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wishesunderthestars · 4 years

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Eunoia // Ch. 12

eunoia (noun): beautiful thinking, the possession of a well-balanced mind, which exhibits goodwill and kindness

Pairings: Hybrid! BTS x reader

Summary: You are a world famous director and you have dedicated your life to your job.You have everything you could ever dream of; wealth, recognition, talent, your friends and family. But loneliness ins’t cured by success. So what happens when you somehow rescue seven hybrids? Can they fill the void?

Genre: Angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, eventual smut

Word Count: 18.1k+

Warnings: Abuse and violence, mentions of past sexual abuse, mentions of putting down hybrids, discussion of insomnia caused by a traumatic event, panic attacks, derogetory language

Masterlist

Chapter 1, Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11

Phew, that was long one. Please comment and reblog it really motivates me to keep writing. And I always love receiving asks so don’t be shy ;)

"I can't believe this is happening! Why can't I receive good news for once?" After the initial shock, you were fuming. "Work of months has been destroyed and for what? Because someone decided not to take the proper safety measures to save some money. People could have been hurt in there! Seriously hurt. And it would have been on our heads!"

Namjoon was holding your phone, the email you had received opened on the screen. "You didn't know they hadn't taken the necessary precautions. It wouldn't have been on your head."

"Can you imagine what would have happened if we had been filming? If the actors and the crew were inside and the building collapsed on us?" The chair scraped against the floor as you raised to your feet. You couldn't stay sitting anymore. "I don't even want to think about that. How many people... If we would even get out of there alive. And it isn't only us. What if the earthquake hadn't hit at night? And the workers were still inside? What then? This is wrong on so many levels I can't even begin to count."

Five point six Richter. That was the magnitude of the earthquake that had hit Virginia. It had been felt in Washington. They said it had affected a radius of two hundred kilometers around the center of the earthquake. No one had expected it and no one had been prepared. In the email there was a detailed description of how the earthquake had caused the sets for The Raven Cycle to collapse in on themselves, because the respective protection measures hadn't been taken. The earthquake had hit at night, waking up everyone in the area and causing panic as people flooded the streets. They had discovered the ruined sets in the morning.

Protection measures were of utmost important in every environment and you were baffled that a film studio with such prestige would disregard them so easily. You had half a mind to storm into the building you had just returned from and make a scene in front of everyone. They had put everyone in danger, not only the actors and the crew and all the people working there but also the passersby who could have had metal rods falling on their heads.

How could they allow this? How could they be so careless? It wasn't a building made for only a couple of days of use with light materials. Filming would take place there for the better part of the summer. In a few months you would have been there. You could have been there.

"And now you have to leave?" Namjoon asked, jaw tense. "Can't you wait a few days and go later?" You knew what he was thinking. You didn't want to leave either. It was the worst time possible for you to leave. The two hybrids in the guestroom, the injuries you had to tend to, Jimin and Jungkook, Jimin's past. But it wasn't your decision to make.

"I can't, they have already planned the whole trip. It isn't like I have a choice. The message is clear, I will be flying to Virginia in two days. As the director and showrunner, I have to be there. They have called everyone important in the project and I am one of the lucky ones. And it isn't like I can refuse unless I have a very important reason. And I can't exactly tell them I am nursing to health a stray hybrid until he and his friend can live on their own again, instead of reporting them to the hybrid services."

Namjoon's face scrunched up at the mention of the services. They were anything but kind to hybrids. They thought they could do anything to them if they were strays before they had to give them to a center. The times he and his small pack had to run away from them weren't few. It disgusted you, the way some people behaved.

You landed back on your chair with a huff, tired of pacing. Namjoon must have got a headache from the way his eyes were following you. "This is just what I didn't need. I thought we wouldn't have to go to Virginia until summer!"

You felt like banging your head on the wall but you settled for laying you head on the desk. It collided with a dull thud.

It wasn't only the destroyed set and what that meant for the show. Slowing down of the production, a larger budget needed (oh, the irony) and the bad press you would get if it got out.

People in the area must have suffered. Flashes of collapsed buildings, shattered windows and cracks in the streets ran through your mind. No, it couldn't be that bad. You prayed it wasn't that bad.

Namjoon frowned. "What are you supposed to do there? You aren't going to help rebuild the sets. What do they need you for?" You could see the worry in his eyes. His instincts calling him to protect you, to not let you leave. You appreciated the fact he was fighting it.

With your cheek squished against the desk you said, "No, I'm not going to rebuild the sets, but they need me there nonetheless. There is a legal part of this whole thing I have to be there for. And me being there might help the ones doing the rebuilding."

Namjoon sighed, giving up on trying to keep you here. "Will John come with you?"

"Most likely," you said, raising your head from the desk and sitting back on the chair. Your back hurt from the awkward angle you had bent your body in. "I will ask him but I'm pretty sure he will say yes. He always comes with me when I'm working out of California. He has toured half of the world being my bodyguard. And this time.... This time I don't think he would let me go without him."

"It seems you do tend to travel a lot," Namjoon noted. There wasn't any judgment or disdain in his voice, he was simply stating a fact. If anything he looked at the cream and gold world globe on your desk with longing. He had told you he had never left California, created and bred in Los Angeles. You didn't like how he said "created" but you couldn't correct him. "It must be nice seeing all those places."

The gold of the globe caught the light, distorted figures moving on the polished surface. "It's nice when it's properly planned and when I actually want to go. And there aren't any natural disasters involved. I can't say that's true this time. It's the furthest it could be from the truth." You groaned. "What am I going to do now? I can't leave like this. There are so many things going on."

Namjoon was too close to what he looked like talking to you about the ending of the Book Thief. "How long will you be gone?"

"A week?" The email didn't specify. A week was how long most work trips that didn't include filming lasted, but this wasn't a normal work trip. This had never happened to you or to anyone you knew before. You had heard of disasters but nothing like this.

Your fingers had subconsciously started drumming a tune on the desk. A tune that had comforted you once. A tune he used to hum long before he turned it into a song. You stilled your hand.

An earthquake. Five point six Richter. Shaking buildings, rattling shelves, trembling chandeliers, cupboards opening and dishes and glasses falling to the floor. The kind of thing you see on the TV. The kind of thing you don't ever expect to witness. No one expects a disaster like that to strike out of the blue, but that's the way it is. There is no one to warn you, no one who can.

You didn't go to dinner. You told Namjoon not to wait for you, you would eat later. Climbing down the stairs, you stopped in front of the door and knocked. The reply was the same and Yoongi opened the door like every time.

Every room had a medical kit in the bathroom, the one in this had to be restocked twice in the past few days.

Hoseok gave you a small smile and extended his broken arm. Sitting on the edge of the bed, you started telling him of the time you had spent in the Caribbean Sea. You had stayed there for a few months and had spent most of that time in Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The sandy beaches, the endless turquoise sea and the colorful houses didn't fail to bring a smile to your face. The people had been welcoming and kind, eager to help with any problems production faced. They invited you to nights full of dancing and music and included you in everything like you belonged there.

The movie you had filmed wasn't one of your biggest hits. It wasn't nominated for an Oscar and although it did earn much recognition and was played at multiple international film festivals, it wasn't as successful as your other films. But it was the most fun you had had filming. The actors were incredible both at their job and out of it. You had spent some of the best nights of your life there.

As you fastened the splint in place around Hoseok's arm, you told him of the night they had lit large bonfires along the beach and all the people in the area had gathered around to have a few drinks and dance. Your mind, however, wasn't on the story. A fractured arm and a rib wasn't something you should be treating at home. It didn't matter how many first aid classes you had attended, a lot of things could go wrong. But it was either this or nothing. When you had suggested taking Hoseok to the hospital, Yoongi had almost bitten your head off.

Hoseok was laying back against the pillows with his eyes clothes when you were done. He was doing better. Having regular meals and being able to wash made the improvement more evident. He didn't complain when you were treating him but you could see his eyes clenching shut when you were applying salve to the most tender spots. The stories helped. They distracted him and you could work easier. He rarely spoke but lately he had been brave enough to voice any questions he had and you had readily answered him. Progress. Progress you hoped wouldn't halt now.

"This is it for today," you said, rubbing your hands together and getting up. "In a few days you won't have any trouble moving around on your own. Not anything too strenuous, though, no running or jumping around."

"Thank you." Hoseok spoke softly, like being any louder would break an unspoken rule. Like it would get him punished.

Yoongi was sitting on the chaise lounge by the glass wall, facing away from you. The fire pits were lit all the way along the balconies, flames licking up the darkness of the night. He didn't look at you while you were there, only stealing glances when he thought you weren't looking. When his eyes met yours he would scowl and look away.

"There is something I wanted to tell you," you started. You didn't know how else to say it so you jumped in head first. "I was called to Virginia for work. I'll be leaving the day after tomorrow." Yoongi's back stiffened, his tail stilling in the air. Hoseok's eyes turned impossibly wide. "I don't know yet how long I will stay there but it will be some time before I can come back. I thought you should know because I won't be able to treat you."

Yoongi huffed. "Who will be our caretaker then?"

You paused by the door. "Do you think you need one?"

"Is this a joke?" Yoongi's fists clenched. There was no blood on them anymore.

It wasn’t a secret that hybrids were treated like pets, that included having someone babysit them when the owner was gone. You had been through it before when you had left for New York shortly after you had adopted Namjoon, Jimin and Jungkook. Everyone had expected you to ask someone to take care of them. You hadn’t. They could take care of themselves and each other just fine.

It was the same now.

“If you think you need a caretaker I can hire one for you, but I doubt you do,” you said. “I think you can survive in the Castle without me for a few days. If I’m gone for longer than a week, Helen my housekeeper will come over to do some cleaning. She usually comes over a few times a week. And the gardener comes by quite often. ”

Yoongi looked stunned but schooled his features quickly. Hoseok’s ears were pinned against his head. You closed the door behind you.

Why did your work’s timing had to always be that bad?

An earthquake. A fucking earthquake.

In the kitchen, the table was served. The mouthwatering smell of the food drifted in the air. Jimin, Namjoon and Jin were sitting around the table, Jungkook absent once again. No one had touched their plates.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” you said taking your seat. Your plate was filled with a generous slice of meat pie and fresh salad. Your stomach grumbled. You hadn’t noticed you were that hungry.

“We wanted to wait for you.” Jimin’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, it hadn’t since the day he had come running to you, begging you to take him with you to work. Jungkook spent most of his time at the atelier and he slept in Jin’s room at night. Every time he didn’t show up for meals, the light in Jimin’s eyes dimmed further.

You picked up your fork and knife and cut into the pie. The taste was heavenly, not that you had expected anything else from Jin. You told him so and delighted in the way he got flushed and tried to cover it by a terrible joke he must have come up with on the spot. While you ate, you didn’t speak much, thinking about the best way to bring up the news crawling up your throat. Namjoon squeezed your hand under the table.

When your plates were empty and Jimin was laying his head on Jin’s shoulder, you decided it was time. You put your fork aside. You started by the email, the email that had looked so inconspicuous at first because you received emails like that all the time. An email labeled “important” was often not as important as the people sending it thought it was. You couldn’t have guessed what it contained inside. You hadn’t been prepared.

Your leg was moving up and down on the metal foothold of the stool, mimicking your racing heartbeat. An earthquake had struck Virginia at night. You repeated the dry words of the email, of someone who hadn’t felt the terror of the earth shaking underneath their feet. Five point six Richter, strong enough to knock down the sets they had been building for months. You were required to be there in two days.

Jimin’s bottom lip was trembling. “How long will you stay?”

You shook your head. It was the same question you were asking and had no answers for. Even if you called someone in the company they wouldn’t have anything but speculations for you. “I hope no more than a week.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?” Jin asked. “What if there are aftershocks, or if it was a warning for a larger one coming?”

Jin’s question brought an dreadful shine to Jimin’s eyes. You had thought of that as well but your mind was troubled already as it was. Questions of your safety would take this too far. For once, you didn’t trust the company you were working with to keep you safe. You would have to do research before you left and take all the necessary precautions. You wouldn’t risk it like they had.

Namjoon wrapped his hand around his glass but didn’t bring it to his lips. “John will be with her. They will be alright.” It didn’t calm down Jimin who hugged himself tightly, dropping his head to his chest.

You couldn’t watch him suffering anymore. Getting up, you walked to him and hugged his from behind, prying his hands away so they were over yours instead. “I promise I’ll call you every day and we will text. It’s like when I was in New York and you texted me every day about what you got up to and what you were thinking. Your texts made me forget all about work and how tired I was.” Jimin sniffled but his cheeks remained dry. “It’s only a few days. They’ll be over soon. You won’t be alone here.”

Jin ruffled Jimin’s hair and the cat hybrid wrapped one arm around the oldest, pulling him into the hug. You placed a kiss on both their head, making Jin flush again. He wasn’t used to physical attention the way Jimin was but he craved it too and you were trying to make sure he felt as loved as he was.

Namjoon held Jimin while you and Jin cleaned the table. He grabbed Jimin’s thighs lifting him up and carried him to the living room. The younger laughed all the way there, telling him to put him down. His tight hold around Namjoon’s neck told him a very different thing.

But you weren’t done yet. You had one more person to tell.

The atelier’s door was half open. You knocked once on the wood before opening it all the way. The room could be described as an organized mess. Two canvases were set up in the middle of the room and three half-finished ones stood against the cabinets. The floor was covered in newspapers splattered with all the colors of the rainbow and paint tubes were lined on the tables in no particular order.

“I finished dinner, you can take it,” he said, gesturing to the tray on one of the tables with the hand not holding a brush.

“That isn’t why I’m here.” One of his ears perked up as you walked closer. The canvas he was working on now was a blend of shades of purple, orange and yellow with no definitive details. “What are you painting.”

He shrugged. “Don’t know yet.” Moving forward with no destination. You knew how that felt.

Jungkook hadn’t distanced himself just from Jimin but from everyone. He didn’t run to you to hug you and scent you when you came back like he used to do. He didn’t come up to the living room to watch TV and talk until you were too exhausted to keep your eyes open. He didn’t show you his progress on the paintings. He didn’t annoy Jin while he cooked (the oldest liked it even if complained). He didn’t come to meals. Meals were family time.

Being in the atelier now was different to any other time. It was the stifling feeling of an empty page, which used to be ecstasy. It was wrong, something missing.

“I have to leave for Virginia the day after tomorrow,” you said, ripping the band-aid off. The times you had said it today were too many. Surprised doe eyes turned to you. You explained the story once again and waited.

Jungkook seemed to be bracing himself for something. “Can you take me with you?”

“Take you with me?” you repeated, dumbfounded.

He nodded. The brush he had been holding had fallen to the floor at some point painting the newspapers in a shock of deep purple. Neither of you had noticed. “I won’t bother you. I’ll listen to everything you say. You can leave me at the hotel. I won’t cause any trouble, no one will know I’m there.” He lowered his head. “I need to be away from here.”

“Jungkook…” Your hand touched his cheek and you felt the way he clenched his jaw under the touch. “If this is-”

“Don’t,” he begged, pulling away. A pained desperation coloring his voice. “You don’t know what I did. If you did-” He took a sharp breath. “Can I come with you? Please.”

Stifling. You hadn’t considered taking any of the hybrids with you now. You had planned on inviting them along when you would go there for filming, a much more fun part of your job. This would be a busy trip and most likely far from enjoyable. It could be dangerous. But Jungkook’s eyes were begging you. He was fading away locked up in the atelier avoiding everyone.

“Okay. If you really want to, you can come with me. I’ll help you pack the essentials,” you said. Jungkook visibly relaxed. Maybe you should have pressed more. Insisted on him speaking with Jimin before you left or after you came back. But you were exhausted and a headache was brewing behind your temples.

Jungkook glanced at a canvas covered with a white sheet at a corner. You’d let it go for now.

When Jimin sneaked into your room late into the night, you didn’t say anything pulling up the covers in a silent invitation. Jimin crawled underneath and hid in your arms. Against every expectation you fell asleep. Orange bottle untouched in the bathroom cabinet.

The days leading up to your departure were every kind of hectic. Panic had taken over the studios and the atmosphere was tense in every meeting. No one wanted to admit the colossal mistake that could have cost the lives of so many people. The press was another matter entirely. The project could get a bad reputation before it was aired. It was emotionally exhausting, your brain working in overdrive, coming up with solutions to problems that may or may not arise. You had to be prepared for the worst.

At home it wasn’t much better. You had started packing for the weird end-of-spring weather in Virginia. The Raven Cycle books and a little research had provided you with enough information about what to expect. Dry, warm and with a possibility of thunderstorms. It could also get cold at night so you made sure to pack a few sweatshirts.

You helped Jungkook pack his things in a similar way. He had a habit of wearing long sleeves even when it was hot so you packed a few more sweatshirts and hoodies for him. He continued not talking much but he looked calmer now that you were leaving. All you wanted to do was hug him and tell him everything was going to be alright. But you didn’t think that would be welcome.

Jimin had timidly offered to take care of Hoseok’s injuries while you were gone. You hesitated at first. While they had been here Jimin and Yoongi hadn’t interacted much. You had expected they would talk, figure out the strange tension between them, but they had kept to themselves. You gave in in the end. The worst had come and passed and you trusted Jimin to provide the basic care Hoseok needed.

He came with you to their room before dinner and you explained to him what you were doing. Hoseok was a little more withdrawn than usual but he didn’t protest, smiling at Jimin.

You had a long talk with Namjoon in your office the night before the day you were scheduled to leave. There were a lot of things to talk about and you tried to get everything out. All your worries and all the things you thought he should know. When you were spent and his reassurances were buried deep in your chest, he brought you close to him, rubbing his face in your neck. He places light kissed on your skin, his lips trailing up until they were touching yours.

The house was silent. You opened your eyes blearily, staring at your phone. The ringing of the alarm had stopped, leaving large numbers reading the time on the screen. The blinds were closed hiding the morning from you.

There was a weight on your chest. You looked down to find tired eyes staring up at you. Jimin made a small sound in the back of his throat and nuzzled against you. His blond hair was soft against your fingers as you combed through it. A loud purr escaped him as you scratched the base of his cat ears. He held on to you tighter but the alarm was clear, you needed to get up and get ready. You had a flight to catch.

“No, don’t go,” Jimin whined.

You massaged his head down to his neck. “I have to get up. I’ll miss the plane if I’m late.”

In the shadows of the room you could see the pout on his full lips. “What if you miss it?”

“If I miss it, I’ll get in trouble. And I’d rather not get in trouble.” Jimin snuggled closer to you and you could smell the vanilla shampoo he loved. Mia had said in the early days that she had smelt vanilla and muffins on you and you had guessed that was Jimin’s scent. The shampoo must serve to accentuate his natural scent.

His cat ears lowered as his tail wrapped around your bare leg. You suppressed a shudder at the feeling of the soft fur against your skin. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I know, that’s why I have to go.” You untangled yourself from the hybrid and pressed the button for the blinds to retreat. The morning light spilled into the room. It caught on Jimin’s curls painting them golden. You had an urge to capture the moment with your camera, the way he looked so soft, hair mussed and eyes still dreaming. Carving the image in your memory, you walked to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for the day.

Getting dressed for a flight was different than getting dressed for any other work day. You liked to wear something comfortable that wouldn’t look too bad on camera. You weren’t the kind of celebrity to get mobbed every time you went out but sometimes paparazzi could get wind of where you were going and show up at the airport. When you were traveling for premieres or events, fans and paparazzi would fill the place.

The previous night you had set aside a pair of loose black pants and a red top. You would also take your leather jacket with you because it could get chilly on the plane.

Jimin, wearing his stripped white and blue pajamas with the little pink hearts, clung to you like a koala all the way to breakfast. He only let go of you when you placed your large black bag on the floor and took a seat at the kitchen island. Jin was finishing up with cooking, taking the pots off the stove. Breakfast was almost ready.

John would be coming later to drive you to the airport. The black SUV had turned into a sign you would be traveling. Because of the sheer volume of the luggage you always ended up with, a large car was needed to drive you to and from the airport. This time you had packed two suitcases and your handbag. You had been tempted to fill a sac-voyage as well but you quickly abandoned the thought.

Namjoon arrived, looking wide awake. The opposite of Jimin and his drooping eyes. Only one was missing. And you weren’t compromising today.

“Jungkook?” you asked. The others exchanged a glance. It told you enough. “I’m going to go get him. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Their gazes followed you as you left. They probably didn’t believe you could get him to come up. And any other day that could have been the case.

The door of the atelier was closed but you were sure Jungkook was inside. The amount of time he had been spending in there was unhealthy but you were the last person who could judge him, having spent the majority of your so called break in your office. You knocked three times before opening the door.

Jungkook was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, lost in a place that used to scream comfort. Did it still? You couldn’t feel it anymore. The canvases were all in their places and the paints and brushes had been tidied up. Sitting on the paint splattered newspapers in his completely black clothes, Jungkook looked lost.

“We’re having breakfast upstairs,” you said.

Jungkook’s eyes cleared, just enough for most of the fog to disappear. One bunny ear drooped down and he swiped it away from his face. “Can’t Jin bring it to me?”

You shook your head. “Jin isn’t bringing anything to you. You will be coming to breakfast and eat with us like you used to.”

He lowered his head, both ears falling in his face. “I can’t.”

“You very much can and you will.” You tried to be gentle but you were firm on this. “You will come up and we will all eat breakfast together. We are leaving in a few hours for the other side of the United States and I have no idea when we will be back. You aren’t doing anything here and everyone wants to see you and spend some time together.”

“Not everyone.” It was so low he probably hadn’t meant for you to hear.

“Everyone,” you said, kneeling by his side. “Everyone wants to see you.” You brushed his bangs off his face, petting his ears in the process. He didn’t relax the way he usually did, melting in your hands, but he did lean into the touch. “One breakfast. That’s all I’m asking for. You said you’d listen to me if I took you with me to Virginia.”

He couldn’t disagree with that and when you offered him your hand he took it.

Jungkook and Jimin had had a special bond. That first night you had seen it in the way Jimin cried begging you to help Jungkook, to heal him. You had seen it in the way Jungkook, beat up and having trouble breathing, was asking Jimin if he was injured, if he needed to be treated first and Jimin had cried every time Jungkook flinched but smiled and squeezed his hand to ease the pain. Nothing had changed the longer you spent with them, the way they loved and cared for each other only becoming more apparent.

Jungkook had gone to Namjoon crying, saying he had hurt Jimin but you couldn’t imagine him doing anything but loving him. Misunderstandings preyed on everyone and they were hungry for those who loved each other. They would get through it, you assured yourself. They were strong and they cared too much to continue hurting each other like this. You cared too much too, you wouldn’t let this get out of hand.

They needed a break, that’s what it was. Jungkook had been right, the trip would help put some distance between them to think clearer. You would make sure when you returned they would be ready to face whatever had happened between them.

Jimin lit up at seeing Jungkook but the light dimmed when the younger didn’t even glance his way. You sighed into your orange juice.

After breakfast Jungkook carried up his suitcase while you went to another room. Three knocks and a question of who it was. It had become routine. Hoseok smiled at you, he had been doing that more and more.

You sat down at the side of the bed, Yoongi watching you from the chaise lounge, his ears standing alert. “I’m just here to check on you one last time before I go. Jimin will take over after this.”

Hoseok was sitting with his back against the headboard. He hadn’t been able to do that without hurting the first days. “When will you be leaving?”

Touching his arm to inspect it, you said, “John will be here in about thirty minutes but the flight isn’t for another two hours. We have to be early at the airport because the process to get on the plane takes a long time. Do you want to hear about the first time I got on a plane? That’s a funny story.”

Hoseok nodded enthusiastically so you started recounting the time you were sixteen and you had to take a plane to get to the film festival that was held in France. The short film you had directed would be played there. The only problem was that you had never been on a plane before and the prospect of flying wasn’t appealing to you in the least. It just happened that the flight was far from calm.

The check up was finished halfway through the story but Hoseok touched your arm, wordlessly asking you to finish it. At your arrival in France Hoseok’s smile dissolved.

“I have to get going, John will be here soon,” you said getting up. Hoseok had met John only after you had told him of the time both of you had gotten lost in London. John had been insisting he knew what he was doing leading you deeper into the maze of streets. Because of that a few more stories the bodyguard had guest-starred in, the fox hybrid hadn’t looked as terrified as some people did at the side of the giant of a bodyguard.

“Thank you for,” he gestured to himself “this. And the stories. Thank you for the stories.”

You stopped by the door. “It was my pleasure.”

John was at the Castle right on time, parking the SUV close to the front door. He helped you carry everything to the car, which meant he carried the three suitcases while Jungkook insisted he could help. The bunny hybrid did help but only because John took pity on him and let him help with putting the suitcases in the trunk.

You lowered your sunglasses. No wind and no cloud in sight. You would have a calm trip.

You hugged all the hybrids, letting them scent you. Jimin’s eyes were growing misty and you hugged him extra hard assuring him you would be back soon. You rubbed your forehead against Jin’s and kissed his cheek in goodbye, his skin warming up under your lips. Goodbyes were hard and you’d thought you’d gotten used to them. Saying goodbye to Taylor and Zayn before tours, to your aunt the rare times you could visit her, to your friends, to the actors and the crew.

And yet your chest was tight.

Namjoon was talking with John by the car and you heard him asking John to take care of you and Jungkook. John replied he would protect you with his life. John was your bodyguard but this had been more than a job to him for a long time.

From the corner of your eye you saw Jimin approach Jungkook. He reached to touch him, hug him. Jungkook flinched. Jimin’s hand hovered in the air before going limp. He backed away, his chin dropping to his chest and jaw trembling.

You bit the inside of your cheek. A hand landed on your shoulder and you turned to find Namjoon standing next to you. You weren’t the only one who had watched the youngests’ exchange. You hid in his arms, forgetting about the world for a moment. The two hybrids who loved each other too much, the trip you had to take, production being halted, that godforsaken earthquake. He nosed along your neck, his warm breath tingling your skin.

Jungkook got into the car first, an escape, and you followed soon after, a necessity. The house got smaller and smaller behind you as the car drove away. The Castle fading in the distance. Another trip. Different reasons, a different disaster, but familiar territory. Once you used to be excited about these trips, exploring a new place and living new experiences. Where had that part of yourself gone?

But you weren’t alone this time. Jungkook was looking out of the window, his head laying against the glass. You would take him to that yogurt shop you had liked so much and you would show him the park you wanted to film at and take him to that endearing small cinema. Yeah, you would do that.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

The hotel towered over the rest of the buildings in the area. It wasn’t the same one you had stayed on your first visit last year, more grand and definitely more expensive. The company had gone all out. An admirable attempt to quell your anger, yet it continued simmering underbeath your skin. A young man was waiting for you outside, taking the suitcases from the car and leading you to the lobby.

Jungkook looked around with wide eyes and an open mouth. There was so much glass and marble, almost everything was made using these two materials.

The receptionist smiled at you wide, her teeth white and straight like her uniform. She welcomed you to the hotel and handed you two key cards, white with a gold line on front and the room numbers in cursive. Two cards.

“I was sure I’d forgotten something,” you muttered.

The receptionist’s smile faltered. “Is something not to your liking, miss?”

Two cards. One for your room and one for John’s. You had notified the company about Jungkook accompanying you but you hadn’t requested another room. Granted, you had thought they would come to the conclusion on their own. One more room would have cost them a lot, though. Easy way out. But you couldn’t exactly blame them. At hotels, owners rarely bothered to spend money on a room for their hybrids.

