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thiswomanshouldbewriting · 5 years

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Holding on and Letting Go

This is my @rumbellebigbang fic, and damn was it hard to write. I never would have made it without my amazing beta @galactic-pirates and my partner @desperatemurph who made this awesome gifset.

I am posting the whole story on tumblr but you can also find it here on Ao3.

Summary: On a night like any other, Belle French comes home tired from work, and wants nothing more than a good night of rest. Someone, however, shows up at her door: it's Gideon, the son she gave up for adoption thirteen years before. Shocked but also overjoyed, Belle hopes to finally get a place in her estranged son's life. His adoptive father, however, is incredibly protective of him; will she manage to convince Mr Gold that she's not a threat, just a mother that had to make a terrible choice?

Belle kicked her shoes off as she entered her apartment, unceremoniously dropping her purse to the floor next to them. Being tidy was a problem for tomorrow Belle; right now, even the thought of having to change into her pajamas felt like too much work.

She was contemplating whether it would be really awful to sleep in the clothes she’d worn at work when the doorbell rang. She couldn’t think of anyone she knew who could be looking for her at this late hour, and her mind immediately provided her with a number of scenarios involving serial killers. Through the peephole she saw a nervous-looking boy on the other side of the door. He didn’t exactly look threatening, so she resolved to open the door, but she was ready to close it at the first sign of danger.

“Who are you?” she asked, looking at the boy more closely and trying to remember if she had seen him before. He did look oddly familiar now that she thought of it.

“Are you Belle French?” he asked instead of answering.

“I asked you first, but I’ll let this slide because it’s written on the doorbell anyway. Yes, I am Belle French,” she answered, eyeing him curiously.

“My name is Gideon Gold. I’m your son,” he said simply, flashing her a little smile.

His words seemed to take forever to register in Belle’s brain, as all the memories that she had tried to suppress for over a decade came back with a vengeance, hitting her with the force of a truck.

“No. No you can’t be,” she contested weakly, but she very well knew he could.

“Didn’t you give a baby up for adoption on February 12th thirteen years ago?” Gideon asked her, clearly knowing what her answer would be.

Belle just couldn’t find the strength to say yes. Instead, she took a step back and motioned Gideon to follow her inside.

“I need a cup of coffee, do you want something?” she said as a starter, busying herself at the kitchen counter so that she could keep her back turned to him; she couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes.

“Could I get something to eat instead? I didn’t finish my dinner and walked a long way to come here,” he asked, and out of the corner of her eye Belle could see that he had already claimed her armchair as his, looking so at home in her house that it hurt. She opened the fridge, looking for something to make a sandwich with.

“Why are you here at two in the morning? Where are your parents?” she asked, trying to bring her mind back to the present and away from dangerous could-have-beens. She just hoped Gideon didn’t notice the slight tremble in her voice.

“I found out you lived here months ago. I just never had the courage to come here until now. Bad timing, I know, but I simply felt like it today,” he said, then quickly added: “Did you read all the books in that bookcase? Some of them are my favorites!”

“Look, I don’t know what you think of me, but I’m not an idiot. Either you tell me what’s going on or I call the cops,” Belle said, suddenly finding the courage to turn around and stare him down.

“If you do, I’ll tell them you kidnapped me,” Gideon replied without missing a beat.

“And they’ll believe you because I’m your birthmother. You’re clever, I’ll give you that,” Belle said, feeling a foolish surge of pride for the kid that she couldn’t and shouldn’t consider her son. “I still need to know what happened though. Unless you plan on escaping abroad, your parents will find you sooner rather than later, and I’ll be in trouble anyway. As you can see, I have very little to lose, so you’d better start talking.”

“Ok, fine,” Gideon groaned eventually. “I argued with my mom’s boyfriend because his idea of ‘bonding time’ is badmouthing my father all the time. My adoptive mother got mad and kicked me out of the house mid-dinner, so I walked over here and waited for you to get back.”

“She kicked you out of the house for that?” Belle asked, trying to control the anger in her voice. She knew she was hardly in a position to judge when she had kicked Gideon out of her entire life, but at least she had known her son would be taken care of. Kicking him out with only the clothes on his back was downright cruel.

“Yes, well, it’s not like she enjoys having me around that much. I’m pretty sure I’m mostly an annoyance to her,” Gideon said bitterly.

“I’m sure that’s not true. She adopted you, she wanted you, and I’m sure she still does. Maybe she doesn’t always make the right choices, but I’m sure she loves you,” Belle said, laying the plate with sandwiches next to Gideon and taking one of his hands in hers. It had been so long since she’d last held him, and all she wanted to do was to cry, but she had to be strong for him, at least this time around. She owed him that much.

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew her,” Gideon muttered, not looking Belle in the eyes. “But thanks anyway.” He grabbed one of the sandwiches then, and silence fell over them as he ate.

“So, you mentioned your father. Why didn’t you call him?” Belle asked after a while.

“I didn’t have my phone,” Gideon answered with a shrug.

“And you couldn’t have borrowed someone else’s? I’m sure many people would have been ready to help a lost boy. Or maybe you could have stayed at a friend’s house. Why come here of all places?” Belle inquired. She didn’t want him to feel under interrogation, but she needed to know what was going on.

“Look, I didn’t want to go to my father or to a friend’s house. I just wanted to come here, okay?” Gideon bit back, hurt creeping in his voice.

Belle sighed, taking a long moment to evaluate her next action.

“Gideon, I don’t want you to think that I’m unhappy you’re here. I’m confused and shocked and sorry for what I put you through, but I’m happy I finally get to see you again,” she started off, trying once again to keep her voice level as she treaded such dangerous ground. “But I can’t truly enjoy this moment if I know your parents are worried sick about you. I know this feels a lot easier to you, but spending time with me will only make things more complicated when your parents eventually find you. How do you think they’ll feel when they find out you came to me?”

Gideon looked away from her, the pout on his face making him look even younger.

“I don’t care. My adoptive mother doesn’t really care about me, why shouldn’t I at least have you?” he grumbled.

Belle sighed. Gideon was hurting, and he had turned to her with all the spite and desperation that only a teen could have. He needed affection, but he also wanted to punish his mother, maybe to make her jealous. Maybe Belle was only the means to that end, and deep down she really didn’t know how that thought made her feel. Being all but used by her son and then forgotten would be hell - which she totally deserved - but a sincere affection might be even worse. Would his parents even allow her back in her son’s life, or would she have to let him go a second time? And if they tried to bond but Gideon found her sorely lacking, would her heart be strong enough to handle that rejection?

“Of course you can have me,” Belle said, her treacherous heart singing at the prospect. “But please, please call your family before I truly get arrested for kidnapping. Maybe you could call one of your grandparents? Mine were always ready to forgive me for anything, and they’d talk my parents into forgiving me as well. Here, you can use my phone,”

Gideon pondered her words for a few seconds, taking her phone in his hands.

“Maybe… maybe I could call my brother. He won’t tell dad where I am if I ask him not to. I can have him tell mom and dad that I’m fine, so they won’t worry. Can I… can I spend the night here if I do this?” Gideon asked, his big hazel eyes shining with hope.

Belle knew that it was nearly impossible that his parents would be happy not knowing where he was spending the night, but how could she refuse Gideon when he so clearly needed to feel that an adult was on his side?

“Okay, but put the phone on speaker, I want to make sure you are not just pretending to call. I’m truly risking prison here,” Belle warned him.

Gideon had barely started dialing the number when the doorbell rang.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked, even though he had the feeling he knew exactly who was pounding on the door like crazy.

“Miss French, I have already called the police,” a man hollered from outside. “Open this door now or I swear I’ll have it brought down. And if you have hurt even a single hair on Gideon’s head I promise you’ll regret having ever been born!”

Belle felt the sudden, irrational instinct to run away, the same visceral fear she’d felt when labor began and she realized there was no escaping the pain. She forced herself to step towards the door on legs that felt like lead, wondering if Gideon’s father would give her time to explain herself or if he’d have her taken to jail straight away.

Surprisingly, he didn’t do either of those things. The moment she opened the door, he sprinted past her as if she didn’t even exist, running to his son and wrapping him in a bone-crushing hug. Belle looked away from them, and found herself facing two other men, one of whom was a policeman.

“Don’t worry about Officer Graham. I couldn’t convince my father to come here without the police, but as long as Gideon is fine - and I’m sure he is - we won’t press charges or anything,” the younger man said, offering his hand for her to shake. “I’m Neal, by the way, Gideon’s brother.”

He was smiling at her, albeit a little awkwardly, and that made her feel a bit better.

“He just showed up at my door, I swear I didn’t contact him first. I was about to make him call you. I’m truly sorry for this mess, you must have been worried sick,” she apologized, focusing on Neal because she still couldn’t find the courage to look at Gideon’s father. Judging from the rage in his voice as he knocked on her door, she had the feeling he was far less chill about this than his son.

“I have no doubt about it. Gideon had told me he was looking for you, so when he went missing I knew exactly where to look,” Neal explained.

“Couldn’t you have kept your mouth shut? I was fine, and I would have let you know!” Gideon complained, slipping away from his father’s arms.

“No, you shut up. You made dad completely freak out. We had to ask Dove to drive us here because dad was so nervous that he couldn’t even keep the steering wheel straight. What were you even thinking?”

There was a flash of guilt in Gideon’s eyes, but whatever he was about to say was cut short when his father stepped between him and Neal.

“We clearly have a lot to discuss, but we’ll have plenty of time for that when we get back home. I’m sure Miss French has better things to do than listen to our family drama, and we’ve already bothered her enough,” Gold said.

He barely deigned her a glance but, when he did, Belle wished he hadn’t. He stared at her as if she were a speck of dirt on his polished shoes, his gaze filled with hostility like she had seldom known, a mixture of hatred and disgust she only remembered seeing in her father’s eyes.

“It’s no matter, really. I just wanted to help Gideon,” she said somewhat awkwardly.

“Well, clearly your help isn’t needed anymore,” Gold said, his voice cutting as steel. “We’ll be on our way now.”

Neal flashed her an apologetic smile as they exited the apartment, and Gideon lingered for a quick surprise hug. Belle could feel Gold’s eyes burning into her as she tentatively wrapped her arms around her son, but she was ready to fight his rage for Gideon. He didn’t say anything though, and soon enough she was shutting the door behind them. After the turmoil of the past half-hour, her home felt eerily quiet now. She started pacing around, tidying up the place to give herself something to do and restrain from thinking about how much it had hurt to watch Gideon walk away. Sleeping would have helped her, but even though she was exhausted her brain was fully awake. When, over an hour later, she got into her bed, she kept tossing and turning as memories and nightmares blurred together in a constant cycle of dozing off and waking up with tears in her eyes.

Her sleep was too light and restless to keep her from hearing her phone buzzing in the early hours of the morning. The lack of sleep was making her feel light-headed, so it took her a few seconds to focus on the words contained in the message, which was from a number she didn’t recognize.

‘We just got home. Dad was mad af and spent the entire trip scolding me, but he has calmed down now, and I’m not even grounded! He’s incredibly pissed at mom though, and now they’re fighting on the phone. Thank you for today, I hope you don’t mind I got your number when I took your phone. Love, Gideon.’

If she had been less sleepy, Belle would have taken some time to consider the implications of every possible answer she could send him. Instead, with her heart hammering in her chest, she quickly wrote the words that she felt were the truest.

‘I’m glad you’re okay, and I don’t mind about the number at all. I’m always here if you need me. Love, Belle.’

She laid back on her bed, clutching her phone to her chest, giddy and heartbroken all at once. It was only when her alarm went off two hours later that she realized that, after Gideon’s message, she had finally managed to sleep.

Throughout the following days, Gideon kept messaging her with alarming regularity. He told her about how his day had been and asked about hers, he complained about how silly his brother became whenever a certain Emma was involved, and showered her with his thoughts about pretty much every fantasy saga he had been able to put his hands on. Belle liked to think that his love for books came from her, and the thought warmed her from the inside. His messages, however, worried her just as much as they rejoiced her. She truly wanted to be close to Gideon, yet she worried that she was only making things worse for him, teaching him to keep secrets from his parents and undermining their authority in her selfish desire to fix her past failings.

After a few days of furious debating with herself, she eventually resolved to ask for a friend’s help. There were very few people who knew she had given her son up for adoption, and she had cut them all out of her life, for good reason. This meant that if she wanted someone’s advice, she’d need to come clean about her past first.

Ariel had a daughter of her own, so she was the only one of her friends who could speak from experience, but that also meant that she would truly understand the gravity of what Belle had done. By talking to her, Belle could jeopardize the life she had built for herself; if Ariel recoiled from her, if she called her a monster and told all their friends just what kind of woman she was, Belle really wouldn’t be able to blame her, but she’d also need to move again, just like she’d done as soon as she’d finished high school. Her own guilt was heavy enough to bear; she couldn’t live with other people’s judgment as well.

They met that afternoon, and Belle’s voice trembled as she started telling her story, but her friend proved more than worthy of her trust. Ariel let Belle talk without interrupting, and if there was a flicker of shock or horror in her eyes she did her best to hide it. When the tale was finally over, and Belle felt like she’d just run a marathon, the first thing Ariel did was hug her.

“I’m so sorry. You deserved better, both you and your son,” she said, holding her so tightly that it almost hurt. It was exactly what Belle had needed, and she had to take a few deep breaths to keep from sobbing in relief.

“I gave him up for that, to offer him something better, but now I’m not sure of what that is anymore,” she admitted.

Ariel pulled back, but kept a strong hold of her hands, a reminder that she was not going to leave her. “I will be honest with you, Belle: if I were Gideon’s adoptive mother, I’d want to know that you’re in contact with him. The more you drag this on secretly, the more suspicious your behavior looks.”

“And what if his parents forbid him to talk to me again?”

“It’s a possibility, I can’t deny that, but Gideon cares about you and he has already shown just how determined he is to have a relationship with you again. You can’t expect his parents to be happy that he’s looking for another parent, but as wary or unhappy as they might be, they should let you see him for Gideon’s sake. Your son made the first step, Belle, but now it’s up to you to make sure that you go about this the right way.”

As much as it scared Belle to admit it, Ariel was right. Somehow, she had to work up the courage to speak to Gideon’s parents, starting with his father. She was pretty sure the man hated her, yet he was the one Gideon was closer to. Besides, she was still mad at his mother for kicking him out of the house, and she wasn’t sure she could hold a whole conversation with her without bringing that up. Gideon wasn’t all that happy when she mentioned her intentions to him, because he too was afraid that his father would try to put an end to their newfound relationship. He even went so far as to call her for the first time, but Belle, just like she’d done on the night he’d come looking for her, gradually managed to convince him, and soon enough she had Gold’s phone number registered. All she had to do now was find the courage to actually call him. She stared at her phone screen for what felt like hours, and eventually chickened out by telling herself that it was too late to call him anyway, and that he’d probably be pissed if she called him now.

She stalled as long as she could the following morning, but way too soon she was ready to start the day and make that phonecall. Holding her breath, she pressed the ‘call’ button and waited. It took Gold a while to pick up, so much that she had been about to hang up when he finally did.

“Ah, good morning, is this Mr Gold?” she stammered, her throat feeling as dry as sandpaper.

“Yes. Who am I talking to?”

“I know this might be surprising, but I’m Belle French and I’m…” she started, only to be harshly cut off.

“I know exactly who you are, and this is why I suggest you hang up right now and delete this number, unless you want to find yourself in serious trouble,” he hissed at her. The rage and disgust in his voice made her want to cry, but Belle knew that, with Gideon’s happiness at stake, she couldn’t afford to have a breakdown.

“Gideon and I have been messaging ever since he came looking for me,” she said quickly, before Gold could decide to hang up himself. “He took my number when I told him to call you. I wanted you to know.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a while. Right when Belle was starting to think he might have hung up on her after all, Gold’s ice-cold voice reached her ears again.

“And you’ve called so I can make it stop? You’ve realized teens are still as much work as newborns, but that it’s so much harder to shut the door in their face when they’re old enough to realize it?”

His assumptions were so absurdly wrong that, for a moment, Belle couldn’t find the words to reply. “No, no, how can you think I… you got it all wrong,” she explained hastily, horrified by the image Gold clearly had of her. “I don’t want you to put an end to this, I would never ask you to. I’m actually calling for the opposite reason; I want this to go on, but I don’t want to do this behind your back. I don’t want Gideon to lie to you. I know you have every reason to be wary of me, but I really want nothing more than to make Gideon happy, and I hope I can prove that to you.”

“I believe this is something we should discuss in person. I can drive to Boston and be there early in the afternoon,” he said, and Belle didn’t know if she should be happy that he wasn’t flat-out telling her no, or worried that he hadn’t said yes.

“I’m afraid I’ll be at work then. Could we do next Monday instead? And I could be the one to drive over, I don’t want to inconvenience you more than necessary.”

“No, I’m driving over to you,” he insisted, his tone admitting no protest. “I’ll be there on Monday in the early afternoon. I’d be glad if you didn’t tell Gideon about this meeting before Monday, I’d rather not have him worrying about what we might or might not tell each other.”

His voice, that had been cold and distant throughout the whole exchange, seemed to warm up a little as he mentioned Gideon, and that gave Belle hope. He truly loved her… well, his son, so why should he keep Gideon from his birthmother if that connection was important to him?

That thought kept her company throughout the following days, helping ease her nervousness at the upcoming meeting, but by Monday morning she was a nervous wreck nonetheless. She woke up unbelievably early, and started making rounds of her apartment - which she had spent the entire week cleaning and tidying up - to make sure that everything was truly spotless. Still with plenty of time to spare before Gold’s arrival, she took extra care in her outfit and make up; she only had this one shot at impressing him, and everything had to be perfect. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the doorbell finally rang. She took a deep breath, trying and failing to calm herself, then opened the door.

Gold gave her a cold nod, then strolled in as if he owned the place. Judging from his tailored suit and from what Gideon had told her, he could probably afford to. During their first meeting she had been so nervous that she had somehow failed to notice he used a cane, but even that couldn’t make him look any less intimidating.

“Would you…” she started off awkwardly, then paused to clear her throat. “Would you like something to drink?” she tried again, her voice sounding a little more confident this time.

“Miss French, we both know I’m not here for a drink or for small talk. I’m here to know what you want, and I don’t like wasting my time,” he replied drily.

Under his scrutiny, Belle felt nearly paralyzed, but she pushed that feeling down, focusing solely on the thought of Gideon and drawing strength from that. She straightened her back and stared at Gold with all the determination she was capable of.

“I want a place in Gideon’s life, as long as he wants me to have it. I gave up my parental rights fourteen years ago and I know that there’s no changing that, that I’m not legally his parent anymore, but he came looking for me, and I want to be able to be as close to him as a friend would. I want to be able to call him and message him and just be by his side if he needs me. Please give me this chance.”

She had rehearsed this request a billion times in her mind, and all things considered she was satisfied with the result; her voice had sounded polite but firm, and she had made her intentions pretty clear while also reassuring Gold that she wasn’t trying to replace him or his ex-wife. She was expecting to see some kind of reaction in him, a sign of acceptance or denial, but his expression remained stressfully blank as he pondered her words. He was looking at her strangely, as if he were trying to see through her.

“So I’m guessing there’s no amount of money that could persuade you to disappear again?” he asked eventually.

For a moment, Belle was so shocked that she believed she’d misheard. He couldn’t be trying to do this, not really.

“I’m sorry?” was all she managed to say, part of her nervousness disappearing in the face of her mounting disdain.

“You see, you wouldn’t be the first to try this trick. Birthparents reappear, they play nice for a while, and when the adoptive parents start feeling threatened by their presence they ask for a nice check in exchange for their absence. Or maybe you just realized that you’d be better off financially if you tagged along with my family, and are willing to put up with Gideon for that. If that’s the case, I’d rather pay you now than let Gideon get attached and then suffer when you reveal yourself for who you truly are. Name a sum, and we’ll have a deal,” he explained, his eyes still fixed on her, careful to catch her reaction. He really shouldn’t have bothered; even a blind man would have noticed the shock and horror in her expression.

“I’m not that kind of person. I don’t care who you are or how big of a sum you can give me. The life I have I built it myself, with no help, and I certainly don’t need yours now. I want what I couldn’t have thirteen years ago: I want my son.”

Belle was almost surprised by the resolution in her voice, but she barely had time to revel in her newfound determination, because Gold’s scowl suddenly deepened.

“That’s where you’re wrong. He’s not your son, not anymore, as even you have pointed out,” he hissed, looking so threatening that Belle was tempted to take a step back. “He’s mine, and so far you’ve given precious little reason for me to let you anywhere near him again. You say you have good intentions, but your actions say the contrary. You’re the one who tossed him away and never looked back. You’re the one that’s causing him to lie and run away, all things he had never done before. Maybe you don’t want money, and maybe you think you want to be a mother, but how do I know you won’t just play the part of the cool parent for a while and disappear the moment things get rough? You’ve done it before, after all, and I won’t let Gideon be hurt again.”

At some point during his rant, something inside of Belle snapped. His accusations, so wrong yet so similar to the voices she heard in her nightmares, brought out feelings she had barely known were simmering inside of her. When thinking of what she’d done, she was used to shame and guilt, but this time all she felt was rage. Rage at life, at how stupid she’d been, and more than anything at all those people who - just like Gold - thought they knew everything, when they understood nothing.

“How dare you?” she asked him, taking one step forward so that they were almost face to face. “How dare you make assumptions about me when you know nothing. You don’t know what it was like. You don’t know how hard it was for me. You have no idea of what it is like to hold your son, that you love more than anything, and then hand him over to a stranger because you can’t take care of him. You don’t know. Years ago I let other people force me to walk out of his life, but this time is different. If you want to keep me away from Gideon you’ll have to step over my dead body, because this time I’m fighting tooth and nail for him.”

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so furious and so alive. Her words, her indignation felt so right, and she was frustrated by how unaffected Gold was by the whole thing. She felt as though she could incinerate him with a single look, and yet here he stood, impassable to the storm raging inside of her. She hated it.

“So, you’re not going to say anything?” she prompted him, needing an answer, ready to fight.

“Well, I’m not going to give you visitation rights or schedule for Gideon to come over here,” he started off, gesturing at her to let him continue when she tried to protest. “But at the same time Gideon is old enough to decide whether he wants to hear from you or not. As long as he’s okay with it, you two can keep in touch in whatever way he wishes. If he wants to meet you, however, I want to be informed, and if I decide I’d rather be present for the encounter you won’t object. And God help you if I ever find out you’re causing Gideon to lie or run away again. You only get one chance at this, Miss French, and I’m not a forgiving man. If you blow this, if you cause Gideon any harm, I’ll tear you and your life apart piece by piece.”

Belle was so relieved that she thought she might faint. The weight that had been pressing on her chest since she was sixteen had suddenly been lifted; at long last, she could be with her son.

“Thank you, thank you so much. I promise you won’t regret this,” she vowed, barely restraining herself from hugging him; she had a feeling he wouldn’t appreciate that. “What about his mother? I’ll need her approval as well, do you think she’ll be okay with this?”

Gold looked surprised for a moment, as if he hadn’t been expecting Milah to be involved, then shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about Milah, I’ll talk to her. If I were you, I’d keep out of her line of sight as much as possible; she doesn’t like competition, and she will see you as a rival for Gideon’s affection. She’ll have to accept this situation for Gideon’s sake, but that does not mean she’ll like it, and she could turn quite nasty on you,” Gold warned her. He seemed to be looking at her differently now, still distant but much less wary, and definitely no longer angry or disgusted. The fact that he was even going out of his way to help her deal with his ex-wife felt nearly surreal.

“Do you really think she’ll be that upset? The last thing I want is to bring conflict into Gideon’s life.”

“As you might have noticed, there’s conflict between Gideon and Milah already. Strangely enough, your presence might just be the thing Milah needs to realize she needs to fix things between them,” Gold reassured her. “I still suggest you limit your phonecalls to Gideon when he’s at her place though. He would normally be staying with her here in Boston now that it’s summer, but after everything that happened Milah and I agreed it would be better if he moved back to Storybrooke a bit sooner than anticipated. He’ll be with her every other weekend for the duration of the school year, plus the occasional holiday.”

Belle took mental notes of all of that, thanking him again. She still couldn’t believe all of this was truly happening.

“Now that we’ve reached an agreement on your situation with Gideon, I have to ask you if there’s any chance of his father showing up as well,” Gold asked after a beat of silence, and the question sounded so absurd to Belle’s ears that she couldn’t help but let out a humorless laugh.

“Believe me, I’d be the most surprised if he did. The only time we ever spoke of my pregnancy he suggested I terminate it. I’m not even sure he knows I gave Gideon up for adoption, and I haven’t seen him in over a decade. The chances of him finding Gideon are abysmal, and the chances of him caring about him are even below that. I wouldn’t worry about the father if I were you.”

The heartbreak Gary had caused her had faded through the years, but the sheer disgust at the person he was had only increased. Now, as a grown woman, she fully understood just how vile he had been, how slyly he had taken advantage of her, and she pitied her younger self for ever falling for him.

“Looks like there is someone out there who deserved my anger after all. I’m sorry I thought that was you,” Gold said, something dangerous flickering inside his eyes. He was angry, but not at her, and it was a nice change. She remembered the threat he had made, how he’d destroy her and her life if she ever hurt Gideon, and in that moment she knew that’s exactly what he would do to Gary if she ever gave him his name. For a second, she was tempted to do just that, but there was too much at stake to indulge in vengeance. Messing with Gary could lead him to Gideon, and that was the last thing she wanted; for her son’s sake, her past had to stay in the past.

“I’ll be going then. Everything is settled and I have a long drive ahead of me,” Gold said, moving towards the door.

“Can I offer you anything? A cup of tea maybe, or I could make you a sandwich for the trip,” she offered again. She owed him more than she’d ever be able to say, but a sandwich was as good a place to start as any.

“There’s really no need. Goodbye, Miss French.”

The door closed behind him, and Belle stared at it for a few seconds, still struggling to believe the past half-hour hadn’t been a dream. He had said yes. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time, yet she couldn’t bring herself to do either. Suddenly, she realized she had to tell Gideon about this. He had been so worried and ready to fight his dad on this, but there would be no need, and she was so happy she could give him good news. She grabbed her phone and, for the first time, called her son’s number. Today started their second chance.

________________________________________________________________________________

By the time October rolled around, Belle was the happiest person in the world. After her encounter with Gold, things with Gideon had gone wonderfully, and her treasured collection of photos of him was growing rapidly. One of her favorites, that she had printed and framed, was the one she’d taken the first time she’d gone to Storybrooke, on Gideon’s first day of high school. It had been the first milestone of his life she’d been present for, and it had been hard to hide her tears as he hugged her before entering school. Another photo she kept in her wallet at all times, and just looking at it could brighten even the worst day.

She’d felt ill at ease in Storybrooke at first. In a quiet little town like that, a normal visitor was bound to be noticed, but being Gideon’s birthmother had put her directly at the center of the town’s gossip for a while. Gideon had been key to overcoming that; he’d been so obviously overjoyed at having her there, and so proud to be seen with her, that for the first time she’d forgotten to think of other people’s judgment. It didn’t always work, of course, but she liked to think she was getting better at it.

