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weirdestbooks · 10 months ago

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Secrecy and Deception Chapter 14

McCarthy's Witch Hunt (Wattpad | Ao3)

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Event: Truman approves the H-bomb

Location: Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America

Date: January 31, 1950

If there was one thing America hated more than anything, it was being lied to, being deceived. He hated being tricked, and he hated being made a fool of. It reminded him too much of when he was a colony and a newly independent nation, a time in his life fraught with anxiety and uncertainty.

So, finding out that Klaus Fuchs had been a spy for the USSR was an unwelcome surprise. It explained why Soviet was not bothered by America and his father’s threat from so long ago. It explained far too much, and America felt like a fool for not figuring it out sooner.

“No one figured it out until it was too late. It’s not your fault,” Caleb said. America sighed, rubbing at his tired eyes.

“I know, I know. It doesn’t mean that it’s not still a big problem,” America said, “Especially with the fact that Soviet’s created atomic bombs. We no longer have a monopoly.”

“So we make a bigger bomb,” Rebecca pointed out, her tone dry, “Because Soviet won’t find a way to copy that too.”

“Becca, it’s great that you’re on Team America now, but could you be more cheery?” Caleb asked.

“No,” Rebecca deadpanned. America frowned. Rebecca made a good point, and despite himself, America felt the familiar prickle of paranoia creep up the back of his neck.

“Rebecca does have a point. I mean, we announced to the public that we were going to be building a bomb more powerful than the A-bomb. Soviet’s going to hear about that, and even without stealing our information on how to make it, he might still be able to do the same. We just have to hope that we get to it first,” America said.

“Just don’t get so obsessed with beating Soviet that you neglect everything else,” James chimed in.

“I get the feeling I’m about to be ganged up on,” America commented drily.

“What, us? We would never!” Caleb said, with Rebecca voicing her agreement.

“I hate that you two get along now.” America groaned, “But I get it. I promise you guys I’m not going to become focused on this. I’m not smart enough to figure out that A-bomb stuff. I’m better at other things. It’s just going to be something I keep an eye on. I promise.”

“Just don’t use this one on anyone. The A-bomb was unnecessary enough as it is, and you know it. This time, we have the risk of the Soviet Union bombing us right back. And a war using those weapons…I shudder to think of what it would be like,” James said.

“I can’t promise that, James. You know it’s not my choice.” America said. James sighed.

“I know, I know. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier if it were,” he said, sounding forlorn.

“James, I’m a mess. I wouldn’t be good at running a country. I’d mess everything up. Maybe things aren’t great, and maybe my government will make questionable choices, but things will get better. They always have.” America said.

“I know, know. I just have a feeling things are going to get worse first. And…we caught one Soviet spy. Who’s to say there aren’t more we haven’t found?” James pointed out.

“There’s definitely more we haven’t found. I just…I hope we can root them out quickly. The quicker we know we’re surrounded by people we can trust, the better.”

“Great!” Caleb said, and America could almost visualize the man clapping his hands together, “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

• ───────────────── •

Event: Public reaction to the Wheeling speech by Joseph McCarthy

Location: Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America

Date: February 1950

Fear and paranoia were starting to become America’s constant companions. They followed him, creeping up his spine and haunting his thoughts, a heavy weight that made it hard to think. America didn’t want to be scared, but with so many of his people scared, it made it hard for him not to feel their fear.

There were many valid reasons to be afraid, to be worried, to be paranoid of spies.

Between the discovery of Klaus Fuchs as a spy, the controversy surrounding Alger Hiss, Soviet’s nuclear weapons, and his actions in Eastern Europe, as well as the victory of the Communist China over China, well, America would be more concerned if his people were okay with that.

This latest spike in fear and paranoia was caused by allegations made by Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Senator had given a speech in West Virginia, claiming that he had a list of two hundred and five people in the State Department who had been identified as Communists but were still working there.

It was a nightmare.

“There’s no way that that many people are communists. That number has to be an exaggeration if it is even true. You need to take a breather and relax America. This getting to you isn't going to end well,” James said, voice gentle.

“You cannot tell me to relax right now, James,” America snapped. “We can’t be sure these are true until they are verified, and we can’t assume they’re false. We were so sure that the atomic bomb was a secret, but Soviet had a spy and got the information anyway. Maybe they are fake. But we can’t be sure.”

“Still, if you panic, more of your people will,” James said.

“I’m not going to stop being scared,” America snapped.

“Then, at least stop being paranoid,” James said. America scowled.

“I’m not being paranoid. I’m looking out for my people and my children. I saw what happened to China. You think I want to end up like her? With my children falling under the control of another personification while I’m forced to flee to an island like Puerto Rico or Hawaiʻi? I’m not taking any fucking chance, James. It’s about more than just communists. It’s about my country possibly being under a great internal threat, a threat that…that…you remember what it was like the last time we had an internal crisis.” America said, sitting down on his bed and taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes.

James was silent, and America knew the man was pondering his angry words. The Civil War was a sore spot for everyone in the family, and while most of them were content to try to move past it, the scars—the many, many scars—still remained.

“A few bad eggs won’t restart a civil war, America,” James said, voice gentle. America scoffed.

“Sure it won’t. We can’t be sure, James. We need to treat this with all the seriousness a threat deserves.” America snapped.

“You need to do better at keeping a clear head. Just because all your people are getting swept up into this doesn’t mean that you need to as well,” James said.

“Shut it, James,” America snapped, voice hard.

“Ame—”

“Shut it!” America said.

“Sorry. Just…don’t go too far,” James said, leaving America to wallow in the silence of his own head.

He hated it.

• ───────────────── •

Event: Red Scare

Location: Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America

Date: February 25, 1950

“You wanted to talk to me, Senator McCarthy?” America asked as he stepped into the man’s office. It had only been two weeks since the man’s speech in West Virginia, and America could still feel its effects with the creeping sense of paranoia that was starting to affect his everyday life.

So when the man sent a formal request to America’s office asking to meet with him, he was skeptical of the senator’s intentions. James wanted to deny the request, but America, still mad at him, decided it was okay to meet with Senator McCarthy.

He didn’t know why, as the man had not explained, but America was curious if this had anything to do with his accusations and the supposed list he had.

“Yes, thank you for coming. I know that this is unusual and probably not a good time, considering everything that has been happening in the world as of late,” Senator McCarthy said. America raised an eyebrow.

“The point being?” he asked. “Are you going to show me your list of alleged communists or something of that nature?”

If this was another human that was going to him in the hopes of political favors, America was going to lose it.

“He already has the fame from his speech. What would he need political favors from you for?” Unorganized Territory questioned.

“To make them more believable and valid,” Rebecca answered.

“No, I am keeping the list private for now to ensure that anyone under suspicion cannot flee,” Senator McCarthy answered as America raised a skeptical eyebrow. “But I have some concerns about spies who may be close to your inner circle.”

America subconsciously straightened, paranoia pricking at his neck. His inner circle of humans as America was incredibly small. If one of them was a spy…

“How would he figure out before you?” Rebecca asked, but there was nervousness in her voice. Senator McCarthy’s voice changed, becoming more confident as he realized that he had America’s attention.

“I believe that one of your states is a communist spy,” he finished as America let out a startled laugh. Rebecca seemed to have been stunned into silence, and Unorganized Territory was practically howling with laughter.

“You can’t possibly be serious,” America said, collecting himself. Looking significantly more annoyed, Senator McCarthy doubled down.

“I can assure you, I am,” he said.

