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ppersonna · 3 years

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out of my league - knj | 01

you were out of my league. got my heartbeat racing. if i die, don't wake me, cause you are more than just a dream - out of my league, fitz and the tantrums

✹ summary- Kim Namjoon was never supposed to find out about your years-long hopeless crush on him. And he most definitely was not supposed to find out about it in front of all your coworkers in a company-wide meeting.

✹ rating- explicit/18+/nsfw

✹ pairing- kim namjoon x reader

✹ word count- 6.6k

✹ genre- angst, smut, comedy

✹ chapter warnings- swearing, descriptions of sex, sexual content, namjoon being a sexy flirt, jungkook being a himbo, awkward conversations, jimin being a protective bff

✹ a/n- hello and welcome to this fic thats lived in my google docs for almost a year now. without @ladyartemesia @xjoonchildx @untaemedqueen and @chimoona, i would never have posted it. i truly owe so much of my brainstorming and creativity to their incredible brains and thoughts and ideas. i love them very much! i hope you enjoy this first chapter! please feel free to message me, talk to me abt anything!! im always here to chat. ILY!

MASTERLIST

Kim Namjoon was never supposed to find out this way.

You planned to confess your undying, unerring love for your coworker at a better time, a classier place. You would wear a dress that highlighted your features, hair cascading down your back, makeup done to perfection and spritzed with expensive perfume. You’d confess, he’d confess right back, and you’d live happily ever after.

You’d also dreamt that Kim Namjoon would have the slightest inkling of who you are before he finds out about your year long crush. He might know you as the mousy girl in the office who doesn’t talk and doesn’t contribute much other than some crunched numbers and apparently the best coffee brewer in the office. But you’d prefer he knows you well—your favorite colors and movies and foods, what makes you happy and sad; things future husbands should know.

You very much did not think it would happen in a company wide conference, full of over five hundred suit-wearing executives. You did not think it would be done by the office bully, Chungha, who carefully takes over the mic and speaks the words clearly as she presents awards of recognition.

“Congratulations to Kim Namjoon for 5 years with the company, over $4 million in revenue, and the object of ____’s lust and affection. I’m sure you two will have the happy life she’s written in her journal about. Make sure you celebrate with her today!”

The room is silent, so silent you could have heard a pin drop from a mile away. Your face is cherry red and you wish the earth would open up and swallow you whole. Your heart feels like someone has ripped it in half and you stare in horror at the girl smirking at the front. Is this what it feels like to be backstabbed? Namjoon looks perplexed—confusion written on his face as he gestures around to no one in particular like he’s saying ‘what the fuck was that?’

Awkward coughing and clapping begins and Namjoon stands to receive his award, a fine wooden fountain pen, and chances a glance around the room. He easily spots you, with your wide, frightened face. His look remains passive, not hinting what he’s thinking behind those stormy eyes, before he turns and sits back down at the table with his buddies from his department.

You seriously contemplate quitting your job. You could find a new one easily, right? Just stand up and tell your boss you quit and you’re out of there before Namjoon ever sees you again and you’ll never have to face the mean girl who’s ratting you out.

As much as the idea rolls through your head, you know you won’t do it. You love your job, love the security and finances it provides you, and you love to look at Kim Namjoon, all day every day.

You don’t understand where things went wrong.

( one month ago )

It’s 9:03 am. You finish brewing the coffee in the small staff kitchen and sigh at the aroma of the freshly ground beans. Coffee is your favorite meal, favorite time of day, favorite snack, and preferred beverage. You drink it constantly. You’re known as “coffee girl” at work, mostly because no one really bothers to get to know you beyond that. You drink coffee like it’s a devoted religion. You could drink a cup right before bed and still sleep like a baby. It was, put simply, your drink.

The office workers deem you to be the one to make the pots of coffee every morning, claiming you were the ‘best’. You didn’t mind—you preferred to make your own coffee regardless—but you believe your coworkers are trying to pass off the twenty-minute job to someone lower in the office hierarchy. And you were one step above the interns.

The coffee machine chimes to let you know it’s hot, and it’s ready for you. You eagerly pour a mug, a large one, and smile as the waft of freshly ground beans (by you, of course) fills your senses.

You nearly knock the cup out of your hand as Kim Namjoon strolls into the office, eyes set on the coffee.

You feel your throat swell up, like he’s an allergen and you’re caught without an epi-pen. Butterflies swirl in your stomach and you can’t stop staring at him. He pays you no mind, tired yet determined to pour a cup of coffee and get back to his office.

You stand in the small kitchen, clutching your coffee like a lifeline, and pray to god you don’t do something stupid.

Namjoon pours his mug, and you watch his muscular hands grip the coffee pot. He pours a hefty amount of cream and sugar into his cup—it appears even perfect male specimens have their faults.

Your eyes dance on his face before they tango down his body. You wonder what he looks like in the morning, crawling out of bed with mussed hair and a sleepy smile painted on his face. He’d look at you and tell you you’re the most beautiful girl and kiss you deeply despite morning breath. Maybe he’d take you to the shower to press you against the tile as he fuc-

“Oh!” it startles Namjoon to see you, and the coffee in his hand swishes violently. “Didn’t see you there. Sorry!”

Your heart melts. He’s the picture of kindness and politeness. You recognize it’s been a few seconds and you still haven’t replied.

“It’s fine!”

“Great coffee, by the way,” he smiles. His teeth nearly knock you out cold with their brilliance. “Have a good day.”

He turns and exits the room without so much as a glance back at you. Your knees feel weak.

Kim Namjoon talked to you. He complimented you. He told you to have a good day. It’s the best and most significant conversation you’ve had with your secret crush.

You definitely file that away for another day when you need to reminisce on his compliment, and you scurry out of the kitchen towards your desk.

Park Jimin is waiting dutifully at your desk when you arrive, a smug smile still slapped over your features as you sip at your coffee. Namjoon spoke to you today—how lovely.

Jimin quirks an eyebrow.

“What’s got you so perky this morning?”

You’re normally quiet and passive, avoiding eye contact or any semblance of emotion on your face.

You look up at the blonde bespectacled boy. Park Jimin is the closest thing to a best friend in the company. He’s who you spend time with at lunch, see on weekends, and text often. You suppose he’s the closest thing to a best friend you have in your entire life.

You send him a smirk and lean in close to whisper. “Namjoon said hi to me today!”

Jimin sends you a pitiful look and pats your shoulder. Your best friend is well aware of your secret crush and while he thinks Namjoon is a nice guy, he thinks your crush is a little hopeless. He’s the most popular guy in the office, often has dates lined up every weekend. Jimin hears the way he and his friends talk in the break room. The man is definitely not hurting for female attention.

“Oh, honey,” he sighs, unenthusiastically. “That’s great.” He can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness over how excited you’re getting from a simple ‘hello’ from a coworker.

“I know, right? Anyway, lunch today?” You ask as you settle down into your cubicle.

Jimin pushes his glasses up his face and nods. “Of course! That’s why I came by this morning. I wanted to let you know that Jungkook from marketing will join us.”

You make a face, disgust etched in the lines creasing your forehead.

“Why?”

Jungkook is well known in the company. He’s a loudmouth, a player, a clown, and everyone’s favorite comedian. He’s just not your favorite.

“Don’t be rude,” Jimin admonishes at your grimace. “He asked to join and well—he’s cute. I can’t say no to him.”

“Oh Christ, Jimin,” you groan. “Not you too! Don’t tell me you have the hots for the serial fuckboy?”

He blushes lightly and shrugs. “Maybe I do! Be nice to him today or I’ll eat all your chocolate ice cream I know you have at home.”

You stick your tongue out, petulantly. “Fine, now let me get to work or else Seokjin will be up my ass.”

Jimin smiles and kisses your cheek before he scurries away, back to human resources.

It feels as if barely any time has passed. You’re working hard, running calculations and updating spreadsheets. You have an eye for numbers, and losing yourself in an equation is just another day for you. You’re shaken from your cheerful place by a vibration from your phone, and a text alert popping on the lit screen.

jimin 12:01 pm- it’s lunchtime!! you better get your butt out here!

You smile and text back an affirmative reply, then move to grab your lunch from the company fridge. Gliding down the steps leading to the fresh outdoors, you meet Jimin at the lunch tables in the grass.

Jimin is sitting with Jungkook. You can recognize your best friend by his hair and glasses, and Jungkook by his obnoxious laughter.

“Hi,” you murmur as you sit down and open up the brown bag lunch you’ve brought.

“Hi!” Jimin is excited to see you, and just a pinch over eager to be sitting next to Jungkook.

“You know Jungkook, right?” Jimin asks, a harsh look in his eyes that reminds you to be on your best behavior.

You nod as you pull out a bag of grapes. “Oh, yeah, hey,” you smile. “I’ve seen you around.”

Jungkook delivers you a signature smirk and you feel yourself roll your eyes internally. “Yeah, you’re Coffee Girl, right?”

You pout and glare down at your brown bag lunch. Will you ever become more than just Coffee Girl?

“Yeah, I suppose that’s me.”

Jimin clears his throat to dismiss any awkwardness.

“So, Jungkook, I hear you like working out? ___ likes to work out too. She drags me to the gym sometimes. Maybe we could all meet up sometime?” You don’t miss the hopeful lilt in his voice. Jungkook does.

“Oh, yeah?” He narrows a sexy look at you, rather—a look he thinks is sexy that you find off-putting. “What do you do at the gym? Little cardio sets with 5 pound weights?”

What an asshole.

“Sometimes,” you state as you take a bite of the homemade salad you handcrafted last night. “Most of the time I’m lifting heavy. I can bench 275 and deadlift 300.”

Jungkook looks taken back. “What, really?” He sounds breathless. “You lift more than Namjoon-hyung.”

At the sound of the love of your life’s name, you pause. Your face heats quickly and Jungkook smirks. Of course, he recognizes this and not Jimin’s obvious flirting.

“Why are you blushing?” He asks. “Did I say something?”

You’re quick to dismiss things. “Um--no. I just um,” you’re grasping at straws. “I’m hot.”

Jimin is trying not to laugh, hiding his mouth behind a petite hand.

Jungkook tilts his head. “It’s not even sunny today.”

You gulp. “Yeah, I must be hot. With a fever. M-malaria… probably.”

Jungkook snorts.

“You have malaria? Bummer.” He picks at his nails. “I thought for a moment you had a thing for Namjoon.”

“No!” The retort is quick, too quick for normal conversation, and it gives you away.

“Aha!” Jungkook points an accusing finger at you. “You have the hots for him, don’t you?”

Your features melt, and Jimin tries to assuage the situation. “Jungkook, please don’t tell anyone,” he pleads.

Jungkook smiles at you. “That’s so cute. It’s like a little nerdy freshman crushing on the senior class president.”

You bury your head in your hands, suddenly unable to stomach any food.

“Jungkook,” Jimin’s tone becomes more firm, authoritative. “I’m asking you this as a friend. Please, don’t say anything.”

Jungkook holds his hands up to prove his innocence and waves his proverbial white flag.

“Secret is safe with me,” he promises. “But it’s cute. I know him really well, you know. I could try to hook you two up.”

You blanch, unsure if you want Jungkook saying anything about you to the man of your dreams.

“I’m good, but thanks,” you offer meekly. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going to head back to work, okay?”

Jimin frowns, knowing you’re feeling like a cornered animal, and nods. “Feel better, babe,” he sighs.

Jungkook watches as you leave and turns to Jimin. “Man, he’s way out of her league.”

Jimin slaps the boy in the chest. “Be nice, asshole, that’s my best friend.”

Jungkook promises to be nice, and Jimin is blissfully unaware that others are listening and that the man beside him is easy to persuade.

( present day )

The company-wide meeting adjourns soon after what is likely to be the most embarrassing moment you’ve ever lived through.

You’re grabbing at your things and trying to run out of the room, desperate to get out before anyone sees you or talks to you or laughs at you.

A hand grabs at the coattails of your suit jacket and you’re pulled backwards with a yelp. You turn to seek your captor and find the concerned face of your best friend, Jimin.

“Are you okay? What the fuck just happened?”

Jimin’s concern makes it all real. Until now you could pretend you were in a fugue state, totally dissociated from reality. Now, you realize that everyone in the entire company is aware of your crush on Kim Namjoon.

You can feel your bottom lip wobble, tears threatening to spill. Jimin murmurs an ‘oh shit’ and drags you out of the large room and into the nearest bathroom. He pushes you to sit against the sink and passes you toilet paper to dab at your eyes.

“I don’t know how she found out!” you cry. “God, I feel so stupid and embarrassed.”

It incenses Jimin. He’s holding it back to ensure you’re okay, but in reality, it’s an HR nightmare waiting to happen. He’ll find who did it and punish them accordingly.

They will suffer.

“It’s okay, babe,” he pulls you into a hug. “Everyone will forget about it soon. They’ll think it’s just a lame office joke, okay?”

You nod, feeling the slightest bit comforted by his words.

“How could she find out, Jiminie?” You ask with a sniffle. “You’re the only person who knows.”

Jimin sighs and shakes his head.

“I don’t know, but they’re dead. I haven’t told any-... oh, my god,” Jimin stops suddenly. You look up at him to catch what he’s thinking.

He growls and balls his fists.

“Jungkook knew.”

You let out a sob and bawl your eyes out into the tissue you’re holding. Jimin holds you tighter while he conjures up a hundred different ways to hurt someone and make it look like an accident.

“Don’t worry,” Jimin sighs, trying to comfort both you and himself. “I’m HR. I have to handle this. I’ll make sure they get what they deserve.”

You feel a sting of pain for Jimin. He’s been hopelessly doting on the man who spilled the beans for a few months now, even got to take him on a few dates. It was still nothing serious, but Jimin was clearly smitten.

“I’m sorry you have to do that, Chim,” you whisper. “I know how you feel about him.”

“Yeah, well,” he swallows thickly. “You’re more important than any asshole.”

Jimin holds you tight for a few minutes longer, before you clean yourself up and steel yourself. Ignore everyone, Jimin encourages. Just get to work, he says. Then you can go home and we’ll drink wine and forget about it all, he promises.

You replay his words in his head like a prayer as you walk down the corridors and towards your office. Everyone in the hallways stops to stare at you. They lean towards their friends and whisper. You hear snippets of their gossip, like “Namjoon” and “out of her league”. It drives the sharp blade lodged in your chest even further. It threatens to collapse your lungs and break your ribs.

You make it to your desk safe and sound and bury yourself in work and forcibly ignore the gawking and the stares.

Just make it home. Just get through the day. You’re almost there.

You could do this.

You nearly make it the entire day before running into the one person you didn’t want to see, Kim Namjoon.

At the end of the day, you’re taking the stairs down to the parking garage instead of the elevator. The elevator is too busy, too many people, and you’re trying to avoid the stares and giggles at your expense. The stairs are always deserted and you figure it’s your safest bet.

You can nearly hear the wine calling your name at home. A delicate glass of Sauvignon Blanc and some chocolate ice cream and a good cry—it sounds like the best and only way to unwind after the worst day you’ve ever had in your life.

The chanting of your name gets louder and you wonder if you’ve finally lost your mind—if you’re actually hearing your wine bottles all the way at home talking to you.

No, wait. The voice is real, and coming from behind you. You turn around to face who’s calling you and nearly faint at the sight.

Kim Namjoon stands on the landing above you, one strip of stairs between you.

“Hey!” He seems glad he’s caught you. “I’ve been calling your name for a minute.”

You swallow and search for an answer.

“Sorry, I’m-.. I guess I’m just a little out of it today.”

Namjoon grimaces.

“Yeah, about that…” he begins as he takes the steps down to be on equal ground as you. Your heart is spinning wildly. He’s so close to you. He’s talking to you. On any other day you’d be erupting towards the sky like a firework. But today isn’t any other day.

“I feel like I should apologize,” he states. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t plan it or anything.”

Damn him and his kindness. Damn him and his cute, awkward smile.

“No, no,” you assure. “I know you didn’t. You don’t have to apologize.”

It’s hard to make eye contact with the man. You want to, know it’s important in intense conversations like this, but the thought of him seeing you—really seeing you makes you ache inside.

“It was a really shitty prank,” he begins. “I’m sure you don’t even know who I am, let alone have a crush on me.”

For the millionth time that day, your face heats to a near boil. You stammer and you’re sure you’ve blown any chance at even thinking about a date with Namjoon.

“Oh, uh, right,” you seek an answer, beg your brain to pick something to say that doesn’t make you sound stupid. “I do.”

“You do what?” He’s confused and you widen your eyes at what just left your mouth.

“I do know you! I mean, I do have a crush on you! Oh, fuck,” you shove your face into your hands. “Please, ignore that. I need to go. Sorry!” You don’t give him a chance to reply, you book it out of the stairway as fast as your heels will take you.

Today was the worst day you’ve suffered through in your life.

The next few days aren’t much better.

Not only are you “coffee girl”, you’re now also sarcastically called “Namjoon’s girl”. As much as you hate your initial title, you’d prefer it to the new one they throw at you as you walk by.

Jimin rats out Jungkook and Chungha to the bosses. They get two weeks probation and they have to write you apology letters if they wish to keep their permanent files clean of any reprimands. It’s a slap on the wrist, and everyone involved knows it. Jimin is furious and wants the boss to reconsider. You tell him not to push it. You’d rather this be over and everyone to forget it even happened. Jimin unwillingly agrees.

You’re working at your desk, earphones shoved in your ears to diffuse the gossip in the room, when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You turn and are greeted with the face of Judas Iscariot himself, Jeon Jungkook.

“Hi,” he sounds sheepish, cheeks reddening.

You narrow your eyes at him, sharper than steel. “What the fuck do you want?”

He winces, knowing he deserved that. “Well, I just wanted to apologize. I know they told me to write you a letter, but it seems too impersonal…”.

You can’t believe Jungkook is sucking his ego up and actually coming to you to apologize. You thought he’d for sure be the one to cop out and send a shitty letter.

He continues.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry that all went down. I didn’t mean to tell her. She got me drunk and said she saw me eating lunch with you and Jimin. I think she was jealous or something and it slipped out. I know that’s not an excuse. I fucked up your trust and Jimin’s trust. But I just wanted you to know I didn’t do it to be an asshole. She sort of duped me.”

You pause as you take in the man’s apology. He didn’t have to come to you in person. He could have easily taken the shitty route and half-assed a letter to you. But he didn't, and he owned up to his mistake. God dammit.

“I appreciate your apology, Jungkook,” you sigh and you see his body visibly relax. “I’m still mad, but I guess the anger is at her for doing it in the first place. I’m sorry she tricked you.”

He breathes a sigh of relief and kneels down beside you. “I’m really happy you believe me. I was worried you were going to kick me in the nuts.

“I won’t lie, I thought about it.”

He smiles with you, and you feel like this is the restart of a friendship. “I definitely deserved it.”

You shrug and smile. “Jimin would kill me for hurting you. He might even kill me for thinking about hurting you.”

Jungkook’s smile drops at the name of your best friend. Yikes. Looks like there’s still trouble in paradise.

“I think you’d be in similar company with Jimin right now. He’s not speaking to me.”

You let out a breath through your nose. “Yeah, he’s a little protective of me.”

“For good reason,” he admits. “You’re like a cute little flower. A cute nerdy flower.”

“Jungkook,” you warn. “I just forgave you after I was humiliated in front of the entire company. I’d be careful with calling me nerdy right now.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

It’s hard to stay mad at the boy, no matter how much you dislike his reputation around the office. The fact that he humbled himself enough to seek you out and apologize is proof enough to you of his character.

“It’s okay, Jungkook. I forgive you,” you smile. “Thank you for apologizing.”

He rubs the back of his neck anxiously as his cheeks flare red.

“Yeah, it felt pretty shitty to just… do anything else. Plus, you seem really cool.”

“You seem great, too, Jungkook.”

He smiles and pulls you in for a hug, catching you off guard. For the fuckboy type, he’s surprisingly sensitive and soft. You like that about him.

“I’ll see you around, okay?” He says as he pulls away from you.

“Maybe you should apologize to Jimin, too?”

His smile drops, but he nods anyway. “Yeah, maybe I’ll go find him now.”

“Good luck,” you offer with a pat on his shoulder.

With a sad smile, he turns and heads down the hallway towards the HR department. You pray Jimin shows mercy to the handsome boy.

A few weeks go by, and you’re sure that everyone has forgotten about you and your most embarrassing moment to date. You make the coffee, you calculate the numbers, everyone ignores you. Things return to relative normalcy.

Until it doesn't. The moment you think you're safe is the moment your guard comes down and everything falls apart around you.

It's when you're in the staff kitchen, grinding fresh beans to brew a second pot of coffee, that it happens.

The kitchen is fuller than usual. You normally try to wait until the lunchtime crowd dwindles and leaves to make your second pot, but you're so desperate for the caffeine that you can't find it in you to care.

You trudge into the kitchen with your handy coffee mug clutched in your tired hands and head towards the cupboards to grind up the beans.

There's a few groups of coworkers lingering in the room, and as your grinder whirs the beans around into a powder, you chance a look around to see who's among the crowd.

Your eyes flick immediately to where a hearty laugh erupts. It makes your heart still in your throat. Namjoon sits with his usual crowd of friends, hand gripping a homemade sandwich while the other assists him in telling his story to his friends. He pays you no mind—why would he?—and you can't help but stare at the way his dark brown hair lays perfectly against his forehead, and his eyes crinkle so cutely at the edges when he smiles.

You nearly forget about the coffee grounds—you're snapped out of your Namjoon-induced trance when suddenly a woman's laugh echoes around the room.

"Look at her," the voice states.

You peer up and see a girl you vaguely recognize. Is she from Marketing? Or perhaps Sales? You’re not sure, but she’s staring at you with a sneer.

“She’s so weirdly obsessed with Namjoon. It’s so creepy.”

Your face turns cherry red and you’re sure your lungs stop functioning. The air your body needs to breathe freezes and your chest aches.

Namjoon turns to look at the girl before he looks and sees you grasping your coffee grounds tightly.

“Chungha was right—it’s so weird. Namjoon, you should talk to HR about this!”

Namjoon turns back to the gossiping coworker and frowns. “Can you leave it alone? She wasn’t even doing anything.”

The girl huffs and crosses her arms over her chest and looks back at Namjoon.

“How can you stand to be in the same room as her? She clearly thinks she has a chance with you.”

Her words come out like a bite. She punctuates her point with a harsh laugh and the group around her mumbles and chuckles in agreement.

You’re desperately grabbing at anything you can, wanting to leave as quickly as possible before you’re embarrassed further.

“Well, she does!” Namjoon replies loudly, annoyance written in his features. “I was actually going to ask her to dinner this weekend in private, but since everyone is so fucking interested in my love life, I have to do it publicly.”

The room falls silent, and your favorite mug falls out from your hands and shatters on the floor. All sets of eyes stare at you while yours widen with disbelief—you don't even care that you’re standing in a pool of old coffee and shattered ceramic.

Namjoon stands and heads over to you, bending down to pick up the shards of your coffee mug. You take a few stunted breaths to kneel and help.

His eyes peer into yours. They’re warm—a chocolate brown color that makes you feel safe.

“What do you say?” He asks with a smile so gentle it nearly breaks your heart. “Will you let me take you out this weekend?”

You’re gaping like a fish and the surrounding room is silent—bated breath waiting for your reply.

“Yes, I would l-love that.”

His smile turns even brighter, and he stands to throw the broken mug away.

“I’ll email you the details, okay?”

