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my-brothers-corrupted · 3 years

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Book Four - Part 10

Anti brings the others to help him get Dapper back from Dark, leading to an all-out battle with a half-dozen different sides.

Tws for imprisonment, physical fighting, and fire.

Part 10 - the Houses in the Woods

Anonymous asked: Trick? Dok? You going down too?

“Come on,” says Trick, taking his hand.

“Can’t they handle it?” asks Dok nervously.

“Bud, come on, I’m not going to let him hurt anybody.”

Dok looks at him as they head down the stairs together. He doesn’t know when Trick made it his responsibility to stop Anti from hurting them, but, proud as he is that Trick is stepping up, he doesn’t think he likes it.

Anonymous asked: Dok, we need your necklaces Trick we need you to be behind your true family. We're nearing the climax, and the heroes will either win or lose against the beast among them.

Trick and Dok exchange glances as they reach the door. Trick’s eyes flicker to the necklaces on Dok’s throat. Dok squeezes his hand, frowning. After all they’ve been through together, Trick can feel the rift in the air between them like a physical force.

We’re not on the same side, he realizes a little numbly.

Dok pulls away from him to check on Red, crouching down beneath Anti timidly and taking Red’s head into his hands, examining the goose bump forming on the back of his skull. Trick goes to Anti, clutching his hands and pulling him back from Red.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says. “Can’t be hitting him.”

Anti’s eyes seem to burn, and not just from Blue’s stolen fire. He clutches Trick to his chest and glares around at his siblings, bitter and violent.

“You’ve got fifteen minutes to get ready to go,” he spits at Blue and Red. “We’ll go get Dapper back. If you fail me, maybe I don’t have any use for the two of you little traitors anymore.”

“What am I going to do?” asks Blue, bewildered. “I can barely walk most of the time.”

“Dark’s whole territory is hidden in a mirror dimension, just like that stupid convent where the magicians kept Dok. You have to open the mirror so we can get in.”

“But - I don’t know how,” protests Blue, blinking.

“Well, you better find a way to jog your fucking memory, hadn’t you?” snaps Anti. “Otherwise maybe I’ll have to worm into that head of yours and dig the recollection out.”

Blue and Red exchange looks, alarmed. Anti stalks past them, pulling Trick with him as he goes.

“Whoa, Anti, hold on, I want to talk to - ”

“Dok can have you back when he has those necklaces off his goddamn throat,” spits Anti, yanking him down the hallway.

“But that’s my - ”

“You want to start causing me problems too, Trick?” shouts Anti, whirling on him.

Trick’s lip trembles. He lets Anti lead him back towards their room.

Anonymous asked: You can have your true name soon, Ro. It'll all be okay soon. Hold on for us, Jackie. Losing a small battle doesn't mean you're losing this war.

Red pulls Blue to his feet and they stand together, turning to see Dok padding listlessly after his twin. Blue moves to go after him, but Red pulls him back.

“Do you remember anything about mirror dimensions?” asks Red.

“No,” answers Blue. “No, it’s totally random, out of nowhere. How would I know anything about that?”

“He seems to think you would.”

“Well, if I did, he took the memories from me.”

Red sighs. “Maybe it’s a muscle memory thing? Those are different than memories of actual events or memories of everyday facts. Maybe once we get to the mirror it’ll be an everyday fact thing.”

Blue shakes his head, biting down hard on the nail of his thumb. “He’s going to possess me again if I don’t remember,” he whispers.

“You’ll remember,” Red insists, but even as he says it it doesn’t feel true. If Anti doesn’t know and Blue doesn’t remember, who would?

Anonymous asked: Do you remember the early days Trick? Where you and Dok desperately tried to save the Henrik and Chase within you, having to watch Anti tear the two of you apart day after day. The snake in the rabbit's den. Don't let him steal your heart from your family. Trick, you need to find the Chase within you that you and your twin fought so hard to save in the early days. You need to be their guard, their hero, before Anti kills them or worse.

Trick’s face scrunches up with distress. He pulls on Anti’s hand, looking back at Dok, staring miserably after him from the back of the hallway.

“Let me go with you and the others,” pleads Trick.

“What? No. You could get hurt.”

“So could they!”

“I don’t care about that,” spits Anti, pulling him to his chest. “You’ll stay in your room.”

“I want to be there if something happens to you,” Trick insists, gripping his hands. “I’ll stay back and I’ll cover you with my gun. Anti, you’re upset, you’re getting into a fight, you don’t even trust the others right now. Let me go with you. As a guard. That’s all.”

Anti softens a little, gazing at him. He pushes Trick gently towards the stairs. “I’ll… think about it. Go get dressed. We’ll see.”

Trick obeys, moving to get his gun and some better clothes.

Things are complicated in his head right now, but you’re right about one thing: he needs to be their guard.

scunneredzombie asked: Red, do you remember at all the password that Henrik used when you were sent back in time last time? Or Dok, do you remember anything you were told by the magicians?

Dok frowns, turning back to the others. “I remember… Nina would speak to the mirror? And it would let her step through it. I remember that when you’re in the mirror, it’s like a loop no matter how far you walk.”

Red nods slowly, glancing between the pair of them. “Right. When Dapper and I went back to the - I mean, I remember something. I think we lived in a mirror like that too, one Blue made for us to be safe in. I remember we had to speak to it too to get out. Like a password. ‘Amo, vale.’“

Blue laughs weakly. “That means ‘I love you, goodbye.’ Or almost, anyway.”

“But when Nina left the mirror, she said something in Spanish,” says Dok. “Not ‘te amo’ or anything like that, I don’t think. If it is like a password, I bet it’s unique to every mirror.”

“So how do we figure out the password?”

Anonymous asked: Hey Shep, no idea if you have a camera right now, but you know anything about mirror dimesons by any chance? Just random curiosity!

“Well, I don’t know anything about them, exactly, except that Dark and Wil made one for the houses,” answers Shep.

He’s walking around the forest, still looking for Noodle. Determined.

“It’s cool, I guess. Kind of weird. You can really get stuck in a place like that. And we’re supposed to be really careful with it, because if we break the mirror, you can sever the connection to the real world and lose whatever’s inside.”

Anonymous asked: Is there anything funny Wilford says every time he goes into the mirror? He's always really funny, I'd love to hear more of him! Or something Dark says? I'm really curious about you guys.

“Come on, guys,” laughs Shep. “I know you have to say something to get in there. It’s my home too. I’ll give you a hint… Dark’s told you their password before. Did you think that the only thing it would give you access to was a website? They always wanted you to come and find them. Find the truth, they said.”

Shep steps up onto a log, balancing on one foot. “Oh, yeah. And it’s also a son of a bitch to have to read that out every time I want to go home!”

Anonymous asked: Geez, I'm getting whiplash from your overwhelming favoritism, Anti. Don't want your favorite boy to get hurt? So you'll probably lock him in the room again, all alone and miserable? What will happen to him if you don't come back from Dark's place, uh? If you lose, you're just going to let him pathetically wither away, is that it?

Anti shrugs, glancing at Trick as he walks away. “If I can’t have him, he may as well die.”

Anonymous asked: Lmao sorry Shep, not trying to treat you like you're dumb, we're just used to dealing with a very manipulative demon. I am genuinely curious about you all, and thanks so much for hunting for Noodle, you epic hero man. Big hearts your way!

“I didn’t take any offense, no worries,” answers Shep mildly. “And yeah! Ask me anything anytime. I like talking to you… for a long time I figured nobody was interested and maybe that’s why I got thrown aside. Yes, I’ll look for the cat, and then you’ll have something to remember me by this time!”

Anonymous asked: Jackie, Marvin, this might be a long shot, but when you get to the mirror, try reading out this: Lh3EeEeR9z59YWcUB2b7ViHJ8ALQ637

“What sort of a fucking password?” Blue demands.

“Dok, will you memorize this for us?” asks Red.

Dok turns and reads it over. “Okay, got it.”

“That Dark thing really is cruel if it’s making everybody read that out to get in there,” grins Blue.

Anonymous asked: Oh my god, the heist code is the mirror code? It's so convoluted though! How are you guys not getting locked out with that?

“Wilford never remembers a letter of it,” laughs Shep. “But he can transport in and out anyway. And the twins, they usually come in and out with someone there to help anyway, because they’re developmentally delayed. All the rest of us, we write it in our phones or memorize it. It’s actually only the first eight letters that are the code, so it’s not so bad.

It’s just how Dark does things. They’re obsessive over all of Mark’s projects… they hate him, but they fixate on his videos and stories. When Mark found out they actually gave out the password to our home, he only laughed, though. Dark just wants direct contact with the audience, and Mark will never give it to them, but they try at every turn.”

Shep pauses, glancing at you, the camera tucked into his pocket as he searches for Noodle.

“I don’t care that you know, but just don’t tell Dark you heard anything from me.”

Anonymous asked: Remember guys, it's a tool of gaslighting when your abuser tries to convince you that you're a "traitor" the second you stand up to the abuse. Don't let his manipulation sway your thoughts. You are not traitors. You are escaping an abuser who has pummeled you into dirt for years, years of pain and torture. It is not traitorous to stand up for yourself.

“And he can’t mock me for being autistic like that,” grumbles Red, pushing at his hair. “I struggle with myself enough already.”

“He can’t just take Trick away from me,” agrees Dok, his eyebrows drawn unhappily together. “He’s just being a control freak, punishing me for trying to stay away after he said he would kill me!”

“The only reason Dapper is gone in the first place is because Anti was bargaining with our lives for his and Dark’s entertainment,” adds Blue. “We can’t let this keep happening. He doesn’t really care about anyone but himself. Even his favorites are getting hurt and now Trick is being locked up like Dap. We have to find a way to get all of us away and finish Anti the fuck off.”

Red flinches, still not comfortable with the idea of killing Anti, but Blue and Dok just meet each other’s gazes, steadfast.

Anonymous asked: Jackie, why are you uncomfortable with it, if I can ask? He just confirmed he never loved you, he's threatening to kill all of you, saying Trick is better dead than free, he let Dapper get stolen and taken away from safety and his medicine. He's going to be the death of all of you unless you get to him first. It's looking like it's the only way to save them. Be their warrior, protect them now when they need it most.

Ro turns away from you, a flash of anger in his face. He doesn’t answer.

“Roser,” says Blue.

Red waves him off, stepping out of the room and walking back down the hallway.

Anonymous asked: Also, guys, be very very careful, you can't break the mirror while JJ is in there, or apparently you risk losing everything and everyone inside.

“Oh, fuck, okay,” says Blue, nodding his head. “Yeah, we’ll be real careful. Thanks, guys… I don’t know how this would have worked out without you. I think we’ll go pretty soon. Are we… ready for that? Last words before a big fight?”

He looks at Dok, who looks back, not able to give him a smile. He touches Dok’s head and pulls him to his shoulder, knocking their heads together.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he says.

“You don’t know,” answers Dok frailly.

“I’m going to find a way to get you away from him.”

“We’re still not all on the same page,” murmurs Dok, closing his eyes. “That’s what the magicians told me, again and again. That we have to all be fighting him. And we’re just not, Blue. Trick still loves him. Dapper doesn’t even seem to remember what it’s like to hope for something better. Are the three of us enough to do this?”

Blue sighs, rubbing his shoulder. “We’re just going to see how this turns out, honey.”

Anonymous asked: Trick, sometimes when life is scary, you’ll want to go back to where you understood it. But you can’t go back, whether you want to or not. Understanding will come, but you have to fight tooth and nail for it. Fight through the haze and claim your mind for yourself again.

Trick sits on his bed, staring at Anti as he moves around their room.

Anti plays with his appearance in the mirror for a few minutes, looking pensive, but then you see frustration and pain on his face, and he just transforms back to his usual self - green hair, black tee, ripped jeans. He glitches again and again as he moves, out of control and looking tired and pale, rummaging through the drawers in case there are any weapons he wants to hand out before they go.

“Anti,” says Trick quietly.

“What?” asks Anti.

“You would never really kill one of the others, would you? That’s just your temper.”

Anti plays with a whip, turned away from him. “Sure,” he says flatly.

Trick sighs, rubbing at his head. He gets to his feet and moves to Anti’s side, trying to get his attention. Anti dives back into the drawers. Trick grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“Hey,” he says. “Talk to me. What is going on with you lately?”

Anti sulks, shaking his head, but he doesn’t yank away from Trick’s grip. He plays quietly with the holster on Trick’s waist, tapping at the gun.

“Just angry,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, I’d be angry too if someone I was into started acting like they don’t know who I am, but that doesn’t mean you get to take it out on us.”

“Well, they ran away!” shouts Anti.

Trick grabs his face between his hands and kneels down beside him, drawing his gaze.

“I love you,” he says. “But the reason they ran away is because the way you’re treating them isn’t right.”

Anti wilts a little, glaring at the floor.

“We’ll figure it out afterwards,” he growls, getting to his feet.

Trick sighs. “Go easy on them for my sake if nothing else.”

“Yeah, sure,” mutters Anti. “Whatever.“

Trick squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to feel like this - like you’re understanding Anti better than he himself is these days. He doesn’t want you to be more true than his brother.

But he also doesn’t want to believe that he’s not thinking for himself anymore. This is what he really feels, isn’t it? This is worth putting up with? This is family?

“Are you sure about this?” he asks.

“About what?”

“Going after Dark? Shouldn’t we maybe, like, talk to them before starting an actual fight?”

“They made the choice they made,” says Anti quietly. “And they took Dap. No more talking unless they’re groveling beneath my heel.”

Anonymous asked: You might not all be on the same page, and hell, maybe a couple of you are in different chapters entirely, but you're all in the same story. The others will have to go at their own pace as best they can to reach a good ending for all of you, okay? It won't be easy and it won't be perfect but the most we can do is try.

“And that’s what we’ve wanted all along, right?” murmurs Blue, touching Dok’s hair. “A chance to try. To get away. To protect each other.”

Dok nods, trying to smile.

“Today,” says Blue softly, reaching down to touch a necklace on Dok’s throat. “I think we might get a chance to use some of these.”

“Okay,” says Dok, nodding again. “Okay. It’s going to be okay.”

He’s scared to be tortured again. He doesn’t know if he could survive that. But Blue is here, gripping his hand, and he knows that at the very least the two of them have each other.

It’s going to have to be enough for now.

Anonymous asked: Anti can and would kill them. He /has/ killed them. He used to kill Red and force Dapper to turn back as punishment. He stabbed Dok in the lungs for trying to protect Dapper. As long as he has time travel, he'll kill them without a second thought just to punish the others.

Trick sits back on the bed and shudders.

“We can’t keep living like this,” you hear him whisper, as Anti busies himself around the room.

Anti steps back towards him. “Ready to go?”

Trick sits up, looking pale.

“Yes, Anti,” he says.

Anonymous asked: Trick, sad to say you'll be living like this for as long as you belong to Anti. Anti will never change, and he will never stop hurting you to make himself feel stronger, locking you in rooms to feel like he owns you, killing and torturing your brothers as punishment. He cannot, and will not ever control his temper. You're going to be stuck here until he's gone. You will not escape abuse unless you leave the abuser.

Anti steps close to Trick on the bed and takes the camera from him, turning with a sudden force to throw it against the wall, smashing it into pieces. Trick flinches and Anti laughs, touching his cheek and leaning down to kiss the side of his face and knock their foreheads together.

“Come on, then,” he says, stroking his hand down green hair as you watch from the camera in the corner of the ceiling. “Let’s go. I need to know I have at least you on my side.”

Trick looks up at him, eyes wide. For a moment, his eyes flicker over to you.

He takes Anti’s hand and they move down the stairs.

The farther they wander, the darker the trees.

“Is this Dark’s doing?” whispers Red. “Or did they just pick the blackest, deadest part of the forest they could find?”

“It’s Dark’s doing,” hisses Anti. “Now shush.”

The trees stare down at them, sunless monoliths looming like gods over their heads. Birds flitter about like rodents through gutters, but not one of them sings, and the buzzing of insects appears only for a moment before a bigger creature comes to snap grasshoppers and flies up like deviled eggs eaten in one mouthful.

“Are we close?” asks Dok, stepping over the ashy graveyard of what was once a great redwood. “Blue is tired.”

“Why are you here again?” snaps Anti.

“Dapper’s sick, Anti,” Trick reminds him. “Dok needs to look after him.”

“I’m sick of the lot of you,” answers Anti, which makes Red snort despite himself, trying not to laugh. Anti raises an amused eyebrow at him.

“Come on,” he sighs. “Here’s the shed.”

Inside a shed in the forest - which Anti has mostly smashed open in the hopes of ticking off Dark - there is a mirror taller than they are standing against the back corner. Anti pushes his way inside and spiders scutter away from the dim light. Dok leaps back, nearly running back the way they came, and stands back from the shed, watching his feet.

“It’s okay, man,” calls Trick, helpfully squashing spiders beneath his heel. “I got it.”

“Go on then,” says Anti, shoving Blue’s shoulder. “Top magician. Jack’s special boy. Didn’t do you much good in the end.”

“Step off, Anti,” Blue spits back, stalking towards the mirror. “You’re just lucky the cameras helped us with this.”

Anti leans against the wall, picking at spiders while Blue and Dok and Red try Dark’s password. After the first eight letters, the mirror changes. There is no longer a reflection of Blue, tired and pale, in the glass - instead, it looks out like a window onto a trio of houses in a grassy field.

Red and Blue exchange glances. Anti and Red exchange glances. Dok sees a spider by his foot and yelps.

Red puts his hand to the mirror, curious. Slowly, his fingers pass through the glass like water. He draws back again, eyebrows raised, and turns to look at Blue.

Blue is gone.

Anti straightens up in his skin, cracking his neck. “Ready?” he asks.

Red gapes, shaking his head.

Anti punches his shoulder and grabs his sleeve. “Come on, so,” he says.

“Go in there? Get Dapper?”

“I should never have reset you. You and I used to go sneak into shit and take what we wanted together. I hate that the violence is gone from you. You were more fun before I gave you Blue. Don’t know when I managed to ruin you so badly.”

Something about his tone makes Red flush, his heart aching. He looks away, mouth taut, and sucks in a breath. Looking up again, he finds Anti looking back at him through his twin’s captive eyes.

“Fine, then,” says Red, straightening. He turns his body towards the mirror and grips his hands into fists. “I will get him, then.”

Anti passes him a fighting staff. Red blinks and takes it into his hand, remembering the weight and feel of it from a time he no longer recalls.

“After you,” says Anti, pulling a knife from Blue’s jacket.

Red moves through the mirror and into Dark’s home.

“Be good,” calls Anti, clucking Trick’s chin once before following after their older brother. “I’ll be back very soon.”

And then Trick and Dok are alone in the twilight forest.

Anonymous asked: Don't let your loyalty become slavery, Trickshot. Know when to let go, know when you're being held back instead of driven forward, know when their desires drown out your own. Never compromise on self-respect.

“All these messages are for you,” mumbles Henrik, sitting down on a rock in the earth and looking the camera over in his hands.

“They’ve been talking to me a lot lately,” Trick answers just as quietly, but he won’t look back at his twin. He waits at the door of the shed. In his hands, Dok’s gun.

“But you don’t listen,” Dok guesses.

Trick doesn’t answer.

“You’re letting Anti treat you like his toy,” says Henrik, turning away from him. “Won’t see the truths they tell you.”

“Dok, let’s not start, not now, c’mon. Been days since I seen you. I thought… maybe Dark had you.”

Anonymous asked: If you don't confront it and talk through it with us now, then when will you, Trick?

“Mhh,” groans Trick, looking away. “We’re busy…”

“You don’t want to ever face it,” says Henrik. “But one day, it will be in front of you, and you will already be too late to act.”

“I won’t fail to protect you again, Dok.”

“You cannot see the things that hurt me. You are blind to them. They will hurt me again. You will watch.”

“I mean it,” says Trick, loud. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. For real.”

Anonymous asked: Be strong Trick, and more importantly be /you/. Be the man who would do anything for his family, the person who lets his twin massage him when he's been guarding for hours on end, the person who whispered secret names across the room to your brother. You need to protect your family, your real family. You have a choice coming up, man. Your brothers, or your abuser.

Henrik watches his brother for a long time. Eventually, Trick glances back at him, eyes uncertain.

Henrik smiles.

Trick relaxes a little and comes to his side, sitting down with him. After a moment, he puts his head on Dok’s shoulder and fixes his eyes on the shed.

Watching. Waiting. Guard dog.

Dok massages his back so he won’t get stiff. Trick smiles. They sit in the wind of the trees together.

“We are making decisions these days, aren’t we, mein zwilling?”

“Not between you and Anti, though,” murmurs Trick. “Not making decisions like that.”

Henrik sighs, his hand around his arm. The distance between them has never gaped quite like this.

“It’s sunset,” says Trick. “Are you going to say the Shema?”

Henrik blinks. “I haven’t said my blessings in a long time.”

“Oh. I thought maybe you still said them in your head. After you stopped saying them with me.”

Henrik shrugs.

“You don’t anymore?”

“I feel far away from the Lord,” he says, very softly, staring down at the earth beneath his feet. “And lately I am not the sort of man who is strong enough to keep my eyes on Him while the valley of the shadow of death is around me. I am dry bones in the desert. The blessings begin to feel pointless. I can’t even keep track of my own holidays. Candles on Hanukah… it’s nothing. Or very little. I can barely remember the inside of a synagogue. I feel far away from my community. I feel far away from everything.”

Trick shuffles, frowning at him. “You didn’t tell me you were feeling like that.”

“No. I guess not.”

“You usually talk to me.”

“You’re not a Jew, my friend.”

“But you tell me things like that. You used to. We would say the blessings together.”

“I feel far away from you too,” whispers Henrik.

Anonymous asked: In abuse there's always a 'honeymoon phase' where the abuser apologizes and makes promises to change. But the tension builds, some false law is disobeyed, and another abusive incident happens. Fish and chips, a warm kitten, treats and gifts and Hanukkah candles are all false apologies for behavior that will never change. One reason it's so hard to leave is because you always want to believe they can change. But all the self-improvement in the world won't fix the way they hurt you in the past.

Trick bites down on his lip, his hands soothing along his gun. He looks between you and Dok. “It’s not a honeymoon phase… Dok-Dok, I’ll talk to Anti about you going to services - ”

“Don’t,” says Henrik dryly. “Don’t, I don’t want you to. They’re right. He doesn’t care.”

Trick shakes his head, putting his chin in his hand as he looks up at his brother on the stone beside him. He doesn’t know if he should say he’s sorry or get angry at him or reassure him or what. He never seems to know lately. Feels cold in the air between them. He hates that. All he’s thought about for days is the things that Dok would do to cheer him up if they were stuck in that bedroom together, and now he can’t even comfort him.

He closes his eyes. For long minutes, they wait.

“I’ll say it for you, then,” says Trick.

Dok looks up. “What?”

“The blessing,” Trick says, mouth set. “If you don’t feel like you can have faith right now, I will.”

Dok’s lips twitch. He shakes his head at Trick, trying not to grin. “You don’t know it without me.”

“I do!”

“No way.”

“Shema, Yisrael,” begins Trick. “Uh.”

Dok laughs. Trick laughs too, but he’s determined. He keeps going.

“We’ve said it together often enough. Shema, Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu. Adonai echad…. wa-hafta… w… v'ahav'ta eit Adonai Elohekha m'odekha…”

Dok looks at him, beginning to smile.

He doesn’t pronounce all of it right. He might skip a word or two, and, as always, he stammers. But he fumbles through the Hebrew with his mouth full of love for him.

And as he goes he begins to hear Henrik whispering the English alongside him.

“And you shall bind them as a sign on your hands… and between your eyes… and you shall write them on the doorposts of your home and on your gates.”

They are looking at each other. Trick grins. There is sunset light in his eyes.

Henrik puts his arm around him again and they sit side-by-side.

Anonymous asked: I know you can feel the divide between you and Henrik, even as anti-blinded as you are, Trick. You know you'll have to make the choice between them eventually. It isn't a betrayal to escape your abuser. It isn't traitorous to hate the person who's hurt you. The choice will ultimately be yours, but you have to realize and wake up to the distance between you before you can even come to that. Anti won't change, Trick. How many times has he promised to be better, only to hit you the very next day?

“He has hurt you,” says Trick, his voice very low. “Hasn’t he?”

Henrik presses his head against his shoulder, hiding just a little. “And you too.”

“No… not on purpose.”

“If you have to start by believing that he hurts me, then yes,” says Henrik. “Yes, he has, and he will not stop.”

Trick sighs. “Well. Then… I think you should go.”

Henrik sits up straight, staring at him. “What?”

“I think you should go. Like you want to. You’re an adult, Dok. We all are. We should get to choose. Right?”

Henrik touches his hair. Henrik beams.

“Yeah… yes, of course. But not without - ”

“No,” Trick cuts him off. “Not now, bud. Okay? Let’s just… chill for a bit. It’s going to be okay. And if Anti hurts you again, I’ll stop him.”

“That’s not your job,” says Henrik, as though wounded.

Trick squeezes his hand. “Are the others okay?” he asks you.

Anonymous asked: Red, how goes it? Find anything yet? Dapper is in a clinic room with barred windows last time we saw him

“Stay back here,” Red warns Anti, pushing him back into the trees. “You might use him like he’s at a hundred percent, but Blue’s sick. Be gentle with his body.”

“Get the boy back for me and I won’t have to use him rough,” says Anti, stepping back into the shadows.

“Okay,” sighs Red. “Anything I should be worried about?”

“Everyone in there is either an imbecile, a powerhouse, or both,” answers Anti. “Have fun.”

Red turns towards the house, clutching his fists together. Okay. He’s got this.

Red stalks around the house, swift and quiet, darting through the grass and staying out of the sight of windows. There are three houses. On one of them, he can see Dark and Wilford on the porch, talking and playing with an enormous dog. There’s a movie playing in another, and Red can see a man inside driving a toy car around the carpet. The third house is still until a little brown cat slips out of it and darts away. Red will check out all three in turn if he has to.

Anonymous asked: Hey Shep! You should tell us about you guys' houses. Where is everything, and why does everyone live in separate places?

“That’s it, I’m coming home,” laughs Shep, turning back towards the houses. To be fair to him, he’s been out in the heat for hours and he’s a sweaty mess. “Uh, well, Dark lives in their house ‘alone’… we all know Wil sneaks in there half the time and Google spends most of his days guarding the place like a loyal little puppy. He takes so much pride in being Dark’s weapon, he’s nuts. Won’t listen to anyone else, though.

“We come and go with the other houses. They’re damn empty these days. But Host and Google and Wil and I have our house, and sometimes Ippy comes back to stay for a while. Eric and the twins are all that’s left in the other house. Sometimes Illinois, but he’s in Mexico right now. I miss Bing, shit. I miss a lot of them.”

Anonymous asked: Dapper, you awake? Back in the early days of us talking to you, you said you would only be free if all of your brothers were as well. Well, Dapper, we're doing our best for you, because we care for all of you so much. Jackie, Henrik, and Marvin are on the side of freedom so far. We will keep you safe, and we will protect you any way we can. Wish us luck, Jameson.

Dapper is drawing on the walls.

It’s been his favorite pastime for a long time, ever since he realized Anti wouldn’t punish him for making the house his canvas. His biggest piece was in a defunct pen manufacturer in Sweden, where they stayed for about two weeks, during which time he covered an entire industrial wall in an image of the very ugly aliens from A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Today he draws Anti in cheap pencil lead along the wall of Ippy’s clinic, coursing the point along the curve of Anti’s curving smile. He looks happy in the picture. His hands are empty and open.

Dapper turns at the sound of the beeping and smiles at you, though you see a glassy film over his fevered eyes and a tremble in his artist’s fingers. His face softens as he reads.

“I care for you too,” he tells you heartfully, touching his chest. “All of you, thank you - for being here, for keeping me company, for all of it. And you know I’d always wish you luck, my dears.”

Anonymous asked: Hey uh, dapper? Are you feeling alright? You look a little bit... off

“I am not really recovering from this whole sickness thing that is happening,” he answers unhappily, rubbing at his eyes. “I’m tired and hot and my head aches. I can’t keep any food down, including most of my medicine. And Dark was right… Anti helps with my psychosis.”

Anonymous asked: Jackie, methinks you should avoid the house with Dark on the porch unless you can't find Dapper in the other two. Google is guarding, and Silver Shepheard is on his way back. Try to avoid a fight and be sneaky if you can.

“Kinda want to poke the bear, though,” admits Red, narrowing his eyes at Dark. “They have to pay for this, the fucking cock-jockey.”

His own insult gives him a burst of confidence as he slides past Dark’s house. A black and brown cat watch him disdainfully, waving their tails at him.

“I’ll check the other two first. Thanks, guys. I just need to find a way to get in and get him out… or get him out from outside.”

Anonymous asked: Anti helps superficially, but you know what would help more, JJ? Seeing a psychiatrist to get a mood stabilizer to assist your Haldol, seeing a behavioral therapist to help deal with symptoms, and being free from a constantly traumatizing environment. You need stability and the help of doctors. Things are probably extra bad right now due to being a hostage in a strange environment. You're not hopeless without Anti, millions of people like you & I cope and live good lives w/o mind demon's 'help'.

Dapper shrinks in on himself a little, playing with his hands. He stares at Anti’s eyes on the wall.

“I remember… getting better while we were all at home, without him,” he signs quietly. “Even the paranoia - and the paranoia is always the worst - even that was better. And whenever I started talking to my hallucinations, the others would have me go stand in the laundry room, and then after a while I could take ten minutes in the laundry room and come out and the hallucinations would be so much easier to deal with. Just from having that organization in my life. And I took a couple medications and nobody got mad at me if I was delusional or disorganized or acting really weird. And I had a therapist who signed. And I went to church and the priest would give me confession and I didn’t feel like I was going to hell. And nothing ever hurt me.”

He looks down at his hands.

“It was easier.”

The admission seems to have taken a lot out of him. He slips back down onto the bed, sighing.

scunneredzombie asked: Dapper, is there a window or door near you? Red is here to get you, but he needs a way to get you out!

“Yes, there’s a door, but it’s locked, and a big window, but it’s barred.” He frowns at you and makes prayer hands. “Tell him come bust me out. I sure can’t fit through those bars unless someone wants to shrink me and put me in their pocket. Like a little hedgehog…”

He begins sketching a hedgehog by Anti’s foot.

scunneredzombie asked: Rojo, be on the lookout for large, barred windows, probably the second of the houses?

Ro creeps around the first house, narrowing his gaze at Dark, his hands still aching for a fight. For now, though, he’ll have to focus on getting Dap to safety.

He moves around the second house, slipping down beside a cracked window to listen inside. There’s a television playing a loud cartoon. Lifting his head a little, he can see the man with the toy car driving it around the carpet and talking to himself. There is a whole crate of toy cars. On the couch, a second man sorts patiently through them, occasionally holding a little figurine up to the light or racing it along the arm of the couch, making vrooming and beeping noises. Red sits back a little, rubbing his palms together as he thinks. He wants to wreck some havoc, but not in front of a pair of twins who aren’t causing any harm and don’t look like they’d be able to comprehend someone trying to hurt them. They’re all clean and content-looking, playing with their cars. Red sighs. Having innocents around makes things harder.

It always does, he thinks to himself, and he feels more than recalls a memory from two weeks ago - Anti taking him and Dapper to kill the man who owns the house they’re staying in now. His stomach churns and he digs his nails into his palms. He still remembers the blood-craze in Dapper’s eyes as Anti helped him bury a knife in the man’s chest - and then, moments later, the hopelessness.

“Come on, Red, come on,” he mutters to himself, creeping around the back of the house.

He doesn’t see any barred windows. He glances into the clearing between the three houses as he waits for his chance to dart over to the third house.

Dark is on the porch of the first house with another one of his soldiers, someone with a voice so loud and booming Ro can hear it from here. His hand is on Dark’s waist as he chatters at them. Ro remembers the weight of Max’s hand on his waist… the smell of him…

“Goddamn,” he hisses, slapping himself. Lately he can’t focus on anything. He’s just… sad. He pinches his arms until he gets some clarity back, gnawing on his lips.

“Dapper Dapper Dapper,” he chants to himself, and it’s this thought that carries him over to the third house, where, at last, he spots a little barred window in a window well to the basement.

