#this is what happens when u draw one character every day for three months . or so

[barawrah]

my favourite

#ive been . way too shy to post art of him #this is what happens when u draw one character every day for three months . or so #normal not insane levels of obsessed with her ^_^) i would treat him so well and never make him cry . i promise #chews on him and so on hes so sillysweet #jc gets a happy ending forever (canon to me) #keeping the rest of the jc scribbles to myself (scared) #art tag #mdzs #jiang cheng

[imnotusedtobeingloved]

A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H/I/J/K/L/M/N/O/P/Q/R/S/T/U/V/W/X/Y/Z

 FROM THE CHARACTER ALPHABET WITH IVAR RAGNARSSON.

REQUESTED BY: @witch-of-letters

A - affection (how affectionate are they? what do they enjoy?)

At first? Not at all.

The only person he is used to getting affection from is Aslaug, so naturally you might earn a few sceptical looks from him if you try to get close.

Nevertheless he quickly learns how pleasant the attention of someone else can be, but tries to be subtle about it. He wouldn’t want to tell you upfront that he enjoys having you close or that he likes your touch, because he fears the rejection that might come with it.

In time, he would alert you with a little nudge here and there whenever he requires your tenderness.

Slowly but surely Ivar would get more daring, trying to innitiate the soft touches himself. If you don’t pull back, he’ll get more sure of himself and as soon as it is clear to him that you are serious about him, you’ll be the only person in Kattegat to recieve affectionate touches from Ivar without any deadly concequences.

What he loves most is either having his head placed on your chest or stomach, feeling you breathe and with your hands in his hair, or laying on the side, with you wrapped around his back.

B - bodypart (what’s their favorite bodypart on their partner and them?)

His arms.

His arms have been a replacement for his legs for all his life. Since he has to crawl everywhere until he has his crutches, they are well built and knowing that you love being wrapped inside them, makes Ivar love them even more.

Your legs.

He likes your legs because they are what he cannot have. He likes them because his are so flawed, and yet you choose to love them anyways. And he likes them due to their shape, the softness of your skin and how they look when you move around.

C - commitment (how quick are they to commit?)

Not that quick.

Ivar is reluctant, to say the least.

He needs to be 100% sure that you are commited to him, before he will make any kind of promises to you. It would be a long process full of selfdoubt, selfdeprication and fear of betrayal.

Ivar would also visit the seer and ask about a future with you by his side. The seers answers would be, as always, very vague (if he says something at all).

In addition to all those troubles, his brothers are in the midst of it. Ubbe and Hvitserk might be the only positive voices of reason at times (apart from Aslaug), while Bjorn would not really concern himself with it. Sigurd on the other hand would throw salt at Ivars mental wounds, saying you were only with him out of pity.

So the viking has no real option but to rely on you reassurance and your loving words. You’d probably have to spend months proving that you are serious about him, because he has been hurt and rediculed so many times before, but in the end it’s all worth it.

Once Ivar chooses to fully commit to you, he’s there to stay.

D - dates (what would dates with them look like? what would they plan?)

Ivar is usually not that much of a planner when it comes to dates.

Normally he is content with finding a secluded place to spend time with you, away from the crowds and far, far away from his relatives.

But if, for any reason, a special occassion should arise, he would definetely ask his brothers for help as much as he hates it.

He would send Hvitserk to distract you with requests and tasks all day, while Ubbe helps him set everything up in a little cabin in the woods. Ivar would ask Aslaug to have some thralls bring plates of food as well.

E - experience (how many relationships have they had before?)

Close to nothing, really.

Ivar did not have any experience with real love and he was very sceptical of it.

The few kisses and cuddles he may have had, have all come from the thralls his family owns.

Apart from that, he has not been interested in anybody, other than finding some attractive on the outside. Too often he had to find out the hard way that the insides of people where much more ugly than the exterior.

So in response to that Ivar mainly focused on his training and on becoming a better viking, until you came along.

F - family (do they want to start a family?)

Ivar would love to start a family.

At first, he is actually astounded that you’d bring it up.

For a long time, he could’ve never imagined someone wanting to have a family with him. To have a child with him (no matter if it’s your own or adopted). So when you suggest it, he is mindblown for a second, before he cups your face, telling you that it is what he longed for all along.

He would be ecstatic upon the idea of having an heir. Or two. Or more. But at least one is fair.

For him, it feels like everything is finally falling into the right place.

G - generosity (do they give their partner a lot of presents? if so, what?)

Exceptionally generous.

And you don’t even have to ask for them.

Ivar brings tons of goods and riches home from every raid, where you can pick whatever you like. He makes sure to safe the best pieces for you and keeps an eye out for suvenirs he knows you might love.

Should you require anything else Ivar has enough resources to get you everything you want from the market. Since Aslaugs rule in Ragnars absence, Kattegat has also transformed into an important trading center, will all kinds of diverse products.

Ivar sees to it, that you have anything you could possible require, even in his absence.

He spoils you, not gonna lie.

H - heaven (how would they react if they lost their partner?)

Ivar would never recover from the loss.

After everything that happened to his family, all the betrayals and the lies and the fights, you were the one thing to keep him going. You had been there for him everytime, no matter how hard it was. No matter how dangerous it got, no matter how exhausted you were.

But now?

There was nothing.

No one.

And no way to bring you back.

One of the things that scares Ivar most is how numb everything feels. There was nobody to be angry at. Nobody to blame, except for the illness that took you away. And against something like that, not even Ivar the Boneless could seek revenge.

He should have known when you confessed you love, that you were just another thing he had to lose. First it was his father, then his mother, then Helga and Floki and now... there was nothing left of him.

Still your face, your smell, you presence would follow him everywhere he goes.

And he’d beg you to haunt him.

I - i love you (who says the three magic words first and why?)

It depends.

The only way Ivar would say it first is if he is frantic. Either in a screaming match, or when you are close to leaving him.

When neither of those are likely though, this viking would most definetely wait until you’ve said it first. For a long time he does not even dare to hope that you will. He is still a cripple after all, no amout of love could ever change that and he fears the day you realize it. Ivar is so used to rejection that he tells himself it wouldn’t hurt if you left. But deep down he knows it would. That’s why he always hesitates in the very last second, drawing back. 

He leaves the first ‘i love you’ to you. But when it comes, you’ve never seen him smile that big. He can’t believe his luck. Can’t believe that you truly choose him over anyone else.

Ivar will rarely outright tell you that he loves you and only chooses particular moments for it.

But that just makes it all the more special.

J - journey (how did they first meet their partner?)

Unfortunately, you met Ivar while his men were preparing for a raid.

You stumbled upon their camp and he questioned you, demanding informations. This way he could gather when the best time for an attack might be. But not only that. You captured his interest in a way he would not have expected.

There was something in the way you spoke and the way you carried yourself that made him hesitate. He supposed that was what it must have felt like for his father with that unlucky priest Floki killed in the end. But then again, in time, he discovered it wasn’t quite the same. There was something more that drew him to you, apart from curiosity.

And he intended to find out what exactly it was.

Who knows after all?

Maybe it was fate.

K - kisses (what are their kisses like?)

Ivars kisses are desperate.

Desperate for warmth, desperate for acceptance, desperate for belonging.

He puts his emotions into every kiss and there is no such thing as ‘just a peck’ with him. Ivar likes to feel needed. He likes showing you how much he loves you, rather than expressing it with words.

He’s also not ashamed to kiss you in front of an audience, frankly he does not care who sees it, because you’re the only one that counts (but he will stop should it make you uncomfortable). He does not fear that it might make him seem weak, that thought is pretty ridiculous to him.

If anything, he’s even more proud to be the one you want.

L - love language (what’s their love language?)

Ivars love language is physical touch closely followed by words of affirmation.

Ivar feels loved the most if he recieves physical touch. He senses that most people around him are too intimidated to get close, or are simply put off by his condition. As a result of that, he rarely gets affectionate touches or attention, which he craves dearly. Even more so since Aslaug is dead and Floki and Helga are both gone. It’s important to Ivar that his partner makes him feel appreciated this way, even if it’s just a hand on his arm at the table, or your fingers laced with his. Every little touch counts.

The second best way to make him happy is through words of affirmation. Words have great meaning to Ivar, so beware of saying anything hurtful to him, for it might stay with him for a lifetime. In time you may notice that especially Ragnars last words “happiness means nothing” are stuck in Ivars head. Words impact him greatly, and you may have to undo some of the damage others have caused in his mind, with a few well-placed strikes. Ivar will appreciate it if you reassure him of your love with the right words at the right time.

M - memory (what’s their favorite memory of the relationship?)

The morning after the first night spend together.

Back then he had no idea how it happened or how you did it.

You were still snoring next to him when he came to realize he didn’t just like you. He loved you. And while you moved around, hugging the fur close to your chest a thousand emotions had swirled in his head. He was confused, surprised and completely thrown aback about what you did to him. About how you made his heart beat faster and his limbs tingle with the need to draw you closer. He watched, until the sun tickled your skin, rousing you from your sleep and when you opened your eyes to look at him with that smile... you knocked the breath out of his lungs.

Whenever he thinks back to that morning now, you catch him with an absent-minded smile on his lips.

N - newborn (how would they react to expecting a child? how would they deal with the pregnancy?)

Ivar would be shocked.

First of all, he would question if the child is truly his, as it seemed impossible before. He wouldn’t have thought that he would ever get the chance to have an heir. So, once you’ve settled his doubts, he would be the proudest father-to-be in all of Kattegat.

But also the most anxious.

He heavily questions his ability to raise a child. Even he knows his father was not a really good example to look up to when it comes to raising children, or to being a husband.

So he seeks the not really helpful advice of his brothers, who all seem to go in completely different directions when it comes to kids. Hvitserk is clearly letting his nephews and nieces walk all over him, while Ubbe is acting like an overprotective hen. Bjorn seems deadset on training them and sending them out in the wild. And Sigurd? Ivar is not quite sure the man is a grown-up himself.

In conclusion: they all started fighting amost themselves while Ivar watched the mess unfold.

Clearly, his mother Aslaug would have been a much better option.

But if she is no longer around, Ivar will instead turn to Floki and Helga where he finally finds some words of wisdom and support.

Without a doubt the woman carrying his child will be protected at all times. This is a literal miracle to him and he would be devastated if anything went wrong with the mother, or the child.

Other than that Ivar finds great joy in the pregnancy. He loves seeing the mother grow with his child and he would be truly proud of his child for carrying on his legacy. Ivar’s love grows during this incredible months, even during all the moods and cravings.

Both, the mother and the baby will be incredibly spoiled.

O - oasis (what’s their favorite place to spent time?)

The pier.

He enjoys the location, especially on warm summer days.

He has many memories stored in his mind, of sitting out on the docks. It’s a place where he can clear his head and it also gives him an overview of everything that is happening around him.

Ivar also likes the calm view of the ocean, even though he’s terrified of the sea. He likes to imagine all the lands that await him on the next raid. The atmosphere helps him to resume his strategies and to gather his thoughts.

It helps him to visualize the terrain the next war will be fought on and the techniques his enemies might use.

You will find him there often, sitting and staring out to the sea until the sun fades away.

P - petnames (what petname would they give their partner?)

“My love.”

The words tasted absolutely ridiculous on his tongue, when he first said them. Almost pathetic. That is also what he threw at your head, when you first said it, but not in anger. It was... something else. Some thing you had to figure out first.

The way he put you off was so reluctant, that it didn’t fit. He liked it. You knew he did. And he knew you knew he did. And he hated it.

This, in turn, made you use the petname whenever you could, with a smirk on your face. Eventually he not only gave in, but started using it himself.

The first time he did you probably spit out your drink in shock tbh.

He’d grumble out of embarassement, until you’d reassure him. When he knows for sure that you actually love it, it’s settled.

It would become a habit.

Q - quiet (what do undisturbed moments look like?)

Peaceful.

In quiet moments Ivar can take a breath and let go of all that troubles him.

He likes taking you down to the beach on those rare days, lying next to you in the sand and relaxing for hours. In those moments all the fights, the wars and the arguments truly fade away. Sometimes they might creep into his mind, which you scold him for when he shares those thoughs absent-mindedly.

Apart from that, it is in those quiet times that you can truly find joy in the company of each other. There don’t need to be many words or actions to keep you happy, just the two of you alone will do.

R - rivals (how do they handle jealousy?)

Not too well.

If there is anyone making advances towards you, Ivar will be the first one to notice. Probably even before you.

He knows very well that you would not appreciate a bloodbath. And further than that, there are political figures that are better kept alive during those stressful times of war. So, no matter how much it bugs him, he would keep still for the time being, trusting you to tell them off (but you may notice the tick of his jaw, or the whitened knuckles when his fingers clench around the armrests of his chair).

If you don’t notice, Ivar will be sure to inform you and ask you to do something about it. He doesn’t voice his concerns about it very clearly, but he is afraid of you leaving him for another.

Though, should a situation get critical, even after you have made clear that Ivar is the one for you, you can be sure that Ivar wont let it slide.

Even if he has to make it look like an accident.

S - song (what song is a reminder of them?)

OCEAN EYES - BILLIE EILISH

I've been watchin' you for some time

Can't stop starin' at those ocean eyes

Burning cities and napalm skies

Fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes

Your ocean eyes

No fair

You really know how to make me cry

When you gimme those ocean eyes

I'm scared

I've never fallen from quite this high

Fallin' into your ocean eyes

Those ocean eyes

I've been walkin' through a world gone blind

Can't stop thinkin' of your diamond mind

Careful creature made friends with time

He left her lonely with a diamond mind

And those ocean eyes

No fair

You really know how to make me cry

When you gimme those ocean eyes

I'm scared

I've never fallen from quite this high

Fallin' into your ocean eyes

Those ocean eyes

Da, da-da, da-da

Da-da-da, da, da

Da, da, da, da, da-da-da-da

Mm

Mm

Mm

No fair

You really know how to make me cry

When you gimme those ocean eyes

I'm scared

I've never fallen from quite this high

Fallin' into your ocean eyes

Those ocean eyes

T - token (what kind of object would be the proof of their love? a ring? a necklace? something completely different?)

Ivar can, as a prince and as a king, buy you anything you want.

So he goes a completely different way.

He would try and make you something himself. Something that wouldn’t bother you during the day while tending to your tasks, but also something that would show everyone around you that you are taken.

And something that would remind you of him.

Ivar has noticed you fiddle with the pendant of his necklace often enough.

The viking takes is upon himself to make a twin to the mjolnir hanging from his throat. He would spend ages drawing out the form and details of the hammer, making sure everything looks perfect. He would also use much more expensive material than his own was made of and would insert fitting gemstones if possible.

Ivar works through days and nights to complete his work and smiles like a child when he can finally hand it to you.

It would turn out so beautiful that you would never want to take it off.

U - unique (why did they choose their partner? what first attracted them?)

The thing that first drew him to you was your personality.

Ivar likes looking at pretty features and bodies, yes. But in a way, doesn’t everyone?

Physical attributes don’t mean that much to him. That he may find a body pleasing to look at has nothing to do with feelings. It is more about an aesthitic. About a facade.

What really interests him is your behavior and your mannerisms. How you talk and behave when nobody sees you and how you move when the great hall is filled with people.

Ivar is first attracted to you because of your habits and your character. The unique tells when he catches you lying, or the characteristic twitch of your mouth, when Bjorn shares a story around the dinner table.

V - vulnerable (how vulnerable do they allow themselves to get?)

He is a tough nut to crack.

Ivar is not the type to be vulnerable around others.

He is not always proud of it when he loses his temper, but he absolutely hates it when he has to cry. Not particularily because he sees it as a weakness, but because he despises the whole feeling of it. He hates the helplessness that settles in and the pityful looks everyone carries on their faces when tears are shed.

He does not like to cry in front of you, even when you are close. You will often have to force him to lean on you and let you comfort him. At the beginning he dislikes doing so, but quickly notices that it helps.

He starts to appreciate your help and your knowledge when you assist him to get his mind back on track and give him a perspective he might not have thought of (though there is rarely a way he does not come up with).

X - xfactor (what’s one of their special talents they try to impress with?)

His mind.

While his brothers might be honest in saying that they consider him their equal despite his disability (which he is already sceptical of), Ivar is very aware that that does not count for everyone else around him.

Not even for you.

So he tries to impress you with what he does best. Ivar is intelligent and an incredible strategist on all fields. He will use his smarts and his witt to catch you attention (and maybe even aks you for advice, even though he already has the perfect solution).

Y - yin & yang (how does having their partner around change their behavior?)

It changes quite a bit.

Ivar becomes calmer when you’re around. More patient and less heated. Apart from that he puts great value on your opinions, even of you are not familiar with all of his strategies.

The times of war are stressful even on a bright mind such as his. It makes him agitated when you’re parted and he trends to get nervous when he can’t keep an eye on you.

Since what happened to his mother while he was not around, he fears that the same fate might come for you if he is not on guard at all times. That, in turn gets him easily frustrated when you can’t join him where he is going.

Needless to say, his men are glad when you are present.

Ivar becomes more relaxed, witty and even pleasant at times as soon as you are near.

Z- zen (how calm are they during arguments?)

Not very calm, even though he tries to keep his cool.

He tends to let his frustrations out, wether that be through screaming or trashing something.

This viking does not hold back.

And we all know Ivar is already intimidating enough when he is not in a bad mood.

But usually, all of that doesn’t happen around you. Between the both of you arguments rarely arise. You are pretty much on the same page and definetely act as a team.

Though, of course, it can’t be that easy all the time. When an argument between the two of you arises Ivat tries to reason with you. The man is used to things going his way, so it might be quite a struggle to go against him at first. He tends to get louder, as a way to emphasize his reasoning, but will quickly try to shut it down if you tell him that it upsets you.

He’ll try to explain his situation and get a grip on your view at the same time, until you reach an agreement both of you are happy with, which he does not do with anyone but you.

#ivar x reader #ivar imagine #vikings imagine #ivar the boneless #ivar vikings #ivar fluff #ivar ragnarsson #ivar x you

[5uptic]

crewfu: fanfic spotlight!

We work together by Anonymous (5up & DK, unrated, gen | 248 words)

Summary: One likes plants and baking, the other loves to create and design video games. They stay up and create monstrosities together, it's their fun, it's their favourite game. Aka a 5up and Dk roommate au!

No matter how life tangles, I’m still here with you. by hungryandsleepy (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 279 words)

Summary: 5up has been working so hard on his new map, and of course, he needs someone to give him a motivation to go to sleep.

objectively pretty by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 462 words)

Summary: steve is drunk. he's pretty sure 5up is too. that doesn't mean being called pretty is any less momentuous.

you plus me by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 489 words)

Summary: 5up and Steve meet.

he said to me by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 656 words)

Summary: 5up and Steve share a moment.

by the snowmen by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 670 words)

Summary: Steve has a moment when it's all over.

today you got to know me (a little bit too slowly) by runninohhoney (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 675 words)

Summary: Steve lights up a cigarette. 5up doesn't smoke.

what would it take by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 787 words)

Summary: It's Steve's first mission. He hecks up. Or does he?

sorta cute by floweruru (5up/Steve, unrated, m/m | 822 words)

Summary: ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘That’s just disrespectful,’ he said. Yet there was 5up, crushed like a can in Steve’s embrace, feebly kicking at nothing as his feet leave the pavement.

i was gonna kill u, but ur kinda cute?? by Cthulhuer (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1k words)

Summary: Steve is a mess and 5up is worse.

I hear a Symphony by AwkwardAce (5up/Fundy, unrated, m/m | 1.1k words)

Summary: He exhaled until his lungs ached for air, fingers twitching as he opted to remove the sleek white gloves he wore in a feeble effort to soothe himself. It didn’t work. He wrung his trembling hands together as his eyes raked down the worn leather case taking in the doodles- some etched some drawn- across the faded surface. He snapped the buckles open and his breath hitched, catching in his already tight throat. For a moment the world span, his head throbbed and he wanted nothing more than to run and hide. 5up breathed out slowly, shakily.

staring by lytriis (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.1k words)

Summary: steve asks 5up out. 5up doesn’t know how to respond.

and it's four am, and yet, you're here by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: in which steve shows up at 5up's house, in the middle of the night, completely spontaneously

more than this by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: Steve catches 5up venting.

3:15 by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: Steve tries to guess Five's name. It's much more difficult than he anticipated.

things were different by fourpebbles (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.5k words)

Summary: His eyes circled around to his friends, Kimi and Janet engaging in pleasant comversation, sleepy and becoming increasingly more sober. He looked, finally, across him, and caught Dumbdog staring at him. What now bro, what did this guy want. small talk, turns into not small talk, then there's no talk

Once Upon A Dream by SmearedWords (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.5k words)

Summary: 5up looks ethereal, while Steve is struggling to breathe. "You're not real either." Or: Steve has a crush and a nightmare in three parts, 5up is tired, the crew life is hard and Polus sucks.

the ones you love will call you back by homeward_bound (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.8k words)

Summary: stevesuptic: dude, is it weird that i miss vegas   DumbDog: No? I do too.   stevesuptic: okay [steve misses vegas and apollo. they talk about it]

cough it out by cj__writes (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2k words)

Summary: Apollo thinks that Steve must be well and truly gone, at this point, because he giggles, like Apollo’s just told a particularly funny joke. He looks Apollo right in the eye and asks, “Do you trust me?” “Absolutely not.”

ivy by Secular_Czar (5up/Steve, teen rating, gen | 2.1k words)

Summary: It might be a sad day, in general, but Steve isn't about to let it get to him. His friends won't ever let him wallow either.

The Colosseum by WhenTheFogClears (general rating, gen | 2.1k words)

Summary: Five squinted, looking at the colosseum intensely. He thinks Apollo was latched onto the sphinx’s shoulder, fur matted with blood. Janet was slumped against a column, probably out, with Kimi whose bow was snapped in two, her leg twisted at an odd angle. DK was in the corner trying to cast various supporting hexes and charms with a broken arm, whilst Hafu was dragging a heavily bandaged Steve away. or 5up slaughters a cat

Oneshots :) by woofles1990 (5up/Fundy, 5up/Steve, teen rating, multi | 2.5k words, oneshot collection)

Summary: Just a bunch of MCYT/Among Us oneshots, mainly featuring 5up's crew because yes :)

the adventures of 5up and steve staying up late because they're under 30 by 5280ft (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2.5k words)

Summary: “The night is young!” Steve yells at the ceiling, throwing his hands up in the air. “Take advantage of it! Commit crimes! Fuck hoes!” Five catches his hands in the air and laughs. “You wish you had hoes.”

unreasonably in love by cj__writes (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2.6k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: "It was like pieces of a puzzle, everything coming together. And now, here they are, standing in their apartment, which looks more like a hollow shell than a home, filled solely with scattered boxes and the minuscule amount of furniture that they brought with them to Vegas." Or: what happens after Apollo and Steve move in together.

cant be love by fourpebbles (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 3.5 words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: He had chuckled to himself, he felt so stupid. Who in their fucking minds names a playlist 'sugr?', he thought, internally cringing. A story where a Steve meets an Apollo, and some things happen.

Somewhere in the darkness, us together for a while by tumtummeke (Apollo & Kimi & Steve, teen rating, gen | 3.6k words)

Summary: Apollo worries about Steve. Steve breaks his vape pen. Kimi plays power washer. Self-indulgent angst, with a generous helping of friendship and cuddles.

odyssey by 5280ft (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 23k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: "First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens...they warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. Therefore pass these Sirens by and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear." -Homer, The Odyssey

Also: SilverSprinklez10‘s yupwaves collection.

Summary: This is a Harry Potter AU based on the characters/personas of the youtubers/streamers.

FAQ:

Wait what is this: pretty straight to the point! i’ll regularly share crewfu-related fanfictions to this blog :)

How regularly is “regularly”?: great question! LOL. it depends on the flow of fanfics that get uploaded, which i do not have any control over, but i’m looking forward to do this twice a month. after all, it’s only me doing this and i often run on a tight schedule.

What’s the format like?:

[title of fic with link] by [author of the fic with link] ([main pairing(s), if there is one/multiple], [fic rating: eg, general rating], [relationship: eg, m/m] | [word count in k] ([added prompt to specify if it’s complete or not)])

Summary: [summary provided by the author. if it doesn’t have a summary, a “No summary” prompt will be put instead]

(What does WIP mean again?): Work In Progress :)

Why are you doing this?: from the beginning, my blog has hosted conversations about RPF (real people fiction) and crewfu pairings. this has evolved into people sending me updates about certain fics in the crewfu tags every now and then, but i wanna take the next step and just do these things myself. after all, i’m already lurking in the tags often to see the fics that get posted. as someone who is both a writer and a reader, i wanna appreciate fanfic writers and help out other people that want to read fanfic and consume more fandom content!

Will it be AO3 only?: well, ao3 has a very helpful tag system that makes finding fics incredibly easy, as well as allowing people with no accounts to like and comment on fics, so that’s the site i will personally look in for fanworks. but if there are any fics you’ve written or liked in any other platforms, such as wattpad, you can always contact me through my inbox (send an ask or a dm!), and i’ll make sure to include for the next fanfic spotlight :)

Does it mean you won’t reply to fic asks anymore?: yeah, i guess. since i’ll be doing the searching myself it seems counterproductive. but if i ever skip a fic or again, it’s in another platform, or you’ve posted/read the fic a while ago and you want to get more traction on it, hit me up and i’ll take it into consideration!

Will you read every single one of the fics on your list?: oh no. again, i run on a tight schedule, and also i have my own taste when it comes to fics. i won’t be reviewing fics or any of the sort, and my intention extends to simply sharing these fics to this page so people will have easier access to them :) that’s where ao3 tagging becomes SUPER useful!!!

So what’s the criteria for the way you’ll sort out the fics in your list?: word count, going from lowest to highest. in case of fics in other platforms, i guess i’ll put them at the top of the list. i’ll also be looking for fairly recent fics, so let me know if you want any old-ish fic to be included.

I see you talking mostly about 5up/Steve and Steve/Apollo. Can I still send/see other crewfu fics?: why yes absolutely! my goal is to push every fic which heavily features regular crewfu characters - 5uptic and supdog just happen to be very popular pairings. so, to give you a list: core 4 (5up, hafu, dk, steve), apollo, aipha, annie, janet, kimi, ellum, koji... you know the drill. it doesn’t have to be centered on a relationship, or about 5up in specific, etc. my only requirement is that any of the previously mentioned members are a central part of the fic or are HEAVILY featured in it (sorry, minecraft fics with 50+ tags who only mention 5up as an afterthought won’t make the cut :/).

Isn’t shipping Bad™?: well, it’s a little more nuanced than that. i will go out of my way to discourage and shame people who often violate CCs’ boundaries by acting like so and so has a crush on this person, or that this and that are Actually Into Each Other or secretly dating. any sort of tinhat bullshit is a big nono (think larries). but i run on the assumption that people who write rpf understand that what they’re doing is simply write a completely fictional story using real life personalities, and understand the boundaries necessary to do it - aka they’re not tinhats, they understand they can’t assume everything about CCs’ thoughts and personalities, they understand that what they’re writing is strictly fiction, they keep these works only in fandom circles, etc. (but again, it’s only one me doing this, so please be kind if i don’t happen to know that this person is Actually a tinhat or whatever).

show fic: NO. (seriously. i don’t feel comfortable putting my ao3 account out there. please respect my privacy on these trying times <3)

I REALLY don’t care about your rpf/fic talk: fair! i’ll be tagging every single one of these posts as “fanfic spotlight”, so just mute the tag using tumblr settings so you’ll never have to look at these! likewise, you can follow the tag if you want to keep up with it, or search it on my blog to look at the other entries you might have missed (but this is the first one! lol).

Hey, my fic is here and I don’t feel comfortable with it being shared over here: no problem! let me know as soon as you can and i’ll take it down <3

#crewfu #fanfic spotlight

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

the special project

“Cross! We’re almost closing!” dream got closer to the actor that was sitting behind the scenes, a smile plastered on his face. He was holding his phone, and didn’t even look up to meet dream’s eyes-

“Hey- are you even listening!” dream pouted, and only then did cross’s eyelights met dream’s “Don’t worry. We can stay here a little longer- it’s not like the director likes to leave early!” his smile got a bit wider, but dream sat next to him, and looked over his shoulder- “…what are you looking at then?” dream wasn’t able to leave, not without cross at least, and he was getting curious; what could make cross ignore him so blatantly? Even memes weren’t so effective-

Cross suddenly nuzzled dream’s cheek, which made his face turn yellow as the other showed him his phone- the both sat in a more comfortable position, when dream finally read what was shown to him-

“It’s the reviews of the series! People are asking questions to both of us, and are speculating on the upcoming chapters- plus, they are even giving us compliments!” cross’s grin got wider-

Cross was pretty shy in person, so he tried his best to overcome that by acting, and meeting new people. though he was always so insecure about his acting skills, it didn’t stop him from entering both the underverse show and the dark cream studio- sure, it was a bit tiring, but he’s always enjoyed the times spent there, especially with dream, his best friend- though he considered him as more than that, he didn’t know how to ask him out, but the scenarios in the series was making things easier, considering they were both a couple in it-

Dream smiled- he was also happy to work with cross, and wanted to get a bit closer to him each day, though his brother was a pain very often- he swore to him one day that he’d snap next time he tried to get into a conversation between him and cross, not mentioning killer- though killer was the absolute opposite- cross and killer had been friends for as long as he remembered, and no matter how he denied everything, he was trying to hook them both together-

Even after dream’s protests, he was glad killer was trying to help, because he sure needed to-

“aww- how sweet of them! Wait- can I see some questions?” dream hummed, and cross huffed- “I dunno- they’re just some stuff about whether you like acting or not- the usual-“ he was obviously lying, so dream hopped on his phone as the other yelped in surprise- “h-hey! Give it back!” he jumped on dream, but the other laughed out loud- “oh come on! It can’t be this bad-“

He looked at the phone, but the questions and asks were all- about him? Dream blushed a bit, but cross snatched away his phone and huffed- “you’d get embarrassed anyway!”

Dream paused, what should he do to convince him? Well, teasing cross was always so fun, so he hummed- “okay- but how long will it take you to get off me-“ cross suddenly  realized he’d been sitting on the poor dream all this time, so his face got lit up with a purple hue when he finally got up- “s-sorry about that-“ he scratched the back of his skull, totally ashamed, but dream took the opportunity to mutter- “well- maybe now we can read the questions together- How about that?” he smiled, a tint of yellow on his cheeks- cross paused a second, then sighed- “we’re in for a ride-“

 They sat next to each other, trying to put the phone in the middle so it can be seen by them both. Dream felt his cheeks getting quite heated up- they weren’t usually this close to each other. on another note, if nightmare saw them like that, he’d do everything in his power to split them apart-

“Okay, first question: dream is this hot bastard on set, but how is he in real life?”

“pff- what is even this question?” cross snickered, dream only huffed- “well, how do you find me in real life then?” dream crossed his arms, but cross gave him a lazy grin and just answered- “well, I don’t think it really changes in person-“ “CROSS-“ dream pouted, and cross laughed out, but dream still continued reading-

“okay then- …oh- dream looks so good with heels, but does he like wearing them?” cross paused, awaiting his answer, when the other looked at him dead in the eyes and said- “anything to be taller than this bastard-“ cross busted out laughing, and dream continued-  “shut up you dummy- here is a question for you! Umm- are you scared of cows in real life-“ dream tried so hard not to laugh, but cross shivered- “people cannot understand how scary these creatures are- it’s nOT FUNNY to be almost eaten by a cow!” dream couldn’t take it, so he cried out- “ohaHA- I’ve already told you- c-cows are herbivorous- they eat grass and such- n-not skeletons!” dream felt bad to tease cross about something he’s afraid of, but cows cannot eat monsters, and that was a fact.

“ugh-“ cross pouted, then looked away. Dream paused, he wanted to say something, but just looked back at the other’s phone, and said- “…okay- here is a question for us both now- do you guys-“ dream couldn’t finish his sentence when he lost his eyelights- cross looked at him, wondering what was wrong about the question- “uhhh… okay, let me rephrase that! Mmm- s-so you guys are together in dark cream, but what is your relationship in real life-“

dream blushed, but tried to hide it- cross paused, then muttered- “well-“ if killer or epic could hear their conversation, they’d be cheering for him to finally ask him out- and if nightmare could hear them, he’d be running in too late, because cross inhaled silently and tried to let out “well, I would like to ask you out for this afternoon-“ cross’s face was getting very purple, but it was no match to dream’s- dream lost his eyelights again, and his mouth was half open. He dropped the other’s phone, and the other was lucky it landed on a carpet-

“u-umm- dream?” cross cursed himself- why did he just bring this up now! But dream whispered- “…okay- I’d love- I- I mean- we can go out together as soon as we finish some asks-“dream was so close to scream in happiness- he asked HIM OUUT! Cross chuckled nervously, but he took his phone from the floor, then continued-

“how is nightmare in real life-“ cross paused, then muttered- “I’m sorry dream, but I don’t know how you couldn’t notice how each time I previously tried to confess, he’d try to split us up” cross sighed, but dream laughed, almost maniacally- “ahaha- do you think I didn’t?!” cross turned around- “wait, you knew I liked you???” he was a bit surprised, but dream suddenly let out- “what- n-no- not really- I wasn’t really sure- but that idiot didn’t let me get closer to you!”

dream crossed his arms, but cross laughed out- “oh my- ahaha-“ they both chuckled for a little more, then cross tried to find another interesting ask when one caught his attention, though he didn’t voice it out- (what if cross tried to propose to dream on set? there is no way it’s not a good idea, maybe he can convince the director!) cross smiled, it was a good idea- but he wasn’t sure if dream was going to agree to it-

Dream yawned, it was getting quite late- “well- if you want to take me out somewhere, it’s time.” Dream stretched, and cross couldn’t help but think of how different he had become-

Dream used to be very sad when they first met, and had the appearance of a cute and innocent person, and he still is! But he was more confident in himself now; he finally looked… happy- so much more- he also looked more mature and hotter. Cross smiled, they both really changed from the first time they met, and he was so happy to take him out on a date, the person he truly admired.

“okay then, let’s go-“ he held the other’s hand, and dream smiled, and leaned on his arm a bit more, he wanted this to happen for so long-

 Thank god nightmare wasn’t here.

**************************

now now, if that was the special thing, it wouldn’t have took me about two or three months to get it done, right? well, that’s because it’s not the end yet!

remember the anons that asked you guys your sonas or oc’s reference to draw a while back? well thank you guys so much for waiting

it took me so long, and you guys still waited for me to finish this

so how about a bonus “writing” to celebrate?

The place I will talk about is always warm and welcoming, there’s a bunch of tea and cookies and some apples lying here and there, and after an event called “sweet day”, candy and cake was left stacked up like the tons of ask received every day inside the little mailbox. This place contains very interesting individuals whose presence contribute in the fun and enjoyment of the visitors and the creator himself. After being there for a while, you might notice why these people are quite special considering the relaxing atmosphere of this place;

*knock* *knock*

who’s there you might ask? Well it is-

“DAILY POSITYVITY OF COURSE!!”

“Please close the door behind you after you enter-“

“what door?”

the positivity was so strong that it shattered a galaxy and went to another universe searching for a worthy opponent- love senders and daily positive anons are very frequent here, and as their name might show you, they are responsible of giving enough motivation and positivity for the creators, and the destruction of most doors, windows, walls, universes, and being obviously chased by negative and suspicious people trying to prevent them from giving the creators positivity.

“AAAaaAaAa-“

some anons are still wondering why they are simping for characters while others already gave a very specific reason “LEEEGS-“ some are also wondering how did the creator made them so hot- only a superior brain can do so mind you- just kidding- everyone can do it if they give him good heels;

This place had different phases, and if I had to describe it to, it may look like this;

“wait- how about a cute ship?” oh- Fluffynight!”but what about killermare? “So how about a love triangle!” “And where do we put this scenario then-“ “wait- what if it was all a show like underverse studios- how would they make tentacles then?” ”Wait- tentacle, you mean S!D’s? Wait! let’s say- they have a mind of their own-“”wait- but-“”OH my- I wonder how these tentacles would look like if their possessor is a Greek god-“”whoa- and "whatifnightmareactuallysentcrosswhoismortaltokilldreambuthefellinlovewithhim?!”

“Um…what? “

Please take this as a very brief explanation- some of these subjects can last a day- or two or even a week if it is a generator of ideas, no matter how cursed, sweet or angsty they are.

Creators are very common in this place, they can be artists, or writers, though there might be more talented people, but they might had never talked about it- they might be musicians, composers, singers, and so much more, but who am I to say? Maybe there is one who’s reading this that can draw, or write, do both, or so much more- I just am saying that this place is filled with amazing people!

There are some people who considered that S!D and cross needed kids, which is funny because, there are now a lot of ship children laying in their arms- they can be twin babies, independent teenagers, cute cinnamon rolls, or a result of neglect or a curse- and those different types of children make a very good source of inspiration, and provide ideas for both artist and writers;

The creators deserves support- and people do help their work to be shared, and considering some had made commissions available, there was and will be more support for them, and that’s why I wanted to add those who had bought some hot koffees. I am very glad that the creators are receiving support, because it makes them happy and motivated, and that’s honestly what all of them deserve; support.

Finally- this place has the healthiest and pleasing aura I’ve ever felt- and has very unique characters that are daily sending questions, or ideas, or creations, and listing everything would take a lot of time, but every single one of them is as unique as the other, so fear not if I haven’t included more- because there is too much-

And thank you for reading this little writing- I didn’t think you’d actually read such a thing ,but to be honest, I actually never thought you’d ever read any of the writings I’ve made- I’ve never thought this will be the first thing I will be associated with, writing. Because I only write when I have art block, or when I have a very good idea, or if it’s something I don’t want to draw now and need to remember to draw in the future, but it seriously made me so happy when people actually enjoyed something I’ve made, and I want the creators that I most enjoy and so much others to feel the same thing- the happiness that someone thinks you’re good at something, that’s why it is the most silliest and the most interesting gift I can ever write to thank you zu, and everyone who supports her, and the creators I’ve seen there! Have a nice day/night ♥

******************

the people included here are

@zu-is-here​ ; i wanted to thank u zu, because i wouldn’t have written or submitted anything if it hadn’t been for you, and that’s because i didn’t feel like you were “intimidating”, and by that i mean you answer every litlle ask, and you’re being nice to everyone, and i just wouldn’t have found so much entertainment this year without you and your blog, and everyone in it

@help-im-a-gay-fish​ ; you were very nice from our very first interaction- your art has always been so simple and beautiful, especially the lineart which i envy you for- your ideas were always so amazing, and you have very attaching and unique characters, so with you my to do list is never ending, but that’s what i love about you the most

@kotikaleo​ ; your art is just plain GORGEOUS, and i couldn’t, i just couldn’t ignore it, because the vibes i get from this blog is relaxing, the ambience is calm, and everything you draw, whether it’s traditional or digital is a masterpiece that i find myself begging to have the same amount of talent (also, i’m so sorry for your persona, i totally messed it up i’m so sorry-)

@dragon-tamer-1​ ; honestly, i liked your unique style, and your oc- the way you keep supporting people is always so sweet of you, and even if we haven’t interacted much, i’ve always liked your art from the sidelines, and i hope you liked this gift

@rinnyisangy​ ; i won’t go too long, but your art is SO CUTE, the sketch book drawings were so sweet and nice; since i’ve seen you appear a lot on zu’s blog, and you looked like a nice person, i decided to draw your sona, because why not draw a cutie?

@bluepalleteuniverse​ ; i’m SO sorry for the sona- i used the old one because as i said, i decided to draw this piece one mid july, so i asked you pretty early, and , because i thought it looked cute, i drew it very fast- on the other hand, i cannot express how cute your art is- it’s always so nice to see you around, and the positivity you give is astonishing- please keep it up pal

@enixani​ ; now, you are SO talented, yet you believe you aren’t- and i’m here to tell you that you have such a detailed, beautiful art, and you deserve way more support for the work you give, and i hope you like this drawing (i tried your coloring- it feels nice)

@sociallyawkwardfirefly​ ; i was too shy to interact with you, but i wanted to tell you that your writings are amazing- and i can’t because even your art is- so please take care, and know that i love your style

@noveltale​ ; your au is cute, your art is cute, what more? but in case you wanted to hear something else, voila une autre personne qui connaît les souffrances de la langue française, et des difficultés de la langue anglaise, parce que oui, je parle Français aussi (bonjour blue!)

@silentsquidsinner​ ; can we just talk about this person’s beautiful characters? i think they are AMAZING and well written- and the beautiful artstyle only makes it better, so please take this gift as a thank u for your talent-

@ginganinja​ ; i still remember when you were pretty active on tumblr, and i kind of miss those days, but i wish you the best on your decision, and i’ll enjoy your art on instagram, because you’re still awesome there!