Your head nods dumbly without thinking. His eyes sparkle as he smiles at you, and he extends his hand down to you to assist you off the floor. As your hand slips into his, you can’t help but feel how soft and strong he feels. You wonder what his hand would feel like caressing your face, smoothing down the expanse of your bare back, running down the length of your body.

The thoughts shake out of you as he winks and kisses your hand gently, causing the gossiping coworker to grunt her disapproval and for murmurs of shock to echo around the room.

“I’ll talk to you later, doll.” Namjoon winks at you before he grabs his sandwich and leaves the room, gesturing to his crew to follow along.

The place on your hand felt warm where his lips once lingered. You no longer cared about the angry glares from the rest of your coworkers. Your heart beats wildly in your chest, and you leave the kitchen nearly floating on cloud nine.

Email from: Kim Namjoon

Sent: 3:06 pm

Subject: Hey good lookin ;)

Hey!

Just wanted to see how you are! I’m sorry about what happened at lunchtime. That was super petty and uncalled for. I really wanted to ask you out, and I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much by doing it in front of everyone.

I was wondering if you’d like to go out this Friday night after work? Say around 7? If you send me your address, I’ll pick you up.

Let me know!

Xoxo, Joon

You’re sure if you weren’t sitting in your tiny cubicle, you’d be screaming your lungs out.

The second the notification of the email came through, direct from the man of your desires himself, your body froze.

You re-read the message, over and over and over.

The winky emoji, the xoxo, the nickname ‘joon’. It’s all so much and makes the grin on your face threaten to split your lips in half.

Your fingers press the “FWD” button and you quickly send the message to Jimin, before you stand demurely, attempting to give off an air of professional confidence. You need to talk to Jimin, now.

As soon as you’re out of the eyesight of suspicious coworkers, you bolt down the hallway towards Human Resources. Your high heels click loudly on the tiled floor, but the sound doesn’t even register in your mind. All you can think about is Namjoon, the email, the press of his lips on your hand, the way his smile made you feel as if you could fly.

The door to HR swings open with your tight grip around the doorknob, and you open your mouth to call to Jimin, the lone employee, when you’re startled by the sight ahead of you.

Jimin sits on the edge of his expansive desk with his arms thrown around Jungkook’s neck and is clearly engaged in a deep, sensual kiss. At the sound of the door opening, they quickly break apart, with matching cherry red blushes on their cheeks and mused hair.

“Oh, shit,” you gasp.

The men are silent and you can’t help but giggle after a moment passes. “I’ll take it you two made up?”

Jungkook flashes you a dopey grin, one that gives you an answer, while Jimin smirks haughtily.

“Jungkook and I were just discussing, umm… his 401k.”

Jungkook looks at the blonde boy for a moment, confused, before he gets it. “Yeah! Totally. Retirement. Love to t-talk about it?”

You laugh out loud and walk towards the couple.

“I’m sure it was a titillating discussion,” you tease. “I have good news though, if it’s okay to interrupt this retirement planning session.”

Jimin nods and Jungkook rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly. “I guess I should leave?”

“It’s okay,” you smile. “I trust you.”

Jungkook smiles as if he’s just won the lottery. He looks between you and Jimin, face pure and excited like a puppy.

“What’s up?” Jimin asks as he moves to sit down at his desk.

“I forwarded you an email. Read it.”

Jimin nods and logs on to his posh computer, scrolling and clicking before narrowing his eyes and reading.

“Oh, my god.” Jimin’s face is shocked—it's written all over his features. “Namjoon asked you out?!”

Jungkook’s child-like grin turns into one of shock himself. He runs around to stand behind Jimin, eyes seeking over the words of the email.

“Well, hot damn,” Jungkook whistles. “He asked her out.”

Jimin exchanges a look with Jungkook, one that you’re not sure you can read. It quickly slips your mind, however, as you’re more focused on the task at hand.

“Can you come over tonight after work and help me pick out something to wear?” You ask excitedly.

Jimin smiles at you, a touch of sadness in his eyes, before he nods.

“Of course, babe,” he assures. “We’ll make sure you look nice and hot for the date with Mr. Kim.”

“Thank you!” You squeal as you wrap your arms around your best friend. He hugs you back before you scurry out of the office and back to your cubicle, itching to reply to the message.

Jimin sighs as the door to his office closes behind you.

“Kook, please don’t tell me he’s going to break her heart. He’s asking her out to make himself feel better about this, isn’t he?”

Jungkook slips his hand into Jimin’s and squeezes.

“I’ll find out, baby.”

Jimin smiles and nods appreciatively at the boy, before leaning up and kissing him.

Jungkook smiles against his lips, and is determined to ensure the young HR specialist never hates him again, even if he has to go behind his hyung’s back to ensure his new boyfriend’s happiness.

Jungkook has one mission now, and that’s ensuring Namjoon takes you on the greatest date known to man.

He grills Jimin with questions about what you like over dinner one night. Jimin finds it endearing that Jungkook is so eager to rectify his mistakes, but he still can’t help but worry that Namjoon is doing this to save face—not because he actually likes you.

“So, what does she like doing?” Jungkook asks as he spins his pasta around his chopsticks idly.

Jimin smiles as he takes a bite of the ramen Jungkook has thoughtfully prepared for their stay-at-home date.

“I’ve told you already! She’s easy to figure out.” Jimin pats Jungkook’s hand gently. “She loves cooking and baking, working out, daydreaming about Namjoon.”

“Cooking, hm,” Jungkook looks thoughtful as he takes a bite. “I think Namjoon can work with that. I’ll let him know!”

Jimin tries to hide the anxiety brewing in his stomach. He’s had to plaster on a fake smile for you while you tried on different outfits, wondering which will be the one to finally convince Namjoon he is the one for you. It’s hard to fake it around his boyfriend, too—but something tugs in his stomach that flares the cynical side of him.

Namjoon went from not knowing of your existence, to watching you get publicly embarrassed in a matter of minutes. While Namjoon isn’t a terrible guy, Jimin knows he doesn’t like anything to tarnish the gentleman reputation he’s built in the office. And as much as Jimin likes him, and surely likes his friend Jungkook, he can’t help but feel skeptical.

Jungkook hurriedly pulls out his phone and types away, letting his elder friend know of what he’s found out. Jimin swallows his food, and his pride, and hopes to god his growing cynicism is wrong.

Friday comes slower than you’d like. You wake up every day during the week, one day closer, and your eagerness hits peak levels. Namjoon sees you in the hallways during the week and winks at you, hands shoved in his tight slacks that make you salivate.

He emails you again Thursday afternoon, confirming things and getting your address. You reply in nanoseconds, uncaring how overeager you come off.

By the time your alarm clock rings on Friday morning, you’ve already been awake for 4 hours.

All you can do is daydream about the date, the way his hand fits into yours, the warmth of his eyes when he smiles at you.

It’s what fuels you through work.

You hope to god the numbers you’re attempting to work during the day come out right, because your mind is elsewhere for more than most of the day. There isn’t enough coffee in the world, but also your body feels as if you’ve overdosed on caffeine already.

The clock eeks towards 5:00 pm and you’re bolting out the door at 4:56 to head home and get ready for your date.

Jimin attempts to meet you before you leave, but your desk is cold and empty by the time he gets there.

He sighs and heads back towards his office to gather his things, waving bye to various coworkers as they file out of the corporate building.

He turns the corner towards his office but stops in his tracks as he sees Namjoon’s back to him, phone pressed to his ear.

“Baby, I’ll come over later tonight, okay?” Namjoon speaks into the phone.

Jimin feels his heart fall into the pit of his stomach. He retreats and hides behind a wall, ear carefully peeled to listen to the tall man’s conversation.

“I’m going on this date with that chick from work,” he sighs. “It won’t last more than a few hours. Poor girl has a crush on me and you know the usual assholes won’t leave her alone.”

Jimin bites his lip and clenches his fist. Namjoon thinks he means well, but he knows his suspicions have been confirmed, and he’s torn inside. He wants to tell you, to warn you not to get too invested in the man, but he also has no interest in popping the bubble you’ve been in since the day he asked you out.

Jimin lets it simmer for now. He decides he’ll monitor Namjoon and cut things off if it appears the man strings you along for fun.

Namjoon finishes his phone call with a promise to see whoever is on the other end of the phone later that night, and Jimin quickly pulls out his phone and fakes a conversation with no one when he hears the man approach.

“Oh, Kookie,” Jimin giggles, leaning against the wall casually. “I can’t wait to see you tonight, either, babe.”

Namjoon walks towards Jimin and makes eye contact with the HR specialist.

“Bye, Kook! See you tonight, baby.” Jimin finishes up the fake phone call as Namjoon arrives next to him, and he plasters on his best fake smile.

“Congrats on you and Jungkook,” he speaks sincerely.

Jimin hates how nice he is, hates that he’s a nice guy who gets too wrapped up in his own good looks and reputation.

“Thanks, Namjoon,” Jimin smiles uneasily. “You too! Have fun on your date tonight.”

Namjoon’s face lights up and Jimin desperately wishes he could go back in time to 30 seconds ago, before he heard the conversation, and believe that Namjoon truly wanted to date you.

“Thanks, should be fun, huh?” He winks and nudges Jimin, before he waves a goodbye and continues out the door.

Jimin pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials the number of his boyfriend.

“Hey, baby. We’ve got a problem.”

tag list! - @jimidol @aretha170 @dearbambideer

#kim namjoon smut #kim namjoon #bts smut #bts fics #namjoon smut #out of my league #knj #knj smut #rap monster smut #JOOOOOOOOOONie

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chubbydino · 3 years

Note

Fun fact I think like many others I didn’t want to read fool’s gold because it was really intimidating, cheating is eek to me, and obviously the endgame pairings are mystery and I just didn’t want to deal with that…. but then I procrastinated on my exam (everytime George mentioned his love of math I cringed a little inside) and because everyone keeps talking about it I’m like yeah why not

Now I’ve just had to walk around my house muttering to myself “oh my God” because of this quote and you’ve had incredible quotes but this one really shocked me

“And it means less and less every time I say it.”

“Good,” Max said. “Now you know why he says it to you so much.”

I’m really curious how you’re keeping track of everyone’s motivations like do you have a spreadsheet? it is all just in your giant brain? how are you doing it!!!

I am also a sebchal rat and I love mick with all my heart so I am pretty biased when I say “look at my baby going off to conquer the fia and ruin everyone’s lives😍😍😍” I also routinely practice my mental gymnastics as to how sebchal nation can still win this

I love mick but everything is so messy and nobody can be trusted and now I really do understand when people say they ship everyone/therapy because it’s like seeing gossip tabloids on steroids, your fic is so so so incredible!!! I just sit here amazed at how you’ve juggled all the personalities and perspectives

omg thank you for sharing! i'm always interested to see how people have been convinced to read this crazy thing. especially since it's a pretty much 200k WIP 😅

i definitely don't keep it in my brain - i take notes every race and kind of hold onto story threads. but the reason the story works is because i shape the plot based on "feel" more than specific actions. i know what things i want to happen, but sometimes they don't happen when i originally planned. or a completely new plot idea pops up as i write and those end up being some of the best plot points that feed into the main story (lando's press conference in chp 12-13 for example).

i don't worry too much about making up plot things, I just decide that "something good/bad has to happen to ____ here that's small/big" and then as i write they boys kind of take over lol it's hard to explain.

we have SO many races left. i'm more or less plotted up to present day but god there's still so much. i have my endgames, but there are planed relationships that haven't even started yet (not necessarily romantic) so never lose hope LOLOL.

thanks for reading and for sharing with me!!

#asks #fools gold #FG spoilers #even though there's not really spoilers i guess lol

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vaguely-concerned · 3 years

Text

The Mandalorian Chapter 13 reactions

Well, that was... well. in short I quite enjoyed some of what happened while din was there and I didn’t really care about what happened while he wasn’t there lol. I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that I just don’t care for the episodes dave filoni writes for this show, which is simply a matter of taste I guess.

(if you loved this episode wholeheartedly -- probably look away now, I’m going to be a bit of a downer about it and I don’t want to shit on your joy haha)

- let’s just get this out of the way first: there’s a lot of stuff around rosaria dawson and transphobia in real life and yeah, of course that affects how I watch the show. I don’t even want to talk that much about ahsoka in this because of it. she was not that good in the role, after seeing how it played out I don’t think the character needed to be in this show at all, and she should never have gotten the role in the first place and that’s about it for what I’ve got to say.

- dave filoni consistently does things with din’s characterization that feels off and weird to me, subtly out of place with what we see in other episodes (he’s... ruder? more short tempered/cocky/actively or aggressively interpersonal? more prone to express himself directly than he is usually? idk how to describe it but filoni!din always feels one step to the left of what he should be and I’m so hyper-attuned to this character that when something’s a bit iffy with him it throws everything else off haha. it feels like a shallower, more convenient read on him and I don’t like it)

I also think filoni is almost too familiar with and in love with the source material sometimes? “A Mandalorian and a Jedi? They’ll never see it coming” is undeniably a great line that echoes in decades of deep lore and so on, but dave my good man din had no real idea what a jedi even is until literally this morning. we, the audience, know about this long and storied history, but unless ahsoka spent the afternoon explaining it to him din still only knows the faint outlines of it, he has no personal experience of or attachment to it. it’s not bad, as such, it just rings false to the character based tone of the show for me personally

- positivity break: baby sitting perched on the dashboard to be close to papa while they’re in hyperspace........sd sdfskdjhfdsakjksdhfkasjd

also this is some full on madonna and child in the manger shit and I am LIVING for it (odds he’s crying quietly behind the helmet here? pretty damn good if you ask me). the mundanity of what’s essentially the shitty spartan bathroom of the razor crest on one side contrasted with the light and tenderness and love on the other? amazing, a perfect microcosm of what this show does with combining the grittier everyday down to earth stuff in the star wars universe with myth and wonder and magic and through it elevating both

- the idea of having an iconique samurai/sword duel standoff and a western standoff going on simultaneously is genuinely inspired, but in action it didn’t really work for me. (the sword duel stuff needs these moments of stillness with sudden outbursts of violence and then stillness again, the western standoff needs mounting tension until it’s nearly unbearable, and cutting between them the way they did you sort of didn’t get either to its full potential. again it’s a cool idea, though, I hope someone picks it up and does it better at some point)

- seeing a jedi and a mandalorian wander together through a burned out wasteland left desolate by greed and warfare should have hit me harder than it did but for some reason it didn’t, idk. thematically sound, though, I like it a lot on the metaphor level

- I LOVE that pure beskar makes a specific sound, and that it’s an almost ethereal noise like the high clear chime of a distant bell. also now din has something to fight light sabers with that isn’t the dark saber which makes me so happy because you guys I do not want him to be the mand’alor. keep that funky laser sword away from my dad, apart from killing him at the end that is literally the most boring way to end his arc pls do NOt

- wow they really went in hard on the samurai stuff in this one huh! there is a part of my mchanzo-loving heart that thrives on seeing a space cowboy and a space samurai team up, *wild otp-fuelled whisper* they’re twin genres inextricably entwined okay they belong together if you see this spreadsheet I’ve made over here --

- even knowing it was just a trick I felt such intense distress seeing the signet pauldron away from din. like the attachment I have to these pieces of metal because That Armour Means Dad... wild

- they really chose the dumbest name possible for the baby huh fsajdfhsaj I agree with din his name is ‘kid’ now (eh just give me a while to get used to it probably I’ll come around)

also... you know what I’ve said before about shrinking the big unknowable galaxy ‘the mandalorian’ has been setting up? wow did they do that big time in this one, and it makes me feel decidedly :/. why does the baby have to come from the jedi temple, is there truly no other tradition of force users in the entire galaxy he could be from? WHY do you have to pull thrawn into this when most people watching this show won’t even know why he’s such a big deal? is this a stealth tease for a rebels sequel? if so why spend an entire episode of this show that only gets eight precious episodes a season on it??

- on a more fun positive note: baby’s clothes are clean again, so it’s confirmed that din does wash them (and I guess that he does have some means of washing clothes aboard the razor crest!). I loved... most of the dad and baby stuff in this one, but then don’t I always I’m easy to please that way haha (the ‘playing catch’ sequence felt a bit off to me but I don’t know why. din being like ‘he’s so stubborn’ wasn’t... eh. didn’t land right. “that would be a first” was fun tho lol)

- having ahsoka state the baby’s feelings out loud like that felt... weird? and also kind of unnecessary in parts, like yeah he’s a baby who’s been passed along to different groups of strangers and experimented on by empire scientists, you don’t need to spell it out for me that he’s been scared and lonely, or at least spell it out more interestingly? it’s such blunt force storytelling where it didn’t need to be? there are more elegant ways to get the same things across, I am absolutely convinced

- ...wow while I was watching the episode I was mostly like ‘okay this is Fine I can go along with it’ but seeing what I’m thinking about in hindsight... yeah probably my least favourite episode of this show full stop haha, it took the spot from chapter 5 which was also a filoni ep

- I did 100% genuinely adore the whole part of din approaching the town and meeting the magistrate. consistently hiding the baby behind his cape and his arm? being deliberately, teeth-grindingly dispassionate with everyone, just giving them nothing? getting to see a bit of professional bounty hunter din again? wonderful in every way, I love this man

- lots of meaningful shots of baby in the middle with a mando on one side and a jedi on the other, it’s almost like they’re setting up some Themes here lol

- ...do you think din told ahsoka about either the rhino-levitating or the force choking. because girl I don’t think not training him is going to make this just go away haha, he just won’t know what he’s doing

- it makes me so sad that baby connects his force powers with being abused :( (also a heartbreaking sign of just how much he cared about din from the very beginning, since he used it on the mudhorn to save him anyway ;________; was that like. literally the first time he sensed kindness and affection in anyone in like twenty five years or... )

- I understand why ahsoka would feel this way because of her past and specific traumas, but tbh attachment in a baby? probably a good thing, he doesn’t really have the higher brain functions to cultivate non-attachment yet and needs a safe figure because again. he is a baby.

good on her for realizing it’s not a task she can take on both for the baby’s sake and her own, and also that din is that baby’s Dad though. the way she smiled at the end watching them leave seemed vaguely hopeful/had a little bit of wonder in it, like maybe she felt the potential for something good there, something she couldn’t conceptualize from her background but could sense the tentative outlines of anyway?

(also so much pressure on a lil bb to decide his path... his dilemmas should be limited to what colour socks he wants to wear today not the course of his entire life :( I know he’s a magic baby but.......)

- idk maybe I’ll find more affection of this episode through rewatches, you never know

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian meta

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angelsswirl · 3 years

Text

Petrichor

Nine

Notes: I highly recommend you listen to What If by SafetySuit either before reading or while reading because it fits this chapter so perfectly it took me half an hour to choose which lyrics to use.

"If it makes you sad at me, then it's all my fault and let me fix it please."

"You know your problems won't go away if you hide from them, right?" Lisa asked without looking up from her magazine.

"You know Tiger Beat is a child's magazine, right?" You asked without looking up from your spot on the floor.

Lisa closed the magazine loudly. She huffed and crossed her arms, "As soon as this baby gets out of me, I'm kicking your ass."

"Then who's going to feed Jennie while you're in the hospital recovering from your injuries?"

"I can feed myself, thank you very much."

"I'm not sure you know your left from your right sometimes."

"You're mean when you're scared and upset." Jennie's nose scrunched up. She is not afraid to admit her feelings were a bit hurt. She knew her left from her right, but she was definitely lying about being able to feed herself. She can't cook to save her life.

"I'm not scared or upset."

"You're a pathological liar, too."

"Ladies, ladies you're all pretty! Now, will you shut your traps. My blood pressure is spiking because all of your damn yapping."

"Sorry, mom." Everyone apologized. Even Kameron, who hadn't even been in the original conversation.

All five of you were packed into the medium sized hospital room, save for George whom had to return to work that day.

You sat the closest to your mother, Jennie and Lisa sharing the small cushioned bench built under the window. Kameron sat in an extra plastic chair directly under the suspended 19 inch television, his laptop on his lap currently being used to hack into the hospital's wifi.

"Y/N, apologize for calling Jennie stupid." Maria admonished as she fiddled with the television remote. The buttons were huge, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the hospital seemed to have only two working channels. Fox News and...oh, the other one just lost signal. Just Fox News.

Maria opted for turning off the television.

"I rather not." You answered plainly. Your knees were tucked under your chin and you still stared at that spot on the linoleum floor.

Maria swatted your thigh.

"Y/N Ariel Y/LN."

You just grumbled.

"Your middle name is 'Ariel'? Like the mermaid?" Jennie started to laugh loudly. She immediately stopped upon the shoe hitting her square in the gut.

"No. Not like the mermaid, Knothead." You gestured for Jennie to give back your shoe. Jennie did so with a scowl.

"Why is she being so mean?" Lisa pouted.

Maria huffed, "Her heat's about to start. So, she's grumpy. Also, she got herself into a unforgiving situation and it's all starting to unravel in front of her." Maria looked as though she had even more explanation to give but thought better of it.

You eyed your mother suspiciously, "How'd you know all that?"

"Mother's intuition."

Lisa's eyes squinted in determination, "Time for 'Operation: Just Pick One! Damn!'."

Everyone nodded along in agreement except for you.

"I've got the Pros and Cons T-Table pulled up!" Kameron gestured to his laptop. Lisa gave him a thumbs up.

You stared at your omega brother, "What do you know about any of this?"

"Oh, Lali and I talk once a week about you because you don't tell us anything. We were going to stage an intervention within the coming week if all of this hadn't happened." He said as though it was obvious.

You just rolled your eyes. Your brother knowing your business was the least of your problems at this point.

"Okay, but if we're going to have this conversation, Jennie has to leave."

"What? Why?"

"Because you're an alpha and you wouldn't get it."

"Try me."

"...Fine."

Lisa clapped excitedly, "Yay! It's finally happening. Kam, make sure you share the spreadsheet with your mom and I." She pulled her MacBook air out of large handbag and then delicately placed Maria's laptop on her overbed table.

Kameron nodded just as excitedly. Maria also nodded appreciatively as the group got their data together.

You wondered when your life got this out of hand.

At least Jennie looked just as lost as you.

"Um, babe? Is all of this necessary? I think you're scaring-"

"Shhhhhh, honey," Lisa blindly pressed a few fingers against Jennie's lips, "I know exactly what I'm doing."

"...ok..." Jennie looked to you with a mildly frightened look on her face. She shook her head slowly as if to say 'I tried. I am so sorry for what you're about to go through."

"Okay. First question! Who have you thought of more recently?" Kameron asked as he typed furiously on his HP.

"I'm not sure what any of this is going to help."

"Answer the question!" Kameron urged.

"God! I'm thinking about them both constantly, but I guess, Rosé because I spoke to her last."

Kameron nodded resolutely and continued to type.

"Next question, if they were both drowning, and you could only save one, who would you save?" Lisa asked, her eyes narrowing intensely at her best friend.

"Jennie, do you feel like this is a trap? Because I feel like this is a trap!" You inquired. You scooted your chair further away from everybody.

Jennie slowly pulled her arm from behind her wife, she then scooted away from her and to the opposite end of the bench, "Yes. This feels exactly like a trap."

"Okay, you don't have to answer that one." Maria glared at Lisa who just shrugged.

"How about this one? Who do you miss the most?"

You threw your hands in the air in exasperation, "Lali asked me that months ago! Don't you think if it was that simple I wouldn't be in this situation right now?! I miss both of them because they won't fucking talk to me! And I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to talk to me either." You sat back into your chair with a watery sigh.

"Can I give it a try?" Jennie raised her hand sheepishly, "Without all the spreadsheets and interrogations." She directed the second part at three specific people.

