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kiri-ah · 3 years

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Something To Sink My Teeth Into || she/her pronouns version

Themes: Supernatural AU, Vampire AU, strangers to lovers, angst and fluff (so much fluff), something similar to those symbiotes from Venom and Hanahaki disease combined, interplanar travel, Jaemin and the reader are oblivious and Chenle gets mad about it, long conversations about vampires, vampires can't cry

Pairing: Vampire!Jaemin x Female Human!reader

Warnings: mentions of blood (minor), mentions of eating (human food and vampire food), character death, Chenle is kind of a butthole, in depth conversations about humans and vampires which include biting and blood drinking, Yuta's house gets set on fire

Word Count: 26.4k

Taglist: @bluejaem, @heyyyun, @generantionct (untaggable), @stayctday, @kunrengui, @allegxdly, @leetaeyonglover, @koishua, @choppedupcactus, @hyuckworld, @alexameliamg, @notbeforelong, @jaemotel

Summary: A trip to Poland goes terribly wrong - or maybe terribly right - when you're bitten and kidnapped by a vampire. Between passing out, almost dying multiple times, and falling in love, you have a lot on your plate. Oh, and the magic. Right. Teaser here.

A/N: This is so much longer than it was meant to be... *sigh*

This has only been edited by myself and a friend of mine, please excuse any errors. I worked hard to make the best experience possible. For that reason, please note that this is the !she/her pronouns version! He/him pronouns may be found here, they/them pronouns here. Please enjoy!

You were on holiday in Krakow, Poland. For your twenty first birthday, your parents had gifted you a weeklong trip over Spring Break, and you had been having the time of your life. You had found Krakow rich in historical influence - it had been the capital of Poland until 1596 and still had remnants of the past, like a Renaissance-era trading post and sections of the medieval walls that surrounded the city. Plus, the section of the city that you were staying in was very close to the city center, where you discovered aforementioned trading post, called the Cloth Hall, and an old cathedral named St. Mary’s Basilica.

The first night of your stay, Sunday night, you had struggled to sleep, because of the time difference and the excitement of arriving. You stayed in Monday morning, trying to at least rest a bit, and then ventured out to the nearest coffee shop when that didn’t alleviate your sleepiness. The barista had whipped up your favorite pick-me-up morning drink, and you went to sit outside in the fresh air, surveying the plaza over the rim of your cup. It was just the right time of year, you thought, because it was nice and warm without being too hot, just how you liked it. The sun had started to rise about the buildings around you, illuminating certain structures and giving them an unearthly glow.

When you finished your drink, you put the cup into the collection bin and walked back out onto the main square, just enjoying the sun on your face (over the sunglasses you had bought in the airport after forgetting to pack yours) and letting the warmth sink through your limbs after the tired night. One of the unfortunate things about the time of year you had travelled was the tourists. There were families and older couples and people your age taking trips with their friends, and most everyone stayed right where you were staying as well: right in the heart of the city. To avoid as many crowds as possible, you had booked a tour of St. Mary’s Basilica for Thursday morning, and reserved entry to the underground museum for this afternoon.

Tomorrow you planned to go and see Grodzka Street, where you were going to try and find a souvenir. In the same neighborhood was an ancient church called St. Andrew’s Church, which dated back to around 1079. On Wednesday, you were going to brave the crowds of people in the Cloth Hall for the same purpose, and also because it was a historical landmark that you just needed to explore. Wednesday afternoon was blocked out to be a rest period, as was Thursday morning. Then on Friday you were planning to go and see the Wawel Castle and Cathedral. From there you would explore the various attractions on the property, and then return to the plaza later to eat. That afternoon, you planned to go to the Jewish cemetery. Saturday was blocked out for a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was a Nazi concentration camp and a Holocaust memorial out of the main town. When you returned to the hotel late that afternoon you would pack and get ready for your flight Sunday morning. It was going to be a very full and very fun week. Or at least you hoped it would be fun.

You explored the main square a little bit that first day and unpacked your things, making sure you had everything you needed for your trip and you didn’t need to walk to one of the convenience stores nearby.

The days passed quickly, and you finished each one completely satisfied. Everything and everyone here was so wonderful and you started to wonder how you had never heard of this place before this trip. It was absolutely one of the best places your parents could have picked.

On Friday morning you got up bright and early (well, actually, it was dark and early) to go to the Wawel Castle. You had heard from a travelling site that tickets sold out fast and it was important to get there early in the day, and you tried to heed that warning. At 7am when you arrived it was already busy, but thankfully not so much that the lines were too long. You wandered through the small exhibits and around the grounds. It was a bit more chilly today and you wrapped a scarf around your neck as you shivered, trying to find a less windy spot to hide out for a second. You found a little spot where you could take a moment and recharge your inner heater and were doing just that, burrowing into your small scarf mountain, when you realized that a person stood next to you. You looked up through your lashes at them and caught your breath - holy cow he had good genes. He had a sharp, sloping jawline that stopped at a chin less pointy than you had expected. His lips were plush and round, although he needed some chapstick. His hair was pushed around by the wind but despite that he looked, well, amazing. Sections were bleached, giving his hair an almost halo-esque look. His nostrils contracted as he inhaled and then his eyes cut down to yours, dark and deep and was that eyeliner?

He smiled then, a smirk that seemed far too self-assured for the situation, and leaned over towards your exposed ear. “I can feel you staring, sweetheart,” he murmured. The top of your ear, which had been feeling rather numb, flamed hot at his words. It almost hurt, the sudden jump into heat. You turned towards him fully, only eyes exposed by the scarf mountain. Your hair whipped around as the wind shifted again, but he didn’t seem cold, although he was in only a pair of black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black jacket. The jacket caught your attention for a second - it was studded with thousands of little rhinestones, like a varsity jacket gone shiny. Then he shifted closer into your space and you were forced to look back at his eyes, glittering in a way that seemed almost predatory. You sucked in a breath through your mouth and started to back away.

“S-sorry,” your breath came out in a whisper. Nobody seemed to notice your interaction. “I didn’t see you there, I’ll just leave.” You turned to go before his hand, surprisingly strong, clamped around your arm and pulled you back into his chest.

His voice came out in a growl as he blocked your scream with his other hand. “I am far, far too hungry for you to leave right now, precious.” The strength in your legs seemed to dissipate at his tone, you knew you needed to defend yourself, but ‘hungry’? What was that about? And precious? The hand wrapped around your arm let go and started unwrapping your scarf, exposing your face to both him and the frigid wind. He started to lean down, and you pressed your lips together tightly. At the very least, he wasn’t getting in your mouth. You may have lost the strength in your legs, but not in your will. Then he bypassed your mouth and leaned into your neck, inhaling and causing cold air to course along the column of your throat. He chuckled when you shivered, then bit into your neck.

The pain was overwhelming, you could feel each individual blood cell crying out, every organ protesting, your head started to pound with it. It hurt far more than even a dog bite should. It hurt like a shot at the doctor going on and on, echoing through your body and you were powerless to stop it. The pain flared in your neck and your brain seemed to slow down as the blood flowed away from it and into his mouth. You crumbled into him, and without detaching from your throat, he scooped you up into his arms, holding you there to be his personal bloodbag. You had long since stopped trying to scream, it was too difficult, too much effort.

Vampires, your thoughts whispered, before the pain covered you and you passed out, collapsing completely.

☽༓☾

You woke up in a... cozy cottage? There wasn’t any sign of your attacker and, in fact, no sign of anything vampire esque either. You looked around the single room at the soft fabric couch (covered in boho style throw pillows), the kitchenette (complete with pre packed food), and the window, through which you could see a combination flower and vegetable garden. There were two doors off of the room you were in, one that led towards the lush green outside, and one that must have concealed the bathroom.

The moment you realized this, you also realized that you really needed to use said bathroom, and struggled to plant your bare feet on the floor. Your legs didn't want to hold your weight, and you crumbled to the rug with a whine. Two seconds later, the door to the outside opened with a swish of fresh air and there, outlined by the sun, stood the most gorgeous person you had ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on. When he saw you on the floor, he groaned and ran a hand through his pink hair. "Shit, I'm so sorry, let me help you!" He ran over and you allowed him to half carry you into the bathroom. It wasn’t like you had any strength to protest, and he seemed nice. He smelled like sunshine on fresh earth.

Once you had finished using the toilet you tried to stand up again, now that you at least had some semblance of strength in your legs. After a few tries you were able to support yourself against the bathroom counter, with more than half of your weight against the frigid tiles. Your legs shook as you started standing more straight up, and you made a high pitched keening sound that you didn’t even know you could make; the man’s worried voice came through the door. His voice was higher and slightly panicked.

“Are you okay? Do you need help? Are you hurting too much?”

Your voice, which you hadn’t managed to make work properly, came out lower than usual and scratchy. A portion of your throat ached as you tried to make the sounds audibly. “Yeah,” you rasped out. “I can’t stand up properly.”

“Do you need me to come and help?” There was something about his voice that just made you want to trust him. It was soft but strong and even though he had toned down the panic, it still had soft tremors of worry running through it.

You thought about it for a second and considered yourself in the mirror. You looked, quite frankly, horrible. Your hair was a mess (more than usual), your eye bags were sagging unnaturally, and your eyes themselves were dull. You did look like you needed help. You sighed. “Sure.”

A moment later he opened the door slowly and stepped into the space with you, putting one arm around your waist to help support you. You relaxed some of your weight onto him and closed your eyes briefly. It would have been a wholly relaxing moment if not for your stomach. It grumbled up at you and you thought for a moment that it sounded like an angry octopus trapped inside of you. Then you blinked to clear the thought away as the man laughed. It was deeper than you expected from a man with pink cotton-candy colored hair, a low chuckle that rumbled through his body and, in turn, yours. You shook against him slightly with the movement and his other arm came to help you lean more against his body. He was stronger than you expected and you could feel the muscles in his arms shift as he reoriented himself.

“Let’s get you some food,” he said, smiling. “Unfortunately I’m not sure I’ll have much you’ll like.” You just nodded. Your throat was still throbbing uncomfortably where you were bitten and you weren’t sure you had the energy to even debate his statement. You were sure you would eat whatever he gave you. He led you into the main room again and helped you settle onto the couch. He walked over to the kitchenette and picked up a can of soup, then walked back to you to verify it was a kind that you liked. Once you had approved it, he went back and put it in a pot on the electric stove, starting to heat it up. As he stood over it, you had some time to think as you sat on the couch. The first thing you realized was that you still didn’t know what his name was, which was an issue. You couldn’t thank him properly without knowing his name. The second thing you realized was that you didn’t know where you were, exactly. The third was that you had probably missed your flight back home and your parents were going to murder you for it when you eventually got back. You shifted so you were more comfortable before trying to speak again. You started with the easiest vocal warmup you remembered and the man looked over at you with eyebrows raised.

“You good?” he asked. You nodded in response, hoping that your throat would relax and stop throbbing.

“Yeah, I think so,” you told him. “The side of my neck really aches where that man bit me.” His eyebrows furrowed at this and you thought maybe you just imagined it, that nobody actually bit you, but the pain was real enough in that moment and it was certainly real enough when he bit you. “Also,” you continued, “I still don’t know what your name is.” He seemed to think about this for a moment.

“I’m Jaemin Na,” he said eventually. “This is my house. And I think maybe we need to take a closer look at your bite, I didn’t realize it still hurt. Usually the throbbing goes away after a day or two.” You found yourself nodding along before his words sank in.

“Okay, uh, nice to actually know who you are now. I’m Y/N,” you said. There were suddenly many more questions floating around your brain. Usually he had said, which meant he had dealt with vampire bitten people before. How? Was he one? Why weren’t you a vampire? And how long had you been asleep for? They circled around your head like a dog chasing its tail until you realized that Jaemin was in front of you. It seemed like he was waiting for you to say something.

“Sorry,” you murmured. “What was that?”

“I said we have all the time in the world for you to ask me the questions I know you must have. Don’t psych yourself out. You’re safe.” Despite the fact that you knew next to nothing about him you found yourself once again trusting him without reason. He just seemed like a genuinely nice person, someone you could believe to tell you nothing but the truth.

“Okay,” you agreed, and it came out like a sigh. Your throat gave a particularly unpleasant throb and you unconsciously brought a hand up to rub at it. Jaemin’s hand fastened around your wrist and pulled it away, looking closely at your skin. He sighed.

“You’ve probably figured out by now that the man who bit you was a vampire. If you haven’t, have your moment of denial now.” You just looked back at him, surprised.

“Denial?”

“Yeah. Usually when humans find out about vampires for the first time they aren’t very accepting of it. I’ve had to replace my windows a few times from thrown objects.” You almost laughed before realizing that he was serious.

“Okay, well, I already got that, so go ahead,” you prompted.

“Great!” His eyes got just a little bit less heavy with your statement and he continued, “contrary to popular belief, vampires don’t actually turn humans all that often. If we had that little self control the whole population would be dead or turned already.” You noted his use of the word we and shuddered a little. He could attack you too? He seemed so gentle.

For the first time you noticed your soup in a bowl on the coffee table. Jaemin reclaimed your attention by speaking again. “We’re also pretty good at choosing who to bite, and when. We’re not heartless. We try to choose people with good metabolisms so that we can return them to Earth quickly.” At this you inhaled so sharply that he paused, looking over at you.

“We aren’t on Earth anymore?” you asked shakily. He shook his head with a quirk of his lips. That distracted you enough to calm down for a moment. He really was a gorgeous person. Was the word person still applicable to vampires? You didn’t know. He sucked you out of your thoughts again with a hand waved in front of you.

“No, we’re not on Earth. Where we are… it’s like a parallel plane of existence. Vampires can live here, do live here, in bigger bunches than we can on Earth. We call it ‘Vahmpyr.’ I always thought that was a really unoriginal name, but I was turned after it was discovered so I didn’t have much of a say. It would be like you trying to rename Earth.” He picked up your bowl of soup and stirred it around, handing it to you, before continuing.

“This is my vacation house of sorts, where I nurse humans who have been bitten back to their healthy selves. Generally we vampires try to keep one certified nurse or doctor in each coven just in case, more if the coven is large. It’s a handy skill to have. Especially if you happen to have parts of your coven who are as chaotic as ours.” He looked over at you and smiled wryly before adding, “I didn’t poison the soup, you know.” You looked down at your lap where the warm bowl sat and laughed under your breath before picking up the spoon and taking a bite. It was delicious. You flashed him a thumbs up with your mouth full and he smiled brightly again.

Once you had swallowed you asked, “how can you bite humans and not turn them? I didn’t know it was possible to not turn us.” He nodded like he was expecting this question.

“It’s kind of a strange feeling,” he told you. “Biting, I mean. It’s not like the human feeling of biting into a piece of meat. It’s just… it’s amazing. It’s like cold fruit on a summer’s day, hot chocolate while snow falls. It’s at once a feeling of absolute power and absolute devotion because tasting a human’s blood puts them above everything else, at least for a few moments. At the same time you’re aware that their body is falling apart and right into you. It’s intoxicating. Every once in a while you’ll bite someone that just tastes extraordinarily good, or meet someone with a unique and, pardon my language, delicious, smell. Then your body sort of automatically realizes you want them to stick around and releases the venom.”

“So,” you said, interested by his version of vampires, “if you bit me right now, I’d be fine?”

His eyes sparked with something new. Anger, you thought, or something close to it. “I just spent four days nursing you back to health and you want me to bite you just to see what happens?” he asked incredulously.

“No! I was just confirming. I’m sorry,” you murmured, and shoved another bite of the soup into your mouth for good measure. He sighed.

“I’m sorry too, it feels so easy to talk to you. I forget that you’re new to this.” You choked on your soup while he and he hurriedly patted your back as you regained your breath. “Are you alright?”

“Did you say you spent four days nursing me back to health?” you asked, head spinning. Four days. Four days. Four days. “I’ve been missing from Earth for four days?”

He deliberated for a moment. “Yes, and no. You’ve been off of Earth for four days, yes, but you aren’t missing.” You raised an eyebrow in response and he hurried to explain more. “I mean, obviously you’re here, and yes, you’ve been here for four days, asleep, recovering from Jisung’s bite. On the other hand, there’s still a you on Earth right now. That’s the interesting thing about Vahmpyr. We can bring humans back, with some effort, and while they’re here, a version of them is still on Earth. It’s still you. And if you go back, from what I understand, you get your other half’s memories back, like you never left. It’s quite the phenomenon.” He seemed completely serious and you were inclined to believe him, but this was insanity. Another you, a perfect copy, walking around on Earth while you hung out with the vampires in their parallel plane? You pinched yourself. It hurt, and you winced. Jaemin looked at you with this horrible understanding glimmer in his eyes like he was saying I know how this is. It’s weird and unimaginable but it’s here. Please don’t break any of my things.

Eventually you just kept sitting and looked back at him. “This really is good soup,” you said. He looked at you in surprise before bursting out laughing, face lighting up like the horizon at sunrise.

“You’re not going to attack me?” he asked between chuckles. “That’s the normal response. And thank you, that’s my favorite kind of soup too.” You shook your head, smiling back at him.

“I decided that there’s no changing it even if this is just a fever dream induced by an infected human,” you explained to him. “And wait, can you actually eat still? Like stuff besides blood?” In response he ran over to the small kitchen and grabbed a spoon of his own, dipping it into the bowl and moving it to his mouth. When he was done he smiled at you.

“I can still eat human foods. Nothing is as good as blood, of course, but I can still enjoy it. It’s just dulled by the transformation. And I’m glad that’s the stance you take on being transported to a different plane, I’ve known humans to react rather badly.” He took a moment to think. “For example, there was a woman who was convinced we had sexually assaulted her, which is a fair thought, but she wouldn’t let me explain anything to her. She ran outside as soon as her legs were strong enough and ran right into Lucas. He’s a really big guy, wide and tall and strong and such. She was so terrified she ran into my bathroom and I had to give her the spiel from through the door. Not the finest of interactions.” In spite of yourself you laughed. You could imagine the woman’s fear, especially if this Lucas was as infuriatingly gorgeous as Jaemin and the man who had bit you. You probably should’ve felt the same way, but something about Jaemin was just relaxing, and you felt safe with him.

“I get it,” you told Jaemin. “All of you guys; the guy who bit me - what did you say his name was? Jisung? Yeah, him. Jisung and you and probably Lucas, you all look like models which I guess goes with the vampire narrative, but it’s a little shocking since I’ve never seen someone so good looking. It’s nearly scary.” You looked back up to see Jaemin looking surprised.

“You think we’re good looking? Even after you got bitten by one, abducted by another, and have only heard of the third in a story about someone running away screaming?”

You shrugged. “All of that doesn’t change the facts. You’re still some pretty perfect looking human beings.” A moment later you realized what you had said and wrinkled your nose. “Sorry, uh, creatures. Is that offensive?” Jaemin laughed again and wow you could get addicted to that laugh. It was so carefree. You supposed that came with immortality.

“Technically ‘creatures’ is more accurate but isn’t very nice-sounding, even if we are unnatural monsters.” He said this as though he had come to terms with it. Even if we are unnatural monsters.

“I don’t think you’re unnatural,” you told him. “I mean, if there is a higher power out there then He or It or They created a whole plane for you and if not then nature did. I don’t think Vahmpyr would exist if you were unnatural.” He looked at you without speaking as you took another spoonful of soup.

“That’s… that’s a new way of looking at it.” He looked conflicted, like he was trying to reconcile your view of him with his view of himself. “I don’t think our plane was meant to exist though, by higher power or nature. Humans are beautiful because they age and there is room for change within your society. It’s hard to change an entire plane full of the unchanging.”

“Maybe so,” you argued, “but you’re obviously gorgeous on the outside, and on the inside it seems like you have a good system too. If I was a vampire I don’t think I’d take care of the humans I had bitten. It wouldn’t have occurred to me. They would all die. I would be dead, come to think of it.”

“That’s true,” he conceded. “You really do have a unique view of things.”

“Thank you?” It came out sounding more like a question than you intended. You finished your bowl of soup, licking the excess off of your upper lip. Setting the bowl back down seemed to break whatever spell had kept you in eager conversation with him. You supposed all of your questions had been answered, for now. Jaemin helped you get set up with Netflix on his TV and went back outside to his garden. He explained that you could call for him through the open window if you needed him, he would be right nearby. You nodded, already distracted by the opening scene of your show.

After a while you realized that there were low voices coming from outside. It sounded like Jaemin was talking to someone. You turned the volume down on the TV a little bit to listen. Maybe you could meet the infamous Lucas or someone else in Jaemin’s vampire family.

“... have to bring her to me?” Jaemin was saying. “You tasted her, you know her scent. This is painful. Her scent is all over my things, my bed.” He let out a small groan and the other man with him chuckled breathily.

“Hyung, I didn’t mean for her to smell so good I swear, it was a spur of the moment decision. I was hunting in her area and her scent was so enticing. Plus, I was hungry!” You shuddered at the mention of hunting. This one, who must be Jisung, was far less civilized than Jaemin, it seemed.

Jaemin made an angry noise and his words hissed out when he spoke. “You think it was enticing out in the open air of Poland? On a windy day? I’ve been smelling her acutely on my things, in my house, for four days and it hurts. My venom has been going non-stop for the entire period and it’s not like I can just change her, she’s got a life ahead of her!” Part of your heart went out to Jaemin - he was trying so hard to take care of you and even caused himself pain for it. That explained why he had reacted so negatively when you asked what would happen if he bit you. You wouldn’t have been fine. You would’ve become like him. The thought didn’t cause the anger or disgust you thought it should have. It sounded nice, almost, to be like him. To stay in his safety for eternity.

“Jaemin,” said a new voice. It was strong and rough like tree bark lined his throat. “You can return her back to the real world in just a few more days and you’ll be free of her. It’s not like she would want to stay here anyway, her friends and family are back on Earth. We can keep Jisung home and have him feed on Chenle until he learns his lesson.”

Someone, presumably Jisung, made a wounded noise. “I can control myself, I promise. Don’t make me feed on Chenle, Hyung, he doesn’t taste anywhere near as good.” Definitely Jisung.

“Jisung,” said Jaemin’s voice. “Don’t argue, you brought this on yourself. And me,” he adds as an afterthought.

Jisung’s sullen voice responded, “fine, Hyung, but Chenle isn’t going to be happy either, you know.” You thought maybe Jaemin must have nodded or something because nobody said anything for a while. You turned off the TV, suddenly bored with the program and head full of new questions. The top one on the list was why. Why did you affect them this way? Why did Jaemin treat you so nicely when you were hurting him? Why did Jisung sound like a puppy who had been reprimanded? Why did Jaemin and the other man have the power to ground him, essentially? Then there were the who questions. Who was the man with the voice like tree bark? Who was Chenle, and why wouldn’t he be happy? Lastly were the when questions. When would you be going home? When would you see them again? Would you see them ever again? When would Jisung be allowed to hunt again?

You were so deep in your head that you didn’t notice the door opening and Jaemin coming in, two men behind him, until he stopped and waved a hand in front of you.

“Y/N, you okay? I brought you some people to meet.” He stepped back and you forced your eyes to refocus on what was in front of you. When you looked up at him, he presented the two other guys like he was a car salesman and these were his favorite models. “This is Jisung, you’ve met him already although I don’t know if you remember him.” You nodded, looking over him. He had on a grey crewneck sweatshirt over a pair of black sweatpants today and looked far less terrifyingly beautiful flanked by his hyungs.

“I remember him,” you told them. “You’re the one who bit me.” You didn’t think it was possible for him to look more sheepish than he already did but he managed to, and shrank back so that he was standing half-behind the other man. The other guy had bleached hair falling messily over his forehead, and even though he was shorter than Jisung, he seemed to command your attention more. He had on a green sleeveless shirt that showed off arms rippling with muscles. You gulped, looking up at him, but then he smiled at you. His whole demeanor changed. He felt less like he was about to kill you and more like he might accidentally strangle you to death in a hug. His eyes scrunched up into little crescents and you found yourself smiling back.

“I’m Jeno,” he said, walking forward to shake your hand. “Sorry I didn’t come to visit earlier.” His voice still sounded like bark lined his throat, but less so now that he wasn’t bothering to limit his volume.

“That’s fine,” you replied. “I just woke up earlier today.” You glanced towards Jaemin; he looked like a proud mom watching you interact with his friend. “Jaemin fed me, and since then I’ve just been sitting here watching TV. I can’t find my phone, and even if I did I’m not sure I could walk over to it. My legs are out of practice.”

Jeno smiled again. “That’s pretty common for Jisung’s victims. We found out he has these little back teeth that make it more painful for the people he bites so they usually need more bed rest to recover from the strain on their bodies and the blood loss.”

You nodded, as though that made sense. They still let Jisung hunt with his unpredictability and extra teeth? That seemed a little irresponsible of them, but you supposed that Jeno and Jaemin weren’t that much older than him in the first place. You tried to bring up your next subject subtly.

“Speaking of recovery, when do you think I’ll be going back to Earth?” The change in the room was immediate. Jeno’s smile faltered enough for you to see his eyes, Jaemin’s shoulders slumped, and Jisung’s foot started tapping against the rug. “It’s not that I don’t like it here,” you interjected, “I'm just worried that my, uh, double self will get up to trouble and stuff. What if someone notices it’s not me?”

Jisung looked at Jaemin. “You either did a really bad job of explaining this or she wasn't listening, Hyung.” Jaemin glared at him in response and chose not to dignify the statement with an answer. Jisung huffed at him and turned to you. “It’s you, y’know, back on Earth. Like… when a starfish gets cut in half, both halves grow into full starfish again. Something similar happened to you. Same organism, same you, just two different places. Is that a weird comparison?”

“What he means,” interjected Jeno before you could reply, “is that the you down there has all of your experiences and memories and the same brain. It’s the exact same person as you, just two versions of you. When you go back you won't even have a bite scar.” At this you lifted your hand to rub at the mark on your throat. You saw Jisung’s eyes follow the action and he licked his lips. You put your arm back down into your lap and swallowed, the sound echoing in your head.

Finally Jaemin spoke. “And to answer your question, as soon as we get you strong enough to walk on your own you can go back. I mean technically there’s a body waiting for you down there, but we don’t know what would happen if we sent you back faulty, so we like to be careful.” You laughed at his use of the word faulty and nodded.

“Okay. Do you guys have a portal or something that’ll take me back?” At this all three men burst into laughter and a high pitched squeal joined the mix, coming from the doorway. Yet another man was standing there, thin orange-dyed hair flopping as he doubled over laughing.

“A- a portal,” he wheezed out between laughs. “No, we don’t have a portal.” You threw him a disgruntled look.

“I was just asking…”

Jaemin looked equally off-put and said, “Y/N, this is Chenle, Jisung’s best friend and our second child. Sorry about his lack of a filter.” His lips pursed unhappily and you rushed to reassure him.

“No, that’s okay, I don’t know if that was stupid question. No feelings hurt, he’s fine.” Jaemin looked unconvinced, so you sat up more towards Chenle and reached out a hand. “I’m Y/N.”

“Oh is that your name?” he replied breezily, shaking your hand quickly. “They were right, you do smell good.” Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jaemin shift protectively.

“Chenle.” His voice came out a growl, raising hairs on the back of your neck. “Don’t you dare.” It was interesting, you thought, how this dynamic worked. From what you had heard with Jisung, Jaemin had always contained himself, like he was reprimanding his favorite child. With Chenle he seemed almost dangerous, like it was possible for him to hurt a fly, and things much bigger than a fly. You wondered if he was this way with all of his patients, or if Chenle just bothered him more with you than usual.

“I’m not going to, mom, chill out a moment.” Chenle, you decided, must be the bad egg of their group. Every family had at least one, and here was theirs. He seemed the most likely to hurt something for the fun of it, and it almost seemed like he should have been the one to attack you, not Jisung. You wondered, in the distant back of your head, whether he had extra teeth for biting like Jisung did. Maybe it was better not to find out.

“Please don’t call me mom,” Jaemin sighed in response, all of the fight leaving him a rush. His muscles were still tense, though, and he ran a hand through his cotton candy colored hair.

“Chenle,” said Jeno, “I think you and Jisung should go talk. He has news for you.” Jisung shuddered slightly, his nod small and tense. You remembered his reaction earlier, when he had been informed that he needed to feed from Chenle for the time being. Chenle looked between Jisung and Jeno and an expression appeared on his face that didn’t seem natural on him - uncomfortable confusion. What you had seen in this past tension filled minute was that he was self assured and rambunctious. Now you wondered if he respected Jeno, regardless of that. You supposed you didn’t really have time to find out, you would be going home as soon as you could walk on your own. Speaking of which-

“I need to use the bathroom again,” you said as Jisung walked out of the house with Chenle right behind him.

“You should try getting up on your own,” Jeno suggested. “The more you sit around the harder it’ll be for your legs to get strong again.” You nodded and used the arm of the couch to haul yourself to your feet. Your knees started shaking again and Jaemin hurried to support you a little, until you felt a little more steady on your feet. Once you did, you tentatively took a tiny step towards the bathroom. Your arms flew out to your sides to help with balance and Jaemin took the mother bird stance, worriedly standing within arm’s length to catch you if you started to collapse. Jeno watched from a few paces away and smiled at you.

“Let’s see if you can get to me, okay? Then we can help if you need support.” You nodded and gritted your teeth, shuffling forward on your weak legs slowly. The good news: you made it to him without falling or using Jaemin’s ever-there assistance. The not so good news: you practically fell into Jeno when you got to him, using his body for support. He helped you find your center of gravity again before acting as a crutch to get you to the bathroom.

“If you need anything,” Jaemin told you, “I’ll be right out here. Don’t over-exert yourself.”

“I’ll be fine, it’s just like one step to the toilet, and there’s a nice strong counter” you assured him, and closed the door behind you as you stepped away from Jeno’s warm strength. Immediately you felt weak again but you reached out to hold on to the edge of the counter while you walked and got safely to the toilet. Your legs screeched at you as you lowered yourself onto the seat and you relaxed a little bit once you were seated. Recovery was going to be hard.

☽༓☾

Two days passed in a blur of pain and people. You met quite a few new people, like the infamous Lucas (who was a giant baby and who adored you), a woman named Joy who had actual red eyes like the legends said, and a man that everyone called Ten. Actually, you weren’t sure if Ten counted as a man. He dropped by Jaemin’s house the third day, right after Jisung and Chenle had just left after getting some flowers from Jaemin’s garden. He walked in on tentacles, long and thick ones that wrapped around the door frame and curled and uncurled as he talked. He muttered something about wishing they would just admit they were gay and asked Jaemin if he happened to have clams. Jaemin, looking amused, supplied him with an entire bucket of the little creatures. Ten gave him a jar in response and flounced out the door without even looking at you.

“Jaemin,” you asked, “what, or who, was that?” Jaemin laughed happily and the sound was so perfect that you wished he would just keep laughing forever.

“Ten is kind of unique,” Jaemin said. “Obviously, he’s got tentacles, which is unusual, and then he’s also not a vampire so none of us can quite figure out how he can get here, to Vahmpyr. But he can see the future, sort of, which is pretty helpful sometimes. Warns us when we’re getting too active and need to be careful of humans. He’s also convinced that Chenle and Jisung are gay and that they just need some guidance.”

You couldn’t decide on a question to ask about these revelations, so you settled for a very intelligent sounding “huh,” and continued your walking around the house. You were doing a lot better now with your exercises and had been able to make it around the room without holding onto anything for support four times now. Jaemin laughed again and you felt yourself actually flinch from the force of his happiness. It was addicting, almost. He went back to his Gaelic scrolls, which he was translating for a man called Kun, who you had yet to meet.

You had a sudden thought and you found yourself needing to talk, to explain about the other day. “Jaemin,” you said, dropping into the seat across from him at the table with a low groan. “The other day when Jisung and Jeno came, you guys were talking outside, you know?” He looked up from the scrolls, giving you a raised eyebrow like ‘so?’

“So I may or may not have listened to your conversation,” you told him, watching as he gave you his full attention, clicking his pen closed and rolling up the scrolls gently. He didn’t look angry, exactly, more apprehensive than anything. Like he was back to worrying about you throwing things and breaking his windows.

“And?” he prompted, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them you saw something strange there, like fear. But certainly the immortal and beautiful Jaemin couldn’t be scared of you. You must’ve been interpreting it wrong.

“Well you guys were talking about my smell,” you started slowly. “And, uh, you said that you- that I was causing you pain. And I was just wondering, why keep me around? Why not take me to a human hospital, or just kill me? Or turn me? Why did you make yourself suffer?”

He inhaled deeply and then shivered a little bit. When he spoke, his voice was soft and a little scratchy. “For one, we’ve never had a case like this before. I mean obviously there have been people who have smelled good to me before, but usually I’m able to ignore it. With you… it’s like my vampire body can’t get enough of your scent. It wants to turn you, to keep you, in its selfishness. That part of me is weak, in its greed. And of course I couldn’t kill you, I could barely control myself when Chenle- when he-” Jaemin took a deep breath to steady himself. “He wanted to bite you. You smell good to our whole coven, to everyone who’s met you, at least, which is a first. Thankfully you don’t appeal to Jisung the same way you do to me though, because by now you’d be a full fledged member of the family. Jeno is really good at hiding it, but I could tell he wanted to drink from you too, when you used him to help you walk the other day. I think the only ones not affected by it are Lucas and Ten, although that could be because they’re both gay, I’m not sure.” As an afterthought, he added, “actually Lucas is demisexual but I’ve only ever seen him date guys.”

Skipping over the bit about Lucas’ sexuality, you spoke, horrified. “I’ve been hurting all of you? Seriously, why not just make me go to a regular hospital on Earth?”

“Well it would be a little hard to just give you to a hospital on Earth and be like, ‘here, take this body which may or may not have a vampire bite in its neck,’” Jaemin told you. “And also because I haven’t given up on a patient yet, and I didn’t want the first to be because I can’t control myself. And as to why I didn’t turn you… I didn’t want to take your life away. I still don’t. I think your life is going to be a good one and I don’t want to steal that. That’s why you’re going back tomorrow.”

An empty feeling settled in your chest. “You’re sending me back tomorrow? I still haven’t met so many of your friends though!”

He leveled you with a stare. “The rest of my patients never got to meet any other members of the coven. This was a one and done. You don’t need to know the rest of them. Especially not Yuta or Hyuck, good gracious.”

Who are Yuta and Hyuck? you wanted to ask, but his tone implied the end of the conversation, so you refrained from forming the question. “Okay, uh, I’m going to go sit in the garden.”

Jaemin flashed you a barely-there smile, opening his scrolls again and clicking his pen open. “Mhm. Be careful.”

You went out to sit under a tree in his front yard. Actually there were a lot of trees in his front yard - his house was in a forest. He had neglected to mention that when he first told you about his home and you had found it fascinating how it worked. When you walked out, there wasn’t any path out of the small clearing that housed his cottage. When you imagined a person, though, a tree tunnel would open and you could go any which way you wanted. You had tried imagining your parents the first time Jaemin told you about it and it hadn’t worked. He had explained that it only worked for people on this plane of existence, which made sense. When you had imagined Joy, it had shown you a way to a small town. Jaemin had forbidden you to go anywhere without him in case someone got territorial or hungry and killed you by accident. You respected that, you didn’t want to be murdered, but you wanted to see Lucas, and talk to him. He had fun stories to tell of his best friends. Jaemin seemed a bit huffy. It would be fine to go and see him, right? You’d just go and be back quickly before Jaemin even realized you were gone.

You decided that you just needed to talk to a friend right now and focused your mind on Lucas, finding an apartment building on the outskirts of the largest vampire city you had seen so far. With a little more effort you could find his apartment, although you couldn’t see him. The trees opened and you glanced back at Jaemin’s cottage before setting off.

As you walked down the path you reveled in your ability to walk. After two days of walking in short bursts and trying to regain strength in your legs you were finally able to walk like a normal human being, no flailing arms or stops every few meters to take a break and rest your muscles. It was nice, after so little freedom within Jaemin’s one room cabin. You liked being out here better. You avoided tree limbs and roots as you went, always focused on getting to Lucas. At one point your focus switched from his apartment to a convenience store and you panicked, realizing that you couldn’t go there. There, you might actually get murdered like Jaemin had predicted. He hadn’t nursed you back to health and struggled through your scent just for you to go and get yourself killed. You waited, walking more slowly, until the view at the end of the tunnel switched back to Lucas’ apartment’s front door. You breathed out a sigh of relief and continued on your way.

It was fascinating to you how there was no life in the forest besides the plants. You didn’t hear or see any insects or birds and you wondered if that was because they were afraid of the vampires or if they just didn’t exist on this plane. You decided to ask Lucas when you got to his house. After a while you realized that the image at the end of the tree tunnel was no longer a moving image of where you wanted to go, but rather the actual thing, growing bigger as you progressed down the path. You found yourself increasing your pace in your hurry to see Lucas.

When you left the comfort and relative safety of the forest, you nearly ran across the street separating the apartment complex from the trees. You stumbled at one point and almost fell to the pavement but recovered and kept going. You entered the main door and started up the stairs, still hurrying a little faster than your body thought was necessary. You speed walked until you reached the third floor and started looking through the numbers, looking for a door marked with ‘311,’ the one you had seen in the forest while looking for Lucas. After a good few minutes searching, you located the hallway his apartment was in and walked down it, looking at the odd numbers on the right. They counted down from 39, so you had a ways to go. Part of you wondered if the vampires just didn’t care about your presence, because apparently your scent was pretty strong and you were sure that you were stinking up the whole hallway with your human-ness, but nobody had come to murder you yet.

When you finally got to the door labeled with a faded ‘311,’ you stopped to take a breath before knocking on the door. An uncomfortable pause (where you wondered if Lucas was out after all) later, the door opened and you breathed out a sigh of relief, only for the air to stick in your throat at the sight of a man shorter than Lucas, but much scarier.

He had dark brown hair, obviously lightened but only a bit. It fell over his forehead and stopped just short of his eyes. His lips set in a grim line as he looked over you before they pulled back into what should have been a heart stopping smile, but was instead a snarl, a grimace of distrust and anger. The feature that stuck out most to you were his eyes. You imagined that when he was happy, his eyes would glow with an inner light. Now they were dark and they promised violence.

