#but I have my rain sounds and I have my mechanical keyboard sounds and I have my little cup of tea | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pinkprimrose05 · 3 years

Text

GX Month Day 18: This Wasn't in the Rule Book

@gxmonth

Ao3 Version Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33473653/chapters/83310418

Why yes, it's prompt bending time! Wish this day came a bit later into the month so it was closer to the release date of Duel World ARC-V but, oh well, what can ya do? ...Oops, looks like I spoiled the chapter. Yes, this year's AU prompt also doubles as a celebration of ARC-V coming to Duel Links, and it's probably the one prompt I'm most excited to write because hoo boy I've been waiting for this moment for sooooo long! 8D

~~~~~

"Manual Reboot Successful. Initiate Sign-Up Process? "

"Initiating Sign-Up Process. Establishing Connection...Please Enter WORLD_ID."

"Response Recorded. Initiating Connection to WORLD_ID SERIES6..."

"..ERROR. Failed to Connect to WORLD_ID SERIES6. Continue Sign-Up Process and Retry?"

"Response Recorded. Continuing Sign-Up Process."

"Response Recorded. Aborting Connection to WORLD_ID SERIES6...Connection Aborted"

"...Sing-Up Process Completed. Initiating Log-In Sequence..."

"ERROR."

-----------

Yuuma sat by the river, waiting for something big to happen.

He knew he wasn't support to be there. Tour Guide hade explicitly told everyone to not get close to the Gate during new world maintenance, but being his curious self, he guiltlessly ignored the warning. Why? Because of the aforementioned new world, of course!

From what he knew about it -which wasn't much, but Juudai-senpai had been rambling about all the different Duelists, Decks and weird game mechanics that they might see for two weeks straight and that sort of gave him a general idea-, this new world thing was a pretty big deal in Duel Links, and with it being so covered up, Yuuma was all too hyped to see what it was like for himself, consequences be damned.

He'd tried world-switching to no avail, as he sebsequently found out that the game wasn't only staggering log-outs, it was also staggering travelling through Duel Worlds for however long he was stuck here. He'd tried asking everyone he knew about it over his D-Gazer too, but that didn't work, and neither did begging a sleepy Kaito to try and hack the game for more info..

..Which led back to him sitting by the river, kicking his legs back and forth as Emperor's Key swayed in the morning breeze, dangling from the string in his hand while he kept waiting, waiting, and waiting some more...

"Yuuma?"

"Eek!" The Xyz Duelist practically jumped five feet into the air upon hearing his name being called, thoughts racing in frantic circles as he turned to see someone approaching...then immediately relaxing when he realized exactly who that someone was.

"Three!"

Michael Arclight smiled, waving gently as he tottered to the river bank and sat down next to Yuuma, who sighed in relief at knowing he wasn't in grave trouble for getting caught near the Gate. The two traded greetings, then settled into silence as they gazed at the horizon, at the clear sky and rising sun of their Duel World's landscape. If it were him, Michael would be content with just staying like that and admiring the view, but the ball of excitement next to him wasn't about to share that sentiment anytime soon.

"Sooooooo..." Yuuma began "What are you gonna do today?"

"Hm? What do you mean?" His friend gave him a puzzled look, and Yuuma made a broad gesture with his arms in response, as if that was supposed to mean something.

"You know, about the, uh, the new world? Are you gonna visit that? Duel people there? I don't know what to expect from it to be honest, it's the first time for us and I'm reeaally excited and also curious and I can't wait to see what will happen...but we can't find out anything before the maintenance ends, and it looks like it's gonna take a while and I'm getting bored so, what are you gonna do?"

Michael hummed thoughtfully, glancing at his Duel Disk "Well, I was thinking of waiting until things settled down before doing anything about all of this. A game this big can get quite unstable with such a huge update, you know? That's why I came here anyway, and..." the pink-haired Duelist blushed faintly "..I may or may not have decided to ignore what Guide-san said about the Gate in the process. Please don't tell anyone I was here?"

"Don't worry, my lips are sealed." Yuuma said, mimicking a zipper sound as he ran two fingers along his lips for effect "No one will ever know of your super classified one-time incident of breaking the law...not that that law made sense anyway. I mean, COME ON..."

Michael giggled, listening as Yuuma launched into a full-on rant about how meaningless them 'closing' the Gate area was. He wasn't exactly wrong though; if it was about as dangerous as Guide said, surely there would be some obstacle or lock to stop people from getting too close, right? Surely she wouldn't just count on everyone to not be reckless enough to ignore her, right? Unless...

Unless the error she's dealing with here might cause serious backlash if she tried inputting a new command that also interacts with the Gate, in which case-

Any other thought that would have followed that trail instantly vanished when the Gate suddenly exploded with blue light, and in that moment, Michael's world went quiet.

-----------

"Unacceptable! This is unacceptable! I have a fucking job interview in two hours, how am I supposed to get ready in time for that??"

Yuusei sighed, running a hand through his already mussed hair for what was probably the eighth time in thirty minutes. Tour Guide's sudden announcement of an emergency maintenace -one that somehow overlapped with the new world's- had put everyone on edge, even more so after they found out they couldn't log out until it was over. As a result, every single Duelist currently in the 5D's World had gathered at the Deck Editor and unanimously decided to wait out the maintenance period there...but some of them weren't particularly happy about being stuck in the game for however long it took.

Chief of those was Jack, who kept pacing next to the table Team 5D's and co. clustered around, all while throwing several uncharitable insults at Guide, Isono, Kaiba, and basically everyone affliated with the Duel Links staff.

"Why do they have to keep messing up every time they launch one of those new words?? I swear, if I see any of those little-"

Carly instinctively covered her ears when the Resonator Duelist let out a particularly nasty swear, and Crow shot him a miffed glare from behind. Yuusei sighed again, then slowly pushed himself out from his chair to rest a hand on Jack's shoulder.

"Jack, please go get a cup of coffee and cool down." He said in an uncharacteristically pleading, tired tone "We're all stuck here, we all have important things to do, and some of us haven't slept for twenty-six hours. It'd do everyone a lot of good if you stopped yelling at empty air for a while."

Jack crossed his arms and huffed, but forced himself to simmer down regardless.

"...Fine. I'll go get myself some coffee and 'cool down' or whatever, but not because you asked me to, it's because I need some fresh air." And with that, the former King of Duels strode out of the Studio, coat flapping dramatically in a gust of wind before he went completely out of view.

"Good riddance." Crow let his head drop on the table with a low thud, raising a thumbs-up in Yuusei's general direction, and while he normally wouldn't agree with that sentiment, the Synchro Duelist was currently grateful for the calmer atmosphere of the place, now that Jack was gone. He slid back into his chair, hoping to get some shut-eye to compensate for staying up for all of the night before...

"Guys, we have a problem."

...Or not. Yuusei looked up in time to see Bruno -No, stop it, that's Antinomy- dropping in the chair between him and a barely conscious Kiryuu, the computer in his hands flashing with several warning signs overlapping on top of strings of code, which kept appearing and disappearing at a seemingly random pace. This, the noiret decidedly thought, peering intently at the screen, definitely doesn't look good.

"The energy output is spiking around the Gate area and the ones close to it." Antinomy explained to no-one in particular, his usually passive face set in a stressed frown as he clicked away at the keyboard "It appears that whatever issue that caused this emergency maintenance has gone completely out of control, and while we don't know exactly what that means, compressing so much energy in a certain area, no matter how broad..."

"...is bound to make it blow up." Yuusei concluded, eyes widening as his mind caught up with the implication behind that "This means the Duel Studio and everyone in it will be affected if anything happens to the Gate."

Antinomy nodded "Exactly. It could be that someone is trying to log in, and that's why I'm asking you to go and- dammit!" He swore, fingers moving across the keyboard at a far more frantic pace when the computer let out a series of long, loud beeping sound. Yuusei was pretty sure he got whiplash from how fast he turned to see what was going on-

-but before he could register more than the word "ERROR" bolded in blue across the screen, he felt a shock of static, and then...nothing.

-----------

"Automated Reboot Successful. Log-In Sequence...Complete."

"Connecting to WORLD_ID SERIES2...Connection Successful."

"Linking with.."

"..Sakaki Yuuya."

-----------

The first thing he felt when he came to was a gentle breeze tousling his hair, rays of sunshine lighting up his eyelids, and droplets of water spraying his face every couple seconds. It wasn't raining, that much he gathered, which meant that he'd most likely spawned near a fountain or a river, since there was no trace of the salty scent of seawater in the air.

Yuuya opened his eyes. Sure enough, there was a fountain to his left, its marble structure adorned with a ring of green leaves that carried all kinds of colourful flowers, water flowing from it center and from the sides. Pushing himself up, the tomato-haired Duelist looked around, taking in the rest of his current surroundings, and the first thing that caught his attention was a huge, round portal thingy that hovered in the air, with glowing lines of blue circuitry running through its silvery white perimeter.

That must be the Gate, he thought that's how I came here.

A bit further ahead was what seemed to be another portal, but this one was rectangular in shape, unlike the Gate's circle, and it was completely blue as well. Yuuya watched as the portal rotated in place slowly, the other side of it coming into view with the label 'Duel School' appearing on top of it. Curious, he reached out a hand to touch the portal...

...only to pull back immediately when the pixels forming it fizzled and crackled with electricity, shocking him.

"Ow ow ow ow ow!!" Yuuya clutched his stung hand with the other, hissing in pain at the contact before letting go of his hand. He sucked in deep breath then slowly exhaled, wiping the tears that formed at the corners of his eyes before turning away from the Duel School to keep walking (and to will away the sick, fleeting memory the shock had sparked for a moment).

Yeesh, that wasn't a great first interaction... he grimaced, waving his hand in the air in hopes that it would calm the stinging pain down But that doesn't mean I can't find something good if I keep looking. I wonder where all the other Duelists are.

The path he was walking down split into two at the end. Yuuya turned around, chancing one more look at the admittedly beautiful yet strangely desloate area he started in. He chalked its emptiness up to it being quite early in the morning...but then again, it wasn't morning for everyone around the world, so maybe it was just that the area was mainly used as a terminal, which would explain why he was the only one there...

Wait.

He shouldn't be.

Switching his Duel Disk on with a quick swipe (which was an honestly stupid action in hindsight because damn his hand stung hard from that), Yuuya dialed the very first contact on his list, running the hand with the Disk strapped to it through bi-colored bangs and pushing them out of his face as the device rang once, twice, three times. Where was everyone else? He, Yuzu and Gongenzaka had logged in at the same time, and Sora had told them he'll jump in right after, so why was he the only one to come out of the Gate?

*Din-di-di-din, din-ding...Din-di-di-din, din-ding...Din-di-di-din-*

"Hello."

Yuuya blinked, then did a double take at the soft, young voice that came from the other end of the call. That...that wasn't Yuzu. He swallowed.

"..I'm sorry, who am I talking to?"

A few moments passed before the voice replied "My name is Sera. You must not recognize me, but please don't worry, the owner of this device is safe and sound, and if you wish to talk to her, she is here with me."

The line went silent then. Well, almost silent; Yuuya could hear bits of chatter and the sound of someone fiddling with the Duel Disk...before said someone decided to blast his eardrums full-force, like she always did.

"Yuuya! Where the heck are you?!" Yuzu cried out, and he found himself smiling at the familiar loudness "I've been looking for you everywhere!!"

He winced when her voice cracked on the last word, hand running through his hair again as he laughed nervously "Sorry, sorry! I...honestly don't entirely know where I am yet. Thought we'd start at the same place, but I guess we didn't..." He glanced around for any sort of landmark to pinpoint his position, then remembered where he came from at first and settled on that "Um, can you see the Gate? I'm standing close to it."

There was a beat of silence, then an audible sigh. "I see," Sera muttered at length "Sakaki-san, I think you have logged into a different Duel World than the one Hiiragi-san and I are in at the moment..because we're standing right in front of the Gate."

It took a full ten seconds for Yuuya's brain to register that, and when it did, all that came out of his mouth was a drawn-out "Whaaaaaaat??"

"...You skipped the rest of the tutorial, didn't you?" Yuzu's voice carried a hint of amusement and fondness, before assuming a more serious tone "Okay, look. If you check your Duel Disk, you'll find two arrows in a circle at the top left corner. Click that, and you'll get a list of the five different Duel Worlds in the game. Sera said that something happened before we came here that stopped everyone from travelling between those worlds, and apparently there was a sixth world that we were supposed to log into but didn't...anyway, the highlighted name will show you the world you're in. I'm in the fourth one right now..."

Yuuya listened as Yuzu explained what happened to her after logging into the Duel World, following her instructions all the while. A quick check told him that he was in the second world, the one labeled 'Duel World Series 2'. He nodded along his friends' words, and when she finished, he took yet another look at his surroundings.

"Alright, gotcha, I'm in the second world." He said, and it was then that he decided to head left "I guess I'll go take a look around the place, see if I can find out where everyone else is, and wait until we can all switch to the same world. It's great to hear you're alright, Yuzu. Take care!"

"Hey, that's my line!" She quipped in response, and Yuuya could practically hear the playful grin on her face "But seriously, I'm glad to know you're doing fine too. See you later, Yuuya."

And with that, the line went dead. Not even bothering to turn his Disk off, Yuuya broke into a quick jog, humming a cheerful tune to himself and grinning widely as he started rhyming the tune to his steps. Yuzu was fine, she was okay, they'll find each other soon enough and meet up with their friends, and they'll have tons of fun exploring the game, just as they planned.

Yeah, that's the spirit!

He only slowed down when the smooth, metallic path turned into dirt, patches of grass growing randomly in the way and on the sides, as well as a pair of trees and a few stray daisy bushes. A huge structure that felt so very out of place loomed ahead of him, its futuristic design and neon blue lines contrasting sharply with the simple greenery surrounding it, despite only being separated from that by a ring of gray tiles at the end of the dirt path. Upon closer inspection, there appeared to be a floating label above it that spelled out the words "Duel Studio", and a sliding door that opened on its own when Yuuya came close. The Pendulum Duelist stepped through-

"Ack!"

-and promptly crashed into a blur of black, stumbling backwards as a result. Leaning on the now-open door for support, Yuuya nursed his head with his free hand, letting out a small sigh before he looked up to check on whoever it was that he bumped into...and froze when he locked eyes with them.

That shade of gold was...familiar.

Yuuya's eyes widened, and the brunette facing him mirrored the action for a split second, before his shock faded into a passive scowl that clashed with his fluffy, Kuriboh-like hair. Yuuya opened his mouth to say something, he wasn't sure exactly what, but the taller male turned back to the Duel Studio, subtly motioning for him to come along, and whatever it was that he wanted to say went out of the window.

"Follow me." His voice -slow, deep and clear- carried a distinctly authoritative tone as he strode ahead, and after a moment of apprehension, Yuuya found himself trailing behind. The guy looked like he knew where he was going, and didn't exactly seem opposed to talking to him, which meant he could possibly get some answers to the pile of questions building up in his head, and well, weird gut feelings aside, that was actually a good thing.

The two sat at a round, red table in a distant corner, and then just...stared at each other. Yuuya waited for the Kuriboh-haired Duelist -at least, he guessed he was a Duelist, judging by the strange custom model of a Duel Disk on his left arm- to say something, anything, but nothing came out, and he wasn't sure exactly how to start the conversation, so...he kept waiting.

"............"

And waiting.

"............"

And waiting.

"............"

And waiting.

"............"

And then decided that was enough waiting. "Umm...are you even gonna say anything?" Yuuya asked after a full four minutes, half expecting to get no response..

..but the guy actually rolled his eyes at him, like he'd asked a stupid question or something "What are you expecting me to say?"

Huh. Okay, this man was kinda bad at conversing. Yuuya held back a sigh, plastered on a smile instead, and tried again.

"Hmm, how about an introduction? That sounds like a good start." He held out a hand "Nice to meet you, I'm Sakaki Yuuya. And you are..?"

The brunette's stared moved to Yuuya's outstretched hand, then back to his eyes...and then he sighed, holding his own hand to his temples as he mumbled something in a foreign language Yuuya couldn't make out (but assumed was an exasperated statement, based on the tone of what came next).

"Dear Lord, why is it that every single one of them turns out to be a child?"

"Huh?"

"You can see Duel Spirits," He said, pointing at Yuuya. It wasn't even a question, just a factual statement he threw as casually as someone discussing the weather forecast "and you most likely have a special bond with at least one of your cards, that may even go as far as your very soul being bound to it. Is that correct?"

A few moments passed in silence, and then: "How did you-"

"I knew that was the case. Listen to me, Sakaki Yuuya; I do not know the exact extent of your knowledge about the nature of this world, or that of the darkness you possess, but know this-" gold eyes narrowed dangerously, and Yuuya flinched in spite of himself "Duel Links is not just a game. There are greater forces behind the creation of the Duel Worlds, ones that can tamper with your memories and thoughts, even call back beings that were supposed to be gone forever and link different dimensioms. Your status as a Legendary Duelist means you are directly involved in everything that might happen in the new world, so proceed with caution, or prepare to deal with the consequences."

Yuuya reeled back in his chair, face going white. He stared down at his pendulum, gripping its dimly glowing crystal tightly in his hands -had it been doing that for a while? He had no idea. His head was starting to feel light, his throat got all choked up, and he was sure he'd be shaking if not for how tense his muscles were. What- what had he gotten himself into? If he'd known it was more than a game, if he'd known they'd be thrown in the middle of crossfire again-

Deep breaths, Yuuya, deep breaths.. He told himself before he got too lost in thought, inhaling sharply. Calm down, let it out slowly, relax.....yeah, there we go.

"Why are you telling me this?" The teen asked once he was certain his mini-panic attack was over, and he must've been imagining things because he could swear he saw a ghost of a smile on the other's face when he replied.

"In all honesty," he began slowly, the edge to his voice almost completely gone "I have had enough interdimensional conflict to last me a lifetime, and I would really rather not deal with any more of it if I can. I assume you understand where I'm coming from here?"

Yuuya hummed absently, and that seemed to be a satisfying answer to the brown-haired Duelist, who pushed himself out of his seat and turned to leave, but not without allowing himself another final sentence.

"Very well then. For your own sake, as well as everyone you may care about, I hope you're actually smart enough to follow my warning. Until we meet again...or not."

And with that, he walked away, disappearing behind the staircase to the right. As soon as he went out of sight, Yuuya let his head fall down on the table with an unceremonious flump!, making some inchoerent noises when the sound of some lady announcing the end of the 'Maintenance Break' blasted over the intercom above his head, and he became distantly aware of other voices and some footsteps sounding not too far from him.

*tap*

Alright, so he and everyone else have basically jumped into yet another grand scheme that caused conflict across different dimensions, but this time the stakes weren't as clear as in the Interdimensional War.

*tap-tap*

The thought was admittedly daunting, and he was a hundred percent sure no-one he knew would like to go through something like that again..

"Oi."

But on the bright side, it seemed that they weren't the only ones dealing with this sort of thing, which meant they could easily find many allies in the different Duel Worlds...yeah, if they kept an eye out, they should be all right-

"Oi!"

Yuuya's head snapped up when he realized someone was calling out to him, and when he looked up, he was greeted with the smiling face of..

"You again??"

..the same Kuriboh-haired Duelist?

"Sorry, what?"

Yuuya did a double take. Yeah, no, that wasn't him; the eyes were colored soft brown instead of hollow gold, and he was wearing a red jacket instead of a black robe too- Yuuya mentally scolded himself for overlooking the differences (but also found it somewhat funny because, you know, he had to deal with this kind of confusion more than once before).

"Nevermind, I think I confused you for someone else. My bad." He gave the red-jacketed brunette a sheepish grin, gesturing at the empty chair opposite to his, then watching as he placed his also strange custom model of a Duel Disk on the side of the table before sitting down himself, fiddling with the device all the while. Even the way he composed himself was different; this guy felt far more lax and chill compared to the other one, and it made Yuuya relax a bit in turn, the silence that stretched between them feeling more comfortable.

"So, let me guess..." Red Jacket began a bit later, leaning a bit forward with a curious glint in his eyes "You're one of the new kids?"

A small nod "You can say that, I guess. I'm Yuuya, and you?"

"Yuuki Juudai. Pleased to meet you, kiddo- wait, I can call you kiddo, right?"

"Sure, unless you're somehow younger than me, which I doubt because of the..height difference."

Juudai smiled again "Aight, kiddo it is then. I gotta say though, I'm impressed you managed to switch worlds that fast. Took me a whole week to realize that was even a thing."

He laughed, and Yuuya chuckled with him. "Actually.." he said afterwards, rubbing the back of his neck with a small, bashful smile "A friend told me about it, and I couldn't even use it when I first arrived. Something about an error happening with the new world and shutting down the whole game, I think? Yean, that locked out the switch thing for a while, and it stopped everyone from logging out too."

"Woah, for real?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Damn," Juudai slammed a hand down on the table "you sure had one heck of a first day, kiddo. Guide must be freaking out with all of this going on."

Yuuya blinked, confused "Guide?"

"Oh, you don't know her?" The older teen asked, quirking an eyebrow "She's, ah, the Duel Spirit of Tour Guide From the Underworld. Pretty much the one who manages this place, since the actual owner doesn't give a shit about the shenanigans happening around here, and she also runs the Duel School. You can go hit her up if you have any questions about the game; she's a great help for new players."

"A Duel Spirit..." Yuuya echoed quietly, stare moving down to the Deck slot of his Duel Disk. He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up at Juudai and asked "So anyone can interact with them here? The spirits, I mean."

"Of course! It's part of the game's charm, y'know?" He answered, throwing a wink at Yuuya before continuing "Being able to hang out with all your monster friends, even if you might not see them in real life..I don't think anyone would pass up on something that cool."

The younger Duelist smiled at that, hand subconsciously touching the top of his Deck, which earned him several happy murmurs and a particularly loud roar as well "Yeah, that does sound pretty cool. I gotta try it sometime later."

"You totally should." Juudai agreed, taking out his own Deck and shuffling through it as he added "In the meantime...would you like a good ol' tabletop Duel? My old-ass relic of a Disk is being particularly laggy today, and I heard you had this cool summon mechanic with the backrow zones- what was it called again? Pendant? Pending?"

"It's Pendulum Summoning." Yuuya clarified, tentatively taking his Deck out of its slot when Juudai did the same "And uh, sure, I can show it to you if you want."

The brunette's smile turned into a wide grin as he whipped out a pair of folded game mats from his pocket and placed them on his and Yuuya's side of the table, putting each of their Decks on the far right before punching a fist in the air "Heck yeah! I'm finally the first to Duel the new kid with the new cards, this is gonna be a lot of fun!"

"Definitely!" He nodded, his own smile widening as he drew his starting hand with a little more flourish than necessary for a tabletop Duel- not that he really cared, what mattered at the moment was that, even if he was going to have to fight again later down the line, he was going to enjoy Dueling to the maximum as long as he could. No use worrying about the future, all he came here to do was have fun, and fun was he going to have.

Watch out, Duel Links, here I come..!

"LET'S DUEL!!"

