungwon then im very sorry for you and hope you get well soon!!! 

#enhypen smut #sunghoon smut #park sunghoon smut #enha smut

[cocogrrrl]

bandages

when you find out that the sudden thumping by your fire exit is a masked vigilante in serious pain, you have no other choice than to help him.

mysterion!kenny mccormick x gn!reader cw: severe injuries wc: 2001

AN: I NEED TO PROOFREAD THIS HELP an part two: have not proofread this, but this fic now has a part two!

Tonight was a quiet night. You had nothing going on, to be honest. No friends over, no work to be done, nothing. For once, it left you relieved. For weeks, you’ve been wondering when would you actually have time for yourself. At the same time, the feeling of not being insanely occupied was new. Honestly, it was a little boring.

First, you were trying to relax in your living room, flicking through the movies and shows on the screen. None of them seemed appealing. After that, you decide you’d do a little art, bringing out some yarn as you tried to make something out of it. You were so out of it currently, though, so you didn’t have the energy to commit to a project.

Perhaps all you needed was sleep, though. I mean, it is 10:30 PM already, but this isn’t how you wanted to spend your free Friday night. You wanted to make the most of it. Be productive or entertain yourself.

Maybe it’s for the better, anyways. You got out o the sofa and tucked away your craft materials somewhere. You’ll probably revisit them in another two months.

All of a sudden, you hear several thumps by the fire exit.

Could it have been a criminal trying to sneak in? Honestly, trying to rob a person in a cheap studio complex was kinda low if it was indeed a robber. Could it have been a cat, though? It seems likely. Whatever it was, you decided to check it.

You entered the fire exit through your window. What greeted you was the sight of some dressed-up hero, all bloody and beaten up, lying on the concrete asphalt ground. To be honest, he looked kind of ridiculous—mostly because of the costume.

You wondered if anyone had spotted him yet. No time to think, though you had to help this poor guy. Thank god you lived on the second floor, you quickly shuffled down the footsteps of the fire escape and headed straight to the man.

“Are you okay?” You asked as you knelt beside him. He was breathing, which was good—obviously. Though his costume consisted of greys and blacks, you could see that there was blood seeping into his clothes. Definitely not good.

“Just leave me…” He choked out.

“What? No. You clearly look like you’ve broken a bone or two, and I’d be fucking insane to leave you in a state like this.” You replied, pulling your phone out of your pocket to dial an ambulance.

He was quick to pull the phone out of your hand with what little strength he had. “Don’t call for help… I’ll be caught.” Oh, so probably this guy’s an actual vigilante—not just some guy dressing up.

“You need help, though.”

“You can leave me here. It’s fine.”

“Are you insane? It’s not fine. I’m not leaving you out here to possibly die!” You sighed. “Here. I’ll bring you to my place. It’s just there on the second floor. Do you need help getting up?”

“I…” You could feel the hesitance in the man’s voice. It’s almost as if he didn’t want your help. “I can go there. I just need some help getting up.” He sighed.

A few minutes later, with some struggle, you found him lying on your couch. His wounds weren’t getting any better. They just kept on bleeding through his clothes. It was even more obvious now with the lights turned on.

You emerged out of your bathroom with a first aid kit in hand. The guy had cracked a few ribs and had cuts and bruises all over his body. He looked like hell. While you were grabbing your things, he was stripping down to his underwear and mask as you requested. You would’ve noted how hot he looked if it weren’t for the fact that he was dying right now. 

You started to wrap a bandage around his chest to support the ribs. You made it as tight as you can without trying to hurt the guy as well. Right after, you headed to your freezer, where you pulled out an ice pack and handed it to him.

“Hold it against where it hurts. I’m gonna clean your wounds up, okay?” You looked up at him as you got on your knees and brought out the wet cloth soaked in a bowl of water closer to you. He nodded and held it in place. “It’s gonna sting a little bit, if you didn’t already know.”

As you worked on what you could, you could feel him tense up and even hiss sometimes. In the corner of your eye, you could see his eyes tight shut as his jaw was clenched. You felt really bad for the guy.

After a bit, you set his costume aside as you searched through your wardrobe for cleaner clothes that fit him. You pulled out an old shirt and some basketball shorts you had lying around. “Do you need help putting clothes on?” 

He shook his head. “Alright. I’m gonna turn around—just tell me when you’re done, okay?” You said. Once more, he nodded his head. You turned on your heel, hearing some awkward shuffling and grunts as you waited.

“I’m okay now.” Those were the first actual words he said after entering your apartment. 

“You can stay the night here,” you sighed, turning back as you leaned on the wall looking at him. “God knows you need it.”

“Thank you…” He smiled at you for the first time tonight. It was now around 11 PM at this point, and you were a lot more groggier than you were earlier. Your brain was fried with the distress from earlier.

“You’re staying in my bed, by the way. You’re way too big for the couch. It could be uncomfortable for you.” You said, heading to your kitchen to grab some Diclofenac and water.

“You don’t have to. You’ve been a huge help to me already. I don’t think I could accept your hospitality.” You sat beside him, handing the pill and water to him.

“I insist. I don’t think I could handle seeing you in any more pain.” Your eyes scanned him up and down. He seemed much better compared to earlier, although he had bandages wrapped around him everywhere.

“I don’t want to cause you any discomfort, dear.” He immediately jumped at himself with that little name at the end, as you did as well. You two were clearly not expecting it. It’s not that you minded it, though.

“Come on. It’s just one night… guy.” You said, not knowing what else to call him.

“Mysterion.”

“Mysterion,” you continued. “Your health is a lot more important than wherever the hell I sleep right now. Besides, it’s not like I don’t already fall asleep on the couch on the regular.”

“Fine, fine,” he sighed. “I’m just not sure if I’m able to sleep tonight.”

“Why? Drank coffee before you fell off the rooftop?”

“Funny, but no.” However, when he said that, there was little to no reaction on his face whatsoever. “I just can’t sleep. I don’t feel tired.”

“I’ll accompany you, then.” You smiled, leaning back on the couch. It’s not like you didn’t have anything better to do.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to, okay? Besides, I got nowhere to go to tomorrow.” You said, giving him a reassuring look. You’d squeeze his shoulder to further your intentions, but you might just end up crushing him to a pulp even further.

“I can’t thank you enough…” He trailed off, not knowing your name.

“YN.” You nodded.

“Thank you, YN.”

“Mhm,” you nodded, heading for your kitchen once more to pour yourself a drink as a reward and a pat on the back for tonight. “So, who were you fighting earlier, Mysterion?” You said mindlessly, trying to make conversation with the guy.

“Uh, the Coon,” he muttered. You hummed in reply, hearing him in the quiet of your apartment perfectly well. “I’m usually the one who beats him, but I guess today’s just an off-day for me. I’m gonna beat his ass when I see him tomorrow.”

“Who’s the Coon anyway?” You asked, plopping yourself beside him again as you swirled your drink around before taking a sip.

“Some guy. I’ve been fighting him for years now. Ever since we were kids, actually.”

“So he’s your arch nemesis?”

“No, ew. No way. I don’t have an ‘arch nemesis’ per se. I have too many people I’m fighting with to actually have a designated enemy.” He said, a prideful smirk on his face as he said that.

“I don’t think that’s something you’re supposed to be proud of.”

“It isn’t, but I find joy in it whenever I’m on the streets nowadays.” He sighed, lying on the couch.

“Really? Fighting your multitude of enemies is what brings you joy?” You raised a brow.

“And seeing cuties like you as well, but whatever.” He quickly mumbled.

“Hmm? You think I’m cute?” You smiled, bringing your face closer to his—even though he was so obviously dodging eye contact with you.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh, but yes you did.” You chuckled, gently pinching his cheek as pulled it to have him look at you. “I heard exactly what you said.”

“So what did I say, then?” He mused your playfulness, raising his eyebrows.

“You said, and I quote, ‘And seeing cuties like you as well.’”

“Completely wrong,” he said with a pout, the visible skin because of his mask reddening faintly. “I said, ‘And California brew as well.’ Clearly, you’re just hearing things.”

“Uhuh,” you sarcastically replied, nodding. “And what exactly is a California brew? I’m assuming you meant the state drink of California, by the way.”

He paused, thinking to himself. “...Kombucha?”

“It’s wine, genius.” You rolled your eyes with a grin on your face, letting your hand go from his face.

“Well, it sounds like it could be their state drink!” 

“Mhm, keep trying to save yourself. We all know what you said, Mystie-boo.” You clicked your tongue, shaking your head.

“What’s a Mystie-boo?” He looked at you full of negative judgment, although it was definitely lightheartedly.

“Like, Pookie-pie!” His gaze which was full of judgment just became one of concern. “It’s what you call your friends! Like boo boo bear!”

“I don’t think anyone calls their friends that, YN.”

“That’s because you don’t get it!” You pouted, crossing your arms as you took another sip from your drink.

The whole night you two chatted on your couch. Your teasing was relentless. You didn’t hold back one bit. Mysterion continued with his slip-of-the-tongue flirting, and you always took note of it. You didn’t mind, not one bit. You enjoyed yourself thoroughly with it. 

The early morning approached, and it was around 1 AM. You were surprised that you were still awake, considering how exhausted you were. Mysterion, however, was knocked out on the couch. You dragged his body over to your bed as efficiently as you could—which wasn’t much, but it’s the thought that counts! You draped your blanket over him, and you head out of your room, taking your sleep on the couch like you promised yourself.

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ�� ﾟ｡⋆

You find yourself waking up at 10 AM. Honestly, for how tired out you were, that wasn’t too bad. You noticed you were back in your bed, though. Was the whole thing all a dream? You wouldn’t blame yourself if it was. I mean, maybe you were just desperate for a love life.

You sighed, rising from your bed as you reached over to your nightstand to grab your phone. To your dismay, it wasn’t there. Actually, a scribbled piece of paper was instead lying there. You shook your head, reaching to grab it.

Thanks for last night, cutie pookie pie. Is that right??

- Kenny, aka “Mysterion”

PS: youre the first person im running to if i get hurt badly again :]

You smiled, tucking the letter in your drawer. See you soon, Mysterion. 

#south park fanfiction #south park x reader #kenny mccormick x you #kenny mccormick x y/n #kenny mccormick x reader #kenny mcormick x reader #cocogrrrl's writing

[lykaonimagines]

Not So Bad - Stephen Strange x Reader

Paring: Stephen Strange x F!Reader

Word Count: 2,476

Description: Sorcerer F!Reader was borrowed by the Avengers for a few days for a mission, and Stephen isn’t too happy about her spending the night away from him, causing him to take matters into his own hands. 

Other Things: Fluffy. Established relationship. Post End Game. Kate Bishop appearance. No DSMoM spoilers.

Warnings: Some swearing, mentions of panic attack.

Part 2      Masterlist

Collapsing into the plush chair in her shared hotel room, Y/N sighs loudly and slowly stretches her limbs before starting to massage her fingers and palms to work out the stiffness from her magic use earlier.

“This is still so crazy!” the energetic archer on the other side of the room shouts before flinging herself onto one of the beds. “We’re actually on a real Avengers mission, we’re Avengers!”

Chuckling as she rubs her thumb into her palm, Y/N glances over to Kate with a smile, “You’re an Avenger, I’m on loan from Rent-A-Sorcerer.”

“But you totally could be an Avenger,” Kate insists, putting her chin in her hands as she looks back at Y/N. “Your magic is wicked good, and honestly we could use the help.”

Y/N grins and shakes her head slowly, “I’m down for helping out sometimes, but I’ve got my own duties. Also doubt Strange would take the news that I’m ditching him and the magic house for the cool kids club very well. Last time I was gone for more than a week the Sanctum literally froze over.”  

“Froze over?” Kate’s eyes widen. “How did the entire building freeze over?”

“The Sanctum has a lot of seals that need to be checked periodically and casted again to prevent accidents. That didn’t happen, we got a blizzard inside.”

“Shit that sucks.”

“Mhm, came back to Strange and Wong bundled up in winter clothes shivering by the fire place.”

“He seems pretty… intense honestly.”

“Intense?”

“I don’t know,” Kate huffs and flips over to lay on her back. “I mean, Clint wasn't exactly easy to get close to, not that I gave him the choice. But Doctor Strange just seems… like he’s on some other plane of existence. All protect reality, no time for nonsense. Seriously unapproachable. Borderline terrifying. Don’t know how you live with him everyday.”

Y/N shakes her head once again after a quick exhale of air out of her nose, “You get to know people when you spend as much time around one another as we do.”

“Ok what’s one thing about him I’d never guess?” Kate asks after a moment of silence. “Anything.”

“Hm…” Y/N looks up at the ceiling lost in thought. “He loves music. Like insane level of music trivia knowledge, can guess nearly any song within seconds of it starting.”

Kate laughs and taps away at her phone, “Made him sound human for a second, then firmly back into the realm of too scarily all-knowing.”

“Eh he’s not that scary, trust me,” Y/N chuckles as she feels her own phone vibrate in her pocket. Pulling it out she scoffs, “Tries to convince you he isn’t scary, he immediately texts me.”

“See! Told you he’s fucking scary as shit. He knows.”

Opening their messages, Y/N quickly reads his latest before responding.

-

Stephen 💙: This was a terrible idea, who agreed to this? Come home.

Y/N: Babe it’s only a few days, and they need the help. They got the new kids out in the field.

Stephen 💙: So they needed a master of the mystic arts to babysit the young Avengers?

Inappropriate use of our time, you’re needed here.

Y/N: And what exactly am I needed there for so urgently Doctor Strange??? Last I knew everything I needed to do was handled.

Stephen 💙: Take a picture of your hotel room and send it

Y/N: ???

Stephen 💙: Just send it love

Rolling her eyes, Y/N snaps a quick picture of the hallway leading to the entryway of her shared hotel room and sends it over to Stephen.

Y/N: Happy now?

Babe?

Stephen???

-

Frowning down at his lack of response, she’s startled by the familiar sound of crackling magic by the door way.

Quickly getting up from her chair, Y/N meets Stephen as he leans through the portal. Sending her a knowing smirk, he runs his hand through the normally tidy hair sitting messy on his head. His lack of shirt and a glimpse of their bedroom behind him makes it clear he was headed to bed.

“Couldn’t even stand one day away from me Doctor?” she teases as she stops just shy of him.

“Seriously who approved this?” He complains as he steps through the portal and wraps his arms around her waist. “Don’t see why they needed you.”

“Well Sam specifically said he wanted to ‘borrow a wizard,’ and you scowled, said you were too busy, and stormed off. So I’m the second choice ‘wizard’ rental,” she chuckles as she rests her chin against his bare chest.

“Hmm, if he knew well he’d have chosen you from the start,” Stephen comments as he presses a kiss to her forehead. “Talented and stunning. Infinitely more agreeable.”

“Says you. Though the last point is just fact.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely says me,” he agrees as his hands slowly stroke her back. “Now are you going to come willingly or am I going to have to carry you back to our bed?”

“Can’t stand one night without cuddles Stephen?” she teases before sticking her tongue out at him.

“I won’t suffer a night without my cuddles,” he corrects, returning her gesture.

“Poor boy,” she mumbles as she reaches up to cradle his jaw in her hands. “Long day?”

“Terribly,” he sighs and leans into her touch, his eyes flickering shut. “London Sanctum called for backup shortly after you left.”

“Shit, what happened?”

“Student visiting snagged a book from the advanced section and accidentally summoned a demon in the library.”

“Uhg, please tell me you told him he’s not allowed in the New York Sanctum. I don’t want to lose our bedroom to a demon please.”

“Don’t think he’ll be seeing much of any sanctum, Wong grounded him to Kamar-Taj indefinitely,” he responds before leaning down to press a kiss to her lips. “You however are in urgent need here at the New York Sanctum.”

“Oh, how urgent?” she slowly trailing her thumb over his lip and pressing down on it slightly.

“The fate of this universe depends on it,” he responds stoically before nipping at her thumb.

“You brat did you just bite me?” she smirks and taps the tip of his nose.

“Yep, now get your ass in bed.”

“Babe you know they need me for this mission.”

“And you know we’re more than capable of having you back in this room before they come looking for you in the morning.”

“They need me here. Like here, here. Mission briefs change, targets move, you know the deal,” she explains, still letting herself be drawn in closer to him.

“Cloak’s waiting in bed already, you don’t want to disappointment him right?” Stephen tries, shifting tactics.

“And I love Cloakie, I’ll wrap him all up in a hug when I get back.”

Stephen scowls, narrowing his eyes at his girlfriend in front of him, “This is cruel and unusual punishment darling.”

“Making you sleep in the bed alone for one day is cruel and unusual punishment?”

“Absolutely, and downright neglectful,” he insists, fighting to keep the grin off his lips.

Reaching up to card her fingers through his hair, she pulls him down to her and captures his lips in a kiss. First slow and loving, it quickly gets deeper and rougher as needy sounds come from his throat.

At the sound of someone clearing their throat, the two freeze in place. Stephen’s pupils blown wide, hiding most of his iris as he stares back at Y/N questioningly.

Slowly detangling herself from the sorcerer, Y/N turns sheepishly toward the sound to see a red-faced Kate standing at the end of the hallway.

“Gonna be honest,” she admits, rubbing her hand on the back of her neck. “Forgot you were here Kate, sorry about that.”

“It’s cool,” Kate says, glancing over at Strange before quickly focusing her eyes back on Y/N. “Guess you two are a thing?”

Stephen groans and awkwardly rubs his bare arm, “You saw nothing, alright?”

“You don’t want anyone to know you’re with Y/N?”

“Oh everyone can know Y/N’s mine, but everything you heard. All that, you didn’t hear it. Got it?”