You held the cards like a magician ready to do a trick, showing them to John.

“Shouldn’t there be one more?” he asked.

The woman behind the desk blinked a few times. “More? Two rooms were booked in the name Y/N Y/L/N. Is there a problem?”

You sighed. “No, I guess there isn’t. Or there wasn’t supposed to be.” Jungkook watched the exchange shifting from foot to foot. His black hoodie was a size too big and he was drowning in it. “Do you have any available rooms in the same floor.”

“I’m afraid we don’t, miss. The rooms on the top floor are all booked for the night.”

“Great.” You couldn’t think of another solution, you would have to make do. “Thank you. We’ll be going now.”

“Have a nice stay,” the receptionist said.

The elevator was as luxurious as the lobby, a glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. John had your black bag slung over his shoulder. The man with your suitcases was already gone, you would find them in your rooms when you arrived. There was a mirror to your left and leaning your back against the wall your gazed at your reflection. With your black circles hidden with concealer and carefully applied makeup, you looked just a little tired from the flight. You had brushed your hair on the plane and it fell in waves over your shoulders, curling at the tips.

Jungkook hadn’t been to a hotel before and it showed as he tried to take everything in. The lights that were on even in the afternoon, the golds and whites, the mirrors and glass and the velvet seats. It was wonderful but still it wasn’t the best hotel you had stayed at.

The elevator’s doors opened with a ding and you walked into the well-lit corridors. Doors were on either side with a sitting area at the front. You had stayed in many hotels over the years but they were nothing more than a place for rest. Sleep and shower, that’s all you did in your room. And sometimes breakfast or dinner if you didn’t feel like going out.

Stopping in front of a white door, you checked the numbers on the cards again. The two rooms were very close, only a few meters distance from each other.

Two rooms. Right.

You handed John his key card. “So, we’ve got two rooms…” Jungkook looked at you curiously. “I hope you don’t mind staying in my room with me for now. Unless you would prefer staying with John and his snoring.”

John pointed a finger at you. “Hey, I don’t snore.”

You hummed. “Sure you don’t. What I have been hearing all those years must be the pigs outside.”

Jungkook was trying to hide his laughter behind his hand and doing a poor job of it.

John dropped your bag by your feet. “Do you hear her? No respect for me. That’s what I get for listening to your every whim for years. I’ll go to my room now and snore in peace.”

You giggled as John struggled to swipe the key card right. With an ‘aha’, he managed to open the door and get inside. You swiped your own card, the door clicking open at the first try. Both of you had been doing it for years but John was more of a fan of traditional keys.

The company had booked a suite for you, which you guessed was one of the best in the hotel. The door opened to a grand living room with white velvet couches and armchairs and a 75 inch TV. You took off your sneakers before stepping on the wool carpet, it was white with veins of gold running through it.

You fell on the couch, taking off your backpack and placing it on the floor. “I’m sorry for this, I thought they would book three rooms for us.”

Jungkook looked at you from where he was still standing by the door, his hands pulling at the straps of his backpack. “Why would they book three rooms?” There was a gap here. Hybrids stayed with their owners, that was the norm. You realized that was what he had expected.

“We are three people. I thought you would want your own room. I told them you would be coming with me for the tickets but they didn’t change the rooms they had booked.” You threw your head back and closed your eyes. “Everything is going so well already.”

There a shuffling of feet from the door. “I thought… I can stay with John if he doesn’t mind or… I can…”

You opened your eyes. Jungkook was looking at the floor, his ears drooped at the sides of his head. “What are you talking about?”

Jungkook hugged himself. “I don’t want to bother you.”

And it clicked. You got up from the couch. “Oh, bunny. You aren’t bothering me. I only wanted one more room because I thought that’s what you wanted, that you wanted your own space.” You didn’t touch him, remembering him flinching and pulling away, but you stayed close to show him you were there for him.

“Oh, I-” He flushed, not knowing what to say. You had been past that stage and it was unfortunate to see the shyness and hesitance come back.

“Come on, take off your shoes,” you said, motioning for him to come further into the room. “I desperately need a shower. Then we can rest. I don’t have to do anything until late tonight. Do you want to go in first?”

Jungkook sat down gingerly on the couch. “No, no, you can go in first. I think I’ll sleep a little.”

You stopped him before he could lay down. “Here?”

Confused, he looked around at the furniture. “Should I take the smaller couch?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” you said. “But there is a huge bed in the bedroom. If you feel uncomfortable though, I could take the couch.”

Jungkook shot up at that. “No, no way. You have work, you should sleep in the bed.” The redness creeped into his cheeks again. “I would like… I would like to share, if that’s alright.”

You gave him a smile. “That’s more than alright. Come in, then.”

You were planning to make the most out of this trip.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

Jimin had memorized everything you had said about checking and treating Hoseok’s injuries. He had memorized the pills he was taking, the salves you used and the times you checked on him during the day. Before you left, he had even looked up all the injuries Hoseok had on Google and read all the information he could find. You had told him Hoseok was well on his way to recovery and he didn’t have to worry much. But he was worried. He was very worried.

He had thought he had been ready, that he could do this. But standing outside their door, second thoughts were smothering him.

What if he did something wrong and he hurt him? What if he made everything worse? If he pressed too hard, if he used the wrong cream, if he wrapped the bandages wrong…

Seokjin would have been much better at this. He took care of them like a parent, he would have been a better choice than Jimin. But Seokjin was the one to cook all their meals, he had enough on his plate. Yoongi could have done it but… He had only glared at you and sneered something that sounded very much like a refusal.

Yoongi…

He hadn’t talked to him since the day he had chased him to the alleyway. The older didn’t leave the room he shared with Hoseok unless it was absolutely necessary. Jimin didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t this… This stasis they were trapped in. He had expected someone yelling, accusing. Sharp words, that didn’t match the soft voice he had been used to. There had been none of that. Nothing at all. He wasn’t sure what he preferred.

Hoseok smiled a little at him when he walked into the room. He was sitting up in his bed with his reddish tail in his lap. Yoongi, laying in his own bed, didn’t acknowledge him but his dark eyes were burning Jimin’s skin when he wasn’t looking.

Hoseok patted the bed with the hand that wasn’t in a cast. His smile was smaller than it had been in the morning. Your absence wasn’t affecting only them. Jimin had heard you telling stories to Hoseok, you had done the same with Jungkook. But he had no stories to tell, nothing worth sharing. He hadn’t traveled the world, he didn’t have interesting and famous friends, he didn’t have a job or childhood memories by the beach.

Silence spread, only broken by his apologies every time Hoseok winced. He was holding back for his sake and it made his stomach clench. He left the room like there were hell-hounds on his heels.

The second day you were gone everyone woke up early in the morning, like all the days they had to be up early to see you before leaving for work. You might not be there but his body demanded he wake up and drag his feet upstairs for breakfast. A book was laying cover up on the table. One of the leather-bound classics you kept on the top shelves of the library. Namjoon read it at night before going to sleep.

Seokjin placed a plate of pancakes in front of Jimin. Pancakes were his favorite.

Belly full, he trudged to the second level.

“Good morning,” he greeted, coming through the door.

Hoseok’s fox ears twitched. “Good morning,” he said with a small smile. Yoongi remained silent, standing by the glass wall.

Jimin fetched the medical kit from the bathroom. Everything he would need was in there. “Did you sleep well?” He tried to make conversation. It wasn’t easy when he felt like he could erupt at any moment with Yoongi’s gaze on him. If he hurt Hoseok, Yoongi would never look at him again. Or he could do so much worse. But Jimin had already lost him years ago.

“Yeah,” Hoseok replied, fumbling with the blanket he was sitting on. “I had a weird dream. About being at the lake. There was a statue there and he was talking… It was good, though.”

There was a small Greek style statue on the half-empty shelves of the room, a Kouros you had explained to him. “It must be because of that.” Jimin motioned to the shelves. “There are pieces of ancient Greece all over the house. The first show Y/N directed was about Persephone and Hades, the Greek god of the dead. Greek mythology has a special place for her.”

“She talked to me about Greece a little but she didn’t say anything about the show,” Hoseok said.

Jimin opened the medical kit, remembering watching the episodes one after the next, hanging from every word the characters said. “The show is so good! I couldn’t stop watching it, I didn’t want to get out of the cinema room for anything. The characters were perfect, Persephone was so sweet and kind but she-” He stopped himself, cutting off his rambling. The cream in his hand was getting warm.

Hoseok sat up straighter to help his work. “But what? Why did you stop?”

Jimin startled. He could at least do this, he could speak about the show. He had watched the episodes multiple times and he had asked you so many questions, some of which you hadn’t talked your way around. Hoseok didn’t wince as much as the first time and maybe Jimin go a little carried away, but he didn’t make any mistakes and Hoseok even asked questions and talked with him.

The cat hybrid had to suppress the shivers the eyes on his back sent down his spine.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

Greek gods, fantasy, romance and mysteries. That’s what made you rich. That’s what got you this huge house and more money than anyone would ever see in their lives. The Castle. Yoongi scoffed. What a pretentious name for an even more pretentious house, but that was the way it worked.

Yoongi disliked rich people on principle. Privileged, arrogant and self-entitled were only a few of the adjectives he would use to describe them. They thought they could control anyone because they had money and money made the world go round. Money could get you everything and that’s what they wanted. Everything. In long coats and designer sunglasses looking for entertainment in the most dubious places, feeding off the struggle of the others. Watching enraptured as others fought for their lives.

All of them were the same. It didn’t matter if they were hiding behind smiling masks or surface philanthropic acts. They were the same. And you were just like them. He refused to believe anything else. Despite how hard it was getting. But every time he was slipping, he would remember the pleads and rough hands. His resolve didn’t crack.

He heard all the stories you told Hoseok. Not that he wanted to but there wasn’t a chance he would leave him alone with you. Most of them were funny and although he didn’t want to admit, there were parts the corners of his mouth had lifted up without his permission. He was grateful for those stories, they made Hoseok forget. One rare time, when you were telling him about a disaster on set that involved three spoons, a maraca and a lost script, Hoseok had giggled and Yoongi’s heart had come close to bursting out.

Every morning and every night you would have a different story for him and it made Yoongi wonder if they were all true or if you were coming up with them on the spot. Not that it mattered, it made Hoseok smile and that was enough. Yoongi had found himself waiting for the times you would come into their room and start talking. You had a way with words.

And now you were gone, leaving them alone in the house, alone with no one watching over them like a guard dog (except that damned wolf hybrid, but that was another case entirely). There were a few things he knew about the world and one of them was that hybrids weren’t left alone in a house that cost more than his handlers would make in their whole lives. He didn’t like surprises and he hated how full of them you were.

Jimin had been the one to take over and you must have been somewhere in Virginia laughing at Yoongi’s expense. The younger looked good, his cheeks were full and there was a certain glow on his soft skin. Jimin had always looked beautiful but now he was ethereal. He couldn’t keep his eyes away.

Hoseok pressed a few buttons on the TV remote and groaned. After Jimin’s excitement about the show in the morning, he had decided he would watch the show. Jimin had showed him how to put it on but Hoseok was having some trouble.

“Give that to me,” Yoongi grumbled, taking the remote. He searched for the title among the options (there were too many of them).

Hoseok pointed at one of the pictures. “That’s it! That’s it! “Land of the Gods”.”

A girl wearing a flower crown was gazing at him from the screen. He clicked on the picture and the synopsis and the episode list appeared. “Are you seriously going to watch that?”

“It must be good if Jimin was so excited about it. He was so excited he got me excited.” A smile stretched his lips. Yoongi was weak.

“What do you know about Greek mythology?”

Hoseok shrugged. “Not much but I don’t think I need to. The show has to be good if it got her where she is now. I’m sure she must have been great at her job to be this successful.”

If anything, there was no doubt you were successful. He could see it everywhere he looked. One night he had been watching the news, Hoseok long asleep, and they had talked about your newest project set to start filming in May. One of the greatest directors of our generation, they had called you, predicting high ratings and large audiences. But success didn’t necessarily mean talent and Yoongi told himself he didn’t care enough to see if you had it.

Contemplating, he sat on the bed by Hoseok’s side. “We should discuss when we are leaving.”

Hoseok’s eyes widened, his tail fluffing up. “Leaving?”

“Yeah, leaving. You’re better, aren’t you? We should be gone before she comes back.” Yoongi threw the remote on the bed.

“Oh.” Hoseok’s fox ears lowered. “I wanted to thank her, it feels wrong to leave like this.”

Yoongi sighed. He could understand Hoseok, he didn’t want to leave either. He wasn’t stupid. Having a warm meal three times a day was more than they could dream of in the streets. It was more than they could dream of when they had a roof over their heads and murky water on their tongues. These few days Yoongi had eaten and slept more than he had in three years but it had to end. It was nothing more than a polished dream. He didn’t want your pity and he wouldn’t have accepted to come here if it hadn’t been for Hoseok.

“I think she would appreciate us leaving more than a thank you,” Yoongi said. “We don’t know how long she will be gone and we have already overstayed our welcome.”

“We… yeah.” Hoseok gave in. “But you should talk to Jimin before we go.” Yoongi stiffened. “I have seen the way you look at him, you know. I heard you that first day. He is the only reason we are here now. I can connect the dots. I don’t ask you about your past because I know it hurts you but I ask you this. Talk to him before we go. Jimin… Jimin looks like a part of your past that shouldn’t hurt this much.”

Yoongi clenched his jaw. Because Jimin was the most painful part of his past. Everything that had happened to him, everything he had been through didn’t hold anything to the pain he felt when thinking about Jimin and his delicate features. Nothing hurt more than the images of that night ingrained in his brain. He didn’t deserve to forget, he didn’t even try.

“I can’t talk to him.”

Hoseok scooted closer and Yoongi reached to steady him. The fox hybrid would laugh at him, he had the all clear to move on his own and he didn’t need help with something as simple as this, but he didn’t push him away. “Why not?

“I just can’t.” Hoseok raised his eyebrows at him. “Hobi, just let it go. Jimin wouldn’t want to talk to me, there is too much you don’t know.”

Hoseok turned his head away. “Yes, because you don’t tell me.”

“Hobi…” Yoongi placed a hand on his shoulder, rubbing comforting circles, there were no bruises there. “What happened, it’s better if you don’t know. I don’t want any more people being haunted by what I did.”

Hoseok’s eyes softened, taking Yoongi’s hands in his own. Every touch from Hoseok was like a brush with the sun. “If you think anything you say could change my opinion of you, you don’t know me at all. You saved me, Yoongi. You saved me when I thought I was done for, when I thought I wouldn’t live to see another day. If you weren’t there, if I didn’t have you…” A shaky breath fell past his lips. He squeezed Yoongi’s hands in his and Yoongi squeezed back. “I would have never gotten out without you. You are all I have.”

Yoongi touched Hoseok’s cheek, nosing against his neck and breathing in the scent of cinnamon. “And you’re all I have.”

The first episode of “Land of the Gods” played as Yoongi laid next to Hoseok with the younger’s head on his chest.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

The workers kept looking at you like children who had been caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar and it wasn’t even their fault. They had been following instructions and using the materials the company had sent. The one who had decided to forgo the safety measures because they were too expensive had yet to admit to anything, but a storm was brewing and you would watch until the end. They could say whatever they wanted about you but no one’s life was at risk on your watch.

You hadn’t been alone in the sentiment, most of your co-workers siding with you and calling meetings after meetings on the matter. You had taken it up to yourself to send a lengthy email to the president and were waiting for a reply that wouldn’t take long to come.

In the meantime, you were stuck with damage control. The meticulously designed sets had turned into ruins and rubble. A lot of expensive equipment had been destroyed and the replacements had yet to arrive. The first night you had a short meeting at a building the company was renting and then drove to the set to survey the damage. You had gritted your teeth at the sight of broken blocks like legos. There was nothing more to see.

You came back with heavy limbs and dust on your jeans. The air-conditioning was on and Jungkook was sitting on the couch watching a superhero movie. It wasn’t one you recognized, an older one than those you usually watched. You changed into your pajamas after taking a shower for the third time in a day (your skin barrier was set to be destroyed soon) and joined him in the living room. Neither of you had had dinner so you ordered food from the first place you found on the web. The delivery was fast and you settled on the couch, eating pizza and watching an old Samuel L. Jackson film.

Fortunately, the earthquake hadn’t caused any major disasters but you had heard that a couple of people had been injured. The most damage in the area had been to the TV show sets. That was alright, you could work on that.

Your schedule wasn’t much different from usual. You woke up early, the sun peaking over the horizon and showering the room in its morning glow through the thin curtains. Reaching for your phone, you turned off the alarm before it could start ringing. You woke up earlier but you scheduled it every night regardless of that. Jungkook blinked his eyes open as soon as you moved a little, he was used to waking up early too.

At breakfast it was only the two of you, John and the hotel staff. It was way too early for anyone else. Jungkook didn’t leave the hotel and you spent most of the day outside. The first days were the most crucial and therefore the most busy. Go there, take this, fill this out, talk to him/her. An endless task list. And there were a lot of things you had to figure out yourself.

“You should come with me today,” you said, digging your spoon into the bowl of yogurt. You ate a generous breakfast to propel through the morning.

“T-to work?” Jungkook stuttered, his hand loosening around the spoon. He was eating pancakes with maple syrup and you had a feeling about who he was thinking of.

You rolled the spoon between your fingers. “Well, you don’t have to come to work with me. We could drop you off at a coffee shop or a park if you want to. You can’t stay cooped up in the hotel room all day.”

John nodded in agreement. “I think it’s a good idea. You need some fresh air, staying in three rooms can’t be good for you.”

Jungkook dropped his head to hide his flushed cheeks. “I’m alright here, you don’t have to worry about me. Really.”

“But that’s what I’ll do at work if you stay in here for one more day,” you said. “You can go anywhere, there is a whole city to explore. And if I have any breaks I can call and I’ll come find you.”

Jungkook looked down at the pancakes. “I don’t think I should be out alone.”

“Of course you can. You can wear a collar and no one will say anything. We packed a few didn’t-?” Wearing a collar would protect him from the hybrid services, especially with your name and number engraved in the back of a charm. But you realized it wasn’t hybrid services he was afraid of. A hybrid alone in the streets could be an easy target, Jimin and Jungkook had been together that night and still… But it was broad daylight. “John could come with you,” you offered.

“No, no, he should be with you,” Jungkook protested weakly.

You exchanged a look with John, after years you were perfect at reading each other. “I actually think John would have a much better time with you. The only thing he does with me is follow me around and wait for the day to end. And it’s not like I’m in any danger there, I’m surrounded by a lot of people and some of the places have security so…”

“Or she’s trying to get rid of me,” John said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “Not that I’m complaining, waiting outside of those meetings gets very boring very quickly. Who will drive you?”

“It won’t be hard to find someone. I’ll catch a ride with Will, he has plenty of space in his car.” Will was the assistant director and he had been dragged to Virginia with you. When you worked it was rare to find one without the other. He had been with you for a few years and he was your right hand on set, he could get everything you asked done in a matter of seconds and often better than you could have done them yourself.

Satisfied, John finished his sandwich. “It’s settled then, I’ll go with the guy while you run around like a mad woman.”

“It isn’t so much running around today,” you mumbled. In comparison to other days, that was.

Jungkook picked up his fork again, his nose twitching. “Thank you, but I really don’t know where to go.”

You smiled. “That’s the most exciting part. There are so many places you can choose from. John knows the area a little, he knows a few places worth visiting.” John saluted with two fingers on his temple. “Is there something you want to do?”

Jungkook shrugged. “The park maybe? I would like to walk a little if that’s alright.”

“Fine by me,” John said. “Let’s reconnect with Mother Nature a little.”

You shook your head. “As if the sets aren’t in the middle of nowhere. They’re like thirty to forty minutes from the city, I spend most of my day in a car.”

“Stop complaining. It’s partly your fault,” John reminded you, which only caused you to complain more.

Jungkook let out a cute giggle at your bickering. He looked small in his oversized hoodie, it was a gray one this time with design of black swirls interwining and forming a heart. He would have to change before going out. He would melt otherwise.

They dropped you off at the set, having spent most of the thirty minute drive (John was a fast driver, always following the speed limit though) listening to music and talking about whatever came to mind. Jungkook had insisted on coming with when John dropped you off instead of waiting at the hotel for John to come back. He didn’t care that the drive would be more than an hour for him. You stepped out of the car, adjusted your backpack with all the papers and files inside and sent flying kisses to them while John rolled his eyes.

It was one of the good days, everyone was in a relatively good mood, they were listening to you and the conversations about the problems you were facing rolled smoothly. Will had taken over some of the most tiring tasks ignoring your protests so you were left to do most of the talking and the moral support part.

They worked quickly but there was no doubt that the sets wouldn’t be ready for filming to start on the initial date you had set, you would have to rely more on the sets in Los Angeles and film some scenes earlier than planned. Time was precious and you couldn’t waste it sitting around doing nothing.

Will was more than happy to give you a ride back to the city, you had many things to discuss on the way. You hadn’t been at this park before. It wasn’t the one you were considering for filming but it was just as nice. John had texted you where they were and you had typed the address in Will’s GPS. It was way past lunch and you wondered if they hadn’t left the park since the morning. That was a lot of hours spent in a park.

You followed the cobblestone path, tall trees framing the way adorned with green leaves and tiny flowers. Sending a quick message to John asking him about more specific directions, you stopped at a bridge arching over a small river and rested your elbows on the railing waiting for the reply.

You missed home in a way you hadn’t before. Home hadn’t always been Los Angeles, it had taken a long time for you to see it that way. It had been your hometown at first and that would always remain a part of you but it had been years since you had stayed there for more than two weeks. Home had been a suitcase and a vague idea of belonging for the most of your adult life. Being at a new place every few months, often more than that, you traveled and met people, you explored new places and learnt their secrets and culture. Los Angeles was just the base you returned to before you were gone again.

And then you had met Taylor and Zayn and suddenly you had a reason to come back other than necessity. They had become your closest friends and you held a new appreciation for the city because that’s where you spent time with them, strolling through the streets and going to the beach or staying inside watching movies or baking.

And through Zayn you had met Jacob and Los Angeles became more and more to you. The two of you had decided to build your life there together. That was gone now but the City of Angels had sneaked into your heart and made a home for itself there. Yet you hadn’t missed it like this before.

Texts and calls were fine for some time but not nearly enough. Jungkook was withdrawn while you talked to the other hybrids and Jimin’s voice got smaller and smaller every time the youngest refused to speak with him until he stopped trying. Namjoon and Jin tried to comfort him but the only person who could help was the one shutting him out. On top of that, Jimin tended to Hoseok’s wounds, the two hybrids were still at the Castle and you hoped they wouldn’t leave until you got back. You wanted to check in with Hoseok one more time before they were gone, back to the streets.

The streets… Those damn streets. Where Hoseok had been beat up, where Jimin and Jungkook had been attacked, where they didn’t know which day would be their last, starving or being beaten to death. You had done all you could, when they refused any more help, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be enough.

A whistle made you turn around.

“Are you going to stand there all day?” John called to you.

“Me?” you called back. “How long have you been here? Did you eat lunch?”

“We went to a restaurant nearby, John ordered the best from the menu. I told him to wait for you but he said you would be late,” Jungkook said.

You ruffled his hair and he shuffled closer to you. “Late… I’m not late, I didn’t say I would be back for lunch.”

Jungkook chuckled. “When are you back for lunch?”

You gasped. “You have been spending too much time with John. He’s corrupting you!”

On the other side of the bridge, the path opened up to a large expanse of grass with a few trees sprinkled in. Jungkook had his sketchpad with him and sat down against a tree with pieces of black charcoal, a method he had been experimenting with.

Next to him, you pulled out a notebook from your backpack, it was your personal space where you could write anything and everything. Drawing faint thick lines on the paper, Jungkook told you excitedly about his day with John, who was sitting at a bench talking on the phone with his family.

A shine you hadn’t seen in a while was back in Jungkook’s eyes. You took photos and sent them to the hybrids at home and rolled around in the grass. He pointed at the clouds and what each of them looked like. There was turtle, an elephant and a vase, although you insisted it looked more like an Egyptian cat.

Jungkook came with you to work later and although he was shy and stayed away from everyone else, trailing behind you like a lost puppy, he was smiling. Fascinated, he listened to your conversations about the show and the sets and admired the designs. Your co-workers cooed at the cute bunny hybrid and he flushed hiding behind you.

When the day was over and you were back at the hotel, you realized it was the most fun you’d had since coming to Virginia. Freshly showered with his wet hair sticking to his forehead, Jungkook slipped into the bed next to you.

“Did you have a good time?” you asked. In the quiet of the night it felt wrong for your voice to be louder than a whisper. “You can be honest with me. I won’t take it personally.”

A small smile simmered on Jungkook’s lips as he turned on his side to look at you. In the lights of the city coming through the window, his chocolate brown eyes seemed black. “I had the best of times. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. It was nice having you there, it was… different. A good different. You should come again tomorrow, to the sets outside the city this time.”

“I would like that,” he whispered.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Jungkook repeated in a breath.

It would be nice to have him with you. He wasn’t distracting you, on the contrary you were more focused because you knew he was there watching you, you wanted to show him the best of you. This was far from the most exciting part of the process of making a film but it was necessary. Well, it wouldn’t have been necessary if someone hadn’t decided to purposely forget all about the safety measures but you had already dedicated too much of your energy being angry about it.

Once the actual filming had started you would take Jungkook with you and show him the behind the scenes of how a TV show was made. If he was fascinated with this part then he would love filming. The actors were incredible and they had found their connections to the characters, channeling them at the table readings, it would be even better when they were in the costumes on set.

“I liked it,” Jungkook said. “I really liked seeing you work.”

You smiled at the bunny. “You used to see me work every day at the Castle.”

“But it wasn’t the same.” Jungkook laid his head on his hand. “You looked different there,” he said. “You looked powerful, like you could do anything. Everyone looked at you like you had all the answers.”

“It was a good day, I guess. It isn’t always like that. I might look confident and like I have everything under control all the time but that’s far from the truth.”

For all of your fame and the praise you received, you did make mistakes, you got stuck and felt helpless against some problems. Not everyone listened to you and you got into arguments with the executive producers sometimes. And you weren’t always the one who was right.

“Looking confident is half of the job, even when you don’t feel like it. It’s one of those situations where ‘fake it till you make it’ is a requirement. When you want to be heard you have to look and act like you are sure of what you’re doing, especially when you are a young woman at an important position. If you don’t, people begin to doubt you and if they doubt you, they will begin to talk over you and disregard your opinions. That was the first lesson I learnt on this job.”

At seventeen, you had been in charge of directing “Land of the Gods” and it wasn’t all smooth sailing, much less at the beginning. You were young, too young for most of them. You couldn’t direct such a project they said. They questioned your every move and decision, every correction you made and everything you said to the actors during a scene. They didn’t take you seriously until halfway through filming and even then they didn’t hesitate to question your authority. A constant battle of wills.

But it had gotten you here. You couldn’t complain.

“You’ve done so many things,” Jungkook said as if in awe. “All those shows and movies. And they are all so good. You are so talented. I could have never achieved what you have even if I wasn’t…” He left the sentence hanging.

