#Its raining and the world feels a little more introspective than usual

[cranberry-queen]

I’m safe enough today to let a little sadness come to the surface.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph, got any good old (maybe new?) bedsharing fics for a fanfic obsessed lurker?

Thanks 😘

Hey Nonny!!

Hahha! I actually just did a list recently of my old ones, but I just double-checked my offline lists and I actually DO have some fics on my next Bed Sharing list, so GUESS WHAT? Your ask is the one to start the next Bed Sharing one, LOL.

As usual, if anyone has any they’d like to add, especially if they’re brand new fics, let us know! <3

BEDSHARING Pt. 5

See also:

The Speckled Blonde / BedSharing

BedSharing Pt. 2 and Insecure Sherlock

Bed Sharing Pt. 3

Bed Sharing Pt. 4

Bed Sharing “Just Happens”

Soft. Happy. Content. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 223 w., 1 Ch. || Sleepy Cuddles, Bed Sharing, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Spooning, Morning After, Sherlock POV) – Sherlock reflects on his state of mind.

And When The Night Is Over by Simply Isnt On (K, 329 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Platonic Bed Sharing / Not Slash) – Sherlock and John sleep together.

I Knew You Loved Me by inevitably_johnlocked (T, 743 w., 1 Ch. || Morning Cuddles, Fluff, Clingy Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slice of Life, Morning After, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Declarations of Love, Pet Name, Bed Sharing, Snuggles) – John and Sherlock share a lie-in the morning after their first time. So fluffy and gross your teeth will fall out. Part 4 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Sleep Tonight by Jenn1984 (T, 1,220 w, 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Bed Sharing, Worried Sherlock, Sick John, Hugs/Cuddles, Touch Neediness) – Fingers begin prying open his jacket looking for a wound and John would really like to swat at them. No, he's not hit anywhere, he's just damn sick.- John Watson has a fever.

Loved. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 1,231 w., 1 Ch. || First Sherlock POV, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Nose Kisses, Morning After, Love Confessions, Morning Cuddles, Emotional Sherlock, Sentiment, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock reflects on his relationship with John. Part 5 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Here to Stay by MockJayPhoenix12 (K, 1,574 w., 1 Ch. || Post Reunion, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Headache, Bed Sharing, Care Taker Sherlock, Hand Holding, Fluff) – On Sherlock's first day home, John wakes with a migraine.

The Perfect Place by SilverSmile (K+, 1,955 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Romance, 5 and Ones, Fluff, Experiments, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock attempts to find the perfect place to sleep, but his little experiment proves to be far more difficult than expected.

Insomnia by TheSingingGirl (K+, 2,635 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Humour, Bed Sharing, Sleepy Sherlock) – Sleep is merely the next frontier in what has become the battle to keep Sherlock alive. It's because of this that John ends up in bed with a sociopath.

Human Body Pillow by Lunavere (K, 4,122 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Sleepy Johnlock, Bed Sharing) – A story about the five times John fell asleep on Sherlock, and the one time Sherlock fell asleep on him.

The Myth by AGirloftheSouth (M, 4,329 w., 1 Ch || Sex Toys / Anal Beads, PWP, Romance, Bottom John, Prostate Stimulation) – Sherlock believes something to be a myth. John proves him wrong.

When We Sleep by PrincessNala (K+, 6,660 w., 1 Ch || Post-TGG,  Alternating POV, Bed Sharing, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, Hugs) – Sherlock needed to feel every beat of his heart, every rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. It was the only way to completely assure himself that John was alive and right there next to him, and not dead, no, never dead…

To be loved by Strange_johnlock (E, 12,436 w., 8 Ch. || Post S3, Established Relationship, First Person POV Sherlock, Pet Names, Soft Sherlock, Mild ADHD, Protective John, Captain Watson, Body Appreciation, Bottomlock, Rough Sex, Travelling for Holidays, Introspection, Sherlock Loves John So Much It Hurts) – John is so deeply integrated into the work, both as my conductor of light, and as a great shot with a vicious right hook who tackles men -and women- no matter their size all in my defense. He protects me with all he can without question, and this loyalty is surely more than I deserve. Or: Sherlock is counting his blessings.

There's So Much Labour Just in Breathing Lately by Susan (E, 12,708 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF / Mentions of S3 Events, Romance, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Grieving John, Mutual Pining, Meddling Mycroft, Therapy, Ambiguous Hopeful Ending, Infidelity) – The dreams he hated most – the ones that left him a sweating, shaking mess when he woke – were the ones in which Sherlock was just Sherlock. Laughing or drinking tea. Sitting across the table from him at Angelo’s eating pasta. Trailing his open hand behind him on the way to the bedroom. “C’mon, John. I’m about to have my way with you.”

Kintsugi by distantstarlight (E, 14,772 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Regret / Remorse, Loneliness, Separation, Drug Use, Healing, Protective John, Sad Sherlock, Dev. Rel., Complicated Relationships, Love, Angst With Happy Ending, Sherlock is Called Freak, John’s Penance, Voyeurism, Doctor/Caretaker John, Guilty John, Detox, Fingering, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Slight Non-Con Turns Enthusiastic Consent, Virgin Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes becomes estranged from the man he had once considered his best friend after John lets him down horribly in public. It seems that the world's only consulting detective will be on his own once again...or will he?

The Burning of the Leaves by blueink3 (M, 15,915 w., 3 Ch. || Post S4, Angst, Reichenbach, Parentlock, Past Jolto, Idiot John, Sherlock’s a Mess, Puppies, Fluff, Possessive / Jealous Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock POV, Matchmaker Sholto, Melancholic Feelings, Emotional Sherlock, Domesticity, Love Confessions in the Rain, Kissing in the Rain, Pet Names, Panic Attack) – After the events of series 4, Major Sholto invites John and Sherlock to lunch one day. It nearly proves to be too much for their tenuous relationship as the past haunts the present, putting the future that Sherlock so desperately wants at risk.

A Silver Sixpence by _doodle (NC-17, 16,400 w., 2 Ch. || LJ Fic || For a Case / Case Fic, Fake Relationship, Humour, Romance, Marriage Proposal, Awkward Idiots, Cuddling, Touching, Kissing, Love Confessions, Bed Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fake Until It’s Not, Schmoop and Fluff, Bottomlock) – “John, we need to get married. It’s for a case, not any romantic notions on my part pertaining to our partnership,” Sherlock said, with brutal honesty, and without even looking up.

Division by MrsNoggin (E, 19,542 w., 11 Ch. || Coffee Shop AU || First Kiss/Time, Fluff, Barista Sherlock, Clingy Sherlock, POV John, John’s Limp, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles, Sensuality, Touching, Virgin Sherlock, Insecure John) – John likes mysteries. And every morning he dips into the local independent coffee bar with his newspaper and ponders another... one Sherlock Holmes.

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

Insanity in the Middle by DotyTakeThisDown (E, 28,010 w., 8 Ch. || Equestrian Sports AU || Alternate First Meeting, POV John, Pining John, Bottomlock, Clueless Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Passionate Kisses, Hand Holding, Caught Making Out, Bed Sharing, Spooning, Blow Job) – John is a world-class eventing rider with a gold medal and several four-star wins to his credit, but he's never won at Rolex. Sherlock is an up-and-coming rider taking the sport by storm.

A Home for Us by sussexbound (M, 30,581 w., 12 Ch. || Scars, Bedsharing, Grief, Doctor John, Hurt/Comfort, Post-TRF, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation, Heavy Emotions, Clingy Sherlock, Hallucinations, Disassociation, Emotional Turmoil) – He has been on the road for two years, and he is exhausted. He’s almost accepted that he will never see London (John) again—almost. But then there are nights like tonight, where he is weak, and all he can think of is the warmth of the flat they once shared, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the teasing smile playing at the corner of John’s lips, the boxes of half-eaten Chinese takeaway balanced precariously in their laps. He aches at the memory of it, at the realisation that it is something he may never experience again.

Anchor Point by trickybonmot (E, 49,856 w., 80 Ch. || Truman Show AU || Psychological Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Dark Characters / Fic, Alternating First/Third Person, Protective John, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Tender Moments, Love Confessions, Hand/Blow Jobs, Cuddling, Jealous John, First Kiss/Time) – The world tunes in nightly for Sherlock, the ultimate in reality TV: Sherlock Holmes, a real person with a legendary name, unknowingly lives out his life in a staged setting contrived by his brother. Things get complicated when a retired army doctor joins the show to play the part of Sherlock's closest friend. This fic borrows its concept from the 1998 film, the Truman Show. However, you don't need to have any knowledge of the movie to enjoy this story.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

A Goose Quill Dipped in Venom by Polyphony (M, 52,748 w., 16 Ch. || Celebrity John AU || Alternate First Meeting, TV Host John, Supermodel Mary, Character Death, Mystery, Romance, Case Fic, First Kiss/Time, Meddling Mycroft, Drug Abuse, Doctor John, PDA, Deductions, POV Sherlock, Toplock, Sexual Tension, Angry/Rough Sex, Hopeful Ending, Asperger’s Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is called in to a very ordinary although brutal murder. Something is badly out of tune with the whole scenario and Sherlock finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the crime - and also with the victim.

Isosceles by SilentAuror (E, 56,609 w., 7 Ch. || Post-S4, POV John, Original Male Character / Sherlock Dates Another Man, Love Triangle, Jealous John, Virgin Sherlock, Sexual Coaching, Angst, Romance, Domesticity, Unrequited Feelings, Miscommunication, First Kiss/Time, For a Case, Friends With Benefits, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Spooning) – After solving a case for a major celebrity, Sherlock gets himself asked out. When John asks, he discovers that Sherlock has no intention of going, at least not until John agrees to coach him through whatever he might need to know for his date...

Lunar Landscapes by J_Baillier (M, 57,046 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || S3/TAB Fix-It, Slow Burn Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, BAMF John, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, Idiots In Love,  Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Medical Realism) – An accident forces John to face the fact that Sherlock's downward spiral had started long before his flight to exile even left the tarmac.

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

Gold Rush by ShirleyCarlton (E, 71,783 w., 17 Ch. || Post S3 / No Mary, Friends to Lovers, Mentions of Past Sexual Abuse, First Kiss, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Alternating POV, Switchlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Marriage Proposal, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abduction, Anxious/Insecure Sherlock, Miscommunication, Emotional Lovemaking) – John has divorced Mary and pops round to 221B one evening to find Sherlock in the middle of a case. As Sherlock tries to find the identity of a young woman’s stalker, John realises he can no longer deny his feelings for Sherlock – which then, to their befuddlement, turn out to be mutual. Shy kisses and tentative embraces ensue. But will Sherlock be able to cast off a shadow from his past that he thinks might prevent John from wanting to stay?

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater /  Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

Kintsukuroi by sussexbound (E, 91,823 w., 20 Ch. || S4 Compliant / Post-TLD, Grief / Mourning, PTSD, Internalized Homophobia, Therapy, Past Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Anxiety, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Suicidal Ideation, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Sexting, Frottage, Inexperienced Sherlock, Rimming / Anal / BJ’s, Emotional Turmoil, Finding Each Other) – “I love you.” Sherlock sees the words hit John with almost physical force. He reels back a little, jaw twitching and eyes filling. “I love you,” he repeats, a little softer, a little more gentle, as earnest as he possibly can. Because they’ve been teetering on the brink of this thing for years, and it had become painfully obvious over the last few months that they were at a tipping point. This had to happen. Now it has. Now they can see where they end up. The tears in John’s eyes spill over, and he wipes at them angrily. “Do you even know what that means?”  

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU ||  BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

The Bang and the Clatter by earlgreytea68 (M, 137,049 w., 37 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Baseball AU || Slow Burn / Dev. Rel., Possessive/Obsessive Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Mutual Pining, Body Appreciation, Depression, Closeted Sexuality, Family, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Ogling Each Other, Anxious Sherlock, Panic Attack, Drunkenness, Talk of Forever, Big Feelings™) – Sherlock Holmes is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU. Part 1 of Baseball

Against the Rest of the World by SilentAuror (E, 151,714 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Hiatus Fic, POV First Person Sherlock, Present Tense, First Kiss/Time, Big Brother Mycroft, Escaping from Capture, Soft Sherlock, Toplock, Insecurity, Infidelity, Travelling, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Depression, Fantasies, Yearning for the Past, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation) – Sherlock has been away from London for nine hundred and twelve days and counting, and has no idea what sort of reception to expect when he finally returns.

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

[adapembroke]

Dreamwork as a Spiritual Practice

Many of my most powerful spiritual experiences have happened in my dreams. I have looked up into the sky on a rainy night and heard the stars sing. I have gotten writing advice from a favorite author who died before I was born, and I have explored caves with an ancient hunter-gatherer. Dreams allow us to do things that are impossible in waking life, to hear voices that would otherwise be silent and go places that are inaccessible or don’t exist in the physical world. An active dream-life can be awe inspiring and terrifying, but dreams can also help us find meaning in our lives. They can help us grow and change if we take them seriously and use them as a tool for meditation and introspection. 

In my experience, there are four types of dreams: processing dreams, shadow dreams, divinatory dreams, and spirit work dreams. Each of these types responds best to different types of examination. Though, individual dreams can have elements of more than one type. 

In this article, I examine the four types of dreams, show you how to recognize them, and share how I work with them in my spiritual practice.

Processing Dreams

Processing dreams are a mashup of things that have happened over last day or two. 

Example: Characters from Outlander (TV) were contestants on the Great British Baking Show. Dougal was angry because his cake collapsed after Jamie stomped around the tent.

I had this dream when I was reading the Outlander books before bed and binging the Great British Baking Show. Usually, dreams of this kind are funny and not deeply meaningful. They can be helpful on a practical level. Recent scientific studies suggest that we learn skills by practicing things we do when we’re awake in our dreams. As a focus for meditation, though, processing dreams aren’t very useful.

When I have a dream like this, I ask myself if things represented in the dream are taking up more space in my life than I’d like. After having the dream about Outlander and the Great British Baking Show, I decided to watch less TV but keep my reading schedule the same. 

Shadow Dreams

In shadow dreams, I encounter needs, hopes, and fears that I haven’t been looking at closely enough in waking life. 

Example: I was a teacher in a one-room school house filled with students who are talking over me, won’t listen, and don’t want to do their work.

Dreams are this type respond particularly well to Jungian-style analysis. In this way of looking at dreams, each character in the dream corresponds to a part of yourself, not just the point of view character. The plot tells you something about the way these parts of yourself feel about each other and how you live your life.

When I figure out that I’ve had a shadow dream, I journal from the perspective of each character in the story. Allowing each side a chance to speak helps me to learn what their needs are and how their needs aren’t getting met. This is an important step because I often think that I understand the issues at play in the dream, but journaling reveals the places where my assumptions aren’t correct.

When journaling about the dream about the one-room school house from the perspective of the teacher, I learned that my inner teacher was frustrated because my schedule was disorganized. Like a one-room school house, my day had a definite beginning and end, but my work and interests had no set place in my life, like students at different levels being lumped together under the care of one teacher. As a writer, I don’t have a boss imposing a schedule, so I didn’t have one. My inner teacher pointed out that without order, I spent my time on the things that “yelled” the loudest instead of on the things that were most important to me.

When I switched sides and journaled from the perspective of the students, I expected my inner student to whine about needing freedom. This was the story that I’d been telling myself, that there was a conflict between my need for order and my need for freedom and the best way to resolve the conflict was to give myself as much freedom in my routine as possible. Instead, I discovered that my inner student didn’t fight for its freedom. It only asked for kindness. 

I realized that when I’ve tried to create a structured schedule for myself in the past, I was overly strict. I set unreasonable expectations, planning every minute of the day and refusing to change my routine when my mind and body needed it. I’ve learned a lot about self-care since then, and I discovered that when I tried to create a routine again I approached things with a more mature awareness of my own limits. As a bonus, I found that I had more freedom in the end because I knew when I’d met my obligations and my work day was over.

There are some who say that every dream is a shadow dream. In my experience, when a dream is a shadow dream, it is always obvious from the beginning that there’s something for me to learn from the dream, even if I don’t know immediately what it is. I’ve found that if I work too hard to find the hidden motivations in a dream, the interpretation ends up being trite or doesn’t stick. The shadow reveals itself when it’s ready. It can’t be forced by ruminating. 

Divinatory Dreams

Divinatory dreams seem to predict the future or tell us things that are going on in the world around us that we would have had no way of knowing otherwise. These dreams are often dramatic, as if the universe is trying to wake us up to an awareness of our power.

Example: There was a war in a park in my city. When I woke up, I learned that, while I was asleep, there had been a shootout between police and a man having a breakdown not far from the park. 

I have heard stories about people for whom divinatory dreams are an important part of their practice. Their dreams give them useful information that they can use in waking life. Scientists and artists sometimes seed dreams like this to help them solve problems. By musing on problems before they go to sleep, they often find that they dream about the answers to their questions. Depending on the source of the information (and the beliefs of the person having the dream), these might be thought of as either processing dreams or divinatory dreams.

Personally, I have not had much success seeding dreams like this, and I find that there is little I can do with divinatory dreams when I have them. The dream about the war in the park gave me a creepy anecdote to tell, but it didn’t tell me anything I really needed to know or wouldn’t have found out when I woke up. Worse, I had a spike in dreams about intruders in my home for a week after the shooting.

In my experience, divination dreams come when I’m not doing enough divination in my waking life. They’re a nudge to make it more of a priority. 

Spirit Work Dreams

When I’m doing a lot of work with a spirit I particularly trust, I give them permission to work with me in dreams. I don’t have the ability to lucid dream, so for me, giving a spirit permission to work with me in dreams is a big deal. I’ve had spirits abuse this privilege in the past. Like Lady Poole from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I’ve woken up exhausted after a night of spirit work dreams, as if I’d been working all night. Right now, only one spirit, my guide, has permission to give me dreams, and I ward my dreams against everyone else.

Example: I was in a school cafeteria getting food, and I was told by a faculty member to fill my plate with vegetables first. By the time I filled my plate with vegetables, all of the protein and grain dishes were being taken away because lunch was over. My guide appeared and told me that if I followed that advice to the letter, I would never have enough time to get my needs met. 

In this case, I was given this dream because my guide wanted to have a conversation with me about the difference between rules and guidelines, a subject that was unlikely to come up in our conversations in waking life. I was embarking on the quest to schedule my life more strictly, and he wanted me to beware of meeting some needs completely at the expense of other needs. It’s better, he said, to meet a few needs imperfectly than to meet one need completely and the rest not at all.

At other times, my trusted spirits will give me dreams about experiences they want me to have that I can’t have in waking life. 

Example: I was camping without a tent in the rain. While I was waiting to fall asleep in the dream, I had a mystical experience of oneness with nature.

My guide is very old and closely connected with the wild. I am limited in the ways that I can commune with nature, so he gives me wild dreams about sleeping under the stars and making homes in caves. This helps me to feel closer to him, and it helps me to understand his values and examine my own.

Sometimes, my guide uses dreams to give me direct, practical advice.

Example: A voice said, “It will be hard. Take this.” A disembodied hand gave me an apple.

In this case, with the help of Lee, I was able to figure out that I was on the edge of getting a cold, and I needed to take care of myself. Because of my guide’s warning, I rested and was careful with my diet, and I was able to avoid getting sick.

The best way to know if you’ve had a spirit work dream is to ask the spirits you work with. If you aren’t actively working with spirits, I suggest warding your dreams for the reasons I gave above.

This post was originally published on Aquarius Moon Journal on 7 February 2020.

[stars-in-my-damn-eyes]

For a Jaskier prompt.... Getting revenge on a certain Valdo Marx maybe?

Excellent idea :D

Also Jaskier is immortal in this because I thought it would be Cool

•••

Perhaps the utter disdain and hatred that had festered away in the back of Jaskier’s mind for so long was the tiniest bit disproportionate when brought into comparison to his target’s actual offences, but if Jaskier started going around acting the forgiving sort, puffing up his chest and being the better man, the world might as well fall off its damn axis.

He liked to think himself a patient man, forthcoming with second chances and magnanimous with what kinds of slights he was willing to take in his stride, but when a line was crossed, a line was crossed, and that, too, was something he could hardly ignore.

Jaskier was a patient man, generally, and he was more than willing to wait for opportunities, too, to present themselves - in matters of revenge, after all, he forwent his general over-the-top flamboyance in favour of calculated expediency. He’d long since found it to be more efficient than letting his feelings get the better of him. Too, there was a lesser chance of conviction.

But, enough with the introspection. There was a point here, a reason for such a dissection of Jaskier’s own psyche.

Really, it had all come to a head when they reached Oxenfurt.

They’d arrived at the bustling city as dusk was creeping over the horizon, Ciri on Roach, Geralt and Jaskier walking alongside. It was a welcome sight, after so long spent trudging through muddy undergrowth, especially in the autumn rains - Jaskier was fairly certain he couldn’t quite pinpoint the last time he’d been completely dry.

The quiet, alluring promise of a warm, dry bed and a proper bath that Oxenfurt offered had been immediately tempered when Jaskier caught sight of him.

Valdo Marx, the troubadour of Cedaris - why wasn’t he in fucking Cedaris, then? - was hurrying through the quiet drizzle, bejewelled in the garments and jewellery of a wealthy man, muttering under his breath something about lazy apprentices and unstrung instruments.

Such a disappointing sight.

Still, Jaskier took a small amount of satisfaction in realising just how much better he wore his years compared to his old rival. He was greying and balding, once-luscious black locks giving way to thinning grey, and wrinkles creased what little of his face Jaskier had been able to see under his thick spectacles. Hah. Jaskier himself could still pass for a sprightly twenty-five.

“Jaskier,” Geralt’s low voice rumbled, breaking through his thoughts.

“Oh! Oh, Geralt, yes. Uhh…” Jaskier blinked at the man, distracted. “Look, why don’t you and Ciri go to the inn - the Queen’s Herald Inn, the one with the red sign, that’s a good one - I have something I need to do.”

If Geralt was curious, he didn’t show it. He simply nodded and turned, no doubt to stable Roach before getting their lodgings.

Jaskier, then, had something to do, and he did rather have to do it soon enough - even given that Marx had not yet been struck down by apoplexy, he doubted the man had long left to live, given that he had begun to resemble, in Jaskier’s humble opinion, a large, sun-dried snail in a frock moreso than a human being.

Originally, he had planned to do the man some manner of physical harm, but Jaskier wasn’t heartless - he wasn’t about to wail on an old man, he had standards. No, Jaskier decided to go for something more… subtle. And perhaps even more wounding to his rival and most despised colleague.

So, he set about following Marx, to find his window of opportunity.

Perhaps his current little act was something of a crime, yes, but he had to get his information somehow, didn’t he? He’d worry about the ethics when he suddenly acquired the cumbersome affliction of giving a damn.

Valdo Marx had become, to the surprise of absolutely no one, a professor. Jaskier had been a professor for a year after he’d graduated - he’d found it so unbearably dry and dull that he’d all but ran from his position as soon as he could. Of course Marx would feel drawn to the job - it provided him with ample opportunity to preen in front of a crowd who couldn’t actually avoid him, given that they were paying for an education. Besides, the job was so boring, that Marx probably felt drawn to it on instinct, the utterly unoriginal peacock that he was.

Or had been, at any rate. To Jaskier’s eyes, he was less peacock, now, more plucked chicken.

It took surprisingly little time to set up his little ploy. He simply followed Marx, sticking silently to the shadows with stealth even he didn’t know he possessed, and learnt a little about him as he tailed him. What classes he taught, when he taught them… after that, it had been a matter of running up to the admissions office and pulling his best, desperate act of a boy passionate for the arts who had but one day passing through the town to use as an opportunity to learn, and please, please, please could they let him sit in on a certain lecture tomorrow? He had coin…

It wasn’t an act Jaskier had been expecting to be able to pull off at an age closer to fifty than anything else, but precious little in his life had actually gone as Jaskier had expected, for better or for worse.

He slipped back to the inn, back to Geralt and Ciri, not even bothering to hide his self-satisfied smirk.

“Something went well,” Geralt rumbled, regarding the smug bard as he ordered his own ale.

“Very much so, my dear friend! My preparations have been perfectly made for tomorrow.”

Ciri regarded him, curious. “Preparations for what?”

“Just… paying an old friend their due,” Jaskier grinned, raising his tankard.

Geralt’s brow furrowed, but neither he nor Ciri enquired further.

The night was passed pleasantly enough, indulging in warm baths with scented soaps and revelling at the soft, dry beds which were a far cry from damp bedrolls on the forest floor, and Jaskier rose early, eager to intrude on Valdo Marx’s lecture and send it, with a magnificent flourish, to shit.

Really, it made sense, Jaskier thought, that Marx would end up lecturing on the history of oral tradition. It was a topic as interesting as the man himself, what with his complete lack of originality and his copiously over-embellished ballads.

He arrived a good hour or so before the lecture, and slid into the theatre before Marx himself did, taking a seat right at the back, in the corner - the least conspicuous place he could manage, and, consequently, the most dramatic from which he could emerge.

Students began filing in one by one a while after Jaskier had taken his seat, filling the theatre with quiet chatter. The atmosphere was overwhelmingly familiar, and no one spared Jaskier a second glance, dressed as he was in a less eye-catching shade of blue so as not to prematurely draw unwanted attention.

Marx arrived after his students, of course he did - and whilst Jaskier knew a thing or two about being fashionably late, being ten minutes late to one’s own lecture smacked of a complete lack of respect for both the students and the job. In other words, it was typical Valdo behaviour.

“Alright, alright, quiet now,” Marx ground out, voice vaguely more quavery than Jaskier remembered it. “Let us begin to discuss, once more, the impact of folk songs on our recording and perception of our history.”

And then it was begun. As Marx droned on and on, all Jaskier had to do was look for a suitable opening.

“…And, whilst the ballad itself is, somewhat dry and unskilfully written, it does provide us with useful-”

“You’d know all about dry, unskilfully written ballads, though, Marx, wouldn’t you?”

A flicker of recognition flashed across Marx’s wrinkled face, though it was quickly replaced by seething frustration. “You would interrupt my lecture?”

“I would,” Jaskier grinned, knowing that Marx would hear it even if he did not see him. “But it was boring anyways, so it hardly matters.”

A tittering had broken out amongst the students, to which Marx responded by smacking his desk with a fist. “Silence! We shall continue the lecture, and you will hold your tongue, boy!”

Oh, if Marx would realise who he’d just called a boy! Jaskier was not that much his junior.

“Nonsense,” Jaskier said. “A little discussion is healthy, conductive to learning, even. At the very least it’ll capture the attention of one more of your students than the usual zero, given that it is quite impossible to have a discussion with oneself.”

“I said silence!”

The frustration on Marx’s face only served to warm Jaskier’s heart. Who’d have thought that all it took to get under his skin was ceaseless disrespect, that he could not, himself, shut down? Standing up and taking a step forward from his hidden seat, Jaskier schooled his grin to look more predatory than outright smug.

“No, no, dear Valdo, please. Indulge me. Let’s have a class discussion. Look, I’ll even make it about the lesson! Tell me, since you seem to value meaning and skill in art, how does it make you feel to know that your pieces possess neither?”

At this, some of the students outright chuckled, and Marx seethed. “I will not-”

But Jaskier did not give two licks of a shit what Marx would not do. “No, no, come on. I’m sure at least one of your students could name a bard of our times that has actually managed to create something worthwhile. Any takers?”

“The bard Jaskier!” called a voice, and Jaskier almost choked. To think that one of Marx’s own students would- it was beautiful. “I doubt there’s a soul on the continent who couldn’t sing Toss a Coin if asked.”

“The bard Jaskier,” Marx spat, “is a fool and a wastrel who wastes his life away skipping up and down the continent. Trust me, I had the displeasure of knowing him. One song does not a legend make!”

It was somewhat amusing, that the topic had turned to him before anyone had caught on to his identity.

“Still, better one good song than no good songs, eh, Valdo?” Then, as an afterthought: “Not like you’d know, though.”

“I will not tolerate such disrespect in my classroom! Sit down, boy, or remove yourself!”

“You won’t tolerate disrespect? Odd, what with the quality of your work, I thought you’d at least be used to it.”

Really, Marx had become so cantankerous and crotchety in his old age.

“Cease your prattle! You are but a student with ideas above your station, and I will not suffer this idiocy any longer!”

Jaskier hummed. “Perhaps you’re right-” and really, he wasn’t right at all- “but at least I have the capacity to create a song that’s more simply than a string of unrelated metaphors sung to the chords that you deemed the hardest to switch to at the time.”

The laughter was becoming more confident, and Jaskier took another few strides forwards. His aim here was not to hurt Valdo Marx’s pride - it was to utterly destroy it.

“Someone back me up,” he continued. “We can’t have the arrogant man believing that I hold the minority opinion.”

A thunderous cheer tore through the auditorium, and, whilst Jaskier had no idea if his willing audience was so receptive because they, too, hated Marx and his pretentious drivel as Jaskier did, or if they were just bored and hungover and eager for a laugh, but he didn’t particularly care, as long as Valdo Marx of Cedaris came out of it thoroughly humiliated.

“Really, it’s a wonder they let you teach at all, given that your work has so consistently been almost impressively substandard.”

Jaskier was moving forwards, almost at the front of the theatre, where Marx stood. He kept talking, too, continuously, determined to to give Marx the opportunity to engage with him in verbal battle and thus win back a little respect. This was to be an evisceration, not a fight.

“Still, perhaps I understand the logic. Why waste a good professor on such a boring subject when you can palm it off on a hack such as yourself? It’s a pity, I thought that, throughout the years, you’d be able to at least make something of yourself. Alas, it seems that some men are just pretentious pretenders, fated to languish in obscurity.”

He was paraphrasing what Valdo had said to him, back when they were still students, but he got the gist of it across. As he approached the podium, Valdo finally, finally recognised him.

“Julian?” he croaked. “Impossible. You’re-”

“Have fun with the gossip after this, my dear little friend,” Jaskier smiled, and exited the lecture theatre, leaving behind a pack of raucous students and a most thoroughly humiliated Valdo Marx.

[blue-honeycomb]

Quiet Devotion 4 [Hawks x Reader]

I'll edit this at a later date...

Summary: Part 4 of the 'Quiet Devotion' series… Somehow this story's managed to wring yet another part out of me. What am I doing with my life?

Reader Details: Emotional, humble, loyal, introspective, independent.

Quirk: Life Fiber (A.K.A Soul Silk).

Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

---

---

Six Years Ago

---

Fast doesn't even begin to cover the sheer speed the winged hero is capable of, and coupled with his reaction time and environmental awareness he seems down right inhuman at times. As far as you can tell there are few skills he's incapable of executing mid-combat and you find it all the more admiral that a considerable amount of that talent is focused on support and rescue work. It says much for his character that life takes precedence over the promise of glory

Memories of darkness and pain nip harshly at the back of your mind, the fear that'd overcome you when the car fire had finally died out was printed red on the backs of your eyelids. You can still smell the stench of burning gasoline and the heavy tinge of sweet iron, the feel of sand in your hair.

You dream of it sometimes, even a year later. You don't usually get back to sleep afterwards either, despite the tear inducing exhaustion riping painfully though your body. Instead you pull up the 24/7 Hero News website and hope that you'll catch a glimpse of red feathers flashing across the screen, hear that smooth, masculine voice quipping at his comrades, snarking at his opponents.

Anything to make you feel safe again. Anything to remind yourself that the dark of your room is only temporary, that the blankets tucked tightly (too tightly, always too tightly) around you are soft and pliant under your hands.

The news plays in the background as you finish washing the night's dishes, reporters droning on about Hawk's exploits in a seemingly endless stream of praise and condescension. Rapidly cooling water drips down the front of the kitchen sink and soaks the front of your shirt despite your best efforts, and you take a moment to unstick the cloth from your skin with water-wrinkled fingers.