One of the first things Gideon had shown her in Storybrooke was the library: it was closed, unfortunately, but the ladder that went to the clocktower on top of it was still usable, and Belle found herself loving the view of the town from up there just as much as Gideon did.

“The mayor shut the library down years ago, but I’ll have it reopened. I’ll be the librarian and have all kind of initiatives: reading groups, writing groups, Harry Potter themed events, everything. I’ll make this part of the library too: this place was made to be a reading nook. Everybody is going to love it.” he had told her, gesturing vaguely around him as if he could already see the finished work.

“I feel like you’ve been planning this for a while, haven’t you?”

“Ever since I read Matilda as a kid. I even have a notebook on which I write every idea for this place. I don’t usually talk about this to people. I want to keep it a secret from dad, because he knows the mayor and I’m sure he could get the place reopened in a matter of minutes, but I want to do it myself.” he had said, still bubbling with enthusiasm. Then his expression had turned uncertain “Do you think it’s silly?”

“No, not at all. I always wanted to be a librarian as well,” Belle had said, stepping away from the window. “It’s nice to see you want the same.”

“Then why aren’t you one? Is it… is it because you got pregnant with me?” he had asked hesitantly.

Gideon had never asked her why she’d given him up, and she had never been brave enough to bring the matter up. Still, she could feel the need to know simmering inside of him, and every time he asked her something about her past she could feel the biggest, most dreaded question drawing a bit closer.

“No, absolutely not,” she had answered truthfully. “I started working right after high school, but I went to university afterwards. I’m not a librarian simply because it’s hard to find a librarian position, especially one that is decently paid. It’s a good thing that you’ve already found the perfect place to work at, isn’t it?”

Bringing Gideon’s attention back to his dream had distracted him and lightened the atmosphere, and for that day she hadn’t had to deal with any more hard questions. The idea of telling him about her past scared her more than it should have. Gideon had known she’d given him up for adoption, and yet he came looking for her, so he clearly had made some sort of peace with that. Yet the idea of telling him about his father - or hers, for that matter - felt so wrong. She didn’t want him to know how evil some people could be, and she wanted even less to admit how she’d let people like them defeat her, cornering her to the point where she had to give up the most precious thing in her life. She was ashamed to admit to her son that she’d let other people tear them apart.

Gradually, the colorful autumn leaves were replaced by the first flurries of snow, and as Christmas drew closer Belle learned with a little disappointment that she wouldn’t see Gideon for Christmas, as she’d secretly hoped.

“I’m staying with my mom… well, my other mom. Even if I’m supposed to spend half the holidays with her, she generally lets me go back to dad’s place if I want, but this year she insisted we spend some time together. Sorry,” Gideon explained on the phone.

Belle was glad he couldn’t see her face, so she didn’t have to hide her sadness. Rationally, she knew it was only a good thing if Gideon spent more time with Milah and mended the complicated relationship he had with her, but a little part of her couldn’t help but feel jealous. Given that she wouldn’t be spending her Christmas with Gideon, she accepted to switch shifts with Tiana at the restaurant and work on Christmas day. The day was every bit as chaotic as they expected, and Belle was so busy that she almost didn’t notice the group that had just sat at a nearby table.

Neal spotted her the same moment she saw him. His eyes grew wide in surprise, then he abruptly turned around and stared at the woman in front of him with such rage that Belle was surprised Milah didn’t catch fire on the spot. She either didn’t notice his death glare or didn’t care about it, because she kept chatting with the man beside her as if nothing had happened. Beside Neal, still oblivious to everything, sat Gideon.

Belle scurried away from the table, thankful that it was not her responsibility but Cecelia’s, but still painfully aware that she wouldn’t be able to hide her presence from them for long. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t mind Gideon being there; she worked at a fancy restaurant like any other, and she would be glad to just be able to say hi in between serving tables. The problem was Milah. Even if Belle could have given her the benefit of the doubt, Neal’s stare accused her; Milah hadn’t just casually stumbled upon the same restaurant Belle worked at, she had planned this, but to what purpose Belle couldn’t tell. She doubted, however, that Milah’s intentions were entirely innocent.

Belle tried to carry on as if nothing was happening, but not even five minutes had gone by before she heard Gideon exclaim: “Mom?”

“Yes, dear, what do you want?” Milah answered, sporting a sickeningly sweet smile.

For a moment, Belle thought Gideon was about to make a scene. For a moment, so did Gideon. He realized, however, that there would be no point in doing so: if Milah was doing this on purpose, as he strongly suspected, calling her out on it would just give her a chance to attack Belle directly. If this was a mere coincidence, or if Milah knew his birthmother worked here but didn’t know her face, making a scene would only point her in the right direction. So he bit back the angry remark that had been on the tip of his tongue, and tried to carry on as if nothing were happening.

It was hands down the worst Christmas any of them could remember, except for Milah and her boyfriend - Keith, if Belle remembered his name right - who seemed to be having the time of their lives. They tried to call Belle to their table more than once, dissipating once and for all any doubts on the coincidence of the whole thing. Belle thanked all of her lucky stars that Cecelia was always quick to intervene, because Milah seemed to be determined to make things as complicated and uncomfortable as possible: she changed her order several times and found literally every excuse to complain, which was just the cherry on top of the already busy Christmas lunch. By the time the four of them finally left the restaurant, Belle didn’t know whether to feel relieved or angry. Gold had warned her that Milah wasn’t the nicest person around, but purposefully ruining her son’s Christmas just to spite his birthmother was simply too much.

That day set a distinct change in the family dynamics. After a long discussion with Gold - who once again wanted to deal with Milah on his own - they decided to confront Milah together. The meeting was one of the most unpleasant experiences Belle had ever had. Milah had a particular talent for getting under her skin, alternating between shouting and whispering viciously as she brought up all the things that hurt Belle the most: how she had abandoned Gideon, how she wasn’t his real mother, how she wasn’t worthy of him. It took all of Belle’s willpower to keep herself together, but what really shocked her was how easily Milah could hurt Gold as well. Despite his attempts, he couldn’t quite hide his flinch whenever his former wife spat hateful words at him, and even if his remarks were just as cutting as hers, they lacked that particular, unsettling cruelty.

Milah eventually had to cave in when Gold threatened to bring this to a judge and let them decide whether or not Milah still deserved to see Gideon after what she’d done. She gave Belle the more insincere apology she could muster, and promised she’d never again do something like that. Belle found it very hard to believe her, and even though this technically counted as a win on hers and Gold’s part, Milah’s words had taken such a toll on them that she just couldn’t shake the feeling of having been defeated.

“Do you have to head back home straight away? I think we could both use a warm drink right now,” Belle suggested, pointing at a coffee shop nearby.

Gold glanced back at his parked car, clearly weighing the options.

“Okay,” he said eventually, surprising her.

The place was crowded, as was to be expected on such a cold day, but luckily they found a free table in one corner and ordered two teas.

“I’ll never understand how you don’t freeze to death dressed like that,” Gold said as she took off her coat, revealing clothes that he would have seen more fit for spring. Late spring.

“Well, I’ll never understand how you’re not sweating to death when dressed like that. You remind me of a girl I once shared an apartment with; we were constantly arguing over the heating, and eventually she moved out.”

“It’s a good thing we don’t live together then,” he joked, immediately regretting it. What if she took it as an insult? Luckily, Belle giggled.

“It is. We’d come to hate each other within a week.”

He was surprised by how much the thought of not being friends with Belle anymore hurt him. He’d started out hating her, being scared of her, and yet after talking to her just a handful of times his feelings had completely changed. Belle had a way of making him feel at ease that very few people possessed, and the fact that he was smiling so shortly after meeting Milah was proof of that.

“I’m sorry. For all the things Milah said to you, I mean. She really shouldn’t have done that;” he said, feeling the need to make up for his ex-wife’s behavior.

“Yes, she was… harsh. Is she always like this, or did I strike a nerve?”

What she’d really wanted to ask was ‘Is she always like this with you?’, because Belle couldn’t truly believe that her presence could make someone turn so viciously against their former husband. That question, however, would have been too direct and would have looked like prying.

“You didn’t do anything, at least not intentionally. I think you’re dealing with Gideon wonderfully, but she refuses to see past her wounded ego. She was always extremely… fierce, but I think I bring out the worst in her. I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. You did nothing to deserve such treatment: she is in the wrong.”

He smiled a bit sadly at her, like he appreciated her words but didn’t truly believe them. Their teas arrived in that moment, distracting them for a moment and giving Belle a chance to change the subject.

“You know, this is incredibly awkward to admit, but I’ve just realized I don’t know your first name. Maybe Gideon told me at first and then I forgot, I’m not sure, but he only calls you ‘dad’ and everyone else calls you ‘Mr. Gold’ and so it… it kind of slipped my mind.”

Under literally any other circumstance she would have died rather than admit this, but it was the only thing that had come to her mind that could distract him from his former wife.

“No apologies needed. I don’t really like my name, so I try to have it as little known as possible,” he explained.

“Could I maybe shorten it, or use a nickname? I feel strange calling you by surname.”

Milah had called him ‘Rum’, would he be offended if she used it?

“I’m not going to be weirded out if you keep calling me by surname, but if you prefer to use my name I guess ‘Rumple’ will do. Just don’t use it too much when we’re in Storybrooke and other people can hear us: I have a fearsome reputation to maintain.”

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow at that, and he smirked over the rim of his teacup.

“What, you don’t believe me?”

“I have a hard time imagining a town that keeps being scared of you after seeing how loving you are with your kids. I saw you trying to hold back your tears when Gideon started high school,” she remarked, taking a sip of her own tea.

“You’ll be surprised by how much people refuse to see once they’ve formed their opinion on someone. I’m not saying I’m lenient with late payments, but I’m not nearly as ruthless as I once was, yet my reputation stays unchanged. Still, I don’t want to endanger it more than necessary.”

“Fine, I’ll only use it in case of emergency, I promise,” she conceded in mock seriousness.

Her smile seemed to warm him more than the tea had, and there was a beat of silence as Gold mused over his next words.

“You know, I was thinking… Gideon’s birthday is coming in less than two months and your birthday is only two days later, so I was wondering if you’d like to come to Storybrooke for those days, and maybe stay a little longer than usual, so that you and Gideon can celebrate together. I know he’d love that, but I haven’t told him anything yet so that he doesn’t get his hopes up in case you can’t come…” he felt incredibly stupid asking her this, and he couldn’t quite tell why. He just wasn’t sure of who she was to him anymore, and how he should act around her. Were they co-parents? Acquaintances? Or were they becoming friends?

“I’d love to,” she replied, making him momentarily forget about his doubts. “I’ll have to make sure I can take those days off from work, but I don’t think there will be any problems.”

“Good. Do you want me to tell Gideon or do you want it to be a surprise?”

“No, tell him, it’s nice to have something to look forward to.”

She surely would be counting the hours until then.

“Thank you,” she added after a moment. “Really, thank you so much for everything you’ve done and you’re still doing for Gideon and me. You had every reason to be wary of me, but you listened to me and gave me a chance, and I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”

“You being there for Gideon and making him happy is payment enough,” he said immediately. “The only people you have to thank are Gideon and yourself: him because he’s the one who gave you a second chance, and you because you didn’t waste it. I merely supervised at first.”

Belle smiled gratefully at him, and their conversation flowed freely after that. Nearly an hour later, when Gold finally made it back to his car, the thought of Milah and her cruel words couldn’t have been more distant from their minds.

**********

The sky was thankfully clear when Belle drove into Storybrooke on the 9th of February, but there was snow piled up at the side of the streets, and the promise of more to come in the following days. She’d be staying in Storybrooke for a whole week, and she was beside herself with excitement. If fourteen years prior somebody had told her where she’d be now, she wouldn’t have believed it. She made a quick stop at Granny’s B&B to leave her suitcase and take a shower, then walked to Gold’s house. She had to be extra careful, because there were thin patches of ice on the sidewalk and she risked slipping more than once.

Gideon had been staring anxiously out of the window ever since Belle had texted to say that she was at the B&B. When he saw her, he screamed “SHE’S HERE” at the top of his lungs, and all but flung himself out of the house to go hug her.

“Don’t run!” Gold warned him as he hastened to follow him. “There’s ice on the ground…”

He had barely finished talking when he felt his good leg slip out from under him. All of his weight went on the bad one, already in pain from the cold, and a moment later he was falling hard on his backside, every bone in his body screaming in pain.

Belle and Gideon rushed to his side, their eyes wide with fear, talking over each other in their haste to ask him if he was okay.

“I’ve been better,” he replied gruffly. He reached for his cane, grimacing at the sight of his bruised hand, but when he tried to get back on his feet pain shot through his right leg, making him lose his balance again. It was only thanks to Gideon and Belle supporting him that he avoided a second fall. Sitting again on the cold ground was far from pleasant, but it was all he could do for now. He pulled the right leg of his pants up, and took a look at his prosthesis. The stupid thing seemed to be fine, but the point where his knee connected with it hurt like hell. It wasn’t unusual for it to hurt, but not to this level.

“Gid, could you go grab my crutches? I don’t think I can manage it with the cane,” he had to admit. He wanted to get back inside as soon as possible, both to change clothes and to avoid being seen like this by any passers-by, but he’d never liked using the crutches. He was especially bugged by the idea of letting Belle see him like this, hurt and unable to even stand on his feet. She was smiling worriedly at him, clearly trying not to stare at his prosthesis, and he appreciated her effort. The silence between them stretched awkwardly, and he was wondering if he should try to say something when his son reappeared.

“I called Whale. He’s at the hospital now, but his shift is about to end and he said he’ll be here in half an hour,” Gideon said, handing him the crutches.

Gold nodded, too focused on keeping his balance to speak. His bedroom was on the first floor, but there was no way he could manage the stairs now, so he settled himself in one of the guest bedrooms downstairs. Gideon brought him a change of clothes, while Belle made tea for everyone, and later insisted on disinfecting the cuts on his hands.

“I told you I can do it on my own,” he protested again as she took one of his hands in hers.

“I know, but it will be much easier and quicker if I do it,” she said, stubbornly refusing to let go of his hand even as the sting of the disinfectant made him squirm. “I know it hurts, but if you move it’s going to take even longer to finish.”

“Sorry. I’m just… not used to having someone do things for me,” he admitted after a moment, carefully weighing his words.

“Oh, I know the feeling, believe me. Do you want me to leave you alone? I just wanted to help, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything,” she made to move, but he gestured at her to stay.

“I’ll get used to it,” he said as an explanation. It was technically rude to say it that way, but Belle took it for the ��thank you’ it actually was and smiled at him.

“We’ll both have to. As I said, I’m used to being alone too.”

“Thank you,” he said as she finished bandaging his hand. “For this, for your patience, for everything. You just got here and you have to take care of me. I really didn’t want your vacation to start like this.”

“Well, that’s one of the perks of getting used to having other people around: you don’t have to deal with problems alone anymore. I’m here to stay, and not only on the good days,” she concluded with a smile.

When she said it like this, it sounded almost easy. He was still processing her words when Gideon announced Whale’s arrival, relieving him of the embarrassment to come up with a reply that was at least one tenth as significative as Belle’s words had been.

All in all, Whale told him he’d been lucky. He hadn’t broken any bones nor suffered any serious damage, but his knee was inflamed and Whale recommended not to wear his prosthesis for the next few days if he didn’t want to make things worse. In Gold’s opinion, that was far from being lucky, but he seemed to be the only one in the house to think so. After Whale left, he found himself in a heated discussion with Belle and Gideon on whether or not he should hire someone to help him through the following days.

“I’m perfect capable of taking care of myself without help, case closed,” he snapped.

“I know, but what if you fall again? We have lots of things planned for the next few days, and there’s still snow outside. You can’t lock yourself up in the house, and I can’t pick you up if you’re too hurt to do it yourself. I’m just worried, that’s all,” his son replied stubbornly, his expression so similar to Belle’s that Gold nearly felt like laughing, despite how nervous he was.

“Rumple, I’m sure you know your limits, and I’m not trying to impose anything on you, but Gideon has a point, and I don’t want you to risk anything just because you want to do everything on your own,” Belle said, clearly trying to keep the discussion form escalating.

“Then trust me when I say I’m perfectly capable of managing my life without a stranger following me around and taking care of me as if I were a kid,” he replied drily.

“Well, if having a stranger around is the problem, we could ask Belle to stay here and help you,” Gideon suggested then.

“WHAT?” the exclamation of surprise came from both of them at the same time, and if they’d been a little less shocked they would have probably found that fact very funny.

“I just thought… we’ll be with Belle most of the time anyway, so why not? You two already know each other, so I think you wouldn’t be as snappy with her as you’d be with a stranger, and she would probably be less strict than a real nurse, so you wouldn’t feel like you’re being babysat. I thought it could be a nice compromise,” Gideon explained, staring at his father as if daring him to contradict him.

“Belle came here to spend time with you, not to be my nurse,” Gold replied patiently. “You can’t expect people to change their plans because it suits you.”

“I mean, it’s not like I would mind, I just… I’m not sure I’d know what to do, or if you’d even be comfortable with having me around all the time,” Belle interjected.

Gold turned to look at her, even more surprised than he’d been by Gideon’s words: he’d been so sure that she wouldn’t accept that he’d completely forgot to ask her what she thought of it. In a way, he’d made the same mistake Gideon had.

“I… I don’t want to bother you,” he repeated somewhat weakly.

“Well, you also said you don’t even need that much help. I’d be happy to help you if it makes Gideon feel safer, but I won’t insist if you don’t want me around all the time.”

“Fine,” he conceded at last. “I’d much rather have you around than a stranger.”

“She can take the spare bedroom upstairs!” Gideon exclaimed, beside himself with excitement. “This is going to be an awesome week!”

“No one has ever been so happy about me getting hurt,” Gold chuckled after sending Gideon to prepare Belle’s room.

“Can you imagine his outrage if I had been the one to get hurt and you hadn’t agreed to let me stay here right away? I can almost see it.”

“We should suggest he joins a theatre group or something, he does have a penchant for drama.”

Belle agreed, and they traded silly quips for a little while before Belle went back to collect her bags from Granny’s. As she settled into her room, she couldn’t help but think that Gideon was right: this was going to be one awesome week.

**********

As expected, more snow fell during the following three days, and that forced Gideon to change plans for his birthday. He had been planning to spend most of the day out with his two best friends and celebrate at dinner with Belle, Gold and Neal (who had arrived from Boston the day after Belle), but the prohibitive weather forced him to spend the day indoors, with his friends just barely managing to get to his house without freezing their noses off. Neal seemed to find it hilarious that one of Gideon’s friends was also named Neal, and spent the entire day making jokes about that. Everyone seemed to find it funny, except maybe Gideon, who seemed strangely tense at times. Robin and Neal ended up staying for dinner as well, so that they were all together when Gideon finally got to open his presents. Everyone’s gift seemed to be just perfect for him, and Belle felt her nervousness rise as she handed him hers. She had gotten to know him so much during the past few months, but she knew she still had so much to learn. What if her present was the only one he didn’t like?

“I wonder what it could possibly be,” Gideon joked as he started unwrapping what was clearly a book. “Her Handsome Hero? I’ve never heard of this one!”

He seemed happy enough about it, and Belle breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s a retelling of a fairytale I used to love as a kid. I thought that since you like fantasy you might like it,” she explained.

“Thanks, I’m sure I’ll love it.”

She’d wondered if she was considering her own tastes rather than Gideon’s in buying the present, but she had wanted her first gift to him to be something meaningful and, all things considered, she was happy with her choice. Gideon and his friends played video games for a little while more before it was time for Robin and Neal to go. Belle drove them to their respective homes, and even if Storybrooke was small it took her a long time to get back home, because it had started snowing again and she had to proceed almost ridiculously slowly.

The first thing she noticed as she stepped inside, still shivering a bit from the cold, was a stream of muffled curses coming from the kitchen. A clear idea of what was happening immediately formed in her mind, and she strode towards the noise, not knowing if she should be more worried or angry.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” she whispered angrily at Gold, not wanting Gideon to hear them.

“What does it look like?” he bit back, but there was a hint of guilt in his eyes. He’d put his prosthesis back on, and was in the process of tidying up the kitchen. Everything about his demeanor screamed that he was in pain, yet he stood stubbornly to face her, trying to hide the way he had to lean on the sink.

“I could have done this! It’s what I’m here for!” she reminded him.

“No, you’re here to spend time with your son. You don’t have to waste your time being my caretaker.”

“For God’s sake, I thought we’d already talked about this!” Belle burst out, walking towards the crutches he’d abandoned in the corner. “Take that thing off before Gideon hears us and go to bed.”

“No.”

She was on the verge of screaming, but then she noticed something in his expression, something that went beyond simple stubbornness.

“Rumple, what’s wrong?” she asked, closing the distance between them, her voice turning softer. “You seemed to be doing fine, and now you do this. Did something happen? Did I do something?”

He looked around, as if searching for an excuse to avoid the conversation.

“It’s not easy to explain,” he muttered eventually.

“Well, I have time and patience, so try as much as you want,” she replied sitting down on a chair, and gesturing at him to do the same. He limped towards the table and let out a sigh of relief as he sat down heavily in front of her.

“Just for the record, where are Neal and Gideon? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable by having you open up when your kids could walk in at any moment.”

“I told Neal to go upstairs and make sure Gideon doesn’t stay up all night reading. Not that it works, but they generally start talking and end up falling asleep in the same bed at some time past two am. Their faces tomorrow morning are going to be hilarious.”

No matter how upset Gold was, talking about his children always lightened his mood, and once again that sight made Belle smile.

“Good. So, can you tell me now what’s going on?” Belle tried again, laying one hand over Gold’s in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.

“I just… I don’t see how it’s fair that you should do all the work when you’re the guest. I should do better,” he said, not quite looking at her.

“But you’re hurt!”

“And that’s my fault! I should have been more careful, and you shouldn’t have to pay for my mistake,” he insisted, and Belle suddenly had the feeling that he wasn’t really talking to her. Of course, he was saying those words to her, but this wasn’t the first time he’d said them, and she wasn’t the one who made him feel like this.

“Does it have something to do with Milah?” she asked, and it shocked him so much that he actually looked at her for the first time since the discussion started.

“What?”

“Did she make you feel like your disability was your fault?” she insisted, and from the way he looked at her, she had truly gotten to the heart of the problem.

“She never called me disabled” he murmured after a while. “Useless cripple was the most common expression. Or something along the lines.”

“That’s horrible.”

She’d heard Milah say something about his leg and his illness during their discussion after Christmas, but without context it had been just one amongst the many insults she’d thrown at him.

“She… she didn’t like it when I got sick. She was pregnant with Neal when I was diagnosed with bone cancer. With a baby on the way she couldn’t deal with my sickness as well, especially when it lead to the amputation I tried my best to help her as much as I could, but there wasn’t much I could do at first, and the sickness caused by the chemo didn’t help. I thought I could fix things once I had healed, but then we found out that the treatment had left me sterile. I think that was the real end of her feelings for me, even though it took me a lot longer to realize it.”

“What happened after that?” Belle asked softly. She didn’t want to pry, but she could feel he needed to talk about this.

“Once I was sure my cancer wasn’t coming back, I talked Milah into adopting. My inability to have any more children had upset both of us, and I was sure that adopting was the solution. We could be happy again, Neal would have a much wanted sibling, and a kid would get a loving home. I thought it was a win-win scenario.”

He’d been so enamored with the idea of having another child that he’d projected that wish onto his wife. Now he realized that Milah had been upset mostly because she saw his sterility as another failing on his part, not because she was desperate to have more kids.

“And I suppose that’s when Gideon came into your lives,” Belle prompted him, trying and failing not to imagine a younger Gold holding a newborn Gideon. It was an image that hurt her in more ways than she could count.

“Yes. I loved him from the moment I saw him. After all I had been through, I was finally back to health and with not one, but two little kids to spoil rotten. Being with them was like heaven.”

He paused for a moment, fidgeting as he looked for the right words and the courage to carry on with the story.

“Milah, however, wasn’t as happy as I’d hoped. She’d never been overly maternal with Neal, but I never had any doubt that she loved him. With Gideon, however, I started to wonder. I mean, I think she loved him, that she still does, but… she just can’t see him as equal to Neal.”

He’d whispered the last words so quietly that, despite being so close, Belle had to lean towards him to understand them.

“I think he knows. I don’t know when he started to realize it, but he’s a clever kid, he was bound to notice it someday.”

Belle was biting her lower lip, not sure what to say. She was angry at Milah, but was she in any position to judge her?

“Despite all of this, I couldn’t bring myself to end things with her. We were almost completely avoiding each other by that point, and I’m pretty sure she had more than one affair through the years, but I didn’t want to upset my children with a divorce. I thought I’d just hold on until they were old enough to deal with it, but Milah beat me to it. Four years ago I woke up and she was simply gone. She left a note saying that she was leaving, but she didn’t leave an address, and she wouldn’t answer my calls. After a day or two she texted Neal to tell him she was sorry and that she would soon file for divorce and a custody agreement, and only when her lawyer contacted me I found out she was in Boston with her most recent lover.”

“Listen,” Belle said once his tale was over. “I can only imagine how much all of this must have hurt, how much it still hurts. All I know is that I’m not her. I’m not going to walk away when you’re sick, or if you make a mistake, or you fail to meet some stupid standard. I’m with you, and not just because you’re Gideon’s father, but because we’re friends.”

For a moment, she’d been on the verge of saying ‘family’, but she didn’t think either of them was ready for that. ‘Friends’ was a much safer option.

“No matter what happens, I’m not going away,” she reassured him again.

“No one,” he said, taking a shaky breath, “No one has ever said that to me. Least of all my wife.”

He looked on the verge of tears, and it came so naturally to Belle to wrap her arms around him, offering the comfort he so clearly needed. He all but sank into her hug, breathing heavily against her shoulder, clearly fighting back tears. They stood like that for a while, with one of her hands gently petting his hair, calming him, and despite their closeness and the silence the situation didn’t grow awkward. When he eventually pulled back, he looked more in control of himself. He opened his mouth to talk, but Belle stopped him before he could utter a single word.

“If you’re going to apologize, please don’t.”

He closed his mouth then, looking both annoyed and amused by how well she could read him.

“Just take the prosthesis off and go to bed. I can bring you your painkillers if you want.”

“Yes, I think I’m going to need them,” he conceded, reaching for the crutches.

Having to use the crutches didn’t stop him from doing most things, but it significantly slowed him down, so several minutes passed before he was finally ready to get into bed. He was waiting for his painkillers to kick in when he heard Belle leaving the kitchen and heading upstairs.

“Goodnight,” he said as she passed his door.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be still awake. Did I make too much noise?” she asked, still on the other side of the closed door.

“No, I just can’t sleep right now.” There was no need to tell her he was in fact in pain.

“May I come in?” she asked, surprising him.

“Yes, of course. Is everything okay?” he said as she stepped inside.

“Yes, I just… I wanted to talk to you about something, but if it’s too late we can wait until tomorrow. It’s nothing urgent.”

“As I said, I’m not sleepy. We have time to talk right now,” he said, gesturing at her to come closer. She sat on the edge of the bed, looking just a tad nervous.

“Did you notice something strange about Gideon today?”