No sooner had you come to this conclusion before he had you pinned against the opposite wall. “Give me one good reason,” he hissed, “why I shouldn’t just kill you.” His arm pressed into your throat, keeping you pinned against the wall, on your tiptoes to accommodate the height of his arm.

Lucas, I came to see Lucas, you tried to say, but it got stuck on the way out of your throat and instead what came out was a weak, “Lu…” followed by a wispy groan. The man furrowed his brow and moved to hold you against the wall by your arms so you could speak. “Lucas,” you gasped, air rushing back into your body and allowing you to speak once more. “Friend.” The man put you completely down now, on the floor, and you moved to massage your throat before his eyes, dark and threatening, halted your movement. Lucas certainly has a knack for choosing friends, you thought.

“Don’t move,” he growled, “Or I’ll throw you out our living room window. It may not kill you, but it will hurt.” Then he turned around slightly and called, “Xuxi! There’s someone here to see you!”

You heard shuffling inside before the figure of Lucas appeared, tall and thick and seeming like safety incarnate in the presence of someone as terrifying as the man who still had one hand next to your head.

“Yang?” he asked. “Is everything alright?”

The man, Yang, shifted so that Lucas could see your face. “This one just came knocking on our door and said he wanted to see you. Do you know her?”

Lucas gasped slightly and sped up, blurring a little, so that he reached you in less than a second. “Oh my gosh, Y/N, are you okay? Yangyang, this is the human that’s been staying with Jaemin for the past week, she’s my friend!”

“Hey Lucas,” you said weakly, finally reaching up to massage your throat now that you had someone to protect you from being thrown out the living room window. “I’m okay, I think. Just a little lightheaded.” Part of you wanted to add, Is his name Yang or Yangyang? but you figured now wasn’t the time to ask.

A strange look crossed Lucas’ face. “Well, I’m glad you’re alright, come inside and sit down, I’ll get you some water.” You followed him into the apartment, Yang (Yangyang?) behind you. He still slightly scared you and you stayed as close to Lucas as possible. Lucas spoke again as he grabbed a water bottle for you. You noted idly that it was Dasani. “But, uh, didn’t Jaemin tell you to, like, not come out here? So you didn’t get murdered? Cause that could’ve ended a lot worse.”

“Not you too!” you cried, exaggerating the syllables. “I know I could’ve died, but I wanted to see my friend! How hard is that to understand? Did it bother you so much that I wanted to see you?”

Lucas figited uncomfortably. “Well I appreciate that you came to see me, that’s really nice of you. It’s just that Jaemin was right. This really isn’t a safe place for you to be. I mean Yangyang could’ve killed you if he didn’t have such a heart of gold.” You threw a disbelieving glance towards the man in question and he shrugged, mouth tugging up in a mischievous grin.

“Okay, I mean, I can go back if you don’t want me here, I have to be back before Jaemin realizes I’m gone anyway,” you said, drinking more of your water. Yangyang and Lucas both froze.

“You didn’t get his permission?” Lucas asked in a tone that confused you. Was he scared of Jaemin? “Or tell him you were going for a walk? Or anything?”

“No, of course not. He would’ve said no!” you protested unhappily. This was not how you imagined this trip going.

“Okay,” Lucas said. “I’m taking you back right now. Jaemin will- well, he won’t kill me, but he’ll be scarily close if he finds out you came here.”

With a heavy sigh, you stood up. You knew that if he needed to, he could just throw you over his shoulder and carry you all the way back to Jaemin’s cottage. Darned vampire strength. “Fine.”

You got down the hallway and into the stairwell before Lucas tensed up again. “Shoot,” he muttered, looking down the stairs below. You couldn’t hear or see anything, and you were about to tell him so when he sighed and you heard a pitter patter like rain, growing louder by the second.

Moments later Jamin appeared in front of you, pink hair mussed and eyes wild with a mix of fear and anger. For a moment he didn’t even speak, just glared at you. The fear faded from his eyes. When he did speak, the words seemed like poison being spit off the tongue of a snake.

“I can’t believe you,” he seethed. “I kept you in my house, fed you, nursed you back to health. I let you use all of my things and was even going to send you home once you were perfectly healthy again. I gave you one rule. One! Just to keep you safe! And you go and break it. You could have died, Y/N, do you understand that? I did everything in my power to keep you in an environment where you weren’t in danger! I didn’t allow Hyuck to come over, I made sure that you were prepared to meet Lucas and Jeno and even Jisung! But all of my efforts faded to nothing when you opened that doorway to the city. I’m taking you home right now, I can’t bear to keep you here any longer, not when you obviously have no sense of self preservation!”

He picked you up before you could even blink and you felt a sharp wind on your face as he ran home. His steps sounded like raindrops falling on pavement, sharp but small, a pinprick of sound in an otherwise silent stairwell. Lucas had disappeared from view in less than a second and you shut your eyes against the vertigo of being carried at such a speed. Everything blurred, everything was indistinct and most things weren’t even worthy of notice. Jaemin smelled like ink, and you had space in the very back of your mind to wonder if he had spilled his, in his haste to find you. It didn’t seem like a very vampire-like thing to do.

A few moments later you entered the canopy of the forest and every once in a while you heard a stick break under his foot or a rock get catapulted out of the way. Then you felt the sun on your back again and you gasped as Jaemin dumped you onto the warm grass, standing tall before you. He said something in a language you didn’t know - it sounded vaguely like Latin - and the grass fell out from under you as the ground opened up and you fell into space.

☽༓☾

When you woke up the next morning to your alarm, you wondered briefly if your entire experience with Jaemin and the other vampires was a dream. The puncture wounds that had been on your neck were utterly nonexistent, and there was no evidence on you that you had even left the comfort of your bed. On the other hand, you had clear memories of your time in Vahmpyr, short as it was. You remembered how it smelled and how the trees had felt as you walked outside. You remembered the feeling of the cool granite of the bathroom countertop. Mostly you remembered being with Lucas, Jeno, Jisung, and Chenle. You remembered almost dying at the hands of Lucas’ roommate and you remembered the terrifying flight in Jaemin’s arms.

Jaemin.

You grimaced at yourself in the mirror and spit out your toothpaste. There was no way your mind could have made up someone as excruciatingly kind and beautiful as Jaemin was. At the same time you felt anger bubble up inside of you. He hadn’t even given you a chance to say goodbye - he had just put you through to your Earthly self without any words between the two of you. You hadn’t said goodbye to Lucas or Jeno either, nor had you seen the rest of your new acquaintances. The anger flared, hot against your insides, and you could swear you actually felt your chest twinge. You spat out the last of your toothpaste and replaced your toothbrush in its holder, going to get ready for your day.

The next few days were spent alternately missing the simplicity of life on Vahmpyr and being angry at Jaemin. Assignments piled onto your shoulders and in addition to that, you discovered some sort of disconnect between you and the part of you that had stayed on Earth while you were out. That part of you seemed to dismiss your time in Vahmpyr as something it had dreamed up all on its own. It didn’t acknowledge you and liked to take control of your body whenever you weren’t paying full attention to it. Every time it did that you felt the twinge in your chest again, except it got more and more painful. You started having headaches that the other part of you didn’t seem to feel but which pressed against your skull like tiny war hammers thudding into the bone by your temples and occasionally your eyes.

Your vision would go blurry and you started having lapses of consciousness, only to wake up and find yourself doing just fine with your other part in charge. During these lapses you would dream of being in Vahmpyr again, and you saw Lucas smiling with Yangyang, Chenle rolling his eyes at Jisung before hugging him tightly. Other men you didn’t know and other women you hadn’t met also flew across the screen of your eyes but they disappeared quickly. Ten even passed by once, haughtily scrolling past everyone until he sidled up to a tall man with long blond hair who smiled down at him and pressed a gentle kiss to one of Ten’s tentacles. A man with red hair and an eyebrow slit served coffee to a man who chewed like a rabbit. A group of three guys held up a sign that said “Go Taemin!” as a group played football. A woman in a suit jacket over jean shorts sat with a box of papers, crying. Joy played a game with other girls where they tried to push lockers over on each other. Everything (with the exception of the lockers) looked like fun. It was better than Earth, at any rate. Every night you went to bed wondering if you might just die by morning and leave the other half of yourself behind to control the body. You were just along for the ride at this point.

The evening of your fourth day back on Earth you went to sit outside the dorm building on a bench, just for some fresh air. For once you had control of the body and you let your head tip back, closing your eyes and just feeling. The bench pressed up against your back in a way that hurt slightly, but your body had been wracked with pain for two days straight and it didn’t ache so much as behind your eyes or inside your skull. The evening breeze blew across your eyelids and brought with it the scent of sun-warmed dirt.

It smelled like Jaemin, that first morning you woke up in his house. When he had helped you across the cottage towards the bathroom and been outlined by the sun, when he had made you soup and sat with you on the couch while he explained where you were and what he was.

Your body shook with a particularly painful pound on the inside of your ribs. You let yourself relax against the bench again and the sensations enveloped you once more. You felt yourself let go of your body on Earth and float away, less falling and more weightlessness, floating away on a wind that smelled of sun on dirt and felt like arms wrapping around you while rain fell on summer-warmed pavement. You floated away on this wind and it lifted you endlessly until you nodded off, finally free of the pains that had kept you company for the past few days. You wondered if perhaps you had died of it, if being back on Earth had perhaps been more detrimental to you than beneficial.

Then your back hit something hard and the breath was knocked from your lungs, waking you up again and telling you that something had gone very very wrong or very very well. You gasped air back into your body and rolled over weakly, now in a body you recognized as the one you inhabited on Vahmpyr. Grass poked your inner arms and you pushed yourself up to sitting with your legs crossed. You massaged your chest as you inhaled and found yourself miraculously free of pain, aside from the slight burn of breath inhaled too quickly after loss of oxygen. The war hammers in your head had vacated the premises and the aches of your ribs had subsided, making it easier to breath and just sit without drawing in pained gasps.

You registered a return of cold as a shadow fell over you and looked up to see none other than Chenle, with Jisung behind him. Did they never go anywhere without each other? Well, besides hunting.

“Y/N?” He gaped down at you, and you looked back up at him.

“The one and only,” you said, before you realized that didn’t apply to you anymore. “Well, one of only two in existence.”

He laughed that weird dolphin laugh he had again and reached out a hand to help you up. You took it, standing unsteadily on two feet that didn’t ache the moment you put weight on them. “What’re you doing back here? Jaemin-hyung said he sent you back to Earth.”

You feel the corners of your mouth tug down almost instinctively at the mention of Jaemin. “He did. I don’t think Earth agreed with me,” you told him. Jisung walked forward and looked you up and down.

“Maybe we should take you back to Jaeminnie hyung, he’ll know what to do.”

You groaned. “I really don’t want to deal with him at the moment.”

“We can take him to Kun-ge,” Chenle interjected smoothly. “He’ll know better than Jaemin-hyung anyway, he’s been a doctor and a vampire longer.” A side of Chenle appeared that you hadn’t seen yet, a side that took charge in a way that wasn’t just insulting anyone near him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. He took your hand with one of his and grabbed Jisung’s arm with the other.

“Come on, let’s go see Kun-ge!”

☽༓☾

Kun, as it happened, lived in the same building as Lucas. Actually he lived one apartment over, behind the door labeled ‘313.’ When he opened the door he seemed strangely unsurprised to see you there, just breathed out a sigh and let you in. He had nice light brown hair that worked well with his skin tone and eyes that smiled even when he wasn’t. He had this aura of parenting around him, like he took care of everyone he knew. It was comfortable to be around him from the start. Once Chenle had explained where he found you, Kun sat you down and asked exactly what had happened.

“Listen,” he said seriously. “I’ve never seen a human react the way you did. Nobody has ever come back, from what I know. We have to figure out exactly what happened, why you came back, and how to get you back to Earth.”

You inhaled deeply, relishing in the painless breath. “Okay, uh, I’m not really sure where to start,” you told him.

“Tell me about how you got sent home.”

“Okay. So, I left Jaemin’s cottage to come and see Lucas and I guess Jaemin is a lot scarier when he gets mad, because he was not happy when he found out I had left. He did this, like, superfast running thing, very Twilight, and carried me to this random clearing, I guess, I didn’t look around much.” You paused to let Kun write that down on his very professional looking clipboard, but he waved you on. Right, he was a vampire. He could write stuff fast.

“So he sort of dumped me on the ground and said something in a language I didn’t know, it sounded like Latin but I’m not sure. Then the ground sort of opened up and I fell and fell and fell until I rejoined my, uh, Earthly body.” You paused to take a breath and think about how to convey what happened when you got back to Earth.

“When I got back there was this weird disconnect with my body. Like, uh, there was me, in my body, and there was also this other part of me, the part of me that stayed behind when I came here the first time. That other part sort of took the main control of the body we lived in, and it felt like I was along for the ride. It liked to pretend that I wasn’t there, that my time here in Vahmpyr wasn’t real. It was weird. Then a little into my stay, I started getting these super bad pains all over my body.”

Kun interrupted you by holding up a finger. “How long were you home before the pains started?”

You thought back, struggling to pinpoint when they had started. “I think maybe a little longer than twenty four hours? When I got back I woke up in that body, and about one sleep later I started getting the pains, which would be like twenty five hours. Twenty four and a half, maybe. At first it was just these weird twinges in my chest, like my ribs were popping every time I took a breath, then it progressed. I got these horrible headaches, and my chest hurt all the time, and walking felt like attacking my feet, and my neck was always super achy. The thing is, my other half didn’t feel any of that. It was just my half of our consciousness. Then about on my fourth day back I went outside and sat on the bench outside my dorm. I laid back and, uh, it felt like I died or something. I just felt my consciousness leave the body and I guess the other half is still there living down there and now I’m here.”

Kun, Chenle, and Jisung all sat on the couch together, Kun looking over his notes while the other two guys just sat in silence. After a minute Kun spoke. “I don’t really know what happened to you, but I’m almost certain that your connection to your human self is gone. Or at least, your Earthly self. I don’t think we can send you back anymore, I’m sorry.” He looked at you, eyes full of remorse. You expected to mirror that feeling, but you discovered that it didn’t bother you so much. The other half of yourself would keep all of your friends and family from having to mourn you, and you could stay here, painless.

“I’m actually kind of glad about that,” you told them, and Chenle’s head snapped from picking at his jeans to look at you.

“Glad?” he demanded, incredulous. “To stay here?”

“Well yeah, I mean I was in pain most of the time I was back on Earth so it’s not like I’m eager to go back there. Plus, since I didn’t actually die nobody has to mourn me. And part of the time I was like… seeing Vahmpyr. Like is Ten dating this super tall guy with blonde hair? And Joy was pushing lockers over on her friends? And you two!” You turned an accusatory finger at Jisung and Chenle. “You two are adorable together!”

Jisung sighed. “Not you too…”

Kun shushed him. “You could see what was going on here in Vahmpyr?”

“Well, sort of,” you told him. “I saw that Lucas and Yangyang were having, like, a picnic?”

Kun’s eyebrows furrowed and he muttered, “I knew they had one without me.”

“I also saw this guy with red hair giving coffee to a man who sort of chewed like a bunny. And there was this group of three guys holding up a sign that said “Go Taemin!” I think, and I guess Taemin must have been playing football with the others I could see, although I couldn’t recognize any of the people playing. Oh, and there was this lady with really pretty hair who had a box of papers and she was just, like, sitting there and crying. She had the part of her hair near her neck bleached and the outer layers were still black, and she was wearing a suit jacket with jean shorts, which is kind of a weird combination.”

Kun looked over his notes. “That’s really interesting. All of those things have happened since you left, definitely. Joy and her friends like to play games where they try to kill each other, because they’re all immortal. The red haired man was probably Taeyong, and the bunny man would be Doyoung. Ten is dating Johnny, and yes, he is pretty tall and has blonde hair. I haven’t seen Taemin-hyung in a while so I don’t know if he’s playing football again or not. I don’t know about the woman with the cool hair either.”

“Definitely Taeyeon-noona,” Jisung interjected. “She broke up with her boyfriend a few days ago, and she does have hair dyed like that right now.”

Kun raised his eyebrows in curiosity. “Huh, I hope she’s doing okay. Actually I think maybe we should worry more about whoever she broke up with, she’s not exactly good with breakups.”

As though it’s a secret, Jisung’s next words came out in a whisper, and he leaned closer to Chenle and Kun. You had to strain a little to hear. “I heard it was a human. He, like, got super insecure about the fact that she wasn’t aging with him and broke up with her. It’s killing her. She really liked that guy.”

“Why did she get with him in the first place?” Chenle sounded absolutely confused. “She knew it would end like this. That’s how the last two ended.”

“I don’t know, but now I’m really worried for the guy,” said Kun. “We might have to cover up for her.” The implications of his words sank in and you made a small sound. All three men snapped their heads up and it looked as though they forgot you were there.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry Y/N! Do you have anywhere to stay where you’ll be safe for at least a few days? Jaemin’s cottage should be pretty easy to stay hidden in.”

“She doesn’t want to go and see him after what happened,” Chenle supplied helpfully. “I’m taking her back to my place once we’re done here.” Kun appeared to consider that, and then nodded his approval.

“That sounds alright. Tomorrow we can go out and get her some things to make her stay more comfortable. Maybe we can find one of the Outer Plots to put her on.”

“Outer Plots?” you asked, because the way he said it demanded capitalization in your head.

“They’re sort of exactly what they sound like,” Kun explained. “There are these pieces of land around the edges of the towns that nobody really lives on but they’re solid places to live, if we can get a good one. It’s a little bit like Jaemin’s land out there, lot’s of forest, so we can set up tree tunnels for you to get here fast, if you need to.”

You nodded. “That does sound pretty good. I don’t know what I’m going to do though, it’s not like I have all that many hobbies. I was midway through getting my bachelor’s when I left.”

“That’s fine,” Chenle said. “I have plenty of things to keep you entertained, and we can get some of the other guys to keep you company if we’re busy. There are a lot of us with a lot of open time. I also have a ton of extra textbooks from learning languages, so if you want you can spend your life becoming fluent in Japanese, Latin, French, German, Scottish Gaelic, Hawaiian, or one of the others I have. Or multiple, if you learn fast.”

“Thanks Chenle.” He wasn’t actually so bad, you thought. He had brought you to Kun and he was offering to let you use his house and his things. “I might just take you up on that.”

“You guys should probably leave now, actually,” Kun said. “At human speeds you’ll get home right on time.”

Chenle checked his watch and nodded. “He’s right. We should get going.”

You thanked Kun again and Chenle led you out the door, Jisung following behind you. You separated ways with him once you left the apartment building, his figure disappearing swiftly into the trees. Once you blinked there was no finding him again.

You walked behind Chenle quietly, choosing to observe your surroundings. You didn’t see much in the way of low quality or old houses here. It seemed as though a lower class had been eradicated entirely and the vampires could choose where they wanted to live. When you asked him how that was possible, Chenle laughed that peculiar screech of his and said, “when you’re reborn into a family of beings that has been around for millenia, you accumulate some shared wealth. Especially when some of the coven members have doctorate degrees and work on Earth full time, and some of us had familial connections as well, like money left in wills and such.”

You nodded. “So you guys are basically like the elite class of the universe.”

“Pretty much. My house is probably the biggest you’ll ever be in, because I like to splurge a little bit. Unfortunately you might get lost, though, and if you do, just call for me. I’ll make sure to be listening all night in case you need me.”

“It’s that big?” you asked in disbelief. “Do you live in Buckingham Palace?”

He grinned, showing off his incisors. “Bigger.”

“And you live alone?”

“Well, I haven’t always. Jisung and I will probably have sleepovers for all of eternity, and whenever a new coven starts they stay with me for a few days while they get their own living quarters set up, but for the most part , yes. I don’t actually spend a ton of time in the house, it’s more just for the sensation of owning a building that large.”

You shook your head. “As a broke college student, I find that completely unfair. I was working two jobs just to keep my head above water and you’re on this alternate plane just chilling in your house that’s bigger than Buckingham Palace.”

He smiled again. “Nobody said life was fair, Y/N. Nobody.”

☽༓☾

Three days and a shocking amount of Gaelic verbs later (you only got lost in Chenle’s palace four times), a house was ready for you to move in. Johnny and Ten had furnished it for you, and Chenle had explained that the two of them were the stylists of the coven, for the most part. The mysterious Yuta had also taken part in finding high quality fabrics to fit their vision. You had thanked the whole group of vampires who helped with the house profusely for not only building said house, but also for getting you a bunch of comfortable furniture. They had smiled and said it was their pleasure and all of the typical things, but what really stood out was Ten’s reaction. He had barely paid attention to you - he barely paid attention to anyone besides Johnny and Yangyang, who he called their baby - this whole time. When you had thanked him, however, he wrapped all but four of his tentacles around you in a surprisingly dry hug.

“It’s refreshing to have you around,” he had told you. “I’m glad we could help you get settled.”

Later as you reflected on it, you figured that it probably got pretty boring to know what was going to happen all of the time, and maybe you had disrupted the usual happenings of his visions and the vampires in Vahmpyr. Maybe you made other people happy too, to have a new person around.

One person who didn’t seem thrilled to have you back was Jaemin. Every time you made eye contact with him (twice, over the three days), he grimaced and turned away like the sight of you hurt him. Maybe he was mad that you were back within scenting range. He wouldn’t get near you, so it wasn’t like you could ask.

While settling into your new normal, you discovered that Chenle was actually a good friend. His love language was insults and pointed jabs, but he actually did care for his friends quite a lot. He had watched Jaemin from across your front yard as they were laying down grass seed and sighed.

“I wish he would just talk to you,” he told you sadly. “I’ve never, in all our years together, seen him like this. I’m not sure anyone has, even Taeil-hyung.” He didn’t elaborate on who Taeil was, and you didn’t press him. Was Jaemin really so mad that he couldn’t even look at you?

“Well,” you had said, “I don’t want to talk to him. He dumped me through an interplanar tunnel without warning me and yelled at me like the world was ending when I took a walk. I don’t think there’s much to be talked about. He must hate me.” Over Chenle’s shoulder, you had seen Jaemin flinch slightly. How strange. Part of you hoped that he felt the same pain that you did, a sort of ache that told you that you were unwanted. Another part of you murmured quietly in the back of your mind that you were being petty. You had chosen to ignore it for the time being. You were being petty, but so was he. He had thousands of years on you, so he should be the mature one, right?

“I don’t think he hates you. I think you both need to grow up and talk like adults,” Chenle had said flatly, orange hair seeming to flash in the sun. Jaemin sort of curled in on himself.

“Tell that to Mister Millenia before you lecture me on growing up,” you had replied. Then you reopened your Gaelic textbook and pretended to bury yourself in it, blatantly ignoring Chenle’s judgemental gaze.

“Fine,” he had muttered angrily. “You can both suffer for all I care.” Then he had stalked off and started pounding fence posts into the dirt so hard that Jeno had to tell him to take a break before he broke them.

You found yourself thinking about that moment as you walked through the trees, ironically on your way to see Jaemin. Since you had close to nothing to do , you had offered yourself up as an errand person to anyone that would hire and found yourself working for Kun running scrolls across Vahmpyr while he translated and examined them. It kept you busy and in shape, and Kun seemed happy with your service. This morning he had sent you to get the Scottish scroll back from Jaemin, along with a few other documents to pick up and drop off. You had saved this one for last, procrastinating on having to see him again. As his cottage came into full view, you sighed, preparing yourself for a cold shoulder and a very quick visit.

“Jaemin?” you called, knocking on the front door. It was closed for once, usually he kept it open for better air circulation. A moment later the door opened and there he stood, in all his cotton candy colored glory.

“Y/N? What’re you doing here?”

“Kun sent me, he wants that Scottish scroll back. He said he hopes you’re done translating it since you’re had it for a few weeks now,” you replied, willing your voice to stay professional. You were here for the scroll. When Jaemin didn’t reply, you looked up at him. “So? Where is it?”

“I don’t know why he sent you out like this, but I sent that scroll back three days ago, on our agreed upon date. I know he got it, because he sent me back a thank you with those little stickers he likes to use.”

“Oh. Um, I’ll just go then,” you muttered, turning around as you spoke. “Sorry I bothered you.”

Suddenly a hand was wrapped around your own, keeping you in place. Your breath caught in your throat, remembering the last time that had happened with a vampire. All that came out of Jaemin’s mouth, however, was, “Can I talk to you? Please?”

“Jaemin, please let me go,” you said, trying to keep your tone even. His hand released you immediately and you stepped a pace away from him and turned around so that you could see his face. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, uh, do you want some tea? I have some inside…” It was clear he hadn’t expected you to actually agree and he needed to collect his thoughts, so you nodded and he led you inside, sitting you on the familiar couch while he busied himself in the kitchen.

“I actually wanted to apologize,” Jaemin said after a minute. “I worried so much about protecting you that I forgot to let you enjoy your time here. It scared me how good you were at adjusting to this world, how much you liked being with Lucas and my other friends… I’m not used to humans reacting positively.” The kettle whistled and he took a moment to pour water into the mugs, steam rising gently from them in silvery whisps.

Once he poured the water, he continued speaking. “I wanted to make sure you knew that it wasn’t all fun and games here. I didn't want you to go looking for a place in our community because I was worried that you’d get killed. Vampires are pretty possessive of their property on Vahmpyr, for the most part, and you went right into one of the biggest apartment complexes within a day’s travelling distance - and that’s vampire distance, not human distance. Lucas told me about what happened with Yangyang, and I almost tore Yang’s arm off, I was so mad. He could have actually murdered you, and I couldn’t stomach the thought. What if Lucas hadn’t been home? What if Yangyang hadn’t given you that one moment to explain yourself? What if you had met another one of us on the stairs, without any protection? It terrified me to consider.” He walked over, a mug carried in each hand, and sat on the couch, leaving a large space in between you. It was strangely reminiscent of that first day, when he had explained Vahmpyr to you over soup.

“Of course,” Jaemin started, and you refocused. “That was only after I had sent you home, that he told me about that. When I dumped you in that tunnel, it was just fear of you being unsafe that made me so mad. The fact that you would willingly put yourself in danger, when I valued you so highly? Inconceivable. And yet, it happened. So I made another big mistake: I sent you home. I thought you would be better off there, regardless of what was happening. I knew you were healthy enough to walk to the city, so I thought you were fine. Apparently not. I heard from Chenle and Kun what happened to you back on Earth and it broke another part of me apart. I hurt you, in sending you back, not just in temporary emotional pain, but in physical pain that persisted through your entire stay. We still don’t know why you reacted the way you did, but it scared me to hear of it. I had made yet another mistake that could have killed you.” He paused to take a sip of his tea, and you did too. It was pleasant, not too hot and not too cold, just warming up your insides.

“Then the last straw came when you said I must hate you…” Jaemin’s voice broke slightly. “If anything, it’s the exact opposite, I realized I missed you more than I should, given you should be just a patient. I wanted to hug you the second I saw you, but you looked so mad to see me that I couldn’t do it. I was literally building a house for you and still couldn’t look you in the eyes for more than a moment. So I went home in shame, knowing that you were right, with thousands of years under my belt, I should be the more mature one. I decided that the next time I saw you, I would talk to you, no matter the circumstances. I couldn’t have you keep living thinking that I hated you. I didn’t actually expect you to come in when I asked. I thought I’d have to follow you through the woods, honestly.”

He fell silent, took another sip of his tea, and for the first time, you spoke. “I really didn’t want to talk to you. I wanted you to realize how much I hurt from your actions, but I think maybe I took that a little too far. I knew you were protecting me, but I really wanted to see somebody, and I knew you wouldn’t let me out, so I ran away. I didn’t really know what I was getting into. I probably should have asked you to accompany me, at least. Not my finest moment.”

Jaemin laughed weakly, taking another sip of tea. “Not mine either. I should have trusted you more.”

“And I shouldn’t have run off without even asking for your help..”

He smiled at you, that gorgeous little smile that made your heart smile back.

“Friends?” you asked.

He hesitated for only a moment, a strange sort of disappointment flashing across his face, before he was extending his hand to meet yours. “Friends.”

You grinned at him, finishing your tea. “Great. Now I need to go yell at Kun for sending me out to see you when I didn’t need to.”

“Isn’t it good that he did?” Jaemin asked with a confused frown on his face.

“Well yes, but it was a very Cupid-like thing to do, wasn’t it? I don’t tolerate my friends trying to play Cupid with myself and my other friends.” You stood up and walked your empty tea cup to the kitchen. “Do you want to come?”

He laughed. “No, you can just tell me all about it tomorrow, okay?”

You nodded. “Alright.”

You walked out into the cool twilight and started going towards Kun’s house. He had a big storm coming.

☽༓☾

A few days later, you were sitting in Jaemin’s cottage again, Gaelic textbook open on your lap. Since he was close to fluent in the language, he was helping you learn it. It wasn’t an extraordinarily difficult language, but some of the words were hard to pronounce and he had been eager to help you.

“Look here,” he said, pointing at some words on the page. “Say this for me.”

“Tha gaol agam ort,” you replied. He grinned.

“That’s how it’s written, but not how it’s said. Okay, now listen to me pronounce it. ‘Ha geul akeum orsht’. Repeat that for me.”

“‘Ha geul akeum orsht’? That’s how you say that?” you demanded. “This is like French! They don’t spell things anywhere close to how they’re said!”

“Unfortunately, most languages don’t. The same goes for Korean verb conjugations and English words and, yes, French everything, but it’s just learning new rules. After a while you understand it. I promise that you’ll get it eventually. You have the rest of your life.”

You looked over at him suddenly, questions rising to the forefront over Gaelic words. “Am I really going to stay here forever? Am I never going to see Earth again, just sit here as a useless human surrounded by powerful and immortal vampires, until I die?”

He seemed surprised by the questions. “I’m not sure any of us had really thought about it,” he said carefully.

“You all had just accepted the fact that I was stuck on your plane of existence with nothing worth doing to do? When am I going to use Scottish Gaelic, Jaemin? When will this actually come in handy, except to distract me? I’m here to do nothing, and the moment I go back to Earth, I start suffering. What am I meant to do here, Jaem?”

Jaemin gently lifted the textbook from your lap and put in on his coffee table, then pulled you into his side for a hug. You snuggled into him, inhaling the scent of sunshine and warm earth. Comfort.

“I don’t know exactly how to make you feel better,” Jaemin murmured from somewhere above your head. “But we all like having you around, you know that. It’s nice to have someone young around. We haven’t turned a human in about thirty years, so the novelty has worn off, and here we have this beautiful creature who is new in so many ways. You’re refreshing, and you’re human, so you’ll continue to be refreshing.”

“Well, thank you,” you said, muffled in his side. “But still, I don’t feel like I have anything worth doing here. You can all do anything I can do, just ten times faster. I have no unique skills or brains or anything. So what am I meant to do? I can’t even go spy on the other humans or anything because I can’t go back to Earth!”

Jaemin shifted you a little bit in his arms and started rubbing your shoulder softly. “Is there anything you particularly enjoy doing? Maybe you could do art, or gardening? Or I have this book of old forms of witchcraft?”

You turned to face him. “You have a book of witchcraft sitting around?”

He released you and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I found a papyrus scroll in this ruined Egyptian city, and I kept it just ‘cause it was cool. Then I learned hieroglyphics so that I could translate it and made a copy. Unfortunately, witchcraft is… not my strong suit, and I’m somewhat afraid of giving it away in case I never see it again. I spent a lot of time and energy on that translation.”

“And you want me to use it?” you asked, confused. Why on earth would he give it to you if he didn’t trust the perfectly composed vampires around him? “I mean it sounds super cool, but aren’t you worried about it being in my hands? I am a human, after all.”

“Well-”

Jaemin was cut off at that moment by a sharp knock on the door. At least, you assumed it was a knock, it sounded a little bit more like a wet thwap than a knock. Jaemin blurred slightly as he ran over to the door and opened it, revealing cloudy skies dropping rain onto a harried-looking Ten.

“Ten-hyung?” he asked, sounding as confused as you felt. “I’d say this is a nice surprise, but why are you here? I thought today was your Earth day? Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Ten said, gasping slightly as he spoke. “I ran straight here from the Pacific.” You took a second to think about the fact that Ten was swimming in the Pacific Ocean before refocusing on him. “-future just completely shifted, a few minutes ago. Y/N-” He turned to face you completely. “Whatever you two just did, it caused you to become a vampire in the future.”

“But we were just talking?” you told him, confused. “It wasn’t like Jaem was about to bite me.” You turned to Jaemin. “Right?”

He looked at you solemnly. “If you were going to have been bitten by me, it would have already happened. Ten-hyung, are you sure that she’s a vampire in your future? Can you see more details?”

Ten closed his eyes briefly like he was trying to focus, and in the meantime a tentacle wrung the salt and rain water out of his hair. Jaemin wrinkled his nose at the growing puddle. Ten spoke, eyes fluttering open slowly. “In the parts I can see, she’s covered in this, like, tree? It’s a little bit fuzzy. It’s green, and looks like it has brown splotches like branches. Maybe a tree falls on her or something. Anyway, you take one look at him and bite her. She goes limp... After that? Fuzzy scenes of her waking up and you taking her running. Like, really running. Vampire running.”

Jaemin took a shaky breath. “Okay, I don’t know why our conversation would have caused a tree to fall on her in the future. We were talking about, like, Earth and art and stuff. Oh, and my witchcraft book.”

Ten’s eyes refocused on him, narrowing slightly. “You’re going to give her your witchcraft book after not letting me touch it? That’s a little underhanded.” His eyes narrow briefly before looking at you. “But maybe that’s it. You’ll just have to make sure that she doesn’t practice any witchcraft under the cover of trees. Otherwise I think you’ll be fine. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Thanks Ten,” you murmured. “For warning us and stuff.”

“Of course. Now I need to go back to the Pacific. Ta ta!” Ten waved to you and walked out the door.

“Well,” Jaemin said, “that’s some news, huh?”

“Yeah. Do you think that it’s okay for me to practice witchcraft with this in my future?”

“I do. I think you’ll be fine. We’ll keep you as safe as we possibly can, and if you become a vampire… at least it won’t be because I gave in. I’ll still be strong.”

“Jaem, I don’t think that was ever in question.”

“It was for me.” His voice went dark momentarily, then he brightened up again. “At any rate, I think we can safely teach you some things that’ll keep life interesting.”

You grinned. “Then let’s get started.”

☽༓☾

You were surprised at how easily witchcraft came to you, in the beginning. Jaemin insisted that you had some sort of gift with it, and as much as you told him that was silly, it seemed possible. You could easily understand instructions on Jaemin’s careful translations that even he couldn’t decipher. You gave up on Gaelic after a while, focused more on learning the original Egyptian Hieroglyphs of the spells and potions. You trusted Jaemin’s precise translation, but there was something unique about seeing an instruction in a new language and being able to understand it.

Days turned to weeks as you experimented with the materials growing in and around Vahmpyr. Taeil, who you eventually met, turned out to be a valuable resource. He was an avid collector of ancient written works, including but not limited to an original Greek copy of The Odyssey, Chinese bamboo books saved from the book burnings of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and an exact replica of the Rosetta Stone. Taeil must have been ancient himself to have all of these valuables, but he still had the energy of the far younger members of their coven, which amazed you. He showed you different specialties of different cultures within witchcraft, ideas born from scrolls and tablets, bamboo strips and wax blocks. It was far more information than you could ever decipher or use during your short human life, but every day you got better, starting out small with poultices that you had to injure yourself to try and ward spells that exhausted you but could make your home more secure than any in Vahmpyr (or on Earth).

At one point Chenle gifted you a book covered in old stains and strangely familiar drawings that you started to use before abruptly realizing that it was an old chemistry textbook. You invited him over that afternoon and whacked him over the head with the thick pages. He told you with a disgruntled look that he put a lot of effort into that, thank you very much. And besides, chemistry was a magic in itself. (His words, not yours.) After that you made sure to thoroughly inspect any gifts you received from the more mischievous family members.

Lucas came over and helped you set up more complicated equipment that you couldn’t lift, like a big cauldron, which you actually did use on the regular after you learned how to use it, and after some consideration you set up a chemistry station for the odd experiment. At this point your house was more magical items than actual living space, something that Kun was quick to point out when he came over.

“You know, you should really be more careful about having all of these powders and dusts and-” He cut himself off with a distasteful wrinkle of his nose. “Things.” He pursed his lips, looking at you. “We don’t really know what these things will do to you in the long run. You have to be careful.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you responded distractedly, making his coffee and a drink for yourself. “Maybe I’ll clean it all up sometime, but you know I’m awfully busy these days.” You used a spoon to stir in the milk and sugar, tapping the metal against the china in a soft clink.

He sighed tiredly. “Your health is less important than staying busy?”

You gave him a look that you hoped conveyed your need to stay busy, to continuously learn and improve. “Keeping my schedule full keeps me healthy, Kun. At least mentally.”

Kun didn’t look impressed by your reasoning. “I think your mental health will go down pretty quickly if you get sick and can’t do anything because you’re stuck in bed twenty-four-seven.”

You gave a sigh of your own at that. “And as always,” you announced to the room at large, “Doctor Kun gives amazing advice that I shouldn’t ignore but probably will.”

Y/n,” he said in a warning tone. “Seriously. You need to be careful! No human has ever lived here for so long, and I worry about you catching some mysterious illness that nobody has ever heard of!”

“Kun, I will do my best to keep myself healthy. I’ve put every kind of ward that I can around my house to protect me, I have magically circulated and cleaned air, I have literal superhumans to protect me from anything else, and I’m happy here! I finally have something to contribute. Maybe someday I’ll find some concoction or enchantment that will let me visit Earth, even. I just don’t know. But I’m going to keep trying.”

He took his coffee out of your grasp and walked back into the living room, which housed your indoor plants, magical and earthly. “That’s all I can ask,” he said, voice betraying his disappointment in that fact. “I’ll still give you monthly checkups for a while though, just to make sure.

“Can’t Jaemin take care of me?” you asked, thinking of Jaemin with his warm smile and caring words and the smell of sun on dirt and- well. Jaemin felt like safety in a person. Kun was wonderful, but Jaemin was just that little bit better, that little bit more comfortable to be around.