Anonymous asked: Jackie, we believe in you! Hero of the day, the hero of all time!

Ro gives a shaky little laugh, but you’ve put a grin on his mouth. He darts over to the window, feeling sneaky and maybe even a little bit competent, which is nice. Maybe he’s even acting a little like Jackie would act. The thought gives him a strange, nervous satisfaction.

“Dap,” he whispers, tapping his knuckle cautiously against the window. He can get his hands through the bars, but not much further.

Something shifts in the room. He squints his eyes through the dim light of the basement room and sees a nervous pair of big blue eyes looking back at him.

“It’s me, dude,” he whisper-hisses, glancing around.

Dapper’s eyes water with relief. He pushes the window open, leaving only the bars between them. At this angle, Red can only just brush his hand against his shoulder, reaching down into the window well, and he can hardly see his hands.

“Are you okay? Shit, I was worried, Carve. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”

Dapper grips his hand and squeezes in forgiveness.

“How do I get you out?”

There’s those big puppy dog eyes. They’re familiar, sure, reassuring and maybe even cute, but not problem-solving. Red squeezes his hand back and tries to think.

“I’ll have to come inside… or get the bars off. Unless you can shrink? Have any Borrower friends in there that could help? Maybe some mice and birds, Cinderella-style?”

Dapper pinches Ro’s hand and he laughs despite his rising heart rate, more and more anxious the longer he crouches here.

Anonymous asked: Dapper was right Anti, you're such a fucking creep. Dying his hair green and roleplaying like he's Jack but still forcing him to love you unconditionally. Touching him like you love him when he's just an object to you. You don't deserve any of the love any of them have given you. You're disgusting.

“He belongs to me,” answers Anti coldly, leaning back against a tree as he keeps an eye on the houses, waiting to see if Red will fuck up or bring Dapper back to him quietly. “I can do what I want with him. Jack never gave me anything but lemons - fine, I’ll make lemonade. Besides, let’s not pretend Chase would be anything at all without me. He’d just be childless and drinking himself to death in the backroom of their house like he was before I kidnapped him. This whole crusade the lot of you have, trying to set them free… pointless. You won’t make them any happier. He’d be miserable with a taste of freedom. You know, if Jack wanted his little protagonist to actually be able to save the day, maybe he shouldn’t have made him so helpless. Huh, like fucking Chase Brody could have ever done anything about me… well, he’s mine now, so there’s your story, Jack. There’s your fucking story.”

Anonymous asked: Hey Anti, this is important. Dapper /needs/ to see a proper psychiatrist, just once or twice, so that he can get a mood stabilizer and other medicines to assist his antipsychotic. You can't neglect him like this, he's schizophrenic/psychotic, treatment and constant medication updates are the only way to truly help him be better. Constant mind manipulation only makes things worse for him if he's away from you even for a short time.

Anti’s eyes flicker over to you and then away again. He’s playing with fire on the ends of Blue’s fingers, eyes flickering from the white light of it.

“Mh,” he shrugs, uncertain. “I don’t think I want him talking to anybody outside of the house. If he needs a mood stabilizer, talk to Dok and have him talk to me. It’s like American health care! You gotta get a referral. Besides, if being away from me makes things worse, then I’ll just have to be better about making sure he isn’t away from me again. Not even for a short amount of time.”

He drops a flame to the earth and then stomps it out with his foot, his gaze watching as though infatuated as even a moment of fire singes a whole patch of earth and sets leaves to blazing. He bets he could burn down this whole forest if he wanted to… maybe set all of California ablaze. Again.

“Letting Dark take Dapper was my fault,” he tells you quietly. “I overestimated how much they cared about me. Let them fool me. It was stupid. It won’t happen again. Not with anyone. Dapper and Trick… they’re reliable. No one else. Almost makes you wonder… if anyone else is even worth trucking with… mh.”

Anonymous asked: Without Blue, you'll have no one to possess: Dapper might snap and Trick can't handle it. Killing Dok would be the worst possible thing you could do if you still want Trick on your side. And like it or not, Red is your watchdog and the others protector. If you kill any of them, the others will turn.

Anti glances at you, his stance softening a little. He shrugs.

“I guess you’re right,” he says. “Just lately feels like more trouble than they’re worth. I think Jack made five to make sure it was too much for me. Maybe it’s just time I started admitting that. Trick and Dap would be cute twins. I could make Trick forget, and I think Dapper would only be sad for a while, cause it’s not like it changes much for him.”

He pauses, digging his heel into the ash of the forest floor.

“No… you’re right, though. I think. Yeah, I can still use them. They all take care of each other - yucky, but necessary.”

Anonymous asked: Anti what will you do if Dapper breaks? And I don't mean just emotionally or mentally because obviously you only see that as minor maintenance. What happens if he can't use his time travel again? Will his loyalty still matter or is it just his power that you use him for? Is he only worth as much as his usefulness to you?

Anti plays with the bark of a tree, picking at it until new growth sprouts from the side of the trunk. He peels it off again and grumbles to himself for a moment.

“I’d still want him around,” says Anti. “I guess. I mean, he’s - like… he’s the only one who… I don’t know. He’s comforting. Fine. But I don’t know if that’s because of the power or because he’s always been mine. I’ve hated not having him with me these last few days. It’s like the whole world is wrong. And when he was in Columbia, I felt like I was going to implode. Like I was going to die. And I was sick at the time, with Blue’s power eating me up. I wondered if maybe I would die before I could ever find him, and not even know if he was okay.”

He plucks apart a leaf from the offshoot he created, tearing it into pieces, which drift towards the forest floor.

“I wasn’t sure if he’d grieve,” he adds. “If he’d grieve if I died.”

Anonymous asked: They don't belong to you, Anti. You don't own them, they're adults that are fully capable of making their own decisions. They have the right to leave you whenever they want, because you abuse them and refuse to learn to control your temper. You're immature and treat them like toys, but they are autonomous human beings that deserve to make their own decisions. Why don't you test it, if you think they love you so much. Just let them go and see if they crawl back like you say they wil. I doubt it.

Anti grits his teeth. The truth is that Red was willing to leave him the moment someone else showed him that he could have a life outside of Anti, and the thought devours him. Blue was only ever here for his siblings.

“Look, I don’t pretend to not be a monster,” he snarls. “Fine, some of them don’t love me. No matter how much I use the hypnosis… it’s not real. But guess what? I don’t care. They still have to belong to me. They’re not getting away from me. Not with air in their lungs.”

Anonymous asked: Dok isn't a psychiatrist, Anti. It's two completely different fields of medicine. JJ needs to see specifically a psychiatrist. Hell, I don't care if you go to the appointment with him, but you need to let him see someone to get his medicine adjusted. Think about it this way, how much use is he to you if you're constantly having to mess with his brain and ward back his psychosis, when you can easily get the same effect with just a few trips to a psychiatrist and a less stressful environment?

“Dok’s supposed to be Jack’s genius. If he can’t handle Dapper’s issues, nobody can. Dapper has always done fine, with only a couple exceptions. Actually, I think the paranoia sometimes makes him sharper, more alert, and the hallucinations keep him scared and confused. He won’t leave me when I make him feel both sane and terrified, when he thinks he’s too much for anyone else to handle. As long as he doesn’t snap completely, his illness is a benefit to me.”

Anonymous asked: Anti, I think you're so insistent that they would never be happy with freedom because you can't stand the thought, the truth, that every single one of them would be better off without you.

“How about you all stop trying to piss me off before I decide maybe you aren’t all worth dealing with either?” snaps Anti, pointing at you in accusation. “Fuckers. All you do is plot against me lately. It’s barely even fun. Maybe I’ll torture the lot of them just to see you whining and begging again.”

Red squeezes Dapper’s hand one more time before sneaking around the back of the house, where a glass-paned door looks into the kitchen.

He could try and get in here. He could try and get the bars off Dapper’s window somehow. Or he could ask for help.

It’s as he’s thinking that he notices movement -a figure entering through the front door, their gait thudding and their shoulders set like a statue’s. Red catches a gleam of light through their glasses. Gigi moves like a bear, his every footstep heavy and determined. Ro narrows his eyes.

“Well, then,” he mumbles, tucking you deeper into his pocket. “Do I tangle with that or try something else?”

Anonymous asked: I would try something else instead of trying to tango with Gigi. He's a robot, so he wouldn't go down like a regular human, and the commotion caused by that fight would draw too much attention.

“Oh, boy,” says Ro, drawing back from the door. “A robot, okay. Well…”

He could maybe climb the house. He sees an open window. If he listens, he can even hear a deep, sonorous voice speaking from inside it, as though narrating.

“Mh,” he says. “Could maybe get up there. I can see places to put my feet already. Or maybe… Dok’s necklace? For Dapper?”

Anonymous asked: The voice from the window is a blind man who sees All. Probably not a good idea to try sneaking by him. And... as for the necklaces, if you use it for Dapper, then you won't have it for Anti. Make sure you've exhausted all other options before that, Jackie.

“Okay,” murmurs Jackie. “Well, I think we’re looking at either man-who-sees-all or robo boy. If I have to fuck with one of them, who do I go for?”

Anonymous asked: Dapper's mental health got better when he had both mood stabilizer and other medicines to help with his other symptoms. You need him /healthy/, him being paranoid and hallucinating isn't good for him. You switch so fast between caring about him and tossing aside his issues. Anti, it would take a very simple set of changes in yourself & your personality for them to stop running and conspiring. You can change. You're not incapable of it. Start small, let him see a psychiatrist. Small things first.

“I’ll think about it, alright?” Anti says, turning his head away. “I got bigger fish to fry right now.”

Anonymous asked: Hey, Trick & Dok? Do you think it would ever be possible to get Anti to let Dapper see a psychiatrist and get medicated properly? I know you don't remember, but before Anti took you all away from your home, Dapper was getting better. He wasn't stuck being constantly psychotic and afraid, he was healing. He needs therapy and proper medications. I don't think Anti would ever give him that, he has too much fun abusing him, but... could you try?

“I’ll help convince him,” promises Trick right away, nodding. “If he needs that, then he should have it. You can get his medication fixed, right, Dok?”

“No,” says Dok, exasperated. “I’ve never really known what the hell to do with him.”

“Oh. Well - ”

Something snaps in the forest. Trick is on his feet, gun pointed.

Silence. A flicker of movement. Dok and Trick are taut as the bow of a violin.

Anonymous asked: Shep? Is that you?

You can see Shep on the other side of the trees, frozen as stiff as the twins. His gaze flickers nervously over to you and then back to the twins, his fists clutched. He doesn’t even have his knuckles with him. He didn’t actually think someone would be here. No one’s ever come to their house before. He pulls out his phone, backing away from the trees.

“Who’s there?” shouts a voice. He stills, staring at Trick through the trees.

Red should sneak into Host’s room.

Dec. 12 2020

3 notes

Red should go in through the backdoor with Gigi.

Dec. 12 2020

1 note

Red should try something else.

Dec. 12 2020

2 notes

Anonymous asked: Trick don't shoot. It's someone who lives in Dark's house, but he's unarmed. Just be careful and try to come up with an explanation for why you're there?

Trick lets his gun falter, glancing over at Dok.

“He already knows who you are, right?” signs Dok. “Will he try to kidnap you again? Kidnap us?”

Trick grits his teeth and steps closer to Dok, blocking him from Shep’s view.

“You leave us alone!” he shouts. “You come any closer and I’ll shoot!”

Shep backs away again, nervous. He opens Gigi’s name in his contacts.

Anonymous asked: I dont know if there's anything else you could try, Red. But if there is, def look at it. Otherwise, between Gigi and Host, I think at least Host could possibly be reasoned to/ spoken with? Gigi is a no-go. Hes 100% loyal to Dark, and an android, so he'd be HELLA hard to fight. And also he'd alert Dark. Host, im not quite sure exactly where his loyalties lay, but im sure he's hella powerful. So use your words before you try and fight him.

Ro presses himself against the side of the door and hoists his body up. This isn’t like the house where he and the others are staying, lined in decorative brick to give him footholds. Instead, windows make his only path up. While his hands find a grip on the tops of the windows, he suspends the rest of his body with his side against one jutting windowframe and his feet pressing against another, and slowly leaps and drags himself up the side of the house, his worn sneakers threatening more than once to make his foot slip and his body fall. The black and brown cats are watching him from the ground, blinking up at him as he goes.

But he won’t. Today, he’s Jackie, and he doesn’t think Jackie would fall, so neither will he.

“On another day,” comes that chasm-deep voice from the open window on the second floor, “he might have been fine. The Host is not always looking. Today, he is.”

Ro pauses, hiding against the side of Host’s window, one foot on the side of its sill.

“Is he going to turn back?” asks Host in a murmur. Craning his neck, Ro can see the man bent over braille paper and a recorder “Or will he still try to sneak past him? In a trance this deep, it’s possible Host won’t be able to do anything about it anyway. He does not like to interfere with other people’s stories.”

Anonymous asked: Shep, wait, please don't call anyone who would hurt them. Theyre only here because they're following orders.

“What do you want?” calls Shep, a faint shake in his voice.

“How about the little brother you stole?” spits back Trick. “No, stay back! Stay back there, I swear to God.”

“You need to get out of here before I call Gigi,” says Shep. “Or worse, Dark.”

“No, don’t,” protests Trick. “Please, we just want Dapper. Nobody has to get hurt. We’ve had enough, okay?”

Anonymous asked: Just let Jackieboy Man's story play out, please, Host-we-love-the-most. He deserves to be the hero again after all he's been through.

Directly addressed, Host comes out of his narration a little, brushing scattered hairs out of his face. He runs his fingers over his papers, jerking back a little.

“Fuck, what a mess,” he mumbles. “Too many players in this game. How long have I been writing?”

Ro’s foot slips for a second and he catches himself quickly, thudding against the side of the house. He winces hard, closing his eyes in panic.

Host chuckles inside the house.

“Come in, then,” he says. “I’m not meant to interfere, you know…”

“Who are you?” cries Ro, heart pounding.

“Ignore me,” answers Host. “I’m just the storyteller. You are the action-taker.”

Ro rolls his eyes, biting down hard on his lip. “You’re really not going to snitch if I come in your room right now?”

“No.”

Ro pauses. Scratches at his beard. Glances at the trees, where a pair of squirrels are judging him from a few feet away.

He slips into Host’s room.

Anonymous asked: Trick, should you just take Dok back to the house? Shep can and will call help if you don't leave. I don't want you guys to have to get in unnecessary fights. I'm pretty sure Jackie and Anti can handle it from here, yeah?

“If we go back we’ll be in so much trouble,” breathes Trick, frightened just at the thought of it. “He told me to guard the way, so I can’t let anyone in or out.”

“Why do you have to do what he tells you?” asks Shep.

“Why do you have to do what they tell you?” answers Dok bitterly, standing up beside his brother. “At least Trick doesn’t notice when he’s being used as a pawn. You know you’re that monster’s little soldier and you still do horrible things just because they tell you to. Pathetic. You stole our sick, speechless little brother just because Dark and Anti decided our lives were board game pieces to be played with. You just let yourself be used, no mind control needed.”

“Hey!” snaps Shep. “You better watch your tongue, little man! I make my own goddamn choices. Your brother is the one who would have killed Gigi if he were human just because Dark wouldn’t kiss him.”

“Dark and Anti are not creatures to be trucked with,” says Dok quietly. “But we have yet to find a way to escape our monster. Turn back. We’re smaller than you, but we are far from helpless with or without a firearm.”

“Look,” answers Shep, biting down harsher words. “Nobody wants a big fight here, right? Seems like Dark and, uh. Anti? Seems like they had a misunderstanding themselves. Maybe we can work this out.”

Dok and Trick exchange glances.

Anonymous asked: Trick, if Shep were to promise to not snitch on you being out here to Dark, then would you let him through? And Shep, would you uphold that promise? Both of you have lost things, you're even in bad deeds. Gigi was destroyed and Dark's back was injured, and Dapper was stolen. No one else needs to get hurt if you try compromising with each other, right?

“I won’t tell Dark for now,” says Shep evenly, hands raised in surrender. “But I don’t think you understand. Dark is an essence and those houses belong to them. They’re always creeping around. If your other brothers are in there, the chances that Dark hasn’t spotted them yet - slim to none.”

Trick and Dok frown at each other, worried. Dok shuffles a foot closer to him.

“I’ll let you through the mirror,” says Trick. “If you let us come with you. I have a bad feeling about what comes next… I think maybe it’s better if we can try to work together. You’re right. No one else needs to get hurt today.”

Anonymous asked: Hey Henrik, answer when the time is appropriate, but advice about Dapper from a training pharmacist, I would try prescribing him Depakote or a common antidepressant to work alongside his Haldol if Anti will let you! I know it must be very hard to have to be a psychiatrist when it wasn't your field of study :(

“Oh, thank you, yes,” answers Dok, his shoulders loosening a little. “Yes, well. He wasn’t on anything when I first… remember. And he didn’t do very well. He would smoke to ease his paranoia, but then he would be paranoid about getting cancer every time he’d cough, so it did him little good. He’d stopped trying to fight his own delusions. Anti was most of his treatment plan, but he acts so dreamy and lost when he’s in his head. Honestly I just kept trying medications til they worked, which probably wasn’t very good for him either. But at least I was allowed to see him and Trick then, coming upstairs to check on him everyday. We were in Sweden at the time, I think. Or Denmark? Before Norway. I was not even sure if we were brothers. He doesn’t speak so much when he’s really ill. He was just my little patient in the attic. He was the one who called me Doktor first.”

He rubs his hands together, glancing up. Shep and Trick talk quietly by the mirror, faces tense and hands always waiting for the other to throw the first blow. Dok sighs, though a faint laugh falls from his mouth with it.

“Oh. I would like to see all of them well for once in my life.”

Red steps uncertainly towards the Host.

“Shy?” asks the deep voice, and it seems to echo through his head. It reminds him too much of Anti and Dark. He slinks back against the wall, cowed despite himself.

“Hmm,” hums Host. “You’re not who I thought you were.”

“Who did you think I was?” asks Red quietly.

“I write a lot of stories,” says Host, brushing his fingers across pages and pages of snow-white braille. “I see a lot of stories. It takes only a side glance. A moment of contact. Stories for everyone I meet. Stories for the people who meet the people I meet. Not all true. Not all real. But possible… possible. Alternatives to the reality we survive in now. I saw, once, a story from a young man Mark shares business with. I thought, for a moment, that you were the protector in that story. The strong man… the hero. Not the protagonist, true. But almost as important. The courage to his tired hands. Defender.”

Ro plays with his hands, his eyes flickering around for a way to slip past Host without coming close to him.

“But you are alternate too,” says Host. “You’re not Jackie. Not quite.”

It makes his blood hot, but only for a moment. For the most part, he feels shame. His head drops. He turns away from an unseeing gaze.

“Guess not,” he answers. “But I still have to try to be… that.”

“Jackie?”

“Yes. Jackie.”

“Well, stop,” answers Host dryly, turning away. “Stupid boy.”

“Hey! What is your problem?”

“Stop living in a story you don’t even fucking remember,” spits Host, already striking his typewriter hard enough to fill the room with click-clacking once again. “Pathetic. You’re wasting a perfectly good character arc on trying to be someone you’re not. You have your own part to play. Jackie couldn’t save his family, Ro. Not for lack of trying, but he did fail, in the end, and that’s why he’s dead and you’re not. If you want to give him life again, it’s time to stop wallowing in your doubt and your fear and your shame in yourself and start being Ro like a real hero would. You better start acting like a hero – today, Roser. Too long the five of you have been stuck in the same painful narrative. Take up arms. Stop trying to remember and be.”

Host turns to him again, and Ro has never seen so much expression in a blindfolded face.

“Or lose more than even Jackie did.”

A cat slips in through the door, mewling, and comes weaving her way through Host’s legs, pinning Ro with a yellow gaze. He steps back nervously, staring at the cracked door. His throat bobs in a swallow. He grips his fists, straightening up at Host.

“What if he’s not enough?” he asks quietly.

“Who?” says Host.

“Me,” he answers.

“Of course he’s not enough,” spits Host, shaking his head. “How dull would it be for a character to be enough all on his own.”

Ro opens his mouth to reply, but Host beats it to him.

“Google!” he calls, turning towards the door.

“Fucking snitch!” cries Ro, terrified.

“There’s a closet across the hall. Run inside. You can sneak past him when he comes in to check on me. This is the only help I will give you. Go.”

He’s too frantic to argue. In a flash, he’s leaping out of the door of Host’s room and shoving himself into a closet full of cleaning supplies on the other side of the hall.

“Host?”

Those thudding footsteps move up the stairs. A fist pounds a knock against Host’s door. “Are you stuck in a vision? If you haven’t left your room since I checked on you this morning, you’ve been static for four hours and twenty-three minutes, including our usual breakfast hours and…”

Ro darts out of the closet on near-silent feet, racing down the stairs with his heart pounding. He throws himself against the wall for a second, thinking someone’s coming in the front door, but it’s just the second cat he saw, a big black cat like a shadow against the wall, letting out a hiss at the sight of him. He races down the second set of stairs and through the little hallway that frames Dapper’s door.

“Dapper!” he calls. “It’s me, I’m here.”

Faint whistling from the other side of the door. Red shoves his shoulder against it, tearing at the handle. It will not open.

“Fuck this,” he mumbles, and a moment later he finds himself ducking into a bathroom nearby, tearing the lid off the toilet tank, and slamming the porcelain into the handle of the door until both shatter and give. The door slides open.

“Dapper…”

There’s his little brother, curled up all lonely on the bed. In the light, Ro can see him clearly at last, and the relief of finding him comes charged with a painful nausea for how ill he looks. It’s worse than a hollowness, because Jamie has always been skinny. It’s worse than fatigue, because Dapper has always been tired. It’s worse than shadow, because his youngest brother has long felt alone. Now, he looks chewed up and spat out, cut open and removed from himself, faint and white and exhausted. He does not rise to hold Red. He can barely raise a hand to greet him.

“Bud, no,” says Ro, because his first thought, in that moment, is that Jameson is going to die.

He moves forward to scoop him up for a moment, pressing him to his chest. He can feel the heat on him before he’s even touched him. Sweat beads against Red’s fingers where he cards his hand through Dapper’s mussed brown hair, gone limp and tired, no longer curling at the fringe.

“Can you walk?” asks Ro, drawing back to hold his shoulders in his hands.

“Not sure,” answers Dapper, touching his wrist. “I feel really quite unwell, Red.”

“They haven’t taken care of you.”

“No, they tried,” protests Dapper. “They’ve given me medicine for my fever and things like that. Kept my wrist clean. I’m much better off than I was a few days ago.”

“Fuck… you could have died if that’s true.”

“I think maybe I would have if I stayed with Anti,” says Dapper, lying his head down on his brother’s shoulder and letting his eyes slip shut.

Red hugs him, grateful for the thudding of his heartbeat. As much as he knows they need to go, he needs even more to feel his chest moving with air, if only for a moment.

“You really are just not having a fun life, are you, Dippin’ Dots?” he says, the weight of it sitting on his chest.

“There are parts of it that are nice,” replies his brother, his hand resting on Ro’s shoulder.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” says Ro. “Like I promised.”

“Okay, Reddy. I’m really quite tired.”

“Okay. Okay. Here we go.”

He raises him into his arms, pressing him close against his body. He’s always tried to stay strong no matter how little he had to eat – not always successfully or healthily – but as the months have gone on he’s been finding his old strength. After wasting away in Norway, he built up corded muscle in Peru with long, difficult hikes up the mountain every day, bringing water and medicine and Christmas presents to his family, and in the past few weeks, with both Max and Anti, he has had good food and plenty of time for the exercise his body has craved. Host was right: now is the time to be strong.

He’s stepping out of the clinic room when he sees the big black cat again, darting away from him now, its fluffy back turned to him.

“Hey,” he laughs. “Did you follow me down here?”

And then, at the top of the stairs – black shoes and dress pants. The thud of a cane against the wood of the floor.

Ro back away, mouth taut, and he watches as that black cat, so dark that the light does not shine gold on its fur, dissolves away into the crowd of shadows that swarm like a cloak around Dark’s dead, rotting body.

“Spy cat,” Ro says. “Pretty sure that’s cheating.”

“I could see you the moment you stepped foot into my territory,” answers Dark, in a voice like a wind through cold water. “Your soul is so frantic it burns just to look at it. Even the ocean of silver power from the little one does not wash your color away.”

“Oh, what color?” asks Ro, curious.

“Not red,” comes the dry reply.

Dark takes a step down the stairs. Their body seems to jolt for a second, and then they must sit down, pain tightening their features.

“Heard my other little brother fucked you up pretty good,” says Ro, taking another step back towards the clinic. “Still not fully recovered, huh? I think I’d be a douchebag if I made fun of you for having a broken spine, but I’d like to offer a generalized ‘fuck you’ if that’s alright. You can’t even get down these stairs to get me, can you?”

Dark vanishes back into smoke and bursts into being at the bottom of the stairs, bone shifting in their broken face. Red yelps and puts Dapper on his feet, turning to wrap his body around him.

“Your little monster will pay for his over-powered tantrum,” says Dark.

“You stay the hell away from us!”

“I’ve never seen anyone as simultaneously intriguing and annoying as he is. But no matter. Soon, I’ll snuff his bright lights out and tear up both the natural and the stolen powers inside his chest, and then he will stop haunting me.”

“You take one more step towards me and I’ll call for him!” shouts Red, extending his fighting staff and whirling on Dark. “And this time he’ll fuck up more than just your back!”

“Call for him, then,” sneer a dozen echoing voices at once, and as Dark’s power begins to fill Red with terror and revulsion and confusion and grief, he puts his hands over his ears, opens his mouth, and screams for Anti.

And in the woods, Anti hears.

Anonymous asked: Anti, don't be brash and let your temper control you. Fight with the wit even Jack knew you had.

Wit – wit, yes, well, this at least keeps his gait steady as he moves Blue’s body through the trees, eyes fixed on the house where he can see his oldest gripping his camera. What you say is true, as he was always Jack’s little killer, clever and powerful, manipulative and built with an instinct for fighting more commonly found in a marten who plans to make a porcupine twice its size into dinner. He was patient, in the beginning, and sensational when the time came for him to cut that porcupine open, and it was his wit, yes, that lead him to capture all five of the brothers Jack created, one after the other, remorselessly.

And yes, even Jack knew he had it.

He remembers the sound of his voice the first time he made his eyes bleed. He wiped the sleeve of a black hood across his stained cheek and met his own gaze in the mirror, and he saw Anti more clearly than he ever had before.

“This one’s wild. Already smart enough to try and get through to the audience. Like it knows…”

His fingers touched his reflection in the glass.

“Hey. I see you. I’m here.”

His fond mouth smiled.

“Don’t be scared.”

Anti remembers.

Does Dark not?

Does Jack not?

It hurts to bear the thought of it, the thought that they really and truly forgot him. He hates it. He hates that you mentioned it. That Dapper keeps saying it. That he doesn’t know what’s happening anymore and he feels alone.

That he sometimes wishes he were still just a notion curled, warm, in the back of Jack’s head, listening to him chatter and breathe.

No. No use for nostalgia now. What he wants are the people he can still have – his Trick, his Dapper, his brothers.

He’s done a lot of bad things to them. Cruel, unbearable things, without reason. But if you give him credit for one thing, let it be this –

Oh, Anti taught his boys to be fang-toothed.

“Where’s my little soldiers at, so?” he sings to himself. “Dok, Trick.”

You see the twins perk up and look over as Anti sends his own message through the cameras now.

“Go find your big brother, Trickshot, and start fucking laying waste. And you, Deutsch – get my little Carver, now. And if anyone tries to put their hands on him – teach them why I use you for torture.”

Steel makes their fond mouths harden. They glance at Shep, and then away.

“If that is what it takes,” says Dok.

“Then consider it done,” Trick finishes.

And he touches his reflection in the clear glass of the mirror, and moves.

Anonymous asked: Alright so we're just going in guns blazing. Dok, Trick, you have any idea of where to go?

“Well, I am guessing it is this house which is all shadowy and dramatic,” says Dok, lifting his chin at the third house, where Dark’s power has cast everything in late-night lighting.

“Hey, you’ll regret it if you go rushing in there at Dark,” warns Shep, shoving himself forward. Trick steps up to him before he can reach Dok, raising his head in warning.

“I have left my little brother to rot too many times in his life,” shouts Dok, moving towards the house even as Wilford steps out of Dark’s house to see what’s going on, smoking languidly as darkness curls around his feet. “He asked me to fight for him! So I will.”

“If you’re coming, then come,” says Trick. “But don’t try and stop us getting Dapper.”

“Fine! Just try not to piss Dark off anymore, for all our sakes!”

Anonymous asked: Hey Silver, I think you should probably go with Trick and Doc. If things get crazy (and they probably will, lbr), it'd be good to have someone reasonable around. I know you can't go against Dark, but I also don't think you want to see anyone get hurt. This is admittedly a big step up from asking you to look for a lost cat, but can you do it for us?

Shep stares at the wash of shadow growing over the corners of his home. He runs after Dok and Trick, expression torn, and when Anti glitches into existence in the doorway of his house, you see him fall back in alarm, eyes wide.

“What’s going on?” he hears Gigi shout from somewhere inside. A sudden thrill of fear pours adrenaline into Shep’s blood, remembering all too clearly the way Anti shattered the android last time they met.

But Anti glitches away before Gigi can reach him. Google snarls, slamming his fist against the door and stepping out to look around. Trick and Dok have already hidden, tucked against the side of one of the other houses. They’ll sneak around the back and get in through the door there, hoping to find Dapper. Shep stares around in a mild panic - but eventually, you see him set his mouth and glance at you. He follows after Dok and Trick.

Host trails out onto the porch after Google, lighting a cigarette with a cold grin.

“This,” he says, “is going to be good.”

ari-trash asked: So you're just going to watch the chaos unfold, Host? You're just going to stand back and let it all happen? Well... at the very least I hope it'll be entertaining enough for you

“Been boring as shit lately,” mutters Host, smoke wafting from his mouth as he breathes out. “I been waiting for Dark to bring me home some fucking chaos. Whole reason I stick around. Nobody gets in to as much bullshit as this family. Google, do you remember when Bim hired an assassin to kill you?”

“Host!” shouts Gigi. “Who’s in the house!”

“I’m blind, Inspector Gadget, figure it out for yourself.”

“Dammit, Host!”

Anonymous asked: Ro, you're gonna be okay. Just keep with Dapper okay? Help is coming

“We’re okay, we’re okay, we’re okay,” chants Red like the words are stuck in his mouth, over and over again. He backs away, wrapped around Dapper, hiding his face in his chest. Dark steps towards them with the thud, thud of their cane, eyes white as spoiled milk. “Help is coming, help is coming, help is - ”

“Hey!” shouts Anti.

Dark stops.

Anti stands at the top of the stairs, haloed in his own venomous, glitching light in the midst of Dark’s shadow. Green and red and cold blue light. He is beautiful and hollow. He is a grave waiting to be filled.

“Stop,” he says quietly. “Back off.”

Ro sees Dark’s mouth curve like a planet.

“Hi, handsome,” they taunt softly, inclining their head, gaze still boring into Ro.

Anti does not taunt back. His shoulders are drawn back, his head low. Blue’s eyes are like the broken edges of a piece of shattered glass.

“Done playing,” says Anti. “Get away from them.”

“I just want to talk,” they answer, extending grey hands like a crucifixion.

“Liar,” says Anti.

Dark turns to him.

“What do you want?” asks Anti, revealing just a moment of weakness.

Dark meets his gaze like a predator circling.

“I don’t know anymore,” they tell him. “For you to stop bothering me?”

“Liar,” replies Anti, very quietly. “Liar.”

Dark grits their teeth.

“I would like you to stop being the ghost that follows me everywhere I go.”

Dapper shivers in Red’s grip, his legs giving out slightly. Dark and Anti glance at him as he crumples and Anti reaches for him for a moment, gaze breaking.

“Back off,” says Anti, stepping down the stairs. “That’s mine. Enough. Enough games. Done playing. Why don’t you come pick on someone a little less mortal, you fucking slug?”