The fabric is sopping in some places still, heavy and discolored with dish water despite the wringing you give it. The rain outside seems to somehow add to that feeling of dampness despite you having not been outside all day, the pitter-patter of icy droplets battering your window like icecubes caressing your spine.

It's as you lament the condition of your clothes and the weather that the beginnings of a though begins to take root in your mind.

'If only my clothes were made from my quirk.' You thought exasperatedly, not for the first time, while entering the livingroom to watch the rest of the report before you had to do laundry. 'Then I'd never have to worry about wet clothes again.'

On the news Hawks stands before the cameras with his trademark devil-may-care smile on his lips, eyes half-lidded and entire hero persona picture perfect but for the way his clothes seem to sag and darken unevenly from the rain. A more aggressive reporter manages to sneak in a baiting question about the teenager's glaring inexperience in the field and the winged hero quips back in response, water dripping from the tips of his long deflated hair.

He looks miserable standing in the rain, the bright colors so characteristic of him dulled and darkened by the gray overcast, by the rain soaking him to the bone. Even as he's smiling you can tell it doesn't reach his eyes, barely even manages to fully form on his lips as question after intrusive question is hurled at him from the hoard of intent faces. You don't miss the way he glanced to the side occasionally, towards a rail thin man standing quietly beside him, meeting the teen's gaze every time with a narrow-eyed stare.

You don't think you've ever seen Hawks so unhappy before. Not on the battle field with hellfire raining down around him, nor any of his interviews with a panel of venomous snakes breathing down his back. Not even when he'd misstepped during his first solo multi-villian battle and had more than half of his left wing exploded right off his back.

No. You'd never seen him looking so miserable before and more than anything that quiet discontent in his eyes racked your soul with a sad, profound longing. Without conscious thought the tips of your fingers begun to warm and turn black, dark roots creeping up the veins in your fingers and fading at the knuckles. Moments later the beginnings of your silk spilling forth onto your lap and latching onto your pant legs catches your attention.

It did that from time to time when you got overly emotional. Frankly, the lack of control was embarrassing and never failed to remind you of why you were never able to train it past its current potential. Your doctor had said it was nothing to worry about though, and that you could maintain a normal life even with the occasional accident.

You'd thought about going to a quirk specialist shortly after you'd hit your current limit, but ultimately decided against it when you caught sight of the price tag attached to each visit. You reasoned that even if you managed to start producing more silk there'd be little use for it besides having readily available materials on hand if you ever felt the need to sew. So you dropped the matter entirely and carried on with your life.

Until a year ago, that is, when your whole world came crashing down around you.

You quickly shake those thoughts away, instead focusing on detaching the silk from your clothes before they can weave into the fabric they're touching. Yet another oddity you've had to learn the hard way. For the first twenty or so seconds before it cools and solidifies, the silk will try to latch onto any available surface and meld to it. Honestly, it was more annoying than anything and sometimes you regretted not being able to get it checked out by a specialist.

It took a few moments but you eventually managed to get the silk separated into their individual strains. They're each around ten inches long, though some had managed to stick together at the ends to more than double their length.

Exasperated, you pluck up the longest of the bunch with the tips of your darkened fingers, holding it before you with a frown. The black strands remain stuck together and you knew from experience they'd now be impossible to disconnect.

The flash of red on the television catches your attention for a moment and your sight blurs as it attempts to refocus. In that brief second, however, the black of your silk melded seamlessly into the darkened cloth of Hawk's soaked jacket and undershirt. In that exact moment, the quiet thought came to your mind.

'My quirk has never been useful to me. But maybe, with enough patience and effort, it can be of use to someone who deserves it more than anyone.'

And so begun the trials of your labor. The physical manifestation of your unspoken devotion.

---

Present Day

--

Hawks wasn't sure what expression had managed to slip past his usually perfect control, but whatever it was must have been fearsome indeed because the young researcher before him was sweating bullets beside his mentor. Said mentor was glancing disappointedly at his assistant and had yet to step in, instead opting to shake his head and cross his arms with quiet exasperation.

"So." Hawks begun in a slow drawl, still smiling but for the way his eyes narrowed. "We're just throwing civilian names into hero politics now are we?" The assistant lowered his head, but remained silent. "Making sure to break all those confidential clauses, huh? I've got to admire your spirit though. Go big or go home is the name of the game in this industry, after all." The winged hero clapped a hand over the other's shoulder, making sure to look him right in the eye as he finished. "How's it feel to be the uncontested winner?"

The assistant took a deep, fortifying breath before finally speaking. "I got carried away. My actions were a direct violation of Proper Hero Agency Conduct and I understand there will be repercussions. I-" The young man pauses again, almost breaking eye contact but the hand tightening on his shoulder quickly made him reconsider. "I let my pride get in the way of proper procedure and it's potentially put a civilian in danger." The assistant grit his teeth and closed his eyes. "I didn't win anything. I fucked up. Knew it the moment their name came out of my mouth."

There was a tense silence before Hawks himself broke it with a loud, exaggerated sigh. "It can't be helped I guess. Chicks gotta break a few eggs before they can grow after all." Everyone pointedly ignore the fact the Hawks was only a few years older than the assistant. Most of all the assistant.

The winged hero threw his head back, letting his entire posture slump and his face crumple into an irritated frown. "They're probably having a heart attack right now."

--

You were panicking. Inwardly, for the time being, but you weren't too far from having a total breakdown. For three hours your phone has been blowing up with an unknown number of texts and calls, half of them demanding your compliance and the other your service, all of them wanting your attention. None of them were making much sense.

The bit about various hero agencies wanting you to work for them was clear, what wasn't though was the why in this situation? The only thing you could think of was the uniform you'd given Hawks (you were well aware you'd probably been on camera the entire time you'd been near Hawk's agency), but such things were dime a dozen in the hero industry and you didn't believe for a moment Endeavor's agency was hurting for costume designers.

The next thing you could think would prompt this response was that there was something about your quirk you were unaware of. Something, apparently, heros deemed valuable enough to look for. What it was you weren't sure, but you knew enough about yourself to know your quirk, while fairly simplistic, was still an unknown to you in many regards.

Still, the sudden influx of unexpected messages was stressful enough. Add that to the fact most of them were from distinguished hero agencies with members that could literally demolish mountains and you were feeling more than a little pressured. Even a little frightened by some of the more demanding messages you'd managed to glimpse before retreating to the other side of the workshop.

You could barely move your furniture across the room most days, what could you do if the likes of Best Jeanist or Gang Orca decided to pay you an unexpected visit?

Okay, that was the panic talking. Not only was that scenario completely illogical, the jab at Gang Orca for having a stereotypical villian aesthetic was uncalled for. Time to recenter yourself and get some much needed fresh air into your lungs before you start accusing All Might of fraud or some such nonsense.

It takes a few minutes to get the muscles in your back to loosen and your mind to stop spitting out half-coherent worst case scenarios, but you manage with a few intense rounds of breathing exercises. By the end of the ordeal you're exhausted, even a little sore from the lack of air before hand. You're functioning again though, and that's what matters.

Now in better control of your thoughts the most obvious solution to your current predicament comes to you with little prompting. You don't even hesitate. There is not a single doubt in your mind as to what you must do.

This is your chance to finally pay back the man you owe your life too. This may very well be the only chance you'll ever get and you've learned that life is far too short to squander the moments that matter.

Your slip on your coat and gloves, making a few last minute adjustments around the shop before stepping out the door and locking up behind you. With your purse on your shoulder and your eyes lit with hopeful determination you walk out into the world with renewed purpose.

You leave the phone.

Nothing they have to offer matters. It never has and you doubt it ever will. They could offer you jewels and they'd collect dust, the world and it'd keep on spinning. They could grant you eternal life and you'd have given it up in a heartbeat for this one chance.

He's the only one that matters. The only one whose attention means something.

He is your priority. He is your only priority.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

For your anon re: intelligence: take it from a social psychologist and professor- there are many different ways to be intelligent. Traditional school, IQ and standardized tests only measure a very narrow version of it. Look up Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to start off with. And also the advice to see a counselor is excellent. It's so hard to unlearn the negativity put on you by the people who are supposed to lift you up, but it's so worth the work!

(intelligence anon)

Yes!  For those of you who have not taken a bunch of psych courses, the theory of multiple intelligences states that there are many different ways to be intelligent, not just “are you good at standardized tests, yes or no.”  (Honestly even that question is pretty loaded--I’m great at standardized tests!  For about three hours.  Past that, I might as well just leave, my score would probably be better.)  

Gardner’s proposed types of intelligence are:

Verbal-linguistic, or having a gift for language, spoken, written, whatever; these people are usually well-spoken and well-written and sound “smart”

Logical-mathematical, or, let’s be honest, what everyone thinks “being smart” entails, a sense of how to assemble a good argument or how to grasp a mathematical concept

Bodily-kinesthetic, or having an understanding of how to make your body and your environment play well together, so that you get the result you want; “natural” athletes are naturally good at this, I had to work really, really hard at it out of sheer self-preservation against my natural clumsiness

Musical-harmonic, or having a good sense of how the pieces of music fit together into the complete thing--this is not necessarily the same as being able to read sheet music, fun fact, which I personally am horrifically incompetent at and falls more under one of the first two

Visual-spatial, or having an idea of how the visual world works, both in terms of art and practical things like pouring water from one glass into another; my mom is one of the smartest people I know, and also she has never correctly estimated the volume of any single object in her entire life

Intrapersonal, or the ability to evaluate your own mental health and emotional state, introspectiveness; if you feel like you don’t have this one dead to rights, perhaps some therapy! I recommend some therapy!

Interpersonal, or social skills; I had the cosmic forethought to date someone very very good at this, which helps buffer the fact that I just do not have a natural gift for socializing, I also recommend that

Naturalistic, or the ability to understand how the natural world works, having a ‘green thumb’ or a natural talent with animals; one of my partners can make anything grow with a shrug and “I don’t know, felt like it should get watered”, whereas my mother can, has, and doubtless will again murder a cactus out of sheer failure to grasp how cacti work, despite extensive googling

Now, someone might be phenomenally gifted in one or several of these areas, and then be desperately lacking in others.  With some of them, a natural talent is worth far less than in others--anyone can learn to evaluate their own emotional state, but straight up some people have good aim from the start and the rest of us fools just have to deal with being a hazard.  You may be good at one thing within a specific type of intelligence and not another, like someone who’s incredibly articulate on the page but struggles to be clear aloud.  You may have the capacity to be good at one of these, but not always the energy--I can put on my best neurotypical social skills, but it’s exhausting, and I need a hard time limit or I start getting a little mean.  

The point is, there are a lot of ways to be smart, a lot of things to be smart about, and a lot of people who showcase those different types of intelligence.  Some types of intelligence are valued at a higher place in our society, but that doesn’t make them innately more valuable in a person.

And before you call me out on that, yeah, listen, I’m a medical professional.  I have a natural inclination to believe my profession, and therefore the intelligence that facilitates it, is The Most Important, because all medical professionals are like that and we’re all insufferable for it.  BUT.

The entire human race owes its existence in its current form to some bright spark who looked at a plant and said “You know, I bet I could grow that,” so don’t get uppity about math or whatever.  We’re all only here because of six inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains and some folks who had the naturalistic intelligence to take advantage.

[p-st]

sakura haruno fics (ao3)

an old anon sent me on the quest of a lifetime when they first asked for sakura fic recs and my brain went “lets read every fic on ao3 in the sakura haruno tag” (also ff.net but thats gonna have to be another post in the far off future bc ff is an old giant)

fics are split into finished, in progress, and abandoned (and the fics with ⭐ are my top faves) plus every category’s fics will be in order from shortest to longest. im gonna include the original summaries along with my own separate take (really more of a reaction) and any warnings the fics need!

THIS IS A LABOR OF LOVE!!!!! which is a nice way of saying it’s long as shit, it took me forever, and i loved every second of it! let me know if any links dont work, theres typos that dont look purposeful, there’s warnings missing, if any fics arent in order, the formatting isnt right, etc.etc.

my sincerest apologies to mobile users

fair warning: im not exaggerating when i say it’s really long

(pic from naruto-manga-caps)

author’s note: im dumb and have adhd and though ive read most of these fics at least twice, i tend to skip over text. with this in mind PLEASE let me know if you come across anything in these fics that makes you uncomfy so i can either add a warning or remove it entirely

want to navigate faster? ctrl+f to search key words like: [ship], [author], bamf, mokuton, (team as) family, etc!

FINISHED

in the roots of the forest (i am birthed) by frostnesia

ship: none // words: 272 // chapters: 1/1

so little sakura walks; past the flowers, the vines, the bright red gates and enters to a sanctuary no one with a beating heart had stepped in for more than a hundred years.

au. little ficlet! OOF im always a little heart eyed about godly iconography. plotless! just a good short read that would absolutely rock my world if it was expanded into a multichapter story but it’s still good as is!

Seven or Two by grit

ship: sakura & kakashi // words: 623 // chapters: 1/1

He makes a split-second decision. Their teamwork was atrocious, but he knows who to blame, and it’s not the girl who blackmailed her teammates into giving a damn.

i really do need more fics where kakashi recognizes the similarities between himself and sakura. tbh i just need more fics where sakura gets the love and recognition she deserves. this is a good short fic for that! team seven doesnt make it through but sakura does! eventually! warning for one weird line abt the yamanakas that might make ppl uncomfy

Twelve and Sixteen by therebaeka

ship: none // words: 625 // chapters: 1/1

Twelve years old Sakura was weak. She was annoying. She cried over the littlest thing. She had no pain tolerance at all. She wanted to be strong. Sixteen years old Sakura was strong. She can split the earth. She can heal anything. She can take anything thrown at her. She wanted to be twelve again.

god i love fics that touch on all the negative effects a shinobi lifestyle has on ninja kids (like the loss of childhood innocence/wonderment). character growth and mostly a character analysis type fic which i love. sakura just loves her team but she misses being a kid (team as family!!)

Three Sentence Ficlets by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)

ship: narusasusaku // words: 626 // chapters: 3/3

Tiny ficlets written for various iterations of the Three Sentence Ficathon:

1) A quiet moment, after the world doesn't end. 2) Sakura reaches the valley's rim just in time. 3) The night before Naruto's investiture as Hokage.

soft and kind short fics abt my fav ot3. first chap is set post-war, 2nd is set during naruto and sasukes fight in the valley before he goes to orochimaru, and the setting of the 3rd is in the above description. these are really soft fics and im a sucker for the slice of life feelings

Another Kind of You by rhenna

ship: sasusaku // words: 655 // chapters: 1/1

"The problem with the color black is that it can't decide whether it is the color of the classically evil or the color of the bad-boy hero."

they are.. just liddle babies..team as family feelings bc that’s what really gets me in my uwus. not shippy! just sakura’s usual baby crush! surprisingly introspective

Unravel by grit

ship: none // words: 683 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura will be a shinobi soon and they know to coat their bare skin in poison.

au. sakura is a kiri nin amidst the bloodline purges. honestly just a super interesting look into life in kirigakure during this time and how its beliefs reflect on its children. warning for animal death and a little bit of an unhinged world view

I’ll Carry You by naru_writes

ship: narusasusaku // words: 701 // chapters 1/1

I’ll just rest my eyes for a bit, Sakura tells herself, slowly petting the now sleeping kitten, and then I’ll start on dinner.

i LIVE for domestic fluff and established relationships aaa. they love and care about her so much it makes my heart happy. all from sakura’s pov

Puppy Love by Dovey

ship: kibasaku // words: 852 // chapters: 1/1

It’s Sakura’s first day in the academy when she falls in love with Kiba Inuzuka.

i looooove how differently she grows as a character with just one difference. really cute baby genin crush. theyre rowdy, muddy, rough housing best friends. really short and lighthearted

Selfless Stunt by Michinokao

ship: sakura & naruto & sasuke // words: 859 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura wants to become chunin. She really does. However, after seeing Naruto’s nervousness, she decides to raise her hand to drop out with her team.

set during chunin exams. OOF babey im always here for team 7 as family fics!! short little thing and just feel good for ppl who stan sakura and love when others take her feelings into consideration :’)

What You See is What You Get, So Look Away by Dovey

ship: none // words: 903 // chapters: 1/1

a warmup piece i wrote trying to make a Kakashi who’s not so oblivious.

kakashi’s pov. lots of introspection and meta and i love this kind of stuff a lot. analysis on how different naruto and sasuke are from the rest of their team. love love love when anyone brings up sakura’s own mortality and what she had to do to get to where she is. aaa also the author notes at the end are very worth the read

Snake Tooth by Pinnacle of Failure (Cromirn)

ship: none // words: 904 // chapters: 1/1

The Forest of Death doesn't go right. Sakura can't tell what's real and what's not.

exactly as the summary says! orochimaru does some genjutsu stuff and my poor girl get severely messed up mentally. warning for implications of gore and an unstable mind. part one in a trilogy (others are on this list)

Here Are Your Bones Crossed by grit

ship: none // words: 977 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura begins recovery by unfurling her hands and giving him a tense report. Kakashi waits patiently for her to stumble through Konoha Standard, motions well-memorised but never practiced, and gently reaches out to lift her chin, making her look at him.

(Sakura blames herself. For trusting Kabuto, for not being stronger, for being here when really it should have been Naruto who survived.)

it’s fucked :( sakura is gonna need such a good therapist it’s really what she deserves. and if i did tear up a little after that last thing kakashi said? well thats between me and whoever’s reading this. read the author notes at the end for an explanation of whats going on in this timeline

Wind and Water, Earth and Rain by theformerone

ship: narusaku // words: 1020 // chapters: 1/1

Naruto almost loses himself on the Wave Mission. But in a world where Team Seven was created to prevent another Kyuubi attack, there is always someone there to remind him of who he is.

set during wave arc. MOKUTON SAKURA. not shippy at all? incredibly easy to take as platonic and just a sweet team 7 as family fic (which i did before i looked at the tags??) warning for super brief gore

⭐How Do You Tell a Girl You Want to Kiss Her? by theformerone

ship: shikasaku // words: 1084 // chapters: 1/1

Shikamaru punches a hole through Sakura’s wall. She can’t really deal with that until she has her morning coffee.

au. part three of the role reversal au (others are listed later) this is really cute and theres nothing life or death about it and i love how idk. normal it is? sakura is just tired and taking it in stride and shikamaru is a flustered mess (choji is a good wingman) (and god this is a small thing but i love the lowkey team 7 stuff. my faves are my faves in any universe)

Of Gardens and Girls by Dovey

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 1128 // chapters: 1/1

Soulmates: a person so important, so loved, and so central to your life that the universe acknowledges it. Flowers representing that love will grow inside of you until the love is requited, or you move on.

Sakura has a lot of soulmates.

au. set throughout timeline. really bittersweet, so damn bittersweet. this fic makes my heart hurt bc she’s so full of love and deserves better. (theres also a lot more ships nd every single one is platonic except for the naruhinagaa) warning for death :’(

Forgetting Something by theformerone

ship: sakukarin // words: 1130 // chapters: 1/1

Well I’m not eating you out in the kitchen like I was planning on when your daughter left.”

Sakura snorts.

“So she’s just my daughter now?”

Karin follows her into the room and sets down Sarada’s new spare pair of glasses on her desk.

“When you help her cause minor property damage before seven in the morning, yes, she’s your daughter.”

set in boruto universe. really fucking sweet. this is just a short and cute little slice of life thing w adorable sakura and sarada interactions

Smiles in Spring by Kalira

ship: inosaku // words: 1179 // chapters: 1/1

One spring day when they are very small, Ino meets a little girl with shy eyes, a beautiful smile, and pink hair, and immediately knows what she wants in her future. Ino's never had any qualms bending the force of her will on the universe to be sure she gets whatever she wants.

NOT sakura centric but i excused a couple of other fics already PLUS this is cute so whatever. it’s just short and cute and makes my heart swell

Drawing Her Back by Kalira

ship: inosaku // words: 1197 // chapters: 1/1

It's not the first time Sakura has had to lead her lover back to herself from deep in her own mind, and it probably won't be the last. She doesn't like it . . . but she can do it.

sakura is the best. have i mentioned that before? i love her more than anything if you didnt already know that about me. sakura is just making sure ino is okay and helping in any way she can and my heart is soft

Underneath the Underneath (is nothing but bones and blood) by Dovey

ship: none // words: 1269 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura has a weak heart. This isn’t metaphorical, but literal- she’s born with a heart too small to pump properly. A valve is slightly misaligned, and any strenuous activity could kill her.

set from genin era to the attack on the village amidst the chunin exam. and again! dovey delivers the good stuff! no dialogue. life kinda comes at her fast and you can almost feel her whole mindset shift

Nothing but Paint by grit

ship: none // words: 1382 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura has her hand fist-deep in Sasuke's rib cage, seriously tempted to rip his heart out like he did hers, a conflict of interest mitigated only by the code of honor her shishou drilled into her, when she realizes that Team Seven won't return to Konoha without him this time.

character exploration of team 7 surrounding sakura (my weakness) not sure where in the timeline this is but i know it's post sai and yamato joining the team. it's short but interesting as hell!! immediate warning for blood if the desc didnt give it away

Hands Reaching Out by orlha

ship: shikasaku // words: 1412 // chapters: 1/1

The price of winning the war was steeper than Sakura imagined it to be. It was a price she gladly pay over and over again but the thought of not living long enough to see this new peace burns in her chest.

post war. just a short angsty little thing abt sakura and her seal. mentions of death

Canary Bill by Pinnacle of Failure (Cromirn)

ship: none // words: 1474 // chapters: 1/1

she knows that what they did for her will come back around. she didn't expect it to be this way.

part two of the disjointed realities series! still set during the exams and my poor girl still has some residual effects of the genjutsu orochimaru put her through. it’s not clear whether it’s real or not

From Ashes by Dovey

ship: none // words: 1476 // chapters: 2/2

She hasn’t got a family, hasn’t got a team, not in any way either of those words should count. It’s time to come to terms with that.

set near the beginning of shippuden it seems? interesting implications about her family that i want more of plus emphasis on team 7 as family minus her which hurts my heart aa. warning for death, blood, and gore (not super graphic)

Boar Tusk by Pinnacle of Failure (Cromirn)

ship: none // words: 1499 // chapters: 1/1

she burns in the flames of memories of which are fake, they boil her skin and melt flesh and she is nothing more than a skeleton of what she was. she wishes she were not what she is now, what she was then, and she begs.

last part of the disjointed realities series! still during the exams! yeah she’s definitely traumatized, no question about it.

How Lame by theformerone

ship: shikasaku // words: 1527 // chapters: 1/1

Nara Shikamaru is the Godaime’s apprentice. Sakura thinks he’s a world class nag.

au. ROLE REVERSALS!! super interesting!!!!! teams are still the same but their stories and personalities are different? anyway this au is cute and i love team seven’s relationship and also sakura’s skills are cool as SHIT. plus the shikasaku interactions are cute. part one of this role swap series.

Letters to the Front by Kalira

ship: hinasaku // words: 1644 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura, as both head medic and close friend and advisor to the Hokage, is not lacking for news from back home even as she manages the field hospital at the front lines, but her most prized letters are not those advising her of news on the war and politics.

set during war time. sakura just loves and appreciates her girlfriend so much aa warning for implied nsf/w. none of it graphic!

The One With the Eye Thing by Dovey

ship: none // words: 1776 // chapters: 1/1

a one chapter story that’s 100% just sakura getting a very gross revenge on her sensei and on the shinobi class system as a whole, at least as far as SHE sees it.

that also means this is SUPER gorey. let it be said that i give the people what they want

au. bamf sakura! set pre shippuden surprisingly enough. believe it or not, there is a very gorey eye thing. sexy ass takes on the role of civilians in a shinobi village. warnings for graphic gore and a mental breakdown

I Spy by AshesFall (Cloud_Nine)

ship: none // words: 1782 // chapters: 1/1

Team 7, Missing in Action.

The aftermath of the Wave Mission gone wrong.

part one of the Lucky Sevens series. not very sakura centric but the whole series is just neat! team as family which im always a sucker for. the series focuses on how team 7 copes with being back in the village and i just think it’s neat idk! warning for mentions torture! individual warnings for every other fic in the series in the tags but most are about torture, trauma, and general violence

Ghosts in Her Blood by Dovey

ship: gaasaku // words: 1831 // chapters: 1/1

After Wave, Inner Sakura changes into a familar face to help Sakura cope with her new reality

au. set during chunin arc. tbh!! no idea this was a ship fic til i read the tags so this can absolutely be read as a shipless fic. really makes you think abt how (not) good a shinobi village is at teaching children how to compartmentalize. my girl’s a bamf but traumatized and trying. warnings for gore and death

Coming Home by Angelchexmex

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 1901 // chapters: 1/1

Kakashi isn't surprised that his little brats had made themselves at home in his apartment while he was gone, he was just a bit curious as to why.

kakashi pov! set early genin days! not much plot wise but i love fics like that so much aa i love fics that just showcase the familiarity between team 7 in more domestic settings. they love sakura!! they all care abt her so much and kakashi love his kids a lot!!! really cute short and sweet team as family fic! warning for implications of abuse and starvation

Does He Make You Feel Special? by Dovey

ship: none // words: 1905 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura develops an eating disorder, and then she recovers with help from some friends.

au. starts pre shippuden. read the tags because this realy is what it says on the tin. warnings for eating disorders, self esteem issues, and relapse. she gets mostly adopted by tsunade and everyone takes care of her in general. hinata gets the place of apprentice and sakura gets more friends and support and gets trained by anko! focuses on recovery before plot so the only “real” plot is at the very end

Ink Stains and Cherry Blossoms by Hannahmayski

ship: sai & sakura // words: 1922 // chapters: 1/1

Ice cream doesn’t solve all of the world’s problems but Sakura is pretty sure it solves most of them.

or

Sai’s having a bad day and has never had ice cream before. Sakura fixes both.

sai centric fic w sunshine sakura. budding friendship. can be interpreted as romantic if you want? i didnt see it as that, but if it’s what u want! delves a little into sai’s feelings towards danzo. just dang cute and i always love a sakura who is there for her friends. allusion to an eating disorder and emotional manipulation.

⭐What Lingers by spacefleeting

ship: none // words: 1994 // chapters: 1/1

For someone who just watched her friend get beaten to a pulp, had her head nearly punched in, and stopped her teammate from going on a curse-induced murder spree, Sakura is handling everything very well. Until she’s not.

(Or: Sakura blossomed and she’s not really sure how she feels about it yet)

set during chunin exam. trying and failing to compartmentalize and naruto trying to help as best as another kid can. it’s endearing but wow, does canon naruto ever touch on how they help get children through the trauma of shinobi life?? the answer is no. mentions of blood. she takes a bite out of a dude. like. real shit

What’s Yours is Mine by DefiantDreams

ship: narusasusaku // words: 1994 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura doesn’t quite know how it happens, but suddenly their closets are a free-for-all for each other.

au. sakuras pov. just plain soft. short and cute budding romance between my faves aaa,, also genderfluid naruto!!

Last Match in the Matchbox by Endoplasmic Panda

ship: none // words: 2071 // chapters: 1/1

In which Sakura Haruno realizes that being discontent with adult life is part of the Team Seven contractual fine print.

(got rid of the rest of the summary bc it was too many text blocks) set during boruto! just some build up to sakura FINALLY getting her own time to just travel aa. everyone supports her and that’s how it should be

How a Fire is Born by ThroughtheMirrorDarkly

ship: none // words: 2075 // chapters: 1/1

What if there had been no Ino that fateful day in the park? What if Sakura is mercilessly bullied until one day she is pushed to her breaking point, with surprising results?

starts off during early academy days. sakura came here to learn and fuck people up and she just finished the curriculum. i HATE hiruzen but i love my girl so :/ also team seven are all rivals which sounds like it would be chaotic poor kakashi. warnings for abuse and bullying

How Sakura Discovers Her Love for Fighting by smolwhite_ugly

ship: none // words: 2087 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura Haruno is five-years-old when she decides that she really wants to become a ninja. Not a paper ninja. A shinobi.

set during early academy days uvu. rowdy girl rights!!!!! sakura is the ride or die friend everyone wishes they had. sakura is that short comic “you have befriended [name], [name] will now die for you” except it’s beat someone up. sakura’s best friends are blondes uwu

What a Pain by theforemerone

ship: shikasaku // words: 2269 // chapters: 1/1

Yamanaka Ino is an S-ranked missing nin. But before that, she was Shikamaru and Chouji’s best friend and comrade.

Sakura has an easier time compartmentalizing than they do. Especially in a fight.

au. second part of the role swap au! ino essentially took the place of sasuke. pretty focused on the ino-shika-cho story but entirely from sakura’s pov. shes so FUCKING COOL I LOVE THE JUTSUS OP GAVE HER SHES SUCH A BAMF IM IN LOVE. this au is so interesting i need more

Galvanize by nerazenn

ship: narusaku // words: 2352 // chapters: 1/1

gal·va·nize (v): shock or excite (someone), typically into taking action.

::

Sakura’s victorious wail was cut short, however, as she became immediately aware of two things.

One, her hand was in a lot of pain.

And two, Ino was nowhere near Sakura.

modern au. just a short meet cute fic sjcndek honestly id expect nothing less. it’s just cute and makes me laugh. something not serious thrown into the mix of recs

Truth in Platitudes by Kalira

ship: narusasusaku // words: 2454 // chapters: 1/1

Naruto stepped in with no thought to his own safety to protect theirs; now Sakura and Sasuke are left to try and get him out of the trap in his own mind.

yeah it’s exactly what it says on the tin. not sure where on the timeline this is. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER!!!!! im really so easy please

And Then the Desert Blooms by spacefleeting

ship: sakura & gaara // words: 2457 // chapters: 1/1

Haruno Sakura meets Gaara of the Desert piece by piece, name by name.

set throughout timeline. mostly sakura’s thoughts during the few times she’s interacted with gaara. development as friends! naruto would be so happy

Little Moments by iBloo

ship: sasusaku // words: 2519 // chapters: 1/1

Sasuke, Sakura, and Sarada enjoy an afternoon shopping and spending time with each other.

set during boruto’s dad’s son’s time. sasuke just loves his girls and sakura loves her family and sarada loves her parents so much and loves to spend time with them together. just a nice little slice of life feel good fic. im a sucker for domestic “filler episode” type fics aa they make me so tender

Bumpy Future by Dovey

ship: hinasaku // words: 2553 // chapters: 1/1

It’s her last year at the academy when Sakura hits her head. When she wakes up, she has a little trouble matching memories to the people in them- but she’ll have to get it right eventually, yeah?

in which sakura pairs vague associations with the wrong people, and everyone is much happier because of it (Except Iruka-sensei).

acadamy days!! newborns!!! everything changes djsbjd ino is her rival, kiba’s her bestfriend, and hinata is her crush and her class supports all of it, it’s cute (also read the author notes at the end, the last paragraph is so fucking quality)

Hello, Bright Eyes (been waiting on you) by mouseymightymarvellous

ship: saisaku // words: 2651 // chapters: 1/1

“look underneath the underneath,” except no one has ever really bothered to look at sakura and see her. and then there is a boy (isn’t there always). maybe they’re both just ghosts, making each other real.

no clear timeline. large focus on sakura and how she’s (not) seen by other people. emphasis on sai and sakura’s disconnect from naruto and sasuke. the plot confused me a bit but im pretty positive it’s about sakura dismantling root per request of tsunade. THE ENDING THOUGH??? sai deserves so much love that really made me melt a little

Prodigal Sons by Fiction_Over_Fact

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 2779 // chapters: 1/1

Sasuke is gone and Naruto is gone and Kakashi might as well be.

In which Sakura is sad and alone but discovers she doesn’t have to be either.

set after naruto leaves with jiraiya. sort of a character analysis/coming of age type fic. touches on the disparity of who she was and who she’s becoming. also has bits of her friendship with the rest of the rookie 9!