Y/N rolls her eyes before turning back to Stephen, leaning up she presses a chaste kiss to his lips and turns him back toward the portal. “Now you get to bed, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Grumbling under his breath, Stephen finally agrees and steps back through the portal, looking back at his girlfriend once more.

“Close the portal Stephen,” she teases, walking to the edge of it with a smirk.

Within seconds he leans through the portal once again to press another kiss to her lips, then hastily retreats back in and closes the portal behind him.

Y/N shakes her head incredulously and turns back to the young Avenger, “Well this is a bit awkward.”

“Ok, ok, I’ll admit he’s not so scary now,” Kate laughs and walks back to her bed. “I just heard one of the most powerful magical beings in the universe say he won’t suffer a night without cuddles.”

Y/N grins back and flops herself onto the opposite bed, “You need to put up a certain front when you’re in his position. He wants to be respected, and not fucked with. Doesn’t mean that’s his personality. He is very sweet when he wants to be. Just has gone through some shit… like a lot of us have.”

“Were you two a thing when… ya know… it happened?” Kate asks sheepishly.

“During the blip? Yes,” she answers stiffly.

“Were either of you…?”

“He was dusted, I was left behind,” Y/N picks at the comforter in obvious discomfort.

Kate nods slowly, “Seems like a lot of relationships didn’t last that. Did you know he was coming back or something?”

“I… well. I didn’t know for sure. For awhile I just kept hoping he was busy and hadn’t been able to come home. When Stark made it back to Earth I went to talk to him. Told me Stephen gave up the Time Stone to spare his life then got dusted.”

“So you didn’t know he was coming back?”

“I hoped. I believed in him, always have. Thought he had to have some kind of plan. Spent years going through every book in our library. Every note in his desk. Every sheet of paper in our bedroom. Looked under and in and around every last fucking artifact and piece of furniture in that building. Trying to find something. Anything.”

“Did you?”

“No,” the one word hangs in the air as Y/N nearly glares a hole in the ceiling. The familiar ache in her chest coming back. Each breath in shakes her body as she desperately tries to will away the memories.

“So you waited five years for him having no idea if he’d ever come back?” Kate asks as she looks at Y/N questioningly. “Must really love him… wait are you alright?”

“I-I, y-yeah. N-no. I d-don’t know,” Y/N stutters, a hand going up to grip the fabric over her rapidly beating heart. “Sling ring. G-get it.”

Kate quickly hops off her bed and runs to the desk drawer Y/N had stored her things in, digging out the object in question and pressing it into her palm.

Turning over in the bed, Y/N quickly does the motions for a portal, her vision blurring as she watches the magic crackle open. “Stephen!”

She sees immediate movement from the bed, Stephen rushing over and through the portal to her side, “What’s going on!?”

“We were talking and she just started breathing weird, holding her chest, and freaking out,” Kate rambles out, coming to his side and looking down at Y/N worriedly.

Y/N’s hand reaches out shaking as she grabs his wrist, attempting to pull him closer.

Checking her pulse and looking her over, he finally lets her pull him in. Her arms quickly latch around him, followed by her legs intertwining with his and burying her face against his chest, hot tears hitting his skin moments later.

“Shh, shh, I’ve got you,” he whispers as he rubs slow circles on her back as she shakes in his arms.

“She’s having a panic attack,” he says more loudly for Kate. “What happened?”

“I, well we were talking about the blip, and you.”

He hums in thought, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, “Panic over trauma is normal. Finally hit her.”

“I just said how she must love you, since she didn’t know if you would come back but didn’t move on, then she panicked,” Kate admits, kicking at the carpet.

Stephen nods and tightens his grip on his girlfriend, “I’m here love, right here. I’ve got you.”

After a few minutes of silence in the room beyond hushed sniffles, he finally hears her breathing slow, her head leaned against his chest fast asleep.

“Maybe you should close the portal? I mean, if you’re staying here with her,” Kate says before climbing back on to her own bed.

“Looks like you gained another roommate kid,” he carefully shifts Y/N in his arms to slip the sling ring from her hand, and awkwardly makes the gesture to close the portal leading to their bedroom.

“You’re not so bad after all.”

Stephen glances up at Kate with an arched brow at her statement.

“I may or may not have said you’re borderline terrifying,” she admits. “But in my defense, prior to this I met you twice and you were angry both times and stormed off to do ‘more important things.’”

A slight smile crosses his features and he chuckles, “Fair point. She must have found that hilarious,” he nods his head down at the sleeping Y/N.

“Well she said basically when you spend a lot of time with someone you get to know them, but I was thinking that sounded like Stockholm Syndrome until you showed up here demanding cuddles. Then I just realized you just like to look scary.”

Stephen huffs in annoyance, turning on the bed and tucking Y/N into him as he gets more comfortable, “We never speak of this again. No one hears about this. The conversation you heard, her panic attack, or me sleeping here. Never happened. Understood?”

“Still don’t seem as intimidating or tough when you’re holding someone snuggled up to your chest, but alright Doctor, your secret is safe with me,” she winks and slides in under her covers. “Have a good night over there you two.”

Sighing loudly, Stephen pulls up the covers on their bed with a snap and rests his chin on his love’s head as he gently strokes her back. “Sleep well darling.”

----

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#stephen strange #doctor stephen strange #stephen strange x reader #doctor strange #doctor strange x reader #stephen strange imagine #doctor strange imagine #stephen strange x you #doctor strange x you #marvel #fanfiction

[semifilms]

Hello, hello. I’m new here so I don’t know how many character I can request but may I request headcanons of vacations with Suna, oikawa and semi

☆VACATIONS W/ THEM | suna rintaro, toru oikawa, semi eita, atsumu miya

a/n - i actually love this prompt anon and i apologize for being very late to respond and do it 😭i hope you don’t mind that i added atsumu to this🫡 also i got a little carried away & i didn’t proofread 🙈

cw - light swearing

suna doesn’t remember almost anything when you guys are packing. it’s like all basic necessities he needs, he forgets. on the plane ride he is sleeping almost the whole time, he’s dreading the jetlag but he wants to be prepared for the long day you guys have planned. wherever you decide to vacation he’s excited to be there as long as you are. you’re happy, he’s happy. the only thing he’s really looking forward to might be sleeping in the hotel. the plane seats were not comfortable. you think he paid for first class? no. once he gets real good sleep in he’s actually so much more energetic and is ready to go do little tourist things. he takes servers pictures of you guys at landmarks and restaurants just to save to a little album on his phone <3

oikawa is basically vlogging the whole process of picking and the trip. he honestly isn’t that forgetful but he’ll forget like one thing and it’s probably really important. seems like the type to overpack and forget his passport. also definitely wants to be their 2 hours early. you guys would grub on airport food until the flight. and yes, you’re definitely flying first class i don’t think i could picture him settling in economy. he’s seen the movies and he’s experienced those crying toddlers and those unlucky seats in between sweaty strangers. he’s not up for that at all. he would definitely post pictures of you guys posing in front of landmarks to his socials. or the food you guys eat at restaurants. i feel like i’m his instagram close friends he’s rating the food like he’s keith lee. overall it’s a very enjoyable vacation.

SEMIIIIIII my love<<333. (my bad) anyway, he makes sure you don’t forget anything. he made a list and he checked it not once, not twice, but three times he had to make sure. you guys leave prepared and you get to the airport 20 minutes before departure. i’m sorry but he’s not trying to wait in the airport for 5 hours, like some people…. if there are any types of street performers music wise or whatever he will stop so you two can watch. (definitely leaving tips.) going to an art museum is on the itinerary. he just likes making little jokes about the art and interpreting it in a funny way and not making it deep. but he also really appreciates the art and especially street art (if any where you vacationed) he will make small talk with older natives to wherever you visit and listen to their stories. even if he’s not interested he acts like he is. he’s making the most out of the vacation that’s for sure.

now i’ve thought about atsumu on vacation several times this is why i had to include him. he’s forgetful when you’re packing, no doubt but in the end he remembers everything and you guys BARELY make it in time to the airport. you’d think with how often he’s flown he’d be better but no. this man is looking forward to fucking up some foreign food. he is using this vacation as an excuse for whatever diet he is on. fans spot him in the airport when you guys arrive and the amount of paparazzi is insane. nonetheless he is really just has his arm wrapped around you as you guys head out to the ride waiting for you. NICE ASS HOTEL! NICE ASS HOTEL! 100% got one of those rooms that looks like an apartment. did you guys watch singles inferno? like those. back to the food he is cleaning plates and trying every single dish recommend at the restraints. hell take some photos of landmarks but he’s rather just enjoy it with you in the moment.

©semifilms do not copy, repost or translate my works

reblogs appreciated!

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #atsumu x reader #atsumu miya #suna x reader #suna rintaro #oikawa x reader #toru oikawa #semi eita #semi x reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyu headcanons #hq headcanons #atsumu headcanons #suna headcanons #suna fluff #atsumu fluff #semi fluff #oikawa fluff #haikyuu drabble #hq atsumu #haikyuu drabbles

[dai-bendu-conlang]

hello! i’ve been doing a project recently where i’m creating a new writing script and i’m just getting to the designing stage (finally after a whole lot of research!).

i was wondering if you could tell me a little about how you designed the dai bendu writing system or any interesting things you decided to do with it?

Okay this is going to be much less impressive and helpful than you think it might be, my apologies xD

So, first of: we tried to create our conlang based on the scraps of Jedi language worldbuilding we were given. So when it came to script, we searched for whether there were any scraps. Lo and behold: the sequel trilogy is useful for once as it gave us the sacred Jedi texts and boom: we had a script.

We copied pretty much ever “letter” of those pages and tried to see how many there were. We’d already decided that we were going for a phonological script, meaning that every letter would correspond to a singular specific sound. And then we looked at the letters we had and adapted them until we liked their look. After all, this is supposed to be a modernized script. And that is pretty much it.

Now, as an addendum: what we didn’t know when we did that is that the sacred jedi texts are even more lackluster in creative world building than we assumed. Here is a pretty good research article on what those pages might all be based on. So technically speaking the design of our script falls somewhere between Ge’ez and Coptic.

I’ll hand it to them, however. This is a step up for the absolute catastrophic fuck up that was using Hebrew for Sith originally. Shout out to Ben Grossblatt for fixing that, I’m sorry Disney never let you do more stuff for Sith.

I think the most interesting thing - and our one phonological exception - is the fact that we created a letter that means “Dai” aka “Force”.

We went for three circles as circles keep showing up in Jedi art and we like the symbolism of a circle connecting all. This also enables some really neat calligraphy, which I think Jedi would enjoy practicing. Also fun fact: if you’re insane enough to for some reason sort how every single sith and Jedi temple we know looks like, you’ll discover that Jedi prefer domes in their building designs.

For you: I’d recommend looking into the environment of your culture. What did they first start writing on? What materials were used? How would that have changed? Did they have contact with other cultures that might have influenced the script? And also, is it writeable? Is this something you can do calligraphy with as easily as take some notes grocery shopping? If your script isn’t practical in every day life, you might wanna change it until it is. I’d recommend practicing writing it yourself.

#jedi #dai bendu #ask #star wars #passive wistful lullabies

[kanmom51]

Jikook haters/doubters/deniers

Not gonna accept hate in my blog

Some people have lost the plot

I must be stupid

This is a Minkook/Jikook blog

Kind of sick of this

Solo stans not welcome

You guys fuck off

Letter to troll

Just go away

BTB Jin&Jimin M countdown Special MC from 17 Dec 2016

Met JK today

Admin announcement

This is my message to all the asses out there spreading this f**king hate

Stop trashing JM and grow up

If you have something to say don’t hide behind anonymous asks

To the haters

Nay sayers and what they are unwilling to see

Jikook showing their love is not disrespectful

Watch original content

JK eating V’s ear - is this really being compared to RB?

Jikook are not brothers

Sure Jikook are not the same

Jessi doesn’t know Minkook are a couple - must mean they aren’t - or does it?

JM&JK are not in a mother/son relationship

JK familiar with JM ;

More of JK familiar with JM

Jikook is more than physical attraction

JM sleeps late it must mean Jikook are no more (not)

JK flirting with JM

Save Jungkook from toxic fans

The actual discussion between JK & JM prior to Hickey-gate

Enjoy Jikook bliss

A lesson in human reactions

Another rant

Jikook are just gonna keep Jikooking

RB the true to life Minkook conversation coming off stage

Jikook are a couple, and even though Run BTS is work they still manage to Jikook

Jikook are lovely

If they are a couple they are brave

Not interacting on IG - what does it mean?

Jikook Mic drop

2018 BTS contemplating disbandment - Suga’s messages to JK & Tae

Once again with the doubting

Enough with the “JK doesn’t like JM” story

JK not telling us where JM’s friendship tattoo is - what does it mean?

What I think about Jikook as of today (7 July 2022)

Something to learn from Hobi’s comment

JK’s tattoos

JK’s tattoos once again

Omitting JK’s tattoo from art is just wrong

Again with this?

JK and Vibe

A new level of insanity

Boundaries crossed once again

the likelihood of Jikook being just friends

Jimin ain’t surprised JK focuses on his lips

The difference between friendship and relationship

“if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and it quacks like a duck, than it’s probably a duck”.

New Years show @MBC 31 Dec 2016 fancam

BBC Radio 1 2021 interview

JM is genuine

When there is sexual tension and when there isn’t

Tae and JK’s boxing IG convo

JM flying back for JK’s birthday 2019 - his Saudi Vlive

JM’s Jikook selfie for JKs 2021 birthday

Young crushing JM

It was JM’s story to tell

JK’s tiger tattoo

I will not post TKK content

JK’s tattoos

The mic is blue!!!

JM on Weverse 31 August 22

JM merch behind clip - again with this?

JK and skinship

JK ‘hates’ skinship with JM

JK doesn’t shy away from skinship with JM

JK is smitten with JM

Please understand who JK is and stop coming at him

Stop coming at JK

Another JK ain’t uncomfortable with JM

JM & JK at the airports (NY & Seoul) September 2021

JK - If I was a girl JM would be a guy I would date…

OMG JK said “I love you” to Tae + stop the “JK never said I love you to JM” narrative

PTD dance practice

Tokopedia - JK saying “I love you, I love you” to Tae - actual meaning explained by K-army

This is not ‘a moment’

“JK is attracted to JM because he’s androgynous and seductive” - NOT

More about JK’s attraction to JM

Jungkook being NOT uncomfortable with JM

A lesson in an uncomfortable JK as opposed to a comfortable JK

JK doesn’t have to prove his love for JM to us

JK is in a committed relationship

The Nain IG saga - ugh

Tae the clingmaster

Who is JK attracted to?

No comparison between JKK and any other coupling

This isn’t JK getting close and intimate with Tae - let me show you intimacy

BV S4E4 JM is not annoyed with JK

Run BTS EP. 149 behind

No confusion, they left together

Yet again addressing JM’s bromance comment

Melon 2018 & Only then

TMA 2021 TKK being bro’s

Jikook ‘not’ flirting in memories 2020 ;

Jikook 2022 weekend interview more

Tae’s Paris Vlive January 2019

The New Jersey Vlive - “Tae get the f**k out of here already” vibe

Hobi Vlive - JK’s comment he didn’t think he would fall in love with a man…

Jikook - those undeniable moments

Free JK from clingy JM - NOT , link 2, link 3

KM fights we know of

Jungkook is definitely not upset when JM spills the beans

JK ain’t uncomfortable with JM

JM is screaming out loud he’s in a relationship with JK for years

Frustration why won’t people listen to Jikook?

They are all single

A little rant

The ring saga 1

The ring saga 2

The ring saga 3

Was that a Fuck you kiss to the haters JM?

JK ain’t gay y’all

Some truths to the JK has a gf Tik Tok (you’ll be surprised)

A message

This needs to stop

The fandom sees Jikook

Just had to answer this one

So privacy has been violated... or -  reblog

Time to bring this back

What’s even going on - the grainy clip and what followed - reblog

JK Radio Stationhead 1 October 2023 and a little more too

JK Stationhead radio 2 October 2023

JK TikTok 3 October 2023

This - a reblog

Jikook - what we see is what we get

Me being a broken record again

This is not JK

Fanservice couple suck at fanservicing - reblog

#Jikook haters #Jikook doubters #Jikook deniers #Jikook haters masterlist #Jikook doubters masterlist #Jikook deniers masterlist #jikook #minkook #kookmin #jungkook #jk #jimin #jm #kanmom #kanmom masterlist #masterlist

[here2bbtstrash]

self control (explicit)

genre: my first foray into angst !!!! with a side of smut~

pairing: hoseok x reader (imagined)

summary: you'll never know the way hoseok really feels about you.

word count: 1k

contains: explicit sexual content ~ member POV, unrequited love, masturbation, imagined: [infidelity, cunnilingus, sex, choking, & dumbification if you squint], hobi is rly hard on himself :'( also a small allusion at the end to rituals around cleanliness or obsessive-compulsive tendencies

A/N: please don't ask me what inspired this because i haven't a clue my friends 💀 just deep in my cancer season/yearning feels over here I GUESS. but i let myself write a little differently to fit The Vibe and i think i like how it turned out~

i like don't even want to post this considering i just dropped so much on you (and i said i was on a break but shhhh the muse came for me), buuuuuut doing it anyway ack!!! ENJOY!!

this is also on AO3!

~*~

Hoseok makes himself sick when he’s like this.

His hyungs warned him that this would hurt. He didn’t realize they’d meant it so literally. It physically hurts, a thumbprint-shaped bruise blossoming inside his chest, molded that way because he keeps fucking pressing on it, putting an ache in himself for no good reason, thinking of you, like this, like now.

He sees himself down on his knees in front of you, where he belongs, sinning through the act of worship. Begging some god he doesn’t believe in to forgive him, because he sure as hell isn’t forgiving himself, not when he isn’t even sorry.