You adjusted your position, laying on your forearm. “I don’t believe that, I think you would be marvelous at whatever you did. You have the dedication and that’s half of the job done. About me…” You let out a small chuckle. “I was very young when I started, I’m still young considering my profession, and I had so many ideas. I still have so many of them.” Or you used to, before the buzz in your brain became just noise. “And I don’t want to wait so long the industry gets tired of me, I have to take advantage of the light as long as it’s on me.”

“I don’t think they can get tired of you, not when your movies and shows are… like that. I couldn’t get tired of them,” Jungkook said. “It’s just- I’m not-” Frustrated, he cut himself off. “You work too much. I’m just… When was the last time you had a break? An actual break without working in any form.”

You opened your mouth to answer and closed it again. It certainly wasn’t this year and it wasn’t last year either. When you had taken a break to buy and decorate the house, you had been answering calls about work when you had been choosing the paints for the walls and writing scripts while you discussed floor plans. Break for you wasn’t a time you didn’t work but rather a time they couldn’t call you to the offices or the set.

“It’s been a while,” you said in the end. “I’ve got a lot of things going on, I don’t really have the time to take a break. I can’t leave them hanging, they rely on me.”

“Maybe they shouldn’t. Not so much.”

But that’s how it has always been for as long as you could remember. You were involved in every single part of the process, in every decision, from the scripts, to casting, to the set and costume design, to the actual filming, the post-production and the editing. Supervising and making sure that everything was right. That was your charm, that was one of the reasons you were one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. Each project was a part of yourself. If you let those responsibilities go, what would that mean for you? What would they say about you?

The air-conditioning made a small sound as the room reached the desired temperature. The setting wasn’t too low, a pleasant coolness replacing the stifling heat. The thick walls of the hotel kept the heat of the day trapped inside, something that would be very beneficial in winter but a lot less so in spring nearing summer.

“Anyway, I think we’ll be done in a few days,” you said. “We’ll probably be home by the end of the week. The new plans have been drawn and there is only one more meeting I have to attend and that’s more for appearances’ sake than anything else. The rest is up to the crew here.”

Jungkook’s smile wavered. “So soon? Don’t you have any more work? The people here seemed to need you.”

“They don’t need me, there is nothing more I can offer them. My place right now is in Los Angeles, that’s where they need me.” You nudged his foot with yours, your knees were close enough to touch every time you moved. “But that’s not what you’re nervous about, is it?”

Jungkook shook his head, hiding half of his face in the pillow. “I don’t want to go back.”

“Kookie…” You nudged his foot again until your legs were intertwined underneath the thin sheets. “Staying here won’t help anyone. You have to talk to him.”

Jungkook closed his eyes as if the conversation pained him. “He shouldn’t want to talk to me.”

“But he does. You know he has been asking for you,” you said.

“He stopped.”

“Because you never replied. Doing this, pulling away and ignoring him, you’re hurting him more than whatever you feel guilty for. You didn’t see how sad he was every time you didn’t show up for a meal or when he called for you and you ignored him. You’re hurting him and I know that isn’t what you want so why do you keep doing it?”

A sob clawed out of Jungkook’s throat and he tried to muffle it with his fist. Your eyes widened at the sound, instinctively pulling the younger boy into your arms. He didn’t fight you, holding on to you like you were the only thing keeping his afloat, hiding his face in your neck as the sobs he couldn’t suppress fell from his lips.

“What… What I did to him was h-horibble. I-I took adva-advantage of him,” Jungkook chocked out as his tears dampened your skin. “And I know, I know he’s going to forgive me. But I don’t want him to. He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t forgive-” A sob cut him off. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

You run your hands through his hair, scratching gently at the base of his bunny ears, something that used to calm him down. “Baby… You should let him have that choice, you can’t take it away from him.”

“I can’t forgive myself,” he muttered, desperation and heartbreak seeping into his voice like water through the cracks of a dam until it breaks.

“If Jimin can forgive you then you can work towards forgiving yourself. All I know is that you love each other too much to continue like this.”

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

It was the fifth day you were gone. Seokjin had been keeping track, the equivalent of another line engraved on the wall of a cell. He had been going to sleep and waking up alone in a bed that felt too large for one person. He had added more blankets and stuffed animals decorating embellishing his nest but it did nothing for the feeling of emptiness covering it like a veil.

You called every day and texted them religiously, it was more than he could have expected but much less than what he craved. Jungkook sent photos of the hotel suite and of every place he visited with short captions. Seokjin smiled as his heart constricted.

It was the fifth day you were gone and he was sitting at the large table in the back garden, drinking tea at the time he would have been bringing yours before you had to go back to work. Jin didn’t consider himself a clingy person. He was loyal and protective of the people he loved, he obeyed his past owners and he took care of them. But this was new. It had been five days, the number didn’t change but Jin felt like it had been much longer than that. When his past owners left it wasn’t for long, less than two weeks, he didn’t have the time to miss them. He hadn’t missed them. Two weeks. Five days.

Jungkook would be nagging at him by now, tugging his arm or foot or whatever part of him he could get and if Jin didn’t give in the bunny hybrid would sprawl himself next to the older with his head in his lap. Despite Seokjin warnings about getting splashed with tea or coffee in the face, Jungkook stayed there.

If you were back from work, a rare occurrence, you would insist you all spent that time together. Like a family.

Family. Such a peculiar word. It was one of those words Seokjin couldn’t grasp the real meaning of. He was a hybrid, he didn’t have parents, the one who had given birth to him had delivered him to the scientists earning a large amount of money for her services. His first owners had trained him harsher than a pet and treated him like a servant or a living piece of decor. It didn’t matter if he’d thought of them as his family to feel better for himself, they owned him and they didn’t let him forget.

He didn’t know what having a family felt like. But he guessed it felt a lot like the mornings before you left for work and Jungkook was bickering with Jimin about how much he could eat while Namjoon was smirking into his coffee.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

Seokjin startled, the mug trembling dangerously in his hands. Another hand enveloped his to steady it. “How do you do that? I almost had a heart attack.”

Namjoon smiled sheepishly. “You aren’t the first one to say that, about the heart attack. I’ll try to make more noise next time.”

There was only a tiny bit of tea left at the bottom of the mug so Seokjin placed it on the table to avoid any more surprises that could threaten its survival. “Are you going somewhere?” he asked, looking at the black backpack Namjoon was wearing.

“I’m going for a walk in the forest. Would you like to join me?”

“Like this?” he gestured to his casual attire.

“Maybe you should wear different shoes,” he said referring to the slippers he was wearing.

Seokjin was tempted to say no, sugar gliders might be native to forests but he didn’t have the same ease among trees. But he was tired of being in his own company and something inside him was screaming to go and be with his pack. After all, it was impossible to not give into Namjoon’s dimples.

“Okay, I’ll come with you. Just don’t lead us so far away we won’t be able to come back.”

Namjoon’s smile widened as Jin left to change his shoes. His sneakers were in a box under his bed. He had worn them only once because he preferred wearing his slippers in the house or the gardens. These sneakers were the ones he had on when you had gone to the lake before you had to go back to work and be away for most of the day.

The wolf hybrid was waiting in the back garden for him by the curtain of vines with the purple blooms. The mug was nowhere in sight.

“Ready?” Namjoon asked him.

“Ready,” Seokjin said, not paying any mind to the fluttering in his stomach.

Namjoon pulled the curtain of vines aside, the path stretching ahead. The forest was alive in spring, trees green and tall, creating shade for the small creatures roaming around to hide from the sun. And when a few sun-rays slipped through the spaces between the branches and the leaves, they looked like a touch from the gods.

Namjoon navigated the forest with practiced ease and Seokjin had a feeling the wolf hybrid knew exactly where they were going. He just hoped Jimin wouldn’t look for them while they were gone, but knowing Namjoon he had probably already told Jimin. Or Jimin could call them. Seokjin wasn’t used to having his own phone and often he forgot he had the device.

Staying close to Namjoon, he kept his eyes on the ground. A poor attempt to keep his tripping to the minimal. But the forest was conspiring against him. Roots, stones, sticks, everything he could trip over was in his path.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Namjoon stopped, turning to look at him. He smirked. “It’s a surprise.”

“No, I prefer no surprises,” Jin said. Rock. He stepped over it, avoiding a possible humiliating fall. “Tell me where we’re going. Is it far?”

“Not too far.” Not too far for Namjoon could be totally different from Seokjin’s idea of not too far. “I swear to you we aren’t getting lost today. I know this part of the forest like the back of hand and I have a good sense of direction. See?” He pointed to the direction of a large tree on his right. “That’s north,” he pointed to the opposite direction, “and that-”

Before he could finish, Seokjin had tripped over a protruding root. He hadn’t seen it, being too focused on Namjoon. He let a shriek as he tumbled to the ground, scratching his hands as they came in contact with the ground fist.

Namjoon called his name but he hadn’t been fast enough. He grasped Seokjin’s elbows pulling him up so he was sitting instead of laying face down on the dirt.

“Are you alright?” Namjoon asked, kneeling next to him, and Seokjin felt heat travel to his face and his chest tightening. He had an urge to flee and forget that had happened. Namjoon didn’t give him the chance though. He took his hands in his, turning them over and inspecting the damage. Dirt was clinging on the flesh and Namjoon blew on them to make some it go away. “We need to clean this.” He pulled out a water bottle from his backpack and poured water on his hands. It did sting a little but Seokjin was used to much worse than this.

Thin lines were etched on his palm, none of them bleeding. His hands had taken most of the burnt of the fall. The pride he had been piecing back together hurt more than his body did.

“We should go back,” Namjoon said, letting his hands go. Seokjin mourned the loss then reprimanded himself for it. “Maybe coming here wasn’t a good idea.”

“I’m fine,” he said. He didn’t like the frown on Namjoon’s face. “We don’t have to go back. I don’t want to go back.” He cleared his throat. His face, neck and ears felt impossibly hot.

Namjoon regarded him with careful eyes. “Are you sure? Does it hurt anywhere?”

“Really, I’m fine,” he repeated. He put one hand on the ground to steady himself and get back on his feet. It didn’t work very well because as soon as Namjoon saw him moving he was helping him up supporting most of his weight. “It wasn’t painful, more embarrassing than anything else,” Seokjin muttered. Despite the low tone, Namjoon heard him and his face smoothed. “Let’s go. We will never get to that place you want before nightfall at this rate.”

Namjoon chuckled shaking his head. “If you say so.” Seokjin expected him to start walking but instead he laced their fingers together. “Is this okay? I don’t want you falling again. If you trip again I’ll keep you up or at least we’ll fall together.”

Seokjin huffed out a laugh, lightheaded. Namjoon wasn’t distant but he wasn’t open with his affection like Jimin or Jungkook or even you and feeling his hand in his had ignited something inside him he was struggling to bury.

They held hands all the way to the secret destination. Seokjin tripped a couple more times, the rocks and the roots were still there and Namjoon was too distracting, but he kept his balance. Namjoon held on his hand tighter whenever he lost his footing and he allowed himself to consider it for a moment before banishing the idea.

The walk wasn’t too long and as the trees thinned out a little, a few large rocks emerged from the ground. They had climbed higher than the level of the house, the forest and the lake stretching under them. On the side the Castle peeked between the trees and the road leading to the city.

Namjoon helped him up the rock while he complained for the sake of it. They sat down to rest and Namjoon offered him the bottle of water he had used before, plenty of water was left inside. Seokjin insisted they shared it, he had already used half of it on him anyway.

“You like being outside so much, you have walked through most of the forest. You go on walks every day. Why don’t you go out with Y/N? Or around the neighborhood?” he asked. Namjoon wasn’t someone who could be contained in a house, he needed to be outside, and the forest looked too small for him.

Namjoon crossed his hands over his bent knee. “Being in the forest is easier. I can’t explain it but it’s familiar territory. Outside the forest, outside the house, that’s different. I know the streets of Los Angeles, I’ve spent more time on them than I would have liked. And now things are different but those streets are the same. I don’t think I’m ready to go back there alone.”

Seokjin’s heart constricted at the reminder of what the three hybrids he held so dearly had been through. He was spoiled, he couldn’t have survived a life in the streets. But if he was with them… If he was with them maybe it would would have been worth it.

It was a dangerous world for lone hybrids, people were eager to take advantage of them and hybrid services were always lurking in large cities like Los Angeles. Going outside alone could be an invitation for harassment from a few sick people who thought they were entitled to hybrids’ lives because humans created them, who thought they were lesser. Seokjin hadn’t been allowed to be alone outside, his owners believed it was indecent and disrespectful for hybrids to walk alone or stay alone.

“Do you want to go outside in the city?” Namjoon asked.

Seokjin hugged his knees. “I wouldn’t know where to go or what to do. I’ve never been out alone.”

Namjoon nodded. “That’s alright. It was nice being out for Spring Cleaning, I saw the city in a different light.”

Seokjin smiled, for him it hadn’t been only the city he had seen in a different light. “I would like to go out one day.”

“I would like that too,” Namjoon said softly.

But Seokjin didn’t think of going alone. He thought of being with Namjoon holding his hand so they wouldn’t lose each other or an excited Jungkook hopping around with Jimin chasing him.

Namjoon’s phone beeped with a message and he pulled it out of his backpack to read it. A smile spread on his face at whatever he was seeing. Seokjin wanted to lean closer and look at what was making him smile but he held himself back. There were only three people it could be from.

“Jungkook is playing her assistant,” Namjoon said, turning the screen so Seokjin could take a look at the photo. Jungkook was looking to the side, probably at someone talking to him, carrying two folders and a few loose papers. Seokjin’s heart softened at the sight, Jungkook looked content there. Excited and a little confused.

Seokjin took the phone in his hands. “I’m sure he insisted on carrying them for her. Doesn’t she have an assistant?”

Namjoon nodded. “Yeah, Will. But I’m not sure he’s that kind of assistant.”

“Maybe she should keep Jungkook on set, he could carry anything she wanted,” he joked. Their bunny could pick up all of them without getting tired, Seokjin had been his victim enough times to know that.

Jungkook had been doing better, his messages were more frequent and he talked more on the phone. He had been doing better but Seokjin was missing him a lot. But he couldn’t be selfish with this, going away had been good for him and if it hurt a little that he needed to be away from them, Seokjin didn’t utter a word. He had heard him sniffling at night, covering his mouth to muffle the sounds. Seokjin didn’t know how to comfort him so he just held him tighter.

Namjoon sighed, taking his phone back and hiding it in the backpack. He sighed. “Jimin is hiding away again. He barely spoke to me before locking himself in the cinema room. I don’t understand what is going on between them. Jungkook had to travel to the other side of the States to get away. I can’t get a word about what happened from either of them. Jungkook says he did something horrible to him and Jimin doesn’t want to say anything about it. And every time Jungkook pulls back from him I can see how much it hurts them both and I can’t do anything about it.”

“They don’t want us to do anything about it but they need us next to them,” Seokjin said, looking ahead at the sun slowly descending in the sky.

Namjoon let the silence stretch before speaking, “I’m grateful you’re with us, that you chose to stay. I don’t like to think about how it would have been without you.”

Seokjin turned his head away. “I didn’t do anything special. I am not that important.”

A hand touched his cheek, leading him gently until he was face to face with Namjoon looking into his hazel, almost golden, eyes. “Listen to me when I say this; you are important to us. You are pack and your place is with us here. I’ll be honest, I was weary at first but you fit right in like you were always meant to be with us. You belong with us and we’ll never let you go or get tired of you. You give so much without even realizing it.” His thumb rubbed small circles on his skin leaving burning trails behind. A heavy cloud had covered everything around him and all he could see was hazel eyes. “All I ask you is to let us take care of you, too.”

And before his doubts could stop him he surged forward. Namjoon caught him in his arms, cradling the oldest’s neck as he hid his face in his neck breathing in his scent. Time was meaningless there.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

You were taking a short break. John had delivered your second cup of coffee for the day and a smoothie for Jungkook who disliked the bitter taste of coffee with passion. It was a mostly practical day that didn’t require a lot of moving around. You had been meeting up with people since the crack of dawn and discussing the best ways to cover up the disaster in a way that wouldn’t turn the public against the show or the studios. So far, you had been holding off any reporters from including the overlooked safety measures when publishing the news about the collapsed sets.

After being inside all day, you had decided to take a stroll around the block. Jungkook was walking next to you sipping his smoothie. He was wearing a simple black chocker with a silver charm.

He was telling you about a video he had seen on YouTube when your phone started ringing. Your nickname for Taylor was displayed across the screen with a photo of her pulling out a tray of cookies from the over.

“Hey, Tay,” you said.

“I called at the right time, didn’t I?”

“Just the perfect time, I have around twenty minutes before I have to go back. Work has been kicking my ass.”

Taylor laughed. “I’m sure you’ve been kicking its ass too. And better.”

You had told her around what time you would be taking your break. You hadn’t talked on the phone since coming to Virginia and you had missed her voice.

You stopped at a bench and Jungkook pulled out his phone. You felt a little bad for talking on the phone when it was the two of you but you had really missed Taylor and it wouldn’t take long anyway. She had been busy with Astrid, getting to know her better and helping her adapt to the new environment. When you had visited the hybrid had looked enamored with Taylor, you knew your friend would be amazing at taking care of a hybrid.

The conversation soon turned to you but you didn’t have much to share. Work was the same regardless the disaster but Taylor was more interested in other things.

“It has been almost a year since you and Jacob broke up. Don’t you have your sight on anyone? Any flirts? It isn’t like you lost the one and only,” she said.

Jacob had been far from the one and only. And when she asked, your mind went to dangerous places.

“Just because you found your man doesn’t mean we are all that lucky,” you said. “And how am I supposed to find anyone? I’m too busy.” From the corner of your eye you saw Jungkook turning to look at you with an unreadable expression.

Taylor continued, “Aren’t there any cute boys on set? At work? There has to be someone. Don’t bury yourself in work and forget to live. I’m not saying you need a man to be happy or complete, but don’t you miss going on dates? Getting to know someone like that?”

The answer came to you unbidden but it wasn’t something you were ready to say. “Maybe after the TV show, for now I really have to focus. After that is done and I don’t have to worry about anymore earthquakes, I’ll see where I’ll end up.”

You knew Taylor cared for you and she worried about how deep you threw yourself into work. Maybe there was also a small part that was still uncertain about the way you and Jacob had broken off things and the way you had avoided the topic like the plague for the first months. Like you and Jacob had never happened. But looking at boys and dating had been the last thing on your mind.

Ending the call with Taylor promising to text her when you got off work, you patted the small of Jungkook’s back. It was time to walk back. The smoothie was half-finished, the way it had been before, like he hadn’t taken a sip since sitting down.

You asked him if there was something wrong but he replied that everything was alright. It didn’t look like that was the case. He stayed close to you all day, more clingy than he had been the whole time you had been in Virginia, wary of the men who talked to you.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

The blue sky and fluffy clouds reflected on the lake, a huge mirror creating another sky on its surface, a more vibrant but precise copy. No boats cut through the water, it was like there was a part of the sky that had made its home on the ground. Trees extended on every side of the lake, so many of them one next to the other with no end in sight.

The grass tickled Jimin’s palms swaying in the gentle wind. He breathed in the fresh morning.

“One day we’ll go on a boat ride.” Jungkook was sitting next to him, his long bangs falling at the sides of his face. “We’ll see every part of the lake, not just this. We’ll go everywhere.”

Flowers bloomed all around them, white and blue petunias, chrysanthemums and lilies. Jimin wanted to cut the most beautiful one and tuck it behind Jungkook’s ear. He turned to tell him but hands were holding the back of his neck and lips devouring his. He gripped Jungkook’s arms to steady himself from the force of the kiss. The sweet aroma of the flowers filled him up, engulfing every part of his being, the deepest crevices and the smallest of cracks.

Jungkook pushed him back so he was laying on the grass and Jimin let him, too drunk off the flowers and soft lips. Touches on his cheeks and his sides, caresses under his shirt. He was burning.

It didn’t take long for the panic to set in. With weak arms, he pushed Jungkook away. The air wouldn’t reach his lungs. The scent of the flowers turned stale and bitter.

“We can’t,” he tried to say but his voice wasn’t coming out right, sticking in his throat and refusing to flow.

Jungkook pulled back. His eyes were darker than before. “Is this it? Am I too common for his highness? You didn’t have any reservations about the panther hybrid, did you? Are you attracted to power, Jiminie? Or do you open your legs only for him?”

There were sharp blades piercing Jimin’s chest. How did he know? Who had told him? No one was supposed to know.

Two figures were hiding between the trees in the darkness the day couldn’t chase away. Your hands were crossed in front of your chest and Yoongi was standing right behind you.

Jimin took a step back colliding with the fountain at the entrance of the Castle. The house was looming over him, ominous and tall as if it could touch the sky. His clothes were torn, dirt and blood staining them. They were the clothes he had been wearing the day you had found them.

“I’m sorry but you can’t stay here anymore,” you said. You knew what he had done, you knew his dirty secret and he was paying for it again. He would be paying for it his whole life. A pain so powerful he felt like he was dying bloomed in his chest as rivers of tears rolled down his cheeks. His knees were weak. He couldn’t stand.

He searched in the faces of his pack, of the people he loved so much he thought his heart would burst. Nothing but sneers and gazes of pity. Whore, they whispered. Slut. Worthless.

Jimin crumbled to his knees. He was dying. He was sure he was dying. Spasms wrecked his body as he sobbed. He had nowhere to go, he had no one but them. He couldn’t live without them.

And when he thought it was over, that it was the last breath he was taking. He opened his eyes. His chest was heaving, his heart beating like a wild animal scratching at the bars of its cage. He was in their room, the glass wall looking out at the forest. Only the moonlight fought the darkness.

The sheets were restricting him and pushing him down, tangled around his body. Frantic movements born out of desperation took over his body and he stumbled over the edge of the bed, falling hard on the floor with the sheets wrapped around his legs.

And it overflowed.

The sobs and tears. He pulled at his hair and scratched his skin. They couldn’t know. No, they could never know. You would never look at him the same way. He would lose the only home he has ever known.

He wanted to scream. Scream until his lungs were empty and his body stopped shaking. Scream until he didn’t feel worthless and used like an old toy forgotten in a corner of the attic.

There were arms around him, prying his hands away from his hair and skin. He tried to pull away but they only held tighter until he gave in and sunk into their warmth. Blood was rushing to his ears and he only made out his name falling from the other person’s lips. He rocked in his arms, cursing himself and the world. Weak. He was so weak.

Fucking pathetic.

He gripped the hands holding him. He focused on the voice speaking although he couldn’t understand what it was saying. He choked on the bile in his throat, his body shaking with his sobs.

“Jiminie, breath. Just breath,” the voice said and Jimin tried to listen to it. He did. But it felt like he hadn’t been able to breath for a while. “Just like this. Breath with me. That’s right, like this. Breath. You’re doing so well, Minie.”

Spent, Jimin fell on the chest behind him, shaky breaths leaving his lips. One of the hands rubbed his stomach over his nightshirt.

“There. You’re alright. You’re alright.”

Jimin swallowed with difficulty down his scratchy throat. “Joonie?”

“I’m here. I’m here, Minie,” the other said. Jimin didn’t have the energy to look at him, laying his head on the older’s shoulder. “I’m right here.”

His breathing stuttered. Another tear escaping from his eyes, he thought he’d run out of them. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhh, don’t say that. Please don’t say that.” Namjoon’s voice was unsteady and it hurt Jimin knowing he had been the cause of it. “You’re alright. I’m always here for you but I can’t protect you from your head.”

Jimin’s tail wrapped around one of Namjoon’s arms as Jimin sniffled. “I don’t want to be alone. Please, please don’t let me go. Don’t make me leave.”

“Never. I’ll never leave you. We’ll never leave you. I’d do anything in this world to keep you safe.” Namjoon caressed his arm, moving upwards and pressing his fingers against Jimin’s left scent gland. Jimin’s whole body trembled, shivers overtaking him. Namjoon rubbed his nose against the other side of his neck, leaving kisses behind. Purring, Jimin arched his neck.

“I love you,” Jimin whispered, unable to stop the tears from falling.

Namjoon kissed over his scent gland and Jimin felt it everywhere. “I love you, Minie. So much.”

#bts #bts hybrid au #btscreatorscorner #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #jimin x reader #namjoon x reader #seokjin x reader #yoongi x reader #hoseok x reader #taehyung x reader #poly!bts x reader #poly!bts #bts fanfic #jikook #sope #bts scenarios #bts angst #bts fluff

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imaginethatneathuh · 3 years

Text

Old Friend: Mad Sweeney - American Gods

Mad Sweeney x friend!reader, platonic

TW/CW: Anger, mentions of violence, mentions of pollution, arguments, insults, yelling, etc.

Word count: Almost 1.8 K

I tried.

Summary: An old nature god wants to fight but has lost their will until an old friend gives them a stern talking to.

•

That field had once been filled with trees and animals. Now, it was almost completely barren save for the insects and grass. Thousands of trees, thousands of them, cut to the stump and even the stumps were ripped out. Thousands of homes lost and torn away by humanity. Thousands upon thousands of animals scattered from their homes and pushed out by greed, and a lack of empathy and understanding. Thousands of innocents gone, dead, or pushed out.

That was a constant thought as you sat in the empty field.

There was once a time when humans respected the earth and its bounty. When humans gave back and treated their home with kindness and respect. Those days have long since passed. Now, they flood the oceans, rivers, lakes, and ponds with filth, and they take too much. Always acting like what they take is never enough. They tear apart the land to build or to farm, forgetting the ways of old and what would happen if they went too far. Forgetting the wildfires and the earthquakes, the tsunamis and tornados. Forgetting that the earth was very much alive and willing to destroy those who destroy them.

Maybe it was time to make them remember. To strike fear back into their hearts and make them pray again.

You stood and screamed into what was once a beautiful forest.

The humans had gone so far and done so much damage. You needed to stop them before they destroyed everything, even themselves. You needed to protect what they took advantage of. You needed to fight against them.

But, how could you? Your power was shrinking. Sure, some people fought for the earth, but none believed in you. You were only kept alive by leaching from the worship of other gods like yourself and the belief of the common human held for the planet. None was your own. None knew of you. None truly believed in you, not even by faint memory. You were worse than a forgotten god, in your book. A parasite simply living because you were too stubborn to let go. Maybe it was time to.

“You seem more pissed than usual,” a familiar Irish voice said.

You looked over your shoulder to see Mad Sweeney standing there, smoking one of his disgusting cigarettes.

“Leprechaun,” you growled before turning back. “Go away.”

You could hear him approach, the dirt and what was left of the trees crunching beneath his feet. He stopped beside you.

“It’ll grow back,” he said. “With time.”

Scoffing, you said, “But how much of that is left?”

‘For us and for them?’ you thought.

He nodded in understanding. “Not much. Not enough.”

Though you fought hard, tears pricked at your eyes.

The world had once been beautiful, peaceful, but since the humans forgot, they had destroyed so much. Hell, even before they forgot, their kind seemed determined to destroy each other and what was around them.

Though you weren’t around during prehistoric times, you had met other gods a long time ago who had. They had faded away many years ago, but they had passed on their stories. Stories of hunter-gatherers and small tribes. Stories of wanderers rarely passing by each other. Stories of a world so new and a people so young that they had yet to look to the stars in search of more.