@star-gamerxox​ ; your writings are a very good source of inspiration, as well as your characters- i honestly thought that your writing style was pretty fluid and interesting, so i wanted to draw one of you kiddos- hope you liked it

@mimosifolia1528​ ; remember seafood tale? yeah- i loved your creations, as well as your dark cream kid, and thought your art was very special and unique, so i thought it was worth a shot drawing you persona (fun fact, you were the very first one i drew)

@seertale​ ; i liked how cool and chill you look, and i thought your oc’s and art was very sweet, not mentioning that you were my favorite to draw- (the rainbow blob on star’s oc) so thank u

@evaundertale​ ; your art and blog is amazing, so whenever i see your art, it stands out pretty fast, it’s just so recognizable, and i would love to compliment it by giving you this little gift

@shinechermont​ ; now, i wanted to tell you that whenever i visit your blog, the drawing you make always make me feel a bit better, because they are so simple, yet so sweet, and i LOVE ursula (and mirage of course) so seing art about them is always heart warming

also featuring the anons- 

DPA, blue, red, orange, green, purple, lavender, cyan, black, white, cow anon, and cookie anon (who was the one who brought cookies there ;)) 

this is getting long, but let me just say that i wanted to add way more people, like firebug, curse-of-tales, ari-cuno, jann and so much more, but i feel like i couldn’t touch this project anymore- medibang even crashed because the layers were too much- but i love you guys all, even those who i haven’t included here

((sorry if you changed your persona in the meantime, as i said earlier, some sonas were drawn before you even changed them, so sorry in advance (also, because this is three or so months old, the style is messed up, and there is some old art mistakes that i was too lazy and tired to fix)

this is getting too tall, but please thank you

this was writing anon- aka me, yuri <3

#my art #my writing #oh my god- #fiNALLY- #this project took me SO long- #i love these people #and i love you guys #you guys made me cry from happiness and i couldn't even follow you #because you'd know who i was #(because i posted my art on zu's blog already #also #i was super unlucky with this #word crashed multiple times #i didn't like the writings #the art was filled with mistakes #i swear paint tool sai was the WORST in this case #i cried so hard when i lost one whole drawing that i wanted to add here #but i couldn't redraw it because screw it #i hope you guys will forgive me #it took way more than i thought #but i loved everyone's content so much #they deserved it #dream sans #dream!sans #cross sans #cross!sans #studio au

[hyunjilicious]

The safest white - harry styles

Summary: When things with your abusive boyfriend reach a new level, Harry comes to the rescue. 5.7k Warnings: mentions of abuse. I hope you enjoy this! Please tell me what you thought! Your words make my day ❤

Never in your life had you thought you’d end up in a situation like this. Growing up, you got used to the idea of an ideal relationship, and for whatever reason, fell for the glamourized Hollywood look of the downs people went through as they fought for their partner. Real life hit you like a ton of bricks, put a cloth over your mouth and cut your legs from the knees down. Knowing you have to fight for what you want and know is right, even if faced with facts that contradicted your beliefs, you found yourself alone, screaming at nothing in the middle of a sea of darkness. Your own house. And you were screaming internally, because once again, you feared the man you used to call ‘love’. Droplets of sweat tickled your skin as they rushed down your sides, and your hands and feet, although cold, were damp too. You stood in the middle of the bedroom, facing the door. In some twisted way, you knew there was no chance for you to hide, so you stood there, ready take no more hits without hitting back. And harder. After pampering yourself with a pep talk, you ended up feeling quite confident. Confident that you’d get the fuck out of there with your head held fucking high, but it was a confidence that dissipated once the sound of your own phone ringing reached your ears. “Fuck” you mumbled to yourself, after you jumped out of fright. “No, no, no! Y/n. Get. Yourself. Together” You muttered these words through gritted teeth, repeating them over and over again, until the layer of unshed tears in your eyes became too thick and rushed down your cheeks, forcing you to fall to the ground. The impact made your knees sting, but the pain in your heart had already numbed every nerve ending in your entire body. You were at the edge of collapse, and you phone was still ringing. Wiping your face with the sleeve of your shirt, you crawled over to the bed and picked up your cell, only to see Harry’s smiling face on his ID photo along with the pouting emoji you added to his name. It didn’t even take a moment’s worth of consideration before you pressed the red button and declined the call. Not that you had any power left in your body to communicate with another human right now, but you also knew that if it was something important, he’d also send a text, letting you know the matter was indeed urgent. And it came. The text came about 15 seconds later in real time, but for you, it was all a haze. Again, you didn’t think about it. If you declined his call and he still insisted, something must’ve been up. 'Love, I’m stuck at the studio for at least another hour and my mum is coming over’ 'She’ll be at my house in about 20 minutes’ 'If I leave rn I’ll have to come back tomorrow and I want to spend the day with her’ 'Can you go over there’ 'Let her in and hang out or something’ 'Or if you’re busy can she come to you and wait for me there?’

No, way. There was no way you could face his mother right now. She always saw right through your bullshit. Starting with when you and Harry were 18 and started denied your feelings for one another and up until this year, when she sensed something was off with you. When you saw her 2 months ago, it took you about 3 hours to convince her nothing is wrong with you for the sole purpose of keeping Harry out of your relationship. All it took for her to notice you weren’t comfortable with your boyfriend was the way you answered a question about his whereabouts. After that, you had to make up a whole story to prove to her she didn’t need to worry. And they say actors are good liars. You felt you were going to choke with every lie to told her, and frankly, you were surprised she believed you in the end. Maybe it was just how much she trusted you. Nevertheless, you weren’t the person for the job.

You stared at the messages on your phone, and breathed out from the deepest depths of your lungs. You hated that you couldn’t help him right now, but knowing at least 3 other friends of Harry's should be available, you locked your phone and fell back down, leaning against the side of the bed. The mere thought of Harry and Anne calmed you down a bit, but when you went back to reality, another wave of misery hit you. You still had to get out of there, but opening the door to your bedroom was probably the most frightening thing on your mind. There was not much time for you to gather your thoughts and plan your next move before your phone buzzed again. 'You hung up on me. I know u can see these. Everything ok??’ Instantly, you palm connected to your forehead as you rolled your eyes in disbelief. “How did he-” you muttered, unlocking your phone, to assure him you were ok. As it turned out, your text wasn’t enough to convince him you were good, so he called. But for this, you didn’t have the power. This time you didn’t bother to hang up, you turned off your phone completely and fell down onto the carpet. The minutes that followed were excruciating. That is if there was even a matter of minutes, your sense of time wasn’t even hazy anymore, it was gone altogether. The cries you tried to muffle out of fear Jack would hear you from the other room, created an unsettling feeling in the pit of your stomach. If up until now it was all psychological, the spasming of your abdominal muscles were sure to force out everything you hadn’t eaten in the past two days. Just gastric acid was threatening to come up, but this feeling alone wasn’t enough to get you to stand up. By now, leaving the house wasn’t the problem anymore. It was the part of you that allowed yourself to be treated like trash that you didn’t know how to get rid of. At this point, the only thing you felt like doing was cracking your own chest open to rip out your heart and pick apart the broken parts. And not even that was good enough, you were afraid you’d be left with nothing. Since there was nothing you could do right now, you slowly stood up, and decided to head to the bathroom and clean yourself up in order to sneak out of the house. Messy hair and running mascara would draw attention to yourself on the street, and that was not something you could risk. As you walked across the bedroom, when you moved past the window, your eyes landed on Jack’s frame. He was sitting at the table in the back garden, drinking straight out of a bottle of Jack Daniels that was more empty than full. As messed up as that was, this sight gave you a rush of confidence. In this state, it was highly unlikely he’d hear you leave the house, and even if he did, you were positive you’d be able to outrun him. Once in the bathroom, the woman you saw in the mirror was not you. You refused to accept that you were in this state. It was a momentary lapse of character, from which you’d bounce back. You had to. In the shower, although feeling like you could break down all over again, you forced yourself to remain on track, and about 20 minutes later, you were back in your bedroom, putting on whatever clothes you found first. You checked the window. Jack was still there, scrolling on his phone. If you played your cards right, you could leave without your eyes landing on him again. You gathered your essentials - phone, charger, wallet, keys and whatever else you found completely necessary and walked over to the door, where you stopped. “I’ll take you less than three minutes to get to your car, Y/n” you whispered to yourself. “You can do this” You mumbled these words to yourself a few times, and when you raised your hand to open the door, the knob turned by itself and your heart fell two stories down. Already in overdrive, your adrenaline kicked in, sweating out of every pore as you instinctively looked for an object to use to defend yourself. All these defence mechanisms crumbled to the ground when you heard his voice. “Y/n?” because it was Harry, “Are yeh in here? Please, answer me!” You breathed out in relief, something you didn’t know you could feel again. You rushed to unlock the door, and he hurried inside at ungodly speed. “It’s Jack, ain’t it!?” he questioned with anger filled words, “I just got off with the phone with my mum, why didn’t yeh two say anything?” “I told her it was nothing” you mumbled, trying to avoid his eyes, but the way he held onto your cheeks made it impossible for you to look at anything else. “You did, yeah.” Harry nodded with despair, “And she believed yeh and now she’s blaming herself. Tell me. What happened? Where is he?” “God” you cried out and tried to lean your head back, but Harry stopped you and prompted you to look at him again. It worsened gradually, but by now, you barely managed to breathe properly as tears cascaded down your cheeks. “Hey, hey, hey” he breathed out, “Look at me, love. I’m here, ok? It’s over. I’m here. I got yeh” You tried to nod, but all you did was choke a sob and collapse into yourself, Harry barely managing to catch you. Holding you tight to his chest, he rocked you in his arms and rubbed the back of your head, “Its me, love. Its Harry”. He tried to chuckle, but pain was audible in his voice too. “Nothing will happen to yeh, ok? I swear on anything that I am, yeh're safe, yeah?” You wanted to nod, but when he moved his fingers up a bit across your scalp, you winced in pain, and he caught sight of it in an instant. “Did he hit you, Y/n?” he asked, pulling away to look into your eyes. You nodded no. For whatever reason, that was what you considered was the right answer. “Don’t lie to me, angel. Yeh don’ ever have to lie to me, ok?” “Ok” you muttered. “So did he?” “Yes..” And that was then the light in his eyes died. They started shining a particular type of darkness that terrified you to your bones. You froze. Your mind was too numb to act on your emotion, but when he brought you to his chest again, you finally realised your fear was unrooted. “Where is he?” Harry groaned in a deep tone. “Please, don’t” “I just want to talk to him” he fibbed. “Harry, I’m serious-” you cried, “Don’t do anything, I don’t want this anymore. I want it to be over. What if he tries to-” “Listen t' me, angel” he said sternly, looking straight into your eyes, “You’re crying. Shaking. I’ve never seen yeh like this. Ever. Not even close. Yer whole body shivered when I touched you. That man, hurt you. I don’t even want to think about what he actually did to you right now. Yeh’re the happiest, strongest woman I met in my entire life and he managed to bring you in this state. I won’t have that, ok? I won’t sleep again if doesn’t pay for this.” “Please, Harry” you whimpered, wiping some of your tears away. You placed your hands of top of his, and grabbed them tightly, “What if he does something to you, what if-” “Think about the girl that will come after you, hm? What about her? He’ll go on with his life thinking he doesn’t need to pay for his fucking demented behaviour, and she’ll walk straight into the lions den” “What if he hurts you?” “It won’t get to that, love. I’ll just talk to him. But I have to do this. I can’t not do it, you understand that, right?” After you reluctantly agreed, mostly because he wasn’t showing signs of giving up and you didn’t have it in you to fight him at that moment, you headed downstairs and he walked you to his car. Harry opened the door for you to climb in, but before that, you pressed yourself against him again, craving his touch and the feeling of safety it provided. “Oh, love” he sighed, rubbing your back. “I got yeh” You didn’t want to let him go, but you knew you had to. Eventually, you got into his car, but turned to him before closing the door. “You’re just gonna talk to him, alright?” you sniffled, “And then you’ll be right back, yeah?” “Yes, darlin’” Harry nodded and leaned in to kiss your forehead. “I’ll be right back” And with that, he left. You watched him walk into the house, your eyes remaining trained on his back until he was out of sight. Not knowing what was going on was driving you insane. Your phone was surely not going to provide any kind of distraction, you felt out of place, like you were sitting on a pile of nails as a train was approaching you at full speed. But there was nothing for you to do about it. Going in and joining the conversation was sure to make things worse, for all of you. It hurt that the right thing to do was sit and wait, you hated it, but you had to be patient. In need of something you keep your mind busy, you opened the glove compartment, and started rummaging through the junk that had pilled up there over the past few months. Mostly napkins, candy wrappers, McDonald’s straws, and seemingly, irrelevant stuff. Eventually, you came across some other things, like your old phone case, which you ended up discarding after you bought a new one while you were shopping with Harry for a birthday gift. There was also there a bottle of perfume, the kind you’ve been wearing for years, and in this one, there was barely anything left. Jumping jacks were taking place inside your heart. You knew Harry was the kind of guy every girl deserved in her life, but you wanted him for yourself only. It was mostly junk, and useless little things anyone would have forgotten existed, but he kept them. It didn’t take long before you got lost in thought again, but in the end, you decided to ignore any rush feelings you might be having, taking into consideration the emotional break down you have just been through. “Hey, love” Harry’s voice filled the air inside his car, as he flung the door open and climbed in in one swift motion. “Did you talk to him?” “Yeah” he said distraught and nodded, before turning around in his seat to check if it was safe to pull out. “With my fists” Your eyes snapped to his knuckles. Skin cracked and little droplets of blood peaking to the surface. However, he gripped the steering wheel as if it was nothing, and kept his smile on. What was most surprising, but actually not quite, was that he looked genuinely relieved. You sighed, “H, what happened?” “Nothing, love. I got there fuming ready to beat the guy to the pulp. But he was drunk outta his mind. I stopped then, I promise. I told him what I had to say but I doubt he understood a word I said” he confessed, grabbing your forearm and giving it a squeeze. “You said you were only gonna talk to him…” “That’s what I was planning on, I don’t- I don’t know what- anyway-” he mumbled, in between ragged breaths, “We’ll deal with it, ok? You won’t ever have to see him again. And he’s fine. He deserved so much worse, but I’m- I’m uh, I’m not-” “Thank you” you whispered, looking down at your hands, knowing any moment now the tears would come back. “Yeh don’t need to thank me, angel. I should have known sooner, this should never have happened” “I know… I’m sorry” “What’re yeh sorry about?” Harry asked, eyes trained on the road ahead, “None of this is your fault” “Then whose is it?” you exclaimed, “Hm?” “Fucking his!!” You tried to change the subject, but all you managed to do was drop this one. Nothing else held. Nothing was of interest, and even if it was, the timing was wrong. There was no way you could have started talking about what movie you just saw, and Harry clearly didn’t feel like boasting to you about what a great time he’s been having with his friends and family. Needless to say, for about 10 minutes, it was you, Harry and the sacred uncomfortable silence. “Can you drop me off at a hotel please” you asked, cringing a bit at your own words. “No, why?” He was clearly surprised, if not offended. “I- uh” you mumbled, too ashamed to use a normal tone of voice. “It’s your mum, H. I can’t see her right now. I don’t want to talk about this anymore, nor do I want someone else to worry about me. I promise I’ll be better tomorrow, and I’ll come hang out. Get a coffee or something” “Is that the only reason you want to go to a hotel?” “Yeah…” “Perfect” Harry nodded, “She’s not at my place. Didn’t expect you to be in the mood for company. But you shouldn’t be by yourself. I can drop you off wherever ya want, but not if you’re gonna be alone”. He took your silence for an answer. “My place it is, then” And you got to his house, and even if you had been there millions of times before, you felt out of place. You were afraid he bought you here out of mercy or sympathy, despite what he had just said. The atmosphere was different, and for whatever reason, you didn’t feel like home. For years, his house and anywhere near him, you felt your safest, yet today, you were afraid anything you’d say or do would be out of place. “Yeh know how this works” Harry said, walking into the kitchen, “It’s your home too, don’t shy away” “I know” you chuckled, and it did sound fake and it was obvious he noticed, but none of you pointed it out. “Are you hungry? Want something to drink? Tea? We can order something-” “I’m fine, thanks though” you sighed, slowly advancing towards him. You leaned your hip against one of the counters, silently awaiting his next move. But he didn’t quite do anything, except change his expression into one of maybe confusion. This must have been hard for him too, you didn’t know what you needed to hear, how could he have possibly known what to say? “Do you wanna watch something?” you asked, wanting to relieve some of the pressure. To be fair, you were not in the mood to watch any movie, but you figured laying down next to him would be calming and an easy way to avoid unwanted conversation. “Yeah, 'course” Harry nodded. “Actually... Got any wine?” He seemed completely taken aback, but soon enough, he came back to reality, offering to get the alcohol while you picked something you wanted to watch. It wasn’t a difficult choice. Seinfeld was a sure option, since you both liked it and it required almost no concentration at all. Just as you laid down on his couch, Harry came back into the living room, two tall glasses in his hands, and a bottle of while under his arm. “Figured white wine was safer, dunno how much we’re gonna drink, and nothing is worse than a red wine hangover” “Just how drunk do you think I wanna get?” you laughed, taking the glasses from him. “As drunk as yeh want, love” Harry smiled, pulling out a corkscrew, “The choice is yours” “Just don’t let me start ranting or anything” “Yeah…” he cringed, sucking in a deep breath as he squinted his eyes, “Can’t promise yeh that. Ya know I’m a sucker fo’ yer drunken ramblings” “Oh shut up” you scoffed. “And why did you bring these?” you questioned, pointing to the glasses, “Don’t you know me at all? Or are you suddenly grossed out by my germs?” “When you put it like that, it sounds gross, yes” Harry laughed out loud, before clutching the corkscrew tight into his hand and opening up the bottle, “But still, I’d be happy to exchange germs with you” “Oh wow” “Wha'?” Harry belted, playfully offended, “Yeh started it!” “Well, it sounds so much worse when some else says it” None of you could ever win this. He came over to the couch and motioned for you to scoot over. During the first episode, you kept your distance, but as the minutes passed and as the level of wine slowly lowered, so did the space between your bodies. By the third episode, Harry was laying down on his back with his knees bent, as you leaned back against his calves. That was when you opened up the second bottle. Still white wine, still safe. Harry's words. Every now and then one of you would chuckle, and in case too much time would pass without one of you making a sound, the other would gently ask an “You asleep?” even though both your minds were way too busy to be able to relax enough to drift off. When you almost finished this bottle too, Elaine was throwing a fuss, in the middle of Jerry’s living groom over some guy she went to gym with. “He wiped his hand on the top of the bottle when I offered him water” she said offended through the TV screen, making you stand up and turn to Harry. “This is the universe, love” he laughed but instantly you shushed him, knowing what line was next. “Are you kidding?” Elaine said again, “He should be craving my germs!” And at that, you both burst into laughter. “I had no idea this was the episode” you barely managed to say in between your crazy giggles. “Is it a coincidence?” Harry smirked, “Think not!” “You’re drunk” “So are yeh!” he defended himself, as if it would change anything. “You know what else I am?” “What?” You picked up the bottle and finished whatever was left in it, and then turned to him with a proud smile on your face, “Ready for the third one” “Stand up” Harry commanded and pointed to the space right in front of the couch. “Why?” “Do three pirouettes and if yeh don’t stumble I’ll open another one” “Buzz kill” you pouted and slapped his legs, “No” “I’ll do it with you” he laughed, and when he stood up, you reluctantly did too. When he motioned for you to do the pirouettes, another smile crept up your lips, “At least put some music on if you want to see my moves” “Oh, is that how it’s gonna be?” he laughed, walking over to his phone on the table, “Are we gonna dance in the living room like the crazy people in those sappy chick movies we used to watch?” “Why do you have to be an asshole?” you joked, leaning your head to the side. “Because-” was all he managed to say before the music turned on, making him stop talking as he silently laughed. “Why-” you exclaimed, “On Earth, were you listening to My Heart Will Go On? Is Harold in love?” “I have a good explanation!” Harry jumped to defend himself, pointing a finger at you, “I tried to learn it” “On guitar I hope” you teased. “Ha, very funny” “Oh my god, Harry!” you burst into laughter, “I’m assuming you nailed it on the first try” “Yess!” he threw his head back, cheeks all red, “Celine stand back, I’m coming for yer money” “What would it take to convince you to sing it to me?” “Sing it with me” Harry responded in an instant, and it might have been the alcohol, but it didn’t even take a second before you agreed. You both grabbed one of the empty bottles as microphones, and sang your hearts out. Even though Harry had the vocal capability to reach some of those notes and sing full verses correctly, nothing that came out of his mouth sounded right. And if you were to carefully listen to the atrocities that came out of yours, you’d feel the need to hide for a week to finally get rid of the embarrassment. But you didn’t care. And neither did he. Harry only got like this if he was in a truly good mood. He wasn't always bubbly and childish, especially not today after everything that happened, and you knew a bottle of wine wasn’t enough to awaken this side of him, but still, he danced his hips into exhaustion, providing you with all the good energy you didn’t think you could possibly get. Your performance ended when some Creedence song started, and you walked over and pressed yourself against Harry’s chest. Since you got to his house, you gradually started to feel better, but it all came so naturally, you literally had to stop and check in order to actually realize it. “Thank you” you mumbled into his shirt. “Don’t need to thank me, love” Harry said softly, rubbing your back, “Seeing you loosen up and smile makes me feel better too” His words warmed up your heart from the inside, and it was probably the amount of emotions that you felt in the last 12 hours that caused you to have so little self control, but your eyes watered. At that point, thinking someone’s happiness relied on yours, was too much for your mind to process. Especially considering that for the last few weeks, it had been quite the opposite. A lot of things came to mind. There were a lot of things you felt like saying to him. Somehow, you couldn’t escape the need to thank him again and again, you wanted to tell him how amazing he was, how much of a blessing he was. Right then and there you got emotional you wanted to rant your heart out, but in the end, you lacked the courage. For some reason, even though you had nothing but good things to say, you were afraid to do so, embarrassed even. “Still-” you said softly as you pulled away from his chest. Your eyes rose up to meet his, and he welcomed you with the same warmth he had been showing all day, “I don’t know how to exactly say this, but I know that there’s no one in my life who would have dropped everything and came to check up on me, but you did. And I know you don’t want to hear me thanking you again, but I’m so so grateful you’re in my life” you confessed, breaking into a light sob. The change of atmosphere was too sudden. He didn’t see this coming, and you didn’t know you wouldn’t be able to finish your statement without a cascade of tears streaming down your cheeks again. “Love” Harry cooed, grabbing your cheeks and wiping your tears away with his thumbs. The heat from his palms gave you a newfound sense of reality, forcing your thoughts to spiral again. “Y/n, I love yeh. So much. Yeh need to realize that someone taking care of you isn’t out of the ordinary” “It is for me, Harry” “I’ll fix yeh” he chuckled, and it was so weak, and his eyes cried because he had to do so. “And we can talk about it, or you can talk and I can listen, tonight, tomorrow, three weeks from now at 3am. Whenever yeh’re ready, I’m here for you, ok? I fucking love yeh so much, Y/n. Don’t push me away, because I’m here for you no matter what, ok? I want to be” His words, his tone of voice, calm but also disturbed and with traces of pain audible in it, the way his hooded eyes bore into yours, the way his chest rose and fell with every breath he took, was all too much. “I don’t wanna talk about it right now because I’m afraid I might say things I shouldn’t” “If you mean it, you have the right to say it. It’s that simple, love” he smiled reassuringly. You contemplated telling him how much you loved him and how it has been him all the time, but you were afraid he would put it on account of everything that had happened during the day, and that he would brush it off. The last thing you wanted was for Harry to believe your feelings for him weren’t solid. And on top of it all, up until a few hours ago you were in a relationship, and it felt wrong to admit that all this time you have been thinking of another man. “Maybe some other time” you finally said, pushing aside the topic and putting some distance between the two of you. “Whenever that may be” he nodded, “I’m here, yeah?” A whole pile of tangled emotions filled up your chest, and you needed an escape. A chance to put your thoughts in order before you said something you’d later regret. The wine was threatening to force out some confessions, and you decided a shower would be the perfect opportunity to delay them. You stayed in the bathroom for a questionable long time, but when you walked out, wrapped in a towel, Harry was still awake, watching the TV. He had laid on the bed some clothes of his for you to wear, and you couldn’t help but giggle to yourself when you finally understood why there were two shirts. The first one was neatly folded, but you didn’t really pay attention to it. The second one, a bit to the side, was obviously recently worn, so you didn’t think twice when you chose this one, the scent of his cologne tickling your senses. After putting the pair of sweatpants on too, you headed back to the living room, where Harry was comfortably laying down on the couch. He signaled for you with his arms open to join him, and you did so in an instant, cuddling into his chest. “There’s only a bit left of the game. 10 minutes tops. Mind if we watch this? I can put Seinfeld back on if you want to” “Oh, no. It’s ok.” you shook your head, “Just tell me who we’re rooting for” “The blue ones, love” Harry laughed kissing the top of your head. After you both shuffled a bit and settled back down in a more comfortable position, with his arms wrapped around you and your head buried into his neck, you only managed to comment on a few moments of the game before falling asleep. Next thing you knew, Harry was rubbing your arm up and down and whispering softly to get your attention. “Let’s go to sleep, Y/n” “No” you mumbled, turning your head so he couldn’t see your face. “Its much more comfortable, angel, I promise” he laughed. “I said no” you giggled back. “I’ll let yeh sleep here then” When he tried to pull away, you tightened your hold around his middle, “No” “Do you know any words other than no?” Harry laughed out loud. “No” His chest shook as he chuckled at your antics, “We’ll sleep here then” “Yess” you smiled and turned to face him again. He seemed amused, but even so, he looked down at you with awe in his eyes. After taking his shirt and his watch off, you both resumed your position on the couch, but this time, you had your back pressed against his chest. “I knew you were gonna chose this shirt” Harry spoke up a second after you closed your eyes, “But it’s weird because you smell like me now” “Harry?” you questioned, playing with his fingers, “Are there things you want to say, but you’re too afraid to?” It took a while before he answered, but you waited patiently. “Yeh mean in general?” “No” you said and squeezed your eyes shut, cringing in anticipation. “I mean now” This time he didn’t answer. Maybe he would have, but when you figured enough time passed, you turned around in his hold. If the answer was no, there would have been no reason for him to hesitate, so you took his silence for a yes. It was a risk you were willing to take. “Good night, Ni” you said and pressed your lips against his; it was hurried, it barely lasted for two short seconds but you put your soul into this kiss and it sent your heart into overdrive. After you pulled away, you turned around immediately and settled back into your spot. He was silent, not one of his muscles flinched. Maybe it was the wine. You shouldn’t have done that. You wanted to move. Not touch him anymore, never see him again. It felt like you ruined the best thing that ever happened to you, all because you couldn’t control yourself. And you were so close. You should have just laughed at his remark about the smell of his shirt and then go to sleep. Why wasn’t he saying anything? This was wrong, and you felt like you couldn’t breathe. “Would yeh have done that if things with Jack happened differently? If they ended on good terms? Or if we weren’t drunk?” “Yes” you whispered, your voice cracking, “I wanted to do that for a long long time. But I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, forget it” “Will never” he said, and then brought you closer to kiss your neck, “And don’t be sorry” “I love you, Harry” “I love yeh”. He kissed your scalp and spoke into your hair, “The most”

-

Hey, guys! In case you read this far and thought this sounds similar (or maybe exactly the same) to another fic posted on here, it’s because I had previously uploaded it to another blog. It was a Niall imagine at first but then i was like hm... Harry! Anywayyyy i hope you liked this! Please don’t hesitate to tell me what you thought!

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfic #harry styles one shot #harry styles angst #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #1dff

[and-it-freezes-me]

How To Make Mistakes

Summary: The ‘prologue’ to Accidents Happen, and should be read after reading the main series! AKA How Remus ended up being kicked out of his house for his brother’s crimes.

Content warnings: Hoo, boy, where do I begin? Very bad parenting, mentions of attempted suicide, references to self harm, nightmares, blood, character death (no main characters), claustrophobia, some injury detail, chemical burn (not detailed), animal death, car crash, fire, non-verbal character, accidental almost-murder, fighting, minor internalised acephobia, drug and alcohol use and misuse, some drunkenness, sensory overload, panic attacks, I believe that’s everything

Word count: 24,086 (yes, this got much longer than planned)

Remus couldn’t remember a time in his life before the nightmares. He assumed there must have been one - people don’t tend to be born with terror already flooding their veins and monsters lurking behind their closed eyelids. Besides, according to his parents the screaming had only really started when he had been six or seven.

By the time he was eight, he had been sleeping so poorly for such a long time that he had all but given up on anything that took extra effort.

They had dance classes together, him and Roman, since they were four - and he had really enjoyed them. Of course, he had preferred the faster, slightly more jumpy (for want of a better word) dances, where Roman had adored anything slow and stately, but they had still gone together. It had just been one of the things they did.

Then Remus had started waking up in the night and being unable to fall asleep again, terrified of the shadows that lurked in every corner and jumped every time a car drove past their house. His near constant exhaustion had carried over into his dancing, making him miss steps or stumble landings. Roman refused to move up a class without Remus, even though he was more than good enough, but he allowed Remus to hold him back for nearly three months.

He would have stayed in a class that was too easy for him for even longer, but Remus managed to get himself barred from ever returning to the dance studio. It had been a particularly bad night, and he had begged to stay home that morning. He hadn’t been allowed, of course: this was something he had chosen to do, a commitment he had made (when he was four! Before he was able to read the fucking fine print on these things!), he couldn’t just go when it suited him or not. He had made it all the way through the warm-up, all the way through the first few drills… In the first run-through of the performance piece they were focusing on that term, he had stumbled, and managed to trip into the girl next to him, and almost the entire class had gone down like a row of so many pastel coloured dominoes.

The teacher had taken pity on him, or perhaps been too pissed off to want to consider teaching him; the end result was the same, and he allowed him to sit out for the rest of the class. It had been as they were all filing out of the room to meet their parents that the girl he had knocked over earlier, now clinging to Roman’s arm, hadn’t bothered to lower her voice. He couldn’t remember exactly what it was she had said - he had been seven, and running on fumes - but it had been something about how Roman shouldn’t let his stupid, smelly brother hold him back, and Remus had snapped.

Their teacher had been on them as soon as she had started screaming, which had been almost immediately. He hadn’t even hurt her that badly: he’d bitten her arm, maybe, but not hard enough to draw blood, and her perfectly coiled bun was no longer so perfectly coiled or a bun, but he had still been asked not to return.

That was alright with him. Everything was a little easier when he didn’t have to put in the energy required to remember steps and stupid French words.

When they had been younger, he used to fight Roman over who got to choose the games they played, both at home and when they were with Virgil, who they had first met in preschool and tried to have a tug of war over. Now, it was easier to just let Roman dictate what they did, whether they drew or played board games or went exploring in the woods or enacted scenes from shows or books or out of Roman’s imagination. Roman would probably win anyway - this way, they cut out the needless half hour of arguing that frequently brought Virgil nearly to tears. It was easier this way.

Despite the fact that his teachers were constantly asking him why he couldn’t apply himself a little more, why he couldn’t work a little harder, why he couldn’t do what his brother so clearly could, Remus didn’t get properly labelled as a troublemaker until their class zoo trip at the start of third grade.

Even he wasn’t sure how he had managed to slip away from his Virgil, his trip buddy and usually so perceptive, three teachers, and the two guides taking them around the place, or how he had managed to get through not one but three doors marked ‘Authorised Personnel ONLY’ without detection. What he did remember was somebody in a hazmat suit yelling very loudly at him, startling him enough that he dropped the egg he had so carefully lifted out from under a large yellow heat lamp and had been cradling to his chest. It had smashed to pieces at his feet, covering his trainers in an opaque, slimy something that he could still smell in his nightmares sometimes, and there had been a few seconds of silence before a second person arrived, saw what had happened, and started yelling as well.

Remus had turned and tried to run away, and managed to knock over a shelf of what had turned out to be tanks containing various specimens of snakes being raised as part of a conservation program.

The zoo had asked him not to come back, and his parents had stopped his allowance for a year (which was fair enough, he supposed, given that they had had to pay for the damages).

After that, it was as though somebody had stuck a sign reading ‘Watch this kid’ to his back.

His grades had slipped further.

In the summer when he was nine, Roman started sneaking out in the mornings and spending the day doing who-knows-what, while Remus was left at home with the mountain of chores he had managed to accumulate for various misdeeds, some of which had been genuine accidents, some of which had been things that he just couldn’t help, like the row of Cs on his report card at the end of the year. He hadn’t minded so much at first, but it had gotten awfully lonely after a while. Virgil had been on some sort of summer camp, and Remus didn’t really have any other friends. Enough of the people at school were wary of him now, thanks to the occasional scuffle and the snake story, and the way he zoned out of conversations sometimes to just stare blankly at them.

One night, after having been woken by his usual nightmares and having calmed himself down enough to be comfortable getting out of bed and wandering around (nobody came when he screamed in the night anymore. They hadn’t in over two years. When the nightmares had first started - or when he had first started being aware of them, anyway - he had gotten up and slipped into his parents bed, managing to sleep the rest of the night away. But as the weeks passed and he was still doing it, still waking them up at stupid hours of the morning to lie beside them, they had put their collective foot down, warts and all. He was seven, a big boy now, he shouldn’t need to be lying with them to be able to sleep. Roman didn’t need to. The first few times, they had been kind about it. Then, less so), Remus had settled himself down outside Roman’s bedroom door to wait for morning.

Roman had practically tripped over him when he had come barrelling out of his room to go wherever it was he went all day. Catching himself on the opposite wall, he had frowned down at Remus before reaching out a hand. “What’re you doing, Rem?”

“I was-” Remus swallowed. “I was wondering if you’d wait for me. You don’t have to help with the chores, I just… I’d like to spend the day with you. Haven’t seen much of you lately, you know? Where’s my Ro-ro?” It was true. With Remus’ increased detentions and Roman’s increased extra curriculars, and their differing interests, they weren’t hanging out as much as they used to.

Roman had looked at him with no expression at all for a moment, and then he had grinned. “No, no, I’ll help with the chores. Just… Not just yet, yeah?”

Remus had nodded slowly, slightly confused. “I’m supposed to get them done before doing anything else, though.”

“It’ll be fine - just one game? Quickly?” Roman had glanced around, then grinned. “How about we play hide and seek? One game, you find me, I’ll find you, and then we do the chores. Then we can go mess around in the woods.”

This time Remus’ nod was enthusiastic. Turning to the wall, he began to count.

Roman hid behind the bathroom door, and Remus found him in only a few minutes. Remus tried to think of the best hiding place he could, and ended up climbing under the sink - it would take Roman ages to find him there! He’d look upstairs first, and then he’d have to look downstairs, so Remus would definitely win. Curling up into a ball, he let the door close behind him, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

He didn’t own a phone yet, and his watch was broken after an incident in the quarry in the woods, so Remus didn’t know how long it was before it occurred to him that Roman might not be looking for him.

Pushing that thought away, he shifted to get more comfortable. The U-bend of the sink had been digging into his back. Of course Roman was looking for him. They’d have to get the chores done quickly if they wanted much time in the woods, but they could manage that.

But Roman never came, and eventually Remus grew bored of waiting for him. Stretching his legs out, he pushed against the cupboard door with his bare feet… And it didn’t open.

He pushed at it again.

Still nothing.

That was when he remembered that all of the kitchen cupboards had funny little latches on them, to stop younger versions of Roman and Remus (mostly Remus) from going through the cupboards after an incident involving the entire kitchen and a lot of washing up liquid.

That was when the space started closing around him.

Remus had no idea where his parents had been that day. Maybe they had both been working, and were comfortable letting their nine-year-old sons run around on their own: their town was quiet, and Roman at least was responsible. Maybe none of Remus’ screams, so loud at night, had actually left his chest. Either way, it was past six in the evening when his father finally opened the kitchen cupboard to find a tearstained, soiled, trembling child sitting in a slippery mess of washing up liquid and detergent and laundry softener, the U-bend of the sink broken from his earlier thrashing.

When Remus had tried to speak, to thank Hyun-ki for freeing him, to say it was his fault (strange, how his first thought was to protect Roman), to try to explain what had actually happened (Roman needed to be at least told off for not shouting to say that the game was over!), only a low whine had emanated from his throat. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make words come out. His father had hugged him briefly, wrinkled his nose at the smell, and then sent Remus off to shower while he started cleaning up.

And then he was clean, and dry, and warm and safe in the biggest jumper he owned despite the heat of the day, and his parents were quizzing him on why the hell he had thought it sensible to climb into the kitchen cupboard, he could have been seriously hurt, he’d broken the sink and that was going to need a real plumber to repair, what was he thinking? Had he tripped and fallen in? (That question was a trap, and they all knew it). Words were still raw against his throat and unwilling to come out, and he didn’t really want to get his brother in trouble - it wasn’t Roman’s fault he had locked himself in, after all… So when they asked him if he had been planning on jumping out for a joke, he had nodded brusquely. It was easier than trying to come up with a story that made him look good but didn’t get Roman in trouble.

It was easier to take the additional chores for breaking the sink than to complain that it wasn’t fair.

The incident that had lost him his pocket money for good a year later had only half been an accident.

It had been getting more and more obvious, over the past few months, that his parents were favouring Roman. There was a chance that Roman didn’t realise exactly what was going on, but he definitely knew something was happening. He almost never invited Remus to do anything with him anymore, and once or twice Remus was fairly certain that he had blamed a dropped plate or wrongly pruned plant on him. He didn’t really mind. His parents didn’t bother adding extra chores to the ones he already had to do, so it wasn’t as though he was really suffering from it. It hurt a little, that their parents never seemed particularly interested in what he had to say.

There used to be a vase on the table in the living room. It had been made by their mother’s great grandmother, and had stood on that table for as long as Remus had been alive. They were frequently reminded not to play too close to it.

He hadn’t meant to drop it.

Remus had just wanted to move it. He was going to hide it in a cupboard, and then hide behind the door himself (he couldn’t go in cupboards or under beds anymore), and wait to see which his parents missed first. All he was trying to do was prove to himself that he was more important to them than some old vase. It was a simple test, one that didn’t need doing. He was their son, after all, even if he did have his… Quirks. 

But the vase had been heavier than he had expected, and he had tripped whilst carrying it to its hiding place, landing on top of it and crushing it into dozens of knife-like shards. If the sound of the vase shattering hadn’t been enough to bring his mother running, his howl of pain as broken china sliced through his shirt certainly was, and she stared at the pattern of shards, Remus right in the centre, for several long seconds before starting to shout.

Then he had sat up, and they both stared at his torso, which was becoming bloodier by the second. There was already a not insignificant stain on the carpet, and all over some of the vase fragments. That was when Dae’s training kicked in, and Remus found himself in hospital and being stitched back together a surprisingly short time later.

It wasn’t until the following day, when he was no longer woozy from blood loss, that he was treated to another Remus-curse-of-the-walking-disaster lecture. When they were finished - they had come to sit on the end of his bed to talk to him - they both stood to leave. Then his father turned back to him. “Why did you break it, anyway? It meant everything to Dae…” As though he had done it on purpose.

Remus didn’t know why he said it, but the words dropped from his lips before he had even thought them through. “I always hated that ugly thing.”

Maybe he said it because they were expecting something callous from him, something else they could use to weigh him down while Roman soared far above him in their eyes. Maybe it was because it was easier than trying to explain that it felt as though they just didn’t care about him anymore.

Yeah, that was it. It was because it was easy.

And so the pattern continued. Remus made a mistake and was shown no mercy, while Roman was given everything he ever wanted.

Somewhere deep down, Remus knew that it wasn’t Roman he hated. It was the way their parents almost never addressed him anymore unless it was to tell him off, for skipping school, for getting in another scuffle, for ripping his clothes, for staying out too late. It was the way they were constantly comparing the two of them, constantly pitting them against one another and then punishing Remus for coming out second when the deck was so clearly stacked against him.

When he was thirteen, he started drinking to try to stop screaming at night. It was one of the reasons his parents resented him so much - it had been implied often enough. What teenager screams through the night, every night? He couldn’t help it, but it wasn’t as though they seemed to care about that. He snuck into parties he was years too young for whenever he could (Remy always seemed to know when and where parties would be, even if he wasn’t invited to them, and Remus had taken to listening in on his conversations while he was with Virgil. Roman almost never spent time with their friend anymore), and if his parents noticed, they didn’t say a thing.

They didn’t say a thing when the screaming stopped. They didn’t seem to notice when Remus started getting sick from it, when he was a hundred, a thousand times more fidgety or sleepy during the day. It was though they didn’t care at all.

Sometimes, he would be lucky enough to snag a few bottles of whatever from somewhere, which meant that he didn’t have to go out. It was one of these nights that Roman snuck into his room, an almost unheard of occurrence these days, and sat on the end of his bed. Remus was already tipsy, but his brother didn’t seem to notice. It seemed like all Roman wanted was for somebody to sit and nod as he chatted aimlessly about school, about his classmates, about the theater parts he was going for. His most recent crush had taken one of the supporting roles in the play, and Remus was treated to a half-hour lecture on how his hair positively gleamed under the stage lights.

“... I mean it, Rem, he’s gorgeous. He’s the year above us, I think, first year of highschool - you know this year the highschool’s taking part, it’s amazing that I got such a large role, there are so many people…” Roman trailed off dreamily, and Remus’ head bobbed slowly. Then his twin looked at him, leaned forward and poked his nose, which he wrinkled in response. “What about you, Rem?”

“What about me… What?” Remus had to admit, he hadn’t quite been following the conversation.

“A crush!” Roman exclaimed, leaning forward to shake Remus’ shoulders enthusiastically. “Do you have anyone you like?”

“Uh… Of course,” Remus lied, because… Well, it would look stupid if he said no.

Roman practically started bouncing on the bed. “Who? Do I know them?”

Oh. Fuck. Now he actually had to think of somebody, and fast, because Roman had stopped bouncing and was looking at him as though he could see right through him. Remus was not about to get caught lying about having a crush on somebody, for fuck’s sake. “Remy,” he blurted, and Roman looked stunned.

“Remy? Virgil’s brother? Remy Spince? Why?” Remus would have been mildly offended on Remy’s behalf had his brain been processing fast enough.