So fucking insane, to be on the verge of tears and somehow stupidly horny at the same time. Make that make sense.

A hotel room on a high floor, a king-sized bed, egyptian cotton. Only the best for you, fuck a pricetag. The irony of infidelity framed in double-pane windows, city lights blinking impartially as he unzips your dress, says a prayer into your mouth, don’t have to tell anybody, just us, just tonight.

The way you want it, too. You bloom for him, pretty and pliant. At least that’s his hope.

He turns listlessly, his bed– his real bed in his new, too-big house, where every room throws an echo because he doesn’t have enough furniture to fucking fill it– suddenly hot, legs a frustrated tangle in the blankets, dick stirring to attention between them. He doesn’t want to be here (he doesn’t want to be anywhere, really, blipping out of existence for the night would be ideal), so he closes his eyes, lets himself sink back into it.

Just a little longer, then he’ll be good.

Your hair fans out on the pillow beneath you, makeup a mess but you’re smiling anyway, breathless and raw and so real inside this fantasy. Reaching for him, fuck-me eyes, come on, insatiable, give it to me, need you nownownow.

He fucks you down into the plush hotel mattress, and he can’t stop thinking that your body is art, a relief sculpture of curves against soft white bedding, a carved out and fucked out beauty. His, tonight. It’s enough. More than.

The sheets are damp at the place where your bodies meet, arousal and sweat and saliva from nearly an hour spent between your legs (he loves the way they shake when you’re close) because he’s learned that once he gets you started, you don’t stop coming.

He strokes deep because he loves the way you whimper with each pass, the way you squeeze tight enough to tear a growl from the back of his throat, he’s fucking feral with it now. Braces himself on one hand while the other holds your throat but applies no pressure; he knows better than that, can’t have you going home marked up.

Hoseok is good for you, leaves no trace behind that won’t wash off in the shower. He has excellent self control.

Excellent enough that he should’ve ripped himself out of this dream already. He’s never let things go this far before, in his mind. He’s all determination when he wants to be, synapses hard as steel, can shove down desire and self-hatred and something too desperate to quite be love until it goes still again and he can put the smile back on.

But tonight feels different. It’s like he wants the pain, would elect to be gutted and splayed down the middle if only for proof that his heart remains there in his chest, beating quiet consistency.

Yes, like before, even now.

Just the same, even now.

Always, probably.

He’s hard, has been hard. Sticky sweet kisses of precum press over the inside of his briefs, then into the hollow of his stomach when he flips his length up, as if that might help.

He doesn’t want to touch himself. It’s another line he’s yet to cross, the last thing he has to cling to when he needs to believe that he isn’t depraved, disgusting, for harboring all of this inside himself, carrying this pathetic torch for far too long.

But the thought of rutting into you, the little gasps you make, eyelashes fluttering and pussy quivering as he works yet another one out of you… Shit. It’s too much. When you tip up to find his lips with yours, whining nonsensically into his mouth– fucked too dumb to make any sense, he thinks he might not ever let you leave this room.

And that snaps his last thread of restraint.

Hoseok only needs to thrust up into his fist three times before his climax hits, painting over his stomach, chest, hand, sheets, fuck. He bites down so hard on his other palm that he threatens to break skin, all to muffle the animal sound of shame and need, a force of habit– he lives alone now, the walls of his empty house don’t give a fuck.

He comes like a virgin, he thinks to himself, critiquing a performance the second he steps off the stage as is his way. The thought that finally sent him over the edge was PG-13 at best: his tongue in the heat of your mouth.

He really does think he could get over all this if you kissed him, just once.

Embarrassing.

Guilt is a bitter chaser to pleasure, downed before bliss even shows up, if there was any. He’s a mess: emotionally, literally– cum all over himself, the bedsheets too. Creepy, dirty, wrong.

His chest constricts in the way that’s become so familiar it’s almost soothing, makes no fucking sense yet somehow it does. A self-invented problem he knows how to solve, a specific set of steps begging completion in perfect order.

Scalding-hot shower. Exfoliate. Lotion. Cleanser, toner, serum; wait for it to sink in. Sheets in the wash. Detergent, fabric softener. Vacuums the floor while he’s at it. New sheets on the bed, hospital corners tucked sharp, pillows fluffed, immaculate. Back to the bathroom, moisturizer that he adds two drops of rose-hip oil to and mixes against the back of his hand, sleeping pack to lock it in.

He swears he’s got new lines along the corners of his mouth, feels stupid that he’s ruining his skin with smiles that aren’t even real.

He can exhale, then, still with a tight grip on the edge of the sink. Once it’s all done, every trace of indiscretion cleaned up and put away, and he’s good again. At least until the next time his self control slips.

#hoseok angst #hoseok x reader #hoseok smut #bts angst #bts smut

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

Let’s talk about backlash and response in the Red, White & Royal Blue literary and cinematic universe.

The book:

Casey changed two things in the book when there was backlash, and honestly the fact that they were so quick to respond to these and not anything else is kinda super upsetting.

The first was the Harry Potter books that Alex (and Henry too?) read, and like obviously JKR is a fucking bad person, but… The books exist! Millions of people read the books! Mentioning them by name isn’t gonna make you a bad person, having fictional people read these books doesn’t make them bad, it means they read books that existed. Trust me, I’m in the hating JKR trenches with everyone, she’s an antisemitic TERF, but of all the things in the world to be mad at, fictional characters reading a book isn’t it. Like, I have Harry Potter books on my shelf, am I supposed to burn them all and go back through my old instagram from middle school to delete all references to Hogwarts houses? No. Because multiple things can be true at once: JKR is a terrible person, and Harry Potter books at one point were highly read and enjoyed. Like, mentioning or not mentioning a book from over 20 years ago won’t impact JKR, if you want to stand up against her, stand up against her new video game and TV show— things that will directly put money in her pocket, stand up against Cursed Child if you want, donate to valued organizations that promote the things she hates. Anyway, It was changed to the Percy Jackson series instead, which is fine, but I think changing the books was an interesting choice. Like, obviously Casey doesn’t agree with the transphobic and disgusting views of JKR, neither do the characters. (CMQ probably does agree with some of the antisemitism, but that’s another story). Regardless of my own views on this change, people were upset by it and it was changed. Casey listened and made the fix. Editing to add: I’m totally cool with the change! Like I complete understand why it was done and if I were Casey I would have done the same thing. I, very badly, wanted to show how you can separate the author from the art, but I think there are some things that maybe can be judged by the author. I hope anyone I offended by misspeaking sees this and understands that I didn’t mean to reduce your pain. You are valid and correct in wanting the book removed from the book, especially when it was an easy fix. My point was solely that Casey listened and changed things, I shouldn’t have said anything else that undermined that or caused hurt, even indirectly. Again, sorry if my misspeaking hurt you, it was never my intention

The second time the book was edited, was after some people got weird about a reference to a UN ambassador: (copied from a Slate article because this isn’t in my copy) in which a supporting character who is the president of the United States complains, “Well, my UN ambassador fucked up his one job and said something idiotic about Israel, and now I have to call Netanyahu and personally apologize.”.

This is literally so nothing it’s insane. People claimed it justified the Israel/Palestine conflict and said that America would always back Israel, which like, I’m not going to explain the conflict because it’s bigger, older, and more complex than Tumblr, but no. No. No. No. Just no. This has nothing to do with that, Israel and America are Allies, and it’s no different than someone saying something about Canada. Also, nobody likes Netanyahu except Netanyahu, so this line is actually more of a funny satirical line about how the president has to go talk to this guy who’s an ally but super annoying. This is not an invite to send me anything about the I/P conflict, because I promise I know way more on this topic than you think and I’m not getting into it. Regardless, people said stuff, Casey listened, it was changed.

The movie:

After backlash about the actors ages, Casey posted a very attitude filled and almost-guilt trippy post saying that it’s rude and wrong to say that people who are 28 or 30 are old, because that’s calling Casey old, that’s saying that people who are older can’t discover their sexualities.

None of that was what people were saying, but they wanted to save themself, so they responded.

Backlash about the actors sexualities- Casey responded.

Preemptive response to people talking about Nick’s hair color- There was a response from multiple people

Response to people talking about Taylor being Mexican-American. This one was more of a “Hey! We did it!” Positive response by multiple people from the production, mainly the director who said that they purposely sought out the correct actor for Alex so people wouldn’t say anything bad and would be happy about it.

I’m sure there’s more, but I haven’t been in the know for a longggggg time.

All that to say, there’s been a ton of backlash about how Nora’s ethnicity was erased and how antisemitic their casting decision was, and the only thing they’ve done is block and remain silent. Not to forget that the production and CMQ know about the antisemitism within the RWRB fandom and they don’t give a shit.

Funny how things can be addressed when it’s literally about anything besides their Jew-erasure.

#rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #red white royal blue movie #rwrb cast #rwrb #red white and royal blue movie #casey mcquiston #red white royal blue cast #nora holleran #rachel hilson #jewish #red white royal blue #cmq #rwrb film #prince henry of wales #alex claremont diaz #nora rwrb #rwrb henry

[ryuichirou]

I’m back, the VilOrtho enthusiast offering my VilOrtho agenda to you yet again 🤲🏻

So, I play EN servers but that hasn’t stopped me from watching book 7 on YT etc. plus all the art that’s going round, in particular Ortho’s Cerberus fit. Wow, they went hard didn’t they?

Obviously we haven’t got the full story yet but it doesn’t stop my mind from straying to the fact that Ortho is going to get in there and do his best to save everyone. I’m having thoughts of Vil rousing and Ortho being more than protective of his beautiful senpai. Since book 6 these two have had more than a special bond through film club.

The first thing Vil see is Ortho is this outfit, even though there’s a lot going on he just can’t help the ridiculous way he’s getting turned on especially when Ortho starts fussing him. Meanwhile Ortho’s sense of smell is heightened in that outfit, not to mention he’s experiencing heat. He can practically smell Vil without even trying.

Once things are over Ortho doesn’t swap back just yet… the idea of humiliating Vil first and knotting him until he’s nothing but ruined makeup and pleas just makes Ortho fucking wild. It’s new but even a sudden revelation of breeding the queen seems like something he wants more than anything.

Hi again, VilOrtho enthusiast! It’s good to hear from you again.

Ortho’s Cerberus gear is sick, I think it’s my favourite one out of all of his gears. They went so hard it’s insane. Even though ch7 isn’t complete yet, and we’re yet to see what he can do in this fit, its existence pretty much opened a Pandora box full of kinky scenarios and knot jokes lol It’d be a lie to say that we haven’t thought about it ourselves……

… Not with Vil though, damnnn 😳😳😳 A queen and a misbehaving pup?? With a heightened sense of smell?? That can find him anywhere because of course he can??

I approve this message and especially the idea of Cerberus!Ortho shoving his cold nose up Vil’s butt to say hi and make sure that he is the one he wants to breed.

#replies #oruvil

[thoroughlymodernminutia]

A Wisp of Smoke - Chapter 1 (Mike Duarte x F!Reader)

Summary: An unconventional member joins the Bronx Gang Unit.

Word Count: 3364

Content Warning: This is mildly canonical but like not really, so if that bothers you, then I’d skip. Some physical description - gave hte reader some gray hair cause I'm old and I want to represent some old people lol. Edit that out of your mind if you need to. Foul language (if that bothers you?), Gang talk, coworkers who don’t like each other, this part I don’t think has anything that would be triggering, but if you feel differently I can update the warnings.

A/N: When I tell you that I started writing this in October…it means exactly that. This has morphed into something different than I was expecting and I imagine I will have to scrap some stuff I have written once the next episode airs, so this is EVOLVING. Who even knows what this will be about by the time it’s finished. God help me. If there are typos, I apologize - I proof read this a few times and i'm sure somewhere there is something wrong

UM, Minors probably shouldn’t read this but I’m not your mother.

—-

The thing about the subway is it takes time to understand the quirks—the nuances—of the subway lines you take. The majority of your time is taking one line to and from work if you’re lucky. You’ve been taking one train line for so long, you’re at 90% accuracy of predicting when something is about to go wrong. You like the routine of it—knowing if you get to the platform right at 8:01 AM you’ll only have to wait a minute before the train comes and you’ll get to work early. It’s an art and a science, but it takes practice. It’s why taking a job so far out of your usual subway line is annoying; you have to learn it all over again. It’s made even worse by having to switch to another line, if something goes wrong on that first leg of the commute, you’re fucked for the rest of it.

And today, you feel like you’re fucked. You leave your apartment like a parent leaving for the airport; panicking about the time and trying to make sure you have everything. You feel smug catching the subway right when it pulls into the platform and getting in a nearly empty subway car. The smugness fades when you transfer to another train that happily sits between stations for 30 minutes and then decides to switch to the express track. It’s not express for you though, of course. It puts you a good mile away from where you need to be, instead of the five blocks you planned for. The extra distance isn’t an issue, for once you might show up on time without having to walk around the block ten times. It is, however, unseasonably warm for February and now your coat is overkill. You stop and take it off, juggling your bag from hand to hand as you remove it. It’s insane, not even being able to feel cold in February in New York. 

While you walk the unfamiliar sidewalks of the South Bronx you think about how this is your brother-in-law Tommy’s doing. You don’t even know how or why he’s sending you up to the Bronx as some kind of backfill in the Gang Unit. You aren’t a cop, so you have no idea why they’d want you up there. You feel like it’s going to look pretty strange, a senior analyst for the NYPD in the Intelligence Bureau, joining the Gang Unit. Gangs in the Bronx aren’t really on your radar; the majority of your time is spent juggling mostly empty threats against NYC. Analyzing the message boards and social media where people spew garbage 24/7. It’s weird to think that maybe this will be a break from that. 

You do know a little about Duarte’s reputation. For as much as Tommy thinks gossiping is a female trait he certainly loves to partake in it. You heard all about the drama between him and Captain Benson–Tommy was almost gleeful when recounting it. You get the impression that like most men in the NYPD Duarte is only happy when he gets his way. You could be completely wrong, it’s not like Tommy is the most reliable narrator. 

—-

The precinct looks different than you thought it would. You had imagined something along the lines of a bland box with windows, but this is a beautiful limestone building. Some of the stone work looks like it belongs in an Italian palazzo in the 16th century. The inside reminds you of an old library with the heavy wood furniture and dim lighting. It’s really quite something—all these disappearing architectural gems throughout all the boroughs. As you walk towards the Desk Sergeant you wonder how much longer it will be around before the city turns it into a glassbox citing progress in the neighborhood. 

When you ask where you can find Captain Duarte you realize the charm seems to end with the interior and doesn’t really extend to the people. She looks like you’ve just ruined her day by speaking to her. She nods her head towards the stairs and says it’s the third floor. You thank her, thinking maybe that’s her problem, no one ever sounds grateful for her assistance. Halfway up the stairs you do consider turning around and walking right back down and out of the building. You suppress the urge; dealing with Tommy in the aftermath of flaking would probably be worse than whatever fresh hell is waiting for you a few flights up.

You duck into the bathroom when you get to the third floor and are relieved when you find it empty. You set your bag on the edge of the sink, and drape your coat over a stall door. You turn back to the mirror and give yourself a once over. You were going for an overall look of extreme competence so you went with all black. Black silk button down, black skinny jeans, black thick soled loafers. You think maybe you look like you’re about to attend a funeral—probably your own. You hike up your jeans a little and try to ignore how much your feet hurt. You look back up to your face in the mirror to check your makeup. It still looks good; your eyeliner is intact and hopefully giving the impression that you’re precise, detail oriented. Your hair looks fine, the gray pieces framing your face, glossy under the overhead lights. You used to hate that you started going gray fairly young; you must have spent thousands covering it up over the years. At some point you stopped caring and just let it be. It came with a fun bonus, men you worked with suddenly thought you were old and left you alone. You give yourself one last once over before washing your hands. As you grab your things and head out of the bathroom you run through the little information you have like you’re cramming for a test. 

An officer shows you to Captain Duarte’s office and tells you that you can wait inside, that he doesn’t know when he’ll be back. It’s very you to think that you’re going to be late to something and be the person that ends up waiting. When the officer leaves you put your bag on one of the chairs and drape your coat over the back. His desk is neat and you don’t see much in the way of personal effects on it. There’s a few books and you’re tempted to go to the other side of his desk to get a better look, but restrain yourself knowing the moment you do, he will come walking in. You sit down in one of the chairs and wait. 

—-  

As Duarte approaches his office he can see you sitting inside. He had put your arrival out of his mind once McGrath had told him and seeing you now throws him off for a moment. He should be prepared, he only knows what McGrath told him. Although, he’s sure that since McGrath is the one who sent you here, the information isn’t reliable. When you get up and introduce yourself, his initial impression is that you’re prissy. The way your coat is folded over the back of one of the chairs. How you’re now clasping your hands in front of you. Your outfit, a far cry from the recently departed, hoodie-clad Muncy. He can’t tell what he hates more right now, the way you look or that you were foisted on him by McGrath. 

Duarte closes the door to his office and turns back to face you.

“I don’t really know what you’re doing here. You have no gang—no actual police experience. I’d wager to say you’ve never used a gun. I don’t care about your intelligence experience. Frankly, you could single handedly bring down all gang activity in this city and it wouldn’t matter to me. If you think whatever relationship you have with McGrath is going to help you here, you’re wrong.”

It’s a lot all at once and you try to ignore the way he says ‘relationship’. As if you slept with Tommy to get you a job with the Gang Unit. If you’re going to sleep your way to a new job in the NYPD, it wouldn’t be for a mostly lateral position all the way in the Bronx. You can feel yourself about to do that thing where you match the energy that’s being directed your way. It’s great when the person you’re dealing with isn’t an asshole. But if they’re looking to take the low road, well you own a home there.

