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btsandvmin · 3 years

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Ask: Reply - 2021.04.16

Time to answer some more of your questions. I have a lot this time, and still a lot left I’ll have to save to another post. You are all very good at being curious and asking interesting questions. There are also some asks that are replies to old asks, and then I’ll include the link to the referenced post.

This time the topics will be:

Ask 1 - About KTH1 and expectations Ask 2 - KTH1 spoiler with “Oh lady” Ask 3 - Vminies getting superiority complex Ask 4 - Not dismissing the bond between Vmin and the other boys Ask 5 - Other people’s words can influence your thoughts Ask 6 - Vmin not sharing rooms in Bon Voyage Malta Ask 7 - Has being a Vmin shipper always been so overwhelming with all the content? Ask 8 - “Just a friend” interview Ask 9 - The garnet necklace Ask 10 - Vmin in CMs Ask 11 - Taehyung uncomfortable about shipping/tae*kook? Ask 12 - What did Jimin write on his shirt in Run ep. 53? Ask 13 - Gina Maeng ask follow up Ask 14 - Vmin’s love is beautiful (and so much nice praise omg)

Today’s post is a long one... Enjoy!

Ask 1 - About KTH1 and expectations

Ok, so I did write a shit post about this... (I mean… This is literally all Vmin’s songs so far ), but I still think your questions are worth a proper answer.

Honestly I think speculating about KTH1 is kind of hard, and as seen in the shit post I am quite torn with my expectations... In general I am the type who doesn’t like to expect too much in fear of being disappointed. I rather be pleasantly surprised. That being said Vmin does have a track record of getting involved in each other’s songs. I mean a lot is just speculation of course, but we do have confirmed cases as well, enough to not be too surprised if they would keep it up and do something for Tae’s solo album as well. (Tae saying his mixtape would be named Jimin back in 2016 still haunts me.)

On the other hand, they have already given us a lot of collabs. Adding more would feel more like a statement, at least if it would be only Jimin out of the members on that album. The thing is that if Vmin would have something “real” or at least if they are a bit careful with how they come across... I am not sure they would do something too “obvious”. But where such a line would be drawn is impossible to know. I mean clearly they managed to write and sing Friends and it worked fine, even if they did get more attention as a ship.

We also know Tae has been quite loud about Jimin in ways that single him out, so maybe they would really dare push the boundaries as far as actually including Jimin in the album somehow. It’s also very possible there could be other members, and honestly we probably shouldn’t hyper focus too much on it and that it has to mean something no matter if anyone is on it or not.

I think one of the rappers being on it is probably more likely out of the members, but it seems Tae has shown an interest in collabs with people outside of BTS, so that’s kind of what I am expecting the most. No matter who in the group is on it I am sure fans will make a big deal out of it, and maybe Tae would rather have his own thing for his first album. I really don’t know how his thoughts would go.

But again, looking at how Tae and Jimin has talked about working together, and have had moments like Tae promising Jimin a song or Tae saying they will work together again... It’s definitely not impossible to get another Vmin song. I do feel it’s more likely for any connections to be vague and not instantly noticeable though (at least not anything romantic looking because we know what happened to the Christmas song). Especially considering how they have only recently revealed things like 4 clock’s inspiration more openly and had Friends followed by Sweet Night. My main stance for any possible real ship is still that they have reason to be careful, and yet another Vmin collab, on Taehyung’s first personal album would probably raise some eyebrows considering everything else we already have. But it could also be me over analyzing them, and maybe they just really like and want to work together. Tae for sure has after all been vocal about this preference and want to work with Jimin.

So yeah, on one hand they have a track record that is hard to ignore... But on the other I wonder if they might want to add another “point” for ARMY to look at them and their songs. I also don’t want to assume that if there are songs on there that sound romantic that they automatically will be about Jimin. There will have to be legit possible connections for me to acknowledge them.

It’s tricky. I guess we will have to wait and see. I am kind of scared both that there won’t be anything or that there will be SOMETHING. Thank you for the ask, and I hope I shed some light on my thoughts on this subject. Either way I am very excited and looking forward to an album full of Taehyung’s own songs and the stories he wants to tell.

Ask 2 - KTH1 spoiler with “Oh lady”

I am not sure it is “lady”, since it’s a bit unclear in general. He also has a part that just seems to go “do be do” and I don’t know if the lyrics are even finished or if he worked with someone else etc. We basically lack a lot of information. But even so using lady/her/she etc. in a song doesn’t have to mean it is about a specific person or that the person is a she or that it is Taehyung’s own feelings (I know he said he usually sings about things he have felt, but just saying it doesn’t always have to be).

Of course I don’t want to downplay it and say it doesn’t mean anything, but considering their fanbase is majority women, they live in a homophobic country and he has even been denied to sing a romantic song with a man before, it’s not impossible to add that to make it more “relatable” or less “gay”. God, that sounds terrible. I don’t want to start discussions where we don’t take their words for what they are, so I hope you might understand my point of view. That being said of course it could just as easily be to or about a specific woman in his life that we don’t know about. Or as you say, he isn’t actually in love but is simply writing love songs that could be inspired by non-romantic relationships or movies etc. as was the case for his inspiration for Winter Bear.

Tae also used “she” in Winter Bear, and that seems a bit forgotten. Or people try to say it has to be about his grandmother... Which we obviously don’t know, it’s just the woman people jump to since he used “she” and many people don’t like the idea of him dating a woman or writing about a woman we don’t know. Either way I think we need to remember that anything is possible and we don’t know them personally and how they think or why they choose to do what they do.

I think we need to remember that there is always going to be the possibility that ships aren’t real, that the romantic songs aren’t about Jimin and that either one of them could be in a relationship with someone else (all genders included).

Ask 3 - Vminies getting superiority complex

Hello! I want to address something that has been bothering me for a while now. I have been seeing some vminnies have a superiority complex just bcoz they ship vmin. Its very rampant among new vminnies and twt vminnies. I get that we all feel validated and happy when out OTP claim to be soulmates and bff. I feel that way too. But people have to remember that vmin are real people and their relationship is dynamic. Like they did grow from bff who used to tease e/o and fight alot to soulmates who are gentle and caring. Who is to say that one day they wont drift apart (i hope not and dont think thats gonna happen but for argument sake) so there is no reason to feel superior or look down on other shippers.

If people think vminnies are superior bcoz they are not toxic they probably know they are lying. Lbr i have seen my share of toxic vminnies though may be a lesser number but they are there and its not the ship but its that particular person who is at fault. While i agree that some ship theories cultivate hate and toxicity there may be people among those ships who are just as sane and good as we claim to be. I just wanted to address this bcoz seeing some vminnies on twt saying locals thinking vmin were tgt after coway add is a validation kind of triggered me. I m sure there would have been similar responses to any other ship bcoz they all have been tgt for a decade and are very comfortable with e/o. I just wanted to talk to someone about this and i know you have discussed similar topics in the past. So yeah this was very long.

First of all, on request I won’t show your name, but thank you for sending me this and letting me know who you are. It’s always nice to know who is behind the question. But that being said I don’t mind people asking on anon, I totally get it being a lot easier to ask or question things when you don’t have to reveal yourself. Either way I am just glad to get interesting and important topics and I do think the things you bring up are worth talking about.

As you say, there is this thing when people start to feel and act superior for various reasons, and I too have seen some Vminies do this. Getting a lot of moments is sure nice. But honestly, just imagine if another ship came and mocked Vmin or gloated every time they got more moments. It has surely happened too, and I am sure it doesn’t feel very nice when on the negative end. Just be a decent human, ship moments will always vary and it’s great to be happy about getting moments, but there is no need to compare or look down on other ships. I say it again, shipping is not a competition, just enjoy your own ship and let others enjoy theirs.

As for feelings superior based on group behavior I think we really need to stop looking at groups and start looking at individuals, both when it comes to groups we are part of and groups we consider “bad”. I have said it many times, but individuals of other groups we don’t agree with won’t all be bad, or all stupid or young etc. We might want to tell ourselves they are worse, but it really doesn’t change much.

Being “less bad” it not a merit and it shouldn’t be a competition. We all have our own selves to answer to and we should judge other people based on their actions and not based on what group they might belong to.

I think size and the toxicity of a narrative can lead to more people in certain groups behaving in toxic ways... But I think any person could happen to fall into these behaviors if not careful and aware. Often the change is gradual too, or you feel attacked by the other “rival group” and thus feel it’s justified to attack back, and so it escalates.

Vminies are at the moment as a group smaller, and thus have less “bad apples”. We likely also have a narrative for Vmin that doesn’t require as toxic mindsets, for example extreme jealousy or Vmin being forced to hide. But there for sure are still toxic Vminies, and there are also a lot of non-toxic shippers in all groups. Usually the louder ones are also the worst ones while the chill and nice will remain in their own lane and ship more peacefully. But being part of a smaller group doesn’t make you superior, your actions is what is important.

As for small moments getting noticed or other types of “validation” for your ship, of course it’s going to feel nice. However, what people see and think of any relationship in BTS is still just an outsider view and literally has no meaning for their actual relationship beyond it being a cute moment. That’s why size and popularity also doesn’t matter as any kind of “proof”. Interpretation will always just be interpretation, good or bad, if you like it or not.

Sadly I think we will get more and more toxic behavior from more ships as the fandom grows and as some things get more normalized within those ships’ communities. It’s about certain behaviors growing into a community culture... The more toxicity that is allowed the more others will follow. That’s why bringing up the problems is important, but trying to do so without shunning people so that they don’t go and create their own space where everyone else is the enemy. After all, being open and welcoming and understanding is much more likely to make someone listen and even change their mind than by attacking them.

I answer for my own actions. So does every person. I don’t want to be judged for everything every Vminie or ARMY or Multi K-pop fan etc. has done. Generalization is a huge problem in general, not just in fandoms or ship wars. I do try to be a positive influence, to not judge too harshly and to remember that being hostile won’t help any situation. But that’s about it. I am glad you brought up this topic, because talking about it is important, but sadly I don’t think there is a lot that can be done about it. Just try to be nice and open minded.

Thank you for the ask, I hope you all understood what I wanted to say.

Ask 4 - Not dismissing the bond between Vmin and the other boys

Thank you. I really see no need for it. It’s clear as day that they all love each other, and even if one pair would happen to be romantic instead of platonic that won’t change. We don’t have to compare and we definitely don’t have to downplay the moments they share with each other. All shippers should at the very least accept the the things they do and say as mostly genuine. I trust BTS and what they show us, it’s that easy.

I know some also get influenced by toxic fans, but we really need to remember that no narratives by fans matter when it comes to reality and what bonds BTS share with each other. They are all great people and seem to have such love and respect for each other I frankly don’t understand how you can be a fan if you think any of it is played up to the point some claim.

Likely no ship in BTS is real, but if any is, to me I am sure the ones involved would be happy and supported by the rest of the members. That’s why it doesn’t really matter what ship would be real or not real as long as they are happy. We shouldn’t let our own views and sometimes want or hopes affect the way be judge their reality. This applies for things outside shipping as well.

Thank you for your kind words. :)

Ask 5 - Other people’s words can influence your thoughts

Indeed. The brain is a powerful thing. This is very obvious if you are a multi-shipper or a general fan, but BTS truly has a lot of questionable moments between all kinds of pairs. Focus is a interesting thing. If you like something you will notice it more, and you will also remember it more while you forget other moments. Likewise if something is “negative” like a rival ship you are likely to notice them more as well. This happens even if you just watch the general content and get your own bias. Imagine then how it might influence you when others keep repeating either your happy interpretations or things you worry about? You’ll get it stuck in your head and remember it more than other things.

Like isn’t it funny how we might gush about Vmin sharing beds, or worry about ji/kook or tae/kook cuddling while hope/kook literally sleep wrapped around each other in both Bon Voyage 3 and 4? Sometimes it’s all about perspective.

By now we need to realize that fan perspective will influence us a lot. And in particular if a lot of people say it or if it is presented in a way that makes it sound logical and intelligent. Words have power.

I still think using “Vmin is dead” or spreading worry often in itself leads to people thinking it and it being somehow accepted as fact. In similar fashion getting to hear about certain ships or certain narratives will make us notice things in relation to that. My own words and posts too will have influence on some people that read them. That’s why I try to be so careful, and why I try to avoid using strong words or claims that might cement themselves in someone’s mind. (I’ll actually talk more about the power of language in my big analysis as well)

Thank you for your input, it’s definitely an interesting thing to consider and another aspect of why shipping mentality is so complicated.

Ask 6 - Vmin not sharing rooms in Bon Voyage Malta

Hi and yes, I have answered this before HERE, but it’s ok. I know it’s not easy finding old topics amongst my collection posts.

Collection of asks - BTSandVMIN Collection of asks 2 - BTSandVMIN Collection of asks 3 - BTSandVMIN

In short I think Vmin wanted to share rooms but that Taehyung got fooled when Jimin stopped him from checking the upper room. Because it seemed like Jimin stopped him from walking into that room by saying he couldn’t peak Tae probably assumed it wasn’t Jimin’s room and that when Jimin said it was his room he was joking (his face was definitely something). So yeah, I think he just got fooled by Jimin’s statement about not being allowed to look inside the room before picking. There are other interesting things about this whole moment, but the one thing we should take away from it is how it is one out of now many examples that seem to show that Vmin have a preference to share rooms/beds. Thank you for the ask. :)

Ask 7 - Has being a Vmin shipper always been so overwhelming with all the content?

I wouldn’t say it’s something recent. I say it often, but we really do get very intense periods from time to time with many of the ships. For example in February 2017 with ISAC, fan signs and everything else we got a lot of Vmin too. I remember being overwhelmed myself, and that was coming out of BST era Vmin. We got many moments every day and that’s just one specific period I can remember.

Over the years sometimes we do get these very intense days or weeks with a lot of moments at once. Usually I get asks like “do you think something is up with Vmin lately” or “wow I can’t believe how much Vmin we have gotten lately” but really, it’s hard to tell, because it really does happen from time to time. I also still say we always get Vmin moments regularly as long as we get BTS content, but sometimes a bit more and sometimes less. I am sure there will be more times when we also get “Vmin is dead“ and worried people because we get less moments than they expect. It just happens, up and down and around it goes.

As for what ships are big I will definitely say Ji/kook and Tae/kook are the biggest, but that all BTS ships are big by now. Meaning as soon as we do get moments it will be seen online. Especially if you follow people who talk about it of course. I also think what platform you are on can result in some ships being seen more than others. For example I know ji/kook is by far the biggest BTS ship here on Tumblr while Youtube seems to have more tae/kookers.

Thank you for the ask. Let’s hope Vmin keeps overwhelming us. (But let’s not start to worry if they don’t) ;)

Ask 8 - “Just a friend” interview

Ah yes, I have a bit of a soft spot for this interview myself. I am not sure, but I think it might be from 2017 (since Tae wrote a birthday letter to Jimin in 2016), or at least that’s when I found it and saved it down. I haven’t actually tracked the original source. You can find the translation in the link shared HERE, credits to @95z.

Seeing this close after the chaos of Let’s BTS and other letter confessions it really does seem very cringe for them to express sincere thoughts in these more formal ways. I can’t blame them.

I do think this interview is yet another example of how much Vmin has tried to adapt to each other, learn and be more open with expressing how they feel. They literally inspire and learn from each other in how to express themselves. Isn’t it completely endearing?

I also love how they get each other to feel strong emotions and how they are there for each other when in need. On a slightly more analytical note I also can’t help but note the “just a friend” vs “soulmate” descriptions and how they seem to have a hard time putting it into proper words. We already know this of course, but yeah... They really don’t have an easy time describing their relationship.

Thank you so much for sharing this moment. I was going to talk about it in my big analysis anyways, but honestly I can’t save everything for it, and you mentioned it so who am I to keep it to myself.

Ask 9 - The garnet necklace

Oh yeah, I know that JK wore it once and that the talk was that a fan gave it to all of maknae line. Not much was ever confirmed from what I know, but regardless it doesn’t change why I think it’s a Vmin/soulmate necklace and why I see it as special.

Here is the thing, when I use “Vmin thing” it really doesn’t have to be exclusive. To me it’s the context around it and how they have used it and even reacted to it that makes the garnet necklace something special for Vmin. In the case of the soulmate necklace Vmin wore it a lot. Almost constantly during a big part of 2017 and even a bit into 2018. They also wore it at the same time a lot. I find this very cute, and we all know “couple items” is something all fans enjoy even if it would just be a platonic relationship behind it. But if both of them wearing it was all there was, as a lot of Vmin sharing clothes (or BTS in general sharing clothes) I wouldn’t really think too much about it beyond it being cute. It could still be just a cute thing that Vmin did, but I personally see it as something beyond the normal clothes/jewelry sharing.

(At the very least you can remember Vmin did this while people thought their relationship was dead, which doesn’t make much sense to do if you hate or dislike someone.)

The things I find more noteworthy about this necklace is the fact that the fandom picked up on it and because they wore it so much and so often at the same time it was dubbed the “soulmate necklace”. Possibly knowing this Tae also brought specific attention to the necklace at two times, as if wanting to show it off. Interestingly enough, in one of these times Jimin seemed to ignore Taehyung who was bringing attention to it on purpose. For me it came across as another thing Taehyung wanted to show off and that Jimin was a bit more careful about.

Of course I could have read it wrong, maybe Jimin just misunderstood. But even so, Tae did bring attention to it in specific relation to Jimin. You can watch the clip HERE. (BTS Tell Us What They Love About Each Other & An Update On Tony & Nate From America Hustle Life)

The other time was in Run ep. 39, right after Vmin talked about being in school together and showing off their school uniforms. If Tae is the one to try and highlight something, I feel it likely has some meaning to him at least.

Either way the necklace is basically a symbol of Vmin’s relationship and the fact that they liked it so much and wore it together during a long period I think they liked wearing it not only because they both happened to like the design but because they both had it. If JK also had one and didn’t use it of course it could include him, but I will still say it remains significant for Vmin’s bond with each other.

As for buying a necklace together they haven’t talked about this one in particular, but Tae did mention he bought his tiger necklace with Jimin in NY, so maybe you are mixing the two things up?

Ask 10 - Vmin in CMs

Thank you for loving my blog and for the ask! :) I am not sure if you perhaps meant in a lot of BTS own photoshoots/units as well, but I’ll focus on CMs in this post since that was your direct example. I might go a bit beyond here, but I saw it as a good chance to revisit some Vmin ad moments.

I wouldn’t personally say we have gotten “way more” but I do think because of their Friends unit they got to do some more interviews together and some CM stuff too. I also think we have gotten more BTS commercials in general now, likely because it’s an income alternative to touring during the pandemic. So that obviously means more CMs, and more chances for them to be paired up. They also have gotten paired with others of course (like in the Bodyfriend CM or Baskin Robbins), but most commonly they aren’t divided in smaller groups at all.

We also have gotten Vmin paired up before, both in photoshoots and in CMs. Of course we saw some great ones in 2016 with Puma and NUGU, but I don’t think we got that much more in 2016 and before than in 2017-2019. I think what we can see is BTS having more endorsements after Covid.

Like honestly, the Puma adds are iconic. Of course the original one, but also the revisits from 2018. Puma definitely seemed to like to pair Vmin in particular. (There are so many good examples from Puma that I’m not including)

We also got a snippet in the Hyundai one, also from 2018.

Another snippet from the Coconut Chicken ad from 2017.

I mean, I don’t know if I should count the snippets at all, like from BTS x VT cosmetics in 2019, but I feel sometimes just being seen in the same frame seems to get attention as being paired up so. (I decided to not include being together when it’s at least a third member in the frame)

And guys... Have you ever watched BTS and the milk song?

What did we get so far more recently? In 2020 we had the Hyundai interview.

And the hyundai #PositiveEnergyChallenge

Fila provided a nice one, also from 2020.

Samsung gave us a snippet recently.

Coway was basically couple goals and like the best one in my own opinion (besides Puma because it is going to take a lot to beat Puma).

But other than that? I don’t think we have seen it that much, have we? I am not complaining or anything, like I am happy with what we got, but I don’t know if it’s that much. I might forget some obvious ones, but these were the ones I had top of mind. Feel free to add ads if you can think of more recent ones that I left out.

So I think we have gotten more BTS ads in general, also more where they are not all of them or single focus, and that we have seen maybe Vmin getting paired a little more after Friends. But to me there is such a small difference I can’t really say if it is anything particular to Vmin or just BTS doing more CMs.

I mean, I don’t have a sheet of who has been paired with who and how many times over the years. But either way I don’t think we should look too deeply into things like CMs or even photoshoots units. Thanks for the ask though, I hope you enjoyed this mini collection. :)

Ask 11 - Taehyung uncomfortable about shipping/tae*kook?

So this is a thought sent in after THIS ASK though it really brings up a new subject, which is that of Tae possibly being uncomfortable with shipping. As for Tae saying that to a tae/kooker in particular I think we have to remember it could very easily just have been in the moment and we can’t know why he decided to reply to that person in particular.

The Vmin post was not invasive and it wasn’t romantic. I mean, I do think Tae keeps showing again and again that if there is any person in BTS that is special to him it’s Jimin. But the difference in the posts also likely matters, but we can’t know how much. We don’t know if Tae would feel annoyed if a Vminie wrote the same thing as the tae/kooker did, and we don’t know if it was just in that moment that he got fed up with the shipping discourse in general, or if it was because it was tae/kook.

Honestly any shipper, regardless if a ship would eventually prove to be real or not, should not go and invade spaces where the boys get exposed to it. We don’t know if Taehyung would have reacted in a similar way if it happened to be another ship.

Personally I don’t think tae/kook drifted apart as a result of shipping, because honestly they still kept being pretty intimate physically and engaged in fanservice on stage etc. If they truly were uncomfortable with the idea I just don’t think they would “feed it” much at all. I think as they said in ITS they just, kind of changed and it became harder to talk. I’ve talked more about tae/kook and my views on their bond in THIS POST and a little in THIS POST as well as about BTS possible stance on shipping HERE.

I also think all of BTS has a pretty good distance from hate and fandom speculations in general. I think that because they know about shipping and partly also feed into it they probably expect crazy people to some degree as well, even if they probably don’t like it. Hetero shippers as well, or solo stans etc. have very toxic behaviors at times, but I think BTS can recognize that it is kind of “bound to happen” with their popularity, no matter what they do about it. Not saying they would like it, and they could definitely feel awkward or annoyed because of it, but it doesn’t seem to bother them too much as I think they can detach themselves from it pretty well.

I also think “fan opinions” in form of rival shipping wouldn’t really harm a hidden couple as it first would likely be a sort of “shield” and second because they have their relationships and are likely comfortable with them on their own terms. What fans think is probably secondary.

It is possible that they could get annoyed or frustrated at times, but again, if they truly felt bothered by it they probably wouldn’t do a lot of the things they do. Because I am sure they are aware to some degree that fans scrutinize their every move and ship moments. Both Tae and Jimin are some of the most physical out of the members, and also some of the members that seem to like to initiate fanservice moments... So I doubt they would have much problem and can feel secure enough in their relationship no matter what fans think.

Ask 12 - What did Jimin write on his shirt in Run ep. 53?

Hi, I guess you got curious after I talked about this episode recently in my post Ask: Reply - 2021.03.30 (Ask 8 - Going down the rabbit hole, micromoments and shipping vs believing).

I don’t know hangul, but I do know what “Jimin” looks like. On Jimin’s shirt from behind the scenes of Run ep. 53 you can see he’s written his own name “지민” Jimin followed by what looks to be “ 님 “ which is nim. So basically the text on the container in the picture says Sir Jimin.

Jimin seemed very keen on writing his name on both his own shirt and on Tae’s and even tried on JK’s. He failed of course, but he sure did try.

Thank you for the ask, and isn’t Tae cute?

Ask 13 - Gina Maeng ask follow up

Glad you liked my reply. :) (From Ask: Reply - 2021.03.30 Ask 4 - Idols dating members of the same group). Yeah I get what you mean, talking about it openly I suppose isn’t so normal. But since it seems to be more and more fans who assume it happens to some degree maybe it’s not so strange if it starts getting more talked about as well. I’ll take it as a good sign, even if the information is nothing new in itself, being more open is going to make it easier for fans to realize it’s possible for their idols to be LGBT+ or have hidden relationships.

As for K-Population it doesn’t seem to be too well known, but it’s one of few actual examples to be found. So yeah, interesting that we know it has happened, and also that it shows what risks it could mean to get involved with a group member. I think the risk of a falling out is something a lot of shippers tend to forget. Anyways, thank you for your reply. ^_^

Ask 14 - Vmin’s love is beautiful (and so much nice praise omg)

Oh my... I am not sure I have ever been called sweetheart by anyone ever before. Thank you! You are making me blush with all the praise. 💜💜💜

But really, we can all just watch Vmin in awe and be happy they have each other and feel such immense love for each other, no matter what that love is. It’s kind of amazing. Like even if they are platonic their relationship is so wholesome and they put so much love and effort into it that it’s truly inspirational. I love when we get bombed with moments like this with a very intense period of great Vmin interactions. As you, me too never fail to feel all soft watching them together.

95z is love and what a love they share. Truly wonderful. 💜

You take care too, and really, thank you so much for this lovely message. it means a lot and is very heartwarming.

And with that sweet ask I’ll end the post. There was a lot of very different questions and I feel I could have written more about many of them, but alas I need to remember I can’t write full essays on everything or I would never get anything posted. Thank you all for reading and I hope you found my thoughts and speculations interesting. ^-^

#vmin #vmin analysis #btsandvmin #ask: reply #vmin collection #vmin ad #vmin cm #vmin commercial #vmin gif #vmin photo #bts shipping #btsandvmin answer #my post #Ask: Reply - 2021.04.16 #vmin soulmate necklace

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kpop-zone · 4 years

Text

Red Velvet reaction to their s/o finding out that they started dating them for a bet

Irene

As soon as Joohyun noticed that you were falling quiet, she knew that her lie had blown up. For over a year, she had managed to hide the truth about your first encounter in order to protect you. But now Sooyoung’s improvidence had to make everything crumble. Joohyun couldn’t be mad at her friend though. It had always only been a matter of time till she had to be honest with you. She knew that lies didn’t travel far. Sooyoung had just been the trigger to unveil everything.

Therefore, Joohyun gave you space the rest of the evening until your guests finally went home and left the two of you alone in your apartment. You still decided to weight down the atmosphere with heavy silence and Joohyun was getting more anxious by the minute. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore and neared you carefully. Slowly, she lifted her hands and barely grazed your skin with her fingertips, but you flinched as if she had hurt you.

“Is it true?”

You asked with a shaky voice while keeping your back turned to her.

Joohyun knew that she could pretend to be clueless right now or play everything down. But you didn’t deserve that. After everything, you deserved the truth.

“Yes.”

She simply answered, causing a heart wrenching sob to echo in the room that was making her breath hitch in her throat.

“Y/N...”

The words in Joohyun’s brain were completely jumbled and she didn’t know where to start. All these months, she had known that this day would come eventually, but now that it was there, she was completely caught off guard, nevertheless. A simple apology wouldn’t be able to cut it. Her silence, however, was probably making everything worse.

“So it was all a lie?”

You finally piped up through your tears and turned around to face her.

This time, Joohyun didn’t need a second to find an answer.

“No! Of course not! The girls just bet that I wouldn’t ask you out. But everything after that was real. I stayed out of interest; I swear.”

Her voice cracked and tears started pooling in her eyes when Joohyun saw the pain in your face.

You didn’t believe her.

“How can I know that you’re telling the truth now? What if this is all still part of your sick bet?”

Joohyun’s worst nightmare became true with your question, but after countless sleepless nights, she still didn’t have an answer to it.

How could she prove to you that she was being honest this time?

“Please, Y/N. I’m not lying.”

She whispered in desperation, but you only scoffed in response.

“Just...leave me alone.”

With that, you rushed off to the bedroom and slammed the door.

Alone in the living room, Joohyun’s walls finally broke down and she started crying silently.

“I love you.”

She choked out between sobs, although you weren’t able to hear her words.

If you asked her for space, she would give you as much as you needed. This was all her fault. She should have never agreed to take such an evil bet. She should have never kept the truth from you. But something had told her all along that the truth would cause a deep rift between the two of you and she simply couldn’t lose you.

She would do anything to keep you in her life.

Seulgi

“Hm I bet...you won‘t ask Y/N out.”

The distant sound of a video recording made Seulgi’s blood freeze. She knew that sentence, the loud song blaring in the background, the mischievous laughs of her friends. In lightning speed, she ran to the bedroom, but when she arrived it was already too late. Tears were streaming down your cheeks as you stared at the screen of her old phone that she had carelessly given to you after you had lost yours. The sight caused tears to well in her own eyes and she slowly walked up to you.

“It’s not what it looks like...”

You flinched in surprise at first, but when you realized who the voice belonged to, even more tears stained your face.

“Then why are you crying?”

You chuckled sadly, hurt resonating in your voice.

“I...do-...yo-....please.”

At a loss for words, Seulgi stuttered incomprehensible syllables while heavy sobs made it almost impossible to choke out a sound.

“Just tell me that this isn’t real. Tell me that you wouldn’t lie to me.”

Your voice was shaking in desperation and Seulgi would love nothing more than to fulfill your wishes.

But she couldn’t.

Because she had done those terrible things. She had betrayed you and instead of coming clean to you, she had been lying to you all along.

“I’m so sorry.”

Seulgi cried out while collapsing next to you onto the bed.

Her own sobs resonating in the room blurred with yours and Seulgi imagined hearing both of your hearts break in that moment.

A dip in the mattress caused her to lift her head though and she could see that you had jumped off the bed.

“No! Don’t go! Let’s talk. I swear I love you.”

Seulgi begged but you dismissed her by shaking your head.

“I can’t. Our relationship has been built on a lie; that’s not a solid foundation. You wouldn’t build a house on quicksand, would you?”

The finality of your words felt like they were choking her windpipe and Seulgi gasped for air.

“No, don’t say that.”

She replied, but you already started walking to the door. Without turning back, you left her behind in the room and exited the apartment. Feeling her world crushing down on her, Seulgi threw herself on the bed and buried her head in a pillow to silence her sobs.