Dark extinguishes all light in the room. Red shouts, scooping Dapper right off the ground. In the shadow, only Anti is visible, Blue’s face lit with his myriad of spasming colors.

“Fine then,” comes Dark’s voice, and you hear their echo give a hissing laugh. “As you wish.”

“Red,” says Anti. “Get him out of here.”

And then he is under attack.

Anonymous asked: Trick, Dok, how bad is it looking out there? I think you guys have a chance but you'll have to hurry, maybe ask Shep which house had Dapper. He's still following behind, yeah?

Shep sighs, reaching out to take Trick’s sleeve, pulling him towards his home. “Come on,” he says, hissing to keep his voice low. “We’ll go round through the back door and get your brother. You can take him while Dark and Anti keep each other busy.”

“Into the darkness?” asks Dok.

“Dude, it’s pitch in there,” agrees Trick, eyes wide. “We won’t be able to see.”

“Can’t you call for each other?”

Dok and Trick cross their arms over their chest, glaring.

“Oh, that’s right… uh, well, he can whistle or something, right?”

“We don’t have much other choice,” sighs Dok, letting his arms fall. “He’s probably scared in there. Maybe even having an episode. He could snap.”

“I bet Red’s found him and they’re keeping each other safe. But we need to get them both out - Dark has a pretty strong effect on the both of them.”

Dok bites down on his lip, reaching tentatively for the handle of the back door to Shep’s house, behind which, nothing but darkness awaits. He hears a slam and the telltale buzz of Anti’s power, so loud it almost feels like it’s making his whole head vibrate. Dark shouts and Anti snarls back at him, indecipherable from the other side of the house.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

You plunge into shadow together.

Anonymous asked: Duck and run Red, get yourself and Dap out of there

“Come on, bud, let’s go.”

In the darkness, Dapper is almost completely unable to communicate with him. He feels him trying to sign, but they don’t have time to stumble through it, much as he hates to ignore him. He throws Dapper’s arm over his shoulder and moves towards the back door. Black as it is, Ro does not stumble for a moment. He saw the hallway once and that’s all he needs, same way he can take one look at a building before leaping up the side of it like a pine marten or a slightly over-sized squirrel.

There’s only a second where he pauses.

Dapper’s fever-heat warms his shoulder. He can hear his little brother panting in the darkness. Behind them, Anti shouts and snarls, locked in battle, and Red - oh, he can’t place it, much as he wants to, but a part of him knows he’s been here before. Not here, in this house, but… here.

“We were… trying to get away?” he hears himself mutter. “And you were sick… I needed to get you… home. To England.”

Dapper turns his head towards him in the shadows, mouth parted.

“But I couldn’t get away from Anti. Jackie couldn’t get you away from Anti. And then… Red stopped trying.”

And in the darkness, in the pitch black, Ro feels his little brother move his hands against his chest.

“He did not stop trying,” JJ tells him. “He just… needed to forget for a little while. Because he was in pain. He never stopped trying.”

Ro feels something sharp and tight in his chest.

“Here now,” signs Jameson, touching his heart. “You. Here now. Don’t be sorry. No more being sorry.”

No more being sorry.

“Come on,” murmurs Red, pulling him through the darkness again. “I gotta get you out of here.”

No more being sorry. It’s a waste of time. He needed to forget for a little while, but not anymore. Time to be what they need him to be. Doesn’t matter if that’s Jackie or Ro or Red or a little bit of all of them.

He won’t fail again.

Anonymous asked: Red, take Dapper towards the back door, if you remember where it is. Trick and Dok are trying to find you. Escape while Dark is distracted.

Red crashes into Shep headfirst and you hear them both yelp, drawing back from each other, but then Trick is hissing Ro’s name and reaching out blindly for his brother. Ro recoils when his fingers find his face and Trick knows it’s him, letting out a weak laugh. Ro grins at the sound of it, relaxing, and moves towards him.

“I’ve never been so glad to see you,” whispers Trick. Ro grabs his wrist with a grateful squeeze and feels how good it is to be on Trick’s side like they were always meant to be.

“We gotta go,” he says. “Come on, back towards the door.”

“Dark and Anti are going to hurt each other,” protests Shep. “Are we just… not doing anything about that?”

“Let’s just get out of here first,” hisses Dok, pulling them all back towards the door, and moments later, they stumble out into the light with sighs of relief.

aether-mae asked: Maybe you boys should stay out of anti and darks squabble. Let them brawl it out in the dark like the heartbroken lovesick monsters they are

“I think they’re right,” agrees Dok, already taking Dapper’s face in his hands to look him over. “Oh, my poor buddy.”

Dapper smiles wearily at him.

“Let’s get you home, yes?”

“We are far away from home,” signs Dapper, slumping against his shoulder. “But I would like to go back to bed.”

“I’m getting him out of here. Come, we should all go. Better to be far from this.”

Ro glances at Trick, and then at Shep, eyes narrowed. He can’t read Shep’s face at all - it’s never been a talent of his - but Dok and Trick must have let him come along for a reason.

“I just want everyone to be okay,” grumbles Shep, looking away from Red’s intense gaze. “Anti and Dark fighting like this - it’s stupid. And other people are going to get hurt if this keeps up.”

“Then we should run,” insists Ro. “Right?”

“You might be able to get your family clear, but I have friends in all of these houses,” says Shep quietly.

Ro nods, biting down on his lip. He pauses for a moment to meet Trick’s gaze, and if Shep’s expression is a mystery to him, Ro thinks he recognizes the determination in his brother’s face.

“We’ll stay to make sure Dark and Anti don’t hurt anyone,” he says. “They’re both out of control and we’ve let them play games with us for too long.”

“I’ll stay too,” agrees Trick. “Anti asked me to help Ro. But, Dok - here.”

Trick holds out the handgun. Dok blinks, shaking his head. “It’s yours. You might need it.”

Trick shakes his head back at him. “You have to protect Dap. If someone comes after you, he’s too sick to fight back. Take it and keep him safe.”

Dok takes the gun from him, mouth tight with worry. Trick touches his shoulder and then draws back from him, moving to Ro’s side.

“I need to get the twins before they get scared,” says Shep, glancing back at the second house, where a pair of matching faces are staring out at the growing shadow. “I’ll meet up with you back here and we can figure out what to do once they’re safe, okay?”

Red and Trick nod, stood side-by-side.

“Wait,” says Dok. “If I’m taking the gun, then - ”

He unhooks one of his necklaces and wraps it around Red’s neck. His brother startles, eyes wide.

“Dok, this is your - ”

“Break it and re-tie it if you need it,” says Dok quietly. “It will light up the darkness. It’s a weapon too. If you don’t need it, you can give it back to me. Just… take it, okay? I’ll feel better.”

“Why me?” asks Ro. “Use it to keep Dap safe. Or give it to Trick since I’m the stronger fighter.”

But Dok shakes his head.

“It was always for you,” he says. “Take it.”

The raven rests against Ro’s heart.

Anonymous asked: Keep your peepers people-d, lads.

“Bye,” says Trick quietly, meeting Dok’s gaze.

“I love you,” answers Dok.

“I love you too.”

And for a second, Trick just hates it - the memory it evokes in him, the memory of parting with Dok on the shores of a river in South America, the memory of losing him to the magicians and not knowing if he was dead or alive.

“Hey,” laughs Dok warmly, touching his cheek. “I’ll see you in an hour, yes?”

“Yes,” agrees Trick weakly. “Okay. I love you.”

“We already did that.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“I love you too.”

Dok and Dapper move back towards the shed, hand-in-hand, leaving Ro and Trick alone behind the house.

But only for a moment.

“How touching,” sneers a deep, dangerously steady voice. “That you really believe you can leave this place alive after daring to enter.”

Ro turns slowly, standing in front of Trick.

Gigi glares back at him, hands clenched into fists at his side. A terrible glow rises in his deep brown eyes.

“Is that what we were keeping our eyes open for?” asks Trick.

Red extends his fighting staff.

“That would be it, Trickster.”

Inside the house, Anti refuses to tolerate being blinded.

Fire lights up around him in a circle. He burns in the center of it, eyes glowing dangerously with the light of Blue’s flame.

“You can barely even fucking control that,” says Dark quietly. “It isn’t yours. What a fucking parasite you are.”

Anti leaps forward like a snake and strikes at Dark hard, only for his enemy to vanish into smoke. He makes no witty rejoinder and does not taunt Dark anymore. Dark tries to appear from the darkness to grab him, but Anti is lining the floor of the house in flame, illuminating the shadow. Dark flicks his hand and the fire douses. Anti shouts and redoubles his efforts: his fury overcomes Dark’s power and fire grows in the room once more.

“These floors were nice before you got here.”

“I’ll do the same thing to your rotting flesh!” shouts Anti, lashing out again.

Dark blocks his blade with the stern line of a wooden cane, letting Anti score a gash into the side of it and kicking at Anti’s legs, but Anti is swift and vicious and he leaps back with a snarl on his mouth. The speed with which they fight is alarming, so fast that at some points you can’t tell whose strike is slashing forward. Dark vanishes and reappears constantly, and Anti, though solid in Blue’s form, is so coated in glitching and so quick-paced he almost looks to be transporting himself. Dark is stronger, but their back hurts them, and any blow to their spine or chest could down them. Anti is the more savage of the two, but he is bound to Blue’s skin right now, choosing the comfort of incarnation over the freedom of his natural form.

“You look like a demon coated in fire like that,” hisses Dark, circling him for a moment.

Yes, Anti looks like a demon today.

“But you smell like a fairy. And you fight like a human.”

“I’m worse than all three,” whispers back Anti.

“What, then?”

“Nothing,” says Anti. “But that was always what intrigued you, wasn’t it?”

“Stop acting like you’re something irresistible,” snarls Dark.

“You used to tell me I was,” answers Anti, and for a second, you hear something like melancholy through the anger in his voice. A moment later, it’s gone. He lunges forward again and Dark blocks his knife with the cane before striking him hard in the face, sending blood pouring from Blue’s nose. Flowers burst up between the floorboards where the red blood falls.

“Control your fucking power before you tear the house down!” shouts Dark.

“No,” says Anti. “If you want me to stop, kill me.”

“Little monster, it will be my pleasure.”

But it is now that Dark hears Gigi shouting outside, and not just at Trick and Ro. A glance to the window shows them flame growing around the house as well as inside. The fire begins to lick at the trees. Gigi and Trick are hollering at each other, both blaming the other’s master for the damage.

“I’ll burn this whole fucking forest down,” howls Anti. “You think you can act like you forget me?”

Dark vanishes and reappears behind him, shoving him towards the door, and as Anti staggers they gift him a second blow to the face, sending him crashing to the floor. Dark reaches down and puts their hands around Anti’s waist, gripping him too tight as they haul him bodily out the door and over the porch, sending him crashing down onto the stairs that lead up to the porch. Anti lets out a short gasp, touching the back of Blue’s skull, where blood buds up to stain his fingers like ink. He blows out a breath and leaps back to his feet, trying to buy himself time by duplicating – creating false doubles of himself that look real, until Dark is surrounded by a circling trio of Marvins with hatred burning like stars in their eyes.

But Dark doesn’t press their advantage. Their face is flickering again, revealing short glimpses of that same emotion that Anti couldn’t accept when they were in the woods together: confusion, raw and genuine. Their hands are still held out in front of them, remembering Anti’s waist between their palms.

“Get out of my head,” they warn.

“You get out of my heart!” shrieks Anti.

“I’m not manipulating you,” growls Dark, raising their hands slightly – perhaps the beginning of a gesture asking for a pause.

“Well, neither am I. I got enough going on possessing this body for me to be messing around in anybody else’s head,” answers Anti bitingly, setting his three pairs of identical feet.

“Come on,” sighs Dark. “Do you really expect a soul-sight like me to be tricked by your glitches?”

“Which one’s me then?” shouts Anti, stepping forward, all three pairs of himself moving close, into Dark’s space. “And you know I’m not lying if you’ve still got any sight at all! You know that and you’re still – fucking – acting like this!”

A tree behind the house bursts into flame and you hear shouts and the scattering of squirrels.

But Dark doesn’t flinch.

Anti pants in front of them. After a second, his right hand, duplicated three times, reaches out and grabs Dark’s shirt – the shoulder, the back, and the lapel of their fine black suit.

Dark sets their hands on Anti’s waist.

Squeezes.

Hard.

Feels his solidity beneath their fingers.

Anti closes his eyes, a flicker of pain in his face, but, if only for a moment, you see some of the panic drain away from his white face. The double and triple flicker out of existence.

Anti breathes.

He looks up at Dark and he pulls in air, Blue’s heart racing. Ash in his mouth and hands on his waist.

“Asshole,” he chokes, striking Dark’s chest with a faltering fist. “You liar. You do remember me.”

Dark’s gaze breaks, eyes sliding closed. They squeeze his waist again. Loosen. Squeeze. Loosen. Breathe.

“I think… I do.”

“Why’d you pretend?” cries Anti. “Is it true what you said – my soul doesn’t look the same anymore? Can you see Blue’s power instead of mine?”

“I didn’t remember you,” mumbles Dark. “I still… it’s like if I had been a character in a play, and so were you, and then suddenly here you are, telling me to remember the lines we read. But the part of you I remember – you don’t look like yourself at all. You’re not the character. You’re someone else. Someone I know even less.”

Anti grips their wrist, shaking his head. “Don’t say that.”

“You can’t admit it to yourself,” Dark murmurs, withdrawing slightly. Around them, the heat and smoke is only rising. “That I don’t remember all of it. I can see the fear it puts in you.”

“What am I supposed to believe? Who could have done something like this? Not my Dapper. That’s a lie. Not him. The others have already – have already done what they’ve done. But not him and not Trick. Those are mine. You – you were mine, Dark, fuck you!”

He shoves Dark back and grabs their jacket, pulling them close.

“Tell me you remember me! And you were pretending! And you know me and now you’ll start acting like yourself again! Tell me that, now!”

But Dark is pulling away from him, shaking their head.

“Dark! Tell me that and mean it, goddammit!”

“You are a piece of something now far away from me,” says Dark. “But right now, all you are is a threat, and I will play games no longer.”

“Pangur Dubh!” screams Anti, voice breaking. “It’s me!”

“Wilford,” says Dark.

Anti hears the cock of a gun.

He throws Blue’s body back, falling back onto the porch again just in time for the bullet to miss him. Dark vanishes back into shadow and Anti turns his eyes to Wilford, who isn’t even reloading – just looking at him with a sort of strange pity in his eyes.

Anti –

Oh, fuck.

Shit, he –

He’s had enough.

He’s had enough. He’s had it. Humiliation washes over him so hot and loud it almost makes him dizzy, and Blue’s fragile little body aches against his trapped form even as it protects him from the side effects of stealing Marvin’s power, and he’s tired, and he’s scared, and he wants to go home.

But only for a moment.

Because, for a long, long, long time, he has learned one very dangerous skill:

Turn all of that into rage, and let it swallow you whole.

“Anti, you’re going to burn the whole fucking forest down! Dapper can’t reverse right now!”

“There are still people nearby! Dapper and Dok and others who haven’t hurt us!”

“Make him stop, please, please! Dark, do something, Wil, shoot him, make him stop!”

“Dark, you have to stop this. Where did you go?”

Trick and Red and Shep and Gigi’s voices are lost in the pounding of the blood in Anti’s head. Even Host is retreating now, stepping away from the porch and out onto the grass as the fire spreads, the amusement disappearing from his mouth. Anti chokes on his anger, eyes watering with the force of it, and blood gushes from his throat so fast he’s faint. At this point, he doesn’t think he could control the fire if he wanted to. He remembers Blue’s burst of power at the top of the mountain, sending plant life exploding through the rocks and sand.

Now I’m the one who’s out of control, he realizes faintly.

And a voice in his head answers, pleads, begs:

Anti. Give it back to me and I will make it stop.

Marvin, he answers. I wasn’t lying. I don’t know how.

All six of us and all of these people here are going to DIE, Anti.

Anti feels heat on his face. Ash on his white hands. Smoke in the air. Smoke like flame in the air. And he breathes. He breathes.

So be it.

#chapter four

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writethehousedown · 4 years

Text

Lesson In Love (Gigi x Jackie) - Mina

A/N: So excited to participate in one of these challenges again, you treated me so well last time so I’m so excited to release this! Ty so so much to @dollalpaca for being an angel and betaing

Summary: Gigi may or may not be failing her music studies class. She also may or may not have caught feelings for the pretty Persian woman that offered to tutor her. Maybe. She’ll never tell.

“Janet,” Gigi groaned, narrowly avoiding falling off the couch as she rolled over and wrapped her blanket tighter around herself. It was leopard-printed, a gift from Jan to themselves from when they moved into the apartment. “Do you think ‘Intro to Floral Arrangement’ sounds like an easy class? Or do you know anyone who’s taken it?”

“Isn’t it an evening class? I feel like we went over that one like… twenty minutes ago.” The blonde hummed from the floor, not bothering to look up. She was probably right, too. She had her own laptop in front of her, in the process of color-coding her online calendar. Blue for lectures, green for labs and purple for choir practices. Gigi had seen her do this enough times - every semester since they met on move-in day their first year - to be able to recognize the blocks in her schedule at a glance. Sometimes it motivated her knowing that Jan could be so on top of things while also being the most chaotic person Gigi knew, other times it made her want to die and be reborn into someone who could organise her sock draw by diameter.

“Yeah, you’re right.” She frowned, letting out a deep sigh and closing the tab. Goodbye, department of nature studies. So long, her potential florist career.

The thing was, Gigi knew she couldn’t really afford to be particularly picky with only five days before the registration period ended, but still. At least, she thought, she’d long been enrolled in all her textile-related classes for the semester. She was looking forward to most of them too, especially the design ones. Really, it was just that one additional stupid arts gen ed course she needed to get out of the way, and then she’d be free for good.

“How about ‘Art of Listening’?” Gigi asked a few minutes later, reading over the course information. She heard the sound of Jan typing on her keyboard come to a halt. “That kinda sounds like a class for people that want to become therapists or something. Or marriage counsellors?”

“Maybe people that are gonna need marriage counselling, sure,” Jan replied, her typing picking up again.

Gigi laughed, running a hand through her hair and looking back at her screen. “It doesn’t seem too bad, y’know. Just two papers and a final.” She hummed, scrolling through last year’s syllabus. “And it’s actually about music, I could totally do that.”

“Wait, who’s the prof for it?”

“Uh… something-Nguyen I think?“ Gigi paused as she scrolled back up. “Yeah, Andrew Nguyen, why?”

“Oh, that’s the one!” Jan nodded happily. “Rock took it last semester, I think. I remember her talking about it when we first met, she was always complaining about the prof who—”

“Great, you should have just lead with that.” Gigi rolled her eyes as she closed the tab. Rock was one of the more easy going people she’d ever met when it came to that stuff, so she couldn’t imagine what a prof that annoyed her would be like. Probably awful, or at least had a bad taste in anime. A soft but slightly damp piece of fabric hit her in the nose before falling down in front of her, disheartened. She scrunched up her nose in distaste when she realised what Jan just threw at her.

“Why are you throwing your dirty socks at me?” Gigi screeched, picking it up and throwing it back in the blonde’s general direction. “And why is it wet?”

“If you’d just let me finish!” She rolled her eyes pointedly, leaning to grab the sock again. It was a little too far for her to reach, and Gigi watched her stubbornly wiggle to the side until she could close her fingers around it. She smiled victoriously, huffing a little as she leaned back against the couch and made herself stand up straight. “As I was saying,” she started again, enunciating carefully.

“Before I rudely interrupted you.” Gigi grinned down, picking at her nails.

“Yes, before you did indeed do that,” Jan huffed, “Rock took it last semester. And she was always annoyed because the prof didn’t always let them use their laptops in class, but she also said that it was really easy. Most of the time they just had to listen to some music and write about how it made them feel, that sort of stuff.”

“That sounds pretty easy.”

“Right?” Jan nodded excitedly, “And I think she mentioned one of her friends is taking it this semester too. A senior, so she’s probably in the same boat as you.”

Gigi didn’t think that’d make much of a difference, but she didn’t bother telling Jan that. It wasn’t like the class had group projects anyway, so she could hopefully get by with just showing to most lectures and turning in the assignments.

“I really should have done this over the summer, you were right about that,” she exhaled, shutting her laptop and falling back into the couch. She could have gotten those mandatory art electives outside of her major done as a freshmen, or even last year, like most other students in her program did.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,“ Jan chuckled, moving closer until she could rest her head comfortably on Gigi’s shoulder, blonde hair falling all over her face. “You’ll do great, because you always do; you’re talented, but you also work hard. So you’re gonna ace all your actual photography classes, pass this one, and be done with all your dumb degree requirements. And then next year you can take all the textiles classes you want, I’ll take all the music production classes I want, we’ll go to each other’s senior showcases, and barely even remember all the time we wasted on the ugly classes we didn’t care about.”

When Jan put it that way, it sounded pretty easy. *** After three weeks of classes, Gigi felt like she could safely conclude that the class was… Not that bad. If she had to give the class a grade it’d be a solid C-, bordering on a straight-up C. It was mostly filled with freshmen from the arts faculty trying to get an easy A, a solid half of whom had already stopped showing up to lectures. And yes, it was weird being back in a two hundred-person room when most of her other classes were forty at most. She had to turn in weekly written assignments, which was also not fun, but writing five hundred words once a week wasn’t a time commitment she couldn’t handle. The problem, though, was that as far as she could tell from those three first weeks, that supposedly-easy class would also n’ot rate the level of effort Gigi had put in as anything more than a C either. Which was definitely not what she wanted out of it. Far from it.

The class did have one major saving grace, a light in the dark and a minor help in stopping Gigi from quitting the class on day one, in the form of a fellow student.

Gigi didn’t know her name, or her major, or anything tangible about her, which was a little unfortunate. She did, however, know that the girl had legs. Long and strong, with toned thighs that suggested at least some form of semi-regular exercise, and looked equally good in the kind of wide-legged, loose cotton pants Gigi herself favoured as they did in denim cutoffs. She had really nice hands too, which the brunette found out about when they accidentally reached for the same assignment sheet. They looked soft, strong and capable and careful. They’d be nice to hold, or to have holding her down tightly, or tangled in her hair while she sucked bruises into her equally-beautiful thighs.

So yeah, you could say Gigi was kind of enjoying the course, sure.

The girl usually sat at the front of the room, in the very first row from where you kind of had to strain your neck upwards to see what was on the board. Gigi knew, because that was also where she sat during the first two weeks, until she realised this wasn’t going to be the kind of lecture where she could talk all the way through the lesson without the professor caring, not if she wanted to do more than just pass, anyway. The girl usually brought her laptop to class too - covered in political stickers and pictures of cartoons Gigi didn’t know. One time the brunette walked past her, only to see a video of a crab walking up a pile of sand playing in the corner of her screen.

Gigi could remember that she made a point about the role of music in religious movements when prompted, and how that connected to society’s idea of liveliness within places of worship. Gigi didn’t really remember the details, mostly because some of it had just flown way over her head, but their professor had been very impressed. When he had said so, instead of the self-satisfied smile that the brunette had been expecting, the girl had looked down at her notes, one arm twitching like she was resisting the urge to scratch at the back of her neck in embarrassment.

Gigi thought she’d even blushed a little, and really, no one should have had the right to be both this attractive and adorable at the same time. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about the crab video, which was definitely weird, even by art faculty standards. But for her, she thought she might be willing to overlook it.

geege ok this girl at the front of listening class? so hot she’s like 90 percent leg and 40 percent sexy aunt energy

janjanjan sounds Hot

geege i’d let her walk all over me and say ty she’d just be like :] and tell me about the periodic table or smth

janjanjan okay maybe let’s stop there like keep the rest for when you’re alone at home

geege or in the shower

janjanjan thanks not like i use that shower too The thing was, Gigi wasn’t new to having crushes. At all. So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to herself that she ended up developing crushes on more than a few of the people she met. Most of them were great, a lot of them were cute, and a few left her heart beating that much faster as she found herself wishing for their conversations to never end.

What was new (or disconcerting, if she were to listen to the Jan voice in her head), was Gigi feeling that way about someone she’d never talked to. Gigi still didn’t know anything about her, other than what she looked like and the sound of her voice - but god did she want to know.

And it felt like it’d been years, so many years, since Gigi had felt too shy to just go up to someone she wanted to know better and introduce herself. She’d felt anxious before, maybe a little self-conscious, but not the kind of shyness that turned into complete inaction. She found herself looking forward to the class, though not the actual work. *** She, Gigi thought, was currently winning at life.

She was done with classes for the week, had no plans that required her to get out of her sweatpants for the next twenty four hours, and was currently sitting back on the couch surrounded by food and two of her favourite people.

So yeah, life was pretty fucking great right now.

She leaned back against one arm of the sofa, a forgotten ball of yarn and half knitted almost-scarf in one hand and the other casually playing with Jan’s hair. The blonde was laying down on the couch, the only one out of the three of them that could kind of do so without most of her legs hanging off one end. Her head was resting on Gigi’s lap while her feet were in Rock’s.

Friday evening was their unofficially -designated group hang out time, a tradition that developed the last few months without any of them being aware of it, but now it was something that she wouldn’t miss for the world. It usually just meant Thai food, bitching about their classes, and whatever booze one of the other two decided to pick up. When Rock made grabby hands at her, Gigi grabbed an unopened can of sparkling water she brought for today and passed it on.

“Thank you,” Rock chuckled as she cracked it open, leaning forward to catch some of the foam that came out before it had a chance to further stain the couch. “Y’know,” she started, as she watched Gigi reach over for the mostly-empty bag of popcorn on the table. “I could just ask Jackie to help you out with the class.”

The brunette’s fingers closed on thin air, the bag of popcorn she was aiming for remaining just out of reach. “Who’s Jackie?” she asked absently, shuffling forward gently and trying not to dislodge Jan’s head from her lap.

Jan flicked her on the thigh regardless. “Rock’s friend, the one I told you about when you signed up! And, y’know, the one that’s also taking the class right now.”

“Oh,” Gigi realised. She totally remembered that, right. Her fingers grazed the bag of popcorn again, but in her haste she just ended up pushing it a few inches further away, balancing precariously on one edge of the table. “That Jackie.”

“I think she tutored, like, half her contemporary fiction class last year. So you know she’s gotta be good at actually teaching things, and not just smart,” Jan continued, as though Gigi’s attention was mostly captured by the pursuit of academics. One more inch, she leaned in a little further, balancing her weight on one arm. She just needed to get one inch closer and the bag would be hers. She could already taste the powdery, buttery, amazingness on her tongue.

“And Rockie’s always talking about how her old professor still basically cries about not being able to convince her to stay in the department. I’m pretty sure she’d totally still take him on as a grad student if Jackie just asked, nevermind that she transferred out more than two years ago.”

“So what do you think?” The blonde finished, a little more loudly, like she realised Gigi had tuned her out a bit. And Gigi had, yes, but she could finally feel her fingers closing in on the bag, triumphantly reaching in and stuffing a handful of popcorn - fat free - into her mouth. “Do you want Rock to ask Jackie when she has some time to meet up with you? Or maybe just give her your number, if that’s easier?”

“What? No, don’t do that. I’m not doing that bad.” Gigi laughed slightly, rolling her eyes. “No, I’m all good.”

“It’s too late anyway,” Rock laughed, all faux-casual. “I already messaged her.” She shoved her phone in front of Gigi’s face, and yeah, right there, that was a message saying just that, complete with her own number at the end.

“Why would you do that?” She complained loudly, tapping at the screen furiously to try and make it delete. It wasn’t that she was against the idea of getting help with the class, but mostly she was reluctant to have it taking up more of her time than it already did. Especially when she didn’t even know the girl.

“You need help!” Rock said with a yelp, avoiding the kick Gigi aimed at her. “She can help! It’s a perfect solution, why are you trying to hit me!” The last one landed just under her armpit, drawing out a higher-pitched squeal. “Besides, Jan agreed with me that it’s a good idea,” she added, turning expectantly towards her. “Tell her how you were the first one to even suggest it.”

Next to them, Jan had indeed been suspiciously quiet. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Gigi asked, poking the older woman in the chest.

“Don’t you want to see what your soon-to-be tutor looks like, Geege?” Jan giggled, ignoring her question.

“Oh, you’re right, let me show you her insta,” Rock butted in, her thumbs moving on her phone screen for a moment before handing it to Gigi with an evil smile.

Jacqueline Coxx, the profile read, next to a very familiar, grinning face. The same very familiar, grinning face that Gigi had spent many a lesson fawning over. This had to be a mistake, there was no way. “You should really be better at Instagram-stalking people,” Jan laughed as Gigi felt her mind going blank. “I think it’s the only skill that’s going to save our generation from lifelong unemployment. Or underemployment, for that matter.”

The brunette didn’t give it a second thought before she pushed her off the couch and onto the floor, screams of unacceptable betrayal and terrified excitement echoing loud in the room.

*** geege hiiiii is this jackie cox? this is gigi, roxanne’s friend from the listening class she said she’d told you i would message you geege but in case she didn’t i wanted to ask you about some tutoring if you could tutor me i mean geege but if you can’t that’s all good !! don’t feel like you have to say yes just bc of rocks stupid puppy eyes oh and sorry about the triple-text ***

“I more than triple-texted her, but three separate times,” Gigi groaned, burying her face in between the couch cushions.

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Jan comforted, running a hand through her hair. Gigi would maybe feel a little bad about how much complaining she’d been doing over this, but everytime she thought of stopping, she reminded herself that Jan was at least forty-five percent to blame for this in the first place.

“It’s been more than two days. When’s the last time you went forty-eight hours without checking your phone? And be honest.”

Jan’s silence was enough of an answer. *** Jackie Hey Gigi! Rock did tell me about you, it’s all good Do you want to meet up after class on monday to figure out the details? Oh and sorry for such a late reply My phone was broken after i dropped it in a lake while i was hiking *** In an ideal world, Gigi would have planned things so she could get to class nice and early on the day she was supposed to properly meet Jackie. She’d have maybe put a little more thought than usual into her outfit, and made sure her hair looked good. Worn that red headband she knew did great things for her forehead and her eyebrows, maybe. Not that Gigi ever looked like a slob, but she definitely had clothes she liked more than others, and that she thought served her better for seduction purposes. Or even for just ‘making a decent first impression’, which she’d really settle for right now, as she ran up the final flight of stairs. Nothing said ‘I’m serious about needing help with this class’ like showing up late, especially for a course where attendance was actually recorded.

She spotted the door to the classroom still cracked open at the end of the hallway and slowed down a little, trying to catch her breath. She ran a hand through her hair, hoping that’d tame the mess a little and her cheeks wouldn’t be too red from the unexpected burst of athleticism. At the front of the room, their professor has already started talking, and Gigi quietly slipped into the first free seat she spotted, grateful to have avoided drawing everyone’s attention to herself.

It was only minutes before the class ended that Gigi thought to look around for Jackie, peering across the middle rows of students before she accepted that she wouldn’t dare sit anywhere but the very front row. She tried to lean forward to glance at the first row once or twice, eventually accepting that there was no way she could be subtle and standing the slightest bit up from her chair. The first row was mostly empty, as it usually tended to be. Gigi recognized a girl from the Image Composition class she took last semester, and thought about saying hi to her after class when she remembered she had a goal here. As she let her gaze move through the other students in the front, it eventually landed on Jackie, although Gigi had to do a double-take to make sure it was definitely her.

The thing was, she’d gotten to see - unknowingly, at the time - Jackie often enough since the semester started to get a sense of her style. And from Gigi’s weeks of casual observation, she tended to favour loose, comfortable clothes, and mostly neutral colours. She liked floral patterns too, especially on shirts, which the brunette could appreciate.

However, the first thing she noticed today was Jackie’s hair. And really, Gigi thought that if it wasn’t for the bright smile and the longest legs known to humankind, she wouldn’t have even recognized her.

The messy dark brown hair that Gigi had gotten used to, and maybe dreamt about running her hands through once or twice, was now four inches shorter and numbingly straight, effortlessly falling over her forehead and almost into her eyes when she looked down. Something about the flawlessness of her hair combined with the white hoodie she was wearing seemed to make her face glow, skin tanned and radiant with pearly teeth glinting through a bemused grin as she laughed at something her friend was saying.