You wished you had lived during those times. And that you had passed long before this one.

There were those who hadn’t forgotten, who tried to live by the old ways, but they were dwindling every day. They tried but rarely for long. It simply wasn’t sustainable in this day and age. You blamed that New God, World for that. Then, there were those who spoke of change, but rarely changed in the slight. Those were the type of people you hated most of all.

You knew it wasn’t entirely humanity’s fault.

No, it was, but you didn’t want to believe it. You didn’t want to believe that such a promising species could be so cruel and hateful.

Humans had created a world where innocents were murdered with no rhyme or reason, where wars slaughtered millions for the greed of man. At least the Aztecs did it with purpose outside of riches with their human sacrifices. These modern humans had made a world filled with bigotry, hatred, and pain. These once brilliant creatures devolved, fighting and killing each other for no reason. They had done that for many, many years, but now, they were destroying the world around them, too.

It was the corporations that filled the world with their waste, thinking nothing of it, and exploiting the natural resources around them. You knew that. But the empty, heartless, cruel monster behind those corporations were human. The CEOs who didn’t care. The menial worker who was trying to survive in a soulless world. The executives who allowed this to go on and even encouraged it. As long as money lined their pockets, they didn’t care what happened to the forests and the oceans. The only ones who did were the tree companies who replanted their unnatural forests. After all, if all the trees are gone, how are they supposed to make more paper, pencils, planks, etc, to sell?

It was the governments who didn’t care because it didn’t involve them until they had to say something. They only ever seemed to do anything when they were called out on it. Sometimes, even then, they didn’t.

It was the media who only ever paid attention when nature struck back or when there was a good headline. They rarely even batted an eye at the beauty it had to offer.

It was the technology that caused ignorance and made people so addicted that they rarely enjoyed it unless it was to take pictures for their social media accounts or something of the like.

The leprechaun placed a hand on your shoulder.

“Are you going to do something about it? Or are you going to stand here, moping about like some fuckin’ coward?” He asked. “You a fuckin’ coward now? Is that how it is?”

You glared. “Let me mourn for my loss, Leprechaun.”

He snorted. “In the words of a wise god, ‘Angry is good. Angry get’s shit done.’ Don’t mourn, Y/N, get angry.” He took a drag from his cigarette. “You think I mourned when my people were attacked? No. I got angry and I fuckin’ took care of it.” Flicking the cigarette to the ground, he spoke again, turning toward you, “The forests are growing smaller, nature is being taken over. The people? They’re losing respect. Show ‘em why they should fear you. Make ‘em remember before there is nothing left to remember.”

He spoke of all the things you wanted to do. But the fire inside did not burn as bright as it once had.

You glared at the leprechaun before he succumbed and picked his cigarette up, stuffing it in his pocket. “Sorry,” he said.

You turned to the barren land.

“I will think about your words but I make no agreement of what is to be done.”

Mad Sweeney scoffed, letting his eyes wander over the torn ground.

“You know who’s responsible for this,” he said. “Do something about it.”

Tears fell down your face.

“They have a solution for everything. Every disaster, every famine, everything. There is nothing I can do. I want to. I want to fight back, but I am not as strong as I once was.” You sighed, pained, and looked to the ground. “Age has whittled me down. And they have grown too powerful.”

Mad Sweeney rolled his eyes. “Oh, fuck that,” he said before gesturing widely. “Without their technology, they’re nothin’. You fuckin’ hear me. Nothin’. Without the ability to work as one and without the ability to spread the information, they are as weak as a forgotten god.” Standing in front of you, he looked you in the eye. “Make the sky rain with blood. Poison ‘em. Burn ‘em. Shake ‘em to their very fuckin’ cores. Make ‘em beg and pray to the Earth, to you, again. Destroy what gives ‘em the power to forget and they will pray as they always should.”

You nodded to yourself.

The leprechaun was right, of course. They were nothing without their New Gods. Still, his words seemed too unlike him. And too much like a certain other god. Like a call to war.

“He put you up to this, didn’t he?” You asked.

The leprechaun straightened.

“I don’t need his fuckin’ permission to get yer mind in the right fuckin’ space,” he said. “We’ve known each other a long, long while, Y/N. Longer than I care to remember. Yer very fuckin’ essence is that of the Earth. To protect it is yer only reason to live. Are you really going to stand by and let it be destroyed?”

You looked at him, taking in his words. Separating anger from logic, you nodded and stared out, the wind and bright sun making you glare.

“You are right, old friend.” Your voice sounded distant as you considered your options. “But, as I said before, I am old, Leprechaun. Too old. This is a younger god’s fight.”

It pained you to say. You wanted to fight against them. To bring back the Earth’s power. The anger you had felt before dwindled. You were too weak and too old.

Mad Sweeney scoffed. “A younger god’s fight? Really? Yer pullin’ that bullshit on me? Mr Wood, or whatever the fuck they call him, left his forest behind. Most nature spirits and gods, like Pan and his satyrs, old Asintmah, Aranyani, and Grand Bois, have lost their will to fight. Are you going to do the same? You going to give up?” He hissed. “Nature is more powerful than anything humans could ever believe in or create. Don’t tell me you believe the bullshit the fuckin’ humans pour out about how they can fight nature. Look at fuckin’ Chernobyl. Look how nature has retaken it. There is no species more destructive than humans and nothing as powerful as nature. An immovable object against an unstoppable force.” The leprechaun sighed. “Take it back before nothing is left.”

After getting no response, Mad Sweeney shook his head, muttering “Fuckin’ coward” under his breath and began to walk away.

“Where?” you called after him.

He turned back, mouth slightly agape.

“Where would we meet?” You asked. “For this war he is calling.”

Mad Sweeney smiled. “House on the Rock, Wisconsin.”

You nodded.

“I’ll see you there, old friend.”

“And I, you--” Mad Sweeney paused. “--Old friend.”

#mad sweeney #Pablo Schreiber #american gods #fanfiction #american gods fanfiction #old gods #pollution #anger #platonic #mad sweeney x reader

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tracybirds · 3 years

Text

I can officially switch the status of Being Known from “stuck” to “WIP” again :) It’s been over a year since the last update for various reasons but I’m very excited to go back to this one and provide a new chapter!

For those new to the story, this was prompted by @kenzie-running-free in March 2020 and slightly got out of hand 😅 I’ve never stopped thinking about it and I bit the bullet and deleted the entirety of Chapter Four a few days ago and let myself rewrite it from scratch.... and it WORKED!!! (use technique with caution... scariest thing I’ve ever done.....)

Anyway...

A ‘what-if’ story based on “The Man From TB5” where the Hood recognized John in the scene when he makes himself known (instead of John stuttering).... and then he gets kidnapped :)

[Part 1] | [Part 2] | [Part 3]

-----------

Darkness bled into John’s line of vision and he scrubbed desperately at his aching eyes. Time collapsed around him as he worked, the abruptly extinguished bulb the only hint of night. And every new day seemed to bring new weariness as he jolted awake by the sudden onslaught of light which interrupted the deepest part of sleep.

Just another tactic to keep him from gathering his wits together.

This morning, if it was morning, the brightly burning bulb was coupled with the scraping sound of a breakfast tray being shoved through the small slot that had been crudely and hastily carved in the door after he’d lain in wait and brought the tray down over one of the guard’s head. He’d left the man stunned on the floor and made it all the way to the end of the corridor before another guard had grabbed him from behind and thrown him bodily back into the room.

He’d woken to security footage of a fire ravaging a building, his own family on screen.

“They’re not looking for you,” sneered the Hood as he swept from the room.

No guards came in anymore.

Two days later, he’d been savagely poked in the eye when he’d tried to look through the new slot that had been hastily added to his door.

He spent hours every day, searching for a way to send out a message, or even create another receiver. Any link to the outside world would do. But it soon became apparent that the Hood had done one thing right in giving him access to an isolated system, keeping the holomonitor he’d been provided with separate even from his own devices.

One thing right among many.

John peered at the screen with his good eye, wincing at the torn skin that pulled over bruised muscle. His head spun as he stared at the endless commands, trying to replicate the spark of life no-one had ever found before EOS.

Not even him.

And that was the rub of it all.

John didn’t know, not after all his time studying EOS and her abilities, just how she’d been born of code and logical absolutes. How she could grow and change and evaluate her own mind in a way that not only seemed human, but was unquestionably so.

He glanced at the clock he’d created from scratch, counting the oscillations in the electrical current and spitting back a digital time at him. This ‘morning’ truly did correspond with the morning, and that meant the Hood would be paying him a visit for an update.

He wasn’t sure how much more time he could stall for until things got truly desperate.

How much time he had until he had to conclude that he was truly on his own.

* * *

“Scott, the floor’s unstable there!”

“I know what I’m doing, Alan.”

“Yes, but I have the numbers,” Alan replied, his voice cracking as he spoke. He spun the holo in his hands, checking and double checking the analysis that was running under his fingertips.

“Then the numbers are wrong.”

“They can’t be!”

“Alan,” said Scott, patiently. “I need you to check the parameters over again. I’m seeing two trapped vehicles, with no sign of ground stress, both much larger than me and more importantly containing passengers. I need to get them out of there.”

“Yes, but hang on–”

“There’s no time!”

Alan watched in horror as his big brother barrelled forwards. He crouched low as he ran, grabbing at nearby pylons for support. The ground heaved beneath his feet, but still Scott moved forwards steady and sure. Always with his eyes on the scared little boy in the back seat and a gentle smile on his face.

An alert ticked over into the red.

“Jump, Scott!” he yelled, watching the model floor cave in a split second before a real sinkhole opened beneath Scott’s feet.

“Alan, what’s happening up there?” came Virgil’s urgent voice, bound for home with Gordon from their own rescue.

Alan flipped the channel, realising in his hurry he’d accidentally broadcast his message to everyone.

“He’s fine,” he said, eyes still wide as he watched Scott shakily stand on the other side of the chasm. “The floor went.”

“What?”

“He’s fine, he’s fine!”

“Didn’t you run the simulation?”

“I did,” said Alan, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “He wouldn’t listen.”

Silence fell over the space station.

“Hey Alan, can you pilot Thunderbird One over to us? Got my hands full here.”

Scott’s voice rang out loud and clear. Five clear thermal images were standing around him, including one in his arms.

Alan fumbled for the call button.

“F.A.B. Scott.”

“I’ll talk to him, Alan,” said Virgil. His eyes were focused beyond him, but Alan could read the quiet fury beneath the clear focus on his own piloting.

“I can’t do it, Virgil,” whispered Alan. “I must have done something wrong, there must have been something he could see that I couldn’t.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” interrupted Virgil.

“He never would have done this to…”

Alan’s voice failed him.

Twenty-two thousand miles below, Virgil choked back his own distress. Gordon was chewing at his lip, staring anxiously at Alan. He leaned forward so he was in view of the holo.

“Hey, Allie,” he said. “John’s gonna be okay. And he’ll be giving Scott hell for ignoring the modelling like that soon enough.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Absolutely, I do,” said Gordon, cracking a grin. “No way, John would let Scott get away with that crap. Not even if he had to haunt him for the rest of his life in ghostly fury to do it.”

“Is he wrapping up now?” asked Virgil, eyes still pinched.

Alan looked down at the display.

“Yeah, he’s on his way home.”

“Right. EOS?”

“Virgil?” Her quiet voice was sullen and more than a little distracted.

“Got room in your processors for another task?”

EOS’s lights flashed suddenly, and Alan’s blood ran cold at the sight. Three weeks he’d been stationed on board Thunderbird Five and he still found himself walking on eggshells around EOS. Her frustration at turning up nothing in the holonet that could lead them closer to John morphed quickly from long, silent sulks to short outbursts of flying bagels and spinning gravity rings. He’d never forgotten the sight of John floating limply like a rag doll that had been torn apart one too many times by a playful, thoughtless, destructive child.

An angry EOS felt too close to losing his brother for good.

“Will it help, John?”

“It’ll keep his brother alive, and that will make it more likely for us to find him.”

“What can I do?”

“Lock Scott out of his controls, Order TB2-5711FR. Make sure Alan gets to Tracy Island before him. Redirect all calls to local authorities in the first instance, follow Protocol 24.”

“I’m not leaving,” argued Alan. “Don’t pull me from duty, I can do better.”

“No arguments.”

Alan wilted, knowing he had no choice but to follow Virgil’s instructions.

“This is done, Virgil,” said EOS, blankly.

“Thank you, EOS,” said Virgil, his manner still stiff and terse. He shifted his gaze from the open ocean in front of him to Alan, his expression softening. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Alan. If Scott takes his life into his own hands, that’s not on you. But we can’t have him in the field like that, cutting corners to get back to finding John. So, we need you down here in his place.”

“You can’t pull Scott,” said Alan, his eyes wide. “What would… well, what would Scott say?”

“We’re doing him a favour,” remarked Gordon with a sarcastic twist of his lips that made a mockery of his usual grin. “He wants to find John, we all do, but if he’s willing to risk lives and rescues to do it then he should put his energy into searching and we shouldn’t stop him.”

Alan swallowed, his eyes filling with tears that he angrily swiped away.

“Does he think we’re not looking just as hard?” he asked. “We haven’t forgotten him. Have we?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Alan,” said Virgil, firmly. “John would have our heads before we put the possibility of finding him above the certainty of ignoring people who need our help.”

“So, we keep going out there,” agreed Gordon. “And when, when Allie, Kayo and Lady P and Parker find something, and they will, we’ll be right there without a moment to lose.”

“I just don’t want him to think we’ve forgotten him.”

“John’s too smart for that,” said Gordon. “Promise you, Allie.”

* * *

He’d worked it out. Every time he did something to anger the Hood, innocent people paid for it in blood. There was no point in harming him directly, not when what the Hood wanted was inside his mind, ripe for extraction. But his heart and spirit could be broken, as a video feed periodically forced itself over his work to make him watch. Earthquakes, landslides, tidal waves, anything that would get International Rescue on the scene and off his scent.

Senseless destruction and despair epidemic across the world because he couldn’t make an AI fast enough.

But senseless destruction that he could use.

There was no doubt in his mind that his family knew the natural disasters were anything but, he could see it in the determined fury in Scott’s face, in the tense draw of Virgil’s shoulders, in the sardonic mockery in Gordon’s smile as he quietly pocketed yet another piece of equipment.

He didn’t see Alan, and he thought of his baby brother up in space often. None of his brothers had any real idea of the full extent of his contribution, no matter how grateful they were for his guidance, and he hated to know Alan would be forced into that knowledge.

He also suspected that when Alan did spill the beans, he’d find his own rotations scrutinised with a lot more care.

Still, the limited glimpses of his brothers did nothing to discourage him, and he found himself contemplating a plan of escape well into the long, cold nights.

He needed more information.

He needed access to an external holonet connection. And the only way he’d get near one was with a working AI.

Or something that could pass for a few minutes as one.

#john tracy #alan tracy #all the bros are there but these are our main perspectives today #thunderbirds are go #sometimes i fic #i need to update ao3 again don't i.....

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worryinglyinnocent · 3 years

Text

Fic: Haven (29/50)

Summary: They say Resembool is a haven, and they’re right. Lush pastures, quaint country town, farmers’ markets on Saturdays: a bucolic paradise.

But it’s more than that. Resembool is a haven for the runaways, the deserters, the people who don’t want to be found…

The Resembool community knows there’s something odd about Hohenheim, but they’re not going to let that stop them helping him out. This is Resembool after all, a place where no one has to hide and neighbours help neighbours, be they building a fence, chasing a sheep, or trying to save the country from an evil they inadvertently helped release centuries ago…

Or: A series of slices of life in an AU in which Hohenheim never leaves, and several broken state alchemists find hope and home in Resembool.

Rated: T

Haven

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [AO3]

Summary: Imrul and Al bond over a mutual love of cats.

Characters: Al, Imrul (Scar), Fahim (Scar’s brother), Winry

Imrul is still getting used to the automail arm. There are moments when he wonders if going through the surgery and all of the related pain and stress was worth it, but in the end, he knows that he has the mental fortitude to go on.

He’s sitting in the garden of the Rockbell home, the arm resting on the table. Winry’s told him that he needs to get used to moving the hand and trying to pick things up with it, but he’s been having some trouble with it and he needs to take a break. He looks down at the metal fingers, moving them carefully one by one, going through all the exercises that Winry and Pinako have taught him. It’s tedious work, but he can feel that he’s making progress, even if it’s in miniscule steps.

There’s a sudden rustling sound from the hedge next to him, and he looks over.

“Esther! Esther, no, don’t go through there! Esther!”

It sounds like Alphonse Elric’s voice, and his head pops up over the hedge.

“Oh, erm, hello Mr Imrul. How are you?”

“Fine, thank you Alphonse. Can I help you?”

“Erm, yeah, is Den loose in the garden?”

“No, she’s inside.”

“Good. Erm, give me a minute.”

Al’s head disappears again, but the hedge rustling continues, and a very fat cat fights its way through the greenery and waddles towards the patio where Imrul is sitting. As the cat gets closer, he sees that it’s not exactly fat, but rather about to burst with kittens. She plods to Imrul’s feet and sits down, looking up at him expectantly.

Instinctively, Imrul reaches down to pet her, but then realises he’s reached with the metal hand and stops short.

“It’s ok, she won’t mind.” Al is now coming in at the garden gate and making his way up the path towards them. “You can stroke her.”

Imrul just continues to look down at the metal hand. He doesn’t entirely trust himself to be gentle; the pressure reception is a little off and he has no fine motor function yet.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“No, no, it’s ok. Winry would say that it would be good for your rehab to try making gentle movements.” Al reaches them and sits down on the patio beside the cat, stroking her.

Her purr is like an earthquake; Imrul can almost feel it vibrating from where he’s still hovering above her.

“She’s your cat?”

“Sort of. Not really. She’s a stray, but I take care of her and make sure she’s safe and fed. She likes to pick fights with Den so I try to keep her out of here normally.” He pauses. “We can’t have animals at home, they’re allergic to my dad.”

Imrul raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you mean the other way round?”

“Nope.” He offers no further explanation, and instead gently lifts Esther up onto the table. For a stray she’s remarkably docile, even if her expression is a long-suffering one. “I’m sure that you can have one of the kittens when she has them. I don’t think Mom will let me keep them.” He strokes her again as she awkwardly lies down between them in a sunbeam.

Imrul reaches out with his left hand and strokes her soft fur.

“Did you have pet cats back home?” Al asks.

Imrul nods. “They were supposed to be kitchen cats really, mousers. Fahim always said I coddled them too much.” He smiles at the memory. “Maybe that’s true.”

Al laughs. “Well, I don’t think that Esther’s complaining.”

The cat in question is back to purring like nothing Imrul has ever heard, and he looks down at his metal hand again. He knows that he won’t be able to feel the heat or the softness of Esther’s fur through it, but he should be able to feel the vibration.

Very carefully, he touches the metal fingertips to her head. There’s a confused little ‘mrow?’ as she suddenly feels the cool, unyielding metal instead of warm hands, but Imrul strokes her with his left hand and she goes back to purring again. He can feel the resonance all the way up his automail arm and once again, he finds himself admiring Winry’s engineering expertise.

He strokes Esther’s head very carefully with one finger. She doesn’t seem to be perturbed.

“She likes you,” Al observes. “She normally gets bored and tries to bat people away by now.”

Imrul continues to pet Esther as gently as he possibly can. Her eyes are closed, legs stretched out in the sun, utterly content.

“Why did you call her Esther?” he asks Al.

“I don’t know. I figured she just looked like an Esther.” Al looks critically at the cat. “Dad says it means ‘star’ in one of the old Xerxian dialects. It’s a better name than Milkbeard. Ed wanted to call her that.”

Being an all brown cat apart from a white splodge on her chin, Imrul can see why the moniker would be fitting, and agrees that Esther is a better name.

“Ed’s not very good at naming cats.” Al gives a long-suffering sigh. “One of the ones that used to live at the bottom of the garden ended up called Chicken Leg.”

Imrul has to hold back a snort of laughter at that. They’re good kids, the Elrics, but at the same time, some of the stories that he’s heard from the Rockbells, and now from Al himself, make him wonder if they’re not both walking disaster areas. Then again, from what he’s heard from Fahim about their apparently immortal father, maybe it’s just biological.

Behind them, the door opens and Winry comes out with Fahim, who gives a sigh that Imrul has heard so many times before.

“Why am I not surprised that you’ve found a cat? And not only that, a cat with several cats-to-be? I think you just attract them somehow.”

“Al’s not much better,” Winry points out. “He’s a cat magnet. With the two of them together, I’m amazed we don’t have the entire neighbourhood’s feline population in here. Sometimes I think you just line your pockets with catnip or something.”

“Ironically catnip is one herb that Mom doesn’t grow in the garden. That’s probably for the best. They’d all be high all the time. We’d find them passed out under the tomato plants. Come on, Esther. Let’s get you out of here before you decide to find Den and go nuts.”

Al picks up Esther, who gives a mew of protest at being removed from her new friend, and Imrul looks down at his automail hand with a new confidence.

#FMA: Brotherhood #FMA Fanfiction #Alphonse Elric #Scar #Fic: Haven

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catflowerqueen · 3 years

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Rescue Team Retrospective Part 2: Plot

The overall plot was… fine? I guess? I think it had one of the weakest overarching mysteries in terms of the wider issues that the world was facing, but upon looking back over all of them, I think the tone in general was meant to be different anyways. The heart of the story was really more of a coming-of-age, figuring out your own identity-type thing for the hero, with the disasters being more of a backdrop thing anyways. The real issue was mostly to do with the pacing—as it often seems to be with this series, but this one is probably one of the worst offenders… outside of PSMD.

Up until the end of the fugitive arc things were mostly fine. You didn’t really get a pause in being able to do your own thing and work on ranking your team up until the Hill of Ancients thing (I mean—I guess you could have just stalled on your own, but it wasn’t really up until that point that you wouldn’t be hit with the sort of player guilt of knowing that someone was in need of saving and you were deliberately putting that off in favor of ranking up until them, where it was very clear that the only reason you were going out there was for your own personal curiosity), but that was fine. It flowed more or less naturally… though it was a little odd that it took Jumpluff so long to go seek help when Shiftry never returned. But I think the implication was that travelling in general took a lot more time in this world than in others.

But after the fugitive arc there was just way too much fluff and weird side quests happening before the Groudon thing, when things suddenly sped up immensely. After all, the end of the fugitive arc was supposed to be this big climactic thing where you found out that Groudon was causing all the earthquakes in his awakening, and you had made promises to try and figure out what was causing the disasters (since Groudon was just another symptom)… and yet you took a bunch of time off after that to renovate your house and paint a new flag rather than, you know, actually doing any research. It really should not have taken that long for Shiftry to call a meeting of Rescue Teams, especially since you took the long way travelling back home in the first place and Magma Cavern was not that far off from Ninetales’ home. The travel time would not have been that long, especially comparing how quickly Blastoise and his team made it there and back. Then, of course, is the fact that you didn’t get any sort of break between Groudon and the final mission.

The other issue was that I think it was trying a bit too hard to cram in side plots? Like… the partner’s desire and why they even want to have a Rescue Team in the first place gets shoved around very weirdly. It’s never really fully explained, and there isn’t really much organic growth over all? Like… it gets a few mentions during the fugitive arc, sure, but in a way that makes you think it was only added in so that the player would get a reminder of the partner’s supposed dreams. A weird case of tell, not show. And then even the thing with the base renovations—it was just very weird since that was the first time the idea of making a base like that was ever brought up? There was no real indication at any point previously that there really needed to be a home base for that sort of thing outside of one brief conversation with Caterpie about a desire to join your team when he grew up—and even then, he could have done that without formal housing. …Not to mention the weird implications that has in general since, like, this is your actual house they’re talking about, and you essentially get kicked out of in in the post game if you ever decide to change leaders.

The reason that they even needed the hero to be a human turned pokemon in the first place was also kind of flimsy? Like… sure, Gardevoir said that they were searching for someone who could help, and the hero apparently fit the bill and requested to be tested in order to make sure of that, but… why would they really need to be turned into a pokemon, in that case? For that matter—if they already knew the issue was the meteor, why did they need to wait so long to send the message out? Why not just tell them as soon as contact was established that they needed to go and get Rayquaza’s help? Because even if they didn’t know exactly what the issue was, they still knew enough to know that it wasn’t Groudon doing it, and there was some specific threat that needed to be handled.

It’s just… there’s no real reason that the hero needed to be human. There wasn’t in Explorers either, sure, but in that game the human-ness of the hero was fairly incidental—the issue at hand and their involvement in it wasn’t anything to do with them once being human. It’s completely coincidental (unless possibly one needs to be human in order to have the Dimensional Scream Ability, I guess). They just already happened to be on a mission to save the world with their friend and got attacked, and the becoming-a-pokemon thing is just a weird side effect. And then in Gates and PSMD there are specific reasons that the hero has to be human because it outright states that they have special abilities/immunities due to that status.

But as for Rescue Team… sure, the ninetales legend needed the antagonist to be a human in order for the “reincarnate into a pokemon” thing to have any sort of weight, but beyond that it seems like the only reason the hero actually needed to be human was so there could be drama about whether or not they were the same human from the legend.

Anyways—despite the pacing and cohesion it’s still a lot of fun, and these weaknesses don’t detract too much from the story, especially when you throw in the Gengar quest from the post game to tie it all together. It was an admirable try considering that this was a completely different type of game and genre from the usual pokemon fare, so it makes sense some things would fall flat. And the nature of the overarching problem serves as an excellent backdrop for the rest of the story anyways considering the nature of the hero’s team as a rescue team—it makes sense that it would be less about the mystery than the people being rescued. In comparison, Explorers has, well, exploration teams. It makes sense that the goal of exploring itself means that the plot would be more focused on the mysteries surrounding the world. Same with the other games.

As a further note—it really is interesting to look back and see just how many elements from this game were reused and retooled for the subsequent games. Beyond direct character call backs, I actually noticed some interesting similarities between this game and Gates. Like the whole house renovation thing, and the fact that you have to go on a quest for specific forms of payment (unless you happened to find two more chestnuts on the initial quest)—it reminded me a lot of the Gurdurr plot, and how he sent you to go get blue stones. And then even the part where the mankey start to destroy their work so that you’ll have to go get them more chestnuts so that they will continue building (ad infinitum) reminds me of how Gurdurr was trying to scam you initially so you would keep collecting stones for him/the fact that deliberate destruction of property was part of his backstory. Then the fact that you have to go and buy friend areas in order to build up your team is kind of like how you build up Paradise to increase your capacity and make your home nicer.

As for how I would rank this... In terms of just the plot I think I would place it third over all? Explorers is still first place for me, but I think the overarching plot of Gates is just a bit better in terms of cohesiveness and stakes, and, like, the balance between the wider issues of the world and the character’s personal progress. But it really is a close one between Gates and Rescue Team!

PSMD is fourth, and if I could rate it even lower I would. Because it is just... really not good plot-wise after you leave Serenity Village.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #red/blue rescue team #retrospective

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tlbodine · 4 years

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Why Isn’t “Mass Shooter” a Modern Horror Monster?

Horror reflects the anxieties of the culture that produces it. In the 1950s, we got monster movies about radiation-mutated creatures and invaders from beyond the stars, mirroring our Cold War Science fears.