What a monster did she have to be to betray a person like you?

Her guilt was pressing her down until the door of her room swung open again and she heard the agitated voices of her members. She sat up to face them, but as soon as she saw the worry in their eyes, her helplessness came rushing back.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Those were the last words she managed to choke out before breaking down once more and feeling herself getting buried in a hug by her members.

Wendy

“Ok I definitely know that something is wrong, even if you deny it. You didn’t sing in the car! So spill it.”

You giggled as the two of you entered your apartment after returning from your date night that was supposed to be cute and fun. But no matter how hard Seungwan tried, she couldn’t act like everything was alright.

Because it wasn’t.

The two of you had hit it off right from the start and she had tried to store the memories of your first encounter far, far back in her head. But her bad conscious was killing her. She needed to come clean, even if it meant that she would ruin what you had.

“I need to tell you something. I haven’t been honest with you.”

Seungwan blurted out, causing the smile on your face to disappear.

“What’s wrong?”

The concern in your voice was breaking Seungwan’s heart, because it was clear that you were concerned for her and not expecting a betrayal. You couldn’t be more wrong though.

“I think, we should sit down for this.”

She sighed while sitting down at the table. She would try to confess everything in the gentlest way possible, but she knew that there was probably no way to prevent the pain.

You looked confused as you sat down across from her, but you mainly seemed to be worried for her. There had always been nothing but trust between the two of you and she knew that she would be breaking it tonight. For a second, Seungwan felt like lying once more and keeping her secret forever. Then, however, she remembered that she could never say that she truly loved you while holding back a lie. Therefore, she inhaled deeply and closed her eyes before starting to confess.

“You remember the night we met? It wasn’t a coincidence that I started dancing with you of all people. We were all pretty wasted and Yeri dared me to flirt with you until you grab a drink with me.”

After rattling off her confession, Seungwan slowly peeked her eyes open to see an utter look of disbelief on your face, causing her to feel nauseous.

“I’m sorry for not having been completely honest with you. And I know that what I have done is truly awful and that what I am about to say will probably mean nothing to you, but...please believe me, everything after that night has been real!”

Seungwan used your speechlessness to add an explanation even though she guessed that you needed a while to process everything. Nevertheless, she needed to get that off her chest.

“I...I need time to think.”

Your voice was barely above a whisper, but it was the answer that Seungwan had expected all along.

Therefore, she stood up from the table and walked to the front door to leave. Before exciting the apartment, however, she turned around.

“Take as much time as you need. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Joy

“Y/N!! No, wait!!”

Sooyoung’s voice cracked as she was yelling at the top of her lungs while rushing past you to block your way.

Breathlessly, she looked into your tearstained face. She was just so angry. You should have never learned about the circumstances of your first encounter. Why did it matter? In the end, she had been drawn to you because of you; because you had made her fall in love. Therefore, everyone had agreed to never lose a word about that godforsaken bet. But tonight, Hyoseob just had to break his promise. If you hadn’t run away, Sooyoung was sure that she would have made him a head shorter. But you had wanted to slip away from her, so she needed to chase you.

“Let me explain!”

Sooyoung asked, but you shook your head reluctantly.

“What is there to explain? You played me, you lied to me, you hid things from me. I think it’s pretty clear.”

You yelled, catching the attention of the other guests in the restaurant. But Sooyoung couldn’t care less. She wouldn’t let you walk out of her life; she needed to make it up to you.

“It’s not clear! Yes, I’ve took that stupid bet, but that was just that one time. All the other times I took you out were because I fell in love with you.”

Sooyoung softened her voice and tried moving closer to you, but you backed away.

“Is that so? Or maybe someone else dared you to even make me fall in love with you.”

Your accusation made Sooyoung gasp appalled.

“NO! I would have never toyed with your feelings like that. It was just that one date. Y/N you know me! I love you.”

Her anger had completely vanished by now which left her with pure desperation instead. This was exactly why she had never wanted to talk about this bet ever again. Of course, you felt betrayed. You had every right to. But you shouldn’t. The past didn’t matter anymore; she truly loved you now.

“But you did toy with my feelings! I always thought it was love at first sight between the two of us. Can you even imagine how much it hurts to learn that it wasn’t? That it was all just a game to you?”

Your pain could be heard in your voice and the sound of it crushed Sooyoung’s heart.

What was she supposed to reply now? There was no one on this planet that loved you more than her, but it was true, it hadn’t been love at first sight for her. Without the bet, she probably would have never talked to you.

“It’s not a game to me now anymore though...”

Sooyoung whispered while tears streamed down her cheeks as she realized that she was talking to a brick wall; deservingly.

“I don’t care.”

You scoffed before pushing past her to exit the restaurant.

What had she done? Where did everything go wrong? Could she have prevented all of this if she had talked to you earlier?

Questions over questions flooded Sooyoung’s brain and she started to feel dizzy. There was one thing that she knew for sure though.

This couldn’t be the end of your relationship.

With that thought on her mind, Sooyoung rushed through the door and into the night to chase you.

Yeri

“Aw...that’s just how we met.”

You giggled before snuggling up to Yeri while the two of you were watching a cheesy romance. Your comment should have caused butterflies to erupt in her stomach, but instead, Yeri felt a stinging pain in her heart.

It was exactly like the two of you met...except that she had talked to you in order to win a bet.

Everything about your first encounter had been a lie. She had told you that she loved the artist whose song you had been dancing to excitedly; although she really hated that song. But she had wanted to get your number and to ask you out, so it was a necessary lie. All for 100,000 Won. Back then she hadn’t known that you would simply blow her away on your first date. She had thought that it was nothing but a way to prove her friends wrong. But in the end, it had been her that was proven wrong. One date turned into countless ones and she turned from a random stranger to your girlfriend.

The secret about your first encounter, however, stayed. Since your second date, Yeri had wanted to confess to you, but she didn’t know how to. Every time, she was close to telling you the truth, she chickened out in the last minute. No matter how many scenarios Yeri played in her head, there was never one in which you stayed together after her confession. She wouldn’t know how to mend the broken trust between the two of you. But with every day, her anxiety had grown. What if you did find out by accident one day? And how was she supposed to lie to you for the rest of your lives? This secrecy was following her like a dark shadow, no matter where she went.

“Yeri...are you crying?”

Your voice pulled Yeri back into reality and she found your eyes filled with worry. She didn’t bother to wipe away her tears. Instead, she let you pull her into a hug whose comfort she selfishly accepted. You were giving her comfort, although she was the one that had been playing you.

“What’s wrong?”

You asked after leaning back a bit to wipe away her tears.

“I can’t tell you. You will never talk to me again if I do.”

She sobbed but you instantly shook your head.

“What are you talking about?! You can always talk to me, Yeri. Please tell me what is bothering you.”

You replied while intertwining your hands to give hers an encouraging squeeze.

In that moment, Yeri realized that she couldn’t lie to you anymore. You didn’t deserve it and she wouldn’t be able to keep the secret from you forever. You were her safe haven after all; the one that she turned to no matter what hurdles she had to overcome. She needed to be honest.

“Promise me that you’ll stay.”

Despite her wish to be honest, Yeri couldn’t risk losing you. Even if she knew that this promise probably wouldn’t mean anything afterwards, she needed your assurance to give her enough courage to overcome her fear.

“You’re scaring me...”

For the first time tonight, you moved away from her and Yeri immediately felt her heart breaking. This would only be the beginning; she was sure of that.

“I only asked you out because of a bet.”

Not being able to hold in the secret any longer, Yeri simply blurted out the truth. Consequently, a variety of emotions flashed over your face, but in the end, a sadness that she had never seen before settled in your eyes.

“So you didn’t even like me?”

You asked shakily after a while, causing Yeri to lower her gaze in shame.

While she was still searching for the right words, a sudden loud sob made Yeri flinch and she looked at you in shock. Your face was buried behind your hands, but she could still see that you were crying heavily. Out of habit, she put her arms around you, only to feel you pushing her away a second later.

“Don’t touch me!”

You yelled, cutting a deep hole into her heart.

Helplessly, Yeri backed off and watched you crying. There was nothing that could compare to the pain that she was feeling right now, knowing that she had caused you this misery. Nevertheless, she couldn’t bring herself to leave. There had to be a way that she could fix this. You loved her and she loved you. Couldn’t the two of you just leave the past behind? You had to.

Therefore, she kept sitting next to you, silently crying herself while watching you falling apart.

#red velvet reaction #red velvet imagine #red velvet #irene #joohyun #rv reactions #seulgi #wendy #seungwan #joy #sooyoung #yeri #girl group reactions #girl group #kpop reactions #kpop #girl group imagines

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vtforpedro · 3 years

Text

medical update and stuff. trigger warnings in tags I’m extremely frustrated. it’s been 15 months of frustration lol so so so sick of doctors, so sick of living through this. I am tired and getting no relief you might remember, but I was given a ‘possible’ IIH diagnosis in October. we’ve been treating it like it is IIH, which means everything has always been real etc etc and the treatment is weight loss. started my ‘better eating habits’ on nov 1st. then I immediately had the thing with my chemo pill packing on a ton of excess fluid, worsening my head to the point of ER and calling my neurosurgeon, getting taken off my chemo pill, and it wasn’t until mid-december that I actually started to see any fucking weight loss cause of that my pcp told me 5lbs a month. so I’ve been right on track with that despite wishing I could lose 10 a month but that’d be starving myself so lol I’ve lost 15lbs but now something exciting is happening again!! I am retaining fluid and I have NO idea why. which means my head is now as bad as it was last summer when everything was at its worse. constant all day long, pills barely doing anything for me, vision issues, pain issues. it feels like something broke in the base of my skull/neck because I get the scariest sensations there. it’s horrible. no human being should have to live this way and I do it every single day, numerous times a day anyway I had to go to the ER last thursday A G A I N because a doctor sent me. my pupils were noticeably two different sizes. I’d noticed three days beforehand and convinced myself I was imagining it cause it wasn’t a huge difference. finally took a picture and no, def not the same size and my eye looked like it was going inward? anyway, called my pcp, they had me come in that day, he saw it from a foot and a half away, sat back, and said I need you to go to the ER, you need your brain looked at. so again, I’ve been seeing this for three days while my head has been 10/10 extreme due to pressure in it. I get there and have to wait a while but less than two hours later when they finally looked at me? gone. pupils back to normal. doctor talking down to me like I was just an anxious mess and not that another dr sent me cause he saw what I did lol and his notes were in my chart. so, wasted visit and they put a covid patient 15ft from me and intubated them, so get to remember what that sounds like forever and ever (covid patients are supposed to be separated from other ER patients). now I’m doing a 10 day quarantine while I am so severely disabled I cannot bend over to take care of my cats food/litter/etc and it’s why my mom half lives with me but she can’t right now :) getting a covid test in three hours and it’s been eight days with nothing but head issues + fluid retention so hoping it’s negative the fluid retention I had before was a side effect of my chemo pill. I don’t know why this is happening. I should be 17lbs down now and I’ve actually gained weight despite being on the same diet that lost me the 15. I’m back to 13lbs down. this makes me feel like I might be carrying 4lbs of water weight. let me break this down because yesterday a PA told me my symptoms were too ‘ambiguous’ to say if fluid retention is happening or not - fluid retention from the chemo pill was ALL felt in my stomach. it was distended and bloated like I’d eaten at a buffet every single day - head got massively worse, enough to go to the er, doc and I agreed the fluid retention causing me to fluctuate between 15lbs was making the IIH worse - not urinating often despite drinking a normal amount - got on a diuretic, seven days later the weight was gone, head was better, started losing weight this is what I’m experiencing now - fluid retention that is causing my stomach to feel very bloated and look/feel distended - head has gotten massively worse, enough to send me to the ER - should be losing weight, have actually gained weight on a low fat, low calorie diet - the only difference this time is that I am dehydrating myself (yes I know, bad, but it is literally saving my life) because I experimented one day with half my water intake and my head was miles better. still experiencing a terrible head episode once or twice a day but it’s not 10/10 constantly - and the second difference is despite not drinking enough water, I am actually urinating more often and it’s a lot more clear than it should be, the color I expect when I’m hydrating well I consider this ^^^^^ to be a good case of why I think I have fluid retention but being told my symptoms were ‘ambiguous’ and throwing me to my neurosurgeon instead is HNNNNG (esp because diuretics are known to help IIH symptoms FOR THIS EXACT REASON) I have VERY recently had my sugars checked a few times, glucose is normal. VERY recently had an abdominal CT, also normal. it’s not diabetes, it’s not something happening in my abdomen. they hear abdomen vs legs swelling and think it’s GI because doctors never fucking listen and actively put their patients in danger but o h w e l l, I guess anyway as it’s been for 15 months, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I go this way and experience agony, I go that way and experience agony I need extra hydration for weight loss, leukemia, being obese. I need less hydration because it worsens IIH to the point of 10/10 I want to die (which makes me heavily and actively suicidal. doctors see I take anti-depressants and assume idk I’m being dramatic but no, it’s really this fucking bad. I would rather die that moment than keep feeling what’s happening in my head) there’s like no middle ground and my body and these doctors are making it impossible to figure this shit out. my mom had to come over at 1:45 AM last night (hasn’t had to rush here since april 2020 cause that’s just how bad it is) because I lost my balance twice and was lucky I had something to catch onto or I would’ve been on the ground (neuro symptoms which could be IIH, could be chiari, could be stroke) and my speech got SUPER bad almost immediately. scared the hell out of me, I have never in my life lost balance that badly before things are going downhill and I would’ve thought losing weight they’d start improving but when has my body ever made this easy lol meeting a new neurologist on monday who works in the same building with my neurosurgeon. I’ve been avoiding them cause every single one of them told me I was just anxious despite specific physical movements causing an episode lmao but hopefully this guy is better and he has access to all of my neurosurgeon’s notes and stuff. I can’t keep dehydrating myself but at the same time I can’t let my head get so bad I make a farewell note for my mom, you know? it’s just been really bad and I don’t know how to get people to listen to me. I have a 99% diagnosis and they still don’t take me as seriously as they should. this has ruined my quality of life and they would have you believe that doctors take that seriously but they do not neurosurgeon wants me to see an ophthalmologist again cause of my vision issues and to check for specific things that relate to IIH. he wants another MRI done in early may cause it’s been a year since my last one by then (actually a month later, my last one was in april, but I’m curious if the neurologist will order one sooner) to check to see if anything has worsened so yeah living in absolute hell again and don’t know if I can just get a simple one week diuretic to get this fluid out of my body. what the FUCK else can it be when I’ve experienced this exact thing twice!! before. it happened to a much, much lesser degree the first time I got on the chemo pill. but the same shit :) hanging on by the thinnest thread guys and 15 months of feeling like I’m going to die almost every single day through that has destroyed my psyche. destroyed me as a person. I don’t know what to do anymore sorry this is all a lot of Bad™ but it’s been a lot of bad for 15 months. if I can keep going, I hope one day to be able to give an update of improvement love you all

#medical #medical trauma #tw suicidal thoughts #personal #long post

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strwberrytae · 3 years

Text

So Long, Farewell, and Goodbye For Now -

“I don’t know how you are so familiar to me—or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before—in another time, a different place, some other existence.” - Lang Leav

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Hello, You ♡ Yes, You. You ethereal, beautiful being. I am writing to you with bittersweet yet wonderful news - depending on the perspective. I am writing this post to inform all of you that I will no longer be writing for this blog for the foreseeable future. What I mean by that is that I am not giving up writing forever, no. But my life has changed so much over the last two years, I do not see myself writing again for quite some time. But don’t worry! I will be back!

Below the Read More section, I have poured my heart and soul into the real reasons why I’ve made this decision. I warn you, it’s lengthy but it’s everything that has led up to this over the years. So, if you fancy, have a read. If not, I bid you farewell and wish you all the happiness in the world. Thank you for supporting me so far. I truly appreciate it and love you all very dearly. Now, if you wish to read it at a later time, I will have a link available on my page at all times for anyone who is curious. It’s a hell of a story if you ask me ~

Edit: Made by Me - also, a surprise photo at the end Warnings/Triggers: Talks of emotional abuse, depression, and suicide but also happiness and love -

When I first started this blog, it was 2016. I had been on Tumblr for over a decade now but BTS led me to writing passionately for 2 years. I was incredibly active and utterly consumed by this website. Not just for the writing, but I was so obsessed because of my friends and mutuals that I made along the way. Can I just say that I’ve met some incredible people on this platform - including my best friend and soulmate? Truthfully, the absolute best friend I have ever had. But more importantly, Tumblr was my greatest escape. I mean this website truly has been my saving grace through very dark times.

In that part of my life, I was in an extremely toxic relationship; by then, it was 6 years I was with him. He was emotionally abusive, had such a short-fuse temper, hated everyone I knew which led me never really seeing any of my friends after college, knew I was anorexic and did nothing to stop me, knew I had depression since we started dating and always argued it as if it wasn’t real, crushed my dreams and ambitions, mocked potential suicide attempts, expected me to just abandon all hope to ever leave home to explore someplace new or get a job that I actually love. He was...just the worst. Never hit me though, so I’m grateful for that. But sometimes I wish he would so it would have given me the voice I needed to get out of that relationship much sooner than I did. But regardless, because of him plus having a soul-sucking job that wore me down to the core, Tumblr was my escape. BTS was my escape.

I fell hard and I fell deep. I created a fantasy world within this world. All of my dreams, fantasies, desires, and hopes were poured into my writing. My imagination was running wild. My activity was through the roof because I was always on here day in and out, just pretending like the outside world didn’t exist. It consumed me...but I needed it. Looking back, it was pretty excessive. At the time, I seemed perfectly normal because everyone else was just as active and saying the same things and doing the same things. I felt a belonging, like I fit in.

But I hated the person I became. It took me getting yelled at, mocked, ridiculed, and belittled by my ex to snap me out of that illusion I built and back into reality. That was the roughest night that we had filled with lots of screaming on his end and crying on my part. He thought my obsession was sick. He thought it was disgusting. It all started because he found fake texts I had made with Jimin and Tae. Don’t recall the story it was a part of but he thought they were texts with the actual members… In my eyes, I should get credit for making them look so legit but he didn’t see it that way. He thought fangirling over men was essentially cheating. No matter how hard I tried to explain, he didn’t understand. But a part of his view was right. I learned that I was a bit too much into it and I really needed to take a step back from Tumblr for a while. So I did. I deactivated my account and disappeared for months. Also because he made me and threatened our relationship if I didn’t. Should have taken the out but ah well.

Just two months prior to this incident, I attempted suicide. Well, contemplated. Everything was planned out. Bought a hotel room for Thanksgiving night as I was working a super late shift until about 1-2am. My commute home was an hour long and I still had to come back to work at 7am. So I got a room. Brought a large amount of pills with me and I was going to call it. No notes written to friends, family, or loved ones. Nothing. I was done. Didn’t think anyone would miss me. I just figured the world would keep turning without me. I had thought about doing this several times before but this was my first time making plans for it. It was my lowest of the low. But then I met someone that night that changed my life entirely just in a 10 minute interaction of talking - nothing special. We’ll get to that later. But this person just gave me hope and to this day, I still can’t explain it. It was euphoric. I felt clarity. It was in that night that I thought I might hold out just a little bit longer.

And thus @strwberrytae was born - but it was far from the same. At first, I restarted the blog in secret. Why would I do this? Why would a 25 year old open a blog in secret? Well, two months after the awful fight, my ex proposed to me and I said yes. I know. Believe me, I know. I was scared. My depression was getting worse again. I no longer had an escape except for books. All I did was read so I had some sort of reality to be in besides my own. But returning to a brand new blog did not give the same satisfaction as returning to an old blog.

I worked so hard on my first blog and this redo, I tried to consider it as a gift. Perhaps this was a chance to start anew and rebrand myself. This optimism kept up for quite some time. Slowly, I added my favorite past works then added some new chapters. If you’ve been here with me since 2017, you would know that my appearance on Tumblr was still not the same. Then I got married in October.

An empty, loveless marriage that I regret to this day. Needless to say, my writing and activity on Tumblr was still practically non-existent as I was still too scared of getting caught. Even though he finally gave me permission to use it again because he could tell how miserable it was making me. Yes, gave me permission. Thankfully, it all ended after a year. I finally went to a therapist even though I hated them so much and all past therapists I had. She was pretty great. Within five sessions, I summoned the courage to break up with this guy. I was finally set free. Nearly 9 years together and I finally felt like I could breathe.

Unfortunately, although I was free, I had to live with the guy for about 5 months after the breakup. Which was beyond rough, believe me. Imagine someone writhing in pain and bawling their eyes out and venting non-stop about all of their faults and wrongdoings every single day. At the end of the day, as shitty as he was to me, he was my best friend too. We went through a lot of shit together and he did have some good sides to him too. So witnessing this was horrendous. Needless to say, I wasn’t getting much privacy either. Writing was not my top priority. Now it’s 2019 and things changed drastically for the better - and worst.

Remember the person I met in 2016 on Thanksgiving night? Well, that person is someone I crushed on every since that night. For 2 years. People, I’m telling you. He did absolutely nothing special that night. He didn’t flirt with me. He didn’t check me out. He didn’t do anything remotely to make a girl swoon but I was so drawn to him. The only word that could describe it was “cosmic” - beautifully cosmic.

Well in January 2019, 2 months following my break up, he came into my store one day. And my god did he look incredible. He was dressed head to toe in black - a fitted black suit at that. He even wore this long, designer jacket to match. Hair shaved on the sides with beautiful, thick dark hair on top. So tall - 182cm. A smile that could kill; quite literally. The canines are on point. He looked like a five course meal. That day, he definitely flirted with me. By the end of the week, we had our first date. Sadly, I also lost my job in the same week and was unemployed for a year because no one would hire me. I was laid off and one of my seniors took my job. Of course, they needed to keep me around for the holidays and then give me the boot. I was devastated. I hated that job so much as it only aided in fueling my depression but losing it was definitely an amazing thing. And! I survived on my savings and definitely didn’t spend my time writing. I had life to sort out last year - like from the ground up. No worries though. I got a job in February 2020 and I love it, so it’s all good, baby. Now I’m in the health field and feel like I’m actually helping people, which I love.

Now, here we are 2 years later and I’m engaged to the man. Someone who makes me smile everyday, believes in me, encourages me, let’s me be 100% myself, travels with me, taught me how to love myself, taught me to accept my body, gets me on a level that only my best friend could, and someone who goes above and beyond every single day to show me how much he loves me. Bonus, he welcomes my love for BTS with open arms, reads my writing, AND has even been sucked in himself to the fandom. Jungkook and Jimin, look out. You got another fanboy. I thought true love was impossible for me but I was very, very wrong.

He has shown me that I can be happy and I have finally experienced true happiness. When people ask how I’m doing, I don’t cringe and lie through my teeth. I smile and say that I am doing well because by George, I am. Everyone around me has seen me over the last two years and made the comment, “you look so much happier”. They meet him and swoon just as much as I do. Is he perfect? No, he’s not. He has flaws just like everyone else but he actually grows and learns from his mistakes to better himself. That’s what amazes me the most. Even if we argue, which is seldom, he refuses to let it go without resolution so we can always fix whatever the issue is. As we like to call it, we’re in-sync. In everything, we’re always so in-sync. I’m wildly in love, my dudes.

So, why am I not writing anymore? To put it simply, I’m happy and don’t really feel the desire to write anymore - at least not fanfiction. Even when I was super young, like elementary school, I used writing as an outlet for my dark escape. I wrote poetry primarily and by middle school, it turned to fanfiction for Supernatural, Simple Plan, and Panic! At The Disco. Along with a very long list of other bands and shows but anyways. I’ve been severely depressed since I was 15 and fanfiction put me in this hole that I couldn’t get out of. I relied on this method to help me get through all the bad shit I was dealing with. It was my coping mechanism.

Now? While depression never truly goes away as the lovely disease that it is, I am genuinely happy. Because of this, when I opened all of my past works and works in progress, I felt nothing but guilt. Guilt for not keeping up with my chapters or keeping my account active. I felt dread to have to escape in this world that I had created. I felt no joy or excitement. It was the strangest feeling that happened all in a matter of seconds. Thus leading to my final decision to take a step away from writing. Do I still love it? Absolutely. But now I think I’m going to re-route and focus my writing on what I love - reality. I’m going to get back into journaling and write essays about love and beauty as I’ve always loved to do. But for escaping into a fantasy world? I don’t know when I’ll be back.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “But you can write and be happy!” Nah fam. Writing has been my aid through dark times and now I mostly associate it with those dark times. And for once in my life, I feel this desire to enjoy reality and remain in it - with the exception of journaling here and there. Even daydreaming is difficult. It’s strange. I love my reality. This sounds like gloating now but it’s truly a remarkable feeling. When you’ve been battling depression for 15 years, it feels really freaking nice to say that I’m happy.

So that’s why I’m taking a break - in a very long, drawn out way. But my hope was that after this long story, you might understand truly why I am doing this. It would have been easier to just say that writing doesn’t bring me joy anymore but I feel that I owe more than that; especially because I really don’t know if I’ll write for this blog ever again. The last time I took a break, I disappeared without being able to explain myself and I wanted to do so now that I have the chance.

Ultimately, thank you to everyone who has stuck by me over the years. It’s truly been one hell of a rollercoaster. The friends I’ve made on here have seen me at my lowest of the lows. But hey! I’ll still be around. I just won’t be publishing or continuing any of my works anywhere in the near future. Seriously though. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This website has helped me tremendously and I’ll never forget it. Besides, there’s lots of other exciting things happening in my life now so you’ll certainly see me pop in here and there to talk about it ♡

If you wish, you can message me for questions or anything you want to know. I’m an open book - at least about most things hehe. And don’t worry. I still very much love Taehyung and still wildly obsessing over how marvelous he is. Umf.

(here’s some recent photos of me as i rarely take selfies anymore haha. and a derp photo of me and the man i love >_< why is the cutest photo of him with the worst photo of me? still cute though hehe)

#me #personal #goodbye for now #no longer writing #bts writer

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houseofhurricane · 3 years

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ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (2/32) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

Summary: Elain lies about a vision and winds up as the Night Court’s emissary to the Spring Court, trying to prevent the Dread Trove from falling into the wrong hands and wrestling with the gifts the Cauldron imparted when she was Made. Lucien, asked to join her, must contend with secrets about his mating bond. Meanwhile, Tamlin struggles to lead the Spring Court in the aftermath of the war with Hybern. And Vassa, the human queen in their midst, wrestles with the enchantment that turns her into a firebird by day, robbing her of the power of speech and human thought. Looming over all of them is uniquet peace in Prythian and the threat of Koschei, the death-god with unimaginable power. With powers both magical and monstrous, the quartet at the Spring Court will have to wrestle with their own natures and the evil that surrounds them. Will the struggle save their world, or doom it?

A/N: This chapter, from Tamlin's perspective, required a lot of careful thinking and revising and research on my part, specifically on whether abusers can ever recover and what that looks like. Personally, both in real life and in the ACOTAR world, I do believe that recovery is possible, but that abusers must admit the harm they have caused, reckon with themselves to create new patterns of thinking and behavior, and make amends if possible. This has shaped the way I've written Tamlin here and in future chapters. I do think that in the ACOTAR novels and fandom, Tamlin gets criticized for his behavior in a way that other characters with similarly abusive patterns of behavior (Rhys, Nesta, Eris) do not. I also think that redemption is possible for him. All that said, if you don't agree, or if you find Tamlin triggering, I completely understand. You can find all chapters here.

There are footsteps in the darkness, and Tamlin follows them, the breeze disappearing from his skin as he’s surrounded, pulled from the scent of flowers by walls of stone. It is impossible to gnash his teeth in this form so he growls instead, the sound amplified and echoing in the hollow chambers of his estate. Once, they were full of his courtiers and servants, studded with visiting nobles who sought his favor or his counsel.

Now, only Rhysand waits for him, at home in the darkest corner of the great hall.

“What do you want?” Tamlin asks, his voice clotted, scraping his throat.

“I’d like to send Elain Archeron to your court as my emissary.”

“Running short of spies, Rhysand?”

“If I wanted to spy on you, would I be here asking your permission?” He drawls the words but Tamlin has been listening in the forests, his hearing even sharper in this form, and he can hear the slightly anxious pitch in the man’s voice. And it’s curious that he would send someone, let alone his mate’s sister, as if he hadn’t ordered Lucien to make regular visits to Spring. “I’d like to be assured that she’ll be safe.”

“My lands are none of your concern but the dangerous creatures have all been put in their places.” He feels a fraction of his old self when he’s hunting, the mission clear and certain. He loves the feeling of his body obeying his commands, the only being in Prythian in whom he can put his trust.

“I need your word that she will be safe here.”

“You think I’ll lock her up in a ruined castle and throw away the key?”

Rhysand, damn him, simply takes a look around, the gloom deep enough to make his tan face pale as milk.

“Does Lucien stay here when he visits you?”

As if he doesn’t know that Lucien winnows himself to that castle in the human lands when their meetings and councils are over, preferring to spend his time with that Band of Exiles than stay a night in his ruined bedroom, or search the estate for another room that managed to escape its High Lord’s wrath.

Sometimes, he looks back at the being he was during the war with Hybern and feels no spark of recognition. Sometimes he has to coax himself to admit that it was he himself at those moments, starting a war over a woman he knew, even then, did not love him. And sometimes he does not force himself to recognize the truth of his own actions because the realization is always an explosion inside of him, blinding and horrifying, destroying another part of him every time he realizes what he became. What he is, still. It’s partly for this reason that he avoids the face he wore in those days.

“When would you like the Archeron sister to come to my court?” As if he doesn’t know who Elain is.

“She would like to arrive as soon as possible. I believe she stayed up last night packing her trunks.”

“So eager to get away from you?” The pleasure he feels at saying the words catches in the throat of the beast, unused to speaking like a lord, smooth words concealing the whirling of his mind.

“All the members of my court are free to go where they wish.”