“I wonder if we need to make Alaska’s relationship with his biological family public to put a stop to this speculation.” Unorganized Territory commented.

“And what evidence do you have?” America asked, his earlier paranoia gone and instead replaced with amusement. This was a good break for him, away from the paranoia of everything else, listening to politicians make the most baffling claims straight-faced.

“Not much, but South Carolina has betrayed you before,” Senator McCarthy said. America inhaled sharply through his nose. He had…he had been expecting Alaska to be the accused state. For it to be South Carolina…after everything…

Unorganized Territory had stopped laughing, and America could tell that James had just joined them.

“It—it was more than just South Carolina that was a part of…that. Are you trying to tell me that you think my entire southern region might be spies for our enemies?” America asked, trying to redirect the man’s thoughts, employ some sort of logic.

South Carolina might have started a rebellion, but the military government brought him back in line, and he had been a model citizen since then.

But America also believed that when the states had started succeeding all those years ago.

“America…” James began, causing America to clench his fists in anger.

“Of course not…but South Carolina had not been the most loyal to you between the Civil War and that Nullification Crisis. I just want to confirm that he’s someone you know you can trust and that he’s not taking advantage of your relationship.” Senator McCarthy said, holding up his hand in a placating gesture.

“Of…of course, he is someone I trust now. He—he has changed since the Civil War,” America said, almost wanting to add the information about how they ensured the military government would keep him loyal.

But…South Carolina had been free from the military government for many years now. He could have decided not to live by the promise of loyalty anymore and decided to get back at America by working as a spy…

America shook the thought out of his head. It was just the paranoia getting to him. South Carolina could be trusted.

“Of course he is. He’s a part of this country. Anything that affects you negatively will ultimately affect him badly. He might make bad choices, but he certainly isn��t an idiot!” James protested.

“Of course, if you think he can be trusted, then I will trust your judgment. I just wanted to draw attention to that, just as a precaution. Enough communists have infiltrated our government. I don’t want them to begin getting to you as well.” Senator McCarthy said. America stood up somewhat suddenly.

“They haven’t,” he snapped, turning to leave. Senator McCarthy was just making baseless claims. There was no truth to them.

Right?

• ───────────────── •

Event: Red Scare

Location: Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America

Date: March 28, 1950

America had tried hard to forget Senator McCarthy’s claims about South Carolina. But they would not leave his head, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to trust his son; he really did, but once the doubt crept in, there was little he could do to get it to leave.

“This isn’t the nineteenth century anymore. He can be trusted. But you better not go to this new meeting with McCarthy, America, or I swear to all that is good and holy, I will take this body—”

“Rebecca, not helping,” James injected, cutting off the raging woman.

“I…I should, though. Just in case,” America said, unsure of why he was justifying this meeting to himself.

“Most people think it’s lies and bullshit,” Rebecca snapped.

“Becca…” James said, trying his best to keep Rebecca in line, it seems.

“I…I know that it might not all be true…but…” America trailed off, unsure of how to justify his paranoia and how to explain the fear he had towards all people, how he wondered if they were spies and if they were the latest of his people to sell him out.

How he didn’t want to doubt South Carolina, but once the idea that his son might have turned traitor again entered his head, America lost sleep thinking about it, trying to explain to himself how that couldn’t be true.

South Carolina had regained his trust. But America couldn’t deny that a military government helped with that. He couldn't deny that there might still be some resentment there, buried under the surface of a loyal citizen. But was it enough to make South Carolina betray him?

“This is only going to make you more paranoid. You just…America, you just need to trust that the spies will be found out and that your states, however disloyal they have been in the past, are trustworthy now,” Rebecca said, “You choose to trust me. So choose to try them, regardless of their past.”

America would have an easier time believing Rebecca if she hadn’t spent most of her life belittling and insulting him, making him afraid to talk to other nations for fear that he was still just a colony. Those were brave words coming from the Queen of Paranoia herself.

“America…” James said in a chiding tone. America clenched his fists, scoffing as he entered Senator McCarthy’s office.

“Good day, Senator McCarthy. How are you doing?” America asked, trying his best to ignore everyone else’s voices.

“I am doing fine. Have you thought over what we discussed last month?” Senator McCarthy asked. America raised an eyebrow, careful to keep his voice even.

“I am. Why? Is there another former Confederate you’d like to accuse of being a communist spy?” America asked. Senator McCarthy nodded.

“These ones are less accusations and more warnings. I have thought over what other states could be convinced against you, and clearly, the South has enough past…bad blood that they might be convinced into the slightest bit of treason as pretty revenge and well—”

“Get on with it,” America said, rubbing at his ever-growing headache.

“Right, well, most of the South I do not believe are spies, nor do I think they have the potential to be spies. With his long history of disloyalty, South Carolina sticks out, but the state of Alabama as well,” Senator McCarthy said.

“Bama would never! He loves this family more than anything, you paranoid, power-hungry—” James began, a hatred in his voice that was typically reserved for Britain before Rebecca cut him off.

“James! Not now!”

“Why do they stand out, exactly? Alabama is…he’s very loyal as well, and he cares about his family. I cannot see him doing this.”

“Yes, I know you want to trust them; you are a good father to your children, but your loyal Alabama birthed the personification of the uprising. Surely those are reasons to doubt them, especially in a time like now?” Senator McCarthy said.

America wanted to argue, to defend his son, but the paranoia wrapped around his mind, choking him under the weight of the accusations, and America fought to keep his face calm.

Senator McCarthy had a point…

“America, you can’t seriously believe this. Bama has said himself that the Civil War was a lapse in judgment. You know he cares about this family more than anything. He would never betray us!” James angrily protested.

“I do not think that he would do this. But I will keep it in mind and have the committee review your other accusations and look over the actions and contacts of my children just to ensure that everything is okay. I do not want to believe Bama would betray not only me but his people in this way, but it is still better to be safe rather than sorry.” America said, speaking half to Senator McCarthy and half to James.

“You shouldn’t be doubting them at all. If you can’t trust your states, who can you trust?” Rebecca said. America stood up, eager to end this topic of conversation before James and Rebecca began guilting him.

“Have a good rest of your day, Senator McCarthy. I look forward to seeing if your theories hold weight.”

He was not eager for the scolding James was prepared to give him…

“You’re being a fool. It’s only right.”

“No,” America said as soon as they left the room, “I’m being cautious. The sooner you understand that, the better.”

“Remember when I said not to take this too far? This is too far. I only hope you know what you are doing…” James said.

America scoffed. Of course, he knew what he was doing. He was looking out for his people, and the sooner James learned to understand that, the better.

#countryhumans #statehumans #countryhumans america #historical countryhumans #secrecy and deception by weird

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pearl484-blog · 2 years ago

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Our Scars From The Past

Fire Opal here with the next entry in Adrien AUGreste and our 5th story in our Jekyll/Hype Series. This one's a doozy. Make sure you're in a good place before you start. Read the previous Jekyll Hyde stories as well. After the disaster that was the Gala, Catwalker meets up with Ladybug. She wants answers, and they're not leaving until she gets some. Ao3 link.

Catwalker checked his staff again as he waited for Ladybug. Yep, he was standing in the exact coordinates that Ladybug had sent him, and Ladybug was 10 minutes late. She’d arranged to have a meeting with him tonight before one of his patrols, and it wasn’t hard to understand why.