In the 1970s, as “Women’s Liberation” and birth control went mainstream, we see an influx of horrors settled on childbirth and children and family dysfunction.

And as the 70s bled into the 80s, while real-world serial killers were leaving behind trails of victims, the masked psycho was dominating the field with countless slashers.

But now -- throughout the 2010s -- mass shootings loom large our our collective American consciousness. Hardly a week goes by without hearing of one somewhere, and they inspire fear and terror. Yet we haven’t seen them show up to dominate horror media in the way serial killers do -- what’s up with that?

Horror-media discussion about gun violence under the cut!

Before we get started, a caveat: There is media about school shootings. It’s just not usually horror. Most, as you can see from IMDB, is family drama: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls070532039/

And none of them are really particularly mainstream, not in the way we associate with slasher films.

So what’s the difference? Why is a killer with an axe more compelling as a film monster than a killer with a gun?

Some hypotheses:

Primacy: Because mass shootings are frequently in the news/public discussion, it’s always “too soon” - the real-life horror is too horrifying for entertainment. Sounds good on paper, but why isn’t that true for slashers? Those movies were popular when serial killers were at their most active.

Politics: Perhaps political motives are influencing the market. Since gun control is a contentious topic, maybe some powers are motivated toward censorship. But wouldn’t that also censor the family drama type movies? Why would it focus on horror especially?

Logistics: It’s just really hard to make a good horror movie about a mass shooting. Guns kill people pretty quickly and indiscriminately, so you lose the mounting suspense and intimacy of a killer with a knife and other similar horror/slasher conventions.

This last point, I think, bears some further consideration. The more I think on it, the more it seems that the things that make gun violence especially horrifying in real life are also things that make it very hard to put in a horror story:

Mass shootings happen, obviously, in mass. Most horror formulas require characters to be isolated and picked off one by one.

Guns kill people in ways that are impersonal and swift. If you’re killing a stadium of people with an automatic weapon, it’ll take just a few minutes. You can’t stretch that out into a long, lingering torture sequence or whatever.

Gun violence is indiscriminate. Wherever a crowd gathers, a shooter can start killing people. There’s no space for, say, the “horror rules” re: jock, slut, virgin, etc. because morality doesn’t play into it.

A killer methodically making his way through a sorority house, killing its members one by one lends itself more naturally to suspenseful storytelling than a gunman opening fire on a crowd. A killer leaving clues and taunting detectives lends its own narrative structure.

In that regard, it’s pretty obvious: We cannot make a slasher-style film or a torture-porn film about a gunman. It just won’t work.

But perhaps we’re looking at it all wrong. What if we viewed the mass shooter not as a serial killer, but as a force of nature? The disaster movie genre has ample cross-over with horror, and the general formula would work well for a mass shooter:

Introduction to a wide cast of characters as they maneuver into a vulnerable position

The disaster hits, and we move between individuals affected by the calamity, watching their initial reactions

In the ensuing chaos, characters attempt to escape further danger

The danger passed (for now?) some characters manage to survive, now irrevocably changed

Whether the disaster in question is an earthquake, a sharknado, or a school shooting, that formula should work. The key to success lies in the pacing and the large cast, allowing you to stretch out a relatively brief event into a detailed and tense narrative.

So why haven’t we seen that? Outside of, like, one made-for-TV movie I recall watching in the 90s, this presumably straightforward premise hasn’t gained much traction.

The Making of Monsters: Signs and Signifiers

Perhaps the real reason we haven’t seen a lot of horror stories about mass shootings is because there is already so much mythology and symbolism tied to these sorts of narratives, and that symbolism is at odds with the creation of movie monsters.

Guns carry a tremendous amount of cultural significance and baggage, at least in the United States. It’s why they’re so politically contentious. And when something is already heavily laden with symbolic meaning, it’s hard to turn that symbolism into something else in a way that will stick.

Point #1: Guns are a great equalizer. Unlike a knife or sword, skill doesn’t matter all that much when it comes to killing somebody with a gun. You don’t have to be strong or fast or have a ton of training. You just have to point it and pull the trigger -- if you do that enough times, and at a big enough target, you’ll probably hit something. This means that anyone can kill someone with a gun: a skinny nerd, a young child, a petite woman. Guns are the thing that give you, the underdog, a way to compete against them, the big strong enemy.

This leads to Point #2: Good Guys With Guns(tm). As absolutely anyone who has been on the internet for five minutes after Any Sort Of Bad Event will tell you, Bad Things can be stopped by Good Guys With Guns(tm). And while you can debate the merits of armed civilians protecting a group from harm against an active shooter, it’s impossible to deny that, historically, good guys have been armed. Police, military, armed militias, frontiersmen, etc. carry weapons. Which means that “guy with a gun” does not immediately translate, visually or thematically, as “threat” in the same way as wielding a butcher knife in a non-culinary context. A guy with a gun could, at a glance, be a good guy. A guy with a big knife is obviously a villain. Similarly, the Good Guys With Guns(tm) bleeds over into the horror genre. What would the zombie apocalypse be without headshots? How many horror franchises could have been cut short if someone had just shot the killer?

Finally, Point #3: Guns in media have special powers. Gun mythology in film and television is well-developed, with its own set of tropes and expectations. In movies, pointing a gun at someone will automatically make that person comply with whatever you ask them to do -- we even have vernacular about this, “nobody put a gun to your head” -- as if the gun were somehow more powerful than a simple threat and could in fact control behavior. Often, people who are shot in television politely fall over and die quietly; it’s a civilized end, without all of the screaming and thrashing (never mind where they’re shot or what that would would do in real life). And there are so many types of gun. We have a whole video game genre dedicated to it -- collecting guns, learning their various abilities, applying them situationally to achieve various goals. With so many established tropes, writing anything with new tropes and rules runs the risk of generating confusion, disbelief and even hostility in an audience.

So, with all of that in mind, it starts to become clear:

Writing a horror story about gun violence is difficult because guns carry so much mythic significance, and it’s impossible to write about them metaphorically while keeping it clear what that metaphor is.

If I write a story about an atomic-powered lizard who destroys a Japanese town with radiation, it’s easy enough to see that it’s a metaphor for nuclear warfare. But there is no similarly straightforward metaphor for gun violence readily apparent.

But it’s tougher even than that -- because guns themselves aren’t the only thing to have been mythologized.

The Myth of the Lone Gunman

Remember: Guns are the great equalizer.

This knowledge sits in the foundation of storytelling, not just in the fiction we make up but in the way we build narratives around mass shootings in the real world. There are certain tacit assumptions we make about gunmen that may or may not be accurate.

We have a certain narrative framework in place to explain school shootings, for example: The awkward, isolated young man who is bullied until he finally snaps and goes on a killing rampage.

Never mind that this narrative is not wholly supported by facts. It may be true in some cases, but certainly not all. And yet, go back up to that list of mass shooter movies on IMDB and look again at what the majority of them have in common.

This is problematic because, from a mythic perspective, people who are bullied and then stand up to their oppressors are heroes.

In Carrie, when Carrie White destroys the school after being humiliated on prom night, we’re on her side. It feels good to watch her kill all those people who were awful to her. It feels just and righteous and imminently satisfying.

When Spartacus leads a slave revolt, we cheer. When Daenerys Targaryen kills all the masters and uses their heads as mile-markers, we feel triumphant. When Arthur Fleck shoots the smug talk-show host on live television, we think, Well, he had it coming.

Oh, sure. We pay lip service to being horrified. And these dark heroes might die at the end, receiving some karmic retribution for the price of their revenge. But can you say, truthfully, that you have ever once watched a story about an underdog killing his bullies and felt sorriest for the bullies?

So: This is the problem with our cultural narrative about the school shooter. Purposely or not, it puts the shooter in the role of hero.

And not only is that irresponsible, it’s just downright inaccurate.

When Stephen Paddock opened fire on a concert and killed 58 people, he was not firing back at his oppressors.

When Omar Mateen shot up a night club in Florida, he wasn’t getting revenge against his bullies.

When Adam Lanza slaughtered 26 people at an elementary school -- 20 of them young children -- he obviously was not giving his victims what they deserved.

In the real world, mass shooters might be motivated by political ideology and a desire to promote fear -- ie, terrorism. They might be unhappy with some aspect of their lives and decide to “punch down” at a vulnerable group in the worst possible way. They might be looking to become the heroes of certain media narratives, to secure some kind of fame or notoriety. They might want to kill themselves in a way that hurts a lot of other people at the same time. There are lots of reasons why people might commit mass murder.

But the important thing is that the victims are, overwhelmingly, not bullies and oppressors. They are people. Just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because mass shootings aren’t really about personal vendettas; they’re about mowing down a bunch of strangers in a few minutes at an impersonal long range.

So here’s my final thought on the topic: We SHOULD tell horror stories about mass shootings.

It’s a topic that’s timely, and it’s a scenario that’s frightening. There’s no reason not to tell these stories. But to make it work -- on a logistic and socially responsible basis -- we need to change our treatment.

Going back to the “disaster movie” idea: It’s time to treat mass shooters in fiction as forces of nature, as oblivious and blindly destructive as a hurricane. It’s time to center the focus on the victims. Never mind the killer and what led him to this moment. Let’s take a minute to think about the people caught in that situation -- the people who fear for their lives, who try to help one another, who fight or flee or hide once the first shot is fired. Let’s write about the moments of humanity shared by two strangers crouched behind something while shots fire all around them. Let’s write about the horror of having your perfectly normal, mundane day suddenly and irrevocably shattered by a stranger with a gun.

There is horror there, real horror, that can be mined and cultivated and turned to art. And it seems to me that embracing that, and shifting the cultural narrative away from valorizing the lone gunman, would be good for art and society.

Are you ready to tell that story?

I am.

#horror #horror media #horror movies #how to write horror #horror stories #gun violence #mass shootings #trigger warnings #long post #Deep dive #horror analysis

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beneaththetangles · 4 years

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Rising and Falling with Japan Sinks: 2020

TWWK: With the possibly exception of DECA-DENCE and its story with a story structure, the most surprising series this anime season may be Japan Sinks: 2020. I tuned in because I’ve become a fan of the director, Masaaki Yuasa, with his other work from this year, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, locked in as one of 2020’s best anime. Japan Sinks is a different animal, a violent disaster series originally created to coincide with this year’s Summer Olympic games. Netflix premiered the show, and I blew through it quickly, as did a couple of other staff members, Samuru and @thathilomgirl. But as much as I found the show addicting, I had a challenging time writing about it, and so besides a first impressions post, have avoided doing so. But we three decided to unpack the series together—a good decision, I think, because it perhaps takes three people to really discuss the ups and downs of this series, starting with the why each person tuned in and what they thought of regarding that visceral opening episode.

SPOILERS from throughout the series ahead!

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thathilomgirl: Honestly, I watched it because someone in a Discord group I’m in mentioned that the mom was from my home province (XD). The show wasn’t really on my radar early on because I thought it was a movie with a theatrical release, but seeing other word-of-mouth posts eventually made me try it out on a whim. The fact that it was all on Netflix made it easier for me to finish it off so quickly, too. As for my reaction after episode one, well, it really didn’t hold back at all. It seemed fitting for the catastrophic scenario it was supposed to portray.

Samuru: I saw the trailer on Netflix since they constantly preview new anime (I watch a lot of it on that platform.) It looked interesting, and like thathilomgirl, I thought it was a movie! But I was interested more when I discovered it was a series. My first reaction was that the show was not going to be a relaxing one; it seemed to be very serious from the start and it was not afraid to be very realistic and dangerous. The animation was very good (in episode one, at least—more on that later) and it hooked me.

TWWK: For sure! It definitely tried to convey a sense of realism and danger. It felt like 1970s disaster movies, where everything goes wrong and lot of crazy stuff happens, like the bodies falling from the sky—all the death, really—and the disastrous time at the cult sanctuary.

Samuru: I thought the middle section with the cult was out of place. I get that it changed things around and gave the viewer a break from all the destruction, but I didn’t understand why that was even in the anime. Also, the random sexual encounter that was only a few seconds was also unnecessary, but maybe they were just experimenting with ideas?

thathilomgirl: I just thought the psychic cult was just plain weird. Like, even going into how and why it managed to start up at all was kinda strange, even with how well-intentioned the woman was at first. Part of me just wanted to go through the screen and tell her, “This is all well and good, ma’am, but I think you may have gone way off course the moment gold entered the picture.” I thought the best part of that arc was when the old man managed to just nonchalantly broke into the temple to kidnap the woman’s child, just for how tonally different it was from everything else.

TWWK: You know, I actually really liked that section. I think when it comes the narrative, it was the best part of the series. A lot of foreboding and discomfort was building, especially centered around Daniel (Is he really as sweet natured as he seems? Is it like a horror movie, where he was actually just baiting the travelers? Or was he going to be another sad victim?). I think besides giving us a little break from the destruction, and leading to some character development, the section also helped emphasize a theme of the series, which is acceptance of those different from you and the importance of the Japanese coming together despite having different values and being in different generations. Cults have a bad wrap in Japan as they do elsewhere in the world, so this cult not being pure evil in the sense we expected, and their leader truly trying to help, was to me as big a surprise as any in the series.

thathilomgirl: Similar to what you touched upon a bit, I saw a lot of diversity among the characters in the show, whether in race, age, or even the difference in opinion regarding nationalism. It wasn’t that surprising to me, considering the anime was made by Science Saru, who also takes value in diversity as seen from the Eizouken anime. Putting aside any possible bias on my end, having the main characters comprise a Filipino-Japanese family was a good foundation to allow certain issues be addressed in the anime. On the other hand, sometimes it did feel like some non-Japanese characters such as KITE were kind of put on a pedestal because almost every action taken upon by them turned out to be the right decision in the end.

TWWK: Oh man, now I suddenly wonder if this “KITE! Best character of the season!” feeling I have is just feeding into a sense of faux diversity…

Samuru: Good points on the diversity of the characters. I noticed it then but am now really thinking about; I’m glad to have seen it. The anime gave perspectives that some Japanese have with foreigners and just as a people that aren’t often seen in anime. God made us all different, all with varying features, languages, etc. I enjoyed seeing some acceptance of that, especially from Ayumu who just wanted to help others regardless of who they were (as well as her mom and brother, Gō). Gō also expressed how he did not feel very Japanese, and he just wanted to move to Estonia instead. This created friction a few times with other characters, as they thought he either wasn’t Japanese or trying to act like a foreigner. It showed how proud, to a fault, the Japanese are (in the anime) to their culture. I myself am proud of being Hispanic, so I get where they were coming from, but it seemed to be too much on how they were pressuring him, instead of just letting him enjoy other countries and their differences.

TWWK: That’s an interesting thought, though the overall quality of the writing leads me to believe that the writers just didn’t achieve the subtlety in such remarks that may have made for a more intriguing series. But more than that, I don’t think they wanted subtlety; that strong pro-Japanese / anti-everyone else feel from the old man was certainly intentional.

thathilomgirl: There was also that ultra-nationalistic group that refused the Mutohs on their megafloat because the kids weren’t Japanese enough. It was too on-the-nose for me, but if a country did end up getting destroyed one way or another, it wouldn’t surprise me if a group like that started to surface. On another note, the more cynical side of me was wondering if all the non-Japanese characters were inputted in just so the series was able to check off diversity points to get more views and traction from international watchers. It did work on me a bit (and I also saw a lot of that from other anime fans in my country), but I’ve learned not to get too hung up on or cling hard to how certain areas of my identity are represented in the media over the years.

TWWK: Playing on your point, I wonder if Kite, among others, was lifted so highly because Yuasa was looking to strike a sort of balance, one critical of those who would be too nationalistic, to the point of being xenophobic, with an ultimate view that Japan is generally good, and has the potential of being marvelous. We seem to be a little skeptical of their inclusion, but it’s hard not to be when the themes about what Japan is and should be were usually quite bombastic—kind of like all the deaths.

Samuru: Speaking of deaths, I think there were too many. After a while it felt like one of those horror movies where you know who is going to die, except for the main characters (of course!). I knew around the last few episodes who was going to die, but it was still impactful when they did because of the way it happened. I actually felt sad for the loss of those characters.

thathilomgirl: It’s really hard to say for me to judge whether there were “too many deaths” for this show. On one hand, I did at least wish some characters like the Mutoh dad lived for a few more episodes so that we’d be more attached to him. However, realistically speaking, it made a lot more sense considering the aftereffects of what goes on if Japan really did start sinking to the ground and the possible consequences it has for the survivors on the land. By far, the only death I thought was the most out-of-place was for the cult leader’s son. It just came so suddenly like the debris that fell on him, laughter was the only thing that escaped my mouth during that scene.

TWWK: You laughed at that? Oh my gosh haha. I don’t think you were alone, though.

Samuru: I knew that kid was not going to make it, as he barely had any dialogue or interaction so he seemed “expendable” and I noticed that this anime liked to get rid of those minor characters. So yeah, he was on the anime’s “hit list” for sure.

thathilomgirl: There was another thing I noticed regarding death. Among the Mutoh family, Ayumu seems to be the only one who actually visibly struggles throughout the anime, but that’s because she was the only one who actually came face-to-face with watching her entire track team die in front of her eyes as soon as she came to from the initial earthquake. The other family members, meanwhile, were either in a relatively safer area from the ground and/or alone when it occurred. Every other death afterwards just goes on to make the survivor’s guilt she’s experiencing worsen as the story goes on. I also figured out right away that Mari’s seeming indifference to her husband’s death was just her being strong for her kids, because I’ve seen that a lot from the other people in my life. There was never really a good time for her to properly grieve as well, until they arrived at the cult in Shan City.

TWWK: You know, I don’t know…Like you, I noticed the seeming lack of empathy throughout the series, and I think Mari’s final episode or two was definitely meant to show that she hid her emotions on purpose (I think an idea many Asian kids can understand that westerners may not), but I felt like it was too little, too late. It was just so awkward that after the dad’s death, most everyone was kind of okay—even and especially Go. it was just too unrealistic, even with Go kind of in his own world and trying to make sense of it with his dad’s death. It was too disingenuous. Ultimately, I think it was poor writing, confirmed by the fact that Go’s emotional age seemed to drift anywhere between 7 years old and 14.

And I also struggled with the sheer number of character deaths shown. The shock value was important to the series, yes, but it got to be too much for me by the end. The old man getting eaten by the shark was my almost-laughable moment, for instance. And all the self-sacrifice already demonstrated by so many may have taken away some of the emotion of Mari’s death, which affected me, but not terribly deeply. I will say that Haruo’s death got to me, however; I thought that the themes of the show, particularly the idea of the older generation passing their love onto the younger, meant that he and the Mutoh kids would all survive. That was rough.

Samuru: I agree also about the deaths. I think it was somewhat laughable because it just kept happening. I would think, “Uh oh, it’s a new character, he probably won’t last long”. Also, I have new found respect for seagulls, those birds can’t be that ravenous…right? Haruo and Ayumu’s father dying were the most shocking for me. I really thought they would both make it, so once the dad died, I knew all bets were off with this anime and nobody was safe. I thought even Ayumu wouldn’t make it, even though she lost a part of herself in the ordeal. It made it seem very real, unlike a lot of TV shows where the main cast, and only the main cast, escapes just fine.

thathilomgirl: Mari’s death got to me a bit because I was hoping that she would at least last long enough to make it to relative safety before her heart got to her, and because of that storybook she used to read to her kids. But the latter’s just me being really sentimental in general.

TWWK: The show was unusual in the sense that it tried to balance that sentimentality you’re talking about with hard, sudden violence. That’s not an easy thing to do. Comparisons will be made to Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 or other disaster anime and films, like I did earlier, but I also immediately think of American movies regarding 9/11—United 93 and World Trade Center. The earlier had violence and shock on par with Japan Sinks, and it was draining and emotional in a successful way. The latter didn’t feel as overwhelming, nor was it as good a film. I think Japan Sinks found itself somewhere in between those both in how it tried to animate its disaster and in how meaningful the end product is. What did you both ultimately think of the series?

Samuru: I thought the show was excellent and very different than most anime I have seen. I liked the intensity of it, the diversity of the cast, and the originality of the story, even though it’s based on a book from the 70s. A lot of anime try to copy another one, and just add something else to make it standout. This series stands on its own.

However, the animation was off and on for me. There were some scenes in the last episodes that were terrible. I wanted to take pictures of it to share in case I was the only one that was noticing that. I don’t know what was going on with the animators at the end. But how the story concludes in a satisfying way, as I got to see what happened to the survivors and how they were living their lives. It gave hope when there seemed none, which reminded me of this verse: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).

thathilomgirl: I thought it was a good show overall. Not the best one I’ve ever seen, but it did what it set out to do with its story. Yeah, the animation was a bit off at times, but I thought that was just how Science Saru anime was sometimes (keep in mind that I’ve only seen Eizouken and Ride Your Wave from them so far). I’m glad it ended on a hopeful note with Japan slowly rising back up, and seeing how every Japanese person that survived fared through the eight years since.

TWWK: My thoughts on the series are ultimately not as positive as they were for both of you. After one episode, and based on the studio and director, I commented that this might be the best anime of the year; I was so off that it’s not even funny. What was funny, though, was some of the scenes in the show that were supposed to be serious, as we referred to earlier. And that’s troublesome. Its high moments were extremely high, and could have lifted the show up to a 9 or 10 in my book, while the low moments—like the unintentionally funny ones—were very low, awful even. I gave the series a “7” rating, which is average to mildly good in my book, because it was a balance between those extremes.

Ultimately, though, it’s a major disappointment. Hot on the heels of Eizouken, I thought we could potentially have another classic, which this series is assuredly not. But its mileage will vary, and I very much emphasize that—all of us judged the series differently and felt strongly, one way or another, about many different moments. And there are so many vivid and memorable scenes in this show! Most viewers’ experience will likely be powerful, too, and in that way, I think we can all suggest Japan Sinks: 2020 is well worth the watch.

=====

The entire Japan Sinks: 2020 series can be streamed now on Netflix. All images courtesy of Netflix.

#Anime #Japan Sinks: 2020 #Nihon Chinbotsu 2020 #Japan Sinks #Japan Sinks 2020 #Nihon Chinbotsu #Articles #Author: TWWK #Author: thathilomgirl #Author: Samuru

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ayankun · 4 years

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Ok, if you haven’t already (I say this to be polite, I know you haven’t) go put your eyes on this episode synopsis first. Why? Because it’s a good time. But mostly because I want you to be tangentially familiar with certain topics so I can better explain what happened to my brain while watching this one.

oh, right, this post is a synopsis of the VR Troopers episode 2x13 “Kaitlin Through the Looking Glass” btw

ARE

Now that you’ve got this far, here’s some housekeeping before we start:

I watched this show sporadically as a kid and have very fond memories of it “being better than Power Rangers” but really didn’t know anything about it at the time. I am watching it as an adult partly due to nostalgia but mostly because I genuinely enjoy it. Not necessarily because of the reasons they intended, but, you know.

As an adult, with a different understanding of the world than when I was seven, I willfully misconstrue the main characters as being in a polyamorous relationship. OT3 baybee

On a similar tangent, Ryan “Trooper TRANSform” Steele is obviously trans. (transgent??)

Hell, maybe they all are. The more the merrier amirite.

They all call the Professor “Puhfessor,” so I will, too.

Still with me? Let’s begin.

(first up, though, the title sequence is over a minute long, when really they only needed like, maybe 15 seconds to get the point across. there is also a ton of footage used that portrays events that never occur and also the song is not catchy enough to warrant any of this and I love it)

So in Ryan’s flashback intro, he muses about how, as a kid, he felt the need to prove himself. He expresses this to his dad by asking when he’ll get a black belt, and his dad is a good supportive dad who tells him:

“It’s not the belt that’s important, son,”

Ryan’s dad says trans rights.

Ryan’s VO goes on to say "My dad taught me that it’s not outward appearances that really count, and that was an important lesson that would come in handy time and time again.”

Ryan really loves memories of his dad.

Which I think is a sweet lesson to learn when you’re young and other youngs (and olds) are going to give you crap about how you look, but it’s also hilariously phrased considering how superficial the concept of “outward appearances” is to this episode.

So we jump into things down at the ... Voice Underground Daily idk what the newspaper is called, I’m just trying to read the sign on the wall tbh. We’re at Kaitlin’s place of business, and Woody (I think his name is Woody LOLOL how many episodes have I seen) shows Kaitlin this front page article which appears to have the headline:

ZIKTOR DEFEATED AT CITY HALL -- NO TOXIC WASTE DUMPING AT CROSS WORLD PARK

Ok, a couple of things.

Kaitlin and Percy are just ... chilling out at the copy machine like they’re friends and this is where the cool kids hang out.

Which can’t possibly be true because the actual cool kids are there in the back, just reading newspapers like Actual Cool Kids do.

They’re an indie paper, right? How can they afford to print headlines that verbose? ... Or full color glossy, for that matter

THEY ACCIDENTALLY PLAYED THIS LIKE THEY WERE EXCITED ABOUT THE NEWS ITSELF AND NOT ABOUT KAITLIN DOING A GOOD JOB ON AN IMPORTANT FRONT PAGE PIECE

Environmentalism was No Joke in kids’ media in the 90s. I specifically remember learning the word “toxic” from a Power Rangers episode where Billy tested the lake water. I literally had to look it up.

and they say you can’t learn nuffink from tv

Anyway, part of the excitement is that this article is the follow up to an expose of Ziktor, also authored by Kaitlin, which inspired the city officials to veto his waste-dumping proposal. So we’re proud of Kaitlin for doing a good job at journalism and for protecting the world!

JB does what JB does best and attempts to arrange a date.

The line is, “Hey, let’s celebrate! With lunch! At Hamburger Hutch” but I guess someone at Netflix got lazy for a second.

I forgot to mention, in my HC he’s our token ace (as my favorites often are), so he tends to go overboard with the romance. You don’t have to compensate for anything, JB!

Kaitlin appreciates the gesture.

But then Woody interjects and I let my adult sense of humor get the better of me...

come on, the man’s name is Woody I can’t be the only one with my mind in the gutter can I

Also the line is “I don’t want you boys filling up my star reporter” so what am I supposed to thINK

--WITH JUNK FOOD. Dodged an FCC bullet there.

So I just now gave it 2 seconds thought and the discrepancies with the subtitles probably have something to do with the expectation that children would be watching this show and can’t read that fast. BOY DO I NOT FIT THE DEMOGRAPHIC

Ok well.

Where Woody’s going with this is that he wants to impose a health shake on Kaitlin for godknowswhy. But it’s all good because as he todders off to get started on what will surely be a monstrosity, we get this ADORABLE moment where Kaitlin tries to get JB to come to her rescue.

She just runs up and grabs him. I’m all a-flutter.

But JB is of no help. Instead, he calls dibs on her fries.

There’s a weird, under-baked joke going on here that seems to be rooted in the idea that if one is dieting then others benefit from this self-sacrifice by gleefully picking up the slack? Anyway Kaitlin’s not on a diet? This vitamin shake angle literally came out of nowhere? Is against her will???

Just one burger, please. Protein style :<

et tu, Jeb??

Anyway, this weird exchange just passes the time to get Woody all set up. He turns on the blender and THE WHOLE WORLD STARTS SHAKING.

