#said while coughing up blood Weird Woman Wednesday.......

[wwwafflewrites]

Never Fear (The Winchesters Are Here)

Follow Your Heart

You tried following your heart, once, as a senior in college with straight A’s, a bright future, a career so close you could almost touch it. You were so close to satisfaction. So close to that diploma.

And all at once, that dream ceased to be. And all you could think was my heart must be very very lost.

It all began on a cloudy Friday evening, you were just about to end your shift with the dogs. It was a tangled mess of leashes when you made it back to the animal shelter. Sweat and dog hair covered you, and after a good shower of puppy kisses, you finally untangled yourself from the mass of dogs and return them to their rightful cages.

You refused to meet their sad eyes. You made that mistake, once, and had spent half an hour reassuring each heartbroken dog that they were, indeed, a good boy.

"I’ll see you guys in the morning!" you promised with a wave and a jangle of your dog whistle, and after a reply of barks, you left the building at dusk.

The road was silent, the street lamps weren’t on yet, and the clouds had become heavier in the sky. You had read in the forecast it was going to rain, but hadn't expected this.

The tightness in your chest only continued to build as you made it to the campus. The sun was just barely visible behind the storm clouds that had rolled in. The wind had become cool, and the wind had picked up, sending chills up and down your spine.

Perhaps it was just a combination of paranoia and reasonable worry for a woman walking alone at night to her college dorm, except your blood chilled the moment you unlocked your room and entered.

The hair on your arms and the back of your neck were on end. Your eyes adjusted to the dim light, and you realized that the window was open, and the harsh breeze was whipping past you.

You laughed it off, feeling silly. Though that night you slept with your cover tight against your chest, back against the wall, and your little silver paring knife under your pillow.

The next day, you experienced the same fear. Except, this time, it was sunny out.

What was triggering these feelings of dread? It was like you couldn’t focus anymore. Everything just felt... itchy. That was the only way you could describe it.

With each day that passed, the source of your terror was slowly revealing itself. Little, weird things that wouldn't be so noticeable to an outsider, but as someone who valued cleanliness and order, it might as well have been an elephant in the room.

Things were never as you left them. On Sunday morning you couldn’t find your hairbrush. Monday evening, your bed was mysteriously unkempt, even though you’d recalled making it that morning. Tuesday, the caps of your perfume bottles were all off and littered on the floor of your bathroom. Someone had been in your dorm.

You didn't have a roommate.

You called the police at midnight on Wednesday, and they showed up to your dorm to find you locked in the bathroom.  They chalked it up to a wild imagination. You were three floors up, after all. Nobody was breaking in. You were just a stupid, homesick college student.

Right?

Pah, it wasn’t like you were a senior, or anything. Or that you’d ever even cried wolf in the last three years of living alone. But yeah, sure, call it paranoia.

Three weeks later, there was a knock on your front door.

It startled you enough to send you on your ass. You stared at the door from the floor, and it loomed over you like a bad dream.

Your stalker had been your shadow for almost a month at that point. A gaze that burned into the back of your skull, even when there was no one around. You wanted them to keep their distance.

You stood like a whisper, careful not to make any noise as you tiptoed to the peephole of your door. This was it. There would finally be a face to your terror. Someone you could blame.

A weird combination of disappointment and relief washed over you when you saw two FBI agents instead. Your fear of it being your stalker morphed into a fear of the justice system. Had they come to laugh at you just as the police had?

When they knocked a second time, you opened the door.

They showed you their badges and introduced themselves. "Mind if we come in?" Agent Young asked. He had longer, brown hair and kind eyes. You couldn't hold a gaze with him worth your life.

Strangers in your home, even authorities, made your hackles raise. What the helllllll was all you could think as you welcomed them into your tiny dorm as your legs shook.

A million questions raced around your head at once.

"Could we ask you about the death of your professor? Mr.Cleveland?"

Your heart plummeted and all hope died within you. Oh. This was about that whole freak-show. "What about it?" you said. Your feet shifted.

"Well, it’s said that you were there at the time of his death. Is that true?" Agent Scott asked. He was more intimidating—more rough around the edges—but you supposed he was just professional.

"Um. Uh, yeah. It…" the agents were watching you with intrigue, and you looked to the carpet. "It was horrible." And it was. It was bloody and scary, and all your fault because you had just stood there—watched as the professor died right in front of you.

Upon seeing your haunted look, Agent Scott spoke a little gentler. "Did you see what happened?"

"I—yeah… I saw it all. He—he had been helping me with something. An essay. I was flunking and he suggested a one on one." That had only been a week ago. Your grades had suffered as you juggled your classes. When Mr.Cleveland died... you abandoned college altogether and let the dog whistle collect dust.

"I don’t know… he just…" started dying at your feet. You hadn’t even tried to pick up a phone. You just stood there, and you watched. Your breath picked up. "...he just—"

Agent Young's voice was sympathetic. "He started coughing up blood?"

"Yeah. I didn’t—I didn’t know what to do. I kept thinking about..." the stalker, you thought. I couldn’t stop thinking about the stalker. "I froze and, a-and I just watched—"

"Easy, easy. It’s okay. We just need to know the details," Agent Scott said.

You paused, then. Something didn’t add up. "Wait... why is the FBI interested in a guy that died of a lung disease?" When the agents exchanged glances, you squinted at them, your anxiety briefly replaced with confusion.

"We don't think it was, erm, lung disease," Agent Scott said. "We think he might have been…" He searched for the word a little too long for your liking. "...uh, poisoned."

"Poisoned?" you yelped. "Who could have… oh god, that makes me a suspect, doesn't it?"

"Unfortunately."

Your stomach sank, and that anxiety returned. "You guys have to know I wouldn't—I would never—"

"If we thought it was you, you would be in custody," Agent Scott informed you curtly.

Agent Young frowned at his partner as if to say not helping and then turned back to you. "We just want to know what you saw that day. Anything weird? Strange noises? Smells?" He narrowed his eyes. "Is there anyone you know who would want to kill Mr.Cleveland?"

This was your chance to tell them about your stalker. If there was anyone who could help you, it was the FBI.

Yet you clammed up.  "No, not really," you blurted. "Nobody I can think of, honest. Not to be rude, but I have finals tomorrow. Could you… leave?"

Who were you kidding, your grades had dropped so low lately that even finals wouldn't save you. But they didn't know that.

...probably.

They offered you a trained smile that didn’t reach the eyes. "Of course. We'll get out of your hair. If you think of anything else, here's our card." And with that they left the room.

The tightness in your chest did not ease.

///

That night, you had dreams of monsters and of evil people that could poison someone and smile. You dreamed of your stalker, and them laughing as you choked on your own blood.

You woke up in a cold sweat, eyes snapping open to the glow of an agape window. It was shut when you fell asleep, but it was open now, blowing in a breeze that chilled your blood.

Your dog whistle was gone.

It was a fear like no other. Your gut was screaming at you to launch for the phone. You did, automatically dialling the number on the business card that laid discarded on the other end of the room. You had memorized it after hours of staring at the numbers, debating whether or not to call them, then ultimately deciding not to with anxiety gnawing away at you.

They answered it on the second ring.

"Hello?" said a gruff voice. Agent Scott.

"I remembered something," you blurted. "You-you said to call… if I thought of something..." You trailed off when you saw the clock. "Oh god, it's three in the morning. Maybe this can… this can… this can wait…" It couldn't wait.

"No, wait. What is it? Might be important if it's got you up at three in the morning. Unless it's just finals?"

You shook your head and then realized he couldn't hear that. "Not finals. Someone's been stalking me for the past week. I thought… maybe, I was paranoid. I was... constantly told that I was paranoid. But someone was in here while I was asleep. And might… might still be close."

"Okay, you got a knife?"

"A knife?" You squeaked.

"Yeah. A knife. To defend yourself."

"Oh. Right. Right, okay. Uh. Well, uh, I have a paring knife?"

"You have... a paring knife," he repeated.

"Um, yeah? Is that okay? The dorms have rules against big knives. For safety reasons. It's a silver p—"

"Silver? Okay, you know what? That's fine. That's good. Use that. Is it sharp?"

"Sharp enough, I hope." You ran over to your cabinet, pulling out the knife and holding it to your chest. Your ragged breaths were loud in your ears. "Now what?"

"Well," he said, and you could hear an engine starting in the background. "We should be there in a few minutes. Stay on the phone, you hear me?"

"I—should I have called 911? This has never happened to me—"

"You're doing fine. Now, what made you so sure that someone had been in your room?"

"Well, the open window. I live up a few floors. There is no way they could have opened it unless—"

"Unless someone had been in your room. Alright. Just sit tight, okay? Don't hang up."

"O-okay." The agents will be here soon. They will help me. You had the knife and phone held so close to your chest and tight in your fist that your knuckles were white.

I will not die.

Without warning, you choked. It was wet, coppery, and lukewarm on your tongue. You clawed at your neck for air. You fell to your knees. The phone clattered on the wooden floor'; it buzzed with muffled shouting, but you couldn't pick it up, nor could you answer.

Just then, a massive shadow crawled in from your window, and it grunted like an animal. You barely had enough strength to look at him as trails of red spit hung from your face.

The man had claws. The man had claws. The man—the thing, had—for the love of God, inch long claws.

Down the hallway, there was a muffling of running feet. They would be too late. You realized then: you were probably going to die. You were no fair match.

You could feel the monster’s breath on your neck when the beast abruptly fell down like a sack of potatoes, howling and twisting.

Blindly, you stabbed it in the chest with all your strength, twisting the blade and then collapsing once again into a fit of retching.

The agents burst into the room.

But instead of moving to help you, they tore the room apart in search of something. You couldn’t help but sob in despair. Why weren't they helping you?

But when Agent Scott whipped out a little bag from your drawer and lit it on fire, the choking miraculously ceased.

You melted into the floor to catch your breath again. For a minute everyone just breathed. You really appreciated the minor break.

Agent Young helped you up, closely inspecting your heavy, slightly bloody, zoned-out face, and decided you were okay.

You licked your lips, still not processing any part of the last hour. "What," you said, "just happened."

The agents exchanged looks.

You looked at them. Really looked at them. "You're not FBI, are you?"

Agent Scott shrugged at his partner. "You gonna give her the talk, Sammy, or should I?"

///

"Were-witches," you deadpanned. Monsters, hunters, hex bags, and were-witches.

"Yep," Agent Scott—or Dean Winchester, you were now learning—said. "He probably got a whiff of you covered in dog hair or something. You're lucky we got here in time. The pervert was, I kid you not, jellifying human hearts with dark magic. Like, alive. And then he’d make you regurgitate—" He caught the hard look from Agent Young—Sam—and shut up. "But, yeah. Were-witches."

You frowned. "I can accept witches and werewolves, but… were-witches? For real?"

"Trust me, we didn't know they existed either," Sam informed you.

Dean laughed to himself. "Hey Sammy, should we call him a son of a witch or a son of a bi—" His smile faltered with both Sam and your glaring. "Get it? Witch jokes? Dog jokes? Sheesh, okay, you guys are seriously no fun."

Sam sighed. "We should probably take the, um, dead werewitch, out of here."

You followed his eyes to the heap of fur on your floor. Seeing your stalker dead was a major weight off your shoulders. It was such a relief that you felt high.

Sam was still talking. "—and you have finals?"

You sobered. "Right. Those." Like you would do anything except bomb them.

Sam must have known the look. "You haven't studied, have you? At all."

Shaking your head, you slumped into the mattress. "Nope. This stalker thing screwed me up big time. There's just no way." You sighed. Sam's dark look made you squint at him. "What?"

"I just, uh, know the feeling," Sam said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "I got a free ride to law school before the hunting life took me away. I was already a hunter, I didn't have a choice. But you still do. You can still have that life you want." He tapped the card, still on the desk from his last visit. "Stay out of trouble and call us whenever. Especially if it's three in the morning."

Right then, you noticed the dog whistle was back, as if it had never left. Realization hit you like a brick to the head. "You did that! You blew the whistle."

"Yeah, well, I knew it was a werewolf. So I took a gamble and… borrowed it. Guess I didn't think you'd miss it—it was pretty dusty."

"You stole my whistle!"

"Hey, no, I borrowed it—"

"You gave me a heart attack! I thought the werewitch had stolen it! That's what set me off and made me call you—not the window!"

Dean cracked a smile. "Hey, it saved you, though, yeah? If I hadn't taken it, who's to say I could have saved your damsel ass?"

"Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean said automatically.

You blinked in surprise at the speed of his reply.

His eyes widened. "Sorry. That's… uh, Sam usually says that and I respond with…"

You laughed. Really laughed. You doubled over, struggling to breathe for the second time today, but this time it was welcome. The Winchesters inevitably joined in as you howled. You wiped away your tears of laughter, occasionally breaking into a smaller fit.

"You good?" Dean asked, grinning,

You sighed, the hysteria wearing off. "God, it wasn't even that funny! You just caught me by surprise. Thanks, though. For saving me, and all."

Dean smiled, patting you on the back. "No problem, kid."

You settled into a comfortable silence. You were still trying to calm down as they watched you with looks of fondness.

"Are you going to be able to sleep?" Sam asked.

You knew what he meant: were you going to be able to sleep alone? And honestly, you had a feeling you would sleep like a baby tonight. However, you had no purpose staying here anymore. "Would I be stepping too far if I asked to come with you? Just for the night."

"Of course."

#supernatural #supernatural series #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural gif #SPN #spn gifs #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #Supernatural fanfic #dean winchester #dean #Sam Winchester #sam #winchesters #reader #reader insert #x reader #spn fanfic series #spnfandom #spn fandom #supernatural fandom #dean x reader #dean x you #dean x reader angst #dean x y/n #dean x platonic reader #sam x reader #sam x platonic reader

[violetbeachpod]

1x01 / twelve oh one

TERESA:

Okay, so–it’s recording. Cool .

Um. It’s Wednesday. It’s been nine days since–eight days, maybe? –well, if you’re listening, at this point, you know what it was–Benji says we’re gonna publish this, but, like, no. That’s–that’s ridiculous. This is for science.

Or our memoirs. Whatever.

We’ve–the seven of us have decided to keep a log. Of what’s been going on.

Um. So. Cool. Name and deets, just in case some more weird memory shit goes down–My name’s Teresa. I’m eighteen. I’m an Aries, I like bowling and shitty pop music, and only mostly ironically. That enough fluff? I’m a freshman at, ah, Lands College, here in town, and. Studying journalism, with a minor in women’s studies, uh–anything else–I feel like this would be a better story if I start showing, rather than telling.

Or, like. Telling stories rather than just reading out my dating profile. Because that’s lame.

My dating profile’s actually–it’s a lot more detailed than that. I’m on, like, seven different sites, and every profile is. Very Different.

(text notification sound)

Anj, stop–stop listening in! You–you–dude, take a nap.

So. Anyway. Here’s what we know.