The three specific people all reluctantly closed their laptops.

"Everyone else is, so why not?"

"Well, first. I think you need to lay off yourself a bit. Yeah, you put yourself and them into a sucky situation, so what? Get over that. There's no going back to change anything, so why wallow in it? Relax and forgive yourself." Jennie spoke softly, her forearms resting against her thighs as she leaned forward.

Your shoulders sagged just enough to let Jennie know she was getting through to you.

"I'm sure you know what traits you value in a partner, and I'm not going to ask you what those traits are because I'm sure Lisa would start to log your answers again. Besides, it's none of our business." Lisa glared at Jennie.

"You just have to apply those traits. Organize your morals which you have clearly been fast and loose with lately. Ask yourself questions like 'Are you really ready to be a family woman? A mother?' And 'Are you okay with your mate having her work really high on her priorities list?' Think about what you want. Think about what you need. Think about who would be the best alpha for you. And then when you have all those answers to all those questions and you're all thinked out. Stop thinking and just go talk to her." Jennie smiled softly as you nodded slowly.

Lisa stared at her wife, her mouth wide opened, "I have absolutely no idea why, but that was the sexiest thing you have ever done." Jennie blushed heavily.

"Yeah, Jen. When did you get to be so smart?" You teased.

"I have a B.S. in Biochemistry from NYU." Jennie deadpanned.

"Yeah but you're a lounge singer. It's not like you're doing anything with it."

"Alright, you got me there."

"Knock, knock. Hello, Mrs. Y/LN. Your discharge papers are ready." The doctor explained as she stood at the door, not wanting to intrude.

"Oh thank God! I was going to jump out the window if it had been another hour."

"Mom!"

"What? You would've too. Now shut up and help me into my clothes."

You did as told.

~•~

Once you were sure your mother was settled at her home with your father. You went back to yours.

You sat heavily on your couch.

Jennie said to think. So, that's what you were going to do.

In the back of your mind, you knew who it was supposed to be the minute Jennie finished talking.

Sometimes, you just need to be told to get over yourself and put things into perspective.

But you chugged on anyway.

If only to double, triple check.

Some thoughts involve Jennie's suggested quandaries and others you came up with all by yourself.

It's about 5 minutes in that you're already noticing a very clear pattern. The same name keeps coming up. Amid 'Yes' and 'Nos' and 'We're just going to have to work on thats'.

It hit you so harshly you're not even sure why this was a struggle to begin with. The revelation just about sucks all the nagging anxiety and subsequent energy out of your brain. This must have been the "thinked out" part Jennie was talking about.

That meant the next step was to stop thinking.

It's easier said than done, but you managed.

The last step.

Just go talk to her.

You nodded with finality.

You were going to do just that, but first you needed to fix something.

~•~

"I'm sorry." You said. You may be done feeling sorry for yourself, but that didn't mean you couldn't feel sorry for others.

"For what?"

"It-I can't keep doing this to you. It's not fair."

"I-I understand, I guess."

"I shouldn't have led you on. Made you think-"

"It's okay, Y/N. It really is. But I'm going to need some time before we can get back to normal if I can ever do that, with you again."

"I get it. I'll see you...later?"

You don't get an answer. Just a pained look and then a sort of wobbly shrug.

You have a feeling that's all you'll get from her for a while. And surprisingly, you're a little more okay with that then you thought you would be.

~•~

Notes: One more chapter left...

#jesssica's fanfic #blackpink fanfic #blackpink #jisoo fanfic #jisoo x reader #petrichor #rose fanfic #rose x reader #abo

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1220

The person you had the strongest feelings for dies, do you care? I imagine so, yeah. I’d check up on her family and help in any way I can, if it’s still welcomed.

Is there something you’re happy about at the moment? I share this all the time in surveys at this point but I’m just really giddy that it’s a Friday evening hehe. Also, I’m seeing Angela, Hans, and (finally!!!) Reena later! We’ll be going to UP to shoot some photos since Angela and Reena are graduating this year and we wanna take pictures with the sunflowers in the campus before they die out. I also never got to take sunflower photos when I graduated last year, so it will be my chance to do so as well.

Do you want someone dead? Wow, no.

Do you ever wonder what your ex is up to? It almost never crosses my mind, honestly.

Have you ever fed or taken care of a stray animal? I’ve fed many of them before, yup.

What is something you tend to worry about? Pending deliverables at work, especially ones that are out of my control.

What is something you do that is unhealthy? Be in front of a screen as soon as I’m awake until the second I turn in.

What is something you do that is good for you? I’m no longer afraid to prioritize myself when necessary.

What last caused you to force a smile? Ooh I’m not sure. I haven’t had to do that in a while, which is a good thing. What was the last video game you played? Was it fun? Probably Mario Kart on the Switch, but it’s been a WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIILE. Yeah it’s one of my favorite series for a reason.

What is something not many people know about you? The fact that I’m obsessed with anything classic Hollywood and I’m a big Audrey Hepburn fan. The topic never gets brought up so I don’t really get the chance to say anything about that interest of mine.

What word describes your basic style? Casual, laidback. I’m more than happy with just a simple t-shirt and denim jeans these days and I think I’m over my jumpsuit/romper phase haha.

Have you ever been told you were going to Hell? It was referred to/threatened to me, but not directly with these words.

Have you ever wanted to kill yourself? It was a regular occurrence before.

If yes, what convinced you not to go through with it? I think overall I was just scared of fucking it up and fucking up my brain for life as a consequence. Also I knew no one was going to take care of Kimi as well as I do, and I would never leave him behind.

Have you ever rejected a guy, only to have him push the issue by asking “why?” and insisting that you just need to get to know him better? Nope.

Is there something that you believe everyone should do and you can’t believe that some people don’t do it (e.g., recycle or go to the dentist regularly)? It’s definitely an Asian thing but it will sometimes hurt my chest when I see people wear shoes in their homes.

Regarding the last good choice (healthy choice, kind choice, selfless choice, etc.) you made, what was your real motivation behind it? I wanted to be kind to myself and finally let go of what had been keeping me from starting to be happy and pleased with where I am and have.

What is something that you have had to practice at to get the hang of it? If you can’t think of anything, that’s okay, what’s something you are currently practicing at and trying to master? This is such a shallow answer lol but I’ve recently gotten into this rhythm game called Rhythm Hive that I found impossible to master at first, but after weeks of practicing I now breeze through all the songs at their hardest level.

Have you ever gone to the store to buy something, like a video game, when it came out at midnight? I haven’t done that, but I’ve watched a movie premiere at midnight - for both times the Breaking Dawn movies came out.

Regarding the last novel you read, was there a romance included? If so, was it central to the plot? Yes and yes.

Have you ever done relaxation meditations or listened to relaxation guides or positive-thinking/healing recordings? Nope, they don’t really work on me. I have my own outlets that help me relax.

Do you have any interests that are also often shared by children? Coloring is one. Also animated movies; I never grew out of those.

Is there something that could be a solitary activity but you really only like to do it with other people (e.g., watching movies, playing video games, etc.)? Definitely eating out. I’ve done it a couple of times before by myself and it does feel nice, but I also always can’t help but think it would be a lot more fun and that I would be much happier if I was sharing the experience with someone else.

Are you satisfied with the interior design or decoration in your home? Or do you think it needs a total home makeover? Ugh god I need to rearrange and upgrade my room STAT. My K-Pop merch are starting to pile up but they’re all currently in just lazy heaps scattered around in my room since I don’t have any shelves or anything to properly display them on.

Is there something that you’d like to own but you can’t find it anywhere? If not, can you a remember a time when you wanted something? Did you ever end up finding it or did you eventually stop wanting it? This is always me with BTS merch...

Who makes you smile the most? My friends.

What piercings do you want/have? Just one on each earlobe. I’m not looking to have any more.

What's your favorite website? Twitter.

Do you own a fish tank with fish? We never had one, no.

Do you like the movie 300? I’ve never seen it and will probably never have plans to. It’s not my cup of tea.

Do you pop your knuckles? When I feel stressed or when my knuckles feel strained, yes.

Do you have Photoshop? Nope, I have no use for it.

Do you use tinypic or photobucket? Way back in the day. I’m not even sure if those websites still exist.

What’s your favourite song from the 1980s? Heaven Is A Place On Earth.

How about the 1990s? I’m not sure I have one.

Have you won anything recently? Yeah we played this online game over Google Meets with my co-workers just this afternoon, before clocking out. My team won twice.

How often do you make Excel tables? What for? Oh everyday. I work on a handful of sheets every single day at work, but I also like making spreadsheets for personal use haha. Right now the one I’m currently super invested in is my tracker for all the merch I’ve been buying so I can keep note of my pending payments and which ones I should already be asking for updates on.

What was the last baby animal you saw in the wild? Not sure, I’m barely outdoors.

Are you always available or online? Yup.

Do you have dietary restrictions? Or do you just eat what you like? No allergies or restrictions.

Do you prefer gold, silver or steel jewelry? Or no jewelry at all? Silver.

Have you been binge-watching any shows lately? If so, what? Not really. I’ve stopped watching Hwarang for now, but I do have plans to come back to it someday. I guess I just haven’t been in a K-drama binge-watching mood lately.

If you dye your hair, do you do it yourself or go to a salon? I’ve never had my hair dyed.

If you have any, do you like your in-laws? I don’t have any. < Same.

Would it bother you, if your partner had cut contact with their parents? It depends on the story behind it, but mostly no. How close they are with their family isn’t a priority matter for me.

Have you ever wondered whether you were adopted? All the time, especially as a teenager who wasn’t getting any emotional support at home.

What’s the best physical feeling in the entire universe? When you work on something and expect mediocre results and feedback, but it ends up getting praised instead and you feel all the hard work pay off.

Have you ever grown a berry bush? Nope.

Have you done something new to your hair recently? It’s been untouched since the very start of the pandemic. My sister actually suggested that since I had it cut right when the pandemic started, I should wait out till the end of it and see how long it’ll reach. It sounded intriguing enough so now I’m indefinitely growing it out hahaha.

Do you have bad anxiety? If so, do you take any kind of medication for it? I’m sure I have it, I’ve just never been diagnosed before.

One thing you’ve experienced that you thought you never would have? Managing to get over a rough breakup quicker than I ever expected to.

What was the last thing someone said to you that kept repeating over & over in your head? It was when I was leaving Angela’s house yesterday and an “I love you” to her parents rolled out of my tongue so naturally I almost didn’t notice it; and when they said it back in a heartbeat. It’s when I realized that her parents are really like my second parents and that her house is a second home at this point. My heart was filled the entire drive home.

How often do you have late nights out? Never because we still have a curfew.

If you could, would you work from home? Do you think that would make you more or less productive? I don’t have a choice; it’s the set-up we’re required to live in. I’m pretty productive here at home but then again I don’t have a point of comparison considering I got my first job already in the midst of the pandemic.

If you had the ability to change the weather, what would you change it to right now? I would like to bring snow to the Philippines.

Is there something that you really need to do, but can’t seem to get motivated to do it? Upgrade my room and invest in shelves and other home decor/interior design stuff that would make the space more comfy and homey. Right now it just looks like a warehouse with my merch piled up in scattered places.

Most disturbing movie you have ever seen? Eraserhead or I’m Thinking of Ending Things.

Has a life goal or dream ever come true for you yet? If yes, what is it? If no, do you think you’ll achieve it? I have multiple life goals - some of them I’ve achieved, like getting into my dream university and simply getting employed, and some of them I’m still working my way towards, like getting a promotion. Yeah I feel like I’ll achieve my goals someday. I don’t like losing LOL so when I want something I usually put it above everything else.

Have you ever had food poisoning? Yup.

What are you listening to? Blue & Grey by BTS.

Do you think there will be a WWIII? I find it inevitable at some point down humanity's future. People are too hateful for it not to eventually. < Yeah, let’s go with this too.

Has anyone ever asked you if you were emo? No.

Has someone ever liked you that you never thought would? Yes. Tbh I never expect anyone to like me so I’ve always been surprised when I hear about someone who does.

In all honesty, can a person be too nice? Yes, especially if they’re starting to be taken advantage of.

Has one of your friend’s boyfriends ever tried to cheat on them with you? No.

Is mental abuse really as bad as physical abuse? Any abuse is bad. :/

Do you shop at Sephora for make-up? Nope.

Zelda: Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time? Twilight Princess only because I grew up with it and never got to play Ocarina of Time.

Do you own a rosary? I did - I went to Catholic school. But I lost mine all the time because I didn’t really care for them lol I always had to buy new ones at the school bookstore.

If you were homeless, how would you cope? I don’t know.

#survey #surveys

2 notes · View notes

bangtanstanst · 5 years

Text

Thunderstruck

When you and Namjoon stay late at the office, you just expect to get home a little later than usual. But when you finally leave for the night and step into the elevator, you set out on a different trip entirely.

“Just be careful out there, weird things happen in thunderstorms.”

A fic crossover event in which the Bangtan Unsolved crew meets office workers Namjoon and Y/N! But don’t worry, you can still definitely follow the whole story if you haven’t read either of them :)

≽ pairing: namjoon x reader, ft. the rest of ot7 ≽ genre: fluff, angst, (attempts at) horror ≽ warnings: paranormal stuff, mentions of death ≽ word count: 8.4k

a/n: hiiiiii, I hope you’re all having a good week!! As you may or may not know, my blog’s one-year anniversary was on the 7th of July and I wanted to celebrate it with a fic; so here it is!! I’m really excited to share it with you all, and I hope you like it :)) As I said, you don’t have to have read the fics that cross over in this, but I’ll link them anyway if you want to do it before or after :) Thanks so much for making this year so great and for reading my works, I appreciate it so very much and I hope to continue sharing more with you for a long time :))

And, of course, thanks to my amazing friends mars & snail for helping me out by betaing this and being wonderful people in general!!♥♥♥

›› tag list: @nambewb @dimplemono @sugasheart @csol16 @joon94net @lilacdreams-00 ‹‹

bangtan unsolved | only you | masterlist

You jump when a clap of thunder rings in your ears and makes the entire office floor flash with white. Rain is aggressively battering the large windows that surround the desks and the sky is dark and grey, an endless sea of thick rain clouds hanging over the city’s skyscrapers. Nervously tapping your foot against the carpeted floor, you cross your arms and turn to glance at Namjoon. He doesn’t seem to notice much of whatever’s happening outside, his eyes glazed over as they stare at the screen and his fingers fly over the keyboard.

Turning your gaze to the desk you’re sitting at yourself, you glare at the monitor, eyes idly scanning the spreadsheet but not quite registering anything that’s in it. You shift in your chair – it’s uncomfortable, but you’re scared to adjust anything to it, lest you piss off the guy whose desk you’ve planted at while you’re waiting for Namjoon to finish up his work.

“Hey, guys, I’m gonna get going, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jimin says, his briefcase swinging around in his hand as he walks up to your desks.

Your gaze snaps up to look at him and you send him a smile. “Of course!” you reply, standing up to quickly hug him goodbye. Another bout of thunder hits the streets outside and you jump yet again. “Walk safe, okay?”

Jimin just laughs as you break apart, nodding. “Yeah, I’ll be sure not to drown in the subway,” he replies, holding out his hand to Namjoon, who absently claps it and gives him a half-hearted hug. “You just make sure to pull this one away from his work before midnight, yeah?” he adds with a grin as he pulls back, pointing at Namjoon.

You snort. “What, or the gremlin in him is gonna jump out?” you retort, dishevelling your boyfriend’s hair until he laughs and takes your hand to push it away.

“Yes,” Jimin replies very seriously, frowning as his eyes flicker from Namjoon back to you. “You’ve never seen it?” When you laugh once more and shake your head, he shrugs. “Well, I guess you just don’t know him as well as I do, then,” he teases through a long sigh, patting Namjoon’s shoulder.

You let out another laugh. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jimin,” you tell him rather than responding, sitting back down in your chair. More thunder rumbles through the night sky and your smile falters, your eyes snapping to the office windows.

“See ya,” Jimin replies, his hand folding over your shoulder. “And at least, if you and Namjoon die because of this storm, you’ll go down together.”

“Ha ha,” you say dryly, narrowing your eyes at him, despite the fact that you don’t really doubt the possibility of that happening. “You know, maybe you should stay after all.” Tilting your head at him, you raise an eyebrow. “Die with us.”

Jimin just chuckles, taking a step back and sauntering towards the elevators. “Bye, guys!”

With a huff, you sit back in your chair and cross your arms, watching as he turns the corner and listening to the elevator doors opening and closing. You’re the only two left in the office now, and it’s awfully silent in here. You look back at the monitor on your temporary desk, the Excel sheet it’s displaying glaring right into your soul – but the numbers are blurry when you try to look at them and you know you’ve long surpassed the timeframe of Y/N’s brain is able to work.

Letting out a sigh, you quickly save your work and log out, shutting off the desktop. “Can we go soon, Joon?” you mutter, rolling your chair over to his desk and leaning your chin on his shoulder, eyes fluttering closed. “I’d rather die at home than at the office.”

He chuckles. “Of course, baby,” he mutters lowly, pressing a warm kiss to your temple. The thunder and lightning fade to the background as you focus on his touch, and a small smile teases over your lips. “I just need to send out these emails and I’m done.”

You hum, sliding both your arms around his torso and hugging him tightly as he types. His hand leaves the keyboard for short moments here and there, his fingers absently brushing your arm or your hand, moving up to play with your hair or tickle your cheek. Minutes pass and you seem to lose track of time, though your mind can’t help but focus on the rain, the thunder, the lightning flashing outside, and you remain tense no matter what you do.

“Namjoon…” you mutter after what feels like plenty of time to send out a few emails, and he hums in reply. “How many emails were you talking about, exactly?”

“I’m done, I’m done,” he says through a soft chuckle, running a hand through your hair as your eyes pop open and you jump up – another burst of light illuminates the office floor. “Ready to go, I take it?”

You laugh, nodding fervently. “Oh, yes,” you reply, holding out your hand for Namjoon to take. “So please, before we die?” you add, cocking an eyebrow at him.

He laughs, briefly turning back to his desktop to turn off his computer, then taking your hand and rising to his feet. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” he mumbles, taking a step towards you to peck your lips.

You can’t help but smile at him as he pulls back. “Right.” A burst of thunder rings in your ears, but you don’t jump this time.

Namjoon is wearing a fond smile and stays in his place for a moment, even as you take another step back and tug at his arm. “You okay, there?” you ask, chuckling in amusement.

His smile just widens and he nods as he takes a step forward, intertwining your fingers with his. “Definitely,” he replies, glancing down at your hands for a second before lifting his eyes to yours once more. “Hey, I love you, you know that, right?”

Another amused chuckle escapes your lips, but that laughter soon fades as his eyes catch yours – there’s something in the way he’s looking at you that makes you suspect there’s more behind his words than he’s letting on, but you don’t feel you should ask. “And I love you, Joon,” you reply instead, upon which he grins and kisses you briefly. Thunder and lightning continue to rage outside, and you let out a shaky breath as you pull back, looking up at Namjoon. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here, yeah?”

He laughs, nodding as he steps back to grab his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “Let’s.”

You let out a happy sigh, turning to walk back to the elevators and pulling Namjoon with you before he can decide to send another ‘few’ emails. Your footsteps are drowned out by the thunderstorm outside – but otherwise, silence cloaks the entire office, all of your coworkers having gone home before the storm even started.

“Hey, Al,” Namjoon says from behind you and you’re confused for a moment, looking around to look for whomever he’s talking to – when you see the janitor cleaning the kitchenette counter in the breakroom, and you almost squeal when a loud clap of thunder echoes in your ears, a burst of bright light illuminating the figure in the room. Fortunately, you manage to hold it back, and you just paste on a smile as you wave back at Al.

“You kids staying late again?” he asks, and you’re practically forced to come to a halt so you can talk to him.

Namjoon squeezes your hand, running his thumb over the back of it – it’ll be fine, we’ll get home before death gets to us. “Yeah, work never stops, right?” he jokes.

Al laughs and nods, gesturing to the break room around him. “‘specially when you’re cleaning stuff, eh?”

“I’ll certainly give you that,” Namjoon returns with a smile. “I hope we kept the room clean for you, though?”

“Oh, couldn’t wish for a neater floor,” Al replies with a smile and a wave. “You should see the fifteenth.”

Al’s eyes catch yours and you clear your throat, suddenly feeling nervous with the way he’s looking between you and Namjoon – almost worried. An involuntary shiver runs down your spine and you frown, blinking at Al, who just keeps intently staring at you. There’s a strange, unsettling feeling in your gut and the air feels heavy all of a sudden. Wait, were you actually right? Are you really gonna die here in this office?

Trying to push through the weird feeling, you clear your throat, unable to tear your eyes away from Al’s. “Well, we’ll leave you to it, then,” you say cautiously, nerves rushing through your veins as a beat of silence falls and you wait for Al’s answer.

But in a split second, it’s as if a spell is lifted, and Al’s expression returns to his usual smile. “Right on,” he replies, picking up his cleaning rag. “Just be careful out there, weird things happen in thunderstorms,” he adds just before you step out of sight, and the look he gives you is so piercing and intense that you can’t help but stop and stare, lips parting. “Bye, kids!”

With that, he turns back to the counter and starts wiping it vigorously, leaving both you and Namjoon gaping at him for a moment. “Bye,” you reply, dazed – but Al doesn’t look up nor respond. Your eyebrows furrow and you look up at Namjoon, who has the same level of confusion etched into his features as yours as he shrugs at you.

“Good luck on the fifteenth floor,” he says, eyes diverting back to Al. Yet again, he doesn’t look up, simply waving at you as you slowly start to walk to the elevators.

“What’s wrong with Al?” you whisper as you come to a stop at the elevators, hitting the button to summon one of them. The sound of rain and thunder has faded slightly now that you’re further away from the windows, but a low rumble still booms in your ears every so often.

Namjoon hums and shakes his head, looking over his shoulder into the direction of the break room. “I don’t know, he’s never acted this weird before,” he mumbles in reply, the elevator doors jumping open with a harsh ding! – your heart skips a beat and you let out a breath. “Maybe he’s just tired.”

You hum and nod, pulling Namjoon into the elevator, pressing the button for the ground floor and leaning against the wall. Namjoon looks down at his feet as you ride the elevator down, tapping them against the floor rapidly. You tilt your head at him, eyebrows furrowing, and you squeeze his hand to grab his attention – he looks up.

“You okay?”

He exhales sharply and nods, his shoulders relaxing at once. It’s relieving to see the stress seem to flow out of him so quickly, though you’re still curious as to what got him nervous in the first place. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replies, nodding once more. He looks down at your hands and smiles softly as he plays with your fingers, his free hand dug into his pocket. “I just –”

A sudden boom of thunder interrupts him and you jolt out of the conversation, looking around with wide eyes – it sounded way too close to be safe. Ears starting to ring, your lips part as the elevator starts to actually shake underneath your feet, and you stumble into Namjoon’s arms. Your heart drops into your stomach as the shaking grows wilder, and you close your eyes, grabbing a fistful of the fabric of Namjoon’s button-up as you try not to literally start screaming into his chest. You feel a strange sensation in your gut, as if you’re falling down the elevator shaft floor after floor after floor without ever coming to a stop, likely only nearing the inevitable end.

Okay, so you are gonna die tonight and there’s literally nothing you can do about it, though at least you’re with Namjoon for it all and –

“It’s gonna be okay,” Namjoon whispers, putting a hand on your back – but you can feel his fingers trembling against your spine as well, and his words don’t quite get through to you. “We’re gonna be fine.”