The Gala. Chat Noir’s break in and attack on Polymouse had been everywhere. Even if the Ladyblog had been mysteriously hacked into and Alya shut off, it was on every reputable news site and the source of gossip everywhere. It would’ve been impossible to have not heard about it.

Tonight was finally going to be the night that she took his Miraculous. Catwalker could feel both relief and dread flooding his body in equal measures. His every attempt to try to find someone to take the Miraculous, someone he could trust, hadn’t gone well.

The theft of Vesperia’s Miraculous had already made it difficult, seeing as there was no way he could trust that if he got another Wielder alone to make the hand off, Chat Noir wouldn’t attack them. He could’ve tried more than one person, but he knew each person he told only increased the chances of either Ladybug finding out about what he’d done -and possibly becoming upset by it- or Shadow Moth discovering him via akuma or a co-conspirator over-hearing the heroes having a conversation.

Perhaps Catwalker should’ve trusted a friend with it, but the Black Cat was a dangerous Miraculous. He had to make absolutely certain that whoever he trusted with it was either a perfect fit or would return it to Ladybug post-haste, but…it was a hard decision, and Chloe’s constant attempts to air his friends’ dirty laundry hadn’t exactly inspired confidence in anyone.

Yet, it was clear that Catwalker’s hands weren’t the ones that should be holding onto the Black Cat Ring either. His instability alone was proof of that. Every day he lived in fear that Chat Noir would finally do something terrible, something irreversible. He tried everything he could to stall him, to keep Chat Noir at bay, but that had gotten increasingly difficult ever since the Vesperia incident.

Staying human, staying Adrien was becoming increasingly uncomfortable every day. Nowadays, it seemed as if every moment he stayed untransformed, left an uncomfortable itch under his skin, one that only being Catwalker could fix. Yet every transformation risked becoming Chat Noir again.

Catwalker was sure that if he could just get it out of his hands, if he could go cold turkey, it would stop. That deep, aching need to be transformed, and if he didn’t…well Plagg had warned him that his spell on the Ring would have consequences. Catwalker needed to face them. Without hurting anyone else.

Yet, when Ladybug arrived, she did not demand the Ring as Catwalker had expected, as he’d so desperately wanted to.

Instead she’d asked, very quietly, “Are you Chat Noir?”

Catwalker felt a deep chill run through his body. How was he supposed to answer that? Because he wasn’t. Not anymore, but he used to be, or maybe he still was. This whole mess was so confusing. Chat Noir was the one who’d hurt Vesperia, who’d stolen the Bee and the Fox, who’d hurt Polymouse. Catwalker hadn’t done that. He’d never betray his team like that, but in a way he’d had.

Chat Noir was the ugly nasty parts of him that he didn’t want anymore, that no one wanted anymore, and Catwalker had created him, focused all of it into one thing and accidentally unleashed it upon the world. It hadn’t been Shadow Moth who’d done it, or Mayura, or some other baddie. It was just him. Him and his terrible decision.

Yet, if Ladybug knew, she’d be so disappointed. He’d tried so hard to be the perfect teammate. He’d done everything right, but would Ladybug think so? No. No, she wasn’t like him. She was likable. She was loved. She wouldn’t understand why he’d done it, and she was the Guardian. No matter what, it was a misuse of the Miraculous, and she’d never forgive that.

Catwalker couldn’t lie either. He was a good teammate. The perfect teammate, and Ladybug hated liars above all else. Either he told Ladybug the truth, and she’d be so hurt and angry she’d refuse to hear him out, or he could lie and she’d be upset if she found out the truth.

But…if he played his cards right, he could use her anger against her. Get her to demand the Ring back and no one would be the wiser. She’d find a new teammate, a better teammate, and he’d be rid of this nightmare of indecision for good.

Catwalker bowed to her, looking appropriately remorseful.

“I do apologize,” he told her. “I never meant for this to go as far as it did. I’m afraid I must admit that I have been withholding information from you, Ladybug. Please, understand that while I would never want to hurt my fellow teammates or allow them to come to any injury, it was my carelessness that has repeatedly allowed Chat Noir to roam free. I do not know if I can stop him from getting the Ring again. I am truly sorry.”

Ladybug stared at him with eyes as hard as stone. “That’s not what I asked,” she told him, her voice hard, uncompromising. “Are you Chat Noir?”

“My name is Catwalker, Ladybug,” he tried.

“You can change your costume if you try hard enough,” Ladybug insisted. “I’ve seen it before. So I’m going to ask again. Are you Chat Noir?”

“You know me, Ladybug,” Catwalker said, pleadingly, his tail curling around him and his ears flattening. “I’m the Black Cat who came after Chat Noir.”

“It’s a yes or no question, Catwalker,” Ladybug insisted. “Are you Chat Noir?”

Catwalker flinched and refused to meet Ladybug’s eyes as he softly told her, “It's complicated.” To Ladybug, it was as good as an admission, and the two of them knew it.

“How is it complicated?” Ladybug demanded, hurt in her voice.

Catwalker felt his arms wrap around himself as he told her, “it just is, okay?”

“No,” Ladybug answered, her voice unyielding. “No, we’ve avoided talking about this long enough. Chat Noir has stolen two Miraculous already. He tried to steal a third. I need answers, Cat, and I need them now.”

“I don’t know where they are,” Cat admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“But you know about Chat Noir,” Ladybug said pointedly. Catwalker didn’t even try to deny it, still refusing to meet her eyes. He could feel the anxiety and the guilt bubbling up in his veins, and he struggled to shove them back into the ring.

There was a tense silence between them before Ladybug said, “Fine. If you won’t talk, then I will. At the Gala, Chat Noir said you imprisoned him in the ring. What did he mean by that?”

Catwalker shrugged helplessly. He knew what that tone meant. Ladybug already had an idea of what was going on, and if Catwalker contradicted whatever she was thinking, it’d only make her angrier and more disappointed in him. So he stayed quiet and made sure he looked as remorseful as possible. Maybe, if he did that and he agreed with whatever she said, it wouldn’t be so bad.

He could feel Ladybug’s glare as she silently dared him to contradict her, to lie to her, but he knew better, just as he knew better than to say anything when she said, “well, aren’t you going to say something?”

So he just meekly told her “I don’t know.” 'I don’t know' was always a good answer, a safe answer.

They sat there, as the silence seemed to start burning with the intensity of Ladybug’s rage as Catwalker’s tail curled tighter and tighter around him and his ears went down further and further. He dared not look at Ladybug, knowing that if he did, he’d be tempted to do something, say something, and only incur her wrath.

Finally, Ladybug sighed angrily, and Catwalker relaxed just a bit, knowing he hadn’t failed her test, before she angrily said, “I talked to Tikki. She thinks that you might be Chat Noir. That you might’ve sealed away parts of yourself to become Catwalker.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Catwalker answered, knowing the right answer to that one. It was always yes, and either ma’am or sir or their full name. Best not to repeat the same title too many times in a row though. That sounded like you were tuning them out. Maybe he’d get out this okay.

“Why?” Ladybug asked. Catwalker winced.

“I-I dunno,” he told her, finally facing her to show his best kitten eyes. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“You forgot?” Ladybug asked. “You can’t honestly tell me that you expect me to believe that you don’t know why you tore yourself in two?”

Catwalker held himself so tightly he felt like he was suffocating. “I-I’m sorry,” he repeatedly numbly, taking a step back from Ladybug, but Ladybug immediately took a step towards him, closing the distance.

“Why did you do it, Cat?” Ladybug asked again. “What could’ve made you do something like that?”