“He could,” Kun replied after taking a sip of coffee. “But I know he’s been busy lately though, he’s been on Earth for a few days checking on all of his businesses and stocks and his human personas. On the other hand, I hardly go back to Earth for more than a twelve hour shift here and there.”

“I understand.”

“Plus, I’m about two thousand years older than Jaemin, I have a lot of experience.”

“How old are you?” Two thousand years older than Jaemin would make Kun… pretty darn old.

Kun grinned. “I was around before and after Jesus came to Earth. I was around before the Terracotta Army was built. I was born in China circa when the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are said to have been built. Taeil-hyung turned me into a vampire when I was twenty five, and I’ve been twenty five ever since. None of us know when he was born. When you’re as old as he is, even with a vampire’s memory, history starts to blend together. He says he remembers the Pyramids at Giza going up, though, and that was after he had been a vampire for what he thinks was a few hundred years. He’s literally prehistoric.”

“Wow,” was all you could think to say. No wonder Taeil had so many artifacts. He was one. Kun was too, for that matter. And Jaemin… Jaemin would have been born AD, but how far into it? You asked Kun this question and he chuckled.

“Jaemin was born in fourteen forty two. He was twenty when Jeno turned him, and he’s still twenty, five hundred years later.”

“Who turned Taeil, then? I can hardly imagine a vampire older than him, even.”

“We’re not sure. Whoever it was is so unimaginably old now that even I can’t comprehend it. But whoever the original vampire was must have turned a whole lot of people. There are dozens more vampires just within our small community, and an entire plane full of them. From what I can tell, Taeil isn’t even the oldest. There’s this man who lives in the mountains by himself, and from what I hear, he hasn’t been seen by another vampire in nearly three thousand years. He’s almost a myth around here anymore. Taeil knew him back when Vahmpyr was sparsely populated, and he told us that the man - his name is Jinyoung Park - is older than him by so many years that he is to Taeil as Taeil is to me. He probably lived before Mesopotamia existed, even, or was right at the beginning of it. Before him, we have no idea who the first vampire was. If that vampire is still alive, he she or they hasn't been seen since, well, before living memory. If they still exist that would mean that vampires have been around since before modern humanity. I really wish we knew.”

“I wish you knew too,” you breathed. You had never really considered that immortality meant that the same vampires who existed before the Pyramids at Giza still lived among humanity today. It was mind boggling. The history in just their brains alone could fill thousands of textbooks and solve history’s greatest mysteries. But they couldn’t show themselves to the humans without risk. Even the people that they bit and sent back to Earth wouldn’t dare talk about their experiences, for fear of sounding crazy. Their gift to the world would never be wrapped up in gold tissue paper and presented with the proper awe, but here you were, in this modern metropolis of history. It truly hurt your brain to consider everything that came with that sort of age.

Just then a yell came from outside. “Kun-ge! Are you with Y/N?!” It sounded suspiciously like a panicked Yangyang. He never got panicked.

Kun stood up and hurried over to the front door, blurring in his hurry. “What happened?” he demanded.

“Well, uh, we may or may not have set Yuta’s house on fire…” Yangyang’s voice trailed off as Kun’s face reacted. First his eyebrows raised, then his mouth dropped open, and finally his eyes squeezed shut before reopening after a moment.

“You did what?”

Yangyang’s voice was small. “We set Yuta’s house on fire?” His voice was so high and squeaky that it sounded more like a question than a statement.

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Me, and Hyuck, and Taemin-hyung.”

“Oh my,” Kun said, running a hand over his face and through his hair. “I am going to murder Taemin-hyung.” He turned to Yangyang. “I might murder you and Donghyuck too.”

“We didn’t mean to,” Yangyang said. “It just happened.”

“You didn’t mean to set Yuta’s house on fire? How do you accidentally set someone’s house on fire?”

“You put on an impromptu fire show right next to the house, mess up a trick, and accidentally throw a flaming baton on their house. It was surprisingly easy. Anyway, I know that you would know what to do. You and Y/N both.”

Kun ran his hand through his hair again. You watched as a few light brown strands flew to the carpet with the force of it. “Y/N, do you have anything for flaming houses?”

You looked around your living room as though that would help you remember whether you did or not. “I think so, let me check my storage room,” you muttered, already dashing away. You did, in fact, have something that you loosely translated from the Egyptian spell scroll as “Fire Away Goop,” or something similar. It was a green, nearly transparent goop that sloshed in its bottle but it was too thick to really flow. It oozed more than anything. When it hit heat, it tended to solidify into a more solid green that would be easily removable from Yuta’s house, if said house was still there by the time you got to wherever it was. You grabbed the bottle and rushed back to the living room, panting. Kun turned to you.

“Is it okay if I carry you, to make sure we get there in time?”

“Won’t I be too heavy?”

He gave you an unimpressed look. “We’re literally the strongest things known to man. I’ll be fine.”

“Then sure. Let’s go save Yuta’s house!”

Kun carried you piggyback as fast as he could, your face tucked into his shoulder to avert most of the vertigo induced by such high speeds. Trees flashed by in browns and greens, and then you were going through the city, past the city, through more trees, in a rush that you couldn’t quite comprehend but which caused a sinking feeling to settle in your gut. Yuta’s house was far away. By the time you got there, the house was fully consumed by the flames, the fire burning merrily without knowledge that it was ruining a man’s home.

A man, presumably Yuta, stood out front, another man on his knees next to him. Once you were next to them, you realized that the standing man had the kneeling man’s ear in a tight grip. You figured that the man on his knees must have been the infamous Donghyuck.

“Yuta-hyung, Hyuck,” Kun greeted them as he set you on the ground.

“Yangyang,” said Yuta, turning around, “You’re a bit late.” He nodded at you and Kun in acknowledgement, as Donghyuck yelped at the tug on his ear. Yuta had black hair streaked through with neon green, and it framed a narrow face and startlingly pink lips. You wondered, in the back of your head, if he used lip tint. You also briefly entertained the idea that he contoured his face, because there was no way that he looked that good without makeup. He’s a vampire, your consciousness provided. All of them look that good.

“Sorry hyung,” Yangyang murmured. “We came as fast as we could!”

Kun stepped forward. “We brought Y/N, as you can see, and she has something to put the fire out.” Something like hope sparked in Yuta’s eyes as he looked over you again, taking in details of your appearance.

“Do you really? Well, go ahead.” He gestured to the house and the flames danced in your face, leaving you to hope that this gloop worked for fires this big. You took a deep breath and poured the goop onto the grass, where it oozed between the blades of grass like a big blob of snot on the lawn.

“Atlaq alnaar,” you murmured to it, and it rose into the air, following your mental directions toward the fire. The moment they made contact, the goop started to solidify and expand, covering the fire rapidly. Green overtook bright reds and oranges as you focused on the fire and made the goop cover it.

“Y/N!” Someone was calling to you, their voice out of focus as though you heard them from underwater. “You’ll get covered!” You were vaguely aware of a hand trying to lead you away, but the spell kept you rooted in place, your feet seemingly super glued to the lawn. You kept focus on the fire as the last flames were overtaken and put out. Yuta’s house was now a giant green blob. From what you could see through the jello-like goop, it had sustained a minimal amount of damage considering the amount of flames you had seen. You were so engrossed in the green substance that you missed the warning signs before it swallowed you up too, ever expanding.

It took your outstretched hands first, pulling you forward into it. Through your panic you had just enough brain power left to be amazed at how thick it was before your feet and legs were covered too, nearly encased in the goop. You leaned your head back as far as you could, trying to keep yourself in the open air, but the goop kept expanding. You felt more than saw the vampires try to dig you out, but while the spell still fueled it, the goop was surprisingly strong. A hand grasped your elbow as the goop grasped your neck and chin, keeping you completely still as it covered more of you. The hand let go. It couldn’t do anything now.

You took a deep breath just before the goop covered your mouth, nose, and eyes. You thought you felt something on the back of your neck but didn’t think much of it until it started burning. Any strength you had left crumbled as your eyes started stinging and your oxygen ran out. You couldn't see, but it felt as though the world was spinning around you, as though you had been disconnected from everything but the pain. Even through your lightheadedness the pain persisted. It had spread now, from your neck over your shoulders like the creeping vines on the back wall of Jaemin’s cottage.

Jaemin.

You realized through your hazy thoughts that you would never see him again. Your eyes and nose burned now, from tears you couldn’t cry and the pain slowly enveloping you.

You couldn’t hold on any longer.

Black.

☽༓☾

Across a forest and a small town, Jaemin was working on his Hindi pronunciation when Ten burst into his home for the second time in what seemed like a very short period. He wasn’t dripping this time, just looked thoroughly terrified of something.

“Jaemin! She needs help!”

“What? Who?” Jaemin stood up and walked over to his friend. Ten’s tentacles curled and uncurled repeatedly as he spoke.

“Y/N! The vision got sharper, which usually means it’s happening. The green blob wasn’t a tree, it was some sort of spell! She’s going to die if we don’t get there fast.”

“Where are we going?” Jaemin demanded as they ran through the trees around his cabin.

“Yuta’s house. Or, at least, where it used to be.”

“What happened to Yuta’s house?”

“Yangyang and Hyuck burned it down.”

“Ah.”

Ten was panting as he continued speaking. “I think that must be what the spell was for. Some sort of fire putter-outer.”

Jaemin tried to think back to all of the books he had given you, recalling a spell that sounded suspiciously like what Ten described. “If the one I think you’re talking about is the spell she used,” he told Ten, “we might not be able to save her by the time we get there.” A pang echoed through his chest. An empty feeling, as though your small human life had affected his own so strongly as to make him miss you without knowing that you were gone. Jaemin ran on, leaving Ten behind when he paused to rest, sprinting at his highest speed towards where you were.

When he arrived on Yuta’s plot, most of his vision turned green, not because things were actually green, but from the sheer size of the lime coloured stuff all over Yuta’s house. He had been correct when he guessed at which spell you had used. His gaze fell on Kun, Yangyang, Yuta, and Donghyuck, who stood at the still-expanding base of the blob, seemingly trying to get something out. He gasped. You were in the thing. He ran up and tried to help the others dig you out, to no avail. They couldn't do anything against the spell so long as you were alive, and he wasn’t about to kill the person he had worked so hard to protect. He tried to hold onto your elbow as it was swallowed, but was afraid of hurting you. They all watched as you took a deep breath and the gloop covered your face.

Jaemin slumped, out of ideas. There was no way to save you that he knew of. Then he thought back to Ten’s vision. He had to change you. It was the only way. You wouldn’t need to breathe, wouldn’t need to do anything. You could still be here with him. It was with that in mind that he lunged forward at the last moment and latched onto your neck, stretching his jar as wide as it would go. His fangs, already dripping uncomfortably with venom in your presence, sank into your veins, and he felt it as you stiffened slightly. You couldn’t move much in your current situation, but your muscles seized all the same. He stayed next to you as long as he could, until he was in danger of being swallowed into the goop as well. He licked the wounds closed as efficiently as possible and stepped back with the others to see what happened.

It was obvious that you had gone unconscious. The goop stopped moving so rapidly and seemed to pause in its conquest of the front yard. It started oozing slowly around again, creating something of a reverse muffin top as the top shell hardened and the bottom bits leaked out. They backed up to the edge of the yard and Jaemin used his (admittedly small) knowledge of spellcraft to create wards that would protect the house down the street and hopefully contain the goo. They watched in silence as the green kept expanding. Then Yangyang spoke.

“Will Y/N die?”

“I don’t think so,” said Jaemin slowly. “She shouldn’t, at any rate. I bit her.”

A collective tremor went around the group, as though none of them wanted to appear surprised but they all were.

“It was the only thing I could think of that gave Y/N a chance, so I had to try it,” Jaemin continued. “But Kun-hyung knows more than me on that subject.”

Kun looked pensive as he considered what Jaemin had said. “It should work, in theory. But between the wards always up around Y/N’s house, this spell, and the venom in his system, her body might now be able to take it. It’s just a game of chance, unless we can find some way to take some stress off of her body.”

They all looked to Jaemin again.

“Is there some way to break the wards that she has up?” Yuta asked.

“I don’t think so,” Jaemin said, frowning. “Not without taxing her further. We definitely can’t affect this spell without killing her, and as far as the transformation goes, we’d need to be able to get to her body in there. That’s obviously not happening either.”

“So what can we do?” Donghyuck’s voice was small and he sounded almost repentant, as though he thought this whole thing was his fault. It sort of was, but it was odd to hear that tone from him.

“We ask Ten what he can see of the future and go from there,” Jaemin said. “There’s not much else that we can do, unless anyone knows someone better with spells than Y/N.”

The whole group shook their heads. Spells could be cast by any human variant creature that they knew of, but spellcraft was a human specialty. You in particular were gifted beyond what they had seen in a very long while.

While they thought about it, Ten burst forth from the trees down the street and ran towards their group. He slowed down as he took in the blob, now pressing against the wards that contained it. Jaemin could feel a subtle sort of pressure in his head as his spells kept the goop within Yuta’s plot.

“So?” Ten asked Jaemin as he walked up. “Did it work?”

“We’re not sure. She’s not dead, or the Fire Away spell would have gone small and liquidy again. On the other hand, none of us know any way to get her out, and Kun-hyung’s worried about the toll that all of this” - he waved his hands at the blob - “will kill her while he turns. We wanted to ask what you were seeing as of now.”

Ten closed his eyes, most of his tentacles going still as he focused. There was one that whacked anxiously against the dirt beneath him, beating a steady rhythm against the earth. After a few minutes, his eyes opened and he refocused his eyes on the group around him.

“Well?” Yangyang prompted when he didn’t speak. Ten sighed.

“Good news is that she’s probably not going to die.”

“And the bad news?”

“She might die.”

“What do you mean, Ten-hyung?”

“I can’t… I can’t tell which future is the one that will come true. It’s like there are two possible ways for the future to go, and neither of them is solid. Either she makes it through, or she dies. The worst part is that I can’t tell what causes her death. It could happen two seconds from now, or two hours, or two days. I just don’t know.”

“I don’t remember your visions ever having two outcomes,” Kun said, brows furrowed.

“I haven’t ever had one like this.”

“Well,” Jaemin said, “I’ll just stay here until she wakes up.”

“And where should I go?” asked Yuta. “Maybe nobody told you, but this is my house that just got burned down.” He threw a glare at Hyuck and Yangyang.

“Go stay with Mark-hyung or something. You sleep over with him all the time anyway,” Donghyuck suggested, and Yuta grinned, a complete change from two seconds before.

“He’ll hate that. See you guys later!” He skipped a few steps before running full tilt, phone in his hands and fingers tapping. The glow of the screen disappeared quickly from Jaemin’s view, and he turned back to their now-smaller group.

“Are you sure that you want to stay here until Y/N wakes up?” Kun asked Jaemin. “I know that you don’t need sleep or anything, but that seems like a waste of time.”

“I have eternity,” Jaemin told him. “I just need to be here to watch it deflate, whether it’s because she’s turned or because…” His voice went weak. He couldn't see you die. He just couldn’t. Kun patted him on the shoulder.

“Okay. We’ll come check on you tomorrow.” As he walked away with Yangyang and Donghyuck, Jaemin heard Kun’s ‘mom voice’ come out as he lectured on the dangers of playing with fire. It made Jaemin smile a little.

His head was starting to feel uncomfortable with the pressure of his wards, so he carefully widened them, centimeter by centimeter, until there was less gloop on them. He couldn’t keep this up until you completed the transformation, he knew, but it would work for now. Maybe he could call Kibum-hyung tomorrow for help.

Until then all he had to do was sit and wait, and look at your form encased in neo pearl champagne colored jello.

☽༓☾

It was exactly twenty five hours, forty minutes, and nine seconds since Jaemin had first settled in when the goop started deflating. The hard casing that had developed collapsed in on itself when the slightly softer insides began to shrink, reminding Jaemin slightly of Honey Lemon and her chemical reactions in Big Hero 6. He sprang to his feet, rushing forward to where he could see the outline of your body inside the collapsing bubble, grabbing the empty decanter that the goop had once been held in. He scooped up the small oozing goop that remained from the spell and plugged the decanter, turning around slowly to look at your body once more.

As your still-limp body collapsed to the ground, Jaemin felt his unbeating heart sink. You didn’t move, there was no rise and fall to your chest. There was no sound of your breath in the air. Your eyes didn’t roll around under your eyelids. You seemed… corpselike. Dead. But it couldn’t be. Ten had said that you would probably survive! Jaemin opened his phone and pressed Ten’s contact to call it. He answered on the third ring.

“Jaemin? What’s up?”

“Ten-hyung,” Jaemin said, and his voice cracked. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Y/N… I think, is dead?”

Ten sucked in a breath, audible even through the phone. “Jaemin I’m so sorry-”

Jaemin cut him off. “Hyung, you said she would make it!”

“There was always that chance that she wouldn’t-”

“But you said-” Jaemin’s voice cracked again and he fell into silence. He couldn’t cry, and he had never wished he could until now. Tears might convey the hole in his chest, the emptiness of his existence without your life to partner him.

“Jaemin,” came Ten’s voice, and it was soft, delicate. “I’m so so sorry. I thought that she would make it, but there was always that second path. I can’t-” He took a deep breath. “I can’t see her anymore. I think… I think she might be gone.”

“No!” Jaemin exclaimed hotly. “She can’t be!”

“Jaemin-”

He hung up. Whatever Ten-hyung had to say wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t bring you back. He was along now, with your body and this stupid Flame Away Goop that had managed to take your life despite Ten’s prophecies and Jaemin’s best efforts. The person that you were was gone. Now you were just a still corpse, a painful reminder of what could have been and what should have been and what couldn’t be.

“I’ll give you a proper funeral,” Jaemin told your body as he lifted it into his arms gently. “I promise.”

For the next three days, Jaemin worked non-stop. He prepared a funeral for you, ignored everyone except to invite them to the event. He could still picture your smile, the way he had to support you those first few steps. He remembered how you had called him gorgeous, how you had said I love you in Gaelic to him without knowing what it meant. He recalled the trust you had for him despite his own occasional self-loathing, the way you had reminded him of his worth every time you were around him.

He missed you. He missed you a lot.

People had called him, came knocking once an hour. He eventually just shut off his phone so he didn’t have to hear their pleas for him to let them in. All of his hyungs and all of his noonas came to make sure he was okay, but would he ever be? There was a Y/N shaped hole in him that he didn’t think could ever be filled up again. Jeno came around three times a day with hug offerings, but Jaemin shut him out. He knew it hurt his friends, knew they only wanted to help, but you were gone and nobody understood. Nobody had loved you the way he had. Nobody had your blood quite literally on their hands, flowing through their veins.

It hurt to think about that. He “lived” while you were dead; he had gained life through your death and that was the most ironic thing. In his attempt to save you, he may have killed you.

He hurt.

On the fourth day since your death, Jaemin gently dressed your body in the best clothes he could find, brushed your hair, and put you in a casket, standing you in an open clearing, the one where he had tried to send you back to Earth. It was the largest clearing nearby, and all of the vampires that had met you plus Ten came to pay their respects. They spoke about the short time they had known you, and the strong impact you had made despite that. They told of how you had gone back to Earth and suffered until you had returned. They told of your feats practicing witchcraft and most of all they spoke of your kindness, the lack of repulsion towards them. They spoke of your kind smile and the way you had fit in so nicely with their community.

Jaemin started not-crying, as vampires did, and he thought he would be alone, but Jeno joined him. Lucas joined him. Jisung and Chenle joined him. Ten and Johnny joined him. He was not the only one who had loved you. Donghyuck joined him. Yangyang and Yuta and Kun joined him. He was not the only one who felt that your death was his fault.

Jaemin was not the only person who choked out their words in an imitation of crying. Jaemin was not the only person who missed you. Jaemin was not the only one who wanted you back. Jaemin was not the only one.

He hadn’t realized how much he missed his friends until they surrounded him in a huge hug. It wasn’t a warm hug, necessarily, but it was a hug nonetheless and made him feel better. He was not the only one.

He was still dealing with the hole in his chest, but he had others to patch himself up with now. Like each person who had known you could bring a part of you back through their memories of you. It was nice, almost.

☽༓☾

The first thing you realized was that you could hear again. Your ears were uncovered, and you vaguely registered words being choked out somewhere near you. It sounded like a large number of people were very sad about something. You wondered what it could be. The second thing you realized was that you were laying down on some sort of padded… thing. It felt like too much work to open your eyes, so you felt around and realized that you were in a padded box. A padded box? That was new.

You tried to sniff the air and were met with the smell of cologne, not too strong but apparently on enough people that it permeated the air. You got hints of perfume too, but it was far less strong. Something in the box shifted and you felt breaths on your face. Were people looking at you in your sleep? Come to think of it, why were these many people around you while you slept at all? That seemed sort of rude. You tried to remember getting here but came up blank. Your last memories were of the pain before you passed out. You shivered at the memory.

“She’s awake!” someone shouted. The noise hurt your ears after the deafening silence of your previous state, and you itched to get away from them. A murmur of sound rolled through the room and then a familiar scent invaded your senses, that of sun-warmed earth.

“Y- Y/N?” Jaemin asked hesitantly. “Can you hear me? Are you in there?”

He sounded absolutely wrecked, like his voice had been stripped of his usual honey and sunshine. You tried to open your eyes, but it was too bright and you just couldn’t, so you nodded slightly.

“Oh my- Y/N,” he continued. “Can’t you open your eyes for me, please?”

You shook your head no.

“Okay, that’s fine, sweetheart. Let me get you out of there.” There was the sound of something wooden being bonked against a wall, but that faded in comparison to the name. Sweetheart. Sweetheart.

You were lifted gently from your padded box and carried somewhere shady and cold. It felt nice against your skin. He felt nice against your skin. He carried you gently, like you were made of glass, but you felt surprisingly strong, just out of sorts. As though while your mind struggled to catch up, your body had strengthened. It was a very different sensation to that of your first time waking up in Jaemin’s house. He walked you through what you thought must be the forest for a bit before he sat down and nestled you into his side. You felt as though some muscles should be unhappy about the position, but you felt completely comfortable.

“Y/N.” Jaemin’s voice came to you, soft and warm and familiar. It was shaking slightly. “Can you open your eyes for me now?”

You focused on your eyelids, raising them slowly until you could see Jaemin. He had on a suit; black jacket over a white shirt, accented by a thin black ribbon tied loosely around his neck. His pink hair fell neatly in waves over his forehead and you reached up to brush away a piece that had fallen over his eyes, smiling.

“Hey Jaem. What happened?” Your voice wasn’t weak, like you supposed it should have been. It came out like a melody into the air, and you marvelled internally at the sound of it, how smooth it was. It felt nice.

“You-” Jaemin broke off for a second, rearranging your limbs next to him. “You were trying to save Yuta’s house. We had to rebuild part, but it’s fine. He stayed with Mark for a few days. For the most part, your spell worked. But then, it- it swallowed you. I got there in time to watch as you were absorbed by this green goop and I thought I was too late. I bit you, back here.” He brushed his fingers gently over the sides of your neck and you shivered. “But you didn’t wake up… I thought I was too late. You weren’t breathing, and you weren’t awake… I have no idea how you managed to cancel the spell without waking up or dying. So I-” He made a choked up sound and tightened his arm around your shoulders. “We’re at your funeral. Ten couldn’t see your future anymore, so we thought you were dead…” He trailed off.

“Wow,” you said. “I died? Then how am I here now? I feel alive?”

“It worked. It must have. You don’t have a heartbeat, but you’re awake. I don’t know what happened exactly, but you must be a vampire now.”

“Huh. I thought I’d feel more… hungry.”

He laughed. It glittered over your ears and you smiled, an involuntary reaction to him. “It’ll kick in, don’t worry.”

“What about the others? I mean, Lucas and Kun and everyone? Are they just at my funeral right now? Without me?”

“Oh.” Jaemin looked as though he had forgotten about them. “I guess they are. Let’s go see them?”

“Let’s.”

☽༓☾

After that day, it didn’t take you long to realize that the other vampires were purposefully putting you with Jaemin for just about everything. On days where you went to hang out with Lucas, he would ask you how Jaemin was doing. If you didn’t know, he would suggest that you go and visit him. Kun asked you to make sure that Jaemin was feeling okay. Yuta, who you were finally allowed to meet and hang out with, constantly suggested that you should spend more time with him. It was strange. Nobody had seemed to mind that you had your own hobbies before your transformation, but now that you were a vampire, it was as though you were meant to be with Jaemin all of the time. You asked Lucas about it once you got sick of the mysterious treatment and he looked at you heavily.

“When you got trapped in that goopy stuff, Jaemin went all weird. He didn’t move for, like, more than 24 hours, and once he thought you were dead… he didn’t talk to any of us until the funeral. We worry about him, and you seem to make him really happy, so we’re trying to keep you two around each other.”

You didn’t really know what to say to that, so you chose the very eloquent “oh,” as your response. Lucas chuckled.

“I know. It was really weird, I’ve never seen him like that. I think we’ve seen a lot of new sides of Jaemin since you came along.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s… well, I don’t think it’s bad or good. It just is. You affect him differently than anyone else we know.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“Y/N, you idiot, he’s in love with you.”

“He’s what?”

Lucas sighed. “He’s in love with you.”

“Why do you think that? This is Jaemin we’re talking about here. Jaemin. He’s, like, beauty incarnate and he’s smart and kind and wonderful in every aspect of everything. He just can’t be in love with me.”

“He’s in love with you.”

“He’s not.”

“He is.”

“He can't be.”

“Why not?”

“I just told you why.”

Lucas sighed again, more deeply. “But you’re in love with him.”

“I-” You consider that. “I guess?”

“That wasn’t a question.” He rolled his eyes.

“Do you think it’s possible that he actually does like me back?”

“Yes.”

Somehow, after that, Lucas managed to steer the conversation onto other subjects and you refocused on those things, but it echoed in your head. He’s in love with you.

☽༓☾

Even with this new information bouncing around the forefront of your brain, you still had to go and spend time with Jaemin. Maybe it was a little strange for your thoughts to short circuit when you saw him, the little whisper of what if in your head. Maybe it was a little peculiar for a vampire such as yourself to stutter through sentences because you were busy thinking about what life would be like if he really did like you back. Maybe you spent less time talking on your walks together because you wanted to lay next to him in a clearing and watch the clouds instead. Just maybe.

If Jaemin noticed any of your strange behaviour, he didn’t call you out on it. He either really wasn’t paying all that much attention, or he knew enough about you to know that you wouldn’t want him to pry. It was strange, really, how well you knew each other in such a short time. You supposed that since you spent so much time together it wasn’t improbable, but he knew you nearly as well as your old human friends back home.

Thinking about your old memories was a strange experience. You could remember everything as clearly as your human self could, but you noticed more the lack of detail within the images, the way your human eyes couldn’t move as fast as your vampire ones, and your reflexes weren’t as fast, and the way you fixated on one part of the picture without taking in the details of the rest of your vision. You had entirely blocked out memories of driving, they were too harrowing. You recalled more easily now all of the times you had nearly hit something or someone, and while you couldn't die now, at least not that easily, you could have easily fallen prey to the fatal blind spot more times than you’d care to admit.

When you told Jaemin about that, he laughed that laugh you loved so much. “I was born in fourteen forty-two, Y/N. We didn’t have cars back then. The only thing on the street that would run me over was a horse-drawn carriage.”

“Well,” you retorted, “you should consider yourself lucky then. Carriages and horses don’t sound half so bad as giant hunks of metal flying at each other at eighty miles per hour.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he mused, stroking an imaginary beard. “Maybe I was lucky to be born in Korea during the 1400s. You may have heard of the emperor Sejong the Great? I was born during his rule. He was one of the best emperors Korea ever had, he introduced hangul and united the country under Confucian principles so that there was more love for the country and the people living in it. Peaceful few years we had there, from what little I remember. After that, though? Lots of killing, children on the throne, et cetera et cetera. Not so fun. And I was actually able to die through all of that, so that wasn’t pleasant. But then King Sejo, the one who did the killing, actually did a pretty okay job of ruling the country and we had a few more years of prosperity. He died six years after my transformation. I missed that event because I was here in Vahmpyr getting to know Jeno, who turned me.”

“How much of the group was around, at that point?”

“Well…” Jaemin closed his eyes briefly in thought. “Here, let me draw you a family tree.” He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote ‘Moon Taeil’ at the top. “Okay so as you know, Taeil is here as the first of us. He turned Yuta-hyung, Kun-hyung, Johnny-hyung, and Taeyong-hyung.” He wrote in their names under Taeil’s, spacing them out across the paper.

“Yuta-hyung turned Sicheng-hyung and Shotaro; Kun-hyung turned Dejun-hyung and Lucas-hyung; Johnny-hyung turned Jungwoo-hyung and Mark, and Taeyongie-hyung turned Hyuck, Doyoung-hyung, and Jaehyun hyung.” He labeled all of these names, then drew more stems leading from Jaehyun, Lucas, and Dejun.

“Jaehyun-hyung turned Sungchan, Lucas-hyung turned Hendery-hyung and Yangyang, and Dejun-hyung turned Renjun.” He drew all of these connections and stemmed Renjun’s name down even farther.

“Renjun turned Jeno and Chenle, then Jeno turned me, and I turned Jisung and now you.” He finished the tree with a flourish, black ink stark against the creamy paper. They were all connected, in some way, to Taeil’s venom. And there was you, at the very bottom, your name small next to Jisung’s.

“You guys are all so… connected.”

“Yep! We’re all one big family.”

“Do you guys have, like, family reunions? And who changed Joy and her friends? Or what’s-his-face? Taemin?”

“We don’t really all get together a lot, just because most of us have jobs on Earth or spend our days doing stuff on our own. Some of them like having flings all the time. Obviously none of us can get STDs or get pregnant, so they can do that, no strings attached. We sort of hang out in our individual groups for the most part, and then hang out every once in a while. As far as the others, we think that they must have come from the same person as Taeil-hyung, a very very old vampire. There are other stories like ours across Vahmpyr, where one vampire created one member of each coven and let us grow from there. The difference is that some of them actually have good relationships with those older vampires, whereas I’ve never met ours. I’ve heard that there’s a man called Park Jae-sang who actually comes around to spend time with the vampires he’s changed. The closest we have to an old vampire is Leeteuk-hyung, and he isn’t really around much, plus he’s not that much older than Taeil-hyung.

“Anyway, to answer your question, when I was turned, nearly everyone was around already. Only Yangyang, Sungchan, Shotaro, Chenle, and Jisung are younger than me. And now you.”

“Wow, so you had to meet everyone right after your transformation? I bet that was chaotic.”

“It was, but it was also fun. I got to be the baby for a while. Then the others came around and I somehow became a mother figure.”

You laughed. Jaemin was a mother figure, for sure. He liked to take care of the people around him, including humans that his brothers had brought home for him to patch up. “That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”

He giggled along with you, that laugh you adored so much, and grinned. “I guess it sort of fits me, doesn’t it? Mother Jaem.” He rolled the name over his tongue and you collapsed into laughter again. “I think that works well, yep.”

The next few days, you called him Mother Jaem, and everyone gave you weird looks, but it made Jaemin laugh hard enough that it was worth it.

☽༓☾

One day after this, Chenle pulled Jaemin aside to ask him what on Earth was going on with this whole “Mother Jaem” thing. Jaemin explained happily how it had come about. Chenle rolled his eyes dramatically.

“When are you two getting married?”

Jaemin just gave him a blank stare. “What?”

“It’s so disgusting how much you guys love each other! When can we shove you two together in a house and call it a day?”

“Um, okay, first of all, that is not how you get rid of somebody. Second, she doesn't love me? And third, there is definitely not enough space in her house for me, even if she did.”

Chenle pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lucas was right, you guys are blind fools. Of course she loves you! She goes to see you all the time! And enjoys it! You’re both in love with each other and both of you are cowards.” He ran his hand through his hair, knocking a piece into his eye. He squinted unhappily but didn’t try to move it.

Jaemin sighed as he got the chunk of hair away from Chenle’s eye. “This is Y/N we’re talking about though! She might hate me for everything I put her through and only stick around because I turned her or something. Plus, she spends as much time with Lucas as with me.”

“My God, your logic is terrible. You love her, she loves you, you need to get together. Watch some dramas and kiss her in the rain or something. Lucas even told me that she loves you!”

“That’s astonishingly specific for someone who doesn’t have a romance under their belt.”

“That’s besides the point!” Chenle grabbed the sides of Jaemin’s face and held him still while he spoke. “You need to confess sometime or another before the rest of us go crazy watching you run in circles around each other.”

With that he stalked away, leaving Jaemin rubbing his face where Chenle’s fingertips had pressed into the skin. It didn’t hurt, but the echoes of his voice and his fingers held Jaemin still for a long time afterwards.

☽༓☾

The next week, Kun and Taeil invited the whole coven to a reunion at Kun’s country estate. Having never been, you looked forward to seeing the giant house as much as meeting the rest of the family. It didn’t disappoint, it was absolutely massive, at least four or five floors and extensive gardens in front. Kun gave you free run of the place, asking you to please not enter rooms marked with a “Do Not Enter” sign. Simple rule to follow. You entered the main hall first, feeling like royalty in such an elegant room. Twin staircases led from the upstairs, leading your eyes to an extravagant chandelier covered in hundreds of crystals, and a mint green ceiling. From either side of the large room extended hallways with lush pale blue rugs and endless vases on platforms. It felt as though you had entered the past, or maybe a very expensive movie set. You moved through hallways and rooms, gazing at velvet chairs and old paintings that screamed money. You wondered if someone in Vahmpyr painted them, or if they were from Earth. You found only two rooms marked “Do Not Enter,” one of which was in a long hallway of bedrooms, so you assumed it was Kun’s.

The other was in the back of a positively colossal library. The library caught your eye because of the sheer size of it. Rows upon rows of books lined the walls and seemingly endless freestanding shelves. It was as large as the main public library back home, taking up at least four average rooms worth of space per floor. Not to mention the height. You estimated that it was at least three floors high, perhaps four. An entire long wall was devoted to Kun’s studies in medicine, dating back to leeches and poultices on open wounds through Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the most advanced of current surgeries. He had records of patients stacked by century, and a desk that popped out of the wall to reveal his own notes on developing vaccines and other medicines. Had you still been human, you were certain that a room like this would have given you a headache, from the size and the amount of books to look at.

From the medicine section you moved to other sciences like forensics, geology (although that section was considerably smaller), and astronomy. You also discovered an entire section on aviation. In the astronomy section, you found cork boards with maps pinned to them, stars drawn in detail, space stations built for both humans and vampires, and more drawings you didn't know how to interpret. You pulled out a few books at random and flipped through them, smiling at the notes in the margins. Past those sections were books on every type of science you had ever heard of, and some you hadn’t.

Beyond those were histories, and Kun’s travel section. He had bins filled with brochures, maps, and travel magazines and accounts of, from what you could tell, every war known to have occurred past Kun’s turning. That blended into social studies, and you found books on language next to copies of the Bible in seemingly every version, translations of the Quran, and more religious texts. Stock market trends were recorded and stored next to books on how to hire smart and anthropology. Cultural studies were stored with ethics and political records. Newspapers appeared as well, although those were fewer than the books by far. They appeared to be from a singular area, a place called Taining County, in China. Kun must have some sort of tie to it. You made a mental note to ask him when you rejoined the others.

You climbed a staircase to the second floor, where you found a fireplace and sitting area within the books. It appeared that the entire second floor was books organized by language, starting each section with children’s books and working their way up to novels. You found all of the Romance Languages, German, Hindi, Greek, Tagalog, Russian, Dutch, Japanese, Cantonese, Thai, Korean, Arabic, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu, Latin and more that you didn’t know. In the back was a small compilation of different countries’ sign languages, as well.

You climbed the next flight of stairs to the third floor, finding the fiction section. These were organized by genre, with horror on one shelf, science fiction hogging four shelves on the opposite walls, romance taking up a large section next to that, et cetera. You spotted a section marked “Transcribed” and walked over to it, finding books handwritten by Kun, presumably taken from other forms and written over to fit in his library. You imagined the wax tablets and stone slabs of old books and shuddered. Even as a vampire, transporting those wouldn’t be easy. This floor was open in the middle, looking down at the second. Above you, the next floor was open as well and housed more shelves.

You walked up the last staircase and came upon a musical archive. There were phonographs on tables next to more recent record turntables, followed by cassette players and CD players. Each one was in impeccable condition, and behind them were shelves of every format that would work with those machines. These were shorter shelves, since the music was thinner than books, but there were still many many of them. You saw cassette boxes labeled with the albums contained within, records in yellowed sleeves, and CDs in thick storage cases. They were organized by decade, with the earliest dating back to the late nineteenth century. You guessed that was when recorded music had been invented. Perhaps Kun could still remember older pieces though; something else you would have to ask him about. You were looking through the most recent music to see what he liked and if you had heard of it when you heard someone calling your name.

“Y/N? Where are you?”

“In the library, fourth floor!” you yelled back.

“Will you come back to the kitchen and help me with this?”

“Sure!”

You weren’t sure who was calling you, but it sounded like Lucas, so you ran towards the kitchen. You weren’t sure entirely why there was a kitchen, since you all drank blood anyway, but you figured there was a good reason. You added that to your growing list of things to ask Kun. You understood why you had a kitchen in your house since you had lived in it while you were still human, but Kun hadn’t been to Vahmpyr before he was turned as far as you knew. Besides, he usually lived in his apartment next to the other guys. Maybe it was just necessary to have a kitchen in a house, you didn��t know. It would have felt weird, you guessed, to live in a house without one.

When you arrived, Lucas was outside as you had guessed.

“Will you run in and grab these things for me?” he asked, handing you a sticky note. “I’ve been tasked with rounding up everyone else.”

“Yeah, no problem,” you replied, walking through the doors into the room. It was industrial, like Kun cooked for dozens of people at a time, and there was a surprising amount of cooking utensils that wouldn’t work on raw bodies, like spatulas. You looked down at the sticky note for the first time. If you don’t confess, it read, I will smack you when you come back out. And you know how big my hands are, I will make it hurt.