~~~~~~~

THE END, finally. This, for whatever reason, took me three weeks to finish alongside the other prompts (okay actually Yuuya's POV slipped from me and I barely managed to end it where I did), and I couldn't even make it on time ffs. There goes my plans to deliver all chapters on time...but I at least hope you enjoyed reading. ...Oh yeah, you may have noticed by now that I left some loose ends here and there (like the conclusion of the chapter for the residents of Duel Worlds ZEXAL and 5D's, AKA those poor souls who got a mass reboot error and received no answers as to why), and to that I say...nothing. Yeah, you gotta wait a little while longer to see what happened to them after the reboot. That said, I shall now take my leave and return to the land of Ao3, see y'all on...someday by the end of the month, I guess.

#gxmonth2021 #yugioh gx #yugioh zexal #yugioh 5ds #yugioh arc v #too many characters to tag

4 notes · View notes

aellynera · 4 years

Text

Mors Non Est (Nathan Bateman x Reader)

MORS NON EST (Nathan Bateman x Reader)

(so. um. this was inspired by a dream i had? because my brain does weird things at night and then sometimes i write them.)

Word Count: almost 4k oops

Summary: “Of course, you don’t die. Nobody dies. Death doesn’t exist. You only reach a new level of vision, a new realm of consciousness, a new unknown world.” — Henry Miller, author

Or, what my brain offers as alternate theory on why Nathan made AIs.

Warnings: Leaving this mortal coil (sort of), angsty musings, maybe a swear or two. Okay there’s definitely a swear or...several. (also a disclaimer that I finished this at like 3am and there was a bunch of stuff out of order but I think I got it all worked out now and proofread and all that, but apologies if anything is still wonky)

The rain fell steadily against the wall of glass that faced towards the forest. Sometimes it was soft, like the tickle of a feather, the softest caress of a kiss on your hair, the skim of fingertips against the velvet red petals of a flower. Other times it was harsh, a violently crashing wave on the rocky shore, electricity ripping the sky asunder, an unbridled fierceness like a wild animal frightened and possessed.

It changed without warning.

Soft, hard. Quiet, loud. Calm, violent. Back and forth and back again.

How long had it been raining?

He turned as he heard your footsteps fall on the wooden patio planks behind him. You watched in slight fascination as he unwrapped his hands, used the cloth to dry them, and stuck a hand out to you, your attention half on him and half on the pure beauty of the surrounding scenery.

“You must be the new assistant,” he said, sounding friendly enough although his smile stayed a bit reserved.

He wasn’t expecting you to just show up on his deck. Yes, he was expecting you to be dropped off by the helicopter, that had all been arranged, but for some reason he had...he realized he wasn’t even sure what he was expecting. But you had clearly followed the pilot’s (and soon after, the house’s - that the house told you what to do amused him in the strangest way) instructions and here you were.

He knew his new assistant was more than capable (he had seen your resume, reviewed your coding and debugging history, had meticulously poured over every single little detail of work you had done for his company for the past three years not that he was obsessive about it or anything) but he wasn’t prepared for the person that now stood before him, an intriguing combination of impressed, unsure, interested, and underwhelmed.

You were fucking beautiful.

You nodded. “That’s what they tell me,” you replied, shaking his hand and supplying your name, even though you knew he already knew it. You knew enough about Nathan Bateman to know he knew everything about you before you even heard the head of HR back in the corporate office announce that you got the job.

You later admitted you didn’t know what to think about him either, and you hadn’t really expected anything, since you didn’t know much about him. He was a genius, everyone knew that, and he lived all the way out here by himself. And...that was about it. That’s what you knew.

And you thought he was...kinda hot.

And also an asshole, you liked to point out as the days went on. Nathan didn’t really mind.

It was an odd feeling, this feeling of dissonance and uncertainty.

There was so much that needed to be done. There was so much that he didn’t feel like doing.

He came to the door and paused. He spent most of his waking hours in this room - and to be honest, most of his hours were waking at this point, he rarely slept anyway and for as long as he could remember now he had barely slept, except when all that whiskey and vodka kicked in - and yet there was always a moment, the briefest flash of time, where forward momentum paused and he wondered if non-linear time was reality and he would find something different when he opened the door.

It wasn’t, and he never did.

He wandered into the lab and over to the table at the farthest end. Components were spread out before him and he idly reached over to the single chip laying in the center of the mess. It was the last piece of this particular puzzle, the last bit that had to be installed and configured and then…

Then suddenly it became too quiet and too loud all at once. Thoughts were screaming through his brain and he just wanted it to be quiet for a moment.

Quiet so he could go over his calculations in his head. Quiet so he could double check his math. Quiet so he could concentrate on his theories and his expected outcomes. Quiet so he could revel, just for a moment, in his monumental achievement.

There was a sweater hanging on the back of the door. He’d forgotten it was there, even though he had just seen it mere hours before. No, not forgotten, he realized. Blocked. He didn’t forget, he just purposely didn’t remember.

The silent noise became a full-blown cacophony.

Was it still raining?

“So how exactly are you going to solve it?” you asked one afternoon, idly twirling your pen in your hand.

“How would you do it?” he bounced back.

You sighed. His behavior was so typical. The man was a certifiable genius but that was usually the problem and not the solution. It was never straightforward. “The AI. How are you going to solve the issue of making it able to have an actual conversation with you?”

“How would you do it?” he asked again.

Shrugging your shoulders, you kept twirling the pen. “I dunno. I guess you’d have to have some way to...maybe cross-reference a database of expressions and emotions and an actual dictionary.”

Nathan paused and considered you, deep in his own forest of thought. He wheeled his chair over to his computer desk and started rapidly tapping keys. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” you huffed. “Like...like some kind of mass well of every available, possible interaction. Honestly I would try to figure out the mechanics of everything else first, like motion and movement, You know, walking and running and sitting and standing.”

“Hmmm.”

“But since there are literally infinite combinations, I don’t even know how you would go about even attempting that kind of data pool.”

“I did actually have an idea about that,” he muttered. Nathan didn’t even turn from his multiple computer monitors and his fingers never stopped clacking away at his keyboard. “But you’re not going to like it.”

This time you groaned instead of sighing. He knew you could feel it coming before he asked - he always told you that you weren’t going to like it before he asked you to do something incredibly stupid that in any other circumstance would get you arrested and you’d never see daylight again.

But this was Nathan Bateman, and of course he was going to ask anyway. And of course you would say yes. You always said yes, it was one of the things he enjoyed most about your company, and even when you did say no, it gave way to a lively debate and a genuine argument over facts and merits, downsides and advantages, and it was fucking amazing.

It had been that way from the start, grown steadily over the weeks and months, and neither of you could really complain. Nathan quickly found that you could keep up with his train of thought even when the track switched abruptly and it was so engaging. Captivating. Enticing.

But this man. This amazingly intelligent (if almost insufferably arrogant) man was going to be the death of you. You told him that at least once a day. He took it as a personal challenge to give you a reason to keep living.

“What did you have in mind?” You doubted you wanted to know.

“What if…” he replied, clicking away, not looking up from the screen as he spoke, “we used the video and audio coding in Bluebook, and patched it through all the cell phone carriers, and rerouted all the satellite signals back here into the lab.”

Before you knew what was happening, your pen flew across the room and connected with his shoulder with a small *thwap*.

“What?” he finally looked up, mock annoyance in his voice.

“Are you absolutely fucking insane, or is this just an extra special occasion?”

He left the lab with no real idea of where he was going.

Okay, that was a lie. It was his house. He knew his way around and he knew where he needed to be next. There was an actual agenda but his focus was off.

He walked past the living room and noticed the chess set was still set out on the coffee table. The pieces were still fairly evenly matched, his green dragons maybe just slightly at a disadvantage to your purple ones (because, as you had mentioned at one point, why have a standard chess set when you could have a fun one? And Nathan knew you were anything but standard.)

He knew it was his turn and contemplated the board for a few minutes. No matter how he strategized it, how he worked it out, how he tried to plan it, you had forced him into a checkmate. Again. For at least the sixth time in a row, and probably at least the eight-seventh time out of the last hundredth you had played. He chuckled, softly, briefly. He could do anything with technology and science, but he rarely could beat you at a centuries-old board game.

He made his final move for this round, sacrificing his king to your queen.

He grabbed the notepad setting next to the chess board, and your pen that lay nearby on the table. He scrawled a quick note to you - checkmate - and placed it on your side of the board, next to your fairly gained draconian horde, even though he was certain you were never going to read it.

He went to the kitchen and poured himself a drink.

He stared out the window wall, out past the deck, to the running river and the dense groves of trees, off into the distance towards the waterfall.

He should be heading to the room. He should be taking care of the final chip install and making sure everything was online. Instead he simply stood in the kitchen and stared out into the rain.

It occurred to him that the agenda was more of a guideline and his knowledge of his surroundings was merely functional.

Nathan briefly considered that standing at the doorway to your bedroom was the last place he should be, but then decided he didn’t care. But that wasn’t true either.

He could just walk in, it wouldn’t be the first time - once you had been wearing only a towel, having just gotten out of the shower and that hadn’t been awkward at all - but that small bit of his conscience that he usually tried to ignore, told him to be polite.

He knocked.

“What do you want, Nathan?” You sounded muffled, like you had your face partly covered by a pillow. You were probably in bed. He shouldn’t be bothering you.

He had to bother you, just this once. “Can I come in?”

He could picture your face on the other side, eyes rolling and the sigh as it left your lips, and even though he heard the door hiss quietly as the latch released, his feet suddenly stuck to floor outside your door and his body made no further move.

“I did open the door, so if you’re going to, do it before I change my mind,” you called after a few minutes.

Nathan got his feet to cooperate and entered your room. You were in bed, face half-behind a pillow, your visible eye glaring at him. He stopped at the edge of your bed. His brain started calculating risk factors for the current situation, gains, deficits, advantages - anything it could think of, there were always factors involved, no matter what the situation was, it was just that some factors were more complicated than others. Some required more delicate, cautious manipulation to solve the equation and…

“Are you just going to stand there all night and look at me? Because I swear I really will kick you out, and then change all your passcodes.”

Of course, you teased him later about how much fun it would have been to watch him try to get back in. You swore you were going to do it one day, just for the hell of it. He didn’t mind.

“Do you regret what happened after dinner?” he finally asked.

Your glare softened and you moved the pillow away from your face. Dinner was fine. The company was pleasant as usual, the wine was frequent and flowing. The two of you had started a very animated debate about gender and sexuality as it pertained to artificial intelligence and if any of it were a necessary component or if it was just something you would prefer (he would later tell you how wonderful the expression on your face was when he told you he would be ready to start building a prototype in the next few weeks) and then.

“I don’t regret it at all. Do you?” you arched an eyebrow at him.

Nathan blew a long breath out from his nose. Did he regret kissing you? Nope. Not in the slightest. Did he regret that you might regret it (he was slightly relieved that you said you didn’t) and that nothing would come of it? Yes. And he couldn’t calculate the actual result, just potential outcomes with no concrete denouement, and that made him extremely uncomfortable. He didn’t want this to be an experiment. He wanted an absolute, not a thicket of random. Not in this case.

“No.” He still didn’t move.

“Frankly we should have done it months ago.”

He shook his head and turned just the slightest bit before your reply registered and he processed it. “Wait. You...what?”

You exhaled and sighed as you rolled over, facing away from him and trying to get comfortable in the bed again. “You know, Nathan Bateman, for being the smartest man in the universe, sometimes you are a complete idiot.”

“I’m not going to argue that. This time, anyway.”

“Thank you, because it’s nearly three in morning,” you replied. He could hear the smile in your voice. “Can we talk about this in the morning? Like, later in the morning. I’ll see you for breakfast.”

He nodded and really did turn to leave this time. He was still trying to process. “Okay. Yeah, sure. I, uh...I’ll see you then.”

“Good night, Nathan.”

The rain had finally stopped.

He looked out over the landscape, now reflecting and refracting tiny bursts of sunlight in the lingering blanket of droplets.

Trees crowded both sides of the rushing river, leading towards the top of the waterfall. There was a small clearing there, one that almost wouldn’t be found if someone wasn’t looking for it. It was one of your favorite spots.

Nathan found you there fairly often, after he had shown you where it was. If the weather was cooperating, and you weren’t in the house, then nine times out of ten, that’s where Nathan would find you. Sometimes you were reading a book, sometimes you were just stretched out in the grass, looking up at the tips of the timbers as they reached to the sky.

Sometimes he would join you. Those were times that deep conversations would happen, about the projects back at the house and technology and your odd fascination with disco music, which Nathan truly did not understand but tried to humor.

Sometimes he would just smile and let you have your peace. Those were times he would go back to the house and quietly await your return.

He knew that’s where he would find you now.

“I’m back from Anchorage,” you called as you came in the front door.

Nathan was in the kitchen and poked his head around the doorway. “Hey. Perfect timing,” he said, brushing his hands off on his pants and flipping a dish towel over his shoulder. “Dinner is almost ready.”

A tired sign escaped your lips as you flopped down on the couch, taking one of the throw pillows and covering your chest and half your face with it. “Thanks. Not hungry.”

“How was the trip?”

You snorted softly. “Wet. Raining. Absolutely miserable.”

It wasn’t what you said that made Nathan stop. It was the way you said it. Your voice sounded so tired, so empty. It didn’t really sound like you, not the voice he’d come to expect to hear every day. It was not the voice that engaged him in conversation, that drew him into theories and concepts and philosophies. It was not the voice that argued about codes and programs and why that would not work no matter how much he insisted it would (to be fair, you were usually right, but he wasn’t going down without a good fight, and neither of you would have it any other way.) The voice that was leaving your body through your mouth wasn’t you.

It sounded hollow.

He leaned against the doorway. The air in the room suddenly felt heavier and he couldn’t quite get his feet to move forward to the couch where you sat. “What did they say?”

Nathan noted that you didn’t look at him. You looked everywhere but him. Like you were trying to keep everything from falling to pieces, maybe? You were definitely not acting yourself either. Suddenly he wanted to take himself outside and kick his own ass. He should have gone with you. You’d been talking about it, for weeks now, he realized.

How tired you were. How you were never really hungry. How things felt like they were getting harder when they shouldn’t have been. How you couldn’t go quite as far on the hikes you loved taking so much, together.

He should have gone with you.

Your face did not move from its half-protected shield behind that tasteful throw pillow.

He doesn’t register most of what you said. He remembers the words “bad” and “already done everything” and “months, maybe”. Maybe. No definite conclusion.

He finally managed to take a few steps towards you.

His brain was kicking into overdrive but not a single one of that rush of thoughts would make an appearance on his tongue. There had to be another answer. Another answer that wasn’t the one he could already see in your eyes.

Your eyes. His favorite feature (at least from the neck up), the ones that showed how much life you had, your spark, your fire.

And he realized the hollowness of your voice had traveled up into those beautiful eyes.

Words stopped making sense in an instant. Everything around him got fuzzy, jagged at the edges, but also intensely focused at the same time.

He finally crossed the room and sat down carefully, warily, on the couch.

Neither of you said another word. His arms slipped around you and you curled into his chest, pulling your knees up to your own. No tears from either of you. No sounds. No words.

He didn’t know how long you stayed on that couch.

The next thing you knew you were in bed, Nathan’s arms still wrapped around you. He must have carried you to the bedroom at some point. You felt the coolness of the sheets contrast with the warmth of his body; you mustn’t have been out for long. You were about to drift off again when Nathan finally broke the silence.

“We’ll figure out a way.”

A sigh escaped your lips, half drenched in sleep.

It was the last place he wanted to be. It was the only place he wanted to go.

He slipped into a hoodie and pulled on a pair of shoes and stepped out onto the deck. The air was still somewhat saturated, humid, but the rain was holding off for now. It was warm but he wasn’t, so the hoodie stayed on.

His feet took him down the deck stairs and onto the path paralleling the river. He followed it slowly, breathing in the summer air but not really seeing his surroundings. Like in his house, he knew where he was heading, and this was just the agenda.

At some point (minutes, hours, he really didn’t know how much time had passed) he came to that small clearing of trees.

And there you were.

Nathan took a jagged breath and sat down next to you. His pants were soaked in an instant, but he didn’t care. He was more annoyed that you were cold and wet (he briefly considered how funny you would find the double entendre, and probably tell him that you were definitely wet but he never made you feel cold) and chuckled again when he could hear your scoffing insistence that you were fine here in your special spot.

You weren’t fine. He knew this and wished desperately that you could tell him, tell him anything, say something.

He wasn’t fine. And he definitely did mind.

Nathan didn’t know what else to do, so he just started talking.

“So, uh...I know it’s been a while. I’ve just been really busy, trying to get the AI just right, and...I’m sorry I’ve been away. That’s not what I meant to happen. I’ve been working pretty much non-stop, I know you would be nagging me to get some sleep and eat better and all that shit. And...I wish you would. I would listen to you, for once.”

Silence and the far-off chirp of a bird were his only reply, so he continued.

“I know I shouldn’t be working so much, but I kinda have to. It’s the only way I feel close enough to…”

His throat was acutely, suddenly dry. He did his best to clear it. He was only marginally successful.

“So anyway, that idea I told you about, with all the cell phone data rerouting it here? It worked. Please don’t be mad at me, I know it wasn’t your favorite idea, but I’m pretty sure that’s what finally broke this open. Well, that and all the ideas we worked out together. I can’t thank you enough for what you did for me, and I know I never really did, and I probably never will…”

He had remembered to grab one thing before he left the house, stashing it in the pocket of the hoodie. He pulled it out now, a single red rose. Cliche, maybe, but they were your favorite flower.

Nathan placed it gently against the stone on the edge of the clearing. The stone with your name. It only had your first name, no dates. He could never bear to put any indicator of time on it; it was too final. Conclusive. Terminal.

He stood and started walking back. He never could stay here very long. It was absolutely ridiculous, but he usually had the feeling you would pop out from behind a tree and tease him about how impressive your joke was and he would never top it.

It wasn’t a joke, it wasn’t funny, and he wished he could prove you wrong.

But there was still something he might be able to prove. To make a few things right.

He stopped at the edge of the clearing.

“I have someone else coming to the house this week. He works for the company, he’s a coder...he looks like a good kid. I’m gonna use him to test this model. This really could be the breakthrough we’ve...I’ve...been looking for.”

Nathan turned his head back briefly, to say one last thing before he headed back to the house, before he had to get back to his work.

“I promise I’ll come back soon and tell you all about it.”

The rain started softly coming down again.

~end~

tag list: @anetteaneta @darksideofclarke @girlwiththemostcake @rosemarysbaby13 @spider-starry @writefightandflightclub (tags are always open if you want in just give me a holler and say so)

#oscar isaac #oscar isaac character #nathan bateman #nathan bateman x reader #ex machina fic #ex machina #angst train #thanks subconscious #writing

94 notes · View notes

stutterfly · 4 years

Text

Love Bytes 07 | User Privileges | KNJ (M)

Last time on Love Bytes 06: Seokjin gives you an earful before you spend a peaceful evening with Namjoon. You try to convince yourself whatever is happening between you is nothing to think twice about, but you have to reconsider when morning comes. Luckily you’re able to focus your energy on the new matches on your dating app... Or so you think.

Rating: M (Explicit 18+)

Word Count: 12K

Series: Love Bytes (7/?)

Genre: F2L, fluff, humor, SLOW BURN, friendship feels, ANGST! pining, sexual tension, smut, Bestfriends!au, CollegeProjessor!Namjoon, IT/Nerd!Reader

CW: anxiety, sexual tension, angst, pining, sexual thoughts, language, sexting, grinding, panic attacks (mentioned), reader gets gaslighted, negged, and bullied like this is the 6th grade (verbal abuse by a side character/anatagonist), reader gets dubcon groped (not any of our perfect boys; them and Jennie swing into action), brief homophobic comment by an antagonist, fuckboy Jungkook showing his soft side (s/o to Swipe Right Jungkook; believe in him), alcohol use/mention, best friend Hobi, bestie Jennie, BFFLs to the rescue, protective/jealous Namjoon, soft Namjoon feels, Namjoon about to whoop some jerk’s ass, reader is a Dumb Bitch™ about her feelings and toxic relationship warning signs

Pairings: Namjoon x Reader, brot7 masterlist // previous chapter // next chapter

Do not repost.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

You haven’t been able to put down your phone all day. An onslaught of “Super Likes” has you playing the foreign role of an extrovert, acting as peppy as possible to present your “best self” to your potential suitors. By the time your battery percentage is down to single digits, you’re feeling just as drained. You fumble with the charging port near the head of the couch, cheek squishing against the armrest. It’s hard to find the energy to rise. Why is trying to get laid so much work? Jennie made it sound way easier. Keeping your eyes open becomes more of a struggle than it’s worth. No amount of socializing feels as rewarding as letting yourself drift off.

You don’t mean to sleep through several group texts and phone calls, but your phone’s reverberations fall near silent against the back cushion. You might sleep through the night if not for a loud series of loud, familiar knocks on your door.

‘Knock--knock-knock--knock--knock.’

You groan into the air, “Whaaaaaat?”

“Open the dooooor.” Even muffled behind the thick wood, you recognize Hoseok’s nasally whine.

Still half-asleep, you shuffle towards the sound. The deadbolt clicks against the light pressure of your fingertips and yields the shining face of your friend. His grin practically reflects the light of the hall and amplifies its shine. It's almost sickening.

"What, were you sleeping?” He frowns narrowing his eyes at you as he scrutinizes every last detail set in your features. “Were you crying? You’re not still upset about your terrible date, are you?”