Sasuke Discovers Emotion #4 by Dovey

ship: sasusaku // words: 2852 // chapters: 1/1

In which Sasuke manages to avoid getting a team with any fangirls, and then figures out maybe he was secretly the fangirl all along, because a little distance and the influence of Sensei Tenten helps Sakura flourish and now he’s got a big old crush to deal with on top of everything else.

set during genin days. also sasuke centric but sakura gets put into a different team and her development as a result is so beautiful even though it isnt the focus aaa. sasuke pines and it’s cute!!

⭐An Improper Apology Properly Backfires by rex101111

ship: sasusaku // words: 2996 // chapters: 1/1

Sasuke Uchiha apologizes, or at least makes an attempt. Sakura thinks he could do better than THAT.

set at the end of the war. naruto is the innocent bystander and it’s all in his pov. god i WISH this went down in canon. this fic is so fucking funny and cathartic bc sakura finally gets to air her grievances. DEFINITELY a top fave of mine and i have it bookmarked for whenever i just so happen to be in the mood

The Value of Learning to Bloom by Yourself by alunbalanced

ship: shikasaku // words: 3001 // chapters: 2/2

Sasuke asks a question and receives an unexpected answer and Sakura stands on her own two feet as she walks away.

set post war. really good self indulgent fic for ppl who love sakura and arent the biggest fans of sasuke (this fic is a bit mean to him so i wouldnt recommend to sasuke stans). this doesnt read as one consecutive fic but more like two individual one shots. sasuke is only in the first chapter and the second one is dedicated to sakura’s first time training w tsunade and shikamaru analyzing her. also the author notes are me always

San by Demeter

ship: none // words: 3046 // chapters: 1/1

When three whittles down to one. A very biased view.

set throughout pre shippuden timeline. heavy on that introspection! not all that plot focused, just sakura’s thoughts on where she stands and how she’s always left behind

The Shadows are Darker When the Sun is Bright by EndoplasmicPanda

ship: none // words: 3437 // chapters: 1/1

She remembers that Team 7, from all those years ago, and then remembers the real Team 7, with bickering teammates and bloody spars and careful, loving admonishment. She remembers the Team 7 without Sasuke, remembers the Team 7 where it was just her and Kakashi for three long years. Remembers Sai and Yamato, sets aside her guilt for not visiting them in far too long, remembers Naruto’s grin and Sasuke’s smile.

They loved her. She loved them.

Can she love herself?

set after the war. sakura becomes hokage and shes good even though shes traumatized and not moving past it (bc shes trying to live the lives her teammates shouldve had) open ending but i choose to believe she takes to wandering the lands and going back into medical things while learning how to live her own life for herself and no one else :’)

Sense Memory by KuriQuinn

ship: sasusaku // word count: 3501 // chapters: 1/1

She’s not breathing, or showing any signs of life, and that worries him.

takes place when sarada is a baby. almost all of it is a flashback to smthn that took place in their baby days and it’s all in sasuke’s pov. the non flashback bits are soft and slice of life-esque. warnings for near death and drowning in the flashback and implied ns/fw near the very beginning and the very end

Coming Undone by Dovey

ship: none // words: 3643 // chapters: 1/1

The Uchiha Massacre is world-famous within weeks. The homicide of the Haruno family, in comparison, is a barely a blip on the radar- another case of personal drama with an unfortunate end. Sakura, the only survivor of her family tragedy, tries to grow up normal, chasing after boys and running away from nightmares.

She doesn’t grow up normal.

au. she’s a bamf with trauma babey!! she uses battle axes and hammers and her summons are tigers which is cool as shit. loss of morality and unquestionable loyalty is always so interesting. warnings for gore, death, and drug use

Sakura’s Plants by ba262

ship: none // words: 3704 // chapters: 15/15 // updated: 3/8/19

Sakura was given Ukki-kun the day she was officially left behind by team 7

set throughout timeline. a story told in parts surrounding the plants in sakura’s life. no dialogue! i love sakura so much and my heart hurtsss,, we get to see more of her reaction to being left behind by her team and im in PAIN!! shout out to sakura’s newfound support group. short chapters and a nice short read! idk how to describe it but the writing flows REALLY nicely

Pinpoint by CountessCzan

ship: sakura & shisui // words: 3792 // chapters: 1/1

Shisui takes care of a child named Sakura for a mission once. Sakura never lets go of him after that.

set when shisui is a genin post-war. sakura is a cute little baby and im sobbing at the picture this fic paints. I LOVE SHISUI A LOT he’s so soft im really tender

Stars Exploding by blesseth

ship: sasusaku // words: 4098 // chapters: 1/1

Don’t get Sakura wrong, she was happy she and Sasuke were becoming friends, following everything that had happened. Ecstatic even. But hell, did he have to be on her mind all the damn time?

set post war. BYE i had the cheesiest grin the entire time i was reading this. just a cute little pre-relationship type fic and i love the little team 7 as family things sprinkled in. just another good light hearted fic to break up the serious/plot focused fics

Sharkman and Cherrygirl by The_Floating_World

ship: none // words: 4245 // chapters: 1/1

Newly five Haruno Sakura joins her parents on a merchant trip, has a life-changing encounter, and gains a new goal.

YES BABEY!!! i love my little fearless to the point of just plain idiotic girl!! there’s a surprising amount of fics where kisame becomes a bit of an inspiration to my number one fave and i love all of them! more fuel for my love of sakura who focuses more towards her water aspect// anyway! my little baby is just in desperate need for a mentor figure/someone she can base herself off of bc shes a shy little things whom i love more than life itsself aa GOD the way she gets absolutely star eyed the moment she sees kisame has my heart in fits. i absolutely support my little murder kid and her life goals to be Just Like That (read the notes)

Warmth by kosmeja

ship: narusasusaku // words: 4296 // chapters: 1/1

In which Naruto has a nightlight, Sasuke is afraid of the dark and doesn't want to admit it, and somehow, Sakura is the perverted one.

Or: Team 7 have a brief conversation in the dark.

au. not to sure where this is timeline wise, but sakura is a chunin. they love her so much, yeah im crying about it. they just want her to feel good about herself and that theyre there to support her and im sobbing rn i love team 7 so much

House Upon a Rock by KuriQuinn

ship: sasusaku // words: 4311 // chapters: 1/1

She sort of considers herself the last resort, the one to pull him through; it never really occurs to her that she’s the one that could fall.

yeah!!! literal and metaphorical support!!! sakura is so good here i love her. shes just a kid and she wants to be able to support her teammates even if that means literally carrying them after they pass out from exhaustion. i super love how kuriquinn writes ss interactions and this fic is no different aa (also i cant believe he never gave her the spar she asked for :/) can be read as platonic if you want! it’s mostly onesided any way

Sakura of the Red Sands by Dovey

ship: gaasaku // words: 4811 // chapters: 1/1

Sasori hates Hatake Kakashi. He meets a young girl with reason to hate the man too, and finds the perfect opportunity for revenge.

If he accidentally builds a family along the way, well. He always was exemplary at exceeding expectations.

au. sasori never defected. set roughly around chunin exam arc. sasori is an asshole as per usual and accidently becomes sakura’s pseudo older brother figure? it’s actually super endearing how proud of her he becomes and how much he starts to root for her sjdndk though it is a Little unnerving here and there and there are parts where sasori is noticeably less normal than the average person. also MOKUTON SAKURA!!!!! she’s op and meets gaara and they click and this whole fic is maybe a little weird but mostly interesting (also the author notes are good please read them!!) warning for maybe questionable levels of attachment? oh also a kind of coerced amputation!

⭐Into the Water by BasicallyAnIdiot

ship: none // words: 5192 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura had always loved the water.

set throughout timeline. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again but i love when people write sakura as someone who leans more towards her water aspect and this is one of my favorite fics that show that. my girl is connected directly to tobirama nd while he’s actually a bastard, this fic single handedly made me have a reluctant soft spot for him. plus she follows directly in his footsteps and invents jutsus too (god i love her shes so smart and cool) plenty of little spots about love that make me tender. god i love this fic so much and my girl kicks ass 100/10

Parsley Seed Goes Nine Times to the Devil by Mook_aron

ship: none // words: 5445 // chapters: 1/1

Slow to grow, quick to sprout, parsley seed goes nine times to the devil

When she’s six, a man murders her family.

The man is tall, and his features are burned into her mind. She won’t forget him- she won’t let herself forget him.

root sakura au! changes her whole childhood and perspective on village loyalty. kind of poetic and nice to read despite the dark themes. sai is there!! not a lot but he’s there and i love him. i hesitate to call this team as family bc it’s only just starting to develop but you can feel the potential! part 1 of a series i hope continues aa// warnings for emotional abuse, blood, mentions of gore, and murder

⭐Most Girls, or, the one Where Sakura Grows up and Gets a Fan Girl Along the Way by theformerone

ship: none // words: 5869 // chapters: 1/1

In the years between Naruto’s departure and return, Sakura develops.

Aggressively.

She also gains a second shadow.

set throughout timeline, starts immediately after naruto leaves. YEAH BABEY!!! BAMF SAKURA!!! she gets so fucking cool and she trains with team 8 and team gai (and gets close w the rest of the konaha 11 in general)!! she gets the muscles that she deserves that could only aid the fighting style tsunade taught her (and that she deserves in canon ugh) and she turns into such a powerhouse and people love her and it’s what she deserves (also sakura takes moegi under her wing and they’re good for eachother im crying ajdjdj this fic single handedly made me love moegi)

tag along fic: That Girl Thinks She’s the Queen of the Neighborhood (i got news for you! she is!) by theformerone

same au but all from moegi’s perspective and BOY OH BOY I RELATE. she’s got a huge fucking crush on sakura and it’s cute and sakura is teaching her how to kick ass and it’s inspiring *chef hand kiss* (word count: 6624)

I Won’t Go Down, Your Blushing Bride by felinedetached

ship: inosaku // words: 6186 // chapters: 1/1

(Three things come after that:

1. The moment of realisation. The moment she realises Sasuke’s left the village, gone off to do who knows what with Orochimaru-

2. Her memory returns to her - she was useless against her teammate; taken down by a pressure point and unable to do anything to prevent him from getting at it.

3. Inner rages, throws herself around, cursing and screaming until finally, finally she calms and she says Uchiha Sasuke is a traitor.)

In which Sakura gets the character development she deserved.

set throughout timeline. sakura basically gets adopted by every shinobi adult and it makes my heart so happy. not a lot of plot (minus that bit near the end), but so much depth!! she really does get the character development she deserves. she grows up scary and so op and inner is still there and she dates ino and theyre so soft im crying

Is the Real Over There More Vivid Than Here Ever Feels by falterth

ship: hinasaku // words: 6366 // chapters: 1/1

The healing process is slow.

set some time after the war. i hate this fic SO much it left me ugly crying. fucking NARUTO dies?????? naruto is eternal he's not allowed to die,, okay but aside from the fact that im in my feelings, this fic is so good in how it deals with grief and coping and other such things of dealing with the death of a loved one and how "coping" by ignoring/forgetting the emotions isnt actually coping. warning for death and therapy and a teensy bit of victim blaming? (it gets worked out tho!)

Ain’t no princess in this tower by atomicmuffin

ship: sakura & tenten // words: 6448 //chapters: 1/1

Boys are idiots. Ninja boys are idiots with deadly weapons, and it's the kunoichi's privilege and duty to call them out on their bullshit.

Or: how Tenten becomes the Konoha equivalent of a coach for kunoichi completely on accident, mostly because of her pathological inability to let shit go.

set after tsunade becomes hokage (au where sasuke doesnt immediately leave) tenten’s pov! oooo we love a girl who supports girls! she helps sakura treat her teammates like normal people who mess up and are really just dumb boys. BIG fan of fics where tenten takes up a mentor/older sis position for sakura bc she holds a really soft spot in my heart. oof im so proud of my girl’s development im really crying about it

⭐Sing as Their Bones Go Marching in Again by felinedetached

ship: inosaku // words: 6929 // chapters: 1/1

Instead, it goes like this: Haruno Sakura is the daughter of two civilians, from civilian families. She is nothing and no one—smart, yes, top kunoichi, yes, but she will never be on par with clan kids. She is teammates to an orphan powerhouse from a dead clan and the last remaining Uchiha.

Haruno Sakura is nothing and nobody, but she breathes and grows and thrives and the forest thrives with her.

(She opens her eyes to wood, grown from nothing, and Hatake Kakashi stares in disbelief at the tree where his student used to be.)

Or, Haruno Sakura should have had the goddamn Mokuton and this author is mad.

set throughout timeline. this fic has me FOAMING at the mouth!!! MOKUTON SAKURA!!! SENJU SAKURA!!! HASHIRAMA PARALLELS!!! SHE’S A BAMF AND OP AS SHIT!!! TSUNADE ADOPTS HER!!! INO IS HER GIRLFRIEND!!!!! i could sing my praises for this fic all day and still not be finished ahxndkek everything is so good, every little detail (like choji and kiba taking up healing) is so fucking delicious PLEASE read, im BEGGING

For Want of Freedom by ThroughtheMirrorDarkly

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 8908 // chapters: 1/1

Haruno Sakura may seem like she is destined for being a paper ninja, that her choice in this career was a flight of fancy or all based on a fangirl crush. The pink haired girl had no delusions about the life she had chosen, but she would rather die as a ninja then to be bled dry as a slave to her family. Lies and deceptions have built the world around her and Sakura is ready to tear it down, grabbing freedom with both hands.

au. starts off when team 7 first tries to get the bells. sakura’s entire family and backstory is altered and abusive. budding team as family and maybe even actual family between naruto and sakura? *winkwink* some implications of a heavy plot but it doesnt go anywhere and there’s no plans to continue it! warnings for abuse, child experimentation, and mentions of blood

Walk Forward, Don't Look Back by teslatempest

ship: hinasaku // words: 9311 // chapters: 1/1

After the war, Sakura is exhausted.

She decides to make a change.

set post war, some of my favorite types of fics! she goes on a literal road to recovery and it makes my heart so warm because i love her so much and i just want her to be happy and this fic makes me melt///// the hinasaku is only implied once so dont get your hopes up BUT!!! sakura makes narusasu happen and i really said aww out loud in the dopiest voice when sasuke kissed his cheek,, my favorite parts are easily when shes thinking/talking about her emotions bc im a sucker for that good good introspection! warning for mentions of trauma i guess? none of it is all that bad it’s just a good coping fic

Thank You for the Meal by theformerone

ship: narusaku // words: 9876 // chapters: 1/1

Tsunade tells him that the best way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach. Naruto leaves Sakura snacks.

au! not anywhere near as shippy as the tags and description imply? lots of little odd ships like brief mentions of nejisasu nd hinakarin (which has a bit more focus). not very sakura centric but damn beautiful regardless so im keeping it here. actually really fucking emotional with a huge focus on uzushio and the uzumaki clan. made me cry 10/10

⭐Hounds Follow Those Who Feed Them by dragonyfox

ship: narusasusaku // words: 10597 // chapters: 3/3

Kakashi knows when to outsource training, but he also knows that only he can teach them some things.

little bits and pieces of their lives before the last chapter in the first part of this series :(( my heart is soft and full of sadness **READ THE FIRST PART OF THIS SERIES** it’s a hound will die for you but never lie to you and i have it listed a little further down

⭐The Sound by LadyKG

ship: none // words:13231 // chapters: 4/4

They lost. Completely. Totally. Lost. They thought it impossible, that the fates would reject this outcome for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. They have been punished for this belief. And for that, she will go back. Sakura-time travel AU

set post war. INCREDIBLY disorienting. really good to read when you’re existing a little to the left. im not a huge fan of time travel fics but holy shit?? this fic really is something else/ sakura needs to keep obito alive while dealing with hallucinations(?) of her family from her timeline. this is really fucking good actually and she kills danzo and ive got the second part here further down. warning for death

Gallant by Crunchysunrises

ship: sakura & itachi // words: 14890 // chapters: 3/3

On the day that he makes genin, Itachi sees Sakura. It changes the course of his life.

starts when itachi is a genin and sakura is a tiny little baby. non mass. very itachi centric but sakura is such a pivotal part of his life. itachi truly deserves better (it’s friendship!!! itachi is traumatized and dependent)

The Fury by LadyKG

ship: none // words: 15711 // chapters: 4/4

Sequel to 'The Sound'. She needs to keep moving, looking forward and fixing the problems of the past. If she doesn’t the world might just fall apart a second time. Sakura time travel AU.

sequal to The Sound (above somewhere)(read that one first ofc). just as confusing and disorienting as the first one! i love love love how the flashbacks are written where theres no discernible break between past and present. also i didnt mention it in the summary of pt 1 but yamato is so cute! im glad he’s getting better things (same goes for itachi!). warning that things kinda loop and it really is a little disorienting. like whole paragraphs repeat. warning for death too

The Lessons Change by exarite

ship: none // words: 17529 // chapters: 5/5

In another world, Haruno Sakura is known to be the best medic-nin of all time, renowned for her surpassing of her master and with a fearsome reputation for her strength and medical feats.

This is not that world.

aus. bundle of oneshots where sakura gets different teachers and how that changes things. (notes in the first chapter highlight the little issue i have w how sakura developed under tsunade) read the summaries and notes (beginning and end) for info abt the chapter! heavy warnings in chapter 4 for gore, emotional manipulation, blood, and experimentation. also in chapter 2 sakura has a childish crush on shisui and in chapter 3 theres a single line where he implies smthn

⭐Your Childhood Home is just Powder-White Bones (and You'll Never Find Your Way Back) by Dovey

ship: none // words: 24367 // chapters: 11/11

Sasuke is not the only one who worries he's getting too comfortable in his genin life. Itachi decides to add another motivator to Sasuke's revenge plans by kidnapping the teammate who wasn't a charismatic Jinchuriki. Sakura is used to being an objective for those around her, not a person, but even for her this is a little much.

In which Sakura is held captive and learns what a genjutsu specialist can do to a person's mind, that sharks can actually make great friends, joins a dying clan, and gets regifted multiple times before she's finally strong enough to fight back.

starts off when theyre genin. itachi is unhinged and sakura gets the short end of the stick :( LOTS of trauma. my girl gets really messed up and learns a lot of things purely to survive and has a loose grasp on reality. kisame isnt a good guy (read the notes at the end of chapter 10!) but he gives her sharks which is cool. kabuto is bad and so is orochimaru and kimimaro makes me sad but thats all par for the course. sakura gets some sick water things and also tsunade gets to be there and sakura makes her own family. warnings for torture, gore, dissociation, general loss of reality, blood, and death

⭐Survival of the Fittest by cywscross

ship: sakura & shikamaru // words: 24790 // chapters: 1/1

Sakura is thirteen, still a Genin, lost in the middle of Earth Country, lugging an unconscious Chuunin around, and so far beyond scared that she’s moved right on to pissed off.

au. naruto i love you but jesus christ. bamf sakura and shikamaru just trying to survive so they can get home and hopefully rip naruto a new one. really really cool to read abt shikamaru and sakura being smart and working together and plenty interesting bits of introspection. god this fic is just so good and the slow deterioration into kids just trying to stay alive while having nothing but each other and developing unhealthy codependency as a result is so damn interesting. also i cried 10/10 they care about each other so much

⭐Being Over-Prepared is Impossible (and other mottos) by Pleasedial123

ship: none // words: 40071 // chapters: 15/15

In one world, Kakashi awoke, felt grieved at being assigned a team he sees his own in, and he let that grief make him a lazy teacher. He saw himself in Sasuke, Obito in Naruto, and Rin in Sakura. He woke, saw himself in them, and took a large step back, regretting accepting them as his new team. In another world he was quite hands off, merely a watcher because it was so very painful to watch. He saw himself and all his mistakes in this new team of his.

In this world, Kakashi awoke, saw the similarities, and instantly panicked. He suddenly realized what he had done, passing a team. Kakashi was left scrambling not to repeat old mistakes and regrets. This team would not suffer the fate of his team.

In this world, simply put, Kakashi became a teacher. This is the starting of a new Team seven.

set early genin days. TEAM AS FAMILY BABY!!!!!!!! theyre all babies and dumb and reckless but theyre in it together! not as sakura centric as other fics on this list but her development into essentially team leader is so so good!! kakashi loves his kids so much aa

can be read alone but theres a sequel!: Surviving is the Same Thing as Winning (words: 22492 // chapters: 11/? // updated: 2/9/19)

⭐A Hound Will Die For You, but Never Lie to You by dragonyfox

ship: narusasusaku // words: 41065 // chapters: 9/9

Kakashi caught his breath and pretended like he was just thinking about what to say. His dogs saw through it. “I’m thinking of having my team sign the dog contract.”

Pakkun nodded thoughtfully. “That might piss off some powerful people, boss.”

au! (chapter title is the pov) starts somewhere post wave and pre chunin exam. sakura is kakashis favorite and it really makes me wanna cry when fics do that PLUS SHE GETS A HUGE FUCK OFF BATTLE AXE BABY!!!!!!!! they get different developments!!! sasuke gets to be the medic and im really happy about it because he seems sO HAPPY!!! also they get cute dogs and it’s all very sweet. developing themes of team as family which im a sucker for plus developing poly t7 (pining sasuke!) which im REALLY a sucker for aa it was such a happy fic but WOW that last chapter takes no prisoners warning for super brief mention of rape and there’s major character death in the last chapter :(

⭐Samsara by KuriQuinn

ship: sasusaku // words: 54177 // chapters: 8/8

Sakura’s words die in her throat as the man’s eyes shoot open, and the coldest red irises she has ever seen meet hers. She is hit by a wave of terrifying certainty about two things right then – that she knows these eyes better than any other and that, if he wanted to, this man could stop her heart with just a look.

set during their travels. FINALLY!!! the parallels of three that ive been needing my whole ass life!! also sasuke is doting and worried and it’s cute. super fucking interesting and half of it takes place during the Ootsutsuki time (aka naruto & sasuke’s first incarnations) warnings for nsfw and some weird loss of identity/time stuff? it’s a great fic though, easily one of my top faves

⭐A Girl in the Forest of Moss and Bone by theformerone

ship: none // words: 65665 // chapters: 6/6

Katsuyu spits acid in her eyes, and Sakura must prove herself worthy enough for the slugs of Shikkotsu Forest to heal.

Or, it doesn’t translate to ‘damp bone forest’ for nothing.

IF THERE’S A FIC WHOSE SERIES ID RECCOMEND IN ITS ENTIRETY IT IS ABSOLUTELY THIS FIC. IF YOU LOVE SAKURA (AND SLUG SAGE SAKURA ESPECIALLY) PLEASE READ THE BALLAD OF THE SLUG SAGE SERIES. IT OWNS MY WHOLE SOUL. guhh sakura is so adorable in the first chapter (kakashi.. choke) GOD. the fucking uhhhh worldbuilding??????? its Actually my favorite thing aa op’s writing style makes me wanna cry it flows so smoothly and it’s so clever and makes me laugh and keeps me enthralled and FUCK sakura IS SO FUCKING COOL AAAAAAAA /// she loves learning and she loves the world and the world loves her and MAYBE im screaming about it. and i LOVE that this fic leans into how nature is ever changing and always moving and a constant balance like it really makes me choke on love.. her friends love her lots :((( warning for blood and mentions of death. im BEGGING you guys to read the rest of this series.. my girl is worth songs :’)

Broken Glass by Emma_Raye

ship: none // words: 68800 // chapters: 29/29 // updated: 11/6/18

Naruto and Sasuke left Sakura pathetically broken, but like any good shinobi she put the pieces back together the only way she knew how: relentless training. Years later Konoha is in the midst of a war and Sakura is a force to be reckoned with. Frankly, she's not even sure if she wants her teammates back.

au. starts during the early parts of tsunades training (with a timeskip) sakura has a lot of feelings of abandonment and im proud of how much shes achieved! shes in anbu and a diplomat (theres a war going on) and she stands on her own two feet! shes got a weird relationship w morality and starts questioning the way things are run.. also she holds a lot of resentment towards naruto and sasuke but it gets worked on throughout (and they become a team again!!!) im not a fan of how they treated her like shes something to be protected however briefly. sakura needs a mental health lifetime but god damn if she isnt smart and OOF the poetic cinema of it all,, warning for blood, death, and major character death

Home is Where the Heart is by deeppoeticgirl

ship: sasusaku // words: 100849 // chapters: 26/26 // updated: 12/20/18

And with every moment together, they get just a little closer, a little more comfortable with each other. Fall a little more in love.

set post war. okay listen. barring morally repulsive ships (kksk, itsk, mdsk, etc.) any sakura ship makes me happy if it’s healthy and loving even if i dont like the ship (like i dont care abt shikasaku and canon ss is SO bad i still cant believe it happened) THAT BEING SAID. this fic is cute and sasuke cares a lot and op wrote him so emotive and i love the little family he became a part of on his trips and sakura is a lovestruck fool (which still has me gritting my teeth bc it doesnt idk. Fit with the rest of her personality) but it’s cute if second hand embarrassing,, honestly this fic is so ooey gooey and full of cheesy love and it’s damn near too much (how many times can a person blush.. like fr..) and theres annoying bits of needless drama and lack of communication but im stubbornly holding onto this fic bc i LOVE the character study type route this fic takes/// (this fic is like. really dramatic.. thats a warning in and of itself and i mean like telenovela type dramatic emotion and subtext. not plot twisty dramatic) warning for violence, mentions of blood, and nsfw

Follow the Sun by LaceyJane

ship: gaasaku // words: 106341 // chapters: 21/21

Stranded in the desert, without food, water, or her supplies, Sakura decides to head west to the land of shifting winds and scorching sands. It hasn’t even been a year since the wind nation had tried to overthrow her city, but she knows of someone out there, someone who, above anyone else, holds the best chance of finding her in this barren land. Able to only hope her attempts to raise attention aren’t in vain, she sets off across the sands towards the west, intent to follow the sun.

not super positive where in the timeline this is (or if it’s an au) but if i had to hazard a guess id say between sakura being taken on as an apprentice and before sasuke leaves. starts off w sakura by herself traversing through a desert with the clothes on her back. she suffers before she gains but at least it’s not for long (Well..) also can i say that i LOVE worldbuilding and i LOVE how different aspects of suna were protrayed here. like the scouting and political things (sakura being the hokages apprentice and how shed be treated in other villages) and temari in general? ugh! theres focus on gaara and how he’s coping with his demon too plus he’s just kinda cute in this fic. warning for violence, the general bad things that happen while unprepared in a desert, and the q slur except it’s not used in regard to gay ppl in any way. nothing is romantic so it can be taken as friendship if it’s what you’d prefer!

⭐Time Flies Like an Arrow by Katlou303

ship: inosaku // words: 240288 // chapters: 36/36 // updated: 2/1/19

Sakura traveled back in time with the intent of changing everything, but something went wrong, and now she's four years old having nightmares about impossible monsters and losing friends she has yet to meet.

time travel fic!!!!! oh my heart is soft :( starts off when theyre tiny kids and sakura stands up for naruto (childhood friends!!) sakura’s memories of her prev timeline come to her in dreams (pretty intense for a kid to be having.. ily kagami:( ) SHISUI AND GENMA ARE THERE!!! ILY BABIES,, shes literally so baby and small and full of love for her friends :((((( shisui is fanastic and also a mess, baby sasuke is the cutest, itachi deserves better, sakuras family has me weak as hell theyre so perfect, and inner sakura in this fic is prev timeline sakura (who is so fucked up holy jesus) tsunade gets a new family member and oh fuck gaara is so cute and same goes for tenzo AND BONUS MOKUTON????? the ocs are really interesting and good and i love them (the word count is a little inaccurate bc theres parts at the end of the chapters themselves that are more like authors notes) warning for trauma, flashbacks, blood, gore, death, implied child abuse (never happens but it gets mentioned a lot), and major character death (kagami… :( ) GUYS I JUST REALIZED IT ENDED ON MY BDAY

IN PROGRESS

Grit Your Teeth (and Smile) by kattenprinsen

ship: none // words: 1423 // chapters: 2/? // updated: 8/1/18

Sakura is an immigrant. Her father is an immigrant too.

au. okay okay this is a pet peeve of mine with canon itself bc sakura was team seven’s token “has parent’s that are alive and support her” except that was genuinely never shown?? we know Nothing substantial about mebuki and kizashi and their relationship with sakura and fsnsksnk im ranting. this fic is nice and yeah there’s not a lot happening so far but i love the depth op is giving to sakura’s parents so much (and they are totally different from canon btw. theyre very good ocs and her dad is a missing nin from mist with sharp teeth aaa) (sakura is also a little bit of a bamf as a result of her parents and im crying about it)

Was That Your Voice or Was That Me by grit

ship: sakura & sasori // words: 1528 // chapters: 1/5 // updated: 10/9/18

Sasori takes Sakura on as an apprentice out of boredom and keeps her because she has potential and he is pragmatic to a fault.

Spontaneity doesn't suit his plans though and Sakura has her own opinion on murder, so it goes about as well as you'd expect.

au where this story take free reign of the timeline. sasori meets sakura when shes a little kid and takes a shining to her potential (as everyone should...). kinda fucked up tbh! at least a little bit! warning for murder and emotional manipulation. the only chapter seems to just be setting up the rest of the story where sasori essentially changes her whole mentality

Tables They Are Turning (Bridges They Are Burning) by pg13

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 1555 // chapters: 1/? // updated: 7/19/18

It’s not until she’s convulsing and the heat from her neck is spreading that she wonders if maybe she should’ve listened when her mother told her to reconsider being a shinobi.

set during chunin exam. SAKURA GETS BIT INSTEAD OF SASUKE. sasuke gets fiercely protective and learns of the incredible emotion called friendship. lots of promising things happen and then it gets cut off when it REALLY starts to get into it AAA/// i Know this fic is gonna be delicious

Skin is Just a Ready Made Coffin by ulittuq

ship: none // words: 2026 // chapters: 2/? // updated: 7/27/18

The night of the Uchiha Massacre is chaos. Alarms are blaring and shinobi are flying through the street and somewhere Sasuke Uchiha is waking up from seventy-two hours of psychological torture courtesy of his big brother.

Sakura Haruno hides under her bed with her hands clasped over her mouth trying to stifle her breathing and praying that the stranger prowling her house can’t hear her heartbeat.

(read author note at the beginning to see how the timeline is changed) some faceless guy takes advantage of the disaster on the night of the massacre and kills sakura’s family to help his mom(??) and that’s literally it! starts off balls to the walls!!  feeds into my feral love of the naruto civilians and how they might resent shinobi. i LOVE fics where civilians are the main focus and how they might be disenfranchised (especially in the hidden villages) as opposed to ninjas. theres not a lot of plot yet but it’s building up to smthn good!! i hope sakura keeps that little bit distrust towards shinobi and the system in her heart! blind loyalty to the state is unhealthy. warning for death, murder, gore, and panic attacks

Daisies and Lilacs by Pinnacle of Failure (Cromirn)

ship: none // words: 2487 // chapters: 1/? // updated: 12/5/18

She's always seen them. Sometimes they scare her, like every shadow to a child should. But there's something to them that she doesn't have, something that she doesn't want.

starts off early academy days up to when they meet kakashi. might not end up being a multi chapter fic. she sees things so im clocking her as psychotic in this fic bc same hat! not a whole lot in the way of plot but the writing style is neat!

⭐To Serve Man by Dovey

ship: none // words: 3090 // chapters: 2/? // updated: 3/19/18

Kizashi Haruno was a civilian man with a simple shop, from a civilian family of simple farmers; Mebuki Haruno was a missing nin from the land of Rain. Sakura took after both her parents.