Percy runs over to be the hero, demanding Woody turn the blender off, while everyone else just rumbles around looking distraught and not practicing anything resembling safe earthquake response. Percy manages to get a hold of the blender, lifting it off the counter, and -- you guessed it -- the lid comes off and purreed-carrot-baby-food-looking goop gets all over his nerdy white button up.

The shaking stops. Percy’s very proud of himself (and disdainful of the others who didn’t come to his heroic conclusion). End scene.

I’ll be real. At this juncture, literally thought that the blender HAD caused a natural disaster, and it was just a wacky 90s gag that went on for far too long.

More on this story as it develops. We’re moving on.

How many cities in the world do you think have ominous buildings in them that aren’t secret headquarters for supervillains?

Our good buddy Karl Ziktor is reading -- wait for it -- Kaitlin’s article. It has a headline so long they had to dedicate the full front page for it. I’m pretty sure that’s not how newspapers are commonly formatted.

That is literally just a couple of newspaper clippings taped to a big piece of paper.

Oh he’s mad. He tells Juliet all about his evil plan for revenge, which is to “steal her virtual image and create a second Kaitlin Starr [that serves him]”.

Same, Juliet.

Off that yikes, a henchwoman comes in to appraise Ziktor of the status of phase one, which is underway. A so-called Stingbot is “in the basement of the Underground Voice” so that’s what the paper’s name is, anyway.

Anyway so Stingbot was the one responsible for the earlier tremors. And, yeah, I mean I know they were new cobbling stories together from old footage, but What The Hell do “sting” and “earthquake” and “outward appearances” have in common?

And that is how a Stingbot do.

My question is partially answered, in that Stingbot’s earthquakes are a distraction so that some skugs can plant the “Virtual Mirror Transmitter” on Kaitlin, which is the nefarious device that will create the aforementioned Kaitlin-2. Bold of him to assume that just because Kaitlin’s a woman that she 1) carries a purse 2) stores a mini pink mirror in the purse 3) will look at herself in the mirror unprovoked.

It’s such a wildly twentieth-century concept. Here in good ol’ 2020, I, for one, have not looked in a mirror in months.

Ugh more gross than this use of outdated stereotypes is this weird tongue thing Ziktor does while almost literally salivating after his upcoming revenge. You’ll have to go see it for yourself, I’m not going to watch it again to cap it.

(This guy gives his 200% to this role, though. What a legend. RIP Gardner Baldwin)

So Ziktor blue-skadoos into his virtual stronghold and gets an update from his generals. There’s this new guy that I’ve already also forgotten the name, and since he has a human face, there’s a lot of awkward cuts between him and his Japanese counterpart in the footage that’s already ten years old at the time. It probably looked great. I was an adult before I found out that Rita Repulsa was the original Japanese actress in the original dubbed Japanese footage.

Anyway, he looks great.

I think I read that for season 2 they had access to and/or recreated the costumes used in/matching the source material, so there’s a noticeable uptick in cool-looking sets with American actors wearing cool-looking costumes, like this one.

You said it.

That’s about it for this scene, but before we go to commercials, Grimlord says this nonsense: “I will destroy Kaitlin Starr with the one weapon she cannot defend against -- herself.”

Confirmed: Kaitlin is a deadlier weapon than, say, a homing missile. (she can defend herself from those)

Ok we’re back at the Underground Voice and there’s still an earthquake going on. Also, and let me tell you this with a large amount of regret of my life-choices, I’ve been sitting here for just about two hours and we are only five minutes into the episode (and that includes the minute long opening credits.)

Let’s roll!

JB gets off the phone with who knows who, having learned that there’s no earthquake registering anywhere, it’s a localized mysterious incident. Ryan recommends they clear the building “just to be safe.” My boy, why wasn’t that everyone’s first thought? Are they really just standing around waiting to be told? We had drills for this for a reason!

(Actually, I’m not sure where Cross World City is located. Maybe they’re not on a fault line and do not actually do drills)

In any case, there’s a brief PSA where Woody wants to collect his valuables to take with him, and everyone has to inform him that that’s ill-advised behavior in an evacuation scenario.

He responds in classic Woody nonsense, by putting on a captain’s hat and insisting he’ll go down with his ship. AND OUR BOY JB SAYS

He’s still thinking about that date.

LOOK. There’s no rule that says asexuals can’t make dirty jokes. Because we can and do. Let me have this.

So our heroes herd everyone out of the building and then stay behind to call the Puhfessor. Just as they get him on the computer, the earthquake stops.

It’s not all good news, though. The Puhfessor taps into some kind of impossible CC feed and they watch Stingbot undermining the structural integrity of the building. Stingbot, by the way, has one of those creepy child laughs that is insane. It’s so good.

Ryan decides to check out the basement himself while Kaitlin and JB keep everyone else outside. He finds some creepy janitors down there, and they head on up like creeps normal janitors.

Maybe they were just hotboxing down there.

Stingbot’s also in the basement! Who knows what he was doing down there, because

Murder hornet, colorized, 2020

Which is a weird thing to say until you remember the slight, throwaway “yummy!” he says earlier while drilling into the building. I had forgotten it in the 40 seconds it took for me to get from that moment to here.

Ryan insults Stingbot’s outward appearance, which is odd because I thought he learned that lesson as a kid. Either way, it’s time to

WE ARE V R

Only to spend about half a second on recycled footage just to have Stingbot go “lol, later loser.” Because those perfectly normal janitors are upstairs swapping Kaitlin’s purse mirror with the evil thing.

Can you imagine trying to pull a stunt like this today?

Outside, things have calmed down enough that JB thinks Ryan’s got it under control. He’s gonna go back in “to see if the building’s safe enough to reenter.” I know he knows it’s not a real earthquake, but also I don’t think I’d trust a non-professional to assess my office’s structural integrity.

Kaitlin’s going to join him, which causes Percy to pipe up, Pavlovianly ... just to chicken out and stay put. GOOD JOB PERCY. USING YOUR HEAD FOR ONCE I SEE.

(kids, don’t volunteer to check that a building is safe after an incident where its safety may be in question. it is not cowardly to leave it to Someone Who Knows What They’re Doing)

So JB and Kaitlin come back in to find the Normal Janitors shadily stealing a floppy disk from Kaitlin’s desk. (kids, a floppy disk is a real object that looks a lot like the “save” icon) BUT OF COURSE THEY’RE SKUGS SO JB AND KAITLIN HAVE TO THROW DOWN.

Let’s just say there’s a good thing they have an earthquake to blame all this property damage on.

JB’s a little snippy.

All he wanted was to go to lunch with his girlfriend and boyfriend.

The gold skugs do their fusion dance thing and turn into the oni-mask skug variant, which I’m assuming is a constraint of these later episodes where they used footage from a show that did not have the gold ones in.

FLIRTY BATTLEFIELD BANTER UGH I SHIP IT

Once that’s handled, we find out what Ryan’s been up to in the basement by himself this whole time.

Um. I’m not touching that one with a 10-foot ... wait.

Ohhhh

Ryan heads back up and swaps notes with JB and Kaitlin. Stingbot said that its work was done, so what exactly was it trying to accomplish? Ryan then runs from there outside to check on everyone else.

Kaitlin then decides she needs to freshen up, which is something I don’t recall her ever needing or wanting to do after any other natural disaster/fight portrayed on this show.

But look how cute they are with their mutual post-fight shoulder-pat. JB even gives her this cute little look as she darts off. He is smitten.

He is smote.

Kaitlin gets her mirror out of her purse, as planned, and checks herself out. You know. Like how woman do.

She gets it.

This is it! Grimlord’s chance to strike! He will have his revenge, Juliet, just you wait!

for great justice

We are treated to a brief bit of delightful 80s Japanese sci-fi, all flashing lights and chonky beep boop buttons. It works! A tastefully gendered laser light shoots out of Kaitlin’s mirror and STEALS HER FACE OFF HER FACE

FACE/OFF

The experience seems highly unpleasant, but she’s mostly ok...

But wait, who’s this ...

It’s not really the Mirror Universe unless someone gets a goatee.

Kaitlin’s freaked out, but we don’t have time to see her process what it was that just happened. More beep boop 80s lights (seizure warning much), and the virtual replica Kaitlin is 3D printed in Grimlord’s lair.

lol he’s got a play date

So this Kaitlin is the same exact person as real Kaitlin, with one major difference.

So this got dark, right? This is different from that time they cloned Ryan, because that was just a DNA clone man baby with evil sunglasses; this is actually Kaitlin, the person, just with some programming differences, who’s gonna go back out there and hurt her boys herself.

Needless to say, Grimlord is delighted.

Check out that disgruntled wall snake, tho. “I thought I was your lovely child”

Now Grimlord’s plan is to send Kaitlin into the wild with a device called the “fissicator” which is a “sTUn ray!!” (you have to hear him say it, it’s so good) as well as a thing that will reprogram the Trooper’s “contact disk.”

I didn’t mention it earlier, but that’s the disk that the janitors skugs were trying to steal, and it was also how Kaitlin called up the Puhfessor on her work computer. I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen it before and we never see it again. It’s Not A Thing.

So Kaitlin goes to Tao’s, where Ryan’s just chilling there by himself. I guess everyone was okay after the earthquake, then. (It is unclear how much time has passed) Maybe it’s been hundreds of years, because Ryan acts like he’s not sure who she is.

Wait, hold on. I did NOT pay close enough attention the first time, but -- either it’s much later the same day and/or they missed a scene. They’re still wearing the same clothes ... and Ryan says he thought she was heading (back?) to the paper ... and then she says ....

Ryan.exe has stopped executing

Wait so WHAT. What workout. We have not been to Tao’s yet this episode. ???

It’s really just a ruse to get Ryan to fight her, though. But also. Why need ruse? Evil clone? Just attack tho, right?

But also no NO. DONT attack. We’ve already seen JB be beat up by his evil clone boyfriend. It’s rough. (spoiler alert, this one’s gonna be rough, too)

So Ryan tries to let her down easy by saying he doesn’t have time -- and I can’t tell with this video quality, but I don’t think he’s wearing a watch but he does the “look at wrist” technique and it’s p good.

Kaitlin-2 refuses to be let down easy.

Them’s fightin words

Ryan ends up splayed out on the desk but seriously, now is not the time.

He rightfully wants to know what’s up, but she keeps taunting him to fight her. She takes the first shot, which he dodges and blocks before disengaging. Remember, kids, just because somebody picks a fight with you doesn’t mean you don’t have any other options!

She won’t stop coming for him, though, so he gets her arms pinned so he can try talking her down again.

This technique backfires.

no more mr nice kaitlin

So in the other clone episode, this scene was staged in a room full of people, and even though JB was blindsided, he and Ryan are ostensibly evenly matched. It wasn’t nice for JB, but at least someone was there to break up the fight.

This time though, Ryan’s been gently if firmly trying to diffuse a confusing situation where someone without his training is behaving irrationally and is going to get both of them hurt. So far his attempts to de-escalate have failed, and there is no deus ex intervention incoming.

AND THEN she goes and plays the superpowers card on him. Black belt or no, the whole point of having the Trooper alter ego is that they come with amazingly OP combat powers capable of defeating all manner of monsters.

And Kaitlin, a very very very dear close friend has just walked up out of nowhere and dropped a nuke on him.

Okay, so she throws him over a table, it’s the principle of the thing.

This overkill maneuver knocks him out cold. She lifts Ryan’s Trooper communicator (so he can’t call for help when he comes to -- omg this is so chilling) and then uses the fissicator to call Grimlord for further instructions.

Gotta catch ‘em all

New Kaitlin, who dis?

So he now wants her to steal the disk, reprogram the disk, and use the reprogrammed disk to break all the Trooper computer stuff. She reads his order back like

Close enough, I guess.

She gleefully moves on to her next task, leaving a helpless Ryan struggling and failing to regain consciousness. :<<<<<<<

At the paper, real Kaitlin gets a message from JB on her little Trooper video phone and secretly Trooper TRANSforms out of there from inside the darkroom. This was the point where I realized they had different ones! Hers and JB’s are red and white, while Ryan’s (that just got stole) is red/blue.

Also, you can just see under all those crayons, but that’s the “contact disk” that Kaitlin-2 is coming for. (how many crayons does a professional journalist need, anyhow?)

So there’s a joke in there were Percy sees Kaitlin go into the darkroom and then Kaitlin-2 walks in, and then also when he checks the darkroom, it’s empty.

Oh, so that means Kaitlin-2 successfully steals the contact disk, btw.

Back at Tao’s, Ryan has woken up and some how his backpack has, like, crawled down to see if he’s okay? Which is helpful because that’s how he is able to quickly identify that on top of assault, there’s been a robbery.

I hope she doesn’t delete my save files

And this was the moment (right now, doing the caps) that I realized the little phones are called VRVTs!

But seriously, imagine being knocked out cold by a loved one, with no reason, no hint at an explanation, and not only has she left you for dead, she’s taken your phone so you can’t call for help. He has no idea that she’s an evil clone!!!! This is a real tragedy of a thing. A gutting betrayal.

It looks like Ryan has his own contact disk, tho? And he uses this on Tao’s PC to call up the Puhfessor.

spelled it rong

Just as a note, this subtitle comes up WAY too soon, so for a couple of frames it just looks like some kind of meme. A++

Ryan starts to relate his traumatic experience to the Puhfessor, but luckily he’s cut off with the good news that his “sensors” somehow correctly identify Ryan’s assailant as Kaitlin’s virtual double.

geez, you guys, look at how Ryan deflates hearing this. I mean, it’s not great that he was probably concussed, but it’s a relief that his world still makes some kind of sense.

poor bb

Also, you can’t tell as much here, but there’s a really subtle punch in as the moment progresses, bringing us closer and making the moment more intimate as he grapples with this new information. There’s a lot of dumb half-assed stuff in this show, but I gotta call attention to the stuff that is excellent for any era.

Also it’s so efficient from a time-management perspective. Just look at the opening shot, which was a medium type establishing shot so you can picture Ryan in the space, but the PC’s right there for both the viewer and Ryan to reach. Then we slowly zoom in, which serves double duty in that it provides the appropriate emotional impact, and at the end we’re on a nice close up of Ryan as he jumps into action. Three shots with just one set up (and probably done in one take, with room to splice the PC shots in)! I’m very pleased with this.

Down to brass tacks

The Puhfessor ominously tells him that they have their own troubles and we go straight from there into some source footage of them fighting some skugs and what I think is General Ivar.

After about three seconds of that, we cut back to the lab, where Ryan busts in on Kaitlin-2 just as she’s hacking up a storm.

im in ur base, haxxoring ur mainframez

Kaitlin-2 shows him the contact disk, which is now “encoded with a self-destruct program” that she’s going to use to overheat the lab’s power core and destroy like all the things. Ryan is noticeably concerned, but Kaitlin-2 points the fissicator at him to get him to stay in line.

Ok ok ok ok so here’s where we get to the point where, when I watched this today, I fully turned away from whatever it was I was doing to go wwwwwwwwwwwwtf

Kaitlin-2 has a disk that will blow up the lab -- and there’s nothing Ryan can do to stop her--

huh

bruh what are you

bro srsly what

is happening

You’re trying to tell me that Ryan “killed his own clone with no ragrets” Steele is trying to make an emotional appeal to this clone in order to undermine her sense of purpose?

...did she ever think that Grimlord cared about her? As a person? I feel like that wasn’t in the contract when she was 3D printed with the sole purpose of serving her dark master, and she shouldn’t have any emotional reaction to this assumed expectation being challenged.

And .... did they ... did they read my other post? The one about wanting to keep the clone around ..... ??????

what is happening right now

Ryan leans hard into this “embrace your humanity” tactic and has the Puhfessor show them a live feed of JB and Kaitlin’s fight.

“...She sure could use our help...”

wait for it

When she balks, he gives her one last over the top inspirational blurb that despite of whatever it was Grimlord did to her, she’s still the same (good) person as Kaitlin.

It starts to sink it.

(also just check out these sweet eyelines, you can tell that the screen they’re watching is slightly to his left, sort of behind her to her right, which makes sense!)

He keeps at it.

Looks like it’s working? She starts to reconsider her whole existence ...

...considers Kaitlin’s ...

... moment of truth ...

And it works!

BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE YOU GUYS

“NOW GO HELP HER” RYAN COMMANDS

AND

OMG

CLONE KAITLIN-2 IS ALL

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess, I mean, obviously Ryan’s evil clone did that whole thing where he stole Ryan’s virtualizer and started flying the Skybase, so if this Kaitlin is the same as the other Kaitlin then obviously she’d be able to do this, too.

But like! She was the main villain until like four seconds ago, somebody who did Ryan dirty. Just another of Grimlord’s nefarious tools of warfare. And Ryan, a man who’s killed his own clone before, who took a beating from her only hours prior, is suddenly the bigger man who is capable of seeing past all that in order to turn an agent of his enemy. And to go do his job, no less!

This has never happened before. This show’s always been kill or be killed. There’s a good reason for this, and we’ll get to that in one moment.

But I like to think Ryan learned from his mistake. He didn’t even try to to connect to his evil clone. He just got beat up and went back for revenge. (I’m looking back at my caps for that episode, and it seems it was the Puhfessor’s idea to kill the evil clone, and maybe there was a MacGuffin reason why it was The Only Way, I forget.) Maybe he thought long and hard about the repercussions of his actions -- maybe he thought that, had he been able to better understand his evil self, that maybe that shadow version of him would have liked to have been given the benefit of the doubt?

At the end of the day, I can think whatever I want. But why we never get any other reformed villains until now is only because

It’s almost like they recycled footage from a different show(s) and just had to roll with the punches.

So then JB and the Kaitlins fight some skugs and there’s a big explosion and a lot of jumping. JB and Kaitlin get caught up with the SparkNotes version of who tf extra Kaitlin is and then they fight Stingbot, teleport to a quarry, you know, all the everyday stuff.

Back at the lab, Ryan’s feverishly trying to undo Kaitlin-2′s handiwork and keep the core from melting down. Can he do i-- well yes. He can and he does do it. Then he TROOPER TRANSFORMs away and ... flies off to fight ... some jets ... I guess?

pew pew pew

In the quarry, JB is going toe to toe with Stingbot. Stingbot has some cute little wasp drones that electrocute everyone. They’re having a good time out there.

it’s super effective

Ryan shoots some more jets ... JB dislodges his wasp and slices one off a Kaitlin with a sword ... the third one just .. pops off on its own *shrug*

Stingbot shoots some acid (oh he did that before, too, in the basement, but it was irrelevant) which evaporates a boulder ... Kaitlin goes back to her battlefield quips but they’re not nearly as flirty as the last time ...

JB gets out his lightsaber and GOES TO TOWN on the remaining bad guys. That thing makes the BEST wvungwvungwvung sounds, just btw.

And that’s it!

Almost.

Grimlord spends his obligatory seven seconds ruing the day he ever met a VR Trooper and swearing revenge.

ya it’s called being a parent

Turns out he still hopes that the two Kaitlins will destroy each other! Very optimistic guy, our Grimlord.

Back at ol’ HQ, JB and the Kaitlins stroll in and explain the sitch to Jeb. Kaitlin-2 seems fully reformed!

yee gurrl

But oh-hoho, does the Puhfessor HATE clones.

buzzkill, emphasis on kill

So it turns out, and I quote, “two Kaitlins cannot exist in the same reality.” I guess technically she’s not a clone, but a virtual double from the mirrorverse/VR land, so that kind of makes some sort of sense. This dimension is too small for the both of you!

The stakes are that if the two Kaitlins are not rejoined within 24 hours, both Kaitlins will byte the dust.

Oh no!!

This was the point where, having a pretty good internal clock as well as a refined sense of story structure, I literally smirked at the screen thinking “soooooooo what. you have like two minutes left and you’re gonna fix it in time for the credits. overdramatic stakes are overdramatic.”

AND

THEN

THE

KICKER

OH-HOHO

I WAS

SO WRONG

SAME THO?1

#VR Troopers #V.R. Troopers #episode synopsis #guys #I know this isn't the trendiest thing to do #but I love talking about things I love #and I love television #and nobody watches any of the things I watch #so I have to ramble here #don't expect me to stop any time soon #might as well unfollow now #also this literally took like 6 hours #what am I doing with my life

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arisaint · 5 years

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5 TIPS TO HELP YOU MAKE COMPLETE CHARACTERS

Ok, I don’t consider myself an expert in character development. Yet, after studying a variety of courses and film scripts structure, I have learned some useful tips that I apply in my roleplays and pretty much everything I write.

It’s pertinent to note how important is a character in a story. It’s the one who will be leading the readers through their adventure, the only who will suffer every circumstance and situation you put them through and the one who will probably solve the conflict that will start it all. So making neat characters is like building the vivid soul of a story.

1. A character is never black or white. It’s gray

As God is infinitely good and as the Devil is infinitely bad, you character can’t be neither of them. Simply because your character is human (unless your character is God, the Devil or a representation of any of them). Consequently, it’s important to note that every character you create have flaws and qualities.

That gentle character you created who is kind and a cutie pie must have flaws. Because that’s how humans work, and that’s ok. A kind character can be selfish sometimes, stupid or impulsive. In the other hand, your antagonist, or a character who is mainly narcissistic and vile have goals as your gentle characters, experiments love as well and is human.

Building your protagonist this way can make the readers feel empathy, knowing that even the hero of your story fails and can screw it all. Making your antagonist more human will also create empathy within readers, or just make them believe they are real. Remember: no character is ever black or white, it’s gray. There is no complete good and evil in real life, good people do bad things too and bad people are not always acting “villainously”.

Not only make your characters gray, be sure you show their tridimensionality. What I mean here is that you should write about the 3 levels of your character because they will act in whole different ways depending of the dimension:

Public appearance: how does your character act in a restaurant, a square, their work or in a cafe? This is the surface level of your character, how they behave when everybody is watching. Maybe a speech in front of a crowd, a contest, a conference or something so simple as going to the supermarket at night. This dimension is mostly shown for it’s the one that appear more times in a story, after all, your character will be exposed to a world.

Social relations: now, this one is a little more intimate than the surface. This is the dimension of how your character acts when in company of friends, co-workers, family, their loved ones. The behavior tends to be different from strangers, to an audience and the world because there’s always a different bond with people closer to your character. This level is always shown during the interaction of your character with secondary characters, their significant other, their family or even the antagonist.

One self relation: this level is supposed to answer: how does your character act when no one is watching? When they are alone, what do they do? This is an usually abandoned level in many movies and stories. And that’s a mistake. Your character behaves in a complete different way when alone, when they rejoice in their privacy. Show them alone, with nobody around, show the activities they do, what they think, what they eat or speak.

2. Your character has to be coherent to their experiences and contexts

I know a lot of people are a sucker for tragic pasts for their characters. I was one of them too when roleplaying and writing. But what I have noticed as I developed my technics it’s that I used to abuse from the “tragic past” resource and my character didn’t seem to suffer the consequences of their experiences. It was like they had been extremely resilient or had forgotten everything about their past. Well, that can’t happen that way.

When planning your character, it’s important to think about their past, their fears, likes, family, hometown and anything that evidently affects their personality, treats and choices. I always insist that most of it (if possible, everything) has to be planned before even starting to write. Why? Because a character who in the past lost a loved one will react differently to a death than one who hasn’t encountered themselves with a tragic loss. Because a character with an alcoholic father will likely have “daddy issues”, or act in a different way than one whose father was a responsible man. Because a character who lives in the Middle Ages will have different opinions about honor than a character who lives in modern days.

All of these things modify your character, and if you don’t note this, they’ll be just useless ornaments in the life of your character. Here are some elements to have in mind that will affect your character:

Context/Diegesis: it’s the temporal-historic space where you character lives and develops in. It’s commonly called the universe, world or place they live. Of course, the year and location where your character is born, grows and lives their conflicts will affect them in different ways.

Experiences: even the simplest anecdote of a character such as a picnic day or a noon at the lake fishing with family will affect their personality, memories and they way to see the world and situations. Characters are like us. What we live change us. I always like to use these as resources to explain the behavior of my characters, such as why my character hates dogs because they were attacked by a Chihuahua in the park or how the first time they experimented excitement was when they watched a Disney movie. And so on. Use it. Connect their experiences to their current decisions, behaviors and situations.

People who surround them: what other characters do to your character will transform them from a minimal detail to a big turn on their personality. Because surrounding with people who have determined behaviors will modify ours. Sometimes we tend to mimic the conduct of those who we admire and we tend to reject the behavior of those we despise. The same happens to your character. For an instance: if your character was raised by an alcoholic father, they may have issues with alcohol, even to the point of being completely abstemious. If your character had a person in their life who acted as a mentor for them, the normal (and even unconscious) reaction will be try to be like that leader figure and follow their steps

3. Everything your character does has a reason and speaks about them deeply

We already talked about the external things that will affect your character, but what about the internal and own things your character does? Of course, they are a language. They say a lot about your character, and you have to use this powerful tool to express things that aren’t always said in your narrative.

If your character wears pink all the time, it can mean they are childish, trapped in an eternal childhood if they are adults. If your character likes to watch movies it may mean they are dreamers or try to isolate themselves from their mundane lives. The meaning of many elements you add to your character can have different interpretations depending on plenty of things. The idea is to use this tool in your favor to express whatever you need to say about your character.

As a Mass Communication student, I learned many ways to transmit a message. In a film, not only the dialog expresses a message; so does color, the outfit of your character, their actions, their manias, the way they speak or act. Everything. So think meticulously about those little details that will tell their own descriptions of your character. If you do, your readers will understand them better, will see them as a whole. We remember unforgettable characters for specific elements that make them unique.

And never forget to add simple things. The simpler, the louder. Give your character funny tropes like they collect magnets from every country they visit, maybe they use yellow socks all the time or they cut the crust off their sandwiches. Whatever you think adds information about your character, do it.

4. Build your character’s journey and goal

I may talk about Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, but I would spend hours in this and I’m sure there are other tips regarding about this topic. So I’ll go to the point of this tip: you have to define the journey your character will walk and the goals they may encounter in order to understand it whole. It’s ok if you don’t know what happens at the end of your story, but you have to know, at least, what is impulsing your character to start their journey. Why go out of your comfort zone? Why has their environment changed? What’s the main goal they have that make them set sail? A protagonist must move. If they don’t, the story doesn’t move. As simple as that.

There’s something else that has to be consideres when defining the journey of your character: whether if they are active or passive. An active character is the one who makes the actions that move the story, such a hero going to kill a dragon in a castle or even creating the conflict that initiates their quest. A passive character is the one who’s moved by actions that happen to them, like that character who has to escape their hometown because there’s an earthquake destroying it, usually in these cases, the conflict appears without the character having to do anything about it.

Whether your character is passive or active, there’s have to be always a conflict (at least one). A conflict it’s the clash of two opposite forces (such as protagonist vs antagonist) Without a conflict, there’s not story. There’s also some types of conflict that may appear in your story:

External conflict: it’s the clash of forces or multiple problems that are out of the character. This includes natural disasters, the birth of a menace in the world of your character, a new job that makes them suffer, a race, a battle. It’s all the trouble regarding things that happen to the character or they do in the external world. These kind of conflicts are evident and visible, as they can be seen not only by your main character but the rest of the universe.

Internal conflict: it’s the clash of forces regarding the emotions of your character, the problems of the past and traumas that halt your character internally. These conflicts include the feelings after the loss of a loved one, mental conditions, a battle between choices, a moral discussion (imagine the little angel and demon inside them battling) and anything related to the psychology of your character. Your character is the only one who will suffer this conflict and, normally, it will be the consequence of an external conflict.