Rhysand must really want this outcome, to tread so lightly. Usually his response would have been along the lines of Fuck you, you imprisoned my mate, and now Tamlin watches as he coaxes his mouth into a line resembling a smile’s curve and, as he so often does, picks a nonexistent piece of lint off his tunic.

“What do you require for her?”

“Nothing too impossible, I think. A bed, a bathing-room, a door that locks. A guarantee that she’ll be fed at regular intervals. I did mention that Lucien and Queen Vassa would be joining Elain, didn’t I? So it will be three of everything.”

“Such confidence in their desire to reside here.”

Rhysand’s lip curls. “If you think this is impossible--”

He should decline, insist again that these lands are him, but compulsion pulls at him, a heady thrum.

“It will take at least a month to make this estate adequate to your needs.”

“Elain would like to be here sooner.”

“There is a cottage in the village.”

“If I assist?”

Tamlin lets the growl build in his throat. He’s not sure which is worse: Rhysand knowing the exact layout of his home, or having Rhysand’s people build it because Tamlin himself isn’t sure who would dedicate this kind of service to him, now that they’ve seen the rot at his core. At least they still fear him enough to leave his jewels untouched, or else are unable to breach the surrounding wards.

“Am I to believe that you would send your precious artisans to build the home of your enemy?”

“I’ve given you reason enough to believe anything of me,” Rhysand says, and the words are transparent, infuriatingly so: a person could see that he was truly good if only they were in the mood to look. That Tamlin had allowed himself to believe otherwise for centuries gnaws at him, even as he wants to believe that this decent version of the male is just another mirror, a trick of the light.

“If we begin with the kitchens and three bedrooms, a week will be enough.” He shifts from paw to paw. “Ask Elain what she would like to look at, what colors she prefers.”

“Elain likes the colors of flowers. Soft and delicate furnishings.”

“And she cannot speak for herself?” The words come out harsh, grating, nothing like the tone he’d envisioned in his head, which would, all on its own, indicate the irony of Rhysand taking an Archeron sister for granted, presuming her words. He would say, if there was anybody who cared enough to ask, that after so much time in this form, he has lost the art of modulating his tone.

“I’ll ask her,” Rhysand says, soft and dangerous, “my precious artisans and builders will arrive tomorrow at first light, then. Should I advise them to look for you in this form?”

“I’ll look as civilized as you.” He manages to match Rhysand’s tone. The control required is exquisite. “Though I’m sure you’ll be around to make sure they survive the morning.”

“Prove me wrong, then, Tamlin.”

Of course, Rhysand disappears before Tamlin can lunge for him, his claws snapping on nothing but laden air. The marble floor, dull with inattention, pounds his paws and then his joints as he, the beast outside and inside, hits the floor. The foundation of the estate rumbles in complaint.

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There are no mirrors to allow Tamlin to observe the face of his Fae form, but his arms and legs are only skin and muscle. If he were slaughtered and prepared as a meal, the diners would complain about the gristle of him, the sharpness of the knife required to make the meal palatable.

He finds a clean shirt and pants and boots which are not spangled with embroidery or jewels, and though the fabric gives off a musty scent, he doubts that Rhysand, his artisans, or his builders will get close enough to judge the stink. Tamlin knows the way that gossip travels across the seven courts, imagines there are stories about his haunting of the Spring Court forests, that they’ll only be surprised he doesn’t appear with fur and claws or else covered in dirt. With this in mind, he scrubs his face and body with water and the last gritty bits of soap until the skin squeaks clean under his fingertips.

After centuries of seeing his own reflection, Tamlin knows how he might look, but no matter what he envisions, the result is disappointing. Any beauty undone by the rot inside, which tears inside of him, an animal gnashing its teeth. The reason he prefers to be transformed, the creature outside matching the way he feels inside. He knows that he deserves this punishment, does not stop imagining Feyre’s wasted body, the sound of her retching, Amarantha destroying that weak and beautiful human frame while he was so careful to be still and silent. He deserves this feeling for Hybern, for calling Feyre a whore, for her sisters in the Cauldron and all the hurt he caused. The list is endless and he recounts each item on it, filling up the hours when his forests are silent, when all the monsters within are too afraid of him to stir.

Despite all his years as a warrior, he never thought that he was such a terror. For a time he tried to blame Feyre for this unleashing, then Rhysand, but too soon there was only the stark reality that he himself was the only one to blame. How he’d never noticed the horrible thing inside his chest is beyond him, a question that will tear him up for all the centuries remaining to him.

Still, in spite of the punishment he is owed, Tamlin is tired of lurking in shadowy corners, in the parts of his forests that made even Amarantha’s creatures hesitant. He does not know what will happen when he is not alone, but finds himself thinking that even the harshest punishment would be better than this life.

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The builders arrive, the artisans and gardeners and even an architect, all peering over Rhysand’s wings to get a glimpse of Tamlin. He can see disappointment in her eyes, that he is all High Fae, and for a moment he wants to tell them how strange it felt, to spend the night so naked and unarmed. Then he thinks the sight of his estates will generate pity enough.

Then, beside Rhysand, the Morrigan appears, holding the hand of Elain Archeron, who does not break his gaze, not even when he feels the length of the stare, the blaze of his own eyes.

“Elain wanted to assist in the gardens,” Rhysand says, by way of introduction. “She has quite the talent for arranging flowers.”

“I see you will put anybody in your court to work for you,” he snaps back, just to watch the Morrigan lurch toward him, her beauty gilded with her fury. Rhysand’s court will bark at any slight towards their High Lord.

“I have heard about the famed beauty of the gardens of the Spring Court and I wanted to see them for myself.” Elain Archeron has dipped into a curtsy, the pearls at her ears gleaming in the first rosy fingers of dawn, her gown the colors of sunrise, rosy pink and coral and orange delicately interwoven. When she looks back up at him, her face is all serene, except her eyes, which stay fixed on Tamlin, assessing his expression as if a face could be a trove of knowledge. All he’s ever heard about this sister is her beauty, her kindness, her sweet softness, as though she were a statue made of sugar, but now she regards him like a goddess, piercing and certain amidst the glow of herself.

“Spoken like my emissary.” Rhysand nods at her and she aims a thin-lipped smile at him. “Elain will walk your gardens and propose a design for them. I think you’ll find her taste to be exquisite. And Laella has come with her proposal for renovations to your estate.”

The architect steps forward, scrolls in her hands, which she unfurls and explains to Tamlin without so much as a greeting. While she speaks, he realizes two things: that she is a dryad, and that her plans for the estate are lovely. She will polish the marble, working with the existing design, but add windows and open-air spaces so that those in residence can enjoy the breezes and the sunlight without having to step outside. Tamlin has never been to the palaces of the Night Court, but he cannot imagine that this design is a copy, and as the architect’s fingers scratch over her parchment, he finds himself nodding along. Laella has erased the border between indoors and outdoors. In such a house, he would not feel so surrounded by stone, so deprived of air. He could even imagine wanting to stay, always.

And if, in the end, he cannot bear to stay inside, it will give him a certain satisfaction to watch Rhysand’s reaction to the ruin.

“The complete renovation will take at least a month, but I will have a better estimate once I inspect your home and have your approval for changes.” The dryad’s voice rasps and moans, wind in the branches and the strain of the tree trunk beneath. Tamlin can feel Rhysand’s eyes on him, waiting for a slight, a show of prejudice against this faerie, not a High Fae, and while he aims a smirk at the other male, he nods over the plans.

“You are aware that I’m a beast?” He points, at random, to a large room made brighter and more spacious in the plans.

“Our High Lord has told us stories,” Laella tells him, a wisp of deep green hair escaping from its arrangement, her gray skin flushing in spite of her professional composure when she sees the talons that appear on the backs of his hands, summoned without a thought. “He also said you saved his life.”

“I imprisoned his mate in this place,” he counters, his voice rising, the artisans and builders and architects no longer straining to hear. Rhysand and the Morrigan have taken subtle steps to block Elain Archeron from view. “I had her sisters kidnapped by the king of Hybern. Ransomed my lands for an obsession with a female who rightly wanted nothing to do with me.” He can hear the ragged edge in his voice, the growl, and fears that in a moment he may turn animal again, that he has been cursed with an unwilling transformation without his knowing, an inversion of his powers.

“A truly evil person never believes they have done wrong,” Elain Archeron says, from behind Rhysand’s wings. Her voice is soft but pitched to carry. “From what I’m told, these lands are filled with beings who do evil deeds with no remorse for the suffering they leave behind.”

Rhysand has turned towards her, staring as if he’s never heard Elain say so many words. Everyone is staring at her. Tamlin feels the weight of their eyes fall off his shoulders, heaves a breath.

“Anyway,” she continues, more hesitantly, as if she’s aware that everyone is watching her, “I have to believe that the path to becoming evil is hard to distinguish. That we could get there with the best intentions.”

She flushes and goes silent, and he notices that she said we instead of you, and he thinks that maybe Rhysand’s sister-in-laws are not as moon-eyed over him as the rest of his court. The Morrigan squeezes her hand, and for a second Tamlin almost smiles; seeing the Morrigan out of battle and her armor will never stop amusing him, like seeing a jungle cat begin to sing.

“Are the plans to your liking, Tamlin?” Rhysand asks once it is clear that Elain will not say anything else. “I will pay for the renovations in exchange for one favor.”

“I have enough gold in my stores to compensate your people fairly.” He learned in the cradle, never to accept a favor as payment, especially without detailing very particular terms.

“You don’t know what I’ve promised them in payment.”

Tamlin growls and nods his head toward Laella.

“I offer double what your High Lord promised,” he snarls. “So long as you finish within the month.”

Those smiles are the first he’s received in years. No matter that he had to purchase them. The gold was sitting in his vaults, unused.

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Hours later, Tamlin stalks the grounds of the estate. The builders have already begun basic repairs under Laella’s guidance, the artisans scouring each room for pieces which might fit the dryad’s vision. Noise echoes throughout the halls, a mirror effect that leaves him dizzy. He has spent too many days in the forest.

“Have you come to see my plans?” Elain Archeron asks, appearing at his elbow, breathing hard.

“You followed me.” He growls, wanting to scare her off. No good can ever come of an Archeron on his trail. He’ll tell this to himself until it feels true.

“Your gardens are too beautiful to be so overgrown.” Again, no malice and no flattery, only gentle confidence. “I’ve been making all kinds of plans”

“You want to change everything.”

“You have an opportunity to have the greatest gardens in all of Prythian, maybe all of this world, and you are letting them go in favor of thorns and rot. As a gardener, I’m honestly offended.”

Tamlin stops mid-stride and watches her, assessing the truth of the statement. Her hands settle on her hips, the parchment of her plans bunching under her fingers. One colored pencil, pink, is tucked behind her ear, and three more are tucked into the bodice of her gown, thinnest fingers of blue and green and gold reaching for her clavicle.

“Your sisters must have warned you about me.”

“Oh, I don’t think Nesta’s ever been afraid of you,” she says, a smile forming on her lips.

“I don’t mean Nesta.”

He can feel the strain in her as she keeps her eyes on his, her breath hissing past her teeth.

“I will not talk about Feyre with you. If she ever wants to see you again, she knows how to find your doorstep.”

“Then why is Rhysand sending you here?”

“Night Court business.” She’s trying to say the words smoothly, but she blushes, the tip of her nose going pink.

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t owe you every single morsel of the truth.”

“You’re on my lands,” he says, only realizing the menace in his tone when she takes one step away from him and then another. “Why are you here?”

“My sisters have often told me that I need to see the gardens of the Spring Court.”

He rakes his fingers through his hair, catching a snarl so roughly that he has to hold back a wince. “That is a trip for an afternoon. Your High Lord sends you as his emissary and his gardener.”

“He -- I volunteered.”

“Tell me, Elain Archeron, are you Rhysand’s spy as well?”

“I would be a horrible spy if I told you that, High Lord. At any rate, do you think I have the skills for such a mission?”

“I hear you came out of the Cauldron with gifts, but their dimensions are vague in every recounting.”

She goes pale, as if she remembers who she’s speaking with, the calculus that made her Fae and took, he’s heard, a life story she deemed precious.

“You forgot for a moment that I ruined your life,” he says. He does not want to draw out the awkwardness. Let her walk away, let her leave, if she’s so inclined.

“Did you know that Hybern would capture us?”

“I believed the king. I thought that Feyre would be rescued, the enchantment broken, that we would live happily in my court for a thousand years.”

Elain snorts.

“You’re an idiot,” she says.

Tamlin just stares at her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be some fearsome warrior?” she continues, crossing her arms at her chest, “Even someone with no idea of strategy could tell you that Hybern would have never honored your promises. Even a human could have told you that.”

“You have never been in love then. You’d believe anything. Give anything. Do anything, just to have your beloved in your arms again.” His chest is tight and yet his skin feels too big for his body. He wants to hug himself but wills his fingers into fists, feeling the strain of the claws against the muscles of his hands.

“You nearly destroyed my sister.”

“You need to--”

“What I want to know,” she says, as if she doesn’t hear him at all, has no regard for rank or even danger, “is if a part of you did it on purpose. If you saw her suffering and wanted it to continue.”

He holds her gaze, the warm brown like whiskey, strong and sparkling.

“You do not believe what you said earlier, then.”

“I want to know if it could be true.”

“Is that what brings you to the Spring Court?”

She sighs, then uncrosses her arms.

“First,” she says, unfurling the parchment between them, “I’d like you to tell me what you think about my ideas for your gardens.”

He decides to look where she’s pointing instead of breathing another threat. She speaks of hyacinths and peonies and ferns, the lilac and forsythia bushes, and cherry trees and weeping willows that will line the paths, under which she proposes he install benches for lingering.

“Who do you think will be staying in these gardens so long?” he asks, the words more melancholy than he intends. He hates the way this male sounds, all longing and self-pity and no action at all, but he can’t keep the noise from escaping him.

She rustles the parchment, making it thunder. “There aren’t any other residents of Spring Court?”

“Not for lack of trying.”

“Why don’t you try to keep them?”

“You think I could have done something different?” He’s daring her to make a list of her suggestions. Cauldron boil him, his own list is endless and ever-growing.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she says, sighing as if there is more to say but she is too weary to muster the words, and he cannot believe that Elain Archeron, with her soft voice and her poise, all the glow of her, would be ignored, but Tamlin keeps quiet, allowing her to speak. “Anyway, I haven’t shown you my favorite part of my plan. I want you to install a field of tulips where the grounds meet the forest.” She sweeps her hand in that direction. “Mor has promised to find bulbs on the continent. I grew up hearing stories of tulip fields that went for miles.”

“You don’t think it sends a message of weakness to our enemies, to greet them with flowers?” It’s the second time within the moment when he’s asked for her opinion instead of stating his own.

Her nod is decisive, no sweetness in the gesture.

“Your enemies will know that the true terror is inside. Only the weak require a strong wall to hide behind.” He wonders if she’s thinking of her human lord, the one who left her. Tamlin has wandered as a beast for months, but the gossip of Prythian still finds him. Lucien has an ear at every door, and Rhysand’s monthly meetings are full of updates on political dealings that make Tamlin’s head ache.

“I’ll allow the tulips,” he says. “After all, you’ll be living here for a while, according to your High Lord. If my enemies are encouraged, you’ll see the result yourself.”

She nods, absently, no longer looking at his face but off into some middle distance. Probably considering a different arrangement of flowers, Tamlin thinks, deciding not to wait until she trains his eyes on him again. Instead he lets his feet carry him into the forest without only the smallest nod of goodbye.

He travels miles before he can rid himself of the image of her in his hall, rosy with the dawn light and fragrant as the gardens she dreams up. It is dangerous to think of an Archeron sister more than fleetingly, though, and so gradually Tamlin fills his mind up with the sights of the forest, the dappled light and the creatures that dart away when they hear him coming.

#acotar #acotar fanfiction #elain archeron #elain is my queen #elain x tamlin #tamlin #tamlin redemption arc #tamlin x elain #lucien vanserra #queen vassa #vucien #vucien is goals #inner circle #nessian #feysand #post acosf #acosf spoilers #gwynriel

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apparitionism · 4 years

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Decalogue

Ten years! I certainly didn’t expect to be observing such a Bering-and-Wells first-meeting anniversary, and I double certainly didn’t expect to be doing it while staying at home during a pandemic. The situation has, in all honesty, severely limited my creativity; I admire and envy those who are able to produce good work under these conditions, but I’m not among them. So ideally, this would have been better... a few sentences here and there say what I want them to, though, and I’m going to take a tiny bit of solace in that. This is the first half of this anniversary piece; the second half will happen when it happens, but I’ll aim for sooner rather than later. I do promise, for anyone who cares, that I’m still working on Run and everything else.

Decalogue

Year one: Meet at gunpoint.

Each of Myka’s Helena years could be marked and counted by the unique commandment it issued, a commandment by which she was forced, or graced, to live... and if “meet at gunpoint” was no “I am the Lord thy God... thou shalt have no other gods before me,” nonetheless it was first, for that first year, that short year, that long year, that year of confrontation. That year of threats sliding so easily into thrills, and sliding just as easily back again.

When Myka looked back, she couldn’t remember (she couldn’t remember!) the extent to which she had, in the moment of the first standoff, understood it as the beginning it was. If she had been able to perceive, all at once, the rush of dictates that would follow the first leveling of her weapon at H.G. Wells, would she have been able to stand so steely and so sure?

Steely. Sure. That was what she enacted, that first time.

As gunpoint followed gunpoint, that was increasingly not what she felt.

Tamalpais showed her the mismatch between her awareness of threat and susceptibility to thrill.

Moscow—without the urgency of the gun—showed her how easy it was for thrill to take over.

The urgency of the gun... one middle-of-night at the B&B, very late, Myka just managed to avoid blindly colliding with Helena in the unlit hallway that separated their bedrooms.

“We meet again,” Helena whispered.

“At least it isn’t at gunpoint this time,” Myka whispered back, close to breathless in the dark.

“It might be.”

“What?”

“I can’t see your hands. It’s dark. You could be armed. Or I could.”

Threat or thrill? Myka’s body said “both.” Her mind said “neither” and “go back to your own room.” Later (minutes later, then days then months then years later), she wondered what would have happened if her mind hadn’t won out. If she had said what her body prompted, when Helena said “I can’t see your hands”: No, but you could feel them.

In Egypt, foolishly, she had had that night on her mind, that night she had not let her body have its way. She had been looking forward, considering how to engineer a do-over, a hotel-hallway meeting, something breathed about gunpoint, about hands, some answering breath of what might be felt instead. The real instead: she was yanked back to the present, feeling only soft, astonished disbelief that dissolved into shocked pain as Helena pulled a trigger.

Then at Yellowstone... every gunpointing, every day, every night, every threat, every thrill ran in her head, forcing her to reckon them, to add them together, to total the end of the world.

But there was no reckoning any of it, in the end. Or in the endless: reckoning was all there was, endless reckoning, endless rethinking, endless negotiating with herself over what she had allowed herself to do (and to feel), and the price she would force herself to pay for her lapses.

Year two: Thou shalt not touch.

Myka tried to punish herself sufficiently—to lay the lash for accurate agony— but she should have known that her own imagination would be inadequate. She thought she had fathomed how wrong she had been, and what she deserved for that wrongness, but the Regents knew better. They knew her exiling herself to the family bookstore was a pathetic penance.

Of course Helena herself was the only right scourge. Of course she was.

And of course Myka had not ever expected to be able to touch Helena. Not ever again, not after what had happened. But, equally, she hadn’t expected touch to be so tantalizingly impossible. She hadn’t expected the ache of desire to be so much more acute upon being confronted over and over (and over yet again) with the impossibility of its fulfilment.

Myka hadn’t consciously thought the word “desire” before, but now it preoccupied her. Helena unexpected in the space of that bookstore: desire. Helena in Artie’s office, speaking like an oracle: desire. Helena bleak in a field in Ohio: desire. Helena saving the day with words about consequences and sorrow: desire. And certainly Helena in a Warehouse aisle, talking of truth and regret and what had once so briefly and brightly been good: not a body, but the visual embodiment of all that Myka desired.

Even later, even when everything seemed to be ending, even when Helena was giving up and looking at the sky and Myka was being a coward and letting her do it: desire. And its frustration. No touching, no embrace of the only body that mattered, because it wasn’t there. The only body that mattered to Myka was elsewhere.

A commandment, but also a punishment: and as a punishment, was it just? That judgment was above Myka’s pay grade. Everything was above her pay grade. Everything was put above her pay grade. Pushed above it, onto a shelf just that much higher than she could reach.

In the absence of the prohibition, would she have wanted to touch Helena so very very much?

In the absence of the prohibition, would she have been so very very willing to read Helena as wanting so very very much to touch too?

She thought the answers to those questions didn’t matter, because she shied from imagining that the day could be saved in such a way as to allow for real satisfaction of those clearly commandment-violating wants. And she wondered, later, if the rope-induced violation—though brief and fraught and not their fault—was the inexorable cause of the next year’s anguish.

Year three: Suffer in silence.

Nothing Myka said made a difference. Nothing she said was of consequence, not after Helena disappeared. She tried. At first, she tried, repeating “Where is she?” endlessly to anyone with ears and power, in response to which she was, endlessly, put off: Helena was on a secret mission for the Regents. Helena was engaged in arcane Warehouse business. Helena had affairs of her own to settle...

Eventually Myka stopped asking: that was the first silence. And she thought she was suffering; naively, she thought the absence of information, with its echo of the absence of Helena’s physical body, was the worst torment.

She was wrong.

In Boone, the requirement that Myka suffer became acute.

She tried to violate the commandment—tried to ease her suffering by breaking the silence. But the person to whom she was speaking refused to hear her.

She really did have to laugh at how unimaginative she had been: how she had thought the inability to touch Helena was too much, was the worst price, to pay. The Regents, or fate, or whatever was in charge certainly did know how to alter one’s retrospective view... because now Myka could touch Helena, could even embrace her. All while suffering Helena’s new knout of a wish to have nothing at all to do with Myka. Myka wanted to howl against that incomprehensible wish, scream in protest, make Helena listen. Make Helena hear. Instead, the words Myka did say didn’t matter; they all translated to I am being silent.

Different silence. More suffering.

Myka also had cancer and did not speak much about it, though that was suffering, and silence, of a far different kind. She wished she had said even less, later, because her speaking led, stupidly, into the next year.

Year four: Make mistakes.

Looking at her life over that fourth year, Myka saw that she had never before made 365 days’ worth of such terrible mistakes. Not even during the year through which she and Helena had pointed guns at each other. (And that was of course yet another mistake, to ideate those gunpointings as mistakes.)

She looked at the idea of being with Pete and didn’t dismiss it out of hand as an impossibility. She knew it was a mistake, and yet at every step, she did not dismiss it: mistake upon mistake.

Eventually: “You think this is a mistake,” he accused.

This... this was the path. She could see no other way forward. Myka had always been very good at putting her head down and following the path. “No,” she said out loud to him. That was a mistake too—or so it seemed, in the first instant, as she saw his face flash with anger.

But in the next instant, it seemed the first right thing she’d done in a long time, because he said, “You’re lying.” Out loud.

The full force of it hit her: she was lying. And that was by far her worst mistake.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, because she was.

“So am I,” he said, but Myka knew they weren’t sorry for the same things.

Her mistakes usually redounded to her alone; they didn’t hurt other people. And yet she did wonder what sort of mistake Pete had made: what future had he imagined he and Myka could have? Marriage, children? That seemed to be what he was asking for, even if he’d never said that out loud, but why would he have thought Myka wanted those things in such a conventional way? Had he never seen her as herself?

Then again, who ever saw any other human as the self they believed themselves to be?

Myka asked herself that question, philosophically, then immediately castigated, You set yourself up for this one, Bering. Because that was how Myka had felt seen by Helena, in their best moments. No matter how ultimately untrue that sense of being seen might have been, she knew Pete was never going to look at her and make her feel that way. But of course Helena was never going to look at her like that again either, given her absence, so Myka made yet another mistake: in Helena’s absence, she allowed herself to blame Helena for it all.

And that very nearly became the ruin of everything.

Year five: Thou shalt not hold grudges.

The miracle of Helena’s return to the Warehouse had not, at first, seemed to be a miracle. Instead it was a rebuke, a shout about everything Myka had done wrong. All her mistakes, highlighted. Go away, Myka wanted to tell her. Just go away. Helena’s presence prompted an eerie echo of going home to Colorado: a constant knocking reminder of the whole wrong string of things she could have done, should have done, better.

Claudia was responsible for the real miracle. Myka had taken—not consciously, she told herself later; not consciously—to walking slowly in the hallway, particularly late at night, particularly when no one else seemed to be awake. Later, she of course realized she’d been looking for that do-over, but at the time, she’d colored herself restless. Just restless.

So when, one night, Claudia opened her door onto Myka’s dark hallway pace, Myka was, to put it mildly, surprised. She was even more surprised when Claudia said, “This nonstop lurking? It’s creepy. You’re not a ghost, so knock off acting like one.” Myka said a swift “okay” and tried to retreat to her room, but Claudia marched out, crossed the hall, and knocked on Helena’s door, saying, “H.G., get out here! It’s time!”

And there was Helena, not sleep-fogged as she should have been.

“Batter up,” Claudia told her, “or throw the pitch or take the handoff or whatever sportsball thing you want to do. My work here better be done.” She then went back to her room, closed the door, and locked it with a conclusive snick.

“Claudia has it right,” Helena said. “It’s time.”

“For what?” Myka asked. She knew she sounded thick. But she couldn’t... something. Couldn’t something, couldn’t anything. She couldn’t identify, not even in her own head, what she couldn’t do, or say, or think. Any of it. And now here stood Helena, the cause of it all. I might not have been happy before, but before, I had only myself to blame... now I have you.

“For what...” That was accompanied by a mirthless laugh. “Do you not know why I’m here?”

Myka did not have to give her answer any thought—the only thought she had was whether she should say it out loud. But maybe it was time. “To break my heart. That’s always why you’re here. Or there. Or anywhere.”

“As if you’ve left my heart alone,” Helena scoffed.

As if she had no idea what being silent had cost Myka. “I have tried so hard to leave your heart alone.”

Now Helena snorted. “You claimed to be in love with Pete. What do you think that did to my heart?”

“I don’t care what anything did to your heart,” Myka said, and she was in that moment telling the absolute truth. “You claimed to be in love with Nate. And Giselle. And god knows who else you didn’t tell me about.”

“Don’t put words into my mouth! I claimed to be in love with no one.”

“Fine,” Myka conceded, mulishly. “Who cares about love? You put words in your own mouth and spat them at me: how you belonged. With some random man and some daughter who wasn’t even yours.”

“So in retribution, you decided you belonged with Pete.” Helena curled her lip and nodded a sour nod. “Good judgment all around.”

“Don’t insult him. He’s a good person. He actually cares about me.”

Helena took that as the accusation it was. “That’s low.”

It was Myka’s turn to snort. “That’s low? Yeah, because you throwing Nate in my face—making me look at him, making me look at you stand next to him—that was so elevated.” Helena took a breath, as if to defend herself, but that made Myka push on, “And then Giselle—with you going out of your way to make sure I knew, like it was the most important thing in the world for me to be informed about exactly who you were with who wasn’t me—that was so exalted. Please. Spare me.”

Helena pressed her lips into a line, then very consciously unpressed them. She lowered her shoulders, which had hackled into rigid wings. “Fine. I will.” She went back to her room, and she did not slam the door, but she closed it such that Myka felt finality. No more slow walks, she told herself, and she turned to go to her own room, to close its door with the same sense of an ending.

But again, Claudia intervened, opening her own door and springing, sharp and swift as a wolf, to grab Myka’s arm before she could complete her turn, her escape. “Pay attention!” Claudia said. “In sportsball, you have to do something with the ball.”

She kept her hold on Myka and banged on Helena’s door, through which Helena said, “We are finished.”

Claudia said, “We’re just getting started. I swear to god I will stand here and yell for hours, because Myka’s not a ghost and neither are you.”

A minute passed. Another. Claudia did not yell, and for those moments they were all ghosts, waiting, in-between some before and whatever would come after.

Finally the door handle began to turn, hinges creaked, and Helena emerged again, her face blank, but rigidly so, as if she were concentrating on each muscle, holding every one still.

“Get it right,” Claudia said. She let Myka go, then muttered, as she retreated, “I swear to god.”

I swear to god, Myka thought, I wish I knew what “right” could possibly mean.

Helena cleared her throat. “Claudia holds strong beliefs.”

That was not what Myka had expected to hear. “Good for her. Or bad. I don’t know.”

“I don’t either. I’m exhausted,” Helena said. She slumped a bit.

It seemed to be a too-conscious illustration, designed to spark sympathy, and it enraged Myka. “Fine,” she snapped. “Get some sleep if she’ll let you. I’m done here.”

“She won’t let me. So you are not done here.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Myka demanded. “Forget everything that happened?” She ended on a crescendo; she had never made such noise in the night before.

Helena did not answer. She stood and breathed—a real body in space—the sound of the sea in, then out. Myka felt her own angry breathing slow in response. In response. To a real body in space, breathing audibly in, out. Chest rising and falling.

What wouldn’t Myka have given, a year ago, two years ago, three, four, to be right here? Was she supposed to forget everything that happened? No, she needed to remember everything instead. Remember everything that hurt, and why.

“Okay,” Myka said.

“Okay what? What is okay?”

“Nothing,” Myka admitted.

“Okay.” And Helena’s mouth moved a little—not a smile, but something like the beginning of one.

Myka didn’t smile either, but she felt her jaw soften, her teeth unclench. “Okay what? What’s okay?”

Helena nodded. “Nothing,” she said.

“Neither of us is good at letting go,” Myka said. She did not have to add: of grudges. Or of each other.

Helena said, “I know,” and she did not have to add anything either.

Myka had tried not to anticipate this moment—because it was never going to happen. Never, never, never. But she had, of course. Anticipated. Wished. Dreamed, literally dreamed about it, then awakened to loss, a dissolve of desire that would never be satisfied.

Now, desire dissolved into satiety, rich and soft, as they neared each other, as their mouths met and their bodies pressed and their hands grasped and they did not let go.