“What?” you murmured to yourself as Jaemin walked into the room.

“Oh hey Y/N, did Chenle send you?”

“No, Lucas did. But did Chenle perhaps give you a sticky note with things to get for him on it?”

Jaemin glanced down at a hot pink slip of paper in his hand. “Yeah.” He looked back up at you before his brow furrowed and he looked more thoroughly at the writing on it. He groaned. “I am going to kill Chenle.” He ran a hand through his cotton candy pink hair. “I guess I should just get it over with then.”

He walked closer to you, setting the sticky note on the counter as he came. “I’m kind of in love with you? And I have been for a while? I mean I get if you hate me after everything I put you through, but according to Chenle you like me back? And… yeah?”

You were left speechless. Hate Jaemin? Never. And he… loved… you?

“Y/N? Are you okay?” Jaemin waved a hand in front of your face. “I’m sorry, I’ll go, Chenle must have set up a prank.” He started walking away and you grabbed his wrist.

“Jaem, hold on. I’m just in shock. I thought there was no way you could like me back…” Your voice got steadily smaller until it trailed off at the end of your sentence as a whisper.

His entire face lit up like a Christmas tree plugged in for the first time, glowing and cheerful. “It’s not a prank?”

You rubbed a hand over your face. “No, it’s not a prank. I thought Lucas was kidding when he said you liked me back. Or at least that he was wrong. You- you’re actually telling me that you’re in love with me?”

“I am.”

“Holy shit.”

He laughed, a ringing sound in the quiet of the kitchen. It echoed back at you as though the happiness of the laugh had been multiplied. “They’re going to be so smug,” he muttered.

“Oh yes they are. We’re going to have to get back at them someday.”

“Well, we have forever,” he reminded you. You grinned and held out your hand. He took it.

“Let’s go get the teasing over with then.”

You walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. “What did Chenle threaten you with if you didn’t confess?” you asked.

“Oh, he was going to tell the group about the fling I had with Jeno when we were younger.”

You looked at him in shock. “You had a fling with Jeno? Why would you choose me over him?”

“It was just sexual attraction. While that works for some people, both of us were happier just being friends, so we ended it. I actually am in love with you, which makes all the difference. Anyway, Chenle got that story out of me on a dare once and has held it over my head ever since.”

“I wonder if he’s told Jeno he knows?”

“Probably.”

You had reached the front room, and you took a deep breath as you walked forward, though it did nothing for your undead body. “Let’s throw ourselves to the wolves.”

As you walked out into the sunlight, a cheer rose up that would have sent birds flapping away, had there been any. You heard Chenle’s unique laugh paired with Lucas’ happy shouts of “yes!” and the voices of the other men you had gotten to know, paired with ones you didn’t. They stood in a group in the garden, whooping and throwing up hats if they had any. Lucas was the first to reach you.

“I can’t believe you actually did it! I thought I’d have to smack you!” He sounded far too happy at the prospect for your liking.

The rest of the boys ran over. There was a repeating round of “finally” until someone mentioned the food getting warm and there was a great rush to get back to the patio in the garden. You sat next to Jaemin in patio chairs as the sun slowly sank past the tree line and talked with friends old and new.

There was something new, something warm inside of you. A feeling of belonging more than ever when Jaemin fed you a little and the rest of the guys booed jokingly. Under the rising stars you kissed him for the first time, a quick peck at the behest of Yangyang. There were more cheers and hugs and someone had a polaroid camera out, the flash lighting up the scene as everyone laughed.

This was where you were meant to be.

End.

!!reblogs and feedback are much appreciated!!

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watchmegetobsessed · 3 years

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Serendipity - Part I. (Harry Styles)

a/n: i am BEYOND excited to share this story with you guys! i’ve been working on it for over a month now if not more and what started as just a oneshot, slowly grew into this massive fic. i really hope you’ll love the story of Harry and Lis bc im obsessed with them haha. please feel free to share your thoughts and reactions about the chapter and the fic itself!

pairing: Harry x OC (Annalise Lloyd)

word count: 8k

SERIES MASTERPOST ⚫️ my masterlist ⚫️ come and talk to me about Serendipity! ⚫️ consider buying me a coffee!

Serendipity (n.) Finding something good without looking for it.

There are people who plot out their New Year’s Eve plan even months before the last day of the year, making sure they will be celebrating the upcoming year at the best party possible. And then there are the folks who just ignore it until the very last moment and end up spending at a random place with even more random people.

Harry Styles desperately wanted to be the first kind, but unfortunately often found himself falling into the second case scenario. With his busy schedule and endless ocean of his upcoming projects, he never really had time to think about the last party of the day and usually ended up just tagging along some of his friends wherever they headed to. This year was no different, having to work up until even the last few days of the year, Harry had little to no thought about where he would be when the clock strikes midnight.

Just about a day before it, one of his old high school friends, Griff hits him up with a text if he would want to join them for the celebration at the pub he opened not that long ago. Harry didn’t think twice to accept the invitation, finally checking one more thing off his list, so he won’t just stay at home, and pathetically fall asleep at ten.

It’s nothing big or fancy, Griff assures him in the morning when he rings his friend up to ask when he should arrive and what he should bring.

“Nothing, ey? Just come and ‘ave a good time with us,” Griff tells him, though he already knows Harry won’t show up empty handed.

December 31st

A little before seven Harry opts for a quick shower before he dives deep in his wardrobe to find something to wear. He is torn between wearing a fancy outfit or something cozier, but eventually stands up for the latter, putting on a pair of light washed jeans, a simple white button up and a seaweed green knitted jumper under his coat. He doesn’t pay much attention to his hair, his curls falling around his head in a messy, warm brown halo. It’s been raining all day, it wouldn’t have had any use to try to tame them.

Slowly but surely, Harry feels the buzz in himself, excited to see his old friends and maybe meet some new people while having drinks and just relaxing. He grabs a bottle of fancy whiskey from his bar and heads out around eight.

Griff is one of the few people Harry stayed in touch with after his career launched so abruptly, the two of them often met up whenever Harry was around, having a pint together, just chatting up. Griff bought an old pub a few years prior and completely renewed it, opened at the beginning of the year, Harry was there at the opening party, he had way too much to drink, but he surely had a great time.

“There he is! My favorite arrogant son of a bitch!” Harry immediately hears as soon as he steps into the pub that’s already quite filled.

The tall lad makes his way through the groups of guests until he can envelop his old friend in a warm, brotherly hug as Harry chuckles at the name he just called him. Griff always loved that line from Harry’s song and never missed a chance to call him that. He doesn’t mind though, keeps that playful side of their friendship he always adored so much.

“Good to see you, mate,” Harry smirks at him. “Here, this is for yeh.” He holds out the pricey drink and Griff shakes his head at him.

“Told ya not to bring anything!” he sighs but accepts the gift anyway, knowing well Harry would just sneak into the back anyway and leave the liquor on his desk. “We ‘ave a nice evening ahead of us. Got food, drinks, everything’s on me, take what yeh want,” Griff assures him as the two of them walk further inside.

Harry sees a few familiar faces, high school friends, kids from around the neighborhood that are now grown adults, just like him, but there are quite a lot of guests he doesn’t know.

“C’mon, yeh need t’ ‘ave a welcome drink with me,” Griff grins as he pulls Harry to the bar and fills up two shot glasses generously. Harry doesn’t even bother to ask him what it is, he just takes the glass willingly and after they clink in the middle they both send it down.

Harry grimaces as the hard liquor burns down his throat, Griff never played around with the soft drinks, he knows what hits the best and fastest and Harry figures it’s one of those drinks that would have him crawling on the floor after two more shots.

It doesn’t take Harry long to mix and mingle, get into conversations and meet new people, just enjoying the welcoming and warm atmosphere of the party. He is pleased to see that people treat him just like any other guest, rather than a famous person and he is beyond thankful for that.

Near the bar, Griff has set up a quite rich buffet table filled with all kinds of snacks and food. It’s way past ten when Harry shuffles over there feeling his stomach growling. He grabs a paper plate and his eyes roam everything that’s set on the table. Humming to himself he decides to opt for the delicious looking fries, his mouth drools just at the sight of them, so he puts a generous amount to his plate before his eyes spot the bowl of peas. That’s exactly what he needs to go with the fries.

He goes a little overboard, but he couldn’t care less. Once he is satisfied with his meal he puts back the spoon that was sat in the bowl of peas, right when someone reaches for it. Glancing up his gaze meets a pair of warm brown eyes and a shy, but playful smile. Harry can’t stop himself from smiling instantly as the woman takes the spoon and fills her plate with peas. He looks down and sees that her plate is filled with the exact same things: fries and peas.

“Excellent choice,” he smirks teasingly and her eyes snap down to her plate before she sees the similarity on Harry’s plate. She lets out an airy chuckle before she tugs her chestnut colored, wavy locks behind her ears with her now free hand.

“Mother always told me to balance the junk out with something healthy,” she admits, the corners of her mouth curling up as she blinks a little shy under Harry’s burning gaze.

He always knew he had an eye for pretty things and he never dared to deny himself from admiring them once he laid his eyes on something he found breathtaking. She was by far the prettiest thing he has seen in quite some time, so he doesn’t shy away from taking in her figure in front of him. Delicious looking curves dressed in a pair of tight jeans and a sheer shirt with a top underneath it, the front tugged into the waist of the jeans. Her hair looks effortless, but he can tell she probably spent some time forming the natural looking waves before coming here. The thin eyeliner makes her eyes appear more cat-like and her long lashes dance around with each look she pays him.

“You want to—um, sit?” she stammers nodding towards an empty table near the buffet, a soft blush tainting her soft skin. Harry absolutely adores the hint of innocence in her features.

“’fcourse,” he nods and follows her.

The two of them move over to the table and sit down with their meal, Harry sneaking a fry into his mouth right away.

“’M Harry, by the way,” he says, realizing he hasn’t even introduced himself just yet. Some people tend to look at him weird whenever he does it, as if it should be common knowledge to know who he is, but he never takes it for granted. Luckily, she doesn’t find it funny or weird that he introduced himself.

“Annalise. But everyone just calls me Lis,” she explains and holds out a hand for him, which at first looks a little odd and he can tell she regrets the motion, but he appreciates it, even finds it cute. So before she can pull her hand back he takes it and gives it a soft shake. “So what brings you here tonight?” she asks as both of them digs into their food.

“Griff invited me, saved me last minute, didn’t have any plans.”

“How do you know him?”

Harry finds it amusing that she didn’t bring up that a famous person like him would probably have tons of invitations to fancy parties. He hates when people assume that his social life is blossoming at all times, packed with parties and events to attend every day.

“We went to high school together. Stayed in touch through the years.”

Lis nods with a small smile before her eyes return to the plate in front of her.

“How ‘bout you?”

“Oh, um… Well, Griff and I had a blind date like ages ago, but we both figured out pretty quickly we are never gonna be more than just friends. But that we are perfect for. Have been meeting up every once in a while. I was kind of in the same shoe like you, wasn’t planning on coming out tonight, but… I was forced to,” she admits with a nervous chuckle.

“Y’ don’t like to go out?”

“I—uh, don’t really have the time,” she answers, clearly a bit nervous at the topic so Harry decides to just drop it.

The two of them sit there, just talking and eating and with each passing moment Harry finds himself more and more enchanted by the woman sitting on his right. The way she rambles sometimes, how her nose scrunches whenever she is laughing hard, how she likes to keep tugging her hair behind her ears all the time, are the smallest things but they easily catch Harry’s attention.

Besides, she is not just the looks, also an amazing company. Easy to talk about anything, even the riskier things too. She doesn’t shy away from giving her honest and raw opinion, but also doesn’t attack if someone thinks differently. Instead, she is open to other point of views, seeking opportunities to learn and grow. It’s a mindset Harry values highly and feels like it’s hard to find it. But on this evening in his mate’s pub, he found a gem, it feels like.

The plates soon get swapped to beers and Lis is getting giddier with each gulp, which he finds amusing, especially because she lets her thoughts slip without thinking about them and it allows Harry to look into that pretty head of hers easier.

He doesn’t fail to notice how his heart flutters every time she touches his arm or hand whenever she is deep in a story. The warm touch of her soft hand is sending him into trembling and he is glad they are sitting because he surely would be having a hard time keeping himself up on his feet. She is just the kind of person that wraps others around her fingers without even trying or noticing.

Though it’s only been over an hour since he first laid his eyes on her, he feels like he has known her for ages. The connection built up fast and smoothly, sweeping Harry right off his feet. He’s got it bad for her and he already knows he wants to see her again once this night ends.

“Oh, it’s almost midnight!” Annalise gasps snapping out of her thoughts, a hand snapping to Harry’s upper arm. The crowd is starting to buzz, getting ready for the count down.

“C’mon, let’s get some champagne,” Harry tells her and helps her up from her seat.

They head to the bar and each of them grabs a flute filled with the sparkly alcohol. They stand a little to the side, but still mingled in the crowd of guests. Harry can feel his hands getting sweaty as he thinks about the countdown. Every fiber in his body is aching to kiss her, even though he knows it’s quite crazy knowing the fact they have known each other for only two hours. But he just can’t help it, she has a spell on him with just one look, making him act like a teenager in love.

Annalise peeks up at Harry with a lazy smile, the drinks have made her a little lightheaded, but she is nowhere near being drunk. Her thoughts are absolutely clear and they all focus on the man standing close to her.

Harry watches her bite into her bottom lip and he wonders if she is thinking about the same thing. If she’d be mad if he kissed her when the clock strikes midnight or slap him right across his face. He notices as she draws a deep breath, eyes looking around before they return to him.

“Get yo’ drinks, lads!” Griff shouts from somewhere behind the bar and those who haven’t picked up a glass quickly work on the problem.

Then the countdown begins.

“Ten!... Nine!... Eight!...”

Annalise glances up at Harry and her cheeks blush when she catches him already looking at her. She wishes she had her beer so she could hide in her glass from his burning eyes.

“Seven!... Six!...”

Harry turns so his whole body is facing her and takes just one tiny step towards her. When she doesn’t back away from him, he takes it as a sign that she might want the same thing as him.

“Five!... Four!...”

She looks straight up at him with a sheepish smile and pushes herself against him right when his free hand finds its way to her waist. She sucks in a sharp breath, but doesn’t move while Harry is aching to taste her plump, soft lips.

“Three!... Two!... One!... Happy New Year!”

The crowd cheers as one, guests are clapping and screaming, welcoming the new year with high hopes and full of planes for the new chapter that just started.

Harry and Annalise lock eyes and while everything around them is a full chaos, he feels like a bubble of silence and tranquility is surrounding them. Harry sucks in his breath, lips parted as he doesn’t break his gaze with hers. There’s a moment of hesitation, but the voice in the back of his mind tells him that he can’t let this moment go to waste.

Fuck it! He tells himself before he leans down and his lips meet hers in a soft, warm and breathtaking kiss.

He is a man who believes in magic, in things he can’t explain rationally, he is a man who doesn’t try to pull reality into everything when something odd happens. When his lips meet hers, he is swept right off his feet with just that tiny touch. It’s not a demanding kiss, very restricted and shy, but it still makes his insides tremble for her, almost falling to his knees right in front of her.

There’s a moment of hesitation from her side, when their lips are just touching in a little awkward way, but it fades into nothing before Harry could wrap his head around it, her lips parting as she lets him deepen the kiss, a soft moan slipping out of her throat that brings a knot to his stomach.

The moment is so vivid, raw and intoxicating, he wishes he could bottle it up and open it to have a taste of her anytime later, keep her in his pocket just to have her lips glued to his like this whenever he needs to be grounded or taken away from the world. His fingers dig into her waist, pulling her close to his body, hoping to just merge into her, become one with the woman in his arms.

She softly glides her hands up his arms, through his shoulders before they stop at the back of his neck, digging into his soft curls, while never breaking the kiss. Their lips stay melted together, tongues and teeth clashing, they are a hot mess in the first minutes of the new year.

The cheering slowly dies down and the usual buzzing of conversations and laughter replaces it, but the two of them are still busy with each other and it takes quite some time to pull themselves out of the bubble they created.

“Happy New Year, Lis,” Harry smiles down, lips swollen, eyes glistening from the joy that’s filling up his veins. She glances up at him shyly from under her lashes.

“Happy New Year, Harry,” she whispers, biting into her bottom lip, coming off the high this little make out session gave her.

One hour passes by, then another and the party is starting to slowly die down. People are flaking out the door, the crowd is getting smaller with each door opening.

Harry and Annalise remain in the corner of the place after their kiss, a barrier that’s been noticeably present before has come down as Harry has his arm swung over the back of her chair and she lets herself lean against his side. There’s something so calming and tranquil in just being so close to each other, sharing thoughts and stories while his fingers graze on her shoulder gently and her head always falls to his shoulder when she laughs on something. He loves her laugh, it could easily light up any place and Harry can’t help but feel sorry for the people who don’t see her shine. So many guests didn’t get the chance to get to know her, but on the other hand, he is a bit selfish, he wants her all to himself. No one else should have the honor of making her laugh or bringing a smile to her perfect lips. He wants her all to himself, even if it makes him sound like a mad man.

After she leaves to the restroom, she comes back with her phone in her hands and a tired smile playing on her lips.

“I, uhh—called an Uber. I really should get going,” she tells him and he wants to make her stay. He wants this evening to last forever, but he can’t ask her to stay longer than she wants, so he just slowly nods.

“I’ll walk you out,” he offers, but it’s more like a fact.

The two of them find their coats on the packed rack, Annalise says goodbye to the handful of people she knows, hugging Griff before they head outside to wait for her car to arrive.

“I really enjoyed tonight,” Harry mumbles, shoving his hands into his coat’s pockets, feeling like a nervous teenage boy talking to his crush. She glances up at him with a smile, but there’s something clouding her eyes he can’t really put his finger on.

“Me too,” she assures him, a pair of headlights turning the corner and they both look in the approaching car’s direction before facing each other. “It was really great meeting you, Harry. Take care of yourself in the new year,” she tells her, but he doesn’t like the weight of her words. It sounds like a proper goodbye, like she is bracing herself to never meet him again, but he can’t let that happen.

“Can I—Uh, can I have your number? I would love to take you out sometime.”

The car stops next to them and she nods in the driver’s way to let him know she’s the one he is supposed to pick up. Taking a step to the backseat, she looks back at Harry.

“I’m really sorry, Harry, but we can’t.”

Devastation washes over him, her words are like a punch into his stomach each. Why is she rejecting him? Did she not enjoy the evening? Did he say something stupid? She seemed to be having a great time, so why can’t he see her again?

“What? Are you sure? Because I really loved tonight and would love to see you again.”

Annalise opens the car door and shoots him an apologetic look. He has never felt this helpless in his life, than at that moment, looking at the woman of his dreams escape from his reach.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t get into… whatever it is you want from me. I really am sorry, I wish it was different.”

“But I just want to see you again. I thought… You didn’t feel like it was something special?” he breathes out, feeling the world crashing down on him with each passing moment.

“I did, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry. Take care, Harry,” she sighs, clearly not happy about her own actions and he doesn’t understand why she is fleeing away like this.

He stands there, completely frozen as she gets into the car and shuts the door open. Their eyes meet through the window one last time before the car starts moving and she falls out of his view. He stares after her until the very last moment, when the car disappears at the end of the street, leaving him in pieces from the major rejection he just suffered.

He stays out there until his nose and cheeks turn red and his ears are freezing off, part of him wishing that if he just waits she’s gonna magically reappear and tell him it was just a joke. He can’t believe he met such a wonderful creature and had to let her go like she didn’t flip his whole world upside down under just a couple of hours. Does she know how much of an effect she had on him?

She probably doesn’t, he thinks to herself, because then she wouldn’t have left so abruptly and without a trace for him to find her again.

When Harry returns to the pub, he is met with a tipsy Griff, shoving a pint into his hand immediately.

“Ay, saw you hanging with Lis all night!” he teases Harry, but the mentioning of her name just makes his heart ache. However, knowing that Griff is friends with her, he is ready to use him as a way to get to her.

“Yeah, hey, you have her number?” he asks, trying his best to look as innocent as possible, but Griff sees right through him, even with all the alcohol in his body.

“Sorry, mate. F’she didn’t give it to ya, I won’t go against her.”

“I’m begging you, Griff. I need to see her again!” he sighs in despair, ready to do anything he can to get to her.

“Y’not the first bloke to fall for her magic. I know what it feels like, but I can’t do anything, sorry.” He shrugs his shoulders, giving an apologetic look to his friend before he joins another conversation.

Harry could scream from the frustration, the urge to punch something or someone is growing with each passing moment, but he has to realize there’s nothing he can do at this point other than accept the fact that he met this wonderful woman, had the best night with her and then was forced to watch her walk out of his life before she could even become part of it properly.

Harry starts to realize that what he thought about heartbreaks is nothing compared to the feeling Annalise left in his heavy heart.

There has to be a solid reason for what she did. Or did not do.

Endless theories about Annalise flood his mind through the days following that night when he was forced to watch her leave on such a bitter and painful note. Harry couldn’t stop himself from making up the most ridiculous cases just to give himself a possible peace of mind, but neither of them brought him enough comfort to forget about her.

His best shot was that she had a boyfriend, or even worse, a husband. This was the only version that sounded somewhat real and believable, though he just knew she is not the type of woman to cheat on a significant other.

How would you know? You spent just one evening with her, she could be a serial killer for all you know! Harry’s rational side was always quick to shut him down when his thought swirled around the idea of knowing her well enough to assume anything about her.

As the days dragged by him in a painful pace, he slowly had to realize it’s going to be a question in his life he’ll never get an answer to, so he just has to learn to live with the thought of the woman that got away.

The end of January rolls around faster than he could comprehend, February comes and he finds himself spending his days mostly in the studio, cooking up new music. Studio sessions are his favorite. That’s his element, he feels safe and comfortable, surrounded by people he trusts and enjoys creating his art fully. In the new year, he has also been eager to pick up a new hobby so he has been trying himself out in knitting and painting recently, finding both of them just a tad bit too hard for him just yet, but they were enough to get his mind off of the one woman who was constantly occupying his thoughts following New Year’s Eve.

Sitting in an armchair in the studio, he and his bandmates are listening back to some recordings they did today and he is trying to find that one thing that keeps throwing him off whenever he hears the song.

“I think it’s great,” Mitch states once the recording ends, and Harry agrees, it is great, but not the best.

“Maybe we could tone down the keyboard a little through the bridge, give more space for the guitar,” he contemplates, but really, he is just shooting in the dark, not sure what it is that keeps him on edge about the song.

“Why don’t we have a break?” Sarah suggests with a warm smile, seeing how everyone is keen on leaving for a little, except Harry, who is still fixated on mastering the song. But he agrees to have the break, however while everyone gets ready to leave and grab something to eat from the diner that’s around the corner, Harry stays where he is, eyes glued to his notebook.

“You’re not coming?” Charlotte asks him and he just shakes his head.

“No, not that hungry.” He looks up and shoots them a short smile and though they all can tell he could use the time out, they know him enough already that he won’t leave before he finds what’s not right.

“Alright. We’ll be back in an hour,” Mitch informs him and he dismisses them all with a nod.

He stays right there, going through the lyrics a few more times, making tiny changes in hopes that it’ll fix it all, but he can feel himself growing frustrated. Doesn’t matter how hard he is trying, he realizes his brain needs a break. Letting out a defeated huff he leans back, looking around in the empty studio. He doesn’t feel particularly hungry, but he could use something to snack on. So grabbing his coat he locks up the studio and heads out to the nearby Tesco they usually run out during sessions.

He is still humming the melody to himself when he walks in, a pair of sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his nose, his famous curls hidden under a green beanie. He doesn’t bother to get a cart or basket, just strolls inside and roams down the aisles, trying to decide what he desires.

He settles on some kind of canned tea and a protein bar, but before he heads towards the cash registers, he wanders down the aisle where they keep cereals, looking around aimlessly. It’s the middle of the day on a weekday, most people are at work at this hour, so just a few other customers are lingering around, filling their carts. At first, he doesn’t pay any attention to the figure a little further down the aisle, his eyes are glued to the shelves, but then he just mindlessly glances to his left, his brain not even processing what, or who he is seeing at first. Then he takes a double take and his stomach drops to the tiled floor when he recognizes the woman, deep in her thoughts to decide which cereal to buy.

Annalise is standing just a few meters away from him, looking just as beautiful as he remembered, wearing a pair of simple jeans, light blue sneakers and a white jacket, her hair is in a loose ponytail on the top of her head.

“Lis?” he calls out, as if he thinks she is just a ghost. Taking a few steps closer he watches as her eyes fall from the products on the shelves to him, then they widen and her lips part in shock.

“Harry? Wha-what are you doing here?” she asks and Harry is quick to read the panic out of her tone as she looks around cautiously.

“I’m… shopping?” he answers with a soft chuckle, holding up the items in his hands.

“Haven’t seen you around here.”

“The studio we use is nearby, I drop by sometimes. But today is clearly my lucky day.” Even though her reaction is giving him doubts, he can’t hide his joy upon seeing her again, fate clearly playing on his side this time.

“Uh, yeah?” she lets out an anxious chuckle, her eyes often wandering off him, as if she is waiting for someone to show up and it just fuels Harry’s rich theories about her.

“So, are you here with your boyfriend?” he boldly asks, deciding to just go for it. Annalise’s eyes widen once again, but not in a way that makes him think he just busted her, it’s more of a confused one.

“Boyfriend? What are you talking about?”

“Well, you basically ran away from me that night, I figured you had someone and that’s why you didn’t want to give me your number.” He tries his best not to sound petty or bitter, though that’s exactly what he’s been feeling ever since she left that night.

“Harry, that’s… not the case.”

“Okay, so does this mean you’ll give me your number this time?” he tries and he is so busy with her presence, he doesn’t even notice when a smaller frame runs past him down the aisle.

“Mommy! I want this!”

At first, he doesn’t even register that the little boy is talking to Annalise, he dismisses his presence, eyes still fixated on her, but then her gaze leaves him and turns down to the boy, holding up a bar of chocolate.

“Honey, that’s too big. Choose something smaller, alright?”

It takes Harry a few moments to put one and one together. This kid just ran up to her, called her mommy and most likely not on accident since she answered him, very much talking to him like his mother. Though Harry can’t see his own face, he knows it fell, shock completely taking over him as his thoughts finally add up. Annalise looks back at him in panic, completely puzzled about what to do or say.

“Benji, go get another one, a smaller one while I talk to my friend here,” Annalise softly tells the boy.

He turns to Harry, eyes meeting his as he cocks his head to the side, examining the shocked adult standing in front of him.

“Who’s this?” he blurts out.

“Just a friend, alright? Go get your chocolate,” she urges. Benji gives Harry another look before nodding and running off, leaving them alone once again in the cereal aisle. “Harry, I-I’m sorry, you weren’t supposed to know.”

“Are you married?” is his first question, taking her by surprise.

“What?”

“The father. Is he your husband?” he urges, eager to clear the picture. Annalise shakes her head.

“No, we were never even married.”

He feels relief washing over him. At least at this point he doesn’t feel like a homewrecker. If he found out she wasn’t only a mother but also married, and that she cheated on the dude with him, that would have crushed him. But it’s one less thing to worry about on a long list.

“Okay, it’s fine. You are not married, it’s all good,” he breathes out and it brings her a smile through this absurd situation.

“You thought I was married?”

“Or at least had a boyfriend, yeah,” he nods, hands on his hips as he licks his lips. He surely had a mini panic attack, but he can feel the life coming back into his body.

“Do I come off like the kind to cheat that easily?” she asks with raised eyebrows, but she didn’t take it as an offense, she more like finds it funny rather than hurtful.

“No, not at all! I was just trying to figure out why you rejected me and this was my best shot!”

“I’m sorry, Harry. I just… I didn’t know how to tell and I didn’t really think you would want to see me again after that night.”

“I think I made it clear that I wanted to when I asked for your number.”

“Well, yes, but I thought you just wanted a hookup and that’s just not what I can do.”

“Because of…” he gestures towards the boy that jolted down the aisle just a few minutes ago.

“Because of Benji, yeah.”

“Alright, it’s understandable, but I did not just want a hookup, and that’s still not what I want,” he clears, his words certainly surprising her. This is definitely not what she was expecting when she came down to get groceries today.

“Harry…” she breathes out, already feeling guilty that she is about to turn him down once again. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a single mother with a six year-old and you are… you.”

“I don’t see your point,” he truthfully answers.

“I’m not some model you chatted up at some award show, who is living her best life, traveling the world just like you. My days consist of work, doing laundry, cleaning the house, cooking, doing first grade homework, going to football practice and watching cartoons. We are polar opposites.”

“No, just our lifestyles, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get closer.”

“Is that really what you want?”

Harry is about to answer right when Benji emerges again, proudly holding up a bar of KitKat in his hand this time.

“This one! This one!” he declares, stopping next to Annalise.

“Okay, put it in,” she nods and the little boy throws the chocolate into the cart with a beaming smile. Her eyes flicker back to Harry, who is now staring down at Benji, who is seemingly not that interested in him at the moment, his attention is more focused on the cereals on the shelves.

She is aware she can’t really push this conversation, but she also doesn’t want Benji to hear it.

“Benji, can you get me three apples? I’ll go get paper towels in the next aisle, alright?”

“Three?” he asks holding up three fingers to make sure he heard her right.

“Yes.”

Benji nods and runs off once again, while Annalise grabs a random box of cereal off the shelf and starts pushing her cart, Harry walking along with him.

“It’s nice that you want to prove that you are fine with whatever baggage I come with, but I’m not stupid, Harry. I know I’m not the jackpot and I’m not naïve, I’m not trying to make myself believe that I’m easy to date when I’m clearly not.”

“You act like you are the only single parent out in the dating field. I genuinely don’t think that it’s that big of a deal.”

“Yeah, that’s what you are saying now. But then we would get more involved, you’d grow frustrated that I can’t just go after you whenever you feel like it, or that I would have to cancel on plans because Benji is sick or has homework to do that he needs help with. Or that my Friday night consists of playing board games, then watching whatever cartoon Benji is keen on seeing and I’m in bed by ten while you probably spend these nights out with your friends, hopping from one bar to the other. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t, that’s exactly what you should be doing at your age… at our age. But for me, it’s just different.”

She is not talking just out of theories. She has tried to date, several times, but it was always kind of doomed from the beginning. Men in their mid-twenties don’t want to be a stand-in dad, though it’s completely not what she expects. But as time went by, they all grew tired of having to deal with a kid in the relationship and they all ended up leaving and she can’t even blame them. It’s not what they want in life at this point, but she can’t be what they wanted her to be so slowly but surely she gave up on finding a man before she turns thirty and her peers start to get into the whole idea of having a family that’s already been her reality since she was eighteen.

And the situation is even more complicated with Harry. An international rockstar is definitely not the right person for her and vice versa. She can only imagine what some lowlifes would think when they found out he is dating a single mother. People can be cruel for no damn reason and she is definitely not in the right mindset to be humiliated just because she is a mother.

The two of them move down to the next aisle so she can grab the paper towels along with some dish soap. Harry is keen on making her understand that he is still very much interested and he has nothing against her being a mother. It was just a little shocking to find out this way, instead of hearing about it from her.

“I think you have an unreasonable picture in your head of what my life is like,” he explains. “Yes, I do travel a lot and I go to parties, but it’s not what I do most in life. And I’m not expecting you to turn your whole life around for me.”

“Yeah, but dating me is kind of me asking you to turn your whole life around for us,” she simply says and he is stunned at her words, having nothing to bring up against them. “Look,” she sighs. “I appreciate the effort and everything, but I want to save you the time, just like I originally wanted to. I know that it seems reasonable now, but once you get involved, it’s a whole different world, I’m telling you. And while I would love to give you the chance to prove me wrong, I still have to think about Benji. I can’t just drag someone into his life and then have them leave when they figure out it’s not what they want after all. He needs stability around him and it’s enough that he can’t get that from his father.”

Harry has a million questions roaming in his head that he is dying to ask. Mostly about the father, because if he is not in the picture, he can’t imagine what kind of scumbag he is for leaving someone like her. But he keeps them all to himself, especially when Benji appears again with the three apples, putting them into the cart with a proud smile. The boy turns to Harry this time, finally acknowledging his presence.

“Who are you?” he asks. Harry looks down at him and pushes everything else into the back of his mind as he hunches down a bit, holding out his hand for the boy, a friendly smile playing on his lips.

“I’m Harry, your mum’s friend. Nice to meet you.”

The boy doesn’t hesitate to take his right held out, his small hand almost getting lost in Harry’s big palm as they shake hands like two adults. Harry is stunned by how confident he is, unlike most kids his age.

“I’m Benjamin Lloyd,” the boy introduces himself smiling and Harry can see the resemblance now clearer than anything. His smile is certainly his mother’s and the shape of his eyes along with his chin are the exact same as Annalise’s, leaving only a few traits that must have been inherited from his father.

Benjamin lets go of Harry’s hand and turns back to his mother completely unbothered by the man he just met.

“Mum, are we staying on the playground a little?” he asks as they all move down the aisle, heading to the cash register.

“Uh, yeah, we can stay for a little, but you need to do homework when we get home. Mrs. Conrad sent me all the work you missed today so we have to catch up on everything. You got away with faking sickness this morning, but you are doing the work you missed.”

Benji doesn’t fuss about having to do work, he knew this would happen when he faked to have a tummy ache, he nods understanding the importance of doing his homework and Harry is amazed by how great his behavior is. Most kids his age would have thrown a tantrum over what Annalise just said, but not Benji. He is like a small adult, Harry thinks.

“I honestly don’t see why you still have to push me away completely. Did you not enjoy talking with me?” Harry continues as they stand in line, Annalise putting everything to the belt from the cart while Benji is busy playing around the poles that separate the lines.

“Of course I did!” she sighs.

“So then why can’t we just continue? See where it goes?”

“Because that’s just not how things work for me,” she says with a soft, sad chuckle.

“What, you can’t have friends?” Harry asks innocently as Annalise finishes packing, puts a divider on the belt so Harry can put his items behind hers.

“Oh, so you just want to be friends?” she asks raising her eyebrows, seeing through him easily. Harry opens his mouth, but then closes, a cheeky smile stretching across her face that makes her chuckle.

“For now, yeah?” he tries to sound convincing, but it’s more of a joke.

The cashier starts to scan her items so she pushes the cart over to the end and starts packing everything back, Benji still climbing on the poles, completely oblivious to the conversation happening around him, or he just chooses not to listen.

“You are unbelievable,” she shakes her head at the man in the line. The cashier finishes up with her items and she taps her card on the terminal, pushing the cart away a little.

Harry is scared that she’ll flee the moment she gets the receipt and leaves before she could go after her, but for his biggest surprise, she just pushes the cart a little away from the cash register and starts packing her items into totebags. Benji runs up to her and she gives him his KitKat without a word, the boy happily tearing the packaging open, snacking on the chocolate.

Harry is quick to finish with his items, catching up with Annalise as the three of them head out of the supermarket.

“Look, I’m gonna be honest with you, I haven’t felt like this with anyone in a long time, Lis. I loved talking to you, I feel like we had a connection, and I think you felt it too. I would hate to waste whatever we had so I’m offering you my friendship. I want to hang out, spend time with you, just as two adults enjoying each other’s company. Nothing more, if that’s what you really want for now. And we can see where it heads later. How does that sound?”

They reach her car and Benji runs to the backseat, tearing the door open while Annalise opens the trunk and she is surprised to see Harry help her pack her bags into the car, but she doesn’t protest.

“I really don’t know…” she sighs.

“Come on! Just friends. Give it a try! I have a great feeling about it and I promise to be very careful. I understand that you need boundaries because of Benji and I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable in any way. But you do have to realize that you need to open up at one point. You can’t use him as an excuse forever.”

“I’m not using him as an excuse!” she points out, but she can feel how that’s not the whole truth.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Lis,” Harry smirks, pulling his phone out of his coat’s pocket and unlocking it he holds it out for her once she has closed the trunk. “I’m just asking for your phone number, not to travel the world with me. You can decide to block me later if you change your mind, it’s nothing serious, alright?”

Annalise’s hesitation is clearer than the light and in any other case, he would take offence at it, but not with her. Harry is keen on proving to her that he meant everything he said and that he is willing to take a chance with her.

Chewing on the inside of her cheeks, she glances back at Benji, who has climbed into his seat in the back of the car. She is fighting with herself, bringing up all pros and contras until she finally caves in. Grabbing the phone from Harry’s hand she types her number in and gives herself a ring so she can save his number as well. She hands the device back and Harry’s smile is so wide, she almost wants to punch him in the face, but she can also feel the excitement running through her veins.

“Great. You won’t regret it, Lis,” Harry beams shoving his phone back into his pocket. His hand reaches for her arm and gives it a gentle squeeze as he doesn’t want to try anything further with her at the moment.

“I better not,” she mumbles shaking her head before turning around to buckle Benji in. When that’s done she pays one last glance at Harry who stands at the car next to hers, watching her get behind the wheel and back out from her spot. He waves at her happily and she just nods in his way before turning around the car and driving away.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?!” Harry rages through the phone, his anger only met with a soft chuckle from Griff on the other end of the call.

“Mate, I told ya, s’not my place! She didn’t tell ya, so I didn’t either.”

“You saw how hooked I was on her! You could have, no, no… you should have told me!”

Harry was quick to run back to the studio and called Griff right away to load everything out on him. He felt betrayed that his friend didn’t let him know this small little detail even after seeing him all crushed after she left without a trace to find her. He gets his reasoning, he does, but it still doesn’t stop him from being so bloody mad at his mate.

“Sorry! I really am sorry! But I know how protective she is over Benji. I was not gonna betray her like tha’.”

Harry takes a deep breath, paying up and down the hallway in the studio, trying his best to calm his nerves. It’s an unfortunate situation as a whole, he sees that clearly, but the frustration how it had to go down at the end is getting the best out of him for sure. He is not mad at one specific person, because everyone was doing what they thought to be the best, but everything added up to be such a shitty outcome, or at least on Harry’s side.