Damn.

She was brought out of her daydreaming by the sound of students around her packing up their things, and Gigi realised that she most likely missed the professor dismissing their class. As she struggled with the zipper of her bag, the same one she’d been meaning to get fixed for the last three months but still hadn’t, she felt a hand hesitantly tap on her shoulder, warm against the thin material of her shirt.

“Hey, Georgia right?” A voice asked right behind her, and when Gigi turned around Jackie looked just as good as she did the first time she saw her at the beginning of the semester.

“Gigi. I’m— my name— Yep, hi, that’s me. What’s shaking?” The brunette chuckled awkwardly, “Thank you so much for agreeing to help me out, I really appreciate it! Or at least agreeing to consider it I mean, I know we really just said we’d talk about the details today, so you technically haven’t agreed to anything yet. And you don’t have to, obviously.”

Jackie didn’t seem thrown off by the sudden explosion of words and gratefulness, which Gigi took to be a good sign. If anything, her smile only grew less hesitant, the tiniest dimple appearing on her left cheek.

“We could, like, go to that library around the block? It’s a nice place to study, so.” Gigi nodded, following Jackie and making awkward small talk until they made it inside. She learned in those quick minutes that Jackie liked crabs, and geography, and obscure movie references no one else understood.

“It’s been a while since I was here to be honest.” Jackie grinned, swiping at her phone casually. “I missed it.”

"Right, Rock mentioned you’d transferred out of the faculty.”

The brunette hummed in agreement, looking a little surprised at Gigi’s knowing about this. “Yeah, I swapped my major and minor back halfway through my second year. Geo major with a minor in stage production now.” She made little jazz hand motions as she said it, and the brunette really wished she didn’t find it half as endearing as she did.

“Okay, so, tell me more about what you’ve been struggling with so far,” Jackie asked with a tilt of her head, and they got down to business. *** Maybe it was a little self-sabotaging (or self-serving, she could never quite decide), but part of what Gigi quickly found out she liked best about their bi-weekly tutoring sessions, was how much time she got to just stare at Jackie. She’d finish writing up the draft of her weekly listening assignment and pass it on for the older woman to read over, and get a solid five-to-ten minutes of ogling out of it.

Not that she was ogling her per se, that sounded bad. She was just… appreciating. Appreciating Jackie’s arms, and her neck, and her cheekbones, and her brain as she read through Gigi’s outline. Every now and then, Gigi would catch her frowning slightly, bringing her pen to the paper and tapping over the words as she read a section a few times over before making a quick note and moving on. It was kind of embarrassing how devastatingly cute Gigi found the whole thing, honestly. Like how the way she was resting her head on one hand, her fingers accidentally creating a gap that just perfectly framed the dimple on her left cheek.

“Hey, Geege,” Jackie suddenly smiled as she turned towards her. Fuck. Gigi really hoped her face wasn’t making what she was just doing incredibly obvious. “What did you have in mind for this part here?” She asked, shuffling her chair to bridge the space between the two of them.

“Which part?” Gigi shakily replied, leaning in a little. The paper she wrote her outline on was on the table, technically close enough for both of them to read, but just barely. Gigi told herself that was her excuse for moving in a few inches more, until their hands were almost meeting on the sheet of paper. Almost.

Jackie was making it hard for Gigi to focus, leaving her stumbling through the start of an explanation of the admittedly somewhat unclear point she’d made in her outline about the sudden change in rhythm. As she got into the meat of her point, she could feel herself getting more confidence, gesturing with her hands as the words started coming out more easily, and Jackie nodded in wordless understanding. It only took a few sessions to realize that if there was one thing Jackie was good at, it’s listening. It never felt like she was trying to put answers into Gigi’s mouth - letting her explain her perception of the music instead, and asking questions when needed. She made Gigi feel like even if writing about how she experienced music as an art form would never come all that naturally to her, not in the way sewing or even most visual arts did, it was something that was still within her reach. Something she could understand and relate to.

“So, are you saying it felt expected to you?” Jackie asked eventually, after Gigi paused. “Like it was building up to this in the previous parts? Or that it caught your attention specifically because it was sudden? Or out-of-place, maybe.”

The brunette took a moment to think, replaying the lead-up to that section in her head.

They weren’t even touching, but she could feel the heat radiating off the older woman’s skin. She could feel the warmth, could see it in Jackie’s gaze as she looked softly back at her, she could smell it even. And Gigi knows that didn’t actually make sense, that all she was probably smelling was laundry detergent and sweat and maybe coffee. Gigi didn’t even like the smell of coffee. But right now, sitting side-by-side in the library and alternating between emphatically talking and listening to each other, Gigi felt like all of those things.

It was only when they both moved on from that particular point, a few messy notes from Jackie hastily written to Gigi’s own words, that she realized just how close they’d gotten. She was well into Jackie’s personal space, their shoulders no longer content just brushing against each other occasionally but rather aligned against one another. No wonder she could smell the coffee.

She started to move back slowly, not wanting to draw attention to how close she’d gotten, but a sharp sting on her ear stopped her mid-motion. She let out a small cry of pain, Jackie immediately turning to face her. The older girl felt impossibly closer than a moment ago.

“I think my earring got caught in your shirt,” Gigi said quietly, a pained and nervous giggle leaping from the back of her throat. She remembered putting them on this morning, long and dangly strips of silver shaped like eyes, and thinking about how they might get stuck in her hair. If the lack of distance between the two of them went unnoticed earlier, it was definitely no longer the case. Gigi felt incredibly conscious of every exhale of her breath, of Jackie’s face only inches away from hers. The guy in the seat in front of them threw them a dirty look, like he was annoyed at how wrong Gigi’s flirting attempts had turned out. She couldn’t really blame him because, what the fuck, they had turned out pretty bad, huh.

“Hold on,” Jackie breathed, “let me untangle it for you.” Gigi knew she was speaking quietly because they were in a library, and so close to each other anything above a whisper was unnecessary, but she was struck hard by the intimacy of it nonetheless. She couldn’t decipher whether choosing to wear those earrings today was the best or worst decision she’d ever made.

Jackie reached for the end that got caught, carefully lifting it away from the threads of her sweater. It was the kind of tangle no one could probably ever manage to achieve if they tried, and yet happened without either of them realizing it. When she moved to grasp at the fabric a little more firmly, her fingers brushed against Gigi’s neck, unexpected. And maybe it’s stupid to feel so thoroughly destabilized by the mere touch of a fleeting hand, but Gigi found herself forgetting to breathe for a few seconds.

“There,” Jackie chuckled as the earring finally came free, looking in Gigi’s direction without directly meeting her gaze. “I think you’re all good now.”

Gigi thanked her politely, but she’d be the first to admit she found it hard to focus during the rest of their session, every brush of air or clothing against her neck making her shiver at the memory of Jackie’s fingers. ***

“Wait, Jackie Coxx?” Crystal asked the next time Gigi met up with her to catch up over some drinks in their favorite dive bar. Crystal had technically been Jan’s friend first, but she and Gigi had gotten a lot closer over the years, bonding over a love of what their friends would lovingly call ‘loud’ and ‘confident’ clothing choices. “‘Trips on her own feet’ Jackie Coxx?” Crystal continued, the grin on her face widening as Gigi felt her cheeks heating up. “Follows at least three Twitter accounts dedicated to Star Trek? Rockie’s junior year baby crush? The same—”

“Rock is still a junior, Crys,” Gigi interrupted, laughing, because— what. What. “And wait, she has a crush on Jackie? My Jackie?”

“So not the point,” Crystal answered, still smiling like this was the best news she’d heard all week. “My Jackie huh? God, you’re such a simp—”

“No.” Gigi groaned, dragging out the ‘o’. “Back to Rock. My best friend, Janet fucking Sport, is head over heels, stupidly in love with Rock. And I don’t care how adorable she is, if what you’re telling me is true, she’s just been… been using her! And that really this whole time she’s just been waiting and pining for Jackie! As if Jan didn’t—”

It was Crystal’s turn to interrupt this time, the smile having faded away from her face to leave way for a confused expression. “Gigi, Gigi, stop for a second,” she repeated, a little more forceful than the brunette was used to hearing her speak. “Come on, think of all the time you’ve spent with Rock, with both of them. Have you ever gotten the impression that she was anything that a hundred and ten percent in?”

The brunette closed her eyes for a moment. She thought of Jan ditching her and Nicky to go hang out with Rock every Friday. Of Jan dragging her to go shopping on the weekend before Valentine’s day, an itemized and color-coded list of stores and potential gifts saved on her phone. Crystal definitely has a point, Gigi let herself recognize, deflating as the potential anger left her body as quickly as it had arrived.

“Rock did a tour of the university, back when she was still in high school and she wasn’t completely sure what program to apply for. Jackie was the one doing it apparently.” The red head paused to take a sip of her drink, grimacing a little at the taste. Why she kept ordering those novelty IPAs everywhere they went despite knowing full well she didn’t like how hoppy they were, Gigi had no idea. “I think she just made Rock feel comfortable, you know? Like, it was fine that she didn’t have everything figured out already, and made sure she knew she wasn’t making a decision at seventeen that she could never walk back. So Jackie gave her her number in case she had any questions, and then they actually started hanging out together once Rock started this year.”

“Oh,” Gigi realised, “that does really sound like her, yeah.” She could imagine it in her head, Rock a little younger and more unsure, not all that dissimilar from how she behaved when Jan first introduced the two of them to each other.

It was strange, remembering that a few months ago she would avoid directly meeting her gaze or spending any one-on-one time with her, when she could also recall the ‘u up’ and ‘netflix? :)’ texts she received from the shorter woman last night. It also really sounded like Jackie, although she didn’t tell Crystal so. It was just as easy to imagine her taking the time to reassure a worried high-school student without making her feel like she was being talked down to.

Crystal was still looking at her expectantly, and Gigi couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed at how strongly she reacted. “So, not an actual crush then?”

“Nope, she just thinks Jackie is really cool. God knows why, because based on what I’ve heard, she’s kind of a giant dork.”

“Hot giant dork.” Gigi rolled her eyes. “Maybe I should have asked you that first.”

“Uh-huh,” Crystal replied, giving Gigi’s shoulder a squeeze. “You should ask her for the full story, actually. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it before, but she tells it much better than I do. And maybe you want to spend some time thinking about why you reacted that quickly, because we both know Jan is a pretty flimsy excuse.”

The brunette sighed loudly. “It’s just a crush, it’s nothing.” It didn’t sound convincing even to herself. Back when Jackie was just the hot girl in her class, that would have probably been true, but it felt like a long time ago now.

Crystal rolled her eyes with a cheeky smile. “That was a lot more believable five minutes ago, but sure.”

Gigi made sure to hit her in the leg for that, laughing easily and sputtering mindlessly about how she had it all wrong.

“Wait, what did Rock used to want to study, back when she was in high school?”

There was a long pause, before Crystal finally cackled., “Video game design.” *** geege do you think it’s weird

rockstar YES

geege … to ask someone if you can platonically caress their cheeks kiss them on the forehead at least wait till i finish to be mean

rockstar u know what this is both not as weird AND weirder than i expected ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

geege what do I do roxanne she’s not gonna tutor me forever. the final is less than a month away how do i tell her i wanna date her without seeming like i wanna date her

rockstar go up to her and be like ‘if we played pokemon together, we’d be a pokematch’ ;)))

geege what

rockstar will you be the nidoking to my nidoqueen

geege tf those sound like the names of drugs

rockstar yk it was one thing when you were just thirsting after the hot girl in ur class but now it’s actual feelings how embarrassing

geege u have given me a solid amount of advice. none.

rockstar k fair how about i pick up noodles on my way back? and we can eat that for dinner while you tell me all about ur gay crush without my consent

geege i like the chicken stir fry ones

*** “Do you want to listen to it again, maybe?” Jackie asked, reaching for her headphones. “Then you can tell me the exact part you’re thinking of.”

It was another Wednesday afternoon, but this time they’d ditched the library in favor of a small coffee shop that was closer to where Jackie lived. It was artsy in a way that Gigi was used to, a little hipster, but not actually fancy enough to properly lay claim on the word. The tables were a little worn in and wobbly, the lattes a little too cheap, and the art prints on the wall either too well-known or not enough.

“Sure, just give me a second.” Gigi took the earbud the Persian woman offered her, making an aborted motion towards the computer, before following through as Jackie nodded at her with a soft smile. The older woman’s phone vibrated on the table between them, and she took a quick glance at the screen before putting it back down with a little more force than necessary.

It took Gigi a few tries to find the part she had in mind when mentioning texture, replaying the same part a few times over until she was fairly certain she found what she was looking for. “That part here, until the tempo slows down again—”

The brunette was cut off by the sound of Jackie’s phone vibrating on the table again, lighting up with a missed call notification and some texts.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” the Persian woman cursed sheepishly. “This is so rude. I’m sorry, Geege, I should have just turned it off earlier.” She sounded a little annoyed, but mostly flustered, taking a quick look at the screen before flipping it back over facing down.

She flashed the younger woman an apologetic smile, her cheeks coloring a little as she pointedly pushed the phone away from her.

“Are you sure everything is okay? We can take a break if you need to deal with some stuff? Or even just cancel for today, I think I have basically everything I need to finish writing this up, so.”

“No, no, âsemun be zamin nemiyâd,” Jackie protested, mind clearly elsewhere. “It’s nothing, really. Or, well, it is something I guess, but it’s kind of stupid and I shouldn’t let it distract me, you know?”

Gigi hummed noncommittally, not wanting to force her to talk about whatever this was if she didn’t want to, but finding herself unwilling to acknowledge it as something stupid either. She offered Jackie what she hoped was a quick and comforting smile instead.

“I just…” She sighed, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “I’ve been waiting to hear back from this prof about a recommendation letter for grad school? And she’d said yes before, but some more students asked her, and she has this thing about not writing more than five letters per year, I don’t know. So she said she’d get back to me today or tomorrow to confirm, and I’ve just been really stressed.”

“Oh no, I’m sorry. That sounds really stressful.” Gigi brought a hand to Jackie’s shoulders, squeezing the back of her neck lightly. She tried to avoid doing too much extensive thinking about what she might do after college, but she doubted it was a train of thought that’d ever made anyone feel good.

“It’s okay, I should be used to it.” Jackie shrugged with resignation. “It’s just that every time I remember I’m waiting to hear back from her it makes me think of next year, and what’ll happen if I don’t get in? Or if I do, because it’s like I really know that grad school is what I want to do, you know?” She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, and Gigi really wished they were close enough friends for her to offer Jackie a hug or something.

“Just call your prof back now. You should have said something earlier, and we could have rescheduled.”

“Oh,” Jackie breathed out, sounding inexplicably surprised as she turned towards her. “No, no, no, no, that’s not necessary. That wasn’t her. I’m sorry I’m a bit of a mess today, let’s just get back to this thing, yeah?”

Gigi nodded, reaching for the headphones and passing one on to her. In a lot of ways, this had grown to be her favorite part of their sessions. Not that she didn’t enjoy listening to Jackie talk about music, which she did; mostly because she was practically tone deaf and found it magical that Jackie was so good at it, or trading ideas back and forth on the pieces they listened to, both of which were rewarding in their own ways. But there was something about sitting next to each other, silent save for the shared music, that just got to her.

They were standing outside the coffeeshop, Jackie struggling to undo the lock on her bike, when Gigi thought back to their earlier conversation. “I know it’s not the same because I’m not graduating yet, but you know I’m here if you ever need to talk to someone, right? Like, no pressure or anything, but I just— just wanted to put it out there, I guess.”

Jackie stopped mid-motion and looked up at her, half of her U-lock in hand. “Thanks, Gigi.” She grinned, all bright and pearly and warm. “I think sometimes I just get too in my own head, you know? Especially about things I can’t do anything about. And yes, I know how stupid it is to stress out over these things so much, I really do.”

“I don’t think that’s stupid, though,” Gigi mentioned, as they started walking towards her bus stop. It was really nice of Jackie to walk there with her, rather than just take off on her bike straight away. It maybe made sense now that they knew each other well enough, but her heart still kind of fluttered whenever she offered it. “I mean, maybe it’s not productive because you’re worrying about things you can’t control, sure, but it also means you care, right? And I don’t think that’s something stupid, even if you wish you could just… not care less, but care better, you know. Still care, but in a way that’s better for yourself. To yourself.”

She thought of her parents, and of the guilt she used to feel every time she overheard someone asking them if they really thought it was wise to let her go to college for fashion, how she overworked herself to the point of passing out alone in the studio her freshman year in a misguided attempt to redeem herself from having failed a class. Like she thought she could atone for her perceived academic failures by working her body into the ground. She thought of the conversations that had started to happen in her periphery, whispers of ‘What are you thinking of doing after next year?’, ‘Have you also applied for the internship at this gallery?’, ‘Have you considered doing a minor in business?’, and how she sometimes struggled with not letting these thoughts invade her brain late at night.

“I just think it’s hard sometimes, but it’s even harder if we don’t let ourselves accept it. Or talk about it. So I guess all I’m saying is that if you need someone to listen, you know where to find me,” she finished with a deep breath.

When she looked up, there was a quiet smile on Jackie’s face, and Gigi felt warm at the thought of maybe having been the one to put it there. ***

geege you know i suddenly understand why you do the shoulder thing like i use to never really get it but that was before

janjanjan the shoulder thing??

geege wait more important how did ur audition go did they love you when are you gonna hear back

janjanjan it went pretty okay i think they’re def looking more for someone that does modern

geege so that’s good! very good!!!

janjanjan and one of the choreographers sort of smiled and nodded at me at the end i think he was on the dance team my first semester but that was before he graduated ig anyway idk maybe it was just in my head

geege no but that all sounds really good!!! look at u go diva!

janjanjan gigi just finished twenty minutes ago she was wearing this stupid ass shirt a really loose tank bc it’s been hot af and one of the straps kept falling of her shoulder

janjanjan oooooooooh oh no that shoulder thing

geege i saw collarbone and so much shoulder and upper arm

janjanjan how tragic tell me, did she lift it back up

geege yeah but it kept falling back down

janjanjan that’s rly good though!!!

geege no it was torture did you know she has a mole on her shoulder? right at the top and all i kept thinking of was that i wanted to kiss it

janjanjan cute also i don’t know how to tell you this but that shit doesn’t happen by itself

geege well it’s not like it was her fault

janjanjan listen a shirt can be a too big sure but you still kind of have to make it happen it doesn’t magically keep falling off

geege hm

janjanjan believe me i would know *** No matter how much she tried to forget about it, Gigi’s last session with Jackie was a thing that was very much happening right now.

It was strange, thinking back to the beginning of the semester, how she almost didn’t sign up for the class. How she maybe would have never met Jackie if she hadn’t, or maybe would have just pined from afar without ever learning her name were it not for her meddling friends. She found herself spending the last half of their session wondering more about how to casually ask Jackie if they’d still hang out once finals are over. Or if their semester-long friendship was, well, just that.

In the end, she just blurted it out as they packed up their things, subtlety thrown out the window.

“I mean, you’re friends with Rock, so I’m sure I’ll at least see you around, yeah?”

Jackie only hummed noncommittally in reply. She was busy packing her things back into her khaki tote bag, checking each pocket like she was looking for something. It reminded Gigi of what she used to do in middle school, every time she hadn’t done the homework or just really, really, really didn’t want to be the one called on to explain her work in front of the whole class. She’d just lean down, and start searching through her bag very obviously, making a show of opening every zipper, her head almost disappearing inside it if she could manage.

“Do you, like, need help finding something in there?” She asked, her voice coming out more harsh than she’d intended, just as Jackie seemed to decide she’d found what she was looking for and decisively slung her bag back over her shoulder.

“Sorry, I— it was—” she stopped and started, letting out a resigned sigh and shaking her head at herself. It made Gigi want to cringe. “Yeah, I’m good now, and yeah, I’ll still see you around. At least for the summer, but after that too I hope! I mean, I’ll still be around and you’ll be around too, so, y’know…” she trailed off. Her cheeks were tinged pink, just barely. Her ears, too, or maybe it was just the white of her sweater making everything appear brighter in contrast. “Besides, you still haven’t shown me any of your work, and you promised you would.” She was right about that, Gigi knew. She usually wasn’t shy about showing her designs to other people, but somehow she’d found himself unsure of what to show Jackie first.

She settled her bag on one shoulder, and they started making their way out in companionable silence until Jackie spoke again. “Hey, actually, do you maybe want to grab coffee before heading back? I have a bit of time before my next class and I could use a pick-me-up.”

They ended up just stopping by Starbucks, because it was on their way and surprisingly empty for a Thursday afternoon on campus. Gigi got a mocha frappuccino (almond milk, extra whip) and managed to sneak in Jackie’s usual cold brew order before she had the chance to protest.

“Gigi…” She sighed fondly, kind of like a grandma would when her grandchildren were doing something they’d regret. She was shaking her head in resignation, which Gigi took as a sign that she’d decided to leave it at that.

“No, I’ve been stealing almost three hours of your time every week since almost the start of the semester and—”

“How can that even be true when Rock only introduced us in what, February?” Jackie laughed in protest, reaching out to grab her drink from the brunette’s hand.

“No, not the point!” Gigi replied, moving her arm back until the cup was just out of Jackie’s reach. “You’ve given up a lot of your free time for me, is what I’m saying. And you didn’t even really know me, I could’ve been a total freak.”

Jackie opened her mouth and looked like she was about to say something, but Gigi continued before she had the chance.

“And you were so nice about it. Not ‘nice’ like when you have nothing actually all that good or specific to say. But nice in that you never made me feel like I was being stupid, you know? And you actually took the time to explain things to me so I’d understand them, not just the bare minimum so I could pass. You did all that when you didn’t really have to, so that meant a lot. Means a lot. I enjoyed spending that time with you, and not because it means I’m going to pass the class.”

Gigi forced herself to stop there, even though she knew for a fact that she could’ve easily kept going. She could feel her words coming out a little rambly, probably sounding more confusing than appreciative. At least she hoped that was what they sounded like, because the only other alternative was frightening. The idea that Jackie was in fact hearing everything Gigi was saying, her poor attempt at expressing the warmth she had felt growing inside her all semester long every time she was beside her, was infinitely more terrifying.

“Geege.” Jackie looked away, smiling after a moment, looking a little embarrassed. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Gigi could feel her cheeks getting hot, but when she looked up she could see that Jackie’s cheeks were tinged pink, too. It was almost funny, feeling what she felt and seeing the physical reflection of it not on herself, but on the person causing it. She wanted to reach out and let the tip of her fingers brush against Jackie’s cheeks, to see if they felt as warm as her own face did.

“You don’t have to say anything, I wasn’t trying to, like, I don’t know, get anything. I just wanted you to know what I meant, and that I really did mean it, when I was saying thank you.”

Gigi was laid bare, like her body was nothing but a lens, and behind it were all of her feelings jumbled together in a tangled mess, conclusion still very plain to the eye.

It was a surprise, when Jackie stepped forward and kissed her.

Gigi closed her eyes reflexively, but she could feel herself inhaling sharply, her body failing to catch up with what her brain was also struggling to process. When she eventually kissed back, it was only because she could feel Jackie’s body starting to move away, the fear finally pushing her into action. She brought one hand up, resting it on the side of the older woman’s neck, fingers gently brushing against her hair as she kissed back a little more confident. She could feel Jackie’s hand on her waist, warm and solid. Her grip tightened slightly as they separated, not strong enough to keep Gigi anywhere but a reassurance of where she was wanted.

Neither one of them really stepped back when the kiss ended, just stayed standing right in front of each other, breathing the same air. She heard Jackie swallow, loud in the silence of their shared space. She licked her lips, a reflex she didn’t even think about, and it was like the realization that, oh my god, they just kissed, hit her all over again when she found them wet. She suppressed a small shudder, although she wasn’t sure how successfully.

It was Jackie that finally broke the silence and stepped away from her, letting her hand fall away from Gigi’s side, brushing against her wrist and then gone before she had a chance to realize it.

“I,” Jackie breathed, “I’ve wanted to do this for a really long time, Gigi.” She laughed a little, maybe a bit self-conscious, and that was what brought the younger woman out of it.

“I spent hours talking to Jan about this gorgeous girl in my listening class,” she started, words leaving her mouth almost of their own volition. “How I didn’t even know her name but god, I really wish I did. Then I did know, even if I didn’t realize that you were, you know, you, when Rock said he knew someone who could tutor me. And then you were there and still the same person, but also so nice and understanding and just… good? Like, being around you just felt good.”

She paused, forcing herself to meet Jackie’s eyes again. “And I still mean everything I said earlier too, you know. Even if you weren’t interested in me, that’s not why I was saying it, but I still mean it just as much now.”

“Oh.” Jackie’s mouth was gaping so wide Gigi was worried it might actually fall to the floor. Maybe if Gigi were a different person, or if her brain wasn’t currently busy processing and reprocessing their kiss on an endless loop, she would have felt a little self-conscious at her outburst, but that just wasn’t who she was.

Especially not right now. Not when Jackie’s lips were right in front of her, still a little wet, still a little too red.

“That’s, that’s pretty good, then,” she finished quietly. They looked at each other in silence for a moment, only interrupted when Gigi let out a small snort.She couldn’t help but realise they were kind of ridiculous. Her face was taken over by an unashamedly stupidly large grin. Jackie properly stepped back then, far enough that Gigi could no longer feel the warmth of her body. She missed it immediately.

“I really need to get to my next class.” Jackie rolled her eyes. “So I can talk to the prof about her feedback on my draft first, but text me, yeah? I know it’s really shitty timing because we both have finals to take and papers to write, but I’ll make it work. Or I’ll call you, if that’s better? But I’m not running away, I promise.”

Gigi flashed her a bright smile and nodded in understanding. “I have your number too, y’know, so maybe I’ll just be the one to text you.”

“Okay, great, nice.” Jackie replied. She had her bag and coffee in hand, but made no clear motion to leave, kind of like she was worried if she did Gigi might disappear forever. It was so, incredibly, frustratingly cute and Gigi couldn’t help but wonder if Jackie would mind being kissed on the forehead.

“Jacks, it’s fine.” Gigi grinned. “I need to go too, anyway. Just maybe don’t drop your phone in any lake before you text me back this time, yeah?”

She turned away with a laugh of her own this time, and Gigi sipped through the plastic straw like it did anything to hide the smile on her face as she watched Jackie walk away.

“Wait!”

The Persian woman startled, turning back to her with an unsure smile. “What, did you forget something, Geege?”

“My first final is tomorrow,” Gigi said, looking up at Jackie with glinting eyes. “And it’s my first actual written exam this year, because I didn’t have any midterms, so how about another kiss for good luck, huh?”

Gigi’s cheeks ached from the force of her smile as she watched the uncertainty leave Jackie’s face, only to be replaced by a raised eyebrow and deep smile. Her shoulder’s rose slightly, like her instincts were telling her to hide her face in embarrassment at the cheesiness, but her eyes didn’t leave Gigi’s anyway. They didn’t leave Gigi’s, until they closed and their lips met again, and the younger woman thought it felt like more luck than she thought she had the right to ask for.

#rpdr fanfiction #gigi goode #jackie cox #rock m sakura #Jan Sport #Crystal Methyd #gigi goode/jackie cox #jan sport/rock m sakura #jiji #jock #lesson in love #mina #lesbian au #back to school 2020 #day 4: lesson #submission

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kpoptrashibnida · 4 years

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Enough Pt. 14

A/N: Hey guys! Here is the new update for Enough! I hope you guys enjoy it and as always I enjoy receiving feedback! Please don’t hold back and let me know what you guys think! Also, I did my own gif lol I could not find what i wanted for this chapter, so I decided to ‘make’ my own. Please don’t judge me too harshly, I am not tech savvy xD

Mina and Suho were kind enough to pick you up from the airport once you arrived at Seoul. They were being very tentative with the way they spoke to you and it annoyed you that they were treating you like a ticking time bomb. You tried to ignore it and smile as much as possible without it looking fake. You tried to keep up with the conversation as Suho drove you to your house. Mina was updating you on how her doctor appointments were going and you were genuinely happy to hear about your future niece or nephew. They insisted on taking you out to dinner but you were tired and just wanted to go home and sleep. Suho and Mina shared a look and agreed to drop you off home.

Pulling up to your apartment you felt a strange wave of sadness overcome you when you realized that you actually moved. You’re back in Seoul, away from what means the world to you. Suho helped you with one of your suitcases as you rolled the other one up to your apartment. Mina tagged along, insisting on helping even though you refused to let her carry anything heavy. You opened the door with the new code your building manager gave you and you were surprised to see how it looked exactly the same. You don’t know what you were expecting, since no one entered your apartment during your time away. But you definitely were not expecting to feel an emptiness. The place that once felt like home now felt like a foreign place to you.

“Okay, well I guess you don’t have much to unpack. Do you want us to stay and help?” Mina offered, feeling bad about leaving you alone

“No, it’s fine. You guys have done enough for me. Go home and rest, you must be tired.” You say, rubbing Mina’s stomach in a loving manner.

“If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call.” Suho said and gave you a pointed look, which made you smile.

“Of course. Thank you guys, really.” You gave them a smile, not knowing what you would do without them.

“Okay, good night.” Mina gave you a strong goodbye hug, making you emotional all of a sudden.

You walked them to the door and bid them farewell, thankful to be left alone. You sat on your couch and closed your eyes, exhaling a long breath. The last 36 hours replaying in your head like a movie.

When you arrived at the Friends Corp. building you were nervous and full of jitters, not knowing if you were going to see Jaehyun or not. You walked to the HR office to return your employee badge and access card. You then proceeded to go to Wendy’s office, saying goodbye to her and answering her questions about why you were leaving all of a sudden. You gave her a brief explanation as to why you were headed back to Seoul and kept an eye out to see if you saw Jaehyun. Once you were done talking to Wendy you went down the hall to look for Johnny and Mark, hoping that Jaehyun might be with them.

“Noona, I just can’t believe that you’re leaving. Why?” Mark asked, extremely sad that you were leaving.

“I know, we didn’t even have time to throw you a going away party or anything.” Johnny whines, still not believing that you were actually leaving.

“Wait! Does Jaehyun know?” Mark asked, realizing that he wasn’t there.

“Wait, he called out sick this morning.” Johnny says, trying to put the puzzle pieces together. “Did something happen?” He questions.

Your eyes welled up with tears as you look at your two friends and you try with all your might not to cry in front of them.

“Um, Jaehyun and I broke up last night.” You say in a whisper, hoping that if you don’t say it too loudly it isn’t true.

“WHAT?” Both men exclaimed, shocked at the news that their two great friends broke up.

“Why? What Happened?” Mark questioned, not believing that this happened.

“There were just some… issues we could not work through, and I have a lot of projects waiting for me in Seoul that cannot wait.” You explained, not wanting to get into the details.

“Damn I’m sorry.” Johnny says, giving you a hug.

“You guys can come and visit me any time.” You say with a small smile. You say your final goodbyes and leave the building, a dull ache in your chest.

It does not surprise you that Jaehyun was not at work but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t sad. You were really hoping to see him to at least give him an explanation. It would have been ideal if you did that at your apartment, but you were frozen in place, just watching your life crumble around you. You were angry with yourself for not fighting for your relationship; for not fighting to keep Jaehyun in your life and saving your relationship.

The whole process of getting to the airport, going through security and finding your gate was all done on autopilot. Your mind was not present and your body was just going with the motions. Namjoon got you a seat on Business Class and you were thankful because all you wanted to do during your 15 hour flight was sleep and cry with some privacy. And that is exactly what you did. Plus watch a movie or two once your eyes burned from all the crying you did. Thankfully once you landed you had regained some control over your emotions, so Suho and Mina did not know of what you did on the plane. You’re pretty sure they had an idea though because you were uncharacteristically quiet.