“You owe yourself to three things, in order: the ones you love, yourself, and then your village.”

au. the rest of the summary is such a mood, i wish we got actual info about her parents :/ i LOVE this fic and i want more content about this universe because im nothing if not a sucker for sakura with a missing nin parent aaa,,, mebuki is so cool and sakura learns early on that blind loyalty to a village is not a good thing to cultivate. her morals are very based around earned loyalty and death bc thats what her mom knew (and i love and appreciate that she motivates sakura to aim for “flee on sight” if she were to ever end up in the bingo book) also kizashi is so sweet and supportive djefk warning for animal death and murder

I’ve Been Waiting my Whole Life (When I’ve Only Been Dreaming) by SheBeanSheep

ship: none // words: 3329 // chapters: 3/? // updated: 7/19/18

Before she was a boy-crazy fangirl, Sakura wanted nothing more than to be a good shinobi. Afterall, that’s what the voice, Inner Sakura, wanted. But Sakura just wanted to be Ino’s friend. So all of her energy went into making sure Ino would still like her, would still consider her a friend and a rival. So, Sakura bypassed the training scrolls of her childhood and picked up a hairbrush, shutting Inner Sakura away.

Then, Team 7 got the Wave Mission.

Then, Inner Sakura got a name.

Then, everything changed.

starts during wave. INNER BECOMES A SUBSTANTIAL CHARACTER HELL YEAH. and now shes actually mito uzumaki?? fucking legendary, nothing less than the best for my queen! mito kicks sakura’s ass into high gear and starts turning her into the bamf she was destined to be (though it hasnt actually gotten to that point ajdj i cant wait for future updates aaa)

Training Sakura by Kalira

ship: sakura & kakashi // words: 3601 // chapters: 2/? // updated: 11/25/18

Two members of Team Seven broke away on their own, and in the aftermath there remains only one thing to be settled. . . That one thing is not what anyone expected.

With Sakura as his sole remaining student, Kakashi settles in to train her properly, determined to help her achieve her ambitions as a ninja and become a great one.

set after naruto leaves. gai is a real one! yeah maybe i did start tearing up by the end of the first chapter. im emotional okay. also ive read so many fics where ino doesnt GET to be sakura’s best friend and it hurts me directly so this fic really makes me happy (bonus really short tag-along fic title Mistress where sakura gets a puppy aa)

Of Which Do I Change by Pinnacle of Failure (Cromirn)

ship: none // words: 3772 // chapters: 4/? // updated: 1/16/19

It starts and it ends in confusion. There never was a true destination in life, in what she was and what actually defined her. But one thing happened, and now she is someone, her name is on the lips of the Hokage and Clan heads and now they see who she is. Too bad she can't do that anymore.

But she takes pride in that. She has pink hair and green, useless, eyes. She is an anomaly in her own right, and that makes her strong, that makes her a terror in her own right.

starts off pre/early academy days. seems to be setting up to be a longer fic? interesting bits abt clan stuff! i do feel a little bad for ino :( sakura’s drive to have a name again is really nice to read and i KNOW shes gonna be cool as shit. not much in the way of a major plot insofar but still really good!!!

The Senju Whisperer by callmeportgas

ship: sakura & hashirama // words: 4754 // chapters: 2/? // updated: 11/14/18

In which Sakura comes to fully embrace the heritage her family couldn't, with some help from her imaginary friend.

au! MOKUTON SAKURA BBY!!!!! the story is only JUST developing but i can already see the building friendship between naruto and sakura!!!

Dont Think, Just Run by alicemc12

ship: none // words: 4806 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 3/10/19

Sakura was left behind after an ambush. Left for dead by mistake, until her life is saved by a young girl. With everyone believing her dead, Sakura is left to see the world from a different side. Without thinking, she runs away from the past she can't change and to a fate only she can control. Because it's just as a little girl said, the future will never be set in stone unless you let it.

starts off in oc pov. not sure where in the timeline this is but she knows how to heal by this point. COOL PLOT!! love the fate stuff and how much of a bamf sakura gets to be even though it's very ff.net-esque

Way of the Cherry Blossom by chadsuke

ship: none // words: 5422 // chapters: 16/? // updated: 9/8/18

Healing isn't a bad profession, Sakura knows. She could do well in it. But healing means that you're the one picking up the pieces, putting your teammates back together.

Sakura wants to stop them from getting hurt at all.

starts after sasuke “dies” in wave but before they go back to the village. shes a baby and wants to be able to stand beside the rest of her team. her family is so good in this fic! and so is kakashi even though he subjected her to gai. sasuke is cute too and naruto always is. theres some sentences that arent really jokes but are worded in such a fantastic way that i end up cackling. it’s all pretty lighthearted! warning for brief mention of death

⭐Salt in the Wound by Dovey

ship: sakura/oc // words: 6033 // chapters: 4/? // updated: 3/30/18

The Wave arc, except Sakura’s flimsy attempt at protecting the client results in her accidentally faking her death. Zabuza survives and takes her along with him as an apprentice, and she grows up in the harder but more emotional life of a nin on the run.

aka I have a lot ideas of how Missing-Nin would have a different culture than the rest of Naruto-verse, that would place a high-value on youngins’ in the trade given the rarity, and Sakura gets a lot of teachers over the years for the price of lots of emotional trauma & loss.

also, she gets a big fuck-off sword.

starts off during wave arc. ZABUZA I LOVE YOU. he takes sakura in because he’s a lonely missing nin who got used to caring for another person. sakura isnt as against the idea of staying with zabuza as she tries to pretend to be. also, GOD the reactions of the rest of the konoha twelve really really break me?? sasuke spirals faster and naruto gets essentially adopted by sakura’s parents? and kakashi gets fiercely protective. warning for death, animal death, and kinda graphic murder? also theres no actual ship even a little implied so far

Sharp by ineffableblue

ship: none // words: 6309 // chapters 2/? // updated: 3/12/19

Sakura has been teased, gotten angry for that, then gotten teased for getting angry. Everything she does isn't enough. But she's observant and slowly she starts to find out that she fits in better in the ninja world than she ever imagined. The best ninja are always thought to be something else and Sakura is a master at being mistaken for harmless.

starts when shes baby. sakura is full of rage and bottling it up like a molotov cocktail (and her parent are given depth which is great! but they kinda suck which isnt so great! it's a "tough love" sort of thing but it still rubs me wrong) i love and support sakura's desire to seek out knowledge on her own! and i am SO HAPPY this fic updated i could cry,, i KNEW the title and desc were familiar when i saw them at the top of the sakura fic tag one day and i yelled when i realized it WAS the same fic i had already put under left unfished// op if you're reading this know that im filled w love and support :')

Because I Ache by Wyle23

ship: narusaku // words: 6512 // chapters: 3/? // updated: 9/4/18

Ugly are the truths of the world. Hate's competitor can jail just as blindly. Focused otherwise, though, what changes would her shift in truth bring? In which Konoha's young jinchuuriki stumbles upon not a Hyuuga, but a Haruno.

starts when theyre babies!! little five year olds who deserve better (bby sakura id do anything for you.. :’() theyve got tiny crushes and theyre so cute i wanna cry about it. ino nd sakura stay friends (thank god) and GOD i want ppl to stop being mean to naruto :((

The Shadows Claim Us by Nine_Stoic_Crayolas

ship: gaasaku // words: 6586 // chapters: 39/? // updated: 4/21/18

"You don't want to go near that one." "Why?" "...She's damaged goods."

takes place in suna! (sakura is an iwa native!) (also i have.no idea how old they are. it’s mentioned at one point that sakura’s 4 but.. idk? if there?s time skips?? there’s just lots of bits that arent worded right for them to be 4 through the whole fic.. idk. gimme ur input actually idk if i wanna keep this) gaara takes a shining to her bc sakura also gets called a monster. bro these little gremlins are fucking pissed. imagine a toddler yelling “fuck!” at you but constantly. warning for general mistreatment of children and mentions of death and blood

Serendipity by stirringwinds

ship: none // words: 6751 // chapters: 2/? // updated: 10/24/18

Sasuke had never known Senju Hashirama in person, of course. But he had grown up hearing stories about the First Hokage at his mother’s knee—about the legend who had defeated the most powerful member of their own clan. Enough stories to recognise what he was seeing—and to know he was witnessing his teammate perform the impossible.

Or, in the fight against Gaara during Suna’s attempted invasion of Konoha, the Ichibi’s attempt to kill Sakura awakens an unexpected power. It changes the destiny of Team Seven forever.

MOKUTON SAKURA BABEYYY!!!!! largely sasuke’s pov. also they’re all stupid and it’s funny and i love them// im literally foaming at the mouth and excited to see where the story goes and im :pensive:

Warmth by PotatoeGoddess

ship: inosaku // words: 7135 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 4/7/18

Sakura Haruno was born screaming and kicking and in some ways, she felt, she kind of never stopped.

starts off pre/early academy days. sakura is full of strong emotions and same hat. there’s comphet and sakura has such a crush on ino. what a useless gay. that’s not really a focus in the story (more just consistently implied) honestly dont all together know whats going on! but that’s par for the course

What Happens After by stirringwinds

ship: narusasusaku // words: 8044 // chapters: 3/? // updated: 1/13/19

Sakura deals with her feelings once she can stop focusing on stopping the world from imploding. Just what exactly is her place in this world?

This is just a lot of Sakura can't deal with life right now.

set post series. lotta sakura introspection! she’s dealing with a lot of feelings of inferiority and emotions she doesnt acknowledge bc shes a disaster bi. i  actually cried bc her feelings towards her own self worth hit me with all kinds of feelings of catharsis. canon sakura really needs smthn like this. just a chance to recover :(.. warning for lots of poly ships if ur not into that

⭐Catharsis by pastanoodle

ship: none // words: 10198 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 8/16/17

Sakura isn’t the kind of person to survive past Genin. She wears pink, fights over boys, and can’t throw a Kunai to save her life. Which is why no one expects her to live very long. To Sakura, graduating from the academy is like a reality check. Being a shinobi is nothing close to how civilian romance novels make it seem. Sakura has always been terrible at stopping when she should. So she changes pink to grey, forces herself to ignore Sasuke, and learns how to shatter bones with a single punch. Screw surviving. Sakura knows she’s going to die, but she’ll go down fighting.

starts off a little before wave except!! the full wave arc never happens and everything changes!! inner becomes a substantial part of the story and im so glad for it. oh my god this fic is so good and i love all the author notes, theyre so delicious. sakura starts developing from a calm, quiet, and accepting girl. to a shinobi who is pissed off about the hand she was dealt with and goddammit! shes gonna do something about it!!! you fucking go, girl, live your dream of being in the bingo books i love you. this fic hasnt updated in a while and im so teary eyed about it, i hope it’s not being left unfinished. i refuse to put it under that category bc im stubborn and hopeful. warning for death and gore in the second chapter

Red With Clay, or Into Fire by grit

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 10420 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 11/4/18

Headstrong, carrying her heart on her sleeve: Sakura is a smart and driven child who will fight for what's hers.

Or: Sakura gets a personality, Naruto some friends and Sasuke a childhood.

starts off during their litle genin introductions.TEAM AS FAMILY Y’ALL ALREADY KNOW! sasuke actually likes his team basically from the get go??? and sakura just wants her team to workout and they do! theyre getting there!!! oof!!!!!!!!

Breathe and Heal by Himechiiii

ship: narusasusaku // words: 11535 // chapters: 3/? // updated: 1/6/18

Two months. Two months had passed since the end of the Fourth Great Shinobi War. Two months and Sakura still hadn’t fully processed. Hadn’t fully healed. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I don’t know what my goal is supposed to be. You say that I’ve passed them, but it doesn’t feel like it. I close my eyes and all I see is their backs in front of me.”

Or in which Sakura realizes she is more than she thought she was, and lets herself be loved.

set post war. sakura gets well deserved time off of work to cope with things (and ino is real one :( please stop forgetting she’s her best friend) sakura loves her boys so much but god her inferiority complex makes me so sad

Promises by BombsAreForBabies

ship: none // words: 12376 // chapters: 8/? // updated: 10/29/18

It's her first kiss and Naruto's last. She promises him that she will bring Sasuke home. It's his dying wish, after all.

(Naruto bleeds out faster than the kyuubi can heal him.

Sakura learns that being a ninja is more than fancy jutsu and fun.

Sasuke does not know that he just killed his best friend and turned his most loyal comrade into his worst enemy.)

set after the first fight in the valley of the end. bamf sakura that deserves a break.. immediate warning for death :( kakashi and sakura connect in the aftermath and ino remains as the realest. sakura learns poisons from shizune!!!!! FINALLY!!! everyone cares about her a lot and that makes me happy but god can she PLEASE get a therapist

When I Grow Up I’ll Be An Avalanche (and i’ll grow up soon) by ulittuq

ship: none // words: 12900 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 12/10/18

A little civilian girl hears that genin are considered adults in the eyes of the law and she think yes please I need to get out--

The next week she starts the Academy.

Once a little civilian girl tells an orphan boy, God I wish I didn’t have parents, and she means it as a confession. A cry for help. The orphan boy hears selfishness spill from her mouth and snaps.

A little civilian girl, who has yet to see combat, wakes from nightmares gasping and clawing at her skin. No one notices.

au! naruto canon never gave us anything for sakura’s parent so fics like this own me! i like where theyre portrayed as abusive bc well canon doesnt disprove it! and projection. also. owns me inner also has more focus!! sakura just wants an out and she’s gonna do most anything to get there. also naruto love!! because he deserves it! warning for abuse (mentions of emotional and physical)  im super excited for more updates i like where the story is going!!

Mune Ga Hachikire Soude by clohsoo

ship: none // words: 15815 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 3/24/19

A deal is made between two devils and two girls share a demon.

HEY OP IF YOURE READING THIS: I LOVE YOU AND I SUPPORT YOU AND THIS IS SO GOOD TY FOR GIVING LOVE TO MY GIRL RIN,, au set mostly in rin's pov (i love the hobbies rin picks up, my little jack of all trades) danzo can still choke, sakura bby.. ily..:(((, ino is always amazing, and ANKO!! I LOVE YOU!!! OOF sakura's attempts at acting like a normal kid REALLY plucks at my heart strings// warning for child abuse bc root, death bc root, and trauma also.. bc root

⭐The Best-Looking Truth by Dovey

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 17378 // chapters: 6/? // updated: 1/7/19

Sakura doesn’t like to talk about her family. Most people assume it’s because she’s a nice young girl, and she doesn’t want to make everyone else feel bad, considering she’s on a team of orphans.

It has more to do with the fact that she killed her parents in self-defense and is desperately trying to cover up the murders, than any sympathy for her teammates- but she’s happy to let you assume what you want.

did that summary give you whiplash? because it absolutely made me collapse. set just before the bell test. also starts off pretty fucking strong. shes a traumatized kid trying to compartmentalize on her own while trying to make sure no one finds out about what she did. also she’s really smart in the way she’s dealing with the aftermath. really interesting (at least to me) is how despite her parents no longer having a direct hold on her life, she still abides by their rules. warning for (past) child abuse, murder, and occassionaly descriptive gore. godd i really want more (there’s narusaku and some sakura/oc but i dont think theyre permanent? the narusaku definitely isnt bc it was mostly an accident but im not sure abt the sakura/oc)

Control by Dragonist

ship: none // words: 17816 // chapters: 14/? // updated: 6/8/18

Kumo kidnaps a child of Konoha.

Sakura graduates from the academy only a year after starting it. There's a war going on, and she's obedient enough to stay quiet and follow orders.

Then the war ends, and it's unclear who is really giving them.

au (read notes for the changes) starts pre academy. bro??? theres a war going on and im stressed at how young she is when she graduates.. sai ily..warning for death, blood, and uh. bad medical practices

If I Live by Lalit

ship: none // words: 18344 // chapters: 9/? // updated: 8/21/18

Every action has a consequence. It took one girl to screw all of Orochimaru’s plans up, and nothing will ever be the same. “Look at you, such bloodlust. Darkness is a lovely shade on you, my dear.”

set during chunin exam. ANOTHER SAKURA GETS BIT INSTEAD OF SASUKE FIC. a little slow going in terms of timeline i guess? no timeskipping so far. love the relationship between team 7 here (esp that one scene w naruto. u did amazing sweetie!) warning for death and gore and also sexual undertones when orochimaru is there. he’s a creep and op sells it.

Black Hole Heart by LadyNyxRavus

ship: none // words: 20017 // chapters: 5/8 // updated: 2/18/19

By all accounts, Sakura is dead for the first five minutes of her life.

Yet, she continues. If she occasionally has too many, too sharp teeth then that's their business.

OKAY SO. im NOT a big of crossovers but HEAR ME OUT. sakura gets a symbiote in place of inner and she eats people and naruto is a little more feral and sasuke is the closest thing they have to handlers. warnings for cannibalism, blood, and gore. this is up there as one of the most self indulgent fics on here

Throwing a Stone in a River by theroadkillcafe

ship: none // words: 20221 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 9/7/18

When Sakura graduates from the academy, she suddenly finds her head invaded by the ghost of Uchiha Shisui. Her inner is gone, but not forgotten, and she struggles with impulse control more than ever before. But also, Shisui gives a lot of unsolicited advice - useful and otherwise - and does not shut the fuck up. He’s not thrilled about current events.

warning for immediate mentions of suicide and drowning (and implied eye gore) set just after they graduated from the academy. sakura’s got some fun mental things to deal with now that shes stuck w the ghost and seeing them kinda everywhere. have i mentioned that i love shisui? he’s really good and helps sakura out with gratuitous amounts of snark. warnings for more eye gore, blood, nightmares, and torture

If You Can't Hold on, Hold on by Fiercest

ship: sasusaku // words: 20780 // chapters: 8/? // updated: 12/4/18

Sakura always wished she could relate to her teammates better. She wishes she could take it back.

In which Sasuke acquires some unwanted roommates and a team becomes a family.

set post konoha crush. TEAM AS FAMILY!!! almost immediate warning for death :( gh// her team cares a lot abt her and want her to be okay and sasuke is making effort into being a source of support (he’s baby..) theyre all pretty traumatized (and god fucking awful at dealing with it) (not shippy at this point!)

⭐Find Your Place (Whatever it Takes) by Dovey

ship: none // words: 22296 // chapters: 11/? // updated: 12/28/18

The war lasts longer than in canon, and has only just ended. While most of the 'Konoha 12' are clan heirs and thus protected from having to go to war prematurely, Sakura is from a civilian family, with naturally advanced chakra control, and thus is thrown immediately onto the frontlines. Now she's on a genin team in peacetime, and she's struggling to figure out how to live when she's not constantly at risk of dying.

Team seven bonds in new weird ways, The Uchiha are actually all dead except for Sasuke (including war-hero itachi) who's got a chip on his shoulder the size of Konoha, Naruto isn't the kyuubi container and he finds Sakura kinda scary. Sakura would just like to have a hobby.

au. my girl deals with trauma and t7 learn to get along eventually (and unhealthily?) i love sakura’s war team a lot and they care abt each other a lot too and GOD i love shit that focuses on the advantages clan kids gets for being clan kids and especially for being heirs!! it’s just interesting as hell to read!! sakura fosters her hate and distrust for the state and GOD is that ever a good thing (kushina :(..) we’re in this shit for a REVOLUTION!! IM SO HYPE!!! warning for violence and mentions of death

⭐Building the Puzzle by ich_bin_ein_stern

ship: narusasusakusai // words: 22716 // chapters: 4/5 // updated: 8/27/18

In which Sakura feels disconnected after the 4th Shinobi War and decides to cut the string attaching her to Team Seven, if only for a few years. This does not settle well with the remaining members, past or present.

set post war. FULL POLY TEAM SEVEN BABY!!!!! there’s not a whole lot of content for poly7 that includes BOTH sai and sasuke. it’s usually one or the other which already puts this fic in my good graces uwu ino bby i love you so much they’re so tactile and close and it makes my heart melt and she cares abt sakura and wants them both to be okay. im indulging my need for a sakura who gets to travel!! she loves her team so much but she really needs to love herself first. the rest of her team learns to better themselves and it’s really nice to read. also GOD i say it often but sakura is so cool (esplecially vs the suna elders aa)

Moments of Perfection by kiwi_socks

ship: narusasusaku // words: 22880 // chapters: 6/? // updated: 5/9/18

It's a dream Sakura's had many times before. Until it is rudely interrupted by Naruto and Sasuke mistaking her kitchen window for the front door.

"Hey...we failed in so many ways before, do you think we'll get something right, or just screw up again?"

okay im NOT much of a fan of timetravel fics but everyone should know by now that poly team 7 actually owns me. theyre all stupid together (it’s solidarity). poor kakashi. there’s some fuckery happening!! perhaps i yelled WHAT!? at my phone at least once

⭐Kubikiribocho, My Love by IslitaBonita

ship: none // words: 23231 // chapters: 10/? // updated: 7/22/18

Where Sakura becomes better acquainted with Zabuza's sword, Kubikiribocho.

set mostly during wave. interesting bits of sakura vs herself. budding relationship between her and gaara (murder friends) the writing style is SUPER cool! blood, unhealthy attachment, impalement, and death. ugh! when will this fic come back from war

Believe Me When I Say I Cary All My Sins by Honestly Neptune (mypennameishidden)

ship: none // words: 24287 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 12/20/18

Sakura knew the best way to tear a man's spine out of his nose without breaking a sweat.

She didn't know how to live in a village with Minato as Hokage and the Uchiha clan as the beloved police force. She didn't know how to live as a disgraced genin in a bloody apartment with dead men knocking at her door.

She didn't know how to forgive herself for failing Konoha. Now she had a chance to save it.

au. SUCH cool take on the timetravel trope!! sakura is just angry and tired and she’s gonna make this timeline work so help her god. i love shisui and i love that he gets to be a main character here aa. warnings for blood and general violence

Dandelions Blow in Spring by capriicious

ship: none // words: 24507 // chapters: 13/? // updated: 11/25/18

sakura is in the land of waves, the seraphic, beautiful place filled with religious and cultural beliefs. her team mate is lying in front of her, dead, cold and so, so white. her sensei is bleeding out while fighting zabuza. naruto is fighting against the odds of hundred of senbons.

(or: sakura watches her team mates get beaten half to death and bleed out next to her when the fight ends and with that event set in her mind: realises that she's going to die unless she toughens up.)

au but starts off in wave during the fight w zabuza nd haku so immediate warning for blood, gore, death, and a bit of an unhinged mind bc it’s sakura pov and this is traumatic. i recommend reading the notes at the beginning of each chapter for trigger warnings. it’s a heavy fic. interesting bits about merchant business and the dark side of the village. only BARELY connected to canon. pretty much through characters alone, the whole story is different

Cut the Head off the Snake by itsthechocopuff

ship: none // words: 24601 // chapters: 8/? // updated: 1/2/19

when eighteen-year-old, post-war Sakura is thrown back into her tiny, pre-Academy body, she makes a decision. she’d had a childhood once already, and this time, she’s more interested in Not Dying when the inevitable shit hits the proverbial fan. so she will work harder, care less, kill more, and smile when she’s done.

and hey, if she ends up reviving an extinct nature transformation to attract the most corrupt, power-hungry man from her timeline, all the better for her, right?

IM MENTIONED IN THE NOTES?? UH HELLO I LOVE YOU. timetravel fic! war fesh sakura gets sent back into her pre academy self. sakura is gonna make shit work this time around and shes gonna go through root to do it! MOKUTON BABEY!!! it gets changed from a kekkai genkai to a learned skill based mostly on amazing chakra control (which my girl has in spades!!) SAI AND SHISUI BBY I LOVE YOU// im in love with shin now too and god damn it i want all of them to be okay :’( warning for death at the hand of trees, mentions of blood, and the massacre

Seeds of Knowledge by Ice_Eagle

ship: none // words: 24845 // chapters: 10/? // updated: 3/15/19

It starts with an Academy internship at the Konoha Library and Archives. The only problem is the Library/Archives has never had an intern before. Ever.

Everyone is an idiot at the beginning. There is always room to grow.

set during early academy days. first person pov and it switches from characters. i dont usually leans towards stories with lots of ocs (especially where theyre a major focus) BUT they’re all so interesting plus UM? i LOVE the detail put into the libraries aaa// sakura gets to live her strongest book nerd life. also im a huge fan of the concept of internships in shinobi villages and just of the adults caring abt the kids following them in their career choices. also sakura starts getting along with sasuke and it makes me super happy

Our Oath (We’re Expendable) by amako

ship: none // words: 27194 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 3/1/19

Apparently, Sakura is the last Haruno.

set post war, more during the recovery period. sakura gets to be part of a largely not well known clan with a secret that could put sakura’s life at risk if it got out. dont wanna spoil a lot but basically! she gets married and has to deal with clan things and letting other know

⭐If You Have the Hounds by dragonyfox

ship: narusasusaku // words: 31856 // chapters: 8/? // updated: 1/10/19

...go ahead and pursue.

can i just say.. this fic series really rips out my heart ..there were several parts i started tearing up at bc im tender and im baby! they all love each other more than anything and im crying just thinking about it. they literally built a whole fucking village because naruto is a mad man but his team loves him. literally they’re playing the longest con ever and it has me cackling. this is a hell of a fix it fic and it has me bawling itachi is really soft and team taka is there! (the way uzushio is described makes my heart swell w love im so proud of them)

These Bitter Weeds by Katlou303

ship: sasusaku // words: 33315 // chapters: 8/? // updated: 12/2/18

Sakura begged Sasuke to take her with him when he was leaving Konoha.

He said yes.

set when sasukes leaves. she somehow manages to convince him to let her join? her reasons are about as solid as they could be. in the first chapter you can definitely where it’s starting to change into unhealthy codependency. it really shows in this fic just how young they are.. all their ideals are fantastical and grandeur and it really drives a nail through my heart :( ino continues to be a real one, kakashi is going through it, and im reminded that i love kimi :(( warnings for violence, orochimaru and kabuto, and dismembered limbs. nothing shippy insofar, can be read as friendship

seek by cloverhoney

ship: sasusaku // words: 39062 // chapters: 12/? // updated: 1/15/19

Sakura disappears after taking a lifelong mission in exchange for Sasuke’s post-war acquittal. To give her the upper hand over her new targets and protect her from becoming a target herself, the world is told that Sakura is dead and gone - but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Sakura quickly finds she is still not strong enough to face her new enemies, and she seeks power in Shikkotsu forest. Sasuke, suspicious of the circumstances surrounding her death, seeks the truth regarding her disappearance, reconnecting with his childhood friends along the way.

Kakashi, the new Rokudaime, promises to keep Sakura’s secret, but with Sasuke on his heels, a council hell-bent on erasing the evidence, and the guilt of an empty grave, nothing can stay hidden for long.

set post war/pre epilogue. TAGS SAY SAGE SAKURA BITCH!!! (AND MOKUTON BABEY) shes nice but dumb and thats just team 7 (shes their single brain cell.. how dare she :(((( ) fuck the council. fuck those elders. fuck blue lives mariah carey’s skinny. my only gripe is that shes written as having small chakra reserves nd low stamina and im like. hello? Absolutely Not. whatever parts her Legendary chakra control dont cover, her seal is still there. small reserves my ass. also taijutsu is Literally one of her specialties >:( this happens in fics so often and im *teeth gritting* (FUCK. ACTUALLY. SHE’S FRESH OUT OF THE WAR. SHES TOUGH AS SHIT BY THIS POINT. im angry and annoyed and sad!!!) lol read if you want though. there are some neat bits (like when theyre in shikkotsu forest) mentions of eye gore, death, and blood (t..tbh.. i ignored all the sasuke bits :V IM SORRY I ONLY THINK THE PARTS WITH SAKURA ARE INTERESTING)

How Team 7 Came to Be by spica_starson

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 40916 // chapters: 5/15 // updated: 10/22/18

What if: -Naruto had reached out to Sasuke earlier on? -Sakura never developed a crush on Sasuke? -The team isn't just a repeat of their predecessor?

What if Team 7 stayed together through thick and thin?

Or: If Team 7 was the focus of the series.

sakura isnt in the first chapter BUT she still gets to be a focal point because of course and the second chapter is dedicated to her. y’all already KNOW im soft for team as family fics!! they’re all best friends and care about each other a lot and im really weak okay. also kakashi loves his new kids. not a cliffhanger! so dont worry if you’re not up for waiting on an update or are like me and prefer reading finished fics! (there’s a separate spinoff one shot, not canon to the original fic, titled Alone set when naruto and sasuke fight on the roof)

Crow’s Disciple by Tobi_Black

ship: none // words: 42135 // chapters: 36/? // updated: 12/9/18

Sakura's just a child, a civilian, considered harmless. No one looks at the pink-haired little girl and sees the kunoichi, the shinobi, that she could become. They don't see the calculating glint in her eyes, nor the claws hidden. They don't see beyond the shy smile and tears. They don't see the loyal heart willing to give everything for those loved. Not yet.

starts off pre academy w sakura nd naruto both in the same orphanage. UGH MY GIRL IS SO SMART and this writing style lends itself so WELL to detail ghghgh// sakura’s bestfriends continue to be blondes and ino fosters a baby crush aa. SHISUI BBY ILY (and asuma gets to be a prominent figure in sakuras life which i hadnt read in a fic before) warnings for violence, death, blood

⭐Dangerous Habits (Dangerous Girl) by Dovey

ship: none // words: 44210 // chapters: 24/? // updated: 11/21/18

After the disasterous mission in Wave, Sakura returns to Konoha with a new drive: she wants to truly earn her spot on Team 7, and be able to protect her teammates. Unfortunately, nobody else seems to be willing to support her new goal, so she resorts to teaching herself: she decides her team needs a medic, and since she doesn’t have the connections or record to earn a place at the hospital, she practices on herself.

AKA the fic where sakura gets to be as dumb and have as little regard for her personal wellbeing as every other Naruto character, & teaches herself how to heal by inflicting & then fixing her own injuries. This deals both with some major changes to the plotline given her new skills, and the overall team dynamic.

starts post wave. sakura gets that kick in the ass to get better and do it fast and she gets to be as reckless as her teammates like she deserves! no one helps her initially but god DAMMIT if shes not gonna do something anyway (flexing her smarts!! shes such a genius and yeah it’s chaotic as hell in this fic but god if it isnt cool) she gets a VERY unhealthy addiction to pain and has to deal with generally negative feelings of self worth.. BUT finds a pal and a friend in gaara :) she gets close to her teammates (sasuke bby… :(((..) and friendly w tenten and tsunade and anko! chapter 12 has a scene w cool imagery// HEFTY (and pretty immediate bc it hits u in the first chapter) warnings for gore, death, self mutilation, misuse of organs (lol), blood, implications of sexual abuse (doesnt happen, the adults are just concerned that thats whats happening and not her. yknow. doing all of uh That)

Unbreakable Company by Shyaway95 and teslatempest

ship: sakura & kakashi // words: 44407 // chapters: 4/15 // updated: 2/5/19

Naruto and Sasuke were gone. Their Village had just begun recovering from the invasion, and every available shinobi was needed. Kakashi knew it was his duty to serve, to leap back into the darkness of ANBU at his Hokage’s command. It was only the thought of pink hair and desperate green eyes that made him pause. Would he abandon his last, remaining student?

He would as soon pluck out his right eye.

They were all that was left of Team Seven and Kakashi was going to make them unbreakable.

set after sasuke defects. HONESTLY kakashi actually doing smthn about his “people who abandon their teammates are worse than scum” saying that he likes to repeat is everything i couldve wanted. sakura deserves all the support in the world and this fic REALLY delivers. this is also a REALLY good fic if you like kakashi and want him to be happy about something. team seven as family is real!! could easily be read as a one shot if you dont wanna wait for updates or read a longer fic!