(long beat)

That was good, right? A good joke? That’s something. Um. Cuz we don’t know very much at all. There’s something there, I swear, like, I rehearsed that bit in the bathroom mirror this morning, and I was thinking, no, I won’t pull that, but–

But. Back to the point.

Y’know how, in movies, people are always like, “Nobody knows except for us?”

That’s so exclusive. So presumptuous. We don’t know if people are lying. We haven’t spoken to every person on the planet–we haven’t even spoken to anyone outside of Maryland. Outside of town. Like. We’ve watched news, but God knows, some of those conspiracies about hypnosis through CNN are real, or whatever. Y’know? Like–those conspiracies are almost exclusively believed in by, like, flat-earthing racists, so, like, they’re probably, definitely super wrong, but–I was making a joke and I’m overthinking it now. Cool.

Anyway. We don’t know who knows. Maybe someone in, like, Caracas, knows? Maybe someone in–you get my point–knows.

Or maybe we’re being Truman Showed. Wouldn’t be the worst theory to have come out of this.

I would–well, I’d hate it, but one time, back in middle school, the public library did these–these movie nights for teenagers, right? And, so, uh, a bunch of us were there, and I was sitting with Angie, cuz she was–she was the only person I knew there, of course, and she was sitting with these kids, like–uh, from the hippie school she had taken in, and–one of them was AJ, I know, and one was Charlotte. but the others, I don’t see anymore.

But anyway, she was, like, starry-eyed at the idea of her life being a TV show without her knowing. At the idea of unintentional stardoms. So maybe she’ll get a kick out of that theory.

Here’s something: I was working on my campaign notes earlier, cuz the group’s meeting tomorrow, should meet tomorrow  and I didn’t really–I didn’t like a few of the potentials, so, whatever. Irrelevant.

I checked the time, and–well. It was twelve oh one. And two minutes later, it was still twelve oh one. And now, it’s still twelve oh one.

I thought maybe my laptop was being bad again? But it said the same on my phone, and on the wall clock.

The app says time is passing. It’s been longer than fifty-nine seconds.

It’s still twelve oh one, though, is the thing. Which isn’t great, all things considered.

But, we’ll catch up on that later.

Here’s the big thing. I went back to the beach last night to see if I could recreate what happened alone, and, uh–at least. I think I did. I don’t remember going, but, uh, Angie says I did, and AJ said that when he was closing at work, he saw me walking towards it. But I didn’t–I didn’t go.

There are sixty-nine–which, yeah, nice, that’s the sex number, whatever–sticky notes on the bathroom mirror, and, like–I can make out letters on some of them them? Individual letters? But not words. And I know that they’re making words, and I know that it’s my handwriting, but my brain just–it goes somewhere else.

And other ones, that I can read, they have dumb stuff. One of them’s just a doodle of David Hyde Pierce with a caption that just says “HELL YEAH. LOOK AT THE MOON WEDNESDAY.”

It’s, like–in fairness to me, or the person I assume to be me, it’s a fairly good David Hyde Pierce. And there’s–there’s a new moon tonight, so–well.

Whatever.

It’s still twelve oh–oop. Nevermind. Twelve oh two now. Nice.

Benji wants me to take off work until this whole thing’s sorted out. Says he’ll still pay me, but, like–being yelled at by awful dudes about trivia that nobody knows is kind of the only constant in my life right now? So I said no. Obviously. Like. It sucks, but it makes me feel normal. Like the beach out by Angie’s place did, before–

Well. Maybe some recollection would be nice, I guess. Just so, like, Danny and company–like, if we end up showing them. Cuz I’m better at sticking to the facts than, say, Robin or Charlotte. So. Yeah.

So. Uh.

Most folks know that she transferred in after a semester at–well, I’m not allowed to say the name of the school in front of her, anymore, and she’s, like, giving me death-eyes out of the bedroom door. But. A certain Ivy League school. This is relevant–

Okay, maybe not, but it’s a nice set up to our establishing shot, which is, of course, her New Year’s party, nine days ago. At her parents’ place. Or, eight days ago, at her parents’ place, I guess. She told us on New Year’s Eve that she was starting at Lands on the fourth, and I offered her a stay in my dorm, cuz I had a single, and, uh, it sucked? But. Whatever.

So I said, “You know, I have a single.” And she said–wait, lemme find my journal–yes, I do write down conversations, Angie.

Alright. She said, “Oh, really, is it on–Bandcamp, Soundcloud, iTunes, MySpace? I didn’t know you–” And I said, “I meant dorm room, dude, you mentioned–MySpace?”

She said, “I still use it.” I laughed, “Of course you do.”

But, anyway. We agreed to live together, but. It was one AM. Robin Cabell dropped by with her new fiancee, said hi, and–well, like, our babysitter’s getting married, to, like, this gorgeous girl from DC, and the high school kids from the hippie school were there, and Benji was there, cuz he’s everywhere, and–

As folks left–Angie started playing Wonderwall around 3AM, so, uh, a little bit before then–it ended up just being the seven of us. Her parents are out of town–as always. Well, not always. But frequently.

They’re mad about–Blarvardgate.

I–I didn’t say it! I said something mildly close alluding to it. Stop texting me!

But. It was just the seven of us there, Angie still playing some terrible 90s song, and–Benji says, “I brought fireworks. Forgot about that til now.” Elaine, uh, Robin’s new fiancee, asked, “They legal?”

Benji said, “It’s New Year’s Day and I’m a–a bit of a town celebrity,” he said, because his podcast gets, like, seventeen downloads per episode.

“You are?” asked Elaine.

He got really proud, real fast, and he said, “Yes, absolutely, and also, I’m at some rich people’s house and it’s New Year’s Day, so, like. We’ll be fine.”

Which, fair.

And that’s about when things blew up?

Ironically, not literally, cuz he went to his truck, and brought out the fireworks, and he was–well. It was New Year’s, he wasn’t sober, so, he tripped, and those things went flying, landing in the water. It was a bad fall, he hit his head on a rock. And Charlotte was laughing, and she was wading right where the waves were breaking, and she fell backwards, so–AJ panicked, and he jumped in after her, cuz she wasn’t coming up.

And AJ came up, holding Char so she could stand, and she was coughing up water, looked like she was about to pass out. I was checking out Benji’s wound, even though, I’m, like,–blood? Not my thing, ever, at all, it’s–it’s weird and red, and Angie was getting up to check on me, and Rob and her fiancee were trying to help out the kids, and–

And the sky went bright purple.

Not, like, when it’s a sunset, and the sky’s kinda magenta? And that’s blending into the night-sky color, but–

Like, highest saturation on photoshop, highest brightness, makes-you-almost vomit cuz your eyes are burning, that bright purple.

And my skin, it felt like it was burning. I smelled salt, felt a breeze, and I tried to close my eyes, to breathe out, but I couldn’t.

And then there was nothing.

And then I woke up on the beach. I could smell salt, I was totally clear-headed–and Benji’s cut? It was gone.

My watch said it was around 4AM. My phone was dead, but–it was the first, still. The sun was rising, in–in normal sky colors.

And I woke up second. Elaine was already up.

She asked me if I saw it too.

I said I that did.

Neither of us needed to clarify what. But we did. Obviously. Because “it” could be, like, anything, like–could be that new reality show that everyone’s super into where eliminations are decided by arm wrestles–it’s, like–it’s got compelling storylines, I swear.

My phone died, Angie, so if you’re trying to communicate, I can’t help you.

Oh! Time’s passing normally now. That’s nice. That’s good.

The plan was to recount the past week’s events, as well as their psychological effect on us. That’s what we agreed on.

So. Time stopped for a little while today. That was weird. That’s important.

I guess–I’m first, so I should talk about my other big experience too.

I was the fourth of us to see something, after it all? It was the third. After work, I was walkin’ to Ramon’s? And as I passed the custard stand, I saw this woman.

She was shorter than me, uh, long sundress on that was way too summery for this weather, but she didn’t seem cold. I offered her my hoodie, cuz I at least had long sleeves, but she didn’t answer. Dark hair, big sunglasses. I’d wager maybe thirty.

She took off her sunglasses, yeah? And the sky flashed purple–the same purple, the same burning feeling all over me–

And then the same nothingness, same smell of salt, same breeze, but–

I was still standing. And we were in this space, this–this purple nothingness, no ground, no sky, no nothing, that’s a double negative, you get what I mean, and–I was still standing–more floating, which was–not as pleasant as you’d expect? But not unpleasant, either. And this woman, she looked at me,  dead in the eyes, and–

And she said–

(beat, uncomfortable)

What did she say?

(laughs)

It’s–it’s in my head, like. Tip of my tongue. I wrote it down, but it’s–it’s another individual letters making out a word I know but can’t–type situation.

But whatever.

What I’m most concerned about is my going to the beach. About the sticky notes. Like, that’s some sci-fi bullshit. Or some horror bullshit. Either or. Probably both.

Again, Truman Showed. Viable theory, here.

Or it has something to do with the Groundhog Day thing. Maybe.

I think what bothers me about this is how easy I’m accepting all this–that, like, I’m fairly sure all this is real. I know it’s–it’s weird. I know that this is sci-fi-esque, but, like–I never saw myself as a protagonist, or–any kind of tagonist, I guess, in those stories. But this–now, I think that I am.

So. Cool.

But why do I think that’s cool? I’m the–I’m the socially-stilted nerdy girl who either dies second or gets really good at guns, and I’m very afraid of guns.

So, therefore? I’m dying second.

Or, or or or, I’m Lois Lane. Charming and tough young journalist, swept off her feet by a charming stranger. Hopefully not a Superman, though, cuz–he’s not my thing. But. Yeah. I can deal with Lois.

I feel like I should know what happens next. Me or Benji, we gotta, we’re the ones who know genre like the backs of our hands. That’s why we’re friends, but–

This isn’t supposed to happen here. Like, I grew up here, and I’m–I wasn’t planning to stay here forever, obviously, but–This town, VB, it’s–it’s comforting in its boringness. Sure, it’s not– the people here are always cycling in-and-out, cuz tourism and school, and all that, but–Violet Beach is a normal-ass town. We don’t have ghost stories, we don’t have cryptids, we–we don’t have lore, or whatever. I don’t think there’s ever been a murder here, for God’s sake.

Okay, well–the hippie school’s headmaster, uh, the rebrander guy, Andrew Corielli, or–his son’s the mayor, right?–Shot that grocer, like, in the sixties. But everyone was a serial killer back then, if I can trust every true crime show ever.

But–my point is. What’s going on is not what happens in this town. What’s going on is what goes on in, like, Roswell, or–or Twin Peaks, or something.

I’m–I don’t have much else to say. That’s a conclusion if there ever was one. So. Uh.

Okay. I’m signing off. Thanks, guys. Hope to see you soon.

#script #season one #teresa

[lifeafterten]

RtN 02: Sept 02 -Sept 12; Get Me the FUCK Outta Here

I’ve been here for days. Who the fuck stays in the hospital for days?... Fucked up people. And I’m in Fucked-Upville-- Population (points to self) this mother fucker. 

Okay. Okay. I’m turning the drama down.  Honestly though... I’ve been here a fucking while. I have an I.V. tube in each arm, one for fluids, because I’m perpetually dehydrated, the other is for the antibiotics that don’t seem to be working, because I still feel like death. I have to often lay in awkward positions so I don’t tangle myself and make the machines go off. So. Much. Beeping. And I swear to Christ, if they come at you with a little blue bag and claim it’s potassium... RUN--Fucking run, because once they hook your ass up to that shit you’ll feel like they’re injecting fire into your veins and you can’t scream because let’s face it: you’re too damn tired, so you settle for some weird case of facial Tourettes in the form of wincing and hissing. And they turn the drip down enough for the fire to feel like a sting... and you feel that effervescent sting until it’s done. It’s “supposed” to take 30 minutes-- they say. But my pansy ass can’t take the heat so the slowed down version makes it last at least an hour and some change. I pray I’m not stubborn enough today to take the morphine.  Why won’t you take the morphine, Ashley? I’ll fucking tell you why-- I have control issues.  And the morphine feels too fucking good that I need the pain to remind me that I’m still alive and to gauge between dream and reality.

At this point I’m agitated (by pain and impatience). I’ve been stuck by damned needled so many times, because of all the bloodletting I’ve been doing.  These assholes have been taking my life source (no, not coffee, you freak) twice a day. Oh, I’m sorry, they’ve been taking my “blood cultures” twice a day.

Why? They don’t say. They tell me to ask my doctor. My doctor is a pussy.  Soft spoken; pussy footing fucking pussy, who can’t give me a straight answer.

I dismiss my doctor more than a person dismisses alcoholism. Day drinking is not a bad thing. Who cares if it’s barely noon and you’ve been drinking since 9. ... Not speaking from experience-- Anyway!

I dismissed my doctor a lot. I couldn’t help it. I’ve been laying up in this bitch for weeks and you can’t give me some indication of what’s going on; let alone a time frame of when I’ll be able to go home-- on top of a mother fucking reason why I’m being kept in here for so damn long? Yeah. Fuck that shit. Dismissed, mother fucker. I have no fucks to give for useless asshats. Come talk to me when you can tell me what the fuck’s up. 

I’ve been moved to three or four rooms. From the ER bed to Surgery... Then to another room in Surgery... to the Telemetry ward, because my heart rate was too high-- which honestly I’m not surprised... I’ve been on permanent pissed the hell off for quite some time now.  They take my vitals every 30 minutes.  I’ve been counting because I literally have nothing else to do, besides... I only feel that it’s fair that I monitor them while they monitor me. But mostly it’s because I’m bored and there’s nothing on TV.  By now I’ve refused visitors.  I’ve dodged death a couple times.

Homicide via Mio overdose: Backstory: I asked for Mio, because they kept saying I was dehydrated and I thought I needed electrolytes like a muh’fug, so when my friend Kris came by (note she had no idea what Mio was let alone how to use it) and had dumped an entire bottle of Mio (24 servings) into my water jug (16 - 24 oz tops). I take one sip of it and I thought I was gonna die. Chest was on fire. My machines were going crazy, because I was coughing my lungs out and poor Kris is panicked and distraught. Its hard to convey you’re okay if you’re croaking like you’ve been smoking for about 300 years and your vision is obscured by tears. Sidenote: The incident still brings her to tears to this day, she feels so bad. Personally, I think it’s adorable and funny... Now, at the time...? Owie.

Suicide via Mother doth Love too much: I love my mother. I do. I love my entire family. But they like to hover and it was stifling. They’re looking at me with worried eyes when they think I’m asleep and I get it.  It doesn’t look good, kid.  My sister? God love her, she tries to keep the worry and her tears in check because she knows I don’t know how to handle them.  My Dad? Shit, my dad knows what’s up. He knows I’m gonna handle my shit the only way I know how. On my own terms. This is why I’m a daddy’s girl. My brother and sister in law on the other hand? My bother spilled water down the front of my gown (had to change that shit. not fun) and his wife, in her efforts to break my fever, stuffed my fresh new gown with ice packs.. And when I say ice packs, I mean latex gloves filled with ice stuffed in my gown. Stuffed. In. My. Fucking. Gown. That’s it-- I’ve had it! Everyone’s banned.