You had not realized you were crying until your body was shaking with sobs, tears streaming down your face. You hated feeling sorry for yourself. You felt pathetic and dumb and crying was not going to fix anything. Crying was not going to take you back to New York and fix everything, it’s not going to take you to that night and not let Jaehyun go until this was resolved. It’s not going to take you back to the moment Chanyeol entered your life again and put up your walls to keep him out completely. Even though crying was not going to fix your broken heart, you could not help it. Your sobs echoed in your apartment, filling the empty spaces around you. With a trembling body, you made your way to the bathroom and took a shower. The hot water helped relax your tense muscles and wash away the grime from the long plane ride. You were grateful to come home to a clean apartment, courtesy of Namjoon and the company. The time you spent in the shower was enough to relax you into a sleepy lull. You were exhausted from the plane ride, the crying and all the events that took place. You closed your eyes and hoped that sleep would soon envelop you and temporarily make you forget about everything that happened.

_________

“Noona! I am so happy you are back!” Jungkook greets you with a tight hug the second you enter the building. You can't help the laugh that escapes your lips at his tactics, the sound sounding foreign to your own ears.

“Kookie! Look at you! I wasn’t gone a full year and look how buff you got.” You say playfully, pinching his bicep.

“I have been hitting the gym with my hyungs. I wanted to be buff for when you came back.” He says, jokingly flexing his muscles.

“Okay gym rat.” You say with an eye roll, headed to the elevators.

You were greeted by all your coworkers, pleasantries exchanged as you made your way to your office. You felt strange in your office but you knew the feeling would go away soon. Once you were back in your routine and submerge yourself in your projects, you knew the feeling would go away. You heard a knock on your door and you whip your head towards the noise, heart hammering in your chest.

“Hey! Can I come in?” Namjoon asks, hovering by the doorway.

“Yes, of course.” You say, heart still hammering. You were stupid to think it was Jaehyun knocking at your door. Old habits die hard.

“I emailed you the new projects that need to be handled first. After that, you can choose the order in which you complete the other ones.” Namjoon explains, noticing the lack of a smile on your face.

“Sounds great, I’ll get right to it.” You say with a small smile, giving your attention back to your computer.

“Is everything Okay?” Namjoon asks, noticing your odd behavior.

“Yes, everything is fine. I’m just a little tired, I’m not used to the time difference yet.” You say, hoping he’d take that explanation.

“Okay, well pace yourself and take it easy.” He gives you one last knowing glance before he leaves your office.

And just like that you shut yourself out of the real world and immerse yourself in your work, something you were good at and wouldn’t sabotage.

________

“Get up. Now!” Mina says as she pulls the comforter off your body.

“What the hell Mina? How did you get into my apartment?” You complain, the bright sunlight burning your eye balls.

“Because I know your pin, genius! Now get up, you’re not going to spend the whole weekend wallowing in self pity. We are going for a nice walk to the Han river.” She says matter-of-factly, looking cute in her exercise clothes.

“No.” You reply, trying to snatch the comforter back.

“I said get up, I’m not playing with you! Don’t you know you’re not supposed to make a pregnant woman angry?” She questions, smacking your but hard.

“Ouch!” You whine, kicking your feet like a toddler. “Mina, I don’t want to go to the Han river, I just want to stay here. Leave me alone!” You whine, wishing she wasn’t a good friend right now and would let you rot in your apartment.

“Bitch if you don’t get up I swear I will punch you, you know I will! Me being pregnant is not going to change the fact that I will beat your ass.” She threatens. You know not to mess with Mina because she will beat you up if you make her angry enough.

“Fine! Fine! I’ll fucking go. But just so you know I will hate it and I will complain the whole time!” You huff, getting out of bed and heading for your closet.

“That’s what I thought.” Mina says, satisfied with herself. She doesn’t like to get violent but she will if she needs to.

You come out of your closet dressed in a jogger set, glaring daggers at a smug Mina.

“See? That wasn’t so hard.” She smiles, making you roll your eyes at her.

“You’re lucky you're pregnant with my niece or nephew.” You say, making her laugh.

“Okay, let’s go before it gets any later.” She says in a sing-song voice, annoying you already.

The walk along the Han river was actually very relaxing, but of course you would not admit that to Mina. You enjoyed the breeze hitting your face, alleviating the perpetual weight you felt in your chest. You inhaled the cool air and blamed the stinging in your eyes to the cold wind.

After a nice and relatively quiet walk, you agreed to get some lunch with Mina. she needed to eat because she was eating for two and could not skip any meals. Suho actually had set up reminders on her phone, much to her annoyance. You thought it was cute though, Suho was very immaculate with the things he cared about.

After eating some jjajangmyun, you went to some shops to buy a few items you needed as well as some groceries. You had been ordering take out all week since you got back to Seoul and you decided it was time you started cooking again.

“I can’t believe you have been eating take out this whole time! You are insane.” Mina chastises as you make your way up your apartment building, grocery bags in tow.

“Yeah I know.” You huff, not wanting to be lectured by your best friend. At least she has that aspect of motherhood down.

“Thanks for helping me out today. And for taking me out for a walk.” You say once you have put all your groceries away, Mina getting ready to leave.

“No problem. You know I’m always here for you. Don’t hesitate to call, okay?” She says.

You nod and give her a hug and kiss her belly before she leaves, leaving you alone once again. This time however, you did not feel as empty as you had been, which I guess is a good thing.

_________

“Are you sure I need to go? I can stay here, I really don’t mind.” You say to Namjoon, hoping he would let you have your way.

“What? No! What are you saying? I sent you over there to oversee this whole project and now you’re saying you don’t want to go? Don’t be ridiculous! Our investors are expecting to see you there, a lot of people are. I’m sorry but you’re not getting out of this and that’s final.” Namjoon rants, not believing what he is hearing at this moment.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” You sigh, you didn’t like making Namjoon upset.

“We leave in two days, so if you don’t have a dress already, please go buy one. The company gave you a card with a wardrobe budget for events like this. Use it.” He commands, not taking no for an answer.

“Okay, I will.” You put your hands up in surrender, already hating the thought of going shopping. Normally, you’d love to go shopping with Mina. But as her due date is approaching, Suho has been even more overprotective than usual and does not want her going out and doing too much. So now you are left to go alone and you completely hate that.

“Hey Noona!” Jungkook greets cheerily, sitting down on the chair in front of you.

“Hi Kookie.” You greet, moving the food around on your plate. Just the thought of returning to New York after three months of being back in Seoul is enough to make you lose your appetite.

“Are you excited about going to New York with Joon hyung?” He asks, oblivious to your sour mood.

“Not really. I still need to buy a dress.” You groan, pushing the food tray away from you.

Jungkook gives you a pointed look and swallows a mouthful of rice.

“I can go dress shopping with you.” He offers, giving you a sweet Jungkook smile.

“Won’t you get bored?” You chuckle at his ridiculous offer.

“Of course not! I’d never get bored while hanging out with you noona.” He says, warming your heart a little.

“Well I have to go tonight. Are you available after work?” You ask, not believing that you are actually taking him up on his offer.

“Of course! We shall meet at the lobby at the end of the day. There are some good shops in Gangnam that we can go to.” He offers with a smile.

“Okay, sounds like a plan.” You say, a small smile creeping on your face.

“Now eat. You’re too skinny.” Jungkook pushes your food tray back to you, making you roll your eyes at his antics.

You did manage to eat your food however, some of the previous nerves ebbing away.

At the end of your work day you made your way to the lobby of the building where Jungkook was waiting for you.

“Noona! Ready to go?” He asks, opening the door for you.

“Yes, let’s get this over with.” You say, Jungkook whining at your lack of enthusiasm.

You guys took the subway to Gangnam and Jungkook pointed out some shops that he knew had some nice dress selections.

“I don’t know Kookie, these dresses seem a bit…. Extravagant.” You say, looking through the racks of dresses.

“Noona, it is an extravagant event, so you need to dress the part.” Jungkook says, holding up a dress for you to see. You scrunch your nose and shake your head no to the insultingly revealing dress.

“Come on! You gotta show some skin.” He whines, making you laugh.

“Jungkook, are you sure you did not just come with me so you can see me in a skimpy dress?” You accuse, laughing when you see Jungkook turn a slight shade of incriminating pink.

“Noona~!” He whines, he did not do it for that reason but he will admit it was a perk.

“What do you think of this one?” You ask, pulling a silk dress from the rack.

Jungkook looks at it for a few seconds and nods, thinking it's a good contender.

You looked at the reflection in the mirror and smiled, liking what you see. The dress was a beautiful midnight blue. It had a plunging V neckline with necktie straps, a partially open back and a high slit that showed a hint of skin. You felt beautiful and sexy and you hoped that the dress caught the attention of a certain someone that was going to be at the gala.

You open the door to the dressing room and twirl the fabric around, showing the dress to Jungkook.

“Whoa noona, you look amazing.” Jungkook exclaims, eyes roaming your figure in the dress. You looked amazing in it, like the dress was made just for you.

“It’s not too much?” You ask, feeling the silky material in between your fingers.

“Not at all! It’s perfect. You’re perfect noona.” He smiles, making you blush at the compliment.

“You’re too sweet Kookie. Okay, I guess this is it. I’m sick of dress shopping.” You say, heading back to the dressing room.

“We have only been shopping for like an hour and a half.” He laughs, thinking it was funny that a girl did not enjoy spending hours shopping.

Once you had paid, Jungkook convinced you to go out for some drinks and dinner. You were hesitant, not really in the mood to socialize. Even though three months had passed, you were still hurting from your breakup with Jaehyun and you just wanted to go home, drink too much wine and pass out. Jungkook thought that the sound of that was ridiculous and convinced you to do otherwise. You went to a trendy place that had recently opened up and it was full of young people drinking and having a good time.

Jungkook was fun company and you were enjoying his conversation. It was really helping you keep your mind off of things but you were not keeping track of how many shots of soju you were shooting back. You had pent up frustration and sadness that you needed something to numb it.

“Whoa noona, are you okay?” Jungkook asks, eyeing your swaying form.

“Of course Kookie! I am doing grrrreat!” You say, imitating Tony the Tiger.

Jungkook laughs as he moves the soju bottle away from your grasp.

“Okay Noona, I think that I need to get you home. You are done for the night.” Jungkook pays for the bill and helps you up, offering to carry your garment bag and purse. He had your arm draped around his neck as he maneuvered you out of the restaurant and out to the uber he requested.

“Okay noona, just rest your head and don’t make sudden movements.” Jungkook Instructed, making sure you wouldn’t vomit in the car.

Jungkook struggled to help you out of the car and to your apartment. You were very dizzy and had to stop twice because you thought you were going to throw up. Getting into your apartment was an even bigger challenge because you could not punch in the right code. So after a few minutes of trying, you were actually able to open the door.

“Okay noona, I put the garment bag in your closet. Do you need anything before I leave?” Jungkook asks, making sure you were not going to fall over.

“No, thank you Kookie, you’re the best.” You say, pulling him in for a tight hug.

“Of course. I had fun with you today.” He says, giving you a small squeeze.

He was about to pull away when you pull him back in for a kiss, taking him by surprise. He did not react at first but soon enough he reciprocated the kiss. You pull him closer, if that was possible, and let your hands roam his chest. You lightly moaned into his mouth, hands reaching under his shirt to touch his skin. Your hands were starting to lift his shirt up when Jungkook finally realized the turn of events.

“Noona, noona hold on.” He murmurs against your lips, trying to stop your wandering hands.

“What? You don’t want this?” You ask, biting your lip and looking up at him from under your eye lashes.

“Noona, I think you are very attractive and trust me, I would love to go further with you but you are drunk. And I don’t think you are in a good place for this right now. I’ve noticed that something is wrong and if I were to ever… sleep with you, I’d want to make sure it was right.” He says, placing your hands by your sides and giving you a small reassuring smile.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to come on to you like that.” You say, tears welling up in your eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay. Don't cry, it’s okay. I’m not upset.” He says, taking you to the couch and gently sitting down next to you.

“I just, I went through a hard breakup and I am feeling very emotional. I don’t know what to do or how to feel. I’m sorry I roped you like this. I appreciate you so much Jungkook. I really do. And I roped you into all of this.” You say, the guilt creeping in from attacking Kook the way you did.

“Noona, it’s fine. If you ever need anyone to talk to, I’m here for you. We are friends.” He gives you a small smile, squeezing your shoulder. “Are you feeling better?” He asks, noticing that you looked more sober.

“Yeah, I do feel a lot better. Thank you for today, I really needed it.” You say, giving him another hug.

“Any time. I’m heading out. Have a fun time in New York. you’re going to be the belle of the ball.” He says with a cheesy wink, making you laugh.

After Jungkook left you decided to take a shower to clear your head and sober up. You needed to pack for your trip to New York because you did not want to be doing it last minute. The thought of seeing Jaehyun again made your heart beat uncontrollably in your chest, stomach churning uncomfortably. You knew it was going to be awkward but you were really hoping you could see him and speak to him. You were so tired from all the overthinking and drinking that you went straight to sleep without realizing it.

_________

“You okay?” Namjoon asks, looking at your silent form next to him on the airplane.

“Yes, I’m fine.” You say, closing your eyes and trying to ignore the people still boarding the airplane. You wish you could close the door to your seats.

You were not in the best of moods but you didn’t want to project that to Namjoon. Your head was still whirring with chagrin at the thought of coming on to Jungkook the other night at your apartment. He had made it clear he was not mad and that it was not going to be weird between the two of you. And you also had the prospect of seeing Jaehyun again, which had your heart hammering and your stomach feeling nauseous. It was going to be a long flight and you did not want to be a bummer to Namjoon.

“I’m not stupid, you know? I know we have a professional relationship but I like to think we are friends too.” Namjoon gives you a pointed look, a clear indication that he was not going to drop it until you talked to him about it.

“We are friends Joon.” You sigh, looking at him between the seat divider. He raised his eyebrow, a silent sign for you to go on.

You took a deep breath before you delved into the story. Telling him about Chanyeol to that ending and then to Jaehyun and how you sabotaged that. You told him about Chanyeol being back in the picture, how he was Loey and why you were dreading this whole event. He was stunned at the story, of how you kept this from him all this time. If you really wanted to stay back from the gala, he would have considered it because he did not want you to be uncomfortable.

It felt good to talk about the whole thing with someone, a great pressure lifting from your chest. You had killed a good three hours talking to Namjoon about your situation, you had dinner and you were starting to feel tired. You were glad that you had Namjoon with you now that he knew about what happened. You just hoped that you could survive this thing.

___

“Okay so after dinner, the performances are going to start. The opening act will be Loey and Ara.” Wendy gives you the run down as she walks you to your table.

“Sounds great, let me know if there’s something else you need me to do. I have my phone with me.” You tell her, approaching the table. You look around and notice the slightly different people sitting at the table.

“What, um, is this the original table I was supposed to sit at?” You ask Wendy, remembering that you created the seating chart with her.

“Oh.” She starts hesitantly, going slightly pink. “Yeah it is, but Jaehyun asked to be moved to a different table.” She says, looking visibly uncomfortable.

“Oh!” You say, trying to ignore the pain in your gut that made you feel winded. You thank her for guiding you to your table and taking a seat, greeting the people in your table. Namjoon was sitting there so you were glad you were with someone that you felt comfortable with.

You tried to focus on the conversation taking place at the table and not on the fact that Jaehyun asked to change tables. You understood why he did it, but it didn’t hurt any less. You tried to be discreet while you looked around to see if you could find Jaehyun, but it was hard to locate him. You reprimand yourself for being so unprofessional, remembering that you were not here just as a guest but you also have responsibilities in this event.

After dinner you went to look for Wendy so you could get ready to begin the musical acts of the night.

“Everyone, we want to thank you for being here tonight. Your support and contributions to the opening of this pop up shop. This would not be possible to everyone’s contribution. So without further ado, Miss Wendy Son will be presenting the acts for tonight!” You say, passing the microphone over to Wendy as she steps up to the stage, a dazzling smile gracing her face.

“We all know everyone has been anxious for our opening act, so without any more delay, I present Ara and Loey!” She presents, the crowd roaring with applause.

The two of you made your way off the stage and made your way to your seats again, waiting for the show to start.

You glance around one more time before Loey and Ara hit the stage and you finally find what you are looking for. You see Jaehyun sitting at a table close to the stage, surrounded by people from his department plus Johnny and Mark. You made eye contact with him and you felt like your stomach dropped to your knees. He only held the eye contact for a few seconds before turning to the woman next to him and smiling at something she was saying. You recognize her from the PR team, which made sense that she was at the same table as him. You tried to normalize your breathing as you look at the stage again, the lights of the room dimming and the music blasting from a speaker.

All the performances were spectacular, Loey and Ara definitely were the highlight. They did a spectacular job with their duet, the crowd amazed when Loey was revealed. Ara also had a solo and there were other bands and artists performing. The performances lasted about forty five minutes total, leading to the final portion of the gala which was just dancing and drinks. You tried to make your way towards Jaehyun’s table but you were stopped by some of the investors, wanting to congratulate you on your collaboration of the gala and the opening of the pop up shop. You were trying to be a gracious host, but you noticed that Jaehyun was no longer seated at his table.

You knew it was very unprofessional to be looking around while having investors and members of the board speak to you, but you were looking through the crowd trying to find Jaehyun.

You were finally left alone and you decided to do a lap around the reception hall, hoping you can find the person you’re looking for and without interruption. You were trying to get by people without touching their sweaty bodies and without getting stopped again. After a futile attempt you make your way to the back table, wanting to get some punch because you were too thirsty from all the talking you did. You felt a finger poke you on the side and you whir around, anticipation clouding your mind.

“Hey, you look amazing.” Chanyeol says, dazzling smile highlighted by his new platinum hair.

“Hey, new hair?” You ask, not knowing what to say.

“Yeah I decided to do something different for the gala. You like?” He asks, twirling around and showing you a 360 degree view of his haircut and outfit. He had changed out of his performance outfit and into a black tux paired with a white shirt and a black bow tie.

He looked very good, you give him that, but you were not in the mood to engage in conversation with him.

“Yeah you look good.” You say with a smile, glancing behind him to see if Jaehyun was behind him. You did not want the night to end before you could at least greet him.

“There you are! We need to go with Namjoon, he wants to present us to a possible investor.” Wendy says as she approaches you, noticing that you were with Chanyeol after she was speaking a mile a minute.

“Oh, hello Mr. Park.” She greets with a bow, embarrassed at interrupting the conversation.

“Hi miss Son, no worries. I know you are busy ladies. I’ll leave you to it. I guess I should look for Ara and make sure she is okay.” Chanyeol says, bowing once before leaving.

You follow Wendy to where Namjoon was, passing many people along the way and greeting them with smiles and hellos. You caught a glimpse of Jaehyun with a group from the HR department. He looked gorgeous with his charcoal grey suit, white shirt and dark red bow tie. You once again made eye contact with him, but it was very short since you had to keep moving to keep up with Wendy and not lose her in the mass of people.

It was about an hour later when you were finally free. You were walking with intent even though your feet were screaming. You frantically looked around the hall, hoping to find Jaehyun. You noticed Mark and Johnny hanging out by a wall, speaking to each other. You march towards them hoping that they know where he is.

“Hey guys, how are you?” You ask, approaching the dapper young men.

“Noona! You look so awesome!” Mark says, giving you a hug.

“Thanks Mark.” You smile, ruffling the boys hair.

“You did an incredible job! But you have been very busy, I noticed that you were speaking to people non stop all night.” Johnny says, giving you a hug as well.

“Yeah it’s been a pretty crazy night. Hey, have you seen Jaehyun by chance?” You ask, feeling bad for cutting the conversation short, but you really wanted to find him.

Johnny and Mark shared a look, something made you feel like it wasn’t a good sign.

“Yeah he left about a half hour ago.” Johnny says awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Oh, I see. Well, he must be tired too, he also played a big role in all of this.” You say, trying to mask the disappointment in your voice.

“Yeah he was. Well we are heading out too. Have a good night and a safe flight back to Seoul.” Johnny says, hugging you.

“We are going to come visit you, okay?” Mark says, giving you a reassuring hug.

“Yes please, I really want you guys to come.” You say with a smile, bidding them goodbye.

You stand where they left you, mind blank and eyes not focusing on anything. You could not believe that he was gone. Just like that. So this was it. No chance of speaking to him again. You did not know when you were going to see him again and you were too big of a coward to call him. Besides, what you wanted to say was better if you did it in person and not over the phone. You felt defeated and thought it was time to go to your hotel so you could take a shower and drink all the contents of the mini bar. You were so busy tonight you didn’t even get a chance to fully enjoy yourself and have at least one drink.

You found Namjoon and told him you were going to head over to the hotel, deciding that it was time to call it a night.

You were waiting for your town car to come to the front of the building when you hear someone calling your name.

“Hey! I was trying to get your attention since before you left the building. Did you not hear me?” Chanyeol asks as he jogs up to you, breath visible in the cold night.

“Oh, sorry, I did not hear you.” You say, looking out for your car.

“Are you crying?” He asks, peering at your face.

“No.” You say, not realizing you had been crying, a few stray tears running down your face.

“Uh, okay. Well I sort of wanted to get a dance with you.” Chanyeol tries, getting closer to you and placing a hand on your arm.

“Chanyeol, I’m not in the mood right now. I just want to go to my hotel, I’m exhausted.” You say, biting your lip in an effort to hold your tears in.

“Hey, hey look at me.” He says gently, lifting your face to look at him. “Are you okay?” He asks again, emphasizing the ‘okay’.

You feel your lip quivering and shake your head no, tears finally overflowing.

He hugs you into his chest, feeling your body shake in his hold. You cry into his shirt, hoping that you would not stain it.

Chanyeol held you and felt his heart squeeze; he did not know why you were crying but he hated seeing you like this. All he wanted to do from now on is be there for you, whenever you wanted or needed him, he would be there. Just like he always should have.

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maergheritas-moved · 4 years

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S L A Y E R S, a novel by margarita p. g.

CHAPTER 00 - OLIVER

For being under Marco’s wing for a few weeks now, Oliver still hasn’t managed to master “the art of repair” even a little bit. He’s realized, instead, that he really isn’t good at this, that his nimble hands that once, in his younger years, served him for pickpocketing, for dumbkres with his mates, don’t work for handing tiny bot parts. It sucks, really… Marco thought Oliver would be of some use. And Oliver did, too. A part of him, a small part, maybe hoped that this stay would be permanent.

But, like all things in his life, it soon proved to be nothing but momentary. He realized this on a burning hot summer morning, when the sun was high and the sulfur in the air even higher. He was only getting used to the life in Bajo then, trying to find a place amongst the renegades and runaways, and the many generations and cultural legacies found within the ancient walls of his new tiny town. The locals knew him as escurridizo, a nod to his late night appearances literally anywhere in town… he had the ability to slip out of where he was and be somewhere else in what looked like seconds. Lightning speed. Faster than a teleporter. Some people even thought he was one. He very much was not. That much he knew.

Oliver woke up late that June morning, to the high-pitched whirring of centuries-old engines. He had hoped to get some rest after his rendezvous with Rory last night. But, as the heroes in video games would say, duty called. So, he got himself out of bed, put his sandals on, helped himself to burnt toast and already cold coffee, and headed to the taller.

There lay Marco, working on his new project: the restoration of a humanoid bot found by some archeologists a couple of miles from here. It was clearly a very, very old model, and Marco had been promised a very large sum of money if he restored it back to working condition. Maybe the archeologists were planning to take it to a museum or a college or something like that, Oliver thought.

It was very large, probably over three meters tall, and had a masculine shape. To Oliver, it looked like the military droids he saw on films.

The military humanoid death machine thing lay with its stomach part open on the table, and by the smell of coltan in the air, Oliver knew Marco was dealing with the motherboard. It was definitely from the 22nd century, maybe early, when they still put moderboards on the torso and not the head. Marco had his microglasses on, and was very intently working on opening something really really small. There was soft jazz music playing somewhere, which, mixed with the birds chirping and the sound of schoolboys close, painted a picture in Oliver’s head that resembled a time when everyone was still together and life was easy. He let the memory wrap him under.

An order from Marco pulls him back to reality. “Hey, nene,” he says, not even a hello beforehand, “can you check this wiring for me please?”

Without a word, Oliver walked over to the table, where the chemical smell is almost uncomfortable, and looked at the tangle of loose wires on the open motherboard. They were color coded, thank god. To Oliver, non-colored coded wires were the reason God left the Earth. Marcus and him always took hours to set them right. Almost instantly, he got a vague idea of how the circuits should go. They were like magnets, and he could feel where one ended and the other began, the many channels of energy running through the bot’s body, like blood rushing down veins. He had an instinct for this sort of things, a sixth sense, and it was hardly ever wrong. Oliver knew this wasn’t exactly normal, he knew it since he was a kid and could feel the many forces coming onto him way more than other people could, but he was not a might. Or at least, not a bolter (he’d already tried; sparks never came out of his palms). Whatever he was, he never gave it much thought. It would not do him good, especially not in this country.

Trusting his weird instinct, Oliver got to work, ordering Marco what went where, offering clear directions and vague explanations. Marco didn’t mind. To him, this boy was some sort of wizard, and not the “evil” kind. He did the work because he knew how to. If Oliver did it himself, he might as well cause a short circuit so strong it left the whole town with no power for a few hours. Oliver never understood why things like this seemed to happen, he guessed the wires just hated him.

Thus, they fell into a steady rhythm of work, sorting circuits out, monotone actions, with problems coming up as they went along, which they solved together. Oliver and Marco were a good team in that sense, Marco’s vast knowledge mixing with Oliver’s knack for improvisation to come up with increasingly creative solutions. These came naturally to Oliver. No one had ever given him a book on how to life, so everything he’d learned, he learned it by doing. By figuring things out, just like they were at that moment. Maybe he could be of use there, he thought. The idea of having a place to stay, even if he didn’t realize it then, gave him comfort.

Time passed quickly when you were at work, and soon it was time for lunch. Marco called a break, and Oliver lifted his head from the wiring of the bot’s eyes that he was attempting to figure out.

“Hungry?” Marco asked. Oliver nodded. He was, indeed, starving, and had been for a while, but with the task in front of him, it had been a second thought in his mind.

“Alright, then, uhhhh” Marco thought out loud. “Mara won’t be home until tonight, and there’s nothing from last night”.

Bummer, Oliver thought. Would they have something to it until Mara came back? There were days like this, when Aymara, Marco’s wife, was out working twelve hours at the rest stop outside of town. They had to do with whatever leftover there was from breakfast.

“So, we’re eating crackers, then?” Oliver asked, defeated.

Marco’s eye brightened up, his torso straightening up a little. “Actually, I think there’s some money in my bedroom. Go get yourself a mixto or whatnot, kid.”

Oliver practically springed to his feet and rushed to Marco’s bedroom. Indeed, there was money in his dresser, enough to buy two mixtos and maybe a sugary. With that, Oliver rushed out of the house and into the secluded Clovel Street.

The sun burned his skin, and he definitely should not have been out in this weather, but he was hungry and Lala’s tiny shop in the corner was open. There were a few neighbors having tartitas, who said hi to him. He went up to Arpy, the AI assistant, and ordered two mixtos, one for Marco and one for him. They would be ready in ten.

Oliver sat on the counter, watching Arpy put the mixtos in the toaster, and looked out the door, where there was a small stray dog trying to catch a fly. That was when he saw him.

His stare froze Oliver’s blood, made him paralyze all over. There was something about it…. something stomach-turning, revolting, repulsive, wrong. Like the man had crossed all of Oliver’s boundaries. It felt like a violation, but Oliver didn’t know of what. Or even how.

He wanted to run away. As far as his legs allowed him. That’s what his mind told him to do, that the man was a predator just like the MIMIC or the police. But his body told him otherwise. His body told him to stay; he felt a pull to the man like those of his wires, he did not care what fate met him there, what the man might bring him, he just had to go. It was impertinent, urgent. Now.

Yet, he stayed seated, watching his mixtos slowly get browner and cheesier, focusing on repelling that driving instinct within him, that… whatever he was doing to him. Sweat rolled down his brow and the people of the shop were completely unfazed or perhaps even unaware of whatever was going on between him and the man down the street, what strange energetic transaction was taking place Because it felt like that. It felt like electrons pushing down orbitals and moving, shifting, mixing, reacting, exploding. He felt like that: like a nuclear bomb that would go off if the man didn’t do anything about it first. He tried breathing. He tried focusing on anything else, on the smell of the food or the sound of cheese burning or the conversations taking place behind him. Nothing worked.

When his mixtos were ready, he grabbed them and rushed outside, without even saying goodbye. Without thinking, he crossed the street, to the man. It felt eternal. And the man’s eyes…. they followed him. Wide and large and dark, open, focused… they felt, to Oliver, that they were feeding on his energy.

Oliver let out a shaky breath when he got to him. He was at least a head taller than Oliver, could crash him in a split second, and very, very dark. His demeanor was unexpectedly calm. His eyes loosened for a bit, and Oliver was terrified for a half second. Then, his large hand wrapped over Oliver’s frail arm, and he hitched a breath in fear. He could not form words. The energy-sucking man started walking him down the street in double time. How is no one seeing this? Oliver thought.

He wanted to ask so many things, who are you, where are you taking me, leave me alone, I have to get back home, but he couldn’t. If he did, what would this guy do to him? He was scary, villain-level scary. So, Oliver just went along. He got thrown into the back of a white transport. There was a brunette woman on the shotgun seat. Her eyes looked even more threatening than the man’s.

They were kidnapping him. God, they were going to throw im on the sea or on a deep pit and let him die there. Immediately, Oliver started thinking up escape plans. He could still run. The didn’t bind his hands with anything. Dumbasses.

The man got in the car. The woman was clutching her head, as if she had a migraine. They were discussing something, Oliver realized. But they were not talking. They were doing it through looks. Can she communicate with him in some sort of eye language? Or is it telepathy?

After a while, they both settled down and looked at him. Oliver was going to run. But he also couldn’t. Something kept him from running and this time it wasn’t any of their looks.

“Sorry about that” the man said, “it’s pretty terrifying, i know, trust me”

What the hell? Oliver thought. He was apologizing to him?

“I’m Drake, by the way” he said, with a smirk and friendly eyes. Oliver wanted to vomit.

“And I’m Alyx” the woman said. Her eyes were warm and heavy-lidded, and Oliver had a feeling he should stay as far from her as she could.

There was a beat of silence. “Who… Who are you and what… why…?” Oliver tried to speak, tried to form questions, but he didn’t know where to start.

“Um, in short, kid,” Drake said, shifting in his seat. He opened his mouth, closed it again. “Okay, so: We are from the Cali Might Army. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Drake Emerson and she’s Officer Alyx Warren. That’s the important thing”.

Oliver gaped in awe at them. They were the Might Army. He had never met them, no one has, but he has certainly heard of them; in late night horror stories and headlines detailing tragedies. People spoke of them as violent, relentless insurgents who would abuse of their monstrous abilities to overtake the country. They almost seemed too powerful to be real. They couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be real. Is it a prank?

Alyx looked at Drake. “He’s very confused, he’s saying… it’s a prank or something, um…”

Oliver panicked. Immediately he tried to open the door, tried to break the window, anything to get away from this… woman. She was reading his thoughts! Has she always been doing that? He didn’t even feel it, she just walked into his mind without even asking for permission.

Drake reacted immediately, moving to pin him down, stop him. Oliver was on fire, his legs kicking to get away, powerless against Drake’s weight, screaming and panting and crying, he only now realized he was crying.

“Oliver!” Alyx yelled. “Oliver. Please. Please calm down, I don’t want to calm you down, please don’t make me calm you down.” She was as panicked as he was. Oliver just failed to form curses at her and kept kicking. He was not going to calm down. He was going to get away, these people couldn’t mean well. He had to get back to Marco, to the work, have lunch.

But he would never get there.

With Drake Emerson pinning him down and Alyx Warren in his mind, plus the thousand questions that grew by the second, he would never get there. Ever.

After a while, Oliver sat in the car seat, unmoving and breathing heavily, powerless. Alyx and Drake were in their seats, panting. Alyx let out a curse.

“Listen,” Drake said, softly, calm, “we won’t hurt you. Really.”

You already have, Oliver thought. “Then… why are you doing this? Why are you taking me?” he asked over shaky breaths.

“Because,” Alyx started, voice trembling, “You have a very strange ability that no one has ever had before, and you might really, really, be of help for us.”

Oliver wasn’t sure he was breathing anymore.

Alyx continued. “So, you’re coming with us, because, if you don’t, then someone else will take you, and you won’t be safe and neither will the world.”