Just as the last word leaves his mouth, the shaking stops, and the elevator goes completely silent. Completely. You look up at Namjoon, your grip loosening around his blue button-up as the two of you exchange wide-eyed looks. Are you stuck here now? Are you gonna have to wait here all night without food or water or enough oxygen? Fuck, how are you gonna –

Ding!

You jump and look to the side, where the elevator doors have jumped open to what is definitely not the ground floor. The space is empty as far as you can see, your sight blocked by the dirty plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling. Faint moonlight breaks through them and illuminates the few support beams you can see, and it’s as silent as your own office floor was when you left it, only the sound of rain beating against glass echoing through the large space.

“Let’s just take the stairs,” Namjoon proposes in one exhale, his grip around your hand tightening subtly. As his voice echoes off the concrete surroundings countless times, he nervously fumbles with the shoulder strap of his bag, adjusting and readjusting it.

You nod hastily, straightening out your blouse with your free hand and rushing to step out of the elevator before the door somehow closes on you and you might get stuck forever. Namjoon is walking right behind you, your footsteps echoing off the concrete surroundings. “Where are the stairs around here, again?”

“They should be in the same spot as they are on our floor,” he replies, looking around and slapping a sheet out of his face when he almost runs into it. It rustles with the movement, even the soft sound echoing harshly throughout the floor. “So I think it’s right –”

“Y/N? Namjoon?”

You whirl around at the strange voice ringing in your ears, your eyes darting around. For a moment, you don’t see anyone, only hearing footsteps – when suddenly, someone pushes a plastic sheet out of the way, and an entire camera crew steps out from behind it. They’re only a few steps away from you but you can barely see them, and you have to squint to not be blinded by the bright lights shining into your eyes.

Namjoon, however, seems to have more luck in seeing who the hell you’ve run into here. “Jimin? What are you doing here?”

The lights and cameras lower slightly, allowing you to finally see beyond an arm’s length. A group of six has gathered in front of you, all looking at you with furrowed eyebrows. Two cameras are now pointed at the floor, the beam of a bright flashlight pointed at your feet. One guy has a harness around his waist, a selfie stick with a Go-Pro fastened to it, pointing at his face from what seems to be the least flattering angle that could ever be. He’s frowning at the two of you, his eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean, ‘what am I doing here’?” sounds the reply, and your eyes snap over to the source of the voice. It’s undoubtedly your desk buddy, and you almost feel relieved to see him – but the confusion etched into Jimin’s features makes you wary more than anything. “You were up on this floor for almost thirty minutes so we went to get you.”

“What?” you and Namjoon breathe out simultaneously – you can feel your heart starting to beat faster. “Is this some sort of prank?” you add, eyes wide as they glide over the crew standing in front of you.

The relieving answer you were hoping for doesn’t come, however, and no one breaks out in laughter like you’d hoped – there’s just a stunned silence hanging over you.

“Weren’t you supposed to wait in the lobby?” Namjoon inquires lowly, leaning forward as if that’ll keep you from hearing what he’s saying – but you still catch his words and you frown at him, confused.

Jimin only furrows his eyebrows, tilting his head, just as you turn to look up at Namjoon with just as much confusion on your face. “What?” Jimin returns, chuckling in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re not finished shooting yet.”

The words make Namjoon frown, and he opens and closes his mouth again and again and again as he tries to formulate an answer. You put a hand on his arm to pull his attention and he turns to look at you, his confusion unfaltering. “Joon, he already went home, I don’t get how –”

“Okay, sorry, but we don’t have time for jokes like this, guys,” another familiar voice speaks up. You tear your eyes away from Namjoon to look at the owner of the voice, your eyes widening to the size of dinner plates when you see your boss standing at the back of the group. “We’re running further behind the longer we stay here,” Seokjin remarks, filing through some of the papers in his hands. It certainly sounds like him, but…

“What?” Namjoon asks, his frown deepening. His fingers tighten around your hand, and you look around the floor. It looks no different than when you stepped out of the elevator, though plastic sheets obscure your path to the exit – you can’t even see it anymore. “Running behind on what?”

Seokjin frowns and looks up at Namjoon. “The… schedule?” he replies slowly, papers rustling in his hand. “Are you guys okay? Did you hit your head on something?”

You remain silent – neither of you is quite sure as to how to answer that question. Did you?

Suddenly, the guy with the Go-Pro strapped to his chest gasps, the sound echoing through the space. “Oh my god, so it’s true!” he exclaims, his hand slapping to his mouth.

Confusion washes over the entirety of the group and you turn to him, frowning. There’s only one person who laughs, jokingly elbowing the man in the side. “Come on, Hoseok, they’re just messing with us. Nothing we’ve ever been to has ever been cursed.”

“Cursed?!” you repeat, lips parting in shock. Your hands are starting to go clammy, but you hold onto Namjoon’s as tightly as possible – you’re afraid that either he or you will disappear once you let go. “What do you mean, cursed?”

“See?” ‘Hoseok’ insists, pointing at you as he frantically looks between the guys standing around him. “The real Y/N wouldn’t react like this, she’d literally burst out laughing!”

“Excuse me, since when am I not the real me?” you inquire, tilting your head as you take a step forward. “I think I know who I am.”

“No, I –” Hoseok lets out a sigh, shaking his head. “I meant our Y/N. The one we know.”

“Okay, you lost me,” the laughing guy says through a snort.

“The curse, Jungkook! How else could you explain it? Different clothes, different hair...” Hoseok hisses, eyes flickering to you and Namjoon. Jungkook. Now that you hear his name, you’re starting to think he does look like the Jungkook you once talked to on some company drink. But it can’t be.

When Jungkook simply raises his eyebrows at Hoseok, looking no less confused than before, Hoseok huffs. “The one that sends you to a parallel universe!”

Even though the words Hoseok is saying are absolutely, ridiculously far-fetched and you normally wouldn’t even come close to believing it for one damn second, they hit you in the face like a ton of bricks. Your eyes widen and your mouth falls open, your heart starts beating faster and faster. Meanwhile, the thunderstorm outside is still raging on, and a flash of lightning cuts through the plastic sheets surrounding you.

“A parallel…” Namjoon mumbles beside you. When you look up at him, you notice the way he’s staring off into nothingness, his eyebrows furrowed into a thoughtful frown, his fingers idly playing with yours. “That’s impossible.”

“But it happened, didn’t it?” Hoseok insists, taking a step towards you. “What was the last thing that happened before you got here?” he asks the two of you, his eyes seeming to grow wider by the minute.

“We uh… we were working late and then we got into the elevator,” you reply cautiously, your eyes flickering to the two guys you know – at least, you think you know. But with the way they’re looking at you, you’re starting to see some merit in this curse theory. “And some lightning hit and then the elevator started shaking, and then we got onto this floor.”

Hoseok breathes in sharply and claps his hands, stumbling back. “Just like the stories!” he exclaims. His voice is sharp and cuts right through the sound of the rain against the windows, now slowing down to a pitter-patter. “The elevator – where was it?”

“Just over there,” Namjoon replies with a frown, pointing to the direction you came from. “But –”

His sentence is cut off when Hoseok starts to sprint, plastic sheets rustling as he pushes them out of his way, his footsteps as loud as the thunder outside. You only wait a moment, exchanging confused looks with Namjoon before decide to chase after him – hell, at this point, you’d love to just go back into that elevator and go down to the ground floor and get the hell home, away from whatever this situation is.

“Right here?” echoes Hoseok’s voice only seconds later. You push away the last plastic sheet to reveal the set of elevators that you stepped out of – but they all have an out of order, take stairs sign pasted to the metal doors. You let out a shaky breath, your skin going cold. “These elevators?”

Hoseok hits every single button he can hit to summon any of the elevators, but there is no response. The buttons don’t light up, nor do the elevators arrive, even after minutes and minutes and minutes of waiting. Behind your back, you notice that the crew has started to film again, walking around you in circles in an attempt to find the best angle to capture whatever the hell is happening here.

“They worked just a few minutes ago…” Namjoon protests weakly, letting go of your hand to press the buttons again. You cross your arms, biting on your lip as your mind starts to run off in all directions – what the hell is happening?

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Hoseok mutters, shaking his head and pressing the button twice more before he whirls around. His selfie stick wobbles along, and you’re surprised that it hasn’t broken yet. “What the hell do we do?”

“Wait, hold on– are you seriously saying that these are different versions of Y/N and Namjoon?” a low voice chimes in from the back. You turn to see the owner of it take off his headphones, lowering what looks like some sort of recorder in his hands. “Are you listening to yourself?”

“It’s the only explanation!” he shoots back. “Why the hell else would we be investigating this place if the stories could never be true?”

Silence.

“I mean… we could be dreaming,” you say slowly, tilting your head – and you want to believe your own words with all your heart. Only problem is, you don’t.

“Pinch yourself, then,” Hoseok replies, crossing his arms despite the selfie stick that’s in his way. “See if you wake up.”

You’re taken aback by his words and you open and close your mouth in surprise, blinking at the stranger standing in front of you telling you to pinch yourself. “I –”

“Just do it,” he insists. “See if you’re dreaming.”

Opening and closing your mouth once more, you look aside at Namjoon, who shrugs at you – and before you can change your mind, you pull back your sleeve and pinch hard. Your skin stings and you wince at the feeling, the spot starting to burn as the blood rushes up to your arm – but when you look around, your surroundings seem as real as they could be.

“See?” he says through an exhale, turning to the others in his crew. “Not dreaming. It’s a parallel universe, I’m telling you!”

“Wait, so are you saying we ended up in your universe somehow?” Namjoon inquires, tilting his head at Hoseok. “That this elevator is some sort of vessel to get us there?”

He hums and slowly shakes his head. “That would mean that our Y/N and Namjoon would be here too,” he mutters, rubbing his bottom lip as his eyes dart around the environment. “We must’ve all travelled to a universe that isn’t ours in some way…”

He stays silent for a moment, lifting his gaze and narrowing his eyes at the sheet right behind you. He lets out a sharp breath, which comes out in a white cloud – suddenly, the room feels colder than it did before, and you shiver. “I have to check something,” he mumbles, slipping past you to push through the several sheets in his way, walking to wherever he’s planning on checking – leaving you behind.

“He isn’t like this all the time,” someone mumbles as the five remaining crew members brush past you to follow Hoseok, though you don’t quite catch who it could be before they melt into the group.

“Are we supposed to follow them?” Namjoon whispers, letting out a breath in disbelief.

You stare at the same plastic sheets as him, silently taking his hand in yours. “Well…” you say through a sigh, closing your eyes for a moment to try to calm down your pounding heart. “The elevators aren’t exactly working, so what else are we supposed to do?”

“But this parallel universe thing…” he adds, slowly shaking his head. His eyes are still fixed on the dirtied sheets, on the way they subtly sway back and forth in the draft that travels throughout the floor. “It’s ridiculous, right?”

He looks aside at you, his eyebrows furrowed, and you look back at him – only you stay silent, simply biting your lip instead. His face falls at your non-response, his lips parting. “Babe…”

“I mean, what other explanation is there?” you reply, letting out a sigh. “It can’t be just some –”

“Oh my god!”

Your head snaps into the direction that the others disappeared into, and you and Namjoon exchange only a single glance before curiosity gets the best of both of you – you rush towards the spot where you first bumped into the crew, pushing your way through several plastic sheets and moving towards the low hum of chatter.

“What? What’s wrong?” you ask as soon as you push the last sheet out of the way, coming to a halt in front of the stairs. Two crew members are pushing at the door to the stairwell as hard as they can, hitting their shoulders against the glass embedded into the frame.

“The door’s locked,” Jimin – who is apparently not your Jimin – replies, glancing at you. “And before you ask, no, it’s not a pull.”

You let out a laugh, playfully elbowing his side as you shake your head. A bright smile washes over his features as well, and he quickly looks down at his camera, starting to mess with the buttons. “So are we stuck here now or something?” you ask, crossing your arms as your eyes divert to the crew members trying to break into the stairwell.

Jimin shrugs, glancing up as his apparent crew members keep trying to get the door to open. “Well, I mean, Hoseok thinks the stairs are a portal to whatever this universe is, too, so I guess we are if it stays locked,” he says with a frown, shaking his head at the scene in front of him. “Oh, in that case, I guess I should introduce myself, huh?” he adds with a grin, holding out his hand for you and Namjoon to shake. “Jimin. I film Hoseok and the other Y/N while they bicker about ghosts,” he says, holding up his camera.

“Y/N,” you return, shaking his hand. “I calculate stuff.”

He laughs, nodding approvingly as Namjoon shakes his hand as well, and Jimin turns to face him. “Namjoon,” he introduces himself. “I also calculate things.”

“Nice to… re-meet you guys,” he says with a laugh, looking over his shoulder as someone lets out a shout, pounding their elbow against the glass – it doesn’t budge. “Hey, has someone called the site rep?” he calls.

Not-your-boss Seokjin turns to Jimin and shakes his head in response, wiggling his phone at him. “We don’t have service or wifi here apparently, so it’s no use.”

“Oh my god, we somehow ended up in a strange parallel universe and we’re definitely gonna die,” Hoseok mumbles through an exhale, shaking his head as he turns around and starts pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair.

Your smile falls and your eyes widen in fear. “What?!” you gasp, blinking at Hoseok. No matter how many times Namjoon tries to soothe the dread building in your chest by running his thumb over the back of your hand, it won’t go away. “Why do you think we’re gonna die?!”

“We’re not gonna die,” Seokjin corrects Hoseok calmly, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder and making him stop at once. “We just need to figure out how to break through these windows and get out of here, okay? That’s all.”

“But we’re in a parallel universe, it’s dangerous,” Hoseok says with a shake of his head. The rain is picking up again and the sound of water beating against glass booms in your ears – a low rumble of thunder sounds in the distance. “We could mess up everything for the versions of us that live here.”

There’s a short silence as Seokjin takes a slow breath in and then pushes it back out, looking up at the concrete ceiling as he subtly shakes his head. “Okay, then we’ll each figure out how to get back to our right parallel universe. It shouldn’t be that hard, should it?”

Hoseok chuckles, his hand pinching the bridge of his nose as he shakes his head. “Yeah, parallel universes are so very simple to figure out that we might as well –”

A sudden beep cuts off his sentence and his head snaps up, eyes wide as they dart around the space. Another beep, followed by one more, then more, until the beeps get so fast that they almost sound like one long, high-pitched sound.

“Isn’t that the EMF reader?” the guy with the headphones – Yoongi, apparently – says with a frown, nodding to Hoseok’s bag. He gasps and slings it off of his shoulder, rummaging around in it until he pulls out a weird, rectangular device that looks more like an old, flat cellphone than anything – antenna and all.

“It’s going haywire,” Hoseok mumbles, hitting the thing a few times before looking at it again – it’s still beeping, showing no signs of shutting down. You wince at the sound, moving your hands up to cover your ears when, suddenly, a loud, static sound cuts through the beeping EMF reader and Hoseok’s eyes grow wider still. “That’s the spirit box!” he shouts over the loud bursts of white noise, undercut by voices that are starting and stopping so quickly that you can’t hear a thing they’re saying.

He bends over to search his bag once more – and then pulls out another strange device you’ve never seen before in your entire life. The spirit box is black and just as rectangular as the EMF reader, emitting an annoyingly loud sound of white noise that never seems to stop – until one of the voices you’ve been hearing every once in a while speaks for longer than a millisecond.

“Trapped. … Die.”

Despite the fact that you have no idea what any of this means for you, your heart drops into your stomach and the blood drains from your face. Your eyes wide, you look up at Hoseok, who seems to be just as shocked. “I…”

“That didn’t sound good,” you breathe out, looking around – the others you don’t seem as fazed, though their faces are visibly paler and their eyes noticeably wider. “What was that?”

“It’s a spirit,” Hoseok breathes out, tearing his gaze away from the spirit box to look at you. When you show just as much confusion as before, he lowers both the EMF reader and the spirit box, taking a breath in, a breath out. “The– this building is constructed in the exact spot where an old and really cruel prison used to be,” he starts, his voice shaky. “And they say this whole place is haunted for exactly that reason.”

Your eyebrows shoot up and your eyes widen. “The whole place is what now?”

“Haunted,” Hoseok repeats, as much concern etched into his features as you feel there is in yours. “There were like fifteen escapees that died trying to get out,” he adds, his breath coming out shakily, and he’s starting to blink a lot. “And they say that their spirits opened up a portal to a parallel universe, just to be able to get away somehow, but they never got to leave themselves.”

“Jesus fuck,” you breathe out, lips parting in surprise. You shiver when a cold breeze runs through your hair, and you grit your teeth to keep them from clattering. “Since when is our office haunted?”

“I mean, Al’s joked about it before, but I never thought…” Namjoon mumbles, his grip tightening around your hand. “I just figured he was really joking.”

You whimper, hand coming up to cover your forehead as you keep shaking your head. You’re cold, you’re tired, you’re scared, and you just want to go home. The only consolation here is that you’re with Namjoon, but even the steadiness that simply holding hands provides doesn’t make the discomfort go away. “That’s not good.”

“Come on, you’re not supposed to do that!” Hoseok says through a groan, even going as far so as to stomp his foot on the ground, and you blink down at his shoe in surprise. “You’re supposed not believe any of it and laugh at my suffering and annoy me out of being scared!”

You raise your head to look at him, letting out a bitter chuckle. “That sounds like a lot.”

It’s silent for a moment and he lets out a breath, shoulders relaxing as he sends you an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” he says, his voice so soft that you almost can’t hear it over the sounds of the EMF reader and the spirit box – but your brain seems to have relegated both of those to the background for the time being. “I just– you’re usually the one who thinks straight and finds… non-paranormal reasons for everything.”

You clear your throat and nod, glancing down at your feet before looking up again. “I’m sorry I’m not the sceptical ghost hunter Y/N tonight, then.”

“Hey, what can you do?” Hoseok says with a shrug, fumbling with the EMF reader and turning it off. “You didn’t exactly ask to be transported to a parallel universe and be threatened with death by some ghost.”

“You’re definitely right about that,” you return with a laugh, nodding as Hoseok switches off the spirit box as well. “Now we just need to figure out how to get the hell out of here and we can all go on with our lives,” you add, wrapping an arm around Namjoon without thinking much of it – and you’re immediately reminded of where you are and who you’re supposed to be when you only see eyes widening briefly and gazes averting.

“I take it we’re not dating in your universe?” Namjoon says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck – when you look up at him, you swear you see his cheeks have flushed a faint red colour.

Seokjin laughs, shaking his head as he stuffs some papers in his bag. “No,” he simply answers through a chuckle. “But we should see how you guys’ll fair,” he adds with a grin, looking up at the two of you. You don’t quite know whether you should laugh or not here – but you do it anyway.

“Let’s get out of here before we start planning alternate-universe experiments, alright?” Yoongi interjects, eyes gliding over the group.

Seokjin shrugs. “We could do both.”

Trying to hold back laughter, you scratch the corner of your mouth in an attempt to smooth out your amused smile. “We should see if there are any other ways to get out,” you say after clearing your throat, looking aside at Namjoon. “There should be an emergency exit, shouldn’t there?”

“Oh shit, you’re right!” Namjoon breathes out, a relieved smile washing over his features. “It should be on the other side of the floor, but…” He turns his head this way and that – but suddenly, there are plastic sheets all around you, and you can barely see a few steps ahead.

“There were less of these before, right?” you note warily, taking a step back from Namjoon to inspect one of the sheets closer, poking the one in front of you – it feels real.

“I –” Namjoon pauses. The others seem confused as well, their soft murmurs, shuffling footsteps echoing against the concrete surroundings. Turning your back to them, you tilt your head at one of the sheets reaching out to push it aside – more sheets. “I think so.” His voice sounds further away than it did before, but you don’t pay it much attention, simply stepping forward to check if there are as many sheets behind the next one as you think there are.

And the answer is yes.

“It’s like a maze or something,” you note to the others, turning to look over your shoulder and huffing when you don’t hear any response – but when you push the sheet aside to walk back to them, your heart drops into your stomach.

Everyone’s gone. In their place, there are only more plastic sheets, dirtied and musty, softly swaying back and forth in whatever draft is blowing through the floor. No people, no cameras, no stairs, nothing.

“Namjoon?” you breathe out – silence. The rain has stopped, and so has the thunder, just like the street sounds you can usually hear when you’re working at your desk. There’s just your heart beating in your ears, your breathing starting to grow ragged – the silence feels almost suffocating.

“Namjoon?” you repeat, turning around and around, a feeling of dread tightening around your chest and your lungs, making it hard to breathe. Your surroundings don’t change in the slightest. “Jimin? Seokjin?”

More silence.

“Hoseok!” you shout at the top of your lungs, falling silent right after – but, much like you expected and unlike you were hoping, there is no reply. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” you mutter underneath your breath, over and over and over again.

Closing your eyes for a moment, you wrap your arms around your own torso, trying to stop yourself from shivering too much, trying to get yourself together. Your foot is tapping against the concrete floor, blood rushing up to your face, but you try to ignore all of that, focusing on keeping your breathing normal.

Why can’t the fearless, professional ghost-hunting version of you be here instead of you?

You push aside a sheet of plastic, faced with yet another one behind it, then another and another and another. Starting to pick up your pace, all you can do is try to push through the fear closing around your throat, making your muscles tense up, try to channel this other, apparently existent version of yourself right now, to be fearless and sceptical and not afraid of any of these goddamn ghosts. You’ve long lost control of your breathing and you feel like you could trip over your own feet any second now, your legs burning, your heart beating out of your chest.

But when you push aside a last sheet and come to a stop in front of the emergency exit, it momentarily stops beating.

You’ve found it.

It’s right there in front of you. A single door painted a dark green, its glossy varnish shimmering in the soft moonlight – you’d almost say it’s glowing. A green sign with a drawing of a running stick man hangs right above it, flickering frantically. You take a step forward, reaching out to grip the metal doorknob –

You feel a tap on your shoulder. Namjoon?

With a gasp, you whirl around, looking behind you, your eyes scanning your surroundings.

No one.

You let out a slow breath, your heart rate picking up so much that you can hear it beating in your ears. It wasn’t. A. Ghost. Not a ghost. Not. A. Ghost.

Turning back around, a relieved sigh escapes your lips when the emergency exit is still there. You’re gonna open the door and call for the others to come to you until they join you. You’re not leaving this spot, no matter what.

Your hand closes around the doorknob and you take another breath, gripping the cold metal so tightly that your knuckles turn white and its edges dig into your skin.

“Stay.”

The voice sounds so close to your ear that you let out a yelp, hand shooting off the doorknob as you jump a mile in the air. Shivers run down your spine as you recall the sensation of actual breath ghosting over your skin, goosebumps prickling on your arms and legs. Not a ghost. Not a ghost. Not a ghost. Just open the door, wait for the others, and get the hell out and then figure out how to get back to whatever ‘your’ universe is.

“Guys!” you shout out, eyes squeezing closed as you grip the ice cold doorknob once again. “I found the door!”

As expected, there is no response, but you push on. “Guys!” you repeat, slamming the door open, ignoring the shivers running down your spine as breath ghosts over your skin yet again, setting one foot outside and –

You jolt awake.

Inhaling sharply, you sit up, wincing at the shrill sound of a phone ringing in the background. Your back is stiff and your eyes are puffy – you rub them in an attempt to see better, letting out another sigh. Blinking as you lower your hands into your lap, you look around, dazed.

You’re sitting at a colleague’s desk in your office, a thunderstorm raging outside, rain beating against the windows. A flash of lightning illuminates the entire floor in white, and you squint to protect your eyes from the brightness. “What the –”

“Y/N?”