Catwalker shrugged, refusing to meet Ladybug’s eyes again. He rubbed his ring. The finger was starting to hurt, but it was nothing compared to the way he was feeling right now, like he was breathing in water.

“No, Cat, you can’t back out of this,” Ladybug said, the frustration taking over. “Two of the Miraculous are missing. Stolen by you.” No, no. That was Chat Noir. “You’ve attacked several of your teammates.” He…he hadn’t meant for that to happen. “You’ve done everything you can to hurt us, to destabilize us, and you’re refusing to give me an answer? No. No, we’re not doing this anymore. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stand up for you. I can’t defend you if I don’t know why, Cat!”

With each word, Catwalker’s tail curled tighter and tighter around him, and his ears grew flatter and flatter. He held himself tightly, backing away more and more, but Ladybug didn’t let up. She kept coming closer and closer. She wouldn’t stop. Why wouldn’t she stop?

“Was it because I didn’t love you back?” Ladybug asked in disbelief. “Is that it? Is that what this was all about? Were you jealous? Did I not laugh at enough of your jokes? Tell me, Cat. Please. Why?”

Catwalker was shaking. He was shaking and he couldn’t stop. “Stop,” he begged. “Please, please, just…just back off! ” God, he felt awful. Like he was going to be sick.

“Not until I know the truth, Cat. Not until I know why."

Finally, the last threads of self-control that was Catwalker SNAPPED and Catwalker felt himself get dragged under as he felt Chat Noir’s feral grin grow. ~*~

Ladybug’s seen dozens of transformations from dozens of different heroes. She’s seen ones ranging from sassy to cute to bold, but she’d never seen Chat Noir’s. She’d always imagined it to be goody, over the top, dramatic, just like him, but none of that seemed to match Chat Noir’s transformation today.

Instead, Chat Noir’s transformation seemed torturous, painful even. The magical energy that transformed them spread from his ring like a disease, sending long thick cracks of neon green pulsing through his body. As it started, Catwalker fell, reduced to only a weak fetal position as he panted and whimpered, his whole body shaking from the strain. Ladybug rushed to comfort him, only to be greeted by claws slashing towards her face and the faintest of hisses sent her way.

Immediately, Ladybug was reminded of a warning her teacher had once given her when she was younger. “Be careful with hurt animals, even the ones you know. Sometimes they’ll lash out and try to hurt you if they’re in pain.” Looking at Catwalker/Chat Noir now, it wasn’t hard to tell that this was hurting them, that this wasn’t how a transformation should be, but even though Ladybug was a Guardian, she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to stop it.

As the cracks spread throughout Catwalker’s body, they disintegrated all of the differences between him and Chat Noir, leaving them to flake off into little pieces of ash as Catwalker struggled to breathe. Angry little tangles of neon magic began sparking across his body, bringing back some of Chat’s accessories as Chat startled struggling to stand up.

Ladybug went to help him, but Chat Noir batted her hand away, giving her an almost offended look.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, as if he hadn’t been in excruciating pain just moments before. He smirked at her, “Or at least as fine as I can be given the circumstances. You know, the Guardian dragging me up here for some lame brain interrogation searching for answers that she doesn’t even want.”

“Yes, I do,” Ladybug insisted. How could Chat believe otherwise? It was the entire reason she came here, to hear him out! Why did he think she’d have gone through all this trouble, just to ask about something she didn’t want to know? That was ridiculous!

Chat Noir laughed scornfully. “Oh, really? Now you want answers? Suuuure you do. Okay, let’s start off with something easy. Why did we do this? Gee, Ladybug, I think the better question is ‘why wouldn’t we?’ It’s not like anyone liked us. We were too silly, too flirty, too loud, too messy, too unprofessional, just too much . Why settle for Chat Noir when you can have perfection?”

“What?” Ladybug asked, taken aback completely. “But I thought you liked being Chat Noir?”

Chat Noir rolled his eyes, “Yeah, I did, but nobody else did. Nobody but Plagg. I was just Chat Noir: the pet, the mascot, the sidekick, the teammate .”

That stupid cat was out of his mind. “I liked you!” Ladybug insisted. How could he not know that? “You were my friend! We’ve been through so much together, and yeah, I might not have been in love with you, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t close!”

They had to have been, after all those patrols they’d shared, all their jokes, all those private little moments in the middle of akuma fights where Chat had helped save her, both in body and spirit. Besides Alya, Chat was her best friend. They were close, closer than close.

“That’s not true!” Chat spat, tears pooling in his eyes. “You replaced me! You demoted me on live tv. Then, when someone better came along, you just went with it. You didn’t even question it. The little things made me doubt, but seeing you just let me go without question just proved it!”

“Excuse me?!” Ladybug asked, frustrated. “You’re the one who abandoned me ! You just left me like nothing ever happened! Like we hadn’t faced down all those akuma together. Like we haven’t spent hours and hours together. Like we weren’t friends.”

Chat Noir might not have seen it but she had mourned him. She had spent hours crying to Alya over her lost partner, mourning her loss and having to accept the deep empty hollow feeling in her gut that she’d truly meant so little to him that he’d left without so much as a voicemail goodbye. Every day, she’d fought with herself, wanting to have Tikki check in on him, ask him questions, and her need to respect his decision. She knew how stressful being a hero was, and if Chat couldn’t handle it, she didn’t need to remind him of it anymore than she should.

Chat didn’t see it that way.

“Ever since you became the Guardian, you’ve been the one acting like nothing ever happened between us!” Chat shouted. “You never showed up to patrol! You never wanted to talk to me or hang out with me. You told someone else your secret identity and ditched me to go to another country without so much as a note!”

Ladybug felt as though she’d been slapped. She’d tried. She’d tried so hard to get out of that trip, and she’d thought she’d had it. She’d managed to get out of going last year, but it wasn’t the way that everything worked out. She couldn’t have left Paris undefended, and it wasn’t like she would’ve been able to check her phone every 5 minutes for an akuma alert or dip out for no reason. Not with the way her mom had been eyeing her like a hawk. She’d done her best, and Chat Noir had said he’d forgiven her.

And then there were the missed patrols, which Chat had said that he was fine with. That he’d said he’d take care of. She’d been working on translating those weird riddles of the Grimoire and keeping the kwamis under control. She’d been trying to help them, and now Chat Noir was just going to throw it back in her face? Why because he was a little cranky?

“I was busy,” Ladybug reminded him, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice. “Being a Guardian is hard.”

“Oh, is it now?” Chat scoffed. Rolling his eyes, he mockingly said, “It’s not like silly little Chat Noir would ever know what it's like to be under so much pressure.”

Chat Noir narrowed his eyes at Ladybug, “Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live my life? I always have to be perfect every day in every way. I have to be a model and an actor. I have to be an Olympic level fencer, but I have to be careful too because I also have to be an amazing piano player, so I have to watch the hands.”

Chat laughed. “Course, that means I have to study, and practice so I can keep up. Memorize my lines, play the piano pieces without any mistakes, practice fencing till I’m the best in my class. But that’s not all. OH NO! I also have to be a model student and get amazing grades too, or I’ll get pulled out of school, and I won’t be able to see any of my friends ever again!”

“I have to be friendly, but not too friendly or it'll lead people on. I have to be interested in the fanciest stuff like classical music, so I can’t practice for my band at home, because that sort of thing is ‘unbecoming’. But hey, maybe if I’m really good, I can squeeze in a few practice sessions with my band as a reward, but not too much or I might fall behind on my oh so important schedule or maybe I got unlucky and an akuma might attack, wiping out the headstart that I always have to have on all of my homework just in case because I cannot. Risk. Turning in an assignment late! So, yeah, Ladybug, I have no idea what it's like to be under a lot of pressure!”

