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Prompting is currently open. Prompting is open from 28 December 2024 to 19 January 2025.
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"the poem begins not where the knife enters, but where the blade twists"
"beauty is terror"
"you'll just have to taste me, when he's kissing you"
Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. For this round, every prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, do whatever. Steal from a literary classic, or copy a hit tweet.
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be careful what you wish for
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags:
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
- Halsey, You Asked for This
[FILL] take what you want, take what you can
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: violence, vague Arcane AU
Permission to remix: Yes
***
“Anyone else want a go?” The ringleader lifts Seungcheol’s wrist. Blood drips onto the dirt between their boots. “Or should we call it a fuckin’ night?”
The crowd roars. Seungcheol fights for breath, winded after two consecutive matches. His knuckles are split. His hip aches. Let it be over, he thinks. Let him limp away and lick his wounds in private.
There’s a scuffle in the corner. A short, high noise of surprise is cut off as the chain link gate slams open. Down here, the haze of the undercity is thick enough to touch, and Seungcheol squints through the kaleidoscope of white spotlights and gray-green smoke to see a man fall into the ring like a bird shot out of the sky.
“We have,” the ringleader’s voice goes thick with glee, “a challenger!”
The man stumbles to his feet and pushes back his hood. He’s young and pretty, delicate, unscarred, with long dark hair. Seungcheol can tell immediately that he’s not supposed to be here. A face like that has never seen an undercity fight.
Coercion. It must be.
“Wait,” Seungcheol says, but his voice gets swept away. A fresh face has fanaticized the audience. Someone takes up a rallying cry that catches like wildfire. The air sharpens with the smell of spilt wine.
Jeonghan, the ringleader announces above the clamor. The name, too, feels wrong.
Seungcheol gets pushed forward anyway. They meet in the heart of the spotlight. Jeonghan looks at Seungcheol with wide, dark eyes, his lashes quivering, his mouth slightly crooked. He must be a topsider, Seungcheol thinks, to have skin that clear.
“Do what you have to,” Jeonghan says, squaring his narrow shoulders.
“I—are you sure?” Seungcheol whispers.
DING… The bell sounds, a familiar vibration. DING…
Jeonghan doesn’t blink. “Yes.”
DING!
Seungcheol has been hitting things long enough to know when to pull his punches. He swings deliberately wide. Jeonghan dodges, lithe but slow. His back hits the concrete wall. He flattens his palms there, tracking his fingers over an old bloodstain.
Again Seungcheol swings, light, reluctant, giving Jeonghan enough space to skitter away.
A hiss of discontent sweeps over the crowd. Jeonghan freezes, staring at Seungcheol, his eyes bright with fear. Like a rabbit in a trap. Fuck. Seungcheol doesn’t want to hit him.
Instead Seungcheol gets up in Jeonghan’s space, nearly nose-to-nose, close enough to smell cigarette smoke and soap off his nice cloak. He presses his fists into the wall on either side of Jeonghan’s neck and watches his pupils dilate.
“You need to fight back,” Seungcheol says.
Jeonghan’s breath tickles his throat. “No.”
“At least try.”
A screech echoes from the crowd. There’s nothing fissure folk hate more than stalling. Any longer without a real hit and they’ll storm the fence, take the violence they’re owed. Seungcheol has seen it happen before. None of the fighters survived.
Too late, Seungcheol spots a decanter nosing through the fence. It tips forward, pouring bloodred wine down the back of Jeonghan’s jacket.
Jeonghan jerks forward. A surprised noise jumps out of his throat. Almost reflexively, Seungcheol kicks out and sweeps his feet from underneath him. Jeonghan hits the ground like he’s never getting up again. Flat on his back, hair spread out like a firework. The crowd explodes.
Desperately Seungcheol steps back and scans for the ringleader, for one of the other boxers, even Jihoon if he’s still around. Anyone to call off this fight. Clearly this isn’t fair. But the air is a thick gray stew churning with silhouettes. No one is coming to save them.
Jeonghan sits up on his knees. His chest heaves. “Please,” he says, quiet and unsteady. “Make it quick.”
That, at least, Seungcheol can do. He takes Jeonghan by the chin and tilts his smooth, beautiful face toward the light. Apologetically, selfishly, he thumbs across Jeonghan’s bottom lip. This is not the worst thing he’s ever done, but he has a feeling it will haunt him longest.
“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol says, wrecked, and hits Jeonghan across the face.
Later, in a dank cubbyhole beside the arena, Seungcheol dabs the last of the antiseptic against Jeonghan’s split lip.
“The boss will be coming with my cut,” he says gently. “You should get outta here before then.”
“Mm,” Jeonghan says listlessly.
Pink neon light shifts across the bruises on his face. Through the window, the alley pulses like a carnival, bright and wide awake despite the late hour. A laugh floats up from below. Seungcheol gets up to draw the blinds. He leans against the wall and folds his arms.
“How’d you end up in the Lanes?” he asks.
Jeonghan’s eyes flick toward him. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know him.”