“I’m sorry, I must have blacked out. I think I missed a part where you said something like ‘I’m glad to have you on the team.’” 

The look on his face tells you he was expecting you to be more yielding in your response. Maybe eight or ten years ago you would have been. You’re tired of minimizing yourself to make men in the NYPD feel better.

“If I felt that way, I would have said it. This is real shit we deal with, no one here has time to babysit you.”

“Well, I’ll just have to cut the crust off my own sandwich then, won’t I?” You try to keep your voice calm. “Look, I’m good at my job and whatever it is I’m supposed to do here, I’ll be good at that too.”

Duarte grabs a box off of his desk and thrusts it at you. 

“I think you’re going to find your confidence is misplaced.”

You balance the box on your hip as you pick up your coat and bag from the chair. You consider not saying anything else, but when you get to the door you turn around and smile.

“I just have to say, this has just been so pleasant. Really looking forward to working with you.”

He huffs in your general direction before turning back to his desk. You know he’s setting you up for failure—not giving you a single inch already. He’s probably looking forward to watching you spin your wheels and flame out. If there’s anyone that can dig their heels in it’s you, so if he is looking for some kind of low level fight you’re ready.

—-

You’re unpacking the box at your desk when you see a friendly face standing at the desk across from yours. It could be Satan smiling at you at this point and you’d take it. You both introduce yourselves as he sits down.

“Should I call you Jordan or Williams? I know how much everyone in the NYPD loves going by their last name.” 

“Ha! True. Honestly, either is fine.”

You pull another stack of files and a hard drive out the box and look at your computer for the time. When you see it’s barely 10AM you know it’s going to be a long rest of the day. 

“Well, Jordan, can I ask you something?”

“Let me guess, your face is giving me, is he always like that?”

“Ha, yes that is the question.”

Jordan lets out a sigh, “It depends. He’s still pissed at McGrath I think. After he let Captain Benson snatch Muncy from us. And then Benson gets attacked, I don’t know, there’s a lot going on.” He pauses for a moment. “It’s fucked up, but he’s probably worried McGrath sent you up here as a spy or something.”

“What if he did?”

Jordan leans back in his chair and scans your face trying to determine if you’re telling the truth.

“Did he?”

You give Jordan a wry smile.

“No. But it will be fun letting Captain Duarte think so.”

You can’t help but laugh because it’s so dumb; that someone would think you were sent up here to spy. It seems like something Tommy would do—send someone up here to unknowingly spy for him. Tommy is an idiot, but you’re not. 

Jordan chuckles as he shakes his head.

“I think it’s going to be good having you around.”

You both chat a little more and you’re able to get from him what you couldn’t from Duarte; what he’s actually looking for. You already had a feeling that he wanted to treat gangs like terrorist groups and your theory proves true. It also proves true that he wanted someone with your experience but who was also a detective. He must think Tommy short-changed him with you so he could have a person on the inside. At least now you have a clearer picture of why he hates you. You’d probably hate you too if you were in Duarte’s shoes.

You spend the rest of the morning going through everything Duarte gave you. It’s strange trying to apply everything you know to a completely new set of circumstances. You can already feel some doubt creeping in. Yes you’re good at your job—but this is not that. You think that Duarte probably views you as some interloper trying to use this as some kind of play to get ahead. Take credit for fixing a problem and leave behind other growing problems. It’s only partially true; you don’t care about taking credit for things but you are an interloper. It’s not like this is really your community; you don’t live in areas impacted by gang violence. You don’t have the depth and breadth of knowledge on the specific systemic issues that allow this type of thing to flourish. With counter-terrorism it always seems like a much broader issue where the violence impacts many, where gang violence only affects the few. It’s something that you feel like you’re going to be unpacking for as long as you’re here. 

Duarte and Williams leave early in the afternoon. You don’t know if you were expecting Duarte to tell you what’s going on, but he doesn’t. He just gives you an annoyed look as he passes by your desk and you give him a tight lipped smile. You think back to this morning and wish you would have taken the high road and acquiesced to his running commentary of your lack of abilities. It’s the ‘relationship’ jab that’s bothering you the most for some reason—probably because it was so unnecessary. You wish you were the type of person that could just move on from comments like that but you’re not; it’s probably why your last relationship ended. So you know you’re going to hold on to that relationship comment much longer than necessary. 

With Duarte gone you feel like you can finally relax; your shoulders drop and you take a few quiet breaths. You plug in the hard drive to your laptop and try to figure out where to start. When you first started with the bureau in counter-terrorism, it was overwhelming, but you quickly found your footing. It was a lot of research and developing counterintelligence reports. It was your job to plan, research, develop, and communicate in-depth analysis of targets, networks, and issues to key leaders in the department. You know how to plan and implement strategies based on a combination of information and gut feeling. At least here you won’t be starting entirely from scratch. You have your experience—and while this is a different set of circumstances you know what’s needed. You settle in and start familiarizing yourself with all the information you have. 

You want to memorize the faces, the names, everything about the people in the files and computer in front of you. You know right now the focus seems to be BX9, but you also know as these groups collapse they splinter off or join existing gangs. You work on putting something together that you can leave for Duarte. The thought crosses your mind that if he doesn’t expect anything of you then why bother, but you have enough self respect to not do that.

—-

He sees you in his office as he comes into the squad room. He can see through the open blinds that you’re standing behind his desk, looking out of the window towards the street. He was hoping you’d be gone and that he wouldn’t have to deal with you again today. He just wants some fucking peace.

“Do you need something?” Duarte’s voice is quiet as he enters his office but he sees you jump a little in place at the sound of it. As you turn around and see it’s him you half smile. He recognizes it as the kind of smile that says you didn’t want to see him either. He thinks for a moment how this could have gone differently. How he could have been given someone qualified—a real detective. He wouldn’t have this generalized annoyance he’s been feeling since this morning.

“No, sorry. Was just leaving something on your desk.” 

You brush past him as you say it and it breaks him from his train of thought. He watches you grab your things from your desk and then turn to leave. He sees you stop as Williams comes back to his desk. He watches as you say something to Williams but it’s not loud enough for him to hear. Whatever it was it must have been funny because Williams laughs. Duarte calls him into his office and he hears you say goodnight as you’re walking out of the squad room. 

“You need something, Cap?” 

“I want you to keep an eye on her.” 

“Yeah, of course.”

“I need to know if she’s—”

Williams cuts him off and shakes his head.

“I don’t think she’s like that if that’s what you’re getting at. I like her.”

“Good for you. Just do what I ask.”

“Aye, aye Cap.” 

Williams turns to leave and Duarte closes the office door behind him. He goes over to his desk and opens the bottom drawer and pulls out a bottle of bourbon and a glass. It’s incredible how fucking exhausted he is every day. Every day since the subway attack in Manhattan has steadily been draining him. And then Benson getting attacked and her inserting herself into the investigation; he feels like everyone is coming at him from all sides. He feels like a tire slowly losing air. He uncorks the bottle and pours himself a drink and downs it before sitting in his chair. 

He mulls over the decision the DA’s office made every single day. On the surface he understood the reasoning behind it. But deeper, he felt it was a mistake, a decision made for optics. A lie that Manhattan has rid itself of BX9. That only the poor fucks in the Bronx have to deal with them from now on. Well that went out the fucking window once Benson got kicked in the ribs. If she had listened to him instead of only thinking about her case it would be a different story. Instead he has two dead kids in Rikers and he’s hunting for more. He pours himself another drink while he tries to ignore the pressure building in his chest. He’s grateful for the nearly empty floor, the quiet.

He leans in his chair and notices a manilla folder on his desk; it has a post-it with his name on it scrawled in unfamiliar handwriting. Maybe you’re already resigning, it wouldn’t surprise him. He knows he wasn’t very welcoming. He has no desire, no energy to be—this job is all consuming. He grabs the file folder and opens it. Inside he sees you’ve put together a briefing based on all the information you went through. You seem to have analyzed what you view as gaps in the systems that are being used to monitor gang activity currently. You’ve even outlined the resources you’ll need. It’s not even entirely focused on BX9–you included other gangs in your briefing, gangs that weren’t included in the information he gave you. He feels a little sting of something reading through everything. He can’t tell if he’s impressed or irritated that you put this much together in a day. He realizes that he knows almost nothing about you, having put in almost no effort to find out. He closes the folder and starts making some calls. He wasn’t expecting so much from you on your first day.

#mike duarte x you #mike duarte x female reader #captain mike duarte x female reader #a wisp of smoke

[saturn-sends-hugs]

BUCKLE UP ITS EPISODE THOUGHTS TIME

(ep12 spoilers under the cut :))

y’all

yALL

those first goddamn beats?

i sit down to watch every episode and during every single intro i’m there doing my little air drums along with intro beats but dude??

this time??

where they just cut out?!?!!

the sheer fucking unease, INSTANTLY, that was INSANE. I know it’s such a small thing but if that isn’t some form of masterful art i don’t know what is.

and the way that continued into the first shot of the GAR base in sepia, washed out and almost empty even with all the stormtroopers walking around, our first view of Crosshair was immediately unsettling because it all felt wrong.

but into the real stuff—

I feel like towards the beginning of this episode, we were seeing how complacent Crosshair is being. He’s standing around, and although he speaks up a tiny bit when Lieutenant Don’t-Give-A-Shit (love that we’ve all collectively decided he doesn’t get to have his name bskhsjsjk) is rolling his eyes at the clones, Cross backs down and says nothing after that jab at them about being “used equipment.” He can’t be happy with it for sure, but he’s letting it happen because what else should he do? Speak up? And get kicked out of the Empire that’s keeping him working? No thank you, he’d rather grit his teeth and let it happen. A mission’s a mission.

Later though, when we meet Mayday, we see the first moment of Crosshair rebelling. Mayday speaks up against the Lieutenant when Crosshair doesn’t, and once he’s gone, he brings the heat lamp a little bit closer to Crosshair. Call it cliché but I think this is a literal representation of what Mayday is doing for Crosshair, he literally brings that spark closer, he shows him that they can and should care about each other while the empire doesn’t. And when Mayday tells him his name, that moment is an invitation. It’s a calling to Crosshair, to see if denies it, sticks by the empire and uses his number or better yet, doesn’t respond at all. But he doesn’t. He chooses his name, and how has it been since he’s said it out loud? Last time he heard it was probably from Cody, and before that the Batch themselves. And in this case, he’s choosing to use his name, choosing that little rebellion against the empire at Mayday’s invitation.

And isn’t it fitting how his name is Mayday? He’s a literal call for help. He’s Crosshair’s call for help, one he can’t bring himself to voice on his own, but Mayday is bringing it all to light anyway. He brings up how this new Lieutenant hasn’t commanded a real mission, he hasn’t earned their respect, so why should he treat them how he does? Crosshair was a commander for a minute, he must’ve thought the same things. And when the cargo turns out to be stormtrooper gear, Mayday is right there with his line of, “We were good soldiers. We followed orders. …And for what?” What was it for? To be separated from his brothers, to have to hunt them down, to be demoted from Commander after all that effort and to now be helping deliver cargo? Cargo meant to help the empire, but intentionally held back, hidden from the clones? Nothing Crosshair has done has made anything better, he can stay quiet and loyal all he likes, but it’s not doing him any favors. The empire doesn’t care that they’re good soldiers, they’re all still expendable.

And through the episode, we see Crosshair trusting Mayday more and more. First with the pressure mine, when he talks about the Batch and Mayday ends up saving him from the mine. Then when they’re ambushing the raiders, he returns the favor, taking out the raiders about to overwhelm Mayday. And when they go down to look at the cargo, Crosshair does his little slide thing (omG he is so sweet he is SO SWEET) and that’s the first moment he takes his helmet off around Mayday, he finally trusts him enough to be more vulnerable. ( @jealous-sloth77 made a BEAUTIFUL post abt his helmet and it’s significance/parallels to his vulnerability, highly encourage u to go read it if u haven’t!!)

And right here, after the avalanche, Crosshair’s journey to bring Mayday back to the base shows how he’s losing his loyalty to the empire. It’s not worth carrying dead weight, logically he shouldn’t bring the Commander back, not when he’d be better off just saving himself. But he doesn’t. He chooses to help Mayday, and along the way he’s slipping even further from the empire. He’s lost his helmet, he’s letting Mayday use his Firepuncher as a crutch, he’s carrying that dead weight anyway and none of this is what a “good soldier” to the empire should do. And when the ships fly overhead, my first thought was that they should use a flare or something, call for help, since surely the Empire could see them from here? But they don’t have the gear, they never got the supplies they needed and besides, would the Empire even care?

By the time Crosshair makes it back to base, he’s nearly done. He pleads with the Lieutenant one last time to help him, to do something, but he doesn’t. He sits there and watches Mayday die, then says that was the point. He was a soldier to the Empire. His death was just inevitable.

And Crosshair snaps.

This moment where he shoots the Lieutenant is so intense because there’s so many pieces tying into it.

Firstly, he uses his handgun. He’s a sniper, used to killing from afar, but this time? He calls after the Lieutenant, waits for him to turn and look him in the eyes, and then he shoots him point blank. Crosshair is done.

Second, we all know it by now but the vulture parallels? The way Mayday introduced that: “Vicious creatures. But you have to admire them. They find a way to survive.” That’s Crosshair. That’s who he is, he isn’t one to balk at violence, he does what needs to be done. And you have to admire it, because it’s true, he’s finding his way to survive. And in particular in this moment, he’s choosing his own path to survival. He’s cutting himself away from the Empire, the lone vulture that survives despite it all.

But right at the end, it doesn’t work.

The Empire takes him again, probably leaves Mayday on that platform, and he’s sent off to be experimented on by the Empire. By Emerie.

And that’s the last point I want to make with this, is all the parallels throughout this episode to the rest of the batch. The most obvious I think is Emerie. Her goggles immediately reminded me of Tech, and here how she’s surveying Crosshair, it almost seems like Cross makes that connection too. Not just that, but her voice is incredibly similar to Omega’s (due to the voice actor ofc but still, that’s a choice), and as the screen fades out, her glasses stay prominent on the screen, and she only feels more reminiscent of Tech.

But she’s not the only parallel. With the pressure mine in the cave, Mayday directly says he’s “not a bombs expert.” But we’re all thinking of who is. And with the blood in the snow, Crosshair tracking it to the source, he’s quiet literally hunting down the target. Him shooting the shuttle on the landing pad, the explosion (i am so sorry listen u really thought i wasn’t gonna bring up echo in this post abt the crosshair ep u FOOL), not to mention the whole ending sequence with Crosshair waking up confused in a medbay? There’s even some parallels to the 501st (the troopers helmets set together while Mayday mourns), not that that has to do with Crosshair, but still. Even in the one episode without them, there were so many parallels to Crosshairs brothers, and I’m certain I missed a few. Some of it was probably just coincidence or the writers keeping us entertained despite the others not being here, but it also feels like little pieces of them just keep showing up. And I’m sure Crosshair would be noticing it too.

This episode was just chock full of little beautiful moments, the music, the parallels, the characters, Crosshair’s lines in particular were just incredible, and Mayday was such a new version of “Clone Commander” that we just haven’t seen before. Everything about this episode could be something I would talk abt for HOURS but it would eventually turn into incoherent sobbing noises because my SWEET BOY U POOR POOR MAN WHERE ARE YOUR BROTHERS YOU NEED THEMMMMMM. I want to give Cross a hug SO BAD, he deserves every nice thing after today, that was a TRIP.

if it wasn’t like 11 at night when i was posting this i would tag people (and if i was more confident bkshsjsj) but i always love hearing peoples thoughts, either on this ep or predictions for where this storyline goes in the next one!! :)

#no but ok crosshairs little slide down the mountain i almost SOBBED HE FELT LIKE PRE-ORDER CROSS AGAIN AAAAAAABSJSJIWHWIWIW #also someone get this man a heated blanket and some cucumber for his eyes RN he just walked through a blizzard for like a DAY after a big #ole bright flash went off directly in his face and then just?? kept walking through the blinding white snow to save the reg he just met?? #cross u absolutely softy ur wonderful now sit down and take a nap for the love of lula please #probs a bit late to be posting this but eh who cares it was fun :) #if i tell myself internal validation is all i need one day it will be true bskhjwjskjsks #sw tbb #sw tbb spoilers #tbb spoilers #tbb s2 spoilers #the bad batch spoilers #bad batch spoilers #the bad batch #tbb s2 #tbb crosshair #i should really sleep now lol

[jasperakalucy]

hello, gamers, comrades, foes, freaks, losers, gay people, and cowboys,

welcome to the Best Answer Awards of the RTumblr Secret Santa 2022 Google Form!!!

no you don’t win anything and I’m not saying who said what. because this is my award show and I make the rules

Question 1: tumblr username: and the best answer is........... “jasperakalucy”! because I am based

Question 2: are you. interested in this: “no. i am just here to watch. do not give me a gift. i'm just filling out the quiz for fun” someone actually put this and i was so unbelieving that i forced them to join /hj

Question 3: how active are you on rtumblr/are you new (can pick multiple): “I did something of value once and never again. One day I will return and you will all regret forgetting me” mysterious! i love it!