⭐Early Summer Rain by orlha

ship: none // words: 50063 // chapters: 14/15 // updated: 3/5/19

Having parents doesn’t always mean it’s a good thing and just because scars can’t be seen doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The Chuunin Exams leaves Sakura an orphan and she doesn’t cry.

set post konoha crush. immediate warning for death. sakura has been through a lot and kakashi is a sweetheart. he’s still pretty awkward but his heart is in the right place! god sakura i love you much :((((( shes got a lot of trauma and feelings of inadequacy and it hurts me. sasuke is angrier and naruto continues to be amazing (and i love him for giving sakura smthn to strive for) AND GENMA IS THERE! I LOVE YOU GENMAAA (AND SHIKA)!!! sakura gets praised for her chakra control and god does she deserve it. kakashi gets a clan! and sakura finds herself a family! and inner stays! listen. this shit has me SOBBING. she’s on the road to recovery and getting better everyday and my heart is WARM!! god im so happy this story has me happy stimming at some points ghuhg// warnings for child abuse, mentions of torture, attempted suicide, self harm, relapse, violence, blood, and mentions of eye trauma. there is an ongoing “sequel” with aus based in the early summer rain universe!

Learning Curve by ishiryoku

ship: sakura & team 7 // words: 50529 // chapter: 5/? // updated: 1/14/19

This is the life she chose: the path of the shinobi. It's either roll with the punches or be left behind by her team—and Sakura's not about to let them go off on their own.

starts off during the end of the wave arc. i love the self analyzing in the first chapter and also that wake up call. in a better (more sakura loving) universe this is that turning point that we shouldve gotten :( ALSO CAN I JUST AAA!!! all the little times kakashi is there to reassure her make me wanna fucking BAWL plus this is THE team as family fic i’ve been needing in my life aa GOD sakura just loves her team so muuucccchhh// the tags say mokuton sakura and fuuinjutsu naruto but it’s not there yet! (also naruto get bit, yikes) warnings for lots of dissociation, death, self loathing, paranoia, and trauma

Satori (Between the Lines) by jaylene

ship: none // words: 50665 // chapters: 12/? // updated: 3/3/18

While attending the Academy, Sakura's field experience assignment with the Konohagakure Intelligence Division ends up being more valuable than she'd ever guess.

another fic w/ the concept of interns and adults fostering the growth of ninja kids before they graduate! my girl is constantly flexing her smarts and im so proud! (torune is just a baby who deserved better than canon gave him :() and GOD i love ino!! and so does sakura and she just loves her friends a lot and people in general bc her baby heart is so filled with love and OOF// the aburame are SO interesting im thankful for the focus they get (and the focus on ciphers and T&I and ibiki!) god theyre all kids. just little babies :((( warnings for bullying and manipulation (however unintentional, it doesnt negate the harm caused)