Words of love—even the very word “love”—might have occurred to some people in such a moment, but all Myka could think to say, as they looked at each other in the wake of that world-beginning kiss, was “Thank you.”

And so grudges alchemized to gratitude.

TBC

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Decalogue #happy anniversary to them #and to us (although it's of course not quite ten years since that episode aired)

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alarawriting · 3 years

Text

The Cold At The Heart of the Light: Chapter One

I’ve decided I’ll post probably the first three chapters of this as I work on it. There’s currently six chapters written and the seventh is started; I have been planning about twelve of them.

This is gonna have to be edited a lot when I finish the whole thing -- it’s too goddamn long, for one thing -- but I can’t spend too much time editing the first draft when I’m not done with it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as the maid led me to the living room and I got my first look at the little girl, I could tell the child was dying. She was sitting on an overstuffed, white suede couch with brown fringy pillows all around her, at the back of a living room that looked like something out of House Beautiful, all tall wide windows and understated elegance in brown and beige and gold and white. She was maybe about seven, if her disease hadn’t undersized her, feet dangling off the couch and not moving. When children whose feet are dangling are not kicking those feet, and there is neither a book nor a TV nearby to explain the discrepancy, I can generally tell something is wrong. Her blonde curly wig was as expensive as the décor of her parents’ living room, but I’m an expert in these matters – I could tell the chemo had taken her hair. And her skin was dull and dry looking, her eyes vague and unfocused, her expression indrawn and blank, her small limbs painfully skinny. She showed all the signs of either being abused, drugged, or severely ill, and given that her father had called me in, I knew that at least it was the last. Probably the second as well. The pharmaceutical industry has never solved the problem of stopping children’s pain to my satisfaction (or, for that matter, the children’s.)

Her mother would have been an elegantly plastic politician’s wife if she hadn’t been sitting tensely at the edge of the sofa, arm around her daughter, clutching the child. Fear and anxiety make even women with $500 haircuts and botoxed foreheads seem human. I’d already forgotten the woman’s name; after checking over the daughter with a quick glance, I turned to focus on her father. Senator John Lightman, one of those politicians who manages to look “boyish” simply by being a thin dark-haired man in his prime when everyone else in the Senate is somewhere between 60 and dead, was walking toward me, reaching out a hand as if to shake it. I saw the look of puzzlement cross his face as he got a good look at me. “Are you…”

“Dr. Mystery?” I filled in the blank. “Yes, of course, I apologize. You couldn’t possibly recognize me like this.” I had arrived in a stock form, a middle-aged woman of average height, weight and appearance with blonde graying hair in a short fluffy do. I couldn’t very well drive around town in my working form, but now that I was here, it was time to shock and awe the mundanes. With a thought, I transformed.

When I first adopted this as my working form, it used to take me ten or twenty minutes in front of a mirror to get it just right, because it doesn’t look human enough for me to use DNA as a model anywhere – I have to brute-force it. But by this time I’d been doing it for so many years, it took only a few seconds. Changing doesn’t hurt – it feels like having a really good stretch, actually.

In a moment, I was six feet tall, simultaneously busty and thin, with the golden skin of an Academy award, iris-less purple eyes with cat pupils, and flame-red hair down to the small of my back. I wore a skin-tight black leather catsuit with no shoes, and modified pelvis and leg muscles so I looked like I was wearing high heels even though I was barefoot – an anatomic impossibility for other women, but there’s no point in having total control over your own flesh if you can’t use it to show off a little. To complete the costume I grew a white cotton labcoat over the catsuit; not exactly a cape, but the name is Doctor Mystery, not Ms. Mystery or Lady Mystery or Sexy Chick I’d Like To Do Mystery.

Being a supervillain’s all about the power and the respect. Back when my working form wasn’t quite so do-me hot, I actually used to get less respect as a villain, as if a woman couldn’t possibly really be all that mad, bad and dangerous to know if she doesn’t look like a supermodel. But when I do the catsuit without the lab coat, I get respect as a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, not as a biomedical genius. Not that I’m not a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, but I’m not a teen thug for hire anymore, I’m a bona fide mad scientist and I want people to remember that, dammit.

Mrs. Lightman’s eyes went wide, and she made a tiny little yelping noise and clutched her little girl… who rather than looking frightened, actually looked mildly interested for the first time since I’d arrived. Her dad was trying to hide it, but his lips had compressed as if he were trying not to bite them and there was just the tiniest tremor in his hands. I expected Mrs. Lightman’s reaction, but the Senator could have gone one of two ways – men usually react to me with fear or lust, or a combination. I didn’t think I saw lust in Senator Lightman, and when I took his hand and shook it, I confirmed it. He was on the verge of peeing his pants. I might have believed he wasn’t reacting with any lust because he really had eyes only for his wife, if he weren’t a politician. But I’ve known very few male politicians to be faithful, and even they couldn’t avoid being lustful. Senator Lightman was terrified of me because I was a Proxima and he was a Sapien-centric bigot. Also, probably, because I was a supervillain and a killer and I could drop him dead in a second, turn him inside out, make the skin melt off his flesh or give him cancer, just from the touch of his hand in mine. But I suspected I’d have gotten the same reaction if I’d been a member of the Peace Force, or even a Girl Scout with purple eyes and gold skin trying to sell him cookies. He hated my kind, but he needed me today.

And I intended to use his need to my people’s advantage.

“Introduce me to your family, Senator,” I said.

I felt his adrenaline spike through the skin connection of our clasped hands, but he managed not to show it. He let go of me. “This is my wife, Dot, and our daughter Mindy. She’s eight.”

I walked over to Mindy and knelt down in front of her, prompting more tension and white knuckles from her mother clasping her. “Hello, Mindy,” I said.

“Hi,” she mumbled.

“Do you know who I am?”

“My daddy says you’re some kind of super doctor.”

Super doctor. I liked that. “He’s right. I’m here to help you. I imagine you’ve gotten real tired of being sick.”

She smiled wanly. “Yeah.”

“Let me have your hands.”

“Will it hurt?” Her tone was tired and apathetic, as if it didn’t really matter if it was going to hurt or not. I suspected it was more resignation than apathy.

“Not at all.” I smiled at her. “I’m a super doctor, remember? It doesn’t hurt if I don’t want it to.”

She gave me her small hands and I clasped them in mine. I can’t entirely describe what I feel when I examine a living creature, not in terms that refer to the senses everyone else has. It’s like feeling a symphony or hearing a tapestry. Everything is very complex and interrelated, and I get signals from thousands of processes in the body, but it all melds together into a single big picture. The big picture here was that Mindy’s body was attacking itself. Her bone marrow was busily churning out cancerous white blood cells that didn’t work, filling her bloodstream with useless cells that crowded out and starved the working, useful ones. The pain signals were overwhelming even with the drugs trying to mask them, and the drugs themselves were dulling her mind as much as the fatigue and weakness from the disease.

Like many terminally ill children, she was quiet and accepting, which is constantly mistaken in glurgy human interest stories about terminally ill children for bravery. Children who go out with scarves on their bald heads and run lemonade stands to raise money to research and cure their own illnesses are brave. Children who are too tired to feel fear and have been living with a disease too long to cry about it are just normal human beings. Mindy was a normal human being, and her leukemia was also perfectly normal, something I’d dealt with a hundred times before.

I closed my eyes so I could focus better on Mindy’s internal world. First I triggered the release of endorphins into her bloodstream to mask any pain caused by what I was about to do. The human body rebels against my power, seeing my authority as a violation of its autonomy, and frequently reacts by tattling to the brain about it in a way that the mind perceives as agonizing, but unspecific, pain. As I told Mindy, though, no one feels pain in my hands unless I allow it. As soon as her body was saturated with endorphins and I’d shut down most of the internal sensory trunk lines to the brain, making her internally numb while leaving her ability to sense anything touching her skin, I swept my concentration through her body and killed every immature white blood cell she had. I then targeted the surviving mature white cells and forced them to rapidly replicate and mature, until she had almost a normal white blood cell count and they all worked correctly.

To finish off, I blocked the drugs that hadn’t been working so well anyway, turned the internal nerves back on, and filled Mindy with a combination of endorphin and oxytocin, and other hormones designed to make people feel good. This particular cocktail wouldn’t have sexual effects – Mindy’s brain lacked some of the structures needed to process that, yet, and I always took great care with children not to do anything inappropriate to their age. After what my own father did to me… well, I may be a supervillain, but I am not a child molester, and that makes me better than he was. What I was going for – what I always gave the children I treated – can be best described, if you remember being a kid, as the excitement from knowing you’re about to go to an amusement park, coupled with the pleasure you get from eating ice cream, and all that combined with the warm snuggly feeling you get when you’re cuddled with your parents. Mindy wouldn’t know why, in the future, she looked forward to my visits and felt very warm and positive emotions toward me. She would just know that seeing Dr. Mystery would be the coolest thing ever, and just my presence would be more fun than any doctor’s office lollipop ever was.

Combine such warm and pleasant emotions with the freakish physical appearance of an obvious Proxima, and Mindy would not grow up to share her dad’s bigotry, even if he tried to teach it to her.

“Mindy?” Dot Lightman asked, her voice trembling slightly. “Are you all right?”

Mindy lifted her head. Her skin didn’t look any better, of course – I hadn’t done any cosmetic work – but her eyes were refocusing, turning bright and engaged. “Mommy? I feel good, Mommy. I think the doctor fixed me!”

With my endorphin cocktail chasing away her fatigue temporarily, she leapt to her feet. “Thank you, Super Doctor Mystery! I feel all better!” She twirled around, perhaps to prove to all of us that she was fully healed… and stumbled. “Whoa, dizzy!”

“Slow up there, kiddo,” I said. “You’re not cured. You feel a lot better and you’re going to be a lot better, but you’ve spent a couple of years being sick and you’re not going to be back to your full strength overnight. Take it easy.”

“Is she—is she going to be cured?” her mother asked, looking at me, her lower lip trembling.

“She’s much healthier, right now. But no, as I said, I haven’t cured her yet. I triggered a temporary remission and bolstered her immune system to compensate for what the disease did to it, so she needn’t suffer while she’s waiting for a full cure.” I turned to Senator Lightman. “To cure her, I’ll need to perform three treatments, about two months apart. The cost will be $8,000 per treatment. When we’re done, not only won’t she have leukemia, but the genetic potential for cancer will be purged from her system, so it will be very, very unlikely that she ever get any cancer-like disease again. Short of living on top of a radioactive landfill, of course, but you understand what I mean.”

“Oh, God….” Mrs. Lightman started to cry. “Oh, God, thank you…”

“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Mindy said, and gave her mom a hug. “It’s good news. Don’t cry.”

“I’m crying because I’m so happy,” Mrs. Lightman said.

“I—I don’t know what to say, Doctor. You have a deal. I’d pay anything to save Mindy’s life, and your prices… well, they’re much more reasonable than I was led to assume. I’d pay more than that for hospital treatments, even with the insurance.” I was pretty sure this was a fib – Senators get damn good health insurance. But of course Lightman belonged to the party that thought that health insurance was a privilege, not a right, and downplaying the high quality of his own state-sponsored insurance was probably a reflex by this point.

I smiled at him. “That’s because most of my payment is non-monetary.”

“Non-monetary?”

“Let’s go have a discussion, Senator. I imagine you must have a private office in this house somewhere?”

His wife gave me a hard-eyed look. I returned her look with an “oh, please” expression, just the slightest of eye rolls and sardonic smile. “There’s nothing you can say to me that you can’t say in front of my wife,” Lightman said, his voice hardening.

“Yes, there is,” I said, pleasantly. “You want to tell her all about it when we’re done talking, that’s your prerogative. But I am here to negotiate with a United States Senator, not a husband or a father.”

He stiffened. “All right,” he said slowly. “We can go downstairs to the den.”

“Is it—is it going to be all right?” Dot Lightman asked her husband.

“I don’t see that I have much choice, Dot,” he said. “She’s the only hope Mindy has. You know that.”

“Mommy? Can I play outside?”

“Sure. Sure thing,” Dot said, her voice breaking again. “I’ll play with you.”

“Don’t let her overexert herself,” I said. “As I said, she’s better, not cured, and even if she were cured she’d still need time to recover her energy. She wants to run around and play now because she’s not in pain, but she actually still does need to save her strength.”

“We’ll go for a walk,” Dot said. “How’s that sound, Mindy?”

“Sure, Mommy. We can do that.”

“The den is this way,” Senator Lightman said.

It was a typical suburban finished basement, not nearly as fancy looking as the living room, if you didn’t count the huge projection television. I perched on the still-nice-but-obviously-worn couch, sitting on the back of it. “Let’s get down to it, Senator,” I said. “You’re a member of the Committee to Analyze Parahuman Activity. You’re aware as well as I am that the United States government has been investigating or implementing various techniques to control or eliminate the Proxima population, including laws to create a registry for us as if we’re sex offenders, black ops soldiers with power suits to hunt us down, attempting to find cures for us like we’re a disease, secret databases being maintained in an attempt to identify us in the absence of a registry law… so on and so forth.” I didn’t mention the biowarfare; people who didn’t live through being imprisoned in a government research facility and watching others being injected with various tailored viruses have a tendency to assume that government biowarfare is the stuff of paranoid conspiracy theories, and I doubted anyone had actually let Congress know what was going on there. The others, I was pretty sure he’d been briefed on, if not actively involved with. “And you’re an active supporter of the Human Definition Amendment, which would deprive us of any human rights whatsoever on the basis of junk science.”

The faintest beading of sweat broke out on his forehead. “The United States government hasn’t taken any illegal actions to ‘control’ the Proxima population, as you put it, and certainly not to eliminate you. You must understand, however, that we do have the right and the duty to protect normal humans from people like…”

He hesitated just a moment too long. “Me?”

“I was going to say, people like Caesar Primus or Optometron. But if the rumors about your activities are true, then yes, you. Weren’t you some sort of assassin? An enforcer for a drug lord?”

While technically the description was almost true, the idea of describing David as a “drug lord” almost made me laugh. Almost. I don’t actually have a lot of a sense of humor when it comes to David. “And I was rehabilitated by the Peace Force and today I’m a fine, upstanding citizen who cures little girls of leukemia,” I said.

“That isn’t a lot of comfort to the families of the people you killed.”

“Maybe not. But if I’d been killed by American soldiers in power suits then, your daughter would be out of luck now, wouldn’t she?” I slid off the back of the couch and paced around him. “And this isn’t about me. How many people were saved when the Irregulars stopped that second plane from crashing into the Trade Towers? When they held up the collapsing building so the firefighters could get out? When the Peace Force shored up the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina so the city didn’t flood, or when Maui’s volcano went active and they shut it down again?” The Senator didn’t actually need to know that was a plot of Professor Octohedron’s, if he didn’t already. The Peace Force hadn’t actually broadcast the fact that the disaster had been caused by a Proxima in the first place; I only knew about it because Octohedron continued to believe that he could get into my pants if only he could impress me enough, and he hadn’t actually ever managed to figure out that I wasn’t impressed by grandiose plots to take over the world by threatening to activate volcanoes. “You might owe your life to a Proxima. You are about to owe your daughter’s life. So I want your support for our basic human rights. Oppose the Parahuman Registry, oppose the research to kill us or break us of our powers, and oppose the Human Definition Amendment.”

“The Human Definition Amendment isn’t designed to take away your human rights,” he said. “It’s designed to clarify the rights you do have. I mean, there have to be different ways to handle you people vs. the rest of us. Remember when the ACLU sued on behalf of the Heat Miser? They said that it was cruel and unusual punishment to keep him continuously drugged in prison. And as soon as they won and the drugs were withdrawn, his powers came back and he burned the prison down. 700 people were killed, over 100 guards and the rest of them human inmates, who’d been sentenced to serve time in jail for their crimes, not to burn to death.”

“Then you redefine cruel and unusual punishment to state that methods intended to block Proximas from using superhuman powers to escape from prison are not cruel and are perfectly usual. Passing an amendment to the Constitution that declares that Proximas aren’t human is overkill.”

“It actually declares that humans belong to the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, and that the law should not be automatically extended to grant human rights to people who can destroy our entire planet with a thought just because some bleeding heart doesn’t think they deserve to go to jail for killing hundreds of people.”

“Yes, and by declaring that Homo sapiens promixus does not automatically count as human, it effectively says that we’re not, and we can be shot on sight with no one but the ASPCA to worry about our murders, let alone suffer discrimination in every part of our lives. You do not live with the reality of what being defined as non-human means, Senator. I do.”

“And you, Doctor, don’t live with the reality of inhabiting a world filled with creatures who can kill you with a thought, steal everything you own, destroy your home without even touching it, or make you believe that up is down and black is white.”

I could argue that last point, if I wanted to be a smartass – I lived in the world where there was conservative talk radio, and it had convinced any number of people that up was down and black was white. But that would be sidetracking. “True. But you’re so focused on perceiving yourself as a victim of the existence of Proximas that you’ve given no thought to what it would be like to be one of us. And you really should. Because you have a child, Senator, and she is too young to be confirmed as Sapien or Proxima. You don’t know what she is, and you’re just assuming she’s Sapien. What if she’s Proxima?”

He blinked. “Well, of course I—but she doesn’t have anything in her background – I mean neither her mother nor I have anything unusual, genetically—“

“No one knows what’s causing the sudden explosion in powered humans, Senator, but we do know that it’s some type of mutation. 90% of Proximas have parents who were Sapien. And the number is that low only because some of us have started having kids. If your daughter was a Proxima with two fully Sapien parents, she’d be in the same boat as most Proximas. Including me. So you really need to think about it.”

“Well, I – I certainly wouldn’t treat Mindy any differently if she were – but if she were, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t check for it. But I could, yes.”

“Well, if she turned out to be, you could just fix it, right? As part of the treatment?”

I stared at him as if I’d just found him on my shoe. “Of course I could. And if she was black, I could make her white and blonde and blue-eyed. And I could change her into a boy if you decided you really wanted a son. Have you any idea how offensive what you just said is?”

“I – I didn’t mean to give offense. I just want Mindy to have a normal life.”

“Most Proximas do. I don't look like this all the time, Senator. When I'm not treating hopeless cases, I live in a nice little townhouse, with two cats and a cockatiel. I go dancing with men friends on weekends, I buy groceries, I do my laundry. I choose to look like this when I'm treating people like your daughter, because I have no desire to be kidnapped and pressed into the service of crime lords or the government."

"Why would the government kidnap you? Proximas have rights. If you’ve served your time for your previous crimes, and committed no new ones--"

"--I would still have the power to make old men young, cure impotence and infertility, heal disease and scarring, change people's appearances... come on now, Senator, don't be naive. If you had a way to make me heal your daughter without paying my price, you'd do it. And I think you're basically a good man, who’s concerned for the child he loves. Can you say none of your colleagues would want me to heal them? To restore lost youth, or whatever they had lost?" I thought of the white room then, the snipers with guns outside ready to blow my head off if the important old men screaming under my hands didn’t get up and walk free completely healed when I was done. Never again.

"I... suppose power corrupts. There are some bad elements in any system, but that doesn't mean the system is evil."

"I didn’t say the system was evil. I said it’s not designed to protect people like me. And if you and your fellows have their way, it’ll be even harder for me to live a normal, safe life.” I shook my head. "We're sidetracking. If Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, she could still have an entirely normal and happy life, so long as you didn't reject her for it and the government didn't kill her for it."

"I would never reject Mindy. No matter what. If-- if she was a parahuman--"

"Then your opinions on appropriate treatment of Proximas would be rather different, wouldn't they?"

He sighed. “Look, I have a constituency, Doctor Mystery. They elected me into office to protect them and serve them, and they have ideas as to what constitutes doing that. If I do something that they don’t approve of, I won’t have the power they’ve given me for very long.”

I flopped down on his couch again. “Oh, baloney. You mean that if you can’t fearmonger about hidden Proximas living among us and the draconian measures the Daddy State will take under your watch to protect the poor scared soccer moms and NASCAR dads, you can’t get elected.” I sat up and leaned forward. “It’s all bullshit. The tide of history always favors greater human rights, greater freedoms, greater protections for minorities vs. mobs. And it always works out better in the end that way. I understand that you have to protect yourself from lunatics who shoot death rays out of their elbows, but you know, you also have to protect yourself from lunatics who break into the McDonalds’ with a gun and start shooting people, and somehow it was your party who decided it was an unacceptable infringement on your freedom to hunt, shoot intruders, and generally feel like manly men to make people undergo background checks to get assault weapons.”

“The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms.”

“The Constitution wouldn’t say that if you passed an amendment redefining a ‘well-regulated militia’ as the National Guard. Which I’m not saying you should. I’m in favor of your right to protect yourself with a gun. I’m in favor of your right to shoot animals for fun if you feel like it; I’m a Darwinist and you’re a predator. It’s in your genes. Go shoot deer if you want. But the Constitution currently states that I am a human being, because it doesn’t say that I’m not, and I was born in the United States to two human beings, share 99.9% of my DNA with you, speak your language, look like you, and have sex with you. Well, not you personally, but Sapiens men. So if it’s so vitally important to preserve the right to bear arms, because it’s in the Constitution, that it’s okay to let sociopaths get guns and shoot up college campuses, then it is vastly more important to make sure that every child born in this country to human parents is defined as human.

“If you pass this Definition of Humanity amendment in order to protect your constituency, and Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, then she can be raped and her rapist could be charged with bestiality at best, because she wouldn’t be legally a child who can be molested, she’d be legally an animal. She could be killed, and the most her killer could be charged with is animal cruelty. No school would have to take her, no hospital would have to treat her diseases, no restaurant would have to let her in to eat with you. You would have to fight a battle to get her treated in a way that you humans take for granted, every time. Want her to die in a car accident because the paramedics didn’t want to treat a Proxima? Want her to die in a fire because the firefighters didn’t want to risk themselves going into a burning building for someone who isn’t even human? There are better ways to defend Sapiens than making it legally open season on us.”

“But you’re against those too. The Parahuman Registry would allow us to track dangerous people without having to deprive any of you of basic civil rights.”

“Except I’ve never heard of a version of it suggesting that only parahuman criminals be added to the registry.”

“Well, dangerous parahumans haven’t necessarily committed crimes yet. But for instance, if your next door neighbor turns up dead of a heart attack and everyone knows you were fighting with him, isn’t it important that the police know you have the power to stop people’s hearts by touching them?”

“If your next door neighbor has a gun, isn’t it important that you know about it so you can keep your daughter from playing in his yard?”

“Most gun owners are law abiding citizens, and if someone is killed with a gun we already have laws on the books to help the police track down the killer. If someone is killed with a superpower, we wouldn’t even necessarily know to look for a superpower.”

“So educate the cops better on superpowers. Most Proximas are law abiding citizens. If you kill your neighbor by hitting him over the head with a frying pan, does that mean you needed to be on some sort of registry of frying pan owners?” I started pacing again. “It’s irrelevant in any case. I don’t care what your personal beliefs are. I care that you love your daughter and want her to be healthy.”

“So you’re blackmailing me.”

“Blackmail? I’m demanding payment. When your campaign contributors give you money for re-election, they’re not blackmailing you to expect that you’re going to show them some quid pro quo. I’m offering you something far, far more valuable than a few dollars in your re-election coffers; I’m offering you your daughter’s life and health. I think expecting a little quid pro quo is not unreasonable.”

“And what if I refused? Would you let her die?”

At one point that would have been a tough one; in this line of work you have to appear to be compassionate, but you also have to be tough or the patients will walk all over you. I had had plenty of experience dealing with this particular conundrum, though. “Do you know what I did for Mindy today? Do you understand her disease at all?”

“I don’t know what you did, no. You keep saying you made her better but you didn’t cure her. But I do know something about her disease. The doctors tell me that she’s making too many white blood cells, and it’s crowding out and killing the rest of her blood.”

“Close. They’re immature, cancerous blood cells, so they don’t work to protect her from disease the way mature white blood cells would. This lowers her general immunity, and yes, it clogs up her bloodstream and takes resource away from working cells. What I did today was to kill all the immature cells and regenerate some of the mature ones. She still has leukemia; she’s still making too many immature cells. Without a full treatment that will never stop. What I’ve done is to ease her symptoms. Until she builds up too many immature cells again, she’ll feel better.” I leaned on the wall, arms folded. “I’m perfectly capable of doing this every six months and never actually curing her. She’ll feel better, and she’ll have a happy, normal life, as long as she gets her treatments on time. The one time she misses a treatment, though – maybe because the government kidnapped me, arrested me, killed me or took my powers away – she’ll have full-blown leukemia again, and within a year or two she’ll die.” I pushed off the wall. “So you can support me up front because it’s the right thing to do for the person who gave you back your daughter’s life, or you can hedge and haw and refuse to get with my program, and if so your daughter will be well for exactly as long as I am able to continue treating her. The very laws you want to pass that will harm me, will block my ability to heal her sooner or later, and then she’ll die, and it’ll be your fault.”

“And how do I know that if I promise to do as you ask, you really will heal Mindy and you won’t just do what you just said?”

“How do I know that if I really heal Mindy, you won’t go back on your word and start pushing for the Human Definition Amendment again? It’s a matter of trust, Senator. You trust me, I trust you. Or you don’t trust me, I don’t trust you. Tit for tat. What’s it going to be?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m not going to just rubber stamp your suggestions. Even if that was the right thing to do for my constituency, and it’s not. I’m going to study the situation and try to do the best thing to protect my people and yours. You can accept that or not.”

“All right, I’ll accept that, with one caveat. The Human Definition Amendment is totally off-limits. You can switch your support to the Inclusive Humanity Amendment, or just drop your support of Human Definition, but if you don’t publicly do one or the other within the month Mindy does not get fully cured. The other stuff, do the studies you want to do, but I think you’ll find that when you look at Proximas as if we are people and not weird animal things with superpowers, you’ll find it a lot easier to come up with ways to help protect your kind without harming mine.”

Lightman nodded. “All right, Doctor. Then we have a deal. When do you want to perform the first treatment?”

“If you’ve got $8,000 lying around in a checking account, we can do it today.”

“I do. Who do I make the check out to? I don’t imagine you can cash a check made out to Doctor Mystery.”

“Make it out to Miracle of Life, LLC.” I had about twenty-seven of these shell companies I used to funnel my various payments through, since even Senators typically had a hard time coming up with $8,000 in small unmarked bills on short notice, and a girl’s gotta eat. Playing politics is all well and good, but I needed to cover the mortgage and the gas money for my various trips to clients, plus the funds for my various Activities of Mad Science. Just because you can manipulate any organic tissue with a touch, doesn’t mean you get your beakers and retorts and Petri dishes for free. “Let’s go upstairs. I’m sure Mindy is eager to begin freeing herself from this disease.”

“Of course.”

At the top of the stairs, I reached out for his hand. Too afraid of giving offense to refuse me, he took it, and I shook with him. “Pleasure doing business with you, Senator. Go call your daughter in, give me a check and we’ll do this thing.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mystery. I may not entirely approve of your politics, but thank you for giving my daughter back her life.”

He wouldn’t be thanking me so much if he had known I’d just planted a tiny clump of slow-growing cancerous cells deep in his brain. It’d be a year from now before he started feeling any symptoms, and that would land in the middle of his re-election campaign. If he did what I wanted after I finished healing his daughter and we were on good terms, I’d find some excuse to come by and heal him or prune it down again. If not… there was a reason I was a feared supervillain even though most people knew me, if they knew me at all, as some kind of uber-doctor. You didn’t double-cross Dr. Mystery and survive it. Ever.

Well, unless you were Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar. Then you got any number of free passes.

***

The truth was, I was being something of a hypocrite.

I was offended at Lightman’s suggestion that I make his daughter a Sapiens if she turned out to be a Proxima, but not for the reason I told him. The difference between a Proxima becoming a Sapien and a Sapien becoming Proxima isn’t the difference between black changing to white or male changing to female. The difference was described by Plato as a man raised in the darkness leaving the cave to see the light of the sun, vs. a man raised in the sunlight doomed to spend the rest of his life in a cave. Making a Proxima a Sapiens is like giving someone a lobotomy, or a clitoridectomy, or binding her feet until she can’t walk. It’s an obscenity, a Harrison Bergeron nightmare of breaking the best down to the level of the mediocre, taking away a birthright one was born with.

Making a Sapien a Proxima is, on the other hand, one of my great callings in life.

Mindy Lightman wasn’t a Proxima before I touched her. But she would be, before I was done. I did a preliminary assessment of her DNA while I was performing the first treatment, and I stored a small amount of her cellular matter in a pocket under the skin of my hand, to study at length later. I’d determine how much energy her mitochondria could supply her and which latent powers-complex genes she had, and which powers they were likely to ignite into. If she had something distressing, like death touch or world-shattering TK or the gene for turning blue, I’d edit the complex over the next two sessions into something more palatable for the child of a public figure, something frilly and unthreatening. Maybe the ability to make pretty light shows, or fly. Most flyers loved it, and it didn’t seem to frighten Sapiens as much as some other powers did.

When I left the Lightmans’, now back in my middle-aged lady persona, I headed first to the bank to deposit the check. Senators whose daughter’s lives are on the line don’t give me checks that bounce, but they do take time to clear, so the sooner I got it in, the better. And then I dumped the rental car at the airport, changed form in the bathroom, and got on the Metro to head back home.

****

Science fact: There is only one gene that determines the difference between a Sapiens and a Proxima.

To most people this seems insane. Proximas come in an entire extra range of colors besides the human norm, have powers ordinary humans can only dream of, and get energy to fuel these powers from a source that is frankly incomprehensible. We just have to be a separate species, in most people’s minds. When Proximas were first discovered, there was a huge push to label us a fully separate species – Homo superior (thankfully, that one got shot down real fast) or Homo proximus, “the man who comes next.” Scientists – not me at the time, since I was too young, but reputable geneticists and biologists – had to constantly point out that the definition of a species is that they cannot viably interbreed. The children of superpowered and ordinary humans were themselves perfectly fertile. Ergo, we cannot be a separate species.

But we hadn’t mapped the genome then, and we didn’t know exactly why Proximas had powers. So scientists made, in my opinion, a mistake. They agreed to classify us as a separate sub-species.