Question 4: what kind of art can you do? (can pick multiple): “i can kill you over and over again in minecraft” that is an art and I’m so proud of you

Question 5: what do you plan on giving as your gift? (elaborate on above question): “Whatever the person desires. I cannot however: Make anybody fall in love, kill somebody, bring somebody back to life. I will most likely write or draw.” damn. poetic honorary mention: “The most important gift: friendship And a piece of carrot”

Question 6: do you have a c!self (can pick multiple): “girl help his face is my fucking pfp his look is straight up just 'onceler’” girl help indeed, why would you ever want to be like the onceler /hj

Question 7: if you answered yes then drop your c!self explanation (image upload at end): “It is literally just me as a rat with no roleplay or lore or anything, I hope this appeases the rumblr tumblrs (/pos)” the rumblr tumblrs joke is funny every time. i still think about the time i called RTgodot rumble tumble gumble

Question 8: what is. your gift prefernece (for your gifter to gift to you) (can pick multiple): a solid 50% of you told me i spelled prefernece wrong. i am still amused by this

9: what is your number 1 preference gift this one’s boring SKIP

10: elaborate on above (give as many details as you want. literally go buckwild) (this will be sent to your gifter): “I don’t have specific preferences I just think rt’s cool:) do whatever your heart commands of you, take artistic liberties, feel the rain on your skin” the person in number 5 and this one are the same brain and i love that for them honorary mentions: “[taps on microphone] magistrex” “Draw whatever you want. Just draw. Draw something. I would like a civet/dog. why isn't my four key working”

11: would you rather post all of this art or send it privately? BORING SKIP

12: STILL BORING

13: AAAAAAAAAA

14: questions comments concerns: “you people seem insane but that's okay, who *isnt* in the RT fandom. I'll draw anything exept from magical john in a maid outfit or a bunny costume. i hate that little freak of nature” the fact that your hatred of magical john came so quickly out of nowhere made me laugh. you’re right, he is a freak of nature honorary mention: “gay gay homosexual gay. can i call you jasper? or aka...i like aka. unless you don't like it.” yes you can call me aka that sounds rad as fuck

(also people were very nice to me in this question and i do appreciate that)

AND FINALLY THE FREE SPACE QUESTION

15: free space. copy and paste the bee movie for all i care: “i have a homophobic slur to say!” I have not stopped thinking about this since it happened. you sound so excited. you never said the slur. you just said you were going to, and then left it. why? i laughed out loud when i read this the first time. what the hell does it mean? is it the f slur? is it a fun new slur you made up? what the fuck! in my memory this had a “:D” next to it, and that’s how i read it in my head. I literally know your username. I’ve never talked to you. what is going on inside your head? i love you. you really have guts. in questions comments concerns you said “do it fart” and only now have i realized that was a question, and not a command, calling me a fart. thank you for giving me such joy and confusion. i will never forget this.

honorary mentions: two different copypastas that reference al-qaeda two different meows (“meow” and “nya”) two different people saying i should not encourage bee movie posting (cowards/lh) one “according to all known laws of aviation,” one secret code from the “schrodingers cat” who ended up dropping (“9 1/13 14/15/20 23/8/15 9 19/1/25 9 1/13”) some screams (“WAAHAHJHKKK EAWERRRRWW WWEEEEEE”) a funny joke (“[insert funny joke.mp4]”) and of course

magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex magistrex 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#long post #if you have shorten long posts turned off i'm sorry #embrace magistrex #anyway i was bored and made this. enjoy #rtumblr #rtumblr secret santa

[greenninjagal-blog]

Deja Vu pt 10

Here we go. Are you ready? 

If you’re new around here you can find the first chapter [here] or if you just want a refresher you can find the previous chapter [here!]

Summary: Sometimes communication is the hardest thing to do. Other times you have a Virgil in the area.

Word Count: 12296

Read on Ao3 || Hero Worship Series || My General Writing Masterlist

“What?” Remus says, blinking for a moment as he tries to recenter himself from where this conversation went. The world doesn’t start shaking like an earthquake, and there’s no air raid sirens, nor streets outside filled with screaming, but Virgil slams shut a cabinet drawer in the kitchen that makes the silverware rattle far louder than Remus thinks it should be able to and it feels exactly like the world the is about to fracture apart like an egg.

Janus drags a hand up to his hair and tugs on a fistfull like he usually does when he’s reached a step in his brilliant plots that he can’t work his way around. Like he was waiting for Remus to reach out and take his hand and demand they go out to get shitty fast food and not think about things. Like he was hoping that Remus would lean forward those last few inches and steal a kiss or four and make all the impossible things seem possible. Like he’d forgotten that Remus was clinically trained in the art of fighting destiny to make Janus’s goals reachable.

((Remus spent far too long daydreaming about that simple action to not have his heart twist and knot at the sight of it.))

“I swear I’m not making this up,” Janus says. “It’s like…really minor mind control, and it can only affect a few people at a time who meet her gaze, but the effect stabilizes over time. The longer she can get you to look at her the more control she has over your actions until you don’t even realize that the actions you’re taking aren’t yours.”

Like the movies, or comics. Puppetmaster style. One glance and your mind isn’t your own. Why does that sound more ridiculous than Remus who can exchange bodily harm for access to a billion and one futures that don’t suit his needs?

“I was going to tell you,” Janus says, rush, rush, rushing like he’s a waterfall of words and if he doesn’t get them all out before Remus takes another breath the whole world is going to blow up and really end. “In the coffee shop. But I thought that you would back out once you realized how big and bad everything could be, and so I chickened out because I—I can’t do this alone. None of this, Remus. I wouldn’t have even started without you. So instead I told myself I would tell you later. After.”

Remus remembers that moment. It feels like decades ago and seconds ago, old enough to be caught in the footnotes of an outdated textbook and recent enough that if Remus blinks he’ll be holding his iced coffee again crammed up against Janus in the middle of a crowd stupidly believing that the world is much bigger than him, Roman, and five words. He’d been thinking about kissing Janus, about the taste of his latte, about the way his lips slide into that perfect little smirk that drives Remus to want to do anything for him. Janus had been talking about owing him something, as if Janus’s attention, company, and time wasn’t the most valuable thing Remus had gotten from anyone in his entire life.

It’s insane. Remus feels like he’s going insane. 

Weren’t they supposed to be kissing? Isn’t that what happened in the stories when someone confesses their undying, totally painfully obvious affections? How did he mess this up as well?

“Are you saying Roman is being mind controlled?” Remus asks, rasps, chokes. His throat is dry all over again, and the floor is swaying under his feet. If he weren’t sitting down already he thinks that he’d be lying on the floor, in another puddle of blood for Virgil to hate cleaning up. ((Why, why, why, why does everything come back to fucking Roman?)) “Because if this is based just on him acting like an asshole I have bad news: he has….always been like that.” 

Always been acting like he’s the greatest thing ever, always been acting like he needs nothing and no one, always been acting like Remus isn’t worth the air he breathes and he’s just sick. Just sadistic. Just a sociopath with no regard for human life. 

Ha.

“I’m not making this up,” Janus repeats. “Remus, I wouldn’t lie about this. Not to you. You know I wouldn’t lie about this, right?”

“Janus,” Virgil says, like a warning, but Remus isn’t sure who it’s to or what it's about. 

“I’m not lying!”

The air is full and tense and heavy, like trying to breathe in liquid cement through a straw. Remus hasn’t had practical experience in that type of hell before, and he’s not appreciating this trial run either: there's a foreign aura  dancing around Janus, hovering over his head like an invisible swarm of insects waiting for the perfect moment to attack and Janus curls around himself, hands squeezing his own arms hard enough to bruise as he stares at Remus but also anywhere else.

He doesn’t look like the stranger with green eyes who caught his coin in the air and then bet with it, he doesn’t look like the Dee who confidently got himself killed a billion times trusting that Remus would redirect fate its—fucking—self to keep him alive, he doesn’t even look like the Janus who snipped and snapped at Virgil and still brought back Thai food that they would enjoy.

He doesn’t look like anyone Remus knows. Just a shadow, a shell, a fake— 

((Remus has seen him wear millions of faces, billions of smiles, and trillions of eye shades, but there had always been something at his core that was undeniably him that Remus could pick out even when he was dying. He searches through the man in front of him and comes up so horribly empty part of him feels dizzy.))

"I'm not making it up," Janus says, desperately. "I swear— " 

If Remus didn’t know better, didn’t know Dee like the back of his hand, didn’t know Dee like the color of his own blood, like the beat of his own heart, like the taste of powdered pills on his own tongue; if Remus didn’t know that Dee didn’t do hysteria, he would assume that Dee-who-is-Janus is being hysterical.

His fingers are curled into the couch cushions, his nails digging into the fabric so deeply that there’s no sign of his chipped nail polish. His mouth tastes like copper, like metal, like cyanide and arsenic and gravedirt and he wants to scream that Roman can’t be mind controlled, you can’t be right about this, Dee, Janus, please, please, don’t be right about this, I’ll do anything for you, just please take it back.

Janus isn’t breathing and Remus doesn’t feel like he is, either. There’s something in his throat and it feels like a boulder, and he’s staring at Janus who is his friend, who he loves, who is about to cry and Remus needs to stop it--

--by any means possible. His mouth opens--

“Don’t.”

Remus’s mouth is still closed, and he’s still there staring at Janus about to cry and Virgil’s voice is echoing in his head like a foghorn at a 3AM that didn’t happen.

Virgil who’s voice could do incredible things, Virgil who pushed back against Janus in all the ways that Remus never would, Virgil who just cleaned his blood out of the carpet and told Remus that he doesn’t have much left and he doesn’t know what the right thing to say is and time is passing and Remus is passing with it. There’s the flicker of power in the back of his mind, the easy-to-unlock latch that unfurls his spine and makes the worry and panic go away, the switch of his vision where he blinks and the consequences don’t stay so he can say whatever he wants and do whatever he doesn’t want to do and he can die a thousand times and still live and he can watch his friends and family get murdered a million times and still have a chance to save them. It’s there and if Remus thinks too hard he’ll feel like he’s back on the side of the highway with Janus’s blood dripping down his fist from a conversation he’d been too scared to have because whatever Remus loves he makes a fucking mess out of.

Remus chokes on his tongue, biting down on the traitorous thing before he gives Janus another reason to cry.

No, he can do this. He doesn’t need his power this time. 

He’s… He’s not scared. He doesn’t need a safety net for a conversation.

Virgil is staring at him, hard and daring and worried; a man glaring at the receding ocean waves knowing that a tsunami is coming and there’s no time to run and Remus is not going to make him clean blood out of the carpet again.

“Roman’s…” not mind controlled, not getting an easy way out, not the victim here. His lungs are aflame. The seconds are piling up like bricks around him, and Remus closes his eyes and forces himself to try again.  

Janus trusted him. Janus told him his name, his real one that belonged to the version of him that he never shows anyone with blue grey eyes and green scales and hands that were always cold. Janus trusted him with this too.

“I don’t think you’re making it up,” Remus says, strangled and dying but based on the shuddering breath Janus takes in it’s the right thing to say. “You don’t—You, Dee, Janus, You—don’t do that. Your mom or whoever can mind control people. I’m just saying that Roman— Roman doesn’t need to be mind controlled into… any of this. He’s not...He’s always been…”

Remus had been eight years old. Roman had been his everything.

Part of him wants to vomit, whether it be blood or words or the icy black feeling that seems to have wrapped around his rib cage and squeezed away the memory of warmth. He wants to vomit and expel every bad thought and feeling inside before his nerves come back and the jittery feeling shakes him into a molotov cocktail. He wants to tell them that Roman doesn’t get to have the easy explanation for every shitty thing he’s done, he doesn’t get to destroy Remus’s life over and over and over and then get to say “I was mind controlled, I didn’t mean it! Remus, you have to forgive me! I never would have driven you out of your own home if I had been in control of my own actions!”

Because Remus has spent nights lying awake thinking about the feel of his mother’s fingers in his mouth checking to make sure he swallowed his pills, thinking about the creak of the burgundy leather couch in his psychiatrist's office as he tells Remus it’s okay if the pills had been working, he doesn’t need to pretend otherwise, thinking about the scent of cleaning supplies as the Principal forces him to clean the graffiti sharpie insults off his own locker while Roman laughs with his friends ten feet away and about how he lied to himself when he thought drinking the bleach would hurt more than the current burning in his chest.

It’s not fucking fair.

“Calling it mind control is insulting,” Virgil says, like he knows that Remus is about to drown before Remus even realizes his own thoughts are crushing his lungs. The emo reporter comes storming back into the room with a fistful of silverware and napkins with a brand name of some fast food place that must be nearby and cheap. 

His entrance brings all the oxygen that Janus and him had lost in this strangled parody they were pretending could be called “communication”. Virgil nudges Janus towards the sofa, the end opposite of Remus, and Janus stumbles and sits like he’d never heard of the idea of sitting before; a broken animatronic too rusted to be of use anymore. Janus isn’t looking at him, and Remus can’t look away and the space between them is farther than the distance between the fucking planets.

“It’s more like advanced persuasion.” Virgil continues, because he’s not distracted by seven inches, three centimeters, I love you, My mom is a supervillain, and the worst timing that there ever was to have passed. “You can fight it if you know what to expect and she can’t make you kill someone unless you already had the premonition to commit a murder. Hypnosis is a better description.” 

He stops right in front of Remus, their legs almost touching because of how close the coffee table is behind him, and Virgil is holding a box with a fork on top and staring hard and fervently at him. “His hands aren’t clean, Remus. He hurt you and was encouraged to and it’s fucking sickening and awful.”

((Remus is twenty one years old. He wishes to every deity out there that anyone had ever believed in that someone would had told eight year old him this. He wishes that he met Virgil before. He wishes that Janus, Virgil, and him had already had this conversation. He wishes that he was normal.))

“Just because Witchall’s power is involved, doesn’t mean that he’s absolved of all wrong doing,” Virgil says, slow and steady and so, so very certain. “I’ll make sure of it myself.”

It feels like the inside of a casino, brimming and overflowing with people in sparkly outfits, shouting and laughing and yelling, the slot machines ringing and the chips shifting, the cards shuffling, and Janus holding a purple coin like a promise and Remus is not going to cry about it.

“Eat,” Virgil says, putting the box in his shaking hands. “This is the good stuff.”

Then he turns to the side and eyes Janus with a suspicious look. If Janus notices, which seems very unJanus like to have not noticed, he doesn’t react at all, merely clasping his hands together tightly and counting out robotically measured breaths, in a way that Remus doesn’t like seeing and likes listening to even less.

I did that. And it wouldn’t have happened if he had just looked into the future and found the right thing to say. It wouldn’t be happening if he had just—

“You too,” Virgil says, flicking the side of Janus’s arm and pretending like he doesn’t see Janus flinch anymore than he doesn’t see the strangely discolored patch on the carpet under their feet that smells like bleach. “I believe you, he believes you. The only one who is uncertain is you, Janus.”

Janus laughs the same way that he had when Roman had said Remus didn’t have a power. Disbelieving and condescending and startled, brimming with the usual confidence but making Remus's heart throb painfully in his chest. He thinks about holding Janus's hand, clenching their fingers together so tightly that he stops being able to tell which digit is his and which is Janus's and stops caring about it too and somewhere far away Roman blows up into a thousand pieces and not a single person cries about it.

But Remus can’t even twitch his own hand and Janus’s palms are occupied with trying to break all the bones in his own fingers seven inches away from him.

 “I’m not… I’m not lying.”

“You’re not lying,” Virgil repeats, solidifying it into existence as if it hadn’t already been a fact. 

“I believe you,” Remus adds to reinforce. Because he does. He does. He knows what those words can do, the type of magic they possess that even people without super abilities can wield, the way that a single phrase can haunt someone to the ends of the universe and back.

Remus has never been on this side before, but Janus is sitting there so incredibly desperate for a reassurance, so incredibly in need of someone to look at him, so incredibly wanting to hear the exact words that Remus grew up dismembering himself for a chance to hear. He’d wanted for someone to believe him for so long; Remus doesn't know why it never occurred to him that Janus might need to hear the same phrase from him. 

((Why? The voice in the back of his mind that he doesn't want to hear asks. Why was it so hard for Roman-Mom-thedoctors-thestudentstheteachershisfriends to say it? It’s so easy. Remus breathes, the sky is blue, he believes Janus.))

"Janus," Remus says, pausing when Janus jumps like someone electrocuted him. His eyes jump towards Remus, like a magnet, like a gunshot, like the world is ending and he wants Remus to be the last thing he ever sees and Remus swallows back the panic in his gut at the thought. "You are not a liar." 

He wants to open his arms. He wants to wrap Janus up in a hug and tell him that he actually thinks Janus is a really shitty liar and has a terrible poker face. He wants to breathe in that cardamom and shoe polish scent and tell him that Janus can tell a million lies and still not be a liar. 

"I've seen liars," Remus continues, hands twisting around the fast food container and squeezing. "Real liars who kept telling me I was making things up for attention. Who told me I was sick. Who played nice to my face and then purposely excluded me from everything. Who smiled politely when I talked but never listened and indulged me when everything good was happening for them then decided it wasn’t fun anymore when it stopped them from doing what they wanted and then I—" 

(( --topples to the ground, screaming, glass and silver sparkles shatter all around them like pretty little snowflakes, Mom and Dad come running and the screaming doesn’t stop because Remus is on top of him slamming the bloody base into Roman's face again and again and again and Remus, Remus, what is wrong with you?! REMUS GET OFF OF HIM! ROMAN CAN YOU HEAR ME SWEETHEART? I NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAD YOU-- ))

Remus shakes with his whole body, and he thinks of grey-blue eyes, the sharp twist of a smile, dragon wings and warm hands dragging him out of the rain and laughter, so much laughter in the face of five words that have scared Remus since the dawn of time and then he's dislodging the memory that never happened with several hundred instances that did. 

"I’ve seen liars," Remus repeats. "And Jan...you're the most honest person I know. If you say she can brainwash people…. then she can abso— fucking—lutely brainwash people.”

"I told people," Janus says softly, eyes wet and shiny and small. "I told so many people when— when she loosened her control enough that I could think— teachers, my friends, the maids and cooks and the police and no one would...they wouldn't….” He swallows hard. “They would tell my mother. And she would make sure I never talked to anyone again. Pulled me out of school to homeschool me, put bars on my window so I couldn’t sneak out, told the maids I had a contagious disease and couldn’t be in contact with anyone—"

Janus takes a deep shuddering breath. “Virgil was the first person who believed me. My first…real friend, and the first spark of hope I had in years.”