You gasp and your head snaps to the side, seeing Namjoon sitting in the chair right next to you. He’s looking at you with wide eyes and parted lips, his eyebrows furrowed as his gaze darts over your face.

Without another thought, you pull back your sleeve and pinch. You wince but smile when it hurts like a bitch, and you look down to see a red spot start to form on your skin. Ignoring the second red spot right beside it, you look back up again, your smile widening.

“Namjoon,” you breathe out, your shoulders relaxing as you throw your arms around him. He breathes out a relieved laugh, wrapping his arms around you in response, and you close your eyes to focus on his warm embrace. Your heart is beating hard, beating fast, and you can’t help but open your eyes again to look around the office to see if you really could be back. The desks, chairs, carpet, windows – everything looks the same as it always has. There isn’t a speck of dirt that seems out of place, even the weird stain on the wall by the printer looking the exact same. You’re back.

“Is it just me, or did we just have a really weird dream?” Namjoon mutters into your shoulder, his arms staying tight around you.

You breathe out a laugh. “Did it have something to do with ghosts and universe travelling?” you ask, flashes of plastic sheets, concrete floors, bright camera lights running through your mind. They seem real, they feel real – but you’re starting to wonder if they even happened in the first place.

“I –” Namjoon pauses, letting out a disbelieving breath as you break apart, leaning back in your chairs and staring off into the distance. “It did.”

You lift your eyes to his, holding his gaze for a prolonged moment. It wasn’t real, right? “Just... a weirdly similar dream, then,” you mumble, saying it more to yourself than to Namjoon – and even though the both of you seem to want to believe it, you aren’t exactly convinced.

“But how did we –”

“We fell asleep and our brains just synced up somehow,” you insist, shaking your head. “Just a dream,” you repeat firmly, though your eyes flicker to the two red spots on your arm and you wonder...

Namjoon stares at you for a little while longer. His eyebrows are furrowed and he’s fidgeting with his fingers, though he’s nodding slowly.

A phone continues to ring in the background, its shrill sound cutting through the soft pitter-patter of the rain outside. The thunder has ceased for the time being and so, the office feels much calmer and more peaceful than before you left – or, at least, you think you left. But you’re not so sure of anything right now.

Abruptly tearing his eyes away from you, Namjoon jumps into action and swipes his phone off his desk, clearing his throat when he looks at the screen – you swear you see his cheeks flushing as he purses his lips. Before you can ask him about it, though, he quickly slips his phone into his pocket.

“Let’s just go home before we fall asleep again,” he says with a soft smile, getting up from his chair and holding out his hand.

You grin up at him, lacing his fingers with yours and letting him pull you up. “Or are we just trying again?”

He narrows his eyes at you, though he can’t help but laugh, shaking his head as he quickly hits the off-button of his computer. “Too soon,” he says with a chuckle, snatching his bag from the ground and slinging it over his shoulder.

A short silence falls as you walk away from his desk, and you look down at your hands as you trail behind him, watching the way you can make his fingers move with yours, feeling the way his hand slots into yours so easily, and smiling softly.

“But let’s take the stairs, just to be sure.”

With a laugh, you nod eagerly, following him as he strays from the path towards the elevators and heading for the stairs down instead. You feel yourself growing tired, exhaustion starting to take over you. The memories of a shaking elevator, footsteps echoing through an empty office floor, your heart pounding out of your chest – they’re all starting to feel less and less real with every step you take. Names and faces start to fade from memory, images growing blurry until there’s nothing left but the sensation of breath softly ghosting over your skin, sending a shiver down your spine.

“Hey,” Namjoon pipes up as you take the umpteenth set of stairs down, the both of you panting, out of breath, though not complaining.

You look up at him, eyebrows raised. “Hm?”

Frowning, you notice the way he bites his lip as he looks at you, then quickly averts his eyes, stopping in the middle of a set of stairs. “I know it was just a dream and everything,” he starts, and you stop on the step right above his. “But I’m curious.”

A smile teasing over your lips, you take another step down, taking his hand in yours. “Curious about what?”

“How did you get out?”

“Emergency exit, like we said,” you reply. Yet another shiver runs down your spine as you feel the sensation of breath tickling your skin, goosebumps spreading over your arms and legs. “I wanted to call you guys, but you were gone and –” You heave a sigh, looking down at your hands as you play with Namjoon’s fingers. “I woke up before I could find you.”

Namjoon hums, and you lift your eyes to look at him, noticing the way his frown is deepening, the way he’s chewing on his bottom lip.

You tilt your head, letting go of his hand to run your fingers through his soft hair. “Why?”

He lets out a slow breath, his eyes closed as he smiles. “Nothing. Just curious,” he mutters, quickly leaning in to peck your lips and pull you further down the stairs. The door to the lobby is already in sight, freedom lurking on the other side. “Anyways, I hope this weird dream doesn’t overshadow tonight too much.”

You raise your eyebrows at him as he opens the door for you, letting you step outside. “What’s tonight?” you ask slowly, tilting your head. You walk backwards into the lobby, keeping your eyes on him as your footsteps echo off the shiny white floors. It’s not as brightly lit as usual, which makes you frown – the lights are dimmed instead tonight. “Did I miss an anniversary?”

Namjoon just smiles at you, nodding to something behind you. With a frown, you turn around, and your heart skips yet another beat as you draw in a sharp breath – rose petals rain down on you, courtesy of Jimin, who is standing a few feet away from you with a bright smile on his face. He’s dressed in his usual office clothes, and you suddenly realise why he stayed late with you, as well. On the floor, candles are carefully arranged into the shape of a heart, and the shape almost seems to glow right in front of you.

Are you still dreaming?

“Namjoon, what –”

You swallow your words when you turn around and Namjoon isn’t at eye height anymore. Rather, he has sunk to the floor on one knee, holding open a small, black box with a ring inside.

Holy shit.

You pinch yourself for the third time tonight, blinking fast in an attempt to get rid of the burning feeling in your eyes. Hurts like hell – you’re not dreaming. And all you can think as you look at Namjoon, his eyes glittering in the low lighting as he smiles up at you is – you’re so fucking glad you live in this universe.

“Will you marry me?”

bangtan unsolved | only you | masterlist

a/n: thanks so much for reading, I hope you liked it!! I know it’s a bit different from my usual stuff but I still had a great time writing it, and I hope you enjoyed it too :)) Let me know what you thought, I’d love to hear from you♥ Have a wonderful day/night wherever you are, and I hope to see you next week :))

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fluffyvillain · 5 years

Text

Rules are meant to be broken

This is my first CharacterXReader story ever. Like I predicted, it turned out that this writing style isn’t really my cup of tea, but you never know unless you give it a try.

This one is for you, @the-baby-bookworm <3 Thank you for the idea. I hope I didn’t disappoint much.

Characters: BaldwinxReader(You)

Synopsis: Baldwin falls for his new employee (I’m really good at writing synopsis, aren’t I?)

“You got to be kidding me.” Baldwin Montclair followed your every move since the second you stepped into his office.

You always gave people benefit of a doubt, but from one sentence you could tell that people seemed to be right about him - Baldwin Montclair was indeed a self-centered, stubborn, rude and who knew what more. Still, you chose to be polite. “Good afternoon, Mr. Montclair, I’m…”

“I said I needed a CFO, not a fetus, Jenna.” He disregarded you completely.

Jenna, an HR manager, a woman in her fifties, obviously bit her tongue and stopped for a few seconds to cool down before responding. “I was present in all rounds of her interview, trust me on this one, she is extraordinary.”

��Thank you, Jenna. Mr. Montclair, first of all, I am not a fetus, I’m 26 and I am pretty good at what I do.” You stood in front of these two, deciding not to take a seat.

“Jenna, you may leave now.”

She stood up without taking a look at Baldwin and sighed. She patted your shoulder in support on her way out.

Baldwin got up and buttoned one of the buttons on his jacket. He was way taller than you imagined and way more menacing, the closer he came to you, the more menacing he appeared, but you stood your ground, your parents didn’t raise a coward.

“Why are you here, little witch.”

“Because I want to learn from the best.” You shrugged your shoulders, making it sound like the most normal thing in the world.

“Flattering will not get you anywhere.” He came even closer, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m telling the truth, you’ve been in business for centuries and I’m already damn good, but I feel like I could improve.”

He kept his gaze on you. “Do your parents know you are here?”

“Of course…” You took a step back, straightening your blouse and he lifted one of his eyebrows. “Not. They would get a stroke if they knew. Still, I don’t see how that has anything to do with this situation.”

Baldwin took it as a compliment, he loved when creatures were scared of him. “You are right, let’s see what you got.”

He let you sit on his chair and opened a few Excel spreadsheets, giving you the most basic task. “Is this a joke?”

He closed them and opened a few others, giving you 10 minutes for the necessary analysis. You did it in exactly 7 minutes and he was genuinely impressed.

“I think we might have a deal here, but you need to tell me what your powers are.” He set on the desk.

“You know very well that I shouldn’t tell you that.” You were the one crossing her hands over your chest now, but you did it in defense.

“That’s not how things work, if you want me to trust you, you need to trust me too.”

Did this sound like s trap? Most definitely it did, but did you want this job? Even more definitely. “I can blow up things, but I’m pretty bad at it.”

“Handy. Care to show me?”

You moved your hand slightly and the vase next to the entrance door exploded causing him to get off the desk and turn.

“Niiiiice.” He gave you a small clap.

“I was actually aiming for that small glass on the table.” You pointed to the other side of the room and he lifted both of his eyebrows in surprise. “Told ya.”

You realized why he called you fetus the first day you started working. All of his employees were in their fifties and he explained that it was because he didn’t want to raise any suspicion, they would work for him for about 15 years and then retire. Short enough for them not to become suspicious about his not-aging.

Other than telling you that, he wasn’t very open, when he actually talked to you it was business. In the following months, you noticed he had a habit of disappearing for weeks which became more frequent, but for shorter periods, usually a couple of days.

When he was there and when he actually acknowledged you, you enjoyed spending time with him. He was so smart you could listen to him talk for days. Some might say you had a crush on him, but you knew it was pure professional admiration.

Baldwin, on the other hand, started feeling like he was suffocating and he couldn’t figure out why for a long time. He was well fed, he got enough sleep and he didn’t have more problems than usual. Then eventually he figured out you were the main cause of his unease, it all started once you walked into his life. Even though you were somehow the root of his problem, you were also the cure. All the unease would go away the second he got close to you. The way your brain worked fascinated him, the way you smelled, that small smile that appeared on your face when he praised you, he memorized every little detail.

The problem was, him liking you stood against all of his believes. Sure, it worked out for Matthew and Diana and a few more people, but he still believed that vampires and witches shouldn’t get together. And, yet, he wanted you. He tried to get away as long as possible, but the feeling would actually get worse the longer he didn’t see you.

One day he ran down to the cafeteria even though he went there only every couple of years. Albert, who set in front you eyed Baldwin as he entered. “Can’t remember the last time I saw the boss.”

Baldwin went to the water machine, greeting everyone present. “Yeah, well, he’s a big shot, he probably likes to eat at fancy restaurants,” you knew well why he didn’t enjoy the cafeteria food.

One look from Baldwin was enough to make Albert get up: “I’ll see you later.”

Baldwin took his spot, gripping a plastic cup that was now empty, causing it to lose its previous shape. “Hello.”

Tapping of his foot was audible and he looked disoriented. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, why wouldn’t I be okay. Actually, I’m great.” He got up without saying another word and grabbed your shoulder before he turned around and left, leaving you dumbfounded.

Later that day he yelled at a cleaning lady for leaving a speck of dust on his desk, he also yelled at his regional sales manager for messing a monthly forecast by 0,005% and he yelled at Jenna for absolutely nothing.

In the next two weeks Baldwin hasn’t once left for a few days, he even called you to discuss business topics that were only remotely connected to his company.

You were thankful he was there when you figured out something was wrong. You kept quiet for a week until you were sure, but when you gathered enough evidence, you went straight to his office.

“George is embezzling money.” You lay all of the papers on his desk.

“You are wrong.” He lifted his gaze to look at you, but he didn’t even glance at the papers.

“When am I ever wrong about numbers? Numbers don’t lie, bur George obviously does. Everything is here, take a look.” You dragged a chair so you would be able to sit next to him.

“Fine.” Baldwin took a close look at papers and he stiffed, his eyes narrowed and he punched an inside of his desk so hard that he sent the splinters flying. “Son of a bitch.” He dialed his secretary and told her to order George to come to his office.

You instinctively grabbed the hand he used for punching the desk with both of yours. “You need to calm down.” You expected him to aim his anger at you, but his eyes went from your hands to your face and back. His hands were cold and smooth and his eyes went from murderous to warm in a second. You let go of his hand when the door opened.

“Don’t say a word, George.” Baldwins voice dropped, giving you chills, making you hope he never talks to you like that. “You are fired and you know why. You are lucky I won’t call the police, but don’t get me confused, you will never find a decent job in this country, or, as a matter of fact, in this world.”

George opted that it was better to keep quiet, but he pierced through you with his eyes.

Baldwin thanked you and after that you left his office, avoiding the curious colleagues of yours. Baldwin called a meeting at the end od the day to briefly explain the situation and he requested that everyone kept quiet about this.

When you were done, you stayed a little longer to tie some ends before leaving for the parking. Right when you were in front of your car, George appeared out of nowhere and punched you. “You bitch.” You stayed on your feet but only thanks to the fact that your car was your support. It rang in your ears and pain kicked in after a few seconds. You felt blood oozing from the corner of your lips.

Just like George appeared out of nowhere, Baldwin did too and he sent George flying 10 meters, knocking him unconscious. He engulfed you in a hug, your blood smearing all over his white shirt. “Are you alright?”

“Mhm.” You couldn’t say anything because you felt a lump in your throat forming and your tears started raining down your cheeks.

Baldwin wiped away your tears, but the more he did it, the more they stubbornly fell. He hugged you again but this time you wrapped your arms around him too. “Don’t cry, my little witch.” He drew circles on your beck until you completely calmed down and then he backed away only to press his lips where you had the split. His hands dug into your hips and his lips slowly moved, but they remained around your injured area.

The pain slowly subsided, but you heard ringing in your ears again, but your blood racing through your body caused it. He moved back, licking his lips. You hand flew to your lips, but there wasn’t a trace of blood. “What did you just do?”

“I simply made you heal faster.” His eyes fell to the floor. “I’m sorry if I was…”

You cut him off, you slammed at him with full force and pressed your lips against his, you meant to give him only a pack, but when you were about to pull away, his lips followed yours, not wanting to part. His kisses were soft and slow until you completely melted in his arms, then he got needier and hungrier, digging his fingers in your hip, while holding you at the nape of your neck with his other hand.

You were the one pulling away first as you grasped for air. You leaned on your car for the support once again.

A smirk was plastered on his face. “Well, your parents are going to definitely get strokes now.”

Your breath was still uneven and you missed the coldness of his body against yours already. “Shut up.” You smoothed out the mess you made out of his hair. “What are we going to do about our boy Georgie?”

“I forgot about him.” You ran your hands across his chest, willing him to calm down. “It seems like he wanted to go to jail after all.”

#a discovery of witches #Baldwin Montclair #baldwin de clermont #adow

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lardosundercut · 6 years

Text

Assorted Instances of Justin Oluransi’s Regularly Scheduled Impulsivity

Ransom Week Day Four:

cacoethes - “an urge to do something inadvisable”

"I have a theory about you," Lardo said slowly.

Ransom rolled his eyes fondly, reaching out to take the pipe out of her hand. They were up in the reading room, taking a much-needed study break to smoke and pretend that graduation isn't just two weeks away. Lardo had stretched herself out like a cat in the sun, her legs across his and one arm cushioning her own head.

She didn't seem bothered by the eye-rolling or the joint snatch. No, Lardo watched him with warm and affectionate eyes as Ransom relit the bowl and inhaled. To be honest, he didn't smoke nearly as much as some of the other guys on the team and it was still a heady experience. Lardo kept watching and, when Ransom finally exhaled, she continued.

"Every now and then," she explained slowly, "Your spreadsheet instinct hits its max, bro. That's why once a calendar year you do something that's fucking nuts. No shade intended, of course."

"None taken," Ransom replied easily.

Then, when his brain caught up with what Lards just said, he added, "And I so don't go nuts on a schedule."

"Brooo," Lardo said in a tone that demanded introspection, "Know thyself."

The summer after his freshman year, Ransom was pretty bored. His older sister was on a summer study abroad and his baby sister acquired a girlfriend sometime while Ransom was at Samwell, so they were both gone. His parents were thrilled to have him back, but that didn't mean they could quit their jobs for the summer just to hang out with him. Hell, even the majority of his high school friends were busy either with jobs back home or decided to stay at their respective college campuses for the break.

A month in and Ransom has already perfected his summer workout routine, read a half-dozen books, and debated whether or not the rest of the team would hate him if he brought a dog back to the Haus next year. (Those sad animal shelter commercials get to him, okay?) He was bemoaning this fact to Holster via text message. Holster, the tru-est bro, returned the favor by waxing rhapsodic about how much fun they'd be having if they could only be together. And, suddenly, things slid into place in Ransom's mind.

Grabbing his laptop, he did about five minutes of solid googling and another ten of throwing stuff together before calling Holster.

"Bro, did you realize you're only like thirty minutes away from Niagra Falls?" Ransom said, putting the call onto speaker as he sent out a quick series of texts to his family. "And that you can get a Holiday Inn room for less than eighty bucks?"

"Uh, yeah?" Holster said, then underwhelmingly, "And what?"

Ransom scrolled through his spotify quickly, selecting the playlist he typically reserved for roadies. Checking his mirrors, he realized this was one on those rare moments that he and Holster had not immediately been on the same page since they met last year. As he tapped the address into his GPS, he explained, "I'm driving to the Falls. You're going to meet me and we're going to have a 'swawesome weekend. I'll be there in like two hours."

"Oh," Holster replied, "Fuckin' sweet."

And thus, a tradition was born.

Despite the stress levels that meant he'd probably go grey by thirty, he'd managed to get through the MCATs with decent scores.

Well. More than decent really. He wasn't boasting the elusive 528 or even in the 520 range, he'd still past the bell curve. Scores that meant he'd get into pretty much any of the med schools on his list to complete preliminary apps for. Which meant now was the time to start working on his personal statements and deciding if his roadie suit was good enough for interviews and talking to Hall and Murray about how he was supposed to work interviews into the schedule while he's co-captain. Plus, there's figuring out if the list of schools he put down as potentials for preliminary applications are even good fits anymore. He wanted to stay on the east coast because it's where so many of his friends are. But a lot of east coast schools are super competitive and he isn't sure what he wants to specialize in yet and, ergo, he isn't sure if the program he wants to joinn is even on the coast.

It's a lot and, to be honest, Ransom's brain went a little numb whenever he thought about it. Sure, he's gone into coral reef mode a ton of times and someone has had to lure him out from under a library table with food. But even with that, Samwell has been fun. Med school is real and, from all the message boards he's scoured, it's less fun and more coral reef mode 24/7.

"I don't want to do it," Ransom grumbled as he began to pack his stuff up for the semester.

Then don't, a voice in the back of his head replied.

Ransom paused, a bundle of underwear still clutched to his chest. MCAT scores were good for, like, three years. Everyone was going to be either in Boston or Samwell or Providence in the next three years. Holster has pretty much talked non-stop about how much bank he was going to make in consulting since he declared Econ partway through their sophomore year. It could be easy and fun for another two years - three if he really pushed it.

He doesn't dare to tell a soul about his decision to defer - not when he's only just got his scores back. Still, as Ransom turned back to his packing, it was with a delighted zeal because he was so not getting into med school next year.

"Don't freak out," Ransom warned, tugging the hem of his shirt up halfway so his navel his visible.

On the bed (technically Holster's, but it was a bitch for them both to get up to the top bunk), Nursey snorted and set down the book he was reading. Things between them aren't really defined - not yet at least - and that made all of this seem a little crazy, in retrospect. Still, Ransom figured it would be best for Nursey to find out now than during a semi-drunk hook up after the keagster. Turning around to face the wall, Ransom pulled off his shirt and stood, half-dressed in his bedroom.

Nursey made a soft sound of appreciation, followed by, "Not saying you're not gorgeous, but I don't see the point in freaking out about something I've already seen up close and personal."

"Dude, you were so not chill about the same sight a few nights ago," Ransom chirped back.

Still, warmth spread through him at being called gorgeous (a word not usually reserved for big, bad D-men) and he turned around. It didn't take long for Nursey to spot it. He jerked up in order to get a closer look, hand flying to reach out for Ransom's chest. The tattoo wasn't huge or anything - just the two simple, crossed hockey sticks that made up the Samwell Hockey logo. Except, instead of a puck in the middle, there was a single, neatly printed number: 28.

It had seemed like a really good idea when he and Lardo had all gone in to get not-quite-matching tattoos. Both of them based there's off the Samwell logo, though Lardo had sketched up an appropriately artsy-fartsy version for her own tattoo. Ransom decided that his own minor tweak would suffice. And Holster, never to be left out of a senior outing, declined to get his own tattoo but held both their hands while they got inked, muttering about "b'tzelem Elohim".

It hasn't even been a full week that Ransom has had the tattoo, but the anticipation of waiting to show Nursey had already gotten to be too much. He delicately evicted Holster from the attic for the express purpose of showing Nursey the tattoo and now, standing with his shirt off and the other man's hand hovering over his pec, Ransom began to wonder if he should have asked first. This was his first tattoo and, to be honest, he hadn't thought to consider the etiquette beforehand.

"It's 'swawesome," Nursey finally said. "Do you want me to get a matching one? But, like, with your number?"

Ransom hadn't considered that being a possibility. Though, the idea of having a matching tattoo with Nursey - something that would undeniably link them forever - made the warm feeling rush over him again. He leaned in, pressing a light kiss to Nursey's temple. It's a benefit of not-officially-dating-but-not-seeing-other-people with someone who's the same height as him: minimal neck craning or back bending required for optimal smooches. Trying not to sound too sappy, Ransom replied, "I want you to do whatever you want, dude. Just let me come along for the ride."

Nursey smiled at that, face flushing as he finally pressed his hands against Ransom's chest, carefully avoiding the fresh tattoo. He kissed Ransom this time, aiming for the mouth and delivering something much hotter and deeper.

"Tattoo talk later," he said into Ransom's neck, "Kissing now?"

Ransom wasn't going to argue with that.

"Shit," Ransom said, sitting up quickly enough to jostle Lardo's feet. "You're right. Even my impulsivity has a pattern to it. Who does that?"

On his side, Lardo just readjusted her feet and blew a little smoke into his face. She smiled and patted his hand comfortingly and passed back the pipe. She'd never say it when they were both lazy and content from the weed, but she got an enormous amount of satisfaction from being right.

#omgcp fic #ransom week #ransom x nursey

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sybersmoke · 3 years

Text

So Tired of the Flying Poop

I am tired of politics, of people bitching and whining. Of people blaming and recriminating. Of people acting like five year-old’s standing in the corner stomping their feet because they could not get there way. Man American politics can be such a pain in the ass.

Now let me be clear, both sides do it. Both sides have been two faced, both Democrats and Republicans. Anyone that can look at history and what has been said, then a couple years later see at their actions, can see the utter hypocrisy. No one is in the right...not even me for writing what I am right now. Because I am pointing a finger...but that is human nature, we need blame to feel better about who and what we are in regard to things completely out of our control.