TAGLIST (ask to be added/removed!): @andromdae @rapunzelles @herondalelucies @posideon @mayaeri @vicisse @pnstaudt @themillionthdraft @ditzysworld @vandorens @partheneos

#mine #wip: slayers #hope yall didnt forget about her #idk if the read more worked...#violetvineyard #also sorry if u didnt wanna be on the taglist cdjnhfnvh #i made it months ago #slayers: chapter 00

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miracleboiz · 4 years

Text

Making a Home Ch. 10

Kita Shinsuke had experienced a lot in life. He had been raised with his grandmother, a loving foster parent and for some time he followed in her foot steps before finding his own path. He thought his foster care license had expired before getting a call at three am with two small boys thrust into his arms. Miya Osamu and Atsumu, from broken homes but still fighting. Thirty days before his license expires. Thirty days to make a choice, keep the boys or let them be separated into different homes. Thirty days to fall in love with them.

Words: 3k

Relationships: Gen

Warnings: Mention of past child abuse, non-graphic abuse

Not from Kita, but it is mentioned. I will post any warnings before any panic attacks or vague descriptions of abuse.

Read below or on AO3

Shinsuke didn’t look up as the doorbell rang again, letting Oikawa move past him to greet whoever had come in. Instead he and Osamu had Azumane on his knees in the back corner office while Osamu did his best to braid a ribbon into the long stips. Azumane still looked a little traumatized from having a four foot tall child run up to him and yell the question at him to braid his hair.

“Are you sure… This is highly unprofessional.” Azumane said, glancing up at his boss.

Shinsuke was moving the drawings on the back wall to clear up more space and barely gave Azumane a quick flick of his eyes before he was shrugging. He didn’t say that as long as Osamu was smiling he would let him do anything, he didn’t think it needed saying aloud.

“My store, my rules. And I think you’re meeting the dress code just fine.” Shinsuke hummed, trying not to laugh at Azumane’s defeated sigh.

“We have a dress code?” Sugawara’s voice made Azumane whine a little louder as the silver haired man crouched down to offer Osamu a new clip to slide into the braided ribbons before moving to the thread wall. Azumane gave him a look of despair as the butterfly was quickly added to his hair, Shinsuke only felt a little guilty that it was probably starting to get unnaturally heavy. Not nearly enough to stop Osamu though

“Yes, it specifically states not to wear anything Oikawa considers to be good.” Shinsuke turned, ignoring the laughter that broke from Sugawara as the pounding of feet reached him. Seconds later Atsumu burst through the gateway.

“ ‘Samu! I’m getting married.” The words made Shinsuke drop the drawings immediately as he scrambled to understand what was going on. He twisted to stare open mouthed at Atsumu, completely speechless as the child rushed at his brother and skittered to a stop in front of him.

“Why?” Osamu looked as confused and terrified as Shinsuke himself felt. Atsumu either didn’t notice or didn’t care because he just held up a box with a bright oversized grin.

“ ‘Cuz if I marry him then I get all the cookies always!” Atsumu chirped, eyes wide with wonder and delight. Shinsuke slowly turned his head to blink at Azumane and Sugawara, both of them were already looking to him for answers.

“Akagi…” Shinsuke called, letting his eyes fall shut as he heard Akagi’s squeaky answer from outside of the back office. He moved around the boys, pausing only enough to brush Atsumu’s hair down from the wind, and looked to find Akagi attempting to hide behind a rack.

“I left you alone with him for…” He glanced at the clock and then back over. “An hour and a half. And now he’s getting married?”

Akagi looked momentarily ashamed before shrugging and holding up a box of baked goods. He smiled pleasantly over the box, attempting to flutter his lashes sweetly but it did nothing against Shinsuke’s annoyed glare.

“It’s not my fault.” Akagi whined, pitching his voice up and making a few customers glance over. He quieted when Shinsuke’s eyes narrowed but his pout only grew stronger as he huffed.

“I didn’t tell Shinji-kun to give him an extra muffin. He just did it and said he liked Atsumu’s shirt, then Atsumu was declaring their engagement to everyone. I thought I was going to have to fight Takahiro-kun for his son’s honor.”

Shinsuke watched him before sighing and glancing back at the twins. They had joined Azumane on the ground and were currently sharing pieces of muffin with him while Sugawara finished grabbing the fabric he’d actually come in for.

“I think Asahi’s already planning the wedding outfits,” Sugawara said breezily as he moved past and back to his customer.

“I’m not making enough money to deal with all of you at the same time.” Shinsuke said softly, wondering if this was going to be his life.

Running after Akagi to keep him from accidentally traumatizing Shinsuke’s kids, or worse teaching them things to traumatize all of the adults in their life. Meanwhile, Sugawara had found Oikawa and was currently harassing him with a perfectly innocent smile while he tailored a customer’s pant leg. Azumane had grabbed his tablet and was sketching something out while Atsumu was being taught by his brother how to continue the endless braids on Azumane’s head.

In all honesty, a life like this… was a good one. The feeling was sweet, winding in Shinsuke’s stomach as he watched the scene and he wondered if that was why his grandmother had never given up on foster care. Children weren’t necessary for his life to be happy, he was happy before they had arrived and if they left he would still find his life fulfilling and what he wanted. Yet, they brought something new, something light that Shinsuke was hesitant to give up. He could nurture them, protect them, help them grow and the option was more enticing by the minute.

“Oh shit you’re smiling… I’m going to die… Goodbye my sweet ‘Mimi, goodbye my muscular boo Aran, farewell my darling nephews- Shinsuke where are you going? You know my dramatic monologue needs an audience. Don’t make me download TikTok to get attention, you know I’ll do it.” Akagi called softly as Shinsuke took the box of treats before turning and walking away, a fondly exasperated smile playing on his lips. Shinsuke raised a hand to dismiss his remarks, ignoring the whine that rose up.

“Go help one of the customers, I have kids to watch.” Shinsuke said, slipping into the office to watch Atsumu finish his first braid. It was terrible and unbalanced and Shinsuke was proud of him.

“Hey, did you want to meet the others and bring them their muffins?” Shinsuke asked the two of them, holding up Akagi’s box in explanation. Both of them lit up, smiling brightly as they nodded and reached their hands up eagerly for Shinsuke to take them.

The day passed rather quickly, especially after the length of the day before, and as seven o’clock hit Shinsuke was flipping off the last light in the shop. Azumane and Sugawara had left only a few minutes before and Akaashi had escaped a few hours ago. Oikawa was still on the phone with someone but he gave Shinsuke a thumbs up and mimed locking the door as he passed.

Atsumu had already snuck back into the house and was curled up on the couch with Kitty as he played through ‘Spyro’. Osamu on the other hand, had decided he was in charge of Akagi for the day and was enjoying bossing him around.

Still, Shinsuke hadn’t expected to walk into the office between the two buildings to see Akagi on the floor and Osamu in front of him. Osamu was doing his absolute best to explain how to draw a flower for a card and Akagi was either intentionally harassing him or genuinely had no idea what he was doing. Shinsuke watched from the doorway for a moment before deciding it was a little bit of both.

More than a few doodles decorated the floor, markers and crayons laying beside both of their knees while they leaned over Akagi’s current project. Each one was decorated with rather… adorable characters for ‘cheer up’ and ‘you’re doing great’. Shinsuke honestly had no idea what it was for or why Osamu was making Akagi make them but as long as they were having fun he wasn’t going to say anything.

“No, no, you have to make petals- Shinsuke-san!” Osamu chirped as he felt eyes on his back and turned to see him. He grinned, a bright and free smile, and pointed at Akagi who was still just drawing lines on his paper.

“We’re making cards for Azumane! So when he gets scared he can look at these and know it’s okay!” Osamu explained and Shinsuke’s heart melted. He moved over, gently mussing the hair and trying not to give in to the urge to kiss his head.

“That’s great, Osamu. Will you be helping me with dinner tonight as well?” He asked, heart swelling at the way Osamu’s eyes lit up and the child twisted to grab ahold of his hand.

“Can I?”

“Of course. But you need to clean up all of this before we can. So why don’t you help Akagi clean up and then we can get started?” Shinsuke offered and Osamu nodded. He turned to Akagi, hands on his hips.

“C’mon Oji-san! Let’s get this taken care of! Then I can show you how to cook so you’re not hungry anymore.”

Shinsuke laughed softly, making his way inside as Akagi insisted he knew how to cook. Between himself and Osamu, Akagi might actually leave the country with basic knowledge to feed himself instead of eating out constantly.

Shinsuke glanced over at the couch as he walked in, noting Atsumu’s curled-up position. As attached to his brother as he was, Atsumu hadn’t really branched out much and didn’t seem to connect with people as well as his brother. Even with his comment about marriage (though Shinsuke still thought it was rather cute he had forgotten that money was a thing that he could use to buy pastries and instead skipped straight to marriage) he hadn’t brought up Shinji-kun or the bakery again all day.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?” Shinsuke asked softly, waiting for Atsumu’s nervous glance and jerky head nod. “Thank you, Atsumu… Can I check on your cheek?”

This time Atsumu fully froze, pressing the pause button on the game. His eyes darted to Shinsuke before he slowly nodded his head, anxiety clear in his gaze. Despite seeming to finally relax and branch out, Atsumu wasn’t actually asking for what he wanted. Instead he was letting his brother lead them around and following along happily with whatever adult offered him something.

Shinsuke moved closer until he could gently tilt up the child’s head, looking over the dark purple skin carefully. Atsumu’s eye didn’t seem affected by it and it was healing well for only being the second day. Though Shinsuke could see that it was slightly swollen, the skin around it pink and irritated like someone had been prodding it.

“Does it hurt much?” Shinsuke asked as he pulled his hand back with a quiet thank you.

“I’ve had worse.” Atsumu said and Shinsuke noticed he didn’t answer the question. Atsumu turned his head away as Shinsuke tried to look closer, a frown on his own lips.

“Atsumu, were you touching it?” He kept his voice light and gentle so Atsumu wouldn’t think he was in trouble. Regardless the child flinched subtly, fingers grasping the controller tighter.

“The… the people in the shop… kept staring…” Atsumu confessed after a few heartbeats, shaking slightly. “I wanted to make them go away but… It just… made it worse…”

Shinsuke stared at him for a moment, feeling guilty for not noticing at all. Of course Atsumu would have been self conscious about his face especially with the memory of how it happened so fresh in his memory.

“Why didn't you say anything?” Shinsuke regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Of course Atsumu hadn’t said anything. He didn’t know he could trust anyone yet, it was only the second day there was no way he would have warmed up so quickly with his past.

Atsumu froze, shaking slightly and Shinsuke realized he was trying to hold his breath before he started crying. His mind blanked for a second before he rapidly told himself to calm down and instead focused on Atsumu.

“I’m sorry Atsumu. It’s alright if you don’t want to tell me things, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise…” Shinsuke started but it was clear that it wasn’t helping when Atsumu shook again with a ragged breath. “Atsumu…”

Shinsuke licked his lips, trying to think of how to calm him down before Osamu and Akagi finished. He didn’t want Atsumu shutting himself off to everyone to keep his brother happy and he definitely didn’t want Osamu to pick up on his brother’s panic and leave him with two anxious kids to calm down.

“Atsumu,” he started again letting his voice soften until it was near a whisper, “it’s alright. I’m sorry they were staring at you, next time you can come back inside if you want. I’m sorry I didn’t notice, I should have been there to help you. I’m very sorry I didn’t protect you.”

Atsumu’s gaze shot to him, once, twice, three times. The tiniest tears were forming at the edge of his eyes at his panic before confusion started to build instead. His mouth moved without words, and his eyes danced around the room. His fingers tapped at the controller for a moment before he finally seemed to be able to come back to himself.

“What…” His voice was a whisper and Shinsuke regretted not watching his words better. “Why… Why are you sorry?”

“Atsumu, it scared you right? Made you upset that they stared?” Shinsuke waited for the inevitable nod before continuing. “I should have stopped that but I didn’t realize it was happening. It’s my fault for not protecting you… Atsumu… A parent is supposed to protect you, I should have let you know you were allowed to leave earlier or let you know you could have stayed right next to me. And for that I’m sorry. The bruises on your face won’t go away by poking at them, they’ll just hurt worse and now it’s because I failed you. I’m sorry, Atsumu. I hope you can forgive me.”

Atsumu wasn’t able to speak, he just stared at Shinsuke. Choked noises came from his throat but no words escaped as he looked on with confusion and anxiety. The child swallowed, looking away a second later before rapidly nodding his head.

The only other time any adult had ever apologized had been when Kenma-kun said sorry for his game music being loud back at the police station. No adult had ever apologized to Atsumu for messing up and certainly none of his foster parents had ever bothered to ask him to forgive them.

Atsumu had no idea what to do with the knowledge or how to act. Did he say yes? Did he hug Shinsuke? Did he say sorry back? Cry? Smile?

He put the controller down slowly beside him, biting his lip as he turned to look more fully at Shinsuke. His foster parent actually looked remorseful, like he did really feel bad for not noticing Atsumu’s problem. Atsumu wasn’t really sure how to tell him that he was good at hiding it, and he had a feeling that would just make Shinsuke sad again. After all… Parents were supposed to love their kids right? Being hurt would make a parent sad and Shinsuke had said...

“You… Said...parent…” Atsumu said softly, flinching internally as Shinsuke blinked at him. He meant foster parent, of course he did. Atsumu shook his head, shoving away the hope and the heartache that was taking its place.

“It’s okay…” Atsumu said quickly as Shinsuke opened his mouth to say something. “Really… it’s okay. I… I… I’ll leave, next time.”

Shinsuke hesitated, wanting to push further but this wasn’t a teenager. This was a scared six year old who didn’t have the tools or the emotional maturity to talk through all of this in one sitting. They’d have to work at it. Together.

“Only if you want to.” Shinsuke murmured, tilting his head to look at the bruises again. “I’ll go get an ice pack for the swelling alright?”

Atsumu nodded, letting his gaze fall to the couch when Shinsuke left. He should have known better than to think Shinsuke actually thought of himself as their parent. He must have meant whichever parents decided to adopt them, if any did.

Yet….

Shinsuke-san was kind, was it bad of Atsumu to wish Shinsuke was his parent? That Shinsuke would decide to keep them after all instead of passing them off like a baton? Was Atsumu a bad person for not wanting Shinsuke to be disappointed in him for being weak? Was he betraying his future parents by wanting Shinsuke to stay with him and Osamu?

He jumped as he felt Shinsuke sitting down again, looking up to see him offering an ice pack in one hand and… The fish crackers that Atsumu had asked for at the store.

Shinsuke’s blank face softened and Atsumu was starting to realize that Shinsuke wasn’t blank so much as… quiet. You had to look further than just his frown to know what he was thinking.

“You didn’t eat much at lunch since you ate so many muffins, so I thought you might like them.” Shinsuke explained as he reached forward and placed the ice pack gently over Atsumu’s bruise. Atsumu shook slightly, the words escaping him again but Shinsuke didn’t seem to mind as he ruffled his hair.

“Are you okay? You just have to nod or shake your head, okay?” Shinsuke said, the corners of his lips lifting as Atsumu nodded his head and moved to hold the pack on his face. Shinsuke pushed off the couch after opening the box, turning back towards the shop.

“I’m going to go see what’s taking Osamu and Akagi so long okay?” He explained, moving a few steps towards the door. He glanced back when a soft noise came from Atsumu, taking in the blinking eyes that lingered on the spot beside him.

Atsumu didn’t want to be alone again. Part of him hated it, he’d only had Osamu for years. Why was it different now? Part of him wanted to call Shinsuke back, ask if he was allowed a hug… Ask if he could stay a little while longer so Atsumu could pretend Shinsuke cared about him more than the money, more than because a friend asked. So Atsumu could pretend a little longer he was wanted.

“Hey Atsumu?” Shinsuke called, waiting until he glanced up to make sure he heard. “After dinner, would you be okay with showing me how to play that minecraft game?”

Atsumu’s eyes lit up immediately and he nodded, the barest hint of a grin growing on his face. Shinsuke couldn’t help but smile back, finally turning to look for his wayward sons that probably were covering his walls in paint.

They had some more work to do. A lot more work really, but Atsumu was smiling and Osamu’s laughter was echoing from the office. Shinsuke couldn’t help but think that this was a very good life.

#haikyuu!!#HQ #Miya Atsumu #Miya Osamu #Kita Shinsuke #Arankita #Inarizaki #fanfiction #Fluff #Making a home AU

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weeb-alcove · 3 years

Text

2019 English Playlist

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL77pv5URcE8b4_k9_GQYZoQYz_HhRDP2D

In English:

“99″ - Barns Courtney

10ft - Eileen Yo

5 Seconds of Summer Babylon Easier Lie to Me Teeth

88rising History Midsummer Madness ♪ from their album Head in the Clouds II ♬ Breathe I Love You 3000 II Indigo Strange Land These Nights

Affection - Between Friends

Aftertaste - Whethan

Ain’t Goin Back - Russ

Alan Walker Are You Lonely Different World Do It All for You Lily On My Way Play

All Fall Down - Johnny Glenn & Ally Hills & Just Juice

All Over Again (remix) - Lost You & Michael Moawad

Another Summer Night Without You - Alexander 23

Aphrodite - Rini

Ariana Grande Esta Noche ♪ from her album thank u, next ♬ bloodline in my head NASA

Arms Around You - XXXTentacion & Swae Lee & Lil Pump

Ava Max Freaking Me Out (Bingo Players remix) Not Your Barbie Girl So Am I

Bae - Trevor Wesley

Bars and Melody Lighthouse (Dave Winnel remix) Waiting for the Sun

Bazzi Caught in the Fire Focus Mine Myself No Way!

Beat of My Drum - Powers

Benee Evil Spider Find an Island Glitter Monsta Want Me Back Wishful Thinking

Better Not - Louis the Child

Big Sean Berzerk Single Again

Billie Eilish everything i wanted When I Was Older ♪ from her album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? ♬ 8 bad guy bury a friend ilomilo my strange addiction wish you were gay xanny

Birthday Party - AJR

Break Your Heart - Taio Cruz

broken - lovelytheband

Caffeine and Dopamine - Keepitinside

Camila Cabello Find U Again Señorita ♪ from her album Romance ♬ Bad Kind of Butterflies Liar My Oh My Shameless Should’ve Said It

Cardi B Money Please Me

Catch Feelings - Henry Young & Zachary

Céline - Gallant

Cemetery - Coin

Chanel - Frank Ocean

Chase - Aaron Carpenter

Cherry Cola - Kuwada

Cigarette - offonoff & Tablo & MISO

Clairo Sofia Throwaway

Close to Me - Ellie Goulding & Diplo & Swae Lee

Cold - Boy In Space & unheard

Come My Way - Plvtinum

Conan Gray Generation Why Greek God Maniac The King

Creep - Radiohead (GAMPER remix & Dadoni & Ember Island)

Crush - Lucian & Tiffany Day

Crying My Eyes Out - Stephen Puth

Crystal Dolphin - Engelwood

Dangerous Love - Justice Carradine

David Guetta Better When You’re Gone Blame It on Love

Daya Insomnia Left Me Yet Wanted

Don’t Be Gone Too Long - Chris Brown

Don’t Lie to Me - Lena

Don’t Start Now - Dua Lipa

Eric Nam ♪ from his album Before We Begin ♬ Congratulations Love Die Young

Everything - TobyMac

Eyes Wide Shut - Glades

Falling - Trevor Daniel

Fine - Rufus

Finneas I Don’t Miss You at All Let’s Fall in Love for the Night

Fitz and the Tantrums Hand Clap Out of My League

Flower - Johnny Stimson

Friends - Feyde

Funeral - Miguel

G-Eazy 1942 Nadie Como Tu

Get Away - Ed Black

Giants - Becky G & Keke Palmer & Soyeon & Duckwrth & Thutmose

Glass Animals Life Itself The Other Side of Paradise

Greyson Chance Boots Shut Up

Halsey Eastside Graveyard

Heart in Tokyo - Good Gasoline

Heartstrings - STVN & Jenna Carlie

Her - Alex Aiono

Hey Violet Better by Myself Queen of the Night

High School - Umi

Hometown Smile - Bahjat

Honne Crying Over You Day 1

How Do You Sleep? - Sam Smith

IDK - Bruce Wiegner

I Fall in Like Too Easily - Ashton Arbab

I Feel Love - Suggi

If I Can’t Have You - Shawn Mendes

If You Need Me - Julia Michaels

If You’re Over Me - Years & Years

I Heart You - Baby Ariel

I’ll Be There - King Henry & Sasha Sloan

ILYA - Fly By Midnight

In Betweenin’ - Austin Brown

Indiana Massara Apology Smoke in My Eyes

i think i love you (but i dont like you) - push baby

It’s Not You It’s Me - 6LACK & Bea Miller

Japanese Denim - Daniel Caesar

Jaymes Young Infinity Northern Lights

Joji Sanctuary Test Drive Yeah Right

Jonas Brothers Only Human Sucker

Juliet - Sebastian Javier

June - Sage Charmaine

Just My Luck - Tia Ray & Kehlani

Kailee Morgue Go to Sleep Headcase

Katy Perry 365 Harleys in Hawaii

Kiss Me Thru the Phone - Soulja Boy

Lalala - Y2K, bbno$

Last Hurrah - Bebe Rexha

Lauv Drugs & the Internet I’m So Tired

Lava Lamp - Dandi

Left to Right - Marteen

Lennon Stella La Di Da Polaroid Workin’ on It

Lifeguard - iamnotshane

Lovefool - The Cardigans

Love Me Wrong - Allie X & Troye Sivan

Love You Like That - Dagny

Madison Beer Fools Hurts Like Hell

Maggie Lindemann Friends Go Would I

MAGIC! Girl at Coachella Lay You Down Easy

Make You Mine - Public

Mango Love - Shawn Wasabi & SATICA

Mask - joe.k

MAX Love Me Less One Two Things Worship

Middle of the Night - Monsta X

Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince - Taylor Swift

MØ Blur Don’t Leave Kamikaze Nostalgia On & On Red Wine

Mona Lisa - Valntn & Peter Fenn

mxmtoon Blame Game Prom Dress

My Family - Karol G & Migos & Rock Mafia & Snoop Dogg

Nobody - Emilee

No Sleep - Martin Garrix & Bonn

Nostalgia - The Beamish Brothers

NOTD Keep You Mine Romantic (NOTD remix) So Close

Ocean Man - Ween

October - Alessia Cara

Oh Wonder I Wish I Never Met You Super Love

Only You - Cheat Codes & Little Mix

On the Low - Justin Park

Pardon Me - Dion

Permission - New Hope Club

Pharmacy - Isaac Dunbar

Pink - No Rome

Post Malone ♪ from his album Hollywood’s Bleeding ♬ A Thousand Bad Times Circles Die for Me Goodbyes Take What You Want

PRETTYMUCH Blind Solita

Quinn XCII U & Us Wayback (remix)

R3HAB All Comes Back To You Don’t Give Up on Me Now Lullaby This Is How We Party

Raincoat - Kieron Lee & Chloe Ho

Rebels - Ivy Adara

Red Sippy Cup - Ellis G & Tristen the God

Rei Brown Picture Frames Real Love

Rescue Me - OneRepublic

Right Now - Nick Jonas & Robin Schulz

Rolex - Ayo & Teo

Roots - Galantis & Valerie Broussard

Roxanne - Arizona Zervas

Ruel Free Time Real Thing Younger

Say It to My Face - Maty Noyes

Selena Gomez Bad Liar I Can’t Get Enough

Sick Thoughts - Lewis Blissett

Skeletons - keshi

Speechless - Dan + Shay

Stay Home - Faye Risakotta

Sugarplum Elegy - Niki

Summer Love - Hyu

Summer Time High Time - Cuco & J-Kwe$t

Summertime in Paris - Jaden & Willow

Suncity - Khalid & Empress Of

Superfruit - Maude Latour

Sweet Little Lies - bülow

Swimming in Your Feelings - Haven

Talking Loud - Jennifer Zhang

Tell Me - Mika-Intersection

tell me how you rly feel - adam&steve & Lostboycrow

Tessa Violet Bad Ideas Crush

Thank You - Junny

The Chainsmokers Family Kills You Slowly Takeaway

The Vamps All Night All the Lies Can We Dance Just My Type Middle of the Night Missing You Somebody to You We Don’t Care

Think About Me - dvsn

Tired - Jasmine Sokko

Tomorrow Tonight - Loote

Virtual Reality - ieuan

Waste My Time - Grace VanderWaal

Why Don’t We Come to Brazil I Don’t Belong in This Club I Still Do Mad At You Unbelievable What Am I (Casualkimono remix)

Why Don’t We - Austin Mahone

Why Haven’t I Met You? - Cameron Dallas

Woke Up Late - Drax Project & Hailee Steinfield

Yellow Hearts - Ant Saunders

Yoandri All the Way Bravo Cherry on Top It’ll Be Ok Only You

You & Me - Marc E. Bassy

You Got Issues - spring gang & Amaranthine

Young the Giant Apartment Cough Syrup

Zayn Rumors There You Are

In French:

Tous Les Mêmes - Stromae

In Spanish:

Rebeca - Mc Livinho & Gerex & Maejor

Teléfono - Aitana (remix with Lele Pons)

Electronic:

Monster Gambling in Tokyo - Idealism

Sorry I Like You - Burbank

Sunset Lover - Petit Biscuit

#music #2019 #english

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dat-town · 4 years

Text

CODE Z3RO | CODE 09

characters: BTS & Red Velvet genre: thriller, futuristic au warning: death summary: The twelve most ambitious and promising university students are welcomed in Choego, the world’s first entirely artificial intelligence-driven city, to compete for five job contracts that could change their life. But what if something goes wrong? What if they get trapped? What if the city suddenly turns against them? Can they find a way out before the countdown reaches zero? words: 4.5k tagged: @philosopher-of-fandoms

➼ Chapter Index

After Yerim’s cries died down, the silence was deafening. Climbing down the ladder one by one to the dimly lit sewerage system felt like descending to the deepest pits of Hell. Hoseok's horrified expression burnt itself into each of their minds haunting their thoughts as the artificial light shimmered around them. It didn’t take long and total darkness welcomed them as the lights above went out. They had no choice but to hold back their breaths in the awfully stinking odour coming from the pipes and the sewage disposal area under them. But nobody whined because they knew they had no other choice but to follow this route. They couldn't go back nor sit around waiting for help to come. Their only chance for survival was going forward.

When Yoongi's feet reached something concrete with his next step, he let go off the ladder tentatively, not knowing what to expect in the dark. Tapping the ground under his feet, the metal's clanking sound echoed around them.

"The ladder’s end is here. Come down carefully," he spoke up voice firm even though he was panting hard only a few minutes prior. His asthma decided to act up at the worst time possible, so he was thankful to the group for not leaving him behind in such a state. He felt sorry for Hoseok who hadn’t had any help and it had brought his end. But he felt even worse for the loved ones of the fallen fellows, for their parents, friends and lovers. They had no chance to know they were waiting for them to return home in vain.

And if they all died who would tell them the truth about this killing city?

It made him rethink his choices and decisions, edging him to apologize to his mother whom he treated unjust just because she didn’t support his choice of major. Ever since he had said no to becoming the family’s third-generation lawyer, their relationship had gotten worse. It seemed like they weren’t able to understand each other’s point of view. His mother had even called this Smart City Project a waste of time and looking back, she might have been right. He shouldn’t have turned his back on her without any word of goodbye. If he ended up dying in this hell on Earth, he knew he would regret his childish impulsiveness. But oh, youth always thinks death cannot reach it.

Yoongi narrowed his eyes trying to make out what was around him down there somewhere half-between the ground and the trap door. He heard water running and some machines working from under but other than that he only heard the noise of others' climbing. He reached for the wall searching for a switch to light up the space around them again but he found none. It probably used automatic sensors but they seemingly didn’t work. So it took awhile but when his eyes got somewhat used to the dark, he saw fences on two sides on the metal bridge they were standing on and he spotted a red flashlight on the other end of it quite far away.

"What is that noise?" Namjoon asked once he set his foot on the metal too right after his girlfriend. Soon they all gathered there, still shaken and uncertain because of the darkness fallen upon them. They could only see silhouettes, so telling each other apart was easier by the voices.

"I think the sewage water is getting cleaned under us. I read in one of the marketing documents we got that the used water is recycled for watering the plants but it needs to be filtered and thoroughly cleaned before adding it to the hose pipes. I think it's the sound of the extruding machine," Jungkook enlightened them as he accompanied Yerim to the fence and helped her wrap her fingers around the metal to make sure she kept herself steady.

"And why is it so hot and humid? It won't explode, right?" Wendy chirped in, worry evident in her usually confident voice. After elevators broke down and doors got shut without warning, they couldn’t be sure of anything.

"They boil and cool it too before reuse, so I think it's that," the young engineer answered and Yoongi was glad at least someone had thoroughly read the materials they had gotten. It came handy now because he liked to know what kind of problem he was facing before starting a fight.

"So it means, be extra careful! I will go forward first on the bridge but make sure to get a grip on the fence," Yoongi gave the orders and this time even the limping Taehyung had nothing to say.

The IT guy strictly followed the red light ahead which seemed to be the sign of a door to another room. Behind him he heard some unsure steps following him and Yerim's faint voice asking for water. He guessed that with her, Wendy and her boyfriend also lagged off because the noises sounded from farther away as he got closer to the light. It was hard to tell how much time passed, it could have been minutes or hours for all he knew but they walked for quite a while and the little group split into smaller groups. Only one person could keep up with him who led the row and Seulgi's quiet, shallow breathing gave his heart a rest. At least he knew he wasn't alone when he reached for the door handle.

It was Joohyun followed by the slow-paced Taehyung who closed the line, hand sweaty as she wrapped it around the cold fence. It was nerve-wracking, barely been able to see anything, much less their teammates ahead of them. Once or twice she even though they lost them when the faint echo of steps were suppressed by the sound of sewage water running below. The alarming silence over the noise and the lack of human contact, even just hearing or seeing them, also ticked her nervousness off. Maybe that’s why she slacked back staying with Taehyung whose steps were remarkably loud due to his injury. Sticking to him meant she knew that at least someone was close by and oh, she wanted nothing less than to stay alone.

Taehyung pulled one of his legs but he refused any further help. It must have been because of his pride or competitiveness. He didn't want to seem weak. As someone who studied psychology over the years it wasn't hard for Joohyun to guess why. He was distrustful towards anyone since he probably never received love so unconditional to make up for the loss he encountered.

"How is your ankle?" she spoke up not letting the silence stretched too far between them.

"What? Suddenly you care?" Taehyung rasped out, voice full of spite. Was it how he reacted to every question that was intended to be kind? With full of suspicion? Joohyun just wanted to be nice but now she wasn’t so sure anymore.

She gritted her teeth, not letting the hurt be heard in her tone as she answered.

"If you're being a deadweight and hold us back, there was no point in saving you over Hoseok," she remarked just as dryly even though her throat closed up speaking so harshly about the dead boy like he was nothing else than an asset to choose. It would have been a lie to say she had liked Hoseok even just a bit, he had been too whiny and he’d had not much use but he had been a human being and nobody deserved to die such a cruel death. No one, not even Taehyung despite his impossible personality.

"I never told you to save me or to wait for me. I can make my way out of here alone. I don't need any of you idiots," he scoffed, all too mighty if you asked Joohyun.

"Keep telling yourself that," she rolled her eyes but in the dark it couldn’t have been seen.

She wasn't too keen on boosting the Marketing guy's ego though he really did seem like the type who would have survived all kinds of obstacles and could have even lived on the surface of ice just fine. But it wasn't a game made to be played alone.

"Anyways, you owe me. Don't forget that," she reminded him firmly.

She liked fairness and believed the universe always found its balance. So she knew she might get punished one day for leaving Sooyoung alone in the dorms like that but back then she had no idea what her actions meant. But knowing the consequences, would she have acted differently? Would she now? And what would it tell about her? She knew very well that emergency situations brought out people's inner selves. The way they behaved when something life-threatening happened made all the difference between the selfish and the selfless ones. But she also knew that her unsaid alliance with Taehyung could make or break whether she survived, so she intended to make the most out of it. Did it mean she was self-absorbed, only caring about herself? Or rather that she knew her way in this harsh, cruel world?