Pinching the bridge of his nose he huffs again, putting aside his burning emotions.

“Okay, okay. Sorry to snap at you like that, it was just… a lot.”

“I get it, don’ worry about it,” Griff assures him, glasses clinking behind him somewhere, he is probably working at the pub as they are speaking. “She gave ya her number now, right?”

“Yeah, she didn’t want to, but I talked her ears off,” Harry chuckles lowly. He could still feel the excitement that rushed through him when she finally gave in.

“M’happy for ya, mate. But please be bloody careful. She doesn’t need any shit right now, has enough on her plate.”

“I know. I’m just trying to be her friend first, that’s all.”

“Alright. Swing by the pub sometime soon, if ya want.”

“Sure thing. Bye Griff,” Harry smiles before ending the call.

Walking back into the recording room, all eyes snap up to him and he stops in his track.

“What?”

“The hell was that about?” Sarah questions, asking in the name of everyone in the room. They all just heard his rage outside and now are dying to know what it was about.

“I uhh—I found her,” he simply says and watches all his bandmates gawk back at him with wide eyes.

“What? Did you like, hire a private investigator or something?” Charlotte asks, making Harry chuckle as he shakes his head no.

“No, I ran into her at Tesco. Well, her and her… son.”

His last word washes out the whole room, everyone stops breathing for a moment as they stare back at Harry who has that ‘yeah, you heard me right’ look on his face.

“A son?” Mitch asks snapping out of his shock. “Like a proper kid?”

“How do you not have a proper kid?” Harry asks him with a look.

“I don’t know! I’m just… surprised. How old is the kid?”

“Like six or seven. She said something about being a first grader.”

“Didn’t you say she is a year younger than you?” Sarah asks, as everyone is doing the silent math in their head.

“She is, with one year. Or that’s what she told me.”

“That makes her, what, like eighteen when she had the kid? And what about the father?” Charlotte trails, still trying hard to put the picture together.

“She didn’t say much, but from what I understood, he is not really in the picture. So at least she is not married or something,” Harry adds, still open about the relief he is feeling about that information.

“This shit is twisted,” Sarah huffs. “So what’s gonna happen now? Did you ask for her number again?”

“Ask?” Harry chuckles bitterly. “I begged, Sarah. I was ready to be on my knees in the middle of a bloody Tesco.”

A round of laughter runs through the room and the mood finally eases a little after the shock that just set in. It wasn’t the fact that Annalise had a son that sent everyone over the edge, but rather that she didn’t say a single word about it and how it all surfaced.

“And did she give it to you?” Mitch prompts and Harry nods, a shy smile stretching on his lips as the two girls start clapping and cheering.

They all saw his long face after New Year’s Eve, it couldn’t be missed how he was moping around for weeks. He told them all about this girl he met, who completely blew his mind just before breaking his heart. Now that she was found and gave him just a small crumble of information about her to him that makes him able to contact her, the change is visible. That little sparkle in his eyes is back and that’s all his friends wanted to see.

“So what are you gonna do now?” Sarah asks as Harry walks over to one of the armchairs and makes himself comfortable.

“Now… I’ll try not to scare her off. Hopefully she won’t push me away and at least let me be her friend.”

“Friend? Is that what you want to be?”

“Of course not,” he sighs, his head dropping to the back of the armchair. “But this is all I can do for now.”

They all just nod, tasting his words and letting everything that just happened sink in. Harry is doing the same, he has a lot to think about and figure out, but there’s one thing he is one hundred percent sure about: he will not give up on Annalise.

NEXT PART

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bbysamu · 3 years

Text

A (Sad) Love Story

⇢ Featuring: MIYA Osamu x you

⇢ Genre: Angst to Fluff

⇢ Warning: None

⇢ WC: 1,262

⇢ Inspired By: Love Story - Epik High ft. IU

Preview: A look back at the snippets of your relationship from the perspective of the camera.

You can’t even pinpoint it, but somewhere along the line, your paths diverged. You don’t realize until you look up and see him on the opposite shore.

“Do you think it’s for the best?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“Maybe one day we’ll come back to each other.” He sounded tired.

“Maybe.”

“This is it?” He doesn’t want to let go.

“I think so.”

“Okay.” With the reality in front of him, how could he say no to the inevitable future.

“okay.”

“bye.” He whispers and the line goes dead.

The bedroom darkens as the sun sets, you don’t bother turning on the light.

ding - click to see your memory three years ago today. You tap open the notification.

[ 3 years ago - a memorable Monday ]

MIYA Osamu smiles nervously.

“What are we doing today Samu?” His twin asks from behind the camera, panning the device around to capture the scattered petals and the picnic blanket on the floor.

“I’m asking Y/N to be my girlfriend. Y/N if you’re seeing this video it means you’re my girlfriend and I love you!”

“ew you creep. How can you love her already?”

Osamu glares at Atsumu, “shut up you faux blonde. I’ve loved her since the moment I saw her.”

“I --” Atsumu was interrupted by the notification on his phone, “yo Suna says Y/N is coming up to the roof now.”

“hurry, go hide in the corner over there.”

“you got this Samu.”

“thanks Tsumu.”

Atsumu’s hand trembled slightly as you emerged into view. “Don’t mess this up!” he whispered, cheering on his twin.

“Hey Samu, what’s up!” You called out cheerfully.

“I was wondering if you wanted to have a picnic with me today?”

“Does it involve onigiri?”

He pretended to look offended, “who do you take me for? of course there’s onigiri.”

You laughed and he smiled, “then what are we waiting for? Wait why are there so many flower petals?”

He answered your question with another, “before we have our picnic, I have to ask you something.”

“Please don’t be weirded out, we’ve been friends for so long and I don’t want to ruin our friendship, but I can’t hide it anymore. Ever since you entered the classroom two years ago, I’ve been in love with you. You’re the most amazing, kind, intelligent girl I know.”

Osamu looked at you shyly, “Y/N, will you be my girlfriend?”

With your back to Atsumu, the camera couldn’t capture your expressions, but your enthusiastic, “yes! Samu I thought you’d never ask!” made it easy for one to imagine the joy etched on your face.

“gosh finally, my legs are cramping.” Atsumu remarked just as the video cuts off.

You fingers hovered over the delete button before swiping left.

[ 2 years ago - a lazy Sunday ]

“Why do you guys always drag me along on your dates?” Atsumu groaned.

You smiled cheekily into the camera, “because we need a videographer.”

“couldn’t you get Suna to do it? He actually enjoys filming people.”

“He’s busy today. Plus don’t you want your twin brother to be happy?”

“Not really.”

“Don’t be bitter just because you don’t have a girlfriend Tsumu. Green is not a good color on you.”

“shut up, Y/N”

“don’t tell my girlfriend to shut up.”

The camera captured your surprised expression before turning over to Osamu’s confused one.

“Samu why are you here so early!”

“I always arrive early to our dates so you don't ever have to wait for me.”

“well you shouldn’t have today. Now the surprise is ruined!”

“what surprise?”

“Surprise!” The rest of the Inarizaki team jumped out from behind the counter.

Osamu looks at you, “what is going on?”

“Happy one year anniversary babe!”

“That’s not until tomorrow though.”

“yeah I know, but since every one is busy tomorrow, I thought I’d gather them today to give you a surprise anniversary event, since you know, the whole team helped out when you asked me out last year. I thought it’s only fair if they get to participate in our anniversary too.”

Kita and Aran brings in the cake with a picture of you kissing Osamu on the cheeks.

“Wait what was the surprise?”

“Well the lights were supposed to be turned off then we’d jump out and scare you.”

“Aren’t you the prankster?”

“hey love birds can we eat this cake or what?” Atsumu calls out from behind the camera.

“Go ahead guys!” You call out.

The camera captures Osamu leaning down towards you, “thank you my love.”

The video ends.

[ 1 year 2 months ago - a rainy Wednesday ]

“Hi everyone! My boyfriend and I are here trying out the hottest ramen place in town.”

Osamu looks at you curiously, “who is everyone?”

“I thought I'd take a stab at vlogging.”

“oh trying to be an influencer I see you.” He teases.

“shut up and eat your noodle.”

He gladly comply, his eyes twinkling as he looks up into the camera, “oh babe this is so good you gotta try the soup.”

He takes a spoonful, blowing on it before feeding it to you.

“mmm it is good. Try mine try mine!”

“yours is good too, but I think mine is better.”

“oh really?” You look down at your ramen disappointedly.

“Here we can trade, I ate half already.” He takes the camera from you, filming you as you ate the other half.

“thanks Samu, you’re right, yours is better.” You sighed contently, “there’s nothing better than hot ramen on a rainy day.”

“you got that right.” You boyfriend echoes behind the camera.

You take the phone from him and flip on selfie mode, “come here, now we can both be on screen.”

“well we’re almost done, should we plan what to do next?”

“wanna get ice cream?”

Osamu kissed you on the cheek, “you read my mind.”

You smiled into the camera before hitting “end recording”.

[ 6 months ago - a silly Thursday ]

The camera pans to you and Osamu sitting on the sofa, his arms wrapped around you as he nods, engrossed in your story.

“ew look at the love birds” Atsumu whispers.

He walked closer to the two of you when you suddenly draped your long hair over Osamu’s head.

Atsumu bursts out laughing, “what is going on here?”

You look up into the camera, laughing along, “I was telling him how this girl on YouTube bought a wig for her boyfriend and dressed him up as a girl as a prank on Tinder. We wanted to see how Samu will look as a girl.”

The camera cuts to a long-haired Osamu winking and blowing kisses, pretending to be a girl.

“well one things for sure, he’s the ugliest girl I’ve ever seen.”

The video blurs as Atsumu start running, Osamu chasing after him.

“we got the same face! You’d look just as ugly!”

“I’m more handsome!”

“yeah right!”

“don’t fight over stupid things you guys!” You laughed.

“it’s not stupid. Babe, tell him I’m more handsome!”

The camera cuts off.

You eyes hurt. You’re not sure if it’s from the tears or the fact that your phone screen was your only light source. You turn on the lights, fingers once again hovering over the “delete” button before deciding otherwise.

You text him, “hey”.

A reply comes in immediately, “hi.”

“One day we’ll come back to each other.”

“yes, one day.” There was no hesitation, you smiled.

“goodnight Samu.”

“good night Y/N.”

The two of you slept much better that night, the promise of “one day” etched in both hearts.

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#haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu angst #Osamu x you #hqradiostation #ceci.writes #reposting bc tags #haikyuu fluff

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danses-with-dogmeat · 3 years

Text

Introducing My Fallout OCs!

OMGGGG y’all, I can’t. I’ve apparently reached over 200 of you fantabulous followers and I am so ecstatic! I honestly don’t even know if this is considered a milestone or anything, but I was super psyched, so I'm doing something about it, dang it!

Also, just a heads up on me right now, I just started school again, so my posting miiiiiiight be a bit sporadic every now and then, but I’m determined to still try and get a few posts out every week, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m also pretty backed up on requests at the moment, I’m still accepting them for the time being, but I may turn off my asks if I’m finding difficulty getting to everyone.

Anyways, I know I don’t ever really talk about my Fallout Original Characters, but I’m thinking of doing some stuff with them in the future, so this seemed like a good place to start 🤷‍♀️ So, here they are! One from each of the 3 FO games I write for. If ya’ll want to send in any asks about these folks, please feel free to do so!

(Art for these peeps is pending potentially as well).

My Lone Wanderer: Hope

Appearance:

- Basically like a black-haired, blue eyed Sarah Connor (y’know, from Terminator), she’s got a small frame, but is an absolute beast. She loves to change up her hair, but prefers the iron maiden, unladylike, or rude ridge styles and will often dye it bright-ass colors, cuz why not? She’s pretty pale considering the vault background and the fact she is constantly wearing full body combat or leather armor when she’s outdoors, and she has a few piercings she actually got before leaving the vault.

What’s in a Name:

- “Hope” was the name that her parents chose for her before she was even born, but she can’t stand it, she just tends to see it as a cruel joke in the world they live in. She instead goes by Effie (short for Ephialtes, cuz she’s edgy and dramatic and read too much in school). Hope tends not to tell anyone her real name, and if she does, you’d best not use it to refer to her, unless you like being enslaved. The only one who could ever get away with it is Jericho and a select few people from the vault (Stanley, and her father, but she’s still not happy about it.)

Sexuality:

- Pansexual

Main Companion:

- Jericho

Relationship(s):

- She has a sort of “friends with benefits” type situation going with Jericho, but it ends up getting... complicated, and turning somewhat into a relationship.

Bestie(s):

- Even though he’s her boss, Hope likes to hang out with Eulogy when she’s in Paradise Falls. When she was in the vault, she spent a lot of time with Stanley, and was pretty close with Butch, Wally, and Paul as well.

Fam Dam:

- James and Catherine are/were her parents (obviously). But she also considered Stanley to be a sort of uncle to her.

Karma:

- Oh, the worst. She’s honestly awful. She steals, she murders, she enslaves, she blows up settlements, all of it. She’s got a lot of things she needs to work out...

Faction of Choice:

- The Slavers of Paradise Falls. (Yeah... she sucks.) The Brotherhood and the Outcasts just never really struck her fancy, and her and Jericho found it was easy to make bank with the slavers. Hope also is a friend to Allistair Tenpenny and Mister Burke... and not the folks in Megaton. Cuz they’re all not really alive.

Vault Occupation:

- Engineer

Fun Fact!:

- Hope is really bad with empathy, and absolutely needs to experience something for herself before she can make any sort of judgement on it, or other people who have had that same experience.

My Courier Six: Sage

Appearence:

- Sage doesn’t really consider herself very “flashy” in comparison to most folks in NV. She’s got shoulder length brown hair (blast back or clean cut style) and brownish-hazel eyes. She’s pretty damn tan (Mojave, you know) and doesn’t have many scars, but the ones on the right side of her forehead clearly indicate where she was shot in the head (thanks, Benny). She and Boone tend to twin quite a bit, with matching red berets and sunglasses.

What’s in a Name:

- The poor girl has no clue what her real name was before she was shot, but she saw a box of labelled herbs in Doc Mitchell’s house when she was recovering from her headwounds and decided she liked the name “Sage.”

Sexuality:

- Bisexual

Main Companion:

- Craig Boone

Relationship:

- Also Boone :) it’s a pretty darn slow-burn romance with lots of bumps along the way, but their love always seems to prevail. (Gross and sappy, I know)

Bestie(s):

- Arcade, plus Rex, and ED-E. Also Victor and Doc Mitchell.

Fam Dam:

- No clue, unfortunately. She eventually tries to find out something about her past and her family, if she has any, but she’s got a few things to deal with first (hint, one rhymes with pleaser’s fleegion).

Karma:

- She may make mistakes along the way, but Sage really does try her best to be as good as possible.

Faction of Choice:

- Mr. House and the Followers of the Apocalypse. Would like to get rid of House, but can't bring herself to become responsible for everything once he's gone. She considers herself his personal empathy and tries to assist with the goings on of the Mojave even after the battle of hoover dam. Fucking wiped out everyone in the Legion. Her and Boone are a force to be reckoned with. And she never really cared much for the Brotherhood since she had such little interaction with them. She has a good relationship with Freeside and most of the settlements/other towns as well.

Previous Occupation:

- Courier? She has no idea what else. But she’s oddly really good with medicine 🤔

Fun Fact!:

- She supports Mr. House for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is that she doesn't want to lose Victor. He saved her, and she considers the securitron to be her oldest friend (besides Doc Mitchell). She knows it's a little selfish, but she can't bring herself to put an end to him after he pulled her from her own grave and helped bring her back from the brink of death.

My Sole Survivor: Jolene Arvanidis-Ryan

Appearence:

- She’s got auburn hair she usually keeps cut short (clean cut) or in a bun, green eyes, pale skin with a good amount of freckles and has exceptionally straight teeth (braces suck, but you know.) When traveling with Cait, people tend to think they’re related. Jolene tends to wear a black beret and, if she has the time and resources, she likes cat eye style eyeliner.

What’s in a Name:

- Her first name runs in the family... plus her dad really liked Dolly Parton, so that helped cement the first name for him. Nate’s last name was Arvanidis, and she tends to use that as her last name exclusively, she rarely reveals her maiden name (Ryan) to anyone.

Sexuality:

- Straight

Main Companion:

- Paladin Danse

Relationship:

- It takes a long time (post BB), but she ends up being with Danse.

Bestie(s):

- MacCready and Cait

Fam Dam:

- Pre-war, her father was a carpenter and her mother was a major in the US military, she had no siblings and was very close with her father since her mom was often away on deployment.

Karma:

- Decent. Tries her best to do what’s “right,” but she sometimes has a hard time determining what that is. Is good at following orders, even if she doesn’t always agree with them (BB is the exception in this case).

Faction of Choice:

- Brotherhood of Steel, at least until BB, then she tends to focus more on the Minutemen, but still stays by the BOS’s side when it comes to taking down the Institute. Despite her loyalty to the BOS, she always regrets what she did to the Railroad, and how she ended things with the Institute, and she holds quite a bit of resentment towards Elder Maxson for ordering her to pull the trigger that ended her son’s life, and the other lives within the Institute.

Previous Occupation (Pre-War):

- She was a Gunnery Sergeant in the US Military. (Trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps).

Fun Fact!:

- She hates killing feral ghouls, but keeps it under wraps since she tends to travel with MacCready and Danse the most. After that random encounter where she found herself murdering her own neighbors, she can’t bring herself to look into the eyes of any feral ghouls she has to kill.

Bonus! Fun Fact!:

- She started out as my sort of "throw away" playthrough where I wanted to do a BOS run, just out of curiosity, but she ended up being my main playthrough… probably because Danse is just the best and I can't get enough of that tin can thesaur-ass.

#fallout #fallout 3 #fallout new vegas #fallout 4 #original character #fallout oc #thank you guys again #ily all so much #thank you for reading #you all are the best

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ajthedumbass · 3 years

Text

Son of a Preacher

Summary: Patton Hart lives in a small town. As son of the local preacher, he’s supposed to be an example of a good Christian son. While trying to meet expectations, one boy might change his life.

Pairings: Mainly intruality, with side analogical and roceit

Warnings: Alcohol, underage drinking, religion, implied abuse, homophobia, swearing, mentions of sex, internalized homophobia. I think thats all but let me know if theres more

All Parts Next Part >

Chapter 1

Patton Hart had always been a good kid.

He went to Church, he helped clear the table, kept his room tidy and his grades high. He never went to parties, or did drugs, or drank anything other than the wine he had for communion. He never acted out. He didn’t want to ruin his family’s image of the perfect “traditional” family.

His mom was a teacher at the town’s elementary school and taught Sunday School on the weekends. She always had dinner on the table at 6pm and hosted bible study groups for the local moms every Wednesday and Friday.

His dad was the town’s preacher. Everyone knew him. They all loved and respected him. He was looked up to by many in town as both a leader and as a great father.

His older brother Percy had been the star of the high school football team. Popular at school and was now engaged to the former head of the cheer squad. He got accepted into multiple top colleges for his athletic abilities. He was the “perfect” son, even though Patton knew of several impure things Percy would do behind their parent’s backs when he lived at home.

And then there was Patton. The sweet boy who rarely got in trouble and did everything he could to be as “perfect” as his brother. He was the kind of boy every parent in town would want their daughter to marry. Though, he never was interested in dating. At least that’s what he told his parents. There was one thing he kept hidden from them.

He was gay.

Sunday was a church day as always. Patton and his mother in the front to be close to Mr. Hart as he gave his weekly sermon. Something about some sinner in the bible and what not. Sometimes his father would start talking about how being gay is a sin.

If only he knew.

Patton gets up in the middle of him talking, excusing himself and listening to his mother tell him to hurry back. He just wanted to get away from the homophobia before his brain starts acting up again. He walks to the bathroom, the smell of alcohol affronting him as soon as he enters. Two boys stand in the corner, drinking from a flask and laughing at some crude joke one of them told. He tries to just quickly go into a stall without drawing attention to himself, but is noticed by one of them. “Hey, you’re the preacher’s kid, right?”

Patton gulps and nervously looks up with a nod. “Y-Yeah... You know you really shouldn’t be doing that here...” He knew both of them from school. In fact, his best friend was ‘rivals’ with one in drama club and twins with the other. The pair, Janus and Remus, were the complete opposite of Patton, which made him extremely anxious about being alone in the same room as them.

Remus was tall and muscular, dark eyeliner outlining his eyes. He had one brown eye and one green eye, and was totally identical to his twin except for two things. Personality, and mustache. Janus was average height and equally intimidating to Remus. His black hair covered his eyes some, though the big scar that went over his left eye was still visible.

Remus’ eyes light up as he grins. “Wanna tryyyy iiiit?” He holds the flask out to Patton, who very quickly shakes his head. “Your loss!” Remus laughs as he takes another sip. Janus sighs, grabbing the flask from Remus. “You’re already drunk enough. I swear if my flask is empty and I have to deal with my dad almost sober... Dammit Remus!” “Whaaaat?” He whines, pouting like a child.

Patton slips out quickly before either of them can start talking to him again. “I’ll just wait until I get home” He mutters to himself.

Remus runs out after him, Janus behind him. “Hey, what’s your name?~”

Janus sighs. “I’m sorry, I tried to stop him.” Patton half-smiles “I-Its okay... I’m Patton” Remus gasps, acting as though it was the most amazing thing he’d ever heard. “Wooooooooooow! See you later Patton!~” He giggles before running back into the bathroom with his friend.

Patton waves “Bye!”

“I’m gonna kill him... He thinks he’s so much better than me...” Patton sighs “You got the lead, why are you so upset?” Roman gasps dramatically. “Because he... he... he’s just a bitch!” Virgil chuckles as he sits at the lunch table with his boyfriend. “Yeah, and Roman just wants to fuck him.” Logan laugh as Roman flips them off.

Patton grins a little before fake glaring. “Language!”

Virgil rolls his eyes, knowing Patton was only joking. “Sorry dad! I won’t say fuck anymore.”

Patton sighs and laughs. “Don’t make me use the finger.” He jokes, waving said finger at them playfully.

Logan snorts “Yes Pat, because that would be so effective.” Before Patton can respond, someone speaks behind him. “Hey preacher boy~” Patton looks over, seeing Remus again. “H-Hi”

Roman groans “Fuck off Re...”

Remus shushes Roman “I’m having a conversation. How are you Patton?”

Patton blushes a little. “I-I’m good. Uh, how are you?” He asks back. He noticed the way Remus’ hair looked so soft and fluffy, his mustache appearing to match. He wanted to run his hands through it and stare into his eyes.

As soon as those thoughts popped into his mind, the familiar thoughts of hostility towards his sexuality returned. They came any time his family said homophobic things and anytime he seemed to get feelings for a boy. Before he can get too lost in his own thoughts, Remus replies.

“Good. Janus still wants to kill me for drinking his flask.” Roman furrows his brows. “Don’t you have your own?” “Am I talking to you? Anyways, I better go before he finds me and starts bitching about Roman again. Bye!”

“Bye!” Patton giggles and waves, blushing as he turns back around.

Virgil raises an eyebrow. “Patton’s got a crush” “On my brother? Really Pat?” Roman groans.

Patton blushes more “He’s cute... His mustache looks soft...”

Logan grins “I think Patton just likes bad boys.”

“I... Oh there’s the bell, gotta go!” He says quickly, rushing out of the lunchroom.

Patton walks home, smiling as he heads to the pond he always goes to on the way. He smiles and sits on the bench, pulling out the ziploc bag with a few slices of bread in it out of his pocket. He starts tearing the bread, throwing the pieces into the water for his “duck friends”. He sits contently for several minutes, then notices a familiar face slightly up the shore from him. He moves from his spot and stands behind Remus. “Hey!”

Remus turns around and smiles widely “Hi PatPat! You like frogs?” He asks, holding a very small frog in the palm of his hand with the gentleness of a little kitten.

Patton gasps “So cute! Can I hold him?” He smiles when Remus nods and takes the frog happily. “Hi little buddy!”

Remus blushes at the sight but quickly regains composure. “I come here sometimes to go frog hunting. I like to look for bugs too.” Patton chuckles “I can handle frogs... not so much bugs, especially spiders. I like to feed the ducks everyday. I give them a little snack. We’ve become quite good friends... if you want, I have some bread left. We could sit and feed them for a while.”

“That sounds nice” The pair sat on the bench, now feeding the ducks together with the little frog hopping around between them. Patton felt happy sitting there with him. He felt free and relaxed. It wasn’t until Remus reached over to touch his hand that his brain moved from autopilot.

“Can I kiss you?”

#sanders sides #patton sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #janus sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #intruality #roceit #analogical #tw abuse #tw alcohol #tw religion #tw homophobia #tw internalized homophobia #my fic #my wriitng #son of a preacher

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wank127 · 3 years

Text

expelled/drop out musician denki au!!!

(this has been in my drafts for a while now(also ik it’s a lil out there but it’s an au so shush))

ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ

he’s on mics radio show a lot

bc they’re besties✨

publicly hates on ua and hero society cause it sucks

has a tiktok where he posts snippets of songs, the occasional dancy dance, rating pro hero’s/teachers, swag things y’know

he calls out anyone and everyone when he needs to (boy does he shit on endeavor and nezu)

i can’t decide if he would be in a band or a solo artist

i also can’t decide if his music is like harry styles, andrew rannells, pierce the veil, green day, P!ATD, melanie martinez, bo burnham, joe iconis, one direction, fall out boy, anthony ramos, or even billie eilish. like he could do anything. it’s all fits to me

SMUDGED.

AND WINGED.

EYELINER.

has that one pair of trousers(pants ig) that klouse from umbrella academy has. y’know the leather lace up ones? yeah those

has like a lot of water bottles and snacks at the front of stage and round the sides of the crowd at his shows

his merch isn’t expensive or any more money that it needs to be

he sells sick hoodies and t-shirt’s man

has a youtube (obviously) but makes like videos to raise awareness, makeup/hair/beauty toturials/tips and just like vlogs of when he’s doing something really interesting

he uses his platform to speak up and help people

updates the little linktr.ee things on every account he has whenever he sees something to put on it

every once in a while he’ll tweet something like ‘ayyy drop y’all’s gofundmes and fundraisers down below. i’m in a retail therapy kinda mood’ and donate to every single one

still talks to everyone from ua

gives them all free tickets and shit if they want it

has a whole album with jirou

and another one with the a band

he’s really good at composing and writing lyrics. like they’re so beautiful and perfect

he can’t read sheet music that well. he definitely learns by ear

made songs about how shit the hero society is and school and just everything that did him dirty

his most popular tiktok is of him just fucking around but accidentally meeting up with present mic when he was on patrol

they had a lil unplanned dance party together. they did the same moves and synchronized with each other on accident

they were both on the floor but the end of it

thirst posts about all his friends from ua

pretends they’re strangers in interviews when they’re actually best friends

best fucking music videos ong

best fashion and makeup

PLATFORM.

BOOTS.

sponsored by skittles

no one knows why or how

he just is

once at an award show he won(duh) but when he had to go up on stage he got his hand stuck in his glass/cup

did the whole speech with a cup hand

has wayyyyyyy too many memes made out of him

very open about his views and values, what he does and doesn’t support and who he is as a person

reads all the fanfic and looks at all the art of himself

reposts them of course

y’know that one tiktok audio? the ‘goddammit which ninja turtle are you?!?!??’ that was him 100%

SOMEBODY NEEDS TO BE THAT STUPID RAT

fell off the stage at least 38 times

actual WORLD tours

mf goes everywhere

amazing visuals in music videos and concerts

makes autism/epilepsy friendly non-flashy/stroby versions of his videos so everyone can enjoy

posts pages of a ‘where’s waldo’ book on twitter for his fans but instead of waldo it’s aizawa

sheesh this was very all over the place, apologies

all in all he’s amazing 10/10 would record to a friend or coworker

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nam-nam-joon · 4 years

Photo

follow me

Pairing: lucas/wong yukhei x reader

Genre: meet cute; rich kids AU

Wordcount: 10.6k

Warnings: lots of swearing; yukhei punches someone

Summary: one word is all it takes, and the opaque glass dome surrounding him cracks, and then there's you peeking in through the opening.

notes: i started this in february '19, when i was in san fran, and very much walking through the fashion district and marvelling at the sketches in the boutique windows of dior, and watching the actual rich people around there. and i've loved @stormae 's rich kid AUs for so long, i wanted to try and write my own :)

The first time he sees you, he doesn’t know it’s you yet.

And he also doesn’t see you, not really.

That is, his mind registers a person crouching off to the side as he steps up to the crossing, one hand in his pant’s pocket, the fingers of the others lazily curled around the thin velvet strings of a small bag, carrying a bottle of the expensive scent his mother always leaves a hint of wherever she goes.

That she forgot at home before this trip, and sent him to fetch for her, because of course they didn’t take Doyoung with them for this weekend trip to the fundraiser in the city by the bay.

And in lieu of their usual boy-for-everything, the next best thing is of course their own son.

He doesn’t mind.

It gives him an excuse to saunter around the streets of the high society neighbourhood their hotel is located in, somewhere among the sparkling city lights of downtown.

A breath escapes him.

It is a city like any other. The only difference with this one are the light buildings and summer etched into every corner and crevice, even though the temperatures aren’t quite there at this time of the year.

Running his mother's errand gives him an excuse to breathe in the air that smells of big city, of a million different foods, like gasoline and a bit of freedom, too.

When he walks the streets like this he can be nobody. Just another face in the crowd - a very expensively dressed crowd, but nonetheless. Here he doesn’t have a name, doesn’t have watchful eyes on him scrutinizing his every move, like his father likes to do. Noone there to clutch at his arm and whisper harsh words to him, in a tongue foreign to most of those surrounding them, behind the back of those who take selfies with their new purchases safely tucked into bags that boast the name of brands. His mother’s words are unforgiving about anyone falling outside her perception of no less than perfection, of people like his father and his colleagues, and ultimately, him and his friends.

Because, really, they’re the next generation of perfect people, carefully raised and curated by the last generation of perfect people.

But then there’s movement from the end of his field of vision and you step into it from the right, hand brushing back a few stray hairs that escaped into places they're not meant to be in and the first thing he sees is the way the headlights of passing cars momentarily create a glowing circle around your head, the way the traffic lights tint your face into a multitude of colours, and his eyes, usually so fleeting and only ever interested in the horizon, can’t let go.

They slip down your body with a practiced ease that has been second nature longer than he can think.

He doesn’t know anything about you other than you look absolutely ethereal bathed in the unassuming shine of artificial light.

But then his gaze runs down the length of your body and he comes up empty handed. Not one piece of clothing that you’re wearing bears the label of a designer he’s familiar with.

The washed out pants are rolled up over the worn out converse, there’s the hint of a flannel peeking out beneath your open jacket that seems just light enough to not cause sweat on this early spring's evening. The model of your phone is that from four years ago, but that’s all he can recognize.

Although it tells him enough.

And yet…

Another vespa zips by and in its headlight something at your belly blinks up. A small flutter spreads through his stomach as he takes in the knobs and levers, the metal and beaten black plastic. The long lens with its round cover and your left hand protectively curled around the whole creation, cradling it so close that he can’t think other than to immediately assume it’s just a part of you.

“Hey.” He says, before his brain can stop his mouth. It comes out low and even, a smirk playing around his lips.

The light switches to green, after what feels like an eternity, and you begin to walk before turning your head in his direction.

But instead of the million little things he is so used to hearing in return to one of his “Hey”'s - you don’t say anything. You just look at him and smile, you look into his eyes and smile. And then your gaze leaves him, without a second look, without scanning him. Without seeing him.

It has the smirk threat to slip for a second.

“So, uh, I noticed your camera. You really like photography, huh? Is it a hobby of yours?”

You stop at the next corner and turn into the direction of the setting sun flooding the street that gently slopes down in front of you, lift the camera and keep quiet for a moment. His gaze is fixed on the way your fingers turn a ring close to where the lens meets the rest of the camera, making adjustments, before your body seems to freeze for the fraction of a second that it takes until the camera clicks and you lower it.

Your eyes meet his again and he notes how your right hand automatically turns a little lever, a ticking noise emitting from the case in your hands for the duration of the movement.

“Yeah, you could say that. But I mostly just like to take pics of pretty things, or things I like. It’s not really- Not like I earn money with it or so.”

He nods. “Been here before? In the city, I mean." Then he adds. "I’m Lucas, by the way.”

He waits, one step ahead of you, until you put the cover back over the lens and slowly catch up to him.

“_______. And nah, First time for me. You?”

“Me neither. You like it?”

“It’s alright.” The grin on your face screams that your passive tone is a lie, and his lips curl into a grin until you crack and join in. “Yeah, I love it. Been here for a week now and am still finding new favourite spots every day. What about you? Here for a vacation?”

If only, he thinks, as his eyes catch on the dark clouds opposing the radiant sunset.

“Family trip.” He says instead.

“Oh, awesome! I’d love to have my fam here now- it would be so nice to go sightseeing with them. Where have you been already?”

His eyes trail back to yours, slightly irritated at the energy you just revealed, and the passion behind your words when speaking of the people that created you.

“Just arrived today.” He says, and it’s only half a lie. But he doesn’t know how to explain that his parents aren’t the type to go sightseeing with their offspring; that the idea of his mother in her Manolo’s strutting over the local tourist hot spot bridge is… bizarre.

“Oh, okay.” You say, and he can sense the slight dent his answer gave your enthusiasm. “Well… where do you wanna go? What stuff are you here for to see?”

You add, after he keeps quiet for a moment while trying to come up with a smooth save.

“The… bridge.” He says, as it is the first thing falling into his head. A knowing smile has your eyes glinting, like you are somehow able to see through him.

It has an uncomfortable feeling spread inside him - the pretense he always dresses in to keep his parents - his friends, everyone around him - happy so much more important than some pretty person his mind couldn’t let go of after laying eyes on.

The subdued panic wells up in his chest. He briefly considers walking off, especially now that your head is tilted down and his feet are in your direct line of sight.

The black sock sneakers carry the little printed letters that spell ‘Balenciaga’ along the outer sides, their low rise only allowing a thin slip of skin to show around his ankles before the elastic band of his pants covers the rest of the leg that the sun touched with a tan again, now that he’s away from the snow of winter.

He almost holds his breath.

All of his friends are like him.

Young, good looking.

Wealthy.

You’re no less good-looking and yet as different to him as night is to day.

Your eyeliner is a bit messy towards the outer corners of your eyes, like you had wiped at it, forgetting it was there. There’s frizz making short hairs stand up over the rest of where it is kept together. He can see it’s been a while since you last plucked your eyebrows, but all of it contributes to an image that is so much more human than what he’s used to.

You’re not proper, with skin smooth as if airbrushed like the girls his mother wants him to converse with at events, you have your camera to snap keepsakes of your travels, alone, in a city that is not your own.

You’re walking these streets without fear, and without caring that almost everyone else here is dressed in clothes that, a single item alone, probably costs more than all of yours combined.

There is something fierce inside you that he catches a glint of as a Tesla purrs by and your eyes flash over the car; the way your eyebrows quip upwards for a moment and your lips purse, and suddenly he feels awfully aware of what he’s wearing.

Of how confident you look, how comfortable, without a single brand name lining your side.

Your eyes meet his again, and this time, they stay longer. Flit around and take in all his features before you open your mouth and the spark of mischief beautifully adorns your expression.

“I know the perfect place to see the bridge. Wanna come?”

“Wh- Now?” His eyes fly to the smart watch on his wrist, the time ticking away, and the notification that his mother send him a message, asking about her perfume.

“Yeah. Now. Unless you got somewhere else to be?”

He has. He really has.

“Uh… can I meet you sometime later? Like… eleven, maybe?”

Is that disappointment on your face?

“Ah, I see. Sorry for going in like that, I thought… Nevermind. Hey, look, if you need to go, I won’t keep you.”

This expression he knows, although it’s strange to see on your soft, warm face that holds no trace of the practiced smiles and pleased looks that cover the features of him and his friends. You’re pulling back, distancing yourself.

He swallows down the panic that rises in the pit of his stomach against all the rules and mental restrictions he built over the course of miserable years of splendor and grandeur; the very same walls you crept around and instantly closer to his soul than anyone since his childhood nanny.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I really do want to go with you. It’s just- My parents- I have to bring this to them, and they’ll expect-”

He notices, notices the way your eyes catch on the little bag he holds up, and it’s a pinprick into his chest as he remembers the triple digits he paid for with his travel credit card.

But then your eyes touch his again, and they’re not hard, not unforgiving, not condescending. Just curious.

He gapes at you as you look up at him without a single wrinkle of displeasure on your face.

And in that moment he makes a decision.

“You know what, fuck my parents.” He steps around you and lifts a hand, a cab setting its blinker almost immediately to respond to his call. “I’ll bring this to them and then we can go to see the bridge.”

He pauses with the door held open, wondering why you’re still standing on the sidewalk, camera in hand.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I don’t really have money for taxis.”

He furrows his brows and puts one arm over the door. “It’s alright, I’ll pay. Don’t worry about it.”

When you slip into the seat next to him he tells the driver the address of his parent’s hotel and the car leaves the curb.

“Four Seasons, huh.” You say flatly.

“Yeah. My mother won’t stay at any other.”

It comes out matter of fact, and he has to look over to see the shadow of a grin around your lips before he realizes your sarcasm is such a subtle tease he didn’t pick up on it at first.

“Are you sure they won’t kick me out?”

He brushes past the portier opening the glass door for you, but as he turns around to look back at you he catches you mouthing a thank-you at the young man in the neatly pressed uniform.

“Of course they wouldn’t. Just- just wait here, okay? I’ll be back in a sec.”

You grin and shake your head.

“Hey Lucas!” You call out then, as he waits in front of the elevator. “Wear something plain, okay?”

“Where do you think you’re going.” Comes the voice from his father, stern and with the disapproval so expertly woven into it that he has long since stopped hearing it.

“Out.” He says flatly, picking up his leather jacket he left draped over one of the chairs on his mother’s side of the bed on his way out, back down to you after switching pants and shoes. The flask with perfume is safely clutched in his mother’s hand. It clinks against the marble vanity as she sets it down.