You smack his hand away as he fusses with the rat’s nest that is your hair. “No, I’m fine. I’m just exhausted from socializing on Tinder all morning.” You yawn, reaching for your phone. “What time is it anyway?”

“You sound like Yoongi,” he laughs, drawing the curtain across the room to let in some natural light. “Don’t worry. You didn’t sleep through the night. It’s almost two.”

“Oh good, it’s only been a couple hours.” You wince as the room brightens, holding back an annoyed hiss. Soft rain patters against the leaves on the tree outside of your window. Maybe the weather is finally letting up and you can see some real sunshine again sometime soon.

“I just wanted to check in. I know you’re too polite for your own good sometimes.”

You miss the concern in his face as you scan the latest batch of matches that have messaged you since your power nap. There was a guy asking if you wanted to meet for lunch, but you missed the window. He seemed pretty nice so you want to apologize as fast as possible so you don’t seem like a total bitch.

When you don’t even acknowledge Hoseok’s words, his face hardens. “...But not all the time, apparently.”

You look up from the keyboard on your phone, halfway through constructing an apology. Sensing his annoyance at your manners, you turn off the screen and offer a guilty smile.

“I’m sorry, Hobi. Jennie and Tae sent me the photos this morning and--”

His countenance changes in an instant, dropping his pout and grinning like a maniac as he sprints across the room. “What? Really? Let me see!”

He hip checks you into the couch and you both fall to the cushions with a graceless flop. You know you could convince him to drop it if you really wanted to, but a part of you is really enjoying the positive reactions from your matches and the attention is doing wonders for your self-esteem. What’s one more person inflating your ego?

“Oh, just one sec. I want to apologize for ghosting this dude.”

“You ghosted someone?” Hoseok shakes his head in disbelief, throwing his arm around you. “I’m so proud! Did he deserve it? Was it the guy at the coffee shop?”

You snort, fingers tapping your keyboard thoughtfully. “No. There’s this guy I was talking to earlier. He asked me to lunch right after I fell asleep.”

He furrows his brow at you. “I’m not really sure that’s ghosting if you planned on responding.”

Your fingers stop tapping the keyboard and you look up at him. “Oh. Well. I definitely ghosted the coffee guy. Just unmatched and deleted his number.”

“Attagirl.” He grins, playfully nudging his knuckles into your jaw. “So what’s this guy’s name?”

“Mmm. Don’t want to tell you, in case it doesn’t go anywhere,” you mumble, backing out of the conversation.

Hoseok glances down at your screen and raises his eyebrows when he notes all of the conversations you have going simultaneously. “Wow! Someone’s popular.”

“I didn’t expect such a big change once I got the photos. I hate to admit it, but you guys were actually right for once.”

His eyes widen. “Hmm? Say that one more time? Hold on!” He pulls out his phone like he’s going to record the statement and then laughs. “I’m glad you finally see my wisdom. Now gimme.”

He flexes his fingers a few times to make grabby hands at your phone. You navigate to your profile and allow him to peruse at his leisure, nervously micro-analysing his blatant facial expressions. You’re mostly getting a shocked and excited vibe, laced with a hint of pride as he keep repeating “wow” at each new image. Just as he’s moving on to the bikini photo, your cleavage is obscured by a new message.

“Jihoon? Is that your lunch guy?”

“What? He responded? I’ve been cussed out for ignoring a dude for five minutes. They’re usually not so understanding in my experience.”

“Yikes, is that what it’s like for girls?” Hoseok shivers. “On behalf of all men, let me apologize to you.”

“You’re absolved of your guilt for waking me up,” you joke, prodding his side with your finger and giggling when he wiggles away from your touch. “What did he say?”

“He says he still wants to grab a bite with you, if you’re up for it. Ooh he called it a wake up snack with a winky face!” he teases, already bringing up the keyboard to respond for you. “What should we say back? Let’s see… I’m not hungry, but I’ve got a snack for you if you wanna come get it…. Winky-- Hey!”

You snatch the phone back from him, smacking him lightly in the chest. “I’ll figure out something a little less eager, thanks.”

He shrugs. “Suit yourself. I think you should go though.” He’s already removed the scrunchie from your hair and is brushing it with his fingers to retie it. “Nothing like a rebound to get your mind off of things.

“I’m not having sex with him,” you mumble, sending off your response to Jihoon.

“Oh, by the way, we’re meeting up at Seesaw later. You can use that as your out.”

“You gonna buy me drinks this week too?” you ask sweetly, puckering your lips at him.

He scoffs. “Pfft. At Yoongi’s bar? Yoongi’s buying. Now, go put on some clothes that don’t look like you wore them to bed with someone else.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

A points system is something Hobi helped you come up with. You meet up for a snack at a bar and have one drink with him, telling him ahead of time you have dinner plans with friends so he gets the idea right away that your time is valuable. He starts with 100 and you can deduct based on gross mannerisms or behavior.

That way he starts in the positive and only falls to the negative if things go poorly. If he loses enough points, you can end the date by saying you have to get ready because you’re someone’s ride--which is technically true since Namjoon refuses to get his license and you've naturally taken to being his chauffeur.

Now that you're treating dating like a game, it seems like a piece of cake. You can just throw if you've been matched with a shitty teammate. This time you're expecting it. No way are you going to get trapped for 2 hours talking to some dude who doesn't give two fucks about who you are. You’ll probably be back home in no time, eating some of that ice cream still in your freezer and pretending to be interested in some other guy's messages. That's what dating is, right? It's fine. It's a good plan.

You can tell Hoseok and Jin that you made an attempt, are too tired to go out, get drunk alone in your apartment, have a good cry over some self indulgent romantic drama, and pass out with your vibrator cupped in one hand. It definitely sounds like the night of a well adjusted adult with healthy coping mechanisms for rejection, loneliness, and anxiety. It's in your nature to turtle when you feel so shitty about yourself, and your friends know it. You're just hoping they'll accept your excuse of fatigue as a simple fact rather than a disguise for your unhappiness.

There's just one little hiccup you've run into with this foolproof plan. The guy who agreed to meet you for a single drink isn't the one you'd been talking to all morning. He's funnier, twice as handsome, and at least three times more suave than his online persona. Deducting points from someone so charming is proving to be difficult, even after downing a second rum and coke in your haste to work off the genuine butterflies fluttering in your belly.

You can’t get your hopes up. You tell yourself this and yet your brain is ignoring that mantra in favor of bashing you over the head with feelings of excitement, especially when he drops his hand beside yours on the bar. He gently brushes his pinky against the back of yours as he laughs. Suddenly you don’t want this date to end. The smallest touch sets your nerves alight and you’re craving more.

Do you dare to pull out your phone to check the time? Is it rude? You don’t want him thinking you’re not having a good time, but you promised Hoseok that you’d keep it short. It’s a risk you have to take. Pulling the mobile device from your pocket, you try to casually bump the power button to check the time. You bite your lip, realizing you’ve already gone ten minutes past the time you’d decided to end it.

“You sure you can’t stay for another? I’m buying.” The man beside you smiles and playfully bumps his shoulder against yours as his fingers finally curl around yours on the bar. Your gaze is fixed on the motion of his thumb caressing yours.

The breath catches in your throat and you stutter out a flustered laugh. Shy eyes peek up from beneath fallen strands of hair, trying to decide if this is actually happening or if someone is playing a cruel joke on you. His lips part into an amused grin as he tucks the strand behind your ear. His fingers are warm as they lightly trail along the side of your face and instinctively you close your eyes and lean into his touch.

“Mmm,” you hum, losing yourself in the simple sensation of fingertips brushing against your cheek. The comfort the motion brings reminds you of someone else, someone you’ve been feeling incredibly confused about as of late. Panic settles in your belly as you almost say his name. “Na--” you catch yourself and clear your throat.

Trying not to draw attention to your mind’s slip-up, your eyes pop open and settle on the bar as you slink away, nearly falling from the stool as you collect your purse.“N-Nah. I, um, have plans. But, um...”

He curiously cocks his head at you. “Are you okay to drive, lightweight? I can call you a Lyft.”

A nervous laugh passes your lips as you twirl your fingers around the metal ring that houses your keys. “I’ll be okay. Thank you! I’m just! Really clumsy. Sorry. Th-this was nice though. Can we--Can we do this again?”

Shit. Way to sound desperate.

Much to your surprise, Jihoon offers a dimpled smile with a raise of his phone. “Hit me up again, beautiful. Any time. I'll tell them to go easy on the rum next time."

You hesitate on moving in to kiss his cheek and instead decide to nod and spin on your heels, nearly missing the waitress balancing a platter full of food beside you. Adrenaline rushes through you on the walk back to your car, a soft rain dampening your clothes and speckling the screen of your phone as you check your messages.

Hobi: how’s it going?

Hobi: you’ve gone over time Dirty Girl

Hobi: 😂

Hobi: tell me ur alive?

As you settle into the driver’s seat, you fingers are already working to craft a response that might reveal everything that you’re feeling, but nothing you try to say seems to do any justice to it.

You: I survived. SS? :)

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Hoseok leans back in his chair, taking in everything you’ve told him with a big grin as he picks at the nachos on the table. “So he didn’t try to kiss you?”

You wrack your brain, which is starting to fill with the haze of alcohol. "No. He held my hand for like half a sec though.”

He snorts, crunching down on a chip. “Risqué. Who would have thought you could be so naughty?”

You roll your eyes, debating on whether or not you should admit why you were able to end the things when you did. You scan the plate of nachos and your jaw tightens, shifting from left to right as you try to reason that you hadn't been thinking of someone else while on your date.

"I mean he might have tried to kiss me if I didn't end things so abruptly," you contemplate aloud with a dramatic sigh. “He was so nice. What if he never wants to see me again? What if I blew it?”

Hoseok is scrolling through your messages with Jihoon, scrunching his nose. “Hmm. Or maybe,” he pauses to flip the screen towards you, “you’re just being silly. What, did you get drunk off one beer again?"

Jihoon: Make it home safe, lightweight?

Your lips curl into a smile reading the message, quickly texting a response.

You: I'm fine lol i told you I wasn't drunk. Sorry if I worried you at all!

Jihoon: oh good guess I can spend the rest of my night thinking about you for other reasons now 😏

Breathing gets a little harder as your heart swells to your brain and turns it to mush.

"Damn this guy's smooth," Hoseok murmurs as you set the phone down on the table, feeling completely dumbstruck.

"What do I say?" you ask, suddenly unable to form a coherent thought. Panic bubbles deep in your belly. There’s no doubt in your mind whatever you say will make this guy never speak to you again and you actually maybe kind of enjoyed his company.

Hoseok drums his fingertips on the table, a devilish grin spreading across his features as he begins to walk them towards your phone. “I can type out something for you.”

He bursts out laughing as you quickly snatch the device, sending off a simple blushing smiley.

“Bo-ring,” he sings into the rim of his glass, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Just as he’s putting his drink down, you’re bringing yours to your lips. “So does this mean you’re not sleeping with Namjoon anymore?”

A cough sputters from your mouth. Your drink comes dribbling out from between your lips like a boozy waterfall and ice cubes plop back into the nearly empty glass. “Namjoon told you?!”

‘Wha?” He raises his eyebrows, mouth hanging open. “For real?!”

Oh no. Oh. Nononononono.

“Not! Like that!”

He saw Namjoon coming out of your apartment this morning, but he failed to mention any recent developments. What’s he at, two weeks now? He can’t have confessed, but it’s clear that something has happened. Did he make a move? Did you?

A smug grin splits his face in two, as he plants an elbow on the table and rests his chin on his palm. For some reason the only thing playing in your brain as he stares at you like this is a quote from Spongebob Squarepants: ‘You like Krabby Patties, don’t you Squidward?’

“Stop looking at me like that!”

He continues to stare at you with his accusatory grin and you feel yourself cracking under the pressure.

“Hoseok!”

Silently waiting, he does a slow blink and lets out a lofty sigh full of longing.

“I--! We--! Slept. Literally slept. Not. Dirty,” you panic, trying to fix the mess you’ve made. Here you are telling Hoseok after making Namjoon promise to forget, to not say anything himself. You’re a filthy hypocrite. You only maybe planned on telling Jennie. Maybe. Because chances are she’d be looking at you the same way Hoseok is right now and you’re not sure you can handle the mortifying experience twice.

You drop your forehead to the table hard enough to rattle the plates and cups on the table. Hoseok cringes and reaches out to place a comforting hand on your back but then thinks better of it and awkwardly pats your head instead.

Your voice is muffled as you wrap your arms around your face. “We didn’t have sex. We were just sleeping in the same bed. Please don’t make it into something it’s not.”

He polishes off his drink and looks down at you. Something it’s not? It’s definitely something that should be. You idiots are so close to being everything you both want to be for each other, and yet for some reason you refuse to accept it as the truth. If you’re sleeping in the same bed, regardless of whether you're feeling each other up or if it really is just innocent cuddling, you’re already in too deep to call yourself ‘just friends.’

You narrow your eyes at him when he rolls his. It seems like admission is still a topic to be avoided.

“Fine,” he huffs, feigning indifference. “I was just hoping for some drama.”

Namjoon better get his shit together soon. You might actually see this smooth-talking person again. If he’s as charming as he seems, he’ll have you falling for him in no time. Hoseok contemplates whether or not the guy is just fishing for casual sex with an easy target, but he doesn’t know enough about Jihoon to say for sure. But you? As big as you talk, you’re soft. Squishy, inside and out. Either way Namjoon will be crushed; there’s no way around that. But the last thing Hoseok wants is to see is not just one, but two of his friends heartbroken.

“Don’t say anything. Please,” you beg, reaching for the hand resting on the back of your scalp and fixing your gaze on the table. The sound of desperation seems to confirm there’s more at play than friends snuggling up in the same bed. He wordlessly curls his fingers around yours, giving them a squeeze, which causes you to look up.

“I won’t say a word. Who do you think I am: Jimin?”

It feels like he’s opening the curtains in your apartment to let the sunshine in all over again when he smiles and you can’t help but let the silent giggles break your nerves down.

Familiar hands press down on your shoulders, giving them a gentle rub. “Damn. Drunk already, Geeksquad?”

You can’t help but straighten your spine and slink back into the motion, despite the fresh briar of worry prickling your insides. Are things weird? You feel like things are weird. You try to make sense of the confusion blossoming with your nerves, but fuck, it feels so good when he does that. “No…mmm.”

You melt into the man at your back and are met with a familiar dimpled smile. The anxiety in your stomach disperses as quickly as it came on. Hoseok watches in silence with pursed lips that threaten to curl into a smile. You guys are morons. The way you’re looking at each other is almost sickening; it’s like you’re the only two people in the room. Something has definitely evolved in your relationship, but it’s not enough. Not yet. He’s never wanted to smush two people’s heads together so badly.

Hoseok clears his throat and stands, pinching your arm as he passes by you. “I’m gonna get another drink.”

You smooth your palm over the tender flesh, wrenching yourself away from the hypnotic pull of the man behind you as you down your backwashed drink. He lets his hand linger on your shoulder as he slides into the chair beside you. Suddenly all you can think about is how good those hands felt holding you steady as he rutted his hips against your ass. You swallow, casting your gaze at the table while trying to push the memory from your brain. The harder you try, the more you remember. Moaning and grinding your ass back into him. The growl in his throat. The frantic panting in your ear.

He leans in, a familiar concern evident in his hushed tone. “Everything okay?”

No.

“Yeah.”

You wilt under his skeptical eyes, shifting your attention to the glass you’re now sliding back and forth between your hands.

“You sure?” he asks, letting his thumb trail down your arm

You try to remember to breathe, not wanting to draw attention to the flustered heat in your chest. It’s easy to attribute the inappropriate thoughts to your conversation with Hobi. He brought it up and he doesn’t even know. Not really. And now it’s all you can think about.

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, brow furrowing.

Yes.

When you don’t answer, he rests his elbow on the table and uses his palm to support his head. “Office hours are closed but Namjoon’s therapy hours are open.”

I want you to come home with me again so we can dry hump like we’re teenagers. You wish you had a shock collar for your thoughts. Stop. This is Namjoon.

You shake your head and force a guilty smile as you meet his gaze. Regret courses through your stomach, causing it to do somersaults. You can tell he spent way longer styling his hair than he would have you believe, but you’d be lying if you said he didn’t do a great job. It’s surprising he would let it get so long in such humid weather, but the ashy brown color compliments his dark eyes well and you hate to admit he looks rather attractive with it falling over his forehead like this. It just looks so…

Pullable.

You want to twist your fingers in it and draw him in. Your tongue pokes the inside of your cheek and you scold yourself, squashing the thoughts before they can take over. Think about something else.

Easier thought than done. Your brain has moved onto another target, focusing on the muscular forearm supporting his head. Has he really been working out? In his current position, the shadowy contours sculpted into his flesh seem more prominent than usual. It’s like you’re seeing them for the first time. The loose tanktop hanging around his torso probably has something to do with it. Your eyes linger far too long on a brown nipple poking out from behind the thin fabric.

He raises his eyebrows, watching your eyes wander everywhere but his face. You’ve been silent too long, but every thought in your mind threatens to spill out. You clear your throat, forcing your eyes to rest on his face. Anything is better than the hesitation heavily seated on your tongue.

“I had a date today.” Of course the first thing that comes out is just a complicated addition to the stockpile of conflict in your gut.

He does his best to remain stoic, despite the tendrils of hurt creeping up his chest. It's easier to mask the pain as surprise. "Oh? For real?"

"He seemed okay." You nod. "I didn't even spill anything on myself this time."

"Wow," he chuckles, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Look at you, all grown up."

“Yeah. I put my bra on by myself and everything,” you joke, oblivious to Hoseok’s approach.

His hands reach around your sides, planting two drinks on the table. One looks suspiciously like something you would drink and the other is most definitely beer.

“Wow, what did I miss?” Hoseok asks, hugging you from behind. Any excuse to tease you is a good one, especially knowing there’s something going on between you and Namjoon. His fingers walk up your arms and tussle your hair.

Namjoon watches your expression morph into embarrassment and graciously brings the beer to his lips. You’re so cute when you’re flustered. Warm butterflies attempt to extinguish the inky tendrils of despair using his heart as a vice grip. Again he had his chance to confess this morning, and again he didn’t. And now you’re here running through the details of your date with someone else. It would be selfish to tell you now, wouldn’t it? It’s just something he’ll have to deal with.

Hoseok watches his friend’s eyes drop to the table as you prattle on about your date. While you’ve known Namjoon for a little longer than a year, Hoseok’s been friends with him for much longer. Maybe that’s why you can’t see it: the hopeful light being sucked from Namjoon’s eyes even as he hangs on your every word. Because he’s so in love with you, he’ll listen to anything you have to say, even if it’s about your attraction to someone else.

Hobi pinches your sides, shifting the focus of the conversation to his grabby little crab fingers and how much you hate them. He mocks you, dodging your playful smacks to his ribs. If the opportunity arises to spare Namjoon from another second of heartbreak, he’ll take it. He knows Namjoon never will, no matter how much it hurts.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The work week passes quickly. Things almost feel normal again. It probably helps that you made a point not to get sloppy drunk, you didn’t kiss Jimin, and you didn’t invite Namjoon back to your place for another dry-humping session disguised as platonic cuddling. But there’s this nagging feeling in the back of your head, constantly reminding you that you liked it. Try as you might to deny it, nothing sounds more appealing than the safety and warmth of his arms.

Instead you’re rolling against the cold sheets of your bed, trying to will yourself to get up. Again you’ve been dreaming about him. Again you tell yourself it’s just sexual frustration latching onto a familiar face. And again you stare at the ceiling, entirely unconvinced that there isn’t something more to it. You wish you invited him over again this weekend. You missed how good it felt to have him at your back, sliding his fingers along your arms until you fell asleep.

You talk to him every day and yet you’re still itching for more, looking for any excuse to talk to him, hoping he’ll break something that you’ll have to come fix since he hasn’t all week. It’s strange. So roll onto your side, face smushed into the pillow as you send him a text.

You: i heard u say u were gonna buy me coffee today. That’s so nice bae 😍

You wait a few minutes before the dots appear on screen.

Joonie: You are literally the worst. My alarm was just about to go off.

You: 🙂

You: u gonna tho

Joonie: Buy your own damn coffee

You: WOW RUDE 😭i just wanted a little succ

You: of the

You: caffiENE

Joonie: Why are you like this?

You: because ur my favorite person

Joonie: ….

He sends a meme from Spongebob where a fish is extending its neck with a judgemental stare.

Joonie: You don’t have to butter me up to get free coffee. Just text me your order

You: ashkfls;adsfkshfk ok ok gimme a sex

You: SEC

Joonie: 🙄

Talk about Freudian slip. You pause, considering what kind of coffee mood you’re in today. Bitter espresso or sugary sweet?

You: Vanilla iced coffee with one sugar pump please

Joonie: aight stop by my office. I’ve been having trouble connecting to the printer but no one has come to check it out

You: did u set up a ticket?

Joonie: Of course. I guess no one is as competent as you

You: kiss ass

Joonie: 😘

You roll your eyes, close out the conversation, and purse your lips before setting the phone down. Your latest dream resurfaces in your brain, straddling Namjoon’s torso as he leans you back over his desk and peppers your chest with kisses. Again you tell yourself it’s not about Namjoon, but the thirst associated with the drought of your sex life. Running your fingers down your torso, you start trying to work off some of the residual tension from your dreams.

Conflicted doesn’t even begin to describe your feelings. Confused doesn’t cover it either. You’d already met up with Jihoon again for a serious competition of indoor minigolf followed by a casual fast food dinner. Even then you found yourself thinking of one lanky professor, his dimpled smile replacing Jihoon’s every time he laughed. It’s why you didn’t take him up on the offer to return to his place. That and the fear of potentially being murdered.

You don’t want to have sex with someone when you don’t feel safe, but you consider ways to combat that that feeling for the next one. Maybe bringing him to your place is safer. After all, Yoongi and Hoseok are just down the hall. They’d be sure to check in on you if they knew you had company. People have sex with strangers all the time. It’s not that complicated. Why are you making it into such a big deal?