“Whatever,” Taehyung scoffed with a low grunt as they continued walking forward in silence. The boy's panting became louder as they kept going, the long tunnel seeming never-ending after the first dozens of steps. So it happened between one frivolous moment and another, it might have been Joohyun's carelessness or just a bit of misfortune, but in the end it didn’t matter, the result was all the same: she lost her balance and fell.

She could tell that the metal was slippery under her slippers but it was too late by the time she realized the consequence of her misstep. She slipped on the water – that probably Yerim had poured out accidently with her shaking hands when she had drunk – and it would have been fine if they weren’t walking on a bridge over nothing. As her bottom landed on the cold hard ground she automatically tried to find her balance again by placing her hands down. But one of those found nothing and ended into the emptiness. She misplaced the edge of the bridge in her mind and it seemed to become a deadly mistake on her part. As her hand found no concrete there the force of momentum tilted her body towards the void. As she fell she barely had time to blindly grab on the metal pole of the fence. Gasping, she clutched onto it with sweaty hands, forehead fitting close to the material of the bridge while her legs dangled in the air.

"What the fuck was that?" Taehyung, who only heard the fall, questioned as his steps halted. The darkness brought paranoia out of even him.

"I'm down here, Taehyung, help me up," Joohyun forced her mouth to form the words even though she felt like she was wasting her precious energy needed to hold herself even by just breathing too loudly.

"Oh so you need that favour back already?" he mocked her way of asking for help as he knelt down towards the source of her panicked voice. His knees hit the metal hard, hand following the handrail.

How could she be so stupid to let go, he must have thought but Joohyun knew very well that in the moment of danger most people didn't act rationally, they let their instincts take over just how she wanted to lessen the impact of the fall by putting her hands down. The possibility of the bridge's edges being all too close didn't even occur to her in that moment. The same as she didn't even care about her pride now when it was a matter of life and death.

"Don't be an asshole and pull me up," she growled at the boy who didn't seem to understand the severity of the situation. It wasn't him who hung over an unknown depth after all and it wasn't his hands that kept slipping from the metal that even scarred her palm.

"What's the magic word?" he hummed all too calm and Joohyun swore she would punch him in the nose once she was safe. How did he dare to play with her life as if she was nothing more than a puppet on strings?

But maybe for him that's all she was.

"Please… please," she panted, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

She really didn’t think she could hold on for much longer. Though according to her studies her body should have kept on until her last breath because during a crisis like this the human body and mind was capable of things otherwise it wouldn't have thought possible. The saying about holding on with tooth and nails really made sense now. She never wanted to live more than in that moment.

"Alright," Taehyung sighed heavily as if it was such a generous decision of him and he reached down with his free hand.

As his fingertips grazed Joohyun's shoulder she grabbed onto him with one hand. Once she was sure he held her firmly enough she let go off the metal pole in order to push herself upwards on the bridge. However, the boy wasn't too much of a help. He didn't made any effort to lift her, pulling her into safety, he just held her and let her struggle.

"You know, you were so close to the top 5," he remarked in a scornful tone which confused the girl for a moment, just one before she put the puzzle pieces together. But by then it was already too late and she felt herself fall into the abyss.

Her scream got cut off as she disappeared in the hot sewage water waiting to be processed. Yet the betrayal hurt more than the burn against her smooth skin. It hurt even more because despite what she had been taught about human behaviour during her academic career, despite all the signs she should have noticed, she made the stupid mistake of trusting and laying her life in the hands of the wrong man.

"Did you hear it?" Frightened, Yerim whipped her head backwards and clenched onto the fence even firmer.

"It sounded like a scream," Namjoon whispered but his premonition didn't receive objection nor agreement. They continued their walk towards the door that was now opened thanks to the ones at the front. Through the gap between the frame and the door it shed suspicious red light over the bridge, painting the shadows of the duo standing by the threshold onto the dark metal. Their figures appeared side by side but while the boy tried relentlessly to figure out why the bracelets stopped working, the girl just stood there, almost unmoving.

Kang Seulgi had always been an odd girl. Quiet and smart. She had been often picked on by her former classmates and since she’d had a hard time making friends, there had been nobody to protect her from the bullies. No matter how uncomfortable a task was, saying no wasn't her cup of tea. She liked to follow what she was told because the route taken like this was deemed safe in her eyes. But in Choego only she seemed to know where to go in order to stay alive. If only she dared to speak up. But wouldn't it be too late by now? Wouldn't the deaths of those who were left behind be blamed on her? The burn on her hand was already enough of a reminder about her mistakes. Under the red light it was even angrier burgundy and she hissed as she touched the wound drawing Yoongi's attention to it. Feeling the burn of the guy's gaze on her skin, it prickled and she gulped, remembering the way he looked at her when the fire alarm went off.

"You should put some cream on it before it gets infected," Yoongi advised quietly and the girl's head snapped towards him. Her long brown hair fell into her eyes, covering her sight.

"I don't have any on me," she whispered not daring to meet his eyes. It was useless to pretend dumb and ask what he meant by it, it was obvious he had it already figured out. Just how he should have known that they weren't in the position to run to pharmacies with every little injury. They had just left the hospital which was probably their last chance to get medicine of any kind. But she was okay with the burn mark, it wasn't the first time it happened anyway, she was used to scars, be it physical or mental.

Yoongi hummed at her answer since he couldn't offer any other kind of remedy either. He turned his head, looking into the distance, narrowing his eyes to make out the silhouettes of the groups of four and two following them. Seulgi looked the same way, hoping they would arrive soon, so they could get going, out of this dark and inauspicious place but they were still quite far. Probably because of the scared Yerim and the limping Taehyung.

Seulgi thought they would wait for them in silence, letting it cover them like a warm blanket on wintery days but Yoongi didn't turn back to his bracelet and his computer. He kept his eyes on the abyss but his words were directed at her without a doubt.

"You caused the fire drill, didn't you?" he asked but it didn't seem like he needed an answer. He was confident enough but his voice was just slightly stern. it didn't feel like he was calling her out on it or that he blamed her for any misfortune it might brought. He sounded almost understanding as he added: "You're a smoker."

"I–" Seulgi's already faint voice broke off as she tried to find an excuse. Gosh, this is just what she wanted to avoid, being questioned about her bad habit. She just didn't think it would be by the IT guy.

Taking notice of her self-conscious silence, he looked at her, searching for her eyes under the ominous lights and for the first time since she set her foot into this chaotic place, Seulgi truly felt like she wasn't alone.

"It's okay, I know the signs," Yoongi probably intended to reassure her this way, implying that he only figured it out due to his knowledge but Seulgi couldn't help but wonder what kind of sign it was. Was it the smell of smoke, the burn itself or perhaps the twitch of her fingers when she didn't get nicotine for too long? And how could he know? Was he also one of those who reached for this kind of drug to forget about their problems?

As if he heard her internal question, lowering his head he answered it without pushing her limits.

"My dad was smoking too," he said, tone changing too abruptly to end the sentence properly.

Until lung cancer took him away, the unsaid confession hung between them like a string waiting to be cut off by the Moiras.

Seulgi didn't know what to say to that, so she did what she did best: she stayed silent, words not reaching the tip of her tongue, not even when the steps were getting louder and the arrivals asked whether it was just the two of them.

"Finally! I thought we would never make it here. What's over there?" Namjoon grunted as he peeked over the threshold into the red room. It was lack of any helpful device but it had four doors with different numbers written on them on small metal tags. It meant nothing for most of them, just a random combination of five digits of numbers and characters.

"Nothing really. We should wait for the others and decide which way to go. I don't want to hear Taehyung whine because he didn't get the chance to butt in the decision," Yoongi remarked bitterly and the snort coming from the younger engineer guy signalled that he wasn't the only one whose nerves had enough of the Marketing guy's quirks.

"Do we have to stay in the dark for long?" Yerim spoke up with voice trembling like ravaged leaves falling during windy autumn months. Poor her, it hadn't been long since she lost her brother and now she was forced underground with an obvious fear of dark. However, she held on, she didn't give up or hold them back and Seulgi respected the young girl for her strength.

"I hope not. These passages branch throughout the island like a web of spiders, so I bet there are multiple ins and outs," Namjoon stated, although he was also confused because of the long journey they had to take without seeing any exit. What kind of architectural decision was it by the founders? But sooner or later they should have found a drain grate above them, leading to the surface... right?

"Can anyone tell how much time we have till the next zone shuts done?" Jungkook asked looking around as his own digital devices acted up with no wifi around. His question was reasonable since none of them wanted to walk into a trap.

"It's a few minutes past midday," Wendy checked the analog watch she wore on her wrist. "Gosh, time really flew by. How many zones can still be active?" She wondered aloud because it was around ten when they got into the hospital at the cost of the countdown's accelerating.

Being good at Maths, it didn't take too much for Seulgi to calculate the correct answer. From midnight to ten in the morning ten zones shut down, Two hours passed since which meant four more down at the current speed. But the number of the active ones didn't matter as long as they were within the safe border of these.

"There must be a pattern in the order they close off," Jungkook claimed and the quiet girl were surprised how talkative he became suddenly. Maybe it was Yerim's presence, that he had to constantly murmur comforting words to her.

"If I were the researchers I would have left a path leading to the main computer last, so if we head that way we should be okay," Yoongi added to their discussion and humming, everybody agreed with his reasoning. However, it didn't help their case too much without the knowledge of the exact arrangement of the city.

"Sure, but how we know where that is?" came the logical question from the tall boy beside him but Yoongi wasn't taken aback by it.

"We don't know. But she does," he pointed at Seulgi. Dumbfounded, the girl could only blink, not understanding what he meant.

"What?"

Yoongi tilted his head, watching her from under his dark lashes. There was a challenge in his voice and fire in his eyes as if he told her to step up for herself, to show them she wasn't just a gray little mouse following the horde.

"You said before we were safe. How did you know that?" he asked and oh, it all made more sense now. She didn't think anyone heard her.

"Fucking finally! I thought I was going crazy," an angry voice snapped closeby and everybody turned towards the lilac haired guy catching up to them.

However, he was alone no matter how hard they tried to gawk behind him in the dark. It stirred up uneasiness in their insides.

"Taehyung, where is Joohyun?"

The fear was all too clear in the Med student's voice as she asked about the eldest girl. Her question however was followed by deep silence. It had cuts and claws, scratching their throats, hungry for their dread. The pause before Taehyung's answer was like the quiet before the storm, safe that it didn't bring rain and thunders but guilt and grief afterwards.

"I don't know how it happened. She was in front of me in one moment and then she fell down in the next. It all happened so fast. I could barely see anything," the guy said in an emotionless voice and for some reason it sent shivers down Seulgi's spine. Even if there was no dead corpse in front of their eyes, they all knew what it meant.

There was something very wrong about this place. With every passing moment she hated being here more and more. She hated that they couldn't let themselves mourn properly because they had to focus on their own survival. It felt like losing a part of their humanity.

"Let's get the fuck out of this zone before we all die here," Taehyung passed by them, rushing into the red room, only to stop a few meters before the four doors. He didn't know either which one would have been the wise to choose.

None of them knew, except for one.

"Seulgi..." Yoongi's deep but smooth voice reached said girl's ears and curiously she looked the boy in the eyes. She had no idea what to make of the hope he saw in those dark orbs. "You know where to go, right?" he asked, almost pleading and Seulgi was more than surprised. She was used to being invisible, going unnoticed by others. But how much did he notice about her?

Bashfully, she cleared her throat, not knowing what to do with all that attention on her.

"The numbers, there are all over the city... they are zip codes," she spoke up, voice a little rough and too quiet to be heard at all through the roaring of the water. "The first number is for the region, like one for Seoul postal codes. The second and third are the number of the districts... the zones here as we called them. So the route behind each door is probably follows the sewage system heading towards those districts."

Always searching for something wrong in everything, of course, Taehyung snorted.

"And how do you know that?"

"She's an architect, don't you remember?" Yoongi answered instead of her, shielding the girl with his body from the lilac haired guy's rage. He didn't seem to be in a good mood at all and the IT guy wasn't planning on letting him blow their chance now. Annoyed and angry at the world, the Marketing major didn't realise it wasn't him with the upperhand in this situation.

"Then can she tell us why the hell we had to walk kilometers in the dark?"

"We crossed the canal from beneath," Seulgi replied in a quiet voice staring straight ahead, gaze burning holes in the back of Yoongi's black shirt.

Astounded oh sounds filled the sphere and for once Taehyung had no more annoying questions either. Their non-appointed leader turned to the girl inquiring further.

"Which way should we go now?"

She pointed at the door with the label 522NN.

" I... I saw a map and the numbers are increasing in a spiral, the last one is twenty-four, it's between the twenty-third and twenty-second zone," she explained and for the first time in forever she experienced the impact of her own words as everybody moved forward to the 22th district of Choego.

#series: code zero #stories #btsvelvet #bts x red velvet #bts thriller #bts scenarios #red velvet fanfic

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lily-blue · 4 years

Text

CODE Z3RO | CODE 12

➼ Chapter Index

All Namjoon could think about was Wendy and her lifeless body that had been slowly sinking underneath the flowery soil barely an hour prior. And he hated the whole world for taking her away from him in such a cruel and unfair way. She, out of all people, would have deserved so much better. Better than a tomb and a useless boyfriend like him.

After his short-lived conversation with Yerim that had failed to put his restless heart at ease, his mind started throwing bittersweet flashbacks at the engineer, memories of them fighting over the last piece of toast, him drinking straight from the carton of milk, Wendy complaining about his lame choice of presents for her birthday and Christmas and suddenly he regretted that he had always forgotten Valentine’s Day. Reminiscing about his girlfriend, lipstick stains on the edge of his favourite mug, even their most irritating fights and habits seemed nice thus he wished he hadn’t rushed out of the kitchen so hastily. He should have stayed there and borne with her teasing because deep down he had known very well that it had been her way to cope with the suffocating death lingering around them. If only she hadn’t run after him and rather stayed with the rest of the team, peeling the ingredients, she would have been still alive. But she had chosen him over her pride and it all had been his fault. The thought alone truly drove Namjoon crazy, transparent hands choking him with every breath he took.

Wandering in the dark pit of self-blame, still angry due to the newfound information about the researchers’ decision to keep going with such a dangerous project, he was only pulled back to reality when Taehyung pushed him against the wall of the air-drain and that was when he also realized that it was hard to breathe. Maybe his chest wasn’t heavy solely because of his grief after all but also due to the gas that filled the pipes. Another splendid feature that had been made by the creators. One more way they could have killed them. And funnily, the boy didn’t care about dying anymore let it happen in an abandoned building amongst people or all alone at home while sleeping at the age of eighty.

He could hear the echo of Yoongi’s panting and thinking of Wendy, Namjoon turned to their leader and helped him with the slow crawling forwards. He tore a small piece off of his tee to lift it in front of the guy’s face then reminded him of the importance of breathing through his nose even though it might have been annoying with the cloth touching his eyes and mouth whenever they made a move. They were merely in an arm’s length distance from Jungkook’s dirty shoes when they snapped their heads towards the little girl ahead, her silent cry echoing in the small area. She buried her face into the crook of the young boy’s shoulder, shaking and if anything then it proved that something terrible had happened.

Truth to be told, Namjoon was jealous of them having each other but he tried not to think too much into their close proximity because every single member of the team knew that the boy didn’t like the girl. It was merely the aftereffect of the shock that they all felt due to the death of their former acquaintances. It wasn’t real love. He shouldn’t have envied such a fake bubble of nonexistent affection. But he did nevertheless, yearning for the soft skin of his girlfriend’s palm on his cheek.

The boy didn’t even realize that Taehyung was missing until Yoongi’s loud cough beside him remained unnoticed, silence embracing them instead of the familiar mocking tone of the lilac haired guy. After the initial confusion that was clearly written on his face, Namjoon decided to follow the front of the queue regardless of his dislike of letting someone as dangerous as Seulgi take the lead once again. She was unworthy of his trust, her words were imprecise and her knowledge was markedly limited. They moved towards the computer room as one, trying not to stare too much when they passed the hole where the Marketing guy escaped from the gas and they threw Jungkook’s left shoe down at the next exit point to check whether it was safe. They didn’t want to make the same mistake, Taehyung had made, jumping into the arms of death out of carelessness and fear. So far the gas seemed to be harmless, only making them cough although they couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t have had negative side effects on their bodies later on. But that later felt out of reach taken that they could have died in any minute. They would have been utterly stupid to care about cancer or such although Wendy must have disagreed. Such a silly thought.

The group stared at the lonely shoe for long minutes before Yoongi climbed down and the others followed, their feet touching the ground one by one. When even Yerim got out of the pipes safely, her trembling hand holding onto Jungkook, they looked around silently in the enormous room with a dozen of computers in it. No one dared to speak about Taehyung’s selfish death hence the buzzing sound of the electronic devices slowly drove them nuts. They were finally inside the killing machine. Yet their limbs were frozen.

‘So… is this it? The main computer that can help us get out?’ Yerim asked in a small voice, her arms besides her sides. She took a step towards the biggest screen and looked up at it with her big doe eyes so innocent as if she was begging them to agree.

‘I think, yeah,’ Namjoon told her not one hundred percent sure of himself but at least he tried unlike their leader who walked next to the girl quietly then passed her by without a word to take a good look at the computer, he was so addicted to, from a different angle.

It was white, a warm blanket as thick as fog, the familiar scenery getting blurry and the IT guy’s limbs froze, legs unable to move. Yoongi snapped his head towards the corner where Seulgi should have been but the room was empty and he had suddenly found himself utterly alone. He furrowed his brows in confusion and lifted his hand in front of his right eye to rub it as if he could have magically gotten everyone back. It felt like a nightmare especially because his palms also became sweaty when he realized that his precious laptop bag had disappeared as well.

‘You ungrateful child! I asked you, I begged you not to go but you needed to prove yourself, hah? Aish. Look where your precious IT major has gotten you! You should have listened to me when you still had a chance. And now you’ll die without me being able to say goodbye. You’re such a cruel boy, Min Yoongi. You have never been easy on my heart!’ a sorrowful plea came from out of nowhere, blaming the prodigal son and begging him at the very same time, yearning for something quite impossible.

The always so rational boy shook his head, hands sliding onto her ears and knees trembling a little as he sat on his heels to find his balance. A tiny part of his sanity was aware of the fact that his mother couldn’t possibly be in Choego as the whole city was locked down and not to mention that she hated public transportation so much that she had barely left Daegu. Yet, his heart churned at the thought that she was close and that he could have talked with her one more time. He wanted to tell her a hella lot of things alongside his useless apologies. More than anything, he wanted her to know that he was grateful for everything she had done for him through the years, that he loved her regardless of their debates and that he felt truly sorry. He hadn’t made it easy for her either as he was ever so stubborn, lacking the ability of letting his emotions be shown without feeling overly anxious.

‘Mom? What are you…’ he spoke up with warm tears piercing his eyes and it was stupid, he knew but he couldn’t help it. It was so freaking realistic, he wanted to smash something or cry out helplessly. He was tired of this whole situation, of acting as if he had been truly hopeful when in reality he craved for reassurance just as much as the others. Under the cold exterior, he was just another human being who freaked out when he saw dead bodies and blood. He definitely hadn’t signed up for being a part of an impossible survivor show, a new generation Battle Royal with a smart city being their biggest enemy besides time.

There was a moment when his mother’s voice became so loud, his doubting thoughts melted into nothingness and he truly believed that it was over. That he would follow Seokjin and the others and die like a rat. It was a frightening thought.

He felt a stinging pain in his shoulder but he decided to not care about it too much until a small palm slapped him and his eyes opened wide. It was Yerim kneeling in front of him, face so close to his own that the boy could see the barely there moles on her nose regardless of the fog. She looked scared yet very much determined as she pulled away and mumbled a quiet sorry. Yoongi shook his head.

‘It’s fi—’

‘It’s a hallucination. Guys, it’s a hallucination. They’re not real!’ Yerim’s pitched voice echoed in the air once she stood up, running towards Jungkook so fast as if she felt guilty for not choosing him first. The memory of the younger’s teary eyes froze the IT guy’s limbs because even though it was only a wild guess on the boy’s part, he thought that those tears might have been brimming in her eyes because of her brother who had died in the basement of the local hospital. Just like in his case with his mom, they couldn’t have said goodbye to each other either. That must have been still hard on her. And Yoongi was sure that it would remain the same for the rest of her life, let there be one more hour or year ahead of the girl.

Just like Yerim, Jungkook hallucinated about Seokjin as well but while the eldest had seemed sad in his sister’s dreams, he was quite furious in the boy’s. He blamed him for his own death and screamed into his face, yearning for revenge.

‘You killed me! You killed both of us!’ he shouted and Jungkook didn’t even need to think hard to know whom he was referring to. The elder was talking about Gangnam Girl whose name had been so insignificant back then that the boy couldn’t even recall it. Seeing her begging for help, he had run towards the exit like a selfish child and had refused to mention to the others where she had been exactly or that he had seen her stuck behind the glass door.

The boy was aware of the fact that they were all responsible for themselves at first and only then came the others. He also knew that back then neither of them had known that the city would murder them one by one with its fucked up security system. So maybe others would have done the same as he had done. It didn’t make him a cold-blooded killer, it only showed how desperate he was to get a contract so that he could take care of his poor family. He was a good person, a good person. He was good. Seokjin knew nothing about him and his motives. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so unfairly judging.

‘I’m sorry… I didn’t…’ he tried to reason but his tongue felt sore and he failed to form the words that mingled up in his mind. There was a helpless teardrop running down his cheek when two tiny palms slid onto his cheeks and his heart could finally rested in a warm embrace. He kept murmuring under his nose though, looking for an excuse that could have cleared his self-conscious. He did feel guilty for both the rich girl and Seokjin’s death.

Yerim didn’t leave Jungkook’s side and watching them, Yoongi pushed himself onto his feet and walked towards Seulgi who was indeed in one of the corners of the room where he had previously assumed. A few locks of her messy hair fell into her face, hands shielding her ears from whoever who was talking to her in her head. Her eyes were teary just like Yerim’s and it made the boy feel uneasy as he slowly made the distance between their bodies disappear.

‘If only, you would have been braver. You could have saved a lot more. But no, you needed to make it worse with that accident in the researcher building, didn’t you? I told you, smoking will kill you one day.’ It was her mother’s raspy voice but she was facing herself as if she had looked into a mirror. She couldn’t bear the sight.

There were lots of people throughout the years who had told Seulgi that she had reminded them of her mother but she had always shushed them away with a small wave of her hand. In her opinion, they couldn’t have been more different from each other as they had never once agreed on any topic let them talking about food or TV programmes that they could have watched during dinner. They had different taste in music, in actors, in holiday destination and in future plans. She preferred to stay in South Korea to build new and better houses on the countryside that could keep the poor warm while the woman wanted her to leave, to move to America and became just as wealthy as the chaebols she hated. Only later she had realized that when she had been in her age, her mother had had a twin sister who had died due to a robbery in that petrol station where she had bought her cigarettes most of the time. But regardless of this newfound information, she still couldn’t make herself quit smoking. She was an addict and life was too stressful.

A shiver ran down her spine when something warm wrapped around her wrists, peeling her hands off her ears with force. Even though she hated the feel of the touch, she was too weak to set herself free. She was stuck in her mind.

‘It’s not real. Snap out of it, Seulgi! You hear me? I’m the one who is real, not them. It’s me,’ a familiar voice addressed her but it was fairly quiet as if it had come from under heavy layers of icy water. So instead of listening to it or asking back who was talking to her, Seulgi kept her gaze on her reflection, on the voice that was blaming her, mocking her with wearing her own face.

She didn’t even realize that she was holding her breath back until insecure fingers started to play with her hair, whispering the same words into her ear over and over again. ‘I’m the one who is real. It’s me. I’m here.’

Namjoon stood in the middle of a room full of people and it was worse than being completely alone because they markedly didn’t want to listen no matter how loudly he screamed at them. They remained still, talking to each other, laughing on ridiculously nonsense jokes and acted as if he hadn’t been there in the first place. He couldn’t decide whom he should have walked up to first to shake a little sense into the emotionless bunch so he closed his eyes and pointed at someone blindly, taking a few unsure steps towards the chosen direction before the blood froze in his veins. He snapped his head at the door on his right, the little girl who had been his target a mere second ago, long forgotten.

‘Namjoon! Namjoon please help! I can’t breathe,’ Wendy said along with a cough that both scared the hell out of the boy and lifted those heavy weights off his chest that made it hard for him to breathe as well. Because his girlfriend was still alive and at that moment, nothing else mattered. Sadly, not even the fear in her voice. Namjoon’s mind shut it out entirely until the girl spoke up again, this time a little weaker after a more painful cough. ‘Something is wrong with the air, it’s suffocating as if the whole building was on fire. Help me!’

There was a loud thud and then silence.

‘Wendy?’ her name, as a question, fell from the boy’s lips while he ran to the door, trying to tear it open. But there was no handle, he could have grabbed.

He slid down along the metal and hit the object with his fist until it became numb and sore. It hurt as it was bleeding on his knuckles but he couldn’t give a damn about the physical pain. The thought of losing Wendy again was much worse because this time it would have indeed been all his fault. It would have been him who couldn’t save her.

‘Namjoon, please. I don’t want to die, not yet. Please,’ she begged him but her voice came from another direction this time that forced the boy’s eyebrows to the middle of his forehead. He looked around in confusion, his gaze observing the crowd but as he paid close attention to the mass of people, he noticed that they had no faces nor ears. They looked like a bunch of lifeless dolls, one could have seen in shop windows. It didn’t make any sense. A few minutes prior he had heard them laugh so hard, he wanted to punch them in the face.

His legs were wobbly when he stood up and turned towards the metal door that changed into a transparent wall. Now, Namjoon could see the hallway in front of the room but the corridor was empty and the air looked fresh.

‘Where are you, babe? Wendy, where are you?’ he asked in despair turning around multiple times, running from one puppet to the other. He pushed a few on the ground carelessly, not bearing the thought of wasting his time while his girlfriend was in danger. He wouldn’t let this shapeshifting building take her away from him now that he got her back.

His heartbeats were so loud that he needed to stop for a minute and calm down otherwise it could have been possible that he would go totally deaf before he could have deciphered the instructions that the girl gave him. So after his short-lived rampage, his movements came to a halt and he closed his eyes to be able to focus more effectively, repeating his question over and over again until he finally got an answer so weak, it churned his heart. It sounded as if it came from a ghost.

‘It’s so dark, I can’t see,’ she claimed and the first thing that came to the boy’s mind was that they had buried her under pretty flowers. Was she calling for him from her coffin? Could she had been still alive underneath, waiting for him to get her out of that stupid hole? Was this freaking city developed enough to heal major wounds, to save lives even when people failed? It seemed so impossible and yet Namjoon found himself believing in his childish ideas. He wanted to believe that somehow Wendy had survived the blood loss, that miracles existed in Choego.

But then came a faint knock from behind his back and this time it echoed on the surface of a wooden door that had a handle.

‘I… I love you. I… I wanted to have a family with you. I… I’m so sorry,’ the girl confessed quietly and it was so out of the character from her, apologizing when she didn’t do anything wrong. Because regardless of their stupid debate that had been started with her comment on his cooking skills, he couldn’t put the blame on her without feeling bitter. He could have also chosen to stay and eat the lunch they had been about to prepare. No one had forced him to run away.

He had wanted to have a family with her too but Wendy had been always adamant when the topic had come up between them at home. She had worked super hard to become an excellent doctor and settling down and having children together would have ruined everything for her. She had wanted to have a stable career before she would have gotten pregnant. Namjoon had usually understood her reasoning and he had loved her so much, he could have waited for her to be ready, but the fact that she had been so against the idea had hurt him nevertheless. So now when he could hear the sincerity in her faint voice, the whole wide world turned into something worthless and insignificant in his eyes. The core of his existence was Wendy and the medic girl alone who had never failed to take care of him when he had caught the cold.

‘I’m coming. Please hold on for a little while. I’m coming,’ he said but the door got further and further away with every step he took.

‘I’m so scared, Joon-ah,’ she admitted and the boy could imagine how hard it could have been for her to show him her vulnerable side. Out of the two of them, it had been always Wendy who had been the stronger.

He brushed the hand off his shoulder when someone touched him then snapped at the intruder harshly for stealing some of his precious time. Yet, the doll didn’t back off, not even when he pushed her onto the ground. No. It stared at him horrified as it put on a familiar face. It looked at him with Yerim’s big doe eyes, unshed tears shining in them like restless stars on the cloudy sky.

‘Namjoon, stop! It’s not Wendy! It’s a hallucination, the fog’s doing,’ Seulgi tried to reason, touching his upper arm tentatively but even for the lightest touch, the boy snapped. He slid his angry gaze to the other girl and gritted his teeth. Seulgi was the last person he had wanted to encounter with now that he was on his way to his girlfriend. The same girl whom he had lost due to the Architecture major’s incompetence.

‘Let go of me!’ he pushed her further as well, and it was only because of Yoongi that she didn’t lose her balance the same way as Yerim had done. Namjoon was much stronger when he was angry than any of them would have guessed. They simply couldn’t stop him marching towards the door. ‘She needs me. She’s waiting for me. I can’t leave her alone,’ he told them before he speeded up and grabbed the handle.

‘Snap out of it, man!’ Jungkook shouted after him, voice trembling at the end of his sentence. He couldn’t believe what was about to happen in front of his eyes, in front of all of them.

Because one thing was inevitable once Namjoon opened the door and crossed the threshold to step out to the hallway where Taehyung’s body laid. The laser cut him into pieces before he could have screamed. He smelled like roasted meat, falling onto the ground in five different directions.

Jungkook grabbed Yerim’s elbow and pulled her into his embrace on instinct so that he could cover the dreadful sight of the lifeless body parts and the flood of blood on the tiles. Then he also buried his face into the girl’s hair as if it could have functioned as a curtain between the world and them. It couldn’t.

Seulgi kept her eyes on Yoongi and the IT guy just stared at the still figure, dumbfounded. It took him long minutes to collect himself and walk back to the main computer, looking for the control panel of the aircon that could have helped them suck the fog out of the air. As they didn’t need the door to make the air clearer, Seulgi closed it, trying not to glance at the bodies before she leaned her forehead against the door and made an attempt to even her breathing in vain. Even if one of them was Taehyung, it was definitely too much to handle.

The silence that was broken only by the buzzing sound of the computers was suffocating, Jungkook thought, while he fondled Yerim’s hair. This time she didn’t cry like the boy had expected from her. Her shoulders didn’t shake, not even a little. And her stillness was more frightening than her tears had ever been before.

➼ XIII. chapter

#code zero #bts scenarios #red velvet scenarios #ssbyme #thriller #futuristic au #this was one of the most challenging chapters for me #i hope the visions are dark enough #and not too cheesy #idk why would they be cheesy lmao #the ships are sailing

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alias-b · 4 years

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Without The Lights~ Billy Hargrove x OC Camille Harper

Chapter 3: I Think We're Alone Now

A/N: Listen, I wrote this chapter and really fell in love with these two. Developing friendship ahoy. Warning for mentions of past rape, abortion, and //sigh// we meet Neil and he’s gross so also light antisemitism & homophobia from him.

Camille pulled up to a smaller house the next day, parking behind Billy’s Camaro out front. She climbed a few stone steps and knocked three times, backpack clutched over one shoulder. The redhead from the other day pulled open the door and Camille smiled.

“Hi, I’m-”

“Camille. I’m Max.” She’d nodded. “You’re popular, the kids in my grade talk.”

“Right, you’re in Mike’s group.”

“Thought I was,” the younger girl shrugged and stepped back to let her in. “Billy! A girl!” She echoed.

“Give me a damn minute, Max!” He’d bellowed at the other end of the house.

“Like Hawkins so far?”

“It’s not so bad, I guess.” Max tucked hair behind her ear. “What’s up with Mike and them? You know his sister, right?”

“We don’t hang out like we used to.”

“It’s like one moment you’re friends, the next, they start acting all weird and secretive.”

“Hate to break it to you, that’s been my entire high school experience.” Camille offered a sobered grin and cocked her head. Mike and his friends were acting off as well. She’d definitely missed something. “Give it time. People come to their senses. Not always.”