Remus sneaks a quick look at the reporter, who looks to be doing his best to pretend like Janus is a stranger standing a few feet away at the supermarket, speaking another language entirely into a phone. His lips are pressed together tightly, with the tips of his fangs threatening to cut up his bottom lip if he keeps staunchly refusing to look in the direction of Janus and acknowledge any type of feeling at all.

“How did you meet?”

A neutral question, Remus thinks. Or not. His heart is beating way too fast thinking about young Janus with bright eyes, young Janus with his mother’s hands digging into his shoulders in warning, young Janus being kept in the house away from anyone until he feels like a ghost in his own home, young Janus shaking apart, alone, lone, lonely without a single other person who is not family to talk to him for weeks…

Janus huffs out a short almost-a-laugh-almost-a-sob laugh and Virgil tries to scowl but he’s halfway into his own take out container, and preoccupied with the scent of tangy marinated chicken rising from inside.

“My mom,” Virgil says, plopping himself on the coffee table surface with his feet up on the sofa in the no-man’s-land between Remus and Janus, “worked as a maid for the Witchall residence for seven years. Single parent trying to raise a kid didn’t leave a lot of room for excess money so where she could save she did, you know? Brought me to work with her and as long as I wasn’t touching anything or doing anything it was okay. Witchall was always polite in front of my mother. My mother adored her.”

He spears a piece of mango and Remus gets the rest of the idea pretty quickly.

“I wasn’t allowed to talk to him,” Janus says quietly. “Literally. She told me to stop acknowledging he existed and after that I wasn’t able to see or hear him when he was in the same room as me.”

“It was really fucked up,” Virgil adds. “If I hadn’t known what either of them could do I would have been really messed up for the rest of my life— no don’t give me that look, Jay. I’m not messed up! I choose to live like this!”

“Cindy introduced herself to me because despite having lived here for a whole year she has never gotten the chance to meet you,” Janus counters with less than half the usual snark that he has.

“Who the fuck is Cindy?”

“Time out,” Remus calls, “You knew?”

Remus did not mean for it to come out slightly bent, slightly broken, slightly like he’s got something in his throat and it's not a piece of shrimp that’s painfully scraping through his esophagus in a way that would totally make sense for him to be choked up over. He clears his throat and does not look at either of them and it doesn’t mean a thing because Virgil can probably hear the painful swallow and the stuttering beat of his heart.

Virgil nods without any judgment. “Yeah. I, uh, my power manifested pretty early on in my life. I wasn’t born with it, but I was one or two when silence became a mythical idea, and my parents couldn’t understand why I was unable to go to sleep because I was hearing the buzzing of the next door neighbors’ fridge. I don’t think my dad ever figured it out; something must have tipped my mom off and they got into a fight and my dad raised his hand towards me… But yeah my mom got me out of there pretty quick… what was I saying? Oh, yeah, I’ve been able to hear through walls since I was really young. I tried telling my mom something was wrong with the Witchalls, but it was the best job she’d had with the best hours and it provided for me so she told me to pretend like it wasn’t happening.”

Virgil tilts his head with a bit of a rueful smile on his face that Remus almost believes is true. If it weren’t for the death grip on his fork, if it weren’t for the darkness in his eyes, if it weren’t for the way his body has gone still. 

“It was a good job; it paid well,” Virgil says, too cheery to actually mean it. “If you have enough money, people are willing to look away from anything. Keep quiet… don’t cause noise… or you’ll be next in the line of fire.

“So yeah,” Virgil stuffs a piece of chicken in his mouth. “I knew what Witchall was doing to Janus. I knew that he physically couldn’t see me.”

“He left me notes,” Janus whispers.

“She couldn’t exactly demand he stop being able to read,” Virgil explains. “And for a long time she didn’t realize that he was getting notes, or that I was sending them.”

“Burn after reading.” Janus loosens slightly more, not-quite relaxing but something close. His fingernails wrap around the edge of his food container and finally pops it open to reveal some type of spicy red curry and Remus becomes acutely aware he’s the only one not eating and he can’t actually remember the last time he ate. “I paid twenty bucks to a pothead at my prestigious school to give me his lighter and then I kept it hidden under the false floorboard in my room, just to prove I could have something she didn’t know about. Then the letters started and it came in handy…” He rubs his sleeve over his cheeks, wiping away the tears and taking a deep breath. “She, ah, she caught me trying to burn one. She made me tell her who they were from and then…she fired his mom. Immediately.”

Remus glances at Virgil who does the equivalent of looking like a chipmunk with too much food in its mouth. He frantically swallows multiple times, almost choking (such a bad way to go), almost breathing in chicken (a slightly more interesting way to go).

“It wasn’t that bad!” He says. “Uh, well, it was for a bit. But uh, I got older and mom was more busy with her two jobs so she wasn’t around as much. Public school put me on the radar of some computer guys, and then some hackers…and well, have you seen what the internet can do? She’s beautiful. Anyone can get any information in a matter of seconds, and once it's posted it's so hard to erase completely. And it can be anonymous. No more looking away, no more keeping quiet because anyone who sees it won’t know it’s me posting.” 

He sounds reverent, the disciple of a goddess so real that kinda sorta makes Remus want to convert. The internet had always been just another tool to him, just something that was there, sometimes he even got news articles on his phone or looked up directions to the nearest fast food place when they were off driving or watched a few episodes of a mindless TV show from a pirated site. Virgil has a slight grin on his face when he talks about it with a wonder on his face, awed and happy in the way that Remus is about Janus.

Virgil taps his fingers along his container, the grin on his face slipping away as quickly as it had come.

“Uh, shouldn’t have known,” he corrects himself, poking at his food. “They shouldn’t have known it was me posting.”

He takes a deep breath and when he looks back up it's directly at Remus, eyes dark and haunted. “Turns out with enough money you can hire people to do anything she wants, no questions asked. Have you ever been kidnapped?”

((Remus has. In a future that didn’t happen in the blurry area between Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio there had been a friendly guy with a too wide smile who liked picking up eighteen year old hitchhikers and leaving their corpses on the side of the interstates. But it’s not that important.))

“She hired some people to find out who was posting bad things about her and then she hired more people to kidnap me from my own apartment,” Virgil says. “My mom wasn’t home. They told me if I screamed they would kill anyone who came to help. And then they dragged me all the way back to the mansion of hell from the nightmare dimension and when I wouldn’t fall for her sith lord evil mind tricks she…”

He trails off. Remus fills in the blanks a million different ways and wonders if Virgil realizes that the fact he’s alive, able to move and talk and breathe without a machine means he outwitted hundreds of younger Remus’s. 

The apartment feels silent and empty without any conversation. Not even the fridge in the kitchen makes a noise; if Remus didn’t know better he would have thought that he somehow fell directly back into the white nothingness that Patton conjured when he took away Remus’s power. Virgil stares at his food, and Janus watches the wall across the room as if it might start moving when he looked away. Remus isn’t sure what to say or do or think so he doesn’t.

“She ordered me to kill him,” Janus says finally. “And I wanted to make her happy. By any means possible.”

Remus doesn’t dare close his eyes, doesn’t dare think about younger Janus fighting, fighting, fighting against a hopeless situation, against those damning set of words. He doesn’t consider how Janus might have been the same age as Remus was when he took a snowglobe to Roman’s head and didn’t stop swinging because Roman cut the last strings of Remus’s sanity, or about the feel of blood on his hands, the sick twist of his insides when he realizes that there’s no way out, the mounting understanding that everything is wrong and won’t ever be right again because someone you trusted is just a monster on the inside and somehow you’re about to pay the price for it— 

“Yeah, well, it didn’t work very well,” Virgil continues, breezily waving to his living, breathing, exceptionally attractive self. “He took a sonic blast straight to the face, and it knocked him out. Then I dragged his ass out of there, held him hostage for a few months with about twenty rolls of duct tape and my personal charm until I could reteach him how to think for himself.” He paused, pointing at Remus’s take out container with his fork. “If you don’t want that, I’ll put it in my fridge and make you something else. Like jello. Or ramen. Or more jello.”

“Why do you even have a stove if all you consume is jello and ramen?” Janus asks like a drowning man lunges for a life preserver.

“Why do you wear three piece suits even though they cost way too much and you ruin them anyway?”

“Not all of us can live in our emo phase for our entire lives, Virgil,” Janus says with just enough of an eye movement to imply an eye roll, as if he wasn’t sitting nice and pretty in ripped a hard rock band tee, a choker, and black combat boots with metal spikes. Remus hadn’t seen him in anything close to this type of dress before— not even one those few times that they mixed up bags and Janus had worn of Remus’s shirts for the day when they were just driving— but fuck Remus if he didn’t pull it off just as well.

“And not all of us have stoves that work, Janus,” Virgil says. “The landlord is dragging his feet about getting someone to fix it so I’m working around it for another three days before I send him a very lovely recording of his affair, and offer to forward it to his wife’s work computer if he doesn’t get it fixed for me immediately.”

“If you have the time to dig up his affair, then why don’t you just find someone to come fix the stove yourself?”

“Will you stop critiquing everything I do?” Virgil snaps out nudging Janus with his foot. “You don’t see me telling you all the better ways there were to relieve all of your mom’s benefactors of their wealth and means.”

Janus blinks and then twitches in his seat to face Remus, his knee half up on the sofa. “Please Remus, ask me what Virgil and I have been talking about for the past two days even when I very clearly have not been wanting to talk about it.”

“That’s completely not necessary—” Virgil starts.

“Oh no, I believe it is completely necessary—”

There’s a lot more to the story, Remus thinks. Virgil didn’t mention the part where he and Janus were in a relationship, where Virgil was Janus’s partner before Remus even knew what a casino was, where there was an argument of some kind, a break, and Janus was left desperate enough by himself to lunge for a cash box in front of a stranger he just met like it wasn’t a suicide. There are bits and pieces to the story that make Remus’s skin itch, his lungs burn, his lips dry out. There’s a history so strong between Janus and Virgil that Remus’s stupid little “I love you” seems even stupider than he could imagine.

What is a few heists compared to an entire childhood? What is Remus compared to Virgil? 

But Janus is looking at him, not at Virgil. His gaze is hesitant and worried with the wispy edges of panic trailing in his cloudy sky eyes like phantoms and Remus is counting, counting, counting those few inches between them again as if Virgil’s feet weren’t between them at all.

Virgil is also looking at him, and for a split second Virgil’s dark mysterious eyes flick back to his own feet, raised on his own couch, and he jerks back and drops them to the floor as if he was embarrassed suddenly.

“I’m not saying your ways weren’t effective, or eye catching! You certainly made a fucking statement when you swooped down from the sky and crashed the ceremony and made The Prince choke on his words. All I’m saying is that it would be easier— did you just fucking snort?” Virgil says, looking at Remus as if he’s particularly offended.

“Janus has a rare disease, didn’t you know?” Remus says. “We can’t do anything the easy way or all his organs will explode from the lack of drama.”

There’s a beat and then Virgil laughs, a light buzzing in the air that makes the room hazy for a moment before he gets himself back under control. 

“Slander! Libel! How dare you call me dramatic!” Janus says, wounded. “All of my actions are completely reasonable! Logical even! Rational!”

((There are trillions of bad endings that Janus could get; Remus has seen most of them. He can’t help glancing at Virgil and wondering if this might be what a good ending would be like for once. He can’t help wondering if he would mind so much if he still gets to see Janus smile once or twice.

Remus reaches out and picks up his take out container, and thinks that he doesn’t quite mind not knowing the rest of the story’s details.))

“Hey, Snakes and Ladders,” Remus says, tilting his head to catch Janus’s gaze before it goes back to his take out. “I can see the future, you don’t tell lies. When we figure out what’s wrong with Virgil, we can start a fucked up club. I’m thinking of calling it “Lords of Being Fucked Over By Everyone Else” but I’ll take other suggestions.”

“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with me,” Virgil says defensively.

“I can change that,” Remus says at the same time as Janus lets out a weak, “Liar.”

He sounds more like himself, like the bits and edges are melding back together. Remus can’t help the relief that swarms through him, any more than he can keep away the swell of affection at the sight of stir fried broccoli and beef in his container. 

“But you’re right,” Janus says, letting out a breath he didn’t seem to realize he was holding. He swallows some of his curry before continuing as if he needs a breath before he rips off a bandaid. “We should have a name, going forward. If you want to go forward.”

Remus thinks about reaching out, holding his hand, rubbing a thumb over his knuckles, memorizing each of the muscles and veins and he says, “Wherever you go, I’m following.”

((Remus is twenty one years old, but he thinks that he means it with all of his soul, speaking a fact of the universe into being right along with the sun rises, the earth spins, wherever you go I’m following you.))

Janus almost smiles. Remus almost lunges across the sofa to kiss him.

Virgil lets out a self-amused hum, picking out some rice from his container. He taps his foot on the ground a few times, lounging comfortably on the table the way Remus imagines he doesn’t get many reasons to. “I hope you didn’t have any ideas already.”

“Why not?” ((Which Remus believes is Janus-ese for “I have exactly seven picked out already.”))

“Because you already have names?” Virgil says, like this is common knowledge that everyone should be aware of. He pats around his body and then blindly at the table for something before clicking his tongue and holding a hand out. Janus frowns at the offending limb, but after another second he reaches into his back pocket (dark skinny jeans that Remus thinks belong to Virgil because he would absolutely have remembered Janus wearing that himself), unlocks his phone, and then hands it over.

Virgil sticks his fork in his mouth, sets his container on a pile of forgotten scrap papers and napkins, and uses both hands to type and swipe on the screen for a minute, searching for something with a single minded focus that makes Remus jealous for all of five heartbeats before he remembers there’s food in front of him.

Virgil turns the phone back around to show them some online chat with dozens of users. Remus leans forward to get a better look at the text on the screen despite the protests of his ribs, guts, and muscles. 

“‘Dread Assembly’’” Janus reads off. “‘Spite Order’, ‘Brotherhood of Vengeance’— I have met and fought twelve year olds with better naming capabilities.”

“Who are all these people?” Remus asks. “Why do they care?”

“Fans,” Virgil says, relinquishing the phone into Janus’s capable hands. “Or well, most of them are. Some of them are pretty neutral on their stances, and there’s a few against you guys that want to weigh in. I keep them updated on your exploits since I noticed the trend of the benefactors of the Witchall campaign getting systematically financially crippled, and so those that know how to read know everything I knew about you guys up to two days ago. They’ve been asking for updates ever since Janus name dropped me on live TV. I got so many followers yesterday….” He shrugs. “The good news is that this website is really good at protecting the community and so they’ve been fending off the FBE and associated law enforcement that are trying to shut this down. Bad news is that it’s probably only going to work for another like… three days? Four? I’ve already been trying to hook up with some coders that can build me another secret secure site, but vetting has been taking time.”

“Vetting?”

“Yeah, like making sure they didn’t sell their usernames to the FBE so I’m not walking into a trap,” Virgil leans back, nearly knocking over an abandoned coffee mug. “Witchall has been after me for a while now, and I’m not about to slip up doing stupid shit no matter how much Janus makes me want to.”

“I resent that,” Janus comments, although from the way he’s scrolling through his phone, he most likely didn’t actually hear what Virgil said but likes the idea of arguing it anyway. Remus remembers suddenly, being at a diner with his feet up on the opposing couch and thinking about kissing Janus over a plate of french toast just to get his attention back for a few more seconds.

“‘Erinyes,’” Janus says, finally. “The Furies. From Greek Mythology. Goddesses of vengeance who punished men for their crimes. That's who they want to name us after? I think I liked the Morari more. More gender neutral and what not. Also I’m offended; they are supposed to be the ugliest of women—am I that bad looking?”

Virgil rolls his eyes so hard Remus is impressed they don’t get stuck. “You had too much of a Percy Jackson phase to not be enjoying this name. You are the deity of vengeance, Janus. The champion of victims, the person who makes sure those who think they are untouchable get absolutely owned.“

Janus does that expression of his in which he is smiling but tries to hide it (which he calls his poker face), so Remus believes that Virgil managed to convince him to stick with the name. Honestly, he doesn’t know much Greek Mythology—the myth of Cassandra and her tragic end had hit him like a wrecking ball and caught him somewhere between obsession and terror that left him with more anxiety than was possible to hide, and when his psychiatrist had caught wind of what had him so wound up the man had told his mother and his mother had banned Greek Mythology from the house.

Roman had gotten furious at Remus for it, if Remus remembered correctly. The local community theater had been putting on Ajax, and Roman had scored the role of Agemenmon, and there had been at least three days of arguing between them in order for Roman to practice his lines while Remus was home.

Roman didn’t talk to him directly for a week after that.

So admittedly he doesn’t care much for the name, but he’s not against it, and if Janus likes it then Remus will live with it too. That’s enough for him.

“Also another point in its favor,” Virgil says. “Homer, aka probably the most well known Greek Writer Guy for all things Ancient Greek according to people who are neither Greek nor had an obsession with Greek Mythology, never specified a number of Furies, so potentially as you get allies you don’t have to change the name. You can build an interconnected web of sections of people to fight this fight and all of you can be called Erinyes. You can’t do that with the Moirai.”

“I could,” Janus says.

“Erinyes also have snake weapons and icons, and that’s just free real estate to show off.”

Janus scowls. “Shut up.” He clicks off his phone, shoving it back in his pocket before he goes back to eating his Thai food, and Virgil leans back again looking satisfied with whatever rate that Janus’s heart is beating at and Remus does not think about how much he would like to see either of their smiles pointed at him. 

“I would never trust that many people,” Janus says after another minute, his eyes darting towards Remus for a second. “A team name like this needs to be more. You saw with that Firespark child—”

“Flamestrike,” Virgil says.