And it’s also hard to put on a tough front when all I wanna do is cry, but I end up just being angry instead.

The only human interaction I had is when the nurses are taking my blood, or my vitals, or switching my IV bags, or helping me to the bathroom to do bathroom things, or giving me sponge baths because I’m too weak to get out of bed, or shooting morphine into my body to ease my torment; or shoving pills down my fucking throat because nothing is fucking working. I’m still getting fevers out of nowhere.  People are coming in and out every morning to lift my gown up (they do it so much they don’t even ask anymore. A brief thought of charging them crosses my mind, and I allow a small giggle. Because it’s silly, because I’m glad I still had somewhat of a sense of humor.) Still, I think my cooter deserves some ounce of respect. Women’s lib and all that crap. I’ve turned this part of the day into a game (I’m SO fucking bored). I like to spot the face tightening moment when they assess whatever the fuck is going on with my leg (I don’t know. I haven’t seen... I don’t want to see yet). 

It’s fun for me, because they’re medical professionals-- they’re supposed to be used to this kind of thing. But the face tightening? To me that’s a victory. That just means they have to school their expressions to indifference so as to not alarm me. Ah, bed side manner.  They’re so sweet. But I know just by their non-expressions that it looks fucked up. I have to look at the small details; read between the lines of what they’re not telling me.  I’d be in the dark otherwise. What are they not telling me? I know they’re testing for something... But I don’t know what they’re testing for. I stamp down fear, because I don’t have enough data to panic.

My dreams are getting scarier, because of the morphine. No more morphine, I promise myself. Vicodin only.  Yeah, that seems safer. The nurses, I’ve learned, just need someone to listen to them. Since I can’t get a decent night’s sleep because they’re fucking coming in every 15 to 30 minutes all day, every day, all the fucking time... Why the fuck not? I got nowhere else to be. I seem to have opened Pandora’s Box, because it’s 3am and I’m giving life advice to Agnes who has a very rebellious son, whom I point out is 16 years old and he’s going through a phase, it doesn’t mean she’s a bad mother.  Which I reminds me that I need to tell Doris who’s part of the Day crew that Agnes is off on Wednesdays too and that they should hangout together, because I think they would get along. I make a mental note to pass Agnes’ number to Doris later. I really should start charging... This pro bono shit aint working out. 

During my hospital stay I’ve managed the following:

Make only 4 nurse assistants cry

Befriend most if not all the Filipino nurses (they gave me all the apple sauce I wanted)

Make that one stern Indian Night Nurse smile (she gave me yogurt and bananas every time she was on shift)

Counsel only 5 to 6 nurses, mostly 5.. the 6th one kinda got weird. Didn’t take whatever she gave me.

Snob my doctor almost every day. 

Made my main nurse laugh because she thinks I’m a riot. 

Days later it was time for me to go home. I knew this for damned sure.  I saw so many specialists from an infectious disease doctor to a surgeon. I was so fucking bloated from all the fluids they were trying to fill me with that they could barely find veins to stab to get their precious blood cultures from. 

I also decided that with my body like this the Mitchelin tire man was my cousin.

Sidenote: To hell with the Infectious Disease doctor. That heifer made me lay on my side for two fucking days straight. Fat load that shit did for me. With all the extra fluids in my body, it just shifted to one side. All it gave me was a backache and lopsided boobs... and some fucking fluid in my lungs. Fucking devil woman. I got a fucked up leg, I’m the size of a float during the Macy’s Day Parade, and now I got lopsided tits. It’s funny... now. At the time? Not so much. It was September 12.  I had broken out in a rash due to an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics. (Let’s just add that to the list of whatever the fuck else is wrong with my body, shall we?) My “doctor” (doesn’t deserve the title nor respect. Sorry not sorry) was trying to get me to stay a few more days. I’ve had quite enough. I told him to get the discharge papers ready. I’m leaving. My fevers were gone. My leg wasn’t draining so badly anymore (ew, gross. sorry) I felt fine. Despite me constantly checking my hands so they don’t try to scrape my skin off. Fucking hell I was so itchy. I didn’t need to be in here. That’s when the good doctor decided to divulge that I hurt his feelings and that I was his least favorite patient. (Boo freakity hoo.) But I was a good girl and let him talk, said all the appropriate things. ... He’s still a pussy.  He was glad to be rid of me and the feeling was more than fucking mutual. I did not tell him to get fucked. I did not tell him to suck my dick. I did not flick him off. I did not throw shit at him. I was rather proud of myself. I showed great restraint.  But I did point out that just because he had the “MD” attached to his name, does not mean automatic respect. Respect is earned Dr. Pussy foot.  I signed the paperwork with relish. Jessie came to pick me up and I was whisked off to spend my mandatory (couldn’t argue my way outta that one) bed rest at the Joseph’s.  I’m so tired of laying down. TBC...

#blog #lifeafterten #hospital #Road to Nepal part 2

[ourdreamsrealized]

Chapter One: To Love a Hero

Chapter: 1 | 2

A/N: So...while creating the cover for this short fanfiction, I accidentally made a cover that would be perfect for a gladiator!Thor series, so that’s probably going to be happening somewhere down the line. Fair warning. This one is set in the Marvel universe and will be using it’s timeline. I’m really excited because I love this man, and he deserves the love because I don’t think he gets enough. This first part is just the beginning, so bear with me, the romance and sex will come shortly. I will also probably be updating this on a weekly basis (trying to be realistic) though I will aim for it to be updated more often. However, this is a short fanfiction, and I planned only five chapters, each being 2000+ words. I hope you guys enjoy.

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Thor Odinson (God of Thunder) x Reader

Synopsis: When you meet Thor for the first time, he’s a happy-go-lucky hero in need of your help, but as more chance meetings happen and a relationship begins to blossom between the two of you, you begin to realize that there is a lot more to this amazing man than meets the eye.

Inspired by @champion-ofthe-sun‘s post: { x }.

Rated: PG

Warnings: Alien Invasion & Light Gore

The first time you met Thor was during the Battle of New York City.

You were in your last year of college, working towards graduating with a Bachelors in Science of Nursing and a minor in mythology. Now, one would wonder how the two fit together, and the truth of the matter was they did not. You enjoyed being a nurse, caring for people and learning about the human body, but mythology, particularly Norse mythology, had intrigued you since you were a young girl. Stories of King Odin’s conquests, his children, and the people of Asgard were things you treasured, and each time you re-read one of the ancient tales, you discovered something new.

Minoring in mythology also gave you the chance to meet many different people, as many different majors decided to take classes in the field. You had made a few good friends in these classes, and it just so happened that one of them had an apartment in the city. Classes were winding down, and the lot of you only had a few finals, none really worth worrying too much over, so you all decided to stay in the city for a long weekend.

The apartment was gorgeous, a penthouse suite, which your friend whose family owned the place, had failed to mention. Needless to say, you spent most of your time while in the place trying to keep it clean.

You were one of the first to arrive, your last class being Wednesday, May 2nd, so you headed into the city after it, car already packed. You settled in, bought some groceries from a local farmer’s market, and made yourself some dinner. Heather and Jamie, who came earlier in the day, left a note for you on the counter, letting you know that the small room in the back was yours for the weekend and that they were going to be out for the evening.

Knowing Heather, she wouldn’t be back the next day. Her boyfriend lived in the city, so she would probably spend most of her time with him.

Honestly, you and Heather weren’t really close, so you didn’t really mind her absence. Jamie was the one who offered to share her family’s place with you, and she was much less moody. She was your closest friend in the group; she was a very go-with-the-flow kind of gal, and you loved her to pieces for it.

Thursday brought one of your other mythology friends, Anna. She was similar to Jamie in a lot of ways, so the three of you had a lot of fun staying in and watching a few movies.

Friday started normally; well, as normal as a day could be for a college girl staying in a New York City penthouse. You went out after sleeping in to get some more groceries from that farmer’s market, and you also did some window shopping. You had asked if Jamie and Anna wanted to join you, but Jamie liked to sleep in well passed twelve while Anna wanted to use the time to study a bit for her upcoming exams.

So, you were wandering down the street by yourself, making your way towards the farmer’s market, your hands on the faux leather strap of your satchel, when the skies opened up.

You paused, eyes fixed on the spectacle above you. A high-pitched cry came from the hole above Stark’s tower, and you watched with bated breath as figures entered New York City from the sky. Around you, people who had also frozen in the middle of their day-to-day lives, began to run, some screaming as they did. Others asked questions, wondering what was going on.

“It’s the end of the world!” Someone exclaimed, making many others scatter.

You? For some reason, you could not will yourself to move. Your mind was racing, trying to figure out if this was real or some weird dream you were experiencing a little too thoroughly.

“Look! It’s Iron Man!”

You turned your head, seeing that it was indeed him, flying around up there and blasting whatever those creatures were out of the air. But some still got through, despite his best efforts, and blue blasts hit the streets, turning over cars, causing explosions and fires.

And they were close. Too close.

You forced yourself from your spot, taking off with many others to avoid the destruction. You took cover under a table at a nearby café, and others had the same idea, including a couple of waiters and hungry patrons. Cabs stopped nearby, their occupants joining you or fleeing into the alleyways between buildings.

One particular blast had you gasping for air, dust and rubble flying around you. You coughed, quickly moving to cover your mouth with your forearm.

An agonized scream from the table next to you had you opening your eyes, trying to makeout the figure. The man was on his back, holding his leg to his chest, blood oozing out between his fingers.

Without much thought about it, you crawled over to him, grateful that you had worn jeans despite the warmth of the day, and put a hand on a shoulder. “What happened?”

“Glass...from a cab window,” he hissed between clenched teeth. He grunted, shifting his leg a bit for you to look at it better.

You lifted his hands from the appendage, studying the wound as it came into view. Luckily, it was a rather large piece of glass that was lodged, making it easier for you to pull it out carefully rather than go looking for a knife to help you cut it out. Tears streamed down his dirt-stained face as you quickly pulled the jagged piece from his skin and put it off to the side. You then took out the travel-sized alcohol rub that you always carried in your purse. You put some on your hands, ignoring a loud crash that came from beside you. “This is going to sting...a lot,” you quickly explained before squirting some of the clear liquid on a tissue from your bag.

You blotted the wound, the man sucking in a breath as he squeezed his eyes tight. You handed him some more tissues, asking him to keep pressure on it. “You’re going to need stitches…”

He nodded, swallowing thickly, “Thanks…”

You gave him a small smile, then turned at the sound of thunder, your eyes moving to the sky to see...a man?

He was lofty, with broad shoulders and thick arms, and his armor made him appear even more intimidating. A hammer was in his right hand, his large fingers wrapped around a string on its handle as he slowly descended. When his feet touched the ground, he caught the weapon, electric blue eyes finding yours. “Are you alright?”

His deep voice took you by surprise for some reason. Of course, you expected him to have a baritone, considering his formidable appearance, but not quite this...smooth?

“Who are you?” you found yourself asking instead of answering. You stood slowly, dusting yourself off.

“I am Thor, Son of Odin.” His lips curved into a proud smirk as he said this, while you were still trying to process who he claimed to be.

Thor? As in, the god of thunder? You have read many of his stories, known of his stubbornness and prowess. But this man could not be him, could he?

Well, he did look like he just stepped out of a viking movie, with the plates of metal that covered his muscular form and his long, golden locks. Your stare moved to the hammer in his hand. It did appear as Mjolnir did in many drawings you had studied of the legendary weapon.

“And who are you?” he asked, stepping towards you.

“I’m Y/N,” you answered, blinking as he wrapped an arm about your waist. “Um...what are you doing?”

“I saw you give aid to that man. I could use your skill with others,” was the explanation you got before shooting up into the air.

A yelp escaped your lips as you frantically clawed at him, eventually managing to hold onto his neck, your face buried into his chest, which shook with a low chuckle. You glared up at him, but it did not clear the amused look from his face. “You are angry? I thought you would have been freaking out by now.”

He brought up an excellent point, but you just saw a bunch of weird, alien-looking things come from a large hole in the sky. Now a very attractive man, claiming to be a god, was flying with you in his arms? Things could be worse for you.

“Who said I’m not freaking out?” you asked, peering up at him and earning you another hearty laugh.

Moments later, the two of you were on the pavement again, and you realized just how you had taken having your feet planted firmly on the ground for granted.

This part of the city had seen a worse attack, and you saw a child and a woman, you assumed to be his mother, hiding behind a parked cab, with various superficial cuts on their faces, all bleeding a bit.

“I will go find more victims and bring them to you,” Thor stated, getting ready to take off again, but you stopped him.

“You shouldn’t bring them to me. A hospital would be better. I can only do so much with a purell bottle and a travel pack of tissues.”

Thor considered your words for a moment before nodding, “Alright. Then I shall bring you with me for emergency purposes.”

“As I said--”

“But what if you could lessen the damage?”

His question had you swallowing whatever words you were originally going to say because, frankly, he did have a point. It might be better for you to stabilize or at least make it easier for some of these people to travel to a hospital.

“Alright,” you nodded before turning to the mother and child.

After removing a few shards of glass and cleaning them up a bit, Thor took you to a few other places in the surrounding area. He also would leave you for a few moments, taking very serious cases to the nearby hospital, before zooming back to your side.

“It is over,” he remarked after one longer trip, his eyes on the now spotless, blue sky above Stark tower. He turned to you, taking your hand in his and leaning down to brush his soft lips against your knuckles. “Thank you, Y/N. Your help is greatly appreciated.”

You felt your cheeks warm at his heartfelt comments. “It was no trouble, but how about I take a look at your shoulder before you get going?”

His brows rose high on his forehead as he straightened. “How did you…?”

“You are favoring your left side.”

Thor smiled sheepishly. “You’re quite observant, a good trait for a healer, but I must go. I have to take my brother home to Asgard.”

“Brother?” As far as you knew, Thor had no blood brothers…

“Loki,” he replied, lifting his hammer. “He is the cause of this.”

The God of Mischief? Well, considering his history, you supposed the god would have some issues. Honestly, you had always felt bad for him, considering how Odin would treat him sometimes.

“Ok. At least have someone look at it,” you said, glancing at his shoulder.

His smile was pure sunlight. “I will.” His thumb caressed the back of your hand before he let go of it. “Thank you, again. I won’t forget how you have helped this day.” And those were his last words to you before he disappeared.

You fisted the hand he had held, trying to calm your fast-beating heart, before taking your phone from your satchel’s back pocket. After such a disaster, you had several calls to make, but everytime you mentioned Thor to the person on the other end, you were unable to fight the sudden curve to your lips.

It would take you years to realize that the feeling was the beginnings of love.