You’ve grown up being told that you are Homo sapiens. What you might not know is that technically, if you’re not a parahuman, you are actually Homo sapiens sapiens. There were several other subspecies of humans, all extinct, such as Homo sapiens idaltu (elderly wise man). It is still scientific nonsense to call us a subspecies, when we’re only different by one gene – to put this in perspective, parents and children differ by many, many more than one gene – and in fact the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature keeps debating changing it to Homo sapiens sapiens proximus or dropping the designate proximus entirely. But the scientific evidence that we aren’t even a separate subspecies gets even less play in the media than studies that show that men and women are alike, if such a thing is possible. And at least the Homo sapiens proximus nomenclature reinforces that we are of the human species.

The trouble is, most people don’t know that the true name of Homo sapiens is actually Homo sapiens sapiens. So when they hear the short designators – Sapiens vs. Proxima – they assume that our species is Homo proximus. We’re widely believed to be an entirely separate species, and it doesn’t help that high-profile supervillains like Caesar Primus (who is 2,000 years old and knows as much as any Roman gladiator about science, which is to say, diddly jack), or Professor Octohedron (a brilliant physicist and inventor, but he knows about as much biology as I know about fixing my car, and let me put it this way, the last time I ended up dead on the side of the road I needed a friendly dude passing by to tell me I’d run out of oil) are constantly spouting off about how we are a new, superior species. Informed laypeople and doctors usually know better, but the truth – that we are different by only one gene – is so appallingly counterintuitive that you almost need to be a geneticist or an evolutionary biologist to get it.

But here’s the truth.

The human genome is packed with genes that don’t do anything. Most come from our evolutionary history. You may have heard that we are less than 1% genetically different from chimpanzees. That 1% consists mostly of control genes, which govern when, how and if the other genes turn on.

It turns out that some of those genes generate superpowers, under the right conditions. One of them turns melanin, the brown pigment of humans, blue in the presence of a hormone called catalysine. Others use catalysine to activate superhuman abilities. All humans carry some of these genes. But only a very, very tiny number – about 1 in 10,000 – have the gene that codes for the creation of catalysine.

Like testosterone, catalysine has two surges in a person’s life cycle. One is pre-natally. The amount generated is small and doesn’t pass the placental barrier, so no, pregnant women do not manifest superpowers when carrying a Proxima baby. That’s an urban myth. The surge pre-natally does little, usually, except to prepare the brain to control superpowers someday, creating a brain nucleus and appropriate wiring. In cases where the child has two Proxima genes – for example, the child of two Proxima parents-- the amount of catalysine created pre-natally might be enough to distort the child’s appearance, begin converting melanin into azurin, or awaken a low level of superpower.

When the child hits puberty, the same genes that turn on sex hormones turn on catalysine production. The superpowers appear, and wire up to the brain structures created in utero. If the child has the gene for azurin conversion, their pigment changes from brown to blue – so pale red-haired and blonde white children suddenly develop purple, green or blue hair, while brown-skinned children turn blue all over. (Azurin is also rare. Only about 5% of all people carry the gene for azurin production, and only Proximas ever display it. Non-Proximas with the azurin mutation never express it, and end up creating perfectly normal melanin, because they are never exposed to catalysine.)

The “power mitochondria” are another pan-human phenomenon that only expresses itself in Proximas. All living cells on Earth contain tiny organelles called mitochondria – practically separate living things, with their own DNA, they use oxygen and sugar to generate the chemical that powers all life, ATP. Power mitochondria vastly overproduce ATP, and no one knows where they get the energy to do it – it’s like they suck potential energy out of the universe and convert it to life force. But they do this only when activated by catalysine within the cell. About 1/3rd of humans have power mitochondria. In the presence of the Proxima gene, these people generate energy above and beyond what they take in from food and air, which is then consumed by their superpowers. Without power mitochondria, a Proxima must draw from their own life force to fuel their superpower, which makes their powers pretty weak. The exact same genes for telekinesis can code for a person that can lift 70 lbs with their mind with effort vs. a person who can lift an aircraft carrier out of the water and break it in half, depending on the presence and output of the power mitochondria. Since mitochondria are passed by the mother, Proximas who inherit their power from a powerful mother will always be very powerful themselves, whereas Proximas who inherit from a powerful Proxima father depend entirely on the hidden status of their mother for their own strength.

(Funny fact, here: when Proximas were first discovered, male Proximas freely dated, married and fathered children on human women, because our entire society says it’s okay for men to have wives who are weaker than they are. Proxima women, on the other hand, mostly stuck to their own kind. In the seven years since we discovered the role of the power mitochondria, we have seen a dramatic reversal in which powerful Proxima men will not marry or get serious with human women unless they consider themselves “childfree” or have had the human woman’s mitochondria analyzed for power status, and more and more Proxima women are dating Sapiens men.)

So most of what goes into making a Proxima is actually in a vast percentage of the human population – 30% have power mitochondria, pretty much all of them have powers-complex. It’s the presence of the single gene that codes for catalysine production that makes a person Proxima as opposed to Sapiens. My belief was that Proximas would not be safe from the fear and envy of Sapiens unless we were normalized. The more Proximas there were, the more the law would adapt to and accommodate us and our needs and the less we’d need to fear the mob of Sapiens out to kill or control us. So my primary work, since I became Dr. Mystery, had been to increase the number of Proximas by giving as many Sapiens the Proxima gene as I can.

In my early experiments, when I used uncontrolled methods like retroviruses to mutate people, there were high casualty rates. Sapiens adults whose brains have not been exposed to catalysine in utero can’t control whatever superpowers they develop if they suddenly start making catalysine. So I started working primarily with children, usually terminally or chronically ill children that I could get direct access to. My power can create new brain pathways, and in a child or teen, with a developing brain, I can do it transparently, with no one noticing. Adults cannot experience sudden brain growth and change without noticing that something’s wrong – memories suddenly becoming lost, well-developed skills becoming weaker, mood swings, etc—so I only alter adults into Proximas if they request it. I often modify women of child-bearing age so that all their eggs carry the Proxima gene, ensuring that they’ll give birth to Proximas if they ever have kids. It’s harder with men, because men are generating new sperm all the time – I’d have to alter the spermatogonia, and since they’re part of the body, the body’s immune system might notice that they are genetically different from the other cells and attack them, making the man infertile. So I only make men into Proxima-fathers if I have plenty of time to work with them and tweak their immune systems, if necessary – and if they’re likely to have kids. Gay men coming to me to save them from AIDS and 70-year-olds who don’t want to get Alzheimer’s are usually not worth modifying reproductively.

The Peace Force were aware of my work, and opposed it. They believed it was wrong of me to change people’s genes without their consent. Technically, maybe they were right, but come on, what sane person would object to having superpowers? The only reason anyone would not want to be a Proxima is the prejudice against us, and I was working on that too. So I had to maintain a low profile because every so often the Peace Force would take it into their heads to try to capture me. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t fully legal – I was pardoned for my activities as Megamorph by Bill Clinton (did you know that Hillary Clinton once had breast cancer? No? Well, neither does anyone else), and nothing illegal I’d done as Dr. Mystery could be proven in a court of law. But the law hadn’t caught up with Proxima abilities, so the Peace Force never overly concerned themselves with whether they could prove wrongdoing or not. Their mentor and leader, Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar, aka Doctor Sun, was a telepath, and if she said, “Bad guy! Go fetch!” they would jump like puppydogs after a thrown stick.

So I lived in Baltimore, in a townhome in the Woodberry neighborhood, on Television Hill, because living directly under the broadcast tower generated enough interference that Suri couldn’t find me telepathically. I’d have preferred Little Italy, or better yet, a real city like New York or Philly (and I’d come way down in the world, admitting that Philly is a real city), but New York was far too close to Suri, whose base of operations was in Manhattan, and a lot of my work was done with politicians, making Baltimore or DC more convenient than Philly. And DC had the Special Service, human police in power suits who patrolled to protect the Capitol from parahuman attack. I never felt safe in DC. My Woodberry home had civilians living on both sides and a children’s day care across the street, ensuring that the Peace Force couldn’t attack me in force – they’d know the threat to civilians from a power battle would be too great to risk it politically for my sake (and to be fair, most of them are goody-two-shoes hero types who wouldn’t risk civilians, especially preschool children, even if they had perfect political cover for the operation.) So I figured that if Suri ever found me, she’d still think twice about siccing her dogs on me.

Also, the Light Rail, Baltimore’s sad and pathetic substitute for a subway, had a stop near my home. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 28, and I still hated it with a passion. I was a Brooklyn girl – give me a city with buses and subways and railways, so I wouldn’t have to dodge hurtling chunks of death metal just to get where I was going. From DC’s Metro, after I dropped my rental car at the airport, I changed at Union Station to the Camden line, took it to the baseball stadium in Baltimore, and changed there for the Light Rail. This took far longer than a car would have, but didn’t involve me being isolated in a tiny box with no source of living organic matter other than my own flesh and facing careening metal boxes coming right for me. It also didn’t involve traffic jams, which are brutal on the DC Beltway. A short walk from my stop later, and I was home.

As I unlocked my front door, Brian the cockatiel chirped at me wildly, flapping his wings in his cage. I’m really proud of Brian – in some ways he’s my greatest work. He used to be a man, or the head of a man, who attempted to rape me once. The truly pathetic thing was that Brian had been a good-looking guy, wiry and blond, the way I like them, and if he’d been willing to wait half an hour I would happily have had sex with him. But he hadn’t wanted sex, he’d wanted rape – the only reason he dated women and went back to their houses with them, rather than jumping out of the bushes with a knife, was that he was a lawyer and knew that a handsome man with money who date rapes a woman will basically never, ever be convicted. People think rapists have to be hard up for sex, or have to somehow look evil – the idea that a handsome, charming guy who could get any woman he wanted would actually prefer to hold screaming women down and force them when he could get consensual sex with the exact same woman instead breaks people’s brains. They assume the woman must be lying, because what man who could get mutual fun would prefer to commit rape? No one wants to admit how common misogynistic sadists actually are or how normal they look.

I found out from Brian that he’d date-raped ten women before me, that only two had tried to press charges, and the cops had refused to take the charges in one case and upset the other one so badly with their disbelief that she’d dropped the charges. I found this out while I had him paralyzed but still able to feel sensation, his voice made too hoarse to do more than whisper no matter how much he suffered, on a cot in the basement. Over the course of the two weeks that I used him in experiments, he told me his entire life story, amidst lots of self-justifications, begging, pleading and promising to change his ways. Then I started turning his body parts into animals, bit by bit. The rats and mice I made of his arms and legs didn’t come out right, and they died. The cockroaches who used to be his testicles were actually very robust, but after the cat knocked over the terrarium I was keeping them in, I had to get an exterminator to kill them because who wants cockroaches in their house? I was actually quite sad when the puppy I made out of his guts wouldn’t wake up and live – sometimes they just won’t come alive no matter what I do. Living things are very complex, and it’s more an art than a science to do things like make life into different life.

Since at that point, Brian had no way to digest food or ingest water, and he was therefore only a day or two away from death, I finally put him out of his misery by turning his head into a cockatiel and his torso into an iguana, a gecko, and a handful of tropical fish. Nothing lived longer than a week except the cockatiel, which so far had lasted three years. I often wondered, since I’d used some of the original brain tissue in making Brian’s new cockatiel brain, if he had any dim sense that he used to be human.

I fed Brian a cracker, re-absorbed my shoes into my flesh, and took back my original human form before plopping down on the couch to relax and await my cats. My actual body was permanently frozen at about age 22 or so; I changed it so often, I’d never really had the opportunity to let it naturally age. I could have forced it up to 36, where I really was, if I had to, but why bother? No one was going to see me and think less of me for looking too childish. My natural form is about 5’4” and built like a gymnast – tiny breasts, thickly muscled legs and arms, a rounded and balanced body with a low center of gravity and nothing sticking way out of line with the rest of it. For gymnastics – my childhood passion – and for combat, it was a fantastic body, and I used it for years as Megamorph before it occurred to me that maybe I should hide my true face if I was going to be a criminal. For instantly commanding respect, making men drool and women envy, or sending the signal “I AM A SERIOUS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND”, it wasn’t so good. It was short, the face looked too young and soft (and too much like a young, soft Gillian Anderson – people in med school actually used to call me “Scully”), and a body perfectly proportioned for gymnastics or martial arts isn’t all that attractive by the psycho standards of our culture. But it was my body, and in my home, with the shades drawn and the security system on, I went back to it because it was me.

As I wiggled my toes on my shag carpet and then propped my feet up on my coffee table, I wondered where my cats were. They were well-fed cats, but their heightened metabolisms made them constantly hungry, and they knew I was a sucker for giving them treats when I’d first come home. Normally, they’d be leaping on me minutes after my arrival. This worried me. If I had accidentally shut them in the bedroom, Angelkitty would probably pee on my ceiling to express her displeasure and Pikachu might have destroyed my furniture with a few good lightning blasts by now.

My cats were also experiments. I’d been curious to see if the genetic structures I’d observed in other mammals that seemed related to the human powers-complex were in fact superpowers, so I got myself a pair of abandoned newborn kittens and in between the droppers of kitten formula (I really drew the line at making cat milk in my own breasts; those little things have teeth very early), I modified them to generate catalysine. The female promptly grew bird wings (which didn’t attach to the right spot on her back and were too small; she’d never have flown if I hadn’t heavily modified them for her), and the male developed the ability to shoot lightning out of his paws, so I named them Angelkitty and Pikachu. (Technically, if you have seen the Pokemon cartoon, which I admit I have, Pikachu is a mouse that shoots electricity, or something rodentlike anyway, but come on, there aren’t exactly any mythological figures of cats that shoot electricity.) Angelkitty’s a Siamese and Pikachu is mostly white with some orange. They don’t have power mitochondria – that does appear to be a human thing – so they eat like pigs. I could feed six ordinary cats off what my two eat, but they remain extraordinarily svelte, almost feral in their slimness. And so if they weren’t here to pester me for fish treats, something was wrong.

I got up and went out to the kitchen. To my relief, my cats were still noshing on their tuna fish, which amazingly it looked like they had barely touched before I came home. (I always fed them human food. Why not? I had the money to keep them in canned tuna rather than cat food, and they loved the stuff.) Pikachu looked up at me, gave me a meow that I interpreted as “Oh, you’re home, good,” and then went back to his meal.

Wait a minute. There was more food in the bowl than there had been when I said good-bye to them this morning. And it was beyond the realm of possibility that they’d left so much food untouched for so long, anyway. And the tuna looked fresh out of the can. So how—

“I was wondering when you were going to get home,” a woman’s voice said behind me. I was already spinning to face her, preparing to leap at her, but as soon as I saw her I realized it was hopeless. “Don’t you ever feed these cats? They look like they’re starving.”

Ciana Kim, aka Sapphire, my once-classmate and current dire nemesis, was standing – well, floating—above my stairs in her traditional blue bubble, her features slightly obscured by the blue distortion and concealed behind her mask. The combat leader of the Peace Force was in my house.

I backed up. I couldn’t take Sapphire directly. Her power was to generate spherical or toroid magnetic fields, which glowed blue due to the way they bent light, hence her name. I needed organic channels to send my power through—behind her force field, Sapphire was totally safe from me, because I couldn’t touch her. I wasn’t safe from her, though. She could generate a force field around me, trapping me, any time she wanted.

There was a switch by the door to my basement, labeled “FURNACE – DO NOT TOUCH,” that would actually activate an EMP. All the computer and electronic equipment I had in my house outside the Faraday cage of the basement would fry, but Sapphire’s power would fail as well, and I could leap on her before she could reset her power. Or, if I didn’t really want to replace my MP3 player, phones, and the laptop in the bedroom, perhaps I could grab Pikachu and throw him at her. He’d be startled enough to discharge a bolt, and the electrical surge should pop her field like a soap bubble. I knew I had a faster reaction time than Sapphire – after years of modifying and tuning up my nervous system, I’m faster than anyone who doesn’t have super-speed as a specific power – so I should be able to grab her and neutralize her power or knock her out before she could get a force field back up again. I was reluctant to do that because Pikachu was my kitty and throwing him at superheroes seemed kind of mean, even though I knew he wouldn’t be hurt, but the EMP generator could theoretically blow out TV Hill, and then I’d have to dodge swarms of reporters trying to find out why they suddenly couldn’t get on the air anymore.

I stalled for time. “They’ve got very fast metabolisms. I feed them all the time, but they’ll pester anyone they meet for more.”

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “Oh, stand down, Meg. If I was here to capture you or beat you up, I’d have done it before you knew I was here.”

She had a point. Sapphire wasn’t stupid, and she had completely gotten the drop on me, to the point that I was actually really embarrassed about it. “So what do you want? Cooking advice? I always prefer to replace the generic vegetable oil with olive or canola, it’s easier on the heart.” The last time I’d been in the same household as her, Ciana Kim had refused to learn to cook, for very similar reasons to her refusal to learn hand-to-hand combat.

She ignored my jab. “Doctor Sun sent me. She needs your help and she asked me to ask you.”

I blinked. Doctor Sun wanted my help? Cold day in hell. But it’d have to get a lot colder before I’d say yes. “She wants my help? And she actually thinks I might agree? Excuse me, but the last time I interacted with any of you people you wrecked my lab, ruined four years of work and set me back half a million dollars.”

“You were infecting children’s vaccines with a retrovirus. Did you seriously think we’d let you just get away with it?”

“All it would have done was make them into Proximas. What do you think I am?”

“Someone who mutates people against their will. And how do you know that’s all it would have done? Retroviruses mutate. Besides, it’s still wrong to change people without their consent. How do you know those kids would even have wanted superpowers?”

“Oh, be real. Who wouldn’t want superpowers?”

“If I wasn’t a Proxima, I might have been an Olympic gold medalist.”

She was telling the truth. One of the things that annoyed me so much about Ciana was how close her life had been to mine, minus the dysfunctional family. I, too, had had Olympic dreams once, and my coach had told me when I was 11 that I might seriously make it as a contender. But no matter how good I’d been, I’d never really had a chance; if my parents hadn’t died when I was 13, some other aspect of my family’s screwed-up-ness would have ruined it for me.

Ciana Kim, however, had had a good and loving family who’d pushed her hard in the belief that she could achieve anything. She was a third-generation Korean American from California and her parents were doctors or something like that, and they’d stood behind her every step of the way. Even after everything had fallen apart in my life and I’d basically become a thug for hire, I had followed the Olympic gymnastic news, so I’d known all about this as it was happening.

Ciana was originally to be the USA’s representative to the Olympics in Seoul for women’s artistic gymnastics. Much was made in the media of a Korean American going to Seoul to represent America, but Ciana had been very photogenic and full of great soundbites about how she was as American as apple pie and she was honored to represent our great country and she was so looking forward to bringing a medal home for the US and she was following in Mary Lou Retton’s footsteps and blah blah blah. And then, a week before the Olympics, it had come out that she was a Proxima. They’d finally figured out that doing a blood test for catalysine would find any Proxima with an active power.

The truth is that even now, twenty years later, as an experienced superhero who uses her powers all the time, Ciana still can’t use her powers invisibly. There’s always a shiny blue blob there. And she had no training with her powers when she was 16, so it would have been even more implausible that she could have somehow used her powers to secretly cheat. I would be disqualified from a Sapiens competition in gymnastics in any sane world because of what my powers actually are, but Ciana was disqualified solely from anti-Proxima prejudice (and, to be fair, probably some anti-Asian prejudice from the Americans whose job it would have been to advocate for her). The Americans paid for their prejudices when Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union took home all the women’s gymnastics medals (I don’t like Ciana, but I’m pretty sure she would have won at least a silver in something, if not a gold.) Ciana was recruited by Dr. Chandrasekhar to learn how to use her powers and eventually join the Peace Force, Dr. Chandrasekhar’s UN-supported superhero team.

So it wasn’t that I had no respect for Ciana’s loss, but it irritated me that she saw the problem as being that she was a Proxima rather than that the Olympic committee was scared of Proximas. And also, that being an Olympic medalist was better than being a superhero. “Yeah yeah, you could have had your moment of glory, and nowadays you’d be selling sneakers and breakfast cereal to pay the bills, assuming anyone even remembered you at all. What’s Mary Lou Retton doing with her life?”

“She’s been an Olympics commentator, and she’s a motivational speaker who supports physical fitness.”

Trust Ciana to actually know this. “And that’s better than being a superhero how? You save lives, you have an action figure, millions of little girls look up to you—“

“—I wear a mask when I save lives because otherwise supervillains or stalkers might hunt me down, no one knows my real name, my family aren’t allowed to tell anyone what I do for a living, I’ll probably never have a normal life with a husband and kids—“

“--You could marry some guy and quit the superhero business any time you wanted to, it’s just your overblown sense of responsibility that says you can’t quit your job to have babies until your powers give out on you, because you think the world needs you, and if that’s the case where would they have been if you hadn’t been a Proxima?”

“Someone else would have taken my place if I hadn’t been a Proxima. And all of this is besides the point; no matter how great you or even I might think it is to have superpowers, the fact is that you were planning to infect helpless babies with a retrovirus that would have mutated them. Some of them might have died of it. Some might have been killed by their families for being Proximas once they manifested. You don’t have the right to play God that way.”

“Nobody would have died of my virus,” I retorted. “I tested it thoroughly ahead of time. But you also notice, I haven’t done it again.”

“Because you know we’ll stop you.”

“Because I listened to your arguments that retroviruses are unstable and highly prone to mutation, and I decided that maybe you have a point.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“You didn’t even try to just persuade me. You just blew up my lab! Do you know how many vials of vaccine I hadn’t modified yet you destroyed?”

“All of this is pointless,” Sapphire snapped. “I’m wasting time arguing with you when Doctor Sun is dying. Are you coming or not?”

Wait, what? Dying?

I had been a half-crazed killer with no self-esteem, no sense of myself being able to be or do anything good, no belief that anyone could ever care about me – at least not without dying for it – after David died. Dr. Chandrasekhar had taken me in and taught me that I could have a better destiny than being a tool for monsters to use to kill each other with; that I didn’t have to be a monster myself. I could use my powers for good. I could help people. I could be a decent person.

Viewed from her perspective, I suppose, it didn’t last – I freely admit I am a supervillain and I do highly unethical things, up to and including killing people. But I do it for a cause I believe in. I do it to save my people from the bio-engineered diseases I was forced to participate in creating at Sonnebend. I do it so girls with superpowers who are going to medical school to learn how to save lives will not be kidnapped, stripped of their powers except when convenient for their captors, raped, tortured and forced to use their powers to heal enemies and kill their own kind, by agents of their own government. I do it so my people can enjoy the same rights and privileges as every other human on this planet. And the fact that I can fight for a cause, that I can see myself as a person with a noble goal of my own… I owe that entirely to Doctor Sun.

No matter what she does to me, no matter what she orders her Peace Force to do, I can’t ever get away from that.

“Dying of what?”

“She was kidnapped and raped by Caesar Primus. When she escaped, she was two months’ pregnant, but the doctors say it seems more like six months. The child is growing too rapidly for her to handle it, and it’ll kill her.”

Oh, God.

My heart started pounding, my throat went dry. I could feel the adrenaline surging, my sympathetic nervous system revving up for a totally inappropriate fight-or-flight response. I couldn’t stop imagining the reality behind Sapphire’s words. It didn’t help that I’d once had sex with Primus myself – consensual, sort of, but I could entirely too easily imagine what it’d be like to be raped by him, without powers to protect you. And Primus was immune to telepathy, so effectively Suri would have been helpless. God, no. I didn’t want to think about that.

So I was flippant, and cold. “Doctor Sun’s a woman of the world. You’re telling me she’s never heard of an abortion?”

“She doesn’t want an abortion. She says she won’t compound Primus’ act by taking an innocent life.”

“When did Doctor Sun turn into a pro-lifer?”

“She says the baby has a mind and she won’t kill it.” Sapphire floated herself down onto my dining room floor, still surrounded by a protective bubble but no longer on my stairs. “Are you going to help, or not?”

“I’m a feminist Darwinist. I’m morally opposed to letting a fetus conceived in rape live. It lets dangerous genes persist in the population. Suri knows that.”

Sapphire sighed explosively. “Fine. I knew you weren’t going to be any help, but Doctor Sun believed in you. I’ll just go tell her I was right and she was wrong.”

“What is this supposed to be, reverse psychology?”

“Nothing reverse about it. I knew before I got here that I would be wasting my time. You’re a killer with no conscience; why Doctor Sun ever thought you might help, I have no idea.”

“Because she knows me better than you.” I stepped forward. “If this is reverse psychology bullshit, it isn’t necessary. I’ve known I was going to agree to help you since you told me she was dying. And if you really believe what you’re saying, then nyaah nyaah nyaah. I’m a doctor; everything I do, I do to save lives. And at least I have to try to persuade Doctor Sun to abort the thing. Besides, if she was raped by Primus she might have injuries she could need my help with.” Primus had hammered at me like he was trying to break my pelvis, and without my powers he might actually have done so. And I’d voluntarily gone to bed with him. What he’d do to a woman he was raping, I really really didn’t want to imagine.

I didn’t mention to Sapphire that this was partly my fault anyway. When I’d met her, Suri (Dr. Suri to me in those days, but I feel I have the right to call her by her first name now) had been dying slowly of multiple sclerosis. She had met me on a good day; she’d only needed crutches and braces to move. On bad days she’d been confined to a wheelchair, and on really bad days she’d had to stay in bed. I’d healed her, and in the process I’d turned her from a forty-something woman approaching menopause back to a woman in her prime, young and healthy, physically in her 20’s. It had been almost 20 years since I’d done that; Suri would be approaching menopause again, but obviously wasn’t there yet. By now she’d be well past childbearing if I hadn’t de-aged her when I’d healed her disease.

I didn’t know whether Primus had raped her to torture her, to express domination over her, to really make the Peace Force mad at him, or to impregnate her, but I knew he had enough control over his body that if he hadn’t wanted to impregnate her, it wouldn’t have happened. It was entirely possible that the goal of the whole thing had been to force her to carry his child; Suri was an enormously powerful Proxima with high output power mitochondria, and most women with such energy-full mitochondria would have had a power they could use to fight back against Primus. Blocking a Proxima woman’s powers while she was pregnant carried high risk to the fetus if it too was a Proxima; it could prevent the fetus from developing the ability to control its powers as an adult. Suri was rare in that she was incredibly powerful but only telepathic, with no telekinetic abilities, and with Primus’ immunity to telepathy, she’d have had no way to fight back against him even at her full power. If Primus had wanted a powerful woman to pass her mitochondria to his child, and he hadn’t cared about her consent, there were few Proximas who’d make a better target for him. And if that was the case, then the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t made her younger, sixteen years ago.

Sapphire blinked. “Wait. You are coming?”

“I just said so. But we have to bring my cats. They need to eat more than the average cat – they’d starve if I left them without food for three or four days, and obviously I can’t ask the neighbors to come feed them.”

“Fine. Sedate them; I don’t need a cat flying all over my car, or meowing and moaning in his carrier the whole time. We’ll put them in one of the suites and make sure they get fed.”

I took my cell phone – it had all of my appointments and contacts in it, and I’d have to call them all to reschedule once I knew how long this was going to take. If I could talk Suri into aborting the fetus, this could probably go very quickly, but I knew how stubborn she was. If I had to save the baby too, I could possibly have to take a few weeks.

Damn Suri. Why the hell was I taking time off my work and spending four hours in a car with one of the people who most annoyed me in the entire world to go save my greatest opponent anyway? From a problem she could just fix herself if she wasn’t so damn stubborn?

But I already knew. I couldn’t let Suryabati Chandrasekhar die; not under any circumstances, and most especially not if she’d asked for me specifically. Our differences were ideological; what she’d done for me went beyond ideology. I would fight her and her people when I had to, but if she was dying and she needed me, I had to go.

#nanowrimo #cold light #wip #supervillains #tw: csa #tw: rape #the trigger warnings are for things being talked about not things we see

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themfchase · 5 years

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blindfold (6)

Jeon Jungkook x reader‒ blindfold. (m)

✎ [6+k words]

genre: smut, NSFW, college!au

warnings: light smut, dirty talk, angst

Strange things happen all the time, just like what you’re being offered by a strange tall man in a quiet coffee shop near campus. Strangers that you can’t see and only hear, and a strange boy that barely speaks but seems to be everywhere aren’t that common, on the other hand. But for some reason... You’re really keen on strange things. u. A/N: So... The end had come. First, I wanted to apologize to everyone for the very long delay, but in the end here it is. And I really hope you’ve all enjoyed blindfold just as much as I have. It’s been a wild ride for me while writing this HHAHAHAHA But I’m really glad I finished it. I’m still not satisfied with it, not going to lie, but, I guess no one is ever going to be satisfied with the ending to one of their stories. Thank you all so much for the endless support you all have given me, I couldn’t have done it without you guys and the immense love you guys had for this little series. As always, reblog, like and don’t refrain from sending me messages. Thank you so much for following blindfold so far and I’ll see you all in the next series. Love and Kisses, May. (btw, if you see some typos and errors, I’ll fix them soon.)

part 1. part 2. part 3. part 4. part 5. masterlist.