Also, why is your character starting a journey? Because they want to achieve something. It can be demonstrate they are worthy, win a battle, reunite with the love of their life or be free. There’s always a reason and a goal of why your character is setting sail. There are two types of objects of desire that your character must have:

Conscious object of desire: it’s the goal or objective that impulse the character to begin their journey to unknown lands. It’s the object that your character voluntary wishes and moves them to the mission so the story can go on. Let’s use as an example a movie we’ve all seen: “Cars”. The conscious object of desire of Lighting McQueen is to win the Piston Cup, it’s what makes him start his journey in order to go to California before the final race. Everything he does during his journey is to achieve this goal.

Unconscious object of desire: it’s what your character, at the end of their journey, acquires and needed to complete their quest. It’s the goal that your character never wished (or even despised) that ends up changing them more than the conscious object. Sometimes it happens that the unconscious object it’s acquired when sacrificing the conscious object. Coming back to “Cars” example: the unconscious object of Lighting McQueen is understanding that there are more important things than just a cup. In his case, he sacrifices his conscious desire in order to achieve what he really needed. At the end, we note that this character didn’t require to win the Piston Cup to complete his journey; but get a new perspective of things and appreciate all the people (well, cars, actually) who helped him, as well as cherish his friendships.

5. Be inspired by others to make your own

It’s valid to have a base for your characters. No character is created from nothing. Writers based their characters in many other things in order to create them. So, don’t be afraid to openly say that your character is inspired in something else. I actually would encourage it.

Fill yourself with information, stories, other characters, everything. Let your character be a puzzle of pieces belonging to different sources. You can use plenty of muses to create the. My favorite one is using archetypes based in Greek Gods. It helps me to build their personalities and understand them. Also, choosing a Zodiac Sign for your character it’s completely valid, it gives you a guide of how they behave, their qualities and flaws. Also, always read a lot, watch many movies and TV shows. Grab pieces from other characters and give them to your own creations. The more you know, the more you can create. I think this can also help you beat any creative block when building your character. So, do it! Investigate, build, create!

I hope this was helpful in some way! As I said, I’m not an expert but I wanted to share what I learned with my own experiences. Happy writing and roleplaying!

#writing advice #rp #roleplay advice #writer #Writing tips #writeblr #Roleplay character #rp advice #character development #rp character #writing #roleplay tips #tips #writing help #roleplay help #writblr #blogger #blog #muse

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blueboxesandtrafficcones · 4 years

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The Nuptial Necessity - Chapter 2

A 12xRose Human AU

Despite an unglamorous job description, Rose loves the work she does with The Thistle Foundation, a charity founded by her best friend’s great-uncle. It doesn’t hurt that her boss, her friend’s father, is easy on the eyes. With a great job, wonderful friends and a loving family, life couldn’t be better – except for having someone to share it with.

All of that is threatened, though, when the great-uncle dies – and sets a strange condition for his nephew to inherit, jeopardizing the Foundation and Rose’s future, sparking a chain of events that might just get her everything she dreamed of and more.

Chapters will be posted on Saturdays and Tuesdays. Many thanks to my beta, @stupidsatsuma

Rated: Explicit, for eventual smut

@doctorroseprompts

AO3 | Masterlist

—

Thursday, continued

All in all, Malcolm thought he put on a decent show at dinner. Determined not to let his daughter know something was on his mind, he poured all of his attention onto her with a single-minded focus.

Not that his interest was for show- he adored his (not so) little girl and found her utterly fascinating, was always curious about the goings-on in her life, but rarely did listening to her stories require so much effort.

But the important part, he congratulated himself as he pulled ice cream cartons from the freezer, is she doesn’t suspect a thing.

“So, what’s wrong?”

He froze, still facing the freezer shelves, and sighed. Spoke too soon. Smoothing his expression back to neutral he shut the door, resuming his assembly of sundae ingredients. “Nothing. What d’ya mean?”

“Dad. You’ve been weird all night. What is it?” Clara was seated at the island, eating the caramel topping with a spoon, watching him intently.

She looked no different from when she was a wee bairn or teenager, perched there, seeing far more than he ever wanted her to. That girl is too damn clever, his ex-wife had always complained, and though he privately agreed would never admit that, usually pleased by her cleverness – except for when it was used to ferret out things he wasn’t ready for her to know. At least she comes by it honestly.

“It’s… Uncle Wallace’s will was read today,” he started tentatively, waiting for her to nod, gauging her reaction. “It was as I expected… mostly. He has some conditions for me to inherit, and I have to decide… if I’m going to comply.”

“You? Comply?” The teasing tone from the doorway made his head snap up, and sure enough, Rose stood there with her hands on her hips, several cardboard boxes at her feet. “I’d pay to see that.”

Malcolm’s heart restarted itself at double-time, having stopped at her voice, and he was nearly weak with relief that she hadn’t accidentally overheard exactly what those conditions were. That was too close.

Shaking his head he turned his back to buy himself some time. Any chance of getting away with not telling was gone, now that the two people on Earth who knew him best were in the same room. They were individually relentless when it came to getting what they wanted from him, and their tag-team act was unstoppable. Pulling down a third sundae bowl for Rose, he waited as the girls squealed and hugged, talking a thousand miles an hour as if they hadn’t seen each other in months, rather than ten days.

Watching with a fond smile, he thought back to the first time his daughter had come home for the weekend from uni, dragging her shy new roommate behind her.

“Dad! This is Rose, my roommate. She’s my new best friend. Can she stay for sundaes? And possibly forever?”

They’d both been scraps of nothing then, adults only in the legal sense. Now they were both thirty, mature women who worked for a living and travelled the world, and he mourned the girls they’d been even as he celebrated their accomplishments and growth.

Knowing from experience that once they started they wouldn’t stop, and tempted to let them forget the conversation, he took his time building his own sundae first, before sighing and giving in. “Right, who wants what?”

“Chocolate fudge ripple,” Rose immediately said, settling on one of the barstools on that side of the counter, licking her lips as she stared at one of the cartons. “And be generous with the scoops. I’ve been thinking about this all fucking day.”

Malcolm shook his head, obeying as Clara studied her options. Ever the deliberate one, she could turn choosing a flavor into an art form. “Just because we’re not in the office, doesn’t mean I’m not still your boss, Miss Tyler. Don’t get too comfortable.”

“I’m off the clock, hanging out with my bestie,” she shrugged, pulling the dish closer towards the toppings and piling on the chocolate sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles and cherries. “Besides, the very first time I was here you told me to make myself at home. I got you Neapolitan, Clar, just have some of that, would you?”

Not waiting for his daughter to hem and haw Malcolm scooped her just that, pushing the bowl towards her. Moving his own front and center, he stared at it for a moment before adding another few squirts of chocolate sauce to the mint chocolate chip tower of ice cream.

“No vanilla today?” His assistant didn’t miss a thing, eagle eyes noting his choices even as she devoured her own. “Decided to live it up?”

“Thought I’d test the limits,” he shot back, “dare to put myself out there.”

She just smirked, licking at the back of her spoon, and he had to tear his eyes away to focus on his daughter again, who was still staring at the various containers, dish untouched.

“You good with that?”

Sighing, Clara nodded, adding her own toppings. “Yeah, this’ll do.” That didn’t stop her from gazing at the rum raisin with a longing usually seen on sailors’ wives as he put the ice cream away before it melted.

“So, the inheritance?” she prompted, the freezer door shutting breaking her from her spell, and he had to hide a smile at how little she had changed from when she was knee-high to a grasshopper. Not that she’s that much taller. She had her mother to thank for that, and it amused him that even now at thirty, she barely came up to his chin in her bare feet.

I’m getting old.

“I don’t want to talk about it now,” Malcolm hedged, eyes flickering over at Rose, who paused.

Tilting her head, she frowned. “Is this about me? My being in it, I mean?”

“What?” The ground shifted beneath his feet, eyes opening wide. “What do you mean- you know?”

“Well I don’t know details!” she protested, looking up at him. “But, yeah, I know I’m in it.”

She doesn’t seem mad. Does she not actually know? “What, precisely, do you know?” he asked suspiciously. He’d known her for eight years, and would never guess she might know something like this existed and be okay with it. What did he tell you?

She hesitated, expression faltering as she glanced at Clara, who shrugged. “The last time I was there, a few months ago, he mentioned putting me in the will,” she said slowly. “That he thought I was a nice girl, and he wanted to take care of me. I protested- it’s not like I need or want his money- but he insisted. Said it was something he knew I’d had my eye on, wanted to make sure I got it, but he never said specifically. To be honest, I have been wondering. I’ve always loved that Renoir, on the staircase – any chance it was that?”

Malcolm snorted. “In a manner of speaking.”

Both women stared at him with identical arched eyebrows, and he sighed. His intention had been to tell Clara then take a few days to ponder, but realistically, the likelihood that she would keep something like this a secret from her best friend was flimsy at best. “First, let me say I knew none of this until Robertson called this afternoon.”

“Is that why you were upset, and needed to talk to Alex?” Rose asked delicately, and he nodded.

“You could say that.”

“Dad,” Clara warned, ”you’re being weird again.”

“I thought I was always weird?”

Identical glares made his jaw snap shut, and he glanced between their faces. This is humiliating. Now would be a perfect time for an earthquake, or heart attack, or some other natural disaster to prevent this conversation. He stared up at the ceiling hopefully, but no relief came.

“Dad!”

“Fuck,” he groaned, rubbing at his face. “Right, here it is. Rose, Wallace left everything to me on the condition that- that-” He met her eye, saw the trust there, and slumped. “On the condition that we got married.”

Silence rang out in the kitchen as they stood there, staring at each other, and he watched the expressions fly across her face closely. Surprise, of course, confusion, curiosity- happiness? That can’t be right.

“Is that legal?” she finally asked, tone carefully neutral, and for the moment they both ignored Clara’s spluttering. Rose met his gaze head on, that spark of mischief and adventure hiding just below the surface, and his heart clenched.

“Apparently. You didn’t know?”

She shook her head slowly, the shock fading from her face. “I thought he might leave me a trinket or something- the most I hoped for was that Renoir. I mean-” Rose swallowed, and he felt slightly better that she hadn’t run away screaming.

Yet.

“What, exactly, would it take to… to satisfy the terms?�� She flushed, and after a moment he did too, not trusting himself to speak given where his mind had gone. “I mean- you know what I mean. And what if… you don’t?”

“If I don’t,” he said carefully, leaning on the countertop towards her, “everything goes to the government. As for the actual terms, it was fairly simple, basically. Legally- well. Stay that way for five years.” He winced automatically, but she didn’t react other than to blink.

“When would all this have to happen?”

Malcolm paused, assessing her. She’s too calm. “Technically, in the next thirty days.”

Rose nodded slowly, before exhaling. “Right.” Standing up, she slid her purse strap over her shoulder. “Um, I’m going home. The samples are there. I will see you tomorrow and you,” she glanced at a wide-eyed Clara, “Saturday.”

“Uh huh!”

And then she was gone, leaving Malcolm alone with his daughter and three half-melted ice cream sundaes.

Just when he was starting to worry Clara moved, turning to face him and still looking stunned. “Okay, what the fuck? Start at the beginning, leave nothing out!”

Rose startled awake, disorientated as she blinked and looked around, trying to remember what had happened. Why am I on the couch? The noise coming from the hallway outside her flat coalesced, and she turned her head to stare blankly in that direction. Who’s knocking at midnight?

Yawning, she struggled upright, straightening her clothes and hair as she shuffled towards the door. Peering through the security hole, she rolled her eyes to herself. Of course. Who else would it be?

Swinging the door open, she stepped aside. “Hey.”

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Clara was still bright-eyed, full of energy, dumping her jacket and purse on Rose’s kitchen table and hustling to the kettle. “It’s only just gone midnight! Look alive!”

Rose followed her into the kitchen, leaning on the doorframe and trying to keep her eyes open. “D’you know, this was the number one thing I hated about living with you. I genuinely do not believe I have ever seen you asleep, except for that time you got the flu. And even then, you were just groggy. How d’you do it?”

“Coffee!”

“Right.” Rose yawned again, hugging herself. “What’re you doing here, anyway?”

Clara paused then, leaning back on the counter and smiling sheepishly. “Wanted to check on you. That was something, wasn’t it?”

Brain still rebooting, it took Rose a minute to grasp her meaning. “You mean the part where your uncle is trying to marry me off to my boss?”

“Technically he was Dad’s uncle. But, yes, that part. It’s bonkers, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” The kettle whistled then, and she shook her head. “Pour those, will you?” Not waiting for an answer she returned to the couch, curling up in one corner and pulling a fleece throw around her shoulders.

Clara followed her a minute later, carefully carrying two full mugs of tea. “Here we go, ton of sugar and a dash of cream, just how you like it,” she chirped, handing one over, adding when Rose coughed at the first sip, “and a splash of scotch.”

“Thanks,” Rose said dryly, watching her friend settle into the other corner and smiling. They’d done this a thousand times, during uni and after – spiked tea, curling up on the couch and talking about boys. Malcolm’s not a ‘boy’. He’s her father. What the hell do I do?

“So, what are you thinking?” the brunette prompted, watching her expectantly. “You haven’t said anything yet.”

“Who could get a word in edgewise?” A glare made her sigh. “I genuinely have no idea. I mean, yes- it’s bonkers.”

Clara froze with her tea halfway to her mouth, mug hovering oddly in mid-air. “Do I detect a ‘but’?”

Running her thumb along the lip of the mug, Rose tried to absorb the warmth from it as she organized her thoughts. “Losing the funding would be the end of the Foundation. Full stop. You know he hates taking outside money, all the strings attached. Without the inheritance, it’s over. Eight years of my life, gone. I’d have to get another job.” Staring down into her drink, she tried to picture going on interviews, job hunting and working for someone else. I like working for Malcolm. There’s a reason I never left. “There’s no denying I’ve got it great right now, and I don’t want to lose that.”

“Is that it?”

Her friend’s even stare bore a hole in her defenses, and Rose ducked her head further, hair falling forward to cover her face. “I’m sure Wallace had his reasons,” she muttered defensively.

Silence lingered long enough for Rose to raise her head and make sure Clara was still there, only to find her watching with a calm, almost accepting expression on her face.

Nothing could have prepared her for Clara’s next words, however.

“You’re in love with my dad, aren’t you?”

#bbatcfic #ficandchips #Doctor Who #doctorroseprompts #Human!12xRose #Human!Twelfth Doctor #Rose Tyler #Human AU #AU #The Nuptial Necessity

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shattcrs · 4 years

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WHO: Julio Richter ( @rictorscales )

WHAT: Julio decides to come see Shatterstar after they haven’t seen each other for two weeks. They talk about what happened at the park, and something amazing happens.

WORD COUNT: 9,333

TRIGGERS: depression, slavery ( past only ), trauma

JULIO: Tell me whose ribs you want to crawl around in. Tell me who you want to fuck you up. Jess’s words had been echoing in Rictor’s mind ever since she said them, but not because the answer eluded him. The question stuck with him because he knew the answer. And maybe --- maybe he always had. Rictor thought back to being sixteen, to going wherever Star needed him to go and being whoever Star needed him to be. He thought about that fire that burned in his gut when Star spoke to someone else in a voice that was a little too soft or touched them in a way that was too familiar. Jealousy, he’d realized when Star called Jon his brother and the feeling faded. I’ve seen the way you look at him, Tabby had said, and maybe that was when he really should’ve known. Tabby had always known him better than anyone.

Tell me who you want to fuck you up, Jess had said, and Rictor’s mind had answered the question immediately and without doubt. The words were echoed with every beat of his heart, over and over and over. Him, him, him, only ever him. How had he missed it until now?

There were complications, of course. There were always complications where Julio Richter was concerned. Natural disasters rarely occurred without leaving damage in their wake, and he’d caused one hell of an earthquake when he’d walked through that portal and left Star alone in the dirt. He’d probably caused a thousand more with his resulting crisis, and he’d definitely cause a few more before this was over, but… Maybe this story could have something resembling a happy ending. Maybe Rictor didn’t come to his realization too late, maybe there was still time to fix things.

He’d sent a text. A brief courtesy, a i’m coming over. let’s talk? that he’d known Star would respond to because Shatterstar was the most dependable thing in Rictor’s life, the only ground that had never once trembled beneath his feet. He changed his shirt three times, going through Logan’s closet in its entirety before deciding plaid wasn’t for him, then changing his mind and changing it back again. Rictor had never felt like this before… or maybe he had. Maybe he’d always felt like this with Shatterstar. Maybe he’d just never realized it until now.

Finally, he’d settled on a shirt he’d worn a thousand times before, fingers twisting in the hem like a security blanket as he stood outside the XFI building. He had a key in his hand, and he debated the idea of using it versus the idea of knocking, stared at the wooden barrier with narrowed eyes. “This is stupid,” he muttered to himself. “You’re being stupid. Open the fucking door, Julio, you ass.” His hands remained glued to his sides despite the pep talk.

He’d almost worked up the courage to lift the key when the door opened on its own, and Ric’s eyes widened. Familiar red hair greeted him, and for a moment, he was silent. For a moment, all he could do was stare. His heart was racing in his chest, and Ric wondered how he’d never seen it for what it was before. Finally, after realizing the silence had stretched on a beat too long, Rictor cleared his throat. “Uh,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I didn’t know if I should knock or just come in. I mean, I’ve got my key, but… I don’t know. Hi. Hey, Star. Hi.” Great speech, Ric. You’re nailing this.

STAR: This was the longest Shatterstar has ever gone without seeing his best friend. It wasn’t like they spent every minute together, but so many of their routines involved each other being part of it. After the sun would come up, Star would make pancakes for both of them. It’s one of the few recipes that he genuinely knew how to make without any flaws in the final product. He only ever did this for Julio, having them kitchen to themselves before anyone else was awake. The redhead always loved the silence in the building, only able to hear the sound of fans in the distance being used during the summer, and just the able to focus on the sound of Rictor’s tired voice. They were cherished moments before they went their spectate ways for the day or had to do some work together. After what happened in the park? Star realized quick how much of his life was centered around Julio being there, from movie nights down to just the small things.

They haven’t seen each other for over two weeks, which is longer than Julio said, but Shatterstar expected this. He still doesn’t know what to do with his broken heart, especially when all the love he feels for Julio is still there aching to be returned. He might have ruined everything between them by admitting his feelings while knowing that Julio has only dated women. Although they have been talking recently a little in the group chat they have for the team — which gives him some hope. Could they fix things?

There was some hope after receiving the text message that Julio was coming over to talk. When should he expect him to arrive? Star was suddenly nervous, but did he really have any reason to be? This was his the man he’s in love with, but Julio is also his best friend.

Shatterstar was home alone with Noodle, deciding to sit out the case everyone was working on today. Jamie said someone needed to stick around to make sure the puppy doesn’t eat another pair of his boots. Which was fine by the Mutant since they meant more time with his pet. He changed into a pair of his short shorts and a white crop top while sitting around watching some reruns of The Office. Noodle lost interest, falling asleep in her owner’s lap. He had a package coming today, and forgot to check to see if it arrived yet. He stands up, carefully holding the puppy in his arms who wakes up as she realizes they’re moving across the room toward the door.

His free hand opens the door, the wind from outside blowing his red hair into his face. It grew longer since they’ve seen each other — now a little over seven inches past his shoulders now. Shatterstar wasn’t really interested in putting it up in a ponytail ever again, not unless it was required for a mission. He doesn’t even look for the mail because Julio was standing on the other side of the door. He was speechless, feeling like his heart could best right out of his chest. Star still thinks that Julio is the most beautiful person in this universe. He doesn’t know what to expect from this conversation.

“You can come in, this will always be your home too even if you moved out.” Shatterstar frowns for a moment, and looks away to disguise that to search for the mail. The package is on the ground by the door, so he kneels down to grab the large bag, which is full of new outfits for Noodle. He tosses it inside on the floor for now, turning his attention back to his best friend with a smile again. Star was overwhelmed with emotion because it was hitting him all at once how much he missed the other Mutant. “Hello, Julio. I must confess that I have missed you very much. This is my dog, Noodle. We are very happy that you could come by to visit. Come in!” He turns around to step aside so Rictor could get comfortable, and once the door was closed behind them the puppy was set down to run around the rooms again. Star moves to the living room — turning off the television and sitting on the couch. His eyes looking over at his best friend hoping that he would join him.

JULIO: It took a moment for his eyes to catch up to his mind. His heart was beating so quickly that he couldn’t focus on anything but the pounding in his chest, couldn’t concentrate on anything but drawing the next breath of air into his lungs. For a moment, the world outside of his eyes locked onto Shatterstar’s didn’t exist at all.

And then the moment ended, and Rictor looked away. More specifically, he looked down. Star often wore very little when relaxing at home, Ric knew. For a while, when they were with X-Force, Ric wondered if the other mutant owned a shirt. It had never really bothered him before but, today, his face felt hot and his throat went dry, and fuck, how had he never realized this before? His palms were sweaty and his chest ached, and this was what it felt like, wasn’t it? This was what it was supposed to feel like.

Ric closed his eyes for a moment, trying to center himself with the feeling of the earth beneath his feet, the feel of its ever-present vibrations climbing up through the soles of his shoes and settling into his bones. No matter what he’d realized about himself, Shatterstar was still Shatterstar. This was still his best friend in the world, the one who’d held his hand when he recalled how he’d felt on that roof, the one he’d taught how to read a clock when they were teenagers, the one who’d jumped in front of danger for him no matter how many times Ric begged him not to. Even when nothing else in the world made sense, Shatterstar always did. Rictor might not know who he was anymore, but he still knew Shatterstar. He knew Shatterstar even when he knew no one else.

It was how he knew that, right now, Shatterstar was struggling just as much as he was. Not for the same reasons, of course. For someone who’d been raised in an oppressive battle dome, Shatterstar had always seemed so much more certain about who he was than Rictor ever had. There were days where Ric looked into the mirror to find a stranger staring back, days when that therapist’s words echoed in his mind over and over and over again like a mantra he couldn’t escape. Don’t you think you deserve a name? Don’t you think you deserve a name? Don’t you think you deserve a name? Some days, the answer to that question was a vague shrug. Others, it was a firm no, playing on repeat every time the question arose.

(There was only one person who’d ever made him feel like the answer was yes, only one person who could call him Julio without anger burning in his chest. And maybe that should have told him who he was a long time ago. Maybe the secret to knowing Julio Richter had always been knowing Shatterstar.)

“So, uh, this is Noodle,” Rictor said, mostly to break the silence. He didn’t reach a hand out to pet the dog, didn’t know if it would be welcome or not. Perhaps he’d given up the privilege of reaching towards Star when he’d walked away from him through that portal. It didn’t seem fair to assume otherwise. “She’s cute. I mean, she is in the pictures, too. Just… I don’t know. It’s different in person.” Wasn’t everything? His heart didn’t beat this hard when he was messaging Star in a group chat, didn’t threaten to burst through his ribcage when he was teasing Jon and soaking up every shred of attention Star threw his way in the process. But now? Rictor felt like his heart was bursting at the seams, like there was an earthquake in his chest and he couldn’t control it. Shatterstar must have heard the way his heart was pounding, right? It felt like the loudest thing in the world, like a boombox pounding so loudly you could feel it shaking your bones.

He shifted when Star spoke, shrugging a shoulder. “Home’s more complicated than that.” His home wasn’t the crappy building Jamie had moved them all into, the one whose roof he’d let his toes hang off of for hours as he’d worked up the courage to take that step. It wasn’t the ranch he’d grown up on in Mexico, either. Rictor’s home had always been with Shatterstar. He understood that now, better than he ever had before.

The real issue came with saying it. Talking wasn’t Rictor’s strong suit. (Rictor wasn’t sure he had a strong suit.)

“I missed you, too, Star,” Ric admitted, following his friend passed the familiar threshold and into the building. Everything looked the same, and nothing was. The whole world had changed, and no one bothered to tell the foyer. There was something funny about that. Rictor trailed along behind Shatterstar as he made his way to the living room, settled beside him on the couch, and shut his eyes for a moment. He let himself feel the familiar vibrations that made Star who he was, let himself take comfort in the heartbeat he knew better than his own. “I’m sorry I ditched you before,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I stayed away as long as I did. I’m not good at this. You know that, right? I’ve never been…” He trailed off, shaking his head. He’d never been particularly good at being a person. Maybe he’d never been meant to be one at all. The Richter family was known for their weapons, after all. “You deserved better than that. You still do.”

STAR: The two of them have been through a lot over the years, always standing by each other’s side no matter what hardship comes their way. Shatterstar never expected someone to take him under their wing after his arrival to Earth. He remembers being fifteen years old and surrounded by so much that was unknown. There was so much green around him that Star didn’t know that trees could be so beautiful. He saw them on the television programs back on Mojoworld, but that wasn’t the same as getting to actually see it. So when Shatterstar was fifteen years old surrounded by these tall trees and flowers poking out of the grass? He felt an emotion for the first time in his life. It wasn’t something that the redhead understood at the time, but the feeling was happiness. He never experienced it before like this, nothing expected out of him except being able to enjoy nature. Star just stood there admiring it before continuing on his journey.

His quest to find the X-Men ended with finding a different group of Mutants first. X-Force took him in the day Shatterstar turned sixteen. This is when his life changed again — meeting a boy who would become his very best friend. His life became better just by Julio being in it.

Here they are standing in front of each other, after spending over two weeks apart. Seeing the other Mutant again was like remembering how to breathe. Shatterstar never cared about romantic or sexual attraction, didn’t understand it for so long until one day realizing that he has felt both of those things, but for only one man. Julio Richter was the only person Star has ever felt attracted to in every sense of the word. He loves this man so much, but doesn’t really know what to do with these feelings.

Shatterstar looks at the puppy, so content in the his arms while they’re looking at each other. “This is Noodle. She followed me home one night, and I couldn’t let her stay out in the streets by herself. I don’t know how I convinced Jamie to allow me to keep her, but long as I’m the one taking Noodle on walks and feeding her he doesn’t mind having her living with the team.” Star says happily, such a sign of joy in his words because it was always so easy to talk with Rictor. Once they moved inside of the building, it amuses him by seeing how quick the small dog was to run away — perhaps it was to find some toys to bring back to the two Mutants so they could play together. It was unsure, but Star admires the energy such a little creature has. This was their home, but the truth? Shatterstar feels like anywhere they end up would be home if Julio was there with him.

“I know that such statements are complicated. I never knew what behaving a home felt like until I met you. Remember when we would share rooms together? Sometimes there was only one bed, but it never bothered us. We just wanted to be together. I would wake up early to work out while you would sleep in. We could do that anywhere, I just didn’t want us to be apart.” Shatterstar didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back on it? Those kind of moments are the ones that made him fall in love with his best friend that much more.

They were sitting together on the couch, and Star wonders if Julio can hear how quick his heart was beating while they’re sitting so close. His hand pushes some of his hair behind an ear, not taking his eyes off of the other Mutant. “I missed you more, Julio. It’s alright if you needed more time to think about my confession. I will admit that despite us spending those two weeks apart, those feelings of mine are still here. I hope that is alright with you if you wish to spend time together again.” Shatterstar admits, reaching out to grab Julio’s hand — hoping this was okay. “I know you are not the best at talking about how you feel, but you can tell me anything. I will always be here for you, Julio. Do not worry about me, I promise that I was okay. I just spend some time with the trees before walking home that night.” His hand squeezing at the other one that he was holding. “You’re here now.”