“Uh… Well, he’s… Cool. Very cool. An’ he’s nice to me, so…”

Roman chuckled. “Ahh. I see, Rem. Older guys, huh? With the jacket and the glasses? I see, I see…”

Blurting a random name had been so, so easy. Was this all it took to get Roman to like him again? Pretend to be attracted to somebody unobtainable? He could do that.

One week later, Roman spilled wax all over the floor and blamed him for it. Remus, in a fit of fondness for his brother (and also because he didn’t want Roman to have to suffer their parents’ disappointment), got up in the night to set fire to the curtains, just to make it look as though it really had been his fault.

Smoke coiled through his nightmares for weeks after that.

A month later, he regretted it, because Roman had gone and stuck his tongue down Remy’s throat at a party.

It wasn’t even as though Remus particularly liked Remy - not in the way he had told Roman he did, anyway - but it still hurt. As far as Roman knew, Remus had feelings (ick) for his friend’s elder brother, and he had gone and kissed him anyway. It had been partially betrayal (but mostly alcohol poisoning) that had had him throwing up in the host’s swimming pool.

And then autumn came, and school started, and Virgil didn’t come back. Remus visited him - of course he did, how could he not? He visited, and he visited, and he visited, first at the hospital during in the week Virgil had had to stay there while they made sure that the bottle of pain meds he had swallowed weren’t going to have any additional effects on him, and then at his home, sometimes skipping school to see him during the two weeks he spent at home.

Then they had gotten into an argument. It had been Remus’ fault, of course. And really, it was only Remus arguing, too. He had made some idle comment about how Roman was probably doing a far better job of cheering Virgil up than he was - they had been looking through a medical journal for rare and gross conditions, something that Remus found thrilling and Virgil found mildly unsettling but not enough so to make them stop - and Virgil’s face had shut down completely.

“Virge? Vee, dude, what’s up? Are you okay?” Virgil had nodded once, jaw tight and eyes not meeting Remus’, and it occurred to him that Virgil might be having another anxiety attack. They had been getting worse all year, but they had been more frequent than ever since he had tried to kill himself. “Hey. You’re safe, dude. Do you want to do the breathing thing? It’s just like stabbing someone, look, in, two, three, four, hold - that’s twisting the knife - two -”

“Not an attack,” Virgil interrupted, although he had pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay. What’s wrong?”

Virgil tried to stare him down, but that was a mistake. Remus had mastered the art of not blinking - it came from nights on end just staring into the corners of his room. (Virgil’s death was something that haunted his dreams now. He hadn’t seen him, hadn’t been the one to find his body - that had been Remy - but he could imagine, and once he had imagined, he couldn’t stop imagining). Finally, the taller boy sighed and shrugged. “Roman hasn’t visited,” he mumbled.

“WHAT?” Virgil flinched; Remus hadn’t meant to shout. “Sorry - what do you mean, he hasn’t- He’s your friend!”

“Hasn’t texted, either,” Virgil whispered, and Remus wanted to hug him until he felt his ribs crack. “I don’t think we’re friends anymore…”

“You are fucking kidding me! He -” Instead of hugging Virgil - because when could Remus ever do anything right? - he had started shouting. “That son of a bitch! He fucking -”

“Remus, don’t…”

“I’m going to kill him! How fucking dare he, I’m going to - I’m going to rip his guts from his body, I’m - I’m going to tear him into tiny, tiny pieces and -” He proceeded to get more creative, his sudden rage at his twin fueling his rant in spite of Virgil’s pleas that he calm down. Red, the same red that Roman wore when he needed extra luck, had filled his vision to the point that he didn’t see the fresh tears that started spilling down Virgil’s cheeks.

That had been when Virgil’s father had slipped into the room. He was a tall, skinny man, just as pale as his sons and with their same dark hair, and misery dripped from him in long, thick shadows and trailed behind him like a cloak. It looked as though he had been crying, too, although that wasn’t unusual. Although he had tried to keep it together for his sons, the loss of his wife at the start of the summer had taken a huge toll on him (Remus could be observant and emotionally sympathetic when he was trying), and Virgil’s suicide attempt hadn’t been easy on any of them. He looked at Remus for a long second. “I think…” Remus almost had to lean in to hear his words. “I would prefer it if that kind of language… I think you should leave, son.”

And just like that, he was barred from visiting his friend’s home. He still saw Virgil, of course, but it was harder - especially when Mr Spince had phoned his parents to say that Virgil had had one of his worst ever panic attacks after Remus had yelled at him.

He didn’t bother trying to explain what had really happened - he knew Mr Spince was just trying to protect Virgil, and that Virgil had just been trying to protect his friend, but he doubted that the elder would like to see him again after finding him making increasingly disturbing death threats in front of his son. It was easier just to allow another person to label him as dangerous and disturbed, and to meet with Virgil away from his home. 

He didn’t speak to Roman for a very long time after that.

Patton… Patton had been a mistake, although one of the worst ones he had made in a long time.

It had been a bad week for him, to start with. Remus was fourteen. He had been feeling constantly sick for the past three days, and he just knew it was the alcohol, but he had yet to find anything as effective for silencing him at night. He hadn’t been getting much rest, either, and had just left a particularly painful calculus lesson taught by a teacher that seemed to delight in comparing him to his perfect twin.

He was walking to lunch when he became dimly aware that somebody had mentioned his name just behind him in the corridor. Slowing his pace, he had tilted his head to listen better, and then wished he hadn’t.

“Remus Wang… Similar to Roman?”

“Yes, like Roman. Well, no, not really like Roman, that’s his twin.” It was Patton, and a voice that he didn’t recognise. He refused to turn to see who it was.

“I was not aware that Roman Wang had a twin. He has certainly never mentioned him in our tutoring sessions.” Remus smiled faintly at the stiff, formal speech - it was deep, calm, and would have been nice to listen to, had whoever it was been talking about anything else.

“Ah, yeah. He doesn’t talk about him. Remus is kinda…” Patton hesitated, and Remus took a slow breath through his nose. “Kinda the black sheep of the family, if you know what I mean.”

“I do not. The Wangs are Korean, not black, and all human. Remus does not look anything like an ovis aries.”

Remus had to suppress a snort of laughter at that. Patton, on the other hand, sighed and dropped his voice. “He’s the… Troublemaker. I heard from somebody that he’s even been picked up by the cops once or twice. Ditches school. Crashes parties. Picks fights. There’s various graffiti in the bathrooms suggesting he has a… Somewhat illegal job.”

“Oh - are you referring to the numerous grammatically incorrect scrawls implying that somebody named Wang is a prostitute? Those did not entirely make sense when I applied them to Roman, but I did not know whether there was another Wang here…”

Personally, Remus found those scrawls hilarious - but hearing himself discussed like this was anything but. He shouldn’t have slowed down to listen in.

“That would be him. You can see why Roman doesn’t really talk about him, right?” Remus had never heard Patton sounding so cruel before. “Roman resents him, I think. He’s always taking the spotlight away - that’s just what Ro said, I don’t really know. If they weren’t identical, you’d never think they were related. Roman is - well, Roman, and Remus is pretty much a criminal already, it’s not like Roman needs him around, so-”

“Patton,” said the owner of the other voice, who Remus had turned around to see was a tall, dark-skinned guy with thick-rimmed glasses and a tie, “you are being unusually cruel toward this-”

Of course, the fact that Remus had turned around when Patton had called him a criminal meant that his fist had collided with Patton’s jaw shortly after the new student had said his name. The rest of his sentence had continued coming out of his mouth despite the fact that Patton was stumbling backward, hand to his face (which Remus knew was going to bruise up terribly but couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty). A red haze had descended over Remus’ vision.

“I really do not think that violence-”

“Remus! I - I didn’t-”

“Can it, Specs. Patton, do you want to finish that sentence with or without your buckteeth?”

There was already a loose horseshoe of students around them, all staring at Patton - nobody was standing behind him. It was as though they didn’t want to be in Remus’ way.

“I - no, Remus, I was just-”

The snarl of rage that left Remus then was probably the thing that got him in the most trouble. That, and the fact that he dived at Patton fists first, catching him in the face once more. Patton’s head jerked back, and his body followed - and then Remus realised why there were no students behind him.

It was because they were at the top of a flight of stairs.

Patton didn’t just fall down the stairs. He tumbled, short curls over knee-length skirt; he practically bounced off the wall at the bottom with a sickening crunch, stumbled, and then slipped down the second flight as well.

And then Patton was lying two floors below them, limbs at the wrong angles, blood spreading out like a halo around his golden head and dripping from his nose. His blue eyes were still open - and he was blinking, as though he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.

That image, of him standing at the top of the stairs while white noise roared in his ears, of Patton lying at the bottom like a broken doll, was one that never left him.

The crunch when he had hit the wall had Remus bolting awake within minutes of falling asleep for the next month, no matter how much he had drunk, or what he had tried to knock himself out with.

He had been suspended for nearly a month. It would have been longer had Patton not been informed that he was going to make a full recovery despite the severe concussion, the four snapped ribs, the complex fracture in his left arm, and the broken leg.

At first, when a teacher dragged him into an office and locked him in, Remus hadn’t been able to say a word. There were no words he could say.

Later, when they had been grilling him - the head teacher, three senior members of staff, his parents, and a police officer - he had barely been able to string a sentence together. Finally, the principal had gotten to her feet, had slammed her hands down on the desk in front of him, and almost yelled: “We have two dozen eyewitnesses, Wang! Staying silent isn’t going to help your case at all. Tell us what happened. Explain to us. Say something!” He had looked around, wishing that somebody would come to his defense, but nobody did. “Did you push Patton Grace down the stairs?”

That was when a smirk had spread across his face. He hadn’t wanted it there. It sickened him. He didn’t know why he said it. “Fuck yes I did.”

And then Remus started laughing. He couldn’t stop, no matter how much his parents yelled at him, how disgusted his teachers looked. He could barely even stop to breathe. He laughed as they settled his suspension, he laughed as his parents literally dragged him out of school - he was laughing too hard to walk straight, the sound being dragged from him as though by giant, steel hands with hooked fingers, shredding the inside of his throat - and he laughed as the police officer informed him that they would be keeping an eye on him. He laughed all the way home.

Remus laughed until he threw up, and then he laughed until he cried, and then he couldn’t stop crying either. He had cried until he had blacked out.

Then he had woken up, screaming harder than ever.

He was grounded, of course, but when had that stopped him doing anything?

Remus started walking through the woods instead of even trying to sleep. He walked until he couldn’t walk any further, and then he lay down on the floor and slept for as long as he could, and then he went home. He considered running away, but knew he wouldn’t get anywhere. He’d be arrested, or murdered, or something.

It was around then that he actually started using the razor he had stolen a few months before the incident. It wasn’t that he wanted to die. It wasn’t even that he wanted to see the blood that oozed from his arms.

Actually, he didn’t know why he did it.

He just knew that it was easy.

The first time Janus found him in the woods, Remus had managed to twist his ankle in the darkness and had fallen down a slope. He had gone through what had turned out to be a fence made of barbed wire and landed in a ditch, and hadn’t bothered trying to get up again. He wasn’t entirely sure he could move, actually. So he lay there, bleeding and bruised, and allowed himself to fall asleep. Maybe a rabid dog would find him and eat him. That would certainly solve a lot of problems for people.

And then Janus was untangling the metal claws from around his torso, was helping him out of the ditch despite the fact that he knew Janus knew every bad thing that everybody said about him, was letting him lean on him without acting as though Remus was going to maul him.

He took him into the largest house Remus had ever been invited inside (he may have broken in to one or two for reasons he could not remember), led him to an upstairs bathroom, and then sat him on the side of a truly massive bathtub to smear antiseptic all over him before wrapping him in an astonishing amount of bandages. Remus was dimly aware that Janus was speaking to him for pretty much the entire time, but he had no idea what the words were. All he could really understand was the tone, which was… Kind. Janus wasn’t shouting at him. Janus wasn’t being disdainful or cruel - at least, not in tone. Janus was talking to him as though he were a spooked, injured creature… And Remus started crying again. That was the first time he cried in front of Janus Sinclaire.

Janus lent him a spare change of clothes for him to get home. They were too long and too tight, but Remus accepted them anyway. He didn’t thank him, even though he knew he should. He did try to, but Remus found that he couldn’t speak again. All that came out when he tried was a hum that would have embarrassed him if he had been lucid enough to care.

Then Janus had walked him home.

The second time he came across Janus in the woods, it had been his birthday. March 17th. Remus was fifteen. When he had gotten downstairs that morning, there had been a small pile of presents in Roman’s place on the kitchen table, and nothing in his. He had cut a large, messy slice from the gorgeous chocolate cake that read ‘Happy 15th Birthday, Roman!’ and taken it into the woods. It was his birthday too, after all. He at least deserved the part that read ‘15th’.

He had been walking blindly, not really caring where he was going, when he heard the sound of screaming. With nothing better to do, Remus hurried in that direction. If it was a serial killer, maybe he’d see something gorey and cool. Or maybe he’d get murdered. It didn’t matter either way.

It was not a serial killer. Instead, Janus Sinclaire was standing at the edge of the abandoned quarry, screaming wordlessly into it. Frowning, Remus shoved the last of his cake into his mouth and chewed fiercely at it, then started moving forward. A twig snapped.

Janus must have heard it, because he span around, shoulders hunching defensively. They stared at one another for a long, long moment before Remus wiped his chocolatey fingers on his shirt and moved to stand next to Janus. He nodded once, as though screaming into a large hole in the ground was a perfectly normal thing to be doing at eight in the morning, and started yelling as well.

After a moment, Janus joined in once more.

They were friends after that.

They only met in the woods at first. Remus had no desire to drag Janus’ reputation through the mud by letting them be seen together, and Janus seemed happy enough as long as they were spending time together.

Some time in late May that year, they were sitting on a rock beside a small stream together. It was early in the morning - early enough that they had watched the sun rise together, both of them cradling coffee poured from a flask that Janus had brought on his early morning walk. They hadn’t been talking, preferring to sit and watch the ripples of tiny fish in the water in front of them, when Janus had leaned forward and plucked a leaf from Remus’ hair.

“There’s a lot of them in here. Did you roll down a bank to get here?” He pulled another one out, and the morning sun made his skin and eyes briefly glow.

Remus had no idea why somebody made of literal sunlight wanted to be his friend. “Nah, I slept here. Parents didn’t let me in last night.”

Janus frowned. His fingers were carding through Remus’ hair now, tugging at autumn’s pine needles and knots alike. “That’s not fair.”

“Eh. Happens often enough. An’ I was drunk last night, as well as past curfew. No biggie.”

Janus’ fingers caught, and Remus hissed out a curse of pain. “Sorry! Sorry… Rem, if that happens again, will you…”

“When.”

“Hm?”

“When it happens again.”

“Right.” Janus did not look pleased. “When it happens again. Call me, or send me a message, okay? You can stay at mine. What if you got hurt out here, and I wasn’t there to help? I’d rather not find you dead in the quarry because you slipped in the dark…”

Remus made a choked noise, then nodded rapidly.

It was weird, having somebody care about him like that.

Actually sending Janus the text wasn’t easy, but sneaking through his bedroom window was. Changing into the oversized hoodie and sweatpants Janus offered him was easy, and slipping into bed beside him was easy too. When he was jerked awake by his friend shaking him and instructed to hide under the bed, Remus did so. Letting his friend lie to his parents about the screaming, that was easy too.

Somehow, even apologising to Janus, explaining about his nightmares, and offering to leave was easy.

Melting into the hug that Janus wrapped him in and falling back asleep beside his friend, though? That was the easiest thing of all.

-

Life actually got a little better after that, even though Remus’ new attempts to find something to stop himself from screaming at night were having a broadly varied range of horrible side-effects on him. The only other downside was Virgil: Virgil was no longer as friendly as he had been before. It took Remus a while to figure out why. They had been friends, been good friends, even though Roman had stopped talking to Virgil altogether by the time he had gotten back to school, even though he wasn’t welcome at Virgil’s house anymore.

Eventually, he had expressed his concerns to Janus. Well, Janus had caught on to the fact that Remus had been extra twitchy for the last few days, and had finally sat him down on a fallen log and poked his shoulder with one long, graceful finger.

“Spit it out, arms.” The nickname had been earned when Janus realised exactly how long it had been since anybody had hugged Remus, and Remus had responded far too enthusiastically. Janus had said it was like hugging an octopus.

Remus spat the gum he had been chewing into his palm and offered it to Janus, who wrinkled his nose.

“Not the gum. What’s eating you, Remus?”

“About six mosquitos, far as I can tell. Why the sudden interest? Developed a taste for human blood and don’t want to share?” Remus put his chewing gum back into his mouth and leaned back over the log, forming a bridge with his body.

Janus sat down beside him. “Just because you dragged me out here to distract me from intense amount of extra work I have to do -”

“Have to do?”

“Am being encouraged to do,” Janus amended, smiling faintly. He prodded Remus’ stomach gently. “Just because you’re trying to distract me doesn’t mean we can’t talk about you, too. What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid.” Remus sat up and rubbed the bark from his bare forearms. He only wore short sleeves around Janus.

“It’s bothering you, so it’s not stupid.” Leaning down, his friend picked up a small stone and tossed into a small pool that had formed between the roots of a tree in front of them. There was a small splash.

Remus sighed. “Virgil’s been avoiding me. No biggie. Told you it was stupid.”

Janus hummed quietly, digging around at his feet for another stone. When he straightened up, he handed Remus a worm before throwing the second pebble into the puddle. Another splash. Remus watched the worm twist on his palm. The way its pale pink, ribbed body moved always fascinated, and there was something bizarrely soothing about the slightly slimy feeling of it against his skin.

“Do you think it might be because you pushed his boyfriend down two flights of stairs?” There was no judgement in Janus’ voice.

Remus wasn’t entirely sure where to begin pulling that statement apart. His first instinct was to go on the defensive; his second was to claim that he was fully aware of the fact, and that it had been purposeful. He ignored both of those. Janus deserved better from him. He took a slow, deep breath.

“Virgil… Has a boyfriend?”

“Interesting thing to focus on,” Janus commented. He added a second worm and a small beetle to Remus’ now cupped hands. “But yes, Virgil is dating Patton. They’re together a lot at school.” Patton had returned to school in a wheelchair about two weeks after he had fallen. Remus had stayed as far away from him as he could.

He mumbled something.

“Didn’t catch that, Rem. Do you want an earwig? I always forget if you like them or not.”

Remus held out his hands for the earwig. “You know, earwigs were named for the belief that they would crawl in through people’s ears whilst they slept and lay eggs there, or else start eating their brains. It’s funny. These little dudes have no interest in your brain. They like eating rotten wood, that’s why you found one by this tree… I didn’t mean to push Patton, you know?”

Janus had been nodding along, clearly about to make some snide comment - possibly about some people needing to be concerned because they had brains made of rotting wood - but he paused when Remus said that. His face didn’t change. Remus was glad that Janus never seemed to mind his sudden jumps in conversation. “I… Had assumed that you didn’t mean to hurt him,” he said finally, and Remus smiled faintly.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did think it had been on purpose, you know. I did own up to it, a bunch of people said they saw…”

Another earthworm in his hands. The earwig had crawled up his sleeve, but Remus didn’t mind. “Okay,” Janus said slowly, “do you want to tell me what did happen? The hysterical laughter as you left the school probably didn’t help your case.”

Remus groaned. “I know… It wouldn’t stop, I was trying… Not the millipede, thanks. If that goes up my sleeve and I bring it home by mistake, my dad’ll be pissed.”

“Not the millipede,” Janus agreed, returning it to the ground at his feet.

They were quiet for a time, but it was a nice quiet. It wasn’t the kind of quiet that felt as though Janus were trying to crack his skull into pieces to pick at his brains with his long fingers. “I… I did want to hurt him. But not… Not that badly.” Janus stayed quiet, and Remus found that he couldn’t look at him. Instead, he addressed the four worms, earwig, and two beetles that were in various positions on his arms. “He was showing that new kid around, the one that talks like a dictionary? Not that I’m complaining, he was nice to listen to -”

“Logan uses they-them, Rem.”

“Right. They were nice to listen to. But then they started talking about me - the two of them, not just Logan - and Patton said some… Stuff.” He shifted. “Saw red. Went to punch him. I guess I just… Wanted to hurt him a bit. I didn’t know we were by the staircase. It was an… Accident.”

They were quiet again. Remus waited for Janus to stand up and walk off, to say that he knew that it had been a mistake to drag him out of that ditch on the first morning. Instead, he leaned sideways and rested his head on Remus’ shoulder, his hair tickling Remus’ cheek.

“I’m sorry, Rem.” He murmured, and Remus felt his heart stop, and then overflow. Carefully, he put his handful of creepy-crawlies down on the log beside him so that he could wrap his arms around Janus.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know. I’m still sorry it happened like it did.”

Remus hesitated. “You still don’t think I’m a monster? I coulda killed him, and I just… Laughed.”

“I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s a trauma response, Rem. Doesn’t make you a bad person…”

It was very, very nice, being told that he wasn’t a bad person.

There had been an evening, about a month and a half after he had first spent the night at Janus’, that Janus had actually seen him pull the small box of assorted stolen tablets out of his pocket and shake a blue one and a green-and-orange one onto his palm. Janus had only been able to see because Remus had found that this combination of drugs made him really dizzy almost immediately, and if he didn’t take them whilst he was literally in bed he was liable to bump into things and collapse in the middle of the floor.

There he was, sitting on the edge of Janus’ bed, about to toss the brightly coloured somethings (and Remus genuinely had no idea what they were, only that they made him horribly dizzy and took all the flavour out of his food but meant that he didn’t scream when his nightmares took him over) into his mouth, when Janus’ arm looped over his shoulder and he closed his fingers around Remus’. “What’re these, Rem?”

Lying to Janus was not easy. It was actually very, very difficult, because Remus knew that Janus actually cared about him. He cleared his throat. “Don’t know.” A burning sort of silence followed, and he hurried to clarify. “They stop me screaming.”

Janus nodded slowly, then frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Shoplifted ‘em. Didn’t check the labels other than to make sure they weren’t caffeinated or poisonous.”

“That’s illegal. And you know most drugs are poisonous if you take them without knowing what they are, right?”

Remus groaned and tried to tug his hand out of Janus’ grip. “So? Not like anyone’ll miss me if I do end up dead. And in the meantime, these stop me bothering people and have fewer side effects than mixing the green’n’orange with the red oval ones. Can I take these and go to sleep now?”

“I’d miss you.” Janus’ voice was almost tremulous, and Remus glanced over his shoulder to see that his friend’s eyes had gone wide and glittery. Was he crying? Fuck.

“Jan, I’m not gonna die. I was joking, I…”

“Didn’t sound like you were joking.” The scared note was gone from Janus’ voice, and now he sounded almost angry. Remus swallowed. “Sounded to me like you’re mixing stolen drugs that you have no idea what they’ll do to you. And that you don’t give a shit if you end up in a coma or dead because you’re trying to make up your own nightmare cure. Are you about to look me in the eye and tell me that any of that is a lie?”

Remus swallowed again, harder this time, and tried to think of something to say.

“Didn’t think so. Rem, why don’t you just… See a doctor, or something? Instead of stealing shit and poisoning yourself with it?”

And now Remus chuckled. “Jan… I’m fine. I’ve been doing this for nearly two years, ‘n I’m not dead yet. And stuff’s better at home when I’m not waking everyone up every night.”

Janus did not look remotely reassured. “Didn’t your parents take you to see someone? If you were screaming every night?”

“Nah. It’s no biggie, I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. It’s normal, Jan. Can you let me take my poisons now? You have an English quiz tomorrow, you need sleep… And you don’t need me waking you up, either.” Remus tried to tug his hand away again. This time, Janus’ fingers slipped into his palm, and then the small tablets were gone. Remus lunged for them.

“Nope. No. Nope, you’re not having these back.” Janus actually got out of bed, and Remus followed him over to the window.

“Jan, give them back. Let’s just go to bed and forget about this, okay? It’s no big deal.”

Janus opened the window, and Remus almost jumped at him. “You know something, Remus?”

“No. Close the window.”

“You say that a lot. It’s no big deal. No biggie. You said about your parents refusing to let you come home if you stayed out past curfew. You said it about everybody thinking you were a monster. You said it about your arms, and if that isn’t a big fucking deal, I don’t know what is.” Remus automatically folded his arms across his chest to hide them, and Janus gave him a look. “So I think that no big deal is actually code for this is the biggest deal ever and I am not okay right now. Am I right?”

Remus didn’t want to nod, but he didn’t exactly want to lie to Janus. In his hesitation, Janus cocked his arm back and then snapped his wrist forward, and the pills went soaring out of the window. Remus let out a snarl of frustration.

“Rem…”

“What the fuck do you want me to do, Jan? I can’t just give up! And it’s not like I can see somebody about it. What kind of loser gets nightmares every night for his whole life? They’ll lock me away, or drug me into oblivion.”

“Like you’re already trying to do?” Remus tried to ignore the sympathy in Janus’ voice that said he knew exactly where Remus’ worries came from. “You know, nobody’s going to think you’re -”

“Mad? Dangerous? Haven’t you heard, Jan? I tried to kill Patton Grace. I tried to burn down a house with my family inside. They’ll lock me up and throw away the fucking key if I try to tell somebody about the nightmares.” He was already leaning down to pull the bottle from his hoodie to replace the tablets that Janus had just thrown away.

“I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”

Remus shook his head once.

Then Janus was on top of him, wrapping his arms around his torso and squeezing, and Remus hesitated for the barest moment before hugging back. He hadn’t realised he was trembling until exactly that moment. “Okay. Okay, Rem, okay. I won’t. But you gotta promise you’re gonna be safer, yeah? I can’t lose you.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Remus grumbled, trying to hide the fact that a lump had swollen in his throat. “‘Safer’?”

“It means, quit using shit if you don’t know what it is. And don’t mix’n’match, you idiot.”

Remus groaned and pressed his face into Janus’ shoulder. “Fine. Any recommendations? Or are you just talking out of your arse and hoping something sensible occurs to me? I warned you already, sensible isn’t my best feature…”

“Yeah, I got a recommendation.” Remus had a feeling that his surprise at Janus’ words rippled through his entire body, because his friend chuckled darkly and tugged him back toward the bed. “As much as I hate the idea of helping you drug yourself, I’d prefer I helped you do it safely than not. Have you tried Xanax?”

Remus snorted. “That’s prescription.” He sat down on the corner of the mattress and looked up at Janus in the dim light cast by the small bedside light, and discovered that he wouldn’t be surprised if his friend came out with flawless plans to rob every bank in a hundred mile radius. There was something sly and cunning in the set of his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes.

“My mother has it for work stress. I’ll grab some for you. If it doesn’t work, we can try something else, but we’re going to do it-”

“I am going to do it safely,” Remus groaned, “I get it.”

“We. I’m not entirely sure I trust you on this to just let you handle it…”

It worked better than anything else he had tried, and it didn’t make him sick, or dizzy, or always exhausted, or bizarrely miserable, or make him piss blood or get nosebleeds.

When Remus’ family was out, he would invite Janus over to his place, and they would curl up on his bed and watch movies on Roman’s laptop (Roman’s password, ‘Prince Roman’, was not only easy to guess, but also written on a post-it note stuck on his keyboard). Sometimes they’d explode popcorn in the microwave.

When Janus’ family was out, Janus would invite him over, and they would make cakes or buns in the kitchen, a volcano in the bathroom, a fire in a wastepaper basket in the living room on which they roasted marshmallows and tried to scare one another with ghost stories.

When Janus turned sixteen, Remus took him on a two-in-the-morning caving expedition in the forest, where they almost got chased through the woods by what Janus swore was a bear but Remus was certain had had six legs and eight eyes and teeth running down its spine.

He was very keen to go back to see what it was, but Janus decided that they probably shouldn’t bother it, whatever it was. (“A cryptid at the least,” Remus commented.) (“A bear, you fool”).

Janus’ birthday brought a new concern before them, though: his parents had suddenly started talking to him about the future.

“It’s not like they used to,” Janus confided one evening, a few weeks after his birthday. “It used to be this thing that was… Well, far away. It wasn’t so important, the important thing was doing well now.”

“Yeah?” Remus looked up from the chunk of wood he was trying to turn into something resembling the bear-monster they had fought. (“We ran away from it, Remus.”) “What’s changed?”

“Dad keeps trying to get me to look at syllabuses for different degrees… Do I want to do psychology? Sociology? Behavioral studies? Economics? Maths? I think he’s secretly hoping I’ll become a financial advisor like him…” Remus made a retching sound, then accidentally sent the bear-monster’s ear spinning away from him through the clearing.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. My mother isn’t doing that - yet - but she keeps giving me the prospectuses for different colleges. Says that she knows I’ll work hard and be successful wherever I go, and that I should pick somewhere I care about to aim for…” There was something in Janus’ tone that made Remus put down the knife and branch that was now going to become a fish-monster rather than a bear-monster, and reached over to nudge his shoulder.

“You don’t sound on board with that.”

Janus shrugged. “They have a point, I guess. If I don’t start making the right choices now, who knows where I’ll end up in a few years? This is the sort of stuff I need to look into.”

Remus frowned. “There’s no harm in taking a year off while you sort things out. You don’t even have to go to college, you know.”

“You don’t understand, Remus. Your parents don’t give a shit what you do - mine do. Besides, I… I want to go to college.”

“Rude, but fair enough.” He stood up and stretched, spine popping, and then scuffed his feet. “And, are you sure? Because you sound like you’re just saying that because they want you to.”

“No, I do. I just… I want it to be my choice, you know?”

“Sure,” agreed Remus, who didn’t have any inclination to go to college and knew for a fact that it would disappoint his parents. So what? He would be eighteen by then. “You want to go on your terms.”

“Exactly. I want to be able to do the research without them breathing over my shoulder, or… Or telling me that this course is for wusses, or that course will end in a degree that professionals are just going to laugh at, or…” He groaned and jerked a hand through his hair, which had been cut short about a week before. It was obvious that Janus had been less than happy about the change, and kept forgetting that he no longer had hair hanging down the back of his neck. “It would be nice if they didn’t expect me to be perfect all the time, you know? I’m a teenager. I’m allowed to make mistakes from time to time.”

Remus squeezed Janus’ shoulder sympathetically. “They must be being really pushy about it, if it’s bad enough for you to complain…”

Janus made a frustrated sound, then nodded. “I’m… It’s like every time I take a breath, they wait for me to exhale gold dust. It’s suffocating, you know?”

Personally, no, Remus did not. But now that Janus vocalised it, he had a feeling that Roman must feel like this at least some of the time. “Is there anything I can do?”

The next time they met up, Janus brought the large stack of shiny prospectuses with him, and they poured over them for hours together, a notebook in front of Janus for him to take notes on anything that looked particularly promising or should be further researched. Remus made stupid comments about the students pictured in the brochures and the quotes from the faculty every time it looked as though the sheer number of things to choose from was becoming overwhelming, and poked and prodded Janus every time he started saying things that sounded as though he were quoting his parents (Janus had a specific voice he used for quotes).

Over several long afternoons, they cut the pile of universities and courses down to only three or four, and then Remus had to watch Janus going to visit the places with his parents.

Watching Janus drive away and return overflowing with enthusiasm for these places that Remus would likely never see struck him with a strange melancholy, and eventually Janus seemed to cotton on to the fact that he was retreating into himself whenever Janus tried to bring the subject up.

“You know you could come with me, right?” They were in Janus’ room, Remus lying on the floor and painting his nails to look as though they were covered in blood, Janus on the bed, flipping through a book on applying for law courses.

Remus looked up briefly, then snorted and returned to adding globs of red varnish to his cuticles. “Even if I had any desire to go to college, Jan, I couldn’t. I’m not smart enough for a scholarship, I don’t have much cash, and my parents aren’t going to pay for me.”

“You are smart, Rem.”

He snorted again, and Janus made a distressed noise. “Okay, fine, I’m smart. But I haven’t worked hard enough for that to show at all, so it amounts to the same thing.”

“I could kidnap you. Make you live under my bed for the duration of the school year - you could pretend to be a ghost and haunt my roommate or something.” Janus turned a page, but from where Remus was lying it looked as though he had only done it to have something to do with his hands.

“So what you’re saying is that you couldn’t last a year without me to help?” Remus rolled onto his back and started flapping his left hand in an attempt to dry the paint. “I’m touched. Nice to know you’re willing to be so vulnerable around me, Jan.”

Janus flipped him off without looking up, then sighed. “I just… I’ll miss you, obviously. And I don’t like the idea of you being here without me.”

“Managed just fine without you,” Remus replied defensively - although he was more flattered than offended.

Janus just raised an eyebrow at him.

“Fine, I’m a mess. But it’s two years away, Jan - don’t worry about it so much. You’ll give yourself a stroke.”

“That’s not how strokes work. And I do worry about it. I worry about you a lot, Remus…”

Remus groaned quietly and sat up. “Janus.” Janus nodded to show that he was listening. “No, Janus, look at me.” Nothing. “Janus…”

Finally, Janus lifted his grey eyes from the paper before him and met Remus’ gaze.

“Do you really think there’s anything keeping me here if you’re gone?” Remus had allowed all of the bravado to drop from his voice, and he knew that Janus could hear how vulnerable he was allowing himself to be. “I’ll find a job or something, the same place you end up. I’ll be there for you when you need me.” He allowed his face to crack into a smile again. “I know you couldn’t really last a year without me, don’t worry.”

Janus threw the brochure at him, but he was laughing. They both were.

Then Remus turned sixteen, and a number of things happened, mostly bad.

About a month after his birthday, Janus texted him at four in the morning with three words.

<Virgil’s place. Now.>

<Sent 03:57>

Remus should have been asleep. On most nights, he would have been. But the clouds that had been rolling over their town for the past few days had finally burst into the most spectacular thunderstorm he had seen in a long time, and Remus was awake. He was watching the sky, first and foremost, watching it be rent in two with searing near-purple light that left lines across the insides of his eyelids when he closed them. He was trying to figure out a way to be hit by lightning without actually dying, because that sounded honestly thrilling. And because Janus had put his foot down and said that he wasn’t allowed to just go and get struck with a billion volts of raw electricity because it would probably kill him. The last reason for him being awake was not one liked admitting, even to himself: he was staying awake in case Roman needed him. His twin was terrified of lightning storms and although Remus could never quite figure out why, he didn’t want to leave Roman alone if he woke up to the storm.

Remus was fully aware that he was disgustingly soft for his brother, despite how much of a jerk he was.

Then Janus’ text came through, and suddenly Roman didn’t matter so much. Remus was climbing out of the bathroom window within seconds, wearing only a pair of shorts and a sweater that were soaked through almost immediately.

At a sprint, it took him less than fifteen minutes to reach Virgil’s home, although he could barely see when he arrived. The woods were not meant to be navigated at top speed in a storm in the middle of the night, and it was some sort of miracle that he hadn’t tripped over a root and broken his ankle (and now was really not the time to see bone poking through his skin, as cool as that may be in different circumstances).

All the lights were on.

Muddy, soaking wet, covered in leaves and twigs and scratches from brambles and not caring in the slightest, Remus barreled toward the back door and hammered on it. Virgil’s dad could call his parents later: this was an emergency.

The door swung open with no resistance at all, and Remus swallowed hard. Dread was pooling in his stomach.

Remy was in the kitchen, along with a pink-haired guy that Remus didn’t recognise, and so much grief that Remus could feel it trying to force itself down his throat, to drag him down into its depths. If Remy was like this, the worst had to have happened, right? It was just like in his nightmares. Remus could feel his hands trembling, and it wasn’t the chill of being wet to the bone making them shake.

“Where-”

The guy Remus didn’t know had an arm around Remy, and he had never seen Virgil’s brother look smaller, curled up against him. They were practically on the same chair. Remy looked up with bloodshot eyes, then jerked his chin toward the hallway. “Upstairs.”

It was easy to find Virgil after that. Remus just had to follow the sound of crying, audible even over the way his heart was pounding in his ears. He didn’t care how mad Mr Spince would be at the trail of mud and foliage he was leaving in his wake.

When he saw that Virgil wasn’t dead, didn’t even seem injured, Remus almost put his fist through the wall out of sheer relief. Then the rest of the scene in Virgil’s room came rushing in, and he didn’t feel so happy anymore.

Janus and Patton were already there. Janus was sitting on the end of the bed, squeezing Virgil’s calf gently. Patton was with Virgil at the head of the bed, rubbing his back, looking as though he were about to burst into tears as well. Virgil himself was the source of the crying, curled up into a tight ball as sobs tore through him. His hoodie was draped over his shoulders, presumably by Patton (who had looked up when Remus had entered, paled briefly, and then turned his attention back to Virgil).

Remus had pretty much figured out what had happened even before Janus turned to him and murmured, “Car crash. The rain, wasn’t anyone’s fault…”

Mr Spince wasn’t going to tell Remus off for tracking mud up his stairs and into his son’s room. He wasn’t going to be telling anybody off for anything.

When he climbed onto the bed and slotted himself between Virgil and the wall, on the other side of Patton, who flinched briefly, nobody complained that he was damp and filthy and getting mud and blood onto Virgil’s duvet. It wasn’t all that comfortable, but it wasn’t really a night for being comfortable.

They stayed with Virgil all night. At some point, he and Patton fell asleep, and Janus joined them soon after. Remus didn’t sleep, one arm holding Virgil as close as he could, the other squeezing Janus’ fingers gently.

The funeral was small, with only a handful of guests, mostly middle-aged men and women in business-wear who Remus assumed had worked with Virgil’s dad. They stared openly when they saw Remus, who hadn’t been able to find anything suitable to wear and ended up showing up in a pair of tight black jeans (the least ripped pair he owned) and a black t-shirt (one that actually went right the way down to his waist) under a long-sleeved mesh shirt. Neither Virgil nor Remy had batted an eyelid. Both had hugged him tightly.

He and Janus had spent a lot of time with Virgil over the coming weeks. It got to the point that although Patton wasn’t entirely happy talking to him, he no longer flinched when he came near him.

The second thing that happened when he was sixteen surprised him, and actually in a positive way: his parents had gotten Roman driving lessons for his birthday, and in a fit of generosity had actually done the same for him. Maybe things were going to be better this year.

He should have known it wouldn’t last, of course.

Remus had been on his best behaviour, hoping that maybe he could wring some form of affection from his usually distant parents, hating himself for wanting so desperately to finally gain some form of approval from them.

Roman had had no such concerns - but he didn’t need to, did he? Whenever it looked as though their parents might turn against him, he could just shuffle their disappointment sideways onto Remus; that was exactly what had happened.

When their father had marched him outside to look at the dented, reeking mess that had been his car before Roman had gotten his hands on it, and demanded to know why Remus had thought taking it out was a good idea, Remus hadn’t answered immediately. Instead he had looked up at Roman’s bedroom window (“It’s no good being angry with your brother, he did the right in telling us,”) and found that his twin was staring down at him, his eyes wide. He looked scared.

Remus still should have defended himself. Instead, he just shrugged, swallowed down the fury that was building in his chest, and went back to his room. No more driving lessons for him.

By that night, his anger at Roman had cooled and hardened into fury at their parents, for pitting them against one another like this. He took the easiest, pettiest revenge he could think of, slipping out of his bedroom window with a letter opener and dragging it along the side of their mother’s car.

He had been caught, of course. His parents weren’t about to let him get away with trashing both cars in the space of two days. When Dae found him out there, crouched by the passenger side door and already having left several long, deep scratches in the baby-blue paintwork, he had genuinely thought that she might hit him. She didn’t. Hitting one of her sons would be a bigger mark of shame for her than merely resenting the child’s very existence, and they both knew it.

Remus almost wished she would hit him. At least then he could have some sort of victory, bitter though it would be.

About three months after his birthday, Janus actually called him.

They never called one another, partially because Remus hated the way he could hear his voice echoing down the phone line with a passion that made him want to claw his own ears from his skull, and partially because it was harder to have frequent secret phone calls. (Remus maintained that their friendship being discovered would be very, very bad for Janus’ reputation. Janus hated it, but agreed that his parents would not be at all impressed). It was thanks to this fact that Remus knew something had to be wrong even before he had swiped his finger over to answer.

“Hey, Jan. What’s up?”

Remus was met with silence, and then a noise very close to a stifled sob, and felt his hackles rise.

“Janus. Do I need to kill somebody?” Another sob. It sounded as though Janus was trying to calm down for long enough to say something, but was entirely unable. “I will, you know. If somebody hurt you, I’ll hurt them so much worse.” Okay, so maybe he wouldn’t kill them - Remus wasn’t keen on the idea of being a murderer - but he was more than happy to beat somebody into a pulp so fine that their teeth were the largest recognisable pieces if they hurt his best friend.

“N-No, don’t, don’t do that,” Janus finally managed, his voice cracking again on the last word. Remus slowly moved his sketchpad off of his lap and hid it under his bed. “It’s - It’s stupid, I…”

“Can you get to the log behind your house? I’ll meet you there if you can.” There was silence - well, not silence exactly, but nothing more than a few hiccups and sobs. “If you can’t, that’s okay. Tell me where you are, and I’ll be right there.”

Janus didn’t speak for such a long time that Remus was on the verge of calling Virgil to see if he knew anything (Virgil had an uncanny knack for knowing everything about everyone, or at least guessing very accurately) and then running a solo town-wide search starting from Janus’ house. “I… Yeah, I’ll… Meet you there, if th- that’s okay…”

That was all Remus needed to climb out of his window and dive barefoot into the forest behind the house. (He was still grounded, and his parents seemed to think that preventing him from keeping his shoes in his room would stop him from going out. Ridiculous. He could survive with torn-up feet for a few weeks). (And Janus had lent him a pair of old trainers as soon as he had found out; Remus kept them in a plastic bag under a rock just beyond the treeline). Janus’ house was about half an hour away from his if he were walking fast: Remus sprinted, only slightly less urgently than he had two months ago to get to Virgil’s house, and made it in twenty. Janus was already there, sitting against the fallen tree with his knees hugged tightly to his chest. He had stopped crying but looked as though he might start at any moment, and leaned against Remus the second he threw himself down beside him. Remus didn’t protest. If Janus needed to hug him when he was sweaty and could barely breathe, he could cope with that.