“Lucas! We have an event scheduled, you cannot be-”

“That’s not my name!” He interrupts the higher voice of his mother, his own voice suddenly spiking.

It’s the name _______ knows you by, an evil little voice whispers in his head that he shoves down.

“That’s not my name.” He repeats into the heavy silence after his outburst, more controlled. “Don’t pretend you care about me being there with you, I would just get in your way, as usual. Have fun getting drunk.”

The heavy oak door cuts off his parent’s voices, the nagging one of his mother and the scolding one of his father.

When he rips the clean, neat button down off of him it almost feels like he's shedding a layer that reeks of his parents. He dumps it in one of the artfully concealed trash bins and tugs the white tee shirt he's wearing underneath out of his pants.

He knows he’ll pay for this little act of rebellion, this act of defiance, but when he leans his head against the cool tiles in the elevator, he doesn’t find it in himself to care.

You greet him with crossed legs sitting on one of the decorative, uncomfortable couches in the lobby, the latest Vogue open on your lap.

“Finally. The receptionist was creeping their hand closer to the phone to call the cops on me by the minute.” You grumble, and it’s really not your fault, but he tips his head back and laughs.

He catches you as you eye the plain white shirt, the leather jacket over his arm. Your eyebrows rise as you take note of his shoes - the Balenciaga’s are gone, replaced with a pair of Adidas, so new they practically sparkle.

“What.” He ducks his head to meet your gaze, but you refuse to meet his as you exit the hotel.

“Just look at you. I can’t take you anywhere like this, people will think we’re super good targets to mug and then leave in a ditch. Here, put this on. And give me your jacket.”

He’s too baffled to refuse to take the flannel you just shrugged out of. It’s still warm when he takes it, and it smells more like the scent he only caught a trace of when you sat next to him. He draws a deep breath and hopes you won't notice.

It’s big, at least for you, but on him, it fits. Out of your backpack you conjure up a smaller, slouchier bag, littered with patches that carry unknown town’s names. A water bottle and a polaroid camera find their new home in it, before you stuff your own jacket into the bigger bag and hand it to him. He takes it, again, slinging his arms through the hoops and adjusting them so they fit him.

“C’mon, bend down a little, won’t ya? I’m not a giant like you.”

He complies against his better judgement, cautious eyes under worrying eyebrows keeping track of your facial features, watching out for any trace of malice that might appear as you come close.

It's all he can do to not flinch too heavily when you lift your arm.

Your hand ruffling through his hair, messing up the slicked-back look, catches him off-guard and he’s left to stare at your face in wonder after you lean back, satisfaction radiating from you.

“There, better. Now you’re just a backpacker like me, with fresh splurged-on shoes. Let’s go.”

He offers to take another cab, to wherever you want to go, but you simply shake your head.

“Half the fun is getting there.” You tell him and his burning calves as you climb what is possibly the steepest street he’s ever encountered.

He admires the way you push forward, always half a step in front of him. At the top you look back to where he’s briefly catching his breath, beckoning him forward with a smile.

His jacket looks good on you, he notices. The sleeves are so long that you can make paws out of them, and in the fresh, almost cold evening air, you do, which he thinks is adorable. In a good way.

It takes longer than he thought, from the bustling core of the fashion district across town. You lead him through the criss-crossing streets, point at stuff, and show him things he’d never notice otherwise.

It’s long since pitch black dark before he’s following you through a patch of trees, down a slight slope.

“You sure this is the way? I-”

“Yeah! It’s just one more corner, bridge should be there then, don’t you fret! I’d never lead you astray.”

Doubt sparks sharply in his thoughts, but he fights it down.

He doesn’t know you, not really, he reminds himself; even after a cab ride and a trek across the city spent talking, but it’s this or the fundraiser.

His breath stinging his sides or his mother's manicured fingers pinching him to keep him from slouching.

The refreshing air, heavy with moisture and the smell of trees, or the stuffy warmth that has him light headed without any alcohol - that is saturated with perfumes so thickly he could cut it into pieces.

He steps in a puddle and his adidas aren’t so white anymore, he’s pretty sure he walked himself a blister somewhere and the cold is beginning to seep in, after the hills of the city are behind you

“Lucas! You coming?”

The name is another setback, another pinprick, but he jogs up to where your voice comes from.

The sky behind the trees is oddly red, as if a great light is illuminating the clouds.

He’s only reached you when you already turn, and he wants to call out for you to stop, wait up, and then…

And then he sees the bridge.

The two towers rise high into the night’s sky, six streams of cars flow between them, one side white, one red lights.

It connects the curving street to the dark mountains across the water, where the trail of light vanishes between the sloping tops.

“It’s good, eh?” You smile up at him, suddenly back by his side. He nods and swallows, unable to look away.

The sight shouldn’t be special, he’s seen bridges like these lit up all over the world, so why is this one so breathtaking?

He hears the snap of the shutter, the clicking of the film being turned, once, twice.

He turns his head just in time to hear it click a third time, and he needs a moment before he realizes the last picture definitely has him in it.

“Hey! Did you take a picture of me?”

“So what if I did?” Your grin is shit-eating wide, and he feels himself give in.

“-That’s not allowed.” He says for a lack of anything better when it looks like you’re still waiting for an answer.

You laugh and turn to the front, admiring the sight again.

The countless headlights sparkle in your eyes, the red glow shining on your face.

He gets the urge to snap a picture as well, and in that moment understands you a little bit.

This close, shoulder to shoulder, the details of your face stand out differently.

He should say something, break the silence that’s stretching uncomfortably between you, but there’s nothing coming to his mind.

You turn your head and meet his eyes, and deep down he dreads the comments that will come, about him staring, about him not conversing, about him being rude.

But all you do is smile up at him like he’s the nicest thing you've seen all day, and inch a bit closer.

“It’s cold, no?” He breathes in, breaking eye-contact in favour of the dark water and the park spreading out around you.

“You want your jacket back?” You’re already lowering your backpack’s strings before his hand catches yours, pauses your movement.

“No, no it’s fine.”

“You sure? I can handle it, I’ve got my own jacket. You don’t have to be all tough, don’t wanna get you sick.”

“Trust me, I’m good.” His hand lowers, and he smiles.

“No it’s not!” You speak up, catching his palm in your own. “You’re all clammy! Here, take your jacket back and give me mine, c’mon.”

No matter how much he protests, you don’t take no for an answer, and fifteen minutes later he’s begrudgingly trotting along the beach on the other side of the street, back towards the city, wearing his own jacket.

Your connected hands gently swing between you.

Now and then you sigh, and then take a breath as if wanting to say something, but then you don’t and he’s left to wonder.

The moon breaks through the clouds now and then, bathing the wide walkway in silver-grey light, and then shrouds itself again.

“What’s on your mind?” He brings out, after another sigh of yours.

Your eyes meet his, your face open even though you’re biting on your lip and struggle with words.

But he meant what he said, doesn’t look away, even stops and tugs you to follow his example.

“I’m just,” You begin, looking off into the distance. “Every vacation comes to an end. Guess I’m both relieved and sad about it at once.”

“When do you go back?” He can’t believe he hasn’t asked until now.

“Next week.”

“That’s still some time.”

“I know. It’s what I keep telling myself, but… Time flies. One moment you’re arriving in a new city and the next you find yourself leaving. Life is so fast sometimes and it’d be nice to... Live slow. You know?”

Oh, he knows.

He’s never known anything slow.

The cars he and his friends drive are fast, whenever one of those friends takes an interest in a girl or a boy or anyone, really, they’re fast to proclaim their love and date and then fast to break up. The planes that are bringing him from city to city are fast, the way he only has to tap his plastic on the card reader and it rings up his purchase, fast.

But you’re slow.

You walk, everywhere, you tell him, and he listens. You talk slow, too, there’s a lot of breaks between your sentences, he learns, and occasionally you’ll pick up a topic to talk about that he thought you’d finished already and moved on from, just to add another perspective he hadn’t considered.

The ocean is slow, too, with the waves rolling on the sandy beach and barely grazing the stone steps you sat down on to watch the water.

“Can I lean into your side for a while? I’m not feeling so well.” You say quietly, barely above the wind and the waves.

He turns his head, takes in how your eyes are a bit distant, staring out over the rippling surface.

Instead of answering he puts his arm around your shoulders, shuffles closer until the length of his thigh touches yours and he can tug you into the side of his body.

Both your arms snake around his waist, under his jacket, and because it is right there and not doing it seems weird, he leans his cheek on the top of your head.

This is fast, too, he muses, cuddling the same day you met; but his sore feet and the hours of walking around and talking make it seem like he's known you for longer.

He can’t remember any of his friends ever having talked so much with him.

The bar in the basement of the hostel is loud, filled to the brim with people, there’s music pumping between the walls and he doesn’t know anyone but you.

You vanish to put away your bags and even though this is a place he should feel more comfortable in, he doesn’t.

Maybe it’s because it’s not so dark that he can still see everyone, and everyone can still see him, and everyone is dressed much like you, if not a little more shabby and run-down.

He’s stood by the bar, waiting for two small colas, because they don’t sell the champagne he usually goes for.

“That’ll be nine bucks mate.”

He waits for the clerk to put the card reader out for him, and when the guy doesn’t, he feels the annoyance bubbling up.

“Card?” He says, irritated.

“Sorry buddy, cash only.”

“What?!”

“‘scuse me says so up front.” The guy shrugs, hands inching closer to take the cheap plastic cups away.

“I got it!”

He turns and you’re back, with hair fresh up and shockingly clothed with just a single t-shirt. Gone are the layers and layers from before, and it's like you're a different person.

You put a note with a ten on it down on the counter, politely say thank you upon receiving your change and then turn, handing one cup to him.

He feels strange, still riled up because of the embarrassment and because you were the one to save him, and because you seem to not find fault in that, just smile and take a sip.

“I’m Yukhei.” He blurts out.

Your eyebrows twitch closer together. “I’m ________.” You repeat.

“No, I mean… That’s my name.” He shifts, uncomfortable.

“And Lucas?”

“That’s… That’s my western name. The one my parent’s call me by. But… Yukhei is my real name.” He takes a sip as well, almost cringing at the sugary taste.

“Do you prefer Lucas or Yukhei?” You take another sip, and your eyes are so soft again.

“-Yukhei.” He answers, looking into them.

“Come on guys, make some room for Yukhei and me alright?”

He preens, unseen by anyone but himself, under the way you call his name, and he takes another sip, almost used to the taste by now.

Under a lot of shuffling and grumbling the present people free up a tiny space on the bench and you motion for him to sit down.

As soon as his butt hits the worn out wood, he finds you in his lap, using him as a seat for yourself.

The hand not busy holding his drink comes up to your hip by instinct, he looks up at you out of wide eyes, lips twitching but finding no words for the bold move.

He's had people grinding down on him in clubs everywhere, this shouldn't feel different. It does. This is so much more intimate.

“Everything alright? If I get too heavy I can get off?” You turn and are a lot closer to him than he thought, noses almost touching.

“Huh? Uh, no, I’m good, don’t- Don’t worry. Is this okay for you?”

You nod, half listening to a conversation happening at the table again.

Over the course of the next hour you go and refill your own and his cups, with fanta this time, which he likes a bit better. Every time you come back to him he looks up at you and expects you to demand a seat for your own now, but every time you shuffle back into his lap. The hand on your hip slowly extends each time until you take his fingers and drag them over until his arm is lying around your belly.

His chin is on your shoulder whenever you’re there, but he mostly listens and doesn’t contribute to the chats much.

To his surprise his trips to Tokyo, Monaco or Dubai sound a lot less glamorous, exciting and adventurous compared to what some of the people here, not even much older, can talk about.

One backpacked his whole way down the Rocky Mountains, across a whole continent; another hasn’t been home in two years and is looking to get another visa somewhere else already.

One has just arrived from their plane coming in from the other coast, and another travelled all of the north and is now looking for something a little more southern.

He learns that you’ve been to quite a few places yourself, listen intently as you recall memorable moments and rant about impossible people you’ve come across.

He squeezes once after a loud round of laughter has mostly died down, and even though you’re currently talking to a girl diagonally across from you, your own hand comes up to cover his and squeeze back, and he doesn’t think twice about it but knows you heard him, told him to hang in there.

Once you’ve both said your words you turn to him, curiosity on your face. The way you’re sat, twisted, is a little unstable and so you put a hand on his shoulder, to keep steady.

“Hm?”

“Where’s the bathroom here?”

“Ha? Oh, it’s through that door, on the left side, you just have to follow- Do you want me to show you?”

He feels silly, already mentally beating himself up about not being man’s enough to just go, but already you’ve stood up, linked your hands and are pulling him along.

“You okay? You’ve been so quiet?”

He feels like his ears are half deaf, now, in the silent hallway after the door to the bar shuts.

“Just… tired.” He avoids your question, but not entirely, either.

“Shit, you arrived today, I forgot… Hey if you wanna get out of here just tell me.”

He nods and mirrors your smile before pushing open the door to the washroom.

You’re still there when he comes out again, leaned against the wall, tapping on your phone.

“All done.” He announces, bouncing his hands by his hips, and you smile at the cute voice he puts on.

"Wanna go back inside? Or have enough yet."

He rubs a hand over his neck and looks to the side.

"I think I can stomach another cola. Or fanta. How much do I owe you?"

You shake your head and wave a hand.

"I’ll send you a bill, pretty boy. Come now, don’t think you get a lot of chances at getting out of your ivory tower to mingle among the common folk, eh."

He wants to open his mouth and disagree, and then he doesn't

You squeeze his hand and part with him before you get back to the table, motioning in the direction of the bar and likely referring to the last drink he mentioned, and he nods and goes to sit back down.

You join him soon after, leaning forward a bit to squeeze between the table and his legs, and over your shoulder he catches the leer of one of the guys that’s been eyeing you a little too much all evening.

But you don’t seem to notice and so he clenches his hand into a fist and presses it against the wood.

Soon after, one of the girls from the right side of the table puts her drink down and gestures towards him.

“What about you, where are you from? You staying in the hostel as well?”

He answers, as best as he can, and he’s had a lifetime of dodging and carefully evading clear answers and if the others are aware of him shifting the topic of conversation around and asking for more travel stories of them, they don’t say anything.

You wiggle out if his lap and whisper you’ll use the restroom really quick and that he better not dare to run off, and then your reassuring weight is gone and he’s alone at the table but it feels safer than sitting at one of the round tables of a gala, with crystalline flutes of bubbling liquid and stiff jackets all around.

The door to the hallway closes behind you and the guy from before turns to the person next to him, an ugly grin spread on his face, and says something low on his breath. Following a sudden impulse he gets up to head to the reception of the hostel upstairs and doesn’t really hear the spoken words, and part of him doesn’t want to, and another part strains his ears to pick it up nonetheless.

When he comes back the same girl who’d asked before directs another friendly question at him and his attention momentarily slips.

But not for long.

His eyes find the door when you push it open again, and in the same moment he hears the two guys clearly.

“..._______ such a slut.”

At once the anger is back and his fingers flex.

“What?” He says, and it’s louder than anything else he’s said this evening. The others at the table pause in their chat, and he feels eyes on him. “What did you just say?”

The guy glances around and then leans back, fake confidence mixing with real one.

“I said what I said. Cute ass, too.”

“Apologize!”

The guy pulls a face. “Why should I? She isn’t here and it’s not like she didn't have it coming-”

He’s on his feet before he can blink and then there’s a sharp pain on his knuckles and the guy is curling forward, pressing a hand to his mouth and cursing.

Right afterwards the guy rises to his feet, and to his satisfaction Yukhei notes that he’s a couple inches taller than the asshole, a little broader too, even though the other guy looks like he packs more muscle.

“You wanna fuckin’ go?” The guy hisses, red seeping between his teeth and eyes glinting.

“Apologize and we won’t have to.” He growls, hand still clenched.

"Yukhei!"

He hears you exclaim into the awful silence that suddenly fills the dingy space, but the adrenaline is rushing in his veins, his blood loud in his ears.

"Stop it!"

"Do you know what he called you? How he’s talking about you behind your back?"

The fury about someone reducing you to a glimpse, a fraction of who you really are, just based on your shirt slipping a little too low-

As if he isn’t just as bad.

Giving you a once-over upon first seeing you, running a mental checklist of brands you were sporting, how compatible your styles were.

He knows how shallow him and his friends, but especially his mother and father are. And maybe that's why his anger is boiling over now, roiling in his stomach. Because he knows he's no better, because in just a couple of hours spent with you he's lived so much more than in the months preceding this trip alone.

But there's your hand on his elbow, the warm skin of your palm as your fingers weave between his, and even though the asshole is still dabbing at his busted lip, sneering so ugly, he lets you. Lets you tug him away, out between the people staring from their seats, into the weird hallway and up the flight of stairs.

"You really don't care that guy called you that? For no reason, at all?"

He doesn't mean to sound this accusing, this hurt that you rejected his offer to stand up for you. At the top of the stairs you turn back, fingers twitching in their hold on his hand. He looks down into your face when he comes to a rest next to you, rubs his thumb over the back of your hand once.

"Of course I care." You blink, and he worries his eyebrows because he doesn't understand. "I don't like being labelled like that, by assholes like him. But it happens all the time. And even if I would've spoken up about it, which I would have, by the way, that- speaking up should have been enough. I'm not going to fucking deck a guy just because he can't handle me showing as much skin as I want. Worse things have happened."

"But-"

"I appreciate it, you standing up for me. But you don’t have to, I can handle it alone.”

The words of protest are heavy on his tongue but he swallows them down.

“I think we need some fresh air.”

He hears you mumble.

The clouds that move across the expanse of darkness above are the colour of rust.

He’s quiet again, but for a different reason than before.

Now and then he sneaks glances at you, wondering when it would be a good time to open his mouth again.

You lead him, again, around corners and across streets until he’s lost his way for sure and could only find his way back by taking a cab.

Then again, he was sort of lost as soon as you brought him out of the fashion district already, so this isn’t that much of a change.

“Hey, you hungry?” You ask suddenly, stopping in front of a fast food restaurant. “I’m hungry. Let’s go in.”

He doesn’t object.

The cup of ice cream he got with your enthusiastic approval is nice and cool against his bruised knuckles.

Through half a pack of crispy golden fries already he sees you pause, with your gaze locked on his hand.

“It’s not-”

He starts, after you swallow and he practically hears you complain already.

“It doesn’t hurt, don’t worry. I’m sorry- I- I’m not sorry about hitting the guy. He deserved it. I’m sorry he said that about you.”

You close your mouth and take a sip of the drink. Just one shared cup, without a lid or straw, because you said there is enough plastic in the oceans already.

You look away from him, put the cup down and reach for his hand.

He wants to object and pull it away but you glare at him and he doesn’t want to upset you further and so he lets you examine it.

There’s a soft, barely there touch to his raw knuckles and his eyes are darting back in time to see you put the most careful of kisses first to where the skin is sensitive, and then to the back of his hand.

He feels himself calm down. It’s like his entire being is solely focused in this moment in your touch. For just a moment nothing else matters.

You lean back and sigh, not letting go of his hand.

“What am I gonna do with you, hm.”

He hopes it’s a question you don’t intend him to answer, because there are no words coming to his mind.

He holds the door open for you as you exit the 24 hour restaurant. The air here in the city is a little less crisp than out at the bridge, but it’s still fresher than inside. His legs ache, and the soles of his feet burn, reminding him of the amount of walking he’s done trailing after you today and then there’s the flight from the morning and he’s very suddenly very tired.

So much so he stumbles and bumps your shoulder, even.

“Hey, Yukhei? You okay?”

And you look at him again, with your eyes so soft, and his hand clenches around the bandana you got out from who knows where and wrapped around his knuckles as a makeshift bandage.

“Just tired.” He whispers, head filled with the image of your face lit up by the restaurant’s neon signs beside you two and the glow of the streetlights to the other side.

“Maybe that’s a sign to head to bed then.” You grin at him, but despite your words, there’s no flirtatious meaning behind them, no other intention than innocent honesty.

“Would you like to come back to my hotel?” He blurts out, hand curling around your bandana over his palm, feeling the tightness of it and the small pain as it stretches over his skin.

There’s doubt on your face.

“The four seasons? With your parents? I don’t know…”

“We could get a room at another hotel. Without my parents. Just… us.”

And he doesn’t mean anything else than what he just said either and instead he’s silently hoping, wishing, you won’t leave him. Not yet. Not like this.

You smile.

“Are you paying?”

“Of course.”

The smile widens into a grin.

“You’re cute when you make puppy-eyes. Okay fine, I’ll bite. Where are we going?”

“To catch a cab.” He huffs. “My feet are killing me.”

“New shoes,” You whistle and pat his arm affectionately. “Yeah, I’m praying for your feet man.”

The big black expensive wooden door clicks close behind him almost without sound.

He doesn’t care.

It’s not the Four Seasons, it’s the next best thing, but the room he left his card for at the front desk is bigger than the dingy bar at the hostel alone, and his chest warms at the sight of awe on your face.

“You have got to be kidding me.” He hears, and turns from the panorama window overlooking the city to see you resurfacing from the bathroom.

You’re holding on to the door frame and seem to be caught between anger and wonder.

“There's a bathtub the size of a fucking swimming pool in here. The fuck. And-” You lift a hand and he sees a bottle of lotion or shampoo in your grasp. “This shit costs sixty bucks! What the entire hell.”

He grins, and it’s one he settles into easily, one of the million-dollar-smiles that are his trademark.

“Like what you see?” He lifts an eyebrow.

You shake your head and put the bottle down, gingerly, as if it isn’t made of plastic and would probably survive a good toss across the room.

The mahogany floating cupboards you pull open reveal a set of bath robes and pyjamas so soft you push your face into the first shirt you pull out, turn to him and shake your head again.

“Wanna take a swim in the bath-pool?” He asks, because he feels the exhaustion with every move, settling deeper into his bones.

You nod and follow him as he crosses the room.

The tub is big, he thinks, but not the biggest he’s seen or even been in. He turns the faucet on and even in here the windows reach from ceiling to floor, allowing glimpses of the streets far below.

You shoo him out to get in first.

The foam is so thick he has to search for your face upon coming back in.

He hears you giggling and then a portion of it moves and there’s your smiling face.

“Come in, it’s amazing.”

He’s reaching for the belt around his robe and you cover your eyes like a child. It feels weird, being allowed such privacy, when all the other girls he’s usually around would eat up any and all chances at seeing him.

He sinks into the foam, on the other end of the tub, because you only agreed to this if he kept his distance and there was no ‘accidental’ touching involved.

He can’t seem to bring himself to mind.

Every other girl he would have met somewhere, in a club or else, and they’d have at least rolled in the sheets once by now. But not you. It feels more thrilling than he could have expected.

“What are you thinking about?” Comes your voice and then a tiny mountain of bubbles gets parted and he’s able to see your face again after sinking into the water.

He shrugs, because that is his go-to answer.

“No thoughts, head empty?” There’s a quirk around your smile like he’s supposed to know what it means but he just nods.

“Tired.” He says, and only after it leaves him does he realize how often he’s said it.

“Are you, really?” You ask, and your voice is softer than before. “Putting what you feel into words is difficult.”

“Yeah, it is.” He agrees, and cups a handful of foam between his palms. “I don’t know. I don’t really need to say what I feel, if I shrug or say that I don’t know, it’s enough for people.”

His eyes glaze over.

“And right now? I mean, you’re tired, but what else is in you?”

“Huh?”

You gesticulate but you're a bit out of focus.

“I, for example, I’m tired too, but also happy because I got to show you the bridge, and I’m in awe at being here, in a hotel room bigger than a house, in a tub with a cute boy I met this afternoon. There’s more, but just, you know?”

He puts an effort into blinking and clearing his eyes, and turns your words over in his head.

“I feel… Tired from travelling, and from my parents wanting me to be like them and going to the fundraiser with them and be seen as their perfect son. I’m… Seeing the bridge was nice. No, not nice, it was… Amazing. It shouldn’t be but it was one of the nicest- most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I liked watching the ocean with you, I felt… Like I could pause and take a breath. This is nice, too. Sharing the tub but not… doing anything.”

He shuts his mouth and it’s strange how light his chest feels suddenly.

“Wow.” It slips out.

Across the foam, you smile at him.

You make him get out of the bath first, cover your eyes again and tell him to leave the room so you can come out, too, but then after you come out looking scrubbed clean and fluffy wrapped in your bathrobe, he goes back in to wash the gel out if his hair and the metaphorical dust of travelling off his skin.

You’re watching the skyline when he re-emerges, smelling like the expensive shampoo and lotion the hotel supplies.

The spaghetti top fits you nicely, he thinks as he approaches, and hugs you from behind.

You stiffen in his hold, just for a moment, and then you relax again, cover his hands with yours.

“It’s so pretty.” A yawn breaks the last word and he chuckles, even though he’s just as tired.

“I know.” He says, but his head is leaned against yours and his eyes are closed.

He wakes to white sheets and the soft golden hues of dawn.

For a moment he doesn't recognize who's in bed with him, hair sprawled over the pillow and half buried under the blanket.

Did he get drunk last night?

But when he reaches back in his memory there's no haze, no blurry images, everything is clear and he remembers everything.

It's you, there with him.

He lifts his head.

It's quiet in the spacious room.

Only the sunlight comes in, and it touches everything into a magical glow.

And among that you sleep soundly, curled around your hands fisted in the sheets, and he leans over to the bedside table, fishes his phone up from there and snaps a picture before he can lose the precious sight.

Then he puts the device away, lays back down and continues watching you, even though his eyes droop once more.

It seems like a dream, everything that went down yesterday, but he is once more reminded that it isn't when he reaches out to brush hair away from your face and sees the bruise on his knuckles, standing out against his skin.

His heartbeat is loud in his ears.

His chest is a bit tight, like his heart is too big for it, and he softly exhales in hopes it might soothe the ache.

He dozes off again, wondering if this is what love feels like.

A hand combing his hair rouses him from slumber, the pad of a finger rubbing his cheek.

He blinks his eyes open and squints at your radiant smile, almost as blinding as the sunlight from before.

"Hey," He rasps, and swallows and clears his throat.

"Hey." You answer, smile impossibly brightening. "Slept well?"

"Mhm, yeah? You?"

You laugh and lean your forehead against his shoulder.

"Yeah. This bed is like a tiny cloud. I feel so refreshed."

"That's good." He smiles and yawns and stretches.

Your fingers touch the smooth expanse of his stomach, revealed as the blanket slips away, and he cracks mid stretch and giggles.

"N-No- Mercy, mercy please! Please!"

The giggles turn into a laugh as you push up into a sitting position and he twists and turns and bats half-heartedly at your hands.

"No." He breathes, trapping your wrists in his palms and pushing himself up as well. "Don't. Bad… Bad human."

Your eyes sparkle again and it's the cutest thing he's seen.

"Okay, okay. I yield."

Satisfied, he lowers your hands.

"Wanna order breakfast?"

"What?" Your eyes widen. "Like, up to this room?"

"Yeah?"

"Isn't there like, a buffet downstairs or so?"

"Maybe? I don't know."

He shrugs, and it's the truth. He doesn't feel like he has to pretend he knows everything.

"Let's get washed up and go downstairs. I wanna have a look at all the rich people in their morning attire."

He purses his lips and is about to tell you there's nothing special about that, really, but his thought process gets cut short by your palm on his cheek and your lips pressing a soft smooch to the other.

He's left gaping while you hop off the bed and vanish in the bathroom, and only after the lock clicks into place does he feel his entire face burn, cheeks tingling with the ghost of your touch.

He brings his own hand to the spot your lips were in just moments prior and is absolutely powerless against the big, flustered grin spreading on his face.

He gets up and out of bed, stretching once more and feeling as good in his skin as he hasn't for a while now, and just unlocked his phone to check for messages when the lock clicks across the room and the door opens.

"We didn't order-"

The words die in his throat at the two figures waltzing in, not even bothering to close the door behind them.

"What did you think you were doing, young man?!"

His mother's words drip venom that could have left black burned holes in the plush carpet under her steps.

At once his shell is back, the hardened surface that had peeled back in your presence.

"Taking money out of your account, eating at a… At a fast food restaurant? Are you out of your mind?"

"You know I usually think you should be allowed your freedom but I'm agreeing with your mother here." His father helpfully supplies, hands behind his back from where he wandered over to the window.

"So what if I do with my money what I want? It's not like it matters to you?"

"That's enough. Get dressed, we're going back to our hotel. Gods help us none of the-"

"No." He says, and feels something welling up inside him.

His mother pauses, glaring at him.

"-Nobody saw you out, that would be such an unnecessary-"

"I said no."

His volume increases alongside his anger at being ignored and talked over.

"Lucas, pull yourself together. Why you would book another hotel room when you have one next to ours is useless spending, not to mention-"

A door opens behind him and he turns. His stomach hits the floor between his feet.

He forgot about you, hidden in the bathroom.

You're carefully closing the door behind you but pause when you realize all eyes are on you and the conversation stopped.

"Good morning." You dip your head slightly, eyes flicking from them to him.

"Lucas, what is that."

His mother asks, not turning her eyes away from you, and you're obviously left speechless at such blatant rudeness thrust in your face this early in the day so you keep quiet.

"This is my friend, mother."

His tone is freezing as he crosses the space separating you and takes a hold of your hand. "Not that it concerns you."

"Lucas," His father speaks up, hands outstretched in front of him. "You know we don't mind you socializing, but someone like that…?"

He obviously means the messy bun you put your hair in, the simple - cheap - outfit with the worn flannel around your hips.

Nobody of their standing would be caught dead like this.

He bristles under the comments, his chest filling with a prickling rage, but then you squeeze his hand and he looks down into your wide eyes and the half hidden panic in them.

"I'll go now. Thank you for everything, Yukhei."

You slip away from him and give his parents the widest berth you can manage before picking up your shoes and taking your jacket off its place by the door.

"No, wait-"

He hasn't asked you for your number yet, or Snapchat, or Instagram or anything; it feels like you're slipping through his fingers and he knows if he doesn't get you to stay, somehow, you'll be gone in a heartbeat and he'll never get you back.

Cinderella running as soon as the clock strikes midnight, but unlike her prince, he doesn't even have a shoe that would allow him to find you again.

"Lucas-" His mother warns him, but with a hate-filled look he's out the door, heart hammering away in his chest at the prospect of losing you.

Losing soft, warm, you, with your slow words and your camera and your view of the world that's so different from his.

He manages to wrench a hand between the doors of the elevator just before it closes and he's panting and high strum when the metal slides back and allows him in.

"Yukhei? What-"

He turns and sees his parents come out the door, and hurries to press the 'close doors' button even though neither of them would do as he did and sprint to catch them.

As soon as the cabin moves, he turns to you, hands feeling jittery and out of breath.

"Can I have your number? Or social media, or address or… anything? Anything I can reach you with?"

"Yukhei…" Your eyes are still wide as you look away from his face.

"Please." He swallows and tries to calm his erratic breathing. "Please, you're- You're the fucking best thing that's happened to me in months, months, okay, I don't- I don't want to lose you, I want to, I want for us to have breakfast together and do stupid tourist shit together and I just want more time with you, please…"

The doors open and reveal the first floor, and the presence of an elderly couple shuts him up momentarily.

They get on and upon seeing the button for the ground level lit up already settle against the opposite wall.

He catches your eyes again.

"Please."

He whispers.

"Boys like you aren't good for girls like me, Yukhei." You tell him, cupping one of your hands over his cheek, and with a sadness on your face that installs more fear in him than his parents showing up unannounced.

"What do you mean?" He asks, and wraps his own fingers around your wrist.

The doors open again and reveal the lobby, and everyone gets off.

"I mean…" You sigh and look around, at the brown suitcases with golden letter print, at the names flashing from every purse, shades or shoes. "I mean, boys like you... Don't spend much time or thought on girls like me. We don't mix and match. We're too different. Boys like you… Lose interest in girls like me once they get what they want."

He knows you're right and he hates it.

He wants to say something, anything, but his tongue weighs too heavy and you look like you know your words are true to the bone.

"And, your parents…" You lift your eyebrows and tilt your head, having said enough.

He feels powerless and he hates it, but unlike with his parents he can't act up, he can't step out of line, he can't risk a slap or punch in exchange for a brief moment of exhilarating freedom. Because you are freedom in the shape of a person already, and he is at a loss at what to do.

"Let me prove you wrong."

A plead. He knows your time together is running out and he knows he's grasping at straws but he's desperate.

"I appreciate that."

A beat of hope in his chest.

"But you don't have to, really. You have nothing to prove to me, Yukhei."

"Lucas!"

He freezes at the shout, the voice of his mother reaching out of the elevator.

"It was so nice getting to know you."

"No- No-!"

And you're slipping from his hands, are gone faster than he can gather his thoughts and defreeze his tongue and all that's left of you is one more kiss, quick and fleeting, pressed to his other cheek and then you're skipping to the exit, look back once you reach the door, with a smile on your face.

His mother's hand takes a hold of his elbow like a claw wrapping around prey, the rings on her fingers pressing into his skin, and her voice is talking but he doesn't hear.

He still feels your soft lips on his cheeks, the ghost of your fingers between his, and it's so little contact to what he's used to from the girl's he's usually around, and yet it feels like it meant so, so much more.

He closes his eyes and hangs his head and mentally shuts off to let the words spoken at him roll off his skin without allowing them in.

It's late and the sky is dark and he's locked in his room while his parents are out on the second evening of the event.

The screen of his phone lights up and he turns his head to check, not really interested in whatever is happening. His attention spikes when he reads the Snapchat notification that he's just been added as a friend.

Turning on his side he pulls up the new chat, and there are the little dots that indicate the other person is writing.

-Yukhei what the ruck!!!

-*f

A smile finds the corners of his lips, the first one since the more than harsh awakening this morning.

>found my gift? ;)

-what the fuck! i can't accept this??

>no take backs. get something nice and pretend like it's a souvenir from me

At least that way you could have something to remind you of him. If you want that.

-that's so much koney tho??? are u sure?

-*money ruck

-*FUCK

>don't worry about it. i owed you, you know. consider it paid back, with interest

Your bitmoji drops down and it seems like you're considering what to do next. It feels good, to know you received the envelope he left at the front desk in the spur of the moment, his Snapchat handle scrawled on it alongside a short “Please add me when you get this :)”

Then…

-did u get in trouble? bc of me?

>nah

>my parents caught me doing worse

He pauses and bites on his lip, weighting pro against con of telling you.

-do i want to know??

>hosted a party and couple of my friends had an orgy in my parent's bedroom. they came back early and…

-holy fucking shit what the fuck

He opens the camera and snaps a selfie, pouting and adding a text about being grounded for the remainder of this trip.

He holds his breath in anticipation until the little pink square next to your name fills out and he can click on it.

It's a close-up of your face, from an incredibly unflattering angle, and you're clearly not shredding an ounce of sympathy for him.

No text is added.

He sends another pouting selfie, zoomed in as well and lays on the puppy eyes thick.

The next image is half your face hidden under your blanket, with the word "no" taking up much of the screen.

He swipes into the main menu and then further to the friend page, clicking on your story.

What unfurls before his eyes is a miniature movie, single pictures taken all over the city and pieced together with selfies and you talking to yourself.

At once his heart beats a little faster.

His screen lights up, months later, and still his heart won't beat normal.

That morning a letter arrived for him - a letter, for him, in a battered envelope with an entirely foreign stamp and his name proudly on it.

It's from you.

In it he found copies of the pictures you took of him in front of the bridge, the light and dark touching his face.

And then the tiny polaroid he had asked you to take two times, one for you and one for him, and then hadn't gotten the chance to take it with him.

He'd snapped a selfie of the letter and him and sent it to you before opening it, and now he's blinking to keep the tears from spilling over.

Wong Yukhei does not cry, especially not at something like this. And yet…

But instead of an answer snap to your “omg u got mail!!” he opens the screen to a video call, and hurries to brush his eyes dry and fails when the connection stabilizes and he can see you.

It's a different time of day for you, and your hair has grown and changed, too, but the smile that's on his screen is still the same, radiant one as before.

"You got my letter!"

You exclaim, and even though it's a bit warbled and the rendering is a bit blocky, he feels your excitement.

"I did."

"Was beginning to think it got lost in the mail. Do you like the pictures? I put the polaroid in as well, did you-"

"Yeah," He smiles, and the word comes out rasped. "Yeah I- I got everything. Thank you."

You smile again.

It's so nice to see you again.

The words spill out before he can hold them back.

"So, hey," He brings up, an hour later just before you have to end the call. "I'll be flying out next month, to- Maybe we can-"

The grin on your face impossibly widens.

"You serious? My town? When?"

"Uh-" He has to minimize snapchat to pull up his calendar to tell you the exact date.

"You wanna meet up? Get to know my city?"

Warmth explodes in his chest, showing in a barely contained smile of his own.

"Yeah! Yeah that… I'd love that. More walking for me."

You laugh and then both of you fall quiet, content watching the other for a moment.

"I'm happy." You tell him. "I'm really happy I'll get to hug you properly. This-" You gesticulate towards the phone screen. "-isn't really holding up well."

“I’m looking forward to it, too.”

He drops his head on his pillow and smiles.

notes: i hope you liked it :) comments/reblogs make my day, so if you send an ask or just say a few nice words, i’d love that ^-^

you can also find all my other writing on Ao3 - runningfaucet is my @ there

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zukoskataraa · 4 years

Text

a request i got from @blood-and-lychee a long time ago! sorry this took so long, i hope you like it!

prompt #39: we need to talk about what happened last night

“Katara, open the door.” Zuko says, sighing.

“Go away.” Katara replies, not wanting to see him.

“Katara, I’m not the one at fault here.” Zuko says, and Katara sighed, knowing he was right. She slowly opens the door to her apartment, and Zuko walks in. Silence was hanging in the air, neither of them wanting to talk first.

“L-Let’s sit down.” Katara says, avoiding eye contact with Zuko as she walks to her bedroom. Zuko follows, going into the room he had been in many times before. Katara sits in the middle of the bed, crossing her legs, and Zuko sits down on the edge of the bed. The silence was awkward, and Katara wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

“We need to talk about what happened last night.” Zuko finally speaks, looking at Katara. Katara avoids his gaze, biting her lip. She knew that Zuko had come over to talk about it. She knew that what she had done was wrong. But, she didn’t feel bad about it.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Katara says, and Zuko scoffs.