TAGS: @champion-ofthe-sun, @fucmeupfandoms, @jumpingmanatee, @magnitude101999, @jmberries, @en-chant-ress

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[btssavedmylifeblr]

Do you have any advice on traveling to Korea alone? Like how hard it was to get around, I can read hangul but don’t understand a lot just yet, and I am still learning to speak it decently. Did you have trouble finding places to go and traveling? I can’t believe you went alone that is so brave and I’m honestly inspired. I think it’s very cool. Any advice and also explaining your experience would be wonderful~

Oh my gosh, I am so excited about this ask!!! Thank you! I probably got a little carried away in my answer. 

I had such a wonderful time in Korea. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. The people are super nice, the country is very safe, and they have a great transportation system.  

Best Kpop things I did while there: went to a DAY6 concert, went to a taping of M!Countdown, and met MIN YOONGI’S OLDER BROTHER!

This post got crazy long, so I am placing a cut here.

On Traveling Alone

If one is going to travel alone, I think Korea is probably one of the very best places to do so. Everyone is very friendly and the country is incredibly safe. There is almost no crime. It actually took some adjustment on the part of my paranoid American self to calm down about things. For instance, people have way less personal space in general, so they would stand really close to you on the subway or follow you really closely when walking, even at night. In a major US city, this would be a sign that someone was trying to rob or assault you, but it is just normal behavior in Korea. People also would routinely take my phone when checking tickets or giving me directions and then just hand it back. I even had a man happily carry my suitcase up two flights of stairs in the subway and  then not run away with it. And this wasn’t just me being a naive tourist. I routinely saw people leave laptops unattended in cafes for hours and leave purses on bookshelves at the front of cafes while they sat and had coffee. Nothing ever got stolen. 

The only places that seemed dodgy were some of the clubs in Hongdae where men would try to get women to come into the clubs, often by physically grabbing them or blocking their path. I wouldn’t recommend doing the bar/club scene in Seoul by yourself, but that is probably good advice for being a woman anywhere in the world. Everywhere else was very safe. 

The only other thing that was hard about traveling alone was finding places to eat by yourself. While it can also be awkward to eat by yourself in the US, at least food is served in single portions. But most formal sit-down restaurants in Korea only serve things family style, so you really can’t go by yourself. I mostly stuck to cafes, street food, convenience store ramen, and lunch places that catered to students/single working people. I would usually wander around until I found a place where there were Koreans eating alone and then would go there.  More advice about that down in Practical Tips.

Ease of travel-wise, Korea has the best subway system I have ever seen. It was clean, air-conditioned and incredibly easy to use. You could always get from anywhere in Seoul to anywhere else in Seoul in less than an hour. There was also a high speed train to and from both airports. More advice about that in Practical Tips. 

On the Language Barrier

It was really easy to get around Seoul, despite speaking very little Korean. I actually remember being disappointed that everyone’s English was so much better than my Korean, because they would just speak in English to me and I didn’t get a chance to practice much Korean. People were always happy for my attempts to speak Korean though, so don’t go expecting to only ever speak English. Also, being able to read hangul is really important. The subway system translates everything into English, Japanese and Chinese, but maps and street signs are often only in hangul. It is also much easier to order off of menus if you can sound it out in Korean. Saying “I would like an orange juice.” does not work as well as saying “I would like an orenji juiseu.” I highly recommend this video series for learning hangul. It’s only an hour and a half. It does a really nice job explaining how the letters relate to mouth shape in a way that makes it much easier to remember which letter is which sound. 

Also, when I ventured outside of Seoul, to Busan, Gwangju, Daegu and Jeju, there were fewer people who spoke English. But I had been in Korea for three weeks at that point, so I could get by on the little Korean I knew and gesturing. 

Don’t be a jerk - On a related point, Korea is very ethnically homogenous. Even Seoul, which is by far the most cosmopolitan of the cities in Korea, is still 97% Korean. Almost everywhere I went, especially outside of Seoul, I was the only Westerner there. On more than one occasion, I had school children run up and ask to take pictures with me. In a weird way, you are kind of representing your whole country. Being angry that people don’t speak English or being picky about your food or assuming that Korean people should adhere to the cultural norms of where you come from, are all incredibly rude and give all foreigners a bad name. Be friendly, be accepting of differences, be adventurous, and try to speak as much Korean as you can. 

Best Kpop things I did

DAY6 Concert - I went to the DAY6 concert in Seoul at the end of July. I had purchased my tickets in advance before coming to Korea. The tickets cost around $90 USD. It was a really nice venue, large enough to have space for a great show, but still intimate enough to hear everything well and see the boys clearly. It was a phenomenal show. Confetti and fireworks. Lights and video. The live music was great and they all played and sang really well. Each member had at least one solo part and they frequently paused to chat with fans. Obviously, this was all in Korean and there are no subtitles on live events, so I was only able to follow some of it. And of course, the show ended with a video montage and heartfelt speeches about how much they love their fans. The Korean Kpop fans are awesome. They know all the fan chants perfectly and are very friendly. 

M!Countdown - Through this tour, I was able to go to the August 9th live taping of M!Countdown. I was able to see EXO, the JJ Project, Girls Generation, and the debut performance of Wanna One, along with several others. I am somewhere in the screaming audience of all those videos. I got to be incredibly close to the stage and got to see a huge variety of groups, so it was a ton of fun. The only thing that is tricky with this tour is that you have to sign up a couple months in advance, but they don’t know which groups will be performing until a couple of weeks before the show, so it is a gamble about who you will get to see. If you really want to only see one specific group, you are probably better off trying to get tickets through that particular fandom, but then you will only see that group’s performance.

Yoongi’s Family Cafe in Daegu - For the last two weeks of my trip, I met up with a fellow BTS fan that I met here on Tumblr and we went on a BTS-pilgrimage to Gwangju, Busan and Daegu. One of the highlights of this pilgrimage was our trip to the cafe owned by Suga’s family in Daegu. Sadly, this cafe is no longer owned by Yoongi’s family. They have relocated to Seoul. 

We went to the cafe on a Wednesday around lunch time. As my friend and I were taking pictures of the outside, a young man was watching us from inside the restaurant and came out to open the door for us. He was really cute and gave us a big smile when he saw us. As soon as I walked over to him, he asked in English where we were from and if we were BTS fans. I nodded enthusiastically. He smiled and nodded, like “I figured.“ I told him we went to their concert in Newark and how fabulous it was and that’s when he volunteered “I’m Suga’s brother”. At first, I was worried that we would seem like crazy stalker people for having found this cafe, but the cafe was definitely not hiding its BTS connection. The walls were covered in BTS merchandise and a giant picture of BTS with Suga’s mom. They also only played BTS music the whole time we were there, which made it really hard to contain the fangirling, especially when Cypher Pt. 3 came on. 

We both got the soup, which was boiling when it arrived. I was too excited and accidentally stuck a whole piece of boiling blood sausage in my mouth and then didn’t dare spit it back out out of fear of offending Min Yoongi’s whole family. Instead, I coughed and chugged a bunch of water. Later, when we were paying, Yoongi’s brother teased me about how I had started to eat the sausage while it was still burning. “You ate so passionately,” he said. “It was hot and you had to drink the water!” And then he laughed a lot. He was very amused that two western girls would like blood sausage so much. 

I also did a bunch of cool, non-kpop things like visiting museums and language cafes, going for a bike ride on the Han river, and taking some Korean cooking classes, but this post is too long already. 

Practical Tips

Airbnb - I booked my accommodations for my whole trip through Airbnb. It was  half the cost of staying in Western-style hotels and put me in touch with locals who made sure I arrived in one piece to wherever I was supposed to be staying. This turned out to be really important when I accidentally took the wrong train in my attempt to get from Seoul to Gwangju.  I also purposefully booked a room with a host for the first week, so I would have someone to help me as I figured out the basics of getting around. I also highly recommend the Airbnb experiences. They are designed to assemble groups of people traveling by themselves to do different activities as a group, like get Korean BBQ or learn how to make bibimbap. I met so many awesome people and had such a great time. Both the hosts and the other travelers were a ton of fun. 

Subway App - This is the greatest subway app that exists on the face of the planet. Even if you never plan on going to Korea, you should download it to admire the amazing feat of technological prowess and efficiency that it is. It has maps for every major city in Korea and is available in English. It knows exactly when every train is coming, exactly how long it takes to walk between connecting trains, and even which car of the train to stand in to maximize the efficiency of your transfers. It made the subway system infinitely easier to deal with. Older people on the subway would often ask me where I was going, out of fear that I would get myself lost, and I could just hold out my phone and show them. 

Google Maps vs. KakaoMap - People in Korea claim that Google maps doesn’t work at all and one person even told me that it was a vast conspiracy by the American government to hide the location of military bases from North Korea. Based on my experience, I think it is much more likely that Google just hasn’t bothered to invest the time to make Google Maps work very well in Korea because Korea already has the excellent KakaoMap which works really well. That being said, KakaoMap is not available in English. My strategy ending up being that I would search for a place (like a cafe or SM town or Bonguensa Temple) in Google Maps and find the address, then copy and paste the Korean address into KakaoMap and follow its directions. 

Go in Spring or Autumn - Koreans are not messing around when they say that Korea has four seasons. I went in July and August and it was incredibly humid and incredibly hot (and I am from the American South, so I have experience with hot and humid). Everywhere I went, I instantly became a sweaty disgusting mess and ended up showering like twice a day. Winter also gets incredibly cold. I don’t have a lot of flexibility over when I can travel due to my work, but if you can go at anytime, I suspect fall and spring are the nicest times to go. 

Hope that was helpful! Thanks for asking!

#Anonymous #bee's korea travels #korea #korea travel tips

[storytaeme]

slice of life – vmin

Slowly, Taehyung learned from Jimin that he was the rule, not the exception.

vmin week 2017 – taehyung x jimin

❧ Elements: Fluff, Angst  |  He’s Just Not That Into You AU

❧ Word Count: 7,626 words

❧ A/N: I watched this again recently so I really wanted to write an AU for this. There are jumps in the timeline and lots of referencing from the movie. Changed a lot of the things I didn’t agree with from the movie too :D

Taehyung believed in love. True Love™️ with a capital TL. The consequence of growing up with younger sisters who insisted he played princess and prince with them was this irrational idealistic fantasy of finding The One (also with capital TO).

It was this dream that he cling onto ever since he knew he could date anyone he wanted—boys or girls, he never cared much for it. Taehyung has his first kiss with a girl from his class whose tongue was too wet, and his first handjob from a guy who tutored him math his junior year. It was all good times and sunshine. He had lost his ass-girnity freshman year of college and dick-girnity that same night when the guy insisted they switched.

However, the one night stand game got old too fast, too soon. All his childhood aspirations came crawling back to drag him down with them. He couldn’t stop picturing this dramatic, whirlwind romance, that he would be swept off his feet by a man or woman and taken away to paradise. He wanted passion and compassion, emotion flying from one end of the spectrum to another. He wanted burning desire like molten lava sliding off his skin. It was a lot to ask, but his mother always told him to never want anything less than he deserved.

He thought he deserved a lot—or at least, a romance good enough for the novels. Taehyung had standards to live up to after all. However, he would soon come to realize that all of it was a major case of Bullshit with a huge, massive, capital B glowing in neon red. The world commercialized love and relationships, made you think that you would be getting that advertisement-perfect romance as you sipped champagne with your lover by the beach in the Maldives. It made you believe that everyone who treated you like shit only behaved that way because “oh, honey, it’s because they like you.”

Way to fuck up his entire understanding of what being in love with someone actually meant. Taehyung was on the constant cycle of reusing the same lines, the same scripts, and the same results—zilch. Zero. Nada. His friends would tell him that it was always the other guy who was probably busy, or that he couldn’t handle his intelligent ass. But no—what those movies and stories, and even your friends and family, failed to tell you at times was the one thing that was plain to see and was constantly ignored.

He’s just not that into you.

Still, he clung onto that hurricane-like love story ideal. This was perhaps his hamartia, his fatal flaw. Taehyung thought he would find salvation to it in Park Jimin and the story began with a nonexistent call.

the fall

Taehyung nibbled on his teeth nervously and eyed his cell phone for the hundredth time that night. The air was thick with silence, he could practically hear his heart beat in his ears, blood rushing in his veins almost angrily as he impatiently waited.

The waiting was always the worst part. When you had a good date and had dropped your number with said date, their promising you that they would give you a ring, all you could really do was wait afterwards. Taehyung had not gotten Hoseok’s number either, choosing to let the man make the first move like he promised. Hoseok seemed pretty interested last night, engaging him in light conversation that had the two of them giggling and laughing. Even when the waiter came around to ask if they were done, Hoseok had ordered them another round of drinks to enjoy.

So why the hell hasn’t he called?

This was always a problem, he supposed. Whenever he thought things were going somewhere, that he had found a potential for The One, that person just… never came back. And Taehyung was left high and dry, forcing himself to move on and begin something else with someone new.

“Jesus, hyung,” Jeongguk muttered across from him. He had invited the younger out for coffee to distract himself. Being at home waiting for the call had driven him close to the brink of insanity and obsession. “Was he that good?” he asked, tilting his head.

“I guess,” Taehyung shrugged, chancing another glance at his phone that never lit up with a notification. “He was pretty cool, he seemed interested.”

Jeongguk smirked, cupping his fingers and bringing it to his lips, tongue pressing into the insides of his cheek. “Why? Did you, you know, offer to—” he made the sucking motion.

Teahyung crinkled his nose and flung a cookie in the boy’s direction. “You’re such a male.”

“Newsflash, you are too.”

“You’re the ultimate testosterone competition machine.”

“And you’re distracting from the original question,” he noted.

He hated how observant Jeongguk was. “Okay, it was average at best. He was a good guy, seemed chill.”

“And this gave you the TO vibes?” Jeongguk raised an eyebrow, sipping his americano. They had gotten around to using TO for short because Taehyung was still on that insistent journey to find that one special person.

“You never know, there was a little spark there, might blow up,” Taehyung shrugged. He was grasping at strings, he knew. Hoseok had been nice, sure. He could imagine a few different ways their story could go, but none of them was going to happen if the man didn’t call.

Jeongguk snorted cynically. Unbeliever. “Alright, sure. Whatever floats your boat. Do you have any way of contacting him yourself? It wouldn’t be so bad to take initiative.”

“No, but he did say he went to Bar 95 every Wednesday night and today is—would you look at that—Wednesday.”

The younger eyed him suspiciously, “You planned this already, didn’t you?”

“It’s been three days, Guk, I’m dying here.”

“I don’t know,” he pursed his lips hesitantly, looking up to meet Taehyung’s eyes, “doesn’t that seem stalkerish?”

Taehyung let out a pitiful whine before letting his head fall against the table. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be sort of like a coincidence—fate.”

“Fate,” Jeongguk scoffed, “are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

“Jeongguk,” Taehyung moaned.

It was clear that the younger took pity on him because he only sighed and nodded. “Fate, sure. Be careful, yeah? And—” he took a deep breath “—try not to expect too much, alright?”

Sure, Taehyung most definitely wasn’t expecting much. It was a little weird but he really did just pop by the bar. It wasn’t as if he was actively—okay, so he was actively looking for Hoseok but he wasn’t following him around. Fuck, he really was trying to convince himself more than anything.