"You're Adrien," Ladybug realized, her horror hanging in the air between them alongside the words. Oh God, all the times that she had called Adrien flashed in her mind, along with how quiet he’d been lately, how reserved, despite everything.

"Oh no, my lady," Chat answered, flashing her a feral grin with empty eyes. "Adrien is dead. He's just a puppet left to dance to whatever anyone around him asks of him. I'm all the little pieces of him that were too inconvenient to exist for you and the others. The anger, the bitterness, the snark, the playfulness, the willfulness, the pride."

“What are you even trying to do, Chat?” Ladybug asked, desperate to do anything to fix this. Help the boy she loved, help her partner before he destroyed himself, before he did something he could never come back from. “All these complicated schemes, all these thefts and the attacks. What do you want ?”

“I want to live ,” Chat Noir said, unable to keep the desperate plea from his voice. Ladybug’s heart nearly broke at that. “I want to make sure that Catwalker can’t get rid of me. That I have people who will help me. Who will protect me, even when you heroes won’t.”

“Of course, I’ll protect you, Chat, “Ladybug reassured him as she reached to brush some of the tears off his face. “You’re my partner, Chat. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Chat Noir pulled away from her, baring his teeth. “The partner you replaced ,” Chat Noir hissed, but Ladybug forced herself not to react. This was Chat Noir. This was Adrien. He wouldn’t hurt her. She had to trust that.

“You’re mad,” Ladybug said, making sure to meet Chat Noir’s eyes so that he’d know, that he’d see that she saw him, that she understood , no matter how uncomfortable it made her feel. “I get it. You’ve been through…a lot, and I wasn’t there when I should have. We’re partners, okay? We’re going to get through this. Together.”

Then she hugged Chat.

For a moment, Chat was stiff, but then he relaxed into her arms. Then he began crying. Just a few stray tears at first, but then deep ugly sobs. The kind she never would’ve expected from Adrien, but the kind that Chat desperately needed, now more than ever.

“I just want everything to go back to the way they were,” Chat admitted, tearfully. “I want to be Adrien again.”

“I…I…don’t know if we can do that,” Ladybug told him honestly. “There’s too much that’s different. There’s too much that’s changed.”

Chat Noir wilted, and Ladybug reached over to grab his shoulders, making sure to be gentle enough that he could get out of her grip if he really wanted.

“I will free you though,” Ladybug vowed. “I’ll make sure that whatever happens, you will be okay. I’m going to save you. I’m going to stop this.”

Chat Noir sniffled, drying up his tears. “You don’t honestly believe that.”

“Yeah, Chat,” Ladybug said, “I do.”

Chat Noir looked away from her, looking so exhausted and beaten down, Ladybug wondered if she should try to offer him a place to sleep in her room, before he pushed her hands away from him, running off to disappear into the night.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous lb #fanfic #adrien agreste #fanfiction #adrienaugust #my fic #Catwalker #cat walker #marinette dupain cheng #identity reveal #inspired by jekyll and hyde

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celestial-desiree · 1 year ago

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it sucks that i never experienced romantic teenage love. i know it is romanticized in today's society a lot but the fact, that i was always unwanted, the not-so-pretty girl who wasn't anybody's crush during those developing years JUST MAKES ME TERRIBLY SAD. especially today, because one year ago i felt the most happiest because i thought someone wanted me?? i don't even care about him anymore, it wasn't love after all, i just wanted to feel something because all my life i've been feeling like i'm a piece of unworthy shit. i don't even know where it comes from. because i was bullied? because of my parents behaviour in my childhood? i haven't spoken with my father since 1 week now. i didn't have the energy to call him. but i thought about him. my mother says she's feeling happier because of my presence. i mean, I'm glad she feels this way because she deserves happiness. but how do i feel? terrible. i'm ashamed of the things i've been put through. i cannot find a way to verbalize my feelings because i'm full of shame. honestly, i don't know what would help me. probably friends. and therapy. i feel like i am a big mess nobody wants to care about. but it is an irrational thought because lot of people love me. i just want to find my own tribe. with whom i can talk about literally anything and i wouldn't feel like they bore me or i bore them or they would occasionally call me or text me to meet but it never happens this way. i cannot seem to find connection. i am so alone. i don't even know why i live. i love music and concerts. but other than that? i'm so lost ://

i hate those fucking boys too, with whom i could have had a connection but they were afraid to talk to me, or losers, or ignorant piece of shits, i really don't understand why people can't speak openly. i would feel shit if they had rejected me, but living in constant doubt is far more worse. i hope someone, in the future will give me that something i need rn because i fear without that i might fall apart. i'm counting on you, love.

i don't even know why i am so unlucky in love. i want to love someone badly. there's no one at my disposal and it makes me sad. sad sad sad fragile thing. that is me. where are you my love i need you, don't leave me dry

i don't even know what to do with my heart. it constatly breaks. AND IT HURTS SO MUCH CARRYING ALL THIS LOVE. I KNOW I SHOULD GIVE IT TO MYSELF. BUT I'M NOT EVEN SURE I COULD BECAUSE INSIDE ME I MIGHT NOT WORTHY ALL OF THE GOOD THINGS. WHY AM I PUNISHING MYSELF???? I SHOULD BE MY BIGGEST SUPPORTER. BUT I'M NOT

I MISS MY BEST FRIEND. I DON'T EVEN HAVE THAT "BEST FRIEND". it's all bullshit. got no friends got no lover. i love my two best friends. maybe it's a me problem, because i suppressed myself for a long time. i don't know.

my mother loves to talk about herself. i'm not the one who likes to talk about herself easily. my father likes to talk about his things. but he doesn't openly talk to me about things. only just the surface. they will literally never know me, never know what i like, what i love, what I fear from, it's just my saving mechanism, what I adopted??? i'm in a terrible mess :(((((

I WANT MY MEDICINE I WANT THIS ACHE TO GO AWAY I WANT A LOVING BOYFRIEND I WANT SUPPORT I WANT EMOTIONAL BOND I WANT TO TALK I WANT TO LOVE I WANT TO CRY IN THE ARMS OF MY BELOVED ONE I WANT TO SCREAM MY HEART OUT AND BURST INTO TEARS IN FRONT OF EVERYONE

I miss everyone I ever met or interacted with with whom I created a little bond

why are you not here? i'll wait for you. i know you will come.

those fucking trains. are you over me? did you ever care about me? or i was an average person? do you think i am a crazy girl? do you lose yourself and wonder? please come back. but i know you won't because you are lame. you aren't man enough. or you just never cared. you're nowhere to be found. mindig is kis zsibbadás maradsz. why couldn't you be the one? why couldn't you make your moves? why why why why why. FUCK YOU FUCK FUCK YOU. i wish i had felt terrible because of you. but it's not about you anymore, i guess. I JUST HATE WHEN PEOPLE CAN'T SAY HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT ME.

those sweet little things you said. i liked those. but it was a hell of a ride to silence them as you left. i wanted you. we could have been good friends. i couldn't control my desires. you already has a relationship. again. and it's not just about sex. it's great. such a shame i can't get over things. if i could, i would have lot of friends and i wouldn't be so fucking afraid of EVERYTHING.

put me in the ground. i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you te ghostolós fasz. geci, normális is lehettél volna azzal, hogy visszaírsz annyit, hogy bocsi, nem állok erre készen. kibaszott 21-22 évesek akik azt hiszik gecire érettek meg tapasztaltak miközben ugyanúgy parasztul viselkednek ahogy cserbenhagynak egy lányt. biztosan szarul esett volna a visszautasítás, de az, hogy ghostoltál, még szarabbul esett. BURJÁNZIK bennem a gyűlölet mindenki iránt. de legalább nem is tudlak lecsekkolni már. remélem jól érezd magad, te csicska geci fos gyász.