When Remus found that he was breathing more or less evenly again, he wrapped both arms around Janus’ torso and pulled him closer, resting his chin on the top of his head. Janus pressed his face into Remus’ chest. He didn’t really fit in Remus’ lap, being almost a head taller than him, but neither of them really cared. “Hey… You’re… I’m here, Jan, you can cry if you want… I don’t mind… Whatever you need…”

Gently, he lifted one hand to tug Janus’ chocolate coloured beanie from his head so he could start carding his fingers through his hair; Janus’ shoulders started shaking a second later. Remus made a soft crooning noise in the back of his throat, then started murmuring reassuring nonsense, very glad that nobody else was ever going to hear how soft he was letting himself be.

When Janus finally straightened up and took his hat back to wipe his eyes on, Remus squeezed his side gently. “Hey. Do you want to talk about it?”

Janus sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Remus didn’t see why he didn’t just use the shirt Remus was wearing, which now had a very large gross patch on it. “‘S stupid,” he muttered.

Remus held up a stern finger. “No. If I’m not allowed to call my problems stupid, Janus Sinclaire, you definitely aren’t. Got it?” Janus nodded. “You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not. That’s okay.”

“No, I…” Janus sniffed again, and rested his head against Remus’ shoulder.

Remus reached up to rub his fingers gently against Janus’ skull again.

“You remember Phillip Junior?” Remus did. There was no Phillip Senior to explain the name Janus had chosen for the old, stuffed boa constrictor toy, but Janus had admitted that he had only been four when he had named it. Phillip Junior lived on the bookshelf in Janus’ room - it was practically the only thing other than a picture on his bedside table that made the room look as though it really did belong to Janus.

Remus nodded, and Janus took in a long, shuddering breath.

“You’ll… You’ll laugh.”

“No, I won’t.”

Janus looked at him as though he wasn’t entirely sure that he believed him, then sighed. “He wasn’t on my sh-shelf when I got home, an’... I looked for him, I checked he hadn’t - y’know, fallen down the back or anything, an’ he still wasn’t…”

He sniffed again, and Remus ripped a strip from the bottom of his shirt (it had been falling apart anyway, ever since he had gotten caught on a splintered fence, and he had been planning on turning it into a crop top for ages anyway) and handed it over. Janus stared at it as though he had just handed him a live lizard rather than a sandwich (and Remus had actually experienced the expression for that reason, so he knew what he was talking about).

“What’s this for?”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Blow your nose on it. Duh.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Janus snorted faintly, did as he was told, and then cleared his throat. It didn’t help much, given that he still sounded pretty choked up when he spoke again. “Um… I went ‘n’ asked my mother if she had seen P.J. ‘N’ she…” He sniffled again, but this time Remus didn’t take the pause as an opportunity to interrupt. “She said I’m too old for… For, y’know, stuffed animals. So she threw… She threw him out. The trash was collected earlier today - so he’s - he’s gone…”

His voice broke on the last word, and Remus sighed softly before pulling Janus closer to him. It wasn’t as though he needed his shirt to be clean for any particular reason, after all.

Remus wasn’t about to laugh at his friend for this. (Actually, he was a little offended that Janus thought he would be so insensitive, but this wasn’t really the time). He knew how stressed Janus was, how much pressure his parents kept balanced on top of him like the world’s most fucked up house of cards: it didn’t take something big for things to come crashing down. The destruction of a connection to a younger self, though - that felt fairly big.

There wasn’t much Remus could do just then, aside from offering Janus a place to let himself cry and listening to him talk.

When he got home later, though, he started looking at part-time jobs - in the city, of course, where nobody knew him - and eventually landed one lugging crates in the back of a supermarket. Three days a week, he’d get on the bus into the city rather than heading into school (he had been skipping a fair amount anyway, so it wasn’t as though anybody would miss him) and loaded boxes onto and off of the back of a delivery truck rather than struggling through algebra or calculus or history or whatever it was that everyone else was doing. He had had to lie about his age to get the job: they wouldn’t hire somebody that was meant to be in school whenever their shifts were scheduled regardless of whether he turned up or not.

Two months later, he found himself waiting outside Virgil’s house for a delivery box. He had asked Remy if he could put their place down as his delivery address, given that as far as his parents knew he had no money (he was technically still paying them back for the vase he had broken, as well as numerous other things, and didn’t get an allowance like Roman did) and any packages arriving for him would be regarded with immediate suspicion. Initially, he had only been going to order one animal (a snake, obviously) to replace Phillip Junior physically if not emotionally, but he had gotten carried away when the website had shown him a large, fluffy looking octopus as well.

For the first time in years, Remus had money, and friends that he wanted to spend it on - so he did.

Virgil had pretended not to be, but Remus could tell that he was thrilled by the large spider plushie that he handed him almost as soon as he had opened the box. He actually tried to play it cool.

“Oh, nice, Remus. That’s… Real sweet of you,” he had said, clearly trying to hide the way a grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth; Remus leaned in and hugged him anyway, and after a second Virgil returned the embrace tenfold.

To Janus he gave the snake, as planned, and also the octopus. Janus had taken one look and almost started crying, which Remus thought was a slightly over the top reaction but didn’t complain. The feeling of knowing that he had made his best friend so happy was so much more than worth it.

“Keep them under your bed,” he suggested, “that way your parents are less likely to find them.”

Janus hadn’t said anything for a few long moments - or if he had, Remus hadn’t been able to hear it because his face was pressed into the domed crown of the octopus. Then he had straightened up a little, arms still wrapped tightly around the stuffed animals, and smiled broadly at him. “Remus, you didn’t have to do this… You should be saving your money, not wasting it on me…”

“It’s not a waste - besides, I never do anything for you.” Remus punched Janus playfully on the shoulder, and Janus shook his head. Putting the toys down on his bed, he shoved Remus gently, and Remus pretended to stumble. It was only polite.

“You do, though! You’re always here when I need you, and…”

“Look, Jan, don’t make this into a big deal.” Remus was almost blushing now, shifting awkwardly. People never really complimented him like this, and it just felt… Wrong. Nice, but wrong. “You were upset, so I wanted to help fix that. I know they’re not PJ, but…”

Janus held up a hand. “They’re perfect.”

Remus beamed at him.

He hadn’t only bought the spider, the snake, and the octopus, although when he pulled the stuffed lion out of the box to inspect it, he wished he had. This, more than any of the others, had been an impulse purchase. He was being stupid, sentimental, wasting time on the pointless wish that things could be different and that they’d never had to grow up and grow apart - and knowing all of those things had not stopped him from adding the lion to his basket. It had reminded him of Roman, probably because lions were pretty much the only animal Roman would draw, the same way he would always draw an octopus and Virgil a small army of spiders. Remus didn’t know whether he was planning on giving the toy to his brother; the decision was pretty much made for him when he arrived home that evening with it stuffed into his backpack. Roman was talking on his phone and barely glanced up when Remus came in. In fact, he didn’t look at Remus at all, so it took him a few seconds to realise that Roman had ended the call and was talking at him.

“... Cast dinner tonight, probably be out late. You don’t mind if I take the emergency cash mum and dad left us, right? If they call, don’t tell them I’m out - didn’t technically ask permission - they won’t call, they only left this morning, but just in case… That’s all fine, right?”

Remus blinked at him, trying to process the words into something that made sense (Roman talked fast when he was in a rush), and Roman seemed to take that as assent because he scooped the small pile of emergency cash that had been left on the counter into his pocket.

“Have a good evening, Rem, see you later!”

Oh, wait, no. Remus had caught that. “Ro, wait, I was thinking -” Thinking what? That they could do something together? They never spent time together anymore. Roman didn’t even look at him as he brushed past him on his way out.

“Later, Remus! I’m going to be late!” He left without another word, and Remus stared at the closed door behind him.

Well. Well, that was okay. Roman didn’t really need his screw-up of a brother to mess things up for him, did he? It was probably best that he didn’t associate with Remus much. For all Remus knew, the next thing that Roman blamed him for would end up getting him arrested, and it would be better if Roman wasn’t known to be close to him at that point.

No, that wasn’t fair. Roman wasn’t going to do something stupid that would get one of them arrested. Roman would just make little mistakes and shift the blame onto him, because he wanted their parents to keep loving him. That was okay.

Roman probably wouldn’t be able to take it if the disappointment usually reserved for Remus came down on him. He wasn’t built the same way, hadn’t had time to build up a proper roof against the acidic deluge - it would destroy him, and Remus knew it. He was pretty sure that Roman knew it, too, although probably more as a subconscious thing.

So whilst he couldn’t really blame Roman for any of it - he was nine minutes older, it was his responsibility to take care of his younger brother - he didn’t exactly have to like it.

In short, he was keeping the lion for himself.

The fourth thing that happened in the space between Remus’ sixteenth birthday in March and Janus’ in November was possibly the worst of all of them - although that was just what Janus said. Privately, Remus was pretty certain that Virgil’s dad dying was worse, but he wasn’t about to go and argue who had it worse with the captain of the debate team.

It wasn’t as though Remus had even been hurt, not properly. A few busted knuckles were old hat by now, the scabs never really fading between fights. And whilst he had been getting into fewer scraps, it wasn’t as though he were actively trying to stop picking them. It was just easier, when he was still spending four days a week lugging boxes (he had picked up Saturdays now, too) and wasn’t around people that could really do with a knuckle sandwich all the time.

Unfortunately, the fact that he had been trying to show some self-restraint whenever he actually did turn up to school seemed to give the impression that he was now on the table for anybody looking to earn a little fear by poking at a known danger.

Remus hadn’t been paying attention, so it was his fault, really. It had been an unnaturally sleepless few nights - although the Xanax induced paralysis had held and it had been a long time since his nightmares had made themselves known to anybody else - and he was looking forward to getting out of school and disappearing into the woods for a few hours with Janus. They had found a small crate in the stream a few weeks ago, and upon opening it had discovered that it was full of now-soaked fireworks probably left over from some summer carnival or other. They had carefully dried them out, and now that it was autumn and the nights were rolling in earlier they were going to head out to the quarry and see how many would still work.

Remus had only half listened to his morning physics lesson, too focused on decorating the pages of his textbook with a climbing pattern of thorns to take in much about the duality of light or whatever it was they were supposed to be learning, and was looking forward to not having to worry about paying attention in his next class, which was art. His art teacher had more or less given up trying to stop him from depicting gruesome dissections now, and tended to let him get on with it.

He was just leaving the science block, already wondering where he would find some good references for intestines, when somebody charged past him, knocking him off balance. Remus growled a few choice curses under his breath at them, righting himself - and then something hit his shoulder, and he stumbled sideways. In the time it took for him to realise that he had been pushed, there was the sound of a door slamming, and then he was in darkness.

At first, he tried to be rational. Somebody had thought it was funny to push him into a cupboard - fine. That was fine. He could get out, find whichever brat had thought it was a good idea, and make them swallow their teeth. He could do that. Feeling around, he found that the cupboard he was in was full of shelves - and rather smaller than he had been expecting. That was okay, that was okay, there were shelves on his left and in front of him and behind him, so the door must be… There, to his right, in a gap between the shelves. He pushed it, more than ready to be out of the small, dark cupboard. 

It.

Didn’t.

Open.

No matter how hard he pushed it, no matter how hard he rattled the handle, the door stayed closed.

Okay, okay, that was fine, that was - he could just take a run-up and bust it down. It was fine. He’d be out in just a minute. Remus could hear his heart beating in his ears, his breathing much, much too loud in the quiet space - he needed to calm that down. What if he ran out of air in here? No, no, that wasn’t going to happen. He was fine.

He took a step backward, and his back collided with the shelf behind him. Stretching his hands forward, he could press them against the door - and was the door closer to the back wall than it had been before? Remus blinked hard, the black of his eyelids indistinguishable from the black of the storeroom, and slammed his fist against the door.

He missed. Something shattered, painfully loud, something damp splashed against his shirt, and then there was an awful, itching, burning feeling across his chest.

With a strangled cry, Remus lurched backward, and there was the sound of more things shattering as he crashed into the shelving.

The door was locked.

The door was locked, and the walls were closing in on him, and nobody was going to find him this time.

It was a Friday - if nobody found him, he could stay in here all weekend, the walls pressing against his chest - only he wouldn’t, would he? He’d use up all the air in the room long, long before anybody let him out.

He was going to die in here.

Between the crushing walls and the suffocating blackness and the way his ragged breathing was refusing to slow or even out, he was going to die.

Remus wished he could have blacked out.

He almost did, in a way: when he forced himself to think back to it, he knew that the rational part of his brain had checked out shortly after he had tried to punch the door and ended up slicing his hand open.

He was only half aware of the hours he spent huddled against the shelves, although they seemed like years upon endless years as he gasped for breath around horrid, wrenching sobs. His knees had given out, although he didn’t remember when, and everything hurt, there was no space, he couldn’t think or see or hear or speak or-

And then there was light, and somebody was gripping his shoulders, and it was too bright too much too loud and they just needed to get off, he didn’t know who this was but they were only going to hurt him more and he just needed them to-

That was when he remembered how to push, how to dive forward. That was when he remembered how to make a fist. That was when he remembered how to swing his arm back and snap it forward, again and again, and that was all he remembered until there were burning, painful, agonising hands around his arms again, and he was being dragged away from the person he had been on top of.

Logan’s glasses were broken, and their nose looked as though it probably was as well. There was blood all over their face, and they looked more than a little groggy as Patton helped them into a sitting position.

Remus just accepted the two weeks suspension he was handed. He couldn’t speak - how was he even supposed to begin to defend himself? He was still trembling, still breathing hard, unable to meet the headteacher’s eyes when she demanded he explain his behaviour. (He didn’t know why she bothered. She never listened to his side of a story). When she finally gave up and asked, frustrated and clearly rhetorically, if Remus just enjoyed destroying school property and hurting other students, he nodded. It was easy.

He needed easy just then.

Whether it was because his father thought he was too shaky to try running away (he was) or because he was just too disgusted to do so, he didn’t take Remus’ arm to drag him out, and Remus was grateful for that. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle any more physical contact just then.

And then he was in his room, where he was able to draw the curtains so that the October sunlight couldn’t hurt his eyes anymore, where he was able to huddle into a small ball on his bed and wrap his duvet around himself and just stare, blank and unseeing, at the octopus relief he had carved into his wardrobe door.

“Remus?”

Remus flinched and jerked backwards. Janus was right in front of him - he hadn’t seen him come in, hadn’t heard him approach, but now he was right there. How much time had passed?

Janus gave him a small, relieved smile. “There you are…” From the expression on his face, Remus guessed that he had been saying his name for several minutes.

He tried to ask him when he had arrived, but all that came out was a sound like a garden gate being ripped from its hinges.

“Hey, it’s okay… Can I touch you? Just nod or shake,” Janus added, clearly reading the frustration on Remus’ face.

Remus considered the question, trying to order his scattered thoughts, and then shook his head slowly. Janus didn’t seem annoyed.

“Can I sit?” Remus nodded, and Janus climbed onto the bed and sat about a metre away from him. “I came as soon as I heard, I… Holy shit, is that blood yours? Remus, can I see your hands?”

Remus hesitated, then held out his arms. Janus looked faintly nauseated, and Remus looked down to see that the back of his left hand and arm were red and glittering. Frowning, he looked closer to see several large cuts along the back of his hand and up his wrist (they had stopped bleeding by now), and a lot of glass splinters embedded in his skin.

He swallowed hard, a distressed sound slipping from him, and Janus immediately reached out to touch him before pulling back. “It’s okay. It’s okay, arms. Do you still have that kit at the back of your wardrobe?” Remus nodded, and he stood up. “Alright. Can I clean you up a little bit?” Nod. “Can we go through to the bathroom, or would you rather stay here?” Remus’ whine of frustration made Janus look up from the open wardrobe. “Oh, right. Sorry. Would you be more comfortable staying here?” A firm nod. “Okay.”

Janus pulled the small metal box out of the hoodie Remus had last wrapped it in and returned to sit next to him, then opened it. He put the lid down beside him, then put the broken razor on top of the lid without a second glance.

“May I have your hand, Rem?” Remus offered it up, and Janus squeezed his fingers ever so lightly before resting it on his knee.

The improvised ‘first-aid’ kit contained a pair of tweezers, a needle and thread that Remus had never had to use but had wanted on hand just in case, a large amount of plasters, several strips of fabric that Remus had torn off of various shirts and used when plasters weren’t really enough, a tube of antiseptic cream that Janus had nicked from his parents’ medicine box for him, and, of course, the razor blades that usually necessitated the use of the rest of the box. It had been Janus’ idea to assemble the kit. It had been a good idea.

Holding the tweezers carefully in one hand and gently gripping the underside of Remus’ forearm in the other, Janus leaned in and started picking the fragments of glass from his skin. They made a quiet ‘plink’-ing noise as he dropped them onto the lid of the box.

As he worked, Janus spoke quietly, and Remus found himself relaxing. “I heard halfway through my last period. Said I felt sick. They sent me to the nurse, so I came here instead… I’m sorry it took so long, Rem.” Remus twitched his fingers against Janus’ knee, and Janus glanced up to smile at him again. “Logan’s going to be fine. Chipped tooth, smashed glasses, broken nose, a few bruises, damaged pride. Nothing serious.”

He let go of Remus’ arm for a moment to pull a water bottle from his satchel and dampen one of the strips of fabric, then offered the bottle to Remus. Accepting it, Remus took a few small mouthfuls, the cool liquid soothing against his raw throat and a distraction from the drag of wet cloth against his skin as Janus started wiping the blood away.

“I was worried when I didn’t see you at lunch. I’m glad you’re… Well, not ‘okay’ - this is going to sting a bit, are you okay for me to use the antiseptic now?” Gritting his teeth, Remus nodded. He still flinched as Janus spread the white cream across his arm, but didn’t pull away. “You’re doing great, Rem. Nearly done. I’m glad you’re safe now. That’s what I mean. Okay, plasters going on now.”

Remus hummed quietly. Now that Janus had managed to catch his attention, he was suddenly aware that his chest still felt as though it were burning, and that his back wasn’t exactly comfortable either.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” It seemed that Janus was thinking along similar lines. Remus hesitated, then tried to remember how to speak.

“Ch… Chest. ...Mm, back.” The words hadn’t wanted to come out, and it looked as though Janus could tell that.

“You don’t have to talk, Rem. It’s okay. Can I take your shirt off to get a better look?”

Shuffling closer, Remus nodded. Janus would be gentle, he knew. Janus knew how to touch him when he was too overwhelmed to cope with anything around him. He still flinched when his friend’s fingertips brushed the skin of his stomach, and Janus froze. He didn’t move until Remus had nodded at him, and when he did he was careful not to touch Remus any more than he had to.

Remus was so, so grateful for that.

Janus let out a low whistle when he looked at his chest. “Shit, Rem. That looks bad. Can I persuade you to let me take you to the hospital to get you checked out?” He shook his head so hard he could feel his brain rattling against his ears, and Janus bit down on his lower lip. “Okay. Okay, that’s okay. Can I have the water? I want to clean this, but I don’t… I don’t know what else to do. A hospital would be best…” Remus shook his head again.

Sighing, Janus tipped water onto the fresh rag and then leaned forward, hesitating just before the cloth touched Remus’ chest until he nodded. “I think it’s gonna scar. What were you doing in the chemical store, Rem? … Sorry, you don’t have to answer yet. At all, if you don’t want to.”

Remus swallowed hard, trying to force the words around the knot in his chest and the lump in his throat. “Pushed. Mmm… After Physics.” That was good. The words were coming easier than they had before, although not in any great quantity.

Janus swore, finally pulling his hand away from Remus’ chest and getting up. A disgustingly pitiful whine left Remus’ chest, but Janus merely carried the first-aid kit around so that he could start putting plasters on Remus’ back. He was quiet for several long seconds, and Remus pulled his arms into his chest and hunched over. Then Janus swore again.

“Fuck, Rem. You’re telling me you were in that closet for four hours?” Remus shrugged. “Fuck. Text me next time, okay? I’ll come get you out.” Remus nodded, but he doubted it was a promise he could keep. At no point in that closet had he been thinking rationally enough to reach for his phone. “No wonder you went for Logan… Did they put you in there?”

Remus shrugged. Then he shook his head. It didn’t make any sense for Logan to have locked him in. They had never shown him any sort of aggression before. It didn’t feel like the kind of thing they would do, honestly. “Think… Think they were tryin’ to help…” He mumbled thickly.

Janus made a sympathetic humming sound, and the knot in Remus’ chest pulled tight and snapped. The sob that left him was almost silent - Remus had long since learned to cry silently - but Janus must have felt the way it rushed through his body like a tidal wave.

“Remus?” He shifted, and then Janus was in front of him again and Remus allowed himself to slump forward, wrapping his arms tightly around him and ignoring the ache of the cuts in his hand. “Oh, hey… I’ve got you. You’re safe now, just… Just let it all out…”

That was the second time Remus cried in front of Janus, and Janus held him until the last sobs had drained from him. Then, spent, Remus curled up against his friend and fell asleep.

He actually tried to apologise to Logan a few days later, approaching Virgil after school to ask if he knew where they lived. Virgil had cocked an eyebrow at him, a wary expression on his face.

“Why? You planning on beating up my boyfriend again?” Remus supposed he couldn’t blame Virgil for being wary of him, not when he snapped like that sometimes and- Wait.

“You and Patton broke up?” He blurted the question without thinking, then swallowed. “Uh. I’m sorry.”

Virgil smiled faintly. “Nah. I’m dating Patton and Logan. Patton’s dating me and Logan. Bet you can’t guess who Logan’s dating.”

“You can do that?”

Virgil actually laughed at the slightly stunned expression on his face. “Yeah. They’re both coming over later, actually. Why did you want to talk to them?”

“I wanted to…” Remus trailed off, shifting awkwardly.

“Didn’t catch that, dude.”

“I wanted to apologise. For… For last Friday. It was… An accident.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow, and Remus shifted again. “You accidentally slammed your fist into somebody’s face a bunch of times.”

“Yeah.”

Virgil stared at him for a little longer, then shrugged and held the door open for him. “Alright.” Remus followed him inside and sat nervously on the couch. Virgil sat on the coffee table.

The actual apology didn’t go quite as planned.

Patton arrived first, let out a small squeak when he saw Remus, and took several sharp steps backward. Remus sighed. It looked as though he had lost a lot of progress there.

It took several long moments of Virgil whispering in Patton’s ear for the chubby boy to come and sit in the armchair, as far away as he could get from Remus.

Then Logan had arrived, both eyes blackened behind their glasses - and he had smiled at Remus, albeit slightly nervously.

Remus stood. “Logan, I- I’m sorry. About Friday. I - I guess-” Logan had held up a hand, and Remus had stopped abruptly.

Then Logan spoke, and he was left gaping at them. “No. I should be the one apologising, Remus.”

“Like hell,” Patton spat.

At the same time, Remus said, “What the fuck? I broke your nose.”

Logan crossed the room slowly so that he could sit down on the table beside Virgil, leaning forward to look Remus in the eye. “It was clear that you were having some form of panic attack, and I reacted incredibly poorly. I should not have just grabbed you, and I do not blame you for lashing out.”

Everyone had gone silent. Patton looked as though he had just been kicked in the stomach, and was very obviously mouthing the words, ‘panic attack?’ at Virgil, who just shrugged. Remus licked his lower lip nervously.

“Uh… I mean, it could have gone better, but I still… I turned your face into roadkill, Logan. And you’re apologising to me? Don’t be a fucking idiot.”

“I assure you, Remus, I am not an idiot.” Logan frowned briefly, considering the plaster on the back of Remus’ hand (he was pressing his palms against his knees to stop them from shaking), and then smiled at him again. “I propose a compromise. I will accept your apology if you will accept mine. Does that sound acceptable?”

Remus made a slightly choked noise, then nodded. “Okay. Sorry I fucked up your face.”

“It will heal; you are forgiven. I apologise for no doubt adding to what must have been a particularly unpleasant experience.” Virgil wrapped an arm around Logan’s waist, and they turned their smile toward him before glancing back at Remus.

Remus swallowed. “Um. Yeah. I guess I… Forgive you for that. I… Thank you.”

As horrible as the experience itself had been, Remus had come out of it with something approaching a new friend - so how could Janus be right when he argued that it was the worst thing that happened in the eight months between their birthdays?

A few nights after Janus turned seventeen, they met at the quarry and made a bonfire. It was a little cold for them to be properly comfortable, given the fact that the winter seemed to have arrived early that year and it was now the end of November, but between the fire, the beer Remus had snagged from Remy, and the whiskey Janus had smuggled from his house, they barely noticed it.

Virgil joined them for a while, long enough to roast a few marshmallows and then get twitchy about the fact that there was probably a monster sleeping somewhere in the quarry (“It was a bear, Remus, for the last time!”). Eventually, he had made the decision to leave while he was still conscious: Virgil seemed to be constantly running on caffeine, a trait he had probably picked up from his brother, but when he had a few drinks he got very mellow very quickly.

That left Remus and Janus passing a silvery flask between them, side by side and as close to the campfire as they could get without burning their feet on it. Remus had already set his hair on fire leaning in in an attempt to rescue a fallen marshmallow, and Janus was keen to avoid further injury. He was more than a little drunk: since he had stopped using alcohol to knock himself out, Remus didn’t drink very much anymore and had lost a lot of his tolerance. Janus looked more steady, but he was still leaning against Remus - although that may have been to stop Remus from pitching forward and burning to death.

“How’s it feel t’be seventeen, Jan?” Remus asked quietly, absently picking at some marshmallow that had gotten caught in his teeth.

“Hmm…” Janus handed him the flask, and Remus took a large mouthful from it before trying to hand it back. Janus shook his head. “About the same as being sixteen, dummy.”

“Disappointing. Was hoping you’d get the instruction manual.” Leaning down (and feeling Janus grab the back of his shirt so he didn’t fall), Remus picked a large stone up from the ground and tapped it a few times against the flask, then tossed it in the fire. Sparks flew at them, a few landing on Janus’ hat. He brushed them away.

“What instruction manual?” Remus could feel Janus’ eyes on him as he found a smaller stone, this one with a pointed end, and tapped it against the flask again.

“Do you mind?”

“No, go ahead.”

“The Human ‘Struction Manual.” Remus found another stone, and started using the pointy one as a chisel to carve a line into the flask.

“Oh, that one. Were you looking for tips?”

“You know it.” Janus chuckled, leaning over his shoulder to watch the curved shape that was beginning to appear under his hands.

They were quiet for a while. The silence went on long enough that Janus had leaned forward to throw more wood on the fire twice and Remus had finished his octopus before Janus spoke again.

“Remus?”

“Mm?” Remus swallowed another mouthful of whisky and handed the flask back to Janus, who accepted it this time.

“Have you ever…”

Janus hesitated, and Remus grinned faintly, nudging his side with his elbow. “Y’know th’answer’s prob’bly yes, right? Spit it out.”

Janus elbowed him back. “Okay. Have you… Ever had a crush on somebody you know you shouldn’t?”

Remus blinked slowly at him, his heart sinking. With every bone in his body desperately hoping that Janus wasn’t about to say he liked him, Remus licked his lower lip and then looked back at the flames in front of him.

“I… Told Roman I liked Remy once. He asked me if I liked anyone, so I… Said Remy.” Remus chuckled nervously. “Jerk went ‘n kissed him ‘few weeks later. Rude.”

Janus seemed to have gotten the answer he wanted, because he leaned his weight against Remus again. “So you like Remy? Virgil’s brother?”

He could have just nodded. He could have nodded, and kept the weird part of himself that he was sure was broken out of the light. But this was Janus, and Janus was his best friend, and Remus trusted him with everything.

Besides, lying to Janus really wasn’t easy.

“No…” Remus muttered. He reached for the flask, and Janus gave it to him without complaint. “Don’t like anyone. Never really have. Not r’lly sure if I will ever.”

“Okay,” Janus said, as though that was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, Janus didn’t seem to care, and Remus felt briefly stupid for having worried about it. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and passed the flask back.

Silence.

Oh. He should probably ask Janus what that had been about? “Why?”

“Uh…” Janus sighed quietly and took a small sip of whiskey, then seemed to notice the weight of the flask in his hand and raised an eyebrow. “How much of this have you had? It’s gotta be almost empty.”

“Not that much,” Remus replied petulantly. He tugged at Janus’ sleeve. “Why’d y’ask about crushes?”

This time, Janus was quiet for so long that Remus thought he wasn’t going to reply. Finally, he rubbed his fingertips together and held them up to the fire. “Roman.”

“How drunk are you? I’m Remus.” Remus poked Janus’ cheek, and Janus exhaled through his nose before batting his hand away.

“No, Remus, I meant… I like Roman.” Janus shifted a little, and Remus realised that he was trying to look him in the eye. He tried to return the gaze, but couldn’t figure out whether the Janus on the left was more real than the Janus on the right or not. Huh. Maybe he was more drunk than he thought.

“Roman?” He asked stupidly.

“I… Are you mad? It’s just a crush, if you… You know, if you think your best friend and your brother would be weird, I can never mention it again - I mean, I doubt anything’ll happen, it’s just a crush…”

It occurred to Remus then that Janus was probably waiting for him to say something, and he tried to work out what was expected from him. Would it be weird if Janus dated Roman? Well, only because Roman was a self-centred jerk. It would be a lot weirder if Janus had decided he liked him - that would make their being friends really difficult. Or would it? It would probably be just like being friends, but they’d have to do… Other stuff. Nope. Remus would rather not do other stuff with his best friend.

But Roman… Roman could be an absolute arsehole. He had already ditched Virgil when he had needed him most, and Remus had no doubts that he would ignore Janus unless Janus was actually useful to him.

“Rem?”

“Hm?”

“Do you hate me?”

“Why’d I hate you?”

The Janus-es in front of him frowned. “Because… I just told you I have a thing for your twin?”

“Oh. Huh.” That didn’t really explain why Janus thought he’d hate him. Remus shook his head and went to lean against Janus’ side again. “Nah… You c’n like Ro-ro if you want… He’s a dick, though… Lotsa pressure, fr’m th’ parents...”

“I know you don’t get on with him. If you’d rather I didn’t… Talk about this, or whatever…”

“Don’t mind. Jus’... Jus’ don’t want ‘m hurting you… You d’serve better than Ro-ro… You gonna give the flask back?”

Remus made a grabby motion for the flask with one hand, and Janus shook his head and held it out of his reach.

“Gimme.”

“Rem, you’re really quite drunk.”

“Am not.”

“Your eyes haven’t focused on me once in the last half hour. I don’t think you should have any more…”

Remus pouted. “C’mon, Jan… Let’s ‘t least finish the flask?”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Janus tucked it into his satchel, then started collecting the few empty beer bottles and marshmallow packets piled by their feet. “I’ve gotta make sure you don’t die on the way home, and I’d rather it if I didn’t have to carry you.”

“Spoilsport…” Remus complained, but gave up after that. He was fairly certain that the middle Janus - there were three of them now - was the real one, but not certain enough to push his luck. “We goin’ back to yours?”

“I don’t think you currently have the capacity to walk back to your place alone, let alone get in through the window,” Janus replied dryly, leaning down and wrapping an arm around Remus’ waist to pull him to his feet.

Remus woke up the next morning knowing two things. One, that he had never had a worse hangover, and two that his best friend had the misfortune to have a crush on his asshole of a twin.

The latter he could manage - he just had to make sure to warn Janus that Roman would probably just hurt him. The former he could manage as well, given that Janus had handed him some aspirin as soon as he had woken up and kept trying to give him glasses of water, but was a far bigger problem.

“These are really good, Remus.” It was February, and they were in Remus’ room for once. Spending time in Remus’ room had become more difficult now that he no longer had a door that locked or even had a handle, but everybody was out today. Their parents thought that Remus was running errands for a neighbour of Virgil’s - Remy had done an incredibly convincing old-lady impression and had managed to create three afternoons a week where Remus was ‘volunteering’ as payment for breaking some windows - and hadn’t made sure that there was anybody in the house to make sure he didn’t do something stupid.

(Remus wasn’t allowed to be home alone anymore, not since he had succumbed to the overwhelming need to see what would happen when he put various different fruits in the microwave and ended up breaking the thing beyond repair).

Remus was on his stomach, sketchbook open in front of him, working the tail of a cat that was in the process of curling up inside a half-finished open skull, where the brain should be. On the opposite page were several sketches of a possum Remus had found in the woods the other day. Janus was sitting next to him, a psychology textbook open in his lap but clearly no longer of interest to him.

“You really think so?” He tried to keep his voice light, but they could both hear the uncertainty in it. This was the first time Remus had actually allowed Janus to see inside one of his sketchbooks.

“Uh, hell, yes.” Finger hovering just millimeters above the page, Janus traced the curving spine of one of the possum studies, one where the small animal was twisted around and hissing at something behind it. “They’re awesome. I didn’t know you could do this…”

Remus smiled and moved down to add shading to the hollow eye sockets. “You do now.”

“I do.”

Janus squeezed his shoulder gently, and Remus tilted his head to rest it lightly against his hand before straightening his neck and continuing. “I’ve been thinking… When you apply for college, in October… I’ve been thinking about apprenticeships. I’ve borrowed Roman’s laptop and had a look around, and… Well, most places require good grades, but if you look for more arty things…” He knew that Janus hadn’t gone back to his textbook and was staring at him, but he didn’t want to look up just yet. “Well, a lot of tattoo parlours just ask for art portfolios, pretty much. A few basic reading and maths skills, but nothing difficult. Hairdressers ask for similar things, but I refuse to cut hair for a living. Fuck no. God.”

He was trying to deflect from the heart of what he was saying, and they both knew it. Janus didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he plucked the pencil from Remus’ hands and grabbed his shoulders, shaking them gently.

“That sounds brilliant, Rem! Do you know what you’re going to need for your portfolio? Is there anything I can do to help? I will, obviously - and you can get your boss to give you a reference if you need it -” A faint chuckle left Remus, and he sat up. Janus’ enthusiasm was akin to a ball of sunlight, perking him up. It was amazing how much difference it made, having somebody that had faith in him like this.

Things just felt easier, with Janus as his best friend.

When Roman let their dog dash out into the woods and pinned it on Remus, Janus helped him scour the woods whenever he could get free of revising. Although Remus didn’t say a word to Roman, the sudden lack of time in which he could be planning and putting together a sketch portfolio grated on his temper.

He wasn’t about to go and tell his parents that it had been Roman who had let Filo out - but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to sink his fist into Roman’s stomach, his jaw, his teeth, every time he saw him.

Remus had liked Filo. He had really liked her. And now she was probably dead, and it wasn’t Roman’s fault that she had run out (although he could have been more careful) but it hurt that he was taking the blame for it. It hurt that he would get home after ‘school’ - which was sometimes school and sometimes work but never anything more, because if he was late then he ended up getting yelled at again, and it was just easier for that not to happen… - and have to check in with one of his parents, whether by text or in person. It hurt that he was then sent out into the woods behind the house to search until he found the dog, or until it got dark, and not to come back until one of those things happened. It hurt that he had to answer a phone call every hour to make sure that he really was searching (of course he was, and was Roman helping? No, of course he wasn’t) and not just goofing off. It hurt, especially when the long hours of the summer rolled around, that if he arrived home before it got dark then he was sent straight out again, and not allowed dinner until it was properly dark.

When school ended and the holidays began, he spent the mornings working through a never-ending list of chores, and the afternoons still searching for Filo. For the days where he worked at the supermarket, he had persuaded Remy (read, bought Remy coffee every morning for a fortnight) to call his parents pretending to be some irate neighbour demanding Remus help out in his garden as payment for setting his sweet-peas on fire.

It was August when he finally found what remained of the dog.

She was halfway between the quarry and the train tracks, and it was almost impressive that she had made it that far before succumbing to whatever had finally killed her. Remus couldn’t be sure: all that was really left of her was a skeleton, a few scraps of fur and rotted flesh clinging to it in places, and her collar. He hadn’t cried, but it had been a very near thing. Remus had sat with her for almost an hour before finally getting up and heading home to fetch a spade.

He left her collar on the kitchen table when he got back.

It was gone the following morning, as though she had never existed at all - except in Remus’ mind, where her corpse haunted his dreams relentlessly.

Things were quiet after that.

Roman applied to study classics at a number of prestigious colleges. Their parents showered him in praise.

Remus applied to several apprenticeships, all in the same cities as the colleges Janus had applied to (hopefully, when Janus’ first choice accepted him, Remus would discover that he had been accepted to one of the apprenticeships in the same place). He didn’t tell his parents - he didn’t tell anybody other than Janus, although he had a feeling that Virgil knew, and by extension his small collection of dates.

(Virgil knew everything, and it was terrifying. Two days after the bonfire they had had for Janus’ seventeenth birthday, he had turned to Remus and told him to look up asexuality and aromantic to see if either of those helped him. Remus had immediately accused Janus of telling him (although he hadn’t asked him not to, he had hoped that Janus could keep a secret) but both Janus and Virgil denied that that had happened. When Remus had asked how he had known, Virgil had grinned widely and said that his spiders had told him. Creepy. Remus loved it).

The downside of this, of course, was the way that disappointment practically dripped from the walls and ceiling of their home. It wasn’t even as though anybody had been expecting Remus to apply to college, so why his parents were acting as though it was a shock similar to biting into the last candy in a box and discovering that it was coconut (and Remus was always the coconut candy) he had no idea.

He didn’t care. In a year’s time, he would be out of here and away from the twisted, toxic mess that their family had become.

Things didn’t go to plan.

Things never went to plan.

Christmas came and went. Their parents gave Roman a leatherbound collection of his favourite plays, and Remus nothing. Remus, who had started saving money to put toward an apartment, got him a small glass paperweight that looked like a snake, and spent hours on a picture of him, Remus, and Virgil of them that he copied from a picture Patton had taken of them a few months ago. They had been in the woods, leaning over a stream and searching for frogs to poke at. Janus had bought him an encyclopedia of famously gruesome deaths throughout history, and Remus loved it.

Roman got accepted to his favourite of all of the universities he had applied for.

Janus got accepted to his first choice.

Remus, to his great surprise, got an offer from not one but three tattoo parlours, one of which was in the same city as Janus’ course. He accepted that one, ready to start the following September.

A few days before Valentine’s Day, Remus found Janus staring at a box of chocolates in his room when he climbed in through the window. “Are those for us? Bit of a departure from tradition, isn’t it? I thought this week’s movie was accompanied by sushi.” It was Janus’ favourite, and Remus adored the fact that they were eating raw fish. It was so cool.

Then Janus blushed, and Remus wanted to bury his face in his hands.

“Janus, please tell me they’re not-”

“They’re for Roman,” Janus blurted, and Remus groaned theatrically and threw himself down onto the fluffy rug on the floor as though he had just been shot. Janus chuckled.

“I wouldn’t, Jan, I really… Wouldn’t.” Remus rolled over, still clutching the spot on his stomach where he had been ‘shot’ to look at his friend. Janus had stood up so that he was standing over him, appearing to be upside down.

“You’ve said that before, Rem. And you won’t give me a good reason not to - you’ve told me on multiple occasions that you don’t care that -”

“Correct, I don’t mind care that you want to fuck my brother.” Janus rolled his eyes, and Remus knew he had been planning on saying it a little more delicately. “But I give you the same good reason every time, Jan - he’ll hurt you, and I don’t want to have to kill my own brother. My parents will kick me out for good.”

“Don’t joke about that.” Janus’ voice was suddenly stern, and Remus sighed, sitting up.

“They won’t really. That would bring too much attention, you know that…” Accepting the hand Janus was offering him, Remus got to his feet and followed his friend over to his bed. Sitting down, he waited for Janus to join him before leaning forward to pick up the laptop. Their usual boxes of sushi were on the bedside table. “If you really want to do it, I’m not gonna stop you, I just… I want you to know I’ll pick your side, when it goes wrong and he hurts you. I’ll pick you every time. You’re my best friend.”

Janus had beamed at him. “You’re my best friend too, arms. Now pipe down and pick a movie - I think the eighth one in that zombie series is on Netflix? The one with the gratuitous guts?”

“You know I’m always up for gratuitous guts, softie.” Janus had elbowed him, and Remus elbowed him right back.

In the end, it probably wouldn’t have mattered whether Remus had warned his friend again or not. Janus had been too nervous to give Roman the chocolates and they had ended up eating the box together the day after Valentine’s Day.

And then Remus was eighteen, which meant that in two or three months he would be free of school, and a few months after that he would be starting a new life where people didn’t know him as Roman Wang’s screw-up of a brother.

He was so, so close to getting out, to being free of this hell-forsaken town -

But Roman had to fuck up again, just one last time.

Remus hadn’t even had time to prepare. Usually, he would see the aftermath of hurricane Roman and at least be prepared for his parents’ wrath; this time, he got home after a double shift at work to find Hyun-ki sat at the kitchen table and his mother leaning against the sink, arms folded, both clearly waiting for him.

His voice died in his throat.

He wished it wouldn’t - but it had gotten to the point that whenever he saw the hateful disappointed creases between his father’s eyes, whenever his mother folded her arms and pursed her lips in just that way, his voice fled and it was all he could do to keep his body from following.

“What is this?” Dae’s voice was ice cold as she pointed at a small, clear bag on the table.