Ties That Bind; Break by Igot2peedou

ship: shikasaku // words: 50931 // chapters: 17/25 // updated: 8/25/18

She severs their ties, decidingly, not because of Sasuke. Well. Not for the reason Ino suspects (but Sakura never clarifies, and that is lying by omission. isn't it?)

~~~

Sakura Haruno can’t help but feel. Not only her emotions but other peoples emotions. She is always prone to crying and for good reason— she can’t shut others emotions and must deal with her own and those closest to her (relationship wise.) Because a painfully tragic incident involving her father’s murder Sakura can no longer handle her “gift” and does the only thing that will stop her suffering.

She commits social suicide, and lets her best friend think she ended their friendship over a boy. This is her story....

au. set when sakura starts her rivalry w ino. sakura can sense emotions??? warning for death mention in first chapter and wow okay thats a lot. sasuke is traumatized and it takes out sakura and oof! this story is so so interesting,, shes stumbling her way through figuring out how her small clan’s blood line(?) works (how it’s more of a hassle than anything) also it gives her a really good disposition to genjutsu which she tries to get better in (she also had an earth affinity plus all of team 7 have a petty rivalry going on) sakura has trauma and goes hard in the exams. warnings for blood, gore, disembowelment, dismemberment, animal and human abuse/death, the rivalry between t7 is baaaaadd,, also disorienting plot twist in chapter 16! 

Her Eyes Saw It All by ich_bin_ein_stern

ship: none // words: 63502 // chapters: 13/? // updated: 8/29/18

Sakura can’t recall much of the details regarding the mission in Wave, but what she does remember - there are scars left behind. The life she knows changes after this mission and, for better or worse, she accepts it and moves forward. She won’t allow herself to fall behind.

set during wave au. i love when characters continue to survive due to sheer instinct and pure stubborness. TEAM AS FAMILY!! theyre all so supportive of each other it makes my heart hurt (im soft serving it so hard. theyre SO nice to each other and theyre Actually friends and naruto and sasuke support sakura SO much it makes me cry) sncjf and the nara family is so fucking sweet also MOKUTON!! AND SHE HAS THREE AFFINITIES!!!!! (mokuton is changed here from a kekkei genkai to a learned skill tho) honestly it’s just what she deserves. also sakura is just SO level headed and smooth??? it’s really neat. warning for a healthy dose of death and gore in chp12, it picks up fast

In Death, Life by TeaFourTwo

ship: none // words: 136409 // chapters: 13/? // updated: 3/24/19

Only by reason of having died does one enter into life.

“Sakura. Just Sakura” Thats how they’d introduced her. She knew it was true, she was no longer a Haruno after all, but it didn’t stop the words from feeling like a dull knife in her side.

Or, Sakura goes to the Uchiha compound the night of the massacre and comes away an orphan with more questions than answers.

au starts when theyre babies!!! before ino nd sakura become rivals. baby sakura loves her friends a lot she didnt deserve that :((( super interesting bits tying sakura to the uzumaki?? sasuke.. :( .. sakura is traumatized and doesnt know who her family is and doesnt trust what people say to her (tenten is in the same orphanage as her! naruto too and i love him and i wanna personally hurt everyone who’s ever been mean to him) NARUTO AND SAKURA BEST FRIENDS!!! traitors are everywhere!! and the branch family get me feeling some type of way (can danzo choke.. fr…) the depth given to yin and yang chakra… ops mind…FUCK all the myths and spiritual stuff and how it’s all forgotten history?? UGH im in love/// (tsunade… mom..) warnings for the massacre, death, and blood

⭐Second Bite at the Cherry by Sakinthra

ship: none // words: 142249 // words: 41/? // updated: 3/25/19

There's been a storm brewing inside Sakura ever since Sasuke left to seek out Orochimaru, and the growing realization that she might not be half the shinobi her teammates are. She's always been the one that held back and let the boys finish the job, but it's clear she can't let herself be the weak one any longer. It's time to take her fate into her own hands...and it starts with breaking into a library.

set post sasuke rescue mission. i LOVE the introspection and worldbuilding im such a sucker for it// she gets to make rash and stupid decisions while still flexin her smarts and i am HERE for it!! she questions the state and adds skills to her arsenal (which is. tiny for a long time) shes smart and quick thinking but rash and impulsive so of course leaving the village and convincing ppl she went after sasuke is what she settles on (smh. her heart and heads in the right place bust smh) GAARA BBY I LOVE YOU SO VER MUCH (shukaku.....) (and fine.. i kinda love u too kakashi >:/) theyre a couple of dumb brats trying to help people (sai joins!!!!! his interactions w gaara especially are endearing) (hidan? is a prominent figure? i hate that hes one of my faves...... big fan of the depth given to his religion tho. it's super fascinating) BOIII NARUTO GETS DISILLUSIONED BY JIRAIYA AND GOES TO TSUNADE AND MY HEART IS BEATING OUT OF MY CHEST/// naruto's choice makes me wanna cry and sasukes little intermissions are pretty funny and get interesting (i support u karin!!) theyre dumb kids stumbling into politics and ending up going on a quest to save the world? the way all the pieces shift into place.. how the wheels start turning... the rest of the nine getting involved... poetic cinema.....warnings for death, blood, and decapitation

⭐Five Petals by PrecariousSauce

ship: sasusaku // words: 143900 // chapters: 22/? // updated: 2/6/19

Several things happen all at once in less than a minute’s time.

Sakura’s elbow slams into Sasuke’s side from an angle he doesn’t anticipate, sending him tumbling end over end off the branch.

Sasuke rights himself just a second too late and without checking where he’s going to land– When he does his knee twists, he feels a lightning bolt of pain shoot from his sole to his head, his leg gives out.

And Orochimaru’s teeth sink down to the gum in Sakura’s shoulder.

starts during chunin exams. timeline is followed pretty closely. fic is mostly centered around sasuke and from his perspective but sakura has the most pivotal change (:(). sasuke is cute, sakura is so in over her head, and naruto is naruto. sasuke loves his team a lot :(( and GOD i love when the kids act like kids even though that reminder hurts. sasuke takes up healing!! how cool is that!! AND TSUNADE IS SO FUCKING COOL I LOVE HER!!! and danzo should choke fr..... AND GOD DO I LOVE THE KONOHA 12//// warning for orochimaru, violence, death, and blood

⭐Hoshigaki by writer168

ship: none // words: 168116 // chapters: 32/? // updated: 3/10/19

When Sakura was three, her father told her he was a criminal. When she was seven, the last thing she saw of him was the sword on his back. When she was eight, she had a friend named Kiba. When they were twelve, they met Shino.

And when they were genin, they began to fight for the truth because they could no longer fight for the sake of Konoha.

au. sakura is kisame’s kid! kakuzu.. kinda sucks, konan is alright, pein is really dramatic, and sasori nd orochimaru are awful as per usual. kisame is just doing what he can to be a good dad :((( sakura is real smart and kiba is great and so is shino!! (ily baby) theyre all bestfriends and theyre all a little weird and i love them so much :’) theyre all manipulative little shits and i love them for it (and i love you too naruto) kurenai’s team develops dangerously (really starts to show in chapter 18) honestly this writing style really knows how to keep me absolutely enthralled (hiruzen and danzo.. i’ll kill you with my bare hands) i love kurenai and i love how much she cares abt her team :’( tenzo baby.. be there for them (same at you kotetsu) kisame is a good dad okay!! im not changing my mind on that! orochimaru can choke!!!!! team 8 is a family and theyre ride or die bc theyre really in some deep shit!!! i need the state dismantled and my kids are gonna do great. (bro im so fucking weak for all the world building and symbolism, GOD this fic is written so fucking amazingly) warning for young pregnancy, death, blood, gore, child endangerment, human experimentation, and eye gore/horror

LEFT UNFINISHED

Dirty Family Secrets by orphan_account

ship: none // words: 1431 // chapters: 1/?

Post-Sasuke defection to Orochimaru.

Something feels off about Sakura's parents, but before she can question them about it, they're both gone. She came from a family of civilians, there is no way both her parents were traitors, right?

Kakashi's Apprentice by Right2nowthen

ship: narusasusaku // words: 3440 // chapters: 1/1

In which Kakashi and Sakura hit the road and everything changes.

The Cherry Blossom Blooms Twice by Right2nowthen

ship: none // words: 3666 // chapters: 1/1

Who or what is Inner Sakura? As the fate of the world hinges on this question, Sakura seeks answers...

Today I Choose Joy by Nine_Stoic_Crayolas

ship: none // words: words: 5867 // chapters: 4/? // updated: 8/11/17

Sakura can See certain things. A story about a little girl, a couple of red eyes and Death.

The Company of Trees by theroadkillcafe

ship: none // words: 22646 // chapters: 5/? // updated: 6/7/17

Sakura is bullied, a dead kekkei genkai is reborn, and things go a little bit...differently.

Haruno Sakura and the Heuristic Method by MoofieLou

ship: inosaku // words: 41986 // chapters: 8/? // updated: 6/22/17

The flower that blooms last may catch the wildest wind of them all.

Alternatively: Sakura graduates from the academy, buys herself some anmitsu to celebrate, and arrives home to find her mother being beaten bloody by a thief. Things are different after that.

--

A heuristic method (/hjᵿˈrɪstᵻk/; Ancient Greek: εὑρίσκω, "find" or "discover"), often called simply a heuristic, is any approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical method not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but sufficient for the immediate goals.

set when the kids graduate. op retconned ino nd sakura rivalry and im thankful they stay best friends warning for violence in chapter 2. theres smthn i love abt blinding panic turned into survival instinct. sakura is prone to anger and i LOVE it!! also her family is fleshed out!! i love sakura so so much shes really snarky and smart (and she becomes kakashis fave! oof!!!) ggg team 7 getting along fills me with icky gooey love/// warnings for violence and blood. this fic hasnt updated in such a long time but it’s so so good and im hurt it left on a cliffhanger :((

Tempest by cywsaphyre

ship: none // words: 45233 // chapters: 6/? // updated: 7/20/12

Back in time and armed with years of future knowledge, Sakura is ready to take the world by storm. Except... she's four again, not twelve. Ah well, nobody said she couldn't start a little early. Gen, time travel, AU, Sakuracentric.

time travel fic but she baby! also oh FUCK my heart is melting naruto is baby and sakura wants her boys to be happy this time :’( and also ino is baby and i love her. GOD theyre all four years old and babies and sasuke is so cute and my heart huuuurrtss :’((((( my baby girl is so smart and she loves strongly and theyre all little brats acting like kids and im soft (team 10 feelings..) (and sakura is Literally preventing a massacre bc she fucking rules) MY TEAM SEVEN LOVE MUSCLES ARE FLEXING!! warning for mentions of trauma, mentions of kidnapping, blood, and death. this fic hasnt updated since 2012 though like.. *incomprehensible*

A Lot of Fight Left in Me by Stormwind13

ship: none // words: 73814 // chapters: 12/? // updated: 10/29/17

Sasuke deserted the village. Naruto is being taken away for his own safety. Sakura is left with the broken remains of her team and a teacher that's barely in the village, but she'll find a way to make this work. She has to, because all those lectures about teamwork had to mean something. Didn't they?

this fic hasnt updated in a while but it's so good :((( team 7 is in shambles and sakura just wants a teacher and to get better (i love iruka...) OH! and i love how close the konoha 12 are:) i love the little worldbuildy bits that give depth to the village. theres lots of ocs and a mini uzushio (that sakuras a part of!!) it's super interesting but hasnt updated since 2017 and i checked and this fic was the most recently updated fic op has :((((( it's still a good length and a great read but leaves at a cliffhanger which isnt as bad if you stop at the last break. warning for violence

[interesting-blog-name]

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool Review

Here I am once again listening to Radiohead’s discography. Following a beginner’s chart I found on Reddit, I saw A Moon Shaped Pool was the one to go with after Kid A if I wanted a “more orchestral”-sounding album, and pre-assuming from the many “Radiohead albums represented by *blank*” videos I saw, this one seemed to be about Thom’s divorce, and just really sad. I had high hopes, and am happy to say, came out of this fulfilled.

The most obvious characteristic to this album is how well composed it is. The band takes a deep dive into the orchestral elements in some of their most notable past tracks, with nearly every song in A Moon Shaped Pool boasting a gorgeous violin composition, backing pianos, and in a few welcome instances, chilling cellos. It sometimes feels as if the Jonny decided to make another film score, but this time the film is the band’s latest years, if that makes any sense.

The album is beautiful and extremely well layered, the songs seem to pull the listener’s arm and take them through beautiful landscapes of sound, and every one of them is unique; the vast white nothingness that comes to mind in Daydreaming, the sunny morning in a beach that forms around you as you listen to Desert Island Disk, or the gloomy, dystopian city Thom evokes in Glass Eyes, they never cease to amaze.

While the album does center around its orchestral instrumentation, it isn’t 100% a chamber pop album, as Radiohead’s more experimental, art-rock side comes to light in tracks such as the bossa nova inspired and personal favorite of mine, Present Tense, the heavy, droning but rhythmic Ful Stop, featuring some of the band’s most impressive instrumental works in the record, with its dynamic guitars and special focus on Phil’s masterful drumming to tie the song together. The more rock-oriented songs Identikit ­– transcending into this nice little passage of gentle synths over Thom’s distant falsetto vocals (“Broken hearts make it rain”) - and the later half of Decks Dark are as effective as ever, even if more toned down and spaced-out than the usual.

A Moon Shaped Pool is beautiful, atmospheric, at times tense, but above all, it is introspective, because describing a Radiohead album as “depressing” may sound redundant, and a handful of songs throughout are actually very hopeful and uplifting. But this record’s vibe swallows itself in its self-reflection. It isn’t flashy, it isn’t wild, it lays back into comfortable acoustic beauty and occasional electronic-ambient flavoring. At its most folk-inspired and cheerful, the band sings of climate change in The Numbers, with its pretty, albeit simplistic lyrics and composition; Buddhist values and perhaps mindfulness in Present Tense, coated by some of Thom’s greatest vocals in the record; and finding a light at the end of the tunnel in Desert Island Disk. On the other end of the spectrum, Daydreaming, Decks Dark and Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief are ambient-inspired hopeless anthems, with lyrics such as “Dreamers, they never learn, (...) beyond the point of no return. (...) Then it’s too late, the damage is done.”, followed by a verse which seems to describe Radiohead’s creative process from a white room with a window, in real barebones style. Then come the reversed vocals hinting at Thom’s separation (“Half of my life”); and I don’t think I would be able to mention the dread that surrounds Decks Dark and do it justice, with how in-your-face the sadness in this track is.

The previously mentioned Tinker Tailor song features odd, nature-inspired lyrics that I myself can’t quite understand the meaning of. “The one you light your fires to keep away” is not explicitly revealed in the song: could it be depression? A formless menace? Aging? I personally don’t know, and maybe it’s best I don’t. It leaves the song open for interpretation.

I can’t help but feel Burn the Witch feels a little out of place in the tracklist, even though it serves as a considerably good intro. It’s a weird feeling I have with it, as it feels a bit too upbeat and boisterous for the album, but at the same time, setting it apart from the other tracks also works in its favor. In any way, it isn’t amongst my favorites, but I can appreciate it, with its intense violins, unforgettable lyrics and terrifying ending.

It wouldn’t be right to talk about this album without mentioning True Love Waits, a legendary Radiohead song, unreleased for years until now; the song is older than me, and since I’m just becoming a fan, I unfortunately don’t have an emotional attachment to this song like countless others. However, it is very nice that the band decided to insert this song into this album and I can see how much that might mean to others, not only for its history and how much the band progressed, but also for the raw beauty of the song, being dubbed the “saddest Radiohead song” by the Sporify API, fitting perfectly within A Moon Shaped Pool, especially as the closer to such an emotionally charged album.

Overall, I feel the album has a good concept and an amazing execution, sacrificing experimentation and the bold, alien directions some Radiohead projects would take, for a mellow experience that sits comfortably within the band’s talents and lyrical themes. The listener leaves the album in a much more introspective state than when they entered, and none of the tracks seem to derail the scenic, brilliantly put-together trajectory. I’m not as passionate about this album as I am with Kid A, or Souvlaki, which I’ve covered here, but I find comfort in this album, and I’ll never forget it.

 FAVORITE TRACKS: Daydreaming, Desert Island Disk, Ful Stop, Glass Eyes, Present Tense, True Love Waits

LEAST FAVORITE TRACKS: Identikit, if you put a gun to my head and asked for one.

 8.6/10

“As my world comes crashing down, I’ll be dancing, freaking out, deaf, dumb and blind.”

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 8: Bellarke, I Know Who I Want to Take Me Home

Bellarke, Modern AU, ~1100 words, for anonymous

90s/2000s song inspo: #32,  Closing Time - Semisonic

Gotta be honest, I was not up for writing tonight, but you know what, I was up for self-introspection even less. So here we are. Barely edited because I’m just not in the mood.

Currently taking requests for 90s/2000s inspired fics; send me a pairing and a number between 1 and 217 and I’ll write a scene based on a song from my Nostalgic Childhood Music Playlist

My tag list: @ciewill @dealingdreams @shadowheron2013 @julyrubyrose @wonderland-promises @hanav @rycewritestrash @thelittlefanpire @musicnote902 @stonybnatural @earthgay2052   (lmk if you would like to be added to or deleted from this list)

*

Bellamy and the blonde woman are the last two kicked out when the bar finally closes at 2 a.m. He's been watching her all night: first drinking with her friends at one of the tables, then by herself at the bar after the rest of her party leaves. She has short hair that reaches not quite to her shoulders, and she keeps running her hands through it and then frowning, a cute little pout that he feels in his heart, as if she expected it to be longer. She spends a little while looking down at her phone, then puts it away in her jacket pocket and doesn't take it out again, which surprises him. Either she has some impressive self-control, he thinks, or she's studiously avoiding something or someone.

Instead of mindlessly scrolling, she leans on the top of the bar and drinks her vodka on the rocks slowly, twirling it around sometimes to hear the ice clink against the sides of the glass, watching the other patrons or staring, instead, at the array of bottles and glassware behind the bar. She does look over at him sometimes, once even looks him up and down, a good boost to his ego, but she never makes eye contact long enough to show real interest. Every time someone else tries to approach her, she brushes him off. In these interactions, she has a particularly tired air about her, as if swatting away flies on a hot, muggy, summer afternoon.

Bellamy came in tonight mostly to talk to Miller, but the bar is crowded and understaffed and Miller is too busy, for the most part, for chatting. Bellamy stays until closing time, thinking maybe they can talk then, but Miller shoos him out with the other stragglers, claims he's tired but Bellamy knows better. Miller probably has his boyfriend coming over and doesn't need to waste time on some rehashed old conversations. Fair enough.

Through the windows, he can see a light drizzle has started to fall. The blonde woman takes her time sliding down from the bar stool, not because she is unsteady on her feet but as if she had wandered, in her thoughts, far from her own body, and she's stunned now by the difficulty of returning to it again, of finding herself a real person in the flesh and blood world. About to be shoved out the door and sent on home.

Bellamy's been amusing himself all night, trying to figure out what's going on in her head. She's beautiful but the creased and lightly purple hollows beneath her eyes and the way her fingertips scratch absently against her glass make her look worn. Bad breakup? he wonders. Just fired? Obvious possibilities but he thinks her troubles are something else. She has a sorrowful and tragic air about her, almost guilty, like she's here to burn away some regret. Something she's done that hurt someone else. Maybe because she had to, maybe to help some other person, maybe just for her own selfish reasons, or some complicated combination of all three.

Complicated combination of all three is how it usually goes, in his experience.

Outside, he sees that the rain is slightly more than a drizzle, the sort of fine, cool, precipitation that can only be seen by the marks the raindrops make in puddles and by a fine distortion in the air, that feels like thin needles. Bellamy watches the way the rain slashes down through the fuzzed out glow of the streetlamp, how the light reflects in the small puddle that is growing in the uneven pavement at his feet. This neighborhood at this hour is quiet and nearly deserted, feels like a nowhere place stuck in a nowhere hour, and the blonde woman is making no move to go home. She's standing under the shelter of the overhang with her hands in her pockets, watching the rain.

"Hey," he says, gets her attention despite the creaky, disused quality of his voice. "You want to split a cab or something?"

She tilts her head. He can't tell if she's amused or bored with him. "We don't even know if we're going in the same direction."

He hears just enough challenge in her voice to think that, perhaps, this is a hint or at least a dare, so he takes a step closer, still a safe distance between them, and says, "North side. What about you?"

He wants to say, I'm going where you're going but that would only be a good way to get pepper spray in his face, and anyway he only feels, now, as if he were in a dream. The buildings form hulking, ill-lit shadows, the streetlights along the road burning.

She doesn't answer for a long moment. Then: "I was just going to walk." And: "I don't do the rebound thing."

This sounds to Bellamy's ears like some sort of impromptu confession about herself, and he wonders if his first theory, the breakup, was right after all. Then he realizes that she is talking about him.

"I heard you talking to the bartender," she adds. "About that Octavia."

That Octavia.

"O is my sister," Bellamy says, an unexpected fondness to his voice—fondness not for the prodigal sibling but for the woman standing with him in the rain, who has the grace and the self-confidence, despite her deep air of fatigue, to laugh at herself, not a trace of embarrassment about her when she smiles her first genuine smile.

"Your sister," she echoes.

"Yeah."

In the long, quiet moment that follows, the rain briefly picks up, a cacophony against the sidewalk and the street. Bellamy watches the woman's face, memorizes it: the steel blue of her eyes, the hint of a smile, still lingering, that lessens the brutality of her squared shoulders, her hands that she's been keeping in her pockets, curled up into fists. He's not certain that he'll ever see her again.

She reaches out, without warning, and fixes the collar of his jacket: a particular form of intimacy he has not felt in a long time, had mostly forgotten even exists. The bit of smile has faded now, a thoughtful expression, regret-tinged, in its place. She pats down the corner of the collar. His breath stutters.

The rain has let up again, the brief hint of storm over as quickly as it began, and now beyond the safety of the overhang is a steady but near-silent downpour.

"I'm Clarke, by the way," the woman says, as she pulls the hood of her jacket up and pulls her sleeves down over her hands. "Maybe I'll see you around."

"Bellamy," he answers, almost too late. He is too caught up in watching her turn away. "I really hope you do."

[fydk-translations]

Cine21, Jan ‘19 issue: Kyungsoo interview

[mild spoilers for swing kids]

Q. Let’s start from Swing Kids (2018), your latest. Ro Kisoo goes about ruffling feathers, and his flashiness stands out from the rest of your filmography.  I had a lot of discussions with the director on what was best for Kisoo. There was [a boy in] an old reference picture almost exactly like Kisoo’s character. He was in an old school uniform and wore his army cap tilted; even his pants were wide and baggy. He seemed trendy for the time and I drew a lot of direction from the picture. 

Q. Ro Kisoo expresses himself through dance. What sort of experience was it for you, as his actor?  When I stand on stage as an EXO member, our choreography and formations are already determined. It was harder as Kisoo because there needed to be emotion in every one of his movements and expressions. I was especially worried about conveying the scene where he dances to David Bowie’s Modern Love in a way that the viewers would find refreshing and freeing. It reminded me of my first time trying to dance - frustration because my body wouldn’t listen to me, how good it felt to get each move down. Also, I could dance as I pleased because the director would capture the whole routine and the big emotions. Big movements for happiness, fast ones for frustration. To be honest, I was surprised by the final cut of that sequence. I didn’t realize how brightly I had been smiling. That dancing is something happy and to be enjoyed is what I’d felt as a musician too, but I had felt this so strongly that the smile came naturally. 

Q. It wasn’t something you planned to act out, but constant dancing is of course tiring, and that starts to show on your face. I’ve seen other actors say that actors who also know how to dance are better at filming action scenes, so it seems that your music career helps your acting one. All that happens when you try to put emotion into motions you aren’t comfortable making is that you ruin the movements and expressions. So for scenes where they’re both important, like the Modern Love one, I made myself familiar. When my body can move without my input, it’s possible to be expressive. All I could do was practice. Action scenes and dancing do have a lot in common, so I did have a little know-how from applying what I had already learned.

Q. The first and second halves of Swing Kids have totally different tones. As its leading actor, you must have put a lot of thought into handling the clash well. There was a part that I worried over for a while, without straying too far from how Kisoo would feel. The film’s tone shifts after the arrival of a supposed friend, Kwang-guk, to the prison camp. Kisoo’s mood worsens, but a sour face would have thrown off the intended tone. Kisoo wasn’t supposed to get too caught up in the atmosphere of that scene, and I kept his expression flat.

Q. It also seems like acting dryly ties in with your own disposition.  I wonder all the time why, in acting, anger has to be obvious, why there needs to be yelling. Because I’ve never expressed my anger that way. I usually try not to let my emotions complicate issues. Of course, I have to adjust because characters have their own personalities, but I went with what felt natural to me for Kisoo. 

Q. Swing Kids features both snappy cuts and long takes. Did you worry about how the editing room would preserve the rhythm of the scenes? I found it interesting rather than worrying. I liked the long takes because those let me get immersed in a location. I had so much fun with the scenes like the one where Kisoo keeps thinking about tap-dancing even in his sleep, and it would cut away each time with a tak-tak-tak! I really wondered how the end result would turn out. The Modern Love scene in particular, because (Park) Hyesoo and I had practiced and filmed for it separately. I was curious about what kind of picture that would make after editing, and I’m very happy with how it turned out. (laughs)

Q. There were a lot of iconic lines from the tvN drama 100 Days My Prince (2018). Bad delivery for the funny ones like “am I the only one uncomfortable?” and “the feeling you feel” would have weakened a sageuk, but you did really well with them. I don’t really dwell over how my lines should be said. The lines with the potential to become popular might have been funnier if their deliveries were lighter. But that wouldn’t make sense for a crown prince who had just lost his memory. To be honest, I did have some concern over making them more palatable. In the end, the answer was that I should just speak as the character would speak. That’s how I decided on the delivery.

Q. Conventional wisdom says that, for TV dramas, one must act in a way that the viewer will know what your character is feeling even if they’re not paying full attention. It seems your acting in 100 Days My Prince ran contrary to that. In the first half, you didn’t look at Hong Shim like you were in love. I think I just did what felt right. It would have been more romantic to look at each other like honey could fall from our eyes, as the saying goes, but that was unrealistic and wouldn’t have felt natural.

Q. Actor Sung Dongil said in an interview once that when he acts, he thinks of meeting the number 100 when acting with another. If the other is acting at a 70, he acts at 30. I think you make a good case for this with My Annoying Brother (2016) and Room No. 7 (2017) - in Room No. 7, actor Shin Hakyun made much larger actions than you, and in Brother, actor Jo Jungseok put much more flare into his character. I totally get what you’re saying. If there’s a character who brings the energy up, it’s good for watchability and tone and manner to have another who brings the energy down. I also learned how to lend realism to characters from Hakyun sunbae and about Jungseok hyung’s acting style.

Q. You’re the type of person who works diligently outside of the spotlight. I found that, in Room No. 7, you were constantly moving about in the background of some scenes, without distracting the viewer. Some of those parts came from talking with the director, but I wanted to fill up the space too. I found it fun to find things to do as my character that wouldn’t get in the way of the other actors. Even if the camera angle would barely catch a finger and I could honestly relax, I’d rather be doing something. 

Q. The two most disparate pieces in your filmography are director Lee Byunghun’s Be Positive (2017) and the movie series Along with the Gods. Your acting as the problem soldier Private Won was especially convincing in Along with the Gods: Two Worlds (2017). I thought there was nothing smooth about acting as Won Dongyeon, and that was reflected in-universe with the film. I have yet to serve in the military, and I’d never put a noose around my neck over the guilt of causing another’s death. The director helped me a lot. We talked about his personal experiences, as well as the characters. Much of my base [for Private Won] were films and other indirect experiences.

Q. In a previous interview, you said that Private Won was the most saddening of your characters and that you probably wouldn’t act as someone that pitiable again. I found it amusing how he was introduced as a problem soldier who kills an innocent and thus might get hate. Right, that’s not wrong... (with a seeking gaze) but doesn’t he make you feel sorry for him? He made a mistake that killed someone, wasn’t able to defend himself to anyone - I felt so bad for how much he suffered from circumstance. I understand why some would hate him, but I still think of him as the most saddening of my roles. 

Q. To be honest, while your acting as Private Won can be commended, the character himself is not admirable at all. People might misunderstand the actor because of the character. Many of your previous roles were of troubled, depressed youths let down by society. Did you not worry as an actor? Not at all. It’s not like all my roles have been dark, and I try to express a part of myself with each character anyway. I think, as long as I keep trying new things, the people who think that way will stop misunderstanding me. 

Q. Then in that regard, Swing Kids’ Ro Kisoo is an important point for you. Very. He’s a very dear figure to me. I wonder what will come next? What do I have left to show? It’s exciting to think about. 

Q. I can’t help but wish to see you a character with a lot of aegyo, maybe because you dislike it so much that even variety programs comment on it. (laughs) I think it’d be a fun role. I don’t hate the thought. (laughs)

Q. When you appeared on Naver’s Actor Chatter, you mentioned that if you could film a drama with actress Kim Hyesoo, you’d like it to be an introspective office drama where you’re a new recruit to her team. Then Park Kyunglim said, “And not a rom com? Kim Hyesoo might have a word with you!” To which you said, “With me? How could I (dare)...” Why do you think it’s so impossible? How would that even happen! I’d be incredibly honored, but there’s no chance of it happening. 

Q. Maybe if your character was like Jung Haein’s in JTBC’s Something in the Rain (2018), where noonas dote on his cuteness... That’d be really nice. I’d like to try being in a drama like Secret Affair (2014) too. I look forward to melodramas in the future, and trying out thrillers...

Q. Yeah, you were good in I Remember You (2015). Really? (laughs) Someone like him is good too, but I’d like to try acting as a completely average person. I’d rather embrace a variety of characters, not just one type.

Q. It’s Okay, It’s Love (2014) and Cart (2014) were your first and second released projects, respectively. You had to act as a victim of ALS; I wonder how you prepared for it when you’d never even gotten acting lessons before that point. For that, I had watched documentaries for indirect experience that I could use with my imagination to make [it seem believable].

Q. I heard that writer No Heekyung helped you a lot as you were starting out? It’s a given that she taught me skills, like how recounting things in staccato will help me with my pronunciation, but she talked with me about the characters too. I absolutely want to work with her again. I really enjoyed Live (2018) and its focus on daily life; my favorite of her projects is the film The Most Beautiful Goodbye (2011). I related to it a lot.

Q. I’m curious about how you figure out characters when aspects of them don’t overlap with you. Right now, are you more the type to conduct deep research, or the type to think it out? I look inside a lot. Of course I do my research too, but I leave the next step to my imagination. Sometimes seeing the actual props on set help, but the more I think through my character’s personality and mentality and how he would act or speak, the more the set seems to build itself. That’s what I’ve been doing so far.

Q. There are actors who write diaries in-character, or go through the day performing their character’s routines, or make exhaustive notes on their role. Mm, I don’t write anything down. My favorite scripts are clean and light, and I just keep it all in my head. My memory isn’t great, so I think trying to be exact would make acting too complicated for me. It’s easier for me to play things out mentally and then concentrate hard on set. 

Q. Didn’t you say that yelling at your mom in Cart was very hard for you, because it’s something you’d never done? How did you resolve it back then, and what do you do with similar impasses now? I played everything out in my head then, too. I just did it on set. How would I get angry when I’m by myself? I’m too shy to practice being angry in my room all alone or with the EXO members helping. (laughs)

Q. So you’re the type who just needs to be on set. I’m still not good at yelling. During Cart, I just said to myself (makes a sad face) “I’ll just do it when I get there,” but acting it out was actually thrilling. It was a huge thrill to feel what I’d never felt and to do what I hadn’t done. 

Q. When I view your filmography, I get the sense that directors love your eyes. You get unique close-ups that show off the fleeting emotions in your gaze. Is there anything in particular you do to act with your eyes? Uh... (thinks for a long time) I don’t do anything except stay in-character. My eyes are a bit weak. Whenever my immune system drops or I get too much sun, they dry out quickly and turn bloodshot. It would bother the viewer if I blink too much during a touching moment, so I put a lot of focus on my health. My eyesight is honestly really bad. I can’t monitor well on set, so watching the fully produced release, when I can have glasses on, will be my first time properly viewing myself. I can’t wear contact lenses either. I’m told it’s because the surface of my corneas aren’t curved like normal. When I put in lenses, my eyelids will push them down. So I wear glasses.

Q. There must be a certain comfort to live with the other EXO members, who also have their own acting projects. It’s closer to gratitude from their support than comfort. We don’t talk about our acting. Like I mentioned earlier, I get too embarrassed to practice acting with them.

Q. Have you ever given advice they took? I don’t. They’ve pointed out to me when I was slouching or hanging my head before, but we’ve never given each other acting advice. It’s not like I have any seniority. So how could I, when we’re all in the same boat? (laughs)

Q. There are people who police what it means to be a man - including in terms of physical build - and like to suggest actors who fit their mold for certain genres [over other actors who don’t]. It was very gratifying for me to watch you find success in 100 Days My Prince, maybe because you defy those definitions.  I don’t think much of their advice either. The admiration you feel from someone’s abilities, personality, or mentality is what matters. And I act for myself - I just want to figure out my own path, and to give my best in order to show my best. 

Q. Every time, without fail, you seem unsure whenever someone compliments on your ability or charm. Yet, no matter how I look at it, you have high self-esteem. How would you reconcile this? When someone keeps complimenting me, I feel embarrassed. Like I’m seriously going crazy (laughs). Even by my own judgment, I think I have a pretty high self-esteem; it’s important to have self-esteem. Except it might not be connected to my abilities, but with my well-being instead. I have to stay firm so that I’m not ruined by stress, so that I can keep going.

Q. During last year’s appearance on Knowing Brothers, I saw you say you hoped to be a farmer one day. You like cooking too, so I was wondering if you wanted a life like you’d see in Little Forest (2018)? (laughs) The Little Forest series (2014) from Japan is a big influence for me. I’d like to cook with what I grow, and to live in good health in a small, quiet home. I don’t know when it’ll happen, but I hope it’s possible by my late thirties or early forties. 

source: @wallnuut | translation: fydk 

[cykelops]

i ran out of steam so here's all i have for my Sub-Zero/Scorpion fanfic for a game I've never played with lore i do not understand.,

There is a well-believed misconception that fire is destructive, all-consuming-- wrathful.

Fire can be all those things, but it can also guard a fortress, signal for an ally, warm a friend. It's about control. It's about necessity. Hasashi does not need to be angry, so he simply isn't. He's the flame inside the paper lantern, trusted within reach of the delicate parchment because there is no questioning his purpose. Light the way.

Hasashi breathes in. The wind, heavy with the scent of spring and distant rains, feeds the fire in his chest. It is a quiet day. He rarely has a moment to spare for introspection as of late. He wants to believe the Shirai Ryu stand strong and stable, but a part of him will never feel secure in their strength again. Not when they managed to lose so much once. Confidence is a matter of never-ending cultivation.

But it's a quiet day, and that feels good.

Hasashi breathes out. He drops from his peculiar one-armed stance before the blood can finish moving to his head. It's borderline vanity to favor the exercise, but he likes to know he can do it-- if he can hold his body's weight on one palm without trembling then surely he can carry the world on his shoulders. If his novices voiced such a childish sentiment in his presence Hasashi would take their ankles with a staff. His little contradictions thrive in the privacy of his thoughts.

Unsurprisingly, Hasashi runs hot. Through strenuous exercise he's nearly ruined the bindings around his hands. A trail of sweat chases after another, racing towards at the waistband of his gi, crossing every carefully defined rise and fall of his muscles and the coarse hair beneath his navel. Hasashi spreads his arms and faces the window for some relief from the wind running through his bedroom. It's strangely cool for late spring. Refreshingly so.

He cocks his head to the side, towards the door. His muscles flex and tighten. One foot in front, one behind, one arm reaching for the weapons rack at his right, and the other ready to block and parry an attack from the front. Footsteps approach down the hall and as a warrior he is ready for them, but as a Master he knows it's merely one of his men come to seek him out. He knew it was one of his Shirai Ryu before they rounded the corner, but Hasashi has honed his instincts too long to make exceptions.

He can see only the messenger's shadow as he goes down in one knee.

"Grandmaster Hasashi," He says. "The Master of the Lin Kuei is in the garden."

Hasashi perks up. Rather than the door, he moves to the window where he can see the canopies like a green dome around Shirai Ryu Garden. Sub-Zero? Here? How strange. The Lin Kuei are traditional to a fault. In the past, Sub-Zero has sent men days in advance of his own arrival so they may be appropriately prepared for it. Hasashi had returned the courtesy infrequently. It was only nine months ago that they saw each other last, and Hasashi skipped the formality and shot a flare in the direction of Lin Kuei Palace. Efficient. Sub-Zero complimented him on it. He must have missed a far less noticeable icicle shot into the sky.

"There must be some emergency." Hasashi says resolutely.

"I don't think--" The young messenger does not finish, tongue having slipped without permission. Hasashi covers the distance in quick striders and opens the door a sliver. His visitor is dark-haired and about as young as he pictured him. A single gold band adorns his forehead.

"Speak, man. Let enough words die in your throat and they will suffocate you."

The young man shifts his weight from one hand to the other. Fear isn't in him when he looks up at Hasashi, but it's clear that he did not expect to exchange more than his first few words with the Grandmaster. He's got a spine in him. Good. Hasashi worries about a few of their recruits from time to time.

"He came through the front gate, Grandmaster. He spoke with some of the older members and they told me to call for you--But there weren't any Lin Kuei with him, as usual. And his dress…" Once more, the young man paused.

Hasashi crouched down to his level and pushed the door open the rest of the way. "What of his dress?"

He struggled to find the words, tricky things as they were. He shrugged helplessly. "He was dressed for the garden, Grandmaster."

Now what--in the name of all of Earthrealm--did that mean?

------------------

Hasashi takes the time to dismiss the young messenger and retreat back into his room. He pulls his uniform off the rack he displays it on and slips into it piece by piece without foregoing his mask. It's a methodical ceremony. Time-consuming. The situation in the garden concerns him, but his Shirai Ryu cannot know that. They must not see their Grandmaster rushing in his training clothes to meet a lone clan leader that was once their sworn enemy after he arrives unannounced and in strange clothes.

He doesn't keep a mirror in the room, but his reflection bounces off the edge of a blade and catches his eye. Beneath midday light, he shines like spun gold.

The garden is a short walk from the temple. He passes the main hall and the training courtyard before he comes upon the garden path. His men pretend to be preoccupied with their daily tasks, but Hasashi knows what the weight of their eyes feels like. Oddities are a common occurrence at the Shirai Ryu Temple, but rarely one as unique as the barrage of questions Sub-Zero has laid out for them. Why is he here? What does he want? Why not meet the Grandmaster in the temple among his people? That last one has them all on edge. Some still have doubts about the peace with the Lin Kuei. They've been at war for so long it feels unnatural to be on the same side, to be friends.

Hasashi wouldn't admit it, but sometimes he doubts too. Hatred like his is not so easily dispelled, even by truth or retribution.

At the edge of the garden Hasashi stops to listen. Sub-Zero's footsteps are distinct, but he can't make them out. Wind flows unencumbered through the trees, so he is not lying in wait hoping to land a pounce on his unsuspecting rival. Testing their skills is a game without consequences after their alliance formed. Keeps them young and thankful that they are comrades and not enemies, or they might have both died at each other's hands by now.

Instead of footsteps, there's a sound like a sharp knife cutting through paper. As Hasashi advances through the garden path it becomes more distinct. The sound moves in circles, closer now, then farther away, until finally Hasashi rounds the right corner and comes to a wide but shallow pond, usually only full of frogs and lily pads but now containing one Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei-- skating.

His long blue robes leave his arms and a stripe of skin on his chest bare. He wears a belt typical of the Lin Kuei over dark blue bottoms, adorned with symbols of his rank and small favors from his friends. He wears a tassel from Jade when he's out of uniform. There's a yellow knot in its place.

"Sub-Zero, what brings you here? You have managed to spook half the temple with your cryptic visit."

Sub-Zero stops, smiles as white as winter. The ice thins and cracks but for a disc below his feet. His man wasn't wrong to find the outfit strange. He would expect to find Sub-Zero wearing it while lounging in the privacy of his palace, not to visit what was once the den of his enemies.

"I seek a warmer climate, Hanzo, but my Lin Kuei prefer the cold, so I've left them to guard it."

He raises one hand to catch a petal falling from the tree above his head. He rolls it once over his knuckles before lowering his arm to finish its journey to the water. This cryomancer traveling away from the cold for a purpose other than a mission? Unheard of. It's rare enough that he didn't come into Shirai Ryu Temple to pay his respects to the old masters.

"So I see. What are you doing now?"

"Why, playing, of course."

"Playing?" Hasashi asks incredulously.

Sub-Zero nods. He holds his hand out flatly towards Hasashi as if to catch another petal. "Yes. Won't you join me?"