“One doesn’t simply kiss their bestfriend on a fake date, Katara.” Zuko says, his tone harsh. Katara looks up at him, sighing.

“It was your fault for inviting me.” Katara says, defending herself. Zuko raises an eyebrow, an amused look on his face.

“I’m not the one who kissed you.” Zuko fights back, and Katara lies down, staring at her ceiling as she recalls yesterday’s events.

—

“You want me to do what?” Katara asks, eyes wide. She looks at Zuko, who was sitting next to her, looking desperate.

“Pretend to be my girlfriend. Just for tonight.” Zuko says, pleading. Katara was still processing the question that Zuko had asked.

“Tonight? Are you crazy? And why would you pick me? Ask Mai or Ty Lee or Toph.” Katara says, avoiding looking at him. Her heart was beating fast. Sure, Zuko was her best friend, ever since high school. They were now in college, and Katara would be lying to herself if she didn’t develop feelings for Zuko over the years. But, she didn’t want to ruin their friendship, so she never acted on her feelings for him.

“I was supposed to go with Mai, but she cancelled on me! And Ty Lee said no, very bluntly. So did Toph. And Sokka would kill me if I asked Suki. So, here I am.” Zuko says, and Katara scoffs.

“So you’re coming to me because you have no one else to turn to? I’m your last choice, huh? Go fish.” Katara says, rolling her eyes. She had already made up her mind, but she wanted to toy with Zuko for a bit. In an instant, Zuko was on his knees in front of her, and Katara widened her eyes.

“I didn’t mean it like that! I just didn’t want to burden you with this, so I never planned to ask you, until now. Please, Kat? I’ll do anything!” Zuko was clearly desperate, and Katara sighed.

“Man, I can’t believe you’re right here, begging in front of me. It’s a sight to behold, if I’m being honest.” Katara teases. “But, I’m no sadist. Get up, dude. I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend.” Katara says and Zuko stands, hugging Katara.

“Thanks, Kat!” Zuko says, smiling as he pulls away from the hug. Katara blushes and looks away.

“Y-Yeah. No problem. Where are we even going?” Katara asks, standing up from the couch.

“It’s just a formal dinner party. My parent’s company is hosting it to celebrate a new partnership. And my dad told me that I had to bring my significant other, who is non-existent.” Zuko sighs, sitting down on Katara’s sofa. Katara giggles.

“Well, why would he assume that you had a girlfriend in the first place?” She asks and Zuko shrugs.

“He thinks that Mai and I are still together. And as you know, we broke up last month, but we’re cool.” Zuko says and Katara nods.

“But he already knows who I am. If you bring me as your date, won’t it be awkward?” Katara asks and Zuko shakes his head.

“He thinks we, quote unquote, look good together. So, he’d probably be ecstatic if he thought that we were dating.” Zuko explains and Katara blushes, biting her lip. Well, at least his family approves of her.

“Okay, fine. Now get out of my apartment, Zuko. I have to get ready for dinner tonight, which I don’t even want to go to.” Katara says, joking.

“Hey, at least you’ll get free food.” Zuko says. “And like it’s still 2pm? Dinner isn’t til 7. You can get ready later.” Zuko says, and Katara rolls her eyes.

“You really don’t understand women.” Katara says, shaking her head. She grabs Zuko by the hand, who willingly follows her, as she walks towards her front door.

“I will see you later.” Zuko says as he opens the door and Katara let’s go of his hand. “I’ll pick you up at… 6:30? Sounds good?”

“Yup. Later, loser.” Katara says and Zuko chuckles.

“Wear something nice for me, okay? The theme is black, green, and blue.” Zuko winks and Katara rolls her eyes.

“Whatever.” Katara says and Zuko smiles.

“Bye, KitKat.” Zuko says and Katara blushes before sticking her tongue out at him and closing the door. Zuko would be the death of her. She nearly trips over the edge of her bed as she walks to her closet, looking for something to wear. Zuko was lucky that Katara had a green dress in her wardrobe that was formal enough. Her black dress was a little too provocative, and her blue dress wasn’t fit for the occasion. Katara also wanted to wear something nice, to see Zuko’s reaction - to tease him a little. Katara was sure that Zuko didn’t think of her romantically, that he only saw her as a friend. And that was okay with Katara, because she cherished her friendship with Zuko.

Katara took a shower, and got ready. It was a few minutes past three, and Zuko would pick her up at 6:30. So Katara had at least three more hours to prepare. She spent the first hour eating and watching a show, the second hour doing her hair - which Katara hated because her hair was a mess, and did her make up. Katara was changing into her dress when the doorbell rang, and Katara sighed as she was still struggling to zip up the dress from the back. She would get Zuko to do it, she decided, as she walked to the door.

Zuko gasped when the door opened to reveal Katara. She was wearing a satin, emerald green dress, with the neckline plunging low. There was a slit on the right side, showing her long, dark legs. Her hair was straightened at the top, but was wavy midway to the tips. She had a pearl clip on one side of her hair. Her makeup was just enough - lipstick, eyeshadow, eyeliner, but there was a hint of pink on Katara’s cheeks as Zuko had stared at her for what seemed like minutes.

“What? Do I look ugly?” Katara asks, unsure. Zuko shakes his head, embarrassed.

“You look great, KitKat.” Zuko says, smiling. “I mean it.”

“Thanks, Zuko.” Katara says, blushing. “Ah, can you zip this up for me?” Katara asks, turning around. Her dress was still zipped open, down to the small of her back. She felt exposed, but it’s not like she could have zipped it up herself.

“S-Sure.” Zuko says, gulping as he reaches for her dress. His fingers touch Katara’s back, and Katara closes her eyes. Silence is in the air as he slowly zips the dress up, and Katara grabs her hair and puts it at the side so he can finish zipping it up. “All done.” He says. Katara lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and turns around to look back at Zuko.

“Thanks, loser. Come on in, just lemme grab my things and then we can head out.” Katara smiles as she walks away, letting Zuko enter her home. Katara goes into her room, with Zuko behind her, and grabs a small gold purse, putting her phone, lipstick, keys, and some money inside. Zuko leans on the doorway, arms crossed.

“You look really stunning, KitKat.” Zuko compliments her again, and Katara blushes. Thankfully, her back was facing him, so he couldn’t see her reaction. She takes a deep breath before looking at Zuko. He looked good as well - in Katara’s defense, he looked good no matter what he wore - with an all black outfit, except for the emerald green bowtie, which ironically matched Katara’s dress. His hair was slicked back, except for a few loose tendrils flying around.

“You don’t look so bad yourself, Zuko.” She says as she grabs a gold necklace from her jewelry box and puts it on, centering the pendant in the middle of her chest. “Your tie matches my dress.”

“That it does.” He says, amusement in his voice. “Wasn’t expecting it, to be honest. But hey, we still look good.�� Zuko says and Katara hums in approval as she walks past him and puts on her gold heels. Zuko was watching her the whole time, and Katara could feel his eyes burning into her.

“Stop staring, creep.” Katara says. “Come on, let’s go.” She says and Zuko chuckles as he follows her out of her apartment.

“I could be watching a movie right now, in my pajamas. Eating takeout.” Katara sighs as Zuko revs the car, the engine sputtering to life. Zuko laughs.

“This’ll be worth it. I promise. Plus, wouldn’t you rather look at me, your handsome best friend who is currently your fake boyfriend right now, than some actor on your tv?” He says as he starts to drive. Katara snorts, blushing.

“Puh-lease. I’d take Henry Cavill over you any day.” She says and Zuko chuckles.

“You wound me, Katara.” Zuko says and Katara giggles. “Okay so, if anyone asks. We’re dating, obviously. That’s been established. Uh, let’s say we’ve been dating for about two months now. I made the first move when I drove you back home from a dinner date. You said yes, and boom.” Zuko makes up a story, and Katara wishes it were true. “Also, I might like, touch you. You know, putting my hand on your waist, holding your hand, that sort of thing.” Zuko adds and Katara sighs. This would be so hard.

“Ew, you’re gonna give me your germs.” She jokes, trying to distract herself. Zuko laughs. “But fine. You owe me big time, Zuko.”

“That I do, my friend.” Zuko says. The rest of the car ride was filled with them bantering and laughing, both of them hoping to ease the tension before having to be serious at the dinner party.

They pull up to the hotel, which was very fancy, and Katara gulps. One room probably cost more than her tuition, she thought. The valet opened the door for her and helped her get out, to which she smiled and said thank you to. The valet then walked over to Zuko, and gave him the keys. Zuko walked over to Katara, smiling.

“I haven’t seen my parents in six months. To be honest, I’m kinda nervous.” Zuko says, and Katara wraps her arm around his.

“Don’t be nervous. I’ll be with you the whole time.” Katara assures her best friend, and Zuko nods.

“Well, Kat, off we go.” Zuko says and Katara giggles as they walk inside the hotel, towards the ballroom.

“You know, this is pretty boring.” Zuko whispers in Katara’s ear. It had been at least two hours since the dinner started, and there had been 5 long, dull speeches - all of which were talking about the same thing more or less. The food was exceptional though, and Katara had to give it to the chef’s, they knew how to cook. The appetizer was delicious, the main course was enamoring, and the desert was mouth-watering. The waiter had given them wine to drink, and they clinked their glasses.

“I know. This is why I should have just stayed at home.” Katara giggles, whispering back to Zuko.

“Sorry for dragging you here. I haven’t even seen my parents yet.” Zuko replies. “Well, I have, but they seem busy, so I’d rather not approach them.” Katara takes a sip from her wine and sighs.

“You could always-” She starts but is suddenly cut off.

“Zuko!” A deep voice calls out. Zuko immediately stands, looking at his dad. Zuko was almost as tall as his dad, Ozai.

“Hi dad.” Zuko greets. Katara stands up, smiling.

“Ah, Katara. So good to see you again.” Ursa, Zuko’s mother, smiles and gives Katara a hug.

“Hello, Ms. Ursa. Mr. Ozai. It’s nice to see you.” Katara says as she hugs Ursa.

“Katara, what a surprise. Zuko said he was bringing his girlfriend. Is that, perhaps, you?” Ozai asks, surprised. There was no malice in his voice, just shock.

“Yup.” Zuko responds, taking Katara’s hand in his. Katara wanted to die.

“Y-Yes. Zuko and I are dating.” Katara says, smiling. Ursa smiles and clasps her hands together.

“I can hear the wedding bells!” Ursa exclaims and the fake couple blushes.

“Mom! Stop.” Zuko says and Ursa giggles.

“I have to continue making my rounds. But it was good to see you, son. You too, my dear Katara. I have high hopes for you two.” Ozai says as he and Ursa walk away. The fake couple let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding, but Zuko hadn’t let go of Katara’s hand yet.

“Well, we passed. Can we go now?” Katara asks as she lets go of Zuko’s hand. She didn’t want to, but wine was more important at the moment. Zuko chuckles.

“Don’t you want to dance?” Zuko teases. There was a slow song playing, and some people had gone up to the dance floor, holding each other in each other’s arms. Katara scoffs.

“You know I don’t dance.”

“Yes, but, you’re not gonna die if you dance with me.” Zuko says. ‘I beg to differ’ Katara thinks. “I’m not going to force you, though. It’s up to you, KitKat.” Katara sighs.

“One dance. And then you’re taking me home.” Katara says and Zuko nods. He takes her hand and leads her to the dance floor. Katara puts her hand on Zuko’s shoulders, and Zuko puts his hands on Katara’s waist. The awkwardness would be the death of Katara. She looked at the ground, slowly moving to the beat. Zuko gently tilts her head up, brown eyes looking into blue ones.

“Hey, look at me.” Zuko smiles and Katara blushes. She didn’t know if it was the wine or something, but she suddenly wanted to make a move. They danced, looking into each other’s eyes the whole time. Katara was feeling brave and confident. If she didn’t do it now, she would never be able to do it. The song was about to end, and she would never get this chance again. She closed her eyes before leaning up to kiss Zuko. It was quick, and a bit rough. It was a peck, that’s all that Katara thought of as she pulled away. Zuko looked at her, eyes wide. And she knew she made a mistake.

—

“Hey, you owe me a favor right?” Katara asks as she sits back up, looking at Zuko. Zuko hums. “Okay. My favor is, just forget about what happened last night. Forget about the fake dating, forget about the kiss.”

“That’s hard to do, KitKat. I’m curious though, where did you run off to? I chased after you but you were gone.” Zuko says and Katara snorts.

“I hid in the bathroom for a few minutes before calling a cab.” Katara explains and Zuko chuckles.

“You shouldn’t have run away. I was going to say something before you dashed off like you were the flash.” Zuko jokes and Katara shakes her head.

“I was embarrassed. And… I never did get to apologize for last night, right? Sorry, Zuko.” Katara says and Zuko scoots closer to her.

“What’s there to be sorry about?” He asks, looking into her eyes. Katara gulps. “The reason that I can’t forget about last night, is because I like you, KitKat.” Zuko says and Katara’s heart skips a beat. “That wasn’t the ideal first kiss, but it’ll do.”

“W-Wait a minute, you LIKE me?” Katara says and Zuko nods. “Since when?”

“Well, I’m not gonna say. A man has to have a few secrets after all.” He winks. “I was waiting for you to make the first move, that’s all.” Zuko says and Katara blushes. Zuko leans closer to Katara, his eyes glancing at her lips. Katara gulps. Zuko’s hand caresses her cheeks, tucking away a strand of hair.

“You’re such a tease.” Katara says, her voice barely a whisper. Zuko chuckles before connecting his lips with hers. The kiss was slow and sweet. Zuko’s thumb caresses her cheeks, his other hand on Katara’s waist. They pull away a few seconds later, Katara avoiding his gaze.

“If fake dating was all it took for you to be mine, we should have done it sooner.” Zuko says, teasing as he pulls Katara in for a hug.

“Shut up. I hate you.” She says into his neck, voice muffled.

“No, you love me.” He replies. Katara smiles. ‘Yes, I do love you.’

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kinglazrus · 4 years

Text

What You’ve Become

Phic phight 2020

Submitted by @kiinotasha: Jazz and Danny swap ages, she is the younger sibling he is the older one. All the other kids have their ages changed accordingly. (Those in Danny’s year would still be in his year)

Summary: Two years after the first ghost appears in Amity Park, Jazz Fenton sees a face she never thought she'd see again.

Word count: 12726

Jazz keeps her head down as she checks out her book. She usually avoid the public library if she can, but there are only so many psychology papers you can read online before you hit a paywall. All the good ones are locked tight on websites made for scholars, not high schoolers. The one downside of devouring ever psych text she can get her hands on for two years running is that, at a certain point, she has to leave the house to do it.

When she started at Casper High just a few months ago, she went to their library. It offered her privacy from all the prying eyes and hushed whispers, since most students didn't like spending time under the librarian's eagle eyes. But the school's selection was rather... lacking, which forced Jazz to seek out other avenues. Namely, the public library. Which shouldn't be so daunting, because she loves books and this building used to be her home away from home.

But that was two years ago. Now, when she goes to the library, it's no longer a safe haven. Now, when she walks through its doors, people see her and stare. That's the problem with Amity Park. It isn't a small town, but it's not a big city either. Everyone knows someone who knows someone else who knows you.

Which means everyone knows poor Jasmine, the last Fenton in Amity Park.

As she passes her library card over to the clerk, she catches their grim, pitying smile and quickly looks away. She fixes her gaze on the counter for the rest of the transaction. The second it's over, she takes her library card and the textbook and flees. She can feel the librarian's stare burning into her back as she leaves the building. It's hard to ignore. Marching across the parking lot, she heads for an old green Volvo, yanking open the passenger door when she reaches it. She throws herself into the seat and slams the door shut.

"Didn't have the book you wanted?" her best friend, Spike, asks from the back of the car. He doesn't look at her, instead focusing on the soles of his platform boots, picking mud out of the grooves.

Jazz slams the book down on the console.

Spike's gaze jumps up at the noise. "Oh," he says, eyes falling on the book. His expression, a default disaffected scowl, doesn't change, but he starts toying with his eyebrow ring, spinning it around. It's a subtle Jazz has become well accustomed to over the past two years.

"Fuck 'em," Spike says. He slouches forward, dropping his hand into his lap, and raises his middle finger in the library's direction.

"That would be an unsanitary and highly inappropriate response," Tucker quips from the driver's seat, fingers tapping on the steering wheel.

Jazz wrinkles her nose. "Please never say anything like that again."

"No promises." He cackles at Jazz's expression. When he looks over his shoulder to start backing out, he catches Spike's deepening scowl, and grins even wider. "Sorry, kid, I got a goth best friend, too. That kind of look doesn't work on me."

"I told you to stop calling me that," Spike says.

Tucker hums, pretending to think deeply, and bares his teeth in a teasing smile. "Nah."

"You know, he had a goth phase," Jazz whispers.

"We don't talk about that!"

Jazz keeps talking about it. She eagerly regales Spike with the time she walked into the bathroom and found Danny painstakingly doing Tucker's eyeliner. She's halfway through Tucker's first disastrous attempt at wearing platform boots when a droning alarm goes off, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Turning away from the back seat, she leans her head against her window and tips her head back, peering up at a white and black siren hanging off a streetlight.

"Aw, man." Tucker sighs and turns his blinker on, pulling over to the side of the road. The car in front of them does the same, along with a truck passing on the other side of the road. None of them can pull all the way over, because of the vehicles parked parallel up and down the street, but there's a sizeable gap right down the middle of the road.

"Think we'll see some action?" Spike asks.

"I bet it's just that box dude or something," Tucker says as he rolls down his window.

Jazz slaps her hands over her ears as the siren gets louder and elbows Tucker's shoulder. "Close the window!" she shouts.

He doesn't have to. A second later, the siren cuts out. All three passengers strain their ears, listening for any sounds of fighting. It's completely silent.

"False alarm?" Jazz suggests.

"The Guys in White don't do false alarms. Could be the box guy," Tucker says. He hoists himself halfway out the window, slapping his arm down on top of the car to keep himself balanced, and waves at the truck across from them.

The driver rolls down the window.

"Hey! My radio's busted, is there any broadcast going out right now?" Tucker calls.

The driver looks down, fiddling with something, then looks back up and shakes his head.

"Thanks!"

"See? False alarm," Jazz says. "Get back in the car."

"Jazz, you are way too young to be sounding like my mother," Tucker says, ignoring her request. He looks up and down the street, head swiveling as he scans the skies. Completely empty. "Okay, maybe you're right."

No sooner have the words left his mouth than a green blur goes shooting past, flying so fast the car rocks. Tucker yelps, losing his grip on the car, and would have toppled out the window if Jazz and Spike hadn't lunged forward to catch him. Tucker chokes as Jazz grabs the back of his shirt, his collar cutting against his windpipe. Spike snags Tucker's belt. Together, they haul the older boy back into the car.

"Okay!" Tucker says, rubbing his throat and coughing a few times. "Not the box dude!"

Pushing his glasses up his nose, he glares out his window to the truck across from them. "'No broadcast' my ass."

"You should just get the Ghost Watch app," Jazz says, already pulling out her phone. She flicks through the apps until she finds one whose icon features a ghost holding binoculars.

"Like hell I'm gonna do that. The government can already spy on my through my phone, I'm gonna make it worse by downloading one of their apps," Tucker sneers.

"If they're already watching, then why does it matter?" Spike asks.

Tucker takes a breath, then pauses. "Huh," he says.

While he struggles to come up with an answer, Jazz opens the Ghost Watch app. Sure enough, as soon as it loads, she's met with a red exclamation point. Tapping the icon, she turns her volume up and holds her phone out.

"–class four entity. Agents have been dispatched to take care of the threat. Phantom protocol is in place. Please remain in your homes or vehicles or you will face criminal charges for interfering with a G.I.W. Operation. Thank you. Attention Amity Park. We are under threat by a class four entity. Agents have been dispatched–"

Jazz mutes the broadcast and raises and eyebrow in Tucker's direction.

"Shut up," he says. "You're the one who thought it was a false alarm."

"You're the one who can't afford to fix his radio," Spike points out.

"Well, maybe, I should start charging you since I'm apparently turning into your chauffeur. I'm sure your moms would be so happy to know your abusing my kind heart."

"Sounds fake."

"Boys, stop it," Jazz snaps. "Let's just wait for this to be over so we can go home, okay?"

Spike and Tucker share a look and nod in unison.

With an annoyed huff, Jazz pulls her new textbook into her lap and cracks it open. She might as well read to pass time, there's no telling how long this will take. Sometimes the G.I.W. have the situation under control in minutes, other times the city's on lockdown for hours. Hopefully, with the Phantom protocol in effect, it'll be a short wait.

Jazz closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Don't think about it, she tells herself. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up.

"Jazz, if this is about–"

"Let me stop you right there, Tucker," Jazz says. She stares resolutely down at her book, refusing to lift her gaze. "It's not about anything. I just want to go home, okay?"

"Okay," Tucker says. She can tell he doesn't believe her. That's fine, as long as he lets it drop.

—

Danny was dead. Or he was dying. Jazz didn't know which and she didn't know how to help. She was frozen at the bottom of the stairs, every inch of her trembling, too shocked—too scared—to do anything.

Her big brother was slumped in his best friend's arms, skin blistered and bleeding. His right hand was smoking, the sleeve of his jumpsuit burnt away. A strange green substance oozed out of him, staining Tucker's sweater. He was dead. He had to be dead.

"Danny! Danny!" Tucker shouted desperately, slowly lowering Danny to the floor. He leaned over Danny's prone form, hands hovering just above his blistered body. "Shit, shit, Danny, no. Sam, what do we do?"

Jazz's gaze jumped from her brother—her burnt, broken, probably dead brother—to Sam. She had collapsed on her knees a few feet away, pressing a hand to her mouth, eyes wide and horrified. She looked like she was about to throw up, or pass out, or both.

"I–I–" Sam stuttered. It was all she managed before she turned to the side and retched all over the lab floor.

Jazz finally regained control of her limbs then. Seeing Tucker and Sam, who were older and supposed to be smarter, lost and panicking spurred her to move. She rushed across the lab, her socks slipping on the smooth tiles, and almost slid right into Sam.

"Sam, Sam, where's your phone?" Jazz asked. She couldn't believe how steady her voice sounded. Inside, she panicked. Inside, she screamed that her brother was dead, and she was scared, and why weren't their parents home, why was the portal that wasn't supposed to work suddenly on, glowing so brightly it hurt her eyes? Why, why, why?

"Sam!" Jazz shrieked when the older girl didn't respond.

Sam flinched, spitting on the floor and wiping her mouth on her arm, and turned to Jazz. "Jazz," she said. Her dark eyes flickered over to Danny, then back at Jazz, and a fresh wave of horror filled them. "Go upstairs. You should go upstairs."

"Your phone!" Jazz pleaded. She didn't have the patience to wait, instead reaching into Sam's pocket herself and snatching her phone. Jazz backed away and dialled.

"911, what's your emergency?" a smooth voice answered.

"My brother was in an accident. He's hurt, really badly, and I– I don't know if he's breathing," Jazz said.

At her words, Tucker lowered his head to Danny's chest. Everyone held still, afraid to move or even breathe. Jazz could hear the operator saying something, but his words fell on deaf ears as she waited, anxious, for Tucker to say something.

"Fuck," Tucker said. He shot upright, hands hovering over Danny's chest, then pulled back. "Sam! I don't know CPR, do you know CPR?"

Sam scrambled toward Danny, her knees slipping in his blood—why was there so much blood? She shoved Tucker aside and straddled Danny's waist, kneeling over him, and started chest compressions.

Tears welled in Jazz's eyes. She sobbed and turned away.

"Are you alright? Please answer me. I need your location to send an ambulance."

"He, he's not breathing, and his, his heart's not beating," Jazz said. She hiccupped and squeezed her eyes shut, but that didn't help. She could still hear Sam panting heavily as she tried to keep Danny's heart beating. "His friend is doing CPR."

"Okay, that's good. What's your name? How old are you?"

"I'm Jazz Fenton, I'm twelve years old. My brother is Danny, he's sixteen. We're at Fenton Works at the corner of Cordia and Lennex," Jazz recited. It was oddly calming. Nothing more than simple rote memory, but it helped. It would help Danny.

"Fentons."

"Yes?"

The line was silent. Jazz bit her lip, wondering if the operator hung up, which would be incredibly unprofessional and also probably send her into a panic. She was certain the only reason she hadn't fallen to her knees in tears right then was that, as long as she was on the phone, she was helping. She had something to do. She was making sure Danny would be okay because he was going to be okay, he had to be.

A quiet huff caught Jazz's attention. She clung to the phone with both hands, pressing it against her ears, and barely heard the operator mutter, "Of course," on the other side of the line.

Jazz didn't want to be on the phone anymore.

"An ambulance is on the way," the operator said, louder. "Stay calm until then. Is there anyone else home with you? Your parents?"

"No. Thank you, goodbye."

—

"Please stay calm and remain in your vehicle. The threat will be dealt with shortly. Please stay calm and remain in your vehicle. The threat will be dealt with shortly. Please stay calm and–"

"I hate that voice. So. Much," Spike says, glaring at the siren.

Jazz can't blame him. The siren started spewing the city-wide warning almost five minutes ago and hasn't stopped since. There hasn't been another sign of the ghost, or any G.I.W. for that matter. It doesn't exactly mean much, because they could be anywhere in the city, but it makes the so-called safety protocols seem highly unnecessary. Besides, wouldn't they be safer in a building rather than as sitting ducks in the middle of the road?

The guy in the truck must have thought so, because he ditched his vehicle almost a full minute ago and disappeared inside a bar up the street. Jazz thinks he had the right idea, minus the bar part. It's always better to be somewhere you're comfortable during an emergency, even if it only provides slight relief.

"We could just, you know, drive home," Spike suggests.

"Great idea, until we get caught in the middle of a ghost fight," Tucker says. "Then your moms would kill me."

"No. The ghosts would kill you."

"Delightful."

"My moms would obliterate your ghost."

Tucker groans in distress, but Jazz can tell he's seriously considering Spike's suggestion. He keeps lifting his hand off his leg, toward the keys, before letting it fall back to his knee. "Who thought having a ghost infested city would be so damn boring?" he asks.

"You mean you don't enjoy sharing this plane of existence with pale shades of people long dead, forced to stay on this Earth by their own anguish and tumultuous emotions?" Spike asks.

"No. No, I don't."

"I do."

"Of course, you would."

Jazz ignores the boys, flipping to the next page in her textbook. It's a fairly new branch of psychology, focused on ghosts and their mental processes. Its surprisingly thorough. A stamp on the first page marks it as a G.I.W. endorsed text. It makes her wonder how many of the ghosts they catch become study subjects. With how comprehensive the textbook is, they must have been observing ghosts for a long time.

Unbidden thoughts of the Phantom leap to the front of Jazz's mind. Her grip on the textbook tightens, nails digging into the cover.

"Okay, I'm getting out," Spike says, breaking Jazz out of her thoughts.

"No, you aren't," Tucker says.

"Yeah, I am." Spike pulls on his door handle and starts pushing the door open.

"Your arrest record," Tucker says, rolling his eyes. Halfway through the motion, he freezes. "Actually, no, get back in the car."

"Asking nicely won't make me."

"Spike! Get back in the damn car!" Tucker shouts. The alarm in his voice makes Jazz look up from her book. The next second, the street beside them explodes in a shower of concrete.

"Shit!" Spike ducks, narrowly missing being brained by a fist-sized rock. In his panic, he dives to the side rather than back inside the car.

"Seriously!" Tucker shouts. He throws his door open and leaps out, Jazz following suit on her side of the car. She squints, covering her mouth with her arm, trying to keep the dust out. As Tucker goes for Spike, Jazz watches the middle of the road. She sees something moving in the cloud of dust.

The sound of a roaring engine draws Jazz's attention to the corner of the block, just in time to see a bulky armoured truck rip around the corner. On top of the cab, a row of bright green lights flash as the truck tears down the street. It comes to a stop fifty metres from the crater. The cab doors are thrown open by two bald men in white suits. They jump out onto the road, raising sleek white and blue guns that look out of place outside a sci-fi filmset.

One of them, the taller of the two, sees Jazz and calls down the road, "Return to your vehicle or face the charges."

"But my friend!" Jazz calls back. She looks to where Spike had fallen and finds the road empty. Panic shoots through her, until she hears someone clearing their throat and drops her gaze to the sidewalk.

Tucker and Spike are huddled behind the next car down, out of sight of the G.I.W.

"Return to your vehicle, now!" the agent demands again.

Jazz obeys. As soon as she's inside with the door shut, she climbs over the console into the front seat. The cloud of dust in the middle of the street is almost gone now, the silhouette of whoever—or whatever—is inside more defined.

It looks like a regular person, but with sharper angles. A sharp chin, broad shoulders, wide chest. Before the dust can settle complete, the ghost shoots forward, too fast to see, and slams into the G.I.W. truck, the front of cab crumpling in It goes skidding across the road, tires squealing, leaving thick black lines in their wake.

It's still sliding when the ghost zooms back and slams into it again, this time from the side. The sidewall caves and the truck tips onto its side.

"Damn it, the asset!" the shorter agent shouts.

Both men open fire, but every shot misses, the ghost flying too fast for them to catch. The shorter agent curses again and grabs something from inside their suit, tossing it on the ground. The object, a small cube, hits the ground and an antenna pops out of the top. A ping, not unlike a sonar pulse, songs from the cube and a wave of blue energy cascades outwards.

When it hits the ghost's blurred form, the ghost goes flying. Jazz shouts in surprise and ducks as it soars toward her. There's a loud crash, but Tucker's car does little more than shake. Lifting her head, she sees the ghost has hit the car behind her. Her heart leaps into her throat as she searches for Tucker and Spike amongst the wreckage.

It takes her a few seconds to fine them, but they're safe and sounded, hiding in the shadows of a convenience store doorway. The sign on the door says closed, and it must be locked, so they can't slip inside out of danger, but they're hidden at least.

The crumpled car creaks. Jazz's gaze jumps back to it and she gets her first good look at the ghost. It doesn't look like any of the ghost's she's ever glimpsed. Rather than an animalistic, amorphous form, it looks like a large mechanical man. With green fire for a mullet and goatee, apparently.

"Surrender, ghost!" the taller agent yells.

"Release him!" the ghost demands in a deep, layered voice.

The G.I.W. share a look.

"Agent O," the short one says. "Release the asset."

The mechanical ghost grins. But, judging by Agent O's grim but eager expression, the ghost isn't going to like what happens. Agent O holds their wrist out and presses a button on their watch. A heavy clunk reaches Jazz's ears. Everyone's focus snaps to the overturned truck as the back door slides open. A thin blue shield wavers over the open door before snapping away.

Jazz peers into the shadows of the covered truck bed. Slowly, a figure emerges. They float through the open door, body twisting to they don't brush the sides of the van, and hovers in the air.

It's the first time Jazz has ever seen the G.I.W. secret weapon, and the key component of the Phantom protocol: Phantom themselves. They wear a baggy white jumpsuit, the G.I.W. logo emblazoned across their chest in a slightly darker off-white. Not an inch of skin is visible, a mask clamped tightly over their lower face, round goggles covering their eyes, and a loose hood pulled over their head. They hold themselves awkwardly, arms raised in front of their chest, fingers curling toward their face. Thick cuffs bind their forearms together, forcing this strange pose upon them. Similar cuffs bind their ankles.

Their head turns slowly as they scan the street, the lenses of their goggles flaring. One is blue, the other green. They stop when they face Tucker's car.

Jazz's breath hitches. She presses one against the window, her other falling to the door handle. The ghost mimics her, spreading their fingers, although their palms are turned the wrong way.

She's never seen Phantom before. She's never seen their face. But she knows exactly what she would find under that mask. She pops the door open, lowering one foot to the pavement, ignoring the danger of the ghost to her left.

"Phantom!" Agent O snaps. He presses another button his watch. The cuffs on Phantom's legs fall to the found with a thud, cracking the pavement when they hit it. His arms stay bound. Another press, another button, and a collar around Phantom's neck, hidden by their pose, sparks dangerously.

Agent O points to the mechanical ghost. "Go hunt!"

—

Jazz waited out in the hallway, where her parents told her to be. She sat on a hard, plastic chair, tapping her feet on the tiled floor. It must have been freshly buffed, because when she leaned forward, she could see her reflection on the gleaming ceramic. The tiles were marbled white and pink, the colours blending together in milky swirls, and when she stared right at it, it looked like her face was covered in scars.

She lifted a hand and touched her cheek, almost expecting to feel puckered, raised skin where the marbled pink cuts across her pale face. She wondered if Danny would have scars.

"Jazzypants?"

Her head snapped up and she was surprised to see Jack, her father, standing before her. A burly man who took up nearly half the hallway, he didn't exactly have the lightest steps, but she didn't even notice him arrive. He crouched so they were eye to eye, hunching his shoulders to take up as little space as possible, and touched her hand.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

Jazz glanced to the side, toward the closed double doors with the words "STAFF ONLY" plastered across them in big, bold letters. "I'm fine. Is Danny okay?" she asked.

"He's okay," Jack said. He smiled and squeezed her hand. "The doctors are still working on him, but they said he's gonna be fine."

Jazz didn't match Jack's smile. She tried, but it felt weak and flimsy, and she let it fall away. "Okay," she said quietly.

Jack's smile tightened. "Listen, there's someone here who wants to talk to you."

"Why?"

"Because of what happened. Danny's gonna be okay, but he got really hurt, and that made some people worry. So, they want to talk to you, so they know they don't have to worry."

Jazz frowned. "You don't have to talk like that. I'm not eight. Who are they?"

Jack laughed, but it was soft and humorless. "Right, you've always been so grown up. Are you okay to talk to them?"

"Yeah." Jazz nodded and pushed off her chair, standing up. She barely reached Jack's elbow.

With his hand on her back, Jack guided her out of the waiting room. They turned down a quiet hallway, farther from the hospital's entrance, and headed toward a bench set into an. It was small and private. A woman in a blazer and slacks waited there, sitting with her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap.

The woman's hair was tied back in a ponytail, smooth against her head, but cascading into a waterfall of dark curls at the nape of her neck. Jazz touched her own hair, red and pin straight. She always wanted curly hair like that, especially after seeing pictures of her mother in college.

Jack cleared his throat as they approached. The woman looked up. She smiled warmly at Jazz, scooting down the bench as if to make room, even though it was a fairly large bench and there was lots of space. Jazz sat down on the very end, as far from the woman as she could get.

"Thank you, Mr. Fenton. I know you may want to stay, but this needs to be a private conversation, so I know you aren't influencing anything she says," the woman said.

"Right," Jack said. He gave Jazz one last pat, then turned and lumbered down the hallway.

"Hello, Jasmine," the woman said, drawing Jazz's attention back. "I'm Jamila Faizan. You can call my Jamila. I'm a social worker. Do you know what that is?"

Jazz nodded, eyeing the woman warily. She had nothing against social workers, but she heard people threaten her parents with them before. It made her uncomfortable.

"I just want to ask you a few questions about what life is like at home, okay?" Jamila asked.

"It's fine."

Jamila smiled. "Of course. It might seem that way, but your brother got really hurt in your parent's lab, and I need to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again. I just want to make sure you're safe at home."

Jazz bit her lip. She knew her home life wasn't exactly normal. How many twelve-year-olds had a lab in their basement? But they had good parents, and this was the first time anything like this had ever happened.

"How often do you go into your parents' lab?" Jamila asked.

"Not a lot. I don't like it down there that much, it's really cold."

"Do you parents ever bring you down there?"

"Sometimes, if they want to show us something interesting."

"Okay. Are you allowed down there any time?"

Jazz shifted in her seat, tucking her hands between her knees to keep from fidgeting. "Mom or dad has to be with us if we go down there," she said. She quickly added, "But I don't want to go down there, anyway, unless they want to show us something. So it's okay."

Jamila hummed. "How are you at school?"

"Good. I get all A's," Jazz said, a little thrown by the topic change.

"And your brother?"

"He doesn't really like school. I don't think it's a good learning environment for him, so he doesn't really get good grades."

"And you're happy?"

"Yes." Jazz narrowed her eyes at Jamila. "Are you trying to take us away?"

"I'm only trying to make sure you're safe, healthy, and happy," Jamila said.

"I will be once I know my brother's okay."

"I've been told he's going to pull through just fine," Jamila said, giving Jazz a placating smile.

"Then, then I don't see what the problem is. He's okay, I'm okay. It was just an accident. So, I'm going back to my parents, where I will be safe, healthy, and happy, okay? Okay." Jazz got up and walked away before Jamila could say anything else. It wasn't like the social worker could stop her.

—

The asphalt beneath Phantom cracks as they shoot through the air toward the ghost.

"Phantom, wait!" the ghost protests, holding up his hands. He jumps into the air, arcing over Phantom. A gun pops out of his shoulder and fires a green net. The net snaps out, heading right for Phantom.

Jazz doesn't even know how to begin describing what Phantom's body does to dodge the net. Only their arms and head stay solid, the rest of their body twisting, and morphing, and stretching so the next passes harmlessly through them. Their torso and legs snap back into existence as if they hadn't just melted into an amorphous cloud and Phantom continues unhindered. They slam into the mechanical ghost, wrapping one leg around the ghost's arm, the other around their neck.

Electricity crackles up Phantom's spine and shocks the ghost, making the whole suit go slack. Phantom drives the ghost into the ground, crouching over him. A low moan builds in their throat.

Jazz automatically covers her ears. She may have never seen Phantom in action before, but she's definitely heard their signature attack. And had to deal with the damage it leaves behind.

Just before the wail reaches its glass-shattering, tree-tearing, foundation-shaking crescendo, the mechanical ghost shouts, "Sorry!" and launches a mini-rocket out of his arm. It hits Phantom and explodes, blasting them straight across the street.

Jazz winces when they collide with the sidewalk, a sharp crack echoing down the street.