This was a bad, bad idea. Taehyung mentally chided himself as he made his way to the bar, ordering a very strong drink from whoever was serving at the bar. “You here for a table?” one of the staff members asked. Shorter guy, nice dress shirt. A real looker. Bet he got calls back from his dates.

“Nah, just… waiting for someone,” Taehyung cleared his throat, sipping his drink and hoping that was enough of an answer.

“Oh, reservation? Hot date?” the guy grinned this time, his eyes crinkling in the corners and his thick lips curling up.

Taehyung coughed again, wondering what he could say to get out of this hole this time. He chuckled awkwardly, “Uh, not really, I’m… waiting for someone.”

He was an idiot.

The guy paused, “Are you okay?”

“It’s stupid,” Taehyung laughed a little, voice strained.

He stared at him again, pausing before raising his finger. “Let me finish off with the rest of the customers and I’ll—I’ll get back to you. Sound good?” Taehyung wasn’t sure what to do so he only quietly nodded.

The guy—whatever his name was—drifted behind the bar, mixing up drinks and sweet talking customers. He had charm for sure. Taehyung admired that. For a while, he thought he did too, but he finally came to a conclusion that he had the appeal of a damned cod considering his success rate thus far.

After an hour or so, the guy finally returned, this time rolling up his sleeves and putting himself before Taehyung. “So, love problems I’m assuming? Needed a lone night out?” he chuckled, taking a sip out of his own glass. “I’m Jimin, by the way, the manager here and a concerned citizen.”

“Uh, Taehyung. Just… a citizen.”

Jimin laughed, “You’re kind of cute, I like you. So what brings you around here?”

He licked his lips, looking up to the ceiling for a second. “It’s kind of dumb, I just—I don’t know what I was expecting but Hoseok said that he came here every Wednesday so I figured I would catch him.”

“Wait like Jung Hoseok? Dancer, so high, laughs a lot?” Jimin questioned, brows knitting. “I don’t think he’s coming around today. Did he forget or—”

“No, no, it’s just I came here—and I wanted to—” shit, reach, Taehyung, reach. “I wanted to return his pen.”

“His pen,” Jimin cocked an eyebrow, his stance relaxing as he shifted his hips a little. The story was getting messy and Taehyung was well aware of that.

Taehyung pulled out the thing from his pocket and handed it over. “Right, yeah, his pen. I wasn’t sure if he needed it you know. In case anything.” He fidgeted with his fingers and darted his gaze away.

Jimin took it and stared at it for quite some time before twirling it between his fingers, looking at Taehyung expectantly. “So are you going to tell me your real story so I can help or are you going to keep pulling stuff out of your ass?”

“That’s really no way to talk to a customer,” he scoffed.

The guy only laughed, clearly not giving a flying fuck. “Listen, dude, I’m here to offer sage advice should you so need, but if you want me to stay out of your business then I can do that too. Just saying that Hoseok’s a pretty close friend of mine so I can give you some tips—first one being don’t.”

Taehyung’s heart plummeted so hard he could almost hear the sound. “Why not?”

“Guy is still hung up on his almost-boyfriend,” Jimin cleared his throat, “he’s a good guy and this almost-boyfriend is stringing him around by his balls. You have no chance as of now.”

Well, that was that. He slumped against the counter, dejected. “I mean, you never know right. He asked for my number and now I’m just waiting on a call.”

“Taehyung, listen to me,” Jimin started, propping his elbows up on the counter, “what I’m gonna say is going to hurt but it’s going to be the truth. If a guy is interested, he will call you. If he doesn’t then, well, you know.”

This guy was meddling. Taehyung should be pissed but instead he’s wallowing in the guy’s words. “But the signals were all there!”

“My dude,” he chuckled, “let me tell you. I know the signals and they weren’t there. Not if he isn’t calling.”

“You’re pretty harsh, you know, to a stranger,” Taehyung mumbled under his breath, downing the rest of his drink.

“I tell it like it is, my friend,” Jimin smiled again, patting the back of his hand. “Tell you what,” he paused, pulling out a piece of card and scribbling numbers onto the back, “hit me up if you ever need advice. I can have some pretty handy ones to offer.”

Taehyung scrunched up his nose in distaste as he plucked the card from his hands. “Thanks, I guess. It’s been enlightening. You gave me a whole feast for thought.”

“Alright, I have to get back to work, but hey—remember what I said, and good luck.”

That had been the first time he encountered Park Jimin. He didn’t think much of it, figured it was just one of Hoseok’s asshole friends who liked to butt in. He had kept the name card, wasn’t sure why, but he did.

However, what unnerved him more was the fact that he leapt out of a guy’s arms while making out with him to hide in the bathroom, his fingers punching in the numbers of the man he had only met once before.  He had talked to Jimin before, called him on several occasions in which he needed as he said, his sage advice. Jimin gave good insight on how to avoid the creeps and the bail-outs. Though it limited most of its chances with other people, he was at least more careful about the way he went about the whole dating thing.

“Taehyung,” Jimin greeted, “what’s the verdict?” Taehyung wasn’t sure but he heard him say “babe, I’ll be right back” to whoever he was with.

“Fantastic kisser, but he said he’s going to be out of town next weekend and will be out of reach.”

Jimin scoffed from the other hand of the line. “What? He’s going on a research trip to the North Pole or something? Who goes out of reach nowadays?”

Okay, that argument made sense. “You’re right, dammit.” This was the worst. Sometimes, Jimin would deem the guy acceptable and say that he was probably interested, only to turn around on the second date when the guy insisted on hooking up. “Also, shit, did I disturb you? Sorry, should’ve texted first.”

“Nah, it’s all good,” Jimin chuckled, “anything else?”

“Nope, just that for now. Thanks, Jiminie,” Taehyung huffed.

“Anytime, Taetae.”

The two had formed some sort of friendship, he supposed. A bond. Taehyung trusted Jimin because his instincts and advice, although rough, was a good call most of the time. He would pop by Bar 95 from time to time to chat with him in person and have Jimin guide him on picking up people. The manager was pretty good at selecting people he knew Taehyung would like.

“You’re an open book,” Jimin pointed out once.

“Really?” he nibbled on a carrot stick his friend had brought over. While the bar was bustling outside, the two hid away in the comfort of Jimin’s private office and chatted away.

He laughed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Honey, you wear your heart on your sleeve, provide it on your palm to the rest of the world.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“No, no, I think it’s cute,” Jimin grinned, circling the rim of his glass with his finger. “You’re sweet, makes you vulnerable and that appeals a lot.”

Taehyung gave him a look, “To the creeps.”

“Not just the creeps!” he quickly interrupted, clicking his tongue, “I like it when people are direct too, makes it easier than having to guess their intentions as fun as that is.”

Jimin was still as blunt as ever but they grew closer over time as they talked about past lovers and failed relationships, Jimin questioning how Taehyung could still romanticize True Love so much when the system was created to promote failure. “It’s not always about the success,” Taehyung had murmured quietly once, “sometimes it’s also the feelings and the thrill of it, those in the present moments that you want to grasp onto tightly.”

The other boy had softened with his words, nodding understandingly. “I get what you mean, I suppose there is some good in that too. I just don’t believe in investing my time in relationships that were never meant to work in the first place.”

“You’re a bit of a cynic, aren’t you?”

Jimin snorted, “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Don’t you ever like it though? The butterflies in your stomach and the spark—”

His laugh cut Taehyung off as he tinkled adorably. In any other situation, Taehyung would’ve been offended but he was curious as to how Jimin would shut him down this time. “Holy shit, Hollywood really has done its number on us. They always talk about the spark, this nonexistent thing that makes you think that there’s something to hold onto. But when the other party figures out that they don’t want this anymore, they can just say that the spark has fizzled out. The spark, my friend, is a myth and you guys eat it right up.”

“Okay, but this one guy I know who talked about the spark from the beginning, said that it didn’t work out with this person he was going out with,” Taehyung narrated, and Jimin looked victorious until he continued, “but then they found each other again years later, spark was still there and it was enough to have them marrying each other. Now they’re happily married for twenty years. What do you think of that?”

Jimin took a deep breath, clapping his hands together and pointing it in Taehyung’s direction. “See, the problem with that story is that that guy is the exception, not the rule.” The other boy tilted his head, not following. “He’s one amongst many that had things actually work out his way. But the rule is that it just doesn’t exist as you can see from the majority.”

“So, what you’re saying is that my belief in the spark makes me part of the rule and not the exception?” Taehyung frowned, the idea leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. It was kind of disheartening to know that there was only a one in a million chance of becoming an exception in the midst of all the rules. Jimin shrugged, indicating that was pretty much what he meant. “It’s cute though, I like the concept of the spark,” Taehyung pouted defiantly.

“So do the assholes who can take advantage of it,” Jimin shook his head, “it’s too easy to use the spark to reason.”

Taehyung sighed, propping his chin up on his palm. “Well, I just wish I can find someone who believes in the spark as much as I do. It’ll be lovely.”

“Oh, speaking of which,” he snapped his fingers, “I might know a guy. Namjoon. Great guy, super sweet, and I think you’d be each other’s types.” So Jimin had arranged a blind date for the two of them set in Bar 95. It was supposed to be casual and so Jimin would be there to mediate the atmosphere for as long as necessary. Taehyung had been anticipating it because he really did trust Jimin’s judgment, especially when it came to guys.

Thus, when the big day came, Taehyung had spent the entirety of his evening selecting an outfit to wear. He kept jumping whenever the door opened and when Jimin finally walked in, his heart was beating too loud against his chest. The man greeted Taehyung before hailing down a waiter and Taehyung ordering his own drink. “So, where is he?”

“He’s not coming.”

Taehyung’s face fell. “He hasn’t even met me, how does he not like me already?”

“It was my bad,” Jimin winced, “I told him the wrong day so he couldn’t make it out of work.” Well, that was a relief to hear at least. He thought his lack of appeal had reached new heights and extended to this extreme. “But I’m here, we can still have a good time. Drinks on me!”

Things were going well with him and Taehyung was busy enough with work that he avoided thinking about his love life altogether. It was a good, productive distraction, but he was beginning to miss it when he received a call from Jimin.

“Hey, are you free this Friday?”

He trapped the phone between his ear and shoulder as he finished up the last of the documents his boss had requested. “Uh, yeah, why?”

“I’m having a small party, like a holiday thing, you know. You should come, it’ll be fun. I’ll be around hosting so I can keep you company, introduce you to my friends,” Jimin said and Taehyung could hear clanging in the background. He was probably at work too.

“Party? Yeah, sure, sounds great.”

“Great, looking forward to seeing you there.”

It was when he returned home that night that it all clicked. Holy shit.

Park Jimin was in love with him.

the rule

“He likes me,” Taehyung concluded to Jeongguk one day. The kid was chipping away at his keyboard to work on a computer science assignment he had due the following day. Taehyung placed a steaming cup of coffee on the table.

Jeongguk raised an eyebrow, hair disheveled, eyes bloodshot. “Who?”

“Jimin.”

He paused, looking at Taehyung dead in the eyes. “Who?”

“Jimin, Hoseok’s friend. The manager at the bar. I’ve been talking to him a lot lately and I think—I think he likes me,” Taehyung affirmed.

The younger let out a sigh, pushing away his laptop and looking at his friend almost pitifully. Taehyung hated that look but knew that it was warranted considering how many times he had been in the exact same situation. A doom loop. “What makes you think so?” There was no bite in his words, yet Taehyung could feel his skepticism all the same.

“The signs were all there, Guk,”

Jeongguk licked his lips, leaning back against his seat and squinting at his best friend, wondering what he was playing at this time. Taehyung basically told Jeongguk about every bit of his love life and, although he was aware that Jimin existed, he never knew the extent of their involvement—that Jimin was basically his love guru. “What were the signs, hyung?”

“Okay, like, listen—the first thing that hit me was this whole avoiding jerks advice he’s been giving me. It’s good advice yeah, but he basically keeps foiling chances I have with other guys by telling me it would be a shit experience for me.”

“Sounds like a good man looking out for you, but go on.”

Taehyung grinned, cheshire cat-like. “That’s not all. One time, he’s with this other person, lover I’m assuming, but he still picks up my call. He knew it was me too because God bless caller ID, right?”

“Wait, how do you know this is someone he’s hooking up with?”

“Called them babe.”

Jeongguk did a look that said that that made sense.

“Then he plays nice guy, says he wants to introduce me to this ‘Namjoon’ character, supposedly his friend. D-day arrives and he says that he had told the guy the wrong date so it was basically just the two of us.”

“Oh whoa, okay. I mean, if he really did fuck up the days then that would be understandable. Also makes sense if he would do it on purpose since—what the fuck—really, who messes up dates like that?”

“I know,” he giggled, excitement bubbling up his stomach. “I can see it all now. But what really tops this is that he’s inviting me to a small gathering this Friday. He says that he wants to introduce me to his friends.”

Jeongguk let out a whistle, smirking, “Damn, he’s already pulling the unofficial in-laws card. I’m impressed.”

“Right!” Taehyung laughed, slapping his knee. “He said he’s going to keep me company too so that’s that.”

“Shit,” Jeongguk muttered, “it might actually be real. I mean, it’s sort of vague, but I can see how that would all link up to come to your conclusion.”

“Precisely, it’s elementary, Jeon.”

The younger rolled his eyes but his lips were twitching in amusement. “Alright, Kim, calm down. Let’s not get your dick up that fast just yet. You still have that party to go to and to charm what’s left of this guy’s pants off of him.”

“Yeah, shit, I’m so excited. I mean, he’s a great guy you know, looks out for me,” Taehyung said softly. His heart really had been flipping all over the place ever since his epiphany and he could only hope that this would be it—the big True Love, The One moment he had been waiting for.

“I’m happy for you, hyung,” Jeongguk whispered earnestly, “you deserve only the best and I hope it works out with him.”

“I hope so too, Guk.”

By the time Friday rolled around, Taehyung was attempting to calm his jitters. He was driving to Jimin’s place, blasting pop music singing about love and happiness out loud. It was going to be a good night, he could just feel it. The party was already in full swing when he arrived, guests littering the place when Jimin opened the door.

“You made it!” he beamed, pulling him in. Taehyung could smell the beer in his breath and figured he had gotten a head start.

“‘Course I did, did you expect me to bail?”

Jimin scoffed, “Of course not, was just worried you were gonna get lost. Come on, I’ll get you a drink then introduce you to people.”

The first hour, Taehyung spent it by Jimin’s side as he took him around to meet people, most of them his colleagues and friends. He had never seen the man so entirely in his element and it was good to know that he was comfortable with this crowd. However, when he was pulled away to tend to his other guests, Taehyung lurked awkwardly by the side, munching on snacks and trying to maintain conversation with a few people he had met.