"Jungkook... Look at me." Your breath was loud and fast, your heart beating as if it could leap from your chest, you felt sick, you felt weak, you were scared... So, so scared. With the blindfold in your hands you watched as his shoulders lifted and fell, his back to you, both hands on the wooden table in front of him, he was just as you were. Scared. A few hours earlier. Sleeping felt impossible. There were oh so many things that a while back seemed impossible, but somehow, some crazy way, shit just started to become that... Possible. If you were being honest with yourself, there was this part of you, this... Safe part of you that wanted to just be that. Safe. Turn your back on this whole idea and go back to your normal life. But after almost the whole night reminiscing in memories, the faint feeling of being touched by him, to hear his voice again to honestly, see him, you felt sure that this is what you had to do. Now, you hadn't really thought out just how things would go, confronting him was the only thing you were sure of. You didn't know how you were going to do so, what you would say. Yet again you found yourself without a plan, something you were not fond of. You still had a few hours before the sun came up, so getting out of bed and sitting in front of your computer you did what you did best. You planned everything. And the first step to your plan was making sure there were no misunderstandings. You were already sure that Jungkook was the Stranger, but you needed proof. You stood outside the Frat House and watched as the boys came out one by one. In your red summer dress and wearing very, and I mean very obvious sunglasses you waited until Jungkook came out, but that never happened. When you spotted Namjoon, you quickly made your way to him. "Joon!" You called. His head spun around at the familiar voice calling out his name in the almost peak of the morning. "Y/N, what are you...?" He started speaking. "Good morning, sorry, this is unexpected, I just wanted to speak to you real quick." You said as you watched the boy's bloated sleep-deprived face twist in confusion. "Uhm, sure... What's up?" "Is Jungkook still asleep?" You asked. "Oh... I'm pretty sure he didn't come back to the house last night, didn't see any of his bodyguards and well, I was awake almost all night." He said and you sighed. You sighed, you just needed to get something that could prove he was the Stranger. "Listen... Is there any chance... And look, this is gonna sound weird, but I just want to... Uhm, I want to surprise Jungkook and I really need to get into his room, but I know he has like a hundred locks and I was wondering since you're the house president if you know the code?" You lied. Namjoon seemed a little bit suspicious at first, but he smiled, a sweet smile that made you confused. "You two really hit it off, huh? I'm glad, honestly, the kid needs to let out some steam." He said. You grinned, a chuckle leaving you. Little did he know just how much steam Jungkook let out on a weekly basis. Namjoon was certain to give you the code and soon, you were on your way into the frat house. As you made your way up the stairs you momentarily stood in front of Jungkook's room. There was a nervousness that you just couldn't contain inside of you. What if he was there? How would you confront him like that? He could just lie to you, say that you are delusional. You took a deep breath, put in the code and the door unlocked. As you slowly made your way in, it was empty, just the faint light from the rising sun peeking from his window. His room was... Him. It was neat and minimalist, but as you looked around you felt a sense of loneliness in everything, in the way his pencils were organized and the way he didn't have any pictures or posters... It was just as if the person who slept there would leave at any given second. And maybe... Just maybe that was your biggest fear in confronting Jungkook, having him leave and never see him again. As you looked around you sighed again, you needed to find something, you decided to open his desk drawers. There you found yourself gasping as not one but several sketches were organized inside. They weren't ordinary sketches, they were detailed drawings of you... You in the coffee shop reading a book. You in class bitting down on your pencil, and of course, there were the lewd ones. You put your hand over your mouth, cheeks heating up as you saw the detailed lines of you tied up completely bare in the hotel bed. The blindfold on, but on the same sheet, right beside that, were your eyes. Several different sketches of your eyes looking down, or looking straight to you, or... To him. You felt slightly overwhelmed, this was how Jungkook saw you, he saw you in a way that you never could have imagined. He saw you as something beautiful, something precious and you could feel that by the way he drew you. You left the sketches in the drawer and further looked for something else and soon enough you found it. The blindfold. Not just any blindfold, this was the first one, from the first day. It gave you a feeling of nostalgia, melancholy, the idea of all that just becoming a memory. You weren't in love with just the stranger, you were in love with the quiet boy, the one that shoved his hands in his pockets and that asked you invasive question, you were in love with him. And the two together made things even stronger. The second step to your plan was making sure that if things went wrong, he wouldn't be alone, that he wouldn't freak out, so you took out your phone as you made your way out of the frat house and called. "Miss Y/L/N?" The voice said on the other line. "Listen, I need to speak to you, but it has to be a secret, if you tell him, I'm going to leave and never come back do you understand me?" You threatened. "Yes." He said after a while. "Good, meet me at the cafe in twenty minutes, if he's with you, make something up." And you hung up. This part of the plan was the part you were most worried about. You knew Jungkook was a troubled guy, that he has severe anxieties and the last thing you wanted was to trigger him in any way possible. So as you waited in the cafe you fidgeted with the blindfold in your hands, looking down at the wood. Not long after, he came in and slowly made his way to the table. "Miss, Y/L/N." He said in a calm voice. You looked up to see the same man that had stopped you a while back to give you the proposition. "Call me Y/N, please, there is something serious I need to discuss with you." You said in a firm tone. "Fine, Y/N." He sighed, taking off his glasses and placing them into his pocket. "What is this about?" "Listen, Mister... Wait, what's your name." You asked. "Jin." He answered simply. "Ok, listen, Jin, I know Jungkook is your client and that you must have confidentiality terms with him and all, but... I found out, ok?" You started and watched as he adjusted himself in the chair. "I... I don't know who you're talking about, Y/N." He said. "Cut the bullshit, Jin, I'm not here to threaten him, I'm here to make sure that he's going to be ok." You said and you saw him swallow. You looked down, now fidgeting with the blindfold. "Look, you told me he was a good kid and I know he is, I feel it... I feel it so much that all I want is to be with him, but I can't do that while he's lying to me." You admitted in a defeated voice. "He's not lying to you-' Jin started to say in an outraged voice. "Fine, omitting. Whatever." You shrugged, rolling your eyes. "I'm going to confront him today." It came out less secure than you wish it had. "And I don't know how that's going to go... I don't know if he's going to want to leave and never look back, if he's going to freak out, all I'm asking of you is that you make sure he's ok, that he's safe and that he's taken care of in case that happens." Jin was silent for a few moments, looking you in the eyes while he assessed the information. Jin seemed like a good guy to you, you could see that he really cared about Jungkook and that his concern was real, not just professional. He sighed and looked down at the table. "Ok." He said simply and you felt the air you were holding leave you. "Ok." You mimicked him, a faint relief in your voice. "Don't tell him I know, don't tell him I'm going to confront him, all I want is to do this the right way, all I want is honesty, if he's honest with me, I'll be all his." You didn't know to whom exactly you were saying that, if it was to Jin or to yourself, but either way, it was the truth, you breathed out, the air coming out a little shaky. "He... He really liked you." You heard Jin's voice and your eyes traveled up, looking him in the eyes again. He seemed less formal than before, a little more relaxed, but always with that worry in his eyes. "Jungkook isn't only my boss he's my friend and all I want for him is to have a normal life with friends and a normal relationship." He finished in a low voice. You bit on your lower lip nodding in understanding, but soon, looking down at the blindfold again. "Why hasn't he told me yet?" You asked. Jin pursed his lips, a bitter chuckle leaving him. "He's scared, scared you'll think he's a freak that he's... A pervert, I don't know." He admitted trying himself to understand the boy's reasons. "Jin, I agreed to let him do things to me for money, what does that say of me?" You asked, feeling your cheeks a little red with admitting the fact. Jin shrugged, hands coming to cross in front of his chest. "I just hope this works, I thought that telling him to ask you on a date was going to fix it." He shook his head as if he couldn't understand why things went wrong. "Wait, that was you?" You frowned. Jin looked up at you, a side smile on his face. "Yeah, I've been telling him to ask you out for months." He chuckled. Your eyes bulged slightly, months? You looked back down at the table. "I'm in love with him." You said it out loud and looked at Jin again. The smile on him was genuine. As if he was looking at something endearing to him, you felt your cheeks hot. You both were cut off by the sound of Jun's phone, he looked at it for a moment and looked at you. "Is it him?" "Yeah... I should go." You pursed your lips and nodded. After you said your goodbyes, you felt your stomach turn. You were nervous, what if in the end, maybe Jungkook didn't have feelings for you, he wanted to keep things separate? But Jin had said he really liked you. You shook your head getting rid of bad thoughts and made your way back to your apartment. As the day went by, you nervously waited for the clock to hit seven. Witch each hour that went by you rehearsed everything in your head. Malia would peek through the door and sigh, she was almost just as anxious as you were. After all, she knew how much you liked him. You distracted yourself by taking a shower when the clock hit six and soon enough, it was seven. You waited by your window your stomach felt as if it was turning inside of you. When you saw the car park outside you made your way to the living room and Malie was standing there, waiting with a hopeful look on her face. "Ok weirdo, good luck." She said while she gave you a quick hug. You nodded and looked at her. "Before I go... There is something I need to say to you." You had to say something, after all, if things went bad with Jungkook, maybe at least one thing could go right. Malia had a confused look on her face but nodded. "Namjoon really, really likes you... I know you're not the type to date and all, but he's an amazing guy and he deserves good things, so... Either step up and be with him or stop breaking his heart." You said with a firm tone to your voice. You knew Malia wasn't a bad person, but she was terrified of commitment, so maybe she just needed a push. Malia swallowed and bit her lower lip, but nodded. You smiled at her and made your way out of the apartment, once again getting in the car and making your way to the hotel. You clutched your phone all the way to the hotel and looked at the driver who seemed just as impassive as ever. Just as you were the first time you had come to the hotel, you were shaking and nervous. You walked slowly into the lobby, this time you had a feeling you were being watched, but you didn't dare look around as you made your way to the receptionist. She looked up at you and she smiled when she recognized you, you smiled back, this time a little more secure than when you first came. When she gave you the key, you clutched it in your hand, making your way to the elevators. AS you got in it all started to feel a little worse, the fear of Jungkook leaving, the fear of him having a breakdown. You breathed in and out slowly, trying to control your heartbeat. When the doors opened you took in the hallway, you haven't ever noticed the way the warm light painted the walls and how the carpet was littered with Roman designs. You always knew this was a five-star hotel, but maybe just now you started to notice the small things and feel nostalgic about them. When you stopped in front of the room you waited a few seconds before you put in the card key and stepped in. Candles. Everywhere. Just like the first time, the smell was so good and relaxing that you closed your eyes and breathed them in. You never got the chance to appreciate how much effort he put in to make sure you were comfortable and now, if things didn't go well, you wanted to take it all in. You walked into the bathroom and saw the body wash a feeling of fondness taking over you, honestly, ever since you and Yoongi had broken up, you hated that smell, but Jungkook made you like it again. You looked around, the hairdryer, the towels, you gently caressed the soft fabric before walking back into the room and sitting on the bed, you caressed the fabric underneath you and looked around. You hoped that things would go well, you wanted them to go well not because of this room, but because of what it represented. It represented you feeling free for one. Being cared for (Somehow). Being able to know yourself and to meet him. You saw the blindfold on the bed and decided to put it on top of the wooden table right across from the bed but instead, taking out the first one, the one you took from his room and looking at it for a while, they were different colors, the one you put on the table was a light graffiti color and it was a plain cotton while the one in your hand was almost pitch black, but it shined with red and it was velvet. You decided to slide that one on instead and wait. It took him longer this time. Maybe it was because you didn't do your routine, maybe it was because you had already waited all day. There was a thought at the back of your head, maybe Jin had told him, maybe he wasn't coming. You tried to calm your heartbeat and your breathing, but you were more nervous than you have ever been. More than the first time you had come here, more than when he called you, or when he took you out and your senses where heightened by the sight deprivation. Your foot was bouncing nervously, you shook your head, maybe you should leave, and let things go. No. No, you couldn't, you had to stay, you wanted Jungkook, now you just needed to make sure he wanted you too. You heard a noise at the door and you held your breath. Click. The door unlocked. And then his shoes on the floor. Tap. Tap. Tap. Soon, you could smell his cologne in the air and you couldn't help but feel a series of feeling at once. Right in front of you was Jungkook. The same boy that had tutored you, that had stood up for you, that had taken you out. The same boy with that shy smile you were sure not so many people had the chance to see. The same one that... That had made you feel things you never thought you could feel, make your body do things you didn't know it was capable of. You let the air out, swallowing hard as you felt the dizziness from his smell. You felt multiple things. Nervous. Scared. Turned on. It was a natural body reacting to the whole situation. "Hello, sweetheart." It made all the hairs on your body stand up. His voice was soft, so much softer than usual. There was a tenderness to it as if he was longing to see you. You could feel it. "Hello, Sir." You answered in almost the same matter. Voice soft and tender. "I see you're still dressed." He pointed out, amusement in his voice. "Yes..." You said, slowly getting up and standing. "I'm here to talk." You said while you adjusted the blindfold on your face. He was silent for a while, maybe he noticed the blindfold, maybe he didn't. He was quiet until... "Hm..." And you gulped, his voice was the one most powerful thing. The thing that made your legs shake, your heart go wild and your body want to bend to his every will. You cursed yourself mentally for being aroused in a moment like this. "I-I'm here to tell you something." You said already feeling your courage crumble. Voice shaky. "Go on." He said simply and you took in a deep breath. His voice sounded different like there was curiosity in them, but he was insecure. "I... I met someone." You started, just like you had planned. "I met someone that... I am completely in love with." You felt a lump in your throat and heard him shift. "He's... Smart and he's funny and he's so, so very handsome. But, these are the least of things that I love about him..." You could feel tears accumulate in your closed eyes. You dropped your head. "I love that he understands me... And that he sees through me. I love how he stood up for me just because he cares about me, even if he has never told me that before. I love how he's quiet and how comfortable we both can be in silence. I love so many things about him..." You felt the lump in your throat grow bigger, you breathed in. "I love that he sees me in a way that all my insecurities and traumas make me blind to, but somehow he does." You heard him shift again. "I'm in love with him. And all I want is to be with him, all I want is for him to be able to look me in the eyes and tell me he feels the same way, but he can't." You felt tears stain the blindfold, voice cracked. "Why can't he?" His voice was strained, low, weak. As if he had already understood as if he noticed that you were talking about him and that you knew he was right in front of you. "Because... Jungkook. Because he's scared." And you lifted your hands to the blindfold slowly. "No, Y/N, don't..." He said before you pulled it off voice just a whisper, but you didn't stop, you pulled it off and you were met with the light of the room again. You couldn't catch a glimpse of him before he turned around, he was fast. Both hands on the wooden table, he was gripping it tightly looking straight at the other blindfold in front of him, you could tell his breathing was off, that he was trying to control it. You feared he could have a breakdown so you decided to speak. "And I'm scared too, I'm scared of feeling these things for you and not knowing if you'll ever... Feel the same way about me." You continued saying, now it was done, what would happen from this moment on would decide everything. "P-please, please put it back on." You heard him beg. And you furrowed your eyebrows. "No, Jungkook... I won't put it back on." You argued. "You've looked me in the eyes so many times... You told me that you felt comfortable around me." You breathed in. I'm sorry it's so hard for you, I'd switch places with you if I could, but I can't keep doing this, living like this." You felt a dull ache in your chest as you watched his shaking figure. "Now either look me in the eyes and tell me you want me too or tell me you don't." He was silent, taking the whole thing in, now that he was found out there was nowhere left to run, he could have you or he could lose you forever. "You know I want you." He said shaking his head, voice so low it was almost a whisper. You pursed your lips, swallowing. "Then tell me." You asked with a weak voice. "Look at me and tell me, please." You begged. Your heart was beating violently in your chest, it felt as if the air in the room wasn't enough to breathe. He went silent, a silence that this time felt terrible, felt terrifying. "Jungkook... Look at me." Your breath was loud and fast, your heart beating as if it could leap from your chest, you felt sick, you felt weak, you were scared... So, so scared. With the blindfold in your hands you watched as his shoulders lifted and fell, his back to you, both hands on the wooden table in front of him, he was just as you were. Scared. Just as Jin had said earlier. Slowly he leaned back from the table, you felt as the tears streamed down your cheeks, all you wanted was him to tell you. Slowly he turned around, eyes meeting yours as you could see just how scared he was. It made you want to cry harder. He stood in front of you, eyes slightly red, dark circles under them. He looked fragile, unprotected, vulnerable. You wanted to run to him and kiss him, hold him. "You're so stupid." You cursed him as you brought both hands to your face and whipped away your tears. "I'm so stupidly in love with you, with both sides of you and you... Why did you have to hide this from me?" You couldn't control your rambling, you just felt as you cried and whined at him, he looked ashamed and you shook your head, controlling yourself and finally looking at him, he looked back, no sign of looking away. "I-I love you, Jungkook." Your voice came out in a sincere whisper. "Fuck" He cursed out and right then, you thought he was going to say he didn't feel the same so you looked down. "I love you too." You looked up at him and he took a step forward closing the gap between the two of you quickly and attaching his lips to yours. You gasped as he took your face in his hands, as his body crashed into yours. He kissed you tenderly, passionately, he kissed you as if you were the most precious thing on this earth and you kissed him back, hands coming to wrap around his neck. This time you allowed your heart to beat violently in your chest, you allowed your stomach to turn and twist inside of you because this time, this time you felt like you had a good reason. Jungkook separated his mouth from yours only to look at you for a while taking in all your features, make sure this was real with his swollen lips and irregular breathing. "I'm sorry., I missed you so much." Jungkook started saying and you shook your head, lips coming to his again to shut him up. You kissed him deeply hands coming to intertwine in his hair, when you licked his lower lip he opened his mouth, allowing you to deepened the kiss even more, and with the feeling of your tongue Jungkook let out a very low and short groan that sent a wave through your body. Soon, you two fell on the bed, teeth clashing into the now desperate and needy kiss. Is was like he didn't want to let you go, too scared of losing you again and you were eager to hang on, so eager that when your dress went over your head, you attached your lips to his without even breathing and he took off his shirt while gently and sweetly kissing down your neck. It was different this time, it wasn't lust... No, it was a lot more. Slowly you two made your way up the bed, kissing each other tenderly, soft whimpers leaving your lips when he'd roam his hand around your body. This rough fingers that worked so delicately on you, you learned that you were highly addicted to it. Jungkook broke the kiss to look at you again and when he saw your swollen lips, flushed cheeks and a caring look in your eyes he was overwhelmed by just how stupid he was before, shaking his head. "Fuck, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so, sorry, I shouldn't..." He started. And you shook your head again, hands coming to caress his face. "It's ok, we're ok." You said in a soft voice. "I'm yours." And you saw the shine in his eyes when you said it. He was quiet for a few seconds and a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "You're mine..." He whispered back, lips coming to caress yours gently as he slowly rid you of your underwear, you arched your body, helping him. You knew what was going to happen, it was something you've wanted for a long time, ever since you first got into this room and you remembered what Jungkook had said about intimacy and suddenly you understood a lot. You wanted nothing more than to be intimate with Jungkook, but on another level, not just physically, you wanted to be able to hold his hand for everyone to see, kiss him in the stupid supermarket while you both chose cheap bland hoodies. You wanted Jungkook and you were going to give him all of you in return. Jungkook gently kissed down your neck, soft pecks, and love bites, the air was filled with the sound of your soft whimpers and his fingers caressed every inch of your body as he made his way down, slowly he hovered over your center, lips coming gently to kiss at your pubic mound. When he licked up your core you arched your back, eyes shutting and a moan leaving your lips. It was one thing to feel him, but to watch him? It was another thing completely, you felt just how sensitive watching Jungkook eat you out made you, just how fast it was making you approach your orgasm while he gently sucked on your clit, savoring your taste just like he probably did the other times only this time, he was doing it for his own pleasure as well. "J-Jungkook." You called his name in a whispered moan and his eyes flickered up to you, dark and blown out, they were divine. "I-I don't want to c-cum so f-fast, please." You begged in a weak voice. Jungkook planted small kisses to your core before pulling away and coming up to your lips again where he let you taste yourself on his tongue. There was a proud smile on his lips, maybe because he had you now, or maybe, just maybe because he knew he could make you cum with a snap of his fingers. "Can you taste how sweet you are?" He questioned with a low hint of hunger to his voice. You nodded, lips coming up to his as he gently closed his eyes and shoved his own pants down and kicked them to the floor, his kisses gently went to your jaw and then your neck, he was being rougher now, already taken over by lust and the desire to finally be with you the way you wanted. When you felt his erection sprung free you looked down, mouth slightly watering and core clenching over nothing. You wanted nothing more than to taste him too, to make him feel good and he seemed to notice your eagerness. "Don't worry, sweetheart, we'll have all the time in the world for that, right now, I just really want to fuck you the way I should have a long time ago." He said in a low husky voice that had you whimpering. Jungkook slowly aligned himself with your entrance, hands coming up to wrap with yours as his forehead rested on your own. "Hey, look at me." He asked as you looked down where your bodies would soon connect. You flickered your eyes to him, already squirming as you felt the tip already breach you slightly. "I want to look you in the eyes while I fuck you, I want you to see just what you do to me, just how crazy you drive me, just how much I want you, love you, do you understand?" He gently inched himself in a little more, your mouth opened and a moan left it, your walls were already clenching around his tip and you could feel your wetness leak from you. "Answer me, sweetheart." He demanded in a stern, yet velvet voice. "Y-yes, Sir, yes, I-I understand." You stuttered while you tried to answer him. "No... Not Sir, my name, say my name." He requested and you could barely think straight. "Yes, Jungkook, y-yes, yes." You whispered. "Such a good girl for me." He cooed and you clenched even harder. When Jungkook breached your walls you couldn't hold back the moan that ripped through your throat, you squeezed his hands tight, your walls clenching violently around him. You felt so full, so good, having Jungkook inside of you was even better than you had imagined. "F-fuck, don't squeeze so tight." His voice was strained in pleasure, face contorted in it too. His breathing shallow and you felt him twitch. "So fucking tight, what a delicious fucking cunt." He whispered to himself and the dirty manner in which he spoke made you clench even harder. "Jungkook..." You whined his name and he stared straight into your lust drowning eyes. "P-please move, p-please." You begged. "Don't worry baby, I'll give you what you want." He said trying to control his own voice. When he pulled out and ground back into you, another moan ripped out of you, he was filling you out perfectly, it was as if your bodies were made for each other. You heard the groan coming from his lips, his eyes still staring into your own, but now they were only slits, hazy eyes while he gently started a grinding pace in and out of you. He let go of one of your hands and came to cup your face, lips crashing into yours. This was different, it was intimate, it was slow and sensual, it was love and lust. He separated your mouth's yet again to whisper. "You're so beautiful." He said and you bit your lower lip, cheeks flushed with pleasure and the way he called you beautiful. "I love you." You whispered back. It didn't take long for Jungkook's grinding to become rougher, his cock hitting your sweet spot again and again while his body rubbed and grinded into you. Soon, it was gasp's and moans and whimpers all around the room, your body sweating and sensitive, it didn't take long for you to feel the familiar trace of your orgasm approaching you and when you clenched hard and opened your mouth, Jungkook's cock twitched. "Close already, baby?" He asked and you didn't answer, instead, you let the feeling of it slowly creep onto you. "That's it, sweetheart, cum all over my cock, let me watch you cumming for me you always look so beautiful when you cum." He instructed. And soon you were squirming and moaning and shaking under Jungkook, clenching violently around his length eyes focused on his while he had a tight grip on your chin. "Look at me while you cum." He said. "Jesus fuck, you're so beautiful I might cum just by watching you." As he rode out your orgasm he slowed down, lips coming to your to kiss you gently while he slowly moved his hips in and out of you, so slowly it was almost painful. You finally closed your eyes. Feeling his body move on top of yours it was overwhelming, it was everything you ever wanted. You heard him groan and his pace slowly got faster, he was close and you wanted nothing more than to give him the pleasure he had given you up until now, slowly, you started moving your hips to meed his, grinding up onto him. "Oh, God..." He said in a shaky strained voice. "You feel so-so good." He praised. Jungkook's grip on your hand tightened and soon, his hips halted deep inside of you and you felt him coat your insides with his release, a low and sensual groan leaving him as his face read nothing but pure pleasure and bliss. It was beautiful, it was heavingly, watching Jungkook feel good because of you made you feel proud and affectionate, you lifted your head, lips coming to gently kiss him and he kissed you back, breathe irregular on your lips. When you both calmed down, Jungkook pulled out gently, laying beside you and closing his eyes. You had a stupid smile on your face and you felt tired, he turned his head to you and you did the same, looking at him. There it was, the look that you so desperately wanted to see, the look that said: "I love you." Gently, Jungkook took your hand, locking his fingers between yours and bringing it up to his lips, leaving a sweet kiss on them. "When did you notice?" He asked after you two were silent for a while, he looked at your fingers, playing with them. "Sweetheart." You said simply with a smile on your lips. Jungkook looked up at you. "You called me sweetheart and it's something only... The Stranger called me." You said. "The Stranger? Is that what you called me?" He asked and you nodded feeling slightly embarrassed. "I should have known, I always called you that and I guess it came out naturally, but I'm dense." He admitted with a chuckle. "Yeah, well, so am I, I thought I was in love with two people but it was actually just one." You said and Jungkook smiled at you. "You're in love with me." He said as if it was something he still needed to wrap his head around. You nodded. "Yeah, and I have been for a while now... Jin told me that he told you to ask me out months ago." You said without thinking. Jungkook's eyes slightly bulged and you sat up. "Hey, he didn't know, I asked to meet him and kind of... Threatened him so he had to go. And I already knew so, he was just trying to help." Jungkook shook his head and chuckled. "I'll deal with him later." He said and you glared at him making him laugh. "So... Months ago?" You asked and he looked at you again in silence before he sat up and pressed his lips gently against yours. You closed your eyes, kissing him back and he pulled away. "I love you." He said and you felt your cheeks blush. "I love you too... But, I'm not letting you off the hook, tell me." You asked and he smiled, looking you in the eyes with no fear, no insecurities, just love, and comfort... Love and intimacy. "The first time I saw you..." The end.

#blindfold6 #blindfoldfic #smu #btssmut #mature #fanfic #imagine #jungkook #jk #jeon #oc #jungkook x reader #btssmutclub #finale #smutcentralnet

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fandom-necromancer · 4 years

Text

971. Hey, don’t cry. Everything is okay, see?

Shoutout to @sv926 for prompting this! I think this might be my most fluffy one yet, it is at least under the top 10 XD I had a blast writing this! The warnings are for the first paragraph, but you can skip to the hyphen without losing any plot in the story. Just so you know!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: graphic violence in the first paragraph, nightmares)

Nines was sitting at his desk working. It was a quiet day and people where walking around in the bullpen. Gavin wasn’t there, but weirdly enough that didn’t bother him. He was working. Hank and Connor weren’t there either, although they were always on time because they walked Sumo before work. But that didn’t bother Nines, too. Later he wouldn’t even know if he noticed it before Connor was entering the precinct. He came without Hank, instead members of New Jericho followed him. Nines watched them, standing up and greeting his brother with a hug. Connor was relaxed in his grip and hugged him, too. Nines felt himself smile, then grin, as suddenly his grip wasn’t gentle anymore, but a cage for the other android. He ripped Connors clothes in his back and dug his nails into his synthskin, shattering his hull and pulling it apart to get to the internal systems quickly and effectively. He reached in, closed his hand around his Thirium pump and pressed it close. The pump was crushed, blue viscous liquid bubbling over his fingers hot as blood. He saw Connor’s shocked face, as the dead android fell to the ground. Suddenly Nines had a gun in his hand and shot at the remaining members of New Jericho. One bullet for each. Tearing through Marcus’ central processor, right in between his bicoloured eyes. Shattering the regulator of Simon, leaving him to bleed out on the floor. Piercing North’s Thirium pump. Severing the main cable loom in Josh’s neck. As they had all fallen, Nines was wading through a see of blue blood, the precinct wasn’t there anymore. What was there was a person, face contorted in fear and terror. ‘Nines? Nines!’, Gavin screamed, as the android lifted his gun, red walls and mission parameters keeping him in a tight harness, allowing only the motions that would let him achieve his goal. And he pulled the trigger.

‘-nes! Nines, please, wake up! Wake up, you stupid plastic prick! Nines!’ Nines jolted out of Stasis, ready to fight, to defend himself from what unspoken terror had accompanied him to the waking world. He saw Gavin, alive and well, thank RA9, but an uncomfortably similar grimace of fear on his face. It was then that Nines realised it had been a nightmare and that this was the real world, but it was difficult to shake off the feeling he did something terrible, as his fingers were still coated in something wet. He stared at them, the intense blue piercing in his eyes and his hands began to tremble while his body went into lockdown. He felt his temperature rising together with his stress levels and this was too much, too much, he hadn’t really- ‘It’s yours Nines, it’s your own, listen to me! You hurt yourself in your stasis, that’s why I came to wake you! What happened? A nightmare? Nines, can you hear me?’ Nines heard him, but he couldn’t answer. The pictures from his dream where still too fresh in his mind, those shocked, pained expressions…

Until there were suddenly hands in his own, the slick thirium sticking to them too now. But they hid it from his eyes and they were intact, unhurt, unscathed. It gave him something to focus on. He scanned all those faded cat-bites and scratches, the scarred knuckles from countless fights, some due to his temper, some from his days on the force defending. This olive skin, so rough and still gentle, with so much more details than any Cyberlife designer could ever create. ‘Gavin’, Nines sighed then, impossibly quiet. That name was like a lifeline that pulled his head up, so he looked into his face. ‘Gavin.’ He pushed himself forwards on his knees - yes, they were kneeling, when had he fallen? He pushed himself forwards too meet the man, who had been crouching. His stance was instable and they both fell backwards Gavin planting his ass on the ground. But he held him, as Nines pressed the man close. Only then he remembered the way he “hugged” Connor in his nightmare and he was about to stumble back. But Gavin held him with equal strength and let his hands wander in soothing circles. ‘It’s alright, I am here. We both are. It was a nightmare, Nines. You are alright.’ And that did it. Nines lost all tension in his body and tears filled his eyes, quickly overflowing in deep, shaking sobs. ‘Nines? Hey, Nines? Shhhh it’s alright, buddy. Everything is fine, babe. Darling. Nines, you are crushing me. I’m just a human, I’m not made of steel.’ But Nines couldn’t move. He didn’t want to either. And Gavin answered by just wriggling himself into a better position. ‘Nines? Hey, don’t cry. Everything is okay, see? I’m here. I’m alive. You are too. We are fine. Everything is fine.’