"Stop fighting!" The mechanical ghost holds up their hands as Phantom peels themselves off the crumbled sidewalk. "It's me, Skulker!"

Phantom answers by smacking something on the side of their mask. Green fumes start pouring out the front. Reaching up, their fingers curl around their collar, yanking it down as far as it'll go, and they thrust their head forward. Ectoplasm spews from the mast. It roars outward, a mesmerizing mix of gas and flames that seeps into the air.

As Phantom leaps forward, the ectoplasm pours over a nearby mailbox. The ectoplasm turns liquid the second it touches the mailbox, coating it in a thick slime, melting through the metal. Watching the metal bubble and ooze, Jazz swallows nervously.

She's reminded quite suddenly that Phantom is a tool for the G.I.W. The supreme weapon. The thing they throw at every passing threat. Thinking back to her textbook, she wonders how much of that information was garnered from Phantom. They would certainly make an impressive specimen, not that Jazz wants to think of them like that. But it's undeniable.

The way they move is otherworldly.

Every time Skulker dodges, Phantom's head snaps toward him, lightning fast, as ectoplasm spits from their mask. They mutate their body into grotesque shapes at a moment's notice, deforming and contorting as needed. It's hard to watch them. Not just because of the brutal display, with Skulker's protests falling on deaf ears, but because their body can't seem to settle. It's constantly moving, blurring, flickering. The only time they look completely solid is when their whole body crackles and electricity arcs off them.

Phantom's ectoplasm spews over Skulker's arm. Skulker yelps, forced to flee, and tries to shake off both the acidic sludge and his feral tail.

And Phantom really is feral. They follow, relentless, remorseless, moving like a wild animal prowling after its prey. Every attack is a pounce, a noxious cloud of ectoplasm following their every move. It's both mesmerizing and horrifying. The only word Jazz can use to properly describe them is monster.

—

Two hours after speaking with Jamila, Danny was out of surgery. Jazz was on her own when a nurse came over to deliver the news. Her parents were off with the social worker, had been for some time. The nurse was hesitant to give Jazz the news on her own, but she bullied the man with tear-filled eyes until he caved in.

Danny's surgery was a success. They fixed the rupture in his hear, stopped the bleeding, and now he was sleeping. He would be for a while because his body needed to heal, but once he woke up, he would be good as new.

The nurse waited with Jazz for her parents to return. When they came walking down the hallway, accompanied by Jamila, Jazz hopped out of her seat and ran forward to give them the good news. She faltered when she saw her parents' expressions.

Her mother's eyes were red from crying. Seeing that unsettled Jazz. She had never seen her mother cry before, and even if she didn't actually witness it now, knowing it happened threw her off balance. She knew parents cried too. They were regular people with all kinds of emotions; but, still, they weren't supposed to cry.

Jazz stopped at arm's length, watching them warily.

"Oh, sweetie." Maddie reached down and hugged Jazz.

"Mom, what's going on?"

"You're going to be staying with someone else for a little bit," she said.

Jazz pulled away. "Mom?"

"I'm sorry," Jamila interrupted, placing a hand on Jazz's shoulder. Jazz wanted to throw it off. "Maddie," Jamila continued.

"Please, call me Dr. Fenton," Jazz's mother said, a bitter smile cutting across her face.

"Dr. Fenton," Jamila amended coolly. "May I?"

Jazz felt helpless as Maddie stepped away, instantly missing her comforting presence. Jamila took her place, crouching down to Jazz's level.

"I really am sorry, but I can't let you return to Fenton Works until I know you'll really be safe there. I want you to go home with your parents, I really do, but I want to keep you out of danger more."

"I'm not in danger," Jazz insisted.

"Tonight's events prove otherwise. I was contacted by both the hospital and the dispatch operator you spoke to. It's only temporary. Until I'm sure your parents can take proper care of you. I've made arrangements with a foster home for now."

"Do you really have to do this?" Maddie asked.

"Mom," Jazz said. She reached out, searching for Maddie's hand, squeezing it until Maddie looked at her. "I'll be okay. It's just for now, right? You guys can set everything straight and then we can all go home together with Danny

"Oh, sweetie." Maddie pulled Jazz into another firm hug. "It's not right."

"But it's okay, isn't it? Ms. Faizan can do her work, and she'll see that, and everything will be fine by the time Danny wakes up." Jazz motioned for her father, who quickly joined the hug. It was tight, and warm, and Jazz never wanted to let go, but she had to after a few seconds.

Danny always went on and on about how grown up Jazz was, how she acted so much like an adult even though she was four years younger than him. If she was as mature as Danny always said, then she could do this. She could be grown up right now and be okay with all of this.

She could go with Jamila now, and later, she could go home with Danny.

—

The fight is taking too long. Despite dealing with ghosts for two years now, Jazz has never seen a real fight. If it's someone minor, a single agent is all it takes to swoop in and clean things up before anything bad happens. Mildly destructive ghosts require a few agents, who sometimes block off whole sections of the city, pushing citizens back until the problem is dealt with. Usually, this takes no more than half an hour, although the aftermath of the fight affects the city for days.

But when they send in Phantom, the fight ends before it really begins. Swift, effective, and destructive. Bringing in Phantom means bringing in the big guns.

But they're not so swift today. The minutes drag on, the ghosts caught in a stalemate. It takes Jazz far too long to notice the problem: Phantom is distracted. They keep pulling back at the last moment, holding off from delivering the finishing blow. She doesn't think it's to spare the ghost they're fighting. It's the result, but it's not the reason. Each attack aims to kill, up until the moment it doesn't.

Because Phantom's head keeps swivelling. Toward her. As soon as Jazz realizes this, she scrambles out of the car, ignoring the agents shouting at her to get back inside, and runs over to Tucker and Spike.

"What are you doing?" Tucker asks. His head jerks up and down as he looks between Jazz and the G.I.W. agents. He waves his arms emphatically at the short agent. "He's coming this way now!"

"I don't care. Tucker!" Jazz grabs Tucker by the front of his shirt and pulls him down. She shoves his head forward and points at Phantom. "Do you see it?"

Tucker's face twists in confusion, wrinkling his nose and furrowing his brow. "They're... looking at us.

"Yeah."

Phantom snarls, finally managing to get a hold on Skulker, and rips his arm out of the socket, tearing into the limb like a rabid animal. There's only wires inside, thank god.

Tucker pales. "I don't know about you, but... I don't think I want its attention."

"Tucker! He's not an it!" Jazz protests.

"Phantom is a ghost, Jazz. I'm sorry, I don't get what you're trying to say here," Tucker says.

"Don't you remember what I told you? What happened after you left?"

Tucker stares at her. A few seconds later, realization dawns on his face. "Yeah. Yeah! I do! Do you think–"

"Yeah."

"Shit."

"I know. "

"Jazz, if it is, I don't think..." Tucker trails off. He gives Jazz a pointed look as Phantom screeches and dissolves into a black cloud, reforming behind Skulker. They swing their arms down on Skulker's head, smashing him into the ground.

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" Spike asks. "All I see is a pissed off government goon heading our way."

"Phantom," Tucker and Jazz chorus. Jazz adds, "They keep looking over here."

She can't help the hope that swells in her chest. Two years. Two whole years since the ghosts came, since the G.I.W. took over, since it happened. Two years of stares and whispers behind her back.

Look at that girl, isn't it a shame what happened?

I heard they tried to shoot her too.

I bet he ran away because he couldn't stand to see her.

"So?"

"The hospital," Jazz stresses.

"Oh. Oh!" Spike glances at Jazz from the corner of his eye. "That's good, right? It means they're, you know?"

"He... if they are... if it is." Jazz fumbles over her words, but Tucker seems to understand. He gives her shoulder a reassuring pat.

He didn't run away, Jazz thinks. He didn't mean to leave her. She leans into Tucker, torn between crying out of grief or relief.

Spike taps Jazz's other shoulder. "Hey, this is super gross and touching and all, but we're fucked," he said with a jerk of his chin, motioning to the approaching agent.

—

The Miller family was nice enough. Max and Hannah treated her well. They had fostered their son, Spike, before adopting him when he was six. Jazz only saw him once her first day in the apartment, and he immediately reminded her of Sam, with his black clothes and dark makeup, but a little more punk thanks to his mohawk.

He left Jazz alone for the most part, which she was more thankful for than anything.

Max and Hannah told Jazz they would do their best for her, and that they hoped Danny would be okay, and they would give her whatever she needed to make it through this tough time. The way they talked annoyed Jazz a little. They weren't patronizing, but they acted like they knew exactly what she needed when they didn’t.

They thought she needed a soft bed, a good meal, and a comforting smile, but she really just needed her brother.

The first day at the Millers, Jazz occupied herself with her memoirs. She had been working on them the day of the accident, until the power cut out and Danny's scream filled the house, so loud it made her ears ache. She put in her headphones to drown out the residual scream in her head and got down to work.

Before... it happened, she had been writing down her significant childhood memories. The earliest ones weren't full memories, more like snatches of moments. Danny's soft hand in hers. A small hand rubbing her back after a nightmare. The glow of her star nightlight, which originally belonged to Danny, but he passed it on to her when he learned it made her sleep through the night better. She only learned this fact a few months ago, but it warmed her heart nonetheless.

The memories got stronger after that. Her first time seeing Santa, she was four, Danny was eight, and he took her across town on his own to the mall. Danny teaching her to ride a bike, because their parents were too busy in the lab. Danny making cupcakes for her birthday, because their parents were away at a convention. Danny helping her with her homework, even though he wasn't very good at it, but he still tried his best.

Jazz's pen paused. All her best memories had Danny in them. It wasn't that she had no good memories with her parents, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized they weren't really there as much as they thought they were.

"It's fine," she told herself. She pressed her pen into the page, intending to keep writing, but she couldn't stop thinking.

How many kids learned to cook at eight years old because their parents sometimes forgot to feed them? How many kids were more of a parent to their little sister than their actual parents? How many kids lived above a lab full of dangerous chemicals and volatile weaponry, and were told to clean said lab as part of their chores?

Jazz could think of at least one: Danny. Would things be the other way if she were older? Would she take Danny out on Christmas day so they didn't have to hear their parents fighting about a fat man in a red suit? Would she have been forced to grow up too fast?

She didn't want Danny to be her dad. She wanted her father to be her dad.

"Jazz?"

She jumped, hand shooting across the page, pen ripping the paper in half, tearing through her carefully penned memories and the photocopied photograph taped in the corner.

"Oh, shit, sorry. Was that important?" Spike asked. He held one of the house phones, pressing against his chest.

"Language," Jazz said softly, staring forlornly at the ruined page. The pages beneath were ruined, too, a heavy black line cutting across the first few.

"Weirdo," Spike said. "Anyway, Mom—that's Hannah—wanted me to tell you that social worker is coming on Friday so you can visit your brother."

Muffled noise comes from the phone, and Spike raises to his ear. He listened a moment, nodded, then lowered it again. "And she's sorry they can't take you sooner, but they work during visitor hours, and they don't want you walking through the city on your own," he recited.

"Why not?" Jazz asked.

Spike looked at her funny, cocking his head. "Because it isn't safe."

"Oh." Jazz would be perfectly fine with going on her own. She needed to see Danny with her own eyes, to make sure he was okay. The nurse said he was, but she had to see it for herself. She had to be certain.

Her second day with the Millers, she couldn't bring herself to work on her memoirs again, so she occupied herself with the collection of books in their office. A lot of it was literature, some classic, some poetry, some plays. Jazz gravitated toward the single shelf of textbooks, particularly the psychology. She didn't know much about the field, but something about understanding brains and how they worked fascinated her.

She stayed holed up in the office all day.

Her third day with the Millers was Friday. She waited for Jamila to pick her up and take her to the hospital. Jamila never showed up.

Her fourth day, she learned about the monster that attacked the mall, sending everyone into a panic. It glowed and couldn't be hurt by anything anyone threw at them, until Maddie and Jack showed up with the volatile weapons they made Danny clean and put the monster—ghost—down. All Jazz cared about was why no one was with Danny in case he woke up.

Her fifth day, Jazz thought, and thought, and didn't stop thinking until she couldn't stop thinking about why her parents didn't seem to care as much as they were supposed to.

On the sixth day, Jamila said she could finally see Danny tomorrow. For the first time in a week, it felt like everything would be alright.

—

Spike panics. Jazz knows he panics because he grabs her wrist and makes a break for it before the agent even reaches them.

"Spike!" Jazz stumbles, almost tripping, and tries to resist. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees the agent giving chase. Until Tucker surges after him and tackles his legs. They both go down.

Spike yanks on her arm, forcing Jazz to run faster, and drags her around the corner of the block.

"What was that?" Jazz asks. She grabs her hair. "Tucker's going to get arrested!"

"So were we! You heard what the emergency broadcast said. You know how many laws we're breaking being 'out of our vehicle?'" Spike shouts back. "All of them!"

"They aren't real laws!" And they aren't. They're a guideline of what to do in ghostly emergencies, and the G.I.W. treat every ghost like an emergency. Although, considering the destruction they had just run from, this was a real emergency.

"Funny, doesn't stop them from arresting people!"

Jazz rips her hand out of Spike's grip. "I can't leave them behind!"

Spike stops and turns. His scowl is softer, and he bites his lip, looking at Jazz with worry.

She glares back at him, refusing to move. "I can't."

"This isn't about Tucker, is it?" he asks. He doesn't need Jazz to answer. She doesn't need to give him one. He sighs, pressing a hand to his cheek, one finger spinning his eyebrow ring. After a long moment, he says, "Fine."

Jazz feels a wave of relief that has her grinning.

"Don't expect me to tackle a government agent for you, though. That's all Foley."

They turn back around, sprinting down the street. Overhead, Phantom and Skulker are still battling it out. Skulker's lagging, the plating of his suit warped and melted. The missing arm definitely doesn't help. But Phantom's not looking so good either. A few lucky shots from Skulker's plethora of hidden guns had left them burnt and bleeding.

Can it really be called bleeding? Ectoplasm, rather than blood, seeps out of Phantom's wounds, indistinguishable from the substance dripping from his mask. A wound on their torso slows them down the most, a large scorch mark stretching from the bottom of their ribcage, across their stomach, to their hip on the other side of their body.

Every time it looks like they're about to slow down, the collar on their neck sparks. Phantom hisses in pain each time and dives back into the hunt with renewed vigour.

Jazz forces herself to look away when Spike grabs her shoulder and pushes her behind the same crumpled car Skulker destroyed earlier. Pressing a finger to his lips, he motions her forward, and together they peer around the bumper and look down the street.

The agent has Tucker pinned on a nearby car. Straining her ears, Jazz can just barely hear what he's saying over the grunts and snarls of the fighting ghosts. "You're under arrest for assaulting a G.I.W. agent and interfering with a government operation."

"Come on, Mr. K, that's not cool," Tucker says.

"Agent K. And neither was assaulting me. G.I.W. operations are a matter of national security."

"It's a green blob in a metal suit, fucking chill!"

Agent K pulls out a pair of cuffs and slaps them on Tucker's wrists, keeping him pinned with a hand on his back. Agent K's focus drifts up toward the fight and scowls. Seeing his hesitance, Jazz realizes Agent K isn't going to move Tucker until the fight is done. Too much debris is flying everywhere and it's safer behind the cars than anywhere else. Agent O seems to have found cover, too, behind the overturned truck. He stands there with his gun lowered, hand poised over his watch.

Jazz looks back to Tucker. Neither he nor Agent K has noticed her and Spike yet. "Okay," she says. "I know what to do."

"No," Spike says.

"I haven't said anything yet."

"No. We're not tackling a G.I.W. agent."

Jazz gives him a pleading look, with wide eyes and a small pout.

"No, we're not tackling him!"

Jazz doesn't give him much of a choice. She charges, dashing out from behind the car.

"Son of a biiitch!" Spike shouts, sprinting past her. Agent K hears Spike and turns to face him, but none of his government training could prepare him for the pure shock value of a sickly looking punk goth kid charging at him at full speed. Spike barrels into the agent's chest, throwing him off Tucker and down to the sidewalk.

Jazz is about to throw herself on top of the pile when a loud crash and a panicked cry stops her.

"No, Phantom, no! It's me! Remember? Stop!"

She jerks back at the sound of Skulker's steadily rising voice and peeks over the car Tucker had been pinned against. Skulker lies on the ground in the middle of the road, Phantom hovering far above him. But something's off. Specifically, Skulker's head. It lies a foot away from his body, the eyes dull and expression completely blank.

"Please!"

Jazz's gaze snaps up to Phantom. In his hands, he holds something small and green, and Tucker's words come floating back to her: a blob in a metal suit. Phantom holds Skulker's real form inches from their face, clutched tightly in their hands.

"No!" Jazz cries, jumping out into the street. Everyone freezes, their heads swivelling toward her, and she falters.

"Jazz, what are you doing?" Tucker hisses.

She doesn't know. Phantom is a dangerous, powerful ghost. There's nothing she can actually do to make him stop. There's no real reason she should even try to stop him. In Amity Park, ghosts are like rabid wild animals. They come in, destroy stuff, and then they get put down. Jazz has never met someone who felt sorry for the ghosts.

But she had also never really met a ghost before. And she had never heard one scream and beg for its life as it tries to help the very thing that is going to kill it. She can't watch that. She can't just stand here and witness Phantom squeezing the life—the afterlife—out of this little ghost that says he wants to help.

Whoever this Skulker is, she can't let that happen.

Whoever Jazz suspects Phantom might be, she can't let them do it.

She can't tell if Phantom is looking at her, but she thinks they are. Even as Skulker wriggles and squirms, popping out of their grip, Phantom stays focused on her. A small smile touches Jazz's lips. In the corner of her eye, Skulker flies down to his suit, free to escape.

Jazz takes a step forward. A burly arm loops around her waist and hoists her off her feet, dragging her back.

"Hey! Stop!" Jazz squirms, feet kicking in the air, and throws her head back. She hits Agent K's chin, but he doesn't falter.

"Hey, calm down! It's not safe out here!" Agent K says, his arm tightening around her midsection.

Jazz gasps. "Let me go! You're hurting me!"

Agent K's hold immediately loosens. "Sorry. But what's with you kids, tackling people trying to help you?"

"Wait, what?" Jazz asks, confused.

Suddenly, white fills her vision. Jazz feels a burning, crackling heat, then she's falling, and Agent K her screams. She rolls on the ground, pushing herself up on her hands and knees, and looks over her shoulder.

Phantom has Agent K pinned against a convenience store window, arms pressed against his throat. Their body blurs as they move, leaning in closer. The glass cracks. With a great heave, the window shatters. Phantom sends Agent K flying through the store, flipping over rows of shelves. He crashes into a row of coolers at the back and falls to the floor.

Phantom spins around and faces Jazz. Up close, they look even more feral, ectoplasm dripping like saliva through a series of jagged slots in their mask. The lenses of their goggles are cracked, but the eyes behind them glow so brightly it hurts to look right at them.

Phantom's collar sizzles and they cry out as the shock courses through them. Turning away from Jazz, they lock onto Agent O and howls. Jazz blinks and Phantom is all the way cross the street, roaring in Agent O's face, immersing him in a haze of ectoplasm.

Agent O drops to the ground, clutching their throat.

"No," Jazz whispers, horrified.

Phantom turns back to her. They stumble forward. Jazz takes a step back. As if that's some signal, Phantom lunges toward her. Jazz screams and drops to the ground, crawling toward the sidewalk.

"Phantom, stand down!" Agent K shouts as he clambers out of the broken shop window His demand is met with a roar of ectoplasm that soars right over Jazz. She screams again, folding her arms over her head, but can't do anything against the blistering heat.

Jazz crawls faster, scrambling to her feet as soon as she's able. She heads for Tucker and Spike, both of them wearing cuffs now, but Phantom cuts in front of her. Backpedalling fast, her arms flail as she pivots and runs the other way.

A hazy mist surrounds Jazz and she shudders, a tingling chill passing through her. Phantom reforms in front of her, too close for her for her to stop in time. A green blast soaring over her shoulder saves her. It bursts against Phantom's chest and throws them back.

"Run!" Agent K shouts, training his gun oh Phantom.

Jazz doesn't question she order. She doesn't wait for Phantom to get back. She already knows they will. No matter what Agent K does, Phantom will come after her. She's their prey now.

—

Everything was not alright.

Monday night, Spike once again passed along the message that Jazz would be seeing her brother the next day, a full week after she'd seen him last. This time, Jamila actually showed up, apologizing for Wednesday, citing the chaos at the mall and the havoc it wreaked throughout the city in general. She brought with her the good news that Danny was awake, had been since Friday.

"I'm sorry no one informed you sooner. There were some complications at the hospital," Jamila had said.

Those foreboding words quelled Jazz's excitement but couldn't snuff it out completely. She would finally get to see for herself that Danny was fine. But when she got to the hospital, the nurse said she wasn't allowed to see him.

"Why not?" she asked.

"He's in for tests right now," the nurse said. She turned to Jamila and continued, as if Jazz wasn't there. "We contacted an expert. Apparently, this is something the government's dealt with before. I don't really understand it, but his parents will be seeing him soon, and Jasmine can see him after that."

That was how Jazz ended up in the waiting room, on her own, again. Jamila had gone off to find her parents and speak to them about Danny's situation, whatever that was. Everyone was treating her like she didn't need to know anything, but she was twelve! She was mature, and smart, and she could handle whatever they were keeping from her.

"It's not fair," she muttered.

"Damn right. Although I have no idea what you're actually talking about."

Jazz looked up and saw Tucker claiming the chair next to her. There was no blood on him, and for one wild moment, Jazz realized she expected to see some. It was the first time she'd seen him since the accident, and for some reason, she pictured him frozen in that moment back at the lab, clothes stained red and green.

"Uh, you good?" Tucker asked.

Jazz stared a moment longer, taking in his pale face. "Are you?"

"Ha, you caught me. I don't really like hospitals," Tucker said. He glanced around the room warily and slumped in his chair. "But I heard they were letting you see him today, so I thought. I don't know. Maybe I could sneak in."

"Who told you?"

"Spike."

Jazz blinked in surprise.

"His moms used to babysit me, and my mom watched Spike to return the favour sometimes. When I heard you were with the Millers, I kind of asked him to keep an eye on you for me," Tucker said, smiling sheepishly. "Got to make sure you're alright for Danny."

"Thanks, I guess," Jazz said. She peered closer at Tucker. More than pale, he looked tired, like he hadn't been sleeping, and it made her wonder. "What... what happened? In the lab."

Tucker shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. "It doesn't really matter."

"I think it does."

"What difference will it make?"

"Because then I'll know."

"That won't—"

"Tucker, please." Jazz wasn't mad. She didn't cry. She didn't beg. She just looked at Tucker, feeling helpless and lost.

"Sam thought it'd be cool to go inside," Tucker muttered.

"Oh." Danny would do anything Sam asked, whether she meant him to or not. Everyone knew it.

"Yeah," Tucker said.

"She hasn't come to see him, has she?"

"She feels guilty."

Jazz didn't know how to respond to that. A small part of her was mad at Sam, but at the same time Jazz knew it wasn't completely her fault.

Silence fell between her and Tucker as she sank into her thoughts. Jazz didn't know how it was with other siblings, but Danny's best friend had always been such a staple in her life that she didn't mind being alone with him. He was almost like a second big brother, although Danny would be the undisputed best.

Tucker stayed with her until Jamila returned. She wore a wary smile and gave Tucker a questioning glance.

"I'm Danny's friend," Tucker said, answering her unasked question.

"I see. I'm sorry, but I've been told only family can see him at this time. His should be seeing him now," Jamila said.

"You're not family."

"Due to the nature of the situation, I am his medical proxy."

It was amazing how Jamila could sum everything up without actually explaining anything useful. Jazz wanted to snap at her, but she held back. After all the thinking she had done about her parents, she was no longer certain how she felt about Jamila. Maybe the woman really did want to help.

"It's fine, Tucker. You can just get Spike to tell you all about my visit," Jazz said.

"Oh, that's cold," Tucker said. He pushed himself up and stretched his arms above his head, then let them flop back down at his sides. "I guess I can leave Danny in your capable hands. Give him hell for scaring us like that."

"That's the plan."

Jazz waited until Tucker was gone before turning to Jamila and motioning for her to lead the way. Soon, all her fretting would be over. She could confirm with her own eyes that Danny wasn't still bleeding out on the floor, and maybe even get one of his comforting smiles. Maybe he would even come with her to stay at the Millers until everything got sorted out with their parents. If it got sorted out.

Before they rounded the corner into Danny's hallway, Jamila took Jazz aside and spoke to her softly.

"Something happened on Friday that the doctors can't really explain," she started. "Your brother appears healthy, but he's... different. And I just want to prepare you for that."

Determined, Jazz nodded.

Jamila looked relieved, her wide brown eyes softening, and she smiled. "Okay. Let's go see your brother."

They turned the corner. Nothing happened. Which made sense, because it was just a hallway, and the door to Danny's room was further down. But Jazz was so tense that the brightly lit hospital hallway felt out of place. A long, foreboding corridor would have been more appropriate.

Hospital staff bustled about. A couple patients were stretching their legs. Some visitors had claimed benches that were interspersed along the hall, none of them too interesting. A woman in a pretty blue dress, a man in a white suit, two teenagers with watery eyes and red noses. Jazz wondered who they were all here for.

They were halfway down the hall when a door burst open and a nurse stuck his head out.

"Security!" he shouted.

"That's not my son!"

Jamila's arm curled around Jazz's shoulders, stopping her in her tracks. The way Jamila's hold on her tightened when a security guard went rushing by told her exactly who's room that was. Her fears were confirmed when Maddie and Jack backed out of the open door, herded toward the security guard by the nurse. Danny's door closed behind them.

Jazz twisted, breaking free of Jamila's grip, and ran toward her parents.

"Mom, what's going on? What's wrong?" she asked.

Maddie turned to Jazz and her face fell, tears welling in her eyes. She was barely holding it together "Oh, honey. Danny's... Danny's gone, sweetie."

"No." That wasn't right. Jamila just said Danny was fine. What could have happened in that short time? She refused to believe it.

"No!" she repeated, louder.

Maddie reached out to her. Jazz ducked under her arm, skipping out of reach. She glanced at Jamila, the nurse, the guard, checking to see if any of them would stop her. None of them moved.

"Stop, Jazz!" Jack shouted, taking a step forward.

The security guard stopped him, getting in Jack's way and holding out his arms. "Sir, I will remove you form the building," the guard said.

"Jasmine, do not go in there," Maddie said in a scolding, motherly tone

Jazz went in. She whipped the door open, spinning around and slamming it shut. There was no lock. A quick peek through the window confirmed the guard was still holding her parents back. Satisfied they weren’t going to barge in and drag her out of there, Jazz turned.

She froze. The person sitting on the bed had a familiar head of messy hair, but it faded to white half-way through. His eyes swirled blue and green, the colours constantly shifting, pushing against each other, battling for dominance. When he raised his hand and waved, his arm blurred, trailed by an afterimage.

Bandages crawl up his right arm, wrapping stiffly around his fingers, and winding all the way up to his shoulder, stopping just before the sleeve of his blue gown. She's only seen it once, but Jazz knows there's a gauze patch on his shoulder under that sleeve. A matching patch is plastered against his neck. Thin, spidery blisters creep along his jaw, but don't go much further than that.

His face is sallow, cheeks sunken, eyes looking bruised. The blood is gone. The green goo is gone.

"Jazz!" There was a slight echo to his voice. He beamed. "About time you got here. I was starting to think you didn't care."

There was no mistaking that smile or that teasing voice. Jazz ran forward and threw her arms around his waist, burying her head against his chest.

"Danny!" Jazz cried out, already tearing up. Because it was Danny. He looked different, and he felt different—cold—but it was him.

"You are not gonna believe what's on the other side of that portal, took a lot of work to get back here–"

"Get back?"

"–but here I am!" Danny threw up his arms, grinning even wider.

Jazz noticed his teeth looked a little sharper. "What happened?" she asked.

"Oh, man, you're not gonna believe it. So, the portal turns on, right? And then everything just goes all." Danny waved his hands around. "Hold on, wait, I had it before. Everything just goes all," he snapped his fingers and electricity crackled down his arm, "like that!"

Jazz jumped away from him, staring at his arm as the electricity fizzled out.

Danny's smile slipped. "Oh. You're scared too, aren't you? Mom and Dad... they didn't take it well either."

Jazz opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, the door banged open. Startled, she whipped around and backed up until her hip bumped the side of Danny's bed. Maddie stood in the doorway, holding a silver and green gun. An ectogun, Jazz recalled. Her parents made them to fight ghosts, if they ever saw one.

"Jazz, get away from it!" Maddie said. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots.

"Mom," Jazz said.

"That's not Danny!"

"That's kind of rude," Danny muttered.

"Mom, what are you doing!" Jazz slid in front of Danny, holding out her arms the same way the security guard had.

The barrel of Maddie's gun dipped as she watched Jazz, disbelief written across her face. It looked like she was going to stop. To Jazz, it looked like Maddie was about to reconsider. Until Jazz felt Danny's hand on her shoulder. Maddie's disbelief was drowned out by a furious snarl fueled by grief and rage.

Everything happened so fast.

Danny shoved Jazz out of the way just before the bang. She tripped into a chair by his bed, smacking her head on the armrest. The world went fuzzy for a moment. There wa a shout, and a thump, and her mother started wearing. A stampede of feet come running.

When Jazz's vision cleared, she saw Maddie on the ground, pinned by the same security guard from before, reaching for her gun. No less than three new guards had Jack pinned out in the hallway. The nurse was speaking frantically into a phone. The man in the white suit tapped the nurse's shoulder, holding out his hand for the phone, jerking his chin toward the room. The nurse relinquished the phone without protest.

Jazz crawled backward, away from the chaos, and almost fell when her hand slipped on something warm and wet. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Danny on the floor, bleeding.

—

Jazz has been afraid many times in her life. When she was little, walking through the house in the dark. When she sat in the backseat of the RV while her father had the wheel. When she sat in the hospital, alone waiting to hear if Danny was alive or dead. When she realized he was gone from her life forever.

None of that compares to how she feels now. Her heart beats against her ribs, moments from bursting out of her chest. Her lungs burn and her throat feels tight and she struggles to breathe. Her senses narrow until all she can see is what's in front of her, all she can hear is Phantom inches behind her, all she can feel is the icy heat they give off, so cold it burns.

Jazz makes the mistake of looking back to check how close Phantom is. Practically nose to nose, the green and blue lenses of his goggles are all she sees. She shrieks and stumbles. Phantom reaches out to catch her, latching on to her hair, yanking her head back. She cries out again, tears springing to her eyes.

Phantom jerks away from her, releasing her hair, and raises their hands to their face. They start moaning. Jazz takes off, the ominous wail building behind her. Clapping her hands over her ears, she tries to shut it out. The distraught cry grows louder and louder until the ground shakes, and windows rattle, and a wave of green energy blasts Jazz off her feet.

She soars through the air, screaming, arms wrapping around her head. She hits the ground hard and curls into a ball. Phantoms wail tears into her, a painfully familiar cry of pain amplified a hundred times over, fueled by the power of ectoplasm.

Her ears ring long after it ends, so loud that she doesn’t even realize Phantom's stopped until she notices the ground isn't shaking anymore. She rolls onto her back and lifts her head. Phantom stumbles toward her, clutching their still-bleeding wounds. Gas pours from their mask, ectoplasm erupting from the slits every time they breathe.

Fear keeps her pinned. The only thing Jazz can do is weep, her heart slowly cracking as Phantom edges closer, vicious and unrelenting, not a single shred of humanity with them.

"Please stop!" Jazz wails. "This isn't you! Just stop. See me! Stop being so stupid!"

Phantom's breath rattles as they loom over her.

Jazz screams, "Danny!"

—

Jazz waited until two a.m. before slipping out of her hospital room. A nurse had given her slippers before final rounds, so she wasn't walking barefoot, but they made a loud slapping noise if she didn't walk carefully enough. She stuck close to the wall, one hand on the plastic rail that stretched down the length of the hallway.

Danny was only one room over, but it would only take a second for a nurse to walk around the corner, see Jazz up and about, and usher her back into her room. She slipped through Danny's door, quiet as possible, and tiptoed over to his bed. There was a new swathe of bandages on his left forearm, to go with his growling collection.

Maddie had missed hitting anything vital, but whatever was in her gun sent Danny into a seizure. The police came and took Jack and Maddie away after that, and Danny's doctor admitted Jazz with a concussion. She was only meant to be there one night, and she didn't want to spend it alone.

Grabbing one of the chairs, she dragged it toward Danny's bed, one inch at a time. It made a high-pitched squeak every time she pulled it forward. Nobody came barging in, despite the loud noise, and soon enough she had the fhair right where she wanted it.

She was about to sit down when Danny opened his eyes.

"You could have just picked it up," he said.

"You were awake! Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because it was funny."

Jazz crossed her arms and turned her back to him.

"Aw, come on, I'm sorry. Turn around."

She did, albeit reluctantly, and found Danny had kicked the covers off and shuffled over to the edge of the bed.

"Come on," he said.

"I'm not eight."

"Congratulations. Come on."

Jazz rolled her eyes and climbed in. Using Danny's arm as a pillow, she settled next to him, just like when they were little and she used to come to him after having a bad dream. They would stare up at the stars on his ceiling while he pointed out constellations to her.

There were no stars to point out now but sitting next to him still brought comfort. Danny was all she ever had, and he was all she would ever need.

"Are we gonna be okay?" she asked.

"Totally." Jazz could hear Danny's smile in his weird, new, echoing voice. "I talked to Jamila earlier. She told me about the Millers."

"Are you coming there too?"

"Yeah. Jamila's already made the arrangements. You and me? We're gonna be okay as long as we're together." Danny wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze. "You should head back to your room before someone finds you missing. I'll be right here if you need me."

Jazz nodded, sliding out of the bed. Danny gives her one last smile before she left. On the way back to her room, she paused. The hallway wasn't empty anymore. Someone stood at the very end of it, watching her. It was the man in the white suit.

Jazz waited to see if he would do something. He only stared. Breaking their little stand-off first, she lowered her head and slipped through her door, rushing over to her bed. Pulling the covers up over her head, she curled on her side. It didn't take her long to relax, though, Danny's last comforting words echoing in her head. She drifted off with a smile on her face, thinking of how much better things would be from here on out.

When Jazz woke up in the morning, Danny was gone.

—

Phantom's stopped.

Afraid to move, Jazz holds herself perfectly still for a few long seconds, but no attack comes. She opens her eyes and looks up.

Phantom looms over her, seething. Ectoplasm drips from their mask like toxic drool. Their breathing is ragged, shoulders rising and falling with each pant. They don't even have the strength to holds his arms up so the cuffs don't strain his elbows. Their whole body shakes.

A glob ectoplasm drops to the ground by Jazz's foot, a few specks splashing against her ankle. It burns. She flinches, scrambling back, but Phantom doesn't move. Warily, she pushes herself up onto her knees. When Phantom doesn't react, she gets on her feet, slowly rising out of a crouch. Phantom just stands there.

She should be running. She should take advantage of this reprieve and whatever caused it and get the hell out of there. Over Phantom's shoulder, she spies Spike, Tucker, and Agent K running down the street. They're waving their arms and yelling, probably telling her to get away while she can.

She moves closer to Phantom. Reaching out, she grabs their hood and pulls it down. Their hair is mostly white, but at the roots, there's the thinnest line of black. Now that she's close, she sees how the mask digs into his cheeks and goes for that next. It probably hurts.

It takes her a moment to find the locking mechanism. It rests at the nape of their neck, a simple latch without a key. Cruelly simplistic. She has to get in close to reach up and around their head, and Phantom flinches when her arms circle them.

She freezes, expecting them to attack, or leap away, but they don't. She flicks the latch. The mask doesn't fall away as she though it would, but it's looser now. Carefully, she pries the mask open and pulls it off. It resists, for a moment, so stuck to Phantom's face, but eventually gives. She tosses it away as soon as it's off and can barely hold in her gasp.

A deep imprint cuts across Phantom's cheeks and nose. Ectoplasm smears the lower half of Phantom's face, blisters surrounding their lips. She didn't think a ghost's own ectoplasm could hurt them but looking at how thin the slots in the mask are, it probably takes a lot of pressure to push it all out.

Jazz touches Phantom's cheek, her thumb tracing their jaw, wiping away some of the ectoplasm to reveal a series of thin red lines branching across their skin.

Phantom's shaking has stopped, but Jazz's hands tremble as she reaches for their goggles. She pushes them up to their forehead. The eyes that stare back at her are wild, pupils stretched wide. They look right through her, uncomprehending, but she recognizes them instantly. One has a little more green, the other more blue, but both colours swirl in each iris.

Jazz squeezes her eyes shut. She can't hold back her tears any longer, pressing her head against Phantom's shoulder. She wraps her arms around her brother's neck and sobs.

#phic phight #phic phight 2020 #danny phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #phanfic #jazz fenton #ageswap au #tumblroneshots

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kiri-ah · 3 years

Text

Something To Sink My Teeth Into || he/him pronouns version

Pairing: Vampire!Jaemin x Male Human!reader

Word Count: 26.4k

A/N: Okay so uh... this wasn't meant to be this long. I hate my brain sometimes. *sigh*

This has only been edited by myself and a friend of mine, please excuse any errors. I worked hard to make the best experience possible. For that reason, please note that this is the !he/him pronouns version! They/them pronouns may be found here, she/her pronouns here. Please enjoy!

He smiled then, a smirk that seemed far too self-assured for the situation, and leaned over towards your exposed ear. “I can feel you staring, baby,” he murmured. The top of your ear, which had been feeling rather numb, flamed hot at his words. It almost hurt, the sudden jump into heat. You turned towards him fully, only eyes exposed by the scarf mountain. Your hair whipped around as the wind shifted again, but he didn’t seem cold, although he was in only a pair of black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black jacket. The jacket caught your attention for a second - it was studded with thousands of little rhinestones, like a varsity jacket gone shiny. Then he shifted closer into your space and you were forced to look back at his eyes, glittering in a way that seemed almost predatory. You sucked in a breath through your mouth and started to back away.