I SHOULD BE OVER THINGS I SHOULD BE GETTING OVER IT

i miss b, from 2019, why was such an idiot to-

sad sad sad lonely pathetic thing

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justjozzyjitters · 2 years ago

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Old Poem #99

I Forget Why I Was Laughing

Talking with the windows down audibility and sensibility get drowned out,

Laughing-- I don't recall why,

He's pawing at my hand between each manual flick.

Kissing my knuckles despite the grime that surely resides layered on my skin,

Pulls my hand over with his on the next pass,

Fear grappling,

I forget why I was laughing.

A separate instance.

Today, I almost died,

Just driving in my car

So glad in retrospect that I was alone,

Though my brother sitting beside me--

None-the-wiser,

Just staring at his phone.

No one to worry

As I get to keep my glory,

Of course, you remind me,

With you nothing is truly of fear

As the hand from from my own takes control the wheel,

A foot already caring for the break and the gas,

Leaving the only thing I can really mess up to be,

Tears floating in gasoline.

My favorite things are car rides.

Driving myself alone,

With music budding through my ears

For me to hear alone.

Vocalizing outlooks

No matter if the windows are down

As I'm just singing to myself.

I a world where negativity is light than water

And happiness is gasoline

I feel I take for granted the one who gives me everything.

No longer just growing buds,

Some may overhear,

But never know the impact,

Of things they never hear.

Not of the love we worked so loosely to construct,

To withstand life more as rubber than as plastic.

Blooming violently,

Just barely to survive

Through the cruelties

Of a winter storm.

A renewable resource,

Never something so dire.

Springs comes brewing,

Sniffles spewing

But the windows still go down,

Singing really, really loud.

Fears and frustrations are natural,

But so are you and me.

No matter how coarse it sounds,

Still sounding just as proud.

I didn't sing

When it came so near the end of things.

Change is scary as an inevitability.

Rubber loses its stretch if left in a drawer

Just to snap at the next use

While constant contact renders old rubber as good as new,

Then to stretch it too thin,

Time and distance could kill us both

What's another 120 minuets?

Too shocked to hear a sound,

I still felt one come out,

Not so very proud

But still just as loud.

Other than the time you switched your hand with mine,

Before it even really registered what was going on,

You always wanted me to learn to drive manual but

I refused in fear that a damaged frame would kill our flame still so new to the kiln.

Even a renewable resource needs care to rejuvenate,

A cut down tree can't become a forest without a farmer's seed.

Nothing is just renewable,

But then again, you love me.

Gasoline costs money,

But money can't come just from cutting down trees,

Gasoline isn't renewable;

Money isn't renewable

But we work to get it

To act like it was free.

Fire must be cared for,

Must always have O2 to burn,

Away goes the fear to make room for love to grow,

And to patch the distance change creates

To be a reminder needed-not but nonetheless great to see

In uses of pleasure

And in work

Then finally,

in coming home to you.

About 2022, age 18.

#side by side poem #my poetry #amateur writing #creative writing course #love poem #two poems in one

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tarabyte3 · 9 months ago

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Jess, you are too kind. Thank you! 😭🙏 Truly, this whole response was an unbelievable compliment. I just keep rereading it and sobbing. I'm genuinely going to keep it and cherish it forever. 💖

I started writing this because I was thinking about that expression on Kino's face the last time we see him in the show while he's staring out at the water, how haunted and broken he looks. I really wanted to explore that that feeling (and pour saltwater on his wounds) and do something a little different than I usually write.

The first bits I wrote were the dream sequences, thinking I would start things off immediately in the water. But then I realized that would put more time and focus on the action of what happened, which would change the tone into more of a survival story, when I wanted to focus on the emotional impact of it instead. So I got the idea to turn it into a dream, and that allowed me to capture the tension, the fear, the dread, and the urgency that I could carry throughout the rest of the story without "showing" too much. I wanted the audience to feel its presence without having to necessarily go through it.

Making it a dream also helped me create that overlap between the harshness of reality and the unreality of being sucked into memory and flashback (to let them push and pull at each other like waves). Because when I started writing, the second thing I knew for sure is that I wanted to craft something haunting and melancholic to give all that trauma the constant emotional weight it needs. The water, greedy, etc. So I'm very pleased you mentioned that section of her just sitting in the cave feeling adrift!

And I'm beyond relieved to hear the tone and themes came through! 🥹 (I was definitely NOT anxious and fretting that it was boring or too much or pretentious garbage 👀)

This was also my way of writing a story that fits the season. To capture the way autumn gets misty and rainy, dark and dreary, and how it messes with our perception of time. I wanted the setting to help carry some of that weight (the helplessness of being stuck in the rain/water, and then the tension when it suddenly stops and is so quiet. How heavy it can feel knowing the rain could start again at any moment, like the sky is just holding its breath).

AND this fic was an excuse to write asshole!Kino, who is so much fun to write! 😆 But I firmly believe he needs that layer of vulnerability underneath all of that gruffness to truly be Kino. That's the complexity of the character. A man that cares a lot, but tries to convince himself he doesn't just to survive. Just as pushing her away is another form of survival (“I thought, if I kept you at a distance, it would hurt less when it finally broke you, but you made it so damn hard.”) It doesn't necessarily make him a good man all the time, and it's why Andy describes Kino as being very selfish at first in the show, which I also wanted to capture. (It's why she can't just immediately forgive him and knows she has to work through what happened, no matter how she feels about him.)

So your comment that this was the perfect piece for him is one of the most incredible compliments I've ever received. Especially since you are such an immensely talented writer that I look up to!! Losing it. I am beyond appreciative of your kindness. From the bottom of my heart: Thank you. 💕🫶😭

Remember You Are Half Water

Pairing: Kino Loy x f!Reader

(7.2 k words)

AO3 link

Summary: Drowning is easy. It's surviving that's hard. Or: After the prison break, you and Kino hide out on Narkina 5.

Warnings: (18+) Explicit, angst, enemies to lovers (kind of), they argue and not in the flirty way, vaginal sex, rough sex, unprotected sex, grim realism, survival situation, descriptions of drowning, descriptions of resuscitation, cpr, thoughts of death, thoughts of dying, talk of dying, mentions of suicidal thoughts, mentions of imprisonment, themes of death, themes of drowning, description of pain, dreams, nightmares, illness, self-indulgent melancholia

A/N: I accidentally wrote this after getting a random idea in my head while working on I Want You to Show Me Weak (my brain will do anything but finish a fic 😌), so have a surprise Kino oneshot. Just please mind the tags, especially with the events currently happening in the real world. This isn't a dark fic, but the tone is quite grim. (Mostly. I am still a filthy hopeless romantic, after all.) Also, I'm well aware of what Narkina 5 is supposed to look like, however I simply Do Not care 😌

Fic title is from The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. Collage quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Ocean.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

- e.e. cummings, maggie and milly and molly and may

Your lungs burn.