Throughout the night, he could only shoot glances at Jimin, hoping that it would communicate his need to be around him. But Jimin was busy and he had to be understanding of that. When Jimin was already swaying and giggling around the room, asking Taehyung to help him refill the bowls of food, the least he could do was help, and so he did. He was playing half-host at that point to ensure that the guests got everything they needed. Jimin looked happy though, and that was what mattered.

When the last of the people trickled out sometime after 3AM, Taehyung figured that this was his chance. He had been cleaning up the mess and gathering the trash despite Jimin’s moans of protests that he didn’t need to do all that. “Thanks, Taetae, I can always count on you.”

“No problem, Jiminie,” Taehyung coughed, unable to hide his smile as he plopped down next to Jimin on the couch.

“It’s late, I should be getting to bed,” Jimin huffed, but making no move whatsoever.

This was it. This was his opening. He scooted closer and stroked Jimin’s hair, knowing that he liked that being done to him. Jimin purred happily and keeled into the touch. Taehyung—Taehyung leaned forward to capture his lips. God, it felt so soft and so nice. There was an initial tinge of bitterness from the beer, but it quickly faded as Taehyung moved his lips against Jimin’s.

When he pulled away to chance a glance at Jimin, the man was looking at him incredulously. “Uh, what was that?”

“That was a kiss, silly,” Taehyung chuckled.

“Let me change the question, why did you do that?”

That stopped him. Taehyung blinked at him, his big hands still on Jimin’s smaller shoulders. “Um, I thought since you liked me that—”

“Whoa,” he held up his hand, jumping away from Taehyung and onto his feet. The distance caused a pang in Taehyung’s heart. “Since I liked you? Why was I not made aware of this?”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Taehyung, where did you even get that idea?”

Taehyung opened his mouth, frowning, “It was there, Jimin. It was just so… obvious and I wanted to let you know tonight that it was cool and that I wanted this too. I’m—” he broke off, unsure of how to proceed.

“How—” Jimin squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose “—how did you even get there? I’m really not following right now. I really do not understand how you came to that conclusion.”

He licked his lips, feeling the anxiety settle in his stomach. He fiddled with his fingers as he tried to explain it best he could. “Your actions, Jimin, it just showed. I could tell from the way you behaved with me.”

“What? How—I don’t understand how you even got there. I treat you the same way I treat everybody else. What is it with you and twisting all this shit in your head? Christ, this—we had something good going, Tae. We were tight, but now you do this—Jesus. I don’t even know where you got this idea from.”

“I just—you know, I thought that,” Taehyung stuttered, heart clenching, “there were signs, Jimin.” His voice came out weak, quiet. He hated it.

Jimin’s eyes widened as he threw his hands into the air, “Signs? What the fuck, Taehyung? What signs?”

“Just you know, with the whole dating thing, the fake guy, and this party—I figured that was your way of—”

A curse slipped past the other man’s lips, halting Taehyung’s words. His chest suddenly felt heavy and his heart lodged in his throat as Jimin raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Signs, signs, signs. What have we been talking about for months, Taehyung? If a guy is interested, then they’ll let you know. If not then they just won’t. I don’t know what shit you’re on that you’re mixing all of this weird shit in your head.”

“That’s mean,” Taehyung spoke, lips quivering and he could only hope his voice wasn’t the same. “I know I jumped to conclusions, but you don’t have to put it that way.”

“I don’t know what else I can do, Tae,” Jimin huffed, exasperated, “I never showed any of these ‘signs’ or whatever and you still make it up in your head, isn’t this clear enough for you? This isn’t a sign, Taehyung, this is me telling you that you made it all up. God, I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming. You’re always—goddamn—running around telling me about this fantasy bullshit that just doesn’t happen. I should’ve known.”

Now, Taehyung had a lot of patience and a lot of compassion. But there was a line to be drawn as to how far you could push him. This—this was his breaking point. He swallowed thickly and jabbed his finger accusingly in Jimin’s direction. “I may make assumptions, but at least I’m not a cold asshole like you.”

Jimin squinted at him, “What?”

“You—you’re just a coward! You’re scared of things never working out so you stop them before they even happen. You think everything is black and white, that everyone can show and figure out their feelings with a snap of their fingers, but newsflash, Jimin, life doesn’t work that way. Love is complicated, feelings are complicated,” Taehyung snapped at him, moving to collect his jacket and purse. “And if I’m fucked up for thinking that way then so be it. At least I give my 110% into what I want instead of cutting off my efforts halfway through just because I think it’s impossible. I may twist things, but I’m a hell of a lot closer to finding love than you are. So you can shove your advice up your fuckin’ ass, Park Jimin.”

With that last word said, Taehyung stormed out of the house. It hurt, it hurt so much. Taehyung had experienced heartbreak before, had recovered from it, and he knew he would from this too. The worst thing about this entire thing was the fact that he would be losing one of his best friends along with it.

Maybe Jimin was right, maybe love just never worked out the way you wanted it to. That was always the rule.

—

jimin’s pov

His phone had been silent the whole day. No matter how many times he’s checked, there were no new texts. The meeting earlier had been a mess, he had screwed up everyone’s schedules, directed them all differently, and realized that there wasn’t even supposed to be a meeting that day at all.

He really was going mad. Maybe he needed another night out to unwind. He’s been particularly stressed these days, always worrying, always fussing. It was driving even his employees insane.

“Taemin,” he called. Taemin greeted guests when they came in. They might’ve also hooked up once. Jimin never went back for seconds. “Any new messages for me?”

“Not since the last time you checked which was—” he glanced at his clock dramatically for effect “—two minutes ago.”

Jimin sighed, bringing up his phone again and refreshing his chats and emails, waiting to see if anything new would pop up. Maybe it was his Internet, maybe that’s why it wasn’t refreshing. “Has the wifi been working fine?”

“I’m downloading Eminem’s new album with no problem whatsoever.”

“Right, right,” Jimin frowned, looking back down at his phone.

Taemin snorted, “What’s gotten you so wound up?”

Jimin scoffed a laugh, “Wound up? I’m not wound up, just making sure that I’m not missing anything important.”

The man eyed him curiously for a second before a lightbulb switched on in his brain. “Oh my God,” he laughed, the sound almost wicked that his boss turned to face him, “it’s finally happened, hasn’t it? Who is it?”

“What?”

“Come on,” Taemin smirked, “you can’t hide it from me. Who’s the lucky guy who’s gotten your panties in a twist?”

“Nobody has—I’m not waring panties either, shut the fuck up,” Jimin growled, deciding that he really didn’t need to deal with this type of abuse as he stalked towards his office.

However, Taemin was hot on his tail, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “You’re checking your phone, constantly asking about messages,” Taemin smirked, “you’ve got it bad.”

“I don’t—” Jimin paused “—shit. I do have it bad.”

“Join the club, asshole,” Taemin laughed, waving his fingers on his way out the door, “I’ll give you some privacy to deal with your existential crisis.”

the exception happy ending (?)

Throwing himself into work and swearing off relationships and love forever seemed to work well for the first two weeks. Work was great and he was making great progress. He channeled all of his anger and stress into his work that his boss was impressed by how much he did in the office, much to the disappointment of his coworkers.

Boycotting love was another story though. It was hard and he wallowed in his self-pity by drowning himself in enough shitty romantic movies and tubs of ice cream to have Jeongguk calling him gross. When Jeongguk called him gross, you knew you had it bad.

It wasn’t until a few days later that he received a call. “Hello?”

“Taehyung? Kim Taehyung?”

The voice was velvety, smooth, yet unfamiliar. It had a soothing aspect to it though. “Um, yes.”

“I’m Namjoon, I think Jimin mentioned me last time?”

Holy fuck. He really was an idiot. Not only had he messed up the signals, he had made one of them up too. “R-right, yeah, he did. It’s nice to finally hear from you.”

“Yeah, sorry, it’s been a hectic month but I finally have some time off. Would you care to join me for dinner?”

He was asking whether Taehyung—the die-hard romantic and advocate for True Love—wanted to join who Jimin described to be as dashing and intelligent if he wanted to have dinner. It was a yes in an instant, his resolve dissolving.

Namjoon was entertaining and he had a lot to say about art pieces that Taehyung liked as well. They clicked. They really did. Namjoon was kind and patient, he was sweet all throughout their conversation. He had even promised Taehyung that he would give him a call as soon as he got home and Taehyung took it without much hope. Not like it hadn’t happened before. However, before he even reached his own house, Namjoon had already dropped a voicemail.

“It was really great to see you today, Taehyung. This is Namjoon and I hope that you’ll grant me the opportunity to see you again sometime,” Namjoon’s voice filled his ears. It had his body tingling with warmth, but there was a dull numbing in his heart that prevented him from fully appreciating the gesture.

He dug around for his keys inside his pockets as he made his way up the steps to his apartment. Jeongguk was lounging on the couch, and whistled when he saw Taehyung. He had selected his favorite outfit after all, a sweet, silky blouse that accentuated his figure and pants tight enough to squeeze the living daylights out of someone like Jeongguk who had thighs the size of trunks. “You look good, my dude,” Jeongguk laughed.

“It was a good date, he called too.”

“Shit,” Jeongguk nodded approvingly, “sounds like a keeper already. Does he have a brother? Sister? I’ll take both if he lets me.”

Taehyung flung a pillow his way, “You’re goddamn gross.”

“And he sure is a lot better than—” Jeongguk stopped, curling his lips sourly in disgust before the name of he-who-must-not-be-named fell from his lips. His roommate had been on the receiving end of Taehyung’s tears for the first few days after the rejection. Jeongguk had officially deemed Jimin an irredeemable asshole and pledged to kick his ass with his spiked boots if he ever saw him. Taehyung told him no despite the giddiness inside of him that told him to fuck all. “Anyway, glad you’re having a great night.” The doorbell rang up front and Jeongguk beamed. “Hey, since you’re up, can you get that? It’s probably my pizza.”

He sighed, rolling his eyes but did anyway, swinging the door open only to be taken aback by the sight of Jimin there. Taehyung’s lips parted. All the feelings he had tamped down came rushing back and he hated himself for it, hated how weak he still was for Jimin. “Hey,” Jimin started, shifting around almost nervously.

“Can I help you with something?”

“Taehyung,” Jimin whispered, gaze looking pained. Taehyung had some sick satisfaction seeing it. He deserved it. “Listen, I—”

“No, you listen. I said what I said and I don’t need to hear some half-assed apology to make your ego feel better or whatever. I think you should go.”

Jimin blocked the door from closing and Taehyung sighed in exasperation. “I’m—it’s not for a half-assed apology.”

Jeongguk’s voice carried down the hall. “Taehyung, who’s at the door?”

For a second, a flicker of hesitation appeared across his eyes. “You need to leave,” he hissed at Jimin but it was too late because Jeongguk was already making his way up to the entrance hall. When he caught Jimin there and Taehyung’s face flushed with anger, Taehyung could practically hear his blood boil.

“You’ve got some fuckin’ nerve showing your face here,” Jeongguk barreled down the hallway and Taehyung had to hold him back.

“Guk, stop. It’s fine. I can deal with this okay.”

Jeongguk sneered at Jimin, “The fuck are you even doing here? Taehyung’s not gonna listen to your bullshit so why don’t you just go?”

“Jeongguk,” Taehyung pressed again, “stop it. I can take care of this, I promise.” Jeongguk gritted his teeth, pinching his lips unhappily. “Please,” he begged again.

The younger finally relented, shrugging off Taehyung’s touch to toss one last glare at Jimin and jabbed two of his fingers towards his eyes then at Jimin. “I’m watching you. You pull any shit, I’ll kick you myself. Tae, holler if you need anything. I’ll be in my room with my fuckin’ bat ready.”

Taehyung saw Jimin’s throat moved and he wanted to grin. “Okay, Gukkie, thank you.” With that, Jeongguk moved back down the hallway and Taehyung heard the resounding shutting of his bedroom door. “Now, what do you want? I’m tired.”

“I’m here because I—uh—wanted to go… give you back your pen.”

“My pen,” Taehyung echoed, crossing his arms over his chest. The man fumbled with his pocket and pulled out the stick, handing it over. Taehyung accepted it and raised an eyebrow, “Is that all then?”

“N-no, I—” Jimin choked a little, coughing “—I wanted to say I am sorry, for what I said. It was uncalled for and I just—you’re right, I can be insensitive and blunt and I’m an asshole.” Taehyung snorted at that. “I know, I know. But I—you’re right. I guess I was scared of things going to shit that my first instinct is t block it out. I don’t think you’re lame or pathetic. You’re very honest with your feelings and I think that takes a lot of courage.”

No, no, this wasn’t happening. Taehyung blinked back the tears as Jimin took a step forward. He was frozen to his spot, unable to move.

“And I—God, I love that. I love that you embrace love that you love love. It’s—it’s incredible, you know. I should’ve known better, you’ve always been the smarter one out of the two of us,” he chuckled, tugging on the collar of his shirt, a nervous tic Taehyung knew he had. “And, if—if you’re willing to give me one more chance, I can do that. I want to give you the romance and love you deserve because you deserve every bit of it, every drop of it. I want to give you that happiness you wanted.”

“Jimin,” Taehyung breathed, voice trembling, “I don’t—I just don’t think we have that chance anymore.” Jimin’s expression fell into one of fear and surprise. “Look, I went out with Namjoon earlier. He—he was sweet and smart, he called me right after to tell me he wanted to take me out again. You’re right, he is a good guy. I think he would be the type to bring me flowers and be kind to me. He’s safe and good.”

Jimin moved forward again, his actions more frantic. “I can do that, I can. I can bring you flowers and take you out on dates, I’ll call you everyday if you want.” Fuck, no, he couldn’t be doing this to him. “I’ll take you to your favorite galleries, I want to listen to you talk about them all day.”

“You really don’t,” Taehyung whispered, “look, Jimin, this is probably the guilt talking. So this is me telling you that it’s fine, I’ve moved on and—”

“Don’t,” Jimin interrupted, blurting out nervously, “don’t move on. Not yet. Please. I’ll—give me a chance to prove myself. I can’t stop thinking about you, I keep checking my phone and my messages expecting you to drop me a call, but you never did. And that sucked, I had never felt more miserable. I can be a good boyfriend, Taehyung. I’ll spoil you rotten and make sure that you’re happy. I want to give you all you want, all the love.”

The taller boy licked his lips before pressing them together and breathing out from his nose. “I thought you didn’t believe in all that. You made fun of me for so long about it and now you’re pulling this kind of shit? How cliché.”

“I know,” he flinched, “it looks bad. But—it’s not like that. You were right to call me a coward, it put things into perspective for me. You make want to believe in all that again—the spark, the signals. I want to give you all that.”

“I’m the rule, remember?” Taehyung whispered. He was never meant for this. He should stick to something—someone—safe like Namjoon. He wanted his happy ending and he didn’t think he could ever find it in Jimin ever again, not after what he’s said. But his heart was still throbbing, beating loudly for him, crying out for him.