“—names are easy to hide behind, distance yourself from who you are as a person. He called himself a hero and decided that he could make life and death calls. I don’t want to have dozens of people running around assuming that just because they call themselves Erinyes that they can deal out justice as they see fit.”

“Only as you seem fit, then?” Virgil asks in a way that is so innocent that it's not innocent at all. Janus narrows his eyes at him, his lips curling into a displeased frown.

“Nah,” Remus cuts in loosely, twirling his fork in the air. “I get a say, too. Group decisions and all that. It’s basically a democracy in our club. Do you want to join? Our application process is really easy to fill out.”

“Wait, what?” Virgil says.

“Yeah,” Remus says. “All we need is two thousand dollars, the name you want to be called, and a picture of you in a cat girl costume, or a sexy french maid costume, whichever you have in your closet right now, you weeb.”

Virgil’s whole face blushes with a red that could either be embarrassment or anger or panic and his box of food gets crushed between his hands spitting out fried rice and some suspiciously spicy looking sauce onto the bleached rug below, but Janus’s laugh tumbles out of him like a freefall. Remus’s entire stomach swoops with far too much elation; it’s like jumping off a skyscraper, with the only sound he can hear being Janus’s wonderful, golden laugh as gravity tugs him down in an iron grip, except that there’s never any contact with the ground (or a windshield, with the glass slicing through his neck again and again and again—). It’s an amazing feeling. Remus wants to say something more, something else, something that keeps him smiling forever.

“People would do it!” Virgil splutters. “Not me, but people out there would do that if you said that was all it took! FBE people would do it, if that were all it took.”

“I don’t want to see Janus’s mom in a cat girl costume.” Remus says and immediately regrets ever being born when Janus’s laughter chokes off, and Virgil’s frown deepens. He’s mentally kicking himself in the dick by the time that Janus has his breath back and is looking down at his food again like it’s not actually edible as much as a prop of something else to focus on that’s not them.

“She wouldn’t,” Virgil says, to further bring the mood back to the reality that Dragana Witchall is a bitch and the only good thing she ever did was birth Janus. “But she might make one of her subordinates do it. Not Princeps, but like… I don’t know, Zeal?”

“Zeal?” Remus echoes.

“Oh,” Virgil says. “The Prince’s kinda-secret-but-not-really partner. You fought him a little bit at the thing— glasses, polo, curly blond hair and freckles?”

Remus remembers a toothy smile, a pleasant voice amidst the chaos, a hand raised towards someone who was protecting others and a white light that spelled death and danger and the name “Patton” on his tongue like a curse.

“His real name is Patton Hart,” Virgil continues. “I checked him out while we were waiting for you to wake up. Thanks to the name you gave us, which I'm not going to ask about how you knew, it really wasn't all that hard afterwards to get a last name. Some guy on Reddit actually dumped his phone number online so I’m sure he’s not having a good time right now. There’s not much on him. He made the honor roll at his school from middle school to sophomore year, and then his grades totally crashed, which meant that he got kicked from all his school clubs— which meant every club in existence. Seriously. I got second hand anxiety reading the online yearbook club lists. But other than that… nothing. He has two parents who live in Virginia with their two pet cats Snowball and Momo. No incidents that I could see that would have drawn your mom to him, Jay.”

Janus frowns. “What’s his power?”

“Taking away others’,” Remus says, clipped. “ French Maid costumes don’t seem like his style. He dresses too much like a youth pastor and it's weird. Do you think that he likes to be called Daddy?”

Janus snorts into his take out box. Virgil grimaces, but then shakes his head and blinks.

“Wait, did you say ‘takes away powers’?”

Remus tilts his head just enough for his neck to screech in agony and pretends like he doesn’t hear the scream of all those people that had been hiding behind that wind barrier, like he doesn’t see the silhouette of Janus falling right out of the sky, like he doesn’t breathe in for a moment and taste the white nothingness of whatever that white light had done to his future vision.

“Yeah,” Remus says in his best approximation of everything-is-fine. “Takes away.”

Virgil frowns. “Huh.” He chews on a piece of chicken. “Mostly I’ve been seeing him shadowing The Prince around. I had guessed that he was a partner on some level to him because he was always in the background of the photos taken. My theory was that he could boost powers. But I guess taking them away is a much more effective measure for making sure The Prince never loses.”

“Okay, yeah, then what the hell is Roman’s power?” Remus asked and then realized a second later that maybe he didn’t actually want to know the answer to that. Surely out of all of them, Remus should have been the one to know. He grew up with Roman; didn’t that suggest that he should have noticed something power-like? Shouldn’t it have been as obvious as Remus’s future sight?

Except that he didn’t know. Hadn’t known. Because Roman never told him. Because Roman let him grow up thinking he was crazy. Because Roman never cared about him, never trusted him, and Remus had given everything for him, but now he was maybe-brainwashed and that everything he had given meant nothing.

Janus has that look in his eye that says he wants to know (and use and manipulate and scheme) and Virgil shifts in his seat with the urge to talk, and Remus braces himself for the worst.

“It’s pretty hit or miss on if siblings will even get powers; One kid can trigger nuclear bombs when they sneeze and the other can have absolutely nothing at all. But generally if both siblings have powers, those powers are connected,” Virgil says, twirling his fork in the air with the confidence of the genetic scientist that he was not. Remus is still impressed. “There’s a few studies on it, but most of it is unconfirmed and unproven since like…superpowers are a new phenomenon and ethics is a thing and if people can explain away something they will—which yeah I’m sure you are already super aware of, sorry. I was going to write a few essays on it myself, but the combination of being kidnapped and hunted for sport and teaching Janus how to be a real boy forced me to drop it. I still have some PDF prints of the stuff published if you’re interested in the real science of it. Thank the deities that be for Sci Hub—where was I going with this?”

“You think Roman and I have connected powers,” Remus clarified around the stranglehold on his throat that feels like his brother, a self declared superhero’s hands. “What like… he sees the future too?”

That had been a theory between him and Janus. They had been in their hotel room, practically lying side by side with their phones between them and newspapers dating back months about The Prince’s actions when they set up their plan for Janus’s TV debut: it had been sickeningly terrible realization back then when he had been staring at the front page new articles plastered with The Prince’s face and wondering how he avoided expelling blood from every orifice. Now know that it’s Roman’s stupid face under that mask….

Remus stabs a piece of pineapple particularly hard and does not think about stabbing Roman in the face.

“No?” Virgil says, like he can’t possibly imagine how Remus came to that conclusion. “He controls probability.”

Remus stares at him as Virgil chases after a clump of fried rice in his carton without actually explaining what that could possibly mean. Janus, at least, is wearing a similar expression: something confused and prideful, desperately not understanding but not willing to ask. He instead clears his throat and places his box on the table next to Virgil’s side which causes Virgil to glance up.

“What?” 

“Probability?” Janus repeats innocently. “Dice rolls? Should I ask him to flip a coin next time we meet?”

Virgil chews on the edge of his fork lightly, the sides of his fangs scraping the metal gently, and then drops it into his carton and places it on the table behind him. He looks around the mess and then jumps to his feet, nearly trips over Remus’s fragile legs, and scurries to the mess of papers and pens and textbooks on the counter. He gathers a handful of pens and dumps them on the sofa cushion between the three of them.

Janus grimaces like Virgil is a cat that just brought him a dead mouse, but Virgil doesn’t react. He picks up three of the pens (a red ball point, a black sharpie that’s missing a cap and a yellow highlighter) and keeps them in his hand.

“Both of you pick a writing utensil,” Virgil says motioning to the ones on the table.

Janus and Remus share a look but in the end Remus lunges forward and swipes the green gel pen and Janus gingerly picks up a pencil with a bitten off eraser holding it between his fingers at a distance.

“Okay, this is how you see the future, Remus,” Virgil says. “The quote-unquote correct way. No matter how many times you look, the both of you will pick those same writing utensils, unless you interact in a way that changes that, like telling Janus, for example, that the pencil is dipped in poison.”

“Ha,” Janus says in a very deadpan. 

“But!” Virgil continues, motioning for them to hand the pen and pencil and he places them back on the sofa how they were before. “The Prince… uh your brother, Remus, he controls the probability of things happening. So, uh, when he uses his powers he…” Virgil picks up all the pens on the table and he replaces them with the ones from his own hand. “...switches them out.

“So now your only options are the ones newly placed in front of you. That’s why Remus doesn’t see what’s coming: Roman physically changes what is happening after he’s seen what it is.”

Janus stares at the new options intently.

Remus rocks back on his seat picking at a piece of broccoli stuck in his back teeth. “I don’t get it. Sometimes I can see what he’s doing and sometimes his stuff doesn’t work at all. What about that?”

Virgil twirls the pencil in his hand. “Well I assume that instead of pens, he’s manipulating number probabilities. Like percentages? Where 100 percent is a guarantee that something will happen and 0 percent is a guarantee that thing won’t happen. So if there’s say…a 2 percent chance Janus’ll launch across a stage and punch The Prince in the face, he switches that probability to a 98 percent Janus will launch across the stage and deck him in the face and successfully makes him look like a fucking unhinged superpowered supervillain on live TV. Congratulations.”

Janus doesn’t actually sneer but it’s a close thing.

Virgil turns to Remus and continues, “That’s why sometimes things still run the way you expect. Sometimes that 2 percent chance still beats out the 98. When The Prince had you pinned on the ground and told you it was over—remember that? You probably felt a swell of helplessness or sudden loss of will to fight, right?”

“You’re Done, Remus.” Roman had yelled hands around Remus’s throat, squeeze, squeeze, squeezing. “Time to give up.”

Remus pretends like he doesn’t taste blood in his mouth and Virgil at least is polite enough not to mention how his heart is hammering in his chest, slamming against his ribcage until those bones give in and break and all their hard work of keeping him alive these past few days becomes meaningless.

“Yeah,” Remus says.

“Yeah,” Virgil echoes. “He totally did that to you. And you still beat the odds and threw him off. It was amazing! I thought you both were done for; seriously I almost stopped the stream so no one would have to see it, but then you launched him—”

Janus clears his throat pointedly. “You’re fanboying again.”

“And you’re jealous that you aren’t nearly as cool as he is,” Virgil shoots back without hesitation, fanged grin all the way. Remus isn’t sure what the feeling in his stomach is, but it's so warm he thinks he might be burning from the inside. 

Janus throws a napkin at Virgil who throws a pen back, and their voices are prickly but nice. Janus’s tongue sticks out of his mouth in a childish taunt that Remus has never seen him do, and Virgil fumbles over his food making a yelp as he nearly knocks their dinner on the ground and they both seem… happy. Content. 

Good. A good ending. 

“How’s probability connected to seeing the future?” Remus asks.

Virgil’s grin widens just a bit as he turns back to Remus. “I think it’s like…okay you know how when you see the future, you can change it by manipulating your own actions? That’s you changing yourself to affect the terrain. Your brother, on the other hand, changes the terrain to affect himself. You’re inverses!”

“You got all that from observing the two of them interact,” Janus says, blandly, “and yet you still think that there might be an uncharted part of the planet where dinosaurs still live and breathe.”

“You won’t be scoffing when a velociraptor tears you apart.”

“I can be a velociraptor anytime I want!” Janus says. “Literally! Any time!”

“And yet you aren’t one now,” Virgil says easily. “Lame.”

“Remus can’t be a velociraptor, ever! Are you calling him lame?”

Virgil scowls, jabbing his fork in Janus’s direction as if he was the bane of the whole world. “Don’t you dare, Witchall. Remus is infinitely better than you will ever be!”

“Well yes, of course, that is a given—” Janus says and apparently startles himself with the admission because he clamps down on his tongue so hard that he nearly draws blood. His cheeks flush and he glances at Remus as if he was hoping Remus hadn’t been paying attention. “I mean…well, actually you know what I mean. Surely this must have come up in one of the futures! There is no way that I haven’t already said it so there’s not really a need for me to say it again—”

Virgil nods along with what Janus is saying for a moment before he turns towards Remus and very peacefully opens his mouth. Remus is expecting some snappy comment, a low tiered insult towards Janus that he’s beginning to think is just how they handle any type of emotion between each other.

What comes out is 100% Janus’s voice. “Hey, Remus, I’m stupid and dumb and not worthy of your attention or affections but I’m equally in love with you as you are with me.”

“I do not sound like that!” Janus yelps.

The world is swaying under his feet. Remus’s eyes dart down to his knuckles to make sure they aren’t bleeding from a swing at Janus’s face the last time he heard anything close to those words. His heart is beating in his bruised throat and his tongue got lost in the back of his throat, and there’s something horribly fragile in his chest built out of glass words.

Virgil and Janus are snapping at each other again, filling the air with frantic vibrations as Janus’s cheeks flush and insist on something, something, something. Remus doesn’t hear any of it. 

“Do you mean it?” Remus asks because he’s a masochist.

Janus freezes his hand on Virgil’s jacket collar, just barely short of choking the life out of Virgil who looks rather unconcerned about it all things considered.

“Remus…” He says. “Yes. I—I’m yours. If you would have me.”

If you would have me, he says, like there’s a future, a world, a universe where Remus would ever not want to cling to the shining warmth and trust that hangs around Janus. Like there is a chance that after everything that’s been laid on the table between them, Remus would turn his back. Like Janus hasn’t seen the ugliest parts of Remus and brought him back to life anyway.

Like Remus didn’t mean it when he said wherever you go, I’m following.

There’s seven inches between them and then there is not because Janus is sitting right next to him on the sofa on top of the forgotten writing utensils, their thighs touching in a way that seems innocuous and also very sinful.

“I love you,” Remus says, and that’s all because Janus is kissing him.

Virgil catches Remus’s take out box right before it slips between his hands and time passes but also does not because Remus does not know anything other than cardamom, shoe polish, red curry, and JanusJanusJanus, IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou—

Janus’s fingers twirl between Remus’s own, squeezing gently even when he pulls back. Janus presses another kiss to his cheek, to his cheek bone, to his forehead and then he presses their heads together. Remus feels dizzy, and fuzzy, and wonderful beyond belief. He’s almost giddy. If his ribs weren’t barely held together with scotch tape, his bones brittle and likely to snap if he twitches wrong, his lungs not preoccupied with trying to host a thousand buzzing bees, well… he thinks he might get up and scream to the whole world.

“So, what now?” Remus asks breathlessly. “Roman’s maybe-brainwashed, maybe-not, and that Zeal guy is probably going to try to convert us to the great religion of Mommy MindMelter—”

“Why would you call her that?” Virgil says.

“—But we stopped that FBE thing, right?” Remus continues. “What do we do next, raid some TV station and tell them all that your mom is trying to take over the world? Do we have some physical proof? We can drop it at a police station like Batman or something. Does the FBI or Homeland Security take drop ins? Oh shit, wait, does your mom control those? I don’t know what the Secretary of Defense does; I failed my government course in highschool… Why are you both making that face?”

Janus has a pinched expression on his face, like he just realized that Remus put hot sauce in his sweet tea again without him noticing because he was too busy reading on his phone to pay attention to Remus. Virgil grimaces and they shoot each other a glance in a way that makes Remus think he’s out on a not-very-funny joke.

“About that…” Janus says, scraping his tongue on his teeth to get rid of the imaginary taste.

“You didn’t stop shit,” Virgil says. “You delayed the opening of the FBE center here in Portland. By three days. The place opens up tomorrow at 10 am. They’re also adding a doubled security force at the doors, metal detectors, and The Prince and Zeal are supposed to be there to handle the crowd as well as offering autographs. It’s been all over the news, along with a very flattering picture of you covered in blood torn from the cameras two days ago. Neither of you are getting within 100 feet of that building without like… a shit ton of luck. And a world ending event.”

“Something more world ending-y than Dragana Witchall?” Remus asks.

“Unfortunately,” Janus says, rather glumly. “My mother is very well versed in long cons and manipulating public opinion. She appeals to the higher forms of government with super soldiers ready and willing to fight, and frames it as a heroic deed that only the most honorable can achieve to keep the public complacent. If one of her pieces dies… well, she can just find another to replace them until she gets enough of a following that when she runs for whatever position she crafts for herself, she’ll win or start a civil war on those in power.”

“People would really fight for her?” Remus says, and then remembers that it takes two seconds for Janus’s body to fall off a stage. “Nevermind.”

Janus threads his hand unoccupied through his hair again, musing the blonde locks. Remus thinks about plucking that hand too from his hair and interlocking their fingers and… just holding them together. Like a tether, like a net, like an anchor. For all the futures (and presents) where he’s kissed Janus until he’s run out of breath, somehow the simple thought of holding his hand seems suddenly, surprisingly scandalous of him.

“It’s a power-debt dynamic,” Janus says clinically. “She makes people believe they owe her something to the point where even those that she’s not mind-controlling will act on her commands without hesitation. You heard your brother. He thinks he owes her, and he’s willing to parade around promoting her cause because of it, and if it comes to a fight…Remus, I’m sorry, but Roman will likely die for her, too.”

Right. Because Remus had picked up a gun in his haze of fury and he kept shooting and Roman hadn’t backed down even when they were inches apart. At the time, it had seemed like just another thing that Roman would do by himself, no mind control needed; he always liked to be the hero to Remus’s force-fed villainy. But even if Remus wants to peel his own skin off at the sight of his brother, stopping him wouldn’t stop the bigger problem of the power hungry sociopath trying to gain world domination.

Remus has seen Roman die more ways than he can count, handled half of them personally, and isn’t sure if he wants it to stick or if he wants Roman to live until he’s 115. His head hurts to think about it, and there are other things to think about in the meantime (Janus, Janus’s hands, Janus’s lips, Janus tongue….)