You can’t help but feel a little guilty. Things have been progressing with him pretty fast, but you have plenty of other offers to meet up with guys that you just haven’t jumped on. It’s kind of overwhelming now. Maybe you should call this dating thing off until your figure out what the hell is going on with your brain.

Or maybe you should just focus on masturbating instead of the confusing guys lighting up the switchboard of your brain. As you reach for your phone and start typing in the familiar web address of your favorite porn site, a photo message from Jihoon appears. You wonder what kind of meme he’s stolen from twitter this time. Carefully, you pause your search in favor of opening his message. It’s definitely not the meme you were looking for.

What you do see is a whole lot of skin along with a carefully placed kissy emoji over his crotch and a “good morning” text accompanying the image. You swallow hard, allowing yourself to be a creep for half a second. You spread your fingers across the screen to zoom in, taking in the sight of the rippled shadows lining his stomach.

You: 😵

You: im dead sorry we cant see each other anymore

Jihoon: 😂 sorry was that too much?????

You want to say no, but your belly does somersaults at the prospect of sending your own crafted picture as a response. It takes some finagling but you finally manage a shot with your arm wrapped around your chest at the perfect angle. No rolls showing, just a set of perfectly pouty lips, slanted jaw, and a great shot of cleavage. You know it’s taken you far too long to respond and you’re only slightly panicked as you scramble to send the photo over.

You see texts fly in from Namjoon and Jihoon and you swipe to close out the conversation with Namjoon. You quickly attach your photo and hit send, hoping Jihoon will feel rewarded for his patience. But your stomach sinks like a stone has been dropped into it. Your image doesn’t appear in the string of messages with him.

Jihoon: Left you speechless, huh?

You: JUST A BIT I NEED TO GO

You don’t give him a chance to respond or sass you for potentially getting off to that pic. You know how your statement reads, but you can’t be bothered to care with the other thought on your mind. Quickly navigating to your conversation with Namjoon, you wince, seeing the previous message he sent with the image you intended for another recipient.

Joonie: Whipped cream?

And there’s the risqué image.

If you ignore it, will he pretend he never got it? Or should you apologize right now and purge the view of the image by sending a billion texts? You decide on the latter, trying to perform damage control. He laughs it off and sends off a joke about just wanting a yes or no along with a few sickly emojis. You still feel terrible. How many times can you fuck up with him in one month? You’re surprised he still agrees to be your friend.

Hanging your head, you forgo touching yourself in favor of a cold shower.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

By the time your get to his office he’s just setting two cups on his desk and shrugging off his long trenchcoat. His back is to you as you attempt to quietly slink in, but he turns to hang the damp piece of clothing on the rack to your left. You freeze like a deer in headlights, but his eyes soften.

“Mornin’ Geeksquad.”

“Good morning,” you sheepishly mumble, shrugging off your own damp hoodie.

The shirt you’ve chosen today is a flowy button-up blouse, which is a step up from the t-shirts you normally wear. Paired with the form-fitting slacks and makeup you took painstaking attempts to apply this morning, you feel confident that you’re at least somewhat stylish, even if you’re not on Namjoon’s level.

“You…” He tries to remember what words are as his eyes roam over your form. Noticing the top two buttons of your blouse are undone, he clears his throat and tries to push the photo from this morning from his mind, but it keeps coming back. “You look really nice today.”

You smile, folding your arms over your chest as he noticeably stiffens, fumbling with his words.

“I mean, you look nice every day. But, ah…. This-This outfit looks good on you. Really good.”

He rubs the back of his neck and you relish in the appreciation he offers, even if he’s a mess about it. Your cheeks are on fire and you giggle, finding your heart jumping at the way he stammers his way through the conversation.

Why are you acting so shy? You love it when he loses composure. You swallow, allowing yourself to embrace the heat in your belly. Isn't this exactly why you started dressing up more at work?

Pushing the demon on your shoulder back into the floating expanse of your stomach, you press your lips together in a thin line, trying to hide the grin threatening to show off the teeth you've recently started whitening.

“And you’re waiting… For the uh…. The computer. Printer. Thing. Of course. Hold up. Let me log in.”

He crosses the room and sits in his chair, eager to focus on something other than your gorgeous face and distracting body since it's clear you're feeling yourself today. You plop down in the cushioned chair on the other side of his desk and rest your neck on the back of the chair to stare at the ceiling. He focuses on the screen, slowly typing his password and trying his best not to look past his monitor at you. He begins twirling a pencil between his fingers to keep himself from fidgeting.

While he had tried to make you feel better about the accidental photo, it was just another thing piled on to your interactions lately that have been making it harder and harder to keep his feelings to himself. Was it really an accident? Maybe you’re just testing the waters. After everything that’s happened, he’s not sure what to think. Everything feels too coincidental to be anything other than pure attraction flying between the two of you. But if that were true, you’d have asked him to spend the night again.

He was hoping for it, hoping for another chance to make his move. This time he’d be sure to lock the door and switch your phone volume to silent. This time he’d buy you a dozen misfit roses with a billion thorns. This time he had it planned out: flowers, dinner, movie, and confess with a kiss.

After hearing about your first date with this Jihoon guy, he decided he was going to suck up his insecurities and finally go for it. It was bad enough when he thought you’d end up with Jimin, but the thought of losing you to a stranger is far worse than he could have imagined. But the weekend passed without invitation and his courage waned as soon as it was clear he would have to initiate.

Thinking about it and actually doing it are two different things. What if he messed things up? Time already appeared to be running out when Hoseok had given him a deadline to confess by, but with your new dating developments, time seemed to be slipping through his fingers even faster than before. His hesitation helps nothing.

His stomach lurches as he considers the ramifications of the image you sent this morning. If you didn’t mean to send it to him, then it must have been meant for Jihoon. Are you really already exchanging nudes with this other guy? Has he seen all of you? Has he already lain with you? Filled the space in your bed? In you? Maybe Jihoon is the only one he knows about. What if you’re talking to even more people and that photo was for someone you haven’t even mentioned yet?

The pencil in his hand splinters into pieces with a loud crack and your head snaps up to look in the direction the sound came from.

“What was that?”

“Uh… Just me being the God of Destruction.” He rises motions for you to take his place in the chair as he pockets the fragments of the broken pencil.

You shake your head, grabbing your drink as you circle the desk and get comfortable in his chair. “You’re hopeless.”

Navigating the network doesn’t take very long. It just looks like a missing password to connect to the printer’s address. Huh. You don’t remember updating anything. Maybe your coworkers reset it. Regardless, it’s an easy fix. You take a sip through your straw and slam the cup down on the desk.

Suddenly your dream is on vivid display in your head and you freeze as you stare at the smooth, dark surface of the polished woodgrain. The sound of his balls slapping your ass echoes in your ears. You can see the scenario, clear as day. He grips your hips and fucks himself into your tight cunt, tits bouncing in his face as he sucks a hardened nipple into his mouth, praising you for your tightness, how you squeeze him, how you take him so well like the dirty slut you ar--

His hands come down on your shoulders. “Hey. You okay?”

Blood rushes in your ears and you shake the daydream off. You really need to stop watching naughty teacher porn but it’s always on the first page. You tell yourself it has nothing to do with Namjoon and everything to do with laziness. The problem with that is you’re usually very particular about the videos that you watch. Can you fully attribute it to laziness when this is the type of thing you found yourself skipping over just a few months ago? Don’t dwell on it, you tell yourself, continuing typing where you left off.

“Sorry, just… spaced out,” you mumble, leaning back in the chair as you finish up. “There. Should be all set.”

He allows his gaze to drop down past the two open buttons and straight to your breasts, perfectly nestled against the silky black material of your bra. His eyelids flutter and he licks his lips, hoping you don’t notice what a creep he’s being right now. How much spank bank material can he collect in one day?

“Do you want to test it?” you ask, quickly rummaging through the millions of icons on his desktop for any word document.

His breath hitches as you hover over one labeled ‘Draft_Trivia_L,’ double clicking it without a second thought. His hand catches your wrist and he spins you to face him as the document opens.

“You can’t just open things. That’s private!” he flares, heat building in his face. His gut fills with immediate regret.

You blink a few times and look down at your lap, feeling rather foolish. You’ve never seen him snap like that; it must really important. Regardless of your friendship, you know better as a professional. Your gut tumbles in endless circles. Just knowing you’ve upset him on top of everything else you’ve fucked up with your friendship has your mind heavy with guilt.

“I’m really sorry. I should have asked first,” you murmur, feeling like you’re about to cry. You’re not a child. You can handle being scolded when you’ve done wrong, even though it sucks. But this is different. He’s never gotten even remotely angry at you before. And you’ve never wanted crawl into to the server room and volunteer the remainder of your week sorting cables, but there’s a first time for everything.

The hands at your wrists fall to his sides and his expression softens. Before he can offer the apology on the tip of his tongue, you rise and head straight for the door.

“Test it out and let helpdesk know if it’s working.”

Just as you grab the handle and pull open the door, his hand pushes the heavy panel back in place with a click. You turn around, your back resting against the door, but he keeps his arm steady, hovering over you in a way that makes your heart race, despite the turmoil churning in your tummy.

“Wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap,” he says in a gentle tone. “It’s just… that particular document is… very personal. It’s--”

“You don’t have to tell me,” you say in a quiet voice. “I fucked up. I’m supposed to let you drive after I fix stuff. I’m not supposed to touch anything other than what’s broken.”

“You know I don’t have a license,” he jokes, earning a soft laugh from you. He sighs. “Remember how I told you about that one student? Well it turns out they really resonated with our poetry studies. They told me it reminds them of something they like to do for fun.” He hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck.

“They like to freestyle rap. Do tons of underground competitions, that kind of thing. So I’ve been working with them on bridging the gap between literature, poetry, and rap. And that document you opened… I’m trying my hand at it to lead by example. I want to share it with you, but it’s... not done and it’s a mess I’m still working through. But I promise I will let you see it when it’s done.”

“I’m sure it’s amazing. You’re a genius,” you admit with a shrug of your shoulders. “You have a way with words unlike anyone I’ve ever met. Don’t feel like you have to show me anything, Namjoon. You’re not obligated to.”

He scoffs, relaxing his posture to pinch the bridge of his nose as the compliment starts to sink in. Did you just acknowledge his sexy brain? He can’t help but grin like an idiot as he shakes his head. “I have to show you. It’s actually… I kind of wrote it about… I mean, for you.”

Your eyes widen, curiosity bubbling in your chest. “M-Me?”

What the hell could he possibly have to say about you that could turn into a literary piece to lead by example?

“Yes. You.” He takes a sip of the beverage in his hand before thrusting it in your direction. “You know what? I don’t actually hate that.”

“I know. You have a sweet tooth,” you giggle, swiping your finger across the whipped cream covering the tip of his nose.

You take your finger into your mouth and lick it clean. He watches you with hungry, longing eyes, replacing your finger with something else in his mind. He quickly covers the look with a sigh, gathers your coat from the rack nearby and throws it over your head, shielding himself from your teasing actions. You scramble to regain your field of vision and grin at him as he sits down at his desk again.

You turn to finally leave again, this time in much better spirits. “I’ll talk to you later, Joonie.”

“Geeksquad,” he calls, causing you to pause. “We’re good, right?”

You rest your face on the doorframe as you peer back at him with a shy, slightly smooshed grin. “Of course. As long as you don’t hate me for the million ways I mess up.”

He chuckles, warm dimpled smile gracing his features. “Never.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Thursday night. Finally. You sit on your couch legs propped up over Jennie’s lap, finding some time to catch up with your bestie. She passes the bowl of popcorn over to you, engrossed in the comedy-drama you’ve been binging for the last couple hours. When you shake your head and push the bowl back in her direction, she looks over at you.

“What’s wrong.” It’s a demand, not a question.

“Why would you think anything’s wrong?” you ask defensively, already feeling like you’re about to cry.

“Because I know you, you dumb bitch,” she responds with the love of someone who has definitely seen you at your worst. “Also your leg has been bouncing for the last ten minutes and if you had to pee you would just get up.”

Immediately you halt the motion you hadn’t realized you’d been making. “Jihoon wants to meet up again this week.”

“Wow. Does that make date three? Bow-chicka-wow-wow,” she jokes, causing your feet to rise as she bumps her hips up and down.

You swipe at the air and roll your eyes. “Please, like he wants to.”

She scoffs, stuffing her mouth full of popcorn. “Didn’t you say he tried to get you back to his place after the last one? Dude def wants to bang it out.”

You twiddle your fingers nervously. “Do you think I should?”

“What, fuck him?” she asks, blinking at you as though she’s carefully analyzing your body language through the fluttering of her eyelids.

You slowly nod, puffing your cheeks out and letting air slowly escape the little ‘o’ you’ve made with your mouth. “I already told him I would get drinks with him and I’m nervous about taking things further after.”

“Y/N, honey, why are you asking me? I’m not gonna do it for you. Do you want to fuck him?”

“I don’t know…” You rub your forehead nervously, looking back at the television. “But I think it might take my mind off of some things.”

“Like...?” she prods, realizing there’s something else you’re on the verge of needing to get out, but you need a teensy push to get there.

You purse your lips and stare up at the ceiling, trying to figure out a way to make it sound less crazy than the bottled up way it’s consuming your thoughts.

“When I’m with him... I can’t stop thinking about Namjoon,” you say quietly, feeling lightheaded just from having said it out loud. You said the words. You admitted it’s a thing. Now what? Jennie will know what to do.

“Ew,” she says out of instinct, knowing anytime she’s broached the subject of you getting together with Namjoon you’ve made gagging sounds. But when she sees the horror on your face, she pauses. “Oh, are we not at ew anymore? Are you finally cool with me saying he’s fine as hell? You feeling a little change, babe?”

“I don’t know what I feel. But it’s not ew. Not even close. I keep having these…” you pause and look at the unlocked door, wondering if there are any ears listening on the other side. Your voice drops to a whisper and you lean in. “I keep having these dreams where he’s… you know?”

“Oh, okay,” she says with a nod, not quite understanding what you’re getting at, but trying to be a good friend by agreeing anyway. She plants her elbow on the back of the couch and rests her cheek on her palm. “But like… how do you mean?”

Your eyes look everywhere but at her face. “You know…”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows furrow and it’s not until you make a crude circle with your hand and poke a finger through it a few times that her eyes light up with understanding. Her voice takes on a surprised tone. “Oh!” She pushes your legs off her lap, pauses the show, and scooches closer. “Okay. Wow. This is really happening. Finally. Details. Spill it.”

With a groan, you recount every last thing you can remember about the time you’ve spent with Namjoon in the last few weeks, everything from toilet hair to the most recent photo mishap. When you’ve finished, Jennie sighs loudly.

“I take off for like a week and this is what happens. I love you, but you are a serious fucking mess.” You’ve just been fanning the flames of the torch he’s been carrying for you. No wonder it’s all coming to a head like this. She’s surprised Namjoon hasn’t caved and finally confessed already. Isn’t he ready to blow at this point? She stifles a giggle at the double entendre.

“I know.” You stare at the ceiling, hands folded over your lap. “So what do I do?”

“Okay. Let me get this straight. You’ve slept in the same bed, cuddled, flashed him, almost made out with him, humped him, sent him a nude, you’re having sex dreams about him aaaaand you’re thinking about him while you’re on dates with other people… And you’re asking me what to do? You know what to do. Just bang it out already,” she says, clapping her hands together on the last few syllables to emphasize her point.

“Obviously there’s something there. So why don’t you just test the chemistry? You guys might be surprisingly compatible.”

You shake you head and run your fingers through your hair. “I can’t risk his friendship. I’ve fucked up so much already. Like what if we do it and he’s like… cool let’s not ever again. And then he tells me our friendship is over.”

“He won’t,” she groans, tossing one of the throw pillows at you. “Stop being dumb.”

“But…” Your mind races as you consider every last thing that could go wrong, hugging the pillow to your chest. “Jennie, I’m too scared to lose him. I can’t.”

Her brow knits in concentration. Your fears are understandable, but she knows you can be happy with him if you just open up to the possibility, especially since you’ve become such good friends in such a relatively short amount of time. But she also knows pushing you too hard too fast will make you clam up. You may not be willing to address what you feel, but at least there’s admission of some kind of feeling. That’s progress.

“So where do we go from here, Y/N? What are you doing?”

You wish you had an answer. “I… I’m calling Firewall on this. Right now. Namjoon keeps me in line with everyone else. You keep me in line with him.”

Jennie swallows, her heart breaking for you both as she nods. “Okay. If that’s what you want,” she agrees softly.

“It is,” you say, voice already full of uncertainty.

You have a date tomorrow night with Jihoon and you’ve decided you are going to stop thinking about Namjoon for the entirety of it. For the sake of your friendship and your sanity. You have to keep things simple and divided. So why does it feel like that’s way too easy of an answer?

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Jihoon is way better at dancing than you are, which doesn’t come as a surprise, honestly. What you do find shocking is the blatant boner you feel poking against your ass as he guides you across his hips and the filthy things he whispers into the slope of your neck. Clearly he uses dancing as an excuse to cop a feel, but the butterflies in your stomach and the heat in your cheeks tell you you’re okay with that. You shyly reach up to cradle your fingers around the back of his head, breath staggered as you slowly lean back to press your lips to his. His jaw is stiff, but his lips are big and soft and it’s easy enough to substitute the person you’re craving without a second thought. Fireworks explode in your brain, blocking off all possible hangups about the action.

As he brings his hands up to your chest, giving your tits a rough squeeze, you come crashing back down. Fuck. You had one job tonight. Firewall, remember? Your eyes shoot open and you’re left with a suffocating swarm of bodies around you and hands that feel constricting. It’s too much. You need air. You need air and space around you to figure this out.

You grab his hands and move them back to an innocent place on your hips. “I’m gonna get another drink,” you say, desperate to escape this place you suddenly feel trapped in.

He allows you to slip through his sweaty fingers and disappear into the crowd.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Namjoon says, unable to take his eyes off the way you’re moving with the man at your back. Is this his fate: destined to watch you grind your body on someone else?

Jennie, Jungkook, and Tae exchange worried looks. Hoseok just scoffs as he peers through the glass railing across the sea of writhing bodies.

“I know. What kind of dancing is that? It’s like she can’t remember anything I taught her. Crescent moon shapes. CRESCENT.” He grunts in frustration and drags his hand down his chin. “I’m gonna have an aneurysm.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes, leaning back in his chair and placing his arms out around the back of Jennie and Jungkook’s chairs. “Of course that’s what you would see.”

She grumbles as Tae manspreads, knocking her knee with his. She settles for the way his fingers trail feather light touches at her back.

“Namjoon, you didn’t have to come,” she says sympathetically. “I just wanted to keep an eye on her just in case… I’m sorry. I know you guys think I’m crazy. But like… I’ve been with crazy. And if that experience has taught me anything, it’s to trust my gut.” She pats her stomach a few times and takes a small sip of her drink. “And my gut says don’t trust a hoe you don’t know, especially with your bestie.”

“That’s exactly why I had to come,” he sighs.

Touche, she thinks.

Suddenly you’re moving in a slow, sweet way that Jennie recognizes as your telltale shy kiss. As much as she likes the feeling of Tae’s fingers dancing with the ends of her hair, she stands and takes Namjoon’s hands, pulling him from his seat. She can hear Tae’s grumbly protests as she moves away, but it doesn’t matter. She’d really like to spare Namjoon the heartbreak of watching the person he loves kiss someone else.

“Joonie. Get up. Switch places with me. Come on.”

Her act of heroism comes too late. He falls back into his chair with his jaw hanging open, unable to stomach the sight. So he forces his eyes to focus on the ambient lights dangling from the ceiling. It's stupid. You're not even his, so why did that feel like getting punched in the gut? He closes his eyes and swallows the growing lump in his throat. Get it together.

Jungkook grimaces at Hobi, mouthing the words ‘what do we do?’ Hoseok looks from Jungkook to Namjoon, and then down to the floor where you’re prying Jihoon’s hands away from your chest and shying away. Squinting to get a better view of your form, he realizes you’re not just slinking away, you’re running away.

Hoseok rises, dragging his dejected friend to his feet. "Hey, let's get you something stronger than a ginger ale. Up! Up! Time to get our bodies moving. Things will be okay!"

Hoseok jerks his head in the direction he saw you running off to, making eye contact with Jennie. "Y/N is obviously okay! So let's not have wasted this time sulking when we could be getting endorphins going."

Jennie cocks her head to the side as she stands and peers over the rail, trying to discern whatever information Hoseok wanted to relay. Then she sees it: the distant form sneaking into the bathroom.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Namjoon groans as he leans his elbows on the bar. “You know what, I’m starting to think this wasn’t such a good idea. She’s obviously safe and happy. Can you please drop me off at home?”

Hoseok is looking past Namjoon, squinting into the crowd as though looking for something in particular. “You know this is your last weekend to confess before I tell her for you, right?”

“Hey. Don’t complicate her life. She’s got someone now. I appreciate the push, but it’s done. There’s nothing else to--”

“Hey isn’t that the guy?” Hoseok interrupts, hastily thrusting a pointed finger just in front of his friend’s nose.

Namjoon’s gaze follows Hoseok’s fingertip to Jihoon on the other side of the bar, putting his hands around some other girl’s waist and burying his face into her neck as they grind on one another.

“What the fuck?” Namjoon breathes.

His feet are moving without provocation and before he knows it, he’s angrily wrenching the couple apart. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“Dude what the fuck? Do I know you?” Jihoon blinks, giving him a shove.

Namjoon’s shoulder dips back, but his stance is firm. He drags his lip through his teeth, a manic grin threatening to spread through if he doesn’t keep his jaw tight. “Try that shit again. I dare you. I will lay you out.”

The girl he was dancing with grimaces and quickly backs away, sensing the danger in this situation. Jungkook is waiting. He catches her wrist and spins her gracefully into his arms.

“Careful, gorgeous. Don’t want you mixed up in whatever that is, hmm?” he says, brushing the hair from her face with featherlight touches that contrast the solid mass of his body pressed against her side. “Don’t you want to dance with me instead?”

She looks like she’s about to slap him for a fraction of a second, but melts into a puddle as soon as she meets those big brown eyes. She weakly allows him to lure her away from the squabbling men.

“Maybe…”

“Hah. Well then. Maybe I’ll let you,” he teases, poking his tongue into the side of his cheek and disappearing into the crowd with her hot on his heels.