“Got that right.”

“Hey,” Billy came around the corner, buttoning up a shirt that was half tucked and leaving the top three open.

“Thought the girl last night was your project partner, that’s what you told Neil.” Max relished the awkward beat that followed.

“You met my stepsister. Mad Max. She was just leaving. Beat it.” He pressed his teeth, eyebrows lifting because he couldn’t say much else with high school royalty in front of him. “Goodbye, Max.”

“Whatever,” she picked up her skateboard and left out the door.

“Nice to meet you, Max.”

“Same here.” The door shut and Camille lifted her lips.

“I like her.”

“Take her.” Billy was colder, rubbing his head.

“So...what girl? I’m not naive, I know you’re making rounds. The ladies love to gush about you.”

“Not all good things, I’m sure. But, that’s part of the appeal.” Billy shifted, hands on his hips before he gestured. “Drop your bag wherever. Take your shoes off or don’t. I could care less.”

“Still get the tour?” She set her backpack on the couch.

“Shithole living room. Ugly kitchen. Garage.” Billy gestured. “My least favorite place: the family dining room.” She followed him down the hall. “Bathroom. Basement. No secret attic. No pool. Dad and Susan… Closet. Max. And me. Not much to it.” He opened his bedroom. A small space that was intimately his. Smelled warm like his cologne. “I skimmed more of the book.”

“Main character’s name?”

“Hester.” He set his hands out. “Do I get my medal now?”

“Mmm, the bare minimum. Only way to my heart.” She entered the space. “Love the posters. Classy.” Bands and scantily clad women. Her eyes drew to a stereo smashed in the corner and kicked off to the side. “What happened there?” Billy almost lied but she was so soft about it like she already knew.

“I failed the chemistry quiz and fucked up a math test.” He was matter a fact. “Dad found out. He always does. Likes to keep tabs.” Camille clasped her hands with the slightest nod.

“And your head the other day.”

“His important lessons in respect usually go over it. Not always. Aim gets better with age.” Billy was hard and sarcastic, opening his window to light a smoke.

“And this has been going on a long time.”

“Does it matter?” His eyes lowered. She didn’t hesitate.

“Yes.”

“He’s an asshole. Most parents are.” Billy picked up the book and set his cigarette in an ashtray upon the windowsill. “I didn’t like it. The ending.”

“You actually read it?” She chuckled but sobered when he met her eyes. “Why specifically?”

“All that shit and planning to run away only for the poor fucker to just die in her arms. Felt like a waste. Pissed me off."

"Think so?"

"And this chick didn’t really spit in anyone’s face for the hell she went through. That shit just seemed unfair.” He shrugged and Camille was amused again. Billy offered it and lingered when she closed the distance to take it. Fingers brushed and the book dropped. Instead his head lowered to touch hers. Camille inhaled and he didn’t try to kiss her. It was peculiar, the way he closed his eyes and breathed her in. His usual manner of seduction went over her. Every single time. Not sure if it was by force or not. Billy had to know now. He’d be lying if it didn’t jar him to bits. Foreheads touched and his lips opened. “I want you.” Shivers sparked out from her spine to cover her body in heat. His husky voice reverberated and Camille had to come up for air before she drowned in him.

“Typical bad boy. Huh? You bat your pretty eyes and drag slowly on smoke. It usually works on us.”

“You’re all perfect posture and angels singing. When was the last time you relaxed? Let those angels scream it out for a few beats?” He was so fucking close and she didn't leave his space.

“Been awhile.”

“I can fix that.” His head tilted. He was so certain too.

“You only want me now because I’m teen royalty to you and our school. Pretty Knight on a conquest. Have to claim the queen. It’s your favorite brand, I can tell. You can’t get enough.”

“What does any of it matter?” Billy read her with ease. “Not like we both don’t have flings. I know about you, Harper.”

“I know… I can’t.” Her whisper sent him reeling back, head lifting. “Year ago, maybe. I can’t do relationships. Even flings. I don't do sex. Not right now.” Those blue eyes flickered at her face. “And Billy, if you must know, I don’t ever date boys from my own school. Personal Queen Bee Code. They should have told you that about me. Rival schools are fair game.” Rejection was an old friend but not from his romantic pursuits. “I was all about your shit a year before. Things change. It’s me. I’m...complicated.” He realized all at once that her angels never sang. Neither did his.

“I’m not?” He hitched a quick breath.

“No, you absolutely are. But, that isn’t the problem here. Color yourself surprised.”

“First time in my life I’ve heard that.” Not being the problem.

“Look, Billy, I can be a friend. But, that’s all I got in me right now. If that isn’t okay with you...tough. It’s not you or what they say at school. I’m just not in a place to be that with you or anyone at the moment.” She frowned, hands running her stomach before they crossed.

“I can get used to tough.” He relented. “I don’t know how to be a friend.”

“Maybe not.” Her head cocked, eyes lifting to his again. “But, what a time to be alive and try it though.” She could have left right at that moment. Yet, she didn't.

“What exactly do they say about me at school?”

“Steve has a lot to say. Might want to back down there.” She peered aside.

“Still waiting to see this mighty King Steve I hear about. Harrington turned bitch but there’s something there.”

“Will bringing out the worst in someone else make you feel better?” She asked when he returned to finish the end of his smoke. Camille read him to filth. “Fight Steve. Fuck me. High school’s a game. You’re a great player. I knew that quickly.” Billy’s eyes snapped to her again. “Look. You don’t have to tell me what goes on in this house. But, if you...or Max…need a place to get away once in awhile. Lots of school projects to come, I’m sure… I have absent parents and room to spare. Consider it an act of friendship since you’re new to that.”

“Care about Max already?”

“Why don’t you?”

“We’re not close.” Billy was tense.

“Hawkins in a small place. Guess you have time to work on that.” Her judgment set him on edge. “She’ll get older. Start seeing more. Might be nice to have someone standing with or between her and an angry stepfather.”

“Not like I had that.” He shot back, standing taller. Felt too personal to say that. Guess they're passed it already.

“Might feel good to give it to someone else. Not to say it's obligatory. Basic kindness. But, what do I know? I’m the rich bitch. Ever notice we’re the first to go in scary movies? Shitty thing too. Bitches and sluts. Your brand. Easy to be rid of. We all move on.” Camille dropped her arms. “C’mere.” Her hand extended and Billy raised an eyebrow. “Just, trust me. We’re trying something. No funny ideas or I walk.”

“What happened to your perfect student wrath?”

“Fuck it, it’ll take two seconds to write the paper. Just...” She waited until he observed her and took her hand. A slow, sparking beat pulsed between them. Skin slid against skin. Billy let her lead him to the bed and was surprised when she got atop the covers on her back and tugged him to get in next to her.

“And this is…?”

“Two possible friends. Two complicated fuck-ups with angels that wail. Just...enjoying each other’s company. Nothing sexual. Can you manage that?”

“Not sure anymore,” he mumbled, eyes on the ceiling. “This isn’t like foreplay to you, is it?”

“In your dreams, beach boy,” she laughed, hand slipping from his so she could adjust and clasp her fingers upon her stomach. Hair splayed around their crowns while they relaxed, she turned her head and peered at him. Something about this all amused her.

“What?” He caught her expression.

“Last year, before the whole mess...I was so absorbed in my own shit. Blinded. I don’t know, it’s like I’m awake for the first time in my life.” Camille blinked at him. “Does that make sense?”

“No. Not at all,” he was laughing and she followed. Billy fiddled with the tiny silver pendant around his neck on a long chain. She’d not seen him without it. “All I see is red still.”

“Gotta get out, enjoy the night sky for once.” Camille sighed, eyes back on the ceiling. “Saint Christopher. Your necklace.”

“Yeah.” Billy was near silent, hesitating. “Was my mom’s. All I have of hers.”

“No pictures?”

“Not anymore, dad made sure.” Billy cleared his throat. Debated it.

“What happened to her?”

“They fought. Got bad. Got worse. One day, she just...didn’t come back… She didn’t come back for me.” His tone grew thick at the correction.

“I’m sorry, Billy.” Camille offered slowly.

“Maybe I’ll wake up another day.” He gave a bitter laugh.

“I hope that you do.” It was cruel. How soft she was against him. “Saint Christopher. Martyr. Protector of travelers, right?”

“Think so. Guess she liked all that shit. Even made it my middle name.”

“William Christopher Hargrove.” She mused. “Not terrible. My middle name sounds like some hippie shit.”

“Hate my fucking first name.” Billy smirked, distant. “Now you have to tell me your hippie ass middle name.”

“Sage.” Camille rolled her eyes when he laughed at her. “Shut up. It’s worse because my mother’s name is Rosemary.” His laughter hitched again, hand touching his lips. “Sage was my grandmother’s name. She also picked Rosemary. Real funny.”

“Fucking is actually,” he quieted himself and gave a lengthy sigh. “Never done this before. Whatever it is,” Billy observed then. Camille chewed on her bottom lip, gaze flickering before she gave a shrug.

“Kinda like it.” She turned again. His advances were small candles compared to the fireworks she set off. Like it was nothing. “What’s California like?”

“Better,” he was frank. “The air. The beach. The food.”

“Truly the beach boy type. Hard to picture.”

“Long, long time ago,” his fingers drummed along his stomach. “Don’t fuck my image here.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it but, you have to do one thing.”

“What’s that?” He peered over.

“Say, cowabunga dude, in your best surfer accent,” she gave a bright smile that resonated before he was laughing again. They pushed at each other when her hand touched the warm skin of his arm. It stayed there.

“You’re something else, Camille.” It was the first he’d really offered her name in that velvet tone. “You know that?”

“I get that a lot these days. Queen Bee changing up the hive. School can’t stand it. Can’t read me anymore. I don’t want them to either.” She admitted.

“Drives you mad that I’m skimming the pages, huh?”

“If you say so.” She changed the subject. “I’ve never been to the ocean or seen a real beach. I’d like to. My parents were never ones for trips. Not with me, at least. I barely really left Hawkins… Never left the state for sure. You...You ever feel like everyone around you is lying most days? Like something isn’t just off, it was missing the whole time and you didn’t see it.”

“What would they hide from you?”

“That’s it, I have no idea. Nothing ever happens in Hawkins. Not until last year.” Camille huffed and shook her head. “So, tell me about your fake project partner last night?”

“Jealous?”

“Skipping the question much?” She rolled over and crossed her arms to lean on them so she could meet his eyes. “Friends talk about girls and boys.”

“I am not your damn girlfriend.”

“Not with that attitude.” She teased. “Come on, who?”

“Tammy Foreman.”

“Oh? She’s pretty. We did gymnastics together the last two years. Great routines but she never could stick the landing.”

“She did last night.” Billy chuckled when she smacked his arm. “What? That was on you.”

“I know that. Ass.” Camille rolled her eyes, disbelieving that this was her day. Pillow talk with the new keg king.

“So, did that shithead really write you a nasty letter?”

“Tommy? Oh, yeah, he wanted me bad. I’ll let you read it next time you’re at my place. It’s certainly...something to behold.”

“Already a next time?” Billy mused, blue eyes alight at her.

“Easy,” she turned to fall against her back again.

“What’s your dad hiding in that attic?” He wondered aloud.

“Hell if I knew.”

“Ever thought of picking the lock?”

“He’ll kill me,” Camille joked. “Yes. A lot though.”

“I could pick it.” Came the offer. “Friends or whatever.”

“I’ll think about it,” she shook her head. Billy looked at her face again when she was distracted. This was almost too intimate and they barely touched. “Have anymore dates coming up?”

“Like to play things as I go.”

“Ah. Sure… Smooth keg king, always lands the girl.” Not always.

“Took time to perfect the method. Timing and all.”

“Hm, method. I’m sure that did take careful practice. Alright, I'll bite. Tell me about your first time.” Camille turned her neck and studied his profile. The slight twitch of his lips didn’t quite reach his eyes. Billy shifted around to see her after a beat, lips curling further with more amusement.

“I told you about Tammy. So, you first, Harpy.” His brow quirked. "In detail."

“Not fair.”

“Hm, is it? Have to give to get, sweetheart.” He earned a long sigh before Camille propped her arm up to rest her chin there. Billy wasn’t letting down so she caved.

“I was fifteen.” She huffed, eyes rolling when triumph crossed his expression, causing him to twist and mirror her position. Blue eyes direct, he gave a nod so she continued. “He was not.”

“What? Seventeen? Eighteen? Catch the attention of a senior?” Billy watched her exhale again before she mumbled. “Huh?”

“He was twenty.” She saw him sober up at that. “College boy in a frat. Gorgeous. Charming. He had a method too. Met him at a new years party. He was visiting the family for winter break. Well off family. I was a friend of his little sister at the time, she moved for college in New York. No one knew about us though and I...I loved it. He told me I was beautiful and mature for my age. Turns out there’s another word for what he was. We were together for months.” Dark brows twitched up and she gave a sort of half smile, sparkling eyes lowered to his chest.

“Shit.” Was the only sentiment Billy could offer but it resonated even still.

“A big pile of it, yeah. We kissed at that party and...I kept seeing him. He’d invite me to big college parties and show me off to his friends. We’d go upstairs and...admittedly, he was okay with his hands. Quick everywhere else.” Camille smiled again with a scoff. “After the first time, he said...tell me you love me. And I did. I realize now that he never really said it back. He just wanted me to validate that he’d taken something of mine. That it would always belong to him somehow and I couldn’t take it back... And that wasn’t the half of it.”

“How’d it end?” He almost took that back when her eyes snapped up to his again.

“I...I asked him to use a condom and he spun that bullshit, ‘oh babygirl, it just doesn’t feel as good’ crap every single time. ‘Oh babygirl, it won’t fit. Don’t you trust me?’ Excuses. But, I was stupid and I was so mature and dating a college boy. Real badass. Until, something changed and...I was late. I knew instantly. I fucking knew. He reeled back so fast, I thought he might get whiplash. And I made the choice for us...to take care of it. I never asked for money. All I wanted was a ride. Just...support. I was terrified and too fucking young.”

“He go with you?” Billy knew the answer.

“I never saw him again. I wish I’d told him to eat shit at least. Left that in a lengthy voicemail later. But, I was so scared and upset...I started walking. I looked like shit and...ruined my shoes after a good thirty minutes. So, I’m determined and a car pulls up along side me. Barbara Holland pokes her head out and asks if I’m okay. You know her story by now.”

“Yeah. Wheeler’s missing friend.”

“They were both my friends once until I decided I wanted to be popular and dropped them. Was a real bitch and here Barb was...she just got her permit. I didn’t even have mine. So, I get in and I just...cried. I’ve never cried like that. Not in my life. She doesn’t say much of anything, just nodded occasionally and drove me to the clinic. Walked in and sat there. Waited till it was done. Drove me home...this girl that had every right to let me walk was there for me. So, I get out. Say thank you. Barb gets out...knowing when we get back to school that nothing is really going to change. We drifted…”

Billy watched her trace a line into his blanket. A melancholy washed over her skin. Camille went on in an even tone.

“…She came around the car and hugged me so tight. I wish every day that I’d said something more. But, I didn’t. She took my secret with her and I felt it linger in the air at school but we never...acknowledged it. Just slight nods in passing. You’re actually the first person I’ve told since Barb.” Camille stopped to sniffle and blinked several times to still anything else. “My parents can never know. No one can.” They locked eyes and she waited for him to share. Billy fell against his back, arm behind his head.

“I was fifteen too. She was the most popular girl in our school and she was also the girlfriend of our school’s star quarterback. Both seniors. Older than me. He was a real dick. You know the type.”

“I do.” Camille smirked when he did before he looked at the ceiling.

“They were hot and cold. Drama and all, always breaking up. So, she decides she wants to make him jealous and sets her eyes on me for the first time. Hargrove trash. Ate that shit up. We’re at this party and she’s never paid me any mind. Always stuck her nose up. Prissy thing. But, I don’t know, something changed. She’s handing me drink after drink. Smiling. Next thing, we’re upstairs and she’s tugging my pants open. Gets into my lap and starts bouncing like a wild animal. I was fucking wasted, I didn’t try to push her off. She bragged about it after and I sucked up the attention from that. All these girls wanted me. Word got around quick, which she wanted too.”

“Of course, she did. So, it worked?”

“Too well. Quarterback and his band of merry assholes dragged me to the field and beat the living shit out of me. I laughed in his face the entire time about it too. I already had her. I was hot shit now. Fight got worse and I managed one good kick. Snapped his knee cap like a twig. Bye bye dick scholarship. Couldn’t even blame me for it. She got what she wanted. A fucking place next to his hospital bed. Dad started plans to move after that. Moved me schools first but, fuck, it’s all red. It never stopped, it just got worse.”

“Billy, she...” Camille searched for the words. “Got you drunk...and forced you to…”

“Yeah.” He admitted, swallowing a hard lump in his throat. "Was a real clingy bitch. Half my size and left bruises all over me. Smacked me awake when I closed my eyes because I was shit hammered. Not even sure I got off fully. And I laughed in that fucker's face like it was my idea."

“That’s awful.”

“I consider myself lucky.” Billy shrugged. “Put a rubber on me first.” He smiled again, all that Hargrove charm fluttering back. It grew infectious and she followed, falling back next to him. Billy didn’t want to see it that way. So, he reframed. It was just easier.

“How can that many shitty people gravitate toward us at once?”

“Hell if I knew.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t feel like working on the paper today.” She whispered. He chuckled at that.

“Couldn’t tell.” Billy paused. Remembered. “Head still bothering you?”

“Little.” Came her confession. Camille sighed and tipped her head toward his shoulder. Billy fell silent and she didn’t mind. This moment was unlike anything he’d experienced before. Deliberate and lacking in forced bullshit. Nice. Peaceful. Almost too easy. He realized the terrifying reality that he’d made a friend in Hawkins. Like he'd fallen into a trap she set. Not a challenge or fling. Not fully. Didn't lessen how bad he wanted to have her. They didn’t speak until the pull of sleep threatened. For the first time, the world seemed a little less red.

** ** **

Max flipped her skateboard and caught it with ease when their mother’s car pulled up. Susan smiled and grabbed a bag of groceries from the back seat.

“Hey, Mom.”

“With your friends again?”

“Yeah, Billy had a girl over for some project.” Max shrugged and reached for the second bag to help her mother in the house.

“A girl?” Susan cleared her throat while she unpacked the food into the fridge. She knew what that usually meant. “Are they still here?”

“Not sure, her backpack is still here but, his door’s open.” Max wandered down the hall and stopped in her tracks. Her stepbrother was breathing softly, wheezing tiny snores while the Harper girl lie burrowed in his side. Both clothed and atop the covers. Her head pressed to his bicep. “Weird...” Susan crept behind Max to see and smiled at the unexpected scene.

“Come on, we’ll let them rest. I’ll start dinner before Neil gets home.” Susan whispered and left the door a few inches open before she ushered Max off. An hour or so later, the scent of food roused Billy as a hand shook his shoulder.

“The fuck, Max?” He jerked to see her standing over him. She shrunk back when he rubbed his eyes. “Hell’re you in my room?” Sleep covered his voice.

“Neil’s almost home and dinner’s ready. Might want to wake your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my fucking-” Billy realized Camille was sound asleep next to him. “Shit. Harpy, rise and shine.” He gave her arm a pat and she moaned. “Scram, Max. Stay out of my damn room. Don't make me say it again.” He pointed so she rolled her eyes, leaving.

“Billy? What are we… Hell, we fell asleep.”

“Paper isn’t magically done, is it?” He got up to stretch and she followed, joining him at the mirror to fix her hair into place.

“I should get going. We’ll work on it in study hall. Easy.” She put her shoes on and noticed Billy peeking outside. Neil wasn’t around yet.

“C’mon.” He cocked his head so she followed.

“Billy, who’s your friend?” Susan was readily waiting with a bright smile and Billy exhaled, annoyed in an instant. As if he’d been caught doing something actually dirty. Camille came to her.

“Camille Harper, we share a few classes. Sorry, I stayed here late.” The teen reached out to shake her hand.

“No, it’s nice to see Billy in...good company. Would your parents let you stay for dinner?”

“Christ, Susan, she’s-”

“You both haven’t eaten yet.”

“I couldn’t impose.” Camille smiled sweeter.

“Nonsense, we have more than enough. Meatloaf night.” Susan shook her head.

“Yippee.” Billy muttered to himself and both women ignored him. Max had that smug look on her face so he narrowed his eyes to glare until she moved to set the table.

“Ah, sure, I’d like that. Thank you. May I use your phone to call my parents, Mrs. Hargrove?”

“Of course, and call me Susan.” She pointed. Camille went around Billy, eyes locking so she could go check in at home.

“Why did you do that?” Billy hissed.

“Your father is coming home.” Susan whispered, wiping down the counter. “Might be nice to have another person...a sweet girl, sitting at the table during the conversation.” She was protecting him. Drawing it out before Neil could tear into him tonight. How the fuck could he see it that way? All it did was give Neil more fuel to burn him with. Billy set his jaw and Camille returned.

“May I help with anything?” She was cut off by the door opening. Billy shrunk behind her. For the first time, she saw his eyes change. Neil Hargrove stepped in with a steely expression.

“You’re early,” Susan smiled and let him kiss her cheek. “How was work?”

“Fine,” he spotted Camille, “and who is this?”

“She’s-”

“I was asking Billy.” He cut over his wife. Eyes glued to his son. Magnifying glasses held over burning ants.

“Camille. We have a paper due.” Billy’s gaze hit the floor so Camille stood taller and marched up to Neil with purpose.

“Camille Harper, Billy and I are classmates.” She reached out and he seemed surprised but shook her hand.

“Firm grip, you could teach my son something.” He remarked.

“Dinner’s ready,” Susan came between them to set the dish on the table. Neil turned on a sort of routine. Father and provider with company around.

“Allow me.” He held out a chair for Camille before Billy could take it, forcing his son to sit by her so Neil could put himself near him at the head of the table. Max sat across from them with Susan at the other head.

“Have you always lived in Hawkins?” Susan scooped up plates.

“Thank you...and yes. All my life.” Camille shifted in her seat and eyed Billy. “Billy tells me you moved from California, must have been beautiful.” She took a bite. “This is delicious.”

“You’re sweet.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Max added. Billy caught his father’s eyes and sat straight.

“Thank you, Susan.” He was quiet.

“Where do you live, Camille?” Neil cut into his food and Billy barely touched his plate. Like he had to force it.

“Loch Nora.” Camille met his eyes and didn’t let down.

“They give out the full size candy bars at Halloween.” Max added and Camille smirked at her.

“You should see the houses at Christmas time. Everyone drives down to see them and we hand out hot chocolates and cider. My family decorates but we’re Jewish so it’s more for the parties.”

“Jews,” Neil scoffed; gave a tight smile. “Huh. That’s nice.” Billy cleared his throat when Camille’s eyes drew wider.

“Neil.” Susan cut in, careful as she could.

“And your parents, what do they do?” He peered at Billy and took a bite of food.

“My father is a scientist up at Hawkins lab. Mom is a fashion designer.” She replied, sipping water. “Harper Sixx.”

“Your mother is Rosemary Harper?” Susan cut in and Camille nodded. “Her stuff is lovely, I wore one of her blouses on our first date. Didn’t I, Neil?”

“Sure did.” His eyes were on his plate now.

“She’ll be excited to hear that. She did more high fashion and runway when she first began. Celebrities and all. But, she wanted to start seeing her stuff on all women. Think she’s happier with that.” Camille sat back and peered at Max. “I’m jealous, I see you skateboarding all the time around school. I was on one once and broke my arm when I was ten.”

“I rode into a thorn bush a few years back and got stuck,” Max smiled this time, relaxing.

“So, what project are you two working on? A paper?” Neil spoke over Max before she could go on. “Can’t write one yourself, Billy?”

“It’s a collaborative thing for class, two minds equals more ideas.” Camille cut in and felt Billy nudge her thigh under the table. “Large book report but, I’m optimistic, we picked a good one.”

“Which one?”

“The Scarlet Letter,” Billy prodded at a piece of meat.

“Little advanced for you.”

“Billy actually finished the novel before I did.” Camille gripped her knife and fork on the table. Billy’s leg touched her own again in warning.

“Sometimes I forget you can read anything outside of Playboy. Or was it Playgirl?” Neil pointed at Billy with his knife and laughed at his own joke, he nudged his son’s shoulder until he forced a tight grin. Eyes watery. Camille felt herself tremble. That headache pounded and then it released completely when a photo jerked from the wall to crash into the floor. Neil whipped around and cursed, standing. “Piece of shit,” he mumbled, going to shut the window beyond it. “Damn wind blew it off the wall.” Camille was dazed and Billy jerked to force a napkin against her nose.

“Jesus, Harpy. Again?” He pulled her to focus and her hand covered his. Eyes locked, pupils dilated. She felt his fingers shake.

“Are you okay, dear?” Susan offered another napkin. Max was silent and wide eyed.

“Yes, sorry, I have this thing. I get them easily. Pardon me.” She held the paper and quirked her brow to save Billy more embarrassment.

“Yeah,” Billy pulled her to her feet and guided her off. Didn’t think too much of it. Camille shot one last look at Neil and wished that photo crashed into his head. They shut the bathroom door. “Can’t keep doing this, yeah?”

“Nosebleeds are a Camille Harper special,” she joked, angling her face up. “Your stepmom seemed nice.”

“She chose him.” Billy was tense. "Just fucking makes it worse when she tries to help." Trembling. Susan tried to defuse the tension. Tried.

“Sometimes you don’t know a person until they’re already drowning you.” She whispered. He wet a rag and without asking, moved the tissue to wipe her nose. Camille let him, eyes flickering over his while he stared at her lips and edged the rag over them. His thumb came up to trace them before she ran her tongue there. Oh, did he fucking want her.

“Better?” She watched him nod. “I should go.” Billy was silent again, eyes on his feet before he sniffled and nodded once more. “Walk me out?” She went first and clasped her hands. “Mrs. Hargrove, dinner was great but my parents will want me home. Thank you.”

“Come over anytime, hon.”

“Yes. Bye, Max. I’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” Max lifted her lips.

“Mr. Hargrove, thank you for having me in your house.” She pushed her hand out with a hard look and dared him to refuse. Tightly, he shook it. They’re all better than you, you son of a bitch. Billy watched this girl stand up to his father without fear, challenging him somehow. It was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.

“Maybe my son’s grades will go up with you...around him.”

“Credit would be all his.” She smiled her sweetest smile and picked up her backpack. “Billy.” The teen peered at his dad, watched him fume, and purposefully crossed in front to follow Camille out. “My house for next time? Yes, I said next time, keep the excitement down.” She offered, earning a silent scoff of agreement. Hands shifted and she pulled a pen from her backpack, grabbing for his hand to write her number along his wrist. “Need anything, call. Now you.”

“Forgot your book inside,” he remarked, inking his number into her arm next.

“Ah, get it to me tomorrow.” Camille lingered when his hand didn’t release her wrist. Slowly, she came up and didn’t kiss him. She did something far worse. Arms slipped around his shoulders, shifting his hair aside when she hugged him. Brief. Not long enough. Nothing else could be done or said. “Take care, I’ll see you at school. I liked it...the talking and all. Felt needed.” He lifted his hands but she slipped away too quick. “Goodnight, Billy.” Camille turned and he watched her get into her car to drive off. One friend. In fucking Hawkins. Didn't seem too bad.

** ** **

Camille observed Steve at lunch the next day, seated two tables away from Nancy. Sighing, she approached Nancy first while she packed up to go.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Nancy looked ashamed. “Steve told me I said some stuff to you at the party. I don’t really remember it. But, I’m sorry.”

“Nance-”

“No, it was gross. I tossed that in your face.”

“We all say shitty things,” Camille shrugged, “are you and Steve done?”

“I’m not sure anymore. Maybe.” She watched her friend sit. Friend. “Last year...I think it messed me up. I love Steve, I do, but...”

“You’re not in love with him?”

“I thought I was. It’s not fair. I care about him and I hurt him because I couldn't....” Nancy sighed. “A lot happened and it changed me.”

“What really happened to Barb, Nancy?” Camille pushed the words out and her lip trembled. “I missed something and it’s eating you.”

“I’m going to make it right.” Nancy got up in a hurry to go.

“Nancy,” Camille stood in a huff. But, she was gone. Annoyed, she marched over to Steve and plopped down, appetite gone. “You know something.”

“About what?”

“Barb, last year, all of it. You know."

"Cam-"

"You've been my friend as long as Nancy has. Two rich kids with absent parents make perfect wingmen. And you're lying to my face, Steve. Why are you and Nancy lying? Does Jonathan know too? That why they’re acting weird?” Camille watched Steve frown, sympathetic to her anger. “She’s dead. Isn’t she? She’s not coming back, what happened to my friend?” Camille smacked the table and above her, the light fizzled, crackling before glass broke and rained down. Gasps echoed. She and Steve jumped under the table to avoid sparks. Every light followed and teachers began to usher kids out in the chaos.

“You’re bleeding.” Steve grabbed Camille’s shoulder and her head just burned beyond any belief.

“Ah,” she pushed from him and slid away to go. Lights erupted all over. Students cried out while the power blew. Camille was racing down the hallway when the fire alarm went off then cut. She fussed with her locker and grew enraged when it didn’t budge. “Piece of shit!” She gave one pound and it jerked open. Breathing heavily, she stuffed items in her bag and whipped around as a hand grabbed her shoulder.

“What’s the matter, Queen Bee? Get scared?”

“Fuck off, Tommy.” She hissed, pushing him hard to go.

“Hey, you bitch,” he grabbed her arm and jerked. Camille felt her body lose control. She dodged under his arm and spun once, leg gliding out to kick him in the head. Tommy lost his footing when his nose busted, dropping. Fists up, she blinked and stared down at her hands. “My nose, what the fuck, you stupid slut!” Camille looked up to see Billy Hargrove stunned at the end of the hallway. He took one confused step, eyes unblinking. Behind him, students raced out the doors as teachers ushered them. Frantic, Camille turned and sprinted the other direction. He caught up with her once she got out the back door.

“What the fuck was that Karate Kid shit?” He snatched for her wrist.

“Not now, Billy, I have to go home.” She was crying, bloodying her sleeve to wipe her nose. Camille pushed at him to let go and he tossed his hands out.

“Camille! The fuck?” He yelled but she was already getting into her car to speed away. She didn’t get pulled over by some miracle.

“Mom!” She echoed to her house once inside. “Mama!” Camille dropped her bag and fell to her knees on the stairs. Sobs ripped from her while her head burned. Hands grasped her shoulders.

“Milly, what’s happened?” Her housekeeper shook her, gasping when she saw her bloodied nose.

“I don’t know! I don’t know! It hurts,” she wailed, inconsolable. "Make it stop!" Edna heaved her up the steps and got her into the guest room. Camille’s sob subsided when pills were shoved into her hands.

“Drink up, there we go. You need to rest, I’ll call your parents.” Edna cleaned her face and helped her undress. “Lie down there. Good. Go to sleep, Camille.”

“But-”

“Sink.” The harsh tone caught Camille, frosting her spine.

“What...did you say?” She fell back in a daze.

“I said, sleep, honey.” Edna watched the pills work quick and shuffled down the hallway after locking the door. She picked up the phone to dial.

“Harper.”

“Sir, she’s getting worse. It’s happening again. Same as when she was younger.” There was a beat and sigh.

“I’ll be home in twenty.”

** ** **

“Power goes nuts, half day is nice.” Steve remarked, leaning against his car while students dispersed and Heather nodded next to him.

“I called Camille’s house, her mother said she was sick. I’ll grab her homework tomorrow if they don’t cancel it.” They stopped talking when Billy Hargrove marched up, poking Steve in the shoulder.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Man, not now. Any other day but, I’m not in the mood for you today, got it?”

“What the fuck happened to her? Harper?”

“She gets dizzy, I don’t know. She doesn’t talk about it. The hell do you care?” Steve turned with Heather. I don't, Billy almost said. Sick curiosity was ending him. “Go away, Hargrove. Bad enough I have to deal with you in gym.” Billy pushed past him to go to his car.

“Max, get in now!” He raged so she scrambled. Billy slammed the door and sped off, too many questions rang. Better to just toss them aside and see all in red.

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