“The dedication… the guilt…” Janus says. “I know what it’s like to be under her control better than anyone.”

“I would have died for her; I would have killed for her,” is not said out loud, in this time, but Remus doesn’t have to go searching through futures to know that Janus is thinking it. By the dark look in Virgil’s eyes, he seems to know it too. 

It’s weird to think for a moment and imagine that instead of Roman’s pompous ass up on that stage smiling for the cameras, talking about duty and honor and glory, it might have been Janus. Or well… not Janus. Someone less opinionated, someone less real, someone who doesn’t argue or cuss or beat up children in Idahoan Malls or get flustered over the words I love you. Someone who doesn’t think on planes world’s beyond what Remus can plan and plays 5-D Chess with his words but still has a shitty poker face and can’t stand messes. It would be like someone tore out everything that made Janus Janus, and shoved something else in.

There’s a swell of appreciation in Remus for Virgil at that moment, for reaching out, and then refusing to leave him behind, dragging Janus kicking and screaming towards the future that they were currently living, and every other little detail that Remus will never know about. 

“Roman’s always gotta be the hero,” Remus comments, squeezing Janus’s hand in his own as he stares at the cut Roman’s rapier had given him. It hadn’t hurt in the moment with all the adrenaline and fury coursing through him, but now the neat precise stitching itched and ached sharply. “If I show up anywhere he’s going to come running. I could lure him away from the FBE.”

Janus nods politely at the information, which is because he probably already figured that much out. His nose twitches as if he’s doing complex mind boggling arithmetic, and he sets his head against Remus’s shoulder, like he’s not afraid of ripping apart Remus’s fragile skin. He’s warm, warm, warm.

“That would be good,” he says. “Considering I can’t land a hit on him without your help…. If he’s distracted I can sneak into the FBE and destroy their files and shut down their location before they have a chance to actually harm anyone, and then I can sneak back out with a different face in the chaos.”

He has his scheming face on, and Remus pretends that his heart doesn’t do a flip at the sight of it fitting so rightly on his face: the look that belongs on him, the powerful confidence of someone who knows what they’re doing and knows how to do it well, the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with, and even easier to trust with everything that Remus is. 

“Sounds like a plan,” Remus says, cracking his neck. “I’m going to need a gun.”

He pretends like the beat where Janus doesn’t immediately say anything and Virgil chokes on his food doesn’t strike him directly in the chest. 

“I’m not going to kill him,” Remus says.

“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Virgil says. “But like… if you google unhinged right now, your face is the first thing that comes up. I don’t really think we can just stroll into a gun shop and demand a gun. Plus I think Oregon requires a background check with a purchase, which you are absolutely not going to pass, Janus won’t pass, and it won’t be a quick process to get through even if I pass. I really don’t think guns are the way to go with this.”

Janus hums deep in his chest. “Does it have to be a gun?”

Remus tries not to feel like he’s being ganged up on. “Unless you know of something that has the same range and is easy to use. If this whole probability thing is true, then he’s going to need to be extra focused on a bullet to make sure it doesn’t hurt anyone, and it will give me some room to stall for time without needing to use my power.”

“And the last thing you guys need is Remus using his power,” Virgil says, pointedly noting the floor where they had cleaned up the blood earlier. It’s strange that all of their feet and shoes are standing over it, in such a small area, so close together and Remus can’t figure out why he thinks that should be strange. 

Still, Virgil has a point; Remus doubts that he’d be an effective distraction for very long if one peak at the future sent him directly to the morgue without passing GO or collecting $200. At the very most he can only imagine that he might be able to out maneuver Roman one time—belief in his power or not before his body decomposes on the spot.

“No offense,” Virgil adds.

Remus contemplates sticking his fork down his throat just to make himself vomit up everything he just ate. 

“I don’t think you can offend me if you tried,” he says instead, because he does feel a little bad about making Virgil clean up his blood after he already said he was squeamish, after he just rubbed his relationship with Janus right in his face, after, after, after. Half digested Thai food, however cool it would look, probably would be crossing the line into unforgivable territory that even his strange admiration for Remus couldn’t withstand. 

“Is that a challenge?”

“Bold implications from someone who got flustered over a dick joke earlier.”

“That doesn’t count!” Virgil says quickly. “We were having a moment! And you ruined the moment with a dick joke!”

“Is there ever a better time for a dick joke?”

“Any other time! Literally!”

“Virgil! I can’t believe you think my grandmother’s funeral is an appropriate time to joke about whipping it out. How nasty! Shame on you.”

“I did not say that!”

“Does my grandmother’s funeral not count as any other time?”

“I’m starting to think you don’t even have a grandmother!”

“If I did, would her funeral be a good time for a handjob--?”

“I have a plan,” Janus decides suddenly. 

A hurt look flashes across Virgil’s face, for a split second, and Remus thinks that if he blinked he definitely would have missed it entirely. In its place is a solid wall of boredom and he reaches out and plops his take out container on the coffee table right next to Janus’s forgotten curry.

“Oh good,” Virgil says. “So you’re going to be evacuating my apartment?”

“Don’t sound so sad, my dear,” Janus says. “You have a part in it still.”

“The fuck I do! I’ve done enough for you in my lifetime and I’m not looking to be arrested and-or get thrown in some super secret Antarctic jail for world-ending threats, which the two of you are, by the way. Thanks, but no thanks. I nursed Remus back to health, gave you a place to lay low, but if that is over, then I want no part of what you’re planning next.”

"Oh, I don’t know," Janus sighs theatrically, catching Remus's gaze out of the corner of his eye and winking. "I think you can do something more. It would hardly take more than an hour of your time and you would be perfectly fine after. All limbs attached, I promise!"

“Oh no,” Virgil says, catching sight of the gaze they just shared. “Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely not what?” Janus asks innocently, with a pleasant smile that borders on threatening. He stands up, nearly towering over where Virgil is folded on the couch, and there’s a shadow over his face that Remus absolutely loves.

“If you had to clarify I’d have all my limbs attached afterwards I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t know what it is, but I’m not going to help you,” Virgil says stubbornly. “I’m done with all the crimes, I’m done with your schemes! I let go of that life when you left the first time! In fact, there’s not a single thing you can do or say that will get me off this couch!”

And, at that, Remus can’t help but grin.

[Chapter Eleven]

Also! if you’re interested in more Deja Vu things more often, consider joining this new [Deja Vu discord] to receive more updates on what is going on :D

#deja vu au #remus sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #sanders sides #superhero/supervillain au #sorry for the long wait #but congrats! we did it! #Virgil and Janus backstory peek #Roman power reveal #a slight nod towards Patton and whats up with him #Remus and Janus officially in a relationship? #maybe? #And Virgil is about to be peer pressured into villainy >:D #We love a good friend group #give it another chapter and Virgil will realize that Janus has two hands #Don't worry

[m0e-ru]

👀👀 also i just want to say thank you! i really got into P4 this year and finding your work only amplified my love for it. mim became like my 2nd favorite character all because of you also the stage play it really lives in my head rent free. i love your art and writings, your work has turned a special interest into an even more special one.

hi yeah I read this morning I was tearing up a bit sorrry for being an emotional baby I dont get love letters often maybe thats why im full of love . in exchange. thank yo thankyou for all the nice words it means a lot. here’s A LOT in return. with commentary because it um. was too much for the tags

okay this one was one of the drafts for my 3/20 art this year there was like. four drafts till i settled on this one then went SIKE 🏌️🏌️🏌️ you're doing the dual type ones ( the magazine ones i ended up posting )

MIDNIGHT TV STATION REAL !??? anyway here’s just shadow yukiko and iznmi interaction it’s not finished since there’s no backgrounds yet I swear there are. I did this alll the way back in feb I think and just kept polishing it bit by bit throuhgout the year and it’s STILL not done yet. the horrors came in I couldnt work on bigger pieces anymore since they wouldnt even get FINISHED anyway 💥💥💥 there’s also a s.kanji one but those are a bunch of blobs and text in shorthand mim is such a jokester asking questions n shit to twist people’s heads but yukiko’s just so sweet she really means what she says yknow like this is supposed to be the start of mim remembering what humanity is besides the mindless and selfish desires that technically gave birth to them after tearing them apart from the whole they once were. the LAST few TV stations these women were asking shit like ohhh can we hang a noose here ohhhhhhhh I want it to smell like liquor and rust and this girl was like can I have a castle !!!! can I wear a big pink frilly dress and hold a mic to push my human self’s buttons I think it could work

yeah these are my plans for the m.inaba arc for gsaslau and FUCK IM SO MAD I WAS WRITING ON THE TUMBLR EDITOR BUT IT FUCKED UP THE FORMATTING AND A WHOLE CHUNK OF TEXT IS GONE sorry this post is gonna be a lot longer than it should be okay ! gsaslau Magatsu Inaba arc. Adachi’s besties with the attendant but Mim decides they’re done with the attendant facade and erases everyone’s memories of the guy. They did a bad job at it though so Adachi’s stuck with the awareness that he has a hole in his life that could’ve been avoided if someone did a better job at cleaning up everything that reminds him of memories he’s going insane over thinking they exist when they DON’T to literally everyone else. He makes a deal with the fog to be god’s prohpet and usher in the New World as its Fool so it gives him the answer to whether or not his memories are real and worth bringing back a guy he thinks is dead. Souji tries to stop him and as much as Adachi’s trying to hide his true intentions under the guise he’s justifying himself as a bad guy this whole time, he kinda snaps under pressure that a bunch of kids are being able to stop him despite the help of a god and a world he can manipulate. Mim’s plan was to wait for his Shadow to take over so his body’s properties would be enough for him to become a vessel to manifest Ame-no-Sagiri. But THAT doesn’t happen so they did plan B: go force the power of Persona and wear it like a costume enough to hide their face to stop further awakening more memories that could throw the whole deal off. Souji recognizes that it isn’t the power of Persona so he demands god to stop using their powers through a human just to hide from something, it’s putting the guy in enough pain already. Mim agrees to leave and Adachi’s Shadow finally takes over anddd and yeah I could make a separate post about my writing I wish I had more time and energy for things

okay this one looks simple it’s likeee a manga that was supposed to be a companion piece to some writing that also didn’t get finished. so. I could share that but they’re non proofread discord messages but I promise the draft is there the context is that they’re in Okina and they try out the gacha machines. Mim’s genuinely having fun but they pull a teru teru bozu which um. remind them they’re supposed to dutiful god. like they look like a teru teru bozu. and that they’re supposed to treat this as an experiment to see humans’ true desires so they just shove it to Adachi who harmlessly relates it to them because it honestly looks stupid annd the whole tension dissipates.

here's also a bit of writing alll the way back in feb. i guess the context would be episode 13 and 14 where nanako leaves her loveline umbrella with the fox except this time she doesnt get wet since she had a pit stop at the gas station yaayy :mimyay:

The little girl left her umbrella by the torii with the fox as a gesture of her kind heart. Then she hugged the plastic bag in her arms and began to run straight home.

The rain was pouring hard! The summer wasn't as kind as her, nor would the crashing showers that would come after days of blazing heat.

Every step she took quickly became squickly and soggy as her shoes and socks were already soaked through. Her pigtails were getting heavy and her bangs almost covered her eyes. Just then, she heard a voice in the rain. But before she could look, she slipped forward.

"Ah!" Nanako gasped as she let go of the bag and braced for impact, but heard another "ah-h!" as she was quickly hoisted up with an arm wrapped around her chest, picking her up and felt another arm underneath support her. Her chin now on broad red shoulders that smelled faintly of car exhaust and gas amidst the rain.

The splashing of shoes on the wet pavement along with the crinkling sounds of a plastic bag was heard. Nanako was more worried of whose perfectly dry clothes she drenched with her sopping wet ones.

"You okay, little kiddo?" a familiar voice asked as she was gently set down on dry concrete away from the rain.

"I'm okay," she said, wiping her bangs and looking straight at the stranger in front of her.

It was Moel's gas station attendant, the one Souji works with. "Ah, you're big bro's big b--" she quickly shook her head, "I-I mean, big bro's senpai."

"Heh," the crouched man laughed weakly, it even seemed like he forced that smirk. "I work here too, y'know? Little customer."

"Oh, I'm sorry. And thank you, mister attendant."

"You're welcome, and don't worry about it. 'S not like I'm too mad about it."

An awkward air accompanied the scents of lingering exhaust from the last car and the petrichor from the rain. Although Nanako didn't feel any of this, just to say. It's always been like this with big bro’s senpai, at least how it's been with just Nanako herself. Like right now.

The man continued to crouch and adjust his hat. "Well, you're a silly girl. Why's someone with flowers all over her papers running around in the rain?"

Dunno how long, but I hope you haven't been running around like this for too long. I know you live nearby but your big bro's gonna have to take care of you if you get sick!--I mean, he'll always take care of you. He's a good kid.

If you were out long, I'm impressed how much of this you kept dry! …Just hoped you could've done the same for yourself, hehe.

Ah, but knowledge's different than wisdom, or whatever mister detective said. Hm, he even said I had neither! Maybe that's why I didn't know?

Uh…well….the fox by the shrine…. it was getting wet, so I…

Hm…

Heh, 'can see how you and that kiddo really are alike, little kiddo.

and SURPRISE !!! i found this lying around i thoughtt id add it here because youre so nice and it's so lovely to see you in my notifs all the time THIS IS A JUMPSCARE FOR EVERYONE ELSE sorrryyyy sorry

#persona 4 spoilers #mayonaka terebi suteeshon #gsa sl au #p4 #yukiko amagi #nanako dojima #izanami persona #moel gas station attendant #⛽️🌫 #tohru adachi #adanami #assk #cyphere #boot.tingting #arttag #latigaux #// crazyy crazy my artstyle changed at least a billion times this year and last year #// sorry for all the manga pages and shit out of context i also put a lot since i get like one or two asks on my ask games im trying to mak #// make the most out of it because this gas station doesnt have the best marketing department <- i am the marketing department #// OKAYYYYY OKAY SOSOS MUCH COMMENTARY sorry for not shutting up i am an npc youd get so mad at #// for interacting with because youre stuck with 27 unskippable dialogue boxes if you do #// hi coming back to add more tags since im still awake it means alot to me that i could get people to like this idiot it fills my heart up #// sorry if that.s a bit cheesy. also my heartfelt and genuine apologies i made you trip and fall in this hole somewhat and i cant provide #// as much as i would like to. as a starving man i .i cant really cook much theres rootcrops in my head that um.dont get harvested sometime #// sorry for litera;lly making bullshit analogies that dont make sense i dont have a lot of people to talk to. so those rootcrops just #// grow roots deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and i do pull it out it just takes a while and it s so .big

[sohmiya]

NIKKA!!! NIKKA!!! BABES 💕💕🥰🥰✨✨

how are you?? i hope you’re well!! also have you played mila’s new game?? bc i absolutely adore it and honestly she is so so talented at writing characters who i fall head over heels for. like they’re always so real and intriguing and each one is so unique and whole and well rounded, you know??

anyway if you’ve played before dusk sets in who are you romancing?? i truly cannot decide like shiloh has my heart but also royce my beloved and lior my beloved and teja my beloved and chanel my beloved???? like i think it’s an impossible choice honestly (and also every flirt option mila writes is sooooo fun and makes me go insane so like why choose??? i’ll be a whore it’s okay)

i hope you’re well and that it’s warm where you are and that you’re getting lots of sunshine and eating well and that you have soft blankets and good tea and all the happy good wonderful things that you deserve 🧅🧄🌿🪴🤍

i love you so much!!!! 🤍🤍🤎🤎🥰🥰🌙

EMMA MY LOVE MY LIGHT HELLO

i’m consuming various forms of media to prevent a single thought from occurring but i’m doing okay!! i hope you’re doing wonderfully and living the life you’ve always wanted ily ily ily❣️❣️❣️

YESS I HAVE i loved the pacing of bdsi so much and how natural the choices felt!! there isn’t a lot of ifs that i keep up with now after i took a break from them and mila is one of the few authors why my sideblog still exists smdndjs and you are SO right about the ros!! and it’s got tropes that i don’t commonly see in ifs - or maybe it’s only because i don’t play a lot of ifs ssjnsjsj - like with t!! idk how to explain it but their route’s giving totga vibes and i’m so excited to see how it plays out and see how they soften around mc 😩

as for who i romance….. you give me no choice but to use “readmore” because i like boys i like talking about boys

ok i love all of them i really do but diversity lost. i still went for the best friend ro first 😔

BUT LISTEN I THINK THAT WAS EXPECTED OF ME i’m a f2l advocate first, human second !! but ugh god shiloh’s been rotting my brain. as if him being my best friend wasn’t enough, he just had to be charming and sarcastic and flirty and tattooed and cute like “see you tomorrow” “wasn’t planning on seeing anyone else” like who the fuck does that

BUT i will say that after playing the demo, l was a close second. idk like seeing a glimpse of their softer side underneath their cockiness made me get all protective and i just wanna put them in my pocket where they’ll be safe and have access to my wallet to buy ice cream. once i make an mc for lorenz i will follow them around in spirit and stand in the corner of rooms where they both are just so i can make sure my oc is acting right

anyways!! it’s wayyy warmer than i like because it’s summer where i am :( i can’t stop sweating and i never feel hydrated enough 🫠 OH and i started picking up my art supplies again after months of neglecting my hobbies and i’m trying to learn watercolor hehe <3

i also hope you’re getting wrapped in soft warm blankets like a burrito and you’re drinking your favorite tea and that your place feels homey enough for you to feel safe. i love you so much. sending your virtual kissies MWAH 💗💗💗💗

ALSO THE ONION AND GARLIC EMOJIS MADE ME SOFT FOR SOME REASON SHDSJKSS ILYSM

🍳🥓🍞 <- me making you breakfast

#emma 🌷 #nikka answers