Jihoon’s jaw grows taut with annoyance as he watches his target slip away. He scoffs. “What the fuck is your problem with me? I don’t know you. Get lost.” He clicks his tongue and mutters, “fucking punk.”

“You’re here with Y/N and you’re out here feeling up other girls. That’s my problem with you.”

“Pfft. That’s what this is about? What are you, her boyfriend? Or do you just have white knight syndrome? Look, I don’t care what you guys are. Everybody has a side piece. Why are you being so judgemental?”

Namjoon’s concentrated brow briefly transforms into confusion, causing his response to die on the tip of his tongue. Jihoon catches the panic before he can turn his face to stone.

“Oh, that’s not it is it? I see how it is now. You’re stuck in the friend zone.” Jihoon lets out a smug laugh. “Are you stalking her? You must have seen our kiss. Tell me. How badly do you wish you were me?”

Namjoon feels like his teeth are going to break if he keeps grinding them together like this, but it’s all he can do to keep himself from unloading on this guy.

“Heh. Judging from your silence, pretty fucking badly. How long have you waited? Months? Years? Be honest. It drives you crazy knowing that I’m going to have her tonight, doesn’t it?”

“You don’t deserve her,” he spits back, unable to hold the jealous venom from his tone. “I’m not even worried. She’ll figure you out.”

Jihoon shakes his head, taking a few steps closer to him. “You’re wrong though. I know her type. She’s desperate for somebody to love her. Anybody will do. It doesn’t matter who.”

His words are like a sucker punch to the gut. What if he’s right? Regardless, he powers through his insecurities, knowing a guy as shitty as Jihoon is trying to go for the low blows to throw him off his game. “Man, do you ever get tired of spewing shit?”

“Dude, why do you even want her?” Jihoon shakes his head with a laugh. “Yeah, she's kind of cute but there are plenty of hotter chicks out there.” He clicks his tongue. “I thought I saw an easy opportunity to get laid but I didn't think someone as desperate as her would take this long to get in the sack. It’s kind of more trouble than it's worth for what's bound to be a mediocre lay. I can just tell.”

Namjoon clenches his jaw tighter, knowing that he’s just egging him on at this point.

“But I’ll fuck her anyway. Because I can.”

Namjoon lunges toward him but Taehyung and Hoseok are already grabbing his arms and steadying him like vines entangling a tree. Jihoon silently laughs like this is the most amusing game in the world.

“He’s not worth it. Don’t do something you’ll regret,” Tae says, glaring in Jihoon’s direction, who rolls his eyes in response.

“Time to cool off,” Hoseok whispers, working on backing him up. “Come on. She’s smart. Believe in her.”

Namjoon glares at the enemy he’s made today, wishing he got at least one punch in. “You best keep your mouth shut, or I’ll make sure it stays shut.”

“That’s fine. I’ll make sure Y/N’s stays wide open though, don’t worry.”

Namjoon seethes with rage as he pushes his friends forward, trying to return to the man pushing his buttons. “You really wanna throw hands, or you wanna keep making backhanded comments like a bitch? Let’s fucking go.”

“Joon, come on,” Tae and Hobi take turns trying to diffuse the anger in his eyes

Jihoon rolls his eyes again. “Listen to your boyfriends, bro.”

“Yeah, keep rolling your eyes. I see you looking for your fucking brain,” Namjoon quips with a snort. With a frustrated sigh he finally allows Tae and Hobi to goad him back to a distance where he’s not in danger of putting his fist in someone’s face.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

You come back from the bathroom, panic attack only a hazy memory thanks to one of your best friends showing up to talk you through it. Of course Jennie followed you here to make sure you’d be okay. Honestly, you couldn’t be more grateful right now. She gave you the pep talk you needed.

When you finally spot Jihoon, he’s standing alone at the bar, casually leaning against it but looking pissed as fuck. Before you can ask if everything is okay, he’s pulling you into a deep kiss, forcing his wet, slimy tongue down your throat. He’s sure to make a show of it knowing that Namjoon is watching from somewhere nearby.

You wedge your hands between your bodies and break free of the kiss, feeling like that was super out of character for him with how you left things. You were hoping he’d be more thoughtful and considerate of your earlier reaction, but it only adds more proof onto the obvious statement that he is not Namjoon. You try to give him a pass because you know being horny definitely makes you stupid and needy.

“What’s gotten into you?” You giggle nervously, trying to ignore the anxiety nagging at the back of your mind. The butterflies have become a swarm of angry bees circling your belly.

He leans in to whisper against your ear, “I just want you so badly right now. I’m sorry. You wanna get out of here?”

You shift uncomfortably, unsure if you're ready for that, or if you even want that with him. A sense of obligation floods your brain, even though you know you don’t owe him a thing. How fucked up is it that you feel guilty for not putting out on the third date? You don’t actually know this guy that well, so how can you bring yourself to fuck him? Stop being a prude. It’s just sex.

Fighting the sinking feeling in your gut, you grab his hand and shyly smile at him, trying to reason with yourself that at least if you go back to your place, Hobi and Yoongi will check up on you. He takes the action as wordless approval, giving you another wet, sloppy kiss that makes the stone in your stomach feel even heavier.

He discards your fingers and moves to tugging on your wrists in a way that makes them ache. The ice pick of dread starts chipping away at the corners of your mind. He hasn’t given you a reason so far to think he’ll freak if you back out now, but the way he starts leading you towards the exit ties a knot in your throat. Soon you’re practically being dragged across the room. As heavy as the stone in your stomach is, it does nothing to slow him down.

“Jihoon. Hey, slow down! Wait a sec!”

It’s too late. Your shoulder hits the doorframe and you wince as hot pain radiates from the point of impact. Oh, that’s definitely going to bruise.

“Dude!” You wrench yourself away from his grip, nursing the growing welt on your shoulder.

He raises his eyebrows and turns back to face you, concern burdening his features. A light rain begins to blanket the two of you. “Oh, you should be more careful, Y/N. Are you okay?”

Despite the fact that he practically slammed you into the door on the way out of the building, you start to feel guilty for causing him to worry as he begins fussing over you. His fingers ghost over the hand you have clamped down over the ache.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to,” you mumble, attempting to shake off the anxiety in your gut. “But I need you to slow down. You don’t even know where I live.”

“So show me,” he prods, trailing his fingers to your chin. “I’m just so excited to be with you.”

You can hear Hobi’s voice in your head, backing the unsettling feeling traveling throughout your body. Stop making excuses. Ghost him!

You pull your head back, trying to gather the willpower to be brave and back out. “Okay… But-- I-I…” You allow a nervous chuckle to pass your lips. “Look, I-I don’t think tonight is gonna work. I’m sorry. I’m just feeling kind of sick.”

The smile on his face falls. Before he can respond, Jennie’s voice cuts through the sound of rain pattering nearby cars. “Hey!”

He looks over at the sound, furrowing his brow when he sees Namjoon walking out behind your friend.

Showing up to watch, Friend Zone?

Jihoon loudly sighs. “You know what, I’m feeling kind of sick too. Sick of you saying one thing and really wanting another.”

You blink, jaw dropping open. “Excuse me?”

“You’re a fucking tease. Always giving those bedroom eyes, telling me how much you want me, how bad you want to fuck me,” he declares, raising his volume as he watches Namjoon stop dead in his tracks.

Your face grows hot, despite the mist gathered on your cheeks. “H-Hold on. I-I never---”

“But you got this shy act going so I played along. For a bit. You want to play games again. Trying to tell me you want to wait, but I know you don’t. You were the one putting my hands all over your body earlier, practically begging me to fuck you out in the open the way you were pressing that ass into me.”

You can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth right now. Is this really happening right now? It’s a nightmare. You’ll wake up any second now. Everything he’s saying is a fucking lie. So why do you feel so ashamed, so guilty?

“You know what, Jihoon?” you pipe up, the distress in your voice apparent as the shrill words escape. “You’re being a real douche right now.”

“Yeah, well you’re being a real prude for someone who is maybe a six at best,” he snorts. “And god you’re fucking boring. You should be thanking me for even considering sleeping with you.”

The words shock your system and you stand for a few seconds just processing all of the hurtful things he just said. Suddenly the heat in your cheeks radiates throughout your chest. You feel like a fucking moron. Rage. Regret. Shame. Self-loathing. Everything hits you like a truck at once, culminating into a bubbling pressure in your throat. You want to scream, but nothing comes out except for the boiling tears streaking down your cheeks. Your hand flies up, landing across his face with a satisfying smack.

Realizing what you’ve done, your eyes go wide and then clamp shut in recoil as he raises his hand to retaliate. But the blow never lands. When you open your eyes Namjoon has his hand clamped around Jihoon’s wrist, glaring daggers at the man.

“You do not fucking touch her,” he growls. “You better get the fuck out of here before I beat your ass for even thinking about it.”

Your brain has already shut down by the time Jennie grabs your waist to pull you back into a bear hug from behind. Jihoon ticks his jaw and clenches his fists, tearing himself from Namjoon’s grip. When Tae, Hobi, and Jungkook appear by his side, it seems like he reconsiders the punch he was about to throw and backs away.

“You can have her. She’s not worth it.”

Your friends stand in front of you, an unmoving daisy chain of rage as the tears fall from your face along with the apologies on your lips. Namjoon is the last to turn around, but he’s the only person you can focus on as your body convulses with the emotional distress coursing through it. You’re soon enveloped in a group hug, pressed with a deadly tightness against Namjoon’s chest. It doesn’t make you feel any less broken, but it does make you feel grateful to have such a supportive and caring family. What would you have done if they weren’t here tonight? You shudder to think about it.

Namjoon’s fingers press against the back of your head as you spew snotted, muffled sorry’s into his shirt. He’s still holding you long after everyone else has let go, offering comforting words, making sure you know you have nothing to apologize for. In this moment, the world falls away, the pain falls away, and the only thing that matters is the overflowing love you can feel emanating from the man before you.

#moonchildnet #magicshopnet #namjoon fanfic #namjoon fic #bts fic #bts smut #namjoon smut #namjoon x reader #namjoon x you #namjoon fluff #bts fanfic

549 notes · View notes

nqturlist · 3 years

Photo

{ trans male ; he / him ; homosexual } – 𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐋 who comes from supernatural has been spotted in sydney . they are twenty - three years old and are a human . they have been called + 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 , + 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 , - 𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 . it seems like their memories are faded . i’ve also heard that they are a dead ringer for elliot fletcher .

hey guys , gals , and non - binary pals ! i’m jack and i share the same birthday as neil patrick harris meaning that the universe decided that i could only be gay . in other news , from what i’ve been noticing is that y’all are pretty lax for your intros and well that’s not gonna be the case for me . i’ve some loud thoughts about my second favorite minor character in supernatural and if i don’t write them down , i will combust on sight . i don’t apologize for the 500 page essay you’re about to read .

𝐴 𝐸 𝑆 𝑇 𝐻 𝐸 𝑇 𝐼 𝐶 𝑆 : beanies always paired with over - sized jumpers . fascinated with anything remotely dealing with the supernatural - superficial legends that capture speculation . “ here for a good time , not a long time . ” wire - rimmed glasses edging closer to the tip of a nose . perpetual bed head . the clicking of a mechanical keyboard way late into the night . caffeine addiction but it shows . the smell of tea tree oil and lavender . bruised knees and torn up hands from investigating abandoned buildings . child - like wonder upon learning something new that enraptures the soul . the sound of rain on pavement while it’s pounding against your face as you're laying down . lo - fi beats blaring from headphones as a soft hum accompanies .

𝑇 𝐻 𝐸 𝑀 𝐸 𝑆 𝑂 𝑁 𝐺�� : come along by cosmo sheldrake .

𝑃 𝑅 𝑂 𝐹 𝐸 𝑆 𝑆 𝐼 𝑂 𝑁 : part time streamer , part time barista .

eliot was only in two episodes of supernatural but i love him so much . if you’re curious , he’s in season 14 , episodes 13 and 16 . and here’s a link to his wiki if you wanna read it but it’s pretty lame . and now begins the full deep dives into the apple of my eye .

right off the bat , i do want to say that eliot is annoying . if your character has anything to deal with the supernatural please know that i’m here for him hounding your character with questions .

eliot’s trans and has been out since he was 15 . coming out as homosexual was pretty recent however with it only being when he was 20 when it changed from bisexual .

has a pretty “ normal ” family with two siblings and parents .

obsessed with anything supernatural related including cryptids , urban legends , etc .

this obsession started when he was a young child when he first read “ scary stories not to tell in the dark ” and there was no turning back .

always was a little weird growing up but never really cared .

currently a college dropout with no intentions of going back and supports himself through being a streamer and having a part time job at a local coffee house whether it be locally owned or a chain .

when he was in college he was going for investigative journalism and cryptozoology .

visibly looks like his always running on the last bit of caffeine and spite most likely . his eye bags ? a mile long .

always ready to talk about local legends . it’s his jam .

ya know those slightly cringey ghost hunting tv shows ? that’s all he watches with the new horror movie thrown in .

he’s a sweet baby angel who has a weird obsession with the supernatural and the occult .

eliot pretty much can be found either at work , his apartment , or the local sandwich shop doing research on another supernatural figure .

if you’re his friend , please know that you have an assigned supernatural / cryptid assigned to you in his phone and be prepared to hear about it as well as other random facts about pretty much anything else .

with being a streamer , his favorite games to play are horror , survival , and adventures but then throws in a cozy game like animal crossing or stardew valley .

if he had to describe himself in a few words it would be : new age mystery inc with some spice .

𝐶 𝑂 𝑁 𝑁 𝐸 𝐶 𝑇 𝐼 𝑂 𝑁 𝑆 : exes would be interesting . streamer friends . coworkers . coffee shop regulars . college friends . people he annoys with questions . friends . apartment neighbors . bar acquaintances . drunken hook up ? mayhaps . someone who tolerates him with his interest info dumping . who’s gonna be the one who lets him into the college parties ? poor sandwich shop workers that deal with him .

#fadcd.intro #( anyways ..#enjoy ! )

1 note · View note

coffeeandcalligraphy · 4 years

Text

Summon Away | Writing Update

Hey People of Earth!

The day has come! I am finally writing an update on the fifteenth and final chapter of Moth Work, which I wrote about a month ago!

Summon Away is probably the shortest in the book at just over 1800 words, and also one of my faves because it’s so?? tender?? I wrote it in one sitting and couldn’t have asked for a better end to this book. Here’s a scene breakdown:

Scene A:

Harrison sees Lonan for a soft moment early in the morning, free of the stress of Eliza lmaooo. They have a super tender moment, however there’s this strange tension to the point where we know something isn’t exactly right.

Harrison moves the scene along by saying he’s going to grab a pack of cigarettes from a gas station down the road. From the context, we can probably tell this is true, except he ain’t coming back. Probably the most sweepingly dramatic moment I’ve ever written and I’m here for it loool. This is my soap opera moment where Harrison essentially leaves Lonan to have his new relationship with Eliza, despite his concern, because he’s gotta make a decision that’s healthiest for him and that’s called character development folks!!

Did I break my own heart breaking up my OTP :) yes!!!

Scene B:

This is a really short half scene where Harrison locates his mother who doesn't live far from Eliza’s apartment.

Scene C:

Harrison and his mother sit outside on her balcony and he reflects on his decision to split (literally a trend that all my Fostered characters are yeeting away from each other oops) while watching people below engage in some form of a relationship with one another. So much drama!!

The chapter gets its title from a Nothing But Thieves song (why would it not at this point), Tempt You (Evocatio). I was struggling to title this chapter because I needed something that fit the vibe, and had actually tried to use the concept of an evocation to title a chapter for this book previously to no avail. However, after revisiting the Wikipedia article for an evocation, I came across the definition of “summon away”:

The Latin word evocatio was the "caIIing forth" or "summoning away" of a city's tutelary deity. The rituaI was conducted in a miIitary setting either as a threat during a siege or as a result of surrender, and aimed at diverting the god's favor from the opposing city to the Roman side, customariIy with a promise of a better-endowed cuIt or a more Iavish Tempie.

I thought this concept of “summoning away” sounded slightly contradictory (the word summon brings images of a coming forth of some sorts, while the word away sounds like the opposite at least to me am I making this more *metaphorical* than it is perhaps) and I really thought the chapter strangely fit the above definition, hence my choosing!

Excerpts:

This is kind of torture because I dearly miss writing the boys interacting as they’re not with each other in Feeding Habits the angstttt:

“What is that?” Harrison asks, pulling back a barstool with one hand, while pointing at the mug with another.

Lonan glances up, and the two mutually analyze each other. Lonan’s puckered skin, how morning makes his eyelashes papery, like wings. He wonders what Lonan sees in him—for a moment, it’s all he wants to know.

Lonan knuckles the mug over and Harrison picks it up like he’s holding an eyeball. The tea is hot, though Lonan hasn’t seemed to mind, and its flowery perfume burns Harrison’s throat. Lonan pulls the mug back to him when Harrison’s done, and takes another sip.

“I still have no idea,” Harrison says, and to his shame, studies Lonan’s face for a bite wound.

“Earl grey.”

“Sounds fancy.”

“It expired four years ago.”

Harrison gasps, and Lonan almost smiles. And for a moment, Harrison almost forgets where he is. What happened at this counter just a few hours prior. With Lonan, it almost disappears. They could be back at the cabin, needling through the woods on that first day they tried to get rid of the dark room. They could be in the water, shielding, yet simultaneously pushing each other under. They could be dancing to no music in a tiny bathroom or driving for carless miles in the tarnish of rain.

This is my very overt metaphor that I bullshitted to title this novel that ended up working being very overtly injected into this book !! :))) but imagine this part with a sepia filter and it’s actually a silent film with captions oh:

“I found this article,” Lonan says, and turns the paper over. It’s not very long, just a small corner of the entire page, but Harrison sees the title, all bolded, Summer’s Dreaded Pesk: 10 Facts About Moths. He leans in closer to read it.

The facts are almost all useless to him—that moths like sweet things, that there are thousands of species, that many don’t eat, but what sticks out to him is the last: how they’re attracted to light. Harrison skims the text with his fingernail, reads something about light traps, and tries not to think of how unfortunate it all is—to move toward light and then stop moving altogether.

He knows whatever he will say will keep him here, in this sun, on this barstool, reading the newspaper about moths, sitting next to Lonan, drinking his tea, never knowing what flavour it is. Harrison inhales, and on his exhale, unclasps the chain and drapes it around Lonan’s throat.

When the angel hits Lonan’s chest, a sound comes out of his mouth that Harrison thinks is almost animal. Harrison’s hand lingers on the back of Lonan’s neck when he clasps it, feeling the pulse of Lonan’s heartbeat, even from all the way up here.

Lonan clutches the angel when Harrison pulls back, and he doesn’t let go, even when Harrison rises.

“I’m going to grab a pack of cigarettes,” Harrison says. “Is there a gas station around here?”

“Just up the road.” Lonan’s brows furrow.

“Do you want anything?”

“I don’t think so.”

Harrison nods. Then he steps back, away from the kitchen, and slips his shoes on, one by one, more carefully than he’s ever done before. He knows Lonan looks at him. He knows what’ll be in his eyes if he looks up—and so he doesn’t. Harrison checks his jacket pocket for his car keys, and when they jangle, he turns toward the door.

“How long?”

Lonan’s voice makes him jump.

“Pardon?”

“How long will you be gone?”

Harrison frowns. “I’m just grabbing a pack of cigarettes.”

So Harrison’s reaction to everything being white and gold is my reaction to modern decoration loool this is just CNF at this point:

Harrison buys the pack of cigarettes. And then the gum. And then he finds his mother.

She isn’t hard to locate. A quick question at the checkout counter, and he finds out the apartment complex near the public garden is only a fifteen-minute drive away.

It’s just as he pictures it. A white building, with a white lobby, the bricks white, the carpets white, the tables white. In little places, there are bits of gold, in place he doesn’t think gold should be—lining the keyboard the security guard types at, on the edges of every window so it’s only visible when the sun flashes.

And at last, here’s the final paragraph of the book!!! angst!!

His mother reads. Harrison watches. A father and son down below, who take turns walking their golden retriever. A food stand vendor that hands a stack of checked tissues to a mother wrangling four small children. A couple who take photos in front of a fountain, how he can almost hear the mechanical click of their camera from fifty feet up. Something stirs inside of him, at the thought of Lonan back in that golden apartment, and he only realizes what it is much later, when his mother is heating up something spiced and leftover in the microwave. The feeling like being buried alive and wanting to do it again just so someone can pull you out. A loneliness he sucks on until his mouth sores.

And there it is!! This book has been so much fun to share with y’all! Thanks for reading these updates and for all the love for this novel. I haven’t written anything for book two in a while, and am now feeling nostalgic to do so, so keep an eye out for more Moth Work related endeavors! For now this is the end!

--Rachel

#writing #writingupdates #writeblr #writerblr #amwriting #mothwork #fostered

36 notes · View notes

oliviagordonwrites · 4 years

Text

Petrichor - Short Story (2510 words)

This did not win a contest! So I’m sharing it here!

The prompt is that Avatars are artificial bodies that allow you to project your consciousness elsewhere - this is the memory file of a recovered Avatar.

To smell unbreathable air - this is something the astronauts of the last century could never do. I doubt Sally Ride even imagined the scent of an asteroid, let alone the possibility of standing on one with feet that half-felt like hers. Experiencing the world this far from the sun was only a dream, the stuff of science fiction. There isn’t a lot of atmosphere on Ceres, but it smells like rain. Right now, I’m the only human to know.

I feel like a ghost. This far from my body - further than anyone has gone - makes the connection with the Avatar difficult at best. It’s like I’m floating somewhere between Mars and the asteroid belt, unmoored, a part of me is still breathing on Phobos, and the rest of me is scattered like space dust. Moving the Avatar’s limbs is like swimming in deep water, but every sense feels sharp. It is cold this far from home, as cold as it is empty. The sound of my metal fingers against the delicate plastic of the array is muffled, but I have to latch onto it if I’m going to stay focused. Every detail has to be perfect.