The question immediately sent his brain into panic mode, but he couldn’t recall anything that had caught his attention.

“No, he seemed like his usual self,” he replied carefully.

“Maybe he was. I just thought he looked a bit tense, so I kept an eye on him, and… I think he might have a crush,” she concluded.

“On Robin?” It was something he really hadn’t seen coming, but it was hardly something worth worrying over.

“On Neal.”

There was a beat of silence after Belle’s reply, and she worried her lower lip with her teeth as she waited to see Gold’s reaction. She didn’t think he was the kind of man who would be upset by the idea of having a gay son, but one could never be sure. Right as she was about to ask him to speak, for God’s sake, he did something that completely shocked her: he laughed.

“What?” she asked once his laughter died down, not sure of what exactly was going on.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that… life apparently has a strange sense of humor.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“You’re right,” he sighed, gathering up his courage, “Apparently tonight is a night of confessions, and please know that I can count on my fingers the number of people who know what I’m about to say to you. I’m bisexual.”

Of all the things Belle had been expecting, this wasn’t one of them.

“The day I told my father this, he dropped me at my aunts’ house and never came back. I mean, it’s not like he was fond of me before: Rumplestiltskin is not a name you give to a kid you love, after all, but after that even keeping a roof over my head became too much. It wasn’t easy for me to accept my sexuality after that.” He looked up at her then, his eyes full of both pain and love. “I’m just glad I can give my son the support I never had.”

For the second time that night, Belle could do nothing but hug him. He’d been through so much, and despite what he wanted people to believe, he had stayed a kind man through it all. She held onto him tight, never wanting to let go.

“You’re the best father I could have hoped for, for Gideon,” she said as she reluctantly pulled back. She wanted to say so much more, that he meant so much more to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Instead she got up from the bed, wished him goodnight, and scurried back to her room.

She closed the door, leaning heavily against it, and cursed herself and her furiously beating heart. She had caught feelings for her son’s father. Under normal circumstances, that would have been the normal thing, but this… this was a mess. She felt like crying and laughing at the same time. She wanted to cry because this was never going to work, and she wanted to laugh because it had been so long since she’d felt like this, since she’d trusted and respected and cared for someone so much. She got into bed, but couldn’t sleep for a long time. She kept thinking about Gold’s eyes, This week was either going to be the best of her life, or it was going to be the death of her.

**********

Two days later it was Belle’s turn to celebrate. She usually didn’t do much on her birthday, and getting to spend the day with her son and his family was already more than she’d ever expected, but Gideon went out of his way to celebrate for her. Someone (she suspected Gold, under Gideon’s direction) had hung streamers in the living room during the night, and during breakfast she learned that they’d made a reservation in Storybrooke’s nicest restaurant for lunch. The thing Gideon was clearly waiting for the most, however, was the moment when they got back home, when he deemed it was finally time to give her her present.

“I won’t ask if you like it because I know you will!” He exclaimed proudly as he handed her a box. She opened it, and she was surprised to find a stack of papers. She was confused at first, but as she focused on what was written on those papers her confusion turned to shock.

“It says here that I’m… the new Storybrooke librarian? What?” she asked, thinking it must be some kind of prank.

“I told you my dad could have it reopened whenever he wanted! Now you can have the job of your dreams and move to Storybrooke, and we can be together whenever we want!” Gideon exclaimed, still oblivious to her growing discomfort.

“Gid, listen,” she started off, not really knowing how to put it nicely. “This is incredible and thoughtful and it was kind of you to do this… but you should have asked me first.”

“You didn’t ask her?” Gold exclaimed, turning to stare at his son. “You told me you knew she was okay with this!”

“Well, she said she wanted to be a librarian! And I couldn’t directly ask her without ruining the surprise!” Gideon replied angrily, not understanding why he was being scolded for his great present.

“Then you shouldn’t have done this!” his father insisted. “You could have given her any other present, and then you could have talked about the library first. You shouldn’t have assumed she’d be okay with this.”

“Why are you two angry? I just wanted all of us to be together! Don’t you want to spend more time with me?” he asked Belle, looking at her with angry tears in his eyes. It was the first time she saw him angry at her, and it made her stomach churn. Still, she needed him to understand why she was just as upset as him.

“Of course I do, Gid, but you can’t make decisions for me. Or for anyone else, for that matter. What you’re asking me to do is a really big change, and that’s not something I want to do without thinking about it first,” Belle tried to explain, but she could see that Gideon wasn’t truly listening to her reasons.

“You’re a liar! You just don’t want to see me!” he screamed, then ran upstairs.

“I’ll talk to him,” Neal said as he ran after his bother, leaving Belle and Gold alone with the weight of what had just happened. It was the first time Belle had argued with her son, and while she knew it was bound to happen sooner or later she still felt sick.

“I’d like to say that it’s something you get used to, but it’s not true. It always hurts when they’re angry at you,” Gold told her honestly, sitting beside her on the couch. “I’m really sorry. I wouldn’t have let him go through with it had I known.”

“I’m sorry too. I know I probably overreacted. I mean, there’s nothing truly keeping me in Boston. Yes, I have friends there, but Gideon is more important right now, and I did always want to be a librarian. I just… I don’t react well when I feel people are trying to make decisions for me.” She’d had enough of that for a lifetime.

“We all have our weak spots. Yours is being forced into things, Gideon’s is not feeling that he’s important to the people he cares about. Neal is really good at calming him down, though, I’m sure you two will be on good terms again before dinner,” he reassured her, and he was right. By the time she’d made and drank some tea, Neal had come downstairs to tell her she could go talk to Gideon if she wanted.

It was easy to apologize to her son, but it was much harder to explain why she had reacted the way she had. At long last, she had to tell him something about his biological father and her own, and how they had both forced or tried to force her into a life she didn’t want. It was a painful tale for both of them, but they hugged at the end, and Gideon apologized as well. He called her ‘mom’ then, and it was at that moment she truly started crying. Despite the tears and the fight, that was the best birthday she’d ever had.

Now that she didn’t feel like she was being pressured into things, she had to admit that the possibility of becoming Storybrooke’s librarian was amazing. She still wanted to think it over once she was back in Boston and not so emotional, but she doubted she’d find many reasons not to accept the offer. Surprisingly, her birthday had yet more emotions in store for her: the morning after, in fact, Gold gave her another gift, one that from the shape she initially mistook as a book.

“I wanted to give it to you yesterday, but then I thought you already had enough to deal with in one day,” he said as she started unwrapping the paper. He had been right in his consideration, because the moment she realized what it was a sob tore itself from her throat.

It was a photo album, and it was filled with pictures of Gideon, at all ages. From when he was just a newborn, so small that he was barely visible under his baby blanket, to his happy toothless smile when he was seven, to the last birthday he’d celebrated without her. It was all the life she hadn’t been there for, and that Gold was now sharing with her.

“I picked the nicest, but there are more if you want. I just couldn’t fit them all in one album,” he explained as she turned the pages in awe.

“I have one more,” she said, her voice hoarse with unshed tears. “From before this summer, I mean. When I was in the hospital I… I asked a nurse to take a picture of me with him before handing him over to social services. He was just minutes old. I… I can give you a copy if you want.”

She looked so fragile yet so strong, with her eyes full of tears as she offered to share with him a photo taken in such a painful moment, and he wanted to kiss her so badly that for a moment he had the impression that her gaze was lingering on his lips, as if she wanted to kiss him too. It was nonsense, of course, but it was such a tempting thought that he was relieved when she hugged him, because it hid her beautiful face from his view, giving him a moment to collect himself. If she really moved to Storybrooke, she was going to be the death of him.

**********

Belle officially moved to the apartment above Storybrooke’s library at the end of March, and spent the entire month of April preparing for the library’s reopening, with Gideon helping her as often as he could, until one day she had to remind him that he was supposed to spend at least some of his afternoons studying if he ever wanted to become a librarian himself. He officially started dating Neal in May, and soon enough their lives settled into a new, pleasant rhythm that Belle could hardly believe was real. When one day Neal announced that he was coming over to dinner with Emma - Storybrooke’s deputy sheriff - it was like yet another piece of their family had finally found its place.

“They’ve been in love since high school,” Gideon told Belle as they set the table, waiting for his brother and the woman Belle supposed would finally be presented as his girlfriend. “They broke up when school ended and he moved to Boston, but they were never truly over each other. At least Neal wasn’t. I’m so glad they’re finally together again because he’s insufferable when he’s lovesick. The first time they argued he wrote her a song and he kept practicing it for days and it was terrible.”

With Storybrooke being so small, Belle had met Emma several times already, and it didn’t take her long after her arrival to notice that both she and Neal were behaving strangely. She didn’t want to ruin dinner by asking, but her curiosity was soon satisfied when, before taking even the first bite, Neal said he had an announcement to make.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting married already!” Gideon joked, but Neal hardly smiled, which was incredibly unlike him.

“Well, we are kinda speeding things up,” Emma admitted.

“Oh my God,” Gold whispered, putting two and two together and realizing what Neal was about to say.

“What I’m trying to say is… dad, I’m pregnant,” Neal said, and it took him a moment to realize what he’d said in his agitation. “I mean, she is pregnant, of course. And no, this was not planned, and we’re not even actually dating, and I still have art school to finish, but we’re keeping it.”

Gold recovered surprisingly well from the shock, but spent the rest of the evening torn between feeling giddy at the idea of becoming a grandpa and wanting to strangle his son for being so incautious. It was a very awkward family dinner overall, and Belle really wasn’t sad when it was over. Despite her best attempts, the talk about babies and unexpected pregnancies had reawakened all sorts of bad memories for her, and had made her feel under the spotlight, a glaring bad example that everyone was too kind to point out. When Gold insisted on driving her back home, she felt a moment of pure panic and briefly wondered if he was going to blame her for being a bad influence on Neal. It was an absurd thought, of course, but she couldn’t help herself.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her instead as soon as they were in the car.

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Why?”

“Because I saw you fidgeting at dinner, and I know what it means. No one is making comparisons between you and Emma, believe me.”

“But they’re keeping the baby while I…” she started off, but Gold immediately interrupted her.

“You were seventeen, they’re twenty one. I doubt you were out of high school, while Emma has a full-time job and Neal a part-time one. It’s not the same,” he insisted.

“I wanted to keep him. I wanted to be his mother and be there for his first steps, his first words, his first everything. I let him go and he found you and I’m glad, but I still let him go not knowing what would become of him,” she sobbed. No matter how much time passed, or however many days she spent with her son or how much she thought she’d healed, having abandoned him was a wound that would never stop bleeding.

“Hey, hey, It’s alright, I’m here,” he whispered against her ear as he wrapped his arms around her. Only in that moment she realized that the car was no longer moving. “It wasn’t your fault. You told me so yourself. You wanted him, but were forced to let him go. It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know… you weren’t there… I should have been stronger,” she hiccuped. Her sin was too big to be simply excused away.

“Then why don’t you tell me? Tell me what happened and I’ll honestly tell you if it was your fault,” he suggested.

“I… I need some tea first. Are we at my place yet? I can make some and then I can tell you,” she said, sniffling.

“Yes, lead the way,” he said as he got out of the car.

In the end, he was the one to make the tea because her hands were trembling and he didn’t deem it safe to let her handle boiling water. Once they were both sitting on the couch with a warm cup in their hands, she started talking.

“My mother got sick when I was 13. Breast cancer. She was still so young that she didn’t think she needed regular check ups, and when she found out it was too late. We tried everything we could, but she died just two years later.”

The worst part hadn’t just been her dying. It had been watching her fade day after day, her condition always worsening despite all the treatment she was getting. She wasn’t sure when exactly Belle had realized her mother wasn’t going to make it, but waking up every day with that knowledge had completely crushed both her and her dad.

“My father didn’t know how to deal with it. The worse my mother got, the worse he started to behave. Not in front of her, never in front of her, but when she was at the hospital and we were home alone he ignored me, or was straight out mean sometimes. He started drinking, and when I lost her, I lost him too. It was like he didn’t care about anything anymore, not even me. I think he hated everything that reminded him of her, including me. One day I got back home and found him putting all of our stuff in boxes. He told me we were moving to the States. I barely had the time to say goodbye to my friends before he dragged me an ocean away.”

Gold listened, dumbfounded. He could barely imagine the kind of trauma and pain she’d gone though at that time.

“When we got to Augusta I stuck out like a sore thumb. I moved into a new high school halfway through the school year, so I was the only one struggling to adapt to a new place, and I was too lost in my grief to go out of my way and make friends. I was alone most of the time. There was one boy, though, who never stopped trying to get a date out of me. I turned him down at first, because I felt too sad to date anyone, but eventually I told myself I had to move on, and gave him a chance. Soon enough he was the only one I talked to, the only person in my life beside my dad. When he started pressuring me into having unprotected sex, I was too afraid he’d dump me to tell him no. I didn’t want to be alone again. I knew it was risky, but I didn’t fully realize it until my period skipped. I panicked and told him, and he dumped me, saying he wasn’t even sure it was his kid after all. I don’t think he believed that, I think he just wanted to hurt me. A couple of days later, the whole school knew I was pregnant. He had told everyone about it, while adding a bunch of lies to the mix, all to humiliate me.”

People had stared and pointed at her, at the weird outsider who got herself knocked up, calling her stupid and a slut. Every time she didn’t think things could get any worse, they immediately did.

“I think my father was the only one who didn’t know. I tried to keep it hidden from him for as long as I could, because I was afraid he’d make me have an abortion, and I didn’t want to. I thought that if I could just hold on until the baby had grown enough, he wouldn’t be able to force me to get rid of it.”

“What happened when he found out?” he asked, fearing her answer.

“He lost his mind. He screamed and shouted and for the first time I was even worried he’d hit me. He told me I was a disgrace, that he was ashamed to have me as a daughter, and that since it was too late to get rid of it I’d have to give my child up for adoption if I wanted to keep living under his roof,” Belle said, her lower lip trembling with the effort of holding back the tears.

“I didn’t know where to go. I had no friends, no other family members in town that could help me, and I wasn’t even out of high school yet. If he’d kicked me out of the house… I would have been homeless, without a job and with a newborn. What hope did I have? How long would it take before social services took Gideon from me? I knew that the younger the kid, the higher the chances of it being adopted, so I decided… I decided that giving him up straight away would be better. It would give him a better chance of finding a home, and it would spare me the pain of having him taken away when he was older. I never… I never would have wanted to…” she couldn’t continue anymore, her voice broken by sobs, and suddenly Gold’s arms were once again around her.

“You were barely more than a child. You were alone and you were so brave. It wasn’t your fault,” he said as he held her, repeating it over and over again. She pulled back to look up at him, her eyes red and swollen from crying, and the tenderness she saw in his eyes made her heart ache. Gold had given her something she’d long forgotten. He’d given her a family, something to care for and that cared for her in return. He’d given her a home and a sense of belonging, and maybe it was because she was already too emotional from crying so much, but she couldn’t hold back any longer: she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. He froze, and Belle felt her panic rise. She’d screwed everything up.

“Belle… what are you doing?” he asked, taking her face in his hands as he pulled back ever so slightly.

“I love you. I know it’s crazy and I know it only complicates things, but I do. I have for months. I know you probably don’t feel the same way, but I had to tell you.”

Gold was silent for what felt like an eternity, staring at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

“Then,” he said eventually. “Kiss me again.”

Without waiting for her shocked brain to process his words, he closed the distance between them, pressing his mouth against hers in a kiss that was nothing like their first. It was loving and passionate and made her toes curl. When they finally broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers.

“I love you too.”

#Rumbelle #Rumbelle Big Bang #desperatemurph #Rumbelle fic #Gideon Gold #Chipped Beauty #Chipped Gold #Sara talks #Sara writes

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prettywordsyouleft · 6 years

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Superstitious

Summary: Your bad luck had been your only friend growing up. Now that you’re studying at university, could you meet someone who accepted you?

Characters: Lee Taeyong x reader

Genre: fluff / supernatural au

A/N: Welcome to the first story of Frightful October! Admittedly this happened all too fast. The idea was to use a different idol and more supernatural elements but this literally wrote itself after a gifset of clumsy Taeyong, and I’m so happy with it! I hope you enjoy this!

Word count: 3024

Your whole life had been built up on superstitions.

As someone who had been ill as a child, you had heard many old wives tales given to your parents to nurse you back to health. But since then you had been nothing but clumsy, relatives and family friends would always remind you to be careful.

“You were born with bad luck, you mustn’t make it worse!” your Grandmother had chanted for your entire childhood.

So naturally you became cautious.

You avoided all the common superstitions. At first your cousin had chastised you for being so foolish. No one could have such bad luck just because of a few folklores. But there had been one time where you missed that it was Friday the 13th and came home with a broken arm and a bad case of pneumonia from a simple school trip. From there on, you stayed home on those days. Mirrors weren’t something you allowed yourself to get too close to since you were eleven; only just recovering from what you felt was an extremely difficult adolescence, and you were certain it came from breaking a large mirror in your family home. You never stood on train tracks and cracks, or walked under a ladder, just in case. Umbrellas were rarely used by you, and if anyone opened one inside around you, it would send you into a fizz.

To counter your bad luck you had every lucky charm and well intended chant incorporated into your life, your keyring sported a rabbits foot, your bedroom door had a horseshoe up the right away, and you would always knock on wood, say bless you when someone sneezed, and admittedly, you carried salt with you always.

You could say you were more than prepared to combat any bad luck coming in threes.

But this made you different. People didn’t like being around you because you were a beacon of bad luck in your little town. Everyone knew about you. Growing up, you were soon blacklisted off of any sporting team, the last to be chosen for anything and those who ended up with you were instantly depressed. Group presentations were something you simply didn’t do; even teachers would rearrange the assignment so you could work on it alone. And if they weren’t doing that to help the students they would set up feng-shui or their own lucky talismans whenever you were in their classes to ward off any bad luck you might produce.

Any misfortunes that happened to the township was blamed on you, and only you. Even your family were spared from being lumped with you, others sympathising with them for having such a daughter. It made you feel less loved by them, and soon you preferred to be alone anyways.

You were used to being ostracised, but it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less.

Because you had no one to rely on, you turned to your inner passion. It had been by mistake that you had stumbled upon the world of magic and folklore, studying up further superstitions when you were fourteen, in hopes to find a way to be accepted. Being hormonal and going through puberty had made you especially lonely, and desperate. But instead of finding a magical cure, you found yourself intrigued by supernatural things. You started studying mythical creatures, immortals, shape shifters, and other magical beings. It was like a whole new world, one you longed to belong to. You felt closer to these folk, and hoped to discover them one day. You had tried everything. You had often walked in the forests surrounding your township, even though you ran the high probability of coming home limping from tripping over, only to hope to see some sign of a woodland fairy or nymph, to cross paths with a wolf that held human eyes, or to step into a witches’ coven. It never happened, though you never gave up hope that one day you would meet someone who could accept you and all your bad luck too.

Your favourite thing to study about was witchcraft and you had dabbled in it from time to time, mostly to humour yourself, but sometimes it had been out of desperation again. To find a cure to your clumsiness, or to make at least your parents like you.

And on the night of school prom, to have Oh Sehun somehow fall in love with you and pick you up to take you to the dance.

You knew it wouldn’t happen. Your Grandmother had built it well into your psyche; you were just a really bad apple.

Somehow, perhaps because you had so much time to study due to not having a social life, you won a scholarship to the university you had picked as your choice. Your parents had been hesitant to let you go, unleashing your bad luck on others had always been something they tried their best to prevent, almost keeping you captive all these years. Your township had been tiny; going to the city would be overwhelming for someone like you, so they believed.

You only saw it as freedom. No one knew you, perhaps you could start anew, and not have bad luck there, you had argued. Though deep down you doubted that too. You were destined to carry around talismans and every lucky charm for the rest of your life.

All the same you finally made it, ignoring the party that you knew the township was throwing the same day you left for Seoul. Because the idea of leaving them was something to rejoice yourself. Even though you were scared a lot that day.

You were hyper alert on the train ride to your new home, not allowing yourself to rest even though you had been up since 5am. You had to make sure you didn’t harm anyone else unintentionally. And you had been successful, but it was terribly exhausting too. When you finally made it to your dorms, you pulled out your room information, looking up at the tall building and then back at your number.

#127.

You groaned as you found the stairwell. You hadn’t taken an elevator in your entire life. Instead you were left climbing up twelve flights of stairs with all your luggage. You were thankful when you saw the door number ahead of you, unlocking it and reaching to turn on the light. Nothing changed; the room was still in darkness. Groaning, you went into your tiny kitchen area and turned on the faucet, and nothing came out except and odd gurgle sound.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t cry. Today you had escaped your bad luck in your hometown.

But it was hard to hold the tears back and to grasp onto hope.

Surprisingly, after that night your life did take a turn for the better. For the next month, you had managed to not harm yourself more than usual, and not bother anyone else. You actually got hired for a part time job and kept it so far, all whilst navigating your university life with some success. It had given you a sense of acheivement and confidence to finally be in a bustling environment that no one knew you, and be seen as another student, not the one who everyone needs to avoid like the plague.

But that also blinded you for what was to come next. You had been so focused on yourself, that you hadn’t once expected there to be someone like you out there. You had spent years trying to find at least one other who suffered from bad luck like you. And not one person had ever appeared.

Until your world collided with Lee Taeyong. Literally.

“Ow!” you cried as you found yourself on the ground, rubbing your elbow lightly and then looking around yourself. Your stuff was everywhere, but it was mixed in with more than it should have been. You found the culprit sitting on the ground and rubbing at his own leg too. He laughed sheepishly and got up, holding out a hand for you to take. You reached up for it, but he pulled you up too fast and you struggled to gather your balance in time, both of you toppling back onto the grass. Except you were now on top of him, and blushing profusely.

“Ah, sorry,” he said weakly, laughing again. “I’m kind of clumsy. I didn’t mean to pull you down on me like this; honest it wasn’t a plan or anything. I was genuinely meaning to just help you up, but perhaps I shouldn’t have because now we’re like this and I’m rambling and I should really just stop, right?”

You nodded.

This time you both got up by your own device, the taller boy biting at his lip for a moment and then thrust his hand out for you to take. “I’m Lee Taeyong.”

“Y/N,” you greeted, shaking his hand and looking at all your things on the ground.

Taeyong’s eyes followed your gaze and immediately set to collecting your papers. “I’m so sorry about this. Honestly I am so useless at times!”

“Don’t feel like that, I’m clumsy too. It could have easily been me,” you assured, smiling at how alike he sounded. You were certain you had been more than over accommodating to others in the past when you made a mistake. It almost made you feel bad for Taeyong, but the sting in your elbow reminded you not to grow too helpful towards him either.

If he was clumsy like you, it could be a recipe for disaster.

“I think I’ve collected them all,” he stated, handing you the pile and then glanced down at his watch. He gasped. “Oh I’m late for class. It was nice bumping into you, well I mean not literally, but figuratively, and I hope to see you again and not harm you of course!”

He was off, his words trailing after him and you couldn’t help but giggle to yourself at how adorable he was. Unlike you, he took his clumsiness in his stride, his bubbly nature seeming infectious. You wondered if he was truly as clumsy as he said, and had been ostracised. Shaking your head, you doubted it, with his handsome looks he would still be accepted by others for sure.

You headed off to the library, which was thankfully uneventful for the rest of the walk there, and settled into studying quietly. And then there was a loud ringtone that startled you and the others around you. For a moment you stared, waiting to see who would silence their phone until you realised it was coming from inside your stash of papers. With colour flaring to your cheeks, you fumbled around to find the source of the noise, a mobile phone appearing as you scattered the papers quickly. You all but jumped on it to silence it, answering the call on the unfamiliar phone.

“Hello?” you whispered.

“Oh thank god, that’s you Y/N, right? It’s me, Taeyong. I think you have my phone.”

Getting up and moving away from all the glares, you walked over to the windows before answering him. “Since I answered it in the middle of the library, I think yes, I do.”

“Ouch, I forgot to put it on silent. Stay where you are, I’ll come to you.”

And then the line went dead before you could tell him what floor you were on.

You waited of course, though there were three libraries on campus, and you weren’t in the main one. It was cutting it close to when you would need to leave for your part time job, and it was making you anxious, your eyes abandoning the ancient text in front of you to keep a look out for Taeyong. Eventually you packed up your belongings whilst you waited, and then even your seat when someone came along and the study area was full. You decided to move down to the lobby just in case when the phone rang again.

“Where are you?” he asked with a pant and you sighed lightly.

“If you had of let me tell you before you hung up, you’d have met me by now,” you scolded, surprised with how annoyed you sounded.

It wasn’t lost on him. “Sorry, I have bad luck and now I’m throwing it on you. Tell me where you are, okay?”

You didn’t answer right away, you were stunned. “Bad luck?”

“Yeah, my whole life really. But I promise once I get my phone back you won’t be put out by it again, I’m really sorry. So where are you? My friend Doyoung needs to get to his part time job and for me to give back his phone.”

Without hesitation you told him your exact location and hung up, your chest instantly full of palpitations. Why were you so worked up? Like Taeyong said, once he had his phone, you could simply leave and not be involved in his own fate with Lady Luck again. But it bothered you the longer you thought about it. Was he brought into your world by his or your own luck? Was this a sign to put weight into or not? I mean, just today you had two encounters with him. And whilst the campus was large, who was to say you wouldn’t find him again. Would you be alright then? Or propelled to the ground once more?

A small part of you then remembered a folklore you had read from years ago. Most people think those with bad luck should avoid each other. But not only can they find relief in each other, it can also cancel out their fated luck altogether. It’s important to search for someone with similar characteristics so that the fate can change for the better.

You felt a feeble sense of hope at the thought, rocking on your heels softly as you waited for Taeyong to arrive again. And just when you saw him, you waved so he could find you and was shunted by a passer-by, your footing unsafe yet again. You saw Taeyong speed up to catch you, just in time for you to both fall to the ground. Again.

For a moment you sat still, and then you laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Taeyong soon joined you, and you both didn’t care that others were staring at the two people sprawled on the floor of the library lobby, laughing to themselves at their situation.

Eventually you got yourself up, this time offering your hand out to Taeyong. You pulled with the right amount of strength for him to just lean in a little too close but not topple you both back over. You shared an accomplished smile.

“I feel like I need to introduce myself properly to you,” you announced, feeling lighter than you had all day. Taeyong regarded you for a moment, before smiling encouragingly at you. “I’m someone who also has bad luck. My whole life really.”

“That was my line,” he quipped but grinned at you all the same. “Who would have thought two people with such luck would cross paths. This could be disaster you know.”

“It could,” you agreed, though you saw the determination build in his warm brown orbs. It made you glad he hadn’t stepped back yet.

“Or it could be something magical,” he uttered, your head nodding softly. Despite only just meeting, he felt compelled to brush you hair away from your face. And you allowed him, considering it was not like you hadn’t been on top of him earlier on. “Hi then.”

“Why are you saying hi again?”

“Because you introduced yourself to me as being my fated partner in bad luck, it only felt right to accept that,” Taeyong stated matter of factly and you couldn’t help but laugh. “Unless-”

“I accept,” you cut in, surprising him somewhat. And yourself too.

“So, Y/N with the origins of clumsy bad luck, should I make it up to you for falling all over you earlier with dinner?”