Really it is very understandable as is so many other issues; Democrat/Republican, Male/Female, Heterosexual/Homosexual, Black/Brown/White/Yellow, etc. It is all tribalism, it is all ancient parts of our ape brain trying to figure out how to live in this modern time.

It has not been that long really that our tribes were small and we would hunt and pick berries. Long before that we were Apes in trees. All there was, was the family, the tribe. And if another tribe came around, likely flying poop and sticks and stone would ensue. Yes I am aware of the inaccuracy, but this is a rant...so it can be inaccurate in my opinion. So we have not grown out of it, and our poor ape brains are just trying to figure out our tribe. Yay fun!

Beyond that when it comes to politics it seems we have forgotten there are no winners...and no it will not be the end of the world. Politics to me is a negotiation, a collection of ideas that may or may not work. Many have ideas of what should and should not work. If you go into it looking to win, all you get are losers and deadlocks. Like what we have right now, a real mess.

None of this is new, all of this has happened before, I just hope it all swings back to governance and prudent discussion. As that is far better than the rampant stupid and partisanship that is going on. Governing is about compromise and not ego, sadly it seems there is a slew of old men that has forgotten that simple lesson at the moment.

This is why I am tired of it all. Why I do not pay attention to main line news. Instead reading articles from Politico and FiveThirtyEight. Why I try to dig into things myself and to get the full story and the true record.

I am tired of the term “Socialism” being used improperly. Really...it is. If you look it up, and read the actual intention of it. You may read that everything is controlled by the state and that capitalism would then be abolished. Yeah that is socialism, read some Karl Marx and get a clue.

No...I just want a system where my kids do not need to suffer if I choose to change jobs and loose my insurance. That I pay into a system that protects people and not profit margins. I have no issue with profit margins, capitalism is great for innovation. After all with out it we would not have computers and smartphones and it has existed in some form for several thousand years.

What I want is my kids to be safe, to be treated as humans and not a line item or some serial number in a spreadsheet. To be protected from my choices so I have the freedom to improve my life. To know when I get old I need not burden them unduly, and a bit more really. But honestly if that is “socialism” then all you baby boomers reading this should be happy to toss out your social security dole, not get medicaid, and more. After all...it is “Socialism” by the American definition, what ever that definition may be. It seems to change a lot.

What does the above make me? Am I a radical for wanting my children to be safe? God forbid...nope, I am human. I believe people should be judged fairly on their ability and those that are best for the job do what they are best at. I believe that Capitalism is good...as long as it is not unrestricted since I know gestalts/corporations do not see me as a person and sometimes need a good swift kick to behave in a socially responsible way.

I believe that no one has the perfect answer, that it is all a negotiation and if you go at things looking to win, well your just screwed, unless your playing a video game or sport. Because of how I am I do not see color...or race, or creed, or more. I may not understand the deep why and how of you nice people, but to me it does not matter just so long as your good people and see me as a human in kind.

I am not racist...I guess I am a humanist. Of coarse I fall flat and I admit it playing into stereotypes at times, and some people fall into those stereotypes as well all to well. But to err is human is it not.

Well enough ranting, I suppose I will commit this to the world. And I truly hope that soon we will come to our senses and govern instead of bicker and wine like children. We are all human, we are all imperfect, maybe understanding that is something more people need to wrap their ape brains around instead of resorting to flinging poop, sticks, and stones.

#aspergers #politics #i'm so fucking tired #humanist #not a marxist #Shouting at Windmills

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endowrites · 6 years

Note

1, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 25 for your writer ask meme! (feel no obligation to answer them all, there were just so many good questions!)

[Get to Know Your Author!]

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

Probably my first novel project?? I’m honestly still terrified of not being a good enough writer to tackle it just in general. I talked it over with a critique partner a few months back and we both agreed that it would work better as a novelette or short story, so that’s definitely what I’m going to end up doing should I choose to pursue it further, but yeah. I dunno.

(For context, it was a story that took the red herring from the movie “Ex Machina”, where Domhnall Gleeson’s character cuts open his arm because he thinks he might be a robot, and actually ran with it. I really liked the idea, but my first draft was far too info-dumpy and I can’t stand that ;_;)

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

I cannot write out of order. Not at all. It’s chronological or nothing for me. Part of it, I think, stems from the structure by which I operate just in general - the way I organize myself is very linear because my brain likes to go off on fractal-level tangents and I spiral down crazy rabbit holes that make me anxious and confused. I’ve got to keep things in order, and the best (and only, for the time being) way I’ve found to do that is to just stick with writing linearly. It sucks, because it means if I hit a snag it derails me for months sometimes, but I consider that a worthy consequence, considering the alternative.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I write almost exclusively to the Skyrim Atmospheres track. I put it on repeat and just zone out for a few hours. I listened to it so much last year, in fact, that it was my number one played song on Spotify for 2017 and skewed all my damn listening stats. grumble grumble

As for writing around people - if I need to crank out some words and don’t have any serious blockage problems, I will typically go to Starbucks or something for a few hours because being around a bunch of faceless people actually helps me for some reason. But if I’m blocked, the only thing that works is locking myself in my apartment, taking my router, chucking it out the window, and forcing myself to suffer through it alone.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

Precision! I used to waffle on for thousands of words, saying in twenty pages what could have been said in two. Figuring out what needed to be said and what didn’t, as well as to what varying degrees each proverbial dial needed to be tweaked to, was a long, arduous, uphill battle that I’m still struggling with even now.

12) your weaknesses as an author

Plot. I can’t plot to save my damn life. I’m honestly a pantser - I tried outlining, but it didn’t work so well. Pantsing is fun in the moment, but the instant the first draft is done and I try to make something coherent out of it, it all just... crumbles. That, and I just don’t have many profound story ideas that are worthy of being written about, tbh. It’s why writing short stories and original fiction has been so difficult for me.

Something that’s taken me a really long time to come to terms with is the fact that I just need to write, and not worry about originality or even coherence at first. I just need to write.

13) your strengths as an author

I’m honestly a terrible judge, but based on what I’ve gleaned from critique partners and beta readers over the years, my dialogue and sentence structure are pretty decent. Dialogue scenes are always the ones that I find easiest to write, and the fastest to write, so I guess that’s a good thing! It’s kinda meant that over the past few months, almost all of my writing projects have focused on conversation moreso than action, and also why my main Voltron fic right now is stuck because I was a ninny and wrote myself into a fight scene corner ._.

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

Answered here!!

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

Oh man - there are a couple. I’ll limit myself to one from each of my main three WIPs right now.

Geartooth:

The castle is an open tomb, and Shiro is too friendly withthe dead to pull himself out.

Blonding (Final Draft):

The paperwork on Minato’s desk demanded diligence. The lists ofninja lining the book in his top drawer demanded understanding. The names inthe bingo book beneath it demanded blood. Those were emotions he was familiarwith, and they didn’t scare him in their familiarity.

But when he spun in his chair and looked out the otherdirection, the price of life lost its label. A village wasn’t another line in aspreadsheet. Children weren’t numbers.

He imagined Kushina, a bundle of blankets and warmth in herhands, cooing into the face of a baby that bore his face. There was no pricefor love. And yet here he was, the father to ten thousand children, and theyall seemed to look up at him like he knew the answers to every question.

Only a shadow could lead the shadowed.

‘You’ll do fine,’the portrait said again. Minato, for the life of him, hoped it was right.

Project Hubcap (my novel):

Gabriel narrowed her eyes. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, like you said you wouldn't dare touch myshit?" Marigold said, bending her knees and waving her hands back andforth like an off-duty circus performer. "'I wasn't touching anything,'"she mimicked, and Gabriel hissed. "'I was just looking around is all!Ignore the big blocky bulge in my back pocket; I'm just happy to seeyou!'"

"Alright, shut up!" Gabriel said. "You'vemade your point. Christ, you're even more of a bitch when you're drunk than youare normally."

"That's how it tends to work, sweetheart,"Marigold said, hiccoughing.

#ask meme #asks #nonfandom #fanfiction #writing #thank you so much for asking these!!#ragequilt

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pinelife3 · 5 years

Text

Sadness

The treatment of the breaking of the fourth wall in Fleabag is the most compelling thing I’ve seen all year. Throughout the first season, our protagonist Fleabag (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge who also writes the show) would look at the camera to make witty asides. Usually a sarcastic remark or eye roll to hammer home that she’s sardonic, insincere, perhaps a little underhanded.

You’ve probably noticed how if you’re in a one-on-one conversation, it’s hard to rag on someone but that in a group it works (because you can pretend it’s good natured humour rather than a scathing attack on their very existence). In Fleabag, the breaking of the fourth wall is a way for Fleabag to safely ridicule whoever she’s speaking to. It’s also a succinct way of delivering backstory, revealing her intentions, and getting us on side. These interactions with the fourth wall are pretty standard, see: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Amélie, House of Cards, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Shakespearean asides, American Psycho. It’s an accepted device. But then in season two, when Fleabag speaks to us, someone takes notice, someone spots her dipping out of their diegetic reality as she speaks to us in ours.

I thrilled at this.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen everything - but I’d never seen this before. This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen on a TV show (forget the Red Wedding). This is a masterful trick, and great storytelling all at once - it demolishes a literary device. But most of the coverage of Fleabag has focused on how sad the show is:

People seem to like that: they like being crushed, enjoy being devastated. Why is that?

I’ve recently cried over two cowboy related things: Brokeback Mountain and Red Dead Redemption 2.

youtube

I cried when I finished Red Dead Redemption 2 because I love Arthur Morgan so much: he was just the sweetest guy, and I was sad the story was over because we can’t go fishing anymore, or crash his horse into trees and fall, or fight gators in the swamps, or brush his horse while we cruise around the old west. I just felt so wistful for his life and the idea of bad guys working hard to be good in a changing world.

And then I cried at the end of Brokeback Mountain because it is objectively very sad. The shirts tucked inside each other which Jack kept all those years. The possibility that Jack didn’t know how much Ennis loved him. The life they could have had together, and how much they loved each other - but the families and relationships they destroyed along the way as well, because no one ever said what they felt.

I really liked both Brokeback and Red Dead, because they have great stories and characters. In Red Dead, I have so many fond memories - and for that reason it made me feel strong emotions. But I don’t like Red Dead because it made me feel strong emotions. I don’t like Brokeback because it was ‘crushing’ and/or ‘devastating’ - it was enjoyable because it was a beautiful story with tragic, poignant elements. I like the story - not that it made me cry. Most Fleabag reviews seem to focus on the sadness it made the audience feel as a way to recommend it to people.

Watch Fleabag - it will make you feel something.

Prepare to emote because Fleabag is preternaturally sad.

The discourse around the show on Reddit is similar:

Pffft want to feel really sad? Check out this scene from Synecdoche, New York:

youtube

It’s very moving, kind of irresistibly so. And I think that’s because it’s calling out to that scared, bitter, self-pitying part of you which is always cringing in the shadows, waiting for someone to invite it out of the garage into the living room. This speech is designed to frighten you: you’ll make misssssstakesss and ruin your life. You won’t even know you’re doing it until it’ssssss toooooo late. You might think your life is nice - but that’sssssssssssss only because you haven’t ssssssssssseen how bad it will get. It’s giving you permission to feel bad without providing any reason to feel bad, and then it’s allowing you to wallow in that bad feeling. It’s poison.

I promise you, for 99% of people who watched Synecdoche, New York , life is not that bad. People in horrible, war torn places where they aren’t able to watch Charlie Kaufman films because no one dubs indie movies in Kurdish have it bad - and not just because they’re missing out on great films, but because they essentially live in a sandier version of Hell. Haven’t you ever sat in the sun with a dog and seen it look back at you and felt a perfect connection? Haven’t you ever fallen asleep, perfectly comfortable, tucked in beside someone you love? Haven’t you ever eaten pancakes with ice cream, or seen a huge mountain, or been really cold and then gotten into a warm bath? Haven’t you ever seen a baby fake-crying on the tram and then its mum tickles it under the chin and it laughs, and you see everyone around you smile because babies are so pure? Come on! You’re not Othello. Your life is pretty nice. Even Othello’s life was pretty nice right up until the end.

Pretty nice.

But boring. Right?

Pancakes? Cuddles?

How am I to thrill at sunsets and smiling babies?

Good. Now I’m sad again.

And if the realisation that you don’t have anything to be sad about (except for the ordinariness of the pleasures in your life) didn’t make you sad, check out this compilation of the 10 most depressing moments in Bojack Horseman (ranked in order from least depressing to most depressing!).

A major inconvenience of modern life is that most of us have supremely comfortable, happy, safe lives. And when something goes wrong, you can’t go on a tragic rampage and tear out your own eyes, beat your breast, or wail on the moor in a thunderstorm - even though that may be what you feel like doing.

Work sucks, no one respects me, and I messed up that section of the Excel spreadsheet so maybe they are right to not respect me: take me to a moor where my tears can blend with rain and my howls will be swallowed by the wind!

Ordinary people don’t get to live in a tragedy - and besides, there aren’t as many moors around as literature might have you believe. The most you can do usually is make a scene at a family dinner or isolate yourself at a party and then get drunk and walk home crying. Who would write a sweeping, romantic story about an embarrassing fuck up walking home drunk, feeling sorry for themselves.

Oh.

Wait:

And Now For That 2000 Year Old Mystery

Aristotle’s Poetics is the source of the word catharsis (in italics because it’s Greek which is the way I was taught to do it in high school - if only there were Greecian-alics, am I right?), which in common parlance today basically means any kind of dramatic release of emotions. Kickboxing is cathartic. Getting your eyebrows waxed is cathartic. Crying during an emotional episode of a TV show is cathartic.

Because the word appeared in Poetics, it's original usage related to the theatre, in particular the experience of an audience watching a tragedy: the release of emotions they feel in watching things go seriously wrong for the hero. For this reason, catharsis is often tied to anagnorisis - the moment of tragic realisation.

Oh god I killed my father and married my mother.

Oh god, that’s my son’s head on the pike, not the head of a mountain lion.

Oh god, remember when I messed up that bit of the spreadsheet and everyone knew it was me. Existence truly is pain.

You get the idea. It’s not enough that the protagonist is a fuck up: that matter needs to be brought to their attention and they need to reflect on it.

(A more proper (read: academic) definition of catharsis is: “an imitation of an action ‘with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.’” The emotions the audience feel echo what the people on stage are feeling. The jump scare in a horror movie scares the character on screen and the audience watching at home.)

Aristotle never clearly defined catharsis. So for all this time (2000+ years) people have been trying to infer what he meant from a couple of references to a pretty slippery concept. Even though the general public has their understanding of the word, academics still cannot agree on a definition. But we know what it means, roughly, because we’ve all experienced it.

Over the weekend I watched Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s other other TV show (not Killing Eve) which had an exchange between an artist and a drunk girl on sadness and how it factors into art:

Character 1: He’s my muse!

Character 2: Your muse?

...

Character 2: Like an artist's muse?!

Character 1: Yes, he is! You think meeting someone like Colin happens to artists all the time?! He gives so much.

Character 2: Yeah, sure, and you just lap it up and just slap it on a canvas.

Character 1: Pardon?

Character 2: "His pain is so beautiful." You're using him to indulge yourself.

Character 1: I am indulging? And what is this?

Character 2: This is a $4 bottle of wine.

...

Character 2: Sorry if I upset you, Melody.

Character 1: You don't upset me. You bore me. All you seem to want to do is drink and wank and drink and wank.

Character 2: Well, at least I don't have to wank other people's pain onto a canvas, and then shove it in people's faces and call it "my art."

Character 2 in this scene is played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I can’t be bothered to explain why it’s relevant.

For the eternity of human brains, or at least for as long as preserved creativity, the most comfortable, secure people in the world have tried to experience the things tragic victims feel - perhaps so they can briefly know what it feels like to be a romantic figure struggling in an unjust world. A passport to feelings and drama we aren’t permitted in every day life. Catharsis is the word to express the reaction, but what do we call an audience who seeks out that sensation? Catharsis chasers?

It’s not insightful to say that people like to watch Fast & Furious movies because they’re exciting and perhaps audiences enjoy that excitement because their own lives are un-exciting. But commending a thing because it will make you sad seems aberrant in some way. A fast and dangerous car that will make you miserable. A roller coaster that will make you depressed. An incredible shootout in the streets of LA that will make you sob in the bathroom cubicle at work every time you think about it. I can’t explain the drive, but like Aristotle I will invent a new word, so that academics can never know what I meant but will still write at great length about it, so that it will slip into common parlance and be horribly misused until eventually, 2000 years from now, a girl can waffle on about it on her blog. And the word will be: scartharsio. Or maybe scorpithoniacs? Or sarcastiharsics?

Sadness is entertainment for a scartharsio.

ALL TIME HALL OF FAME: WAILING WOMEN AND MOORS

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Nobody knows what it’s like to be me, a sad woman who weeps on moors!

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I’m not being overly dramatic!

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#Fleabag #phoebe waller-bridge #bojack horseman #kate bush #wuthering heights #sense and sensibility #ang lee #kate winslet #othello #synecdoche new york #charlie kaufman #brokeback mountain #red dead redemption 2

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imagining-supernatural · 7 years

Text

Tell Me

Summary: Sam has this habit of distracting you every time he comes to visit. Working out more, forgetting to wear a shirt, you know the drill. But what happens when he finds a way to distract you when you’re in class as well?

Word Count: 5187 (got a little carried away. Not sorry at all)

Warnings: Implied smut. Sam Fucking Winchester (let’s be honest here, he is a warning all in himself)

A/N: @dancing-the-hellfire-rumba‘s fic Sexy Bastard is the fic that started this whole thing. Seriously, as soon as I read her summary “Sam is a fucking tease, okay?” I knew that I was done for. I’ve been working on this for an entire week because it just had to be done. Also, perfect timing! Happy Birthday Sam Winchester, you tease!

Tell Me English Masterlist -- Dime Masterlist en Español

“How about that homework last night?” Jonathan asked, sliding into his normal seat beside you.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Nelly groaned, turning in her chair to talk to you two. “Lil and I worked on it for six hours and we still don’t know if we did it right.”

“Right?” You agreed emphatically, getting war flashbacks to your battles with the case study and your excel spreadsheet. “I swear, we haven’t even learned half of the stuff it was asking us to do.”

Rhetta pushed her chair closer and you fought to hold back your eye-roll. Here comes her self-righteous, better-than-you speech. “Actually, we learned about the regression analysis last week, and it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to answering question five from there.”

How about you just hop, skip, and jump away from us?

There was no way you would ever say that aloud, though. As a closed-off, borderline-shy person, you avoided conflict at all costs, and telling Rhetta to get lost would just light her fuse and it would only be a matter of time before you got in a fight.

When no one replied, Rhetta just smirked and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I thought it was easy, at least.”

“At least one of us feels good about it,” you finally said. That satisfied her need to feel superior, and she finally rolled away. Nelly and Jonathan started discussing the assignment, sharing their woes. You were about to jump in when you heard an all-to-familiar voice, causing your head to snap over towards the teacher.

“Hi there, I’m Doctor Peralta. I believe you got my email about observing your class today?”

Standing there, introducing his fake self to your professor was none other than Sam Winchester. He caught your eye and winked, instantly dousing your face in pink blush. When your professor responded to him, Sam looked away from you. Now that he wasn’t watching you, the coast was clear to check him out.

Check him out to see if you could figure out why he was here, you meant. Not check him out, like check him out.

Though there was a fair amount of checking him out too, if you were being honest with yourself.

And dammit all if your mouth felt dry just looking at him. You’d seen Sam Winchester many times since Bobby took you in after your parents died, but you’d never seen him in a suit. The stark white shirt playing against his slightly tanned skin and the dark grey suit coat stretching across his shoulders. From the many times he’d walked around Bobby’s shirtless, doing pushups on the living room floor, or helping Bobby on the cars, you knew that the shoulder pads weren’t doing much padding. That man was all muscle.

His fingers—god, his fingers—started undoing the button on his suit coat, and your eyes snapped back to his. Your eyes locked onto his again, and your face inflamed even more at being caught checking him out. Just as he always did when he caught you staring, he tilted his head a little and raised his eyebrows as if asking a question. But he wasn’t asking a question. He just knew that calling you out made you even more embarrassed, and that was apparently his mission in life.

“Who is that?” Rhetta asked, once again asserting herself into your group.

The way she was staring at Sam, like he was going home with her tonight, lit a fire within you. She had no right to be looking at Sam like that. Sure, he wasn’t yours. But he sure as hell wasn’t hers.

“You don’t know who that is?” By the tone of your voice, everyone could tell that you thought the answer was obvious. “Seriously, Rhetta? That’s Doctor Peralta.”

“Doctor Peralta?”

“Yeah.” Time to concoct a backstory that hopefully wouldn’t clash with the one that Sam had prepared for himself. “Doctor Peralta. He’s, like, the most sought after business consultant in the Northern Hemisphere. He’s consulted Google and Berkshire and Koch and Apple.”

Her eyes narrowed. While she thought through your explanation, you glanced back over at Sam just in time to see him laugh at something your professor said to him and Sam Winchester’s laugh, well, it wound its way into your body and sent the neurons firing.

Class today was going to be a disaster. There was no way you would be able to focus for the rest of the day.

“I can’t find him on Google,” Rhetta snottily drew your attention back to her.

For once you knew something she didn’t. So as your professor got everyone’s attention, you whispered something back to her, knowing that it would drive her crazy. She prided herself on always being able to find the answer. She always had to be right. Well, not this time. “Maybe you’re just spelling his name wrong.”

Your victory over Rhetta, knowing that she would be too proud to ask how to spell his name, was briefly lived, since Sam commanded your attention once again, and in your weird friendship, he had all the power whether he knew it or not.

“Class, this is Doctor Peralta. He will be observing our class today for his research.”

“Research?” Rhetta whispered to you. “Not consulting. Looks like you don’t know anything either.”

Sam caught your eye as he began his mini-speech, flicking his gaze behind you to Rhetta for a moment. “Hi, everyone. As your professor said, I’m Doctor Peralta. I’m taking a sabbatical from my consulting work to research several graduate programs around the nation. Just pretend like I’m not here and do whatever you do. Don’t let the fact that I’ll be watching you distract you from your schoolwork.”

Of course he would say that last part to you. He kept his eyes on you dangerously longer than necessary, considering there were twenty other students in the classroom.

As class started, Sam took an empty seat in the back of the room, directly across from you. These U-shaped classrooms were great for classroom discussion, but not so good at avoiding someone’s gaze.

You tried to pay attention. You really did. But your professor wasn’t remotely as interesting as watching Sam take off his jacket and sling it across the back of the empty chair next to him. You couldn’t focus on practice problems when Sam’s white dress-shirt did absolutely nothing to hide the ripple of his muscles every time he moved.

Finally you had to completely turn to face the board, rest an elbow on the table beside you, and use your hand to shield your vision from Sam. For a good three minutes, you managed to at least keep your eyes on the board. And you were finally starting to get back into the groove when your phone vibrated.

Sam: Hey

Dammit. You dropped your hand and looked over at him, only to see that he was purposefully looking at anyone else but you. And it was on purpose. You knew it from the smile he was barely holding back.

Y/N: What are you doing here?

Sam: Hunt. Ghost.

That was highly unlikely. This building was the newest on campus. There were dozens of other, much older buildings.

You made a show of putting your phone in your backpack and went back to trying to ignore Sam. Which was a complete failure, you might add. You could feel Sam’s eyes on your skin every single time he looked at you. Even from across the room, you could swear that you heard the tap, tap, tap of his laptop keys as he typed out his fake notes. And dammit all if he looked amazing, even in these harsh fluorescent lights.