As though he were in a dream - no, not a dream, Remus knew what dreams and nightmares were like. As though he were a ghost, Remus approached the table and stared down at it.

The dark green flakes in the bag were easily recognisable as pot. It was as though Remus had gone back in time to the few weeks when he had tried using the stuff to help him sleep - but he had gotten rid of it as soon as he had decided to try to find something better. Which meant that this had to be…

“Roman’s.” He hadn’t realised that he had said it: the words had left his mouth without permission, and oh, wasn’t now just the worst time for his voice to show up?

If it had been just his mother, he might have gotten away with it. She was far enough away, and his voice was so quiet… But his father was right beside him, and he heard the word as clearly as if Remus had shouted it.

“Don’t you dare blame your brother for this!”

Oh, the irony, Remus thought, and, I guess we’re going straight to shouting.

It only took a few minutes for the words his parents were shouting to cease making any sort of sense. After that, it was just Remus, just Remus and a wave of sound that hurt his head, and then he was nodding, because what else was he supposed to do? Tell the truth and be accused of making more excuses?

He opened his mouth to try to force some words out - anything, anything from “I’m sorry” to “I’m a rather well known drug dealer by now, please call the cops” - and nothing came.

What was going on? Now Roman was in the doorway to the kitchen, and the shouting had stopped.

Remus blinked hard, and intelligible sound returned to his surroundings.

“-sweet of you, saja saekki, but he brought this on himself.”

“But - but he’s… He’s your son,” Roman protested. What a strange thing to say, Remus mused. Roman had never bothered trying to stick up for him before.

“Not anymore.” That was his father, and Remus must have heard wrong, because that just didn’t make any sense.

Then his parents turned back to him with twin glares, and Dae made a flapping motion toward the door with one hand. “Why are you still here? We told you to go.”

Roman was staring at him, stricken, and Remus could suddenly hear his own heartbeat in his ears. “G… Go?” He whispered, and his mother looked even more irritated than before.

“Get out of here, Remus! You’re not welcome here - you bring shit like this under our roof, and you expect us to welcome you in with open-” And then the shouting was too much again, and Remus didn’t hear anything else.

Instead, he turned and headed back toward the door. It felt like walking through treacle, thick, sticky, unreal. His father was standing by the doormat, one hand outstretched, and Remus stared at him for a long second before figuring out what he wanted. Digging in his pocket, he dropped his house keys into Hyun-ki’s palm, and watched his fingers close around them.

Then the door was open, and he was outside.

Now what?

Remus made it a few steps, then found that he was sitting down.

It was getting dark. Could he walk over to Janus’? He didn’t think his legs would carry him that far. No one part of his body felt like it was connecting to any other anymore.

There was a snap in front of him, and he flinched back. Roman was right in front of him. How long had he… It didn’t matter.

Roman was saying something, and Remus nodded, because what else was he supposed to do? Nodding was easy. If he could just go along with whatever was happening now, maybe it would be over soon.

Maybe he would wake up, screaming, and find that this was all just a nightmare.

There was something cold in his hand. Looking down, Remus found that Roman had pressed something black and oblong into his palm - his car keys. Roman had given Remus his… Car keys?

Now he was pulling Remus to his feet, and suddenly there was a blanket in his arms.

Then Roman had gone.

That was… Weird.

Remus just stood there for several long seconds.

Then it occurred to him that if Roman had given him his car keys and a blanket, maybe he meant for Remus to spend the night in the car. That didn’t seem unreasonable - a little out of character for Roman, but maybe he was changing. It wasn’t as though he had ever tried to stick up for Remus before, either.

Even so, the inside of the car was cold and lonely, made even worse by the numbness filling Remus’ stomach.

Eventually, it occurred to him that he should probably tell Janus what had happened. Not because there was anything Janus could do, of course, but because… Well, Remus didn’t really know. Janus was his best friend. He’d probably want to know.

<Parents found weed in Roman’s room. Been kicked out. Sleeping in Roman’s car for tonight.>

<Sent 21:48>

It was only a few seconds before his phone beeped in response.

<What the FUCK>

<No you are not>

<I’m coming to get you, you can stay at mine>

<Where’s the car? You’re not walking alone>

<Sent 21:49>

Remus bit down on his lower lip.

<I can walk alone.>

<Sent 21:49>

He didn’t want to - and he wasn’t entirely sure his limbs would last that long, either. Janus seemed to know he wasn’t being entirely truthful. It wasn’t easy, lying to Janus.

<Stay where you are, I’ll be right there.>

<Sent 21:50>

<Just outside my place. Bright red car. Can’t miss it.>

<Sent 21:52>

Then time did that strange skip again, and Janus was knocking on the car window. Remus scrambled for the handle to open the door, and he slid into the passenger seat beside him and hugged him. Remus hugged back. Janus smelled faintly of alcohol - wine? What day was it - Friday? Remus wasn’t sure.

“Are you alright?” Remus nodded, and Janus raised his eyebrows.

“...No,” he admitted.

“Let’s get back to mine. We can figure out what to do long-term from there, okay?”

Remus nodded slowly, allowing Janus to pull away from him to walk around the car and slide into the driver’s seat. Key in the ignition - and then Remus’ hand on Janus’ shoulder. “You sure you should drive? Don’t mind walking…”

“Rem, you look like it’s taking all your energy to keep speaking right now. I’m not making you walk. I’m not really drunk, okay? It’ll be fine.” Leaning over, Janus took the blanket that had fallen by his feet and wrapped it around Remus’ shoulders, then squeezed his hand gently. “You hold tight. It’s going to be okay.”

Remus nodded, too tired to care anymore. It was easy to just lean back in his seat, let Janus put the car into gear, and pull out from the kerbside.

Janus made light conversation as they drove. Remus found that he didn’t listen to most of it, focusing instead on the comforting sound of Janus’ voice itself and allowing the warmth in it to melt the numbness filling him into a deep, cool wave of misery.

He had just been kicked out. He had never thought that that would… He had never thought they would actually kick him out. He had been planning on leaving in a few months, yes, but… Didn’t you already need an address to get an apartment? And he couldn’t just live at Janus’ place full time. His parents would find out, and he’d get in trouble… Maybe Remy would let him stay with him and Virgil?

Remus lifted a hand to rub at his eyes, and found that his face was wet. He was crying. The second he realised it, he couldn’t stop realising it, couldn’t stop the tears dripping down his cheeks or the sobs building in his throat. He tried to stay quiet, but a hand on his knee suggested that he hadn’t done a very good job. That was the third time he cried in front of Janus Sinclaire.

“Remus, Remus, I’m so, so sorry…” Remus turned his head to find that Janus was looking at him, one had on the wheel to keep them going straight, the other rubbing his leg gently.  “It’s going to be okay. We’ll sort something out, I promise… You can let yourself cry, it’s-”

That was when

the world

ended.

-

Remus awoke to the smell of smoke and something burning, and the feeling that he had just been slammed face-first into a wall. Everything hurt. Everything was much too warm.

Groaning, he opened his eyes, and found that there was a strange, red tint to the world. Wiping his hand across his face revealed a cut on his forehead that throbbed painfully and had been dripping blood into his eyes - when had that gotten there?

Then he realised that he was still in the car, and that an orange, flickery light was illuminating the cracked windscreen before him. Had they… Had they crashed?

Fumbling awkwardly, Remus undid his seatbelt and scrabbled for the car door, pushing it open. There was a crackling in his ears as he crawled out of the wreck that had once been Roman’s gorgeous car, and it took him several long seconds to realise that it wasn’t just his brain. It was coming from the mess behind him.

Remus turned his head.

The car was burning.

How had he not noticed that before?

Where was Janus?

The driver’s side door was still closed - he could just about see it through the flames feasting on the car’s bonnet. Did that mean - 

When he saw the dark shape still in the driver’s seat, Remus felt his heart stop.

He was moving back toward the car before he even knew what he was doing, feeling his fingers blister on the hot metal as he jerked the door open.

It wasn’t just the car that was on fire, the grass around them. Janus’ clothes were on fire, that stupid hat he was always wearing was burning away merrily on his head, and the side of his face nearest Remus was already scorched and blackened, and Remus was certain he would never forget this image for as long as he lived.

He was glad for the hours he spent hauling boxes at the back of the supermarket. It meant that he was strong enough to carry what he really, really hoped wasn’t his friend’s corpse away from the acrid-smelling bonfire.

Janus’ phone was in his pocket, miraculously untouched by the flames, and Remus stared at the lockscreen for a long second. It was a picture Janus had taken when he had gone to visit his college, long before he had applied, when he had decided that that was where he wanted to be.

If Remus didn’t get an ambulance there fast, he didn’t think Janus would see it again.

Janus was breathing now, he could tell, but only just. It sounded painful, and Remus looked down as he dialled the emergency number to find that Janus’ eyes were open, one of them reddened and stark against the burned skin around it.

“Don’t worry, Jan, you’re - you’re gonna be okay, it’s -”

“Emergency services, how can we help you?”

Remus was crying again. He could see the tears dripping down onto Janus’ face - and Janus didn’t seem to be able to feel them. It didn’t look as though his eyes were focusing.

An ambulance wasn’t going to get there fast enough.

“P-Police! And an ambulance - I just saw two boys hit a - a telephone pole, the - the car’s on fire, I think the - the passenger, I think he’s seriously injured -” Remy had been teaching him to disguise his voice.

Janus was frowning beneath him, mouth moving and only strains of air whistling between his teeth.

“I - I think the driver was that kid - that kid, the bad one, Wang, Remus Wang, I think he’s killed somebody-”

Now Janus was shaking his head, and those horrible, silent tears were still coursing down Remus’ face.

“We’ll have somebody with you as soon as possible, sir. Could you give us your name and location, please?”

Remus looked around desperately, and was lucky enough to see a street sign almost immediately. He rattled it off, and then hung up, attention returning to Janus.

It looked as though Janus was struggling to breathe. It looked as though he were only seconds from passing out again, but he must have been conscious enough to hear the conversation, because his mouth formed the single word, “why?”

Remus let out a shaky laugh. “Police’ll get here faster. Ambulance’s gonna be too slow. You’re gonna be okay, I promise. Not letting anything bad happen to you - ‘n they’re gonna want to arrest someone. You just gotta sit tight, okay? I’m gonna handle this. ‘S all gonna be okay. You’re gonna be fine. It was my fault, it was all my fault, jus’ tell them that, okay? You’re gonna be fine, Jan. You’re gonna be fine. It’s gonna be okay. It’s all…”

Janus’ eyes rolled into the back of his head, and Remus had never been more terrified than he was in that moment.

And then he could hear sirens in the distance, getting louder.

They were going to arrest him - but Janus would be okay. They would take Janus to a hospital, they would make sure he was okay, and that was all Remus needed. As long as Janus lived, as long as Janus got to keep his future, Remus didn’t care what happened to him.

When the police car arrived, ambulance in tow, releasing Janus’ still form and allowing himself to be cuffed was the easiest decision Remus had ever made.

Taglist:

@bloodymari-0666

#roman sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #AccidentsHappenAU #drug and alcohol use and misuse #suicide attempt tw #referenced self harm tw #nonbinary logan #trans patton #this was meant to be 6k #why is it so long #i was possessed by the spirit of writing

[ashistrashhh]

here are some fic recs!! including sakuatsu, bokuaka, kuroken and matsuhana bc i couldnt help myself

if you want, ask me about a certain ship and ill give you some recs!

-sakuatsu-

Marble and Sandstone by red_camellia

rating: G words: 12,937 chapters: 2/2 

author summary: Miya Atsumu only cares about volleyball and nothing else. That is, until he develops a strange obsession with the marble statue of a young man that seems vaguely familiar in his university's arts department. One day that statue comes alive as the very real Sakusa Kiyoomi, and they are left with the mystery of why Sakusa Kiyoomi was turned into a statue and only came back to life when Atsumu touched him. Their new-found connection and the strange mystery turns Atsumu's life upside down, not least because of his growing feelings for Sakusa.

my notes: this was a rlly cute fic!!! 11/10 would read again!!

let it go (paint my body gold) by lunarism

rating: T words: 3,272 chapters: 1/1

author summary: It becomes a routine for them. Sometimes they go grocery shopping and make dinner together, other times they end up talking until Sakusa feels like his own shower and bed is calling him. Every single time Sakusa gets home, shrugs his coat off, balls it up, and proceeds to scream profusely into the fabric for a few minutes.

my notes: pining!!! sakusa!!! also casual painter!atsumu!!! and they paint together!!!

craft a miracle with these hands, lips, (silence) by chrysanthe (sonderesque)

rating: T words: 4,252 chapters: 1/1

author summary: ‘Someone is here to ruin your night,’ his door tells him. ‘You should let them in.’ “I’M HOMELESS OMI-OMI. HOMELESS,” yells the one here to ruin his night. “LET ME IN.”

(What does Kiyoomi sell his sanctuary for?)

my notes: hnnn rlly fuckin cute,, and domestic,,,,

Clipped To You by littleboat

rating: T words: 8,174 chapters: 1/1

author summary: It starts with Hinata Natsu, of all people.

Well, if Atsumu’s being honest with himself, it started way before that, but he’s not, so that’s besides the point. And thankfully, he’s just petty enough to blame all of his problems on a thirteen year old girl.

or Sakusa starts wearing hair clips and Atsumu is more than a little obsessed

my notes: minor kagehina, bokuaka // god these fics rlly make me simp for fictional characters even more than i should. but!! sakusa!!! in hairclips!!! and a pining atsumu!!!

learn how to lay me down in something other than danger, other than fury by rosevtea 

words: 34,211 chapters: 1/1

author summary: All of the ways fellow college TA Miya Atsumu reinvents Kiyoomi's definition of normal.

my notes: god i loved this. it’s a fake dating au and like,, even though they’re “dating” sakusa keeps letting his guard down little by little around atsumu and it surprises everyone. komori and akaashi just know  that they’re were genuinely pining for eachother

among probabilities and a thousand fates by aalphard

rating: T words: 15,675 chapters: 1/1

author summary: prompt fill for “in a world where the red string of fate exists, person a’s finger always twitches when person b, who can see the string, tugs on their string” | or sakusa thought he had a tic and atsumu liked to see his confused expression when it started to happen exclusively when he was around.

my notes: i! loved! it!! so basically atsumu and osamu have the rare gift of seeing the red string of fate, so they know its real but sakusa, like most other people dont believe it exists. so atsumu gives sakusa a (kinda) hard time. rlly cute!! i love soulmate aus!

-bokuaka- 

love in the time of wifi by dalyeau

rating: G words: 4,177 chapters: 1/1

author summary: Akaashi is coming to terms with the fact that he might be romantically interested in his volleyball captain. Hence, doing what any sixteen year old with a problem should do. He asks about it online.

my notes: really cute fic about akaashi asking what he should do about his crush on a site similar to reddit. its kinda a “i didnt know it was you” kind of fic and it made me happy

steam by orphan_account

rating: E words: 8,474 chapters: 1/1

author summary:

 bokuto: why is he so hot bokuto: why am i so gay kuroo: LMAO you mean your vice captain right bokuto: yeah

The coach blew the whistle for practice to begin, and Bokuto drummed his fingers against the bleachers, awaiting Kuroo’s reply. He was about to walk away, when his phone buzzed in his hand.kuroo: i got this bro bokuto: what bokuto: wtf does that mean

Bokuto started to panic.

my notes: explicit!!! but really wholesome. kuroo is honestly the best wingman. i also think this is my favourite bokuaka smutfic?? 

just to miss the sun by rosevtea

rating: T words: 15,126 chapters:1/1

author summary: Everything begins to implode when MSBY Jackals outside hitter Bokuto Koutarou crashes Akaashi's livestream.

my notes: akaashi is a booktuber and bokuto crashes one of his streams. fans begin to speculate. rlly fluffy and can u tell i like bokuaka

brain fish by iceblinks

rating: T words: 12,026 chapters: 6/6

author summary: Akaashi wakes up to a string of texts from an unknown number. 

my notes: i love text fics and i love wrong number aus so u can tell how much i loved this. really fluffy and i come back to it time to time

-kuroken-

us three by honey_s

rating: T words: 5,137 chapters: 1/1

author summary: Kuroo’s gaze flits over to the utensil. His eyes bulge out of his skull. “Wh—is that a meat hammer? Put it back!” Akaashi’s head recoils back in confusion. “I don’t understand the problem here.” “Why on Earth have you got a fucking meat hammer? We aren’t going to kill somebody!” “Well,” Akaashi begins, clearly taken aback, “I apologise for assuming. I had heard Kenma-san had been hurt in school and after getting a message from both of you to meet late at night, I merely filled in the blanks and assumed we were going to beat someone up, for lack of a better term.” “Not literally! I meant metaphorically, or figuratively, or something!” “Idiomically?” “That isn’t a word, Bokuto-san.” “Jesus Christ,” Kuroo groans, dropping his head into his hands. “We're going to jail."

my notes: bokuaka and kuroo are ready to beat someone up for kenma!! and we stan!! 

Cherry Pits and Cat Tattoos by strawberryriver

rating: G words: 6,141 chapters: 1/1

author summary: 

Kuroo has been in communication with his soulmate ever since they were kids. They've known each other for so long that he never really worried about when or how he would meet them. At least, not until he meets the roommate of Bokuto's soulmate.Soulmate AU in which things written on your skin show up on your soulmate. Companion piece/same AU as Serendipty

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

Kuroo Tetsurou liked to write on his arms. Despite his mother's half-serious warnings about “ink poisoning” or staining his skin, he insisted on marking his arms and legs wherever he could. Not like his best-friend-since-always Bokuto Koutaro, who had to write on his arms or he’d forget to breathe, but artfully. He’d draw designs, animals, the occasional chemical compound. The whole idea behind soulmates fascinated him: how one person could mark their arm and someone potentially thousands of miles away, would have that same mark appear. The amount of articles, studies, and books he’d read about the topic, even at a young age, could put an undergrad researcher to shame.

my notes: again with the soulmate au bc i cannot help myself. but really cute!!! probably gonna read this again later!

Boom, Toasted by protostar (hearthope)

rated: T words: 6,782 chapters: 1/1

author summary:

 FROM: yuuji any bets on who hes texting??

FROM: eita He's smiling at his phone. Kuroo, probably

FROM: kentarou Kuroo

TO: fake family Have any of you ever once considered not prying

FROM: eita You deserve it

FROM: yuuji how can we not when ur in love!!

Kenma gets a text from an unknown number. He'd be lying if he said the guy behind it wasn't kind of endearing.

my notes: again, i love wrong number texts. it focuses more on kenma’s friendship, but kenma’s pov with texting kuroo is more than him realizing feelings and stuff. really cute, ive read it multiple times. 

Japan's most subscribed by NeverNothing

rating: T words: 3,631 chapters: 1/1

author summary: Kuroo Tetsurou @blacktetsurou changed his bio : volleyball player, co-owner of Bouncing Ball Corp. and so much more ;)

my notes: i! love! social media! fics!!! really cute and basically people wondering who the mysterious kuroo is to applepi. 

MATSUHANA!!! the underrated gem

texting (with a capital S) by parenthetic

rating: M words: 2,119 chapters: 1/1

author summary: Hanamaki breaks his No Texting In Class rule, and it's all downhill from there.

my notes: honestly more funny than it suggests, but its matsuhana, they’re meme lords.

rated m for by orphan_account

rated: T words: 10,692 chapters: 1/1

author summary: He should have known that there was a Specific Reason™ why it was so absolutely vital that he and Matsukawa specifically meet for a reading of the script. He should have known that there had to be some evil catch beyond sitting in a tiny, cramped studio with his newly sworn enemy.

Hanamaki stares at the title of the script he’d so gracefully neglected the night before.

FORBIDDEN PARADISE

“Excuse me,” Hanamaki starts, raising a pen in the air while staring blankly at the packet in his free hand. “Just to clarify, you want me to record a boy's love CD with Matsukawa?”

my notes: a very good voice actor au. there is some misunderstanding on hanamaki’s part bc he didnt finish listening to matsukawa, and this is really cute and i love matsuhana. 

In A Quiet Night, All Sounds Carry by levyovochka

rating: E words: 4,794 chapters: 1/1

authors summary: “Ah, ah, Too—!”

Hanamaki hates his university dorm.

“—ru, let me cum, please!”

Hold up. That’s a fucking understatement. Let him rephrase it: Hanamaki loathes his university dorm with passion. Detest the damned abomination, abhors it—

“—ru! Coming, coming—”

It has only been a month and Hanamaki already wants to die.

my notes: as u can guess minor iwaoi // rlly well written and bottom hanamaki rights and maybe my favourite matsuhana smutfic??? and hooh boy i simp for matsukawa

call me maybe by totooru

rating: T words: 33,689 chapters: 14/14

author summary: Hanamaki texts the wrong number when trying to extort tips out of Oikawa in order to defeat Iwaizumi in arm wrestling, and then continues to text the witty stranger who had answered.

my notes: minor iwaoi, daisuga, bokuaka // god i think this is my favourite matsuhana fic overall, maybe in general, but my god is it great. this is probably a common rec, but its understandable as to why it is. basically au where makki texts matsun (who goes to karasuno) instead of oikawa for tips to beat iwaizumi at an arm wrestling match. but they keep messaging. and holy shit i love their conversations. please read this, it is 256/10

there we go!! i might go a part two with more ships (kagehina, tsukkiyama and iwaoi) but this took up way to much time lol. i have an essay due in a couple hours. but hope u like these fics as much as i do!!

#haikyuu fic recs #fic recs #bokuaka #bokuto koutarou #akaashi keiji #kuroken #kuroo tetsurou #kozume kenma #sakuatsu #sakusa kiyoomi #miya atsumu #msby black jackal #matsuhana #matsumakki #hanamaki takahiro #matsukawa issei #kagehina #daisuga #ash's ramblings #hinata shouyou #long post

[togetherwearerapture]

Feel It (Ethan Ramsey x MC)

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x MC (Elle Valentine)

Warnings: Death at the beginning, very explicit NSFW scenes

Notes: This is my second very angsty fic that has been sitting on my laptop for the best part of a year, I’ve been slowly chopping away at it. I aimed to post it before the start of OH2 but that didn’t happen. I have modified it slightly but some details (re: Aurora) may be a little behind canon. I have also changed the name of my MC from Lucy to Elle (from my first fic “Awake”). All characters belong to Pixelberry/Choices. Hope you enjoy.

Word Count: 5k+

*********************

Ethan glanced at his watch, and then at ECG on the defibrillator. Asystole, still.

“Elle,” he said, his tone defeated.

Not moving her gaze from her palm, the young woman continued to pound steady compressions against the small chest.

“Elle, it’s time. You need to stop.”

“No…we need to keep going,” Elle panted, blonde strands from her messy ponytail falling all around her face. “One..more..round”

Ethan glanced at the nurses, who were standing motionlessly around the resuscitation trolley. Their heads were bowed, expressions solemn.

“We’ve already given 3 loads of amiodarone-”

“Three…more…seconds!” Elle gasped, then finally stepped back from the child’s motionless body to watch the defibrillator. The 2 minutes of the latest round of CPR was up.

Nothing.

Ethan watched as Elle’s eyes, wild with adrenaline and desperate hope, filled with tears.

“She’s gone, Elle. We need to let her go.”

He gently touched her arm, her skin glistening with exertion and burning hot underneath his fingertips. Finally, she met his gaze, and gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

Ethan took a deep breath, and then looked at his watch.

“Time of death, 22.16.”

Elle stepped forward, surveying the little girl in front of her. She reached for her hand and squeezed.

“I’m sorry, Katie.”

Without another word, she turned and left the room.

Ethan put his hands behind his head and sighed, as the nurses soberly moved over to the bed and began to clear up.

7-year-old Katie Phillips had been transferred over to diagnostics at Edenbrook just under a week ago, with a case of atypically-presenting sepsis, which had delayed her diagnosis at her previous hospital. Together, Ethan and Elle had figured out her condition within the first 30 minutes of her arrival, and commenced treatment, to which Katie had responded extremely well.

Katie had no parents, and lived in a children’s home. She had also taken a terrific shine to Elle.

On many an occasion, well after her shift had ended, Ethan would pass by Katie’s room and see Elle sitting on her bed, both of them erupting with laughter, or drawing together. Two days ago at around 3am, Ethan was walking through the diagnostics ward on his night shift, and heard a pretty voice singing a soft melody. Following the voice took him to the doorway of Katie’s room, where he found Elle holding the young girl in her arms, stroking her hair and singing to her as she whimpered from the pain of the intravenous antibiotics.

But, they were working.

It was all looking so good.

They were unable to take any family history, of course, on admission, or perhaps they would have decided to order an echocardiogram. Katie had no cardiac symptoms at all, until she began to arrest just under an hour ago. A quick ultrasound in between cycles of CPR showed she had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Katie had presented with such a complex illness, but the combined brilliance of Ethan and Elle’s minds had cracked it, she was getting so much better, making so much progress, she was going to live. But it was so devastatingly simple, and yet so unavoidable.

Sudden Cardiac Death.

***

Some time later,  after finishing his paperwork at the nurses’ station, Ethan turned instinctively towards the family room. He suddenly felt a pang in his chest, remembering no one was waiting inside for Katie. There were no parents to inform, no family, no one at all.

Ethan expected to feel somewhat relieved at not having to undertake the usual sad process, but his heart felt all the heavier as he took in the silent, empty room.

The one person who he knew would feel Katie’s loss so deeply was…

Elle.

The thought of her flooded Ethan’s mind.

A tapping on the computer behind him roused Ethan from his thoughts, and he turned to see one of the nurses who had approached the station.

“Hey…have you seen Dr Valentine anywhere?” he asked.

“I saw her heading towards the shower room,” the nurse replied.

“Thanks,” Ethan replied, hurrying off down the corridor.

***

Ethan hadn’t been in the changing rooms for years, since his intern days. It was dark when he entered, but the auto lights torpidly flickered on.

Empty.

“Elle?” he called out.

He poked his head around to the shower cubicles, and saw the floor was wet. Someone had been in here not long ago, and he was sure it was Elle. The steamy air was filled with the scent of her shampoo.

It wasn’t even odd to Ethan that he remembered the exact smell of Elle Valentine’s hair. Two months ago, his face was buried in it as she reached up around the back of his neck, his hands on her hips as they made passionate love. He had memorised every tiny detail of that night, including every smell, taste, and feel; the last time they would be together before “everything went back to how it was.” Every night since, Ethan had replayed those moments in his mind, laying awake in bed. On many occasions, the memories even followed him into his dreams.

They even chased him to the depths of the Amazon rainforest, which Ethan had fled to in his hopes to get over her. Instead on his return, every moment alone with her, every touch of her hand, every moment of eye contact that lasted just a little too long, had made his longing for her intensify.

Ethan shook his head, sighing, and made his way back out of the locker room.

***

After grabbing his coat from his office, Ethan made his way wearily back down the hospital halls, a feeling of unease growing in his stomach. He had no idea where Elle was, and she was obviously in a state of distress when she had left the room. He pulled his phone out of his pocket as he walked into the parking lot, concern for the young doctor eclipsing his dislike of texting.

He had only managed to pull up her name in his contacts, before he saw her. She was leaning against the wall of a shrub bed in the middle of the parking lot, half hidden in darkness. Ethan sighed, putting his phone back into his pocket.

Elle didn’t look up as he approached, staring down at her interlocked hands in her lap.

“Hey. Are you ok?”

She didn’t reply. Stupid question, Ethan thought.

“I was just about to text to see where you were. I…was worried, about you.”

Finally, Elle looked up at him.

“I had a cry in the shower,” Elle said, letting out a short, humourless laugh. “I’ll be ok. Not right now. But I will be. You don’t need to worry about me.” She returned her gaze to her hands.

“You need to know, Elle. I know you built up a really good bond with her, but there was nothing we could have done. The sepsis treatment was working, and there was no way we knew about the cardiomyopathy, there was no way we could have known.”

She didn’t reply, so Ethan continued, checking off mental notes in his head, almost strategically.

“Wasting time on an echocardiogram would have been a pointless test that would have distracted from the sepsis treatment. Besides, there was no indication to even order an echo. There was-”

“Ethan.”

She suddenly looked up, meeting Ethan’s gaze. Her green eyes were sharp and wide under the parking lot lights. Ethan found himself quite speechless, perhaps from the interruption, or maybe from the intensity of her gaze.

“Ethan, sometimes things are just shit. You don’t always have to try and fix everything. You don’t always have to solve someone’s pain, like you’re solving a case. Sometimes the best thing is to just be there, and let them feel it.”

There were a few moments of silence, as Ethan took in her words.

“I’m sorry this happened,” he said finally.

“Me too.”

Ethan hesitated for a moment, and then, almost awkwardly, raised his arms. Elle looked at them, and then at him.

He wondered if it was a mistake, and was about to lower his arms and apologise, when she slowly stepped forward from the wall. He saw his own hesitancy mirrored in her features, but nevertheless, she stepped forward into his embrace.

A flood of bittersweet warmth surged through Ethan’s body. This was the first time he had held her in so long, and oh how he missed the way she fitted so perfectly into him, her petite frame enveloped in his arms. She too seemed to relax into his embrace, her head resting against his chest, undoubtedly hearing his pounding heart beneath. Ethan tightened his hold on her, which she reciprocated. He rested his head on top of hers and closed his eyes. He let the feel of her warm body and the sweet cocktail of her hair and perfume envelop him.

They stood together, swaying on the spot slightly. Ethan wasn’t sure exactly how long they had been embracing, but it was the mental feeling, that it was too long to not be something. A silent line had been crossed, unspoken feelings straining in both of their chests, screaming into the silence.

After what felt like both not long enough and an eternity, they pulled away. A gust of cold autumn wind whooshed over them, and Elle shivered.

“It’s freezing out,” said Ethan, eyeing the tiny leather jacket she was wearing. “Let me drive you home.”

“No,” she said suddenly. “I…don’t want to go home.”

“My roommates are having a movie marathon tonight,” she hastily explained. “Elijah’s invited his new girlfriend too. I’m not really in the mood, I’d just want to go straight to my room and then I’d look rude.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Ethan said. “Or to your roommates if you did go to your room, for that matter. You worry too much about others’ feelings, and not nearly enough about your own.”

“I-”

“But I quite understand. We won’t take you home just yet.”

Ethan removed his thick black coat from his shoulders, offering it to her.

“Oh no, I’ve got one, you’ll be cold.”

“I insist. Your hair is still wet too,” he added, gesturing to the damp tips of her blonde locks. “Let’s get you in the warm.”

Elle offered him a small smile, before slipping into the coat.

“Come on,” Ethan said, placing a hand on the small of her back and leading her towards his car.

***

They shared a comfortable silence on the short ride back, both enjoying the sound of the gentle concerto from Ethan’s stereo. The warmth of the car served a welcome contrast to the bitter cold air outside.

Elle glanced over at Ethan as he finally pulled the car to a stop.

“I see we’re at yours.”

“We are indeed. Is that…is that okay?” he asked, somewhat anxiously.

Elle smiled.

“Yeah, it is.”

He opened the car door for her, and they made their way up to his apartment.  

“Make yourself comfortable. Wine?” he offered, as they both stepped inside.

“Please.”

Ethan headed over to the kitchen, watching Elle over the counter as he opened a bottle of Merlot. He smiled to himself as she carefully removed her ankle boots, placing them neatly next to his own running shoes by the door. Typical Elle. It reminded him of when she apologised for the non-existent mess in her spotless bedroom when he had stayed at her apartment.

He really should stop thinking about that night. It was one thing doing it alone in bed, late at night, but the memory felt all the more tangible now she was in his apartment, just feet away from him. He had almost forgotten it had all been real.

“What?” Elle asked bemused, clocking his expression.

“Nothing, just simple observation,” said Ethan, a small smile playing on his lips.

Elle raised an eyebrow, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly.

“Your people-watching sessions are a little less incognito when it’s just the two of us in your apartment, Ethan.”

“My apologies. Just admiring your attention to detail,” he smirked.

It was so damn cute, he thought.

Elle rolled her eyes, but a slight blush crept on her cheeks as she peeled off his coat and her jacket.

Ethan sat down on the sofa, as she turned away from him and stretched up to hang them both on the coat rack. Ethan couldn’t help but stare at her short jumper dress, clinging to the all the right places on her body. How his hands yearned to roam it again. Ethan blinked hard, forcing himself to look away. He drank deeply from his wine glass.

Elle settled down on the sofa beside him, picking up her own drink. Ethan watched carefully as she took a long swig, then swirled the remaining contents around the glass, staring into space.

He racked his brains for something to say. He didn’t want to try and distract her completely from the rawness of Katie’s death- how could he- but he didn’t want to focus on it either. He tried to think of small talk. He fucking hated small talk. He had never felt the need to. But for her, he was trying so hard, to fill the silence, to make things that bit more bearable for her, in any way he possibly could.

What was happening to him?

“So,” he started, “how are you finding Boston then? You’ve been here a while now.”

“You mean to suggest I don’t spend every waking hour at the hospital working on cases?” she scoffed. “I mean, yeah, it’s good. I’ve found some good running spots, some nice cafés, I guess. It’d be nice for me to get out with people and explore it all a bit more, but I can’t remember the last time me and my roommates all had the same shifts off.”

“You all seem pretty close.”

“They’re my rocks,” Elle beamed, taking another drink of wine. Ethan smiled at the way her face lit up when she talked about her beloved friends. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

“Have you found a new roommate yet?” Ethan asked. She had mentioned to him before that Dr Olsen was transferring to Mass Kenmore, and he’d seen flyers up advertising the spare room pinned up around various break rooms.

“Not yet. I offered it to Aurora, but-”

“Aurora?” he asked, surprised.

“Yeah, she doesn’t want to stay with Harper anymore. I think it’s a good thing, her stepping out on her own.”

“No, I heard about that. I’m just surprised you reached out, I always thought she seemed quite cold to you last year.”

“Yeah well,” Elle shrugged. “Harper was putting a lot of pressure on her. Plus, half the hospital fangirling over her because of her surname, it’d be enough to put anyone’s back up. She’s not as bad as everyone says, people just need to put themselves in her shoes.”

Ethan watched her carefully. That was the thing- one of many things- about Elle; she always saw the best in people. No matter how cold they may appear, how brusquely they may act towards her, she had such warmth, such empathy, she could see past it all and understand.

Even him.

Inexplicably, he felt a wave of tenderness wash over him, and suddenly had the desire to just reach out and be close to her, to touch her, to hold her hand. Almost involuntarily, he found himself shifting slightly closer to her on the sofa.

“And then, if Aurora doesn’t want to move in, Bryce said he’d be interested.”

Ethan stiffened, and it must have been enough for Elle to notice that he had come closer, because she looked up at him.

“The scalpel jockey?” It was a piss poor attempt to keep his tone indifferent, casual. He knew exactly who Bryce fucking Lahela was.

“Yeah, him,” said Elle.

He knew they were friends, but Ethan had seen the surgeon checking out Elle’s ass on far too many occasions for him to know it was more than friendship on his mind. He was clearly a touchy-feely kind of guy; slapping his senior surgeons on the shoulder, throwing arms round his friends when he joined them at the nurses’ station, but for Elle…it was different. Ethan had seen his hands settle on her waist, on the small of her back, in all the non-platonic places, for just a little too long.

Ethan drained his glass, then rose from the sofa to retrieve the bottle of wine from the kitchen counter. Elle watched him; noticing the change in his demeanour.

“I bet he’ll love that,” Ethan snorted, refilling their glasses.

“Why?”

“Because,” said Ethan, placing the bottle down a little harder on the coffee table than he had meant to and dropping back down to the sofa, “he makes no secret of the fact that he likes you.”

“Bryce is just a friend,” Elle laughed.

“He doesn’t seem to think so.”

“Bryce is a quick fuck in a shower kind of guy, not the romantic dinner and candles type.”

Ethan almost spat out his wine.

“Excuse me?”

“Look,” Elle sighed. “Me and Bryce are friends. I know he has a bit of a thing for me, the girls have told me. But I don’t like him like that. He came on to me at our housewarming party, after everyone had gone, and offered…well, that.”

“I see,” said Ethan stiffly. Jealously began to rage in him like an inferno, yet his blood seemed to turn cold. “And was it good, your ‘quick fuck in the shower?’”

Why the on earth did he ask that, why did he even care? He knew he sounded like an asshole, he was supposed to be making her feel better, but instead he was prying. The wine felt potent in his stomach- maybe that was part of the reason why his tongue was loose- but either way, he just needed to know.

This time, it was Elle’s time to choke on her drink.

“Ethan!” she spluttered. “No, I didn’t have sex with him!” she giggled. “I do friends, not friends with benefits, and it’s much harder to friendzone a guy after you’ve had sex. Me and him laugh about it now.”

As relief flooded through Ethan, Elle started to roll around the sofa laughing, the last dregs of wine in her glass teetering precariously close to the edge. But Ethan didn’t care. She was so damn beautiful when she laughed, and he was so glad to see her laughing. It was hard to imagine that a couple of hours ago, she had been performing chest compressions on a child.

He laughed too, although he didn’t think it was that funny. The wine was definitely a good idea to lighten both their spirits.

But as suddenly as she started laughing, she stopped.

“Elle?”

“No…no I can’t.”

“What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer. Ethan scooted closer to her, and her entire demeanour had changed. Suddenly, she was so still and sad. He stretched an arm around her shoulders, placing his other hand on her thigh.

And that was all it took.

The simple intimacy of the action was a static shock between them, and her eyes snapped up to his in the dim light of his living room. Suddenly Ethan felt his heart pounding in his chest. He looked at her face, and it was as if he had just realised how impossibly beautiful she was for the very first time.

“Elle, what is it?” he whispered gently, his fingertips pressing ever so slightly into her thigh. There was a mere millimetre between skin and skin, the flimsy fabric of her tights.

“Oh god, what am I even doing?” she breathed.

“What do you mean?”

“I should be feeling shit about Katie, I watched a child fucking die tonight! I should be feeling shit about Bryce, I should be feeling shit about missing Elijah’s movie night, he’s been going on about it for ages. And I do feel shit…but I’m also sitting here getting drunk with my boss, and fucking enjoying it! And wanting to…”

Ethan desperately wanted to ask her to finish her sentence, wanted to know what she wanted. Wanted to know if it was the same as him.

Instead, he focused, as much as his mind would let him, on the fact she was in a bad place. He needed to step up, and offer some emotional support. This was why he had taken her back to his place after all, wasn’t it?

“You don’t have to feel any kind of way. It’s like you said, just let yourself feel it. Grief is a complex, multi-dimensional thing. You think how you’re acting isn’t right, but there is no right. Whatever you feel right now, in this moment, is right. How do you feel?”

Both of their breaths were heavy, and Ethan could feel his fingers pulsing on her thigh.

“I feel…I don’t know.”

“That’s okay, to not know. If you don’t know how you feel, go with what you want. What do you want?”

Her eyes pierced his, Ethan swore she could see right into his soul. Suddenly, there was no wine, no living room, nothing else. Elle was the only thing in the whole damn world.

“What do you want, Ethan?” she whispered.

Their gazes met; his eyes full of ravenous hunger. Unconsciously, almost, his hand reached up to the back of her neck, twining in her golden locks.

“You. Only you. Always you.”

He saw the look on her face only for a second, before he crashed his mouth into hers, his hand still at her neck, the other gripping her thigh for dear life. She kissed him back, hard, her arms snaking around his shoulders. The dam was broken.

Only when she bit the bottom of his lip, and Ethan let out a moan of pleasure, did they finally come up for air.

“Ethan…” she breathed heavily.

“I need you, Elle. Please-”

Before he could finish, Elle answered him with her mouth. Ethan pulled her tight onto his lap, her knees straddling him. His tongue danced with hers, relishing in the warmth of her mouth, their lips never breaking.

His hands slid up her thighs, grabbing the hem of her jumper dress and pulling it up and over her head. Ethan’s eyes drank in the sight of her torso.

“You’re incredible,” he breathed.

He brushed his fingers over the rise of her heaving breasts, bulging out the top of her black lace balconette bra. Elle gasped as he slipped his fingers into the cup.

“This is too small for you,” Ethan growled, hands tearing ravenously at the clasp. There was a loud ripping sound. “I’ll have to buy you more lingerie,” he muttered, somewhat apologetically.

Impatient, Elle reached behind her back with nimble hands and unclasped the torn bra herself, tossing it to the floor.

“My god, Elle…” Ethan groaned, drinking in the sight of her bare chest. “You are a goddess.”

He seized her ample breasts in both hands, kneading and massaging carefully. Elle let out a groan of pleasure.

“Ethan…oh!”

He took one of her breasts in his mouth, circling her hard nipple with his tongue, his thumb taking care of her other. They felt so good; so heavy and warm and full on his face and hands. He wished his head could be buried between them forever, these breasts carved by the angels.

Elle threw her head back in pleasure as Ethan alternated between sucking and biting. She began to grind in his lap, and he could feel her heat through her thin tights against his stone hard cock, the sensation arousing him even more. Not removing his mouth from her breasts, he snaked his hand underneath the waistband of her tights.

“Fuck!” Elle gasped, immediately rocking harder against his fingers that hadn’t yet slipped under her panties.

Ethan almost lost it at the feeling of her hot arousal all over her fingers. Steeling himself, he focused intently on prolonging her pleasure, pushing past her panties and massaging her clit.

“Take..them…off,” Elle commanded between gasps.

With pure carnal desire, Ethan ripped the tights clean off, and pushed her panties down her thighs. At the same time, Elle fumbled with his belt and flies, making quick work of exposing him quickly.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he moaned, “Elle, oh my-fuck!”