“Can’t,” you responded airily and he stopped following you as you both started walking to the exit. “I have work.”

“And after work?”

“Sleep?” you suggested, Taeyong’s mind clearly thinking too much. Your eyes widened and you shoved him playfully. Of course you did.

He managed to right his balance just in time, grinning triumphantly at your now cringing face. “You’re testing me.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be around each other,” you revoked with concern and jumped when he shifted back to your side and took your hand.

“You accepted this fate a few minutes ago.”

You nodded but didn’t remove your hand. His was warm and you liked the feeling. “And I almost made another accident for you just now. We’re doomed.”

“At least if I fall now, you’re coming with me,” Taeyong mentioned whilst raising your linked hands, smiling at you charmingly.

“Is this how you made it through life so far? Grabbing the hands of people so you knew at least someone would come down with you?”

Taeyong blushed lightly and shook his head. “Actually you’re my first. I wouldn’t dream of holding another girl’s hand until now. What if I caused her a rash or something?”

“Taeyong!” you cried, trying to yank your hand free as he laughed loudly.

And just like that you made your first proper friend. Someone who wasn’t scared to be in your personal space, and was prepared to fall if you did.

And over time you did just that. You had countless bruises and scrapes, and he had just as many. But he never abandoned you once, and soon you were kissing those booboos better.

As a child you thought you needed someone who was mythical to be your friend. Someone who had magic within them, who could somehow counteract your bad luck. What you really needed was someone just like you. Who didn’t mind when he got hurt because of your bad luck, and who let you curse him out when it was his that attacked you.

Because Taeyong came to readily love you. Bad luck and all.

________________

Welcome to Frightful October, a collab between myself and @this-song-thats-only-for-you ... this week’s theme is Spellbound! To follow more of the stories check out the links below:

Other stories in Spellbound: Superstitious // Incantation // Love Spell // A Gift

Frightful October Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Request Guidelines

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startofamoment · 5 years

Note

Hey friend!! Its your secret santa!! Sorry I'm a couple days late to the party. But anywho, how are you? Figured we could do a little get to know you, what's some fun facts about yourself? And how did you get into Brooklyn Nine-Nine?

Hi!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am good for the most part but now down to my last week or so of school stress before the holidays. (Or well, last bit of school stress for several months / until I start med school next summer! V excited for the extended break I’m going to have.)

Hmm, a few fun facts about me:

I share the same birthday as Jorma Taccone.

I was born premature so the first month of my life was spent in a transparent box. o:

I’ve met John Mulaney twice!

I love musical theatre - my favorite show might be Come From Away, which I’ve seen seven times to date!

I initially got into B99 bc a few of the people I had been following on tumblr at the time were reblogging a bunch of gifsets/photosets from the show + some of the grad students I worked with were really into it. I remember watching the first episode and just completely loving it and feeling like it was exactly my type of humor!

#b99 secret santa

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fanfictin · 3 years

Text

3-2

“nothing as of yet” “Only you could be worried about the ships i already shot down”

aw duel fights, anaking again weird sith lady and obiwan ofc against grevious

i love how they just fuckin kick each other. they have lightsabers and guns but they also hit. pfft. she just straight up kicked anakin in the face. nice.

3-4

“Should you really proceed without the council’s approval” padme “We do it all the time. Don’t we, Snips?” “Yep.” padme, quieter “I can’t believe they let you teach” anaking looks so smug,, pfft

3-6

“Master obiwan caused trouble? that’s a first.” “ugh” (he just Does Not want to Talk about it rip. dont make anakin talk abt it ahsoka) “Just give me the lightsaber”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt” “Nothing you wouldn’t have done” ahshsjflfsj ahsoka you’re killing your master ahsoka

3-7

“If I’m not with you, who else will watch your back?” oh ahsoka she cares for her master

3-10

(anakin should go to hang out w obiwan like My wife took my padawan and i have nothing to do)

3-12

star fighting duo,, i love their red and yellow ships. “Anakin! I’m going to need help!!” yes for asking for help

yes for fighting ventrress together

3-14

“so much for not starting something” “Hey don’t look at me!” they’re so dumb i love them fighting together

did anakin just do the salute thing that obiwan does???

obiwan w the hand on anakin’s shoulder briefly,, pls

with the holding anakin back again--

didnt that thing just land on them-- okay i guess jedi are impervious to crush injuries

“We’ll take him together” “RIght.” crey

3-15

DISASTER TRIO ADVENTURE AGAIN???!! YES

anakin is so fucking dramatic and petty i love it

all black out and all wake up. fun times. theyre just Who landed the ship

“we’ll be fine. as long as we stay together” thanks obiwan, now yu’re definitely not going to stay together

rockfall seperate! a favourite trope!!

anaking he’s just asking if youre alright and didnt get crushed by the rocks,, theyre no need to be so dramatic and angsty-- ankin pls obiwan just cares---

“is it true he is the chosen one” -activate obiwan protective mode- “What do YOU know of such things??” also why does ahsoka have 2 lightsabers--

lol he just turned into a bat. that’s pretty cool yo.

oh-- this is basically the crystal cave! hm. that’s not good. and a ghost quigon talking to obiwan? weird. “I’ve trained him as well as i could” bless

oooo they’re all having visions. nice.

“I think anakin may be in trouble” ahsoka i love you

eh that was pretty cool. many troubled anakin codas could be writen after that. nice.

3-16

oh it’s still them! anakin is sleepin,, bless him

oh nice. action. “was it a nightmare” oh ahsoka. love it. and yes it was but now it’s reality.

another crash landing, nice. “I didnt think you saw it” o “it was a GIANT TOWER of COURSE i SAW IT” a

the SHOULDER stop. nice. and he didnt listen. of course.

well yeah climbing is hard work. stop being so dramatic anakin.

“you might want to check up on him” thanks bad guy, obiwan will do just that

okay that was cool. asoshka is fine now, anakin is n’t glowing any more, they’re going to head off.

3-17

continuation? whoa

they’re just chillin in their ship. “You did well anakin. how do you feel?” thanks obiwan that helps

whelp bye anakin

aw waking asokha and giving her tea,, bless obewan

“Wheres. anakin.” protective master mode activated

“Look after the ship, i’m going to find anakin” ahsokas just like well ok then bye obiwan

oh it’s literally just rots foreshadowing premonitions, cool.

“anakin. are you alright?” no definitely not, in the bad side rn, but we’ll catch up with your worried tone later

okay yeah just nake him collapse again that’s fine. you guys are worse than the angels in spn

“are you alright” yes thanks for asking again, fine now master

okay yeah just throw em away that’s fine. yknow getting thrown on the floor hurts more than you think in like real life

okay sure that’s fine. just white out and wake up on the ship. sure.

3-18

“You’re just being protective again” why yes, yes he is.

“you either Do or Die. and that’s not a risk i’m willing to share.” oh. anakin pls that’s such a good quote.

fucking incredible “I must have carbon sickness bc i could swear that’s Ahsoka” “Your eyes are fine. it’s ahsoka’s HEARING that needs helps”

also oh my GOSH this is that gifset i’ve had in my likes FOREVER. the one where obiwan just fuckin snaps his head around to listen to ahsoka and just goes “I see anakin’s new teaching method is to do as i say not as i do” fuckin savage

i also like the return of Snips as the nickname, and quite often too - i imagine in fic they must have had a talk from when possessed ahsoka said she hated the name

aw ahsoka being teensy. also that’s a very ellie and joel thing. opening the door from the other side and the mentor being grumpy. nice.

well that was fun. snakin got sucked to the roof as well bc of his mental arm pfffttt and got hismelf down while being elecetrocuted. cool.

3-19

“sorry I’m late” a “how nice of you to join us” o Anakin don’t smirk at that. don’t smirk like that at your master.

see i knew that would hit you. now youre hittign the ground again aniakin. that shit hurts you know

3-20

no-- this is not how you use grenades- you have to save them for the shield enemies-- have you never playyed unhcharted---

you cant just burn his body in lava-- okay you did it. well. at least you used the force together.

anyway this is a pretty cool episode i guess. continuation, less h/c but still good.

3-21

ahsoka and anakin mission!-- never mind they’re spitting up. sigh.

okay well this episode is called padawan lost so. i’m sure she’ll be found. also this is literally just the hunger games.

aww what a nice reunion, that was sweet

“Thank you, master.” “You’re welcome. My padawan” pls stop,, anakin and ahsoka are too cute

4-1

oh nakin got his helmet off underwater and snips got it for him just “you call for backup?” and he just “I HAD it under control snips” while he’s coughing up water still ah,, them. also “Ha! I knew you’d say that”

4-3

this water level has gone on for 3 episode so far,,,,

you can’t, electrocute someone underwater-- oh well fine. that’s just anakin’s luck isn’t it.

4-4

wow anakin’s so used to lightening that it takes quite a bit to knock him out rip

whoa will padme trade grevious for anakin? yes. probably. esp when he’s being lighteninged even when unconscious. that’s rude.

okay anakin yeah wake up just when padme pulls you into her arms. and then she helps him walk,, bless.

4-7

the duo are back! oh is this the one where obiwan fakes his death bc i know that’s coming and i am not enthused.

4-11

oh wow that was very sudden. Anger Anakin appears and obiwan tells him to CHILL basically then when ahsoka asks, obiwan admits anakin was a slave and ahsoka says she’ll keep an eye on him,, they love so much

hey dont throw obiwan around like that, he’s an old man

anakin and ahsoka duo lookin for bombs

that was fun. anakin almost fell out of the ship. always good.

4-12

anger anakin abt slaves. nice. even mentioning his mother.

“Looks like i have to rescue you again, old man.” “I knew you’d have a backup plan”

well they all got electrocuted to unconsciousness. good plan gang.

4-13

and there anakin goes getting electrified by dooku again. sigh.

“Anakin, i’m please to see you” aw even beatne down obiwan is there

that was a good mission.

4-15 ah this one is called Deception so i’m guessing it’s the deception arc where obiwan fakes his death. ouch. anger anakin is definitely going to be back.

yes ouch. that hurt.

this is just fasttrack anikan to the dark side run by killing his master

“Everyone knows how close we are. it was his reaction that sold it” this is fucking rude. but true. still very rude.

4-16

“He killed my master. My best friend.” oh dear. ouchies.

anyway chancellor palpatine is here now to continue anakin’s fast track to the darkside by killing his brother

well at least he went with ahsoka. ..how long does this arc last....

aw well at least he still cares. ha. accidently knocks anakin off then hurries off to make sure he’s okay, then chokes him out. just normal stuff.

ahsoka straight up standing over anakin soul eater maka and soul style ,,, oh my

“Obiwan is still alive” and ahsoka helps him back to the ship. good for them.

4-17

hey well THANKS for telling anakin that yoda. so useful. so great to know. nice how you all killed his master in front of him for a plan. cool. he’ll brush that off.

4-18

yep anakin’s still pissed. honestly good for him.

“Hopefully i’ll be where i always am” a “he means saving the day” ah no he means next to obiwan

obiwan watching over them from a sniper,, aw

“Mace, Anakin’s down” he’s still looking out,, crey

well that wasn’t a fyll on yell but it was a telling off. good foryou anakin. yelling at your oncedead master is fine for a bit.

oooo surprise end twist! anakin facing dooku

obiwan running to help anakin and stopping to make sure he’s alright,, but points lost for still being in disguise

4-21

anakin and ahsoka go to a diner. that’s it that’s this episode.

“Master? Anakin?” Ahsoka trying to get his attention when he’s worrying quiet :)

okay so darth maul is alive apparently

4-22

haha obiwan getting the shit beaten out of him and saved by ventress then using a red lightsaber. hilarious.

#clone wars #sw #liz watches clone wars

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softjeon · 4 years

Text

In love with your dark side | Pt.2

• Pairing: Beauty!Taehyung x Beast!Yoongi • Genre: Fluff, bit of Angst | Rating: Teen and Up | Beautyandthebeast!AU / Fairytale!AU • Words: 5k | AO3 | Gifset Trailer • Disclaimer: anxiety, mentioning of a curse

written with @cassiavioletblue

↳ Yoongi had tried not to think about what would happen if someone saw him but his mind had wandered through all of their possible reactions anyway: screaming, laughing, shock… he’s had so many horrible encounters in his mind and yet the boy in front of him didn’t react like in any of his thoughts.

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“One black coffee, please.” Taehyung said as he searched through his wallet if he had enough money with him, ignoring the baristas weird look as he was already carrying a cupboard try with two cups from a different brand in them. He paid, thanking her sweetly and just as he slipped out of the coffee shop, the young barista closed the doors behind him, locking it firmly.

It was late already, when Taehyung had closed up his own shop and had rushed to the upper side back again to still get one of the pricier coffees. With a bright smile and a naïve mind, Taehyung greeted the night shift receptionist with a smile, before pushing the elevator button with his elbow. Only when he stood in front of Yoongi’s office again, did Taehyung hesitate for a second, taking a deep breath, before he knocked.

Yoongi froze.

Had he misheard or had someone actually knocked at his door? Before last night he would have simply ignored it but with Taehyung in the picture he was too curious to see who it was. Taehyung had no reason to come back, did he? And yet he hoped that the other still came back. Maybe he was the clumsy type and yet accidentally taken a letter from him again. Carefully he pushed the curtain a little aside, just enough for him to take a sneak peek without being too obvious about it. His heart jumped in his throat as he recognized the boy’s face. Outside of his door stood Taehyung - with a tray of coffee in his hands. Yoongi wondered briefly how exactly he had managed to knock without putting the coffee aside but then he hurried to unlock the door.

“Come in. No letter this time?” He greeted the other courtly - but with a small smile on his lips.

Taehyung’s heart did a jump when the door got unlocked and he carefully pushed it open. “No letter,” He smiled back at his boss, “But coffee. Two coffees actually.” Walking over to Mr. Min’s desk, he placed the tray down taking the two cups and placing it in front of his boss. “I wanted to say thank you for not firing me and if you work this late you might are in need of coffee.” A big smile appeared on his lips and he motioned to the two cups, “Though I wasn’t sure which kind of coffee you like...so, I bought two. One from my favorite place and one from the shop downstairs, the overpriced one.” Taehyung took the third cup from the tray and stepped away, “Oh and this is mine.” He never liked the bitter taste of caffeine and a hot chocolate was actually what he needed after a long day of work. “I wanted to apologize again for bursting in last night, so please...take this as an apology and a little thank you.”

He actually broke into laughter at that, a real if awkward laugh that made his gums show. Shocked he covered his mouth with his hand. He waited tensely for a reaction, but Taehyung did yet again surprise him as he didn’t take notice of his awkwardness at all. He just couldn’t figure him out! But coming over with coffee in the middle of the night to say ‘thank you for not firing me’ when it was Taehyung who had control over his life as well had taken him by surprise. However, it was quite a nice one. He reached for the coffee, looking at the logos that were plastered all over the paper cups. He didn’t knew any of them.

“So, what you’re saying is you brought two coffees for me and none for yourself?” He smirked as he went to the corner of the room, opening a shelf to reveal a compartment with a coffee machine inside, neatly stored away. “You can have a coffee in return if you want.”

Taehyung’s eyes widened, cheeks blushing in embarrassment. Of course, he could have thought about how his boss probably had his own coffee machine right in his office but he had been so happy to have something to bring him as a small ‘thank you’. He would have found it awkward to come back with nothing.

“Oh,…” Taehyung bit his lip, “I…I am sorry I didn’t know. You probably like your own better, right? I can take these back or…give them to Jaesung downstairs.” When Yoongi looked at him in confusion, he added quickly, “Your night shift receptionist? Jaesung?” Taehyung chuckled, “It’s okay, you have like a million customers. Though I can tell you each name and where they sit.” He smiled teasingly, “Do you remember mine?”

“Of course, I do remember your name, Kim Taehyung.” He could have added his age, his love for photography and everything else that he had found while searching the web for him. It had actually impressed him to see how present the other was and not in the usual silly social media stuff you found when researching someone in their twenties. His blog was artsy, intelligent and had piqued Yoongi’s interest right away. So, he was all the more curious about his young employee who seemed so fearless while ignoring the norm. “Don’t you dare gift my coffee away! Don’t you have manners? Gifting someone something means they get to keep it; you can’t just change your mind about that!” He snatched the coffees away so quickly that it was a good thing they had a lid on top or else the black fluid would have spilled over on the table.

Taehyung couldn’t help but laugh, when Yoongi talked about manners while grabbing the coffees so quickly from him. “I’m glad you accept my gift then, Mr. Min.” He smiled at his boss and for the first time tonight, really looked at him. The long shirt he wore was nothing of what he usually would expect of someone being the CEO of a company, but then again: Yoongi didn’t expect anyone that late at night and he wasn’t even sure if his boss was still doing meetings. All he knew was the rumors people gushed about in the office and what Yoongi had told him himself, that his health mustn’t been great. The long sleeves reached over his hands, giving his boss sweaterpaws and Taehyung had to keep himself from cooing over the cuteness that the imagery had.

He noticed how Taehyung’s eyes lingered on his hands and he quickly withdrew them, trying his best to not follow the urge to hide them behind his back or stuff them in his pocket. He had learned that showing weakness was the worst you could do because it was like serving your weak spots to others on a silver plate and they wouldn’t hesitate to use this to their advantage. So instead he turned around and stood before the coffee machine, his back to Taehyung. “So how do you like your coffee then? I don’t have fancy vegan milk, but I’m stocked up on the classics.” He liked to drink his coffee black, sometimes with sugar but he had still some coffee creamer left from when he had actually used his office properly.

“Oh, no, please. I don’t want to bother you and I have some of my hot chocolate left.” He pointed at the third smaller cup (he hadn’t enough money to get himself a bigger anymore). “Thank you though,” His cheeks dusted in a rose color at the thought of Yoongi wanting to do something for him in return, “You probably have to get work done. And there’s someone waiting for you to get home soon. I don’t want to bother.”

Yoongi cocked his head. “Hot chocolate, I see. No coffee could compare to that.” The amusement made his eyes shimmer, but it was gone as quickly as it came. The thought of being left alone with his work made him feel all cold and the idea of his empty home - where definitely no one was waiting for him - left a bitter taste. “If that’s a polite way to tell me that you have other plans for the night then I got the hint. If not you are welcome to stay and help me, make some copies for example. It would be paid work, of course.” He quickly fabricated.

He didn’t need copies. But he needed company.

Taehyung’s smile reached his ears when he shook his head. He had no plans at all and staying sounded more fun. He took the coffee cup and walked over to Yoongi and leaned down just enough to look him into his eyes, noticing the habit of the other looking everywhere but him. “Drink this one. It’s not the expensive coffee but it tastes better, believe me.” He smiled, when Yoongi reached for it carefully and this time he kept his eyes on him. Tae had noticed how quickly he had retreated his hand before and did not want to bother him. “And please there’s no need to pay me. I’ll help you anytime.”

Yoongi shook his head. “I wonder how you made it through life so far with your honestly catastrophic sense for opportunities. I insist on paying you. I’m no charity and I don’t want to be treated as such in return. Besides, photography equipment is expensive, and you could use some extra lenses for that macro photography of yours. Money makes all the difference there, believe me, you won’t get satisfying results with cheap equipment.” He didn’t like feeling vulnerable and Taehyung helping him would have definitely made him insecure. He didn’t like owing people, be it money or time or attention. Like this is was a clean, clear business deal. Work for money, just like the hundreds of other employees that worked for him right now.

“My…my photography?” Taehyung stuttered as he was confused on how Mr. Min knew about his art. His heart was beating fast and he gulped against the lump in his throat. “How do you know about my photography,” His confusion was written all over his face. Taehyung couldn’t think of one reason why Mr. Min could know this about him. They hadn’t cared to know about what he did as his main job when he applied for the mail position, so there couldn’t be any papers. “Money doesn’t make all the difference, Mr. Min. You can have the most expensive equipment and still be a crappy artist.”

“I’d like to be informed about my employees,” was his curt answer - which was a blatant lie. He didn’t know anything about most of the people working for him and the things he did know he had acquired by accident or because they had messed something up and therefore stayed in his memory. He had never googled one before Taehyung, but he definitely wouldn’t tell that to his face. “While that might be true it’s also difficult to be a splendid artist with ‘crappy’ equipment. Ideally you have both, talent and the financial resources to fund your dreams. So, stop complaining about payment please I won’t let you work without it.”

“My dreams,” Taehyung chuckled low and for a moment, he let Yoongi see through the façade of his happy smile, where there were too many broken dreams. He replaced it quickly with a grin again and nodded. “Okay, if you insist but I want to ask for something in return.” His heart jumped, when he suddenly felt nervous, but the thought had hit him the moment he had laid his eyes on Yoongi. He didn’t know how Yoongi would react, but he had learned to be trusting of his own instincts and if he saw something beautiful, the urge to take pictures of it was too big to deny. “Will you let me take a picture of your hands then?”

Yoongi’s face fell the moment Taehyung's question left his lip, flinching back as if he had been slapped.

“My …my hands? So, you do want proof for some shady expose! Of course, you do, no one is ever that selfless. Get out. Now!” It hurt. It actually hurt even though he barely knew the other and had only seen him twice but after so long of being lonely and all by himself in the dark he had latched onto the first person who pretended to still see him as human. He had fallen for it so easily. How pathetic he was. He should have known better. No one liked the ugly, everyone strived for beauty. He was an idiot for forgetting.

Taehyung startled effectively when Yoongi shouted at him, hunching up his shoulders in a reflex before he reacted. “No, no, Mr. Min you don’t understand.” He turned around to grab his bag and reached for his phone inside to open a folder filled with pictures and showing it to Yoongi, who was still furiously shouting at him. “It’s part of my new series, look! I just thought…” Taehyung took a deep breath, before he spilled the truth, “They are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, very delicate and…perfect. And I’ve noticed the habit of little marks on your fingers from the pens you use. Right there on your hand.” Tae would have loved to reach out and show Yoongi, but instead he showed it on his own where Yoongi has smudged some kind of ink all over his palm.

“You... you are crazy!” Yoongi had shrunk back when Tae had pushed the phone forward for him to look at it. He hadn’t lied, there were hands all over, delicate ones and ones with chubby fingers, some colored with something like turmeric and beetroot, others covered in scribbles all over. But they all had something in common: they were healthy, normal hands, not like his: spoilt and rotten and tainted with the darkness inside of him. “Please get out.” He didn’t shout any longer, but his voice trembled from too many suppressed emotions. He couldn’t handle this; he couldn’t deal to be confronted with his ugliness right now.

Taehyung’s eyes widened when he realized that he had cornered his boss with his simple request, completely disregarding how he could feel about it. He was his boss after all. He was in no place to ask such stupid questions. “I am sorry,” He pushed the phone deep in his pocket, “Again.”

Taehyung felt guilty and horrible for being so dumb to see that the other might not want to do this for him. “I should have asked more respectfully but I got excited and I have this stupid habit of talking too much when I shouldn’t.” He bit his tongue and cursed himself in his mind. “You’re way kinder than the people say, and I thought since you talked about my photography that you liked it maybe.” He bowed his head, cheeks red in shame. “I won’t ask again, I promise. But I won’t take it back about what I said about your hands.”

Yoongi stayed silent. He was too scared to talk; afraid he might actually start to cry if he did. The self-hatred tasted bitter on his tongue as it burned through his veins like acid. He was pathetic, weak... he didn’t deserve to be head of a company being like this. He couldn’t be moved by a simple request like that, he should have been impressive enough for Taehyung to not even dare to ask such a question and pull his ugliness out in the open like that. He should start to wear gloves again. Or be above his cursed condition or… or…

He just wanted to be alone right now to figure it out so he pushed a random pile of files in Taehyung's hands and asked him as calmly as he could to make some copies.

Taehyung stood a little awkwardly as he watched his boss disappearing up the stairs. He sighed and then looked down to see what kind of files he was holding, but he figured he had no clue about economics anyways. So, he walked up to the copy machine and started making copies of the files, sorting it perfectly, thinking that Yoongi just needed a little bit of time to see that he hadn’t tried to be mean or get too close. He hadn’t kicked him out in the end after all.

After a while Taehyung couldn’t help himself but yawn with every copy he made. He finished the last file, just like Yoongi had asked him to and put it onto the stack of papers, when a faint melody coming from the room above caught his attention, making him halt in his movements.

Without the noise of the copy machine, he could hear it a lot clearer now and it sounded like something familiar. A piano maybe, something classical. Taehyung bit his finger in nervousness as he tried to figure out what the right thing to do was. He had to tell Mr. Min that he was done with everything anyways and he wouldn’t hear him if he was listening to music. With a rapid heartbeat, Taehyung looked up at the closed door at the end of the staircase and took the first step.

…

With Taehyung busy and his emotions still in uproar Yoongi did what he always did when his heart didn’t seem to calm: He went up to play the piano. He was sure that copying all those files would keep Taehyung occupied for a while, long enough that he could play one or two pieces and then come down as if nothing has happened. He didn’t want him to know that he lived up there even though he had a suspicion that sooner or later Taehyung’s curiosity would make him figure it out. The other was kind of crazy apparently - but he was just as much considering he was risking everything he had just to talk to someone. He pressed the key under his index finger down harder but instead of a sound there was nothing. His stomach cramped in apprehension of what was about to come and with horror he pressed the key again. Nothing. There was nothing even though he had played it like five minutes ago. Yoongi howled in desperation as he balled his hands into fists and slammed them onto the keys. “Can’t I have one fucking day without this stupid curse ruining everything?” His voice was a hateful hiss as he closed the lid violently, trying not to think about how many keys the curse had already taken from him and how little there were left.

Taehyung stood in awe, leaning against the doorframe as he listened. He had closed his eyes, letting the music embrace him and take him away, because Yoongi played with so much passion that it made it seem like he was telling him a story. It broke off so suddenly and it pulled Taehyung back into reality when the song abruptly stopped and instead Yoongi drew the most horrible sound from the piano as he slammed onto the keys. He didn’t really get what Yoongi was hissing to himself, so he just broke through his self-hatred (because he figured that much) with a sweet tone, “I think it sounded absolutely lovely, why did you stop?”

Yoongi flinched so hard he almost fell backwards over the piano stool. “What the hell? You don’t know the meaning of private, do you? First my office, now this.” It was biting and cold and only after he said it did he feel a little pinch of guilt. But he was angry and so he kept going. “Don’t hold it against me when I can’t take much from your compliment. You don’t play, do you? How much concerts have you been too? Classical ones, those with standards I mean.“ When Tae didn’t answer fast enough he groaned, wiping over his face, “This is a fucking waste of my time!” He could feel the tears way too close under the surface, just waiting for an opportunity to spill over and break his last resolve. He was nothing. All that he had built had started to fade the moment he had been cursed and now the curse slowly took his music from him. He couldn’t bear the thought of the day when nothing would be left, and he would be all alone in the darkness - forever.

Taehyung could feel the anger and frustration coming off from Yoongi in waves, the hatred that filling him up. And yet, it hurt when he talked about him so bluntly, judging him from what he thought he looked like: someone without any class.