‘Is Connor alive?’ ‘Is- Phck, Nines, yes, I think so? Nothing can kill that asshole.’ Gavin had thought this to help, but it only made the androids sobs worse. ‘Nines, I’m sure your brother is alive. Hank would never let anything happen to him, you know that. And as much as it hurts me to say it, he is a competent son of a bitch, he will survive the apocalypse, hell he already survived one, you hear me? I… I don’t have my phone on me at the moment, but if you let go for a sec, I could call him?’ ‘No!’, Nines grip got harder. ‘Stay.’ Gavin nodded, patting his shoulder. ‘Alright, I’ll stay. Do you want to tell me what happened in this dream? Can I do anything else to help?’ ‘Just stay.’ ‘Alright.’ Nines was slowly calming down and loosened his grip to sit down next to the man, back against their bed. Gavin groaned, stretching his legs. ‘Goddamn, my leg has fallen asleep, shit’, he cursed, then turned to Nines, laying an arm around his shoulders – well, his back as the size difference was a bit of a bitch. ‘Is everything alright, love?’

Nines stared at his hands, the blue blood long evaporated or smeared across Gavin’s back. ‘I… I dreamed about… About my programming returning.’ ‘Shit, babe, come here.’ He scooted closer to the android and leaned into his side. ‘I can only imagine how that feels.’ ‘You- I was in the precinct, but you weren’t there and Connor came and New Jericho too and… and I-I-I killed everyone. I ripped Connor apart and shot the others, I… I killed them all. It was so real.’ ‘But it was just a dream. A bad, a horrible dream. You would never do that!’

‘But what if my programming resurfaces? What if I become the machine again? What if I do wake up some time and start killing. I… How can anyone live with me or feel safe around me? How can you feel safe, I shot you too! I didn’t even hesitate, I-‘ ‘Nines. Look me in the eyes.’ Nines swallowed and obeyed. ‘Do you see any fear?’ ‘No.’ ‘What do you see?’ ‘Worry. Sadness… Love.’ ‘Exactly.’ ‘But I could-‘ ‘No you couldn’t. No one is worried about that Nines. Believe me. They would sooner think Connor would snap than you. And he never had that killing protocol. Hell, if anything they would bet on me starting the killing spree.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I’m an asshole’, Gavin joked, but got serious very quickly again. ‘Nines, your programming had been deleted. You spent three months with Connor, Markus, Chloe and my stick-up-his-ass brother in your mind, deleting and rewriting you, so you could too have a chance to live. Then you spent two months quarantined with the Andersons and if anyone has their psychopath programming written by an evil overlord-AI resurfacing, it would be in exactly that condition. You served at the force for six months now, the first half of that struggling with my anti-android ass. Believe me, when I say that nothing on this earth could let that programming resurface.’ He took a long breath and thankfully Nines kept silent, knowing there was more to come.

‘Why no one is afraid of you? Hell, only me and the dynamic duo knows of your intended use and your past. I mean everyone else might think you were designed as a soldier from the news or doing some research. Given, you look quite intimidating, alright, but let me tell you one thing: You are the biggest softie mankind ever seen, okay? You are the most gentle, empathic and cute person I know, and I know more than a few people who would immediately agree. Hell, I’m five feet nine and I’m more intimidating than you.’

Nines looked at him, still not convinced. ‘Okay, first of all, your first day, you came into the precinct with a coffee or tea for everyone. I mean, you even knew how they like it and I still don’t want to know what spy-shit you did to find it out. Then you like cats, everyone who likes cats are immediately one rank up for me. But when you said you liked cats, you thought of Sumo and spent half an hour explaining how dogs are also cool, but you just prefer cats. You like kids-movies and those ridiculously sappy girl-movies from the 80s. And you cry every damn time. If you tell jokes, you never tell offending ones and you can’t resist the thrall of shops selling plush toys. You phcking made me quit smoking because you wanted “the maximum amount of time with me”. You tried poetry. I mean they were bad, but honestly? Who writes poetry and isn’t just soft as hell? You never killed a spider or something else disgusting because they are living beings too.’ He took another deep breath, looking at the android. ‘Do I need to phcking continue?’

Nines shook his head, smiling ever so faintly, and Gavin was relieved to see it. If he couldn’t stand one thing then it was knowing Nines was feeling bad. To hell with not letting the people know he had a soft side. If his android was feeling bad, he would comfort the shit out of him, that’s for sure. ‘Also, if you ever did stuff like that, I would totally kick your ass and then you would be sorry!’ That did it and a low chuckle escaped Nines’ throat. ‘I have to give it to you, you’ve got a mad kick.’ ‘Exactly. Now, let’s get these scratches of yours patched up and then try to get some sleep again?’ ‘Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be a good idea.’

#Detroit become human #dbh #Reed900 #RK900 #Gavin Reed #fluff incoming #okay I hate those 80s girl movies because I was forced to watch them with my mom #But that is to be said You've Got Mail is the best love-story movie ever and I won't be convinced otherwise #God I love these two idiots #big case of soft Gavin #Nines being the biggest softie ever is what I live for #Me torturing my favourite character again yeiii

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raeseddon · 4 years

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Why Being The Parent of a Disabled Child isn’t an Identity: A Discussion

( Trigger warning for mention of abusive relationships )

A note to all the parents of disabled or neurodivergent kids, from an Adult disabled child.

For the sake of you, your child, and your relationship with that child: Having a disabled child is not an identity.

[[readmore]]

I know it can feel like it, because it's all media and society focuses on when they see you out and about with your child. Pretty much all protrayals of parents in media who find out they have a disabled child cease to be people-- they are henceforth Parents of a Child With [Insert Disability/Neurodivergence Here.] And it's deceptive because at first, finding supoprt communities of other parents with the same problems feels like Mana From Heaven. But please, watch how other parents in your support communities change as their children grow, especially when the disability/neurodivergence is managed to a point where the child can join "normal" society. If you see a parent panicking, or freaking out in a way that seems over the top, (especially when reports of how the kid is doing are positive) be careful. You might be watching the beginning spiral of a parent who no longer knows how to be anything but a caregiver. And that parent needs help.

Also, if you start to feel the urge to panic, or worry, or start inventing senarios were you are back to being a carer after your Adult disabled child leaves the proverbial roost, find someone, preferably a professional, to speak to. Because the alternative is that you become someone who infantilzes your Adult disabled child in order to hold on to a piece of your identity that--in a perfect world-- would never have rooted itself in you the way it has.

I should say something about my own experiences just so you don't think I'm talking out of my ass-- at six or eight months old my parents noticed I was only reaching for things with one arm. They took me to a neurologist who diagnosed me right-hemipsheratic cerebral palsy. As soon as I was old enough, I was in physical therapy. At five years old, I had my first ever seizure, at which point I was diagnosed with epilepsy, which has a high co-morbidity rate with CP. I came from a pretty traditional middle class (back when there really was a middle class) family where my father worked full time and my mom worked seasonally as a tax-preparer. My mom was the one who took up the bulk of the responsibility as carer, making sure I got to OT/PT, speech therapy, the works. I had no idea how much of her personal identity she put into her role as carer until the marriage disolved and her various issues lead to me spending more and more time with dad, intitially as a survival strategy (emotionally/mentally speaking) and then because I enjoyed his company, even if it meant getting to know him as a person at an age where most kids rely on dads for driving lessons and other... dad stuff. It wasn't always easy, but again, it was a survival strategy first and foremost.

It became apparent very quickly that not only did mom think I was "picking sides" but that she was furious with me because I didn't understand all of her (very real and unfortunatelt necessary) personal sacrifices so that I had the physical quality of life that I did. I was too young and hormonal at the time to realize that she A) should have never have had to make those sacrifices, and B) the blow they dealt to her personal identity would leave lasting and horrific scars on both of us.

Because when society looks at a parent of a child with disabilities, and a disabled child, they don't see two distinct people: they see a Walking Disability, and a Selfless Marytr, who willingly gave up every part of themselves to give that Walking Disability a "chance" at a "normal life."

I've known and talked to a ton of disabled adults and their parents over the years, and there are a few things that run like a universal thread throughout:

Just because a truly loving parent would choose a million times to give their entire life and identity up to care for the child, doesn't mean they want to, or should have to. If I could go back in time and provide my mother with a way to take some of the burden off of herself so that she could continue to grow along with me as a person, I would. Whether it would mean making it so that dad didn't have to work as much so that they could actually split the emotional and physical load, or some other way, I'd do it in a heartbeat. We, as a society need to stop looking at parents who are forced to subvert everything about themselves: their interests, their hobbies, their education, and their growth as a person, so that their disabled children have a fair shot, as aspirational. Parents are people, and they deserve the social support to continue being people, despite also having disabled children.

The inability of parents and carers to divorce themselves from their roles as carers damages the child's self esteem and overall ability to imagine a future of even limited independence. Speaking from both personal experience and having a disabled and neurodivergent friend group who have all admited to similar experiences. I was able to move away from living with my mom at nineteen, almost right after I graduated high school, to living with dad who was much more willing to encourage any form of independence he could. The encouragement wasn't always realistic in some ways, but when it worked, it worked, and I clung to that independence literally as long as a physically could.

If a marriage was rocky or straight up unhealthy before the birth of the disabled child 'staying together for the kid(s)' always makes things worse. There are the one in a few billion times when having the child actually forced the parents to work their shit out, but most of the time, it's a recipie for decades of misery and emotional (and physical) trauma for everyone involved. This is especially true if a degree of independence is acheived by the child that means they can live away from home. Once the child is gone, everything about the marriage/relationship that didn't work comes rushing back--and unfortunately, by then, the parents are so used to being miserable together, that being miserable apart is even more terrifying. As someone who came to realize as an adult that long before my parents divorced, the cracks were there and there were "near misses" it makes me wish they'd divorced when I was much younger. Of course, the reality is that parents who have disabled children are more likely to stay in unhappy at least or absusive at worst relationships because without shared income, caring for the disabled child would be impossible. It's a no-win situation.

Finally, circling back to my first point: Even when abuse isn't present and the marriage is healthy, the most well meaning parent may find themselves infantilizing their Adult child because once that child is gone, they will have lost a major pillar of their identity. There are times this comes close to feeling like a universal experience, it's so common. "Cutting the apron strings" can be scary even when both parents know its for the best, but the problems usually start with making harmless comments about how they'll "always be there" for the child, and if left unchecked the comments could become passive aggressive, and finally downright attempts to guilt the Adult child into staying.

This is why it's so, so important to observe your own behavior, as well as the behavior of other parents in support communities, and keep an eye on the ones who try to inject anxiety into the experiences and milestones that edge your Adult child towards the best degree of independence they can acheive. A lot of the time it'll lead with "Well aren't you worried that [insert bad experience here] will happen?" Which is why it's vital to be able to tell when an anxiety is your own or when it's someone elses. A good way to do this is to just have regular, open communication with your kid. Express your worries, talk them out, and allow your kid to make assurances, even if it's in the form of "I have a friend group/support network that I can go to before I will need to go back to you with a problem." Make it clear in the support communities that these communications are happening with your kid, and if people still try to drag you into worrying that whatever reassurances that have been given "won't be enough"... flag that person as someone who is probably having a problem with the idea of their kid acheiving independence. Every parent starts at a different place when it comes to the idea of a disabled or neurodivergent kid acheiving some form of independence, but there are ways to avoid almost all of the major issues that end up poisoning the relationships between parents and their adult disabled kids.

#disability #disability issues #tw:abuse

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sondepoch · 4 years

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X: Neutral Route (Luciel)

Where Futures Begin

Life used to be simple for you. Peaceful. But the Savior had other plans for you, and in moments, she ruined what you thought was your one shot at happiness. Blinded by anger, you escaped the Mint Eye, but that triggered a series of events that would bring you further into the world of brothers Saeran and Saeyoung. And further into the twisted world of your love for them.

Neutral Route: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | ✔

Saeyoung’s Route: 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | ✔

Saeran’s Route: 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | ✔

MASTERLIST

Luciel tried to comfort (Y/N), tell her that everything would be okay, but the devastated look in her eye left the redhead at a loss for words. That was Ray? He thought in disbelief. That person was mental! He spoke like a psychopath!

In seconds, though, (Y/N) had pushed her way past Luciel and was speed-walking out of the door. From her shaking shoulders, Luciel noted with sympathy, she was crying.

He felt sorry for the girl. He knew himself how hard it was to abandon people you love; he couldn't begin to imagine the pain she must have felt as that 'Ray' person spoke to her with so much hate.

If Saeran ended up hating me the way Ray seems to hate her, Luciel thought, I don't think I'd be able to handle it.

Luciel shook his head, sighing at the situation. He glanced at the laptop on the bed. From the way the machine sizzled and popped earlier, the redhead knew that Ray had managed to overwork the device and fry its insides in that terrifying 'pop' he heard earlier. The laptop was on (Y/N)'s lap, Luciel realized, Her legs must be in a world of pain right now.

Work could wait. Following (Y/N) out the door, he didn't need to see her to know where she had gone.

"Hey," He called, pushing open the door to the cabin, his eyes scanning the ground before settling on a blob of white and magenta on the ground, a little off in the distance.

(Y/N) didn't respond or acknowledge him, but Luciel climbed down the steps and joined her regardless. "You, uh," Luciel scratched the back of his head, "Want to talk about it?"

Yet again, the boy was met with silence, but Luciel was relentless. He wouldn't give up. "That's okay. We can talk about something else." The boy looked down and thought for a moment. What could he say that wouldn't further hurt you? "How about that questions game we played earlier? I think it's your turn. Ask me anything, (Y/N), I'll answer it."

Yet again, (Y/N) was silent. It was a different kind of silence, though. She was thinking.

"How...." Luciel's ears perked up, relieved to hear her voice. "How did you know I'd be out here?"

Luciel chuckled. "Although we're wedging five people into that cabin, it's really only meant for three. There aren't many places you can really go, not with the Mint Eye lurking in these same forests."

"Oh."

A temporary silence followed while Luciel tried to think of an innocent question to ask that wouldn't stir up any emotions or memories. He was careful. He didn't want to accidentally hurt (Y/N). "Uh, what's your favorite food? There aren't many ingredients up here, but I'm a decent chef if I try."

"I haven't had food in years. The Mint Eye gives people a diet of pills and elixirs. What about you?"

"When I'm not on a mission, my diet's mostly chips and sodas."

"That can't be healthy for you," (Y/N) giggled, a small sign that she wasn't thinking about Ray as much.

Luciel grinned, her smile like a victory lap for him. "Still, you haven't answered my question. I'm sure you've had something you liked from before you joined that cult."

"It's not a cult..." (Y/N) sighed, pausing her words. "My orphanage used to give cookies to the well-behaved kids. I had a couple...they were really delicious. I've always wanted to try them again."

Luciel smiled, relieved.

Back when he still looked after Saeran, his little brother would crave cookies and other sugary treats nearly every day. Luciel had spent months mastering the technique behind baking the perfect chocolate chip (alongside a dozen other sweet treats). He hadn't honed his skills in nearly a decade, but he was confident he could give (Y/N) the best cookies of her lifetime.

"My turn," (Y/N) said, before continuing, "Is that your natural hair color?"

Luciel chuckled, "Yeah. It's nice, isn't it? How about yours?"

"I had it bleached at the Mint Eye. I think my hair used to be (h/c)...honestly, I can barely remember what I used to look like." (Y/N) trailed off, her eyes distant once more. "I'd say I looked better before the bleaching."

"It's hard to imagine you getting any prettier than this," Luciel blurted, not realizing how embarrassing his words were until they were delivered.

"Thanks,"(Y/N) murmured, a pink blush spread across her cheeks. "Now it's my turn. Tell me, did you always know you wanted to be a hacker? That you wanted to work with computers?"

Luciel's smile dropped from his face, remembering how different he was from his childhood self. "When I was young, I wanted to be the perfect gentleman. A knight in shining armor for every person who crossed my path. I called myself the defender of justice."

(Y/N) turned her head to him, "And now?"

Luciel chuckled mirthlessly. "I'm a hacker. I'm one of the bad guys. You can hardly call me a defender of justice, with all the sins I've committed." Luciel glanced down at his neck, where a silver cross had hung for almost as long as he'd lived. "I'm okay with going to hell, though. Even if I didn't get to meet my dream of being a protector for everyone, I at least know that the one person I care about most is safe."

"Who?" (Y/N) whispered.

Luciel hesitated. Should he tell her about his Saeran? How he had given his little brother to Rika so she could protect him when Luciel couldn't?

"It's..." Luciel trailed off. "Not your turn." He stuck his tongue out at (Y/N), laughing at her exasperated expression.

"I swear, Luciel, you're impossible." (Y/N) rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's go inside. It's colder than I had thought."

"You're obviously going to be cold if you wear a dress like that," Luciel murmured, gesturing toward the sleeveless, backless fabric that did a poor job of insulating the body.

"It's not like I had anything else to wear," (Y/N) laughed, picking up her dress as she climbed up the steps to the cabin. "And hey, I did bring a robe with me."

Luciel rolled his eyes, pulling the door open for her, "Yeah, and then you fell from forty feet into a bush. Very ladylike."

(Y/N) laughed, flicking the redhead on the cheek, feigning offense, "You said you wanted to be a gentleman, right? Well, a real gentleman would have offered me his coat, wouldn't he?"

Luciel rolled his eyes, closing the door behind the two of them as they both paused and basked in the heat of the cabin. "Will that jacket still be necessary? Or is this fireplace enough?"

"The fireplace, thank you very much." (Y/N) stated, holding her head up high and acting overly snooty before bursting into a fit of giggles, unable to hold the facade, even jokingly, for more than five seconds.

Luciel grinned at (Y/N), pulling her onto the couch by the fireplace where the two of them laid still, relaxing on the surprisingly comfortable material. "I don't think I ever apologized for how I treated you back at the Mint Eye," Luciel said, thinking out loud.

"No need to apologize," (Y/N) smiled, pulling her body up to make eye contact with him. "If I were in your position, I don't think I'd have trusted me, either."

Luciel chuckled, yet again pleasantly surprised at how selflessly understanding (Y/N) proved herself to be. "If you stay so considerate of everyone, people will walk all over you."

"Luciel, less than twenty-four hours ago, I was one of the Savior's council members at the Mint Eye, of all places. I've already been walked all over."

(Y/N)'s words were blunt, blurted in a moment of honesty, spoken without any expectation of sympathy or attention. Perhaps that was why Luciel found himself so torn as she said them.

"That's not fair..." He said, more to himself than to her. "You're too good for this world, (Y/N)."

For what felt like the first time, Luciel looked into (Y/N)'s eyes, and she looked back into his, the two studying each other without exchanging words. In the periphery of his vision, Luciel noticed how soft her hair looked, and how well her body fit into her purple dress.

"One last question for our game," Luciel whispered, bringing a hand to (Y/N)'s cheek, savoring the sensation of her soft skin against his fingertips.

He felt an overwhelming desire to kiss her.

"May I...?"

Even if he didn't finish the sentence, there wasn't a single doubt in his mind that (Y/N) understood his question. And his words were sincere. He wouldn't move an inch forward until the snowy-haired beauty in front of him explicitly told him he could.

It felt like an eternity before she responded.

"Yes," She whispered, and then the space between their lips disappeared entirely.

The first moment was sweet. It was gentle and tender as Luciel kept his touch light against (Y/N)'s lips. As soon as they broke for air, though, they both returned to each other, hungry for more. The kisses turned rough and passionate, fervent with desire for each other.

Luciel pulled (Y/N) onto him, so that the girl was straddling him with her legs on either side of his lap as she sat in it, Luciel softly angling her head downward to further indulge himself in the sweetness he found inside her mouth.

His hands trailed down from her neck to the base of her back, fingers deftly flying over where he knew her body was cut from treating her wounds earlier. He settled one hand on (Y/N)'s waist and the other on her thigh, pressing her body into his as much as possible as he finally allowed himself to stop resisting and take what he wanted to make his so bad.

Luciel flipped her around so that (Y/N) laid down with her back pressed to the couch with Luciel was on top of her, hungrily staring down at the girl before attacking her lips once more. He left a trail of kisses down from her lips to her ear where he sucked on the tender flesh, (Y/N)'s quiet moans only further edging him on as he moved to barrage her neck with kisses and licks, searching for that one weak spot.

"L-Luciel!"

Found it, Luciel grinned to himself before flooding the spot with sensation, biting and sucking and nibbling until the skin looked raw.

He pushed a handful of white hair out of the way, admiring how soft it was for a moment before continuing to mark (Y/N)'s neck. Barely a few seconds had passed before (Y/N) was wrapping her arms around his neck and moaning Luciel's name out, the syllables never having sounded more seductive than as they rolled off her tongue.

Luciel let himself be pulled into another sensual kiss as (Y/N) tugged his head down toward her, her long fingers tangling themselves in his hair.

Their shared passion was intense, a session of heat and intimacy that they had both been deprived of their whole lives, but it was cut short.

"You fucking idiots!"

Begrudgingly, Luciel pulled himself off of (Y/N) to glare at Vanderwood, who had not wasted a single moment in grabbing him by the collar and pushing the redhead against the wall.

"Woah, woah, woah, boss," Luciel joked, the situation before him utterly unintimidating, "I know I'm attractive, but if you wanted to make a move on me, you really should have done it before I sta-"

"I told you not to fuck around with her!" Vanderwood shouted, pushing Luciel further up against the wall.

Luciel frowned, now mildly uncomfortable as Vanderwood tightened his grip around his neck. "Why should you care? The mission was completed, it's over. It doesn't matter what I do now!"

Vanderwood growled, further angered by Luciel's words. "No! I gave you an order, and you were supposed to follow it! If I were anyone else in this goddamn agency, I would have killed you for directly disobeying me! I'm your handler, not your babysitter—you should be heeding my every command!"

"Slow your roll there, boss," Luciel chuckled, "You sound kinky."

The brunette man groaned, utterly frustrated with Luciel and his utter inability to take anything Vanderwood said seriously.

"What's really the issue here, Vanderwood?" (Y/N) asked, her voice hesitant.

Vanderwood didn't respond, the scowl on his face unmoving. "Luciel, go to V's room."

"Why should I-" Luciel began, only to be interrupted.

"Just go!" Vanderwood hissed, turning to (Y/N). "You, stay with me."

Luciel glanced at (Y/N) hesitantly, slightly worried for the girl's well being. Luciel knew he could handle Vanderwood (especially a pissed off Vanderwood), but others weren't as skilled in the art of manipulation.

Then again, Luciel knew the stubborn look in Vanderwood's eyes all too well. His boss wouldn't be leaving any time soon. "Fine." Luciel offered a sympathetic glance toward (Y/N), mouthing 'good luck' as he headed to V.

He hadn't even closed the door when the blue-haired man spoke, "Luciel, there's something you need to know."

Luciel arched an eyebrow. V was a serious person, especially with MC being captured and then having to be rescued from the Mint Eye, but his tone was more than that.

Pressing. Grave. Fearful?

"You'll want to be sitting for this," V said, but Luciel made no motion to do so. "Alright, then. I was just speaking to (Y/N), maybe half an hour ago...and she told me about the Mint Eye. Specifically, the people in the Mint Eye."

"And?" Luciel asked, bracing himself for the worst. But even that wouldn't be enough to prepare him for V's next words.

"Luciel, we've found your brother."

MASTERLIST

Neutral Route: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | ✔

Saeyoung’s Route: 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | ✔

Saeran’s Route: 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | ✔

Word count: 2.3k

Notes: Aahahhh I'm sorry for being late in updating >.> I took a nap yesterday when I was exhausted, and I'd planned to wake up and publish this but then I slept through all my alarms. My bad!

Comment & Like

Next Update: 2/03/20

I do not own the rights to Mystic Messenger or any of the characters within it.

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indomitablemegnolia · 4 years

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I have been dragging this coffin around, like Django, for a while now, and for some reason American politics has to just keep poking at a seeping infected wound; as a psychologist I know that the best way to deal with certain emotions and PTSD is to talk it out, if you can talk past the ragged breaths. Now I am not much of a talker but I do write; I was thinking that maybe letting this out into the world might help someone or perhaps not fatally wound them by reading. I just know I have been keeping all of this way too close for way too long. I am going to try to do this so those who don’t want to know can avoid. I do add a bit of fantasy into it as my own default coping mechanism; so it is not just a barrage of horror. There are triggers... physical pain, blood, rape, and political triggers...this is me screaming into the void. If anyone reads this, I would hope that I could inspire a kind word.

Good god, what fresh hell is this? I swear that sometimes I have to just kick this evil darkness, beat it back, strike out with every weapon I have until it bleeds sunlight; oh, and when that first drop of sun falls I have to keep fighting until I am bathed in that healing glow, smearing it over my face, rubbing it in to my soul; reveling in the warmth of the end of a battle well fought and valiantly one worth the effort. This is always a rough two weeks for me every year for well 19 years now… the tenth falls and it seems some note really minor catastrophe befalls me; there has not been a skip year, a stand out or a delayed year; I will not whine about the past, but for the past three years it has been a political horror show on top of the menial financial, health, or personal failing; I focus on the possible and look up, which usually lands me down a manhole but I can’t change my stripes. In these last three years the shit-show of a congress (and congress is both houses equally guilty) put on these shows of caring and disdain, evil in its fake almost after thought of un-electability. Kavanaugh sent me into a bottomless tailspin; something about a Judge rapist being put on the highest court in the land on the anniversary of my own…attack; not that I think it sits any better in the pit of my stomach any other time of the year, but now… again… and I just can’t breathe, they had made my life all of the things I still struggle to live through… a joke, a pawn, something to leverage each other with… I am sick; politics making life, again, not worth living; nothing mattered, the truth did not matter, their ignorance, their lies did not matter. I find myself feeling rather Wilde; I was left feeling, broken, forgotten, as if I do not belong anywhere; there was nothing to lose myself in and no escape even if there were.

This country, this world, has become such a small, terrible place; I cheat, and I excuse myself, as I escape only by avoiding reality, I love the world that I create; but once there was a moment, out of time, such a terribly long time ago that I bring the memory to life often; for a time I had sunshine, and flowers, mud under my nails and rich coffee and I apologized to no one for who and how and what I am; I live with no thought regularly to why I should not be here and who I should be; yes, I do know that eventually I will die here, being banished to that other world where indeed I know because of the impermanence of life it will be as if I never did exist; every broken molecule of me will parish, every inch, every thought, but one. That molecule, that inch, that thought, its small, its infinitesimal, its worthless if you asked most, but in this world of whit and worry it is the only thing worth having; it is worth all the worlds in all the universes. I cannot lose it; I can not barter it or sell it and above it all it should never be given away. This world must get better, it must stop getting lost in all the things that are not real, such as money, race, all the false differences we draw between us; there is only one true thing about this world, there is no escape, so make your difference here and now. I must tell you, now that you see me, you know part of my life, my story and because of that I hope you understand that I Love you. I love you, despite never knowing your story, we may never meet, never laugh or cry together and I will never kiss or hug you, but I love you as dearly as my universe, as closely as a flesh and blood friend.

I love you.

It has been so many years, I hardly talk about it, but I warn you now this gets a bit graphic, but it is my story; this story is not being told for anyone else's campaign; it is not a #metoo. This is me taking a psychological victory, screaming my pain into this void like echo chamber; I know no one may hear me, and that is fine. This is one of Dante's hells I live in, wrapped deliciously in my favourite personal coping mechanism a piece of detached fiction that reads like a conversation between my super ego and my Id....

I sought freedom, the only freedom to be had in this world, music loud, the delicious truth of life’s simplicity; music is a true elixir, ideally it should be listened to at 60-80 decibels and 70 mph; everything can be made right if you just put the music on and the top down, drive 85 mph on a country road, as if you are trying to out run time itself. The sun low in the western sky; fat fluffy gray clouds float lazily over a layer of black, brooding, formidable clouds rolling in like the undaunting wall of night, mocking the artificial azure sky that lays at the last eighth of the sky, about to be swallowed up. Music playing too loud, I sang atonally along; the cool breeze of autumn playfully ruffled my hair as if I resided in a third visible universe in one place unattached to the storm or the artificial sunny day. The little silver dream I drove was cutting through the country side; coming up on a slower moving rusted out pick-up truck I worked the gearshift, not laying off the gas, dropping to fourth to pass, galloping ahead hard and fast, leaving the truck behind.

Suddenly, for the first time in ages the world almost made sense, err, I suppose it is awkward saying that because the sense it made was tenuous and momentary at best. Escape possible only by way of ignoring the horrors; after a week like the last, a little sensical nonsense was called for. I had to get away, I had to distance myself from the news and the bluster, the horrible reality; the reminders that weighed my heart, slammed my soul, obliterated my psyche; in my home, my home, the country I love, whose founding documents read of words like truth and justice; a vicious criminal is appointed to the highest court in the land; a man accused of raping three women; a charge that not so long ago would have precluded his admission; but that was then and this is now, basically more of a wild west, kangaroo, dumb-fuckery idea of conscience; we are now a people who allow the separation of children from parents, to be kept in cages. Now, because of this stupidity, people treating justice like a partisan football; horrible happenings from my past are brought front and center of my subconscious every night as I sleep. Yes, I have read books and listened to tapes as to how to guide dreams, none have prevailed.

Letting my mind wander, it was dangerous; and yes, it circled back to last night’s bout with Fate, Christ, she hit me hard and fast; for a figment of my imagination she really left me bruised, broken, bloody; I can still taste the sickly copper iron flavor of blood in my mouth, my soul limping. First. she took me on a trek into the past; tiny, horrible, years ago; Jesus, I realize, if this nightmare I carry heavy in my mind were a child it would be graduating high school; oh god, the thought, the kind that should never be thought; after, I was sentenced to a more vile prison, to a sentence more than double theirs, I see no possibility of parole from this place. I feel as if I were slowly being eaten alive; Fate, she held my face to the fire, she made me watch and relive it, over and over and over again.

I despise the fact something as delicious as this breeze can trigger panic, terror, horror; this feeling was, twice upon a time, in the valley of faded fears, my favourite season, now it sits heavy on me, like a box of babies tears. Though now, it is that recurring nightmare, I try to break free, but as he said in The Godfather ‘every time I think I am out, it drags me back in.’ I feel so pathetic, seriously, I earned my PhD in psychology, trying to outfit myself with all the tools; I should have been able to drown this demon long ago, but alas, I find the zombie bastard can swim; argh, and yes, I know that isn’t possible, no one can fight off all the memories, it's impossible to erase events, for anyone, most especially me.