This was what Taehyung always dreamed of but maybe, maybe it really didn’t exist. Jimin caught his hands, bringing them up to his lips to press kisses. “I was stupid. There are no rules, no exceptions. Everyone is different, it’s just a matter of whether you’re an asshole or not, whether you’re going to be sitting around on your ass rejecting every notion of love with fear or going out there and seizing the world. You—you’re the hope for love and maybe, maybe I want to be your hope too for it.”

He tried so hard to hold it back, tried so hard to resist. But even he was still a weak man who fell into temptations. Taehyung had never been one to settle, and this was his attempt to find a balance between safety and adventure. Jimin was both, but neither at the same time. Would he really risk everything—his heart—once again for him?

“Let me try and make you happier, Taehyung. You’re so, so great and you deserve the world. Please give me the chance to offer that to you,” Jimin drew closer, his hands cupping his cheeks to brush away stray tears.

He was crying. What a fuckin’ baby. Taehyung sniffled, “You’re so cheesy that I’m grossed out.”

Jimin laughed, the squeaky one Taehyung loved so much. He was really there with him. “But you like cheesy and gross.”

“Don’t test me, I’m still mad at you.”

The other boy’s expression faltered on his face as he bit on his bottom lip, wrapping his arms around Taehyung’s waist. “M’sorry, I’m so sorry. It was shitty of me to say. You can hit me or yell at me or whatever. I’ll make it up to you, I promise you that.”

Taehyung took a deep breath, “And you’re—you’re sure about this?”

“110%,” he beamed.

His lips twitched as he chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, welcome to my world, Park Jimin.”

#bts #taehyung #jimin #vmin #vminweek2017 #vmin angst #vmin scenarios #vmin fanfic #bts angst #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #it's almost four am #my brain is fried!!!!! #thank u disneyland and vmin

[lobsters-on-their-heads]

Continuing Travels of Cophine, Chap. 9

This is not a Christmas fic.  Christmas will happen, though.  Most of this chapter has been sitting on my computer for several weeks now, but the semester was ending, and I’m trying to sell my novel, and the bipolar goblins in my head don’t always play nicely, so it sort of sat there for a while.  Then it needed clean up and restructuring, which the time off actually helps with quite a lot.  

If you want to start from the beginning, the entire work can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12116799/chapters/27477684

Her throat woke her up on Wednesday morning, tickling and flaring until she coughed and floundered out of the blankets for her water bottle. After a few gulps, her throat calmed down, and she fell back onto the pillow.

Gray light snuck into the room, looking like it was filtered through an iceberg, illuminating the lamps and the old stereo along the wall. Even without her glasses, Cosima knew exactly where everything was, which lampshades were stained or torn, the marbling on the walls, the dimensions of the weird little doors that opened into more wall. She coughed again, and looked to see how much blood there was this time.

No blood. Not on her hands, and not on her pillow or her lips. And then she remembered. She was well now. Her cough was just a cough.

“Are you okay?”

Delphine's face was tucked into the blankets and the pillow so that only her hair and her closed eyes were visible. Half of her hair had come loose from its binding to snake around her head. Cosima smiled, remembering the joy of once again finding Delphine's hairs on her bedding the morning after her arrival from Geneva.

“Yeah, I'm okay. Did you sleep alright?”

“Mmm. Hnn?”

Cosima tucked a few strands behind Delphine's ear and followed the line of her jaw to her chin. “It's okay. Just keep resting.”

An hour later, when Delphine finally stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, Cosima was finishing her first cup of chai and setting up some more vials for inoculations. The lab had been clean and well-stocked upon their arrival three days ago, meaning that the guys really had been keeping up with it, or they had done some last-minute magic to make it look like they had. The primary absence was Cosima pot crop, acquired with Felix's help when they moved in, and now distributed among various members and acquaintances of clone club. The Hendrix's even had one of the plants tucked into their garden.

After checking that all of their carefully acquired gear was in proper condition, she checked her email. There was one from her mother telling her the weather report in Toronto, as though Cosima didn't already know it was freezing. After that was another email from her advisor, asking to push back the date of their meeting in Minnesota by a week.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She already had the plane tickets for her and Delphine, and a non-refundable hotel reservation for five days, which now her advisor said he could not do. Cosima swore again and pulled on her own face. She would have to deal with that later. For now, she forwarded the entire email chain to Alison with a note that said “Problems.”

She was getting her second cup of chai ready when the upstairs door knocked. “Hello.....?”

“Come on down!” she cried, grinning as Scott bounded down the wooden steps into the lab. When he got to the bottom, she tackled him with a hug that forced him back a few steps.

“Gosh it's good to see you!” he laughed. “This place is weird without any clones hanging around.”

“You mean Krystal wasn't dropping by every other day?” Cosima pulled back and gave him a good look. “By the way, what the hell is that on your face?”

Scott's exuberance faltered, and he touched his face, where patchy brown hair erupted in some asymmetrical places. “What? You don't like it?”

“Uh... Well, you know, I, uh.... It's different! It's just different, that's all.”

He squared his shoulders and stuck his jaw out. “Cora likes it.”

Cosima blinked and stood back. This was a new development. “Cora???”

The grin crept back onto Scott's face and he blushed. “Yeah, she's this girl who works at the university with me. She's super smart. You'd like her.”

“Cora...” Cosima sat on a laboratory stool and spun around once, her eyebrows raised. “Is she cute? Don't answer, actually. She's obviously cute, or you wouldn't have that look on your face. The question is, when do I get to meet her? You know I have to do a little, uh, quality assurance check before you're allowed to go out with her.”

He giggled and nodded. “Okay. I dunno when she can come by, though. She has kind of a long commute into town, and it's hard to find times when we can even hang out outside of work...”

Cosima rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay, whatever. I see how this is gonna be.”

He spluttered, and Delphine crept out of the bathroom, arms crossed over her chest. “Oh, hey, Delphine!” he said, waving to her.

“Hello, Scott.” Delphine kept her arms tucked over her breasts as she gathered her clothes for the day. Meanwhile, Scott just grinned at both of them.

“It's just like old times, isn't it! Only, you're not dying, and Delphine's not breathing down my neck all the time to get you to come to work on time.”

Cosima groaned. “Or to give you another fucking fluid sample. I really don't miss that.”

If Delphine had any thoughts about Scott's comment, she didn't say so, instead shuffling back into the bathroom to change clothes. Only then did Cosima notice that Delphine was wearing the puppy dog socks she'd bought for her in Mexico City, and she grinned. While Delphine got ready, she chatted more with Scott, catching up about his work at the University of Toronto, his cat, and his opinion on the newest Star Wars movie.

“No spoilers, though!” she said, holding up a finger. “I haven't seen it yet, and I'm taking Delphine to see it on Monday for her birthday. If you spoil it for me, Scott...”

“I know, I know, you'll cut off my manhood and feed it to some goats.”

“Correct.”

* * * *

Driving to her parents' hotel, Cosima tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and chewed on a finger nail. She hated driving, but had left the Rabbit Hole later than Delphine wanted to, and now Delphine was doing her makeup in the passenger's seat. They'd spent the night talking over yesterday's meeting with Cosima's parents, about how much more to tell them and how to tell it, and about the extended family that Delphine would eventually get to meet. Cosima thought about her mother's parting words the night before.

“And we look forward to learning a lot more about Delphine!” She'd leaned heavily on the last syllable of her name, in the same way that she'd exclaimed earlier, “oh, you're from Paris! How wonderful!”

The light turned green, but the delivery van ahead wanted to make a left turn, so they all had to wait. Cosima tapped her fingers some more.

“Are you worried?” Delphine asked.

“About what?”

“Anything. You're fidgeting.”

“Oh. Yeah.” The delivery van turned left, and she accelerated onwards, through downtown streets with wreaths on the light poles and Christmas displays in the windows. Delphine wasn't wrong, and they might not get to talk privately for the rest of the day. “Can I ask you something?”

Delphine smiled. “Of course, mon amour. Anything.”

“Do you parents know? About me, I mean?”

There was a pause from the passenger's seat, and then, “no. But they don't know very much about me at all, anymore. I told them when I moved to Canada, but not much more than that.”

“Hm.”

They turned right and drove several blocks to a more residential section, and Cosima chewed on her lip. She'd always known that Delphine wasn't close to her parents, and she was in no position to criticize her for not telling her parents anything, considering the clone bomb she'd only just yesterday dropped on her own parents. With everything they'd been through together, though, it was only now occurring to her that Delphine was not even out to her parents.

“Do want them to come to the wedding?” she asked. “Your parents, I mean.”

Delphine paused again and propped her face on her fingertips. “Maybe. It's not that important to me, you know. I haven't even thought about it.”

“You have some time, I guess. You don't have to know right now.”

* * * *

They got to the hotel's restaurant just before ten. A quick glance around told them they'd probably have it mostly to themselves, which was a relief. Talking about clone business in any public place could be tricky. They seated themselves in a booth near the window, looking out at the stone courtyard and smoker's area, far enough from the door to avoid a draft. Watching a man in a business suit suck on his cigarette and pace in the frozen air, Cosima took Delphine's hand in hers.

“I'm glad you quit.”

“What, smoking?”

“Yeah. You're not ducking outside all the time to light up, and it means I get to keep you around a little longer.”

Delphine snorted. “Says the woman who's been bemoaning the absence of her marijuana plants.”

“Hey, cannabis is way safer than tobacco; I've been telling you that for years now. It's the only thing that kept me eating when I was sick and living in the Rabbit Hole without you.”

They ordered coffee from Todd, a bored, pimple-faced young man in an ill-fitting silk vest, and looked over the menu. After months of travelling and eating their way through Latin America, it was both comforting and disappointing to find the same predictable items on this menu that Cosima could find at any hotel restaurant anywhere in North America. Delphine might've been thinking the same, because she said, “No rice and beans.”

“You miss `em?”

“Almost.”

“We can get some at the store for you. They can't be that hard to cook. Not compared to hollandaise sauce.”

At 10:15, after they'd turned away the waiter twice, saying they weren't ready, Delphine checked her phone and sighed. “Your parents gave you their sense of punctuality, I think. Do they know the restaurant stops serving breakfast at 10:30?”

“Yeah, they know. And it's all my mom. My dad's probably been ready to go for an hour, and he's just sitting on the couch waiting for her to do her hair or put her makeup on or whatever. Hey, how much you wanna bet these 'mixed fruit cups' are just pale honeydew melon and cantaloupe?”

Sally and Gene came in five minutes later, wearing sweaters and jeans. Even after spending several hours with them the day before, it was still a small shock for Cosima to see them again after so long away. They had aged more than she expected, but maybe that was the lack of contact making them seem that way. Maybe they'd always had so many wrinkles, and maybe her father had always shuffled that way when he walked, and had always had that wattle of skin below his chin. They were in their late sixties, after all, and her father would turn seventy in just a few months.

“Hey, kiddo,” Gene said, clapping Cosima on the shoulder as she stood to greet them.

“So sorry we're late,” Sally said with a smile. “Have you been waiting long?”

“No,” they both answered. “Not long.”

The Niehauses slid into the booth across from Cosima and Delphine and ordered coffees for themselves when Todd reappeared. They exchanged morning pleasantries – yes, everyone had slept well; yes, they liked their room, and thank you for reserving it. They offered to pay Cosima back for the room, and she refused. Then they all ordered, and once Todd had gone again, Sally sat back in her seat with her hands folded over her stomach, and gave Cosima a measured look.

“You gave us a lot to think about yesterday, Sweetie.”

Cosima took a deep breath. “I know. It's a lot to take in, but you do get used to it. I did; we all did.”

“Two hundred.... how many did you say there are?”

“274,” Cosima said. “That's, I mean, those are the ones that are still living. There were more originally.”

“How many more?” Gene asked.

“We're not exactly sure. It was just this past summer that we learned the 274 number, after the organization behind the cloning was destroyed; before that we had no idea.”

Sally's breath shook, and she turned to stare out the window. Gene, on the other hand, nodded and tapped his fingers on the table. “That must've been hard for you to come to terms with. Having 274 genetic identicals, I mean, that's...”

“It was, a little. But, it's also fascinating. I mean, you saw last night, we're all completely different people, even though our DNA is identical. Well, I mean, almost entirely identical.”

Sally turned back at the last sentence. “What do you mean, almost entirely? I thought the point was that you were entirely identical, not almost?”

“In every way that anyone else would notice, we are completely identical, but each of us has a tag number encoded in our DNA that's used for identification purposes. Or, that was used for identification purposes. Nobody's identifying us like that anymore.”

“A tag number?”

At her mother's shock, Cosima remembered learning about her own tag number from Delphine, who now rubbed her finger against the side of Cosima's jeans in a silent show to support. “Yeah. The, um, Dyad, the group that ran the study, they put it there so they could tell us apart.”

“But... why not use your names, or your social security numbers, or....”

“Because we can change our names, and not all of us live in the US or Canada. It's like, you'd tag mice or rats for an experiment. It removes the personality and lets researchers focus on the science.”

“You're not a mouse, Cosima,” Gene said.

“No, but as far as they were concerned, I might as well have been.”

Beside her, Delphine stepped in. “The experiments are all finished. No one is tracking the clones now, or running tests of any kind. All of that ended when Neolution collapsed earlier this year.”

“Neolution.” Sally and Gene looked at each other. “That does sound familiar,” Sally said.

“Yeah, they were doing all kinds of unethical stuff. Human cloning was just one part of it. You might've seen them on the news back in the spring.”

Todd returned with their plates, and there was the usual fuss of remembering who'd ordered what and exclaiming over how tasty it all looked. Cosima got the falafel salad – the most exotic item on the menu – and the fruit cup, which met her expectations except for two little blueberries tucked in with all the pale melon chunks. They ate quietly for a while, listening to the faint chatter from the restaurant staff across the room and the pop song playing in the lobby. The wall television, thankfully, was on mute, so the American politician's passionate words stayed silent.

Gene had finished all of his breakfast sides and gotten a refill on coffee when he leaned over his plate towards Delphine. “This whole cloning business must've hard for you to come to terms with, too, huh, Delphine?”

Delphine had just put a large forkful of omelet in her mouth, and froze, eyes wide. She and Cosima had discussed what to tell them about how they'd met, settling on “we met in Minnesota doing research.” They had not, however, prepared an answer for how Delphine had learned about clones. Whatever they said, though, Cosima did not want her parents to know about Delphine's role as monitor. Not yet. She wanted them to love Delphine first, and then learn about their complicated history.

“She took it pretty well in stride, I'd say.”

Delphine nodded while she chewed her food and swallowed. “Yes. It's fascinating, actually. I mean, obviously much of the research was unethical, but the science behind it is... fascinating.”

Cosima nodded in agreement, but saw an internal struggle in her parents' faces.

“Do you have a background in science, Delphine?” Sally asked.

Delphine's eyebrows twitched as she smiled. In all of the hullabaloo the day before, somehow they had neglected to say anything about that. “Yes, I have a doctorate in immunology.”