Finally class ended and chatter started up as everyone started packing away their books and papers. You slowly slid your binder into your bag, keeping Sam in the corner of your eyes at all times. He wasn’t about to catch you off-guard.

You tracked him as he prowled towards you. When he stopped in front of you and tapped his fingers on the table, you looked up at him.

“Miss Y/L/N, it’s good to see you again.”

Okay. That’s the story he was going with. Apparently Y/N Y/L/N had known Doctor Peralta from sometime in the past. Time to play along. “You too, Doctor Peralta. How’s your brother doing?”

“Good, good. He’s just working the job, you know. And your dad?”

“Asks about you every time I talk to him.” That wasn’t a lie. The Winchesters often came up in conversation with you and Bobby, your only living father figure. “You really helped him out.”

“Excuse me,” Rhetta inserted herself in. “Doctor Peralta, I’m Rhetta Esquire. I’m the number one ranked student in the program. If you have any questions, I would love to help you with your research.”

Sam barely acknowledged her. “Thank you. But I was actually hoping that Miss Y/L/N would be available?”

“How do you two know each other?” Rhetta asked, not giving you a chance to answer Sam.

“Oh, we go way back,” Sam replied, winking at you. You averted your eyes, yelling at yourself to get it together!

Whatever. Two can play at this game. You were in grad school for crying out loud. Cutthroat, pushy, grad school. You could definitely handle Sam Winchester.

“Yeah. You should’ve seen Peralta here try and change his nephew’s diaper for the first time. No one told him that baby boys become fountains as soon as the diaper comes off. His hair smelled like pee for days.”

“Aww, you have a nephew?” Rhetta latched onto the image of Sam with a baby and—dammit! Now you couldn’t get that image out of your head. It was crowding its way into the portion of your brain where all of your shirtless Sam memories danced around with the relaxed Sam who was laughing with a bottle of beer in his hand. Now there was the image of Sam with his fake nephew, cooing and being generally adorable thrown in the mix and your fantasies suddenly became bigger.

Well, your plan to play game backfired magnificently.

“Yeah,” Sam tossed an amused glare your way. “He’s adorable when he’s not screaming.”

“Anyway, I have to get to my next class. It starts in a few minutes.” You had to get away from Sam for your own sanity. “I’ll call you after I get off work tonight and you can ask me your questions then?”

Then Sam smirked and your stomach sank. “Sure. But can you point me towards room 483? I need to observe Professor Braker’s class next.”

There was absolutely no way that this was for a case. No way in hell. If it was for a case, then Sam wouldn’t be following you around. Still, as it was, you had to give him a tight smile since Rhetta was still there. “Sure thing. I’ll take you there.”

Like the true gentleman that he was, Sam grabbed your backpack and slung it across a shoulder. As soon as you were in the crowded, noisy hallway with Sam’s hand resting lightly on your back, you hissed up at him. “Sam, what the hell?”

“I told you. A hunt.”

“For a ghost in the newest building on campus? I think you’re just stalking me.”

“Now why would I do that?” He asked, keeping his eyes straight ahead. But there was still that infuriating smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

“Whatever. I hope you like Strategic Supply Chain Management, because you’re about to spend two hours hearing all about it.”

Sam pulled to a stop just outside of the classroom door and handed you your backpack back. So quickly that you were sure you just imagined it, he brushed his fingers along your cheek, pushing some of your hair out of your face. “Y/N, if you think I’m gonna be focusing on the lecture, you’re not as smart as I gave you credit for.”

And just like that, he was gone. With his words rattling around in your head, you followed him into the room and made your way to your normal seat. As you sat down, you aimed a calculating gaze at Sam as he introduced himself to your professor. What had he meant by that?

“Greg?” You spun your chair towards your friend. “I have a favor to ask.”

“One… second…” Greg finished typing whatever he was doing on his laptop before giving his full attention to you. “What’s up?”

“I need you to flirt with me. I mean, not like, flirt-flirt. Just flirt. In a completely platonic way, you know? Like, not for real but—” Man, you were really murking this up.

Luckily for you, Greg was a pretty laid back guy. He only got intense when you argued about the stock market. So he just appeared amused by your rambling rather than concerned. “What’s going on, Y/N?”

With a sigh, you came up with as good an explanation as you could muster. “I need to test a theory. If you flirt with me and I flirt back, then I might make someone jealous. And then I’ll know if I’m right or not.”

“Who?”

“Don’t judge me,” you muttered. “It’s Doctor Peralta. That guy with Professor Braker. He’s an old family friend and I’m pretty sure that he’s spent the last few years, I don’t know, teasing me? Like, he’s always working out when he comes to visit. He’s not wearing a shirt more often than he is. He’s incredibly smart and he knows it, so he makes sure that I know it. And I think he knows that, well, I’m into guys like that.”

Greg leaned back in his chair and watched Sam out of the corner of his eye for a moment, which meant that you did too. Sam’s soft chuckle galloped across the room and rained down on your skin.

“Hey, Y/N,” Greg’s voice was slightly louder than it had just been. “What are you doing tonight?”

Torn out of your Sam haze, you were a little confused at first. Then you remember that you, quite literally, had asked for this. “Nothing. Probably just putting of some homework. Why? You have a better idea?”

“Yeah, I do.” Greg rolled his chair forward a little. “My friend just moved into town and we’re celebrating at that bar on fourth. Whaddaya say to being my date so I’m not the awkward third wheel to him and his wife?”

“Oh, come on. You could never be a third wheel,” you reassured him, reaching out to touch his arm lightly.

“Not with you there.” His head tilt and raised eyebrow in question.

With a shy smile, you glanced down at your books for a moment before looking back at Greg, just as you would have if this had been him really asking you out. “Yeah. That sounds like fun.”

“Almost as fun as our study sessions?”

That one got a real laugh out of you. “Except with alcohol.”

As your professor called the class to order, Greg pushed his chair closer, slung his arm across your shoulders and leaned in to whisper in your ear. “By the way, if you really wanna come tonight, you can. But I’ll take it as a bad sign if you show up because you’ve got that Peralta guy wrapped around your finger.”

You immediately sought out Sam and noted the tight set of his jaw and the way he was pointedly not looking at you. Maybe Greg was right. Maybe you were right. Maybe Sam really was teasing you more than to just make you blush.

So as soon as Sam started introducing himself and his purpose, you turned to whisper to Greg, purposefully keeping your face as close to his as you could. “I’m new to this… whole thing. How do I make my move without it being awkward?”

“What am I, your love guru?”

“Yes,” you said with fake seriousness. “As my friend and study buddy, it’s your duty to also be my love guru.”

Rolling his eyes slightly, Greg considered for a moment. Then he smiled mischievously. “You ever see How I Met Your Mother?” When you nodded, he went on. “Naked man.”

His unexpected suggestion coaxed a bark of laughter out of you, cutting Sam off. With a sheepish look, and trying to suppress your smile, you muttered a soft, “Sorry.”

Sam kept his hazel eyes on you for a moment longer before wrapping up his introduction and taking a seat on the opposite side of the room. You could feel his eyes burning into you, but you turned your attention back to Greg.

“I can’t do the naked man.” You tried to picture yourself waiting for Sam in your apartment, completely naked, but you just couldn’t. Hell, you needed help just to learn how to make a move. Waiting for a guy, completely naked was just way out of your comfort zone.

Just then, you made the mistake of imagining Sam doing the naked man. You could picture it. The squeak of your door as you closed it behind you, twisting the lock. Walking into your room and being greeted with the glorious sight of Sam Winchester and that irresistible smirk that would be the only thing he was wearing.

Your eyes wandered over to him and the way his muscles filled out his shirt. The way his hair brushed at the collar. The way his fingers tapped away at his laptop. And the way his eyes were burning into yours, seeing way too much.

He cocked his head slightly, eyeing you thoughtfully.

“Keep it in your pants until after class,” Greg whispered amusedly, jerking you away from your tunnel vision.

“What?” At your question, Greg just gave you an are you kidding me look before turning his attention back to the lecture. Unfortunately for you, Sam chose that moment to roll his sleeves up to his elbows, keeping his eyes on you the whole damn time. There was no way you would be able to pay attention to the lecture today.

*****

The sound of your front door opening put you on high alert and you reached for where you had a gun hidden in your bathroom drawer, but then the voice that called out made you relax.

“It’s just me!” Dean yelled. He quickly found his way to the bathroom where you were putting the finishing touches on your makeup. “Damn! You look hot, Y/N.”

You tried to cover up your blush with a coy smile. “Thank you, Dean. Where’s Sam?”

He leaned against the door jamb, dragging his eyes over your body appreciatively. Sure, Dean’s attention was unfamiliar and made you blush, but not to the degree that Sam’s attention did. “He’s getting something from the car. What’s up? You got a hot date tonight?”

“Kind of,” you hedged, slowly untwisting your mascara wand.

“Kind of? What kind of date is that?”

You glanced at Dean’s reflection and saw that he was watching you carefully, trying to puzzle this situation out. As much as you would love to be confident in Greg’s assessment of your weird relationship with Sam, you trusted Dean’s opinion much more. Maybe it would be best to test out your theory on him before you made an utter fool of yourself in front of Sam.

“I have a question.”

“Shoot.” Dean shrugged off the wall and settled himself down on your toilet.

How to phrase this? “What’s Sam like when I’m not around?”

Dean just raised an eyebrow, asking for more information. You surrendered to the conversation, setting down the mascara and giving Dean your full attention. “Like, does he walk around shirtless as much as he does when you guys came to visit Bobby? Does he really work out as much as he does around me? Or is that just some sort of macho, show-off thing? And what is the deal with him stalking me in class today?”

Just then the front door opened, closing your window of opportunity. Dean just laughed, stood up, and walked over until he was behind you. With a gentle hand on your waist and his lips at your ear, he winked at you in the mirror. “You have great instincts, Y/N. Trust in yourself.”

“So I found some lore on—whoa.” Sam rounded the corner and came to a halt as soon as he saw you.

Sam’s reaction and the wink that Dean threw your way just then set your face aflame and you quickly turned back to the mirror, trying to focus on your mascara. “You two sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself.”

“Since Y/N has a hot date tonight, I’ll go grab us some grub,” Dean said. He wrapped his hand around your waist and leaned in to kiss you on the cheek. As he pulled away, he whispered for your ears only. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

You watched Dean walk away and felt a sudden rush of confidence. If Dean thought that you weren’t even going to make it out of your apartment, and Greg wasn’t expecting you to show up, then maybe Sam really was trying to go out of his way to impress you because he liked you.

“You don’t think the dress is too drab?” You asked, turning to face him and holding your hands out to the side. You’d gone for a black, scoop neck dress with wide straps on the shoulders. The dress cut in at your waist, then flowed away in a skirt that was shorter in the front than in the back. From the front it was a perfectly acceptable daytime dress. But when you turned around, miles of skin on your back was showcased as the straps on the shoulder broke into smaller straps.

The dress had been sitting in the back of your closet for nearly a year, ever since your friend convinced you to buy it even though you knew that you would never find the occasion to wear it.

But now you were thanking her profusely.

“Uh, no. Not drab at all.”

While Sam dragged his eyes up your body—and you noted that he definitely took his time—you were trying to work up the courage to make a move. But when his eyes landed on yours, your mind suddenly went blank and you chickened out.

Looks like you were going to be Greg’s date tonight.

Trying not to let your disappointment in yourself show, you finished with your mascara and went back to fixing your hair. You’d curled it, then used a plethora of bobby pins to pin it up into an up-do that looked like it was natural, but still like you tried. However, the stupid bobby pins just wouldn’t keep your hair where you wanted it.

“Here,” Sam stepped up behind you and you froze when the heat of his body brushed against your bare back. “Let me.”

He snatched the pin from your fingers and you tried not to react too much as he gently pinned your hair in place, completely focused. Just feeling his fingers in your hair, brushing along your neck, resting on your bare shoulders…

Then he took a step back and stark, cold air rushed between you. “Your date’s a lucky guy.”

That made you mad. He sounded so forlorn and jealous and slightly annoyed. It was the tone of defeat. That was that moment that all of your shyness and careful instincts disappeared and you whirled around, pushing at Sam. Your movement caught him by surprise and he stumbled back a step until he hit the wall.

“Screw you, Sam!”

“E-excuse me?”

“You don’t get to be jealous. You don’t get to be mad or annoyed or, or, or whatever the hell you’re feeling. You’ve spent years teasing me. Years making me blush and making me fall for you. And as soon as it looks like I’m into some other guy you roll over and give up? I give you a taste of your own medicine for less than a day—and a horrible taste of your own medicine, I may add because Lord knows that I can not flirt to save my life—and that’s it? You’re over it? So yeah. Screw you.”

Fuming, you stalked out of the bathroom and headed to your room, aiming for the strappy heels you’d bought with the dress. Apparently you were just a game to Sam. As soon as you weren’t a fly caught in his trap anymore, he lost interest. As soon as it looked like you weren’t wrapped around his finger anymore, he didn’t care about you.

Well, you know what? Maybe it was time to use your frustration and anger to actually live your life. Get out of your shell. Maybe Greg could help you with that. Help you loosen up.

You grabbed your shoes and your keys and turned around, not even bothering to put the shoes on. You could do that later. Right now, all that you wanted to do was get away from this embarrassing situation. Eventually your brain was going to catch up to your mouth and you wanted to be far away and halfway drunk by the time that happened.

Who knew that for three smart people, you, Greg, and Dean could all be so horribly wrong about Sam?

When you turned to leave your room, Sam was standing in the doorway, blocking your exit.

“Move.”

“No.” He crossed his arms across his chest and you wondered if he purposefully flexed his muscles or if it was just natural.

“I’m not gonna ask you nicely, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“Tell me that you want me to move. Tell me that you want to go to that stupid bar with that guy. Tell me that you don’t want to be here with me, alone in your apartment.” He slowly started walking forward, looking very much like a predator stalking its prey. Each word he spoke brought his voice closer to a growl, and you were frozen in place.

“Tell me that you don’t want my hands all over your body. Tell me that you didn’t spend hours getting ready just for me. Tell me that you’d rather be at a dingy old bar rather than on your bed right there.”

Your feet were glued to the floor when Sam came to a stop right in front of you. The fabric of his shirt barely brushed at your dress and he ghosted his hands over your arms and shoulders, not quite touching you. He lowered his head and you unconsciously lifted your chin until you could feel his forehead and nose bumping yours, his warm breaths cascading over your lips like a waterfall.

“Tell me that you haven’t imagined what it would feel like. To have my fingers digging into your skin. To feel my lips on every single inch of your perfect body. To scream my name.”

Sam pulled back and his eyes latched onto yours with a dangerous glint. “Tell me that’s not what you want. Then I’ll move.”

The air was heavy like just before storm hits. You’d forgotten how to breathe, and your body yearned for Sam. You exhaled his name, barely moving the air, but it was enough to bring out Sam’s insufferable smirk.

“I’ve seen you, you know,” he continued. “How you watch me when I work out. I’ve noticed the way your face heats up. I bet you want to feel me, don’t you?” One of his hands finally landed on you, brushing along the exposed skin of your back and you were so worked up by just his voice that it was a struggle to bite back your whimper. You weren’t about to let him win quite yet. “You want to feel my body holding yours down on the bed or against a wall or even on a table. You wanna feel the way I would move inside of you.”

Your heart was already beating way too fast when Sam suddenly pressed against your back, sending you stumbling into his body. The soft fabric of your dress and thin tee-shirt he was wearing were flimsy barriers. Those firm, intoxicating muscles you’d spent hours memorizing over the years were hard against your soft curves. You brought your hands up to his waist for balance, though the way he was holding you wouldn’t have let you move anyway.

Sam’s voice was little more than a growl at your ear as his fingers dug and massaged their way up your back. “I’d make you beg for it, Y/N. I’d bring you to the edge so many times until you couldn’t take anymore. Even then, I would take my time. Get to know your body. How you respond. The way you move. What feels good. What feels insanely good.”

“Shit, Sam,” your voice was barely a whisper.

“You think I’ve been a tease, Y/N?” He nipped at your jaw. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.” Then he suddenly stepped back and you nearly fell forward. In an almost normal voice, he continued. “You should go now. Don’t wanna keep your date waiting.”

Honestly, you should. You should grab the shoes that you’d dropped sometime during that spectacle and walk right past him. Teach him that it’s mean to tease.

“Screw you, Sam,” you snapped, closing the distance between you two and pulling his lips down to yours. He wasted no time in kissing you back. Sam’s hands were all over you, pulling and pushing and tugging and driving you crazy.

You’d dreamt of those hands for years, but actually feeling the rough callouses and nimble muscles was so much better. And those lips… Lips that you’d watched explain a bit of lore thousands of times. Lips that drove you wild when they smirked every time he caught you staring. Lips that were stealing your oxygen away, demanding your attention, locking onto yours.

He hooked his hands under your thighs and easily lifted you up. The world tilted as he spun around until you were pressed against the wall and Sam’s lips latched onto your neck. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you noted that you wouldn’t be able to hide those marks in the morning, but in the moment you couldn’t care less. Sam’s hair was tangled in your fingers, your legs were wrapped around his waist, ankles hooked behind his ass, and he was grinding against you, making you forget about everything else.

“Oh, God, Sam.”

Sam pulled away with a dark, devilish grin. “Baby, you like that?” Your low groan when he rolled his hips against yours again was all the answer he needed. “I’m just getting started, Y/N. By the time I’m finished with you tonight, you’ll be feeling me for the rest of the week.”

“Are you just teasing me, or can you back up those words?” You asked in a shaky voice.

He chuckled humorously. “Patience, babe. We’ve got all night.”

Sequel: Now and Later

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dragonbagel · 7 years

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Show Me Why You’re Strong - Rhysha

Rhys didn't expect his visit to the con artist sisters to end in an inadvertent sleepover, and he especially didn't expect it to be the time he was forced to reveal the secrets he kept buried deep inside.

(trans siren rhys hell yeah! read it on ao3 here)

“So then, just as he was about to set his skag back on us, Sasha shot that fucker right between the eyes,” Fiona said, leaning over the edge of the armchair she was sitting on and mimicking the shot by firing a finger gun. The motion coincided with a clap of thunder outside, a dramatic coincidence that Fiona was more than happy to claim to be of her own doing. “It was amazing!”

“Nice work, Sash,” Rhys said, smiling at the woman next to him.

“Yeah, well,” she tried to reply nonchalantly (because she definitely wasn’t blushing). “He had a sick-ass gun.”

“Damn right he did!” Fiona laughed, giving her sister a high-five overtop Rhys that had the taller man scrambling to lean out of the way.

“The Hyperion Yellow Jacket,” Sasha said dreamily, waving her hand as if gesturing to an invisible marquee.

“And that’s… good?” Rhys asked, yelping as Sasha elbowed him.

“Yes, dumbass,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll show it to you later.”

“Heh, really, you don’t have to,” Rhys said nervously, rubbing at the back of his neck and hoping the rain pelting the roof masked the tremor in his voice.

“Come on, Atlas,” Fiona said with a smirk. “Don’t be such a wimp.”

Rhys scoffed. “Not wanting to be around a death machine doesn’t make me a wimp. It makes me… self-preserving.”

Sasha was about to completely demolish his wimpy defense when he suddenly held his hand up, head cocked to the side as his ECHOeye glowed yellow.

“Hello?”

There was a pause, which the sisters assumed was the response of whoever was on the other end of the call.

“No, listen, I’m a bit...occupied right now. Can’t it- can’t it wait? Seriously?” Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers as Fiona and Sasha exchanged glances. “You asked Vaughn already? And Yvette?”

Rhys groaned at the squabbling of demands, sinking lower onto the couch as one of his strategists unloaded an entire week’s worth of problems directly into his brain. He mouthed an apology at the sisters as he stood, already pulling up his palm display to the spreadsheet of Atlas’ latest requisitions.

Fiona and Sasha could still hear every word from the tiny living room where they sat, considering their small home wasn’t exactly spacious. He was saying something about a line of shields, a topic so unimportant that, in Sasha’s opinion, he didn’t need to prioritize over hanging out with his friends. His friend and his girlfriend, her mind amended. It was only these stupid mushy feelings (and the knowledge that Atlas was basically Rhys’ poor, struggling child) that allowed her to look past the annoyance and instead wait for Rhys to finish his call.

Fiona soon lost interest in eavesdropping on Rhys’ decidedly boring business call and stood from her seat, adjusting her hat before heading into their shared bedroom. Sasha remained on the tattered sofa, watching Rhys spout statistics and go through a hilarious array of frustrated facial expressions that she just wanted to kiss right off his stupid face.

Oh god. Did she really just think that?

She tried to mentally chastise herself, but found that she couldn’t really be upset about it. She liked Rhys-- sue her. Sure, he sometimes acted… questionably, and was still a bit too bougie for her total comfort; but he was also a goofball and a genius and actually a complete sweetheart when he wanted to be. Which, funnily enough, happened to be whenever he was around her.

“Fine! I don’t care, I’ll sign it when I get back! Just tell R&D we need them ready to ship out by Monday, no excuses.”

Rhys let out a long sigh, clenching his cybernetic fist as he disconnected the call. “Sorry,” he said, offering an apologetic smile. “Assholes can’t do anything by themselves.”

“Seems like it,” Sasha replied, making room for him next to her.

He nodded his thanks as he slumped back into the seat, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

“How bad was it?” Sasha asked, leaning against his side.

“Hmm?”

“You’re messing with your hair,” Sasha said with a snort as Rhys blushed.

“I, uh,” Rhys faltered, attempting to force his hands back onto his lap. “I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t come all the way out here for this shit.”

Sasha took the opportunity to slide her hand into his, and chuckled as a bolt of lightning had Rhys practically flinching right into her arms. He made to pull away, but Sasha held him while she placed a quick kiss on his lips. When she let go, his face was a brilliant red.

“That was, um,” he paused, mind reeling with the aftereffects of the kiss. “That was nice.”

Sasha laughed, the pure, angelic sound abruptly cut off by more thunder.

“Urgh,” Rhys said, shuddering. “I hate storms.”

Sasha stuck out her tongue at him. “Baby.”

“I’ll be yours if you’ll be mine,” Rhys shot back.

Even he couldn’t completely mask his surprise at turning an insult into such a smooth come-on-- which, of course, returned him to his image of being a complete doofus.

“Aww, would you look at Ross and Rachel?” Fiona’s smug voice carried over from where she stood leaning in the doorway, grinning at her own commentary.

Sasha launched herself off the couch towards her sister, immediately starting a counter argument complete with wild hand gestures. At one point she paused and looked at Rhys for his input, which no doubt would bolster her own standing that she was nothing like that flimsy pushover. However, Rhys just stared back in confusion.

“Rhys? Say something!” Sasha ordered, exasperated.

“This may be a bad time to ask, but… who are Ross and Rachel?”

Fiona’s laugh was practically a cackle, and the way she sunk to her knees in giggles didn’t appear to just be for the sake of theatrics. “Damn, Sasha,” she wheezed out. “You really know how to pick ‘em.”

“Shut up,” Sasha muttered, averting her gaze from her sister’s and stalking off towards the kitchen. “Rhys, do you like your skag meat cooked?” she asked after a moment.

“My what?” Rhys spluttered, confusion growing.

“Skag meat. For dinner. Keep up, Atlas,” Fiona said, her hysteria at Rhys’ lack of Friends knowledge finally winding down.

“Dinner? I, uh, I actually told Vaughn I’d eat with him tonight so--”

“Come on,” Sasha whined, putting on the largest pout she could muster. “You drove all the way out here.”