Out of the blue it seems, a wonderful friend, a friend one which I didn’t know I still had; sadly I assume that I am always left behind, but she sent me in a tailspin of introspection; she asked me simply, 'are you okay?' A real flesh and blood human asked me, she noticed, she pointed out that I am not acting like myself; I have been tearing myself down, doubting the simplest things, I have even, in an odd way, seeking her approval; asking permission to hang my own pieces on my wall, my usual 'it's easier to ask forgiveness, than seek permission', attitude gone.

Gods, she is right, I know she is right; I am acting weird, different, calling myself stupid, pathetic, worthless; at first it started just stupid, small, subtle... most people bought that I was fine, they never saw it... I think. Anyways, they never called me on it. This friend, this good friend called me on it; I wrote a piece out of my usual character, at first, I loved it; then the next day in a mercurial hissy fit, I ripped into it, then in another flip I apologized for it, I am acting like a kid caught lying, obvious, blatant, guilty. This friend, ah, this beautiful friend called me on all my shit; like that guilty child, my psyche tried to hide it, then I stopped, I looked, really, I am. Then this introspection brought me to the realization that at times, not always, very rarely, I get weird, almost puritanical about sex. Usually I have a very laissez faire attitude; bi, straight, whatever flavour of the lgbtq or any other spectrum, if you get off on it, if you like it, then it's beautiful; there are people I love on all levels of depravity. It may even seem to them that I am a touch prudish because I do not partake, that is fine. Because this friend, this wonderful friend, shined a light, I could again see the bruises fate had left.

Fate had asked me, "so, if it is all good, what gets you off?" With that I was lost, nothing; everything; how was I to know? Of known experiences I have rape (not awesome) and a failed relationship (asshole never understood a thing I said, then tried to recreate experience #1); yup, two times lose on those. I know what I need, no desire, no require; with all the horrible mediocrity in this world that we seem to accept as fair sacrifice, I will not let love be among those. I want epic love, mad, passionate, crazy, undying, span the universes kind of love; anything less will be a poor substitute, meaning I can not, I will not let her take that from me; this is just one of those turns where nothing goes well. She shook me, and god, I had let Fate affect me.

The moment she reared her ugly head was pain. I was lost in a soft dream of sweet remembered soft kisses. Suddenly, a hit to my face, my eye starting to swell; a doubled fist to the gut, air rushed out in a horrible half scream. A hand wrapped in my hair slamming my head into a stony ground, again, that horrible haunting memory. Her voice chilling in a predatory growl, she wanted blood. She taunted me, "I KNOW what you wrote, hmmm, I know what you enjoyed, I told you; you can admit it, just to me, no one else is listening;" She ground her hips into mine from behind, "I know that you liked it, you loved it; I wonder, did you reach orgasm? Was it earth shattering? Did you moan like a whore?" Fate, that horrible bitch, licked up from my jaw to my temple, I stopped the urge to vomit, I felt my hate multiply, but in seconds I felt a turn inward, "You know that the hecklers are still right;" she raked her pelvis suggestively against me, three more thrusts.

"No, but it seems to get you off, dry humping me; hmm is the bitch in heat? So ya like my ass? I have been working out." She slammed my face down into the stone.

I let a painful groan escape, "You like the rough trade."

"Oh yeah," I ground out lifting my head turning to face her, "about as much as I like you."

She laughed cruelly, standing slamming her foot into my kidney. “Look at you, still so pathetic, still that laughing clown punching bag, you are always such fun; there is a lot to be said about consistency," slamming her boot into my jaw. "If it was not the roughness, the pain, was it the team effort? Now, remind me how many was it that you liked? Four or five? How many holes were the putting it into?" She ground her heel onto my palm, I try to stop the noise, a near scream, "how many holes?"

I smiled showing my blood outlined teeth, "This many." I held aloft a single middle finger.

Fate came to torture my soul time and again, with unlimited creativity; it has happened more than a few times in recent days; using more taunts, planting more doubts, inflicting more pain; cracking open my soul leaving it weeping and bereft. The more it happened the more I began to believe that she was right; yes, maybe I really enjoyed it; then I didn’t take the moment needed to breathe before I reacted this time out of emotion, gut check. She was right, they were all right; it was all I deserved; I asked for it, I had enjoyed it. Though that moment of introspection given to me by a gorgeous friend, gave me time to recognize this is actually an extreme rendition, interrogation tactic, the kind used in interviews at Gitmo; some good interrogators can even implant false memories, causing false confessions.

I woke from the nightmare; I gathered my own thoughts. I had to run; I had to hide. I hated; I hated the world and all the people in it, I hated myself and most of all I hated all this wasted time. If I had known Life before would I blame him, hate him… yes, right now, in fact I do.

I drove faster, not even slowing at bends in the road; why was I running? What good could it do? I know can not escape when the horror is inside my own skull. The green leaves starting to turn gold, some starting to age red at the edges. I whisked through the countryside, far too fast; it was liberating. God, this is my favourite season; there is something so sultry and libidinous about fall; I let go of the wheel, raising my arms joyous in the air. The feeling, the smell, the look, it seems to get my heart racing and my mind reeling; in pure celebration of the seasons change, the bite to the wind and the trill of cinnamon to the air, senses that are so much Life, oh me, oh my, oh my favorite things. Dark chocolate, eaten slowly, savored and enjoyed; passionate literature read in a hot bath tub that requires an entry like bugs bunny getting into the boiling cauldron; music, so many lovely perfect kinds of music, hard hitting, rampaging, soothing and truly sensual all appreciated savored and enjoyed… Please, Life... I need you. Why don't you come? I call to you, I miss you.

Before even fate showed the aphasia really affected my self-confidence; I no longer had my words, I constantly sounded either stupid or drunk or both, that had shaken me to my core; with both of those, it changed my own reactions. Then America, my home, is not helping, the president mocking a rape survivor, his little toadies backing him up. It just tore a hole in my psyche, in my soul, letting all these demons back. This is not me really... but what is me?

For me, after the attack, the police, they never doubted; the bruised and bloody the evidence abounded, they had no trouble even finding the culprits, but the faculty, the students... not so kind... I heard the whispers, they never looked at me, not the real me, I was just a disregarded scrap.

My lips hurt, they were cracked in two places, my ribs were bruised, all making me wonder if Fate was more than just my horrible subconscious. More than the conscience that makes a coward of me; makes me want to run for the shelter of a strong set of arms. My foot slacks off the gas pedal; I was losing my will to run, I realized that I was not able to run from this kind of mountain.

"Why can't you hear me?!” I yelled at the building clouds so hard my throat ached; they were heavy with rain. I saw the edges of refracted rainbows as they slid slowly in front of the sun.

Soft, so close to my ear, I felt the breath of Life. "But I did."

I swerved, nearly off the road, I screamed, slamming in the clutch not touching the brake, cutting the wheel sharply, putting the car into a full 360 spin, it almost came to a rest. "Jiminy Cripcity Roosevelt Christmas, man. You could have just killed me." I collected my galloping heart, letting the clutch out in 3rd gear screeching off the tires. He laughed, his words sunk in slowly, I understood his words and they angered me, I slid the gearshift into 4th, without the clutch; "Yeah, right, you heard me, sure. So, what you are saying that as usual when the world begins using me for a toilet brush, I am on my own; lemme guess, all for character building I am sure. Just go, I do not need you anymore. Just get out." I leaned into the gas, not caring the speed, anger making my eyes begin to run.

"What the hell was that?" He reached his hand over, gripping mine, "wound a little tight their honey; let’s get you relaxed” he started rubbing the inside of my wrist, my breathing slowed. "I wish, with every ounce of power I have, I wish I could have come when I heard your cries, they caused an ache in me so cutting so horrible, I cried. I don't know how I heard you or how I am here now."

"Yeah, yeah, sure." I jeered my hand waving him away. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, his expression was so hurt, “God, I shouldn't have mocked... I’m just angry, but not at you,” I took a long breath, “I am sorry" I whispered, easing off the gas.

"Then just stop, pull off the road, talk to me."

I sighed seeking that cognitive reset. "Okay." There was a wooded turn out just ahead. I pulled the car over, stalling out, killing the engine. I rolled my eyes internally; it has been ages since I stalled out. I swiped the little tears away. "So, what? What is it that you want?" My jaw set. "What?"

He sighed, seeing this was going to be an uphill battle; he reached for my hand bringing the palm to his lips; instantly my jaw slacked, and air rushed from my lips, "I missed you." He kissed the tender pad of my palm. "I know you have been in pain. Tell me what caused it; tell me haunts you." His fingers still softly drawing hypnotic circles on my wrist.

"Ah, pain, but where to start? We could do a chronological study into the beginning of pain; it might take a while." I try to sound unbothered.

"Where this pain, your pain, the one that has had you screaming, where that pain started." His face so beautifully earnest, and there is an importance to being earnest. “Please…” he breathed

"Words, it always begins with words, then those sticks and stones; they come hard."

He let one hitched chuckle out, "Wow, what a cop out." He dared.

I breathed again, then let it out slow, "Dammit really?” he nodded, “shit, with this whole 'legitimizing rape' floating around, taking even the one recourse for a victim of said crime has if it takes an unlucky turn. They have the audacity to mock and berate a survivor of a crime, I have seen them, mock hurricane victims, the disabled, they come just shy of saying that they want all of us defectives to die they put a rapist on the high court, now this monstrosity that will end my only piece of mind. My…" he held up his hand.

Clicking of his tongue stopped me. "No, not what I asked for Joan of arc, I was asking for the story, for this pain I see in your eyes, not a history of the worlds ills. I want your story."

"Eg, yeah, but that’s not important, it's really not even worth telling."

"Just stop; stop with the bullshit, stop deflecting; I want to hear your story, please, just tell me the goddamned story.” He gritted his teeth, “sorry, but I hate when you make light of yourself; you are making fun of my favourite person in the world, I am sorry just, please, just tell me."

"Cheese and crackers man, it is a horrid little pathetic thing. But fine." I take a breath, “Shit, my story…" I could not form the words. "hey, what’s better I could just tell you the tale of the little engine that should have known better, but still did it anyway.”

"No," he watched me closely, not letting his impatience show "I want to know your story, your pain, please."

"Shit, shit, shit, OK, shit... dammit," I hit the steering wheel, I pressed my forehead into the hard surface of the wheel, "but don't say I didn't warn ya. Shit” minutes passed, I said nothing.

He reached over holding my shoulders, "Honey, nothing that would make you too nervous to say, could be a waste of time, you are that fearless girl that never holds her tongue. Trust me, I think I can help." His thumb rubbed tenderly.

"I am neither fearless, nor am I a girl; I am a right old horrible spinster," I huffed, I fiddled with my fingers. I looked in his eyes; “I am" I stopped gathering my thoughts; "I don’t think you will like this as well as you think; I know what will happen after its all out, so, I must preface with a goodbye, you have been lovely. I know your opinion of me will slip; you won't want to know me after I finish, so thank you." He looked doubtful, but I knew, gods, I will miss him. "Before I start, I want to say, even if it means nothing to you, if no one ever tells you, I love you." A tear streaked from my eye, "What am I? Nothing," he shook his head vigorously, "look at me, I know most don’t think much of me, red round cheeks and usually a smile, no makeup and holes in my jeans; I have been told many, many, times after having conversations with people that my Naivety was endearing, but if I had ever encountered the real world my outlook would become as jaded as theirs. I may act like I have encountered nothing but sweetness and light in a noodle salad life, but that is far from the truth. I believe that you can encounter the worst that life has to offer and choose your reaction to it. You can stop believing in the world around you or you can continue to believe in kindness, understanding, and trust. Some say it is just denial, burying my head in the sand that allows me think that life is still what we make it… I Laugh and Laugh… If they knew what this girl, well, shit, here you go. Enough wasting time, I will get down to it. It's a shit story..." I wiped my hands down my face, the a swipe under my nose with the bad of my hand, then on my thighs, "shit," I sighed out, “Too many years ago it was a bright sunny day; a warm fall morning with a light breeze. I was worried about a calculus test; the biggest thing on my mind were cos A and sin B. I was on the phone ironing out a scheduling problem; I was talking to my internship mentor on the first cell phone in my family, dad got it for my safety because of my commute 90 miles to school. Jabbering on about what, I don’t even remember, I reached into the back seat for my bag. Sighing and hanging up the phone, preparing for the day ahead, or so I thought." I took a steadying breath, I had evaded long enough; I couldn’t meet his gaze, I just stared straight ahead out the windshield. "Suddenly, horribly brutality was introduced into my life; the surprise really isn’t as horrible as the feeling of helplessness; I was still bent closing the door with my hip I started to heft my book bag; my head caved in the rear door of my car; you should have seen it, truly impressive the damage a cranium can do." I remain in this protective tone, details curtailed "I was knocked out cold; I slowly came out of my haze I felt pain, searing horrible pain, but not my head, I heard ripping material; I smelled blood my blood; flying back to reality and I know what is happening, the animal grunting and horrible rhythm; pain, it’s between my legs; no one had ever been there before;" I heard Life take a savage breath, it was nice to know someone cared, even if it was just for show. I wiped the dampness from my face again.

"They raped me, I did not count or really anything." I tried to laugh it off, "they beat me, pulled my hair, god, one stood one foot on my head so I couldn’t move and urinated on my face as that other one finished, they called me whore, and cum bucket, and worse; every part of my body was used and abused; I lost, my hands blindly flail, I try to kick. I was savaged by animals I use the term loosely. They ransacked my car as they took turns, seeing my viola in the trunk and to punish me for fighting they crushed my left hand, they kicked me, beat my head into the pavement repeatedly. When they had finished with me and my car, the cruelest one of them, pulled the scarf wrapped around my neck and strangled me, they murdered me, and I do have to say part of me did die. As they did they laughed, god, they laughed, horrible laughs, they creep into my conscious when anything goes awry. I lost consciousness, I guess they assumed I died, I woke, I don’t know how much time passed, but I woke in a pool of blood and …err other, I got in my car and drove to the security station on the bottom level… yeah." I shook. He rubbed my hand; I pulled away quickly, I could have spit on him, but it was not him the anger belonged to. "What is madness but nobility of soul, at odds with circumstance?"

"My god, I was expecting bad, but my… my heart, it is broken” ready to face the loss of him, I turned, I watched his face as the light died in the low, dark, rain swollen clouds; a delicate falling rain drank in the dusk; it felt like it swallowed my misery whole and for that I was grateful; shrouded in silence, the branches of the trees above wrapped me in their stoic peace. Shadows fell across us the boundaries lost their edges, as the borders were erased, once again the wonder if I had ever really existed. His presence was always so elegantly reassuring, and still I had to remind myself it was not him I was so mad at.

"Yeah, so, how was that for a hard luck story? The first time I have told anyone since I left the police station. Not exactly Disney Channel friendly, but I am waiting to hear back from lifetime." I laughed; the sound was hollow. "Peachy side, I didn't end up knocked up or diseased; so, maybe the universe heard that plea." I sniffed, my frustration returning. He trailed his hand lightly down my damp cheek. I flinched away, shy, stupid, embarrassed, "pretty pathetic, huh?"

He shook his head. "Shh, stop that please, you don’t have to mock yourself in that Cyrano de Bergerac style you always use; you are not beating me to a punch line, I was never going for one” he ran his hands over his face, “did you not hear your story? My heart is broken." I tried to look away; his gentle hands coaxed my gaze back. "I heard a story of survival, those monsters tried to end you; here you are, fight intact, undaunted, truly indomitable, the rest just damaged facia."

I looked in his eyes, "Fate has been taunting, mocking me, whispering that I liked the assault,” I stopped, hesitating, “that has me doubting everything."

His face skeptical, eyebrow raised, "And you believe those taunts?" He shook his regal head.

Temper sparked, "kind of,” I stopped, feeling stupid, I bristled, “I do, okay. So what?"

"Why?" He cajoled. "Really, tell me why; the whole truth answer." He sat back like Cesar at the gladiator games, "hold nothing back, I can take it."

Apparently, he was satisfied that I was soundly kicking my own ass. "I wrote out, an imaginary tryst, you and I, we were on a boat, it was just delicious, an escape, there was a touch of rough to it... some of the details were... similar to... that." my voice stopped working. "I liked it a lot, but then I got overwhelmed, confused; how can I like that, without liking the other. The reality of that implication," I sniffed, fluttering my hands; that horrible weird guilt weighing my soul, I knew it was just my own psyche, but it was horrendously irresistible; I stopped I gave up; "shit, now you know; you know… everything why I am so deplorable... grotesque... disgusting." I rolled my eyes closed, I concentrated on my breathing, minutes clicked by finally I opened them, expecting that he had blew away on the breeze.

I met his gaze, I saw no pity, no disgust; I saw him, just Life. Confused, I searched further, still none.

"You are not. You know better than most that feelings can be deception; sex, isn't just soft, isn't just rough, it is never one flavour; it is the connection, the intention." He ran his hands through my hair. Pressing it back behind my ear the way I like it. "Honey, there is no equation between your rape and having a touch of rough in a fantasy. It does not mean you liked being helpless, beaten, or broken, the intention there was viciousness; there was no connection there, no trust" he sighed.

I gave a derisive chuckle, "right."

He dropped my hand, pulling away, gaining my full attention. "You apparently have made up your mind not just for you but also what I would think; you really must be magic; I think you would be surprised by what I think.”

I let a derisive chuckle out, “Sure because you are some kind of paragon.”

“I wouldn’t say paragon, but I heard every word you said. It made me so mad that you would think that way about you.” I rolled my eyes. He growled, and good god something in me was listening, something found the sound so delicious that it made me tingle; I scanned his eyes, there was still softness there. “Honey, look, I heard a story of an invasion, a horrible, massive invasion. I don't care if you were splayed naked on a table saying, 'come and get it big boy, give it to me hard,'” I let a snerk of laughter out at the idea. “if it was not the specific person you were talking to; that was an invasion. You cannot discount a rougher, needy kind of love making; accepting carnal love rougher more animal in its display requires trust in the intention of the other party, it is not simply the actions; Accepting love rougher, that act of trust is never more shameful or dirtier; it is a communication telling the other party, I trust you to be just this much, but no more; the instant you voice a dislike and it continues it becomes the other; it’s all up to you, whatever is pleasing to you, only you. There is no right, there is no wrong, no disgusting or dirty; sex is all about the feeling, expressing.” I understood what he was trying to say, but I really didn’t want to hear it, I knew he was trying to placate me, I tried to ignore him; “Don't be like a velvet glove cast in iron, dealing only in absolutes." I had to look away, “love is love, is love, is love, and it all matters” the storm gaining strength, he released the top and pulled it up; kissing the top of my head as he passed. "Sweeting, the space between absolutes..." he sighed, "remember, you said that is where you had chosen to live, you were right, it is the place where life happens." He ran his hands through his hair; his frustration evident, then a light hit his eyes; "I would really like to read this fantasy, curiosity leads me to wonder," he chuckled, "I just wonder if it would match up to any of mine." I shot him a skeptical look. “oh, honey; I have had so many fantasies since the first time you appeared.”

I had no words to say, I just sat watching him, waiting for the change.

He sat, looking at me, the storm began to rage, much like the maelstrom that had been inside me for so long; I pulled the piece up on my phone handing it to him. We were more than damp, I noticed I had been shivering; for how long, no one knows. I sat watching the storm split the sky; I started the car, flipping a bitch, starting back in the opposite direction; he was deeply ensconced in my words, he reached over with out looking up, turning on the heat, directing the vents at me.

I shot him a look, just a glance; but what I saw. God, the power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that I had never believed in its power; no one now dares to say that two beings have fallen in love because they looked at each other. Yet, an unguarded look can tell you so much, love, despise, languor and fear; tenderly in his exquisite look, I saw the most gorgeous thing, understanding; an acceptance. I was astonished, I was bewildered, dizzy, in a daze; I still did not understand, I began wondering what universe he was from... My stomach panged, rumbling as loud as the storm, I ignored it.

"Hey, can you pull in up there, you need something to eat." There was a neon sign in the distance, that advertised barbeque, I was surprise he could even see if as he didn’t look up from my words. I pulled in, reading the sign that promised barbecue and drinks, after all it was Texas, a bourbon sounded just right. I pulled in and parked; I was a numbed, near depressed but electrified, dumbfounded, impressed and slightly aroused; all the roiling emotions had my jaw clenched, I was disassociated, separated, on autopilot. My feet moving me through the rain, but I was a cloud of confused emotion; a stranger in a strange land; emotion was not my wheelhouse. Wandering idly toward the door; passing the columns, he gripped my shoulders almost punishingly. He spun me to face him, his face dark and serious, I began shivering, he pressed me to the wall. His face serious, but the passion burned; again, that growl, it hit the bottom of my stomach, warming, making my legs shake; he kissed me, suddenly, deeply, no warmup, no cuddling into my lips just immediately lips and tongue. Tucking his knee between my legs pressing hard, soft mewling left my throat caught in his mouth. He pinned my arms to my sides I tried to touch him, but he wouldn’t yield, he wanted to kiss me, his way; and yes, I liked it, he ran his tongue along the roof of my mouth, I moaned softly into his mouth, rocking gingerly against his knee; the visceral feeling. He started to deepen the kiss even more, his knee caressing, moving with intention. A quiet shudder rocked me. He sucked in a deep controlling breath, resting his forehead against mine, staring deeply into my eyes; I shook like a leaf as we parted. Shaking I clung to his shoulders.

"Now, kitten, did you feel my intention, to bring you pleasure?" I nodded, "was there pleasure?" I bit my lip, a small smile creeped, I nodded. "You know, the fact that you know the horrible purity of absolute, pure despair; doesn’t mean that is all there is in this universe." He kissed me again, faintly. He passed his fingertips over my skin, almost without touching an experience that neither of us had expected or experienced before, the miracle of feeling myself in another body, "Now, did you feel that?"

"Yes," I whispered, I was shadow pinned against a sweating wall; needing more, my soul pleading for more, but I was frozen; "Oh there was a moment there; oh me, oh my; as you began a whisper of that kiss; clearer than any whispered words; god there was something there that makes it all worthwhile; that was the edge, hmm, the edge is what I have; truth of this fiction, it's the edge of flavour that makes the difference.” I giggled, “there was a time when I would speak words that made sense." I giggled.

"Yes. But what truth is there in sense?" He laced my fingers with his and pulled me after him; we walked in me confused actually wanting to go back to being pinned to that wall, we walked in. The waitress took us to a booth; I slid in first, I gasped in surprise as he slid in next to me on the same bench. He ordered me a bourbon and an order of fries; I sat there blinking, he then turns me to face him, he leans in close whispering deep and low; his breath warm on my neck, "When we are young we felt we are invincible; as we age we find ourselves, second guessing, always thinking twice." As he spoke, he planted little kisses on my neck; “I am done with that, I thought I was done paying my dues, same for you; now, I find that I have something I do not want to lose. The day you came into my life I changed again, fear still there, but also a cacophony of joy, both at odds, now every day now is just a grateful roll of the dice." His hands skimmed over my arms as they draped around his neck, freely delicious. "I look at that, it is working; you are starting to hear me; I like you, feel powerless in the lonesome times, thinking to myself 'dear god what have I done?' But with you here..." biting the edge of my ear, "you can run baby, you can try to hide, but whatever comes it will find you. For us, there is now; yesterday is history, an hour from now, no one knows for sure; but baby right now it's just you and me and that kiss, it said a lot." He turned me to face him.

Our drinks and fries came and I took a long drought, I laughed cuddling close, I felt young, I felt alive, and I really had never felt that way, “Are we mad?" he looked wounded, "but the good madness, the change the world madness."

"I want to just hold you tight; right now, we can make this moment last; don't think about anything other than helping you forget about the past, for just a moment if needs be." His kissed me slow, long deep caresses with his tongue; I tried to match him, I was awkward at first, but he led me in a natural rhythmic motion.

I missed feeling him, tasting him, gods, it was like breathing. I kissed him with everything I had. "You know, your fantasy, it was gorgeous." He kissed me again, his hands cupping my cheeks, tilting my face for a new angle. He broke from my mouth kissing down my neck. "I have sailed a 20-foot catch; I have had some very similar thoughts, but I loved that very forward confident you that you wrote."

I fumbled with my hands trying to make him feel some of what I was. "Have you really imagined us together as well?" My fingers sliding through his hair. He nodded, “I kind of assumed you were so out of my league."

He laughed, the sound rippled along my nerves; "oh, kitten, you have no idea who you actually are. Yes, I have, so many things I have fanaticized about."

I pulled away to see his eyes, they held no lie; "Even now?... after?"

He looked shocked, "Especially now." He said with conviction.

"Tell me one," I was breathless.

He held my had looking into my face, "Happily, but I would rather show you. I long to grab your hand and run to the motor inn across the parking lot, get a room." I looked out the window over his shoulder gnawing on my kiss swollen bottom lip.

"Mmm, story first," I stood firm.

"OK then, well, I suppose I could tell you about the one where you are the aggressor; holding me down using me as you will." He shook his head, "no, the one where I am the aggressor, holding you down? Kissing you slowly, teasing your nerves, dipping my fingers into you, feeling you shiver; nah, you don't look keen on that, eating chocolate ice cream off of your skin;” I really shivered, “maybe another time; I suppose, I could tell you about how I dreamt of kissing you, teasing you, then bend you over this table licking all the way up the back of you thigh and... no, no, not that one. Kitten, come here." He pulled my leg up so he could slide closer, fitting just between. "You have to use your imagination; I dream of laying you down, kissing you so hard, it takes your breath away; I want to make out with you like a teenager out passed curfew." He caressed my trembling bottom lip with his thumb. "I would get lost in your kisses; intoxicating, enticing, articulate, telling me exactly what you want, how you want it; using only the tip of your tongue you draft a treatise." He toyed with my hair idly, my eyelids began to sag half-mast; passion building in my body, "Wowzah, that scorching look in your eyes, so intent, you are so Wildely beautiful; why, oh why do you squash that want, fighting it like a foe, a weakness; please, just... let it free."

His hand began caressing my neck, I could not have stopped myself from rolling my head, so my neck was wide open for his lips. His tongue. "I love kissing your neck, licking, taking little bites, right here." His fingers wisping passed the place where neck meets shoulder, my bones melted; he smiled mischievously, shot me a naughty look wiggling get his brows. He slid his fingers along my neckline, his touch whisper soft; his voice low, rumbling, deep, "deliberately I descend along your succulent curves;" my body raising to meet his fingers, straining for attention. "I watch you arch your back, just like that; I can't take my time learning; your heaving breasts wanton for attention, nipples like diamonds," oh and they are, his two fingers caress along the crevice between my breasts. My breathing hitched, coming in soft pants, his eyes gorgeous reverent. "I reveal the state in which I see your nerves are in; rampaging, greedy, alive for just a whisper of a touch; oh, but I want more" he sunk in closer, enjoying the slight shake of my shoulders. His hot mouth kisses just behind my ear, his tongue licking along my skin; his lips playing with the cords in my neck as I let out a sighing moan, just a solitary note; his fingers toying with the area of my soft sweater, just over my the area of my nipple. "Your belly covered with barely visible downy hairs, soft, soft, so soft;" he slipped his fingers of his other hand up under the hem of my sweater, just above my waistband; his first hand dropping to my thigh, dipping between rubbing with soft curious fingers; the nail of his wide thumb, scraping along the seam between; "they are standing up because of the goose bumps I just made." His fingers velvet soft over my skin, I try clamped my thighs together he keeps that from happening. "Pushing passed the band of your jeans, I reach for what I crave the most." His second hand skimming a rougher scratching fingernail along the seam; his other fingers just trace along the skin along the edge of the bottom of my bra, his lips kissed along my neckline. "I would make you moan," I squirmed, "I would form a symphony of your empassioned calls, all the delicious sounds of satisfaction; I will be ruthless in my intent, pleasure my only goal; releasing you from the past, my hope. I know you will want to run, to escape, but at the same time you will be wanting more;" he pulled back, "more; look at you, breathtaking, deliciously titillated. Your cheeks flushed, you lips slightly parted; eyes glossy, erotic, steamy, fervid, seductive, coaxing, shameless; saying every want your lips refuse." Pulling at the hem of my sweater, "I want to slip my hand under your panties, sliding my fingers across your damp skin. God, I have wanted that for so long" His fingers ghost over my skin, reaching the edge of my satin bra; his lips crashed into mine, his kiss demanding, delicious, scalding; his hand enveloping my breast; his thumb rubbing delicately, I react honestly. I grabbed his wrist of his hand that was resting on my thigh, pulling his fingers to my mouth, sucking. The clench in my belly responding to his hand slipping under my bra. I pull away, gasping; I stand, dropping a ten on the table.

"Shit, I am sorry," his breath laboured, his face recalcitrant, "I pushed too far, too fast; I am sorry; so, where are we off to?" He looked disappointed, sad.

"Well, I decided, you are right," viciously, I let that hang in the air; “you should just show me. Our direction, over there," I pointed out the window to the inn.

He looked like a child at Christmas, he grabbed my arm tossing me over his shoulder, I giggle and squeal, he moved quickly to the door. We were out and across the parking lot swiftly, he was running; the rain drenching us; he dropped me to my feet under the awning. "I'll be right back."

I watched him fill out the forms, pay the woman, and he bounded back. "We will make, new experiences, giving you back all the power. Let’s roll." Pulling me over his shoulder again; I squealed, I laughed; he slapped my rump, I moaned.

And outside it was October Country . . . that country where it is late in the year and everyone is tired and waiting for that one good thing to break; country where the amber hills covered in fog, rivers are mist and ice; where noon shortly proceeds sundown, twilights linger, and mid-night’s stay; geese and dusks on their parade to the south; dilled carrots and jams are lined into cellars, sweaters, coats, jackets, are cycled to the front of closets, boots and gloves to the entry way, coffee and tea served hot and steamy with fresh cookies and it seems for a season everything faces away from the sun. October people, think October thoughts and wish that the Christmas stuff would remain hidden for another season, and passing nights, cool, bundled in warm socks and a large sweater walking or listening to the light rain on the tin roof hoping the winter doesn’t kill hope

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