Hasashi shakes his head, to refute and to laugh. He worried for naught. Sub-Zero may be holding back something, but if he were here for business they would already be speaking of it. Emergencies are aplenty in Earthrealm, but this is not one. He feels an inkling of shame for the poor reception his friend received, undercut because Shirai Ryu cannot be blamed for not trusting a man they were ordered to hate for years. Sub-Zero isn't without fault for behaving so out of character.

He can feel that this is his Sub-Zero. He's encountered enough impostors and clones that he should be worried the man has seemingly lost his mind, but he isn't bothered. He's just a little off at the moment, and he never judges Hasashi when he's in a similar position.

"Ridiculous." Hanzo chuckles.

Sub-Zero's fingers touch his chin. He sizes Hasashi from crown to sole, moving his hand from one side of his face to the next, deep in thought. He raises his fists above his head. Sub-Zero commands his element, freezing his fists and the air around them, blowing white smoke low against the water and slowly rising. Hanzo can feel his power building even at a distance. Sub-Zero isn't like other cryomancers. His bloodright calls to Hasashi's. He can feel it in the marrow in his bones, vibrating along the same frequency as the fire that sustains Hanzo in an equal but opposite current.

"Ah, Hanzo!" Sub-Zero exclaims. "I knew you would join me eventually."

Hasashi sees himself out on the water, standing beside the master of the Lin Kuei with his arms crossed and absent his mask. There's a hard line diving his brow, but his lips are unrealistically and comically upturned. Sub-Zero claps a hand on his--its-- shoulder and faces the real Scorpion still at pond's edge.

An ice statue. Of him. Perfect but for the detail of his mouth. He's wearing the same uniform as Hanzo, a new uniform Sub-Zero had never seen until this day, but that he has succeeded in replicating in a manner or seconds. Hanzo does not share in this skill of creation, though he's burnt portraits on rock for the amusement of children before, but they cannot compare to the presence the ice commands.

Hanzo takes his first step on the pond and is not disappointed. His friend never allows his feet to dip into the shallow water, the way is laid out for him in ice. He never takes an uncertain step. He expects Sub-Zero to catch him every time.

"This icicle looks nothing like me, Sub-Zero." Hanzo tells him. He runs his finger over the bridge of the copy's nose. It's frighteningly accurate.

"Perhaps you're right. The resemblance might be lost here, given the fact I have not seen your face in nearly a year."

"Nine months." Hasashi corrects him. It fails to impress Sub-Zero beyond an unamused lift of his brow.

Hanzo sighs. He needs both hands to remove this new mask. It stops his enemies from ripping it off his face so easily, but it might be a problem if he's ever missing an arm after battle. He hangs the mask from the hook at his belt and pulls back his cowl. He shakes his hair out of the collar of his uniform. Sub-Zero watches him too closely. He's too quiet upon seeing Hanzo's face. He expected further teasing. It's disconcerting.

Late on his cue, Sub-Zero picks up where he left off. He makes gestures around Hanzo's face like a tailor taking measurements.

"Ah, I see what I've missed. That wrinkle there." He touches Hanzo's temple. That same hand travels upwards and brushes flatly over his hair. "Yes-- and your height. I see now, it's all wrong."

Too late does Hasashi feel the ice melting beneath his feet. It's enough to make him lose his balance and stumble in the water, wetting his ankles. Suddenly, he stands much shorter than his double and its sculptor.

"Kuai Liang!" Hanzo scolds. He kicks with the intent to soak the man, but he doesn't reel back in time as expected. The dodge never comes, and they stand equally wet.

"There it is." He says abruptly. "Not Sub-Zero. Not Master. Just Kuai Liang."

His voice is softer. The crow's feet around his eyes have smoothed from laughter to frightening fondness. Hanzo thinks he sees his friend at last. The real him, not the amusing creature full of mischief he found in his garden, but Kuai Liang.

"What's wrong?" Hanzo asks warily.

"Nothing." Kuai Liang says unconvincingly. The daze lasts for a moment longer before Kuai Liang comes to his senses. His lips flatten and purse. He appears frustrated by his own inability to adeptly communicate. "I dishonor myself."

The only man to meet his eyes unflinching turns as though he cannot bear to hold his gaze. Hanzo startles as his reflection begins to melt, but is far more concerned by Kuai Liang walking away. He grabs his arm and yanks him rougher than he intended, pulling him off the ice path so they stand on equal ground.

"Stop this. Where has your clarity gone?"

"Nine months." Kuai Liang snaps. He bends his arms and wrestles off Hanzo's grip. "Nine months I haven't seen you and it took me six to think it was better when you hated me because at least--At least I saw you more."

Giving breath to the words takes all the wind out of Kuai Liang. He's a ship at sea lost in a back pond, mourning a past where they were enemies to each other. If Hanzo didn't understand him so well, he might have taken offense. Kuai Liang doesn't fight Hanzo when he next places his hands upon him, but he doesn't face him readily, turning his body just so.

Dishonor. This man dares speak to him of dishonor?

For the past two-hundred eighty-four days, Hanzo Hasashi has craved company he cannot have. He's fantasized, in selfish detail, of spiriting the master of the Lin Kuei away from his ice palace. He's conjured a world where he can bear to leave his Shirai Ryu to their own devices and spend the rest of his life chasing Kuai Liang through Earthrealm and any other world the man might take him to.

Worst of all are the nights where Hanzo tells himself Kana would have wanted him to have someone. Someone who could cool his anger. That she would have held Hanzo's health and wellbeing above his duty to the clan and the people it protects. But he cannot excuse his desires by attributing them to Harumi's wishes. What he wants is his alone-- or perhaps, it's a madness shared by two.

"Kuai Liang… We are as one in this." Hanzo admits. "But I could not leave any more than I could ask you to stay."

Kuai Liang's hands are cold on his jaw. He cups Hanzo's face with impossible tenderness, gentle unlike a warrior and precisely like a lover. His cool, controlled Kuai Liang-- always the first to touch, to hold, impulsive when his heart calls for it. Impulsive as running halfway across the world because he missed him.

"I know, Hanzo. So why do I want you to ask?"

Hanzo takes the string of firsts from Kuai Liang by holding the back of his neck and bringing their lips to a crash. He cuts himself so sweetly on his lover’s teeth with bruising force. It's repayment, an apology, because Kuai Liang came to Japan before Hanzo had the initiative to visit Arctika. Because it's always Kuai Liang extending the olive branch. But most of all because he hungers and nothing else will do.

[ravenvsfox]

Prompt: When they get to earth, lance wants to stay.

You were the first in line, so you get prompt numero uno!!

Outside the cabin of the shuttle, pebble stars are tossed out into the dense, black lake of open space, so dark that Lance’s eyes start teasing out imaginary colours. It’s always so still out in the yawning nothingness. If he didn’t know how a bucking shuttle felt beneath him it might be hard to tell that they were moving at all.

Inside, the glow of tech is cool and purple, and if he squints at the light and not the Altean characters, its almost like the Garrison simulators, or the speedometer of the only car on the road at night.

Pidge is punching in coordinates next to him, and she twists her fingers over the frame of her glasses like she’s trying to make them zoom. For all he knows, she might have engineered binoculars into her glasses just like she tucks lifts into her shoes, making modifications to herself just like she does to everything else she can get her hands on.

He squirms, digging his toes down into the unyielding bottom of his boots, wanting to feel something real and movable, something not so claustrophobic. His hands shake on the controls, and he clenches his fists until they can’t.

They’d left the lions on the nearest neutral planet, defences up, Romelle and Krolia at a nearby base. Coran was on patrol duty, winding between their massive paws and craning his neck to speak earnestly up at them. It’s comforting to think of the lions as as they left them, a circle of statues and their sentinel.

It’s the weirdest thing, but sometimes Lance thinks that the way the lions talk to him is the way Gods talk to prophets, and everyone else in the cosmos just has to trust his blind, bruising faith.

He pushes a hand into his hair and just holds it there, steering left-handed and feeling his pulse push anxiously against his fingers.

“Uh oh, are we getting introspective?”

Lance’s hand jerks back to the controls. “Oh—uh. Sorry. We’re just,” he taps their trajectory on the luminous map between them. “So close.” He hadn’t realized how close until he’d checked, but his chest had been getting more and more crowded, like all of Earth’s radio waves and clutter was close enough to hear.

“Less than a light-year,” Pidge agrees quietly. The look in her eyes is so terribly far from home. The part of her that riffled through the desks of authorities and cut all her hair off is still with her brother in the guts of the resistance.

“Then why doesn’t it feel like we’re going home, huh?” Lance asks, smiling through the weirdness in his head. “Where’s the fanfare? Where’s the galaxy-wide fireworks display?” Pidge smiles tightly back at him.

“I didn’t think we’d get to go home until our mission was done, and, well, I don’t know. Maybe we don’t deserve all of that yet.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Lance corrects. The shaking’s only getting worse. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when they touch down and it’s making his hair stand on end and his teeth chatter. “I’ve deserved it since day one.”

“Oh yeah?” she says, laughing. “All that winking at instructors and seeing how many peanut butter m&m’s you can fit in your mouth paying off for you?”

“Only in every way possible,” he says. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but I’m a galactic superstar. Seriously.”

“Seriously,” Pidge echoes. They lapse into silence, and Lance’s body kicks up a fight when he sees the luminescent blue shape of the Earth drifting into view like a tossed frisbee.

“Jesus,” he breathes. He eases up on the speed, and they spend a suspended minute floating, watching, breathless. “Is she beautiful or what?”

“Usually I don’t trust your taste, but this time—“ she chokes up suddenly, surprising herself, and she tries to shield her face from view. Lance crows at her, his own vision blurring.

“Pidgey,” he says joyfully “We’re home.”

“Shut up.”

“Pidge,” he croons. She looks at him, eyes bright and wet, and neither of them can keep from grinning.

“We were born right down there,” Lance informs her. “The doctors wept with joy when they saw me.”

“They probably didn’t think your big head was gonna come out.”

Lance ignores her, feeling the jitters get brighter, harder to fight. “One moon, seven seas. It rains the kind of water that’s safe to drink. There’s barbecue pizza down there, Pidge.”

“I know,” she says.

“I can’t believe this. My mom’s right there.”

They’re still knee-deep in a revolution. They’ve been hurtling through space at warp speed in close quarters for weeks, and the only home they’ve ever known out in the black was blasted out of the sky, but the idea of setting foot on Earth without crawling into his mother’s arms is unthinkable.

The shuttle comms crackle, and Hunk’s voice comes through, “you guys seeing this?”

“Oh yeah,” Lance says. “You feelin’ as misty as we are, buddy?”

“He’s been crying since we passed pluto,” Keith says flatly.

“Oh yeah, that was an emotional gut-punch,” Hunk says.

“Paladins,” Allura interrupts smoothly, “I trust you’re happy to be home. I know it might be hard to believe considering my situation, but I’m happy for you as well. Pidge, can you set a course for where your father has taken those schematics? It’s of the utmost importance that we not waste any time.”

His heart sinks. “Funny, that feels like all we’ve been doing. A lot of autopilot and Altean uno and drinking whatever was in that funky bottle under the console.”

“Lance,” Allura says disapprovingly. The empty air hums and someone breathes out quickly.

“Princess, you’re not saying that we won’t be able to visit our homes, are you? Our families?” Hunk asks.

“I wish you could,” she says, sighing. “But we’re still fighting a war. I don’t think it’s practical—or safe—“

“No,” Lance says, aborted. “I mean—no.”

“Lance,” Keith says quietly.

“I’m not talking to you,” Lance seethes. “Pidge, put in the coordinates 23° 8′ 22″ N, 81° 17′ 10″ W, will you? I’ve got a couple of errands to run.”

“We’re not splitting up,” Allura says firmly. “I’m so sorry Lance, but the team is more important than—“

“Than my family?” he says, disbelieving. “Sorry, no, absolutely not, agree to disagree. I know that I’m supposed to save the universe or whatever, but I promised my mom—“ he chews his lip savagely, watching the whole world rush up to meet them and feeling helpless want thrash in his stomach. “I won’t be any help at the Holt’s. No one needs a guy with a rifle when you’re trying to put together a whole new teladuv, right? You don’t need me.”

“Yes we do,” Shiro says firmly, and Lance closes his eyes, fleeting. He’s having trouble focusing with his dearest wish and his nightmare both grabbing for a half of his brain.

“How about I go with Lance to Cuba and keep things on schedule,” Hunk offers. “I’d love to see his mom again. She always brings us empanadas.”

“We need your brain,” Shiro says regretfully. “We can’t do anything without your eyes on this.”

There’s a long silence, and Lance eases the thrusters to a more manageable intensity, muscle memory.

“I’ll go,” Keith says finally.

“What?” Lance asks at the same time that Allura says “pardon me?”

“I’ll go,” he repeats, stronger this time. “I’m also a fighter, not a scientist. I don’t have a home to go to, but I can take Lance.”

Lance flushes, not really understanding why. The way Keith said “also a fighter” like they’re cut from the same reversible cloth, red and blue. Sometimes the hot and cold of the two of them gives him whiplash.

“Is that… I mean, Lance,” Allura addresses him directly. He wishes he could see her expression, the wide eyes, the forehead that never really creases no matter how elastic her reactions are. “Is that what you want?”

He doesn’t even care that it’s Keith. He’s staring down the barrel of a mission where he’s fixed permanently in the background, tethered to the earth an eight-hour plane ride from the only place he’s ever felt consistently needed. “Definitely. Keith and I can stay in touch with you guys, and we basically have a super fast private jet if you need us.”

“Sorry, did you just say ‘Keith and I’ without bursting into flames?” Pidge asks, and Lance gives her a sidelong look.

“Right now, Keith is the only one of you who isn’t on my shit list. If Cubans are away from their families for too long, they drop dead. Do you want me to die?”

“Kind of a little at all times,” Pidge says, and he shoves her so hard that she would topple if it weren’t for the harness holding her to her seat.

“Alright,” Allura says definitively. “We’ll touch base at the Holt’s, but really… if I saw Altea again, no one could dream of keeping me from it.”

“Thank you princess,” Lance says gratefully, his chest aching, sweat cooling on his upper lip, hands finally still. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

______

Careening through the atmosphere is so surreal that Lance holds his breath all the way down. The clouds swarm the windows like eager fans, and it’s better than any welcoming procession he could have dreamt up. When they sink through the last of the low-slung wisps of water vapour, the burst of smoke-blue sky and human-made buildings stretched out below makes his steering stutter. Pidge laughs brightly at him.

They touch down on earth with the sunset crying out to be noticed, submerging everything in easygoing orange light.

The first step he takes on Earth in a year, and he falls to his knees.

His suit crunches against the dirt, and he takes his gloves off so that he can fist the grass and muck and smell the tang of it in the air. The oxygen is perfectly tuned for his lungs, and even though his body is off-kilter in the gravity, the ache matches the one inside of him. The breeze ruffles his hair, and he feels perfectly understood.

“You gonna kiss it, too?”

He looks up and sees Keith towering over him, looking imposing and amused at once. The rest of the team is staggered behind him, stretching their legs out and moving crates of supplies.

“That’s between me and her,” he sniffs.

Keith rolls his eyes. “Oh, because even the Earth is a girl to you, right?”

“Ge,” Lance says.

Keith blinks. “Uhh…”

“As in, the goddess?” Keith shakes his head. “Man, the amount of time we spend up between constellations and you don’t even know your mythology? She’s Earth? Mother of the Titans? Whatever dude, Ge is a hot goddess and I missed her sweet curves.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. Lance spreads his hand in the dirt and watches the way little buds of weeds and grass fold under his fingers.

“We haven’t even been here five full minutes and you’re already being gross,” Pidge calls.

“This is the prime time to be gross,” Lance calls. “Let me have my sloppy reunion, please and thank you.” His armour sighs as he eases himself down fully onto the Holt’s front lawn, heavy with gravity. He hears a rustle and looks up to find Keith sitting cross-legged a few feet away. He’s tearing out handfuls of grass with both hands, gaze tangled up in something Lance doesn’t think he’d be able to see even if he looked.

Lance watches him over one of his outstretched arms, but Keith catches him.

“What?” he asks.

“Two years,” Lance murmurs, and Keith’s face shifts dramatically. “That’s a long time away from home.”

“I haven’t been back to Earth in three years,” Keith corrects, annoyingly patient, completely obtuse.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Keith, Lance,” Allura calls. Her hair is pulled back tightly, and she’s still wearing her flight suit. “Stay for a briefing, and then choose whichever shuttle you wish. Pidge assures me that there are supplies inside, and an extra—what was it? cellular phone? If you don’t want to wear your helmets for continuous correspondence, you can instantly message us from this device.”

Lance grins. “Yeah, I’m familiar. Can’t say the same for Keithy boy here. Body of a buff twenty year old, mind of a confused old man.”

“I know what a cellphone is,” Keith says impatiently.

“Good,” Allura says quickly, before they can devolve into bickering. “Use it. Stay safe, stay smart. Do not forget why we’re here.”

“I think the background threat of annihilation should keep us on our toes,” Lance assures her, and Keith snorts. Lance smiles slyly at him.

The briefing is swift and painless.

Watching Pidge reunite with her parents is bittersweet, and he keeps imagining the way his own mother is going to swear and slap him and kiss him. He’ll apologize over and over to her for how he’s made her worry and how he’s going to make her worry. 

He’ll call his abuelita, surprise Marco and Luis in their shared bedroom by doing the secret knock on the doorframe, and bring Veronica the shard of sea glass he found on a planet called Luvesh (the sea was literally made of glass, and when you walked out onto its glittering surface, it spidered like ice. He bent down and picked a piece like a flower).

After the initial business, they change into street clothes and eat homemade lasagna, and Lance almost cries when the tang of tomato and basil hits his tongue. He winds the perfect stretch of real cheese around his fork and raises it in toast: to the only planet that does pasta right.

He and Keith carry fresh supplies between them in a cleaned out cooler, and they climb up into the cockpit of the smallest, fastest shuttle. They squabble briefly about who’s going to pilot until he reminds Keith that he’s the only one who knows where they’re going. 

They wave goodbye to their team, and cruise somewhere between commercial jet speed and the full thrust of an alien vessel, watching the clusters of cities below slither away, like a sheet being continuously pulled out from under them.

_______

The sun is nearly below the horizon in Varadero, but Lance knows every gnarl in every road and every stupid resort, and he knows the way everything intersects at his family home, the beating heart of it all.

Gliding low over the jewel-blue stretch of the ocean is so overwhelming that he’s worked himself up halfway to tears before he remembers that Keith’s with him, that Keith’s seeing the best place in the world for the first time while it’s drooping to sleep for the night.

He starts pointing things out, identifying distant shapes with even more distant memories attached to them. 

That’s the street market where I tried to haggle a boombox down to three dollars. Those are the beaches that the tourists swarm during the day. Most of them are too scared to swim in the ocean at night, so that’s when we always used to go. Somewhere in that block is the gelato place where I broke my tooth on a waffle cone. 

That’s the little theatre where Veronica used to dance. I used to go to all her practices, and I said it was to look at the pretty girls, but it was also to watch my sister out-dance everyone else on stage. We had chickens when I was nine, and we bought them at that farm down there, the one with the hook-shaped driveway? I was obsessed with Celia Cruz and Britney Spears so we called one of the chickens Miss Celia and one of them Brit.

It’s starting to hurt to talk about it. Everything out of his dreams is tangible again, and even though it’s hugged by darkness and silky quiet — not raucous and sunny like it always is in his memories — it’s so close that voltron seems like the dream.

“I didn’t know you could be this genuine for this long,” Keith says honestly, and Lance doesn’t look at him.

“You haven’t really met me until you’ve met me here,” Lance says slowly.

“Well…” Keith starts awkwardly. “Nice to meet you?”

He does look at him this time, incredulous, and when he smiles, so does Keith.

______

As soon as they step foot on his property, he starts crying for real. He’s been tightrope walking over an absence so large that he wouldn’t even look at it. Every time he overcompensated for his grief and did something stupid like fell in love with a complete stranger, he felt like he was lurching over that chasm, trying to find his balance.

It’s impossible to describe the feeling of reaching down to graze your knuckles against the sand outside your favourite place in the world, and feeling the heat from the day baked into it, spotting little footprints tracked up to the rickety staircase.

Keith walks a stride and a half behind him, quiet, pretending he can’t hear the sounds that Lance is making out of the deepest place in his chest.

“Keith, you can’t look at me right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because vulnerability is ugly.” He brushes his fingers over where his own name is written on the mailbox. His bike is propped up against the deck. Luis is probably using it, the bastard.

“I don’t think it’s ugly,” Keith whispers.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he pretends he didn’t hear. He can hear the waves unrolling on the shore like messy, misshapen carpets, the hiss of them wrapping themselves back into the surf. The air has that salt and citrus smell that lived in all his clothes before they were sterilized by months in the gasping, impersonal corners of space.

He walks up the front stoop, and he had really imagined this in the daytime, with the sun at his back, instead of the moonlight and Keith, both of them lonely but constant.

The door is unlocked, and he lets himself in, not breathing.

“Should I wait outside?” Keith asks, and it’s uncharacteristic of him to be so delicate about something.

“I need this,” Lance says quickly, grabbing Keith’s wrist impulsively. “I want— I need someone to back me up if… if they don’t believe me.”

Keith’s brow is an entire storm, thunderclouds and twisters of confusion and fear and discomfort, but his fingers curl to touch the hand Lance has around his wrist, and he nods.

The little clock on their front table ticks merrily, and there are lanyards strewn over the side of the little ceramic meant for keys, messy like his mom hates. His own face is ghostly in the Garrison cadet portraits lining the hallway, and he can see Keith peering at them out of the corner of his eye.

He reaches the place where the hall opens up into the living room, and stops. His mom is curled up in the recliner, asleep, and the home phone is clutched in her hand. He holds his own face in his hands, shoulders shaking, and all the gravity on his head feels like way too much. His knees give out, and Keith steadies him at the last second.

“I really don’t know if I should be here,” he hisses. His arm is around Lance’s waist, and there’s a weird dissonance to it, like he never left home or the castle of lions, or he’s not sure that they’re really that different. 

He feels weirdly like Keith belongs here, that he’s still an arm and Lance is still a leg on one cohesive person, and they could move giants together.

“Then who would’ve caught me just now?” Lance counters. His gaze finds his mom again, another kind of gravity, and he creeps closer, seeing the oven clock and the drawn blinds and feeling familiarity so acute that it’s like deja vu.

He stands over his mother, hand to his lips, ribcage quaking, and reaches down to shake her awake.

“Mamá,” he says hoarsely.

She doesn’t wake up immediately, and the longer he looks down into her lovely, worried face, the more his own face crumples. He can’t help the wounded sound that leaves the back of his throat, and she wakes at the noise, her face dazed and concerned.

“Mijo, what’s wrong?” she asks, her hand halfway up to his face before it hitches and drops.

There’s a beat of disbelieving silence, and then she surges upright, pulling the string on the lamp and squinting hopefully through the flood of light. When her eyes find Lance again, she gives this wavering gasp, her lower lip sucking inwards like it does right before you start sobbing.

“Lance?” She holds him by both his arms, shaking him, and he sinks through her grip to his knees. “Oh darling. My baby,” she says in Spanish. “How could you?”

“I’m sorry mamá,” Lance says, head bowed. “I’m so sorry.” She pulls his face up and smooths both thumbs across his brow.

“Don’t be sorry, mijo, just tell me where you’ve been. We’ve been looking for you. Searching the whole desert. All the stupid Garrison would tell us is that you were missing, presumed—“ she cuts herself off and shakes her head, jaw tight.

“I mean, you’re not going to believe this, mom.”

“My ghost son is sitting before me,” she says, hands in his hair, “more beautiful than ever. I dare you to shock me.”

Lance nods quickly, looking down at his own hands, trying to find a loose thread that will unravel a year’s worth of stories. “There’s… there’s a war.”

“There are many wars,” she replies gently. “Always.”

“No, there’s—do you remember the Kerberos mission, the crew that went missing?”

“It was in the news,” she says distractedly, combing fingers through his choppy bangs. “The boy you like, right? Takashi?”

“Yes,” Lance says, swallowing, hyper-aware of Keith in the doorway. “They didn’t die, they got caught up in a—in a war.”

“I don’t understand.” She’s looking at him with such open concern, and he wishes desperately that he could make thing simpler.

“Your son and I are soldiers,” Keith says from the doorway, and she startles hard, holding a hand to her chest and cursing in Spanish.

“Who—“

“Keith Kogane, former Garrison pilot, current paladin of Voltron.” He frowns. “I think.”

“He’s a friend,” Lance says simply.

“And?”

“And,” he takes a deep breath. “We’ve been fighting pretty much an evil empire in space, and we each pilot these sort of ancient, um, sentient cats, with the help of this princess we found in cryogenic stasis—“

“Ay, lance. Slow down, start again.”

“Mamá,” he says, exasperated.

“You should probably explain again,” Keith says helpfully.

“Thanks Keith,” he says hotly. “So we’ve been fighting in an intergalactic war, right? I’m sort of the unofficial red pilot, and my bayard is a rifle but one time it was kind of a sword which was—“

“Lance,” she interrupts, flicking the back of his head.

“Okay, okay, lo siento, I’ll go slow.”

It takes a long time to lay everything out properly, but his mom is never apprehensive or lost, she just wants to hear the facts, concisely, from different angles, until she finds some sort of solution. She’s always been good at peeling fact from fiction and plucking compromise out of thin air.

At some point, Keith gravitates over to the loveseat and makes himself comfortable, knife glinting from the holster around his thigh so noticeably that his mother purses her lips.

Sometime after midnight, Luis drifts down the stairs wearing boxers and a bathrobe, and when he sees Lance he trips down to the main floor and picks him up off the floor into a crushing hug. They stumble in an awkward square, shaking with euphoric laughter that might as well be crying, until Lance pokes him hard in the side, and they collapse apart, grinning.

Marco must hear the ruckus because he comes skittering down the stairs a minute later, already crying, and he tucks his head in Lance’s shoulder when he hugs him. By the time Veronica comes upstairs, her hair in a long loose braid and her face nearly unrecognizably gaunt, Lance can’t even speak. He nods jerkily and opens his arms, but she shoves him in the chest.

“Nothing to say, little brother?”

“Veronica,” their mother warns.

“They said you were dead,” she hisses.

“They also said I had an attitude problem, which we both know can’t be true,” he jokes. She shakes her head until a tear runs down her cheek and she has to rub it away.

“You are a problem child. I told mamá to stop having children after me, and if she’d listened we could’ve avoided so much mess.”

“But who would’ve gone to see you dance?” and he means it as a joke, but the idea of no one seeing her twisting like a rose towards the sun makes his throat close up.

She holds him by the neck, and then by the back of the head. “Bobo,” she scolds. “Don’t do that again.” She hugs him so carefully, and he screws his eyes shut, thinking about picking up to leave again, sailing back up into the stars and never coming back.

He’d forgotten what it felt like to be warm and safe and missed.

“I should probably leave you to it,” Keith says, rising abruptly, looking so uncomfortable that Lance feels a surge of fondness like flash rain, quick, heavy, and gone.

“No,” his mother informs him, getting to her feet and squeezing Lance’s face tenderly on her way by. “You brought my son home. I’m making you something to eat.”

_______

No one every warned him how intimate it would be to show someone your childhood bedroom. It’s the same feeling you get when you dig up a time capsule, uncomfortable awareness of what you thought was crucial when you were a whole different version of yourself.

Everything that he mentioned in passing in the trenches of the war is suddenly up close, scrutable, and Keith is taking it in like a museum patron, skirting the edge of the old messes, leaning politely in to look at portraits of friends and family.

“You have a picture of me in your room,” Keith points out, and Lance’s shoulders tense until he sees what he’s gesturing towards.

“A class photo, Keith. It’s not exactly a shrine.” He spreads out on the blue plaid bedspread and holds his hands to the pills of the fabric, worn exactly how he remembers.

Keith looks guilty. “No, I know, I just. I don’t know. It’s kind of… nice. To think that I’m this tiny part of your room. It’s stupid.” Lance looks at him blankly. “Forget it,” Keith says forcefully, crossing his arms and scowling.

Lance shrugs, uncomfortable. There are polaroids of him slung between Hunk and Pidge, lopsided from the extreme difference in the heights of their shoulders. He has peace thrown up around their shoulders, and he’s laughing.

He has a cutout about the Kerberos mission on his desk, and the Shiro with dark hair and young eyes stares up at the ceiling. He has the X-Files “I want to Believe’ poster above his bead, which covers Allura and Coran, so the only person who doesn’t really have a spot is Keith. Except one tiny pointed chin and bad haircut in a sea of young, pouty faces.

“Hey,” he says softly. He scoops his polaroid camera off of the desk and fiddles with the buttons, ears burning, heart turning over with the aching slowness of the wounded. “Come here.”

______

He gets up when the first fingers of sun peel back the horizon, red and orange like fire. He leaves Keith in his bed, his chest bare and his face young and pink in the sunrise. He still doesn’t understand anything.

He meets his mother in the kitchen, and she hold him an arm’s length away from her body to trace his features with her fingers. She passes him the perfect café cubano, and he makes a big show of getting on his knees to thank her.

Orange, filtered light comes in through the half-drawn shutters in distorted stripes. His mother recounts her phone conversation with Lance’s father using sound effects and tripping Spanish slang, and something vital inside of him detaches and spills blood-hot feeling everywhere.

He leaves his mother to wander down to the beach. His skin responds to the sun, hair standing on end. His whole body has been like a limb that’s been trapped in a cast, shrunken and pale, and the air and light against it is a terrible relief.

He lets his fingers brush the tall, feathery grass on either side of the path as he walks.

The feeling in his chest is the same one he got when he walked up to the stocky outline of the Galaxy Garrison, or when he settled into Blue’s cockpit for the first time, a sense of rightness so acute that he doesn’t have a name for it.

He scuffs off his flip-flops and sprints down to meet the surf, laughing when the spray gets his shorts wet and spritzes up to his neck. The chunky shells underfoot and the chill on his sleep-sensitive skin is background noise. He wades thigh deep and watches the red of the sky echoed by the churning mosh pit of the waves. He closes his eyes and lets the breeze paw at his hair and clothes, holding his arms out so that his loose buttoned shirt billows out behind him.

He’s out there for a long time, dawn turning into early morning, pale, with spectacular clouds. Red skies always promise wicked storms.

He settles down into the sand, enjoying the little discomforts, the sand tucked just under the hem of his shorts where his skin is clammy wet, the breeze getting a little too forceful with his hair and forcing it in the wrong direction. His house just a little too far away at his back, everything he cares about a few minutes out of reach.

He’s been to so many galaxies and he’s never seen anything like a sunrise over the ocean.

He thinks, I am the best version of myself, right here.

He knows he’s been a liability for the team. He shows up and makes noise and tries to look cool so that it won’t feel so much like the losing battle he’s fighting is coming to a sad, inevitable end. 

He’s the extra pilot that they cycle through the roster and try to find a place for, but he’s not the red paladin. And he’s never going to belong to Blue like Allura does, like her family always will.

Being at home like this makes it really clear that he hasn’t fit anywhere in a very long time. There are so many ugly things twisting and shooting out in space, and he’s seen so many people suffer. He shoots galra sentries dead and he follows his gut instincts to the wrong places and he dreams about home.

It’s so stupid that he thought he could be some sort of soldier. Like he would ever be the guy that saved something instead of ruining it.

He puts his hand out in front of him and watches sun creep between his fingers. Nothing feels real in space. It’s easier to lie to yourself, somehow.

“Hey,” says a voice behind him. When he glances back, Keith is staring at him with the saddest expression he’s ever seen on his face, and only then does Lance realize that he’s crying.

“What are you doing here?”

Keith ignores him. “You’re crying again.” He really sounds like it’s bothering him.

“No I’m not.”

“Your face is wet,” he says matter-of-factly, sitting down close to him in the sand, blotting out the sun.

“I was in the sea, Keith.”

He pauses, then breathes out all at once. “I hate seeing you like this.”

“Well I’m not so fond of looking at you either,” Lance snaps.

“I think we should go back tonight. I texted Allura and she said has a mission for us while the rest of the team is working. Some recon, I think.”

“The rest of the team,” Lance repeats hollowly.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “I mean. We can still be useful. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like sitting still for too long.”

“I do, actually,” he lies. “Harder to break things if you’re not moving around so much.”“What?” Keith looks confused, his eyes darting all over Lance’s face.

“I’m not going back with you.”

He jerks back like he’s been slapped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I quit,” Lance announces. “I quit voltron, I quit galaxy-saving and jumping in front of laser fire and putting on a fucking— show all the time, I quit killing people because they’re wearing the galra uniform.” Keith flinches. “I quit you. Okay?”

Keith sits, stunned, across from him, and when his head dips, the sun gets into Lance’s eyes, sharp. He looks away.

“Not okay,” Keith says firmly. “Really not— really not okay, Lance, what the fuck? How did you think I was just going to, what, hop on a shuttle without you?”

Lance shakes his head at the ground. “I thought you’d be psyched. You won’t have to deal with me anymore. The red lion is yours. She always has been, actually, she was basically trying to eject me like a disease the whole time.” He looks up at Keith and finds him looking down furiously at him.

“We already talked about this,” Keith says impatiently. “I don’t care how many lions there are, we’ll figure it out. You’re part of the team.”“Only technically though, right?” he says bitterly. “I’ve always been more of a sidekick. Look, you don’t have to pretend to want me here just so you can tell them you tried when you show up empty handed, alright?”

Keith is looking more agitated by the minute, and Lance isn’t used to seeing him in natural light, without his gloves or his jacket or tense, self-assured energy. “I do want you,” he starts, and then he kind of bares his teeth and snaps his head away, fighting through something that Lance can’t see or understand. “You’re a paladin of voltron,” he struggles to say, like it explains everything.

“I tried to be a paladin,” Lance says. “I’m no good at it, okay? Can we stop rubbing it in. I’m being very real with you and you’re being very weird.”

“But you’re our sharpshooter,” Keith says, defiant like a kid. “No one fights like you.” That pulls Lance up short, and he’s shaking again, hands and chattering teeth, and the patches of water on his clothes are suddenly much too cold. Keith’s face is wide open in the plain light, and Lance realizes that he’s not lying, that he’s never been very good at that at all.

All the drawers in his chest shake out over everything, and he’s losing all his reasoning in the mess. He keeps looking back at the horizon and thinking about waking up in his room every day to the smell of coffee, but the image keeps getting confused with the image of Keith, roseate, rolled in his blue comforter.

“I can’t go back,” he whispers. “I won’t survive, and then my family will fall apart.”

“Lance, If anyone’s going to survive, it’s you, do you understand me?”

“No,” Lance says, frustrated. “I don’t know what’s happening right now, at all, actually.”

“You’re smart, and you’re selfless. Do you know how deadly those qualities are in a war? Your plans are low casualty, fast and brilliant, and they save lives. There are entire colonies, entire species that would have died without you.” Lance shakes his head, trying to keep from crying again and embarrassing himself. “None of us would’ve made it this far without you, idiot.”

“My family needs me,” he argues. “You saw them, you know, you know—“ He thinks of his mother trying to memorize him with both hands, his little brother crying softly against his neck.

“Anyone would feel that way if they knew you and lost you, Lance. You can’t honestly think that we wouldn’t be just as messed up without you,” he says incredulously.

“Keith,” Lance says lowly. There’s an epiphany tottering in his chest, and he can’t quite get a grip on it before it slips and bobs away.

“You can’t stay here,” Keith says, and he’s on his knees, reaching for both of Lance’s wrists, eyes wide, almost purple in the sun. “Who’s gonna keep me in line?”

“You—you need to keep yourself in line, dude, you can’t just expect—“

“I know you can’t stay here when the action’s out there. People like us can never sit out on fights.”

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Keith asks, bewildered, hands tight on Lance’s forearms.

“Acting like we’re the same!”

“How are we different?” Keith demands. The wind ruffles his hair so that a piece gets caught in his mouth, and Lance looks distractedly at it.

“We’re opposites,” he says. “That’s like our whole thing.”

“I’m tired of pretending like we don’t like each other,” Keith sighs.

“I don’t understand,” Lance says quietly, except that he does, all at once, looking at Keith’s hands still squeezing his wrists, his blocky knuckles and uneven fingernails. “Why did you volunteer to take me home, Keith.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes please.”

“I love you,” Keith tells him miserably.

Lance turns his face towards the tree line meandering off to the edge of the coast, feeling every system in his body light up simultaneously. “Keith.”

He lifts his wrists and Keith’s hands follow them up. He shuffles closer on his knees, brow furrowed, mouth turned down, desperate.

“So you can’t expect me to leave you here,” Keith says, “I know that I’m asking you to walk away from your home. But you’re asking me to walk away from mine.”

“Keith,” Lance repeats, choked up. “I don’t know—“

“You don’t have to know, god, you don’t have to know anything, you just have to get on that shuttle with me tonight.” 

He looks up at Keith, wild hair, broad shoulders, eyes like swatches of deep space. He remembers seeing him sitting alone at the Garrison and wondering what it would be like to be made for piloting like that, to have that sort of magic in your hands.

Those hands are still steadying him, gripping the tender insides of his arms like he’s trying to steer him in the right direction.

After his first mission with Red, he sat in the hangar, breathing hard, picturing Keith’s battle-flushed face and missing him badly.

“Don’t do it for me,” Keith says hastily. “I know you like to make people happy, and this isn’t like that. I think staying here would be a mistake. I think you’ll see us leaving the atmosphere and you’ll regret everything. You won’t be able to sit still when you know we’re out there fighting. You’ll be here with your family but you won’t really be here.”

“You’ve really got me figured out, hey,” Lance says ruefully.

“I try to pay attention,” Keith says. “When it matters.”

“I’m trying to do this for you,” Lance tells him, shaking his head, annoyed at his full head and watery voice, the way the force of the ocean has infected him. “You belong with Red, doing your blade gymnastics routines, holding a knife in your mouth or whatever, winning obnoxiously all the time.”

“Then you belong next to me,” Keith counters viciously. “It doesn’t have to be either or. We’re a team.”

The sun punches out from behind a low-hanging cloud. Lance’s vision clears.

“I think we’re probably more than that,” he says.

Keith falters, and his grip slides down an inch, so he’s holding the bottom of Lance’s hands. “You don’t have to—“

“Do you know what I thought when I saw you in my bed this morning?” he asks. Keith’s hands are clammy but fixed, and he has this sweet little mole on the side of his nose, and Lance can’t believe he’s been so stupid. “I thought — it’s not fair that he looks like that when I’m trying to leave. Like, how rude is that.”

Keith’s face does something hopeful and twitchy, a lifting chin and anxious brow. “You’re one to talk.”

“You had all this sunrise in your hair, like, all the places where the light hits you were red. It was so you. I mean, I must’ve been sleep-deprived, because I really thought I was attracted to a mullet for a sec.”

Keith smiles slowly.

“And I was already feeling all mushy from the way you held onto my mom so tightly when she hugged you. It really didn’t look like you were hugging someone’s mom who you’d never met, Keith. You weren’t even uncomfortable in a stranger’s house, do you know how rare that is? It was like you just belonged in my breakfast nook eating pastelitos. God, and the taking me home and listening to my stories. Do you know— in that stupid picture we took? I’m not even looking at the camera. I’m looking at you.”

“Come back with me,” Keith says, pulling Lance’s hands around his neck, hoisting him into his space. “I’m never going to leave you behind now.”

“Kiss me, and I’ll go,” Lance says, bold from the way Keith is all over him like he’s never been touched before.

He cups Lance’s face in both hands. He hasn’t had this much focus on just him for months, and his face goes hot as he reaches up for Keith’s wrists.

When he kisses him, his rushing blood matches the tossing ocean, and nothing else has any sound at all. It’s fatal, the way Keith kisses him like he’s trying to pin the two of them together for good.

They’re both on their knees, and Keith’s hands slide down to grab him closer around the waist, gathering the loose fabric into his fists. His tongue is searing, and his breath is sweet like over-sugared coffee.

All of his suppressed feeling flies up to meet him, double-sided anger and want, rivalry and respect. He finds himself bobbing towards the glow of Keith’s body, chest full and light as a balloon.

He breaks away gasping. “Why have we been fighting?”

“I don’t know,” Keith whines, and Lance can feel the spread of his fingers flexing against his waist. “You started it.”

“I think I wanted you to notice me,” he says, like he can’t believe it.

“I did,” Keith grumbles.

Lance kisses his lax mouth, enjoying the instinctive flicker of his tongue, the scorch of embarrassed desire in his cheeks. “Oh man, If I die in space, you’re going to feel so bad.”

“You’re not gonna die,” Keith says. He pushes their foreheads together with the insistence of a labrador, and lance sighs.

“It’s a war, dude,” he points out.

“I’m not letting you die,” Keith insists. “I’m going to bring you home again, after we’ve destroyed the galra empire and freed everyone. I’m going to bring you back to this beach.”

“Well I’m not letting you die either,” Lance says defensively. He puts a hand against Keith’s chest and feels his heartbeat buck, almost too fast to be human. “Two-way street, buddy. We continue the mission. We’re a little less reckless. I hang that picture of us in my lion. We fight back to back and make out with explosions behind us, I don’t know, I’ve still gotta iron out the details. You keep loving me, I keep loving you.” His voice wobbles. “Everyone wins.”

Keith lowers him all the way back into the sand to kiss him, and the warmth on all sides is almost as disorienting as the weight of Keith’s body, the give of his mouth. Keith breaks away to say, “I can do that.” He swipes a thumb over Lance’s cheekbone and smiles.

A raindrop flattens a piece of Keith’s hair on its way down to Lance’s face, and then another two find his cheeks and parted lips. Keith rears back, propped up on both hands above him like a shield, and rain winds up and starts pouring down, whole torrential sheets of it. Lance lets his head loll back when he laughs, giddy. He twists his hands in the hair at Keith’s neck.

“Isn’t this a bad omen?” Keith asks, voice raised through the chaos of the downpour.

“No,” Lance says, thinking of red mornings and storms blowing in off the coast. “I love the rain.”

[missbrunettebarbie]

Midnights - a review 3 months later and my tracklist