Tap, tap, tap, my tiny fingers against the ginormous dish. Being so small is probably part of the drifting feeling, but I’ve got to be able to climb all over this thing without breaking it. I reel in my mind from across the vast space. I’m almost done, it’s almost done. We can throw our siren song further into the universe, and strain our distant ears just as hard for a response. I like to think that they - that unknown they - are building a radio telescope, too. Fighting against the lightyears to break the silence.

It’s lonely in our solar system. Lonely everywhere we’ve seen.

Everywhere we’ve been.

“Eighteen minutes before we’re out of range.” Claire’s voice in my head is like the sound of waves heard from a hotel room.

“Acknowledged,” I say. Eighteen minutes isn’t a lot of time, and then Ceres will be too far away in orbit to connect to safely. If Elliot isn’t functional by then, it’ll be years before we can try again. I renew my focus and move the antenna another few centimeters. I need to double check the angle. Triple check the anchors. Quadruple check everything else. Eighteen minutes is not enough time.

I scramble across the dish, taptaptaptap. Time was always slim, but now it’s like I can feel it radiating out into the cosmos, useless as dissipating heat. I can’t check every wire, every screw. I’ve got to power it up, run diagnostics, and correct whatever I can.

I’m struck blind. I take a deep breath on Phobos before I’m slingshotted back to my other body on the asteroid.

“What was that?” I should be shouting across the coms, but my tiny Avatar isn’t made for different volumes.

“The connection is getting spotty. You need to hurry, Shannon.”

“I’ve been hurrying.” I pick up the pace of my slog across the array. One foot in front of the other, as Ryder used to say. On the bottom edge of the dish, I delicately attach my hooks so I can slide down my industrial intestines - a grappling cable coiled around the toolbox in my abdomen. The rappel is slow going. I wish Ryder’s adages had an option for speed: “One foot in front of the other at 20 km per hour.”

I tip my head back on the descent to see the millions of stars, and the bright light of Jupiter as close as anyone has ever seen it. Ryder would have loved it. I can almost hear the echo of her many long rants about literally anything involving Jupiter. I wish Ryder were dangling from this telescope instead of me, but I’d be happy if she could just spot that magnificent gas giant through her own telescope one more time.

Our apartment must be as quiet as deep space without her.

Just as my tiny metal feet hit the surface of the asteroid, I see a blurry image of the ceiling on Phobos. I feel the heat of the air on my skin. Then I’m back on Ceres, screwdriver exchanged for delicate little fingers, good for typing and pressing buttons. “Claire?”

“I know,” she says. “Focus on your job. Fourteen minutes.”

Focus. With my consciousness stretched across a hundred million miles, and my senses seeping in from two different bodies. Focus. My fingers are harder to move than ever. I don’t have time to be careful, but I have even less time for mistakes. I narrow my vision onto the keyboard and slowly, laboriously, start inputting commands.

“Elliot is powering up.” Waiting, waiting.

“Twelve minutes,” says Claire.

“I can’t make it go faster.”

“I know, just...be ready.”

Ready? I’ve been ready forever. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, dreaming of; Elliot is what my whole life has always been about. I have always been ready to hear from the universe. Always stretching further and further, my ear pressed against the door of our solar system, hoping to make out the muffled voices of the strangers in the next room. Eleven minutes.

Eleven minutes and I’ll have a glass between me and the wall. Every hope I’ve ever had will be 123 million miles closer, but their voice isn’t the one I want to hear now. Better late than never, another adage from Ryder.

I feel Elliot’s vibrations through my entire metal body. Words flash up on the screen, but I’m back at Phobos, oxygen filling my lungs and blood rushing through my veins. Claire is sitting next to me, eyes intent on her screen.

“Get me back,” my voice is rusty, coming from my body.

“I’m trying, hang on.”

Diagnostics complete.

“You’ve got eight minutes.”

“It’s not enough,” I say, and I’m almost comforted by my robotic monotone voice. The screen is filling up with error codes, and every ounce of comfort is sucked out into the vacuum.

“Make it enough.”

“If I keep getting ripped out of this body--”

“Stop talking, start working.”

This model of Avatar is not made for huffing in frustration, but I swear I accomplish it. Claire is right, though. It all depends on this.

Most of the codes have one source; there’s something obscuring the antenna. There’s no way I can climb back up there in time.

“Shannon, can you hear me?”

“There’s a problem with the antenna. I don’t think I can--”

“Shannon, something is wrong.”

I’m frozen next to a ticking clock. The last time something was wrong, it was Ryder.

“Yeah,” I say, crushing my fear as best as I can. “I’ve got seven minutes to fix twenty-four error codes, and I’m the size of a pinata.”

“No, with the Avatar.”

Sluggishly, I wiggle each mechanical finger. “I feel fine.” I need to get to the top of the antenna. Luckily, I didn’t disengage the grapplers. I activate the reverse motor, and I’m lifted back in the air. It feels even slower this time, but I have to believe it’s just the stress, or I’ll have no hope at all. Ryder was always so much better at stress than I was. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, she said, and it never helped, but I always smiled.

“I’m getting readings that I’ve never seen before, Shannon. I think you need to disengage.”

My body is so, so small, suspended in the air, and so, so helpless, but my mind is as big as space. The entire distance between my bodies is me now. I encompass it all, and there is so much, but it’s only me. I can’t tell where my tears are suspended - Phobos, Ceres, or somewhere in between - but I was never meant to be so vast, and it hurts like a bruise across my chest.

Tiny hands hit the edge of the dish, and it takes a moment to recognize them as mine. I carefully pull myself up - I can’t afford another error code.

“Shannon, I have to pull you out.”

“Don’t!” I say it with both of my mouths. “How much longer do I have?”

“Five minutes, but--”

“I need more.” I push my heavy limbs forward. Ryder wanted this, too. It should be her up here, putting one foot in front of the other, smelling the rain-scent of Ceres. “I can make it with just a few more. It’ll have a few bugs, but it will work if I can just fix the antenna.”

Claire hesitates. I hear her hissing intake of breath over the coms, and through my ears. I take a moment to despise the ceiling of the Phobos station before I’m back on Ceres, crawling delicately across the dish, seeing what Ryder never will, feeling like the ghost she must be.

“Maybe an extra five, but that’s it. I really don’t like these readings.”

“But you don’t like abandoning Elliot even more, right?”

“I’m not going to answer that out loud. Just hurry.”

It’s hard to hurry when you’re millions of miles deep. I feel like I could lean to the left and be at the antenna, but moving even an inch in the avatar takes all the concentration I have. There’s no room to think about Ryder, and how small a corpse is on the spinning top of Earth. I need to move another three feet and then climb for another century. I’m tossed back to Phobos, and rocketed back to Ceres, over and over again. I’m getting dizzy. I am twirling with the galaxy. It’s like I am the antenna, with my anchorless mind; maybe they can hear my thoughts, maybe they’re listening, maybe they care, maybe they are feeling less alone. She was all I had. Ryder and Elliot. But I’m climbing Elliot now, close as one can get, and it was only Ryder all along, and now?

At the top of the antenna, the Everest of Ceres, I find the obstruction and carefully maneuver my distant fingers to remove it.

I hope you hear us, I tell them. I hope you’re there.

“Your extra five begins now. Don’t use them all.” Claire sounds almost scared.

“I removed the debris,” I tell her. “I just need to get off.”

“Jump,” she says. “Don’t worry about the Avatar now.”

“It needs to be intact if we have to do repairs during the next window.”

I can hear her hesitation across the coms. I can almost feel it in every mile of my being. “We won’t be doing this again. It’s too far.” Her voice cracks. “It might have already done damage.”

Damage, I think as I’m slingshotted back and forth between bodies, as part of me lies motionless, and part of me taptaptaptaps its way back across the dish, and part of me expands to fill the solar system. The damage is certainly already done. Ryder is dead, Elliot is done, and I’m left all alone to wait for a single sign of life from an unknown world. Taptaptaptap. The barely-there sound of my footsteps syncs to the rhythm of my heart. If I stop here in the middle of the dish, will I cease to exist, like her? I wouldn’t have to go home and clear out her things or visit the grave that was filled in without me. But who, then, would listen to the universe?

“The readings are changing again, I’m pulling you out.”

“I’m not clear yet!” I’m near the edge of the dish, near the edge of the galaxy; I refuse to come this far, this close, and lose it all now. They must hear my voice. They must know we’re here, at any cost. The silence must horrifying. The silence is so horrifying.

I fill the body of the Avatar.

I stretch, and stretch, and stretch. And snap.

“Shannon! Disengage now. This shouldn’t be possible, why--”

I tune her out, clench my little fingers and send my body over the edge, sliding down the cable at that same glacier pace. Distantly, I hear Claire calling for help, but I have my head tipped back to see the stars and my nose filling with the smell of rain on pavement. The only sound I want to hear is Ryder’s voice in my head. What would she be saying now? Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Maybe that’s who they are - everyone we’ve lost, and they’re reaching out to us with everything they have, too. I hope their radio telescopes are big and sophisticated; I hope all they needed was an extra hundred million miles.

Am I so far away? Is it too far to ever come back?

My feet gently land on the surface, and with half a minute left on the clock, I refresh the diagnostics, praying for results we can work with. If I’m too far away, it will be worth it. I’ll go farther and farther until I can hear their voices myself. Diagnostics complete.

We can work with that.

If my Avatar could smile, it’s hard to say if I would. This is the moment I have worked for. Every waking thought, every moment, every choice, was made so I could be a part of this moment. To put another chip in the silence, so that soon it will finally break. It’s quieter than ever when I could hear her all along.

“Hang in there, Shannon.” Claire’s voice in my head. “We’re going to power down the Avatar from here. We have a medical team on coms if...In three, two–”

I expand to fill the gaps in time. I encompass the full moment, denizen of everywhere. I hear their whispered voices, all saying the same thing, I am alone. I do not want to be alone. I have so much love. Not a single one speaks with Ryder’s voice. The echo of her life, though, that is still here, resonating in the depths of space. I encircle it all, and everyone is near me. I am a part of it, and a part of them. The galaxies are my veins, every planet a cell, and the stars are my synapses. Even the dark parts, the emptiness, are part of being complete. I feel it all. I forget to feel alone. I forget what distance is. Unmoored. I am everywhere. I hope Ryder feels like this.

“She’s responding,” Claire says, and I feel her presence somewhere meaningful. “I don’t understand. She’s still linked up to the Avatar some–wait.”

I retreat into the tiny shell on Phobos; my body does not welcome me, but I am ready to return. To go home. To face the emptiness, or try again and mean it this time. If at first, you don’t succeed…

“Shannon? Can you hear me? Elliot is functioning. Please, please, tell me you can hear me.”

“The universe is full,” I say as the final tendrils of myself release their hold on Ceres. “And it smells like rain.”

#writeblr #writing #am writing #short story #short #story #fiction #original #original work #original content #science fiction #scifi #sci-fi #spilled ink #Very proud of this #It probably didn't win because of how surreal it gets #But I like it!!!#That's me!

15 notes · View notes

miriamkperceptionblog · 4 years

Text

Week 7

Independent study

Come to your Senses: Investigate your own senses. Focus on the sense of smell, taste, hearing and touch (not vision).

Currently, as Im writing this I am sitting in my cold, and damp Wellington flat. I am sitting on my couch in my lounge. I am going to investigate my senses from where I am sitting. ( I always sit here while I do my design work). I have never thought of my surrounding in any other way than “just my flat” and never thought much about my surroundings in a deep sensory way. Im excited.

Smell -

I can smell my flatmates cooking their vegan hello fresh nachos. Along with the dusty curtains to my left, and a hint of the flowery perfume I put on this morning, which has now gone stale.

Taste -

I can’t describe the taste in my mouth… its just my spit.. I haven’t eaten anything in over an hour now and Its hard to describe this taste because I am so used to it.

Sound-

I can hear my flatmates food sizzle and the crunch of their coin chip packet, along with the occasional banging of the spatular on the edge of the pan. I can hear the fridge open and close and the sticking together of the magnets. I can hear the eco of our wooden floor under their feet as-well as feeling the vibrations each step makes.

The details of a touch/haptic/tactile experience-

Im currently holding my laptop on my lap. The metal was cold and hard at the beginning of my sit but is now warm and comfortable. I can feel the fan from my laptop spinning and vibrating my laptop against my thighs. My fingers on my keyboard feel a-little greasy and warn now. My track pad has a small blog of hardened glue on it and I can feel it every time I move my mouse. It feels sharp and hard.

2. Undertake some online research to learn about terms like proprioception, body awareness, haptic, equilibrioception, mechanoreception, balance, vibration.

Proprioception/ noun.

Perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body.

Proprioception refers to the body's ability to perceive its own position in space. Such as: Knowing whether feet are on soft grass or hard concrete, without looking (even while wearing shoes). Activities which strengthen you proprioception-crawling, push-ups, or squats. The sense though which we perceive the position and movement of our body, including our sense of equilibrium and balance, senses that depend on the notion of force.

Body awareness.

Body awareness is the internal understanding of where the body is in space. Body awareness is highly influenced by proprioceptive processing, the sensory information one receives from the movement and force of muscles and joint groups.

A person's understanding of his or her own body parts and their capability of movement.

Haptic.

Haptic perception is the process of recognizing objects through touch. It involves a combination of somatosensory perception of patterns on the skin surface (e.g., edges, curvature, and texture) and proprioception of hand position and conformation. Haptics is the science and technology of transmitting and understanding information through touch. “haptic” means anything relating to the sense of touch. (It's derived from the Greek word for touch.) Haptic can be used in design! Such as being used to engage people's sense of touch to enhance the experience of interacting with onscreen interfaces. For example, when an Apple Pay transaction is confirmed, the system plays haptics in addition to providing visual and auditory feedback.

Equilibrioception/sense of balance.

Is one of the physiological senses. It allows humans and animals to walk etc. without falling. Some animals are better in this than humans, for example allowing a cat (as a quadruped using its inner ear and tail) to walk on a thin fence.

This is the same as when you pedal your bike. The speed of the tires on your bike allows it to balance.

mechanoreception.

A mechanoreceptor, also called mechanoceptor, is a sensory cell that responds to mechanical pressure or distortion. There are four main types of mechanoreceptors in glabrous, or hairless, mammalian skin: lamellar corpuscles (Pacinian corpuscles), tactile corpuscles (Meissner's corpuscles), Merkel nerve endings, and bulbous corpuscles.

Balance/noun.

a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc. something used to produce equilibrium; counterpoise. mental steadiness or emotional stability; habit of calm behavior, judgment, etc. a state of bodily equilibrium: He lost his balance and fell down the stairs.

Vibration/noun.

Vibratory sensation is the sense of vibration, and may refer to: Vibration as a modality of cutaneous receptors (on the skin), referred to as pallesthesia. Hearing, which is sensation of air vibrations.

Select 1x and design an exercise and then do it. The subject can be either yourself or someone you know - record observations, your/their experience, what did you notice.

Proprioception- brainstorm.

Investigation 1 Proprioception

Sensory information you are receiving from your muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

Using your muscles scenes to control your muscles to keep you upright. For examples-walking on sand. Your muscles are adapting to an environment where you aren’t walking on a firm service and your muscles send information to your brain to tell you the position of your ankles and your knees.

(Blind people rely on proprioception sense quite a lot.)

Everyday activity-turning the lights of in my room ( so I can’t see) relying on my Proprioception to find my door handle…or to walk to my bathroom. I will be replying on the information my brain is getting about where my arm is and where i’m walking. Proprioception is what will be giving me this information.

Recorded observations, your/their experience, what did I notice.

I asked my flatmate Ava to try find my doorknob while in the dark and blindfolded. She found this task easy as she knew which location/height my door handle was at but I observed the way she walked and put her arm up infant of her. This was interesting as she walked much slower and was unsure of herself. I noticed she was moving her feet in a way that she was almost using them to make sure she didn’t have anything in front of her such as a step. Her arms went up infant of her straight away as she was using them as a guide as-well. She demonstrated proprioception during this activity.

Resource task.

Browse through the online resources below, select 1 and be prepared to share your findings in a group discussion for next week.

Source - “Marres Maastricht - Education.” Marres, https://marres.org/en/education/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2020.

“In The Invisible Collection art-lovers describe their favorite works of art. Originally created by Mediamatic Amsterdam, the project aimed to help the visually impaired to imagine works of art based on audio descriptions by art experts. In 2019, Marres developed a new version of The Invisible Collection, in which we started to collect stories about art (broadly defined) by non-art experts.”

I think this is an amazing project-this is based around the sense of hearing/sound. Art is meant to be enjoyed by all and when you can’t see it or feel it, It must make it extremely difficult for the visually impaired to enjoy art. Using this method is extremely beneficial and can create a sense of the artwork in the minds of visually impaired. By being able to hear how people describe the art people may be able to envision their on interpretation of the artwork. I would defiantly recommend this source to anyone exploring sound as their sense as it gives an insight into how much people you can’t see rely on this sense.

Key Module Resources.

Source- Smith, Mark M. “The explosion of sensory history.”(2010): in the psychologist 23(10):860-863.

Creative Practices

Locate creative producers ( at least 1 in your discipline area) working with the senses or sense modalities.

“Why Graphic Design Should Engage More Than Just the Sense of Sight.” Eye on Design, 17 Apr. 2018, https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/why-graphic-design-should-engage-more-than-just-the-sense-of-sight/.

Kate McLean’s Sensory Maps

Kate McLean’s maps are visually stunning, peppered with colourful dots and morphing concentric lines. They could almost be galaxies. In actuality, they are Smell Maps, plotting data from various cities that visualises the distinctive smells from different neighbourhoods. Kate McLean generates this data by conducting “smell walks” throughout the cities she maps, asking participants to record odours and their location, intensity, description, and associations. Smells like “canal,” “leafy fresh rain,” and “laundry” are each given a colour and are indicated by dots on the maps. The distorted concentric rings depict the smell’s intensity and range as they're carried by wind, diluted by range, and mixed with neighbouring smells. By plotting her experiential data, Kate makes smell visual and geographical, and makes a case for what information designer Giorgia Lupi calls “soft data.” “Using humans as sensors is a method that aggregates personal insight”.

1 note · View note

trashratmatt · 5 years

Text

ok real talk

why has Brutal Legend been such a forgotten game (i mean i kinda get it and maybe im just over excited and late to the party but)

legit this game nails so many good hits?? my thoughts are scattered but like

okay so the game Brutal Legend released in 2009, the same year along side some long-lasters like Minecraft and the first Borderlands game, as well as AC II, Batman Arkham Asylum, and Left 4 Dead 2

but Brutal Legend, like only a handful games for the year 2009, was completely OPEN WORLD, and even provided a solid vehicle to traverse a rather LARGE world; granted because of graphical limitations, this world was somewhat barren, the traversable terrain kinda flat, but they made that WORK with the aesthetic they were going for, and the environment looked like a metal album cover come to life, minimalist but dark and messy

this game ALSO has a day/night cycle and DYNAMIC WEATHER, i was not expecting it to start raining in the middle of the night when i was playing this game

while the hair clips through the model a majority of the time with lack of collision, they implemented hair physics, and the facial animations (ESPECIALLY for the main character, Eddie) are solid, fun, emotive, and the squash and stretch in Eddie’s face is extremely satisfying

on the subject OF Eddie Riggs, the main character voiced by Jack Black, is a SOLID AND WELL WRITTEN character

not only is he wholesome, but he does have a bit of an ego about himself, but that’s because he KNOWS his talents and his strengths and he knows them to be true. he’s stated as the best roadie in the world, and this is fact, not exaggeration.

even then, Eddie is JUST FINE being a Roadie, and in the beginning of the game when Lars offers for EDDIE to be the leader of their goal, Eddie calmly refuses because he KNOWS his strength is in supporting his group, being the roadie, and he acknowledges that Lars is more of a leader (even though Eddie is completely capable of leading himself, as this is proven in the next area of the game)

and while Eddie does hit on Ophelia when she arrives, it doesn’t feel forced, and it’s mostly in way of looking and compliments, not in standing overly close or touching, and even then he ends up asking more about the world he’s ended up in than the cup size of her bra

and when Ophelia mentions Lars, Eddie doesn’t get jealous, or disses Lars when he meets him, they actually becoming solid bros and get an understanding for each other because there’s just a “caring about Ophelia” solidarity

Eddie is a solid character and a solid person and he feels absolutely NATURAL to watch him interact with the other characters of this world

and despite being voiced by jack black (and this game is EXTREMELY jack black, 2009 being one of Jack’s golden era’s in my opinion) it just WORKS and Jack does an extremely good job at sounding like himself, but also giving life into Eddie as his own character instead of just standing back and going “yep, that’s sure jack black” and its such a nice balance of what Jack is known for vs what he puts into his character to separate him from himself

the controls for the game are extremely simple but extremely solid

press one button for the axe, hold that button for the secondary axe attack press the other button for the guitar, hold for the secondary attack press both button at the same time for a ground slam 1, 2, 1 for a more powerful slam

with the d-pad you control troops you gather by playing brief quick time solos (you can also summon your vehicle this way whenever you want, wherever you want)

you can do double-team attacks by pressing (y on the xbox/triangle on playstation/i forgot the keyboard one) when you’re near either a secondary character or one of your troops

you can also use solos to perform special attacks via the brief quick time event to guitar-hero play your guitar and activate the solo’s power, and you do NOT take damage while you’re in this minigame, so don’t be afraid to make use of the mechanic in battle!!

the humor in the game is GREAT, the story is obscene but GREAT, the design is AMAZING, the enemy designs, while repetitive are EXTREMELY solid and hold up well for the world, and the whole thing is calmly ridiculous and just feels NATURAL to experience, and there’s even SIDE QUESTS to earn the points you need to upgrade your powers and solos! plus its LITTERED with rock/metal stars in such a subtle and chill way that it doesn’t feel forced or that they’re cramming “HEY WE HAVE THIS ACTOR” down your throat

Brutal Legend is such a good game that absolutely deserves more love and attention (i was super happy to see actual fan art in the tags)

AND it’s 10 year anniversary is actually this year on October 13!! so soon to be happy birthday Brutal Legend, you’re fucking awesome and you’re holding amazing for a 10 year old game, and your ambitions do not go unnoticed

#brutal legend

189 notes · View notes

alsodiplodocus · 4 years

Text

Denbora Makina (2020)

Another short story inspired by MGMT, this time it’s this beautiful video:

youtube

Once again, it’s pretty obvious where I got my ideas from! If you do watch that video, google “Ako at si Michael” and “Границы Мира MGMT”, too. It’s wild.