“Oh!” Both Drs. Niehaus sat up a little straighter at that, and Cosima knew they were ninety percent of the way to loving Delphine already. She knew they would. After all, Cosima loved her, and she spoke French, her mother's college minor. Having a doctorate in a biological field was the extra cream cheese icing on the cake. The conversation slid away from Dyad and Neolution and into Delphine's research and medical background, which impressed Sally and Gene just as much as Cosima had expected.

They were finishing up brunch and arguing over the check when Cosima's phone buzzed. It distracted her enough to let Sally grab the check and slap Cosima's hand away when she went for it again.

“Did you just slap me?” Cosima asked.

“Yes.” Sally tucked her credit card into the flap and gave to it Todd. “You might not be genetically related to me like I thought you were, but I am still your mother, Cosima, so you should listen to me and let me pay the bill.”

While Delphine laughed about that and Gene picked at his teeth, Cosima checked the new message on her phone. It was from Sarah.

Slight emergency situation today. I need your help.

Sure thing, Cosima replied. What do you need?

My final exam is at 3, and Charlotte has a parent teacher conference at 2:45.

For a moment Cosima wondered how she could help with that, when it hit her. “Oh no.”

Which one exactly are you asking me to do for you?

The conference.

“Is everything okay?” Delphine asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, Sarah just needs some help with Charlotte.”

Delphine checked her phone, which read 11:37. “It's Wednesday. Shouldn't she be in school right now?”

“Yeah, I think she is.” Delphine and both of her parents watched her, waiting for more of an explanation, but Cosima hesitated. Delphine knew about clone swaps; in fact, she'd organized an impressive triple-clone swap in her early days as Dyad director. Her parents, on the other hand... “There's a teacher conference for Charlotte this afternoon, and Sarah's not sure if she can make it.”

Delphine's eyebrows shot up, immediately comprehending the nature of Sarah's request, but Sally and Gene barely reacted. “Oh, that happens all the time,” Sally said. “Teachers understand parents are busy. She can probably reschedule.”

Cosima texted to see if she could. Meanwhile, Gene gnawed on the remains of his pork chop and looked confused. “Charlotte's another, uh.... another one like you, right?”

“She's a clone, yeah. They tried to restart the whole experiment several years back, but Charlotte was the only successful one.” She tried to keep her tone light, despite the horror of the situation.

“So, does she have, uh....” Gene waved his hands around in the air. “I mean, you have parents. You have us. And, and, the other lady yesterday, the one with the purple hair, she talked about her mother, so I assume she has parents, too.”

Cosima figured out his point and smiled, remembering how awkward he'd been after she came out of the closet, calling her a “homosexual” until she gave him permission to use the words “lesbian” and “queer.”

“It's a little more complicated with Charlotte,” she told him. “She had a adoptive mother, legally, but she didn't spend much time with her, and she's presumed dead now.”

Not until she saw her parents' faces did Cosima realize how those last words came across. Until now, the only other people she'd ever talked to about Marion Bowles were other members of Clone Club, who had long since ceased being shocked by the words “presumed dead.”

“Sarah's her legal guardian now,” Delphine explained. “She's been living with her for a few months now.”

“Ah.” Gene fidgeted with his lower lip, the way he did when was working out a problem in his head.

“The poor little thing,” Sally said. “What do you mean, presumed dead though? Is her mother missing?”

Delphine stepped in again. “Her mother had a position of some authority in Neolution's hierarchy, and before they went down for good, they, euh, restructured many of those top-level positions. Considering the illegal and sensitive nature of their work, they didn't want to just release former leadership into the world to share their secrets, so they, um... they often had them eliminated. To protect the research and the organization. Since no one has heard from Miss Bowles in almost two years, and all attempts to find her have failed, we think it's safe to assume that she's been killed.”

Todd came back to the table with the receipt for Sally to sign, but Sally and Gene were gaping too much to notice him.

“Are you serious?” Gene asked.

“Unfortunately,” Cosima said, “yes. We are. Like I said yesterday, there are reasons why I didn't want you to know any of this before now. It just wasn't safe.”

“But were you safe?” Sally asked. “You and.... and the others like you?”

Cosima wanted to ask what time period, exactly, she was referring to, but decided that her mother mostly just needed reassurance right now. Details could come later. “Yes,” she said. “I was safe.”

#continuing travels of cophine #cophine #cophine fanfiction #orphan black fanfiction #post canon

[actually-impostor]

Heroes and Anti-Heroes

I was thinking, it might be better for me to update this fanfic on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Seems a little easier for me somehow!

people tagged: @deafinatelyfangirling, @fearinghope, @mira-jadeamethyst, if you wish for me to tag you let me know

Reminder that in this fanfic Anxiety is called Enhos. Well, I don’t want to keep you guys waiting.

Warnings for this chapter: Violence, Blood, Cursing, All of it can be skipped if you start reading from the “ -|-|-|-|-|- ” mark

Previous Chapter

-0-0-0- Chapter 1: Two sides of the same coin -0-0-0-

“Nightmare! Nightmare answer us!”

“You should probably say bye to you little friends; don’t you agree, Hero?”

Nightmare coughed, blood trickling down his mouth. He couldn’t stand up and his Shadow wasn’t bending to his will, he was powerless. But even if he was defenseless and weakened it didn’t mean he was going to go out without a fight.

“Fuck you, Kirito knock-off”

The villain grimaced and punched Nightmare in the stomach, making the already hurt man cough up even more blood and bend over to hold his pained midsection.

“Well guys, you heard the man, let’s go. Oh, and Nightmare? You are coming with us”

He grabbed the hero by the hair and forced him to stand up. Someone behind him opened a portal and the cloak-clad man was thrown on top of a muscular shoulder, when they were crossing the portal they heard the sound of flight-boots. Seconds before the portal closed a bespectacled man landed near the place, throwing himself up to try and reach the hero

“NIGHTMARE, NO!”

“I’m sorry, Nervei”

And the portal closed.

-|-|-|-|-|-

-0-0-0-13 Years Ago -0-0-0-

Enhos sighed, he was so scared. They had relocated his Papa at work so they all had moved cities, and now he was going to start attending a new school. He was 9 years old, and this was the beginning of the fourth grade.

“Enhos? We are here”

He nodded, during his past 3 years his powers had grown and he was starting to become worried of actually hurting innocent people. So when his Papa had announced they were moving and Enhos asked if they could look for a Quirk Specialist, Jeremiah and Aaron shared a look and turned to his son, asking if he was sure of it. The little boy nodded as confidently as possible and explained that he was scared of hurting others and wanted to control his Quirk.

So, here he was, seconds away from seeing a Quirk Specialist that helped kids with complex Quirks and taught them how to control them. He inhaled and stared at his dad, making Jeremiah smile and hold the door open for his son.

“I’ll go in with you, but just for today. The rest of the appointments I’ll be waiting for you outside, okay?” Enhos nodded and they entered the building

“Hello, may I help you?” Jeremiah went to the receptionist, still grasping his son hand

“Hello, I’m Jeremiah Farandole. We have an appointment with… Mister Thomas?”

“Oh yes, he’s waiting for you. Please follow me”

The tall woman took them along an eternal looking corridor and made small talk, simple questions that Jeremiah answered and asked back with a smile. She stopped in front of a door that seemed as tall as the building itself “To accommodate people with transformation Quirks” and knocked gently

“Thomas, mister Jeremiah and his son are here”

“Let them in!”

She pushed the door open and both Jeremiah and Enhos were greeted with what looked like a physician’s room but more soft. The walls were a pastel baby blue color, there was a cork board full of pins and child-colored drawings, and there were pictures on the wall of a group of friends and some of a kid close in age to Enhos

“Hello!” The man stood up, he was slightly shorter than Jeremiah but he had the same kind smile “My name is Thomas Sanders and I’m a Quirk Specialist” He kneeled down to be at the same eye level as Enhos and smiled “You must be Enhos, right?”

The boy nodded, trying to hide behind his father’s leg. Thomas looked friendly but Enhos was still unfamiliar with him, making him feel anxious. The doctor stood up again and offered his hand to Jeremiah who shook it firmly, the Specialist pointed to two seats and sat on the other side of the desk

“So, what brings you both here?”

“Enhos, would you like me to answer?” Enhos shook his head; he held on to his dad hand and took a big breath

“I… my Quirk make people feel scared”

“What do you mean Enhos?”

“The doctor said I have t-the Quirk of a” Enhos gulped, he disliked remembering that “Of a villain”

Thomas took a deep breath and held on to the edge of the desk. He hated adults who said things carelessly. Jeremiah and Thomas shared a look and the father shook his head with a sad smile, they had been trying to make Enhos forget that phrase but it was complex, and kids were cruel.

“Enhos can manipulate people’s fears, and that cloak he has works as some sort of… smoke when not in cloak form”

“Shadow also brings me things!” Enhos was smiling, he loved his cloak

“Well, isn’t that one handy Quirk?” Thomas and Enhos laughed at the joke while Jeremiah face palmed silently and tried to repress a chuckle “So, do you wish to understand your Quirk?”

“I… I don’t want to hurt people, and the TV said you knew how to help kids like me”

Thomas smiled embarrassedly, he remembered that interview.

“Well Enhos, I’ll do whatever I can to help you use your powers for good. But first, I need you to show me how it works”

“I don’t- You could get hurt!”

“I promise nothing bad will happen to me”

Enhos looked at his dad, and when Jeremiah nodded he closed his eyes and concentrated.

The cloak that was solid turned into a fine smoke and surrounded Thomas. It solidified into a type of transparent bubble and Thomas knocked on it lightly, it felt like plastic and he whistled in surprise. There was still some smoke inside and outside of the bubble making it look misty and out of a Silent Hill movie, the only difference was that the mist/smoke was purple. When Enhos opened his eyes the mist started raining down on Thomas and a mirror formed in front of his eyes, reflecting the man’s fears.

Thomas closed his eyes and concentrated, a white light surrounding his body and fighting away the darkness of Shadow. When the doctor opened his eyes the bubble started collapsing in a rain of sparkles, only to materialize again into the cloak-like shape and drape itself over Enhos shoulders.

“That was so cool!” It was no more than a whisper, but Enhos had stars in his eyes and was looking at Thomas in amazement “How did you do that?”

Thomas laughed, ruffling the kids hair “My Quirk is called Opposite, it can oppose any Quirk”

“So cool! Dad did you saw? That was so cool!”

“Thank you Enhos” Thomas smiled before sitting down again “Well, you seem to have a pretty solid control of your Quirk”

“Not always… I hurt people when I get angry… I make them feel scared” Enhos sounded so sad, Thomas felt his heart squeeze itself into his chest.

“Enhos, we all have accidentally hurt someone with our powers” He started, Jeremiah nodded “If you really wish to come here once or twice a week then you are more than welcome to do so, but don’t do it because others are forcing you to”

Enhos shook his head, a tiny and shy smile on his face

“I’m doing this because I want to be a hero! I want to help others, so this dark Quirk… this scary Quirk, I have to learn to make it good”

Thomas smiled, satisfied with the answer

“Well then! Let’s shape you into a hero”

Jeremiah and Thomas spent the rest of the visit discussing which days Enhos was going to be attending the office and if there was some sort of thing Enhos would have to bring and etcetera. In Enhos honest opinion? It was boring.

When both grownups where satisfied with their preparations Enhos and Jeremiah left the office, waving goodbye at the young woman being the reception desk and at the old guard of the place. At Enhos request they drove to the school building, Enhos knew it was weird of him to do this but he wanted to know where he could run in case he repeated what happened when he was six. Once Enhos felt confident enough in his knowledge of all the possible escape routes he nodded. He was ready for Monday.

-0-

Enhos was taking back his words, he was so not ready. Would the other kids hate him? Would they push him aside? Was he going to spend five years all alone?

Jeremiah and Aaron shared a look and smiled slightly, Enhos was always anxious about things he couldn’t control. Aaron kneeled down in front of his son and ruffled the boys hair while giving him a soft smile

“Look at my son, all grown up. I’m an old man”

“You are not that old, Papa” Aaron laughed

“You are not old either kiddo, and if you ever feel like it’s too much you can always call me or you Dad and we’ll come pick you up, okay?”

Enhos nodded and Aaron stood up, the young child went to his dad and kissed him goodbye before allowing Jeremiah a few seconds to hug him and whisper how proud he was of his little son. Aaron took Enhos hand and both went to the car, Jeremiah waving goodbye from the doorframe. It was going to be a good day.

In another part of the city a young blonde boy was waving a plastic sword all over the place while dragging his mom by the skirt to the door, the woman chuckled and petted his head

“Roman, calm down”

“But Mamá, It’s my first day here!”

“I know, but if we go now we’ll be there before even the teachers!” With that the woman let out a big laugh

Roman pouted, he could understand what his Mamá was saying but at the same time this was a new place, a place where no one knew he was the son of Miss Valerie Torres. He was ready to just be Roman Torres. He wanted to go now, he wanted to have friends, and he wanted to play with kids his age!

Once his mom determined it was a good enough time to leave they went on their merry way to school. Roman was bouncing on his seat, he was so excited to meet other kids his age and be able to compare Quirks!

Once they reached the school Valerie kissed her son goodbye, leaving a lipstick mark and making Roman groan in fake irritation

“Mom” he whined “Im a grown up now! It’s embarrassing!”

“Nonsense Roman Maximo Torres, you are still my tiny son and you get hugs and kisses to school!”

Roman giggle, he wasn’t really opposed to it he just wanted to pretend to be big. He jumped out of the car after allowing his mom to hug him again and went running to school; he was ready to start a new life.

He was in the classroom 2-B, a classroom that according to the director was “made for kids with slightly dangerous Quirks so they wouldn’t accidentally destroy the school.” Roman giggle at the idea, how would his blades destroy the classroom? It was silly!

He was so absorbed in his imagination of summoning a Giant Blade that he didn’t noticed when he collided with another kid slightly taller than him. What he did notice was the kid suddenly in the ground and staring up at him.

“I-I’m so-”

“No, no, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking!” Roman bent down to present his hand to the boy, who took it with a slightly shaky hand “I’m Roman, and you?”

“E-Enhos”

“A pleasure to meet you Enhos! Is this your classroom too?”

Enhos nodded and Roman gifted him a smile, Roman started talking a mile a minute, barely taking time to breathe while Enhos nodded or laughed. It was easy to talk to the other boy, and soon both were sitting besides the other to continue their conversation.

When the teacher opened the door Roman gasped and started repeatedly slapping Enhos arm softly, making the taller boy stare at him confusedly

“That’s my uncle!”

“Good morning class, I’m Nelson Torres and I’ll be your teacher this year”

Roman was smiling so brightly it felt like he was shining, the teacher catched his eye in the classroom and smiled at him making Roman start again with the gentle slapping on Enhos arm. The boy smiled softly, he had a friend and the prospect of an interesting year.

#necro writes #heroes and antiheroes fic #anxiety sanders #roman sanders #Thomas #fanfic #I FINALLY GOT TO ADD THOMAS TO THIS #IT WAS THE THING I WAS MOST EXCITED ABOUT