There's a weight across your shoulders, pulling you down and under the waves. Your arms are spent and heavy with exhaustion. You have no idea how long you’ve been swimming—dragging something through the water, but your muscles are on fire. Your lungs are on fire. It would be so easy to just give up.

To just let go.

Because you're so tired. You’ve heard drowning isn't so bad. Like going to sleep, they say. You can do that. That's nothing compared to this.

You catch sight of a face at your side, barely breaching the surface. His face. His eyes are closed and his mouth is slack. Like he's sleeping.

You go back to swimming.

“Breathe, goddamn you!” You sob. Even though you're numb from the cold, your hand is trembling as you pound against his back with your fist. Between the shoulder blades, behind his lungs. Every hit makes a wet slap. His white uniform is soaked through and nearly translucent. It clings to him. The water, greedy, still won't let him go. “Don't you fucking do this, you prick! Wake up!”

He doesn't flinch under your assault. Not even when you roll him back over onto the rocky sand and press a rhythm into his ribs.

This is worse, you think, because now you can see his face and feel the ghost of his angry stare, even through his closed eyelids. His skin is grey and clammy, his lips nearly blue, and his beard and hair are slick and dark with water. His expression is relaxed. Peaceful. Not asleep. He's never looked like that before. This isn't how he's supposed to look.

The only movement beneath your hands is the jolt of his body from the compressions.

You let out a scream of frustration.

The waves lap at your face, forcing salt up your nose on an inhale. You splutter, losing your grip on that arm slung around your shoulders, and for a moment it slips. You kick frantically at the water as you scramble for him.

“No—” Your voice gets choked off by the whitecap of another wave.

You grab at his face, drive it back above the surface, even as you plunge below it. Whatever else you were going to shout is lost in a cloud of bubbles. You're the only thing keeping him from sinking to the bottom now. Just you, clinging to the hope of life.

You can't think about that dead weight.

You fight back to the surface with a cough, spitting out a mouthful of saltwater. You have to keep moving. You have to keep—

You’re being shaken awake. The hand on your shoulder is warm, but the grip is almost harsh—unforgiving as the fingers dig into your flesh.

You blink your eyes open to find Kino staring down at you with a frown. The light from the small fire throws shadows across his face and deepens the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth and along his forehead, making him look even more severe than he usually does.

“You were dreaming again,” he grumbles. Then he releases your shoulder without warning, nearly shoving away from you in the process, and he shuffles back across to his side of the small cave to resume lying down.

Now that you're conscious, all of your injuries and pains from the past few days come rushing back to fill your awareness. You let out a groan as you push yourself up off the cold stone floor. Not that sitting is any better—there’s a rock digging into your ass to prove your point, and you send it skittering. It doesn't make a difference. With a sigh, you rub the heels of your hands into your heavy eyelids in an attempt to clear the blurriness from your vision.

“Sorry,” you try, your voice hoarse with sleep. You quickly clear your throat and try again. “Didn't mean to wake you.”

He only grunts in response.

The sky at the mouth of the cave is a slate grey. It’s been raining the last few days—as if the water is trying to follow you ashore—so you aren't sure if the muted light is the growing dawn or due to the thick storm clouds that leave the landscape darkened, no matter where the sun is overhead. It's made everything damp and chilly, and you can feel it in every joint and bone. Between that, your desperate and adrenaline fueled escape from the prison, nearly drowning, and laying on the hard, rocky ground, your entire body aches.

You're both still wearing your white and orange uniforms, though they're worn and filthy now. More brown than white. The fabric is also next to useless outside of a temperature controlled environment, but you have nothing else to keep you warm and nothing at all for your feet. You’d gotten lucky that there had been driftwood piled inside the seaside cave, brought in by the tide and left safe from the rain. Kino had found several more pieces along the beach on that first day and dragged them into the shelter to dry out. Neither of you dared to venture any further afterwards, either from fear or exhaustion.

The last of the wood is burning between you, and, when it’s gone, there won't be anything left to keep the chill at bay. You know you’ll have to recommend sharing body heat at some point soon, but you're reluctant to do so because you also know it won't go over well. You're certain it's the last thing he wants, even if the alternative is stubbornly dying from exposure.

“Think they’ve moved on yet?” You ask, just to have something to distract you from your thoughts.

“Doubt it,” he replies in that gruff voice.

“Yeah,” you sigh. You slump forward and let your forearms rest on your knees, suddenly weary. “But we're going to have to leave eventually. We need food and real shelter.”

“You’re too weak to walk it,” he says to the cave wall.

“I’m fine,” you insist.

Kino's head whips around, and he meets your eyes with a glare. “No, you're not.” You let out a noise of disgust before you can reconsider, and his jaw clenches in response. “You nearly died.”

“Don’t start this again.” You mean it as a plea, but it comes out merely resigned in your exhaustion. You’ve lost count of how many times you’ve had this argument since you first woke up to him coughing and shouting on the beach. You don't want to have it again.

“Like you’d listen anyway,” he says. And then he scowls, like you're the problem.

Alright, maybe you'll have it one more time.

“Gods, that bit of power really did go straight to your thick skull didn't it?” You laugh in disbelief. “Why can't you just accept that it was my choice? Mine!”

“I’m well aware of your poor decision making!” He shoots back. Then he sits up to face you, and now it's a proper fight, you think. “I’ve already told you, no one was supposed to die because of me!”

“And I already told you to get over yourself!” You fight the urge to roll your eyes. “Do I look fucking dead to you? Hmm?”

“Don't act like it wasn't a close call!”

“I never said it wasn't.” You pinch at the bridge of your nose in an attempt to keep your frustration at bay. Screaming won't make him listen to reason, no matter how good it will feel. “What would you have had me do, Kino? Just let you drown?”

“Yes,” he replies without hesitation.

“Well, I didn't.” Your arm flops to your side, too heavy to hold up now. “So maybe you should just consider being fucking grateful instead.”

“I didn't ask for this!” He snaps. It's followed by an immediate look of regret.

Oh. That's new. You take a moment to study his face—the way he can suddenly no longer meet your eyes, like he's ashamed of all things.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

You ignore his sardonic, “You.”

Because you don't understand him. Is he really this upset or his pride so wounded over the fact that he needed to be saved? Is he truly this angry just because someone—or more specifically you—saw him when he was weak after being in control for so long? Those are convenient reasons. They're probably even contributing to his horrid mood, but they don't feel as if they’re the reason. It's almost as if—

“You wanted to die.” The shocked realization tumbles from your lips before you can stop it.

There's a long, deafening beat of silence.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he says quietly as he gathers those strong arms around himself and crosses them like a shield.

Part of your mind is screaming at you to just drop it. You’ve entered new territory. You've never made him defensive like this before, and you don't know how he'll react. But based on all of your previous interactions with him, you know it won't be pleasant. Which is an understatement. The stubborn part of you, however, hopes that this means you're actually making progress. And if you’ve come this far…

“Is that why you won't even try to leave this shit hole again?” You press. “Is that why you're trading one prison for another?”

“That has nothing to do with this,” he says as he narrows his eyes at you, and you're almost disappointed to hear some of his anger returning.

“Yeah right,” you scoff.

“Listen, neither of us is in any condition to evade the searches. All we’re going to accomplish is getting caught.” It sounds almost reasonable, but you know better. You know it for what it really is: a deflection. You did hit a nerve.

“That's only going to get worse,” you argue back. “The lack of food is going to weaken us further, assuming we don't freeze to death first.”