---

Damn it, Michael… how often have i already tried to banish you from my head?

You keep finding new disguises. You keep sneaking behind the scenes and pulling the strings. My last memories of you are your tool, and you‘re building a wall, little by little. The only thing coming through the wall are these miserable, numbing questions. They all go in a circle, and i am increasingly unable to concentrate on anything else.

I watch the rain.

It‘s rhythmic drumming polishes the steel and concrete of the city, and calms me hypnotically. Far below, small dark spots swarm around, all of them in a hurry, absorbed in their thoughts. Are you hiding somewhere in there? …No. Surely not. Nobody is up this late, only sick or crazy people.

But who is supposed to sleep with this noise? Forgotten promises and last words echo through my narrow four walls like a broken record.

If you at least had the decency to be honest… at least put the final nail in the coffin. Nothing is worse than a soundless ending.

I look away from the window and my alarm clock brutally shines into my face: Three in the morning.

One thing can still save me. The same thing that saved me in so many of these sleepless nights. I stumble over to my piano and play a soft chord. The comforting sound lets me think of something else for a second. Each chord whispers to me where the next one is hidden, and i lure a few more warm, enveloping tones out of the keys.

If i just play for long enough, maybe i will still find some peace this night. I let my hands glide, and almost by itself, my piano tells me a consoling story. It‘s lofty heights, somber lows and tragic riddles and twists let me forget everything else.

I let the story rest for a bit, take a deep breath. Mechanically, like in every one of these sleepless nights, i reach to my right and grab my camera. Click. I‘ll have it listen to my story, and then maybe my aimless playing around is not completely for nothing.

I continue, but the gentle distraction keeps my restlessness at bay only for a short while. Open questions and loose ends crash in on me, bury me under their flood. Your last words. Your timid manner. Why did you behave like somebody different? What are you hiding?

Almost completely passively, i let the tormenting beasts loose and translate them into sequences of notes. Their blind attacks self-assemble into harmonies, follow each other as melodies.

I hope you‘re listening, Michael. This is my goodbye.

I let my seething anger guide me and rush over the keys, faster, rougher, more violent. Damn, this feels amazing. I can‘t quite follow it myself anymore, my confusion drags me across the keys. Back and forth through bygone melodies and new outbursts, each note banishing you from my life a little more, every swipe across the keys directed against you, and slowly, almost leisurely, a tiny little melody crystallizes in all the chaos. It‘s plain, inconspicuous, almost drowns in everything else, but i keep coming back to it. The eye of the storm. I passively indulge in the sounds a while more, until i slowly but surely reach a certain calm – and there she is again, my small innocent friend. I bring her back and let her fade away, again and a gain, letting my head be a little more free each time, until everything gently fades to silence. Real silence this time.

The sudden energy leaves me again, and I am reminded with full force of how long I‘ve already been sleepless. I grab my camera again, clutch it close and and collapse a little. I will make sure you hear me loud and clear this time. With my last strength, I stagger over to my laptop, its contrast beams at me with the perceived force of three suns, and I navigate over to my channel - “AnnaInsomnia2“. Embarrassing. The first name was taken. The video joins countless other recordings of my nightly piano escapades, and in just a few hours my few loyal followers will ask themselves what on earth has gotten into me. And you Michael, you probably do that already anyways. Farewell.

I stumble out of my channel and through the internet for a bit – who knows, the world could have ended in the last few hours. I would not have noticed, deeply secluded in my personal tiny little echo chamber. Passively, I skim through one post after the next. Angered voices shout into the void and are self-absorbed enough to demand an answer, too. Between those, there‘s the usual polished faces, cat pictures of course and – hey! A comment.

“wow wow wow… you keep getting better! <3“

Of course, Lisabear25. You say that every time.

After some more aimless scouring, my nose hits my keyboard and I finally drift towards dreams.

Sunlight tears my eyes open and my body pretends to be awake. What the hell was that just now? What a strange dream. Flute players with masks, someone helpless and fettered… well, if I‘ve ever slept well, today was not that day. But whatever, I didn‘t really have plans anyways. I stretch myself and – oh, seems like I’ve fallen asleep on the laptop again. Damn. I look over the screen briefly. Wait a minute, am I still dreaming? My channel is littered with comments, hordes of fans. I barely recognize my little corner of the internet – I’m not alone anymore!

All of my videos have more views than I could have ever dreamed of. Paralyzed, I stare at the little number under “Michael”, the newest video. That’s more people than could ever fit into my room. More than ever listened to me in my entire life, more than an entire concert hall, just for my strange mental breakdown on the piano at night. And all of them are strangers.

It feels like I stole someone else’s place. Someone sympathetic, someone that people listen to. Someone that understands others.

Thousands of unknown faces, and all of them seem to congratulate me – for what? I stumbled into somebody else’s skin. Whoever deserves all this, she is very, very far away from me. Speechless, I click through my notifications, really want to look away and understand what is going on, but the flood of praise and attention seems to have no end. I should be thankful, but instead there is just confusion and this feeling of being an impostor. My phone vibrates and forces me out of my trance, and the next message brings me to a halt completely. I hold my phone in both hands, trembling, clinging on to it like my future is going to dissolve into thin air if I let go now. I read the first few lines again and again to convince myself they are real.

An email from Cadena, the record label that I’ve been religiously following for ten years now. Each of their artists has practically become part of my flesh and blood. I feel like I owe their music my life with how often they have pulled me out of the abyss.

“Hi, Anna!”

So far, so good.

“We saw your latest video.”

Surreal and basically delusional, but I already reconciled with that idea.

“We (that’s Jeff and Carissa)” – my god, it’s really them – “are pretty blown away by it and think you would seamlessly fit into our little family over here. So come visit us! We look forward to getting to know you.”

The following are Cadena’s usual formalities which I have seen so often at this point that they have been burned into my brain. I close my eyes and lean back. This is real. I often went through similar scenarios in my head, indulged in the fantasy of being in the same boat with my heroes. To do for others what they did for me. It’s hard to get rid of the thought that all of this is just a huge bluff and I will be figured out once I arrive. But I have no choice anymore, and no time to lose.

After way too many botched attempts, my hair is tamed, my best shirt is found – not too obvious, nobody likes fangirls – and my hand is on the doorknob.

Just one last swing, and – really? A phone call? Who would – oh. I press the green button. “Yes, mom?”

“Sweetheart! I think I’m dreaming!”

“Y… uh… yeah, me too. Listen, can you maybe –“

“And you never did tell us about this You-Tube thing, did you? Darling, you know you don’t have to have any secrets with us, right?”

“Yeah, sure. Look, I need to –“

“You were on TV today! I could not believe my eyes… we’re so proud of you!”

“I – wait, seriously? When was that?”

I have not owned a TV for years. My dad violently snatches the phone: “You’re not running away this time, we have not heard from you in so long – hey, they’re showing you again! –“

My mom yanks the phone back.

“I never thought I’d see the day! Oh, what are they saying now…”

I can hear the leather chair crinkle as she leans forward to read better. She probably misplaced her reading glasses again.

“AnnaInsomnia2, the overnight You-Tube sensation… was… whaat? Was… accused of plagiarism by… Dehn…bohr…?”

My dad interferes from the back: “Denbora Makina… huh? Anna? What’s going on…”

I can’t do anything except pause and look for answers, but there’s nothing. My mom keeps reading: “The Spanish rock band accuses the You-Tube-star of ripping off their melody from the song ‘True Face’, and demand… Anna? Can you explain?”

No. No, I can’t. The phone slides out of my hand and slams against the floor, the lump in my throat feels like a huge ball made of iron. Impossible. That melody… I found it yesterday night. It was a part of my story. Nobody else can have it. Nobody else was in my situation. The concentrated rage of yesterday comes back to me. That melody was my friend, my path into the future… I am not a thief, and I am not a fraud. “NO!”. My fist slams against the door. “NOOO!”.

“Calm down over there”.

Who the fuck…? I slowly turn to my couch, and a laid-back guy with a hoodie and a mask is making himself comfortable on it.

“What the –“

“Psst!”, the guy interrupts me with a finger on the mask, right where the lips should be. He calmly conjures up a flute, and plays: In just the first few tones I recognize the melody I found yesterday. I shiver violently and the only thing I can think of is escape. I turn around to the door, but there is nothing anymore. And I mean absolutely nothing. Everything is black. Everywhere. Just the melody is left. I get lightheaded, my sense of balance fails me, and I fall to the ground where a wall should have been.

Tumultuous applause. Thundering lights. I’ve melted somewhere into the horde a long time ago. It stomps and screams: “En-core!”

I am a face in a sea of many. “En-core!”

As an e-guitar starts droning, the horde is getting louder, more enveloping.

„So the story leads us to a new place…“

The frontman's mouth is moving, but the howling voices of the mass overrule him.

„But you know I‘ve seen this all before“

The warm air around me is vibrating. The smell of sweat overwhelms me. How long have I been standing here?

„Show me your True Face, girl“

No, god damn it. Not again. My melody!

„Show me your True Face some more“

What an irritating, ear-piercing chorus.

„And light the torch!“

God, what an atrocious song. Shallow, pompous radio rock. Why do people even dig this stuff? It feels like someone stole my melody and raped it. And a last time, the horde repeats in unison:

„AND LIGHT THE TORCH!!“

The crowd of people around me melts away, and only the stage is left, with the grinning visages of the band, and the melody that’s fading away. In the middle of it stands the relaxed dude with the flute.

“So there you are. Don’t run away this time, you hear?”

The rest of the band disappears behind the curtains, dragging their instruments with them.

“You’re really making this difficult, you know… normally people are a bit easier to get through to. You have to understand, I’m just trying my best here. I tried to give you a friendly visit, but it seems you didn’t want that. Well, and now we have it. Come on, get up here. On the stage.”

“W… uh… what… who are… D-den… Makina? Am I dreaming?”

The lanky guy calmly puts his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and chuckles to himself.

“Nah, not really. Denbora Makina are in the middle of nowhere right now and getting filthy rich off of your ad revenue. Just stole their appearance for a bit. That’s the good part of having a mask like this! Not their biggest fan, but I like their style. So easygoing. Well, come now, up on the stage with you.”

Nope, no chance.

“I’m just trying to free you, you know. This is not how it works. Believe me, you can’t do this alone. For fucks sake, you’re flying back and forth between aggressive episodes and numb melancholy like a god damn ping-pong ball! What are you staring at me like that for? If you go on pouting like that, nobody here is gonna move forward.”

No movement, just don’t give in.

The guy in the mask turns around resignedly. “Boys, seems like we have to lure her out. Bring it in.”

In just a few moments, a few masked men heave a gigantic grand piano on the stage, as if someone grabbed it straight out of my dreams. My whole life I imagined sitting in front of a real grand piano for the first time… oh… oh no. I want to touch it. “What… what is all of this? What do you want from me?”

“We just have to summon somebody – oh, don’t look at me like that. Believe me, this is best for you. Before we do that you won’t leave this place.

I try to move away, but something winds around my hip and ties me down.

“The more you try to resist, the more it will hurt. I can’t do this for you. So come on, make it painless.”

I’m tangled tight in a rope that reaches up on the stage, behind the grand piano, and through the curtains. No matter where I try to move, the rope pulls me forward. “What do you even mean? Summon? Who? Why? I just want to –“

“The only thing you have to do now is play. Sit down and play – the rest happens by itself.”

I give in to the rope and follow it to the front of the piano. I don’t need to ask. I know exactly what is asked of me. Let’s do this.

I conjure up everything once again. Michael. The rainy night. The prison of yesterday which I thought I escaped. And once I again I perform the entire play. The lofty passages, the breakneck turns. All of it once again. I feel like an old lady whose grandkid is shouting “Again, again!” for the third time now and reluctantly bringing the same old story to life again. And again I come back to the then so innocent sounding little melody, again and again it resounds and floats away. This time, it no longer leaves me with freedom, but feels like a heavy brick in my stomach.

The masked guy applauds wildly, and I slowly open my eyes again. “I knew you got this down! And now the last act, the reason why you’re here.”

The gigantic piano disappeared again, and I feel somebody is reluctantly tied to the other end of the rope and fighting back.

“You never learned to let go.”

The masked guy pulls the rope, and my counterpart stumbles through the curtains, immediately trying to avoid my eye.

“M-Michael… what… how did –”

“Not my fault, you did this to him.”, the masked guy interrupts. “If you knew how many times I had to go through this scene. All strokes of genius have been on my canvas already, and all stories have been lived through by me. And always the same lesson: Michael belongs to no-one. In plain terms: What you found yesterday, this idea you’ve been clinging to as if it would save you – it’s not yours. And just as little does it belong to some band from País Vasco.”

Michael stares into the air next to me and gulps. “What the hell is this guy talking about?”

The guy in the mask sighs. “Why am I even telling you this? You’ll see it eventually. If you have the honor of finding something really meaningful, don’t make it your prisoner. Be happy to have met it. None of your stories are ever really new. What matters is how you tell them, and who is listening.”

Michael stares at me, inquiring, but I don’t have answers.

The masked guy seems to enjoy the awkward silence for a bit, and then turns to me: “You don’t really believe you got rid of each other yesterday night, did you? You packaged him up, put a neat bow on it and shoved him into a drawer at the back of your head. It will never end this way, trust me, a real goodbye looks different. Here.”

The guy with the mask reaches into his hoodie’s pockets and brings out a burning torch.

“Either you let this rope between you hang there forever, or you finally put an end to things. It will be excruciating, but you’ll survive. Trust me, I’ve seen it enough times.”

He presses the torch into my hand.

“But.. should I… ?”

“Yeah, the rope burns pretty well. Alright, I gotta go free somebody else. Adieu.”

And so the masked guy steps back into nothing, and I feel a second hand on the torch.

“You know, I think that guy did have a point. I was never good at letting go either.”

Michael tears the torch from my hand.

“It’s been a pleasure.”

6 notes · View notes

thesunlounge · 5 years

Text

Reviews 292: Quiroga

For whatever reason, I feel a close kinship to the far-out sonics emanating from Napoli and among the many eclectic and adventurous artists working there, I am particularly zoned in on the productions of Walter Del Vecchio, otherwise known as Quiroga. With his label Really Swing and alongside a collection of like minded musicians and producers that includes the 291out collective, Dario Bass, Bop Singlayer, and Edizioni Mondo main-man L.U.C.A., Quiroga has created a wonderfully weird and completely unique universe, which, to paraphrase and expand on what I said in my review of Cups and Balls, mixes live instrumentation and sampling to explore the outer realms of library music, Italo funk, soul, chill-out, ambient, drone, and jazz fusion. And on Passages, the long-awaited full length from the artist released through Hell Yeah Recordings, all of these styles (and more) have been deftly woven into an immersive journey of paradise balearica. Riffed out expanses of stoner prog give way to laid back stretches of sun-kissed jazz, with sea foam pads washing over e-piano starscapes and cinematic orchestrations wrapping the heart in golden threads. Energetic house jammers break into funky keyboard freakouts, exotica textures morph and mutate through fourth world jungles, instrumental hip-hop burners sparkle with aquatic chill-out energy, and shimmering new age electronics ripple through interstellar oceans as the spirit is transported to some faraway dreamworld, one where all worries, anxieties, and fears melt away into a fantastical coalescence of Caribbean beaches, Hollywood sunsets, Mediterranean breezes, and Afro-cosmic jungles.

Quiroga - Passages (Hell Yeah Recordings, 2019) Passages starts with “Got Your Love,” which originally opened the B-side of Quiroga’s Vol 8 on Really Swing. Interstellar transmissions flitter while tribal machine toms interact with gurgling vocalisms. Aquatic squelches filter and flow as the drums pull away, leaving smeared out keys to hover, and as the rhythms drop back in, the vibe is like a dopamine kissed hip-hop instrumental, with cut-up breaks lead by jazzwise snares and claps rocketing around the spectrum. Voices diffuse in and out over layers of ambiance, resulting in a narcotic call and response of soulful cut-ups and spiritual falsettos. Synthesizer leads continue morphing joyously as the tripped out rhythms pull in and out, sometimes sucking the air away while ping-ponging electro oscillations fire amidst delirium voice layers. “Martinica Feelings” also comes from Vol 8 and features Luca ‘Presence’ Carini and Vincenzo ‘Warren’ Ciorra of the ever amazing 291out. Carini’s bass moves through romantic motions, sometimes pulsing low, other times slapping and quacking through zany prog ascents, while slow motion funk drums crush the air. Ciorra’s wah guitar traces hallucinogenic curlicues as pianos bang out midnight chords, and at some point, a delay soaked six string casts ethereal moonspells. Later, after a smashing drum and blazing synth passage, we break into a classical jazz guitar solo, all clean glassy perfection snaking amidst jangling tambourines and sensual bass slides. Harmonious mermaid choirs coo in the background while layered riffs execute magical conversations across the spectrum and there are these passages of beatless wonderment, with one seeing everything wash away as aqueous synth waves blow across the void, while another features gorgeous guitar webs floating above hand percussion vibrance.

At the start of “The Zoist,” synthetic wind blasts carry cyborg computations, equatorial arps flutter, and fat bottomed bass squelches ride on a lo-fi machine groove, with snare and kick cracking through spacey reverberation. Pads generate a calming glow and cut-up chime strands are threaded into the percussive panorama while Dario Basslino’s electric piano smears into starlight overhead. And as hissing voices raise hair on the back of the neck, the robo-basslines journey further and further into future funk fireworks. There’s a false ending that sets white noise whooshes and sunset pianos afloat amidst an ambient paradise, one that perhaps recalls film scores from the Golden Era of Hollywood. Then, as the drums work back in, conga accents and mechanized clicks mutate things into a low slung tropical house jam, wherein greasy basslines wiggle and slide, shakers push the body towards hypnosis, and pianos dance on sunbeams...the whole thing coming together and radiating that deeper than deep Moodymann glow. The B-side opens with “North Hollywood Witches” and its clippy kicks and snares stoking an ecstatic groove, with brass chords flashing and lowdown funk basslines slithering beneath the blaring flamboyance. Smoother than silk keyboard solos flow up and down the scale and cymbals and cowbells progress into strange electro patterns while the kick drum pulsates nervously. Wavering synth chords intertwine and the drums move into an irresistible swing, all setting the stage for what is surely the best synth solo all year…this monstrous and magnificent lead ripping through the cosmos and smothered in galactic delay, shredding ever towards the center of the universe and dripping layers of rainbow psychedelia over the stuttering machine funk jam out.

“Non dire notte” was released on Quiroga and Hell Yeah’s first collaboration, the Viaggio a Tulum EP, and again features Carini and Ciorra of 291out. Colorful tom fills and cymbal patterns set the stage, while a fuzzed out bass guitar drops weirdo doom riffs. Horror movie themes rain down from a stormy sky and huge tom fills push thunderous bursts of air before it all reduces to a haze of euphoric voices. The drums smash back in as Carini drops sludge funk bass sorcery and Ciorra’s guitars morph through delirious vibrato fx, coming out the other side like some sort of space age liquid. At some point, things take a turn, with everything fading away in favor of a mutant acid lines and cymbals that blur into granular static. Then, as the sinister rhythm section returns to stomp druggily through lands of shadow, harmonious voices are reduced to a feverish fog, freakedelic guitar licks disperse into phaserwave hallucinations, and Goblin-style synths climb ever higher towards a blood red moon. The first LP ends with the fittingly titled “Africa Addio (Ode to Fourth World),” wherein woodwinds from various cultural traditions bleat and scat over a hand percussion panorama. The ethno-groove is given further shape by shining mallet tones until an unexpected breakdown, and once the propulsive drum energies re-emerge, a contrabass slips and slides through freeform motions while brass synthesizers cast spells of exotica. Electric pianos are used for percussive effect and dance along mesmerically with the spiritual percussion groove and throughout the track, I detect touches of Finis Africæ, though as if merging with a wilder sensibility recalling Art Ensemble of Chicago or even Sun Ra. In other words, it’s music for interplanetary jungle treks and astral adventures into the rainforests of the Congo.

“Città di Mare” first showed up on Quirago’s Cups and Balls, and here appears in edited form. The original introduction of pot-soaked drumming and 80’s prog sequencing is excised and Quiroga drops us straight away into world where soft waves of fusion synthesis create ethereal dreamscapes above a massive downbeat shuffle, here sourced by Aniello Gentile. Electric piano lullabies, again from Bassolino, drift peacefully overhead and low slung bass guitars dance around the fretboard as the groove progresses further and further into smokey lounge territory. A deeply emotional synth solo soars above expressive tom fills and vibrant cymbal and shaker patterns, with everything awash in vibes of mysterious twilight. It’s almost as if the synthesizer solo is trying to mimic the paradise scats of a 50’s jazz diva, with the track evoking some fantasy rememberance of 1940’s era big city nightclubs. The e-piano sometimes works itself into hallucinogenic vibrato waves, while at other times it backs down into sultry blues fantasias surrounded by narcotizing synth swells. And completing the classical jazz vibe, the song softly fades away on brush stroke snare rolls, cymbal taps, and pianos that seem too disperse into vapor. “Luzhin Defence” marries woodwind synthesis and kosmische sequencing to create a new age starscape, one where galactic wisps generate underwater ripples. Existence itself slowly modulates through layers of aqueous fog and at some point, sequences constructed from glowing crystals dance through the mix. It’s as if Quiroga is scoring a 90’s RPG, specifically an exploration of some faraway gemstone cavern, with synthesizers sounding like plucked strands of glass, cushiony basslines dancing, and french horns bluring into cloudform majesty amidst a hypnagogic tapestry of Reich-ian minimalism.