Panties tossed to the floor, Elle re-positioned and sat on him fully, and Ethan almost came there and then from the feeling of being inside her once again. Oh how he had longed for this, for so long. She was so slick for him, so perfect and tight, and he fitted into her perfectly. It was although they were made for each other, Ethan thought, in more ways than one.

Throwing her head back, Elle began to grind on his lap, and Ethan could not withhold his primal moan. He closed his eyes, drowning in pleasure, but forced himself to open them, not wanting to miss the sight of the woman on top of him.

Her hips danced tantalising circles on his cock, circling, bouncing, grinding.

“I’ve dreamed of you like this…for months…every…fucking…night.”

Fire roared in Elle’s eyes as she took in his words, the confession appearing to spur her even more.

‘Oh my god,” Ethan groaned as she changed her pattern of gyration in just the right way.

How was she even real, how could sex be this fucking good? It was otherworldly.

“Since the Amazon?” Elle panted.

“In the Amazon. Every night. And before then…before I fucked you for the first time….and every night since…how could I ever forget?”

He traced his hands over her mesmerising hips, gripping them hard, as if seizing on to the moment itself, making sure it was real.

Elle was such a vision. Her blonde locks cascaded over her shoulders, her bare breasts bouncing up and down, her taut stomach moving in time with her hips. And her face; her beautiful, perfect face, a picture of bliss and pleasure, all for him.

He moved his hands down to her ass, roving over the soft, full cheeks. Elle moaned with pleasure as he slapped and squeezed, hard. He guided her up and down, and returned her vigour with his own thrusts, in perfect harmony.

“Oh…Ethan…I’m so close…I want it to last,” Elle gasped as she slowed down, and Ethan looked up to see her face a mix of strain and pleasure, trying desperately to withhold her climax.

“I know sweetheart,” he murmured, leaning up to kiss her breasts again. “Come for me. Let yourself go, I’ve got you.”

“Ohhh!” cried Elle a few seconds later, her eyes hammering shut as she lost herself in pleasure. Ethan watched as she threw her head back, the sounds she was making and the look of pure ecstasy on her face making him delirious and come, hard.

“Elle!”

He could feel her contracting around him as he filled her, her thighs shuddering and twitching as she rode out the last of her orgasmic waves.

After a few moments, they began to come down from the high. Suddenly filled with a surge of determination, Ethan sat up, lifting Elle effortlessly into his arms, and strode towards the bedroom. The empty wine glasses shattered onto the floor in their wake, like the barriers that had been shattered between them.

“Ethan!” Elle yelped, as he kicked open the door and laid her gently on the bed, by the pillows.

“I’m not done,” he said huskily. “I want to make you feel so good, Elle.” He hastily unbuttoning his shirt and throwing it on the floor. “Look at you.”

Moving slowly towards the bed, he drank in the sight of her naked form; he a lost man wandering the Sahara; her body a desert spring.

“You have no idea what it does to me when you look at me like that, Ethan,” she whispered as he crawled on to the bed, running his hands over her body.

“And you have no idea what you do to me by just existing.” He planted hot kisses over her neck, slowly making his way downwards. “What it does to me when you’re in the same fucking room as me,” she shivered deliciously as his beard scratched her collarbone. “When you take off your white coat and I see you’re wearing one of those goddamn fitted dresses, and then I can’t stop thinking about what I know is underneath.”

His kisses lingered on Elle’s breasts; his hand travelling to her clit.

“It’s harder now…” he breathed; the sweet moans coming from her mouth at his ministrations were music to his ears. “Before the first time, I could only imagine what it was like to have you…but now I know how sweet your pussy is. I thought those two months would make me forget…but it’s only made me want you more.”

Suddenly, Elle knelt up, and Ethan gasped as her hand curled around his cock, hard again already.

“Show me,” she demanded, eyes wide and blazing with desire.

“All those times I know you’ve held back, when I hold your hand, when you touch my cheek, when it’s just us alone together. I want you to show me everything you’ve been holding back. I want you to fuck me, hard, Ethan. I need to feel it.”

Her assertiveness roused Ethan even more; she pressed her lips to his and worked her hand up and down his cock to assure him further of her consent. That was all he needed.

Effortlessly, he curled a hand around her tiny waist and flipped her over on the bed onto all fours.

“Mmm…yesss,” she moaned, arching her back to invite him in.

Ethan took just a few moments to indulge himself, relishing in the sight of her like that, willing and ready for him. Then, he couldn’t wait any longer.

They gasped simultaneously as he plunged into her smooth, soaked folds.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he growled, beginning to rock against her. “I love being inside of you.”

Elle arched her back even more, crying out in pleasure as the angle of his penetration hit her in just the right spot.

“Oh my god…Ethan.”

She threw her head back, and Ethan reached forward, pulling on her blonde locks.

“YES!”

He picked up the pace, the sound and feel of her ass clapping against his hips drawing him ever closer to the edge. His fingers roamed beneath her, seizing as much of her bouncing breasts as his hands would let him. He circled his thumbs over her hard nipples, and Elle groaned and pushed back against him.

“Harder Ethan…don’t-fucking-stop!”

Grabbing her hips, he rammed himself into her furiously. All the restraint, every modicum of self-control, all the excruciating, agonising professionalism that had been towering between them, dissolved away more and more with each thrust.

“I’m going to come again…” Elle’s fingers curled into the bedsheets, knuckles white. “Oh-oh-OH, ETHAN!”

Elle’s repeated cries of his name became lost in whimpers and moans as he reached around to massage her clit, and she exploded into blissful climax once again. Ethan knew he was a matter of strokes away from the same.

Ethan slowed himself, gently holding her waist, supporting her as her knees buckled on the come down from the high.

“You can finish in me again,” she panted after a few moments, “I want you to.”

She began to arch her back again, but Ethan turned her over to lie on her back with a surprising tenderness.

“I want- I need to look at you, Elle.”

The thick desire in his voice was suddenly mixed with a gentle tenderness. He entered her again, his strokes slow but firm.

Something in the atmosphere had changed. The raw, animalistic passion and pent-up lust, had morphed into something else. Something more.

Ethan moved one hand to brace himself against the headboard, the other caressing Elle’s cheek.

“You’re so beautiful.”

He moved his hand to hers, lacing their fingers together. She squeezed, and he squeezed back.

Their steady rhythm led Ethan closer to his climax. He stared into her brilliant green eyes, and she returned his gaze with wonder.

“Ethan..”

Her eyes became glassy, and she reached up to touch his cheek. Inexplicably, Ethan felt a tear of his own began to fall.

“You’re everything to me, Elle. Everything.”

Finally, Ethan felt the heat that had been steadily building in his lower abdomen roar into flames.

“Oh, sweetheart, Elle…ELLE!”

He cried out her name, desperately. There was a loud crack as the headboard that Ethan braced himself on split, but neither of them seemed to care. Ethan let his vision fill with the face of the woman below him. If this was his final sight before he died, Ethan would die a happy man.

After a few hazy seconds, Elle let go of his hand, and reached up to stroke his back, almost cradling him from beneath. Ethan removed himself from her, panting hard. He laid down beside her, gathering her into his arms.

“That was…that was..” Elle began.

They both chuckled lightly, and Ethan squeezed her close.

“Incredible,” he finished for her, and pressed a tender kiss to her lips.

They laid there, wrapped in each other for a long while, before Ethan reached up again to caress her cheek.

“Are you ok, Elle?”

“I’m…”

She trailed off. The ecstasy was over. The pain of the world and the previous events of the night slowly ebbed back into reality.

“I’ve just had amazing sex, and I’m here with you, Ethan. I’m ok.” She smiled.

Ethan knew that she was still in pain, and a feeling of guilt swelled in Ethan. He knew so much of that pain was from him, from not being together. Pain she did not deserve, pain Ethan wished he could take away completely.

“Elle, I…” he propped himself up on one elbow, staring into her eyes. The familiar storm of conflict and desire played out within him. Another tear fell down his cheek.

He wanted so badly to say the words, those words. The words he felt for her with his entire being, and had done for such a long time.

Elle reached up, wiping his tear away.

“I know.”

There was a deep and bittersweet understanding in her eyes.

She pulled him back down for a kiss, before snuggling closely in his arms.

***

Ethan and Elle slept deeply that night, curled up in each other. There was so much pain in their life, in their profession as doctors, so much pain between them. But so much of something else.

Even if he couldn’t say it yet. But that night, he wanted to make sure that Elle could feel it.

And felt it, she did.

#ethan ramsey #dr ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart #open heart 2

[wherevermyway]

step out! do what you want (chapter seven)

pairings: reader/bang chan, reader/han jisung side pairings: 
established changbin/minho, reader/bang chan/han jisung, possible bang chan/han jisung rating: explicit | 18+ warnings: graphic descriptions of violence, near-death experiences, discussion of death, drug usage to cope with emotions, profanity, discussion of pregnancy, drug dealer!au, organized crime!au. also: FEELINGS. word count: about 5,480 also can be found on my AO3 here! chapter/series navigation

chapter seven: before it breaks in half and then we bend it back again

recommended tracks: I’ll be your reason by illenium, in your arms by illenium, everything I wanted by billie eilish, when I was older by billie eilish, back to u by slander and william black, hope world by j-hope, slow dancing in the dark by joji, everything in its right place by radiohead, moon by krrum. playlist can be found here!

note: dunno about y’all but i'm still really upset over chapter six, so i’m sorry if you are too :’) there’s a lot of feelings regarding the death that I’m trying to wrap up in this chapter. couldn’t really make traditional Korean rites work the way they’re generally presented, so if the inaccuracy bothers you, I’m sorry! also I was a little baked writing some of these parts so if it’s too existential, my bad lol.

disclaimer: any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable, please stop reading now.

side note: for the love of minho’s cats, don’t mix party drugs or drugs with alcohol.

There was one time, when you were seven years old, your mother had taken you down to Fukuoka to visit your grandparents. You were close to the harbour, slipping out of her vision for just a moment when the waves pulled up on the coast and sucked you in. The warmth that took over your body as you fell out of consciousness was welcoming, like receiving the deepest hug of your life. It had taken over you, from the tips of your toes and dissipating with a tingle in your forehead.

When you were pulled from the water, brought back from the entrance of purgatory, however, you felt miserable. You could have sworn you felt the oxygen enter every cell in your body, coming back from death. Everything ached and burned, abruptly springing back to life.

Your eyes ripped open, staring into the clouds above you. White flower petals were gusting along with the wind. The burning you felt in your chest and your arms was familiar to the time you experienced as a child: jarring, making you start to panic. It felt as though lava was coursing through your veins.

“- is too elevated, I can’t -“ a familiar voice travels around your head. You know the voice, but you can’t place exactly who it is. “- sats are - “ the voice cuts out as you notice someone stab your wrist with a branding iron, hot fluid burning its way up your arm. The voice says your name, it echoing around in the space between your ears for a minute. “ - alright, but it’s going to -“

The darkness envelopes you in an instant, drawing you back to the empty space in your head, where you’re not sure consciousness really exists. “You don’t want to be here,” a familiar voice whispers from in front of you. You’re unable to picture the shape that’s clouding your vision, still lost in trying to place the voice.

“Trust me,” the voice says again. You’re about to open your mouth to say something, but you find it impossible to get your muscles to move. “You don’t want to be here. Go back.”

You can’t help but think why you’re here, how you’re here. “I need you to trust me,” the voice says again, getting further and further away from you. “It’s not your time yet.”

Your eyes tear open again, and you’re now in a sterile, white room, the sound of machines humming and trilling in the background. Two weights pull you down on either side of you: Jisung and Christopher, each holding one of your hands, resting at your sides.

You make a pointed effort to shift your shoulders, muscles adjusting for what feels like the first time in ages. A deep, throaty groan comes up from your lungs as you shift, and it startles Jisung awake.

“Oh my god,” he sleepily breathes out, shaking his head as he grabs your face, “Bunny, you’re back, oh my god!” Christopher starts to shift, and Jisung slaps his shoulder a couple of times. “Chan, wake up! She’s back!”

Christopher wastes no time shaking himself awake, grabbing your shoulders and pulling you into him.

“Ow, ow, ow,” you grumble, unable to really express the burning sensation taking over your body. “Hurts, that hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” Christopher gasps, releasing you from his grip. He stares at you with a look of disbelief and exhaustion painted over his face. “You’re finally back.”

“What are you talking about?” You shake your head, somehow pulling your arm out of invisible cement and gripping your hair. “What happened? Where am I?” Christopher and Jisung look at each other, Jisung making an effort to bite his lip and look back down to the bed.

“It’s been a month, baby.” Christopher interlaces his fingers in yours, reaching his free hand up to your face. “You’ve been out for a month and we had no idea if you were even going to come back.”

It had been a week exactly since Changbin took a bullet for you. Minho spent a lot of time on the couch, staring out the window and clearly contemplating life. He looked like he lost a couple of kilograms in just a few days, his cheeks sunken in and his face an ashy grey.  Felix came over a few times to try and get him to take care of himself, hooking him up to IV fluids every other day.

Minho would end up yelling at him every time he was hooked up to the IV. “I just want you to put me out and leave me alone,” he said, tossing a fistful of plastic packaging at his junior. “I’m tired of fucking dealing with this. Just keep me out until the funeral, alright?”

Felix would sigh under his breath, eventually pushing a couple vials of liquid into Minho’s IV, causing him to collapse within himself in seconds. “I can’t keep doing this to him, hyung.” Felix looked up at Christopher, his eyes clearly drained of energy and emotion. “It’s not ethical, for one, but it’s mostly not fair to Lee-hyung. He’s got to address this at some point. You know that.”

Christopher leans up against the wall, sighing heavily. “I know,” he whispered, “I’m thankful for all of the work you’ve been doing with him, though, Felix. You’re an asset to us.”

Felix dips his head in appreciation, but clearly still has something on his mind. “Hyung,” he presses, but Christopher waves his hand in the air.

“I know,” he says, walking to Felix and leaning down in front of him. “You’re absolutely correct. I need him at his best before I can figure out what to do with the family. It’s out of respect to Changbin; Minho knew the organization best after him, just because of his proximity. Once I can get that information from him, I’ll know how to handle this. All of this.”

Jisung shifts uncomfortably on the couch next to you, biting his lip. “Do you know what we’re doing with Hyunjin?”

Christopher opens his mouth to speak, but he interrupts himself before he says anything. Felix chimes in for him, however, “Seungmin has been handling him during the day. We got the location of a couple Triad hotspots in Seoul and Busan, but he didn’t know as much as we had hoped. He’s been really broken up over Seo-hyung, so he’s not talking much.”

Christopher rolls his eyes, scoffing. “I can’t believe the nerve of this bastard.” Felix nods, peeling off the nitrile gloves from his hands.

“I’ve got the propofol, I just need you to give the word,” the bleach-blond man says under his breath. You’re not sure if he’s serious, but the look that Christopher gives Felix as he says that makes your blood run cold.

“You’re too eager,” he simply says. “Hyunjin may have royally fucked up, but he’s still a brother. We decide what to do together.”

Jisung throws his hands up in the air, falling into the back of the couch and sighing in frustration. “We have two days, right? That’s when it’s happening?” Christopher nods his head, turning to look at Minho.

“Yeah. Minho said he wanted it on a Saturday, so that’s when it’s going to happen.” Christopher stands up, moving to cover Minho with a blanket and helps adjust him to a more comfortable position. “He’s been trying to get a hold of Changbin’s family all week, but no dice. Once we joined the family, he tried to distance himself as much as possible. He hasn’t even spoken with his sister in three years.”

Christopher sits down on the couch at Minho’s feet, right in front of Felix. “I wish he didn’t have to go through this. I know he’s been having a hard time with the family since the Shanghai incident, ready to leave everything behind just so he and Changbin could have lived a quiet life somewhere else.” Christopher lets out a soft scoff, then rubs Minho’s leg.

“He got really mad at me not long before I met you,” he says, looking at you with a half-smile, “Changbin was scolding me, telling me I was wasting my time in the family, that I needed to find someone like Minho so I had a reason to leave. We were at my apartment, laying on the floor in the studio and smoking a joint, recording some instrumentals that came to us. Then he just drops that on me, saying I should leave. We were too old to get any real benefit from the group anymore.

“He was upset, telling me that Minho wanted to settle down with him, but they were too deep into the family to really explore it as a real option.” Christopher continues to rub Minho’s leg, the younger man shifting in his sleep beneath him. “Changbin never let himself express emotions - especially not love - in front of anyone but me. He even had a hard time with me. I remember him telling me that he had fallen for Minho right after the Shanghai incident. He was pacing in my apartment for a good hour, working up the courage to tell me.

“I remember he panicked. He was pulling the hair out of his head, starting to tear up when he told me. ‘I’m in love with this guy,’ he said, ‘and I know it’s inappropriate and I know I shouldn’t, he took a fuckin’ bullet for me.’” Christopher smiles a bit, bringing his hand up to Minho’s face, brushing his hair to the side. “Changbin would keep panicking, telling me he was overthinking everything and he was convinced that there was no way Minho would even like him like that. But then, he started noticing. Minho would say things during recovery. He’d look at him for a moment too long, he’d touch him for a split second longer than he intended.”

Christopher smiles a bit wider. “Then it happened. Changbin had gotten Minho to walk a hundred metres. Minho collapsed in his arms, so excited over his achievement. He was so excited and happy, he didn’t care that he had fallen, because Changbin was there to help him. And Changbin just did it - he kissed Minho. Kissed him quite a bit, is what he told me.

“I remember he was so upset, because everything felt so right. But he got Minho back up to his bed and left him, too ashamed to show his face around him again.” Christopher runs his hand through his hair, still staring at the man below him with a smile. “Minho called me while Changbin was at my apartment, panicking - he always has really good timing. Changbin pretended like he wasn’t there, wasn’t watching my every movement and reaction as Minho talked in my ear.

“Minho was annoyed, but not surprised, ‘Changbin just does this,’ he told me. ‘Freaks out, then hides, and gets all embarrassed over how embarrassed he is. Bet he’s redder than a beet and freaking out over this.’ And he was right, Changbin was curled up on the couch, hands in his hair, face a real deep shade of red.

“He told me to tell Changbin to stop freaking out, that he had a feeling he was there and was pretending to blend into the background. He’d be waiting for him as long as it took, that he wasn’t mad.”

Jisung makes an effort to hide him rubbing his eyes, but you manage to see him out of the corner of your eye. You pull him into your chest and grip him tightly. “I was mad,” Minho sleepily grumbles, shifting from underneath Christopher. “I really was, though. Mad he kept it all in. Mad he didn’t trust me. Mad he kissed me and left. Mad he was going to shove his feelings under the rug again. Wasn’t fair to himself.”

“H-hey,” Christopher says, a look of discomfort passing over his face, “how long have you been listening?”

“Long enough,” Minho rubs his eyes, sighing, and adjusting himself to stare up at the ceiling. “I knew some shit like this was going to happen eventually. Bin was always stubborn when it came to you guys, saying you annoyed the shit out of him more than his actual family. Hell,” he scoffs, turning his head to look at Christopher, “you were his family, as far as he was concerned. I was always worried I was gonna lose him to you, that he had some deep-seated, secret crush on you.”

Christopher’s face shifts, probably understanding why Minho would feel that way. “He always said you weren’t his type and he wasn’t your type. That you kissed once when you got really drunk in high school together and it was weird and awkward. You’d swore to never talk about it again, but you loved him anyways. Always supported him.”

“Yeah,” Christopher says with a laugh as he rubs his eyes. “Changbin was always the best friend I never knew I needed. He never judged me or nagged me about dumb shit I did. He would say ‘just stay positive, it’ll work out eventually.’ And he was right, every single time. Man,” he reached out to Minho, grabbing his kneecap, “he loved the hell out of you, though.”

Minho scoffs, rolling his eyes, “Oh, I know. He always tried to act tough in front of you guys, especially when I was around, but when it was just the two of us?”

“He was totally different, wasn’t he?” Christopher says with a smirk.

“Yeah,” Minho nods, closing his eyes. “Night and day. It’d be just the two of us and he’d do the cutest shit. We’d curl up on the couch and watch old romantic comedies. He always made himself seem a lot tougher than he was, but he was always the little spoon when we’d cuddle up to each other. Always fell asleep with his head on my chest. Wouldn’t let me go to bed if he thought I was mad at him, because he always said it was important to never go to bed angry. He’d take up the whole bed and huff and puff until I reassured him I wasn’t mad at him.”

Christopher suddenly pulls Minho into his chest, holding him tightly for a couple of moments. It takes a minute, but you notice them both crying quietly against each other. Felix gets up, throwing his gloves into the kitchen rubbish before leaning over the sink. Jisung makes a pointed effort not to look at you as he digs his face into your chest, wrapping his arms around your ribcage.

The guys have a moment to themselves, letting them grieve however they felt the need to. It felt like the energy in the room was different. You finally understood just how close everyone really was to each other, that they really did view themselves as family, that it wasn’t just an empty title. Changbin was the one that brought them all together in one way or another, and now he was gone. Someone would have to fill those shoes eventually, but that wasn’t important right now.

Minho deeply inhales, lifting his head up dramatically, and looking at Felix. “Lix,” he says, motioning for him to come closer, “I’ve been horrible to you all week.”

“Yeah,” Felix sniffs, nodding his head as he walks to the couch, kneeling down in front his senior, “you’ve been pretty terrible, but I don’t blame you, hyung.”

“No,” Minho grumbles, grabbing his junior with a firm grip and pulling him into his chest, “it’s not okay. I’m really sorry for treating you so terribly when you’ve been taking good care of me. We’re lucky to have you. Changbin knew what he was doing when he picked you.”

Felix scoffs, then makes an affirmative nod. “Changbin was always good at letting me feel needed in the group. He told me a couple weeks ago that he was glad I joined up with everyone, that we needed someone smart and dedicated.”

“Yeah,” Minho laughs, “that time that you were training Sungie, though, that was great.”

Jisung perks his head up, pulling one of the throw pillows out from behind you, tossing it over at Minho. “Hyung!” He shouts, his face puffing up in frustration as he whines, “Why are you always so mean to me?”

Minho laughs, playfully tossing the pillow back at him. “You’re always comedic relief. If you don’t like it, stop doing silly shit.”

Saturday morning came faster than you anticipated. The day was supposed to be simple, just a celebration of life at Cheonggyecheon with you and all of the members of the family. It was to be low-key and subtle. Minho said he wanted it to seem as nonchalant as possible, that people walking by wouldn’t really pinpoint it as a funeral. “Changbin hated unwanted attention,” he said.

Minho kept a portrait of Changbin in the breast pocket of his jacket, only pulling it out for a brief moment when he was recounting Changbin’s life, keeping it only in his line of sight. Flowers were blooming all around the stream site, petals occasionally being lifted by the wind, dancing around your small group, decorating you all in white.

Everything was going as expected. You all looked normal, making sure not to stick out in any way, but you should have known that having a gathering in downtown Seoul was a stupid plan. When bullets started flying from the bridge across from you, you weren’t surprised. When you got shot a few times, you still weren’t surprised.

“Oh,” you remember saying as you collapsed into the ground. “Interesting.”

The pain was only there for a moment as you were pulled away from the brink of death by Felix, then it dissipated quickly when everything turned to black. That voice from earlier was talking to you again, but you couldn’t understand what it was saying.

“Who are you?” You had asked the voice that spoke to you. It was familiar enough for you to pinpoint it as someone you knew, but you couldn’t remember who exactly it was. “Why am I here? Why are you here?” You had said to the nothingness, not actually expecting a response.

“You know who I am,” the voice responded, “and I know that you don’t belong here. That’s what matters.”

“Why?”

“It’s just not your time,” the voice pressed, getting further away from you. “Tell them I’m sorry, I couldn’t hold on. It just wasn’t in the cards, I guess.”

“Tell who? What are you talking about?” Your voice sounded frail, weaker somehow. “I’ve been here before, haven’t I?”

“Yeah,” the voice calmly reassures you, “this happens when you’re at death’s door. You got shot a couple times. Felix was working on you, bringing you back. But you can’t seem to make up your mind, if you want to stay or if you want to go.” The voice scoffs, sighing in annoyance. “Make up your fuckin’ mind already, would you? Be glad you got the option.”

“What?” The voice was starting to make more sense, but somehow still drifting further off into space. Was that who you thought it was? What the hell was his name?

“Go back. Christopher and Jisung need you. Hell,” he scoffs again, “Minho could use you, too. He likes something about you. Told me you’d be good friends eventually. I can see it now, of course. But you need to go back. Get out of here.”

“Wait a minute,” you say, trying to reach your hand out into the darkness, but nothing happens. “I know you. I remember you.”

“Yeah, you do, but you’re running out of time. Get out of here. Seriously, stop coming back here before I kill you myself.”

The voice dissipates, and you gasp loudly, opening your eyes. You’re in a bright white room, the trilling and beeping of machines replacing the voice that was in your head. Christopher and Jisung are on either side of you, staring at you in shock. That’s when it hits you: you have been here before. You talked with the voice before, too.

“Oh my god,” Jisung gasps, tears falling from his eyes as he grabs your legs. “You need to stop doing this. I can’t handle you doing this anymore.”

Christopher sighs heavily, staring at the monitors behind you with determination before he grabs your face and stares directly in your eyes. “Please stop doing that,” he says, his eyes starting to water. “You keep dying on us and I can’t handle it, either.”

“What?” You blink your eyes rapidly, your body growing heavy as you come to. “What are you talking about?”

Christopher takes in a deep breath, and Jisung crawls up next to you on your hospital bed. “Sung,” he presses and grabs Jisung’s wrist, “let her rest comfortably.”

“No,” he says with a slight quiver to his voice as he starts sobbing and chattering uncontrollably, “I can’t handle any more of this. Changbin-hyung’s gone, we almost lost her, you’ve been shot enough already, and we almost lost Minho and Seungmin. I’m not going to sit idly by and watch. I can’t lose anyone else. I just can’t. So, I’m sorry if I’m not handling this the way you want me to.”

Christopher sighs, then reaches his hand out to stroke Jisung’s hair. “Fine, Sungie, that’s fine. Just don’t cause problems, alright?”

“So,” you say, enjoying Jisung’s warmth as you clear your throat, “what happened?”

You had woken up briefly before, a couple weeks ago. It was a month after you had gotten shot at the funeral site. Christopher had explained it before, but you started to decline within a few hours of waking up, slipping in and out of consciousness. There was a point where you were comatose and intubated. He mentioned there was a point where you were bleeding, but it all blurred together.

There were a handful of doctors and nurses that came in to check on you, taking care of you as you needed. Felix came in at one point, concerned about some of the things he had seen on your labs, mentioning that he needed to talk to you about the next time you were conscious - if you regained consciousness, that was. He was acting as a neutral proxy for your healthcare, since there was no one that could legally speak for you.

Jisung made an offhanded comment that Christopher had yelled at Felix for the way he was handling your care, but Felix was trying to be as ethically consistent as possible. His first priority was to do no harm, and then comforting the family would come second. Neither Felix nor Christopher were trying to be cold about it on purpose. Christopher had been on edge since you slipped from consciousness the last time, and was unfairly taking it out on the first person he could.

“It made me realize,” he said, pulling his chair up closer to you, as he grabbed your hand, rubbing it on his face. “I love you. I really, honestly do.”

Jisung lifts his head off of your shoulder, turning to look at you with wide eyes. “You what?” He turned back to Christopher, cocking his head in disbelief. “Did I just hear you say that correctly?”

“Yeah,” Christopher says, softly, as the tears threatening to spill earlier finally fall from his eyes. “I love you, alright? Losing Changbin, then almost losing you made me realize it. I thought I felt it the day we lost Changbin, but I really, truly realized it when we almost lost you.” Christopher rolls his eyes up to Jisung, sighing deeply as he closes his eyes. “I guess I love you, too, in some weird way. Maybe not in the exact same way, but, you know, that’s not what matters. You’re important to me. We can figure it out as we go, right?”

Jisung kind of short-circuits for a minute, his head cocking to one side, then to the other side. He sputters incoherently a few times as words try to come to him, but don’t quite make it to fruition.

“I’m glad,” Christopher starts to speak again, “that we worked out the way we did. I remember thinking it was a really stupid idea when you brought it up, that Jisung wouldn’t be able to handle it, that he would panic or something.” Jisung glares at Christopher, about to quip something in response, but he’s cut off as Christopher continues.

“Hell, I should have been worried I couldn’t handle it. You two work so well together,” he says, looking at you and smiling, “and being able to be a part of this, to be a part of what you have, is just what I needed. Changbin always told me I was too hasty and protective in relationships, that I would need someone who could handle that but still challenge me.”

He flits his eyes to Jisung, grabbing one of his hands, bringing both of your hands together. “I was really horrible to you at the beginning, wasn’t I? Treated you as if you were some threat to a piece of property I felt entitled to, which is completely inappropriate. I shouldn’t have acted that way to either of you. I’m honestly so sorry that I acted the way that I did. Can you forgive me?”

Jisung scoffs, “Yeah, you were pretty rude. But I knew that about you, I mean, I put it aside when we started with this relationship, didn’t I?” Christopher nods his head, kind of humming to himself as he gets distracted by a thought. “I forgive you, though,” Jisung continues, a serious tone to his voice. “I know you were just being you, hyung.”

Christopher is about to make a comment, but the door to your hospital room opens. Felix walks in, his face perking up as he sees you completely conscious. “Well,” he says with a laugh, “look who took long enough and finally woke up.” Christopher turns his head over his shoulder, looking at Felix as he walks in.

“How are you feeling?” Felix continues, walking up to look at your monitors, pulling the paper feed from your EKG. “You’ve been circling the drain for the past couple weeks. I’m surprised you pulled through.”

“Yeah,” you say with a cough, adjusting the way you were seated, “I feel pretty terrible, I won’t lie. I feel like I’ve been a science experiment: poked, prodded, experimented on.”

Felix nods, looking at you, before turning his shoulder to the men behind you. “I need to talk with you about something. Alone, preferably.”

“Come on,” Jisung whines, grabbing you a little tighter, “she just came back. What happens if she slips out of consciousness again?”

“It’ll only take a moment,” the bleach-blond man reassures Jisung, turning to look at Christopher. “I promise.”

Christopher sits up, clearly displeased with the situation. He takes a second, then stands. “Come on, Sung,” he says, offering a hand to his junior. “It’s only fair. If you were in the same situation, I’m sure you’d want to be afforded the same respect.”

Jisung pouts, but does get up. “Fine,” he says, taking Christopher’s hand and standing up off of the bed. “But only for a bit, alright? She just came back to us.”

Felix bows his head slightly as the men leave the room. “I don’t want to alarm you,” he says, crouching down to be at eye level with you. He grabs your hands to comfort you. “But something on your labs concerned me when you first got here. I had the nurses pull some more blood to confirm, but,” he trails off, looking away from you.

“What?”

“When you were first admitted, you had detectable levels of hCG in your blood.” It took you a second, but the realization hit you and it hit you hard. The way Felix phrased his sentence so carefully made you worry.

“Had?” You press, sitting up a little and grabbing Felix’s hand a little tighter. “Does that mean…?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking up at you and grabbing your hands a bit tighter. “I had the nurses run your labs again just to make sure because you started bleeding profusely after you lost consciousness the second time. It didn’t make sense, not at first. I’ve been able to keep it hidden from Christopher and Jisung, but I knew I couldn’t keep it from you when you finally woke up.” He says your name softly, giving you a weak smile as he grips your hand. “I’m so sorry to come to you with this so soon after you came back.”

The two of you sat there in silence, staring at the thin blanket covering you. It seemed like it was an eternity as the realization that you were pregnant, and then suddenly weren’t washed over you. You hadn’t noticed you were crying until Felix wiped your face up with a tissue. He apologized again, just as Christopher and Jisung walked into the room.

“Sorry,” Jisung says in his usual chipper voice, “I was impatient and… what happened? Oh my god, are you okay? Bunny?” He hastily makes his way right back to your side, grabbing your face.

“What happened?” Christopher says coming up to your side, right next to Felix. “What’s the matter?”

“Do you want me to tell them?” Felix calmly asks you, rubbing his thumb on your hand. “I can tell them for you, or we can just ignore it for now.”

Christopher clearly doesn’t like that response. He grips Felix by the collar of his shirt, pulling him to his feet. “What happened?” Felix bites his lip, looking at you over his shoulder. “You’re talking to me, now, Lee.”

“It’s not your decision, hyung,” he says, squinting as he knows he’s only fuelling the fire. “I’m sorry, but you need to respect that and-“

“It’s nothing,” you say, the words falling from your lips before you can even really register it. “I mean, it’s not nothing, it was something, and now it’s nothing.”

“What are you talking about?” Christopher releases his grip on Felix’s collar, looking at you with concern. “What do you mean it was something and now it’s nothing? Why are you crying?”

You look at Jisung, then to Christopher, and sigh. You close your eyes in defeat and tilt your head down, trying to shrink yourself to make this all seem so much smaller, insignificant. If you treated it that way, it would hurt less, right?

“I was pregnant.” The words just slip out, quiet and concise. They have a taste of sterility and have a foreign texture as they leave your lips. “And now I’m not. That’s all. Something, now it’s nothing.”

“Oh my god,” Jisung says, collapsing at the side of your bed.  Christopher’s face falls in disbelief, and he says something in English, something you can’t pick up, and he grabs your face, forcing you to look him in the eyes.

“What?” Is all you can hear him say before you slip from consciousness, sinking into his arms. You expect to hear Changbin’s voice again, but it doesn’t greet you this time. You’re only greeted with the black void and nothingness.

#step out do what you want #wherevermyway #stray kids fics #skz fics #bang chan x reader #han jisung x reader #chan x jisung x reader #bang chan x han jisung x reader #seo changbin x lee minho #changbin x minho #i can't stop writing emotional shit oops #i really recommend the playlist this time for max feels

[madfantasy]

Dear Blogging

How are you, dears? Been awhile. A bit happen I like to ramble about, a mix of good and the bad as life can be~

Starting with the good news first, I GOT ME A PC AT LAST!!

And how I got— OH, it was a peice of Slytherin scheming, I gotta tell you.

•SO. I was saving up for it for almost a year, right. And when we moved things just went downhill fast from every direction, I had to give everything I have for groceries and bills and all.

But my current pc was coughing up much worse slowly, it was basically running on prayers, I have nothing on it but my files and drawing program, backing up everything was painfully slow. I had to buy something reliable soon, or I won't be drawing.

I was going to get me a normal desk computer, I had it in my wish list for ages, the minute I gathered the full price- it was sold out. I was considably mmfff-ed. Each time I get enough for a good deal pc with the qualities I need- it gets sold out, cuz ya know, everybody's quarantine now and need pcs to be occupied, I suppose.

So, I had to ask for my money back or at least part of it, which I was promised that it would be given back to me, let me clarify. Denied.

I didn't care 'bout groceries, I was miffed— I rather eat dirt for a while than not draw. And so, I begged and pleaded, pleaded and begged. Each time I find a new deal it gets sold out, I'm being ignored further, and it was getting harder to find local deals, and buying aboard wasn't possible these days, even if its cheaper.

Eventually, I asked for only 1/4 of my money back, careful not to say how much it cost or how much I have (cuz I learnt my lesson, it would be taken from me again), so I was given.

I bought it thunder-quick, and it arrived to the next towns delivery office. And FER SOME REASON they sent us a message saying come get your parcel before a week- give or take, and didn't bother to deliver or call.

I was like WHY?!? I knew why anyway, cuz we live in an unmarked town or maybe a village, no traffic or services to pass us.

Since I'm not allowed to step foot outside, and was denied my wishes to learn how to drive (CONSTANTLY), and them bravely taking the responsibility of tending to my needs, I had to beg and plead again. I'm told to forget it, they'll call us and get it here.

For three days, nobody did. I texted, email, messaged all the company's support centers, no response from anyone.

I got the location of their office and phone number and begged them to check it. NOPE.

I was fuming at this point, I was planning ways to go on foot and get it myself, but it was silly- it was 15 minutes drive away, according to Google maps.

So I thought so hard in a way to forced them to go. And remembered something I didn't tell them because I was handling it myself. I deal with the gov documents and do all the paperwork. So I informed them that they need to update their phone number in the ministry office (around the delivering company)

cuz I can't do it online. And they're like damn, and hey I'll go look for your parcel, those ppl are useless in delivering it.

So they went and got it to me, but too bad, the ministry offices are closed. 🤖

With all this, I'm grateful tho for the delay it took (months) and thankful that my older pc kept stable enough to be able to do commissions still (thank you my dearest friends). Because I got a nice deal, and equally important to me— it was red and black, made heavenly matching my red & black palette obsession, hehe

I settled it on my desk and finished installing everything.

•AND THEN!

A scarce endless rain started to pour on us one day after. And the renovations to this house that costs us our souls and starving us really showed their worth. All the house was leaking. And it was dripping on my table, on my devices, and more worryingly near the cables in my room. It rained hailstones too on our fake metal ceiling— with ear piercing noise.

So it was a week of frustratingly listening to panicking and asking us to run around with buckets under each invisible leak, and do as little electric- required work as possible. (Because of horrifying previous happenings)

Contractors came and whatever, asked for the same amount of money to fix our ceiling as they originally did before.

I'm just thankful that it doesn't rain here much anyway.

•And while all that happening:

This person was sending me things.

I already made my point clear to them (and alot of you did more than that, bless your souls)

I don't like listening to people insulting others for their interests, beliefs or basically anything that's doing no one harm to anybody ( I have my fill from home, honestly).

And I suppose they are merely trolling or not good with listening. But then they started spamming me, and I had to break my Homan right policy and block them.

I don't care what others ship as long as they enjoy it, gives them this heart fluttering thrill of excitement and joy, give them meaning, help them grow, understand, have compassion to things they don't get, harmonious with them, have reasonable discussions, influencing goodness on one another. This means alot to me; to be able to do something that can bring happiness and warmth if it was cold and lonely in times. I mean I love how happy everyone was actually enjoying the snermoine I did, while the spammer was too focused on 'canceling' other ships but it. (Eee so glad u liked it💛🔥)

It's not realistic or fair to me that people gets shamed for liking fictional characters— whatever they are. And equally unfair to force some character concept on someone else that doesn't enjoy that concept, no matter how canon or not it was, they are real people to get hurt by such things, while fictional characters can't and never will get hurt anyway. I'm mortified that I have to say it and don't even know how to explain it more plainly! It is troubling that it's a real thing to happen, ppl annoying others for their favourite ships. Anyway, enough said.

And yeah... the fasting month is coming, and you all know what that means!!

Well you don't.. neither do I, yet, hehe but hopefully it would be easy on us.

Bless your days with goodness and fortune, my dears 💛

21.4.2020 pm

#text #personal #drawing journey #diary

[msjr0119]

The American Adventure

Part 2

Prince Liam and his closest friends are sent to a summer camp in America for a month, whilst in Cordonia the nobles are preparing for Prince Leo’s social season unknowingly to him. During their time there, Liam and Drake become besotted with the same girl- Riley Brooks.

A/N: For those who have read my series ‘Cordonian Wags’, there are a lot of similarities in this series. However there has been a mix up with the pairings in this series. I’ve completely changed my original plan for this series. For some chapters it will be split between the past and present. *Some quotes and similar scenes are based from the film 'The Best of Me'*

Book: The Royal Romance (A/U for majority of this series, some canon will be used but with slight twists)

All characters belong to Pixelberry apart from; Lindsey Brooks, Andy Brooks, Jackie Brooks, Nate Cooper, Lola Hughes and Bethany Hughes.

Warnings: PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDER 18! Adult language, mention of sexual abuse, mention of depression suspicion, mention of domestic abuse suspicion, mention of character death (present tense).

Word count: 3,750

Tags- if you want to be added or removed let me know; @pedudley @kacie-0156 @loveellamae @annekebbphotography @texaskitten30 @cordonianroyalty @bascmve01 @sanchita012 @princessleac1 @queenjilian @kingliam2019 @lodberg @rainbowsinthestorm

Catch up here

*****

“Why are you both hiding in a wardrobe? You both look ridiculous.”

“As I said, surprise! Uncle serious picked me up. He was in a rush, insisting that he needed to get back as soon as possible. But I get to spend an extra night with you! I heard what you said about Nate, I’m going to kill the bastard- don’t you worry!”

“Lindsey!” The girl looked at her father sternly, wondering why she was defending Riley and her father had blatantly ignored the facts surrounding Nate.

“Just saying, anyway now she knows that I’m here, we’ll head to our cabin.”

“Quick question, why aren’t you in Europe in the army?” Riley asked her second father figure, still shocked and confused as to why he was here.

“Erm... sick leave.”

“So you’re going to help out then?”

“I can’t, sick leave remember?” The two girls left the men alone, Riley caught Lindsey up on everything that had happened on the first day. When the coast was clear, Andy turned to his childhood friend shaking his head with a slight smirk.

“Sick leave? Seriously? That’s all that you could think up of?”

“How do you think the truth would have turned out... ‘oh hey girls, I don’t work in the army anymore- instead I’m a royal guard for the royal family...by the way the Prince is your fellow camper.’ I promised King Constantine that their identities will not be disclosed, as did you. If anything happens to any of them especially Liam it will all be my fault- I suggested this adventure for them to the King and Queen.”

“As long as the girls don’t know the truth, or anyone for that matter- there shouldn’t be an issue. You have my word, Bast. It’s great to have you back in the states buddy.”

****

Everybody arrived at the cabin allocated for ‘staff only’. On route they bumped into Jackie who agreed on the three men staying with them- she had arranged for Nate to join some other people. As much as Jackie would have loved for him to be ‘a loner’, she wasn’t that cruel.