Rhys jumped as more thunder clapped above him, the anxiety propelling him towards the door. “Which is why I should, y’know, start heading back.”

“No way,” Fiona said, blocking his path. “Even I wouldn’t try driving through this storm. You’re staying.”

She must’ve noticed Rhys twitch, because she arched her brow in a challenge. “Think you can take me in a fight, string bean?”

He sighed after a moment, raising his hands in defeat. “Okay, you win. I’ll stay for dinner. And, for the record, I started going to the gym with Vaughn so if we did fight, I could maybe possibly win.”

“Whatever you say, Rhys,” Fiona said, clearly not believing him. Her chiding tone grated on him a bit, but he shrugged it off.

“Cook it well done, Sash,” he said, opting to answer Sasha’s question rather than rise to Fiona’s bait.

He pretended not to hear the sound of disgust Fiona made at his request, instead grabbing a chair at the tiny table. Sure, he and Fiona had gotten closer throughout their nightmarish vault hunting experiences; but that by no means made them friends. Their commonalities ended at “opened a creepy Eridian vault together”, and the fact that Rhys had started dating her sister wasn’t helping his case. It was fine, though; the less Fiona knew (or cared to know) the better, for his sake. If she hadn’t been so enthralled by all the loot in the vault, maybe she would’ve seen that… would’ve seen Rhys… would’ve known that he…

“You still there, Rhys?”

He glanced up to find Sasha staring at him, a platter of what he could only assume to be skag meat in her hands. “Sorry, I, uh, must’ve zoned out there for a second.”

Sasha rolled her eyes and slid the plate in front of him. “Eat up, it’ll make you feel better.”

Rhys was prepared to put on a game face and swallow as much of the probably inedible food as he could manage when he picked up his fork and found Sasha’s eyes on him. However, once the first bite entered his mouth, he found that acting wasn’t even necessary.

“Shit, Sasha,” Rhys said around the food still in his mouth. “This is so good.”

“Ha!” Sasha gloated, socking Fiona in the arm. “Told ya. Pay up, sista.”

“He’s totally faking it,” Fiona replied, taking a bite of her own food.

“No way! You’ve seen him try to act before. He looks like he’s dying!”

Rhys tried to laugh along with the bickering, but it was becoming increasingly hard to do so. It wasn’t so much his being the butt end of a joke that bothered him, but rather the knowledge that every second that he stayed with the sisters was another second too late.

“Well,” he said finally, halting a heated discussion over who the best Batman was as he scraped back his chair and stood. “Thanks for the food, but I really should- should really be going.”

“Are you insane?” Sasha asked incredulously. “It’s like the freaking apocalypse out there!”

Another bolt of lightning dashed through the sky as if to prove her point, and the wind was strong enough that the whirring sound of it was noticeable even from inside.

“You’re staying here tonight,” Sasha said, her tone unallowing of any protests.

He turned to Fiona for help, but she simply shrugged. “She’s got a point.”

Sasha took that as a victory, and began dashing around the house in search of blankets and pillows and old pajamas of Felix’s that probably wouldn’t fit Rhys right but were definitely better than nothing in her opinion. Rhys could only stare blankly at what was happening, barely even registering the pile of cloth being dumped in his lap.

“You can have the couch,” Fiona said, jerking her thumb at the piece of furniture over her shoulder. “And don’t you dare try anything funny.”

Rhys bit his lip, unsure of what to say. Fiona didn’t trust him. Duh. Fiona didn’t trust anyone. But somehow this felt more personal. Did she know? Oh god, she must’ve found out, she must’ve--

“Jeez, Fi, what’d you say to him? He looks like a deer in the headlights.” Sasha’s voice was comforting to him, calming his thoughts.

“Nothing you wouldn’t,” Fiona said, folding her arms over her chest and exiting the room.

Sasha sighed, nuzzling her head against Rhys’. “Just ignore her. She doesn’t even know what she’s saying half the time.”

That makes two of us, Rhys thought to himself.

“I think it’s time for me to hit the hay too, but if you need anything, I’ll be right next door.” She ended her sentence with a kiss, which sent Rhys’ heart pounding at a mile a minute.

He grinned against her mouth. “Yeah, right next to the she-devil.”

Sasha laughed, kissing Rhys once more before heading through the doorway Fiona had used moments before. He waited for the door to click shut before carefully setting up his makeshift bed, uneasy but trying to make the most of it. He’d definitely been through worse, that was for sure. He stared at the pile of ill-fitting clothes for a moment, half tempted to put them on because despite the storm, it was still pretty hot and stuffy indoors. He quickly thought better of it, instead just shedding his outer suit jacket and sliding under the blanket in his long-sleeved button down and dress pants. There was no need to go cause a whole mess over just one night; he’d take a shower once he returned back to Atlas and take his soon to be wrinkled clothes to the dry cleaner. It would be fine.

But as Rhys’ shitty track record of shitty luck could attest to, it probably, most definitely would not be fine.

"Oh ho ho, what do we have here?”

Rhys looked up at that familiar, snarky voice, his eyes meeting those of the blue hologram floating before him. “What do you want, Jack?” he said through gritted teeth.

“I want to know what all of this is, cupcake,” he said, his face morphing into an all too familiar glower.

“It’s nothing,” Rhys replied, attempting to shield his naked body. “Now shut up and let me shower, I feel disgusting.”

“No way, kitten. I thought we were past this whole lying thing, but it’s okay; I’ll just take a little peruse through your empty brain.”

Rhys sucked in a breath as he stood under the warm spray, keeping his voice low lest Scooter hear him. “Don’t. Please- please don’t Jack.”

Jack didn’t respond, instead appearing to be deep in thought. His head was cocked to the side, and it was only after a few minutes that his attention returned to the present.

“You little shit!” Jack yelled, getting all up in Rhys’ face and causing him to flinch at the outburst. “You ungrateful twerp!”

Rhys took an involuntary step backwards, suddenly wishing that he hadn’t taken up the mechanic’s offer to use his shower while he fixed up the rocket for them.

“I- I-”

Jack cut off Rhys’ rambling with an angry roar. “When were you gonna tell them? Tell me? Huh? That you’re one of them.”

He jabbed an accusing finger at the blue tattoos swirling around Rhys’ chest-- and not the ones that he’d voluntarily received. “I didn’t-- I’m not--”

“Fuck, you’re just like Angel,” he laughed dryly, humorlessly. “Pretending you don’t have an amazing gift, one that could change the whole fucking world.”

“I never wanted this!” Rhys spluttered. “I never wanted any of this!”

“Yeah, well,” Jack said, clenching his fist and causing an uncontrollable motion in Rhys’ cybernetic arm. “That’s too fucking bad, sweetheart.”

The arm latched around his throat before he could even process Jack’s words, fingers squeezing the air out of his lungs. “Jack, please,” he rasped, struggling in vain to pry the arm off of him with his flesh hand.

“Nah,” Jack hissed, his glare something straight out of a horror book. “I’m gonna make you pay for this, bitch.”

Rhys didn’t expect that word to break him, but he felt tears threatening to fall even as he tried to blink them away. Suddenly, he was back with Stacey, his face stinging in the aftermath of the slap she’d struck him with.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare fucking do this to me.”

Rhys stared with wide eyes at his girlfriend, disbelieving as the storm raged outside their apartment. Stacey spoke again before he could even get a word in.

“Am I not good enough? Is that what it is?”

“No, it’s not--”

“Then why, Rachel? Why now, huh?”

Rhys clenched his teeth. “I told you not to call me that.”

Stacey laughed, crowding him against the wall. “Didn’t seem to mind it before when I was moaning out your name.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Rhys said, trying to wriggle away from her.

“So you lied to me?” Stacey asked angrily, waving the pamphlet for a gender reassignment clinic she’d found on Rhys’ nightstand in his face. “Were you just going to go through with this without telling me?”

Rhys didn’t know what to do, his entire body screaming at him to just run away.

“Answer me, asshole!” Stacey yelled, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and slamming him against the wall.

Rhys could feel that familiar energy starting to thrum through him, the one that he tried so desperately to control. His tattoos were starting to burn a bright blue, one that was visible even underneath his shirt.

“Fucking bitch,” Stacey growled.

The glow flashed through his body, and suddenly Stacey was flung onto the ground by an invisible energy. Rhys could feel it in his veins, feel the translucent wings emerging from his back, an electrical current that radiated from his entire being. He pretended not to see the hurt look on Stacey’s face as he threw open the door and rushed out into the night. The lightning flashed in front of him, and then he was no longer on Eden-5; he was back on Pandora, the metallic grip choking the life out of him as he stood in the wreckage of Helios, the rain drenching him from above.

“You’re worthless,” Jack wheezed, his form flickering. “That’s all you’ll ever be, Rhys.”

“Rhys!”

“Even your so-called friends know you’re better off dead, especially after all you’ve done is lie to them.”

“Rhys!”

Rhys’ vision was starting to go splotchy, and he barely managed to drag himself towards the piece of metal shrapnel a few steps away. He hooked his arm to it at the joint where cybernetics met flesh, and pulled. He screamed, although no sound came out, the pressure on his shoulder overwhelming.

“Rhys, wake up!”

Rhys jolted as he realized the pressure wasn’t only in his dream, panting as Sasha continued to shake his shoulders. He nearly fell off the couch in shock, which would have been embarrassing had he not been so distracted by the burning tearing through his body.

“I need to- need to go,” he said breathlessly, attempting to push past Sasha before she saw, before it would all be over.

She didn’t let up from where she sat on the couch next to him, and Rhys was too weak to shove her off with his energy focused on keeping his powers under control. They’d been acting up lately, after the vault. He shouldn’t have gone in, he should’ve known how the eridium would affect him, he should’ve--

“Rhys!”

He hadn’t realized Sasha was trying to talk to him again as he was so caught up in his own panic.

“Rhys, what are these?”

Rhys realized too late that his tattoos were shining through his dress shirt, and attempted to cover himself up with the blanket. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

“That’s not nothing, Rhys,” she said softly, brushing a sweat-damp lock of hair from where it had fallen limply onto his forehead.

“I- Sasha please, I really need to go, I--”

“Rhys.” The way she said his name sounded almost pleading, yet gentle and kind in the way Stacey’s hadn’t, in the way Jack’s hadn’t; he quickly shook those thoughts away. “I need you to trust me.”

“I- I do trust you,” Rhys stammered.

“Then tell me what’s going on.” She didn’t sound angry, but Rhys probably wasn’t even awake enough to be able to tell if she was.

“It was just a nightmare,” Rhys said, averting his gaze. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Don’t be sorry, Rhys,” Sasha said, moving to caress his face but drawing back as he flinched.

She didn’t know exactly what had happened; one moment she was scavenging the kitchen for a late-night snack, and the next she’d heard Rhys’ trembling form starting to scream from where he was sprawled on the couch. It was a good thing Fiona was a heavy sleeper (she trusted her sister to be the one to wake her if there was an emergency), because her lack of sympathy definitely wouldn’t help in this situation.

She made a slow move to unbutton his shirt (why was he even sleeping in it?), but Rhys grabbed her wrist to stop her. “Please, don’t. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” Sasha snorted. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t think you could hurt me if you tried.”

“I can’t- I can’t control it, Sash. Not anymore, not since the vault,” he said, voice cracking.

“It’s okay,” she said, regarding him cautiously. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but those tattoos-- that glowing pattern-- looked all too familiar. Was it even possible? “I just- I really like you, okay?” It was scary to admit, and she knew her cheeks must be completely flushed. “And I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

Rhys sucked in a breath, forcing himself to meet Sasha’s eyes if only to confirm her sincerity. He was met with a combination of concern and love that he’d only before seen from Vaughn (although his love was of the platonic nature), and he found himself slowly nodding. “Okay.”

He quietly undid his shirt buttons one by one, and if Sasha noticed the way his hands were shaking, she didn’t comment on it. He hadn’t shown anyone his chest in a long time, keeping himself constantly covered in case someone would react the way Jack did. No, don’t think about him, Rhys mentally reprimanded himself. Don’t think about either of them.

Once his shirt was unbuttoned, he slowly shrugged it off his shoulders so that his chest was bare. His tattoos were on full display, still glowing in response to the volatile emotions coursing through him. Sasha’s eyes widened, causing Rhys to grimace. Here came the rejection.

“Rhys, are you--”

“A siren?” he interrupted, just wanting to rip the bandaid off. “Unfortunately.”

“But how?” Sasha asked, and Rhys closed his eyes as he waited for the inevitable. “I thought only girls could be-- oh.”

He bit his lip; she’d noticed his scars.

“I didn’t realize-- that time that we--”

He knew she was referring to the one time they’d had sex when Fiona had been away on the job. He’d left his shirt on throughout the ordeal, and he supposed the condom he’d been wearing masked the fact that what was down there wasn’t… natural.

“I wasn’t born with it,” he said with a sigh. “I wasn’t born with any of it. Except for, y’know, the whole siren thing.”

Sasha was remaining oddly quiet, which was unsettling coming from the usually talkative woman.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” he said, guilt hitting him like the rain pelting the roof. “It’s just, well, the last time I told anyone other than Vaughn didn’t exactly go, um, well.”

Sasha nodded, as if processing his words. “Do you mind if I…?” She’d raised her hand, looking at Rhys’ chest curiously.

Rhys shrugged. “I guess. Just be careful. The tattoos can get hot.”

Gingerly, Sasha traced a finger along the tattoos adorning Rhys’ chest. She’d flinched at the heat at first, but soon adjusted to it. The glow of his tattoos illuminated the stark contrast between her darker skin and his paleness, and Rhys was so absorbed by this observation that he didn’t even realize he was shaking.

“It’s okay,” Sasha soothed, gently rubbing her palm in calming circles on his chest. Rhys sighed, his anxiety tampering until it suddenly reignited.

Sasha was touching his scars.

He waited for the disgust, the rejection, as her fingers ghosted over the two incisions below his pecs, her expression more curious than anything else. She must have noticed Rhys’ apprehension, because she offered him a smile.

“Has anyone ever told you how gorgeous you are?”

Rhys blushed, and couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth. “Usually the word they use is disgusting.”

He immediately bit his tongue, wishing he’d just kept his mouth shut for once in the goddamn life. Sasha frowned, gently cupping his face between her hands. Rather than giving him an answer, she slowly, tenderly, pressed her lips against his. Once Rhys got over the initial shock, he returned the gesture, his hand reaching to thread his fingers through Sasha’s braided hair.

“You’re perfect, Rhys,” she said between kisses. “Absolutely fucking perfect.”

Rhys’ entire being thrilled at the compliment, and it was only when Sasha hissed in pain at the heat that he realized he should probably bring himself back down from cloud nine. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, chuckling. “Guess I got a little too excited.”

Sasha snorted. “Dork.”

Rhys reattached his mouth to hers, kissing her with a contentedness he could feel in his bones. “Thank you,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers. “Would you- would you mind staying?”

Sasha chuckled, lightly pushing Rhys to move over so she could lay down next to him. She hummed happily as Rhys held her from behind, her back against his chest.

“Thank you,” he said again, the words sending a hot breath across her neck and a chill down her spine as he began to press kisses into her skin.

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, trying to wave him off lest he find out how completely, nauseatingly enamored with him she was. “Get some sleep, idiot.”

Rhys kissed her neck one more time. “Gladly.”

#rhysha #rhysha fic #trans rhys #siren rhys #trans siren rhys #Rhys the Company man #sasha the kid sister #hurt/comfort #fiona the con artist #trash writing

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tkuhnhackl · 5 years

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1-70

i can’t tell if i love you or hate you rn but i really don’t want to do anymore work on this placement nonsense so we’ll go with the former, thanks

i’m stupid enough to actually do all these but i will put them under a read more to spare y’all

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents? yeah, i’m really close to both of them. we’re all a little nuts in the family, but in the best way.02: Who did you last say “I love you” to? my mom, when talking to her on the phone on the way back from work today (well, technically i said “love ya, shorty” because my family is not good at sentimentality without a little bit of roasting but close enough, i suppose)03: Do you regret anything? I already answered this!04: Are you insecure? I guess? It’s weird - I’m very comfortable with who I am, that sort of stuff, but things that have happened in the past have made me insecure about aspects of myself - so I suppose my answer is that i’ve become fairly good at disguising my insecurities over time05: What is your relationship status? single af06: How do you want to die? quickly, fairly painlessly, in a blaze of glory - there’s one Brian Jacques novel where the Long Patrol hares mount a final charge to stall the enemy and 8 year old me was absolutely ready to go out wielding a longsword in one hand and a sgian dubh in the other and tbh i’m still lowkey up for it07: What did you last eat? i had tacos for dinner with homemade barbacoa beef (i froze half of it when i made it back in february so i am finally treating myself to the rest of it)08: Played any sports? baseball, softball, basketball, tennis, and soccer/football. i also did field hockey briefly and ran track and field (primarily hurdles) for a year; i wanted to do short track speed skating but my parents were too worried about my safety09: Do you bite your nails? yup, i’ve tried for years to break the habit but every time i get stressed, it happens again10: When was your last physical fight? i’ve never been in a full-on fight; probably high school was the last time that anything even came close to that level and it was still not particularly close11: Do you like someone? already answered this one too!12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours? once? usually i end up taking a nap, even if just for an hour, so it rarely ends up being 48 consecutive hours13: Do you hate anyone at the moment? i mean, on an impersonal level, there are famous people i despise. in my own personal life, there are a handful of people that i dislike enough to perhaps call hate but i also don’t believe in wasting my time being angry with them if they’re not even in my life anymore14: Do you miss someone? answered this one as well!15: Have any pets? the loves of my life, my dog Flora and my parents’ dog Liam. also the spider who lives in the corner of my room because sometimes it’s nice to pretend that counts as having company16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment? tired, overwhelmed, ready for another vacation, helpless, frustrated, but also hopeful because i’ve got three potential job leads that came up this week (but can’t be followed up on until I return home in Sept)17: Ever made out in the bathroom? nope18: Are you scared of spiders? no, i love spiders as long as they don’t encroach on my personal space19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? as an art history person, absolutely. there are a lot of questions that i had to leave unanswered in my research papers and i’d love to just be able to ask the artists in person (and maybe punch picasso and jackson pollock and tell bierstadt to calm down a bit with the entire congress incident because no one cares about those pictures anymore)20: Where was the last place you snogged someone? a dorm room (idk if it counts as a snog but we’re counting it nonetheless)21: What are your plans for this weekend? finish getting my portfolio done for this placement and hopefully book another trip for next weekend22: Do you want to have kids? How many? i definitely do not want to birth any children, but i’d certainly be open to adopting later in my life should my life lead me in a direction where i feel ready, able, and willing to open my heart and home to a kid. probably only one, definitely no more than 2.23: Do you have piercings? How many? two ear piercings, i used to have my nose pierced but that ripped out in a very painful moment and i’m waiting for it to heal completely before i get it repierced24: What is/are/were your best subject(s)? i was a fucking nerd in high school; i think the only subject i struggled a bit in was physics and that’s just because i don’t like theory - in uni, i took classes in a bunch of different departments, but my best ones were art history and anthropology25: Do you miss anyone from your past? answered this as well!26: What are you craving right now? poutine from the Yard, good Knights hockey, a brain that functions in a healthier way, and an end to my writing block27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart? i don’t think so? i mean, i feel like it’s highly unlikely28: Have you ever been cheated on? can’t happen if you’re not even in the game 😏29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry? see above answer30: What’s irritating you right now? my flatmates, the other work placement who won’t shut up and insists on using the library computer with the cataloging software despite me reserving it, my professors’ general incompetence, international politics31: Does somebody love you? romantically, no, unless the cheesemonger’s really committed to our non-existent relationship. but i’d like to think my close friends and family do (otherwise the love you’s we exchange at the end of conversations are awkward now)32: What is your favourite color? russets and other earth tones33: Do you have trust issues? hahahahahaha yes34: Who/what was your last dream about? i don’t actually remember? i know i woke up disoriented a few nights ago because it was something realistic but idk what i actually dreamed about35: Who was the last person you cried in front of? i cried in front of my mom on skype recently; in person, also probably my mother when she visited a few months ago (moral of the story is that i refuse to cry in front of anyone that’s not family)36: Do you give out second chances too easily? depending on what happened, i really don’t do second chances at all. i’m an expert at putting things in my past and, while i don’t often burn bridges, i’m more than happy to let them fall into ruin on their own 37: Is it easier to forgive or forget? to forgive is easy (depending on what was done), but forgetting is much, much harder38: Is this year the best year of your life? depending on my paper grades and this dissertation and whether or not someone wants to hire me, it could well be, but it sure as hell does not feel like it39: How old were you when you had your first kiss? 1840: Have you ever walked outside completely naked? no way in hell51: Favourite food? beans and rice52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason? not really - i do believe that every experience is one that can be learned from and every one has some sort of value, but i believe that the “happens for a reason” idea ascribes more sentience to the universe than i like53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night? did my daily duolingo requirements so that the owl didn’t show up in my bedroom and murder me54: Is cheating ever okay? no, i don’t think there can be any sort of justification for betraying someone’s trust55: Are you mean? not particularly, i can be if i need to be but i prefer not to (i prefer to go for the ‘asian mom threatening glare’ that i have inherited from my mother)56: How many people have you fist fought? zero; for all its portrayals on tv and movies, my experience in american public school had absolutely no physical fights57: Do you believe in true love? no, i find that the concept can be so limiting and people feel pressure to find some ideal that may not really exist (i’m not a romantic in any way, shape, or form whoops)58: Favourite weather? spring, when it’s right on the edge of summer, so it’s warm enough that you can wear absolutely anything and still be comfortable, and the birds are nesting and the flowers are blooming, and the world just feels so alive59: Do you like the snow? yes, but my sad frostbitten toes can no longer handle the cold so i must now limit my time in the snow so i don’t lose them completely60: Do you wanna get married? i wouldn’t say i want to get married; if i find someone and we end up getting married, great. if i stay single the rest of my life, also great. it’s one of those things that i don’t feel is a necessity to make my life complete, but i’m not necessarily opposed to it either if it happens. I have so many things on my bucket list for life, but romance has never been on it.61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby? i will accept “babe” but will not accept baby unless it’s followed by giraffe. 62: What makes you happy? dogs that wag their tail a little faster when they see you, the way puffins fly and land, the sound and sight of sea birds reuniting with their partners after spending the last year apart, lilies of the valley beginning to peek out as the seasons change, fruits and veg picked straight from my garden, good food, excel spreadsheets, being the only one in a gallery in a museum and getting to be alone with the art, sharks that challenge our perspectives on what sharks are supposed to be and do, my sports teams winning63: Would you change your name? no. for a long time, i did because it’s always getting mispronounced and, when you go to a predominantly white school district, it’s always hard to be the one kid with an obviously non-white name. but also my last name means ‘king of snakes’ and fuck if anyone’s taking that away from me64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? nope, she remains very dear to me65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? run screaming for the hills, catch me sailing out to shetland on the next ferry because that’s a conversation i don’t want to have66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around? yeah, i don’t really believe in having close friends that i cannot act my complete self around, regardless of gender67: Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to? my dad? non-family, the regimental representative at the museum i work at, who’s basically my work dad (who i cook for because i worry about his health)68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? i avoid all deep emotional conversations, so it’d probably be my parents (specifically my mother because my dad is like me). but i did have a deep conversation about politics and race with a girl i met on my trip this weekend up north69: Do you believe in soulmates? answered this as well70: Is there anyone you would die for? absolutely

#asks #about me #anon

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