I've made a post about the album back when it came out, but I do think TS' songs in general are growers, not faders or instant hits, so here are my thoughts after having some time with it. Tbh, what really annoys me about Taylor's albums is usually the tracklist, which makes no sense, so I remade ir, using 16 out of the 20 songs (we don't count Hits Different bc I haven't listened to it). I am gonna talk about the 4 songs I left out at the end. My order is something like: from nightmares to sweet dreams, with track 5 being the darkest before dawn. So, in order:

1. Anti-Hero - 10/10. Perfect album opener, sets the tone for the rest of the songs AND establishes Taylor both as a person you want to root for and an unreliable narrator.

2. Maroon - 5/10 Still not a fan of this song, but it's a good second track and it fits the 'thing that keeps you up in the middle of the night' very well.

3. Midnight rain - 6/10 Pretty much the same as Maroon (yes, the voice distortion still grants on me).

4. Question....? -8/10 This is such a grower. I love how much more assertive and quite bitchy the narrator is here compared to the previous two. Like, all these 3 songs talk about past loves, but this narrator is less introspective and more like 'we were a meteor strike, babe!'.

5. Would've, should've, could've - 10/10 I mean, come on, this is the true track 5 of the album. Everything about it screams heartbreak and vulnerability.

6. Bigger than the whole sky -6/10 The saga of grief continues. And this song makes so much more sense next to WCS. They just fit, both musically and lyrically. Look how the new placement improved its rating, from 1 to 6!

7. Labyrinth - 8/10 When you hit rock bottom, the only place to go is up! Spmetimes against your will. And this is the perfect song to describe this.

8. Glitch - 7/10 We are almost out of the nightmare realm, and into the sweet dreams world. This topic and its narrator are much more uplifting, but there is still a sense of....haunting here.

9. Bejeweled - 10/10. I feel like the sweet dreams section needs to start strong and what better way than with Bejeweled? This is the narrator who went out tonight to make her dreams come true xDD

10. Mastermind - 9/10 Perfect transition from Bejeweled. Again, a very confident narrator who took matters into her own hands, and refused to believe in pesky little things like fate. This is also the first long song where we get to see a bit of the other partner's point of view as well.

11. Sweet Nothing -6/10. After 2 "I am that bitch" songs, I feel like Sweet Nothing is an welcome change of pace. It calms you down and shows you the other side of love.

12. Lavender Haze - 9/10. It's a bop, but it also is a very....limited point of view, of someone who refuses to let the relationship follow its natural course, because the narrator wants to be stuck in the pavender haze forever. I feel like this, alongside the next 2 songs, make their own story arc.

13. Paris - 8/10. Another romantic bop about how great it is to be in love.

14. The Great War - 10/10. But all lovers fight, and this song shows that the important part is 'surviving the great war'.

15. Karma - 8/10. This is such a positive song, that it needs to be towards the end of the album.

16. You're on your own, kid -10/10. This is A Journey. Most people say it feels like Taylor giving us a hug, so IMO, this is the best way to close the album. It is vulnerable, yes, but it's very uplifting and is a perfect closer to the Midnights chapter.

Overall score: 8.125/10. Pretty good!

Songs that didn't make it on My Midnights playlist won't get a score, but here are my thoughts on them:

Snow on the beach - Not only doesn't it add anything to the album, but it doesn't even fit the midnights theme in any way shape or form!

Vigilante shit - It's ok, but very manufactured! And we have Bejeweled and Mastermind to give us the same vibe, but better, so it adds nothing.

Dear Reader - I mean, it could add somthing, but I feel like it doesn't fit the theme at all.

High Infidelity - Eh. It's ok, but again, I feel like it adds nothing.

[mimiplaysgames]

A Rush of Blood to the Head (1/6)

Pairing: Terra/Aqua Rating: T Word Count: 4,022

Summary: “It is just a deal of equal opportunity. His life for yours,” the young man said. “Surely, Terra’s life is worth some consideration from your part? Or has your heart blackened that much?” Aqua, staring at her Keyblade, shook her head. “My heart isn’t-” “Is it not a fair trade?”

AO3        FF.net

A/N: So with all the E3 2018 excitement, here is my contribution to the Aquanort frenzy. This was supposed to be just a one-shot, but it seems like I fear short stories like how a cat is afraid of a cucumber. I’m sure that is my exact reaction when it comes to handling drabbles. Title of the series is based on Coldplay’s “A Rush of Blood to the Head.” The lyrics serve as a profound theme for Terraqua in this context. The fair trade scene was done to Michael Giacchino’s “Life and Death” from Lost Season One.

Two Losses

The thunderstorm raged outside. Rain furiously hammered the tall windows of the academy, but every time lightning flashed, it illuminated the silhouettes of the mountains. It was a beautiful yet ferocious sight, seeing the summits covered by blackened clouds.

Aqua walked through the halls in her pajamas, wrapping herself in a blanket as she headed towards the lounge. It was one of the best places in the castle to relax and catch sight of the storm. Never mind that it was close to midnight.

Terra was already there, with a small, dim lamp by his side and a large book open on his lap.

“And here I thought I was going to get some alone time,” she said, knowing full well that he understood it wasn’t what she meant.

“Then go back to your room,” he said without looking up from his book.

“So in a huge storm like this, you’re going to sit down and read?” Aqua walked up to the loveseat he was sitting on, and he instinctively moved over so she can have some space.

“Didn’t you know that a huge storm like this is the best time to read a great book and let go of the imagination? No studying, no training, just fun nonsense.“

“What’s it this time?” There was always nonsense. Sometimes dragons. Sometimes wenches. Once there was a devil.

He turned to her with childish excitement, yet he kept his expression timid and small as usual. “Ghosts.”

Aqua rolled her eyes. “They exist?”

“In some worlds, they believe so.” He lifted a finger to emphasize his point.

She scooted to get closer to him and gazed into the page he was currently reading. It seemed that he was nearly done with a specific section of the book discussing the nature of ghosts, how they became violent, and what it took to quell them. The next section was about spells that can summon the dead, and if he wasn’t stopped, he was going to continue reading through the night. This meant that her sparring partner would be sluggish the next day, and would probably be grumpy since he hated not being in his prime during fights.

She pointed and tapped to the end of the section before it started discussing the seances. “You’ll stop there.”

Terra grinned from ear to ear and her heart jumped a little. “Are you starved for attention or something?”

From him, yes. But she would never say that. “It’s more responsible if you sleep.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Okay mom. I swear, without you, I would forget to eat or brush my teeth. What would I ever do if I get lost?”

She hit him on the shoulder as he laughed.

Keeping her eyes closed gave her no solace. It was darkness all the same. The moonlight would have been pretty, and the sound of the ocean waves would have been relaxing, were it not for the endless numbness. It didn’t help that this was all she experienced anymore, and the hardest part was forcing herself to stay.

Aqua sat on the beach, the faint moonlight in the distance a constant reminder that she was still where she had been for what seemed like forever.

Forever. Surely there would be no end to it.

Tucking her knees up to her chest, Aqua gazed up to the moonlight, since there was nothing else to do. She decided to recount the reasons why she should keep going.

To find Terra. To save Ven. To find Terra. To save Ven.

But counting always came with a wave of memories.

The three of them together in the academy. Aqua practicing fire magic into a bucket, only to set the entire thing ablaze, a terrible pillar of flames rising up.

Ventus freaking out and casting air magic toward it, which made it bigger.

Terra, who seemed unfazed, dropping a bucket of water onto it. Telling Aqua that he didn’t look forward to when she was going to throw that at him during training, with that calm, slack smile that he always carried. That she missed.

These were just remnants now. And they left a dull, hard pain that numbness cannot ease.

The silence was also unbearable. It never stopped. Usually the voices she would hear were the ones that she remembered. Always in her mind. And most of the time, her mind wasn’t kind. How she pushed Terra away, how she didn’t understand him. How she bossed Ventus around instead of listening to him. All the times she could have done something differently to change what had happened.

“I’ve ruined us,” she said out loud, to break the quiet.

Aqua pulled out her Wayfinder, a trinket of a gorgeous blue hue that she had carefully made. A promise of a never-ending connection, with unique copies given to her best friends. No, she needed to go on.

Looking at the same moonlight and listening to the sound of the ocean never changed. She stood up and ventured back inland, knowing that at some point Heartless were going to attack her. But this was better than sitting for a never-ending time, though. It was otherwise the same routine.

Something had to change. Maybe soon Mickey will come back. It only had to be a matter of time. He wouldn’t just leave her here. She just had to be patient. But... can she wait for as long as she did? He said ten years had passed when he was last here. I don’t know how I can handle waiting another decade...

She stopped amidst tall grass. “Please come back,” she said aloud, hoping her words would travel far away from the Realm of Darkness and reach his ears. The tone of her voice was sad, but being here shredded any earnest expression of despair. She would even pray for despair, since it was something to feel other than a deadening semblance of tired hopelessness.

“Is there anyone else?” she asked out loud. Silence.

Aqua cast her gaze downward, feeling the need to cry but she was too numb to do so. She held her Wayfinder in both her hands. “I wonder if I’ll be okay in the end.”

“A remarkable question to ask to nothingness,” a voice said. The voice was incredibly deep, like it came from an older man. He spoke slowly, as if to express a sense of melancholy that he was also too desensitized to fully show it.

Aqua looked around her only to see an endless field of tall grass. “Who... W-where are you? Are you lost in the darkness, too?”

“I would say the end is merely a belief in which we convince ourselves into thinking that possibilities for us will surely cease.”

“I- I don’t see you at all. Who are you?” Someone that might change things for her? Someone that needed help?

“I am nothing, yet I am a friend.”

“Nothing?” She shook her head, despite realizing he might not be bale to see her either. “Should I call you a ghost then?”

“As you are for me.”

Aqua felt that the periods of time in between her friend’s visits were too long. But whenever he came, he was all the more welcomed.

“And here I venture again, unable to quell the need to come,” he said.

“Hi, friend,” she said, with a small smile to her lips, and it was the only kind of smile she was able to show in a place like this. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you want to visit me?”

She walked among the field, away from the beach. She took a habit of finding a place to lie down so that she can look at whatever stars were left behind from a world ravished by darkness. They sparkled less here, but she didn’t mind. It was better to have her friend with her than any other moment spent in this forsaken terrain alone.

“As I knew what would happen, as I have tried to prevent - the absence of my heart is being replaced. You are a threat,” he said.

Aqua at first didn’t know what to say. “I think that’s the strangest tease anyone has ever tried giving me. You’re not very good at this.” She took a moment to pause. “What do you mean that your heart is absent?”

“I am no one. I have no heart.”

“Then how do you exist?”

“In nothingness.”

Aqua sighed. “Of course.”

Circular words. Endless rambling that always led to the same point. She perceived her friend confused and lost. He never spoke of his past because he could not remember it. He was coy about where he was and where he came from, though he spoke about wanting to be whole again. He usually came to ask her about her own memories - what it was like to live and to feel. What her favorite foods were and whether she had an attachment to them.

Mostly random questions like they came from a curious child who didn’t know how the world worked. It helped her remember her happiest memories, however, such as when the Master took them to a an amusement park when she was young. She had forgotten about it before. The voice liked to listen to himself talk, although he was also very introspective, and this reminded her of Terra.

“I think you are very mistaken,” she finally said. “Even ghosts have hearts.”

“A wretched heart, so despaired by death that it attaches itself to its most beloved in life in order to stalk what it considers its possession. A haunting, driven by the desire to stay connected to its past until it rots.”

Aqua wasn’t surprised that he knew so much about ghosts. The voice was usually well-versed in the knowledge of hearts and how they functioned in all walks of life.

“It’s strange. I know I have never met you before,” she said, “but here you are haunting me.”

“I am not a ghost.” For someone who was apparently alive, he acted as though he had never lived before.

“Right. You are a nobody. Because that makes sense,” she said quietly, not really wanting him to hear the disbelief in her voice. “Why do you think you and I are connected then? I have tried thinking about it, but I’m certain that I have never known you.”

“Because you are a remnant of my past.”

She sighed loudly. “I wish you were more direct with me.” Aqua knew that the Realm of Darkness did not operate at a normal pace of time. She wondered if somehow, in the future, she would finally leave, and meet him.

“A storm rages outside as we speak,” he said.

Something about the statement made Aqua’s stomach flip, although it was uncomfortable. It was nauseating, as though she was on the brink of learning something terrible.

“I do not remember my past, but speaking with you reminds me of emotions that I cannot define, like a cloudy storm,” he continued. “Alone with my work, I am as I should be. Yet here, in this room that you haunt, I am faced with certain trepidations. It is unstable. What would I ever do if I were to become lost?”

Her stomach sank. Her thoughts traveled back to when she met with Terra in the darkness. Is this what he meant when he implied that I won’t be able to recognize him? That his heart has ties to darkness? Does this mean that he’s dead? She was so shaken that she could barely speak without her voice quivering. “Terra?”

The voice took a long time to reply, and when he did, he spoke slower than normal. “I do not recognize that name, friend.”

She gasped out loud. She couldn’t comprehend his emotions, not that it mattered. If he was Terra, then she was worried for him. If he wasn’t, then she was disappointed that he still didn’t come back to help her. Either way, it was agonizing, so much so that her emotions were rising up and she could actually feel them in full.  Tears fell down her face. I don’t know what’s going on, but I need to find Terra.

“Help me,” she said, wiping tears from her face. “I need to get out of here. I’m so worried about my friend.”

“Your friend’s name is Xemnas, and I have it in my power to find you.”

She stopped crying, so shocked by the statement that initially she didn’t believe him. But it stirred hope for the first time in such a long while that she had forgotten what it felt like. “Please.”

“I vow I will one day,” he said calmly.

Aqua was eager for Xemnas to come back after their last conversation. Feelings came easier for her, and she admitted to herself that she was experiencing excitement. She thought about all of the things she would be able to do again. To taste food again. To sleep. To find Ven and wake up him. To tease him. To look into Terra’s eyes. To confess to him how she had felt about him for years, the one thing she had never done and regretted the most. She needed the chance to do it.

She needed it so badly and she was certain Xemnas would grant it to her. She told herself that he treasured talking with her as much as she treasured his visits, since they had helped her survive. It was nice to think that she made a new friend that she could finally meet face to face. She promised herself to bake him something special as thanks for saving her.

But he never came. The more time continued passing, the more she realized that she was in denial as she sat on the beach looking at the moon. Something horrible happened to him. He’s gone.

The excitement that she kept nurturing all this time swelled, but it was painful. She tucked her knees close to her chest and sobbed it all out until her throat hurt and her eyes swelled.

She came across a man on the beach. He was dressed in a long black robe, his hood covering his face. This man called himself Ansem, although his memories were clouded as well. A new companion, although the endless numbing of the Real of Darkness proved too much for him. He would sometimes disappear without her knowing where he went. She worried that he was going to snap at any moment. Conversations with him became more erratic as time went on, and eventually he made her feel alone even when was around.

At some point, it seemed as though he finally did. He was slumped on the  beach, responseless to her inquiries. She had promised herself to help and to take care of him, but in this way, it was like interacting with a statue. She wondered if she failed him, and asked him for forgiveness.

Defeated, she left the beach to walk across the field, if only to break the monotony of staring into the moonlight. Although the trek was tedious as well.

Today, however, something changed. Another man, one who was incredibly tall and barrel-chested, stood in the distance in a short wheat field in the night. He wore a similar robe and hood so that she couldn’t see his face.

“Hi there,” she said. “Are you lost, too?” She hoped that he wasn’t terribly affected by the darkness like the last one.

“What would you do if I were, friend?”

Aqua was surprised to hear this voice and it overwhelmed her with relief, that desperate need of feeling hope coming back.

“Xemnas,” she said with a breath as she approached him. “I’m so relieved. I was so sad that something might have happened to you.”

“It seems that the darkness hasn’t overtaken you just yet,” he said in a tone that depicted a scientist observing data.

Aqua shifted nervously at his expression. He seemed a bit colder than usual.

“I have come to fulfill my vow,” he said as he turned to walk away.

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked, traversing behind him, unsure if she even wanted an answer. Something didn’t seem right. He was clearly right in front of her, but something about him didn’t give her the sense that he even existed. Has the darkness harmed him?

“I do not feel anything,” he said as he continued walking. “It has taken far too long to find you, and we need to hurry.” His tone was deadpan, and it almost seemed as though he had forgotten who she was.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” she said as she stopped. He stopped as well, turning to face her. “I had waited so long for you to come-” she began to say, until she noticed his face.

“Xemnas, can I see you?” She held her hands to her chest, nervous.

He removed his hood to show a dark face with orange eyes and long white hair that graced his shoulders. A man she confirmed to herself she had never met before, and yet it was a familiar beautiful face. “Terra?”

Xemnas gazed upon her coldly, his hands behind his back. It was uncanny, the resemblance.

“Why do you-” She took a sharp breath in and walked towards him, reaching for him. “You have to be him. Terra?”

Xemnas solemnly shook his head, and asked, “why do you think Terra has never come to rescue you?”

Because he didn’t want to. But it couldn’t be. She wanted to believe that Terra would never leave her behind, that he really was in the trouble she had seen him in. She knew that if he had the chance, he would have come. She had to tell herself that. But if that was true, then what happened?

She retracted her hand, tears forming in her eyes. “Because you have him.”

Xemnas raised his hands as he looked down on them. “How precious it is, our past. The one thing that makes us for who we are, and the one thing that we can keep to ourselves, so long as we are able to still grasp it.”

She choked back her tears as she realized how foolish she had been. What comfort was there to someone who so desperately needed a friend? Nothingness. Her bond with Xemnas was nothing. Her throat clenched as she thought about the hours she had waited for him to come back. She thought about the comfort he had given her, when it never was supposed to exist. Only because he needed her for something. And now, Terra needed her.

She summoned her Keyblade. “Where is he?”

Xemnas, ignoring that she was threatening him, reached out to her with one hand. “He is here. Would you like to see him?”

Xemnas had pulled his hood back up as he led the way through the wheat field. Aqua followed behind him, her Keyblade still drawn. He had made no move to threaten her, nor did he attempt to attack her. The wheat they were walking through seemed to get taller, and it was disorienting.

They reached a clearing. On a boulder sat a tall man, hooded and robed. He seemed unresponsive to their entrance.

Xemnas stood his ground, as though he had reached his destination. Aqua tried to get an expression out of him, but was unable to read him. She looked upon the man sitting on the boulder. It had been so long now. The possibility that she was finally this close to Terra was unbearable.

“Terra?!” she called out as she ran towards him, but she was attacked by a powerful magnetic force from behind as she was thrown against the ground and her Keyblade flew out of her reach.

A different voice replied, “he will not respond.”

A different man entered the clearing, his face also hooded. His voice sounded much younger than Xemnas’.

“What does that mean?” She struggled to get up, her back sore from the blast.

The younger man waved his arms to play with the wheat. “We had to prepare him.” He summoned a Keyblade of his own, one that Aqua did not recognize. “We are here to discuss a deal with you. He has proven to be a most rambunctious, unreliable member of our Organization.“ His voice was almost sweet, but there was an aspect to the sweetness that seemed warped, as if he was insincere in his politeness. 

“I will not deal with you.”

“A shame, since we need to dispose of him.”

“You will not!” She summoned her Keyblade and attempted to get up and attack, but fighting both the man and Xemnas, who wielded dual swords of his own, proved to be fruitless. Her injuries piled on. Darkness here had always been stronger, and these men did not compare to the feral, unintelligent Heartless she’d been wasting away. She was slashed from behind, and stumbled onto the ground.

“It is just a deal of equal opportunity. His life for yours,” the young man said. “Surely, Terra’s life is worth some consideration from your part? Or has your heart blackened that much?”

Aqua, staring at her Keyblade, shook her head. “My heart isn’t-”

“Is it not a fair trade?”

Aqua breathed slowly. Terra. There were so many things left unsaid. There was so much confusion left unresolved. If she could have one more chance to find him in the lounge, sleeping with a book laid out on his chest, she would never scold him for it again. She would do anything it took to make him happy, since deep down she admitted that she knew he felt the same way for her.

But if she gave herself up for Terra, then Ventus wouldn’t have anyone there to wake him up.

Ventus. How she left him sleeping in that lonely room. He used to be vibrant. Always running around the castle. Always willing to spar. Always looking for a reason or a way to annoy her, with that silly toothy smile on his face. If she could, she’d give him a chance to be annoying again, since she knew it was his favorite thing to do. She would let him talk his ear out, and instead of silencing him, she would laugh. He needed her the most.

It was her punishment to choose.

I’ve ruined us because I pushed the both of you away. I’m so sorry.

She squeezed her Keyblade and considered to fight again, but she was too weak to get up.

“Just think of what the both of you will gain,” the young man continued. “Freedom. You would both be free of the cages that keep you locked.“

Freedom. A chance to actually get back to life. But it wasn’t worth the price without the both of them back in her life. They were her family. I can’t do anything for them here, anyway. I need to get out of here to help them.

I wonder... if I could use this to my advantage. If I can sabotage our enemies instead.

Throughout this time, she felt numb. But now, she had direction.

Aqua refused to choose. She kept her facial expression neutral, careful to make sure that the two men did not notice any inkling that she was scheming.

She gripped her Keyblade and brought it closer. I break the bond between us, she said to it in her mind. She couldn’t have it where she was going, and to fall into the wrong hands would ruin everything. It disappeared.

Her voice was shaky. “You said you would release him? Prove it.”

Xemnas approached Terra, who was still sitting unresponsively on the boulder, and summoned what seemed like a portal.

Aqua swallowed a lump in her throat, an incredibly difficult feat for her. “I agree to the trade,” she said quietly. 

The young man looked over to Xemnas, as though he was a bit surprised to hear that. “And I had expected that this was going to be much more difficult. They said you were strong and stubborn.”

“I am strong.” She whispered as quietly as she could to herself so that neither of them would hear. A promise to only herself. “You will not have me.”

The young man raised his Keyblade to Terra’s chest, and a light shone and expanded before he lowered it. Aqua scuffled towards Terra, resting her hands on his lap.

“Terra,” she pleaded, looking up to the face shadowed within the hood. She paid no mind to the other men around her. All she looked at was his face. A pair of yellow eyes. But it was still his beautiful face. Please smile at me. Please be okay. Please be free.

“Terra, look at me. Please.” She sounded desperate, needing to see some reaction. Anything to let her know he was back before it was too late for her.

She felt a forceful heat come over body, like it was seeping into her skin, and she felt her limbs go numb first. He looked down at her, the first sign of movement that he’d ever shown. The last thing she saw was his yellow blending into green.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading!! I hope this was enjoyable... in the almost saddest way possible. But it’s going to be okay! I don’t really do angst for angst’s sake. If you have been following my other fics, my fluffy one “Beloved Memories, in Notes” and my main adventure “Strength to Protect the Things That Matter” will both be updated along the next few days!! I have to say, this series overall draws many small parallels with what I have been planning for my main fic. It’s crazy how that happens when you don’t realize it.

[madokasoratsugu]

thursday afternoons

[haibara + amuro; platonic (kind of introspective)]

summary:  haibara visits poirot, amuro notices her (and wonders why)

a/n: yall ever kick back and realise how amuro and haibara are connected by akemi and her mum. and that they dont even fuckin know. what the heck.

read on ao3

It’s an odd happenstance that began in early May.

Every Thursday afternoon, an elementary school girl with poise of someone ten years older walks into Poirot. Without fail, she’ll take a seat at the table in the middle of the store, and quietly order one glass of iced tea which lasts for the entirety of her stay that consists of nothing but reading a heavy tome pulled from her comically small red backpack.

On Thursdays, the store is always half empty. Needless to say, it’s difficult not to notice her, especially for someone like Amuro.

“Oh, that’s Haibara Ai-chan. One of Conan-kun’s friends.” Azusa-san had chimed in when she caught Amuro staring once. “She doesn’t come here alone often, though.”

Facts that Amuro already knew, but was still polite enough to smile and thank for.

Facts that irk him, with how effortlessly she adopts an unassuming nature.

Any other child, from the Detective Boys to a stranger, Amuro would simply turn a blind eye to.

But this girl sits as if she waits.

It’s a trained posture, one of a figure not quite prey or predator.

A page flips, and still he can tell her ears and eyes are trained on her surroundings instead of her book.

It’s a sort of stance he recognises from hardened black cloaked criminals or too smart bespectacled detectives.

Yet he cannot fit her in either category; in any category he has neatly alphabetised in his head.

She slips between the labels, balancing on the cusp of endangered and dangerous.

Another page flips.

Amuro puts down the next cup of coffee a little too harshly, and smoothly apologises for the ordinary clack of glass against wood.

She’s just a child, he tells himself.

But the nagging gut feeling of something being wrong with the eight year old girl who reads Frankenstein are too loud to ignore.

Honed instincts are vital to any policeman. Juggling three hats filled with timed bombs, Amuro thinks he should know this better than anyone.

The only thing that’s keeping him from walking over and striking an interrogation beautifully fancied as a conversation is another eight year old child by the name of Edogawa Conan.

The spectacular double take the boy had had upon seeing Haibara one day did not go unnoticed by the blond.

Conan had hurried over to her, hissing questions that she calmly answered with a brow raised.

Snippets of their low conversation was enough for Amuro to piece the picture of the Thursday afternoon visits together.

A Science convention coming up, the professor and Subaru-san too busy to watch her - not like she really needed to be watched, but the professor insisted, so where else could she go, Edogawa-kun?

Conan rolls his eyes as Haibara flips another page boredly.

He says something about Poirot being safe he guesses, and Amuro catches his glance from the corner of his eye.

As Conan leaves, he all but barrels Amuro into a corner of the shop, narrowed eyes possessing a glint so sharp Amuro feels not for the first time the tenacity of a man within the child pointed against his throat.

“Watch over her.” He simply says. Raw protectiveness is clearly heard through his calmly spoken words. He knows well enough that Amuro listens in on more than he’s invited to. “And leave her alone. She won’t do anything if you don’t start it first.”

“Why would I pick fights with an elementary school child, Conan-kun?” Amuro asks lightly, smiling at the way Conan easily picks apart his curious question to its bare bones as an investigative statement.

Conan shakes his head, the hard lines on his face easing out into a grin. It sparks with mirth and dare Amuro say, trust.

“Just give her an easy time, Amuro -niisan .”

So Amuro had, and so he would.

Haibara isn’t a child who causes a ruckus, anyway. Azusa-san serves her, and she remains a model child for the rest of the day.

There isn’t a reason for Amuro to be this unnerved.

Yet he is.

So reservedly she holds herself, so delicately she handles the atmosphere, Amuro cannot help but be aware.

In the calm silence of her, Haibara flips a page soundlessly.

She never chooses a seat near the windows.

Amuro thinks it means she has something to hide, someone to hide from. Or maybe she just doesn’t like the sun, the way it bathes one in warmth and gentle light.

She never gets a second serving of tea.

Amuro thinks it means she doesn’t want any attention drawn to her, that she cannot afford more conversation than necessary. Or maybe she just needed a reason to stay, and one glass is all that’s required.

Haibara Ai is a mystery Amuro doesn’t have the clues to solve.

It isn’t for the lack of it, but rather the surplus.

He knows too much of Haibara, but not enough of Ai.

But he catches glimpses.

In the moments when the sunlight catches the tilted sheen of her rosy hair; when she lets slip a smile as she reads; when she angles her face toward the window, soft sadness directed at girls in high school uniforms, at women with dark, flowing hair.

But it all melds into neutrality as she turns back to her book, a trained restraint unseen in other children her age.

Her steadiness intrigues him like Conan’s genius does.

Like a crisp ring of the bell, it appears in instances and echoes.

Even in the thundering of an afternoon downpour, it remains.

Clear and unbroken, unaffected.

Haibara curls a hand around her ear, pushing her hair behind it.

Today it’s a simpler novel, one of the latest releases from the local bookshop.

The minimalist cover gives it away.

For all that Haibara cloaks away about herself, she is terribly open about the smallest potential trip ups.

But Haibara is open in the way that threatens. A well polished blade for anyone she doesn’t like to test how well it may or may not cut.

It works well enough for everyone except Amuro.

For everyone except those that really matters, he might even guess.

And in the coffee shop that’s empty for anyone else bear the two of them, it entices Amuro to see how well Haibara can wield it.

A memory of a trusting smile flickers, and the thought wavers, disappears.

It’d still do well for Azusa-san to hurry back from her delivery, though.

A kettle whistles.

Moments later, the sweet fragrance of steeping coffee beans punctures the drearily lit shop.

Haibara barely startles.

Droplets of water slick down the side of her untouched glass.

Increasing patters of the rain fill the shop, drowns the occupants in the white noise, the growing ocean.

Amuro’s breaths slow just the slightest, to adjust to their faux undersea.

Thunder claps.

Atmosphere rippling, Haibara shifts.

As she does, Amuro thinks he sees saltwater clinging to her hair, the corners of her eyes.

Hands paused in a mid-turn of page, gaze fixed on the empty streets outside, the grey clouds.

Submerged, her lips are parted in a soundless whisper.

Words unheard, unspoken.

Unknowing of what might be spoken of.

Another bout of lighting flashes, and something foreign too flashes across Haibara’s face.

The surge of electricity cuts her rose coloured hair white, and a smile grazes the edges of her lips.

In the resound of the rain, Haibara resides; keeps within her blue eyes.

Sinking deep, deeper still, into the echoes of the rainwater all around.

The tea towel crumples in Amuro’s hand.

Recalls the glassiness of a sea surface in his own mirror.

Then the page is set down, the heaviness of the rain already replaced with blank focus.

Amuro licks his dry lips.

It’s uncanny, still.

But it’s a trait he’s suddenly has lost all interest in prying.

That bittersweet fade in her demeanor akin to a mourning shroud convinces him of so.

Haibara Ai still intrigues him, but Amuro thinks he might be able to let it be just that, for now.

Even Amuro cannot bring himself to drain their self-made oceans just to fulfil his own ego.

Sometimes drowning is more preferable to choking on air, after all.

Polished porcelain clinks gently against the wooden table. He doesn’t apologise for the ordinary sound.

There isn’t a need to be more than he is. Not in front of her.

Haibara’s nose twitches at the whiff of fresh coffee.

She looks up, and Amuro gives a customary smile.

“Today’s chilly. This is on the house.”

Haibara eyes him warily, but she takes the mug between her hands.

Warmth seeps into her little frame, but not a single muscle in her body reflects it.

Such slight shoulders, yet it held the grievances of a world and all it had to offer.

For the first time in all the months she’s visited the establishment, Haibara looks him in the eye and speaks directly to him.

“Thank you.”

Her voice is a steady, quiet thrum.

Mute aching tugs at Amuro’s heart strings.

“You’re welcome.”

He doesn’t have to try for his words to come out genuine, this time.

Clatters of the cafe door draw both their attention.

Their crafted undersea washes out the front door.

As laughter, the scraping of furniture, loud conversations trying to one up each other in volume replaces it, Amuro almost spies what looks like disappointment in Haibara’s stiffened stance

Azusa-san returns just as Amuro finishes seating all of them.

Within the blur of motion, food and coffee, Haibara’s time of departure comes alarmingly quickly.

At six on the dot, she quietly returns her book to her bag.

Taking a folded umbrella out, Haibara unfurls it as she makes her way to the door.

Weaving expertly between the throngs of people, a motion too smooth to have mastered in eight short years.

But her steps are lighter than usual, even a softness to her usual taut gaze.

What was the use of dwelling over someone like her, really?

Why was he so drawn?

Setting a plate of sandwiches down, Amuro finds himself just in time to hold the door for her.

Haibara glances at him as her umbrella snaps open like a new bloom.

“See you next Thursday.” Amuro says, gentle in a way he thought he forgot.

And a silver of a smile she offers back strikes him as - familiar.

Familiar in a way he thought he forgot, amidst blood and antiseptic and alcohol coded names.

Haibara nods.

When she turns, pale hair swinging over her shoulders, Amuro almost expects to see flowing black locks instead.

The door shuts.

Through the condensed glass, Amuro finds it hard to tear his eyes away from her umbrella, still.

Watching her leave, mixed with the gentle cascade of rain, Amuro thinks he might miss these Thursday afternoons, after all.

[kemuele]

Never-Ending Survey: Kemuel || Elouan

Rules: Repost, do not reblog

Tagged by: @lightdevoid because you love me

Tagging: @ whoever wants to/finds it interesting!

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Kemuel || Elouan Sauveterre

NICKNAME: Kem, K, Pigeon || Elou, El, 

AGE:  unknown, appears to be in 30s || 34 

BIRTHDAY: none, but like 12/9 || 9th Sun of the 6th Umbral Moon

ETHNIC GROUP: Archangel? That count? || Elezen Wildwood

NATIONALITY: n/a || Gridanian

LANGUAGE/S: all ancient/current languages to some extent, fluent in English/Enochian || Common 

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Pansexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Panromantic 

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single

HOME TOWN / AREA: Heaven || Gridania, towards the outskirts that lead to Hawthorne Hut (East Shroud) 

CURRENT HOME: Earth, primarily Pacific Northwest in America | Travels a lot, but can be seen more frequently in Ishgard.

PROFESSION: Archangel due to created duties, whereas entry-level gigs to pay for his ‘human home’ || Sell sword Paladin, sometimes returns to being an errand boy or courier back in Gridania or other nations.

PHYSICAL.

HAIR: Umber, short on the sides with medium-length on top. 

EYES: Dark brown, flecks of gold seen when light hits them perfectly.

FACE: Large brows and lips, defined jaw and cheekbones with signs of stubble along his jaw and upper lip. || Same for all except stubble is minimal to none, and a long scar can be seen on his right cheek, extending from his jaw all the way to his orbital socket. 

LIPS: Full, with a pinkish-beige complexion. || Somewhat full, often found in a light smile.

COMPLEXION: Tan || Likewise tan, more on the warm scale of flesh with freckles spattered along his upper cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

BLEMISHES: None.

SCARS:  Scars litter his body in varying severity, with most concentrated on back and forearms. One long, jagged scar can be seen towards the ‘root’ of his left wing, just as it connects to his body. || Scars likewise litter Elou’s body in the same fashion, yet that long scar on his back is instead smaller, running from left shoulder down to mid-back.

TATTOOS: None

HEIGHT: 6′10″ 

WEIGHT: 230lbs 

BUILD: Broad shoulders, toned and pronounced muscles, with an overall build resembling that of the average rugby player.

FEATURES: Has three pairs of wings designated visible, yet only two does he show on earth. These wings all have blue eyes on them that see at different levels of light waves, referencing his true form. || 

ALLERGIES: None.

USUAL HAIR STYLE: Kept out of his face, combed towards the back of his head and given a little volume with the disheveling towards roots. Sometimes he’ll use clips as it dries to get that look.

USUAL FACE LOOK:  Pensive, with brown eyes looking around and lips pursed, sometimes his brow is furrowed due to concentration.

USUAL CLOTHING: Somewhat formal attire, primarily slacks and button-up shirts. He may wear a blazer or the like when he feels like it. || Armor, and heavy at that. When he’s taking a break from the sword, he can be seen wearing a tunic and trousers, as well as dark boots that cut off at the ankle.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR/S: Falling from heaven, deep waters, death, being forgotten || being forgotten, failure, betrayal, and deep waters.

ASPIRATION/S: To be better, make heaven and Father proud || Become a renown paladin and help others reach that level of dedication in their field, primarily tank or damage-oriented roles.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Loyal, kind, patient, intuitive, intelligent, caring, stubborn, hardworking/driven

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Stubborn, hard-working, self-sacrificing, lacking in direction (Kemuel), aggressive

TEMPERAMENT: Phlegmatic

ANIMALS: Dogs, Bears || Golden Chocobo

VICE HABIT/S: Anger, overworking to the point of detrimental consequences.

FAITH: Is a believer, given his own existence. || Not extremely religious, but aware and acknowledging of the Twelve.

GHOSTS?: Yes. 

AFTERLIFE?: Not for him.

REINCARNATION?: No.

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: None

EDUCATION LEVEL: N/A? || Nothing advanced as a whole, except in the ways of the gladiator and paladin. He has basic knowledge in mending his clothes and developing armory/blacksmith skills.

FAMILY.

FATHER : N/A except by name, God || Anatole Sauveterre

MOTHER : N/A || Margeaux Sauveterre

SIBLINGS :  Too many to count || None

EXTENDED FAMILY: None

NAME MEANING/S: Helper of God || Light, Safe land

HISTORICAL CONNECTION?: He’s the archangel that, in old times, had guarded the gates of heaven, as well as act as a leading archon. He is also the archangel that has an army of twenty thousand angels dedicated solely for destruction, an apt tool in the early wars and the final ‘hurrah’ during the days of end. || Not quite, just suitable due to how beautiful sunlight can interact with the Black Shroud and its forests. 

FAVORITES.

BOOK: Can’t say for certain, but he has a feeling it’d be something like The Song of Achilles || hasn’t read too much, but Count Fortempt’s logs are interesting. Likewise with the Wondrous Trails in Idyllshire.

DEITY: He has no favorite, given his limited interaction with them. || His guardian deity, Azeyma the Warden

HOLIDAY: None in particular || Moonfire Faire 

MONTH: August || Eorzean equivalent

SEASON: Summer

PLACE: Eden || New Gridania

WEATHER:  Sunny with a cool breeze

SOUND / S: rain, leaves dancing in the wind, old hymns, thunder, laughter, metal hitting metal, shouts from war

SCENT / S: after an evening rain shower, sweat from sparring, metal and leather from armor, freshly brewed tea, and roses.

TASTE / S: warm, somewhat sweet like daifuku mochi or yams

FEEL / S: warmth, another person’s body against his own or in his arms, feathers, cotton fabric.

ANIMAL / S: Dogs and Grizzly Bears, as well as Golden Eagles || Chocobo

NUMBER: 20

COLORS: Gold, Copper, Umber, Cerulean

EXTRA.

TALENTS: Singing, swordsmanship, and leading.

BAD AT: Cooking, small talk in general, identifying romantic interest.

TURN ONS: Smiles, deep conversations, sparring, and loyalty.

TURN OFFS: Indecisive, overtly worried/anxious, untrusting, and lacking of faith.

HOBBIES: Reading, star gazing, visiting the sick (Kem more so than Elou).

TROPES: Lawful Good, Gentle Giant, Light is Good, Now Let Me Carry You

QUOTES:  “Loyal to the end, even when I may no longer stand or carry the sword of my creator.”

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 : If you could write your character your way in their own movie, what would it be called, what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?      

A1 :  Name is tba, I suppose. Something like an action film, with intense fight scenes or fixation on the preparation of war? With lulls that offer character introspection and some more tender moments between characters, telling his story and duties as an Archangel in heaven, and then ending through his first steps on earth.

Q2 :  What would their soundtrack/score sound like?          

A2 : Gustav Holst- the Planets- Mars, Bringer of Wars, perhaps. 

Q3 :  Why did you start writing this character?        

A3 : I wanted to try my take at an angel, but not just some pretty boy with wings. I had the intent to make his ‘true form’ the regular appearance, yet the time it’d take to draw countless of icons and format it with my schedule/energy doesn’t work. I wanted to make an angel that believed to be good and just, even when his actions don’t necessarily reflect that. Kem’s a character that has yet to be his own person and live life for himself, but much rather, revolves 90% of his actions around God. 

Q4 : What first attracted you to this character?        

A4 : The idea that angels aren’t just these pretty faces that do good and are good no matter what. There’s a level of complexity to their nature, good derived from what God had deemed such rather than formed from their own mind. I wanted to explore the consequences of this isolated life of an angel, where any actions of independence happen to be discouraged and punished, likewise when orders are deemed immoral by an angel, too.

Q5 : Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.

A5 :  He seems static. Fixed in his ways and never quite going to improve. It’s the biggest thing that I find hard for me to circumvent or get him into a new 

Q6 :  What do you have in common with your muse?          

A6 :  Reading, thinking, and general kindness as a whole? We’re both interested in learning yet Kem’s is limited to what texts and like are in front of him, compared to actively seeking that new information without ties to God/heaven. I tend to think before I speak, often times taking hours or days to truly reflect on my actions or general conversations before I can offer anything I deem ‘complete’.

Q7 :  How does your muse feel about you?        

A7 :  I believe Kemuel, given his character and such, may view me with some respect for my drive to work hard and do my best, but hold some concern over my mental health/background. 

Q8 : What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with?

A8 : Interesting? Well, there’s a lot. I want to start out with Fracturedsword’s Michael, as he and Kem are able to properly explore a healthy sibling dynamic and help each other up in their times of need. Making a thread revolve around their physical presence in one another’s lives, as well as the idea that men don’t have to be ‘macho’ or reserved in their emotions is truly nice to see! Likewise, lightdevoid’s Kurasa gives Kem’s FF14 verse a run for their patience. I like that we have this conflict in their current dynamic, making things like friendship harder to obtain but more rewardable in that regard. Likewise with wildborne’s tiger Queen, Skylar. She opens up a world of humanity and individualism that he had otherwise been starved of. The two share their respective worlds with one another, and then intertwine themselves in a world of their own making. One derived from a friendship and curiosity. 

Q9 :  What gives you inspiration to write your muse?    

A9 :  Hozier (see Sunlight and Church), Bastille (Icarus, Kindness, The Anchor), One Republic’s Native Album, American Authors’ Deep Waters, and summer sunsets.

Q10 : How long did this take you to complete?  

A10 : Too long, I got distracted and then stumped on some questions. Say, two days?