“This is lovely. It’s like Jackson’s cabin back at home. Isn’t that right, Drake?” Nodding, Drake didn’t want to be here. Especially after his altercation with Riley. Not wanting to be such a prick towards her, he regretted how he behaved immediately. Lola took charge deciding the sleeping arrangements, not allowing for anyone else to have a say in the matter.

“Is that a picture of a blonde Riley and her sister I presume?” Liam questioned Daniel. To begin with there were some hidden feelings towards Riley; an instant attraction. But now that he had seen a picture of her sister, he began to have conflicted feelings.

“Yeah, I think Riley suits blonde. Lindsey is pretty scary if anyone hurts her kid sister, just warning you all now.” Hearing the door slam open, they all stood frozen after originally jumping in unison.

“Talk of the devil.” Daniel winked towards the visitors.

“I’m going to kill him. I swear to god if he touches a single hair on your head he’s a dead man... he thinks because his father is rich he can do whatever the fuck he wants!”

“And people think that I’m a bitch...” Lola giggled. “Hey you two, you have company.”

Lindsey faked a smile, turning from the hulk into an angel. She now knew that Nate Cooper was going to be on her radar at all times during this years camp. But would place those thoughts to the back of her mind. For now at least.

“Hey, Lo... hello handsome strangers...”

“Linz, these ‘strangers’ are newbies so play nice. This is Liam, Maxwell and Drake.”

“So you’re the infamous, Drake.” Overhearing his name, Riley joined them all blushing- unable to look at Drake. Why are they here? Why is he here?

“Hello, it’s nice to finally meet you. Riley spoke highly of you to myself.” Liam introduced himself, his heart began to flutter erratically.

“Shame... she didn’t mention about you...” The two of them remained dormant, just staring into each other’s eyes. As if they was in a trance, which was soon interrupted by Riley.

“What are you guys doing here? Where’s Nate?”

“They are staying here with us! Surprise.”

“Great...Erm I’m going to bed, early start.”

“Stop being such a prune. Have some fun will ya?” Lola knew for a fact that her closest friend was hiding something- usually she would be a night owl but her attitude had changed recently.

“I’ve got a bad headache. Enjoy everyone.” Riley excused herself, after providing them all with a soft smile. A fake one at that.

****

The morning after, Riley tip toed past the guests hoping to not wake them up. Not really making eye contact with any of them she decided to make a coffee before sneaking out to breathe in the fresh morning air.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t know that you was up. I’ll go somewhere else.” What is his issue with me?

“Why are you avoiding me so much?” I don’t want to avoid you. I really don’t. But I have to.

“I’m not avoiding you. I don’t know you.” That’s why you get to know someone, what a dickhead.

“Rather than just assume what my life is like and paint a picture of me....get to know me...” I want to, I really do. But I can’t, especially after I imagined kissing you in the lake.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We will never see each other again, Brooks. We are not friends...” Is he shy? It doesn’t matter if we don’t see each other again, make every moment count!

“Meet me at the lake at six tonight. I just want you to not judge me before getting to know me.” Not giving him chance to respond she left him alone, wanting to have the last word. If not they could have been there all morning debating about why they couldn’t be fiends. At least.

****

After their brief talk, Drake needed some excuse to not meet her. Of course he wanted to get to know her. Wanting to spend time with her. However, he knew that it would only end up in heartbreak. The group arrived at fencing, Nate had been persistently asking where they had all been staying. Why he had been forced to move into another cabin? Drake immediately hated him more every second that he spent with him.

“So, Riley and Lindsey will demonstrate. Then I’ll pair you all up.” The two girls defined the definition of sibling rivalry. Neither wanting to give in and lose. After a while their mother abruptly stopped them, calling it a draw. Much to Lindsey’s annoyance.

“Madeleine, Olivia... are you both ready?” Olivia stood up abruptly ready to battle, where as Madeleine was hesitating. The blonde knew that Olivia enjoyed any activity which could harm her opponent.

“I think I’ll see this one out, thank you very much.” Madeleine suggested as she fluttered her eyes towards Jackie.

“Get up now Amaranth! What’s up? Scared that I’m going to slit that perfect skin of yours?”

“Olivia! No violence please.”

“I’m only joking Mrs Brooks.” Or am I? Madeleine gulped, knowing for a fact that her so called friend wasn’t joking. “I don’t feel too good. Is it okay if I head back?” Jackie sighed, knowing that Madeleine wasn’t going to cooperate in any way or form. Agreeing just to avoid any conflict, she watched Madeleine make her way back to the dorm. Jackie decided to pair up with Olivia herself, once they had finished the older woman now knew why Madeleine looked terrified at the mention of being the red heads opponent.

“Drake, Nate. You’re both up next.��� Jackie suggested after catching her breath. Not noticing how the two of them were providing each other with looks that could kill prior to her pairing them up.

“Great. It’ll be like a proper duel. People who are below my standard don’t stand a chance.”

“Nate, please don’t hurt him.” Riley pleaded quietly, knowing that he wouldn’t take any notice anyway.

“Why? Do you have a crush on him? When you have me here?”

“No! They are new. You’re an expert at it, just go easy. Please.” Nate knew exactly what she thought of Drake. The blush that appeared upon her face gave her true feelings away instantly.

“I’ll go easy, if you can give me a good luck kiss...” kissing him on the cheek, that is all he would ever receive from her.

“Aw, I think they make a cute couple.” Maxwell said, before looking at Drake who was hiding his jealousy well due to his friends comment. “Do you need a good luck kiss, Drake?”

“Not from you! I don’t need good luck.”

****

Walking by the lake, she was disappointed that Drake wasn’t there as arranged earlier on in the day. Sitting on the edge on the jetty- she just needed a break away from everyone. Deep down, she was upset that he hated her in an instant. But she hated the fact that she was the opposite. Liam was handsome she couldn’t deny that but she felt something for Drake even if he was a jerk with her.

“Hi, Riley!” The younger campers shouted towards her. They adored her, as she ‘mothered’ them all. Just smiling and waving towards them- she checked the time. He’s not coming, Riley. Just accept it. Slowly standing up, her heart was breaking but her mind informed her to act normal- as if she didn’t care. As she walked away from the jetty she noticed two familiar faces walking her way.

“Hey, where is he?” The two men looked at each other confused, wondering who she was referring about.

“Who?” Maxwell questioned not knowing why he would know anything.

“Drake.”

“Oh, he’s at the cabin. He wasn’t feeling too well.”

“Okay.” Smiling at the two of them, she explained that she was going to go to the canteen. Luckily they believed her.

Drake heard the door open, turning his head he didn’t want to see her. It wasn’t a date anyway he believed.

“I decided to not come. I’m not feeling too well.” Speaking quietly, he felt guilty for standing her up. He daren’t turn around to face her, he could only imagine what her facial expression would be. Anger. Mixed with hurt possibly.

“No shit sherlock.” Sternly responding to him, she couldn’t wait to hear what lame excuse he came up with.

“I didn’t have a number to contact you. So I couldn’t get a hold of you to let you know.”

“Well I was at the lake. You do have legs right? You could have walked there and explained that you wasn’t staying.”

“Why are you so bothered? Is this a little game that you’re playing? Trying to make Nate jealous by spending time with us instead?” Laughing she couldn’t believe how his mind ticked. At how defensive he sounded even if he was in the wrong according to her.

“That’s crazy. You’re crazy.”

“No, you’re crazy. Wanting to spend time with someone like me.”

“Maybe I like men that are normal. Intelligent. Adventurous. Maybe, just maybe....” pausing, he didn’t seem the slight bit interested as he remained in the same position that he was in when she first arrived. “You just don’t get it do you, Drake?”

“Maybe I don’t.” Turning around, she didn’t want this conversation to elaborate now. That’s enough of trying to look desperate.

“You know. It wasn’t a date. I just wanted to talk. Is that too much to ask? You’re here for a month, all I wanted to do was sit down near the lake. You ask me questions. I ask you questions. If it was too awkward for you, and you want to continue hating me- fine. Fair enough. But at least we tried. Forget it, I’m done.”

Storming off, he was like a magnet - her mind was trying to think up of any excuse to talk to him. To try to talk. As she walked back in, Drake had defused himself from the couch- her eyes widened as she saw his face.

“This is why I didn’t want to meet you.”

“What happened?”

“During fencing when you left, he was talking about you like you was a piece of shit. After he did this to me, he warned me to stay away from you.”

Nate pushed Drake into a mucky puddle that was surrounding them. Losing his balance, Drake fell backwards. Hearing Olivia cheer for Nate, he grit his teeth. Feeling humiliated, he used the self defence skills that Bastien and his father had taught him and the others from such a young age.

“I won! Why couldn’t you just accept defeat?” Nate snapped as he fell next to Drake.

“Let’s call it a draw.” Hearing the crowd cheer, Nate decided to become a professional actor in front of everybody. Helping Drake up, he then pat him on the back. Once everybody was getting ready for the next ‘match’, Nate dragged his opponent out of the way of prying eyes. Raising his fist, he aimed straight for Drake’s cheek bone.

“What the fuck? Are you insane?”

“Are you?”

“What the fuck are you on about, Nigel?” Emphasising Maxwell’s nickname for Nate, Drake knew that it would irritate the hell out of him.

“Listen, stay away from Riley. She’s mine. You really think that she will look at someone like you? You’re not even from around here so keep those puppy dog eyes lingering somewhere else. You and the blue eyed blonde prick.”

“I don’t like her. But she isn’t your property. So stop disrespecting her. If she is ever going to be yours you need to learn to treat her right!”

“Oh I will, money buys you everything. I’ll make her mine- even if I have to force it upon her.”

“Don’t talk about her like that. If she doesn’t want you, get over yourself.”

“Aw what’s up? Are you going to be a hero? Make her fall in love with you instead for all of what... four weeks? You can keep that thought. Because that’s all it’ll ever be. I get what I want, one way or another. See ya.”

“I’m so sorry. Drake... I....”

“It’s fine.” Closing the distance between the two of them, she gently touched the injury causing him to flinch.

“Please don’t touch it.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll sort it out.”

“Don’t. Honestly, I’m fine. It’s fine. If you want, we can talk another time? Once the dust settles.”

“Pass me your phone. I’ll put my number in it so you can contact me when we aren’t in the groups. I’ll see you later?”

“Sure.”

Once she left, a smile crept up on his face. Regretting not meeting her to begin with, he would make amends behind closed doors. Not wanting Nate, to be a danger towards anyone. Especially, Riley. He decided to give her a quick text, so she also had his number.

Receiving his text, a smile crept up on to her face. Unable to wipe it away, she was pleased that she had a persistent attitude. Noticing Nate, she pulled him away from the group that he was sat in.

“Hey, beautiful. Feeling any better?”

“I’m feeling much better than you’ll be feeling.” Swinging her fist back, she aimed straight for his nose. Blood immediately poured everywhere, as he fell backwards not expecting this type of behaviour from her.

“Stay away from me. Stay away from everybody else...” Stay away from Drake. Realising that he was the attention of the full camp, he felt humiliated beyond words as gasps and whispering echoed around him. Stupid bitch. Were the two words that he wanted to express out loud. Instead he bit his tongue, not wanting to push her away any further. Escaping from the ‘crime scene’ he began plotting how to get his revenge- not on Riley specifically, but the new boys who had caused all of this in his mind.

****

Feeling slightly guilty that she had used her fists- she was a lover not a fighter, the adrenaline soon drained and she began to rethink about her unexpected actions. Drake had defended her to begin with, even without elaborating on the true facts about what Nate said regarding her. She believed that there was possibly much more to that conversation, but Drake didn’t have the heart to go into full details. Most likely to protect her feelings. Or so she hoped. Deep down, she knew that he wasn’t an arsehole under all of those scowls that prevented his true personality from making an appearance. Even though she was the directors daughter, her father wouldn’t treat her any differently and would send her to the isolation cabin for a night as well as a full day as he would do for anyone else breaking any rules.

“Riley......”

“I know, I’ll pack my bag.”

“Baby, don’t touch him again. Ignore him in the future.”

“So it’s okay for him to give Drake a black eye? Demand that Drake stays away from me after he protected and defended me?”

“He did what?”

****

Riley closed her eyes, most people close to her assumed that she was suffering with depression. Possible domestic abuse added to those suspicions even if she denied it. Hence the weekly meetings in this office. Staring at the same four walls that she had become accustomed to for the last four weeks, it became tedious. Pointless, in her mind.

“So after you informed your father about what Nate had done to Drake, what happened next?” Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. Remembering how determined she was to just talk to him. Shaking her head, she didn’t want to elaborate on the heartbreak that she had suffered. Stupidity from her part believed that they could have had the fairytale ending as Andy and Jackie did. Now, it was just distant memories. Memories that often resurfaced every now and again.

“Summer camp, was a major part of your childhood right up to young adulthood. If your parents were still here would you be able to return even with the memories about Drake, Nate and your friends.”

“One day I will have to return. To face it all again. I’m just not ready yet. That year, I finally understood what love was. I understood about how my parents instantly fell in love in a similar situation....”

“Next week, if you want- we can continue where we left off if it helps? Explain what happened for the remainder of the camp season.” Riley thanked Sharon, her counsellor. Even ten years later, she still struggled with what happened at camp that time that the five strangers attended. Lindsey had recently forced her sister to have sessions especially after losing their parents tragically. As she exited the building, her cell began to ring on an unknown number.

“Hello?”

“Hello, may I speak to Riley Brooks please?”

“I am... I was Riley Brooks. I’m married now. But yes, you’ve found her.”

“Riley, my name is Harris Watson and I’m the estate attorney for your Uncle. I’m afraid I have some bad news...”

“Oh god...”

****

The last day or two had been specifically hard for Drake. He had purposely self isolated himself in his fathers cabin. Not wanting or allowing himself to socialise or interact with anyone. Not even, Liam. Thirteen years had passed since he had lost his father. Twelve and a half years since his mother had done a vanishing act. A year since his sister mimicked their mothers actions. Two days ago he lost someone else, the only other person who he was close to. Slowly sipping the whiskey, he stared at the photo above the fire place. A photo that was taken ten years prior. The picture could paint a thousand words, but for Drake its only meaning was the one and only time that he had truly fallen in love. Unexpectedly.

Here’s to you, Ri. I hope that you are doing all of those amazing things. Those aims that you said you would do when you forced me to talk to you for the first time. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I miss you every second of each day.

Hearing his phone ring, he was knocked out of his trance from all those years ago.

“Hello, is that Drake Walker?”

“Yes, this is he.”

“Drake, my name is Harris Watson and I’m the estate attorney for....” Drakes heart sunk, he knew exactly what this phone call was regarding. Suddenly he seemed very sober. “Upon his request, he had requested for yourself and four others to come to New York City. I will forward you a copy of the letter that he left; it will include the names of those people. But I will require for you to come to my office for ten am on Monday. I will forward the directions. Is that okay?”

“Sure. See you there. Thank you.” Hanging up, tears immediately rolled down his face uncontrollably. Receiving the notification he opened the document as his hand shook.

Dear Drake, my son.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t help you locate Savannah as promised. As soon as I had heard about what the King had done to you all of these years, I couldn’t hold back. He’s going to kill me, hence why I am writing this. I’m sorry for leaving you. But I had to defend you. My will hearing will be in New York, I need you to travel there with; Liam and Maxwell. Possibly take Leo with you? Maybe Tariq too? I know you don’t like Tariq much, but does anyone? I know you’re probably laughing at that comment right now. Maybe you could combine this trip with Liam’s premature bachelor party? Have a blast you lot! I’m going to look down on you as well as two other special people in my life. I hope that you find happiness that you deserve. You are loyal, and I’m proud to have been able to call you my son. Bast.

#choices trr #trr fanfic #theroyalromance #trr au the american adventure #riley brooks #maxwell beaumont #olivia nevrakis #drake walker #liam rys #trr madeleine #drake x mc #drake x riley #tw swearing #tw domestic abuse mention #tw depression warning #tw mention of death

[kanene-yaaay]

Reasons to Smile

Kanene's Notes: 

Reasons to smile:

Today wasn't a sunny day, and I wake up early, which was pretty cool so that way I had time to finally finish my fanfic and post it. Oh, I have internet, and this is also awesome, since I can show this fanfic and talk with you all because of it. And the fun thing about Sun is that is okay the fact that it wasn't showing up a lot today because you guys alone are enough to light up my day and warm my heart. So thank you for being here and being so strong in these tough times, my lollipop!

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* Roman!Patton and Ler!Patton/Ler!Virgil/Ler!Roman (It can be seen as Romantic or Platonic LAMP/CALM). 

*Hmmm… This is a Tickle-Fanfic! If you don’t like this kind of stuff, please look for another blog, there are plenty of amazing art in this site!! ‘u’).

* Something around 4.500 words. -w-)b.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any advice is very very welcome!

* I'm very happy I finally managed to finalize this fanfiction! I made an personal goal to make to each one of the Light Sides a tickle fic focused on them specifically (Virgil = Vulnerable; Logan = It started when... ; Patton = Patton has a secret) and that was the last one! I'm already starting another project which I hope to post soon, so donut worry! I will be opening my Ask Box for prompts, however I will make a post about it, soon! <3

* E a versão em português brasileiro! 

* Masterpost in case you wanna see my others works! <3

*Thankys for reading, my lollipops! Watch a fun video, read a good story, talk with the one that you love and drink water! Byeioo!~

                          [~*~]

Roman felt he was the least heroic hero from all the Mind Palace. It was horrible, like a sensation which seemed to start in his chest, in that deepest part of him where the soul is, and began to spread through all his body. First his throat, making it dry and with tons and tons of lost words never said, then it went to his stomach, leading it to weight as much as his legs, which didn’t felt have any strength left to stand or move in any direction; his eyes looked as dikes about to broke and flood everything in they way, and, in the end, he didn’t felt any cold, however this didn’t stopped him from drow himself in tons of comforters and teddy bears just like he currently was.

As he said before: Not even a drop of heroism.

 The soft, warm pile moved some time later as the prince emerged from it, not completely healed, but at least a little better after the nap he had. His hand moved with a flourish in the air, summoning Crofter’s, because he was addicted to this jelly after the musical video, and started to eat, feeling his face getting dirty with his own clumsy actions already inserted in his being.

 Jelly on his face, messy hair, tired, sleepy eyes… Yep, definitely these were the ‘royal days’ which any Fairy Tale ever utter. None chapter mentioning, explaining how were the thousands of days in the tower waiting, dreaming; not a page dedicated to the lonely afternoons wandering through the forest in seek of a beauty lady with skin pale as snow, or even some phrases about the months surrounded and arrested in himself that Maui had to struggle and neither three or four verses about all the sleepless nights watered in guilty that the Beast had gone through.

 Perhaps, it was because in the end…

 - Nobody cares that much. - The words sounded even tougher when left his lips and Roman felt himself squirm as if it had inflicted a physical blow. He shook his head, knowing very well the bottomless well he was burying himself into.

 He took a deep breath and opened the desk drawer picking up the old-looking folder, with a single draw of a feather outlined with glitter in its cape. He leaned on the bed’s headboard and opened the emergency folder for ‘heroic moments not so heroic of life’ as he liked to call it.

 There were all that intimate stories. The ones we do just for ourselves. The arts in which we are inserted in the world that we chose in the way we wish… Stories with a plot very much deeper that the one traced on papers and the chats and scenes which that had already been turned over, reinvented and transformed again and again and again in the mind of the creative aspect. Took a good sip of air and released slowly in the paper with doodles at the edges. The traces and dialogues started to float from them and dance in the wind, recreating, reorganizing and materializing themselves in the characters, places and contexts previously determined. His trace was light and clear, seeming to flow slightly and naturally with the wind as his room began to take a form of a magnificent forest.

 Roman observed the stories unfold before him, sporadically remembering the jokes he had written much longer ago and the trail each action leaded the character. He remembered also the ideas he had when wrote every single one of these words and how much happy he was just by the simple fact he was putting them on lines, without even realizing it Roman found himself with a small smile finding way to his features along with some salty drops pioneering trails down his cheeks and his hand centimeters away from the holograms, doomed to his destiny of always being capable to have any scenario, character and plot at his fingertips, but nothing more than that.

 His not so optimal thoughts were pulled out of him when laughter and teasing cut the place and almost automatically made a pleasant shivers ran across his body. Now a real smile took over his face without he even noticing it, his eyes attentive to every detail of the protagonist being pinned in the floor and attacked by his other two friends.

 Not a common attack, of course, because Roman could be anything but ‘common’. That, as the majority of the stories, which were in that folder, was a story developed around… tickling.

 So, nothing more fair than the principal character, being the hurried and naturally inattentive adventurer who he was (and because in the last day he had a problematic night) didn’t noticed that, when he went to land the ship he forgot to do the necessary procedures before it (he would need to question Logan about the functions from a ship’s painel control later) and because of that the automobile suffered severe damage by the time it hit the ground. Then, nothing more fair than, while the ship was being repaired, both of his best friends tickled him by the same amount of time (which, sure, was a lie, because they would stop immediately when noticed his ‘victim’ had researched his limit. However, the merely possibility of that happens and the teasing they directed towards him about this only made the entire situation more ticklish and playful.)

 (What? It was like said: the thing put on the paper is only the beginning of the whole iceberg behind the plot.)

 When a story was over, the words returned floating to the paper where they belonged, the scribbles being again fixed, and then Roman took another one and brought it to life, sometimes closing his eyes in order to concentrate even more on the laughter and try to visualize fingers dancing in his most ticklish spots.

 Just the thoughts about it leaded to ghost sensations ran across his entire spine. The papers fell with each story that ended and floated gracefully to the ground, because, later he would busy himself with the task of tidying up all that mess.

 Later.

 (~*~)  

He left his room, already having organized it and saved his little folder back to its original place (one story was missing, probably lost in some corner of his forest. He would care about this another day, though. He was tireeeeeed.). He was interrupted some quick times by Thomas seeking to discuss new goals and dreams they could perceive in the next moths and someday in the future, which made him to be late for the dinner and, consequently, his entire routine after meal, and it was for that reason which at ten at night the aspect of passion and creativity was washing his clothes for the next video, that may or may not would be in the morning. Something which made him almost pray to not rain in the next day so he wouldn’t need to take his vestments to dry in the forest in his room. 

 Since it was almost IMPOSSIBLE to find anything by own will and not literally tripping over them (Not that this ever happened before with his teddy bear which went there to take some sunlight after a particularly strong storm in the Mind Place. Pffff. Of course not. Prince doesn’t stumble, or have teddy bear neither!! Who told you that??)  in that indomitable world just as the creativity...

 Wait…

 Ah, that was why this world was his room and he is the aspect of creativity and… aaahh! Now the things made sense...

 My goshly gosh, now he was beginning to look for logic in the pieces of his routine. OK. Red alert. Abort Mission! Sad days made him WAY too philosophical and like Logan. Abort Mission!

 His foot leaded him to the living room, letting the washing machine do its job, his mind in a battle to decide which Disney to watch and which ones had duration just a bit longer than the washing process. His eyes landed in the television and his body froze for a piece of second.

 “Reasons to smile today”

 That's what the paper stuck to the device's screen said. It was a notebook’s common paper, the words scribbled a bit stronger than the necessary amount, however this wasn’t the cause of the guardian of dreams and passion stop in the way to his happiness.

 And yes what that phrase meant.

 It was a Logan’s idea (amaze!) which emerged in a particularly difficult period for Thomas.

 It was really simple, to be honest: every day all the sides got together, more specifically in the breakfast, and told at least one reason to smile and look forward that day. Usually it was Patton who listed more than half of the reasons in almost every meetings, them being memories, peoples or places, e that constantly managed to rip out a good smile and that warm, cozy feeling in their chest.

 But, when the moral aspect was feeling too much down for the activity, Roman always jumped with a good future, those where all their dreams were accomplished, Logan always brought some good memories and neutral facts and Virgil always came with someone. One supported the other and vice versa.

 Those were really tough moments, nevertheless also were the moments which consolidated them as a famILY.

 The royal member held de paper, the entire room bathed in a silence in which he could swear to amplificate his heartbeats. It was possible to notice there was something written in the back of it, so he turned it.

 “Your unwavering courage.”

 The lights went off and two hands digged in his sides, a scream getting stuck in his throat and his reflexes to punch what touched him was equally restrained by THAT specific sensation.

 - NAHAHAHAHAHA! – His laughter was quick to fill each piece of the silent before installed in the place, his own hands swinging from left to right without really managing to do something, completely different from the ones which attacked him, each single finger mixing between wriggling, kneading, trembling and giving an extra special attention to every inch it could research. He quivered, his legs weakening with the flow of laughter. - WHOHOHOHOHOHOOHOHOHOHOHOHO I-I-IS - A particularly mean poke in his lowest rib made his voice to fail, a new shade of blush painting his features. - ACK! - An amused snort could be heard from behind him, the tickling fingers found the new sound interesting and now spent their time slowly spidering up and down his ribs. Light, quick and crazy tickles dancing and spreading with each touch. - nahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 He knew this game, knew how to play it. He just needed to find out who was attacking him. Whilst his squirming, his hands tried to hold or touch anything from who was behind him. A hint. Any hint.

 Roman grabbed a wrist. It was uncovered, but there was fabric right behind it. Just one of them wore clothes long-sleeved - His thoughts seemed to run and vanish as fast as the squeaks and yelps between his hearty laughter - Just one of them wore vestments long-sleeved…

 The unknown wrist released itself from his hold, quickly deviating its attention to his upper ribs. His legs weakened and he fell in the ground, the tickling following all his moves and don’t stopping to attack him with light kneads and pinches, even with all his fighting.

 - Anahahahahahahahah-anahahahahaha!!! - His eyes closed in attempt to focus for the name slip already, but his laughter seemed to control all his breath and mind. -ANXIEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHETY! NAHAhahahaha!!

 The fingers slowed down, almost stopping, which allowed the aspirant of royalty finally take some deep quick, delightful breathes, his low and wobbly giggles intertwined with fast squeals being fed up by two index fingers that still poking and lightly teasing that exact spot that connect his armpits and ribs.

 - Thahahahahank Beyohohohohcé.

 - Tsc. - The purple aspect clicked his tongue and even though everything was bathed into darkness, Roman could perfectly imagine the expression in the other’s face. A sharp look. A marvelous smirk. Uh oh - We work with names here, Squeaky Princey.

 F U C-

 - Nononohohoho! wAHAHAHAHAHAIT- He even attempted to escape, sure, but was already giggling even before the hands came back to his sides in full speed. His laughter exploded from his lips, his legs and arms also dancing and struggling without any real effort and his eyes closing tightly.

 This jerk had told his name a few days ago and KNEW that none of them has get used to call him by that yet. He  k n e w.

 - YOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOUR STUHUHUHUHUUHUHUHP-NO! WHAHAHAHAHAHA-WHAHAHAHAHAIT!! - Snort. More high-pinched uncontrollable laughter. Squeal. More laughter. Did one of them belong to the emo side or did he imagined it? - LEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHET ME T-T-THIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHINK!!!

 Roman could feel the name in the tip of his tongue, somewhere between his loud and attention demanding crackles. Yes, right there, between his bright, mesmerizing smile and that warmth in his chest that seemed to spread through all across his face. He felt like would melt at any moment. Since when his smile could get this big?

 - VIRHIHIHIHIHIHIHIGIL!!! IT IHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIS VIRGIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIL!!!

 - Ding ding ding. – The lights went on again and the royal aspect deposited his hands on the floor, his remain giggles flowing from his mouth as those butterflies and that cozy sensation kept flying in his stomach. - Strike.

 - Yohohohou will feel my rahahahahag- However, when he turned, blushed features and teary eyes, to see the fear in his enemy's face as he uttered his promise of vengeance, the prince only found nothing. A gigantic piece of void where the purple one should be standing. The sheet preserved itself in the ground, calm and plain, in the same position he had left it, as it mocked about all the mess that happened seconds ago.

 - Who are you looking at, subject? - But the sparkles in his eyes removed any heat of his words.

He went to the laundry and now headed to his room. Being completely honest, he didn't felt a single drop of will to sleep right now, the previous ‘attack’ continued as a mystery. Of course, they all were extremely close, but... tickles? It have been a long time since this artifice was used among them. It was something almost as old as that phrase or that game…

 Ok. Something was smelling really strange here.

 Maybe it was his new cologne which- No, wait, Roman! Focus, focus!

 Maybe it was…

 An adventure.

 And what kind of royalty he would be if he denied an adventure?

 Unsheathed his sword and kept his track to his room, confident and brave footsteps echoing in the hallway.

 A quick and muffled ‘thump’ could be heard from his room, which automatically activated all the instincts from the extra side, because of that, in a matter of few seconds the wooden object was already being thrown in the ground by a smiley Roman, who managed to support himself in the only feet that didn’t hurted, since apparently, knocking -ha!- a door down with one (or more, shhh) kick can have consequences (How he was supposed to know?).

 - BOW TO YOUR PRINCE AND MAY I DECIDE TO SPARE YOU! - His heroic pose was totally ignored, because the place was empty. His eyes analyzed each corner and each shadow, without really finding anything that give the slightest tip that any other life being beyond him even stepped there. 

 And then his gaze bumped in a shiny, polished black shoe, half completely hidden under his bed, making a danger joyful grin to spread in his features. All his shoes were Disney tematic and had their own day and outfit and any of them had this shade of black.

 (Maybe the Ursula’s one was the one that looked more like, but even with this in mind it was very distinguishable the difference between a dark-purple and a basic dark, please!)

 His footsteps leaded him quietly, a perfect contrast with all the shouting from pieces of time ago. He slowly bent down, prepared to grab the shoe and whoever was wearing it and…

 - HA! YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD TRICK M- Good point: The shoe came easily out. Bad point: it was because it was empty, which was the reason for his glorious victory statement being, and and very rudely by the way, interrupted. Roman indignantly scoffed; he refused to let the victory escape so easily through his fingers! He was the embodiment of dreams, persistence and hope and he. wouldn’t. give. up. so. easily!!

 Inflated by his own enthusiasm, the royal side knelt down, noticing only a paper on the floor in a place a little further under his bed. Just a little crawl was necessary to solve the problem, with a gleam of determination in his glare Roman firmly held the hint, excitedly bouncing his legs, the only part of his body that wasn’t covered by the furniture.

 "Your persistence and mind of an untamed nature."

 Before he could even process a bit more the meaning contained in the words, which apparently were a continuation from previous paper, the prince felt a strong arm embrace his ankles, his shoes being removed with a slowly calm that didn’t related with the adrenaline which exploded in himself and now across his arteries. His ‘mind of an untamed nature’ understanding exactly what was about to happen and finding zero ways to run away from his fate.

 - NO!!! Don’t you dare!! - One of his shoes fell with a muffled hit on the ground. - I-I… hehehe…! - Giggles began to took over his throat. His other shoe fell as well, a cold, excited shiver ran down his spine. - No!! - A finger lightly positioned itself in the exact center of his feet, all his nerves vibrated in expectation. - NononononNo!

 The finger started to scratched softly, its nail slided without a single bit of hurry across his feet in a move that went from the tip of his toes to his heel, just to add another finger in the movement and calmly repeat the pattern over and over and over and over… Until all his five stupid tickly fingers were tickling him.

 Roman tried to escape from the gap in his ankle, his eyes as tighten as his lips, refusing to brake his barrier.

 The one who ‘attacked’ changed his technique a few times, going from circular motions to quick scribbles, however, he hasn’t rewarded with more than some muffled squeaks and snorts from the other. The fingers moved away, giving Prince time enough to recover profusely his breath, almost don’t hearing the soft humming which filled the air for some little pieces of heartbeats.

 Roman already had the name in the tip of his tongue. The letter alone was enough of a clue, albeit… the possibility to finish with the playing caused a part of himself to quiver sadly. He didn’t wished to end with this moment… No… In truth…

 He didn’t wanted this feeling to end. A feeling that made him excited, electric, feeling like he could run fifty kilometers nonstop. This sentiment, which automatically produced a smile in his features and made he really believes, realizes that he was…

 Was loved.

 Perhaps it was this the reason that his mouth opened even before his brain processed his provocation, challenger tune that impregnated his next words:

 - Há! My dear enemy! Your faux fighting techniques would never be able to defeat a prince like mí! - The creativity side could feel the anticipation, the danger sign glowing in a bright red, and launched his final card: his cocky laughter (and extremely natural. Of course, he never trained hours and hour in a diversity of tunes and expressions in front of his mirror. Humpft. Of course not. That was one of princes’ natural gifts.) of victory.

 The same that was interrupted seconds after by the twenty nails that scratched the absurdly, extremely ticklish skin under his toes. Roman could swear that not even in his years of theater he managed to achieve this high tune.

 - Ohohohohoh! NohohohohohOHOHOHOhohohoho! – His head shook desperately, his legs bouncing and fight for their lives and freedom, his laughter, now breathless and full of half pleas of mercy, dancing through his room.

 A part of himself, one which wasn’t maddened with all this tickling, all the fingers that attacked merciless every little centimeter of his feet and his reverberated laughter, fought against his flight instincts, leading the whole scribbles, pokes and wriggles to find the minimum of resistance as possible (Not that the Tickler will ever know it, sure.)

 - PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEE - A nail found a very particularly sensible spot right under his big toe releasing a series of snorts and yelps throughout his already uncontrollable, wobbly laughter. The tickling was unbearable, but in a very different, more lightly, way than the previous attack, and that was making him crazy. - PleasepleasepleAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSEHEHEHE!! NAHAHAHAhahahahHAHAHAHahahahahaHAHAHAHA!!

 Roman persisted for a few more seconds, his entire body, despite the tickles being focused in just one place, squirmed. He only allowed the name to slip for his tongue when his laughter and giggles, it depended from the spot and apparently his ‘enemy’ wasn’t satisfied in choose just one, started to steal his breath. His hand hit the cold floor of his room.

 - LOGAN!!! IHIHIHIHIHIHIHIT IS Lohohohhohohohogan!!

 The tickles were decreasing until finally stop, making the tingles in his soles not as intense as the that took over his ribs and sides before in the living room. Roman, in the exact moment, which felt the gap in his ankle to weaken, pulled his feet closer, rubbing them.

 - Undoubtedly correct. - It could be his tickled mind pranking him, but the dreamer could swear he heard a hint of amusement in the other’s voice. It didn’t took longer for the prince to catch the characteristic sound of sinking, which resulted him quickly attempting to get out of under the bed to reach the one with glasses, after all, their battle hadn’t  ended yet!!

 - Wait right there! Don’t you freaking dare to- And, once again, his sentence was interrupted. Now for a little snort that flied from his lips when the logic aspect ran softly his fingers at his feet, making the prince to retract in defense, giving him time enough to disappear with a smirk, half joyful and half cocky, adorning his face.

 Roman really tried to be angry, but how much heated was his features and how much euphoric he was in the moment proved this action to be a little more difficult, which definitely wouldn’t aplacate his future revenge, of course.

 Now, though, his only plan was to take a shower and then sleep. For that he forced his tired body to get up and head his bathroom, part smiling and part yawning. He opened his door and stretched, feeling his bones to crack and muscles to relax.

 And then his gaze found the paper stuck in the mirror above his sink, his instinct screaming in a red alert for knowing very well the next step in this game.

 - NO! - Maybe it was the tiredness, however, before he could turn around to try to stop the attack a pair of hands hit in his armpits, something that made his legs automatically to fail and every and any coherent thought be tossed away from his brain to a far far away. The laughter already falling in great waterfalls from his mouth.

 - PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHADREHEHE! - His real laughter, that specific one that only appears when his most ticklish spot is being attacked with the most ruthless tickles, was loud, thunderous  and definitely an easy sound to be noticed from miles away, Roman almost could feel his blush to spread across his neck just imagining Logan and Virgil smiling as heard him reverberate around the house.  – NAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

 - Ooooooh? - Patton’s playfully tune would be definitely impossible to hear if he wasn’t so close of his ears, his words leading to even more tickles and shivers in the other. - It seems that our little pretty prince here is ticklish? Coothie coothie coo! Oh, no! What are you gonna do? Huh? Huh? What our powerful, brave Prince Roman will do to escape from the Tickle Monster? Huh? Huh? Kitty Kitty Coo! My dear and ticklish prince!!

 - NOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO TEASIHIHIHIHIHIHIIHIHING, PAHAHAHAHAHATTON!

 The creativity’s embodiment trashed back and forth, his head shaking, perhaps in attempts to remove all the red in his face, maybe trying to dislodge those fingers that poked, kneaded, drummed and tickled every available skin they could research. Tears began to accumulate in the corner of his eyes,

 And, even with all his effort, his conscient parte still struggled against his instincts to escape and making him to get as close to the moral aspect as possible, almost laying on him.

 - But how could I ever stop when knowing that this give me access to all these cute squeals? - A poke in the right place and Roman exemplified his words. Patton giggled. - Not mentioning this wonderful and melodious laugher, Roman! It is adorable!!! - The paternal side seemed as happy as he did, the royalty aspirant could feel their laughter in harmony, and maybe (maybe, only!) his heart had melted a little. Or it was just his tears falling from his eyes, his mind was a mess, okay? Don’t ask for details nor logic.

 His laughter, high pinch squeals, snorts and breathless giggles endured for some more minutes before Roman pushed himself forward, laughing a plea to stop, which the one who wears cardigan promptly answered. They leaned against the wall, feeling the cold of the concrete aplacate the heat of the remaining giggles.

 For some seconds both stayed in silence, calming down.

 - Whahahat did you write?

 - Huh? - Patton blinked a few times, leaving his thoughts and staring the other with a stunning smile.

 - In the paper. I couldn’t read… And I expected a honest attack from you, padre! Attacking enemies from behind is very immoral!

 - Hehehehe! - Genuine smile, hands up as an act of surrender. - Anything goes in love and war.

 - Really bold words for someone so close from my fingers! - Roman showed an evil grin, punctuating each one of his words with pokes in the other’s belly, making him squirming in a sea of quick giggles, pushing his hands.

 - You stop right there, mister! - Protested, his glare assuming a paternal glint. - Tomorrow we have a video to record and we need to sleep early! Thomas will need his creativity radiant and rested!

 The prince whined, hands moving in exaggerated gestures and laying dramatically on the floor, following with his eyes as a smiling Patton stood up and pulled the paper from the mirror.

 - Ah! I wrote: ‘Your golden heart!’, but I think I should have written about your stories! - Roman felt his blood freeze, a quick flashback from the morning passing before his eyes. The holograms, flying scenarios, sheets falling, Thomas calling him to do something, the lost paper… - They’re amazing and give really ncredible ideas.

 His face suddenly looked as if it had been set on fire and for the first time in a long time the prince found himself speechless while the one with the glasses deposited the paper in his hands, kissed his forehead, wishing ‘Good night~’ before getting out, humming softly and disappeared from the other’s vision.

 Roman buried his face in his hands, grunting in frustration, which wasn’t too much easy to do when a smile from ear to ear looked to be stuck in his features.

 Yes, they had gave him a plenty of reasons to smile.

 Maybe it was for that reason that most of the stories didn’t told about these days, these moments… Perhaps because they were from such great and strong heroism that it was almost impossible to be entirely put in just one plot.

 And it was for that reason that Roman, while sitting on his bed, pencil and paper in hands, wanted to be the first one to do so.

#Cheer up tickles #Lee!Roman #Ler!Logan #Ler!Virgil #Ler!Patton #Roman ticklish boi #Hug a Roman today #A little of angst but just for context #This is so long my gosh sdfghjk #xDDD #<3 #KaneneFic #KaneneArt #English #Sanders Sides Tickling #Ticklish!Roman #Reasons to smile #This tecnique really works and helps #<333 #Tickling #Tickles #Soft and rough tickles

[2heartgirl]

If I wanted to get into playchoices how would I do it?

Getting into the Playchoices fandom is very easy! Playchoices as a tag refers to the Choices: Stories You Play app by Pixelberry Studios. It’s an app that hosts original visual novel stories with a big emphasis on romance options and branching paths. While I’m sure it’s not the first app of its kind it is what helped the big boom in popularity of apps similar to it like Storyscape (R.I.P.) and Episode which you may or may not remember used to make those really weird clickbait ads on tumblr:

I’ve been a fan of Pixelberry since their previous simulation app games High School Story and Hollywood U and have been playing Choices since the first month it came out. The only thing you have to do to get into it is find stories you like and read/play through them! Outside of a few exceptions like direct sequels or the ability to recognize reused assets to save some money nearly every single story is self-contained so you don’t have to worry about finishing them all at once. They’ve built up a lot of content since the initial release and now if you start up a profile they’ll have a quiz at the beginning to point you in the right direction of what you want to read but down below are some of my recs. If you find you don’t enjoy a book don’t be afraid to stop playing and try something else!

Horror 

It Live: Absolute favourite!!! The It Lives series in my opinion is the most dramatic books they’ve put out and the best written when it comes to the consequences of your choices. Each is an anthology series with a different cast that focuses on a monster living in the local area. Since it’s horror there are mentions of gore/people getting hurt and the big draw is that if you don’t make the right choices everyone in your friend groups can abandoned you or die. The series does come with trigger warnings at really big parts though. Also PB please give us It Lives 3 soon : (

The Haunting of Braidwood Manor: Very, very short but I still remember it fondly! The first horror story by PB you decide to spend the night in the infamous Braidwood Manor as a last ditch effort to recover from a car crash that’s haunted you for years.