“You really like to judge people, huh?” Taehyung spat back at him, “Why do you think I’ve never been to a classical concert before? Because I can’t afford it? Because I look poor?” He shook his head with a sigh, before an idea came into his mind as he stared at Yoongi’s back, who had turned away from him on the stool. If this were Jimin or someone else, he might have hugged the person, but from what he could tell Mr. Min wasn’t the kind of person for skin ship and yet, he needed comfort. And Taehyung was great at that.

Slowly, Taehyung came closer and sat down at the other side, pushing his back against Yoongi’s, facing the opposite direction. “My dad used to play the piano actually. I think that’s when my love for art came from. Do you know those finger paints that you can color windows with? I imagined I could paint a wonderful imagery, maybe a flower field or something and run into it.” He chuckled softly at the memory. “When did you start playing?”

The answer Yoongi wanted to spit back at the other (because he was the only outlet for his anger right now) stayed stuck in his throat when Taehyung leaned against him as if they were old friends. His pride told him to lean away immediately and yell at Tae how he dared to cross such boundaries. But the warmth that seeped through his back made him tear up and his throat feel tighter. When was the last time that someone had touched him? It must be almost a year and oh, how he missed it!

It wasn’t like he’s had any long term relationship in the last few years but he had always craved contact as much as he feared it and so he had indulged himself in regular hook ups, never with the same person twice. His voices sounded small and choked when he finally answered, far from the cold reply he had initially prepared. “When I was in high school. We had a piano that was very expensive, so I was never allowed to touch it. And I pretended to obey but whenever my parents were out I snuck in and taught myself how to play. When one of the maids told on me I could play enough to impress my mum, so she got me a teacher. I was punished for breaking their rules of course but it was worth it.”

“That’s very sneaky of you, Mr. Min.” Taehyung laughed, leaning his head back in the process, “That doesn’t sound like the well-mannered CEO I know now.” He let his mind wander, thinking about how a young Mr. Min had been like, if he had dreams, if he still had the same one’s now or if they had changed. “It was truly worth it. I really liked the way you play; it was almost like…you were telling a story.” Taehyung closed his eyes and hummed the melody he remembered, fingertips playing in the air. He could feel Yoongi straightening his back a little, hearing his soft laugh against his back and Taehyung took it as an invitation to just keep on talking and rambling until Yoongi’s voice didn’t sound as broken anymore and his answers were longer than a few words.

“...And then one day, I came home and Jimin had put up all of my photography in the hallway just like that and invited a few of our friends over. There was even champagne,” He was gesturing around as if he was showing Yoongi how it looked, although their backs were against each other, “The cheapest one he could buy though, from the discounter. And he pretended as if it was my first exhibition, interviewing me and my friends just played along. In the end we all just got very drunk but…we were young.” He laughed and raked a hand through his messy hair, before his voice dropped a little. “One day I’ll have my own though.” Taehyung bit his lip as he thought of his little dream and peeked over his shoulder just a little, “Do you still have a dream, Mr. Min?”

It was easy to listen to Tae. He spoke so lively and colorfully that the vivid images rose in his mind all by themselves and a soft smile had stolen its way on his lips without permission. “Dreams?” He sighed deeply. “Well, I’ve got one, to be honest. I long for it with my whole being and yet I can do nothing to achieve it. I want to be free from this… sickness.” He had almost said curse. Luckily when it slipped people just thought he spoke figuratively. “I wasn’t always like this. But I fear I will be now, for the rest of my life.”

“Is there anything you can do?” Taehyung asked carefully, “You must know good doctors, right?” He wasn’t sure how much he could ask without pushing Yoongi away again. “Is it bad for you? Will…will it affect your health?” He hadn’t expected the aching in his heart at the thought of Yoongi being in pain or losing his life to an incurable sickness – now that he had gotten to know him a little.

“Not… really. I guess I could ‘think positive’ and ‘be kind’ and all that new age shit…” He normally didn’t try to curse in front of others, but it slipped so easily from his lips whenever the frustration took over, “...but apart from that I can only wait and hope that something changes before my time runs out. And doctors can only cure what their schoolbooks taught them. As soon as you differ from the norm they’re lost. I might end up in a glass cage if I let too many people look at me. I tried, in the beginning I was naive and thought that there had to be someone who was able to help me, I’ve seen so many specialists. But in the end I had to give up. That’s the worst, isn’t it? Putting all your energy and time and hope into something just for it to mean nothing in the end.” He couldn’t answer Taehyung’s question fully without revealing what he suffered from so he stayed vague and talked only as honest as he dared to be.

Taehyung had turned around slowly, when Yoongi was talking not able to speak up and silence filled the room as he let everything sink in. It felt heavy on his heart to know what he had been through with no one by his side (at least he assumed it from what he knew now). “But you feel no pain from the disease?” He asked again, just to make sure, before shifting completely, so that Yoongi’s back was against his chest instead. Taehyung wasn’t leaning in, yet, giving Yoongi the chance to back away if he wanted to or lean back if he needed it. “C-can I?” Taehyung reached out slowly, hovering over Yoongi’s hand, while being so close that his breath was tingling Yoongi’s skin right by his ear.

“No, I’m not in pain. Not physically.” His cheeks heated at the confession that he hadn’t really meant to share. Because he was hurting, just in places that were beyond the flesh. He tensed when he felt Taehyung shifting, waiting for the other to get up, preparing himself to do the same but nothing the like happened. Instead the warmth came back and suddenly he could feel Taehyung’s breath against his skin. He shuddered, his whole body vibrating with nerves as Taehyung reached out for him. Yoongi tried to mask the nervous tremor in his hand by tilting his palm up but he regretted it the very next second. He had forgotten how dark his palm was, for one single blissful heartbeat he had actually forgotten how ugly he was because Taehyung’s closeness had wiped everything else from his mind. He was about to take his hand back when Taehyung’s fingertips touched his palm and he instinctively held his breath.

The younger could feel it against his chest as he leaned a little closer. His touch was a careful one, soft and light as he traced along a line on the inside of Yoongi’s hand. He shifted closer as he reached around the man’s body towards the other hand and did the same: waiting for Yoongi to relax and then touch him again. Instinctively, Taehyung leaned his head on Yoongi’s shoulder as he drew patterns into palm of his hands; long forgotten that this was his boss he was sitting behind. It was like the moment they had stepped away from the office, it didn’t matter anymore. Right here, by the piano in Yoongi’s makeshift (very expensive looking) home, it wasn’t about the status anymore.

It was just them, in the middle of the night.

Taehyung intertwined their hands softly, letting go again just do repeat the motion because his own big hands, fitted so nicely against Yoongi’s smaller ones. “I still think your hands are beautiful,” He whispered softly, before a yawn drew out of him and he wasn’t fast enough to hide it. “Do you want me to come back tomorrow,” Taehyung released his hands from his, soothing over Yoongi’s arms before he leaned back, “To do the work you wanted me to?” It was written all over Yoongi’s body that he was lonely, and Taehyung had taken a liking in his strange boss and if it would make it easier for him to decide to let him back in if it was “job” related, then so be it.

Yoongi bit his lip before the words could tumble out and he made the mistake of asking Taehyung to stay a little longer. It was amazing - and also a little scary - what some intimacy could do to him and if he was honest he already started to miss the warmth the moment Taehyung leaned back.

“Sure. If you have the time you can come over.” Telling him that he definitely wanted to see him felt like an inappropriate confession, so he tried to keep it casual. His hands twitched as he put them back onto his thighs without anything to hold onto.

“I’ll be there,“ The words were whispered, when Taehyung hugged Yoongi once, before getting up and rushing back to the stairs – this habit of staying up late was really messing with his sleeping schedule. “Oh and, you can call me Tae by the way.” He waited for Yoongi to turn to look at him before he waved, “That’s what all my friends call me.”

A/N: Ohhh, what do you think? ;) Will Taehyung’s natural curiosity will be a mistake or the way through to Yoongi’s heart? ;) Thank you for reading!

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wearethegladiators · 5 years

Text

BUCKLE UP KIDS BC THIS SHIT IS WAY TOO LONG BC I HAVE 0 SELF-CONTROL: A LILY EDITION

Lily is trapped AF. She is an important figure of the Muggleborn Resistance/one of the branches of the Muggleborn Resistance… She’s quite a powerful player because she managed to secure allies… pretty much everywhere (hello Wynona, hello les deatheaters). BUT her branch is very cult-like (yes, this is canon, I thought this through and through promis). It started most likely when she helped a bunch of them to escape from a Mudblood Camp (which was mostly accomplished thanks to/with Sacha but I guess he would try to avoid the spotlight??) Then she was captured a bunch of other times, always escaped, was almost killed a bunch of times, always survived (just Lily stuff). (Also the fact that she disappeared on a crusade for months after the virus to find the muggle survivors and buried/burnt so many bodies… Imaginaries, you know). And that kept on going. At first she thought this was bullshit, she’d make fun of Fury and the bunch of other people treating her like a Wanheda. But then Aron died, and THAT changed everything. Because the building of the Muggleborn Resistance, like you said, it was all for people like him. And every fucking thing Lily did, it was all about him first and foremost. Before her people. Before anyone else. And failing at it, losing the purpose she had for years?? She almost gave up. But then they were these people telling her she survived for a reason, she was meant to do something, she was the queen of the dead of whatever bullshit… Well if she ever met an oracle confirming that, she’d accept it. There HAS to be a reason why SHE survived when everyone else around her is… dead, brainwashed, gone. So she played into that. And Lily, while being an atheist, has always strongly believed in fate and destiny. So in the long run, she’d buy it… Would come to believe she is the only one capable of saving her people from going extinct, and would take drastic measures to prevent it from happening. She has to have a reason to keep going, and so do the people around her because they fucking suffered so much. So that’s what she does – sort of brainwash herself. That’s how she survives, but that’s not how she may live.

Random bullet points and further ranting:

· CLARIFICATION 1: I’ve seen you were confused by some stuff I mentioned like the “Fenugreek drama” which makes sense because I’ve never explicitly spoken about it mdr. But basically, the idea is that Fenugreek got injured during a battle, pretty badly. Healers managed to “bring him back” but he was just done. He did not want to keep on fighting. So he begged everyone in the room to end his suffering and no one was willing to do it because he was a kid. And finally Lily stood up and she did it. (Sung The Parting Glass while doing it because hey, remember Fenugreek was Irish too). That’s the moment when things started to go ugly with Aron.

· CLARIFICATION 2: Lily thought Aron was dead right after she was saved by the Rebellion so I need to check but… mid-1998? Sullivan had caught her and tricked her/her memory into thinking they had killed her brother (he officially did it because they needed to “stop” Lily (mdr the deatheaters thought Lily was a hell of a threat at that time remember) (and the Rebellion was just like “humpf nice kid, how did she survive tho”) ANYWAY it was his way of “stopping” her without killing her) (what a bitch, is he dead btw) (I think so). So after that she had a few weeks/months of being batshit crazy, always running away, having edgy/suicidal behavior, and ultimately savagely killing a deatheater. That’s when she decided it was too much, and since she felt something was wrong with her memory she went to NZ and found her family safe and sound :’) and brought back to the UK :’)

· NOT RELATED BUT CANON: Lily’s ancestors were Vikings. Warriors, explorers. And overall nice people. Btw can we have talk about this? http://www.irishsurnames.com/cgi-bin/gallery.pl?name=evans&capname=Evans&letter=e PEACE. SINCERITY. WOLVES. So anyway long shot I’m sorry but………….. What if Lily’s and Nathan’s ancestors already crossed paths on the sea????

· NEEDS MORE THOUGHT: Lily is a FREAKING GOOD Occlumens. And she uses it way too much. And it’s messing with her mind, her health, and pretty much everything around. Definitely weakens her a lot but she can’t stop. (Also because of what happened when she let down her guard and thought Aron was dead). But the whole Josephine plot….. Makes me wonder if she could not have one such moment again, because she’s frankly exhausted. What if someone takes advantage of it? What if someone attacks her in what is supposed to be her greatest strengths?? HOW BAD WOULD THIS BE???

· NEEDS MORE THOUGHT: SACHA. I always thought of him as a sort of mini-Aron… (and so did Lily, for a while). But you know what Sacha really is? A mini-Lily, struggling not to become everything Lily is at the moment. And Lily, as blinded as she is atm, she can see that. She can feel that. And she’ll be willing to fucking protect that. She won’t be a perfect friend because she’s… she’s fucked up, tbh. Damaged to a point that may not ever be fixed. But she’ll try. She’ll be that one person to tell him to never, ever give up on his brother (even though she may fail at providing him with the support needed to do so). She’ll make sure he does not have to do the fucked-up shit/get his hands dirty. But even more so…. She could use him as her moral compass? Like she has her personal “circle” of counselors if you will (most of them being fanatics :’)) but gradually, she’ll end up turning to Sacha. Because she can see herself in him – everything she used to be, everything she wishes she still was. And speaking to him is like speaking to an older version of herself, a better version of herself. I really want Nathan to be the one helping her out of this mess but… This could certainly help. If Sacha tells her something’s wrong, she’ll listen. She may not seem like she is, but she will.

Finally, I don’t know if you can tell but I’ve been getting A LOT of Nathalily vibes lately. They’re like BROTP ENDGAME YO. There’s definitely angst in there. Lily’s almost exclusively with the Muggleborn Resistance now (she stuck with the rebellion for a while because Aron literally refused to follow with the Muggleborn Resistance and stayed with the Rebels mdr). As you said, the Rebellion and the Muggleborn Resistance have different endgoals and they must sometimes clash, which means that LILY AND NATHAN CLASH. Also the Aron drama must have damaged their relationship somehow (I’m sorry bitch but because of Bellarke I can just SEE Lily slapping Nathan in the face, and the only way she would resort to this would probably be Aron-related). (Also remember that in the Excidium verse Lily had literally LEFT Nathan’s movement because she disagreed so much with it and what he was becoming) (and remember on the CB of les Ames Mortes when Nathan literally ATTACKED Lily to show her how unprepared she was to face the war) (THERE’S ALWAYS BEEN ANGST GNNNN)

But, my point is, even though their relationship might be complicated, even though they’re in conflict sometimes (what if they literally find themselves on opposite sides mdr) (I mean with what you said I could see some Resistants being AGAINST the Rebellion), they’re just ALWAYS THERE for each other. Like there’s a super sensitive thing to do and Lily just goes like “yeah, ask Nathan” without even thinking because!! she trusts him so much!! no matter what!! And everyone’s like “really????” and she’s looking at them like “wtf idiots”. Idk, like the unconditional trust and the unconditional love and the unbreakable bond is still here no matter what? She would come under a minute if she heard he was in trouble, and she would put her life into his hands without even having to think about it. Am I making sense??? And they need to have an emotional retrouvailles sequence with a running!hug and shit. Nathan also needs to help Lily out of this mess hihi. OR Lily could give up all this bullshit when Nathan goes “””dark”””?? Because it was not just Aron her priority – it was her brother, and Nathan’s just that to her.

(Also I’m a sucker for Lily/Nathan saying they’re each other’s brothers and sisters and everyone being like YOU DON’T HAVE THE SAME BLOOD. YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE THE SAME SKIN COLOR. AND SO WHAT BITCH)

Anyway so I’m emotional, I don’t know if you could tell

(Regarding the last gifset: I mean, Lily’s a badass survivor, she’s incredibly luckily and shit. But Nathan plays a big part in her survival over the last few years, both physically and mentally, that we need to acknowledge :’))

#lily #nathalily #there's some more no worries #i'm also finishing chapter 3 of wynona's backstory because ENDOMETRIOSIS IS A BITCH and i haven't been able to write anything coherent in #almost 3 days yo #your last posts #i'm crying #everything's so sad #can everyone just hug each other and come to the conclusion this war should end pls

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nanyoky · 7 years

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QUICKBIRD obviously but also do Wanda/Bucky AND Wanda/Vision please. for me. pretty please with a cherry and chocolate and sprinkles on top.

THIS IS WHY YOU ARE MY FAVORITE

Quickbird:

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter: Hunter!Sam and Werewolf!Pietro (I have a distinct image in my mind of anthony mackie as a wereworlf/vampire hunter in my head? did someone make a gifset at one point? That isn’t a real movie is it?)

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman: Merman!Sam and Fisherman!Pietro

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar: Witch!Sam and Pietro is his cat familiar ala Thackary Binx in hocus pocus omg

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict: Sam needs his coffee at all hours, Pietro isn’t allowed at the register anymore, so he makes Wanda (better at faking politeness, so she’s always on the register) write flirty notes “From the kitchen” on Sam’s cup.

who’s the professor and who’s the TA: OMG ESSAY I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING. Because they hooked up at the end of last semester and they’d never met but judging on uh- age... Sam sorta figured Pietro was a student at the university where he lectures but it wasn’t a problem cuz he isn’t technically his student and then couple weeks later at the start of the semester he’s assigned a new TA and OH FUCK. And like every day is just “can you stop writing on the board and gesturing so animatedly with your sleeves rolled up all these freshman can def tell I’m daydreaming and staring at your ass all day as is just CHILL” and “can you just NOT come in with sex hair every day and slump back in your seat and have a dumb little smile whenever I lose my thread because you caught my eye and EVERYONE KNOWS STOP THIS I’M GOING TO GET FIRED” and “*both at the same time* AND STOP DOING THAT WITH YOUR PEN THIS ORAL FIXATION IS OUT OF CONTROL” and the poor helpless freshmen like “please stop this we need to pass our government credit”

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss): since winter soldier, we know that Sam “41st floor! 41st!” Wilson is def the type to be all “YOU’RE RESCUING ME WRONG”

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent: i don’t know of any baby falcons, so: Luna never stops talking about her kindergarten teacher and then it’s parent’s day and Pietro’s just really embarrassed he has a crush on the same guy as his six year old.

who’s the writer and who’s the editor: Pietro’s not so much a writer as a translator and they only know each other through snide bitchy email threads like “this passage isn’t actually how people speak” “well it’s what it SAYS in Magyar so deal with it.” “or you could just say this thing that makes more sense” “NEVER.”

Winterwitch:

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter: I’ve already written brief mention of werewolf!Bucky, so THAT. omg hunter!wanda. I need to design that outfit.

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman: Mermaid Wanda is fucking deadly omg. Bucky def looks like he’s spent good time on a boat.

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar: Easy. Bucky is a wolf.

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict: this is the same au as above and lots of misunderstandings are had when Sam and Bucky come in at the same time and get the wrong drinks- ergo the messages from the wrong twin.

who’s the professor and who’s the TA: Wanda is a community ed. psych teacher and Bucky went directly into the service and never got the college experience so he’s just taking a few night classes and his therapist says getting involved more with students and staff as a community will help him reenter civilian life. But then they just stay up late together grading papers and then there’s wine and then sloppy makeouts on Wanda’s apartment floor and that’s not what his therapist meant but hey whatever works.

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss): Bucky has been locked away and brainwashed in the tower and Wanda has to storm the castle with her magic to free him. I also need magical knight!wanda outfit designs in my life.

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent: Parent!Bucky and Teacher!Wanda

who’s the writer and who’s the editor: Bucky hates his job but this novel came across his desk and it’s dark and weird and fucking unflinchingly PRIMAL without indulging in trauma-porn or glorifying the violence of it and he’s GOT to meet this writer.

Scarletvision (OF COURSE, FOR YOU):

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter: I’m sorry I’m just stuck on hunter!wanda now regardless of who her monster boyfriend is.

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman: Merman!Vision and fisherwoman!Wanda. Possibly same au as the quickbird one.

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar: Easy. Vision is a raven

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict: Wanda and Pietro shuffle into the all hours shop after their bar shifts and no matter what time it is the same guy is on the register? Like what the fuck does he ever sleep? So they’re on a mission to figure out what his deal is.

who’s the professor and who’s the TA: Wanda teaches a language course and she normally refuses to take a TA that’s not a native speaker like her but her colleagues convince her to let Vision have a shot because he works harder than anyone and his aptitude is incredible. ((why am i into these ones so much tonight this is patently NOT MY JAM normally- but for these ships? YES PLEASE.))

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss): Knight!Wanda and Prince!Vision. I feel Prince Vision is very reluctant to follow Lady Wanda out of the tower. His books, you see. He needs time to pack- and are you sure that rope is going to safely carry both our weights on the way down? I haven’t calculated it yet but I believe your armor alone could be enough to cause sufficient strain to-

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent: Parent!Wanda, Teacher!Vision

who’s the writer and who’s the editor: Wanda is ready to move on to a different publishing house due to the higher ups wanting to gut her magnum opus, but Vision is determined to win them over without sacrificing the soul of her work.

That was so fun and I am a SUCKER for dumb aus!!!!

#essayofthoughts #i want every single one of these but i have way too many fucking wips #do it for the meme #crackship #angst crackship #winterwitch #quickbird #scarletvision #codependent supertwins #my beautiful bird son #cousin sergei #i don't have a vision tag?#i just spent almost two fucking hours on these while i watched a movie and made snacks lol #I LIVE FOR DUMB AUS

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mystical-flute · 7 years

Text

Chasing Wishes

Inspired by @zoe19blink‘s gifset

"I wish that Emma Swan's wish – to never have been the Savior – be granted."

Neal could see the pain in Aladdin's face as he snapped his fingers as Emma charged at the Evil Queen with the sword from his Papa's shop. In a moment…

Emma was gone. He didn't know where but he knew that she was gone thanks to the fucking Evil Queen.

He could only rub his hands against his face in a desperate attempt to wake himself up, because surely this had to be a nightmare, right? He'd had a lot of those since his near-death experience at the hands of Zelena and the incident with Emma as the Dark One. Surely, this was just another nightmare.

"Neal…" Charming's voice cracked, a firm hand settling on his shoulder. "It wasn't a dream."

"I know," he whispered, looking up at the other man in defeat. "I'm sorry, David. I should have been able to protect her from this."

The man only shook his head. "Don't blame yourself. None of us knew that the Evil Queen had been spying on Aladdin when she said that to him. We just need to get her back."

"How?"

"I… don't know."

Just when Neal thought things couldn't get any worse than the curse Snow and Charming were under, where they were constantly separated because of the sleeping curse. He felt sick. Everything was falling apart and he didn't know how to stop it. Thank God for the other royal family members that were willing to help figure out the refugees from the Land of Untold Stories and trying to stop the Evil Queen's plans. There was too much going on, and now Emma was gone, adding yet another wrench in their lives.

Regina burst through the door to Granny's, her eyes wild with concern. "Sorry I'm late. I got your text. What's going on? Where's Emma?"

"She's gone…" Neal whispered. "The Evil Queen wished her away to a place where she was never the Savior."

Regina growled. "She did what?"

Neal could only nod in disgust. "And now… we don't know how to get her back."

Pinching her brow, Regina exhaled slowly. "Okay. Let me think. If my evil twin had actually succeeded in getting rid of Emma forever, then none of us would still be here, right? If Emma was really gone for good we'd be… well, I'm not sure where. But we wouldn't be in Storybrooke as it stands now. Which means Emma must be somewhere else… and I think I know how to reach her."

Neal and David's eyes snapped to the mayor.

"How?" David asked.

"She's trying to accomplish everything I once wanted. She wants you and Snow to suffer. She wants Emma gone… which means there's one more person that is standing in the way of her getting total control again," Regina said, looking at Neal. "You."

"Me?"

"You're Henry's father. Another parent. Why would she want you around? And… I know just how to get you to Emma. Come on."

It only took a moment for them to arrive in the mayor's office. She put her finger to her lips and signaled for David and Neal stay out of sight against the wall before she entered the room, speaking loud enough for them to hear.

"Ah, there you are. I was just going to start the celebration!" the Evil Queen said. Neal thought he heard a distinct "ew" sort of sound from Aladdin. "I finally accomplished everything you ever wanted."

"You think you did. But you didn't," Regina said.

"What are you talking about? Snow and Charming are miserable, Rumplestiltskin knows not to cross us, and the Savior is finally out of our hair. What could I possibly have forgotten?"

"Neal Cassidy. You never got rid of him. And since we're two halves of the same whole, that means the genie works for me too… so I suppose I'll have to clean up your mess, won't I?" Regina said. "Genie of Agrabah. I wish that Neal Cassidy would be sent to the same place Emma Swan is."

Neal didn't even have a minute to think before the Mayor's office disappeared and he was suddenly in… the Enchanted Forest?

Right. He was in a world where Emma was never the Savior. Of course they'd be in the Enchanted Forest.

Letting out a sigh, Neal looked around. It didn't seem any different from what he'd known before. Surely, he would have been sent to somewhere close to Emma – after all, Regina had specifically said he should be sent to the same place as Emma.

"Hello?!" he called into the quiet forest. "Can someone help me?!"

No response, and Neal let out a frustrated sigh, kicking at a tree before making his way… well, somewhere. But standing around wasn't going to do anything.

"Someday my prince will come, someday I'll find my love and how thrill – oh! Well there he is now!" a giggly, yet familiar voice said from behind him. Neal turned, shock filling him as he found Emma – or what was some sort of caricature of Emma, standing with a basket of flowers on her arm.

"Holy shit. What did she do to you?" he whispered, staring at her.

"What did who do to me?" she asked, tilting her head. She seemed genuinely confused. But at least she recognized him.

He shook his head. "Never mind. Are you okay?"

"Of course I am… but you're clearly not. You're acting so funny, Bae," she said. "And you've changed clothes. What's going on?"

Okay. No reason to panic. Clearly Emma had no idea who she was, who he was, or who they were in Storybrooke. He needed to snap her out of it. But how?

"I… don't know to explain it, Emma…" he said, holding out his arm for her to take as they headed back in the direction she'd come from. "But this world? We don't belong here."

"What? Of course we do."

"No… we belong in Storybrooke."

She froze at that, staring up at him with wide eyes. "How do you know of my dreams to that place? I never told you about them."

"Because it's not a dream, Emma. It's real. You and I live there with Henry. With your parents and mine. You're the Savior. You saved me from dying at Zelena's hand," Neal said slowly. He was really trying to get through to her. But he didn't know how.

"I… saved you? Like some sort of Savior? But wait – who is Zelena?" she asked.

Oh boy.

"Yes. She's… the Evil Queen's sister. Or she was. In Storybrooke. But she died so she's not an issue anymore. Emma please… we need to get home. Henry's there."

"He's here with us, Baelfire. He's not in Storybrooke or whatever it is."

Neal sighed, rubbing his face again. "No, Emma. This place? It's not real. You're the Savior. You saved Storybrooke, your parents, and even Henry. He was dying. And your kiss broke the curse."

Emma looked at him, blinking back tears. "You sound so convinced of it… then it might be true. Your father is the one that warned my parents about the curse after all… but if it is true… how do we get back there?"

"I don't know. We were brought here by a wish. We can't very well get back there the same way – we don't have a genie."

Emma sighed and looked at him. "I wish I could remember. I sound like I was a powerful person."

"You are. There's no were, Emma. You are one of the most powerful women in the world," he said. "Your strength is still there." He knew the Emma Swan he loved was still in there. Even if she was in a flowing dress and had no idea of the power she had.

Emma sighed. "I want to remember, Bae. I want to remember who I was…"

Neal nodded. "Well.. you can start by calling me Neal. That's what I was known as in the other world."

"Neal…" Emma repeated, as if turning the word over in her head, trying to get used to it. "I like it. But wait – you're not Baelfire then?"

"No – I am. I just changed my name."