Seungcheol scoffs. “Try me.”
“Eh.” Jeonghan smiles, a stunning flash. “Maybe later.”
Seungcheol flounders. Was that flirting? Is this topsider hitting on him? He opens his mouth, his face hot, and says nothing. Jeonghan’s blasé attitude makes no sense. His fear in the ring was real. He was scared before. Now he looks… relaxed. At ease.
“I’m due back in Piltover tonight,” Jeonghan continues, casually inspecting the bloody rag. “You should come with me.”
“Up topside? To do what?”
“You have a good heart. You could fight for something… more. You could help the people here.”
Seungcheol hesitates. That’s the kind of talk he overhears in seedy bars. Fruitless plans to fight back against the Enforcers, to lift the undercity out of its own muck and debris. Tempting, but risky. Seungcheol has no plans to return to a jail cell anytime soon.
“I don’t know about that. The ringleader wouldn’t let me leave anyway.” Seungcheol admits. “Thinks I owe him.”
Jeonghan sets the antiseptic down and levels Seungcheol with a look. Those pretty, dark eyes. It’s sick to think so, but the bruising suits him.
“If your debt were settled,” he says. “Would you leave with me tonight?”
Yes, Seungcheol thinks, immediate and nonsensical. I would follow you. He has nothing real here. Not since Soonyoung—
Before he can actually answer, there’s a banging at the door.
The ringleader is a Vastaya, a tall humanoid with the face of a rat and a mechanical leg that sputters and coughs when he walks. He goes nowhere without a goon, three knives, and an oxygen mask spray painted with the tusks of a rhinoceros. Two years ago he broke Seungcheol out of jail. He’s laid claim to his body ever since.
Jeonghan yanks open the door and says, very sweetly, “Seungcheol quits. He's leaving with me.”
The ringleader rocks back on his heels, nostrils flaring. When he laughs, yellow slime dribbles from his front fangs. The light behind him shifts pink to green with a passing cloud of vapor.
He leans in and leers. “Is that so?”
There is one moment of suspended silence. Seungcheol’s stomach flips.
“Don’t—” Seungcheol lunges to throw himself in front of Jeonghan, to shield him, but he miscalculates. With remarkable speed, Jeonghan side-steps him and pulls a gleaming metal handgun from the abyss of his cloak. The barrel glows an otherworldly, electric blue when he fires it once, twice. Energy crackles through the air.
The ringleader’s hand goes limp around his dagger. He and his goon drop like twin sacks of coal. Jeonghan blows steam off the barrel of the gun. With a twirl, he slips it back into his belt. It’s all over in a matter of seconds.
“How did you—” Seungcheol’s mouth hangs open. His breath stutters in his throat. “Who the fuck are you?”
Jeonghan tucks a loose lock of hair behind his ear. That fearful, wary figure from the boxing ring has completely disappeared. He smiles at Seungcheol, warm and mischievous, eyes twinkling.
“Let me tell you a secret.” Jeonghan steps close, nose-to-nose with Seungcheol again, a mirror of their earlier stance. His cheek is still an angry violet. His voice drops, low and silky. “I've been watching you for weeks, Choi Seungcheol. I saw you, and I wanted you. So I tested you." He leans in. "And now I'm taking you.”
Seungcheol’s breath shivers through his whole body like an electrocution. Jeonghan clicks Seungcheol’s mouth closed and presses his thumb into the dimple of his chin.
"So," he says. "Aren't you coming?"
Re: [FILL] take what you want, take what you can
Re: [FILL] take what you want, take what you can
Re: [FILL] take what you want, take what you can
[REMIX] sold my soul to a three-piece
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Arcane AU; ACAB, even scoups
Permission to remix: Yes
i made my kpop boy a cop.... i feel bad
***
Every time Jeonghan sees him, his breath catches at the difference. The first time he’d laid eyes on Choi Seungcheol, Jeonghan had been half-drunk off cheap liquor at The Last Drop. Soonyoung had told him about the fights, and he’d wanted to see for himself. When Seungcheol had stumbled in, his chin had been bloodied, nose bruised and broken, exhaustion beating into him harder than the three opponents he’s taken down with ease.
He looked like a storybook hero. A legend not yet made. Now, he’s gilded in Piltover’s finest robes, with little left of those days save for a scar on his cheek.
“Look what they’ve done to you,” Jeonghan says airily, after the tailor leaves the fitting room. “You look like a human pincushion.”
Sparkling gold and silver needles shine from the suit Seungcheol’s been tucked into. His reddened face twists into a scowl. “If you’re here to scold me—”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The heavy velvet curtain flutters behind Jeonghan as he enters the room, circling round the tall fitting stand. His fingers prod at the white and gold detail across the navy blue.
The son of Zaun, an Enforcer. What’s left of his family probably spits when they think of him.
“I’m not interested in having the same fight with you over and over again.”