Mystery

Veil of Secrets: Only one book long but I really liked it! Your best friend goes missing minutes before walking down the aisle at her wedding and everything points to sabotage. Go around the seaside trying to unravel what happened as you try and rescue her and discover the dark secrets of the town (also this story has like the first major flash animation sequence at the reveal of [redacted] and everyone in the fandom lost their minds that day it was awesome) 

Endless Summer: Basically the Homestuck of Choices if it was also Lost. You and your college friends arrive to the tropical island you were suppose to enjoy a vacation on but soon realize that something is very, very wrong. You go around solving the mysteries of what happened while trying to find a way home. I can’t even describe most of the plot because of how many spoilers there are but it’s a wild ride.

Fantasy:

The Elementalists: Love this one! One day at college you accidentally see a girl in your mirror and fall into a magical portal to a fantasy world. You are pushed to enroll at the local knock-off Hogwarts and discover with your new friends that something out there is trying to use you for its own purposes. I love the magic system and lore and the bonus scenes! One of the few stories where I went it knowing I would save diamonds to buy extra content.

The Crown & the Flame: Actually one of the first three books PB ever put out and even if its been years I still remember enjoying it a lot. Has a different flavour compared to most of the later stories in the app as you play as predetermined characters princess Kenna and her best friend Dominic who have just witnessed the fall of Kenna’s kingdom and work on opposite sides to build Kenna the army she needs to take her home back. Very ambitious with a lot of worldbuilding but a major con is that if you want the best outcomes you do have to spend a bit of diamonds to get them.

Romance: 

(As a disclaimer like nearly every single book has romance elements in it if not all of them so if you’re playing to kiss some cute PNG art you’ll have no trouble finding it lmao)

The Royal Romance: So popular PB gave in and wrote us the Royal Heir sequels. You’re a waitress in New York who accidentally encounters the prince of a faraway country having one last big party before getting married. The next day his friend sponsors you to become a potential suitor and are taken to his home to battle it out in court with princesses to win the prince’s hand. Obviously romance trope heavy it’s a really fun read and if you don’t want to marry a prince don’t worry, you got options here.

Rules of Engagement: Very old but I played this one religiously when it came out. You play as yourself and your three siblings on a summer cruise as you try and fulfil the requirements of your late grandmother’s will for her fortune. It can be very silly at times but the game seems aware of it and I named all of my characters something weird and got this amazing reaction image out of it.

Those are just my recs but you can start nearly anywhere if you find something that interests you! As well keep in mind while every book can be completed for free the in-game currency of diamonds can be used to to purchase bonus scenes (usually one of your friends/love interests asking if you want to hang out for some alone time), better outfits/hair (usually it’s just for cosmetic purposes but better outfits for special occasions will net you more approval) and sometimes whole characters (The Heist: Monaco and Perfect Match both do this). I’m sure they give you some for free starting out but you can also earn up to five a day by watching ads. (Also before they increased the time refresh I saved up biggggg by doing them everyday during my work breaks and I’m posting a pic of my hoard just because I want to show off)

That should be enough info for you to start out with so have fun playing!

#playchoices #choices #choices story you play #Anonymous #anon

[himbowelsh]

Could you please do Robert Leckie for the Valentine’s asks? Thank you :)

valentines day alphabet  ( accepting! )

A   :   AFFECTION.   how does your muse show affection?

Bob is particular about physical affection in general (see EMBRACE below), so his ways of showing affection tend to be more subtle. He’s not above bribing people bringing people gifts, if he feels like he needs to secure their affection; he’s also a very intent listener with a genuine interest in people, and his compassion works to his advantage when loved ones are opening up to him. People feel seen when Bob listens to them  ---  and he doesn’t forget what they say.

B   :   BOUQUET.   does your muse like flowers? which ones are their favourite?

Bitch doesn’t know the first damn thing about flowers. He’ll rock up somewhere with a lone flower obviously picked from the bush in the front yard and think he’s smooth. Banned from three flower shops in the state of New Jersey, but that’s a different story.

C   :   CHOCOLATE.   does your muse like chocolate? which one is their favourite?

“I’m not a fan of chocolate,” he says, deadpan, while literally digging through a box of Russel Stover. He loves the ones with nuts.

D   :   DATE.   what is your muse’s ideal date? where / who with / etc?

Hey, he’ll go classic, take someone out to dinner  ---   but he’s going to make it good. Bob will find a way to scatter surprises throughout the night, either by ordering a special dessert when his date’s in the bathroom, or taking the long way around on the way home so they can catch some fireworks in the local park. Bob wants to give his dates something to remember by the end of the night   ---   something more than the very memorable parting kiss on the doorstep.

E   :   EMBRACE.   does your muse like hugs? what are their hugs like?

He pretends to be casual with physical affection, but it’s really quite significant for him. Bob is careful with how he holds himself, very conscious of his own body language; he likes to portray himself a certain way, and that Bob Leckie hands out back slaps like it’s nothing. Privately, though, he doesn’t like to be touched much. Bob will invite physical affection only when he really needs it, and then he tends to be a clingy hugger. If he’s actively seeking out physical affection from someone else, it’s his way of admitting he feels vulnerable.

F   :   FLIRT.   is your muse good at flirting? how do they flirt?

Could teach a master class in flirting  ---   not that the lessons would be good, or the advice useful, but he absolutely believes he’s that smooth. The worst part is, he kind of is? Maybe it’s the cute smile, maybe it’s the wit, but Bob has a way of charming women. He’s talented with his mouth in more ways than one. His method of flirting is wit, good looks, and a bit of irresistible charm. (He’s such a lad, he picks a girl flowers from her own garden, don’t date him, dON’T---)

G   :   GIFT.   is your muse good at gift - giving or do they struggle to get it right?

Hmm. He’s...  a very determined gift-giver, who utilizes the resources at hand. He’s not going to import the perfect gift from another country, but he’ll pay attention to what people want in the moment, and try his best to obtain it for them. Gift giving is a double-edged sword for Bob. He’s naturally generous, and really enjoys giving gifts...  but part of that satisfaction comes from the gratitude of people around him, and the feeling that he’s a bit more important to them. That, by making them happy in this moment, he stands out in their minds a bit more. (We stan a boy who wasn’t hugged enough as a child!)

H   :   HEART.   is your muse quick or slow to give their heart away?

He rushes into it quicker than he should. When Bob falls in love, he goes beyond the person themselves  ---  he falls in love with the fantasy. The life they could have, the life he imagines he wants with them...  and this fantasy isn’t always grounded in reality, but he wants it so badly in the moment. He takes love as deeply as he takes rejection, and his heart is as easily won as broken.

I    :   I LOVE YOU.   does your muse find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

He’s so casual about it. While walking out the door, a quick kiss on the cheek, “Love you.” While slipping into bed and turning off the light, “’Night, love you.” While looking at a meal his partner’s cooked, “Wow, I love you.” He even teases with it sometimes...  but this affected casualness is all a way of hiding how much he means it, how much he loves just getting to love someone, and being loved back. By saying it so often, that makes it concrete  ---   maybe that’ll make it last forever. There’s no denying how much delight he gets in saying it, though.

J   :   JEALOUSY.   does your muse get jealous in a relationship?

Very, very jealous, in ways that can sometimes be ugly. He...  does not like to feel like his partner’s attention is slipping. This will result in one of his patented Bob Leckie Attention Grabs. He might actually pick a fight, just to get his partner’s full attention on him once more; he’ll brood and pout and be cross for several days, until his partner finally forces him to sit down and talk it out. He just...  worries, is all. Not in a way where he’ll invade his partner’s privacy, but he will make it a Big Goddamn Deal when it doesn’t have to be.

K   :   KISS.   is your muse a good kisser? why / why not?

He gets into it very quickly, and is determined to please. Bob approaches kissing like a dance; if two bodies don’t find the right rhythm, they can’t really hit it off, can they? His hands move all over, getting the feel of his partner’s body, but he otherwise stays very still. His mouth is active, impetuous, nipping their lips and teasing them with his tongue as though eager to claim them. If he can win a noise from them  ---   either a sigh or a gasp  ---   it feels like a victory.

L   :   LOVE.   who does your muse love?

He likes himself a whole lot, but also hates himself, so it’s weird. He loves...  gah, it’s a hard question. Shouldn’t be, but it is. Once Bob decides to let himself care for someone, he cares about them very deeply. He loves his friends, the group he’s been through so much with  ---  they’re probably the closest people to him, just because they accept him, bugs and all. 

M   :   MOONLIGHT.   is morning or night a more romantic setting?

He comes alive at night; Bob is, unfortunately, a night owl. And also a morning person. If he’s awake, he tends to be annoyingly awake, and is up for getting weird at any hour of the day.

N   :   NAUGHTY.   what is your muse like in bed?

He’s got a lot of enthusiasm. Technique? Finesse? Not so much, but Bob puts in the effort, okay? He’s very sensual, focused on enjoying himself in the moment  ---  the bedroom is one of the few places Bob can get out of his own head   ---   but it doesn’t quite work when you get turned on that quickly, Bob. His problem is that he’s lowkey always horny (which explains...  58% of his character) so when he finally gets to rock ‘n roll, sometimes he rolls before he can get rocking. Not his fault, not every time, it just...  happens. He makes up for it by being a generous lover who’s very good with his mouth, and can move his tongue in ways that would get a nun trembling. Bob’s patient. When he’s not focused on his own pleasure, he can drag his partner’s out for hours, drawing them up to the brink multiple times before pulling them back. He enjoys hearing them moan, feeling them squirm against him, just knowing that he’s the cause of all of it...  and, when they finally are allowed to go over the edge, he loves nothing more than to watch.

O   :   ODE.   does your muse have a way with words?

Annoyingly so. He’s very good at stringing words together, in a way that dances on just the right side of pretentious; when he wants to reach someone’s soul, he can hit a perfect heartfelt note, winning them over. He’s tried his hand at poetry before, but love poetry is well and truly beyond his talent, so please don’t let him try. It’s laughably bad.

P   :   PARTNER.   what does your muse look for in a partner? looks / personality?

Someone who can put up with his bullshit.  No, okay, he’d lowkey need someone with the patience of a saint. Someone...  grounded, for all the times he isn’t; someone with a clear head, who can look at a situation from an objective angle and give their take on it. He’d like someone capable of expressing themselves eloquently, maybe someone who doesn’t hold back their emotions. Someone sympathetic. Someone who listens, but who can tell a story that keeps people engaged. If they can talk him out of his brooding moods, they’re his greatest ally. If they’ll read his writing and offer opinions (even critiques), he’ll be head over heels.

Q   :   QUESTION.   would your muse ask the big question or expect their partner to?

No, don’t worry. He’s going to ask. Bob might actually ask too soon, before the relationship is really there yet. He doesn’t take being told to slow his roll well, but when his partner points out that they’ve only been dating for six months and there are things they still don’t know about each other, he’s forced to see reason. At least, something close to reason; he keeps the ring in his desk drawer, waiting for “a rainy day” that will inevitably arrive sooner or later.

R   :   ROMANCE.   is your muse a romantic or a cynic?

A self-proclaimed cynic, disgusted by his own romantic longings. Someone please exorcise him.

S   :   SWEETHEART.   did your muse have a childhood sweetheart?

Leckie was a flirt from the day he realized he could fast-talk people; he always had charm, even as a little kid, and it won over plenty of people. Little Bob craved attention, and sought it out from his teachers, who encouraged him; and his classmates, who either loved or hated him. He had about...  three elementary school girlfriends. None of them lasted long.

T   :   TRUE LOVE.   does your muse believe in true love?

Please. He may fantasize about a picture-perfect romance, but he’s not naive, okay? Pssh.

U   :   UNREQUITED.   has your muse had their heart broken?

Well...  Stella sure didn’t feel good. It wasn’t as though Bob was head-over-heels in love with her; he just thought he was, and had already moved to the stage of fantasizing about their children. He wanted that life, with a family who loved him, people who cared for him and wanted him around...  Mama Karamanlis was nothing like his own mother, and actually made him feel wanted. Maybe he was in love with that, more than Stella, but losing her felt like losing a rib. And knowing it was because she didn’t think he’d make it back? Let’s just say there were a few moments after that where Bob didn’t want to make it back.

V   :   VALENTINE.   how does your muse feel about valentine’s day?

He has an actual hatred for it. Genuine vitriol. It’s weird, because Valentine’s Day has had...  legit no impact on his life so far. It’s done nothing to him. He just insists it’s a commercialized garbage day, and refuses to go out on principle.

W  :   WEDDING.   would your muse get married? why / why not?

He...  I mean, yeah. It’s definitely something he wants. He’s got it all planned out  ---  nice house, successful career, doting spouse, two or three kids...  of course, life’s never that simple, he knows that, but it’s what he wants. The fantasy is Bob’s problem. He’s bound to be dissatisfied with actual married life, or even the idea of marrying a particular partner, until that ideal is shattered. It’ll hurt like losing a limb, but in the end, reality is sometimes better than a dream.

X   :   XOXO.   does your muse use / like pet names?

Oh yeah, and he’s gross about it. “Darling”, “honey”, “sweetheart”, just to see his partner blush...  or roll their eyes at him. Either works. He thinks he’s adorable.

Y   :   YOURS.   does your muse get protective easily?

Yes! Same with jealousy  ---  sometimes Bob will jump to conclusions, and it’s just like, “slow your roll there, marine”. He’s an overthinker, but he’s also quick with his fists, which is a dangerous combination. When he sees a situation that’s definitely not right (i.e. someone he cares about is blatantly being made uncomfortable, or is in danger)  he will step in. No hesitation, suddenly he’s just there, with a gleam of challenge in his eyes and a biting remark on the tip of his tongue. If he can’t diffuse the situation with a few words...  well, he’s prepared to get punched in the face for someone else’s sake.

Z   :   ZZZ.   how many people has your muse slept with?

He doesn’t exactly sleep around, but again  ---  he’s a flirt. He’s popular, with ladies especially. Several back in Jersey, of course Stella in Melbourne, and he wasn’t exactly getting anything in the Army hospital, but after he gets home...  he’s not above sleeping with coworkers, either, so the news office has gotten a little awkward at times.  5 - 6 partners, good for him.

#robert leckie #the pacific #i... love this man so much #this is my first in depth look at leckie and it came so easily??? #i wrote this in an hour #normally these take 2-3 hours but his was EASY because he's just #so multilayered?? so interesting?? #some of his worst flaws are my worst flaws and i hate him i LOVE him #headcanons #Anonymous

[hellishvu]

P e a c h y; ˚✧₊⁎

☆彡 where two college cliches fall in love with the same person and learn how to love.

— actually so excited to write this, i really like to write poly because it’s so cute akcksk it’s like triple the fluff!! if you haven’t read the beginning of these two cliches, i recommend so!! click this *･link *･ and read namjoon’s imagine! thank you all so much for 280 followers it was just not long ago i had 200. thank u really wrote this on a bus/airport don’t recommend only having 30 minutes of sleep.

“Okay so we ask him out-” Jimin and Namjoon was sitting down on the ground, the sleepovers that were common espically during semester breaks. Where Namjoon brings cheese in a can and eats it with Jimin till the sun rise, while Jimin plays romantic anime movies that they end up crying over.

“We?” Namjoon raised an eyebrow seeing Jimin open and close his mouth trying to frame his next sentence right. Namjoon laughs while Jimin looks side to side joining along the laughter once the coast was clear.

“Yeah so you ask him out.” Jimin explains, showing a ripped piece of paper on top of his chemistry textbook that he paid way too much money for.

“I mean I wouldn’t mind if we-” Namjoon says testing the waters of an idea he’s had in his head for quite a while but never had the right timing.

“I mean I still can’t believe he has a nipple piercing... I am right? Haha...” Jimin when things get awkward he always goes to the nipple piercing, I mean holy shit you had one.

The crush developed when he saw you shirtless he had some butterflies in his stomach. Jimin of course hid it (as best as he could) seeing you become a regular member of their friend group. You coming everyday at them, meeting up with them, and always caring about the smallest things even if others would ignore it. You were there for Jimin and Namjoon. Soon enough their friend group of just Namjoon and Jimin turned to Namjoon, Jimin, and You. The population now turning to 3.

There’s been moments where Jimin and Namjoon end up sleeping in the same bed, the feelings of maybe this more than just a friendship bubbles up in them. Turning heads towards eachother, inches from eachothers face till one of them (usually Jimin) presses his lips against his, Namjoon hums in satisfaction, while they kiss more and more of course they’ve never gone further than that because by the morning the moment just never happened. Both of them thinking the same exact thought “I can’t do this I like Y/N.” Mutually agreeing to put it to the end even if it always happens again, maybe the next day or the next months.

“Okay, so I’ll leave you two here. While I pretend to get pizza, mostly likely will actually get pizza.” Jimin draws a very sketchy map writing down how long he should be gone for Namjoon to make his move.

“Can’t you stay?” Namjoon looks up into Jimin’s starry eyes, Jimin tilting his head gently smiling.

“You want me to stay?” Jimin awed,with a gentle voice. Namjoon holding his hand, #homofriends.

“Yes, what if he kills me?” Namjoon says with serious intent in his eyes before breaking character laughing again. Jimin rubbing his hair for playing around.

Their laughter was suddenly stopped, when the knocks on the door was heard. Namjoon felt the cheese in a can rise up from his stomach. Feeling the anxiety rise while Jimin felt his palms sweat. They both pointed at the door wanting one of them to open the door.

“You do it!” Namjoon whisper screams while hiding under a blanket. Jimin jumping on top of him hearing Namjoon groan out.

“Hey Jimin? Namjoon? Are you guys there?” They heard on the other side of the front door. Jimin gets off while Namjoon lifts the blanket off of him. They both get up opening the door seeing you in your hoodie, sweatpants, and all. You held up a glass of wine and some glasses that have cats with a party hat.

“Eh? Eh!” You showed off the glass seeing them both trying to get a smile from either of them.

“I wanted to do something special! It’s our first sleepover!” You walked inside, Jimin and Namjoon getting out of your way before you trample them.

“We don’t really drink.” Namjoon says sitting in the counter while you place it next to him. You looking at your phone making sure you were right on time because these two were acting odd.

“It’s because Namjoon is a light weight.” Jimin leans against the fridge, while Namjoon jumps off the counter, embarrassed.

“Well, I did bring tea, I assumed he was.” You chuckled seeing Namjoon raise his head walking away, snobby.

“We can pop it open later, it’s too early.” You looked out of the kitchen window seeing the sun barely setting, Jimin jumping on Namjoon’s back as an apology.

“Sometimes I think you two are a couple.” You pointed a finger at Namjoon then Jimin doing a heart sign with your hands.

“Wh— Us? A couple? Haha never... never.” Namjoon pushes Jimin off of his back while they both straighten their clothes out.

“You never know.” Jimin winked towards you, Namjoon pushing him but stopped seeing your face of interest.

“Let’s just drink the wine.” Namjoon suggests grabbing the bottle, opening it before chugging some.

“Woah Namjoon, it’s barely 8pm.” You proclaimed not realizing you guys were going to get drunk so early. Jimin signaled him to pass the bottle, the left over taste of Namjoon’s lips.

Drink after drink and sharing playful stories of stupid nights and very ridiculous choices. Laughter fills the home while Namjoon takes it all in, you two make him so happy. Like he could forever live in this moment, wants to capture in his memory so he can always go back at it. Namjoon couldn’t possibly like two people at the same time but he couldn’t decide one even if he was held at gun point.

You were always there for him, wether he wanted to study for a exam or he needed a hug you were on your way all the time. Dropping every single thing that day to make sure he was okay. Jimin he saw everything from his worst moments to his best moments, they couldn’t be far apart without feeling a part of them gone. Jimin smelt like a coffee house where the beans were just roasted, the smell reminded him of home and all things cozy while you smelt like a field of beautiful wild flowers that filled his nostrils that made him want to live freely.

“Earth to Namjoon? Are you okay?” Jimin asks completely snapping Namjoon out of staring into outer space, you placed a hand around his shoulder Namjoon getting goose bumps from your touch looking into your eyes.

“I can’t do this.” Namjoon stood up running up the stairs closing the door of the bathroom, leaving you and Jimin in the dust. You two looked at eachother asking eachother what you two could have possibly done.

“Namjoon. Open the door.” Namjoon heard you knocking and Jimin talking. He knew Jimin never knocked that hard so he just assumed it was you.

“Was it something we did?” You asked, knocking more gently not wanting to scare the poor man inside the bathrooom.

“No of course not, I just can’t.” Namjoon sat down his back against the door, sighing into his hands. This wasn’t a good idea and if he said nothing or said everything he was going to have to meet the eyes of the ones he loves.

“Can I ask if it’s about statue?” Jimin asks, knowing statue is your code name. You looked at Jimin quirking an eyebrow not knowing who this statue is.

“Who’s statue?”

“Yes and no! Jimin it’s complicated and I don’t want to lose either of you and I’m just really new to this whole thing.”

“What thing are you talking about? You can tell us you know that Joon.”

“I like you both, so much.. that it hurts me. I don’t like you just as friends but as lovers. I can’t imagine my life without either of you and I know you guys probably don’t want to do poly but if you could give it a chance?” Namjoon confesses opening his soul, making up the faces of you and Jimin. Imagining your reaction and if it goes well he imagines how you two would all cuddle and share kisses.

“Yeah, of course Joon. I would love to. I realized that it isn’t a bad thing to love two people at the same time. That as long as it’s consensual it’s love.” You said placing your hand on the door trying to give a signal to Namjoon that it was okay to open the door.

“Namjoon, I’ve had a crush on you but I was so confused because I like Y/N too but I couldn’t shake off my feelings for you. You’re my everything.” Jimin sincerely says seeing the door open to an almost crying Namjoon. He hugged both of you, trying to hold on his sobs.

“You two are literally angels.” Namjoon muffled sounds as he gave you two kisses on cheeks.

When Namjoon woke up he couldn’t believe his eyes, you and Jimin cuddling him. Namjoon felt the cozy feeling in his heart wanting to stay in this position for his entire life. You groaning when Namjoon got up pulling him back down causing him to giggle.

“We have to get up.. it’s 10.” Namjoon caressing your cheek when you fluttered your eyelashes. He got back up stretching when he saw Jimin yawning laying on Namjoon’s lap not wanting to get out of bed. The warm morning as you three got up sharing clothes for the new day. Namjoon wearing your hoodie while you wore Jimin’s long sleeve shirt lastly Jimin wearing Namjoon’s pizza shirt.

“You two are pretty.” Jimin says seeing you two make breakfast. Jimin admiring you both while the smell of fresh pancakes fills his nose.

“Thank you baby.” Namjoon blushes flipping a pancake while you put more of the pancake batter on the pan. Jimin putting his hands around Namjoon’s hips swavying him back and forth a little.

“Baby that’s a new.” Jimin pecking Namjoon, you surprised that they just kissed on the first 12 hours of being together.

“We’ve made out before Y/N.” Jimin kisses Y/N’s cheek pointing at the empty pan waiting for another pancake to create.

“Gasp and you didn’t invite me?” You bringing Jimin’s closer by having your finger under his chin. Jimin raising an eyebrow a sly grin appearing on his face.

“We are not having sex in the kitchen!” Namjoon flips your overspilled pancakes seeing you were too occupied by Jimin’s plump lips. One side of the pancake ended up burnt but Jimin ate it with a smile anyway.

“Thank god we had this sleepover during semester break! Now I get to spend all my days with my favorites.” Namjoon sipping on his green tea, the little amount of whip cream that is on the top of his lips. You passing the maple syrup to Jimin.

“How will I operate in class when I just want to kiss you two?” You wipe off the whip cream off his lips, licking the excess on your finger.

“Can’t believe this all started when you spilled jam on your shirt.” Jimin playing with his fork pointing it right at you.

“Oh and not because he has a nipple piercing?” Namjoon takes another big sip seeing Jimin rapidly look at him trying to hide his blush from you.

“Maybe that had to do with it.” Jimin getting up from his chair grabbing all of your plates setting them down the sink.

“How do we do our first kiss?” You ask turning your chair towards Jimin who is cleaning the dirty plate. Namjoon also wondering gets up already looking for his chapstick.

“Do we all like smush our faces together and hope for the best?” Namjoon stands up from the table, pushing his chair in leaning on you while you wrap your hand around his waist.

It took planning shockingly. Jimin writing down who kisses who and basically you all exchange kisses, Namjoon looked very nervous about kissing you.

“You okay?” You embraced him while Namjoon holds onto your arm, looking at Jimin for support getting a thumbs up.

“Yes, just... just getting butterflies.” Namjoon breaths in looking into your eyes before he closes them. You pressing your lips to his, Namjoon smiles in the kiss your lips feeling and tasting better than he ever imagined. Not wanting to stop the kiss pulling you back in once you two have some time to breath.

“Come over here.” Jimin signals you, once it’s his turn. You walking over to him Jimin slinging his arms around your throat grinning when you pull him by his waist closing the distance. Although Jimin would never admit it, he felt his heart stop for a minute when you kissed him. God did he love you two.

“Baby I want kisses!” Namjoon protests putting his body on Jimin’s. Jimin burrying his face into his neck, the smell of Namjoon’s lavender lotion filling his nose while he touches his soft skin.

Jimin raises his head up seeing Namjoon’s red lips also wet from the kiss with you, he presses his plump lips against Namjoon’s. The sweet taste of the honey green tea that he drank for breakfast, savoring it all. You hugged Jimin from behind kissing and leaving hickles on his neck.

“Precious.” You nuzzle Jimin’s neck wrapping your hand around Namjoon’s waist. Feeling the bliss of being with those two.

— a/n: kinda wanted to add some text stuff!! because the imagine had some of it and i just found it so iconic!! enjoy :) these are 3 different events with ur boyfriends namjoon and jimin

#bts x male reader #bts #kpop x male reader #bts imagine #bts poly au #bts jimin #bts namjoon #bts minjoon

[grimelords]

I’ve finished my September playlist, only almost a month later. It’s got everything, The Weeknd, desert psychedelica from Niger, and Australian yodelling from 1941. What more could you want!

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XO / The Host / Initiation - The Weeknd: First of all Trilogy is a masterpiece. The Weeknd is a legend forever for this alone. Back when he was an anonymous character and before he tried to pivot to being a proper pop star and started beliving his own bullshit. This trio of songs for me is one of the highlights of the whole thing because this is where things really take a turn and it serves as a nice flipside to earlier songs like Glass Table Girls (even quoting some of the lyrics from it in a very cool reprise). Where most of the songs from House Of Balloons are about his own descent into this hedonistic life, by the time you get to Echoes Of Silence he lives there comfortably, and he's turned from cool,  dark and tormented to coldly evil and calculating. He's the master of the dark palace and he's drawing this woman in. The chorus of XO is straight up cult language 'all we ever do is love, open up your mind you can find the love'. She's broke and addicted trying to escape her life and he offers her this community. Which is where Initation comes in and things get really dark. This song feels like the real truth of those stories you hear of Drake flying instagram models around and it's a masterpiece of the dark underside of the drugs money and models bragging you're used to.

Sociopath (feat. Kash Doll) - Pusha T: Get a load of this new Pusha song where he's got Rodney Dangerfield ghostwriting for him. I got a bitch that'll master your card.. my wife ova hea!! Also the funny gritted teeth way he says it cracks me up. He also says boop bop be boop bop. There's so many good moments in this very silly song from a man that is normally terrifyingly serious.

Ice Cream - Muscles: I suddenly remembered this song the other day and I'm so glad I did. A good example of how you can get so much feeling out of music that has no relation at all to the lyrics. In the right mood this song makes me so emotional and I can't even pin down why. The way he sings 'ice cream is going to save the day' somehow just makes the urban alienation of the verse even more pointed. It's such a silly little dance song and that's what's so strong about it. It's dancing at night and unsuccessfully trying to forget what happened today.

Running - Gil Scott Heron & Jamie xx: It’s extremely strange that this remix album ever happened, thinking back on it. Stranger still that a Gil Scott Heron song got remixed by Jamie xx and then remixed again by 40 and turned into a Drake song in I’ll Take Care Of U and all three versions rock. Anyway, this song and this whole album remain fantastic - it still sounds futuristic in a way where nobody else really followed Jamie’s sound, everything else went a different direction so this an In Colour feel more and more unique to me as time goes on.

Boyfriend (Repeat) - Confidence Man: I’m in love with this album. It’s the closest I’ve found so far to the level of absolute fun in dance music since Duck Sauce’s album. I love the the attitude of her lyrics, which carries through the whole album. I love when her Australian accent peeks out for a second on a few words. I love his rebuttals that almost but not quite put it over the edge into a comedy song. I love the big fading out leadup to the drop near the end where a huge throat singing drone just swallows the whole song for a second.

Ever Again (Soulwax Remix) - Robyn: Extremely hot remix alert!! Thankyou to Zan Rowe's Monthly Mixtape playlist for putting my onto this.Sometimes all you need is one ferociously hot bassline to make a life complete.

$50 Million - !!!: !!!’s new album has one of the best covers I’ve seen recently, I advise you to check it out. It’s interesting to be so far into your career (this is their 8th album since 2001) and still be writing songs about selling out, a concept which has largely disappeared from music discourse since musicians started making no money post napster. I vaguely remember the turning point being when Kimya Dawson, after blowing up via the Juno soundtrack, turned down a coke ad for a ludicrous amount and the blogosphere at the time turned on her and said she should have taken the money because she was living in a van at the time. Nobody gives a fuck about selling out anymore because bands make more from tshirts than streams so you’ve got to act like a brand just to make a living. Anyway I’ve gotten off track. This song rocks, especially for the breakdown near the end.

Tipped Hat - The Paper Scissors: A song I haven’t heard in over ten years that suddenly popped into my head the other day. I love the way this guy’s voice sounds, just completely committing to sounding like a hand puppet. I’ve been playing bass a lot more recently and so have developed the worst man habit of becoming more sensitive to and pointing out extremely hot basslines to people, so I’d be derelict in my duty to not share this one.

Heimsdalgate Like A Promethian Curse - of Montreal: I love this song about literally pleading with your brain to come good. Here’s a good quote about this album “I went through this chemical depression, and that's when I was writing a lot of the songs for Hissing Fauna. They're all songs about that experience. And I was experiencing it in the moment that I was writing the songs, and sort of asking myself: What the hell is going on? Why are you all of a sudden totally paranoid and plagued by these anxieties? And why is everything so distorted and confusing and fucked up? My lifestyle hadn't changed that much. And then I realized, well, there's something going on inside of me that I don't have control over, and then you realize how vulnerable you are to these things, these elements that you can't understand, or unless you go on medication and get it under control. It's like you're being betrayed by your body.” Something I really admire about this album is that the lyrics reflect black metal levels of mental anguish, he was absolutely going through it the worst anyone can go through it “I'd gotten to that point where nothing was working. I was borderline suicidal, and my relationship with my girlfriend had totally eroded and she'd gone back to Norway with our daughter and everything was totally fucked, and I was just like, What can I do? "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal" is about that.” But the music is one hundred percent committedly twee and I really admire the effect that that split mood gives. “The lyrics tell the story of what was really going on and the music sort of represents this other emotion that I wish existed. The music was really happy because I wanted to make something that would lift my spirits.”

Jesus Rabbit - Guerilla Toss: I love the wobbly weird bass sound in this weirdo UFO cult song. I love the bleepy bloop melody that runs through it and I love how fundamentally unstable the whole song sounds, like it’s made out of paperclips and foil and papier mache.

Suburbia - Press Club: I can’t believe I didn’t know about Press Club for so long. I only found out about them this performance https://youtu.be/bCmtc-T5Unk which I’m shocked to learn has less than 5k views considering it’s one of the very best TV performances I’ve ever seen.

Come For Me - Sunflower Bean: I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about this song before and I’m probably going to say the exact same thing but who cares! This song fuckin rocks. I love how assured it is, like “if you’re gonna fuck me then stop fucking around and fuck me already.” It also feels so musically similar to I Can Hardly Make You Mine by Cults to me, which is a great excuse for me to listen to that song every single time I listen to this song.

Thousands - Club Night: This Club Night album is really really good. It's like a really nice middleground between midwest emo and Cymbals Eat Guitars. The way this song blows up halfway through with 'what if we want it!!' is so good. This whole band feels like they're from 2009 but in a good way, the tail end of indie and twee with these prog or postrock structures where the songs just go and go, and you can just get completely lost in it.

Cemetary - Brutus: The first thing you've got to know about Brutus is the drummer is also the singer. Normally who plays what is not really important but in this case I think it's very important because it makes the drums a lead instrument more than they normally would be. When she's not singing my focus is still on the drums because they're linked and I absolutely love it. This song is great and every song I've heard of theirs is just as good, I love Brutus and they're one of the best new bands I've found recently. Someone in the youtube comments said 'there's something really special about hearing a song for the first time and just knowing you're going to listen to it hundreds of times in your life.'

Enter By The Narrow Gates / Spirit Narrative - Circle Takes The Square: I think that I think of Circle Takes The Square as a household name just because they have such an outsized importance in my own life when they're definitely not at all. They're legendary for making The screamo (good kind) album in As The Roots Undo and then taking 8 years to make a followup, which is this album Decompositions, but I don't really know if they're well known outside of like, people who have opinions about what were the hottest music blogspots in 2010. I chose both of these because you can't really have one without the other, the whole album basically runs as one long piece of music and so this just kind of jarringly ends at the end of Spirit Narrative, sorry about that please listen to the entire album. Because of the status As The Roots Undo enjoys I feel like this album was kind of ignored, or overshadowed by the reputation it was trying to live up to, almost exactly like The Avalanches with Since I Left You and Wildflower, when just like Wildflower it's a more expansive, developed take on the original sound that trades some of the rawness for a more polished and considered approach and comes out arguably better than the orginal. I feel like I have so much to say about this album but I don't really know where to begin, just listen to it.

Vitrification Of Blood (Pt. 1) - Blood Incantation: I am by no means a metal scholar, but I know that when the word 'blood' is in both the song title AND the band name that means it's good metal. I love this song, and this whole album is great. It's very 'classic' death metal but there's touches (beyond the extreme length) of psychedelica as well that puts it on another level you can just get lost in. The way the guitar goes to space at 3:40, and again properly into orbit at 6:50 is just magical. The more I listen to this band the more I understand those guys who only listen to metal, there's a whole ecosystem in here and it's really got everything you need.

Out Of Line - Gesaffelstein: This whole song is basically intended as an intro for Pursuit on the album but it’s so powerful just on its own. I love imbuing weirdo lyrics like ‘a bitter sunken love in a bleach blonde submarine’ with such ominous power through the commanding delivery. I love the way the big grunting vocals on the offbeat build to sound like a summoning ritual. I love making a big processed bell the centrepiece of your extremely evil sounding song. It’s sort of a shame that Gessaffelstein has never really gone back to the vision of his first album and has spent his time since diluting it down for guest production on Weeknd songs and the like because it feels like there’s still so much more to get out of this sound. That he hasn’t gone back and dug deeper makes Aleph stand out more and more as a singular masterpiece as time goes on.  

Kamane Tarhanin - Mdou Moctar: Turning to Mdou Moctar after the new Tinariwen album kind of disappointed me, with all it’s big name guests nothing really hit me. I love this song though and I think a big part of it is the sort of loping, 6/4 rhythm that combined with the drone gives it this feeling of endlessly tumbling over itself in place, especially as the guitar heats up.

Achabiba - Fatou Seidi Ghali: I know very little about Fatou Seidi Ghali except that I saw she was supporting Sarah Louise at a show. From some googling it turns out that she’s the leader of a Nigerois band called Les Filles de Illeghadad who you can probably look forward to seeing on next month’s playlist. I also learned that the demonym for someone from Niger is Nigerien or to minimise confusion with Nigeria, Nigerois (said in a french way). They play a sort of desert psych in the realm of Mdou Mocter or Tinariwen, but this song (also the only solo song she has on spotify) shows her acoustic side. I love the swirling melody over the drone as the hand percussion keeps it in place and I love the very delicate vocals, but a probably unintentional thing I love a lot about this recording is the unmistakable iphone locking sound near the very start that instantly removes so much of the mystic exoticism that these sorts of artists are often written about with and places it firmly in the same sprawling modern world we all live in.

Floating Rhododendron - Sarah Louise: I love Sarah Louise. She’s a phenomenal guitarist and has such a big love for traditional folk music with her side project House And Land, but unlike everyone else in the genre is also very interested in pushing guitar forward to new and strange places. Her latest album was super experimental layered electric guitars and voice that still managed to maintain the deep connection to nature that runs through all her work. I would also highly recommend following her on instagram because her passion runs over. She’s regularly just out in the woods somewhere explaining how wonderful a particular mushroom is.  This song one of the first ones I ever heard from her, and it’s back when she was just doing very beautiful 12 string acoustic work, but she recently added it to spotify and it’s a very nice reminder of where she came from and how far she’s gone in such a short time.

Lark - Angel Olsen: The new Angel Olsen is absolutely great. I love how much she is just completely going for it on this album, absolutely unleashing. Taken against earlier songs of hers I’ve loved like White Fire, where the majesty was in her quiet power and the ability to absolutely command silence with a whisper quiet song, this song feels like the direct inverse, an about-turn into all the gigantic majesty of swirling strings and top of your lungs vocals - going all out and leaving nothing on the table. The way this song blows up about three different times until by the end you’re caught in this gigantic swirling maelstrom of screaming sound is just out of this world.

Door - Caroline Polachek: Caroline Polachek’s brain is huge. When I first heard the chorus of this song I couldn't believe it. Are you allowed to have a chant that runs in a spiral like this be the chorus of your pop song? Is that allowed?

North, South, East And West - The Church: The Church feel like they don't get enough respect. They don't seem to be in the same league as Cold Chisel and The Angels and all the other dad rock Australian bands from that era for some reason. They're very good though and I've been really getting into this whole album and this song specifically lately. Maybe what's working against them is just how much his voice sounds like Bono's in this song but surely that was a boon at the time!

Western Questions - Timber Timbre: This has become one of my new favourite songs to sing. The way the words fit together is my favourite kind of poetics where they just sound incredible, phonetically, and can mean anything you like for large chunks. Like “the gelatinous walls of the seeds that seldom remain / while the bulls are  browsing needles through computer casinos / honour the name”. Especially “bulls are browsing needles through computer casinos” is just extremely nice to say. I love the character of this song and am yet to completely understand what it’s saying other than personifying some worldwide blackpilled spirit of nihilist evil. What I love is the experience of all encompassing evil in this song, like a worldwide conspiracy connecting everything together that makes it all make sense. It doesn’t make you happier but it makes it make sense. I also love the finality of the big fill near the end that ushers in the outro riff that ties everything up.

Cold Cold World - Blaze Foley: I got heavily into a country music thing this month and spent a bit of time trying to find ‘real’ country, which of course turns out not to exist at all. The entirety of country music is built on a false nostalgia for an imagined time long past when things were real, some unspecified time in the collective consciousness between cowboy times and coal mine times. I don’t say this to say ‘country music is a fraud’ but that it’s built on a foundation of myth and that’s what’s so good about it. It’s constantly reframing the past as it relates to the present and is energised by the friction between them. Blaze Foley is a good example of this in the modern era because he seems to exist more as a myth than a man. He had three studio albums, the master tapes of which all disappeared through various means (lost, stolen, seized by the DEA) and so the majority of his surviving material is live recordings or long-lost studio recordings that resurfaced decades after his death when his fame and mythology already preceded him. He also thankfully lives up to the myth, he was truly a great artist and it’s a shame more of him hasn’t survived.

Where The Golden Wattle Blooms / Why Did The Blue Skies Turn Grey  - Shirley Thoms: Further to what I was saying about country music before, Australian country is a whole other thing. Transferring the myth and the mythmaking to a new location adds another layer of abstraction. Shirley Thoms was the first female solo act to record country music in Australia in 1941 and was most notable for her yodelling of which she is damn fine. This is a great song and a good a starting point as any in trying to trace the origin of country music in Australia. That it's so english in its identity, so evidently imitating an american style (which is in turn imitating a german yodel) is just more good evidence that nothing is 'real' and traditions of the past and future are malleable at all times.

Talkin’ Karate Blues - Townes Van Zandt: Townes Van Zandt is widely regarded as a songwriter’s songwriter and one of the best country songwriters to ever live, but like a lot of great country songwriters also has one or two songs like this - strange comedy songs about learning karate and getting your arm ripped off.

Strange Tourist - Gareth Liddiard: This album is a masterpiece on the level of Ys and it feels criminally underlistened in my opinion. Luckily in the last week or so some renegade has done up the wiki article on it to a couple of thousand words so that's a start. Because this is a song I've listened to one million times and love a lot, it's hard for me to write about it in a general way so instead I'm going to talk about something very specific and new that I've only begun to appreciate recently. The way he uses the vowels of the japanese words to create these assonant runs in lines like "Koda Kumi sang a coda pink as sarin gas / I took a trip to Nagasaki in a rented Mitsubishi / Then went camping in the Jukai under Mount Fuji" and "They found him frozen in a hollow in Aokigahara forest where them harakiri weirdos go" is really something, and a nice illustration of the two sides of Liddiard's songwriting: densely technical poetics in a song about living with a housemate who was a real freak.

I Dream A Highway - GIllian Welch: I’m not even going to go into the lyrics of this because it’s such an out of this world perfect song but I’m going to say this: it’s really something that this song goes for nearly 15 minutes, sits on the same three chords the whole time and never ever feels long. This song is longer than Emily by Joanna Newsom but doesn’t feel like an epic of the same scale at all. It’s just a mournful slow ode to change and decay that goes on forever and could keeping going on for twice as long if it wanted to.

Deep Water - The Middle East: The way the vocals in the verses are delivered, trailing off and mumbling bits and pieces is somehow magical, like it’s more interested in communicating the gist and the feeling than the actual words. You can just pick whatever part of it you like. Petrol stations and a copper mine, the kind of place I think I could die. This song also has two minutes of silence at the end for album reasons so enjoy that.

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