"Well then… Sir Neal. Let's go back to the castle, shall we?" Emma asked with a smile, stepping closer to him and kissing him, and he kissed back eagerly.

A burst of magic exploded out from their connected lips, and Emma stepped away in surprise. It was subtle, but he could see her eyes harden, the burden of the thirty years of her life coming back into her hazel eyes, although they weren't nearly as hardened as they'd been when they'd reunited in Manhattan.

"Neal…" she breathed. "Oh thank God."

He smiled a little. "There's my singing swan."

"I wasn't singing."

He snorted. "You were singing something from Snow White. Your mother's song."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah. So, I have an idea of how to get out of here."

"What's that?"

"We could… go to Pinocchio and ask him to build a wardrobe. Like the one that I took to the other world before."

Neal forced himself not to flinch in anger. He would never be able to fully forgive August for what happened. "Yeah, okay. Let's go see how badly he got messed up."

"Well, from what I have in my mind of him, he's fine," Emma said with a shrug. "Better than who he was in reality."

"Lovely. Lead the way then," Neal replied as he took her hand.

She vanished with them just outside of a small… well, Neal couldn't exactly call it a village. Perhaps colony or something. He still wasn't sure what to call it.

"Hey there Pinocchio," Emma said, going back into the sweet, innocent princess he'd found. No wonder she'd been so adept at being a bail bonds person. He wondered if she'd taken acting classes while she'd been in school or something.

"Princess Emma, Sir Bae! What can I do for the two of you?" August replied with a smile. He stood up from the table he was working at and walked over to them.

"We need your help, Pinocchio. It… might be a bit of an odd request but you're the only one we can trust with it."

The man's eyes widened in concern. "What is it? Are you both in danger?"

"You could say that," Emma said softly. "We need you to build a magical wardrobe. Do you happen to know anything about that?"

"A magical wardrobe? You mean like the one we were supposed to go to that land without magic?" August asked with a small frown. "Why do you need one of those?"

Emma bit her lip. "Well… it's a long story. But somehow, Neal and I aren't from here. We're from a world where the curse was cast. We were sent here because of a wish. And I think the magic wardrobe is the only way to get us back home."

August looked bewildered. "You… are meant to be in the world where we actually did go through the wardrobe? Where the curse was cast?"

Neal nodded. "Yes."

"Well then… where are our Princess Emma and Sir Baelfire?"

"I think we took their place," Neal said, his eyes wide as he looked at Emma. "You remember everything about Princess Emma, right?"

"Yeah. And when I got here, I was waking up from a dream… a dream of Storybrooke," Emma said, her eyes wide. "We must be taking their place. Which means we have to hurry up and get home before my parents – or your father – get suspicious about where we are."

"Right. Yeah. So can you guild us a wardrobe then, Pinocchio?"

Pinocchio smiled. "I can do you one better. I can show you the exact wardrobe that we were supposed to go through. Papa had it nearly finished when we found out that Regina had been defeated. I just need to finish carving the doorway, and Papa left me his tools before he… passed."

"Of course."

Pinocchio led them to the back of the… whatever this place was, brushing some low-hanging branches out of the way. "Papa always considered this his pride and joy, but he was too uneasy about the magic in it to leave it out in public. So he hid it here, where no one would be able to find it."

"That's amazing…" Emma said as Pinocchio got to work on finishing the carving.

"There we are," August said, stepping back and pulling the door open, the orange portal sparking and cracking. "Best of luck to you both in that world."

Neal took Emma's hand and squeezed it as she gave Pinocchio a nervous glance. "Ready to go home?"

She nodded. "Ready."

Taking a deep breath, Emma stepped through the portal, Neal following close behind.

He groaned as he burst through the wardrobe, rubbing his head as he looked up at Emma. "I… know I probably shouldn't have brought you back here with what that guy in the cloak wants to do to you but – "

"Don't apologize. That other person wasn't me… you know that as well as I do. And I might have foreseen my death, but that doesn't mean I'm going to accept it lying down. Whenever that person comes to fight me… I'm not letting him kill me. Not before I'm ready to go. I'm taking control of my destiny now."

Neal grinned as they clasped hands, making their way back to town. Whatever it was Emma was going to face, Neal knew without a shadow of doubt that she would be able to save herself.

#fanfiction #swanfire #emma swan #neal cassidy

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softjeon · 4 years

Text

Here there be beasts | Final

• Pairing: Jimin x Wolf!Namjoon • Genre: Angst, Fluff | Rating: Mature | RedRidingHood!AU / Fairytale!AU → Gifset Trailer • Words: 10k | AO3 • Disclaimer: nsfw-content, smut, mentioning of blood, abuse, violence, weapons, dark themes, anxiety

written with @cassiavioletblue

↳ Fear was a strange feeling. People feared the unknown, the dark and witchcraft. The shadows that were lurking through the forest at night. The same fear that made the folks in the village keep their distance from the forest at night; that locked their doors on nights when there was a full moon, or no moon at all.

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The sun was low in the sky and it was noticeably cooler than it had been earlier in the day as he came to a halt. He let his gaze wander over the houses that were made out of grey stone, with slate roofs and dull now in the evening sun but glistened whenever it was wet from the rain. It was plain. The church had a spire and was stone built like the village houses. Small square windows, hanging baskets filled with wilted flowers that probably no one had cared for in their fear of staying outside for too long. It was eerily quiet, the fear noticeably in every corner.

They only came out when it was day, some were so terrified that they were afraid to speak. They told stories about how the old man had been ripped into pieces that not even his body could be found anymore. Just a few droplets of blood on the grass. The beast had swallowed him whole. The wolf. He could hear their whispers about him and how it would eat up anybody who was walking around the village at night.

Jimin chuckled and yet, it was a fearful one. He had seen the dark eyes, the change that was clear as the night as when he had looked into the wolf’s eyes on a full moon. He had been scared of him for a moment. Jimin could feel a headache settling in, the confusion making him question everything and it felt like his own mother and grandmother knew more that they wanted to lead on. And they never told him, played games and gave him riddles but Jimin couldn’t find the answers. He walked up to alley and stared into the distance, trying to ease his mind. On summer days, Jimin loved to go up to the top of the small hill and sat against the middle tree overlooking the village. It was usually in the morning, when it was still quiet, hardly any sound was audible. He loved that place – but he wouldn’t miss it. In the village you live close to your neighbors and everybody knew everybody’s business and their families and predilections. And he wanted to leave it all behind.

Jimin unlocked the door to his house and walked in. With a sigh, he plopped down regretting the quick movement right away when he got reminded what he had been doing all night with Namjoon. He hissed, though with a smile and couldn’t help but laugh at himself. There was one answer he knew he had: he would be safe with Namjoon. There was no wolves. No beasts. With him he would be protected. And he was sure he could get away from the nightmare. Being so lost in his mind, Jimin didn’t notice when the door opened behind him.

“What happened?” The sudden strong grip around his waist, made Jimin flinch and jump around, meeting Honsung’s questioning gaze. “I…I slipped on some wet stone this morning,” He rubbed his bottom to underline his statement, “It’s going to be a bit bruised up.” Jimin was proud of his quick lie, giving Honsung a smile to show that he was fine. He patted his chest a little awkwardly, trying to get a little space between them.

“You were out again, weren’t you? During the night, while the beast fed on that man. Was that it? Did you want to watch? What is it that makes you get yourself in danger like that? Are you bored? Do you need a little more excitement in your life? Cause if it’s that I can give you that!” He pulled Jimin roughly towards him. “There will be no more going out, do you understand me? Not at night, not during the day, none at all! The attacks get more frequent, but you don’t even know half of them because instead of participating in the village life and talking to other people you always hang out in the woods. Don’t you want to have friends, Jimin? Talk to people other than yourself? People are talking you know. You’ve always been a little weird, but it’s gotten out of hand lately. And you can’t only think about yourself. This reflects back on me as well. I’m trying to get far, to make it to someone higher up the food chain - and you’ll benefit from that too. But the way things are going right now no one will lay their trust into someone who’s affiliated with a suicidal psycho.”

Jimin gawked, blinking his eyes as he tried to follow what Honsung was telling him. “N-none? But…Honsung, I can’t…I have to help my grandma, you know that.” He shook his head, not wanting to believe that there had been more attacks while he had been gone. How could he have overseen them? Did he really not see them?

“What are you talking about?” Jimin furrowed his brows, confused and startled as his heart picked up its pace. He was getting nervous the more Honsung was talking, but he couldn’t escape his grip. “Ps-psycho? I’m not…” Jimin pushed against his chest, feeling the anger sitting firing hot under his chest, “If you don’t want to be associated with me then go! You can pick anyone. I’m not holding you back! The neighbors daughter wants you anyways. Take her then! Because you know I can’t keep inside if my grandma is out there and needs my help. You know she is almost blind; she can’t see clearly anymore. And the people in the village should know, too that I am taking care of her. Like a good grandson should do.” He was almost hissing the words, angry that the people thought of him as the weird kid again.

“She will do fine a few days without you! I can bring her some food and whatever else she needs in advance and you stay here. And stop - stop pushing me!” He pushed Jimin back so that the younger fell backwards onto the bed. “Do you really think I could just ignore our engagement? I promised to take care of you because you had no one else but you’re making it really hard right now. This isn’t solely about what I want and who I want to be with, a marriage is as much about duty as it is about pleasure and I can’t just change my mind about my oath just because you decide to be difficult. It just means that I need to be a better husband and help shape you until you’re a character that fits into the community of city.”

Jimin stared in absolute disbelief at the man in front of him, that he thought once knew but showed more and more sides of him that only scared him. There were tears burning behind his eyes, threatening to come forward but Jimin took a deep breath. He had been pushed harshly against the rough edge of his bed, where he barely caught himself and now as he gazed up at Honsung he felt completely loss for words.

“Shape me?” He almost scoffed but tried to push it down to not anger him too much. Jimin didn’t want to know what else he would be capable of. “Let me go to her one last time, please. Just once,” He whispered, avoiding Honsung’s gaze to show him his defeat. “If you love me, then please…”

“Jimin, I have asked you so many times already to not go into the woods. I begged you to take care, I ordered you to not leave the village at night, I tried to talk sense into you over and over again. I don’t trust you anymore. If I let you go who knows if you come back home or maybe you spend a few more nights out there just because you want to. No, you’ll stay here where people can watch you and make sure that you won’t end up dead. I’ll take care of it, like I said I will, because I stick to my word.”

Jimin was shaking as he nodded his head slowly, biting his lip in deep thought as he stared into nothingness. His heart was beating so loudly and so fast that he was scared he was going into a cardiac arrest. Jimin looked up to see where the sun was at the horizon, knowing that in the evening he had promised for Namjoon to come back, to meet him at his grandma’s and to run away, to never come back to the village again. Right now, it seemed almost like an impossible task. Jimin was so far gone in his mind, that he startled heavily when a hand cupped his cheek making him turn towards Honsung. “Why do you love me?” The words slipped from his lips easily but shaky. But he wanted to know so much more: why do you hate me so much? Why do you chose me? Why me? Why does it have to be me?

“Because you’re special, Jimin. Despite all the defiance and the disobedience, I know that deep down you can be good. You want to be good, don’t you? You could make it so much easier for all of us if you just started to trust me like you should.” He leaned in to kiss Jimin’s forehead. “I’ll take care of you, Jimin. You don’t have to fight against anything and everyone any longer. I know what’s best for you. And your grandma will be so happy when she sees that your safe and surrounded by friends and cared for, wouldn’t she? Don’t you want that for yourself too?”

“Yeah,” His voice sounded tired and Jimin felt exhausted, “I just need to see her. Just a few days, promise me. I need to be with her. I don’t know for how much longer she can be around.” Jimin bit his lip, when he saw the deep furrowed his brows and the hesitance in Honsung’s body language. “I’m sorry,” Jimin whispered, meaning so much more than those simple words. I’m sorry that I will make this harder on you, I’m sorry that I’m going to make you angry and I’m sorry that I’m not what you want me to be. And I am sorry that I will run away.

…

Namjoon had no idea that Jimin couldn’t keep his promise. He had started to roam through his pantry, made sure that there would be enough food and necessities for two people to live comfortably for a while. He would also soon make a trip to the next village even though it would be a wolf run away to get Jimin his own things; another plate, a glass - maybe one of those colorful ones that he had seen last time he had visited the market there it had been so pretty and would hopefully make Jimin happy. He wasn’t trying to sugarcoat things, he knew it wouldn’t been easy, Jimin would have to learn what it meant to live without the comfort he’s had in the village and even though there would be no more people judging him there would be other things to make his life harder. Not to speak of Namjoon who would have to be very, very careful so that Jimin would never find out who exactly he was. He would tell Jimin that he was sleepwalking and that he should in no way be disturbed so that Jimin wouldn’t look for him in case he woke up and found his side of the bed empty. Or maybe he could talk Jimin into letting him give him a mild herbal tea to help him sleep during full moon nights so that he wouldn’t wake up at all.

Whatever way he chose he knew it would be great living with Jimin, he felt it - and he had never felt so scared but so happy at the same time.

…

Jimin was glancing over to the window every five minutes, nervously. He could see a few of Honsung’s friends lingering around his home and he was sure that he had told him to see if Jimin would go out and if he did, to follow him closely. What they didn’t know was, that Jimin knew his way around by now. So, he simply slipped through his back window, leaving everything behind in a heartbeat.

This morning he had thought about packing a few things, but right now it didn’t matter. The sun was about to set, and he was sure Namjoon had been already waiting. Jimin hadn’t even put on his coat. He didn’t need it anymore.

The moment Jimin pulled himself over the wall and jumped down on the other side where he knew it was safe, he felt like he could breathe again – like weight that got lifted off his shoulders. This way he was sure that he was on his right way, because his heart told him so. With a smile on his lips, Jimin’s steps quickened until he was fully running. He could hear the church bells ringing in the background, telling the people to go inside before it would be dark, but he was running even faster.

When his grandma’s house came in view at the end of the path, Jimin was panting, slowing down until he was just walking. The forest was eerily quiet around him, but Jimin didn’t pay it any attention. He was so filled with happiness, with feeling absolutely free in this moment that he didn’t notice it.

Nothing.

Not a sound.

“Grandma?” Jimin’s voice echoed through the woods as he came to a halt in front of her door, fist lifted in an attempt to knock when he noticed the door being ajar. It wasn’t unusual for her to do so, so Jimin simply pushed it open and called for her again. “Are you in the back, Grandma?” Jimin called out again but there was no answer. Instead something else suddenly swallowed him whole, making him halt and froze in his movements completely. His throat constricted at the onslaught of smell that crashed over him. Something was awfully wrong. Something didn’t fit in the picture. Jimin turned around with wide eyes, slowly opening the door to his grandmother’s bedroom, but there was no one. Her blanket was thrown carelessly over as if she had been asleep, but the smell wasn’t as strong here. Jimin looked over his shoulder and gulped as he reached out for the kitchen door with shaking hands. “Please, grandma. This is not funny,” He mumbled more to himself to calm his rapid beating heart as he pushed the door open.

The door stopped after only a few inches because something was blocking it. Or someone. In horror Jimin pushed against it until it finally gave way and he was able to open the door enough to squeeze inside. He wished he hadn’t done that. Halfway behind the door and on the kitchen floor was his grandmother. There was something red all over here and in his shock he first thought it must be tomato juice, that she had slipped with a plate in hand and had spilled the juice all over her.

He kneeled down with shaking fingers, trying to help her up because she had just fallen, and it would be fine if he helped her up. But even his mind in denial couldn’t ignore the deep gashes in her chest and at her throat. Jimin whimpered, “G…grandma? Grandma please, please wake up!” He took her arm to shake her, to wake her up again but the moment he touched her he knew that she was gone. Her arm felt cold and stiff and he flinched back immediately. She was dead.

His grandmother was dead.

Jimin felt like his whole world was spinning. He had seen her alive only days ago, his warm smile and her beautiful eyes and… Jimin coughed, trying to get away from the bloody corpse as he heaved but nothing came out. He was just sobbing, pulling his knees in as he shook from the fear and the shock alike.

She was dead. She was dead. She was dead.

The beast.

Jimin’s eyes widened as he lifted his shaking hands, seeing the blood that was all over. He snapped up when his eyes flickered around the room, trying to find any clues. Something that could tell him what had happened. This hadn’t been an accident. This just couldn’t be. Jimin let out a painful cry, when Honsungs voice pierced through the fog in his mind as he was literally trying to shake the shock out of him, a harsh grip on both of his arms. “Jimin! What happened! Are you okay? Did the wolf hurt you?” He turned his face to see if he was unharmed but Jimin was still a little too dazed to react properly, staring at him as if he couldn’t believe that he was here. “Jimin, talk to me. What happened?” He tried to hug the other but Jimin was lifeless and like a rag doll in his arms. He blinked up his eyes, trying to bring himself back but… his grandma was dead. She was dead. There was blood. So much blood. Jimin could feel himself getting pulled up and he whined helplessly. “Grandma, no, no, she needs me…,” Jimin pushed Honsung away from him, crawling over to where the lifeless body was lying as he reached out. She couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.

This was a nightmare.

Blood smeared all over his hands as his eyes flickered over the wounds. A caught of scream came from him, but it didn’t feel like his own when Honsung pulled him away again. “N..no…no,” Jimin barely was able to keep himself up on his feet, teary-eyes making his view blurry. His mind didn’t caught up, everything was moving too fast.

“We need to go Jimin.” If he could choose he preferred the lifeless version of Jimin right now because this version of him, the one that was screaming and trying to push him away to get back to his dead grandmother was hard to handle. “We don’t know how close the wolf is, we need to go before we find out. You don’t want to end like your grandmother, do you? We can send someone to bury her later right now I need you to come with me. We need to get back to the village, behind the walls. We will be safe there. As I tried to tell you so many times already the woods aren’t safe. And now you have proof of what I always told you. Not even the house could help your grandmother against the wolf. He killed her anyway.”

It was like a switch that turned on, when Honsung suddenly started talking about the wolf being the one attacking his grandma when his eyes finally locked with his. “No,” It was only a whisper at first. “It’s not…the wolf,” Jimin cried out as loud as he could as he pushed against Honsung who had pulled him out of the kitchen, “It’s not him! I know it’s not him. Look at the wounds! It’s not an animal…it’s…it’s something else.” Jimin was shaking, mind racing with all the possibilities. Only one thing he knew was true: it wasn’t the wolf. His heart told him so. His gut feeling. Everything in him told him that it wasn’t the animal but something else. Something much crueler that didn’t care about wrong or right and it was making Jimin shiver in fear. His eyes were searching through the room, as he tried to get away from Honsung, holding onto the doorframe like a child that didn’t want to leave it’s room. Blood smeared all over the wallpaper, but Jimin didn’t care as he elbowed Honsung hard to make him let go. “Believe me, please. I’m not crazy! I know it’s not the wolf, trust me! It’s not making any sense”

“You’re talking nonsense, Jimin. Of course, it was the wolf. It couldn’t be anything else.” Honsung’s voice had become sharper and cold as ice but Jimin was too caught up in his pain to notice or else he might have reacted differently. “Stop holding onto the doorframe! She’s dead! You can’t help her! She won’t come alive again just because you’re cowering next to her! Let go goddammit!” He tried to pry Jimin’s hands off the frame, but the younger was making it difficult - until he took Jimin’s wrist and pulled so hard hat the younger cried out in pain and finally let go.

The pain in his wrist was burning so achingly and Jimin had no choice but to stumble along. “No, let go, please. I don’t care then… go without me. I don’t…,” Jimin gulped heavily, sobbing painfully as his knees gave in and he simply let himself fall, “…care anymore!”

Honsung still had a hard grip on Jimin, holding onto him and the sweater that he wore. So, when Jimin slid to the floor his he effectively pulled himself from Honsung’s grip - except for his sweater, that ripped from being stretched between Honsung and Jimin’s body. At first the other did nothing, just stared at him how he was sitting on the floor, a miserable heap. His eyes wandered upwards to where the sweater had ripped and to the formerly flawless skin beneath it. This time however there was nothing flawless about it. There were marks and spots peppered along his collarbone, disappearing under the rest of the sweater that hung on Jimin. Honsung’s eyes hardened as he kneeled down in front of Jimin, ripping his sweater in half to see more of his skin. His hands were starting to shake from anger as he realized that they were exactly what he thought they were: Lovebites. Marks that had been kissed into Jimin’s skin. It hit him completely unprepared but there was no other explanation for it: Jimin had a secret lover.

Jimin sat frozen on the spot, eyes wide as he stared at him. His lips were trembling, but his eyes were dry as he saw Honsung’s gaze darken. The once blue eyes suddenly seemed like darkness had swallowed them whole, staring him down with so much hatred and disgust that Jimin didn’t even want to look down. Jimin opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out.

He didn’t even ask Jimin or waited for him to explain he just hit him, square in the face, the way he should have done it before. He had waited for Jimin to open up to him, to see what he was doing , that he was someone Jimin should be proud to be with, strong and powerful and able to provide for them, for others, for the whole city if he needed to! He was ambitious, passionate, everything someone like Jimin should wish for! And yet Jimin disobeyed him. Over and over and over again. And he had let it slide because he thought sooner or later the other would come around and see what he was missing. Instead he had gone and found himself a lover, letting himself get marked like the filthy little whore he was. When Jimin looked up at him again his lip was split but it didn’t give him any satisfaction. Jimin had made a fool of himself and of Honsung and now his stubborn, defiant, dirty fiancé would have to suffer the consequences. He didn’t let Jimin get up, instead he pushed him down, pressing his shoulders onto the wooden floor.

The slap was still ringing in his ear, stars dancing in front of his eyes as he tried to get a grip of himself fast. Jimin’s conscious was screaming at him to get out of here fast, that something was awfully, awfully wrong when the pain hit him once again. “Let me go! No, you’re hurting me!” Jimin cried out as loud as he could, trying to use his last bit of strength with the adrenaline fueling him to get Honsung off him but the other was just ten times stronger than him. So, Jimin screamed as loud as he could, hoping that it would reach somewhere. That maybe Namjoon was near. Maybe the wolf, that was strolling around, hearing the pain in his voice. Tears were rushing down his cheeks as he struggled against the painful weight.

“Scream as much as you want. No one will hear you. No one is stupid enough to go outside the walls. No one but you.” He pushed down harder until Jimin was breathless from it and he didn’t have to yell against Jimin’s screams to make the other hear him. “I’m glad it hurts. Because you hurt me too, Jimin. You thought I’d never find out, hm? What would you have said to me in our wedding night? Would you have lied, telling me you’re still a virgin? Who is it, Jimin? A woman? A man? Both? Is that how you pass your time when you sneak away from me?” He leaned down and kissed him, hard and brutal, not quite a kiss but rather a sign of dominance. “Why, Jimin? I would have given you everything you needed. You could have lived so comfortably by my side. You could have had a real life! Status and wealth and power. And you gave all that up for sex? I could have given you that too. But you always told me I needed to wait, that you weren’t ready before being married. Another lie, hm? How long did you share my bed, pretending I couldn’t have you because you weren’t ready while someone else had you on your back for them? Tell me!”

Jimin was coughing painfully as he gasped for air each time Honsung pushed onto him, forcing his lips onto him and taking away his breath in a painful way. Making Honsung even more angry probably wasn’t the best choice, but Jimin didn’t want to give in. Never wanted to give in to him. “Y-yes, I did,” Jimin breathed out as he met Honsung’s gaze, “And he loves me, like I love him. You only give me pain and you don’t know what love even is. You’re pathetic! I don’t need status, I don’t need anything, not from you!” Jimin spit Honsung right in the face, using the seconds he was caught off guard to turn and to get back onto his feet as fast as he could.

Jimin’s freedom lasted only a few seconds before Honsung pulled him back down without caring how much he would hurt the other. “You filthy little thing!” He chuckled but there was no joy in it just disdain. “I think you should stay here for a little while. And as you seem to like being on your back for someone I’m sure you don’t mind this.” He leaned over him, gripping his throat so that Jimin couldn’t spit at him again. It didn’t matter that one of Jimin’s hands was free like this because he was holding him down mercilessly and if Jimin wanted to keep breathing then he would have to lay still and obedient. “Such a pity. It will break your lovers heart to hear what has happened in the woods. You visited your grandmother despite my warning and in complete ignorance of the dangerous times we live in. Sadly, for you I was right as I always am and the wolf came and killed your grandmother. Maybe she tried to defend you. Wouldn’t that be a heartbreaking addition to the story? That she tried to protect you from the wolf only to get ripped to pieces in front of your eyes. And then you couldn't handle the guilt, or the wolf got you as well. That little detail is up to you.”

There was a throbbing in his head and something wet was dripping down his forehead as he realized he must have hit his head when Honsung had pulled him down again. He was dizzy, the air getting cut off from him as he tried to get Honsung to let go off him, when he suddenly stopped, and his words got through to him. It was like his heart had stopped beating.

There were no sounds anymore.

Just his breathing was audible, as he looked up into Honsung’s eyes and saw nothing but hatred.

It was as if Honsung knew and a dirty smirk appeared on his lips, one that made Jimin retch as he realized the truth. “Y-you?” Tears welled up in his eyes as he felt like he was free falling. Nothing made sense anymore. Was he lying next to a beast the whole time?

“Yes, my love. Me. Does it hurt to know that your grandma would still be alive if you had just listened to me? I didn't know what a filthy whore you were back then I thought you were really visiting your grandma. I should have known that you weren’t that selfless. You were busy spreading your legs for someone while pretending to be the perfect grandson. Be thankful she didn’t have to find out what you were doing. She would have been so disappointed. I spared her that. I thought I was just eliminating the reason for you to always run in the woods despite my orders. But now I see that it was your rightful punishment to see her dead. And it makes more sense like this when they find your body. You didn’t think you could betray me like that and then just walk away, did you? That’s not how it works, love. Not for you.”

Jimin’s world was falling apart right in front of him. Memories of his mother crying, begging Honsung’s father to not kill the wolf were flashing before his eyes. The same darkness in his father’s that he now found in him. They made the people fear to make them kneel and beg for them to release them from the dangers that were the wolf, while the beast was in the village all along. “No, no…” Jimin screamed out, sobbing as he saw his mother being torn away from him. She had known. “You’re a monster!” He croaked out, kicking at Honsung as hard as he could, but the more he moved the less he could breathe.

“Didn’t you know that people always need a monster? If you don’t give them one they make their own. But you have no idea how to lead, all you know is making trouble. That’ll be over now. It could have been so nice for you, Jimin but you didn’t want it easy. So, this is your fault.” He placed a mocking little kiss on Jimin’s forehead like he had done when he had said good night to Jimin before turning off the lights at home.

Then he tightened his grip to choke Jimin until the end.

Jimin’s eyes were wide and fearful as he stared up in shock, when Honsung went absolutely feral. There was no emotions. Just darkness that Jimin could find as he shook him as if Jimin wasn’t dying fast enough. He was fighting for the last bits of air, trying to reach out and pull his arms away from him. He couldn’t let the darkness win, so Jimin tried to stay calm, tried to do anything to win more time but he had to realize that he had lost this fight, when the shadows were pulling him under.

...