JULIO: Even before his powers developed, Rictor had always found comfort in nature. There was something relaxing about being out among the trees, something comforting about dirt beneath his feet and wind in his hair. He didn’t know how the genetics of mutation worked. He didn’t know if, maybe, the part of him that would one day make the ground tremble had always been inside of him and only came out when he was a teenager, didn’t know if his body had always known it belonged to the Earth or if his powers shaped based on the love he carried for her. He didn’t think it made a difference. The important thing, he thought, was that that love had always been within him. He had always loved the Earth, even before he understood her.

He was beginning to realize it was the same with Shatterstar.

When he’d looked back on his feelings for Shatterstar after his conversations with people like Tabby and Jess, he realized that he couldn’t pinpoint any kind of change surrounding them. The feelings he had for his best friend, the ones he’d mistaken for platonic affection, they’d been there all along. Rictor hadn’t recognized them, hadn’t understood them, but they were still there. They’d been there since he was sixteen, since he joined X-Force and met the strange boy with the red hair and the sword, the one who hung off every word Cable said and flipped through the channels on the television so quickly that Rictor was tempted to quake the remote apart to stop it. There was no one moment that shifted his feelings. His feelings were always there. He had always been who he was, even when he didn’t know it. There was something comforting in that. It was like the breeze ruffling his hair, like the dirt beneath his feet. It was there. It was always there.

“Hi Noodle,” Rictor said, smiling at the dog. His voice was thick, and he didn’t know why. His emotions had never been something he understood easily. That was part of what bonded him to Star in the beginning, part of what made him latch onto the other boy so readily. Rictor was bad with feelings but, back then, Star had been worse. Star had needed Rictor to point him in the right direction, to explain the way things were meant to be. Things had shifted now. That certainty Star had when he spoke, that raw honesty in his voice with his confession in the park, Rictor didn’t know if he’d ever had that before. His emotions had always been a whirlwind of things he didn’t understand, a mixture so convoluted that he often only knew how to express it through anger. Rictor couldn’t remember a time he’d been completely certain about how he felt.

Until now. It took some exploring, took a lot of conversations with a lot of people, but Rictor knew how he felt now. He knew how he’d felt since he was sixteen, knew he’d been lying to himself for the better part of a decade now, understood that every single woman he’d climbed into bed with had been a desperate attempt to convince himself that he was who the world told him he was supposed to be. Jon’s words repeated in his head. There wasn’t something wrong with me. Terry’s words followed them. You’re exactly the way you should be. There was nothing wrong with the way Rictor felt about Shatterstar. There never had been.

There might, however, have been something wrong with the way he’d gone about it. Leaving Star alone in that park after his confession, abandoning him when he was emotionally vulnerable, that had been a dick move, even by Rictor’s standards. Star deserved better than that, had always deserved better than that. (He deserved better than Rictor too. Rictor reminded himself of that a thousand times on his way over, repeated it over and over until it stuck. Star deserved better, and if he chose to pursue better, Ric would be okay with that. He would make himself okay with that.)

Rictor looked down at his hands as Star spoke, smiling faintly at the memories. “I used to think you were nuts,” he offered, “waking up at the crack of dawn like that. I always kind of liked it, though. You were consistent. Nothing else ever was.” He’d been able to count on Star back then, better than anyone. He and Tabby bickered constantly, Terry always felt a mite too close to the X-Men to be long for their team, Sam was a leader too good to be stuck with the rejects, Bobby was a frickin’ billionaire who probably only ever hung out with them because Sam was there… Everyone on the team had seemed on a different level than Rictor except for Star. Star was the weird kid who didn’t know how clocks worked, the guy who got every metaphor wrong, the one who needed Rictor in a way no one else ever had. It had been selfish, the way Ric clung to that. It had been greedy, the way he made sure to love the only person he was sure would never leave him.

He clung to Star because Star was his safe space, the most constant thing he had outside the ground beneath his feet. And Shatterstar’s confession had been an earthquake that knocked him off balance, but it wasn’t a bad thing. He understood that now.

Those feelings of mine are still here. I hope that is alright with you. Ric’s heart was pounding now, beating so fast he thought the ground might shake with the force of it, but it didn’t. Everything stood still, just as it had when Shatterstar said the words in the park. There was no quaking, no trembling. There was, for perhaps the first time in Rictor’s life, peace. Like a meadow in the springtime, with new things blooming beneath the dirt.

“That’s okay with me,” he said quietly. “It’s --- It’s more than okay, actually.” Rictor closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “There was… You know, there was this researcher in Germany, who devoted his whole life to studying trees? I used to read his stuff when I was a kid. When my dad would take me to…” He trailed off, shaking his head. He didn’t want to recall his father dragging him along to arms deals, the way Rictor would sneak out of sight to sit in the dirt with a book and wait for it all to be over. “His stuff was always my favorite. He did a lot of study into what they felt, and nobody else ever really did that. Nobody else really thought about it. They feel fear, pain.” He looked down to where their hands were clasped together, throat tight as the next word came out in barely a whisper. “Love.” He shut his eyes again, heart still pounding. Could Star feel the pulse racing in his wrist? Did he know what Rictor was thinking? “I’ve been thinking a lot about… who I am. I keep waiting for somebody else to tell me, keep waiting for someone to give me the answer like when I was a kid, but I don’t think that’s happening. I think maybe I’ve known the answer for a long time now, and I just… Didn’t want to hear it. I know I don’t have to tell you how stubborn I am. You know me better than anybody, Star, and you always have. You know me better than I know me.”

Absently, Rictor rubbed his thumb against Star’s hand, taking a deep, uncertain breath. “I dated a lot of girls, you know? I had moments with just about everybody on our old teams, I told myself I loved them, but I never felt the way I was supposed to feel. The way I’d felt with other people.” He paused, swallowing before opening his eyes and bringing them up to meet Star’s. “The way I feel with you. It took me… I mean, I didn’t understand it. I still don’t know if I understand it. And I’m not --- It’s not fair for me to ask you to help me understand it, it’s not fair for me to do what I did in that park and come to you with this now, but I don’t… I’m not really sure what else to do. I love you, Star. I’m pretty sure I always have.”

STAR: There was nobody else that would capture Shatterstar’s attention in the same way that Julio has since they were teenagers. He has always been convinced that his best friend was better than anyone else who came into his life after that. It wasn’t difficult for Star to make connections with other Mutants or anyone for that matter — discovering rather quickly over his life that he has an outgoing personality. He radiates charisma, seeking to make more friends with anyone who wished to listen to his stories. Shatterstar wasn’t always easy to have a conversation with since he could get easily confused by the culture surrounding Earth, and gets his idioms mixed up. Although, somehow this didn’t seem to matter to most as they would seek out friendship with the redhead anyway. No matter how many of these bonds were created, none of them would be a greater friend than Julio is to him. He was a constant for him, always there to help him through difficult situations or just introduce him to concepts that have been missed out on — such as when Star was taught him how to read clocks.

Of course there was aspects to the aftermath of his confession that were unfortunate, but Shatterstar didn’t want to put Julio in such an awkward position by sticking by his side. He knows that they needed that time away from each other so the feelings could be thought about. He doesn’t think badly of his best friend for needing to take a step back, and hopes that Julio isn’t upset with himself over what happened — in his own eyes, the Mutant thinks of the other as a good man still. His heart still racing at the thought of him, but having him so close? Makes his heart want to burst through his chest and give itself to Julio properly because there could never be someone else that makes him feel so strongly.

“I feel like most thought of me that way, but I might have been taking my work out routines too far. Remember how I used to set aside three separate times during the day for my fitness? I was a little obsessed, but then I discovered so much else about this world that also deserved my attention.” Shatterstar still goes to the gym, but not nearly as often as the younger version of himself used to do. “I’m glad you liked having me around even if I annoyed you with my clicks of the remote. We were lucky Cable reprogrammed our television to stop my use of the devise that turned the channel.” Shatterstar laughs, a soft sound filling the room as he found some humor in the memory looking back on it — remembering Julio being so annoyed with him back then, but it was a fond memory now looking back on it. “We have come a long way together.” He was proud of their journey, not wanting it to have ever gone another way.

There was still some uncertainty about what this conversation was really about, feeling as if Julio has a point behind reflecting on their time growing up together. His hand wasn’t pushed away, which Star was going to take as a good thing, making a soft smile appear on his face while his eyes turned from looking at their hands, and back to that handsome face. What does it mean? It’s more than okay, actually.

His palm squeezes gently at the one intertwined with his own, listening with each word. Shatterstar believes in that, thinking it would be foolish of anyone to be against believing trees and plants didn’t have feelings of their own. All of the living beings on this planet do in their own way, just expressing it differently. Star does think that is quite fascinating — knowing plant life class capable of feeling love, and hoping that he doesn’t ever bring them pain. “If you ask me society should try understanding nature more. The trees and wildlife has been here long before we were born, and often get taken for granted. I do hope any trees I’ve come across only feel good emotions when I’m involved. Nature is quite beautiful. We didn’t have anything like it on Mojoworld.” Shatterstar goes silent for a moment while listening to what Julio says next, not thinking that he came here to talk about trees, but doesn’t mind if that ever was the point. Any conversation with this man makes him happy — just getting to hear his favorite voice again. “I don’t think anyone can tell you how to feel. They can help you in finding your own answer, but ultimately has to be your own voice. I know you better than anyone else, Julio. We have been friends for the longest time, and while you may be stubborn, yes, that is not all you are. I have seen you show compassion too, a whole range of emotions, and whole not everyone sees them — I have. You are extraordinary, and I will also cherish any new part of yourself that has been discovered if that’s what you’re hinting at. I have learned once that we all grow over time. You have always supported me, and I will always do that for you as well.” He smiles reassuringly, taking a deep breath while thinking about what could possibly be coming.

His heart continues to race.

Shatterstar feels like the world stopped turning after hearing those words. He didn’t expect this, a whirlwind of happy emotions beginning to fill his heart. Perhaps Rictor knew this since he gave his hand another squeeze before speaking up. “Y—You love me? I love you too, Julio. I mean it with all of my heart that I believe I have always felt this way about you, ever since we were those teenagers getting into all sorts of trouble. This will be new for both of us. I know you have never been with a man, but I have never been with anyone. We could take it at our own pace, learning how to do this together. I just want to be with you if you would be comfortable to be my boyfriend.” Shatterstar is blushing now, feeling vulnerable in the best of ways.

Does Star choose to be bold?

The Mutant leans in to close the distance between them, pressing their lips together for his very first kiss. Which Shatterstar feels lucky that it was with someone he loves, and who loves him in return. This was a truly surprising turn of events, but kissing Julio ignited a flame in him. Nothing ever felt so right than this right here, his free hand lifting to cup the other Mutant’s cheek for a moment before pulling back for some air knowing his cheeks were a darker shade of red now. “I hope that was okay —“ It felt like his life was finally more complete, and hopes Julio felt the same way.

JULIO: What is so wrong with you, Rictor’s uncle had asked him once, that you are utterly incapable of committing to anything for more than an instant? It had felt unbelievably harsh at the time, and Rictor knew it hadn’t truly come from a place of love. Gonzalo had been one of the most committed to the Richter family business, second only to Rictor’s father in the intensity of his obsession. We’re making a name for ourselves, Julio, he’d snapped, angry and bitter in a way Rictor had seen in the mirror far too many times. Why don’t you want to be a part of this? And Rictor hadn’t had an answer for him. He hadn’t known what it was about him that he found it impossible to commit, but it hadn’t ended with his family’s business. It followed him, everywhere he went.

It was why he’d had such a hard time with teams in the past, why he’d left X-Force for Mexico and left Mexico for X-Force in an endless pattern of inability to stick to one or the other. It was why his time with the New Mutants was so short, why he bounced from team to team for most of his teenage years without ever sticking to anything. It was why he climbed up on the roof of X-Factor Investigations with every intention of shrugging the commitment of his own life. It was also why he pushed people away with everything he had, why he used bitter sarcasm like a vibe blast designed to distance himself from anyone who might want to get in close. Rictor wasn’t the type to commit, and he wasn’t the type to make friends, and Shatterstar was both.

It had always amazed him, how easily Star got people to like him. Ric joked more than once that Star could befriend the pigeons in the park if he tried hard enough, and he knew that was something he would never be capable of. Star was an easy person to like. He was charming, he was bright-eyed, he was charismatic. Rictor was an acquired taste. More than once, he knew, people had put up with him only because he and Shatterstar often came as a package deal. You suffered one to have the other. Perhaps he should have been bothered by that, but he never was. It was understandable, after all --- Rictor would suffer his own company to enjoy Shatterstar’s, too.

“You were committed,” he said quietly. “I always liked that.” Star had always balanced Rictor’s worst qualities with complementary opposites. Rictor couldn’t commit to anything, and Star committed to everything. Rictor couldn’t make his own family like him, and Star could befriend strangers on the street. Rictor scarcely wanted to live some days, and Star viewed the world with a bright joy that should have been impossible given his history. An optimist and a pessimist, they were. “I was probably a little too dramatic about that, anyways,” he admitted with a quiet huff, remembering the ordeal. “I shouldn’t have threatened to kill you over a remote control, probably.” It hadn’t been a real threat, of course. Rictor was just… kind of an ass, even back then. (Especially back then, maybe.) “We have, haven’t we?” His voice was quiet, and he didn’t say what he was thinking. He didn’t say that he’d never expected to make it this long, didn’t say that there was no part of him that had ever anticipated living past twenty. He thought Star might understand it, anyways. Even an optimist could have seen the unlikelihood of their survival.

Maybe, in the end, all of that made this moment inevitable. There was that old cliche, wasn’t there, about opposites attracting? That which we lack attracts us, someone once said, and it was true. Rictor had been drawn to Shatterstar from the beginning, and maybe Star had been drawn to him too. Maybe this was always going to happen. Wasn’t it pretty to think so?

Rictor laughed, a quiet breath of air when Shatterstar spoke. Anyone else, he thought, might have questioned his ramblings, but not Star. Star would listen to Ric talk about trees for hours and stay intrigued all the while, would let Rictor go on and on and on for as long as he needed to. He’d let him talk circles around a point before getting to it, let him ramble in metaphors and mutter in excuses. He’d never once asked Rictor for more than he could give, never once expected him to break away parts of himself. There weren’t many people he could say that about. “They were here before us,” he agreed. “It’s their world, not ours. And most people don’t even… I mean, they don’t even try to get it.” He paused, quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “that you didn’t have trees on Mojoworld. You deserved trees. You deserved trees and plants and animals and bugs and ---” And love. Star had deserved so much love. Rictor knew he wasn’t the right person to give it to him, knew that Star deserved someone better, but god, he wanted to give it all he had. He wanted to try to love something without quaking it to pieces, wanted to try committing to something without running away. He wanted to be better. Shatterstar made him want to get better.

His throat tightened as Star spoke, as the best man he’d ever known said a multitude of kind things about him that he’d done nothing to deserve. Rictor broke Star’s heart, he did that. And still, Star was here. He was always here. He loved Rictor even on the days when it felt like there was no Rictor to love, loved him when he disappeared into his mattress and didn’t move for hours and hours. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who thinks that,” he said quietly. “I’m… Thank you. For thinking that. Thanks for believing in me.” I’ll try to deserve it.

When Star repeated the words, disbelief clouding his tone, Rictor let out a nervous, watery laugh. “Yeah,” he said quickly, lest Star get the wrong idea. “Yeah, I do. I really fucking do.” The world was standing still, and it was a good thing. He could breathe again, for what felt like the first time since he’d walked through that portal and left Star behind in the park. He could breathe again, for what was maybe the first time ever. He nodded quickly, his heart racing in his chest, face feeling warm. “I’m definitely comfortable with that. If it’s --- If you want me.”

And then they were kissing, and the world felt right. There was no nagging discomfort clouding the back of his mind. There was no quiet unease gnawing at his gut. There was no impatience begging the moment to end. There was only Shatterstar, and his lips on Rictor’s. There was only a world that made sense for the first time in his entire life.

When it ended, he wasn’t relieved the way he always had been with the women he’d dated. He wasn’t dreading the next moment of intimacy, wasn’t craving distance. Instead, there was something more akin to disappointment in his chest, but it was outweighed by the euphoria of the moment. “That was definitely okay,” he said quietly. “Actually, that was --- That was kind of perfect.”

STAR: When did Shatterstar learn to be so charismatic? It wasn’t as if holding a conversation ever mattered growing up on Mojoworld. All that mattered was having the ability to speak at all to carry out a battle cry. He wonders sometimes how different his life would have been if anyone had taught him how to process emotions as a child. It wouldn’t have made for exciting fights in the arena if Star was putting his feelings into it. They couldn’t risk him providing them with bad ratings — no, that just wouldn’t do. Although maybe deep down there was always the ache for wanting to connect with others. Shatterstar never got to form relationships of any kind before, so coming to Earth was an opportunity to be who he should have always been. Star never had friends before — so maybe this is all the reasoning behind wanting to befriend everyone that he meets. Which doesn’t always work, but the redhead does have the ability to make it happen most of the time. He could probably hold a conversation with just about anyone, which is sweet, but not if your friends are trying to pull you away from conversing with a stranger.

Star wouldn’t want to trade this life for anything, being able to feel everything has made his life worth living. He could express when he was happy, upset, or angry. This wasn’t always the case, and Julio has a lot to do with making sure Shatterstar was able to express how he felt. There was many sides to his personality, and this is when Star realized he doesn’t have to be that violent warrior all of the time. He was allowed to be more than that — create a whole life for himself. His first decision has always been to keep his best friend close after they started getting close. Star has met many people since coming to Earth when he was fifteen, and none of them had been quite as amazing as Julio is.

“I was quite committed. I felt like working out was the most important part of the day. I still view it as being important, but not something I have to do for five hours of each day.” Shatterstar remembers doing over a thousand push ups before Rictor even woke up, able to do them with just a few of his fingers. He doesn’t mean to show off, but maybe fitness filled the void he didn’t know existed. While Star learned more about himself, he realizes there was so many other activities that could help fill his time too. He liked the way they sort of balanced each other out — like two puzzle pieces fitting together perfectly. “I didn’t understand at the time that the sound of a remote clicking could be considered irritating. You know I didn’t quite understand how anyone’s emotions worked at the time, so you were right to find that frustrating. I just wanted to watch everything all at once. I’m glad they’ve made remotes silent since we were younger. I can flip much as I want and not make a sound.” Which makes a smile appear on Shatterstar’s face like that was a solution to any future problems with it. “I continue to enjoy our journey through life together. I like that we play off of each other’s fighting styles so well, nobody else understands my techniques the same way you do. It has only ever been you.”

Shatterstar means it, thinking the fact they know the other in such a deep level is extraordinary.

There was a habit of talking a lot, sometimes it took Star some time getting to a point if there even was one. The best part of their friendship was just letting each other talk for hours if they needed to about anything. It was important since Shatterstar never once felt judged by Julio for saying what was on his mind — in return he always listened with interest for every word his best friend says to him. He always looks forward to seeing him after a long day or in the morning when Rictor wales up. This must be love, since nobody else made his heart beat faster then they walk in the room smiling at him like that. “It is not right that others don’t try to understand. I may never completely get it, but I try my best. I’m sure you are aware. You don’t need to apologize, but thank you. When I first came to Earth I ended up in this field with flowers and many trees. It was overwhelming because I’ve never seen anything so breathtaking before. I find that it’s more enjoyable to get out and enjoy nature than stay indoors all the time. Mojoworld didn’t have much except for doing what pleases Mojo. I’m not so much fan of bugs, but it is nice to have the opportunity to avoid them. I’m just happy not to be missing out on any of it anymore.” Shatterstar smiles at that, not sure if anyone deserves these things, something so simple, but you don’t know how much you would miss it until it’s gone.

“Maybe we can go on that road trip sometime and go visit the Grand Canyon. I would very much enjoy that trip.” Would they be able to get the time off? Would Jamie just be happy to be understanding one less Mojoworlder for a few weeks? He thinks the trip sounds fun, and if Julio was still interested in the idea that they should go. It would be just the two of them, no worries except what the road ahead has prepared for them. Everything has been so serious lately, and they deserve some fun too, don’t they?

Shatterstar feels like his heart was ready to fly right out of his chest with how quick it was beating. After what happened in the park the love felt for Julio never left, still making a home in his chest refusing to leave. Star is glad for not letting go. This was the best surprise, so unexpected, and maybe this is why Rictor took much longer than expected to come see him again.

He loves him too.

It was easy to get emotional, feeling the happiest that the redhead has ever been. “I love you very much, Julio. This is the best moment of my life having you love me too.” The smile on his face doesn’t go anywhere, having a feeling that this was going to be an expression shown quite often from now on. This would be new for both of them, but nothing feels more right than being able to call Rictor his. “Of course I want you. My feelings have not changed. It is official now. You’re my boyfriend. Does this mean I can hold your hand all the time? I would like to be able to hold your hand.” Shatterstar has never done this before, but there was nobody else that he would want to date.

There was some nerves since Star has never kissed someone before, but if that felt perfect for Rictor then that was enough to keep Star smiling about it. They were kind of perfect for each other weren’t they? Maybe they were destined to meet, be part of the other’s life ever since they were born, or maybe in all universes find their way to the other Mutant. “It was more then perfect. I could get used to doing that. I must confess that was my first kiss, and I’m glad that it was with you.” Star leans in again to kiss his boyfriend again, but wanting this one to last longer than the previous kiss. He loves this man, and can’t get enough of him now that they’re together.

JULIO: Was there a world, Rictor wondered, where they were different? Was there a universe out there somewhere in the vastness of the multiverse where their lives were peaceful, where they were better off? Maybe there was a place where Shatterstar had been raised by his biological parents, where he never stepped foot on Mojoworld at all. Maybe there was a universe where Rictor’s father didn’t die with a slug in his chest, where the world didn’t shake and groan with his grief. A place where Shatterstar found the X-Men instead of X-Force, a place where Cameron Hodge didn’t pick Rictor apart and break him into pieces. A place where Shatterstar learned from an early age how to express his emotions and talk about them, a place where Rictor had emotions that were more than just empty or sad. There was a multitude of possibilities, Rictor knew. There were worlds where they were better off. There had to be.

But were they still like this?

In those worlds where Shatterstar never stepped foot on Mojoworld, in the ones where Rictor never left Mexico, did they find one another all the same? In the universes where Star was an X-Man, where Rictor never suffered Hodge, did they still watch movies once a week and share a bowl of popcorn? Was it selfish, Rictor wondered, to be glad for all the things Star had suffered in order to bring them together on Cable’s team, in order to give them the bond that helped shape him into the man he was now? Was it still selfish if he was glad for his own suffering, too? There must have been worlds where they were happy. There had to be. But this was the world where Shatterstar woke him up at four in the goddamn morning doing pushups next to his bed. This was the world where they had movie nights and stakeouts. This was the world where Star was his best friend. And that made it the best world Ric could imagine.

“You know,” Ric said, a little quieter now, “I used to be kind of jealous of you. I mean, you didn’t --- You didn’t know what was going on half the time, but you were… You’ve always had this way about you, dude. You make everything look so easy. You can be committed to waking up at the ass crack of dawn and working out for five hours a day like it’s nothing. You can make people like you without trying. You’ve got all this --- all this shit that’s happened to you, all this awful fucking shit, and you still know how to be happy. And I’m glad for that, I am, because you deserve to be happy, but I was still jealous. I was never good at any of that. I’m still not. I don’t know how to commit to shit. I sure as hell don’t know how to make people like me. And I can’t…” I can’t be happy. He knew the statement wasn’t entirely true, but there were days when it felt like it was. Rictor had been happy before, even without realizing it. He’d had moments with the X-Force where he was on top of the goddamn world. He’d had movie nights with Star where he laughed so much tears stung his eyes. He’d loved and been loved by people who always deserved better, and he still wound up on the roof of X-Factor looking for an out. “I’m really lucky you decided to be my best friend,” he said suddenly. “I think about that a lot.” Star could’ve had his pick, on X-Force, of who to follow him around. Sam never would’ve told him no. Terry would’ve loved it. Tabby always found him hilarious. Any of them would’ve been happy to let Star hang around them, but it was Ric he chose to latch on to. Ric, who was an ass even back then, who shook the world apart at the slightest irritation, who never made excuses for the shit he did because he never cared enough to try it. He’d lucked out. He still didn’t know how. “Me, too,” he said quietly, Star’s words echoing in his ears. It has only ever been you. What had he ever done to deserve that?

Ric smiled faintly as Shatterstar spoke, nodding along with it. “I always liked it,” he admitted quietly, eyes darting over to the window. “Nature, I mean. It’s… I didn’t like the quiet much, you know? Growing up, nothing was ever quiet. So many people around all the time, always yelling and fighting and talking over each other. I get uncomfortable when it’s quiet. But nature’s never quiet. It’s peaceful, but it’s loud. If you listen close enough, you can hear it. The birds, the bugs, the dirt… It’s never quiet.” Star was never quiet, either. He was always a flurry of conversation, always a rambling speech about something only Ric could pick up on. Even in fights, there was nothing silent about him. There were battle cries, there was the metal clanging of swords, there were feet against the ground. Rictor had always hated the quiet, and Shatterstar had always found ways to fill it without trying. He was good at that, good at giving Ric exactly what he needed. And right now…

Right now, all Rictor needed was this. All he wanted was the two of them on a ratty couch he’d found in a dumpster and dragged back to XFI without a word. “A road trip would be fun,” he agreed. “There’s a lot of this country I haven’t seen.” He’d never had the time, moving from one superhero team to another since he was a teenager. As a mutant, your life became about surviving. Just once, Ric wanted to see what it was like to make his about living. And this… This was what living felt like.

Living, he decided, was Shatterstar’s hand in his. It was those words that had stopped the world in its tracks kicking it off into motion again, it was the way things felt right when their lips met, it was the way he thought he must have been holding his breath his entire goddamn life because breathing never felt quite like this before. He let out a quiet, breathless laugh at Shatterstar’s question, nodding his head empathetically. “I’m definitely your boyfriend now, dude. You can hold my hand as much as you want.”

Ric was grinning when they pulled away from the kiss, happier than he’d been in a long time. And you couldn’t hang your happiness on other people, you couldn’t live for someone else and not for yourself, you couldn’t stop feeling all the awful things you felt just because someone you loved loved you back, but god, it made it easier. It made it all okay, even if only for a moment. “I could definitely get used to it, too,” Ric agreed. “Wanna take a shot at getting used to it now?” And he leaned in and pressed their lips together again. Star was right --- it was more than perfect.

#CONVO // JULIO #010 // JULIO #ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ʟɪᴍʙ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʀᴇғᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏsᴇ ᴛʜɪs ᴛɪᴍᴇ? [ MUSE ]#ɪ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴀɴ ᴇᴍᴏᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟ ᴀɴᴄʜᴏʀ ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ ᴄᴀɴ ᴏɴʟʏ ʙᴇ ʏᴏᴜ. [ JULIO RICHTER ]#depression mention //#trauma mention //

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