In C-side closer “Amori Proibiti,” echoing e-piano chords are awash in AOR melancholia and synthesizers trail laser liquids. The drums smash on a perfect downtempo groove, with subdued yet funked out basslines following in support. Occasionally, the electronics oscillate out of control and blast the mix with starshine tracers while elsewhere, increasingly romantic piano excursions see high notes blurring into midnight panoramas. Finger rolling conga rhythms join in as the drums pick up energy and after a vocal bass synth sings soft fusion harmonies, the rhythms reduce to a hand drum whisper while at the same time, strings swell amidst alien textures, resulting in a stretch of synthesized symphonic majesty. Later, after the mix squelches into silence, the beats crack back in, now surrounded by interstellar cloudforms…these deeply affecting synth layers evoking some orchestra of the cosmos. Side D opens with “Chiaia Sunset” and its new age arpeggiations cycling amidst wisps of galactic light. A bouncy house rhythm enters…airy and hypnotic…with claps cracking, rattling cymbal patterns tickling the mind, and basslines moving with emotional funk fluidity. The vibe continues growing impossibly hopeful, resulting in stretches of pure ocean dance mesmerism, wherein drunken synths whoosh across the spectrum, further enchanting the spirit. Then comes a piano solo that is so perfect as to almost defy description…a simple yet timeless ivory led dream exploration that I can only compare to Cantoma’s “Sea of Blue” (which is about as high praise as I can possibly give). It’s so easy to close your eyes and sway along to the sunset incantations and tropical house vibrations, especially as the pianos back into radiant chord themes while increasingly trancey electronics add touches of cosmic ecstasy.

“Viaggio a Tulum” introduced me to Quiroga’s weird and wonderful world, as the track was first released by Hell Yeah back in 2017. We cruise on a hip-hop kissed house beat, with slapback snares carried by kicks, woodblocks, shakers, and cut-up tambourines. Oceanic synths cycle through each ear and a voice repeats “good”, bringing a perfect touch of summer anthem magic while squelching leads dance over sequential bubble clouds. Oscillations soar overhead and laser blasts mutate as a polysynth dazzles with neon melodics, which move in counterpoint to the booty shaking bass progressions. The stereo field is alight with pointillist keyboard patterns that circle toward the stars and all the while, string synth orchestrations bathe the body in spiritual warmth. The drums wash out at some point, leaving behind shakers and rimshots, and after whooshing blasts of sonic shimmer obscures all vision, we drop into funky fried fusion brilliace, with e-pianos dancing like Herbie Hancock, bass notes sliding into subsonic growls, and angel voices swelling into ethereal dissonance. And like in “Got Your Love,” Quiroga crafts a soulful call and response, with voices sourced from who knows where repurposed into a vibrant and jammed out vocal house climax. Closer “Bava” also comes from the Viaggio a Tulum EP and two years later, the track is a mysterious and otherworldly as ever. It’s like exploring an underwater cavern, wherein everything is smothered in hiss. Rhythmic clacks smear into drone psychosis and feedback voices scream as alien sonics bubble in from the depths, with Quiroga reveling in pure abstraction and making the enigmatic choice to conclude his epic journey of fusion kissed balearica with a futuristic experiment in musique concrète.

(images from my personal copy)

4 notes · View notes

dirgeofcerberus111 · 5 years

Text

No Home: Chapter 8 - Unfamiliar Faces

Hoo boy, sorry for the wait, this one was a tough one for me to write. Funnily enough, I was almost done with it when Together Alone was released, was a interesting to compare these two. Strange how I usually seem to update after something big happens with the show.

Hope you enjoy! The next two chapters should hopefully be easier to make.

<== Previous Chapter | Next Chapter ==>

Steven continued to walk around aimlessly. It had been a while since he had bidden the gang of Pearls farewell. He had expected something to happen soon after but, nothing had changed yet. “Sure is quiet,” Steven said aloud to no one but himself. "I'm not lost am I?"

Seriously, where WAS everyone? The Pearls may be using the discrete passageways, but you’d think that someone would be using all these giant hallways!

Wait.

Steven stopped in his tracks and lifted his nose up. That was odd. He could smell something. It was familiar...

Rain?

A bright burst of light erupted beside him and before Steven could even react, White Diamond’s massive heel sailed over his head, grazing his hair, and barely missing him before smashing into the wall next to him. The loud crack of thunder shook the halls less than a second later. By then Steven had fallen over in sheer shock. White Diamond was already crouching over him, grinning broadly like she hadn't just nearly kicked his head off.

“Hiya Rosie! Did you sleep well last night?”

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Steven remarked as he picked himself back up and dusted himself off. “Oh yes, terribly sorry about last night,” she apologized unconvincingly. “It seems that some of my Gems didn’t quite understand some of my instructions.” She turned and motioned for him to follow her, her leering smirk almost challenging him to do otherwise. Reluctantly, Steven complied and began walking behind her.

“Shame that we couldn’t spend more time together the other day, I had to... reiterate some instructions to my Court,” she prattled on. “But don’t worry, that won’t be a problem anymore. And to make up for it, today, I’ve cleared my entire schedule, just for you!”

Steven could feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand up. Whether it was from the static electricity that the Diamond passively gave off or out of fear he couldn’t say. Probably both.

“After all, it’s just been so long since we last saw each other. We have so much time to make up for!”

“But you saw me just last night!”

“Yeah and doesn’t that just feel like forever ago?”

They continued on a while into halls and corridors that Steven was certain he hadn’t been in before. White Diamond was looking ahead, but Steven could still feel her attention fixed firmly on him, almost piercing him. Was she waiting for something?

As if sensing his thoughts she spoke up again. “I do hope you got a chance to enjoy all the paraphernalia I left for you. I didn’t want you to get bored , so I left you some rather choice reading material.”

“Well that depends, what was all that?” he asked her.

“What?” she stopped looked back down at him rather suddenly.

“Your talking about all that Gem stuff on the screen, right?” he said. “What was all that?”

“What...was it... ?” she echoed with a strange tone in her voice. Was it just him, or did White Diamond actually look perplexed? If she was, then she recovered quickly. “Oh, hahahaha! I see how it is. Nice try, Rosie, but it’s going to take more than a dumb little act to fool me.”

“But, I can’t read Gem, so I don’t know what any of it said!” Steven insisted. “I couldn’t figure out how to use it. None of the little icons on the screen said what they did and I couldn’t tell by just looking at them. I mean, one of the symbols was literally just two little dots with a triangle under it. Like, what does that even MEAN! What is it, an arrow? A smiley face? A lamp ? I CAN'T TELL. So I tried clicking some of the things to see what they did, and some stuff happened but I had no idea what it actually did. There wasn’t even a keyboard. Do I type things out or do I have to write the words? Also, i’m pretty sure the computer kept auto correcting me, even though I didn’t know what I was spelling to begin with!”

Steven finally stopped to catch his breath. “Gem computers are so confusing…” he sighed, scratching his head. Craning his head to look up at her, he asked, “Does Homeworld have tech support?”

White Diamond seemed to be restraining a response, her face briefly distorting between several fleeting expressions, all ruthlessly suppressed the moment they surfaced. After a moment, she seemed to regain her composure and took a deep breath before continuing.

“No matter! I know exactly what we’re going to do today,” she said as she turned around and they continued onwards.

Eventually, they came to a set of great doors, two massive alabaster panels that guarded the way forward. With deceptive ease, White Diamond pushed the gargantuan doors wide open and ushered him in. As Steven stepped inside, White announced behind him, “Welcome to the Rotunda! Where my Court likes to mingle and play their little games.”

They entered in a great circular room with a domed roof. Inside it was unnaturally well lit, no small thanks in part to the huge oculus staring down them from above and the walls were punctuated in regular intervals by towering columns. The chamber radiated the same frigid beauty as the rest of the palace. In the center of it all was the icon of Homeworld emblazoned on the floor.

Crowds of Gems were milling about the place, murmuring in so many different tones. Steven could hear discussion, gossiping, laughing, arguing, and snickering, some in hushed voices, others in shrill ones. There were Gems of all shapes and sizes here, most of them he had never seen before, even on Blue Diamond's ship. Some were human shaped, others not so much. A few stood taller than the rest, though none as tall as White Diamond. Some had two eyes, others three, some only one, and a few he couldn’t see if they had any at all. He looked up and saw that there were some Gems perched high up on the ceiling, looking down on them with glowing white eyes and wings of fire on their backs.

Is this where everyone’s been hiding? It still didn’t seem enough to explain the whole palace being seemingly empty. Their arrival drew the attention of the crowds. In perfect unison, the assembled Gems all snapped to salute.

No one moved. In the air there was whispering, barely audible. It came from all around, the hushed sounds of questions, confusion, and even some snickering. Gems shared small glances as they watched him, whispering to each other. Steven felt a hundred eyes fixed upon him. It made him uneasy, being at the center of so much attention, and their gazes made him squirm.

“Who are all they?” he asked.

“Courtiers and sycophants of my personal Court,” White Diamond answered him. “They’re all here to see you, Rose! There are Gems here who would absolutely just kill for the chance to meet you again.”

It was different from Blue Diamond’s Court. The Gems here weren’t all as opulent and ostentatiously dressed as them, or acting carefree like they were heading off to a party. Though there were certainly some who seemed to be lavish, many of them looked more strict and business-like in appearance. Among them he could see soldiers, wearing uniforms, suits of armor, and carrying sheathed weapons. Ones who looked like scientists, in outfits that resembled lab coats, wearing mechanical limb enhancers and addressing floating holographic screens like Peridot did, and many many others who he couldn’t begin to guess what their jobs were just by looking at them, but all of them seemed rather important.

White Diamond put a cold hand on his shoulder as she knelt down to closer his level. “Look around you. See any familiar faces?” “Familiar?” He scanned the crowds. Nope. There wasn’t anyone he had met before. “You just brought me here, how am I supposed to recognize anyone?”

“Really? Not even someone in particular…? Like say, an old friend perhaps?”

“An old friend?” He looked back through the crowd. “No...I don’t see anyone.”

“Look carefully… ”

“I still don’t see anyone.”

“Try again!”

“I don’t see anyone!” he insisted.

White Diamond rose back up to her full height and let out a breath of irritation.

“Right then, the hard way it is.”

Steven didn’t like the sound of that. But before he could say anything, White had already picked him up by the back of the shirt and deposited him in the center of the room.

She clapped her hands together twice. “Now then, let’s finally get this party started!” Her teeth parted with anticipation.

A rather intense and severe-looking Gem stepped forward. She was tall and had a orange complexion and pale yellow hair that noticeably swept across her face. She wore a long military-style greatcoat, complete with shoulder tassels, heavy jackboots, and a flowing cape. Her eyes were sharp and intimidating, furrowed with displeasure. In her gloved hands, she gripped a saber and stood with both hands resting on the pommel.

“I’ll just let you two get reacquainted,” White Diamond said and she stepped back, leaving Steven with the new Gem.

The tall orange Gem spoke, “Rose Quartz...I bet you thought you had seen the last of me?”

“Huh?”

“I admit, I thought it was the end of me when I fell from the Sky Arena. I’m sure you thought me shattered. But you were wrong. I survived , and have spent everyday waiting for the chance to face you again.

Steven was confused. "I'm sorry, but, who're you?"

“Who am I ?” she balked. “Don’t mock me, Rose Quartz! We fought during the Rebellion!”

Steven blinked at the Gem. “Um, okay…?”

White Diamond leaned in from behind. “This is General Orange Spessartine ! She was on Earth during your little insubordination and has been absolutely dying to meet you again ever since.” “Oh. Hi Spessartine, I’m Steven!”

Orange Spessartine looked him over distastefully. “You’ve reformed since the last time we met,” she noted. “How repugnant. I never understood your obsession with organic lifeforms.”

“Sheesh, what is everyone’s deal with organic people?”

”It doesn’t matter. Organic or not, you’ve finally been brought to justice. But before you face your sentence, we still have a matter of unfinished business, you and I.” She took up her sword and inspected it’s blade. “We never got to finish our last duel, did we? I’ve been looking forward a long time to finally settling the score with you. This time, you’ll be the one on the ground humiliated.”

"Oh geez, it’s like talking to Jasper all over again..." Steven groaned. “Only Jasper was a whole lot louder.”

“A Jasper?”

“You’re even orange and have a cape like her.”

“You...do remember me, don’t you?” “Of course not, we’ve never met before!”

“Never met before ?! I was in command of Homeworld’s forces in Facet-1 on Earth!” Spessartine bristled. “I foiled all your attempts to destroy the Galaxy Warp!”

"This is probably going to sound strange, but, your not going to headbutt me are you?"

The Gem General looked off-put by his remark.

“I held the Igneous Citadel for fifty-five days against your rebels! I fought you personally at the battles for the Corestone and the Abyssal Shrine!”

Steven could only stare blankly at them. Did these people seriously expect him to know about things he wasn’t there for?

Spessartine’s eyebrow twitched with irritation. “Your insane Pearl cut through half of my Imperial Garnets!”

“She did? I wonder if they’re anything like regular Garnet...”

“Those were my hand-picked elite troops!”

“Really? Wooooow, she’s so cool! I mean, I always knew Pearl was strong. But I’ve only ever seen her fight corrupted Gems before. Then again, she did fight Sugilite by herself and won...” he recalled. “Wait, they were alright afterwards right?” he asked, suddenly concerned again. “Your soldiers?”

Rather than respond, Spessartine seemed to totally deflate and sank to her knees.

“I...I couldn’t have been so forgettable, could I?”

“Well hey now, don’t feel so bad...”

“You don’t even remember me. After everything I’ve done, all my battles and accomplishments, am I worth not even a footnote?”

"No no no! I’m sure you were totally formidable! I mean, you were SUPER scary when you walked in here. You’ve got the cool cape and the sword so you’re already pretty intimidating. But I don't have any of Rose's memories because, like I keep telling everyone, I'm not Rose Quartz.” He gave the Homeworld Gem a pat on the back but she didn’t seem to notice.

What was the point of all this? He looked back and could see that White was watching him, her eyes following his face closely. The moment he looked, she locked eyes with him, bright and piercing.

What was she looking for?

She gestured to someone, to whom Steven couldn’t see, and several more intimidating figures step forward now.

There were four of them, all of varying heights and colors.

The first one to step forward was a very tall dark blue Gem. She was built like a Quartz, but taller and thinner. She wore some sort of band of spiked iron around her head, with an embroidered blue shawl draped loosely over her shoulders.

“I am Imperial Blue Topaz, Facet-2B7L Cut-7IX, Inquisitor of Blue Diamond’s Court,” The Gem glowered down at him. “And I remember you .” “I’m sorry, but I don’t-” “DON’T YOU DARE PLAY THAT GAME WITH ME!” She marched forward and stuck an accusing finger in his face. “We were the first loyal Gems to be struck down by your betrayal!”

The Topaz told him her story. How she and thirty-four other Imperial Topazes had been summoned to somewhere called the Matroneum. Apparently, Imperial Topazes were telepaths and were used to root out disloyal Gems. She said that Rose knew they would have discovered her plans, so she silenced them first. The sword stroke that started the war.

“Thirty-four Gems, cut down before we even had a chance to defend ourselves! You didn’t say anything. Didn’t explain yourself or even tell us why you were doing this, just summoned your rebels and wordlessly started cutting us down!”

Could she be mistaken? His mom couldn’t have poofed them without having at least asking them to join her, could she?

“Before you destroyed my physical form, I asked you ‘Why?’. Remember what you said?”

Steven didn’t get a chance to respond.

“Nothing. You didn’t even answer me! It was only until after we had been rescued that we learned that you used the opportunity to declare war against your own people!”

Another one stepped forward, this one shorter and fiery red with a temper match.

“I’m Commander Cinnabar, Facet-4F1C Cut-4HO, and I was in command of Homeworld’s forces during the battle of Magma Pyra,” she growled. This one told of a battle across a volcanic plain. In a furious tirade, she claimed that Rose Quartz that lured them into a trap. They had been laying siege to a volcanic Crystal Gem base, bombarding it with light cannons. When the time finally came to attack, the ground became unstable, which triggered a massive volcanic fissure which claimed many Homeworld soldiers. She claimed that Rose Quartz had set off the fissure on purpose in order to route them.

“But the Crystal Gems were trying to stop all the senseless destruction on Earth!”

“That is highly doubtful,” A new voice said.

She was taller than Cinnabar and colored brilliant green. In a way, she reminded Steven of Peridot, in how almost robotic she seemed. Her hair was geometric, a triangular block that shot forward at an angle. Her body was built like a stack of cylinders connect one to another, her robust chest sitting atop a narrow torso. On her limbs were what Steven thought were limb enhancers, but upon closer inspection realized that those were her limbs.

“Metatorbernite, Facet-13N5J Cut-5SC, and your rebellion was full of acts of senseless destruction,” Her voice clipped with a clinical tone.

She claimed that his mother’s rebellion that sent the Gem race spiralling into a resource crisis. According to them, Gems these days “couldn’t even function” without limb enhancers thanks to her. She also said that the rebels had hunted down freshly-made Amethysts in the Prime Kindergarten, simply to deny them to the Diamonds, and to further cripple Homeworld’s ability to offset their losses by using them to conquer another planet. A bunch of floating screens around her showed images of shards somewhere that could only have been the Prime Kindergarten.

“Most Metatorbernites have been tasked for the last 5,000 years with finding a solution to the crisis, without success. But now that you're here, maybe we’ll be able get some use out of you.”

Steven was in disbelief and shook his head. He just couldn’t imagine any of the Crystal Gems shattering anybody. “The Amethyst I know is from there! I don’t believe the Crystal Gems could DO something like that!”

“Oh don’t you now?”

He turned and saw he was being confronted by a black-colored gem with golden-brown bands across her face and body. Her uniform was simple, closer to what Steven had seen Peridot and Jasper wearing. Steven got the impression she wasn't quite as important as these other gems.

“I’m Golden Obsidian, my facet and cut don’t matter, because what I say goes for all Gems who had nothing to do with your war.”

She was a mid-level manager, directing lower level workers in their jobs. To bring the colonization of Earth to a halt, the Crystal Gems sabotaged something called the Alluvium, something Golden Obsidian called “a terraforming drainage network”. The resulting floodwaters washed away dozens of structures and construction sites, along with the workers who were building them. Many Gems were broken in the collapsing debris.

“We weren’t soldiers, or aristocrats, we just minded our own business and did our jobs. But we STILL had to suffer the consequences for your actions! Yeah, the meatbags got to stay dry, but our life’s work was destroyed! And some of us with it!” She leaned into him. “Was one planet of short-lived primitives worth all our lives? Was that fighting for our freedom!”

Steven tried to back away, trying put some distance between himself and the angry crowd, only to walk right into White Diamond’s leg. The Diamond had appeared behind him, cutting off his path of escape. Smiling, she put a foot under him, lifted him up, and tossed him back into the fray.

Steven landed back in the shadows of his accusers.

The yelling had grown louder. Each of the four were yelling something at him, what he couldn’t make out anymore over the din that was now deafening him. The Court had been inflamed by each round of accusations, each one whipping them further into a frenzy. They had surged closer now, mob-like.

As the mob began to close in around him, he happened to notice just through their jostling forms, a single gem was remaining completely still. For a brief fleeting moment, through the crowd he saw that there one person wasn’t baying for his execution. She was silently hanging near the back, arms folded across her chest. Instead of a look of cruel mirth or jeer, she looked upon the entire spectacle with distaste and disgust written across her face.

But he soon lost sight of her in the roiling crowd and his view was replaced by Imperial Blue Topaz as she bore down on him.

“Not so confident now that the tables are turned, are you?” Letting out a yelp of fright, he tried to run away, only to be face with Cinnabar, and then by Obsidian. They were pointing, in his face, shouting.

From every direction people were yelling at him, cursing and laughing. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t hide, couldn’t shut them out. Tears began to well up in his eyes. So many people angry, yelling at him. It was too much for him to handle. Steven finally fell to the floor and curled up crying, hands protectively over his head.

The accusers looked at each other confused.

“Are...are we in the right room?” Imperial Blue Topaz asked the others.

“We didn’t go through the wrong door did we?” Cinnabar added, turning to Metatorbernite.

“No, I’m sure this was the right one…” she replied uneasily, pulling up a holographic map.

“So it not just me, all these halls DO look exactly alike!” Golden Obsidian complained.

White Diamond laughed. “Oh don’t worry, darlings. Its her alright. Rose Quartz is just playing a horrid little game. Look! She actually thinks she can fool us with her pathetic act!” The four Gems looked at the Diamond, then at the shivering organic on the floor, and then at each other. No one seemed to certain what to do, but none could muster the nerve to say what they were thinking.

The feverish frenzy that had taken the Court began to fizzle out. Dissipate. The momentum evaporated as the Court started shifting and murmuring in confusion. There were hushed whispers again, questions and murmurs.

White Diamond stood there in the exact center of it all, having not moved from where she stood previously. She looked down on Steven, still snivelling on the floor, and her smile didn’t fade. But then she turned her attention and looked around the room, something flickering across her face. Whatever it was, it was well hidden. For a while she stood there, watching her courtiers, listening to their hushed chatter. Then, in a flash of motion, she clapped her hands together in two whip-like cracks.

”WELL! That will be all for today. Thank you all for participating, this session of court is now adjourned! Now all of you get back to work,” she commanded. Swiftly obeying, the crowds hurriedly began to disperse and exit the room. Within moments most of them were gone.

Imperial Blue Topaz approached her. "But, White Diamond, we didn't even get to the-"

"What did you just say to me…?" Her eyes flashed like daggers at the smaller Gem.

The big intimidating Gem suddenly seemed to shrink and quailed beneath the Diamond’s withering stare.

"I SAID AS YOU WISELY COMMAND, O GLORIOUS WHITE DIAMOND!" Imperial Blue Topaz terrifiedly bowed and beat a hasty retreat.

“That’s what I thought you said.”

White Diamond turned her eyes back to Steven.

“Hmm. You are committed to this little charade more than I realized. But don’t worry, I still have plenty of things in store for you. So don’t go wandering off too far. I would be very cross if I had to go searching for you.”

Steven, his entire body still shaking with sobs, picked himself up and began to make his way towards the door, holding himself as he did. He tentatively watched the Diamond as he walked away, looking for any signs of her deciding to have second thoughts. Just as he was about to reach the doors and breath a sigh of relief, her voice called out to him and made him jolt.

“I’ll be calling for you again soon. Oh, and just in case you decide you aren’t ‘feeling up for it’; if you don’t show up, consider your planet forfeit.”

Unable to stand more of her cruel taunting, Steven hurried himself out and away from White Diamond’s Court, and didn’t look back.

Next time on No Home: Tech Support!

#steven universe #my stuff #No Home AU #new home au #su fanfic #su fic #fanfic

35 notes · View notes