He isn’t. There’s only so many times you can tell someone that their potential is wasted on contributing to oppression. Jeonghan’s seen, but Seungcheol knows it. Firsthand. Naturally, Seungcheol’s good heart doesn’t see it that way.
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” Seungcheol meets his eyes in the mirror. Despite their physical distance lately, that look has never left his face. The one that screams that he’d follow Jeonghan anywhere, anytime, Runeterra or beyond.
If only that were the truth.
“You know with the chem barons in custody that the Lanes will fall to chaos,” Jeonghan says. The undercity knows their once-favored son has turned into a snitch, but Seungcheol hasn’t set foot there in years.
“Don’t act like you care about the Lanes,” Seungcheol says, starting to cross his arms, then winces, dropping them to his side. A single pin tinkles when it hits the ground. “Can’t you just be happy for me? For once?”
It takes everything in him to not sneer, choosing to close his eyes instead. “Congratulations,” and he feels sick even saying it. “Captain.”
Re: [REMIX] sold my soul to a three-piece
Re: [REMIX] sold my soul to a three-piece
Re: [REMIX] sold my soul to a three-piece
Re: [REMIX] sold my soul to a three-piece
[REMIX] the worst of all blessings
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: arcane au, a bit of power imbalance and unhealthy relationships, allusion to a sexual relationship but nothing on-screen
Permission to remix: Yes
this basically wrote itself after i read wren’s remix. I hope you enjoy.
***
“There’s something I’ve always been so curious about,” Seungcheol’s voice echoes in the otherwise silent room, and Jeonghan feels his heart drop as he sits on the edge of the bed, twisted bedsheets wrapped around his waist as he reaches for the clothes discarded on the floor.
The thing is, Seungcheol stays as silent as Jeonghan stays still, waiting, gauging his reaction before continuing. So, with a deep breath, Jeonghan hums noncommittally, giving him the sign to go on.
“Why did you bring me topside if you’re going to be resentful over the path you put me on?” Seungcheol asks, and it’s such a Seungcheol thing to never shy away from trying to get Jeonghan to talk.
Jeonghan winces, like the words physically hurt him. His fists clench, the bedsheets twisting further in his hold. With a steadying breath, he turns to look at Seungcheol, propped on his elbow and watching Jeonghan carefully.
Maybe he’s an open book to Seungcheol, just as he is to Jeonghan. A thought he has never entertained before this moment, before seeing the way Seungcheol is looking at him. He feels naked, which is funny considering what they were just doing, vulnerable, and put on the spot to put into words what he vowed never to speak of.
“I needed a new toy,” Jeonghan says, turning to look away because this lie to him is better than the truth, better than all the hopes he had for him before he assumed the role of the perfect toy soldier because Seungcheol doesn’t do anything half-assed. He lets his head hang between his shoulders, his elbows on his knees, and his fingers twisted together. “Isn’t that what topsiders do?”
“I’m not stupid, so don’t lie to me,” Seungcheol says, irritation seeping into his voice. Jeonghan feels backed up into a corner with no way out. He hears rustling from behind him, the sound of the sheets rustling, and he can feel Seungcheol behind him. “What’s the real reason?”
Jeonghan stays silent, staring unseeingly at the wall in front of him as he weighs his options. He can get up, refuse to entertain Seungcheol further, get dressed, and leave knowing that Seungcheol will follow him regardless. He will accept Jeonghan’s silence for what it is and won’t press further.
The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
The alternative is to tell him the truth, risk everything, and come clean. Jeonghan is known for his mind games. People are wary of ever crossing him because he will pay it back in ways they least expect. And Seungcheol was no exception.
“I had hoped you would bring change,” Jeonghan whispers, but he knows Seungcheol heard him clearly by the sharp intake of breath from behind him. “I had hoped that the man I saw in that fighting ring, the man who apologized before decking me, would remain, that he would never raise a hand against his own people, take what he can from the oppressive establishment, and bring change, both in Piltover and Zaun.”
“But in the end, I became the opposite,” Seungcheol says, and suddenly, Jeonghan feels him rest his forehead against his shoulder. He tenses under the touch, expecting Seungcheol to be halfway outside the door after his admission. “I thought this is what you wanted when you asked me to come with you.”
The broken tone of Seungcheol’s voice makes Jeonghan’s breath catch in his lungs; he cannot move, he cannot breathe, and the added weight of Seungcheol against his shoulder makes him feel like he’s drowning rather than the usual grounding effect his touch always brings.
“You should leave,” Jeonghan chokes out. He needs space to think, and he can’t do that with Seungcheol with him. “Please,” he adds after a moment.
The ever-gentle Seungcheol presses a kiss to Jeonghan’s shoulder, and he feels something shatter inside him at the fleeting touch and then at the devastation of its absence, leaving him with one final look that will haunt Jeonghan forever.
Re: [REMIX] the worst of all blessings
Re: [REMIX] the worst of all blessings
Re: [REMIX] the worst of all blessings
Re: [FILL] take what you want, take what you can
*many exciting toxic adventures together
Re: [FILL] take what you want, take what you can