Namjoon had waited a little longer - and then a little longer after that. When he had finally admitted to himself that Jimin wouldn’t come he didn’t know how to feel. Shouldn’t he be relieved that he wouldn’t have to figure out how to hide his nature from someone who lived with him? Should he feel like he should have known Jimin would let him down because that’s what the village people did? It didn’t feel right, nothing did. There was just an emptiness inside of him, a vast space that Jimin had filled and that he had no idea how to fill again now that the other was gone. He felt restless and torn and half did he play with the thought of going into the city himself to ask Jimin, look after him, make sure that he was okay, and that no sickness or accident had kept him from coming. But he had sworn his mother that he would never set a foot into that village and so he stayed true to his vow and kept away from the walls. He couldn’t just go home though. He needed to get rid of this restless energy, needed to clear his head of all the thoughts and pictures that tried to overwhelm him, of him and Jimin and all the things that could have been. He needed a run. And maybe, while he was at it he could also visit Jimin’s grandma? Maybe he was there to tell her that he wouldn’t live in the village any longer and they had started to argue and forgot the time - or maybe she had an idea where he was.

It felt like a relief to change forms, despite the pain and the sickening sound of bones cracking while he turned. Things were easier as a wolf. Emotions were different. And yet his heart still felt empty at the knowledge that Jimin might not come. He gave up all pretense and headed straight to grandma’s home, hoping that he could lend some clothes there or else the chat would be a little awkward but with her eyesight it didn’t really matter that much. He saw the open door the same moment the smell of blood hit him. He growled before he even realized what might have happened but the terror that gripped his heart told him that something was wrong. The blood that had been spilled smelled human. Like the old woman - and like Jimin. He jumped through the door without care or finesse, just recklessly storming in as a dangerous ball of fur and claws and teeth. It only took him a heartbeat to lay his eyes on the man who was sitting on Jimin’s lifeless body, his hands still wrapped around his throat as if Jimin’s didn’t look dead enough for him. He threw his whole body against him, knocking him clean off before sinking his teeth into the man’s flesh. The other screamed but Namjoon didn’t care, he just bit deeper and growled harder until the man was no longer a threat.

Jimin didn’t scream as he got thrown over and air went through his lungs again, but something else hit him as he carelessly got pushed against something hard. He felt like a doll; lifeless and unable to move. But he didn’t even care about the pain anymore. There was air and Jimin was gasping for it like a fish that was out of the water. Blood was dripping down his forehead and cut lip as he tried to blink his eyes and see the scene in front of him. It was a blurry image, but the growling sound was familiar and although it was the most horrifying sound he ever heard coming from the wolf, Jimin felt nothing but calm. A small smile pulled at his lips, while Jimin tried to whisper a ‘thank you’ as the darkness made his eyelids heavier and the imagery vanished but Jimin opened his eyes again when a growl made him startle, only to be drowning again. Maybe it was for the better that he couldn’t see anymore, the sounds too vividly as he shook with it until he fell completely unconscious and the sound of skin ripping, and the smell of blood didn’t faze him no more.

Never in his life did Namjoon change forms so quickly. He was dizzy from it, falling onto his knees but he knew if he wanted to help Jimin he needed hands and a human mouth. He was cold and trembling when he thought about reviving Jimin, wondering if he had been dead for too long - and then he saw that the other was still breathing. And he cried. He couldn't help it but seeing Jimin lying so lifelessly on the floor with the smell of blood all around him and his eyes firmly closed he had realized that he couldn’t just go on if Jimin was gone. He couldn’t.

“Jimin? Minnie?” He took the lifeless body in his arms, gently rocking him back and forth while he hugged him close until Jimin felt warmer and his heartbeat wasn’t so weak anymore. The smell of blood was still there, sickeningly sweet and overwhelming and so he gently placed the boy down to look for the source, to see if he could help. But it was too late for Grandma and so the only thing left to do for him was to gently close her eyes and say his goodbyes with a heavy heart.

Jimin was too weak to open his eyes, but he felt something lift him off the ground and for an awful moment he thought he was descending. Maybe to heaven? Or someone else that he didn’t know, but subconsciously his hand reached for something to steady himself, too scared to fall but too weak to really hold on as he felt a familiar heartbeat under his palm. Breathing in sharply, Jimin was curling in, trying to get away from the pain that was still aching all over his body. There was so much pain, so much hurting and Jimin couldn’t bare it. Namjoon didn’t know that Jimin’s consciousness was swimming in and out of focus. He just picked him up, as careful as he could and walked back with him to his home, all the while cradling him against his chest like a fragile, priceless possession. He had no idea what had happened and if Jimin knew that his grandmother was dead. The thought of burying her in the wild little garden behind the house had tears filling his eyes anew and he almost stumbled from his sight being so blurry. There was no time for grief now, not until Jimin was safe in his bed and would open his eyes again.

…

Jimin hissed in pain when something soothed over his skin. A barely there touch but it hurt, and he turned away from it, whining and regretting it the moment the pain was piercing his throat with every sound. Every ache, every bruise that made him stiffen up, only brought the nightmare back and Jimin was shaking from the fear of where he'd find himself. It was only then his fingers were gripping sheets under him and a different smell, but blood reached him. His heart was beating into overdrive as he carefully opened his eyes in fear.

Namjoon took the dampened cloth away from Jimin’s face when the younger started to stir and gave him space to come to. Jimin’s eyelids fluttered and he moved restlessly before he finally dared to open his eyes. “Hi.” Namjoon greeted him with a smile, his voice giving away how relieved he was to finally see Jimin awake. The walk had been a long one and Jimin hadn’t moved one bit, not even when Namjoon had gotten him into bed and started to clean the wound at his hairline that had colored strands of his hair red with blood. Only when he brought the cloth to Jimin’s lip to dab at the cut and wipe away the blood had the younger started to stir. There was freshly brewed herbal tea waiting for him that Namjoon wanted him to sip as soon as possible so that his throat wouldn’t be so sore. But first of all, it would be necessary to calm Jimin. He would ask what had happened later even though it burned on his tongue. Instead he tried to keep their conversation light and soothing. “How are you feeling? Are you warm enough? Do you want another blanket?”

Jimin’s heart recognized him way before his mind did, beating fast and uncontrollably, yearning for his lover’s closeness. He had no idea how he made it here or what had happened after he blacked out but Jimin didn’t want to remember. With a croaky whine, Jimin reached for Namjoon and pulled at his shirt to make him come closer. He needed him by his side. But he couldn’t say more; his throat constricting with every time he tried to say something. When Namjoon sat in bed with him, Jimin let himself get pulled closer against his chest, searching for the warmth and heat that his body always provided. His teeth were clattering, limbs shaking as he tried to shake off the cold and the shock. “Sh-she’s gone,” He sobbed, hiding his face in his chest, desperately searching for something to hold on to or else he might fall apart. “I wanted to ...tell her about you...u-us, b-but Honsung...he,” Jimin coughed, trying to get rid of the aching in his throat. Namjoon had reached for the tea on instant, tilting Jimin’s chin up to make the younger drink from it who was too shaken. He gulped down the warm drink, feeling it’s soothing effects right away when he spoke again. “It was h-him, the beast...he did...he m-murdered,” His arm reached around Namjoon on instinct as if the other could leave him right now.

It definitely answered the question if Jimin knew about his grandmother's death to see him like this. Namjoon tried his best to calm Jimin down, to soothe him enough that he wasn’t shaking so hard or gasping so helplessly for breath. He wouldn’t have mind letting the other cry at his shoulder if he felt it might help but Jimin shook so much and sobbed so desperately that he was worried for him. So, he gave him the tea, sip by sip trying to ground him and calm him (there was lavender in the tea, hop and chamomile). He couldn't really make out what Jimin was saying, he talked about Honsung and the beast, but he wasn’t sure what was really about what had happened and what Jimin had seen and what were his fears and the shock. He was in no state to be questioned so Namjoon just continued to hold him, caressing his back, brushing his fingers through his hair while whispering promises into his skin. “You’re safe now. No one can hurt you. Honsung will never lay a finger on you again. You’re okay. You made it through. You will heal, Jimin, I promise.” He could understand the other’s pain so well which made it a little harder to tell him he would be okay again because he knew that right now Jimin must feel like someone had torn out his heart and that this pain would never end. Grief only healed over time and sadly he couldn’t make the time pass faster so all he could do was be there for him while Jimin worked out his pain.

The younger had fallen asleep and against Namjoon’s side in exhaustion, hands buried deep in his shirt so he couldn’t move away. He needed Namjoon’s presence to ground him, even in his sleep. It felt like hours until he could open his eyes again, his body wrapped in a blanket that Namjoon had draped over them. Namjoon’s fingers were soothing through his hair and down his cheek, when he blinked up at him.

“What happened? How did you find me?” Jimin’s voice sounded tired, but a lot better than before. He had a terrible headache and Jimin felt for the cause of it, hissing when he came in contact with a bruise.

"Careful, baby." He gently took Jimin's hand away from the wound. He didn't have any bandages left so he had only been able to clean the wound and touching it could contaminate it again. As horrible as it was he would need to take Grandma's first aid kit when they buried her because although he didn't like the thought of stealing from the dead he didn't know where else to get Jimin the things he needed right now. He was glad that the younger had managed to get some sleep and that he seemed calmer now even though his eyes were still red rimmed, and his voice sounded rough and off from having been choked and all the tears that were still stuck in his throat.

"I...I just thought you might be there. You didn't come to meet me as you said so I thought you might have visited your grandma to… to say goodbye." His voice was heavy with empathy as he had finished.

“I wanted to tell her...about...about you,” Jimin’s eyes filled with tears, “That I would run from the village but then...Honsung. He was there out of a sudden and I didn’t understand it.” His eyes were searching the room, while he tried to collect his thoughts, “He saw the love bites and he went crazy. I’ve never seen him that mad before and then…” Jimin gulped, “He is the beast, Namjoon. He killed them all and blamed the wolf. It was never the wolf.” He choked on a dry sob, when his eyes suddenly widened and Jimin pushed himself up, throwing the blanket over. “Oh god, he’s dead. The wolf...he came. Did you see him?” Jimin shaking when he spoke, trying to get up from the bed, “I need to find him. They will try and kill him and it’s all my fault. He protected me. Help me please, Namjoon. Help me find him!”

Those were news to him, ones that he had a hard time wrapping his head around. Of course, he had figured out that it hadn’t been him who killed those people as he was extra careful around a full moon and people were hurt no matter what phase the moon was in. but that it had been the villagers themselves, one of their own who played monster? And Jimin’s fiancé of all people? The only good thing that came of all this mess was that there no one would be hurt because of the ‘wolf’ ever again. Because the real beast had died.

“Calm down, Minnie, please, sit back down, he’s fine, the wolf is fine, please don’t just run out there, I saw him, he’s... he’s perfectly okay!”

He had no idea how Jimin still managed to find so much energy inside of him when all he himself could feel was grief and worry and exhaustion. But apparently the wolf’s wellbeing weighted so heavy on the younger’s mind that he couldn’t let go of it that easily.

Jimin swayed a little when he got onto his feet, panting as he tried to hold onto the next best thing. “I need to tell him to hide, they will find them and…,” Jimin could barely bare the aching in his heart when he thought of his grandmother again and he wiped over his cheek, regretting it right away as he forgot about the bruise. “Please, Namjoon. They will see the biting marks and will think it’s the wolf for real now. He can’t know what they will do, but I know. They are monsters! They will kill him, thinking he had murdered twice.” He reached for Namjoon, pulling at his shirt, “I need to see him, please. Show me where he is!” It was the only right thing to do right now, his heart beating into overdrive, but his gut feeling told him to see the wolf. “We need to protect him!”

Jimin was trembling, his eyes wide and fearful and Namjoon started to worry that he might faint again if he couldn’t get the other to calm down again. His body had gone through enough today he didn’t need to tire himself out with his panic now especially because the wolf was fine, he was fine, but he couldn’t tell him, he had to watch Jimin try to get out of his grip and get to the door, ready to defend a creature he didn’t even know, jeopardizing his own health on the way.

“Jimin, please it’s fine, he’s okay, you don’t have to...” But the younger didn’t listen to him, didn’t let himself be lead back to the bed so it just slipped out “Jimin, he’s fine, the wolf is...he’s here!”

“Here?” Jimin looked at Namjoon in utter confusion before he turned around to rush out of the door. Could Namjoon hear him? Sense him being near? Did he know something that he didn’t know? Had he brought him to safety already? There was a million and one questions on his mind and Jimin could feel it hammering against his head, making it so much harder to think and only worsening his headache.

“Where? Where is he?” Jimin looked around, sounding more desperate the more he couldn’t see him. “Please, Namjoon.” He walked up to his lover, reaching out to cup his cheek as he soothed over his skin, “He protected me and it’s the least I owe him now. I love you, Namjoon, please trust me.”

How could Namjoon look at Jimin’s face, see the hope and desperation in it and then lie to him? He simply couldn’t. But he also couldn’t tell him, who know how he would react. Jimin had no home, no family, no fiancé, it had all come crashing down on him in one day. And if he got scared of Namjoon, of the only thing left to keep him sane what would he do? Namjoon was scared for him, so scared that he couldn’t speak, the words just didn’t come and so he stood there, helpless and lost, unable to tell Jimin his secret in fear of hurting him.

Jimin noticed the pain in Namjoon’s eyes right away, cupping his cheeks as his expression changed and his heart sunk. “What’s wrong? Is he hurt? Don’t tell me, ….please.” Tears cascaded down his cheeks as he thought of the wolf being hurt or worse - and more pain flooded him. He flung his arms around Namjoon and desperately sobbed, “Tell me he is okay, you said he is fine. You said he is alright.” He clung onto Namjoon as if he’d be the next person to be taken away from him. “He can’t be gone. He is my wolf!” Jimin’s voice cracked as he shook with the cries.

Seeing Jimin cry for him was the last thing he had wanted and so his resolve crumbled with every sob and every tear until there was nothing left. He had no idea what to say to make it okay - there was nothing left but the truth. So, he said, it, quietly at first because he had never said it to anyone before and because he was scared and Jimin almost missed it.

“I.. I’m the wolf. I’m okay.” When Jimin didn’t react he took the younger’s face in his hands and gently wiped his tears away before he repeated himself, a little louder this time. “I’m the wolf, Jimin. I’m here. There’s no need to cry for me.” His hands trembled as he tried to hold on to Jimin, afraid that the younger would push him away now.

Jimin just stared at him blankly, searching his eyes to see if Namjoon was fooling him or making fun of him. He could feel the tremble coming from him and Jimin furrowed his brows, not understanding a thing anymore. “Y-you’re…Namjoon,” He sniffled. “H-how - that makes no sense. That’s not…you’re not an animal.” Jimin cocked his head aside, heart drumming hard against its cage as he tried to comprehend why Namjoon was telling him nonsense. Was it just to calm him down?

“I’ve seen the wolf, you…you told me to be aware of him as we hid from the hunters. You cared for the wounds from the scratch, you…” Jimin looked at Namjoon, really looked at him and saw nothing but honesty. There was no smirk, no fake smile, just him pleading with his deep brown eyes. The same one’s the wolf had. Jimin gasped and pushed a palm over his hand as his eyes widened. “H-how…”

“My mother. She was a wolf too. So as her son I… inherited the curse. I... I’m not always wolf, obviously but I can turn, willingly and sometimes... during full moons I turn whether I like it or not.“ He could see the words slowly sinking in as Jimin tried to work it out and then put the puzzle pieces together so he hurriedly said, “I’m so, so very sorry that I scared you during that one night! It was a full moon so I didn’t know what I was doing, I never meant to scare or to hurt you, really, I would never harm you, I didn’t mean to it’s just that I can’t really control myself but it’s only during full moons and apart from that I’m... I’m fine, you don’t have to fear me at all, I swear!” He was out of breath from talking so fast and desperately, so he sounded as lost and vulnerable as he felt when he added, “Please, don’t be scared of me.”

The tears were silently falling when Namjoon reminded him of the night that the wolf died and the pain in his mother’s eyes. Had she always known? About the curse of the woman and her child? Jimin almost startled out of his thoughts when Namjoon begged him so desperately, laying all of his vulnerabilities out in front of him and the younger looked up.

“I was never scared of you…or the wolf.” He spoke honestly, not moving an inch away from the one he loved. “But Namjoon, how… I don’t understand. You’re human now and…” Jimin shook his head as he tried to wrap his mind around it, feeling like he couldn’t believe anything anymore after what had happened last night. “I’m sorry, but how do I know it was you?”

Jimin sounded calmer now and Namjoon latched onto it immediately, trying to explain to make Jimin see him for him and not the creature he (sometimes) was. “It hurts but my body changes, the bones, the structure, everything. I… I could show you. Not directly please because... I figure it’s enough to take in for you already, but I could just go to the back of the house and change and come back to you as a wolf and you would see my clothes lying there and...” He swallowed hard. “You might want to cover your ears while I change because… you can hear it. The bones cracking and... I can’t keep silent during it because it hurts so much.”

“Y-your bones?” Jimin gulped heavily, his eyes flickering over his arms, soothing over his skin that showed so many scars and if this was true it might be from fights and turning. But this couldn’t be. It was absolutely mad.

Jimin stepped away from Namjoon nonetheless, not sure what he was getting himself into or if he needed to run any moment. Was he that bad at finding true love? Jimin licked over his lips as he nodded and although knowing that it would bring Namjoon pain and the guilt was flooding him, he knew he wouldn’t believe until he saw or knew for sure with whom he was dealing with.

Namjoon tried to keep breathing normally even though his instinct would be to run and hide and never look back. He was absolutely vulnerable when he turned. And even if Jimin didn’t think of killing him because he was a monster he might still freak when he actually saw him. And even if everything worked out perfect and he wasn’t afraid, and he wouldn’t tell everyone, and he wouldn’t run than who was to say that he could still love him? Someone who turned into something entirely else, something dangerous, a predator that hunted regularly if he wanted or not. “You... you want me to turn? Are you sure?” He saw it in Jimin’s face that the other needed proof and yet he had to ask, just to see if maybe there was an out.

Jimin nodded slowly, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, I understand.” Namjoon nodded his head in resignation and then started to walk away while slipping out of his shirt. He hesitated for a second, turning back to Jimin to ask him, “No matter what, don’t follow me okay? It’s ugly. The wolf - I mean I will come to you when I’m finished.” Then he went all the way to the back of the house where he discarded his clothes and cowered down onto the floor to make it easier. He tried to relax, to keep breathing and to not make a sound but he didn’t have a chance. He was still scared, his muscles were tense, and the wolf picked up on his fear, pushing through too quickly and roughly. When the first tendon snapped he cried out in pain, fingers digging into the ground to try and keep himself from crying out again, but he couldn’t help but whimper when his spine shifted, bones cracking as they rearranged themselves into his second form.

Jimin couldn’t tear his gaze away from where Namjoon had disappeared, staring at the wall, but each cracking sound, each painful sound coming from him made him jerk and yelp in phantom pain. He couldn’t understand what was happening and he was about to call out for Namjoon to come back when it was silent. Jimin was shaking, when he saw it only seconds later. Where Namjoon had disappeared, was now a wolf staring right back at him and Jimin couldn’t believe it. The wolf stood right in front of him, so close that he could reach for him and suddenly it felt like everything was clicking into place.

His mother running out into the woods, dying to protect them and crying for Namjoon’s mother the fateful night – just like he had done. The many full moon nights, she had stayed away and Jimin had been scared she would never come back. She always smiled at him then, saying in the sweetest tone that the wolf would never hurt those who they truly love. And Jimin never understood it. His grandmother asking him not to leave until he knew. Now he did. The wolf belonged to his side, just like Namjoon’s mother had belonged to hers. Only their fate hadn’t been on their side and maybe this was just the universe making this right and fixing its horrible mistakes. Jimin didn’t care, instead he stumbled a little when he took a few steps towards the wolf and slowly got onto his knees.

“Namjoon?” Jimin searched the wolf's eyes for the familiar glint in them and with a shaking hand he reached out, dangerously close to the wolf’s fangs.

Namjoon shook out his fur to fluff it up and make it look the best as he could. He hadn’t dared to come too close in case Jimin would feel threatened but the younger only needed a little moment before he knelt down in front of him. His name sounded like a question and so Namjoon tried his best to nod, even though it came out awkward and stiff because it wasn’t how he would normally communicate when he was in his wolf form. He just didn’t. He was a little scared to meet Jimin’s eyes so he bowed his head, keeping his snout out of the youngers face to appear as docile as he could.

“It’s you,” Jimin couldn’t hold the tears back when his heart recognized his lover and his hand buried into the fur, feeling the familiar heat beneath his palm. He wasn’t scared of Namjoon, had never feared the wolf like the others did. “It was always you,” Jimin buried his other hand into the fur as he made the wolf look up at him, “You’re my wolf.” There were tears rolling down his cheeks and his heart was aching in the most beautiful way.

Namjoon sat down, allowing himself to relax into Jimin’s embrace as the other buried his face into his fur, hands gripping into it to hold him close. He closed his eyes, trusting Jimin with his life in this moment. He pushed his snout against Jimin’s face, licking his ear because it was the only thing he could reach but he needed to show his affection or else he felt like he would burst from it.

There was still so many things he wanted to ask, so many things he didn’t understand but he knew with Namjoon by his side he would find the answers. This right here was where he belonged. His heart had known it all along. “I love you, too,” Jimin giggled, when Namjoon licked across his face with so much eagerness. He held onto the wolf tightly, letting its presence calm his mind and heart and yet, he couldn’t the deny the storm inside of him. Soothing over Namjoon’s fur, Jimin stopped to look at him with earnest. “You understand me…r-right?”

As an answer Namjoon licked him again, placing a paw onto his knee to get even closer to him and snuggle his whole furry body against Jimin’s form.

Jimin couldn’t help but smile, even though what he would ask him next hurt him and couldn’t stop the tears. “They will look for you, they will try and hurt you. I can’t let this happen. I won’t lose you!” Jimin kissed the top of the wolfs head, “You don’t deserve the hurt this forest gave you, no…you deserve to be in peace.” He choked on his words as he wrapped his arm around the wolf whose small whine made Jimin hold onto him tighter. “I don’t want you to get hurt no more and the village…it won’t be safe here anymore.” Jimin kissed the tip of Namjoon’s wet nose as he looked at him with tear-filled eyes. “I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again. You’re my wolf and I need you to run away from here.” He breathed out the words that made him ache so badly, whispering the words into his fur.

Jimin was right and Namjoon knew this. They couldn’t exactly tell the villagers that one of them had murdered their people, they simply wouldn’t believe it and the only proof they had was Jimin who was seen as the ‘crazy witch kid’ already. They might burn him for it like they had burned his mother. So, leaving was the best option, Namjoon knew this. He howled at the thought of leaving the woods behind where he had grown up and where his mother had taught him to be a wolf, because it was the only thing he had left from here. However, if he wanted to have a future he needed to let go of the past. And he wanted this, a future, together with Jimin. The would find a space for them, maybe find another village that was more open minded and where Jimin could thrive.

“Run away with me, Namjoon. I won’t leave your side ever again. It’s where I need to be, with you…on full moon nights just as every other night.” Jimin smiled at him, wiping away the tears with a soft chuckle. “Do you think you can carry me?” There wasn’t much to take from his home anyways. It was replaceable. Jimin got up and walked around the big wolf, waiting for Namjoon’s response before climbing onto his back. He could feel the muscles shift underneath, the warm fur warming him perfectly as he leaned in and over him. “Let’s say goodbye to her, please.” Jimin placed a kiss on top of Namjoon’s head, holding onto him tightly, “And please never look back again.”

Namjoon let out an affirmative jip at that. Hope bloomed in his chest as the happiness filled him up. Jimin wouldn’t leave him. He said he would be with him, even during the full moon... he didn’t have to be alone any longer.

None of them did.

They had each other now. He tensed his muscles and then started running, with Jimin on his back, to where his paws would take them.

A/N: Ahhhh, we hope you enjoyed our very first adventure into our fairytale world! What’s next? How about beauty and the beast? ;)

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softjeon · 5 years

Text

The perfect Illusion | Pt. 4

• Pairing: Geisha!Jimin x Namjoon | Side-Pairing: Geisha!Jungkook x Yoongi • Genre: Fluff / Angst | Geisha!AU ( → Gifset Trailer) • Words: 6.4k | ↳ AO3 • Disclaimer: mentioning of abusive behavior

*** please note that this story doesn’t mean to represent accurate geisha tradition, it was solely inspired by the beautiful art form, giving it a modern twist in a fictional universe and therefore has been dramatized for entertainment purposes.

written with @cassiavioletblue

↳ He was the perfect illusion. The getaway for anyone who didn’t want to face reality. And yet, there was something in his eyes, something vulnerable and hopeful as if he was dying for someone to see through him, to care for him enough to look behind the mask and draw out the real Jimin. And Namjoon couldn’t wait to do exactly that.

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With one hand he held onto his robe, lifting it to not stumble over the long fabric while he held on tightly to Jungkook’s hand with the other. They had cleaned up the tearoom in silence and now neither was saying anything as they hurried down the hallway and through the garden towards their room. Only when the door was finally closed behind them, Jimin let go off him.

Walking towards his bed, Jimin took his pillowcase and hid the chopsticks inside of it, before taking a deep breath. He felt awfully exhausted, the urge to just break and cry was lying heavily on his chest and making it harder for him to breathe. “I…I’ll go wash up and you…just…,” He didn’t know what to say so he just motioned for Jungkook to stay where he was before vanishing into the bathroom.

Jimin looked defeated. Not just exhausted but... sad. And Jungkook felt his chest tightening.

Jungkook knew he gave Jimin trouble when he almost got caught by Hoseok wandering the corridors without the proper attire and then even letting not one but two customers see him like that but Jimin had asked him to come over. So it must be something else. Maybe... maybe Jimin was disappointed in him because he had let himself be kissed by Yoongi? Should he have kept it to himself? What if Jimin was appalled by him now? Actually it hadn’t been his first kiss. Jimin had been his first though it didn’t really count. When he had been a teenager he had been a bit more rebellious than he was now and he had wanted to know what it felt like, being kissed. He had always loved Jimin as a friend but there had been a phase where he hadn’t been sure if there wasn’t more between them (there wasn’t). Still he had asked and questioned and bothered Jimin with how he wanted to experience what it was like to be kissed until the older suggested that Jungkook could try it out with him. And it had been nice. Jimin’s lips were plush and soft and Jimin had been really nice with him. But it couldn’t compare to what Yoongi had done to him in that closet.

It was like being electrified. In an enjoyable way.

Jungkook touched his own lips to remind himself that this wasn’t a dream. Then he heard something falling in the bathroom and a quiet curse and he came back to his senses, smile fading. Jimin was probably mad at him. It was one thing to kiss another person from a tea house - but an entirely different thing to let a customer kiss you. It could mean they wouldn’t let him become a geisha if it came out. Fear rooted itself in Jungkook’s heart as he thought about Jimin’s expression. What if the older was shocked or disgusted enough to tell Hoseok? He wouldn’t do that...would he? Jungkook’s eyes filled with tears.

“Are you alright?” Jimin’s voice was soft when he came back into the room. There was no trace of Jimin’s geisha make up left now, and the tiredness was visible on his face. But he had needed it to clear his head, to get out of his persona and be himself again. He sat beside Jungkook on the edge of his bed, looking at him with a fond smile. Caressing over the younger’s cheek, he placed a sweet kiss on his cheek.

“I’m not mad at you, if you think that,” Jimin whispered, before asking quietly, “Do you like Yoongi?” They never spoke loudly about things they felt and usually a geisha was supposed to tell a maiko to keep his feelings pushed down but Jimin’s teaching methods were always different. He wanted Jungkook to feel like he could tell him anything and that his feelings mattered, even if it was just to Jimin. “It’s okay if you do. We just need to talk about this.” Jimin said and reached for Jungkook’s hand. “You’re safe with me, no matter what.”

It was almost scary how Jimin just needed one look to see through him. Though it might be a side effect from practically seeing him grow up in front of his eyes. Jungkook was about to quickly shake his head and deny any feelings that might be there for Yoongi but Jimin knew what he was thinking even before Jungkook knew himself and told him that it was okay. Jungkook couldn’t help it, his resolve crumbled and he leaned his head on Jimin’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Minnie. I know I’m just making this more complicated, especially with the ceremony so close but... it’s just... I kinda like him. I don’t know that much about him and we barely talked but I still find him way more likable than any other customer I had before.” He toned down his voice a little, almost whispering, “Is it bad that I didn’t want him to stop? It felt so nice how he held me and... and I wanted him to kiss me again. I... I’m probably just over excited but… I really, really want to be kissed by him again.” Embarrassed he hid his face in Jimin’s neck hoping the older wouldn’t judge him.

Jimin shook his head, “It’s not bad. Feelings are normal, Jungkook. Unfortunately, our world isn’t…” He sighed, shifting more onto the bed so he could lean against the wall and motion for Jungkook to come closer. “You have your mizuage, you have your debt…you…you really have to focus, Jungkook. I made a mistake today and I am sorry I pushed you into it all. I shouldn’t have endangered you with me.” Jimin’s heart was aching for Jungkook, soothing over his hair while the younger leaned against him.

He felt so helpless. Everything that Jimin wanted was for the younger to be happy, to have the best life and not this. Not to be imprisoned and held back from all the wonderful things he could experience. “I wish I could make this better for you. I wish I could let him kiss you again.”

Jungkook’s heart got heavy at the sadness in Jimin’s voice. “It’s.. it’s okay Minnie. It’s not your fault. I wasn’t thinking.” The message was clear. Jimin wished he could have what he ached for - but they both knew their lives didn’t work like that. Jungkook swallowed down the tears and the ache in his chest and smiled up at Jimin, vulnerable and trusting. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be perfect at my mizuage. I... I’ll get someone rich, someone wealthy enough to relieve me of the main part of my debt and I’ll become a great geisha. I won’t disappoint you. All the care you gave me... it’ll pay off. I’ll be an adult soon. You don’t have to worry about me any longer then. It’ll be great. I’m... I’m sure it’ll be great.”

Jimin nodded.

It was something he had done before, just a few times and only parts of it. The only power he had to ensure Jungkook’s happiness but seal his own fate. Something that he wasn’t even sure of would work but he had thought about it many times. He looked at Jungkook, biting his lip painfully hard because Jimin didn’t want to cry – but the tears came, nonetheless. There was a lump in his throat that made it more difficult to speak, so he needed a second attempt.

“I will go and talk to Hoseok tomorrow.” He said, feeling Jungkook stiffen up under his touch and he soothed the younger softly, “To tell him to put your debt onto me.” A faint smile appeared on Jimin’s lips, tears dwelling in the corner of his eyes. “I just want you to be happy. I don’t want to take this from you…Jungkook, this isn’t fair. None of this is. You deserve this. The kiss, the care. You won’t get any of this here, not if he keeps you here. He has to agree.” Jimin wasn’t even sure if Yoongi was truly into Jungkook and he could only hope that he was, because he wished nothing but love for his sweet, young, maiko.

Jungkook jerked up, looking at Jimin in shock. “No! You can’t do that!” Each and everyone of them dreamed of becoming free one day. Not at that cost though.

“Minnie, that’s.. that’s not how it’s supposed to be! How should I be happy if I know that you have to stay here even longer? I could never never live happily while I know you’re suffering! I won’t let you! You can’t do this without me agreeing! I have a contract, and I won’t let you put yourself into misery just for… for what? Yoongi kissed me. That’s it. And even though I like him we both know how customers are. They... they get bored so easily.” It hurt speaking it out loud and crushing the dream that had just started to grow but if he needed to do this to keep Jimin from doing something insane then he would, “I don’t even know if he liked me back. I’m not entirely naive. I know lust has nothing to do with love. He could be married for all I know. Or just look for some fun. And even if he likes me back - it’s a long way from kissing someone to marrying him. So you can’t just push me out. I would die without you Jimin!” It might be voiced a little dramatically but it sure felt like it. Jimin was the only constant in his life and he didn’t want him to go away.

Jimin smiled through the tears, before embracing Jungkook in a tight hug. He was holding him so tightly that he was barely able to breath but he didn’t care, he wanted Jungkook to feel how much he cared.

He would give his life for the younger.

Placing a kiss on Jungkook’s forehead, they settled both onto the bed, cuddling tightly. It had become a lot that they’ve been sleeping cuddled up with one another lately. Both searching for the security of the others hold.

“He isn’t married,” Jimin whispered, playing with Jungkook’s hair, “Joon told me about him a little. He’s a designer, did you know? And he also told me that Yoongi likes coming back for you, too. He really does.” Smiling at the younger, who looked up at him so hopeful with big eyes, Jimin added, “If you help me keep my secret, I will let you come with me to each visit with Namjoon. If he comes back that is,” He added the last sentence with a sad smile, before promising, “I will just tell Hoseok that you need the practice but it also means more work for you...I know it’s hard with the mizuage and all. So, it’s up to you.” He sighed, closing his eyes, “Maybe you can find out then if Yoongi likes you, too. And maybe...he will ask you to marry him one day.” Jimin giggled softly, “Isn’t it a beautiful dream?” Soothing over Jungkook’s hair again, he pulled the blanket over their bodies. It was easier to talk about Jungkook’s dreams and hopes than think about his own feelings. He seemed as if he had it under control, but Jimin was close to breaking, the storm inside of him was running lose and it was spiraling out of control. He liked Namjoon. And he could feel the subtle feeling of jealousy rising inside of him, knowing that Jungkook had kissed Yoongi, when all he wanted was to do the same with Namjoon. But not even marrying was an option for Jimin. His debt too high to be paid off by a simple proposal. Life wasn’t really fair. Neither for Jungkook, nor for him - but at least he could try and make it better for the young maiko.

“Oh…,” Jimin’s confession made Jungkook’s face feel hotter than it should and he hid his embarrassment by snuggling more tightly into Jimin (if that was even possible). The thought of seeing Yoongi again, in secret even had him feeling excited all over again. “Y..yeah, that would be great. If he... if he wants to then I’d…,” He broke off and then whispered as if someone could overhear them, “What do I do when he kisses me again? Do you think he’d want to? Do you think I’m allowed to touch him back? His hair looks so nice I’d love to touch it once.” Jungkook looked so innocent, so childlike in his excitement that the knowledge that Jungkook might be different after the mizuage hit Jimin even worse. Depending on how it went it could change you.

Just like it had changed him.

Jimin sighed deeply, putting a finger under Jungkook’s chin to make him look up. “I know you want to kiss him again, but I’d advise you not to. You’re a maiko after all, that he touched you already was a great risk. I don’t want Hoseok to get angry with you…so please, please try and keep it subtle. I allow you to see him again, but you need to try and keep us safe. Yoongi as well. If Hoseok finds out you can be sure you won’t be able to see him again and I don’t want that for you.” Jimin looked at him thoroughly, smiling faintly, “Promise me, Jungkook. If you’re a geisha…it’s going to be different. But right now…” His voice dropped and it broke quietly, “I don’t want you to get hurt and I’m not sure if I can keep you safe from Hoseok this time if he finds out.”

Jungkook nodded quickly to show that he had understood. “I won’t disgrace you or get me into trouble.” It wasn’t really so much that he would be able to keep himself from kissing Yoongi forever but rather that his mizuage was so close already that he would barely be able to see Yoongi at all. It wasn’t like Namjoon could come over every day, it was expensive and the tea house had a full schedule. “Can we please… not talk about that right now? We both had long days and if you let me I’d just like to stay here and fall asleep at your side while we still can.”

“Of course,” Jimin settled a little closer to Jungkook, making himself comfortable as he leaned back, while the younger hugged him close using him as a cushion. He mindlessly played with his hair, while his eyes focused on the wall, deeply in his thoughts. Somehow Jimin had a bad gut feeling. About everything going horribly wrong. They were breaking a ton of rules, just because they liked the company of some men more than others, just because their hearts decided to skip a couple more beats. Jimin wondered if teaching Jungkook to accept his feelings and feeling validated had been the right choice, or if he would only get hurt in the end. He didn’t know anymore.

“I’ll keep you safe,” Jimin whispered into Jungkook’s hair, tears filling his eyes, “I promise.”

…

It was another beautiful day and while inside of him it felt cloudy and windy, the storm that had been raging for the past week had subsided a little. Jimin had been worrying a lot about if Namjoon would come back, looking for his chopsticks every night to soothe over the beautiful wood once more. He hadn’t dared to use them to eat food, yet. He found them too beautiful, the thought of it being his own making him tear up every time so he quickly hid it again. Their schedules had been filled up to the rim and Jungkook was practicing hard to learn his mizuage choreography every day. While Jungkook barely noticed the weeks passing, Jimin couldn’t help it that his heart dropped each time he didn’t read Namjoon’s name on his list until he did, and he almost squealed in excitement. It was nothing against Jungkook’s reaction, who had a whole breakdown on what to wear.

Jungkook walked around him, preparing the belt and tightening it around his waist perfectly. Jimin smiled at him, fixing a few strands of hair on the younger, making him lift his chin to see if he had been applying his make up right. To his own surprise Namjoon had booked him again and today he wasn’t coming for an evening event, but to finally take Jimin upon his offer to take a stroll through the park with him. He tried to mask his own excitement and nervousness, because Jungkook was visibly excited to see Yoongi again. Only the younger’s eyes were still speaking of uncertainty. Reaching out for his hand, Jimin pulled Jungkook along and only let go off his hand when they were in sight for the customers.

Namjoon had wanted to come back the very next day but sadly life didn’t agree with it. They still had a business to run and even though Yoongi wasn’t aversed to going back to the tea house he would have given him an earful if Namjoon had decided to prioritize his feelings over work. So he held out and did his job and his duties, thinking about Jimin every day, what he might be doing, how his day had been, if he was maybe thinking of him too. When he finally found the time to make an appointment again for him and Yoongi almost a week had passed. It was funny normally the more distance he got from something and the more time had passed to more it got pushed into the back of his mind, other more recent or urgent events taking its place. Not this time though. Jimin’s image was as clear in his mind as if he had just seen him, his desire to be with him again unwavering.

Jimin bowed deeply in front of Namjoon, a shy smile on his lips as he came up again. “I’m glad to see you here today. I really wanted to show you the garden.” His smile turned brighter for a second, before it faltered, and he kept up his usual geisha persona. There were too many other people around, some playing games, others listening to the geisha’s music. Jimin linked his arm with Namjoon’s easily, just like had multiple times before with other customers, only this time his heart was going crazy when he held onto Namjoon’s arm, feeling the muscles shift underneath. “I brought Jungkook with me. He will accompany us,” Jimin slightly bowed his head towards Yoongi, not as deep as he did it with Namjoon but all of them knew why he wanted to keep his eye-contact. Then he turned back to Namjoon, pointing towards an artificial brook where a small bridge led further into the garden and walked ahead.

Jimin listened to Namjoon talking and the birds chirping in the background and if he closed his eyes right now, then he could pretend he would be somewhere else with him. It was as if they had chosen the perfect day for their walk as the sun was shining but a light wind made it comfortable to walk. Though to be honest Namjoon would have walked out in the pouring rain if that meant he could be with Jimin. The youngers greeting was a little formal but Namjoon figured he couldn’t expect Jimin to wear his heart on his sleeve right away when he normally had to restrain himself 24/7. He had wanted to ask Yoongi if he could give them some space though he didn’t even have to do that; the moment Yoongi saw Jungkook they were hooked on each other, falling a little behind so they were walking with enough distance to not be heard by others while still staying within eyesight (which was probably mandatory the way Jimin eyed Yoongi).

“I’m sorry that I kicked you out so quickly the last time,” Jimin spoke up after a while, feeling they were far enough from the main house to speak honestly, “We never really get the chance to say goodbye whenever you visit me.” He chuckled softly, looking over his shoulder to see Yoongi and Jungkook a couple of steps behind them. “I guess, he told you what he did? Kissing Jungkook?”

“No problem. I bet you and Kook had a lot to talk about. And yeah, he told me. I thought he was joking until I realized that it explained quite a lot. I made him promise that he would behave today. I’ve seen the daggers you shot at him with your eyes last time and I figured Jungkook doesn’t really know how to say no so it’s probably better if Yoongi keeps his hands to himself. That was another reason why I chose the garden walk. Neither him nor I can let ourselves loose as we are out in the open. So relax, we will play completely by the rules this time. Please guide us, pretty geisha.”

“Do you know Yoongi’s intentions in this?” Jimin motioned to his right as they passed a birdhouse, walking down the alley of cherry blossom trees. “Jungkook is a sweet soul. I think my maiko has a thing for your friend…” Jimin stopped and looked at Jungkook who was kneeling, picking up a few flowers while Yoongi just simply watched him. He sighed, “I always taught him it’s okay to have feelings, you know. Sometimes you fall in love even if it’s forbidden. We can’t will away that feeling. Even in our world… No matter how hard you try.” Gazing up at Namjoon, Jimin met his gaze, whispering softly, “Sometimes you can’t help but wish, to dream. I want him to have more than this, but I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“His intentions? Oh I’m afraid his intention would be to definitely kiss Jungkook again. You should have seen his expression. He had a glint in his eyes and a smile on his face all the way home even though he tried his best to hide it.” He listened attentively as Jimin told him in beautiful words what was basically: ‘Don’t let Jungkook get hurt!’ He squeezed Jimin’s arm in reassurance.

“Swallowing down what you feel is never healthy - and it never really works completely as in the end it will find an outlet of some kind. So it’s great that you encouraged Jungkook to be true to his emotions. However I do share your worries about what it could mean for him especially concerning the events that are about to come. I don’t think that Yoongi just likes him for being a Maiko, he isn’t superficial like that. So If Jungkook still wants to see him after he... got to be a geisha then I’m sure they can keep on seeing each other.” He avoided talking about the mizuage itself as if he could avoid it from happening like this. Taking Namjoon’s arm again, Jimin walked ahead. His voice sounded quiet and weak, as if he wasn’t so sure if he was just talking about Jungkook but about himself, too. “Do you believe in love, Namjoon?”

Jimin’s question surprised him a little. “What do you mean if I believe in love? Of course I do, how could I not! Love is what holds people together, family, friends, partners... there wouldn’t be any kind of human society without love.”

“Yeah, I guess, there wouldn’t be.” Jimin hummed, leaning a little closer to Namjoon again. In the distance they could see a younger maiko preparing a blanket, placing a box filled with snacks and drinks and Jimin was glad for the interruption. “Oh, I told them to prepare something for us. Thought you didn’t want to walk around for two hours?” He giggled softly, thanking the young maiko who was eagerly bowing for Namjoon before retreating.

While the others were sitting down on the blanket, Yoongi pushed a strand of hair behind Jungkook’s ear and the boy blushed endearingly. Jimin always looked so perfectly put together that Yoongi wondered how many years it had taken him to perfect everything into detail like this. Jungkook tried his best to be like that but it showed, he was a little too young, a little too eager to reach Jimin’s level of laid back beauty. If he was honest Yoongi preferred Jungkook’s sweetness and youth over Jimin’s perfection because it was rare to see someone at that age who still had a spark of wonder and innocence left in him, who tried his very best with an open heart and eyes full of wonder. He hesitated before carefully tracing Jungkook’s face with his fingers, just barely there butterfly touches but Jungkook went wide eyed, nonetheless. “You... you are not supposed to touch me!” He whispered, almost fearfully as if he expected someone to jump out from behind them and accuse him of obscenity.

“Yeah?” Yoongi knew exactly what he was and wasn’t allowed to do but right now he couldn’t care less. He traced the younger’s full, soft bottom lip with his thumb and could feel the younger’s shuddering intake of breath. He didn’t try to stop him though or turned his face away so Yoongi got daring and trailed down until he reached Jungkook’s neck and he could gently bury his fingers in the younger’s hair. Jungkook shuddered again, more violently this time. His eyes flickered over to Jimin who was walking further and further away from him. Yoongi’s eyes were fixated on the boy’s lips as he nervously licked over them, mouth slightly opened because he was breathing so fast. If he would have leaned into him right now he could have gotten a full taste of that angelic mouth, tasted the younger’s undoubtedly sweet lips and delved right into… Yoongi swallowed harshly and stopped himself short before he would start to undress the boy with his eyes. He loosened his grip, gently massaging his thumb into the soft flesh before letting go completely. He leaned in, so close that he could almost feel the younger’s breath on his lips. “I’ll tell you a secret, pretty boy. I don’t care much for rules. But I care for what you want. So, if you want me to stop just say so. However, telling me that I’m “not supposed to” won’t stop me. Remember this - or I might even steal another kiss from you next time.” He winked at him before trying to catch up with Namjoon, leaving an utterly overwhelmed Maiko behind.

“This is my favorite place,” Jimin whispered as they sat right under his cherry blossom tree. “If it’s a beautiful day, I always take Jungkook here to teach him…far from the others. Jungkook always had a mind of his own and he sometimes…edges on with that. And I’d always been more to myself here. Before Jungkook, it had always been just me…training and dancing.” Jimin shook his head, waving himself off, “I’m sorry, I’m rambling. I always feel a little more free here…although it's still all fenced. Can you believe I lived all my life here…I know every corner by heart.”

It didn’t work anymore, the smile with which the geisha tried to overplay every hint of sadness in his smile or the way his eyes became sad when he spoke about being stuck here forever. Namjoon gentle touched his arm. “You are my fairytale prince then, like rapunzel caught in a tea house instead of a tower. It will be all the more amazing for you to see the world after... after you have made your way out of here. You are allowed to explore the city though, aren’t you? If you want I can show you the most beautiful spots. because I’ve lived here for a while and together with Yoongi we might just be the best human tour guides you could find.”

“Your fairytale?” With just one sentence, Namjoon had shaken Jimin up completely, all pretense gone and his heart rapidly beating against its cage. While Namjoon was leaning against the tree comfortably, Jimin had placed himself in front of him, gazing up at the handsome man. “I…I’m allowed yes,” Jimin was slightly panting from the nervousness he suddenly felt about breaking a few more rules with not telling Hoseok where he’d go exactly. He always needed to give him a time and a spot where he was, in case something happened. “That would be wonderful, if you two would do that for me.” Smiling at him, the geisha placed a hand on his thigh. “You’re too kind to me, Namjoon. If…if I find a way out, I will come back to your offer.”

“Not ‘if’. When.” Namjoon took the younger’s hand while gently correcting him. There was no way that Jimin wouldn’t get out of here one day. And if it looked too dark for the geisha or it would take too long... well there was always the possibility to buy him out of his contract. Through marriage. Though for that he definitely needed to give them both some more time, considering they hadn’t even met once outside of the establishment.

“When…,” Jimin’s gaze was fixated on their hands, moving his fingers slowly as he carefully intertwined their fingers. It was only a small gesture, but it was one that was forbidden. Too intimate. And still Jimin wished nothing more than to kiss Namjoon right now. “Are you jealous of Yoongi? Because I am of Jungkook. I wished…I wished it was us.” It slipped from his lips faster than he could take it back. Therefore, he was almost glad for the sudden interruption that Yoongi brought as he sat down next to them and Jimin quickly let go off Namjoon’s hand, soothing down over the fabric of his robe.

“Jealous of...” His eyes widened when he realized what Jimin had meant and he opened his mouth to tell him that they could kiss whenever Jimin wanted he had just never thought the geisha would actually want to be kissed by him so he had held back - though Yoongi and Kook decided to join them at this exact moment interrupting anything that would have violated the rules any further. Though of course Namjoon wouldn’t have kissed Jimin right here out in the open anyway but rather suggested the younger would visit him in the office, where he could have showed him the beautiful shells and their works in progress and then maybe they could have kissed when it was only them left.

Jimin was filling Yoongi’s cup with some sparkling water, when Jungkook finally rushed to his side to follow his duties, taking various of snacks out of the box to offer to both men, obviously still flustered. The geisha let his hand soothe over Jungkook’s back once, reassuring him with a smile that everything was okay. It didn’t take long for Jungkook to suggest a game to play and they all chimed in. It had been the distraction Jimin needed, before everything would have burst out of him again. He had been too close to tears once more.

But he couldn’t help it.

Namjoon made hope bloom inside of him while he thought the flowers had died a long time ago.

“Jimin!” The sudden voice behind him made him jerk violently. He didn’t need to look for who it was, he knew the voice too well by now. “Mr. Jung,” Jimin bowed respectfully as the tea house owner came closer to where they sat.

“Mr. Kim, Mr. Min…I’m sorry to interrupt but I’m having a small emergency and I need to borrow Jimin just for a couple of minutes,” Hoseok nodded towards the businessman, “Drinks are on me today for the interruption.”

Jimin looked at Jungkook for a second, unsure on what Hoseok wanted from him when his eyes widened. What if Hoseok found the chopsticks? He quickly got up, apologizing and promising to return fast to stumble after his superior. Jimin turned to look over his shoulder one last time, his gaze locked onto Namjoon’s, when Hoseok made it clear with a strong push on his lower back to keep walking.

Namjoon’s lips thinned as he pressed them together, doing his best to not let it show how much he hated it how Hoseok was treating his geisha. He didn’t care for free drinks, he wanted Jimin to be back with him, to see him carefree again and laughing when Jungkook was about to win the game or Yoongi fucked up his turn because he had been too busy watching the Maiko fondly from the side. But it only took a second and a shout for Jimin to go back behind his mask, walls coming up in the blink of an eye. With a sigh Namjoon leaned back from the game. “I guess that means we are on standby now. It... won’t take long, right? He can’t just make Jimin stay away for the rest of the time, can he?”

Jungkook looked up at Namjoon, his eyes flickering to Yoongi and then back to him again. “It’s Hoseok. You never know…it depends on what he needs Jimin for.” The young maiko didn’t care that Namjoon had stopped playing and still took another card from the deck and kept on playing, “Sometimes it takes just a bit…and sometimes Jimin is gone for a couple of hours. Normally I’d say he wouldn’t dare to take a geisha out of an appointment. But…it’s Jimin. He has privilege over him.” Jungkook shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, playing his card.

“What do you mean ‘privilege’? Why is Jimin different? Is it because of his debt? Because he’s been the longest here?” Of course he had seen Jimin with Hoseok a lot but he had thought that it just felt like that to him because he was solely focused on Jimin. After Jungkook’s comment though he could feel his hackles rising.

They jumped over Namjoon in this round as it seemed like he wasn’t keen on playing right now, so Jungkook simply made his turn again after Yoongi put his card down. Jungkook shook his head, “No, Taehyung is the longest here. Jimin has been here since he was five, so not as long as Tae.” He sighed, tipping his chin as he tried to figure out his next move. “Well, it’s easy. The one who paid your mizuage always has privilege over you in a way.” Jungkook explained, without thinking about the consequences further nor that he had just spilled a major secret that Jimin had kept hidden from Namjoon. “Especially if he is your boss. Sometimes Hoseok takes Jimin away from our training and I always feel left out…I don’t know what they are talking about exactly but Jimin tells me, Hoseok just likes to know his opinions…about the shows and stuff. Because Jimin is a really good choreographer…just like Hoseok. Sometimes it takes all night…them talking. Hoseok really listens to Jimin…when I do something wrong, Jimin always talks to him so I don’t get punished…or just get a small punishment like cleaning up the dishes. He always steps up for me.” Jungkook was speaking honestly, smiling at Namjoon brightly. How could he have known that Jimin had never told him the truth.

Namjoon felt sick. If Jungkook wasn’t talking to him so openly, not a hint of falsehood in his eyes then he would have thought the younger took joy in shocking him. “Five? He was five years old?” Jimin had told him he had been young when he had started here but ‘young’ and a preschooler were two different things. How on earth was this even legal? No wonder Jimin looked so sad when he told him about having been here forever. His childhood had been practically nonexistent. And... and Hoseok had…

“That’s very uncommon.” Yoongi chimed in, a furrow in his brows and a frown on his face. “House owners don’t bid on their own employees. That’s just... strange.”

Namjoon swallowed harshly. He had no reason to doubt Jungkook’s words. And yet he was pretty sure that Hoseok didn’t ‘value Jimin’s opinion’ regarding choreographies. Or at least not so much that he had to stay overnight to talk to him about this. However Hoseok couldn’t... he wouldn’t dare to… He exchanged a worried glance with Yoongi who gently shook his head as a sign to not push further. Which meant that he wasn’t the only one who felt like there was something awful to uncover. Namjoon felt like he needed to scream, right now.

Preferably at Hoseok. Or punch him in the face.

Jungkook looked up, feeling as if he only gotten half of the conversation that was going on. “Why is that strange? Maybe Hoseok likes Jimin? I don’t think Jimin likes him back, though. I’m very certain he is interested in someone else.” Looking at Namjoon, he smiled sweetly, absolutely not being able to keep one secret to himself. “Just ask Jiminie if you don’t believe me.” The young maiko looked over his shoulder and pointed at the geisha that just came back around the corner.

Namjoon looked at Jimin, at the way his shoulders were hunched and his eyes cast down when he came back from Hoseok. When he looked closer, hidden under silk robes and make up he saw a five year old boy being sold into this and then a barely grown up boy being bought again for one night to become a geisha, still in debt, still caught up in that microcosm of selling beauty and dreams to people who could afford it while chewing up Jimin’s dream of being his own person. And if what Jungkook had involuntarily hinted at was true, if Hoseok kept Jimin during the night…

He didn’t want to imagine what they were doing. No wonder Jimin talked like his wishes would never come true. Hoseok wouldn’t let him go. Why should he, he had a pretty boy living in his tea house who was talented and kind and sweet and all he had to do was mention his debt or use Jungkook as leverage and Jimin would do whatever he asked for just to keep Jungkook safe.

Yoongi’s hand on his made him flinch and when he tried to pull away Yoongi just held it more tightly. There was empathy in his eyes but the message was clear when he whispered. “Don’t. Please don’t do this now. That wouldn’t be fair. It doesn’t change anything that happened in the past… but…,” His eyes flickered over to Jungkook who still looked confused. Namjoon nodded, still feeling numb from what he just learned. Asking Jimin about this would only hurt them. All of them. He better kept his mouth shut.

For now.

A/N: Oh, so...ehm this happened. Kchhhhh, I hope you guys liked it! Don’t forget to leave us a comment down below! Cat and I appreciate all of you guys messages so much ;; really! 💕 We truly have the best readers!

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