“And it will still be easier if we're not being hunted. We have to be patient,” he says as his frown deepens, frustration beginning to take root once again. “Let them think we’re dead or gone.”

“And how long will that take? Days? Weeks?”

“A hell of a lot longer than three days!”

“Fine. Then we should at least go out and do some scouting so we have an idea of which way to go when the time comes,” you offer instead. “We might even find supplies.”

“It's too risky,” he says dismissively as he waves you off. You bristle against the gesture. “We’re safe here. The cave entrance is hard to find, but if we go in and out too often, we’ll draw attention to ourselves.”

“There's always going to be risk, Kino, whether we leave tonight or a week from now. If we wait, it could be too late,” you point out. “For all we know, the Empire is sending a blockade to keep us all trapped here! Then what?”

“They aren't going to send a blockade for a prison break,” he scoffs.

“And how can you possibly know that?”

“How can you?”

“Why is it so hard for you to trust me?” You hate the hint of misery that seeps into your voice and betrays how much that idea pains you.

“Why should I? If I recall correctly, your judgment has nearly gotten you killed once already,” he says in a mocking tone.

You glare at him. “My judgment saved both our lives.”

He glares right back. “I'm starting to think that was sheer dumb luck.”

Oh, how fucking dare he. After everything you went through—

“I didn't realize you were such a coward,” you say coldly, desperate to hurt him as much as he's hurt you.

The tendons in his neck go taut with rage. “Fuck you,” he spits, but he no more than gets the words out when he's racked with a violent coughing fit. The force of it makes him double over onto the cave floor, and his body heaves with each one.

You wince at the sight, feeling ashamed of your comment now. You didn't want this.

The coughing spells are a parting gift from Narkina 5—the water still won't let him go. He's had a few of them since you got him to shore and forced the ocean from his lungs, and each one sounds a little bit worse than the one before. You're no healer, but that's obviously not a good sign. He needs medicine. You also haven't broached the subject with him because you know it will just start a fight.

As if everything you say doesn't start a fight.

You lean back to wait it out, letting your head thunk tiredly against the cave wall. There's nothing you can do to help him and trying will only make it worse—you learned that the hard way. Plus, it doesn't seem fair to argue with him while he's like this, even if you're only doing it to get through to him for his own good, the stubborn jerk.

It takes several minutes before he finally stops coughing long enough to get his breathing under control. Then he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, rights himself with as much dignity as he can muster, and gives you a cold, hard stare. “Go, then, if you're in such a hurry to end up back in a cell,” he grits out, his voice a strained, wet gravel.

“Fine,” you huff, pushing yourself to your feet. “Stay here and waste away if you want. See if I care. I can find a way off this slag heap by myself.”

You almost make it past the mouth of the cave.

The moment your foot touches the rain slicked rock, the combination of fatigue and an unsteady gait causes you to slip. You hit the ground with a grunt, landing hard on your hip. Sharp, hot pain shoots through the joint, curling up your spine and down your leg. The shock of it takes your breath away, and your eyes sting with fresh tears.

Oh, brilliant, you think caustically. Of all the times to fall on your ass.

Behind you, Kino swears. A second later, you hear the slap of his bare feet on rock as he stomps towards you.

“Broken?” He doesn't quite snap the question at you, but it's a near thing.

“No,” you choke out.

“You have a fucking death wish,” he growls before he hauls you to a sitting position.

Despite the pain, that statement makes you laugh, though it's a bitter, near hysterical sound. You tilt your head back to grin up at him. “Guess we make quite the pair, huh?”

He doesn't respond.

He just shoves his hands under your armpits in an attempt to get a grip on you with those thick fingers. Then your laughter quickly dissolves into a wounded hiss as he drags you back into the cave with no care for your new injury. You're not sure why you suddenly expected him to start coddling you. He never did before.

He dumps you back into the spot you’ve been occupying, glad to be rid of you, and you catch yourself with your hands before you land in a heap.

“Asshole,” you mutter under your breath.

After that, neither of you speaks for a while, content to sit and lick your wounds in what passes for peace now. Eventually, the pain in your hip lessens to a dull throb and the fire is reduced to embers, the long hours sucking the heat out of both.

Outside, the sky has gotten a bit lighter, but is still that dreary mask of grey that makes time feel nebulous. Unknowable. The rain, at least, had turned into a mist about an hour ago. Without the sound of the drops echoing throughout the cave, the silence is unforgiving. Every shuffle along the rock, every sniffle or sigh, every brush of clothes is harsh between you.

“Why are you so mad at me?” You finally ask, desperate for any noise that isn't him heavily exhaling a whistle through his nose.

“I already told you,” he replies, emotionless.

“I’m not talking about that,” you sigh. “You hated me the moment I stepped onto the floor.”

In the low light, there's a brief look of shock on his profile before his scowl returns in full force. “I didn't hate you.”

“Yes you did. You could barely look at me. And you yelled at me all the time.” He opens his mouth to protest, but you continue on so he can't interrupt you. “Look, I understand, in a way. I was slower than nearly all of the men, and you were pissed about being stuck with me. But it's not like I did it on purpose.”

“It wasn't that.” There's a renewed touch of exasperation in his voice. You're intimately familiar with that tone. You’ve heard the way he normally sounds when speaking to other people—got to see what it was like without ever experiencing it yourself—but you’ve never spoken to him without receiving either his impatience or his distaste. You prepare yourself for another fight.

“Then why? Because I was a distraction?” Your bitterness bleeds from you, an anguish built from months of labor and fear. And loneliness, you think. Because, even though you’d been constantly surrounded by people, you’d never felt so completely and utterly alone.

“It's nothing.” He rolls onto his side to face the cave wall, intent on ignoring you.

“It clearly wasn't nothing,” you respond dryly.

“Just drop it,” he says over his shoulder.

“No.” You cross your arms. You're done listening to him just because he tells you to. You don't have to now. You're not in there anymore. “After everything, I think I deserve to know what I did to have you treat me that way.”

“And I don't want to fucking talk about it,” he growls.

“Well, too damn bad! Because there's nothing else to talk about, and I want to know why you hated me when all I wanted was—” You cut yourself off with a hitched breath before you accidentally finish that sentence.

Fighting is one thing. That's easy. Safe. But this is something big and messy that you're still trying to come to terms with, made all the more complicated by your current situation, which was already plenty complicated before. This will only make things worse. You know it will. And despite all the hurtful things you’ve said to each other, you wouldn't be able to stomach his rejection. His pity. His disgust—couldn’t handle being forced to endure it while stuck in this damned cave and made to wallow in the forced intimacy of the space that's anything but. No, this is the one truth you could never take back.

To your embarrassment, your voice is rough and raw with emotion when you speak again. “When all I wanted was to be treated like a person.”

“If that's what you wanted, you were in the wrong place,” he says coldly to the cave wall. “Now shut up and let me sleep.”

“No!” You shout. You no longer care if you’re being petulant because you are angry about it. You’ve been holding onto the feeling for months, but you're tired now. You don't want to carry it around anymore. “I won't let you bully me into silence. I want the truth.”

“Keep your voice down!” He hisses as he flings himself upright to glare at you. Every bit of him is rigid with tension. Dangerous. At least he's looking at you again.

“Then answer me!” You stubbornly glare back at him. “You owe me that much.”

“Fine! I was afraid, alright?” He finally snarls, reminding you of a cornered animal, spitting as it lashes out. “Is that what you want to hear? That you were right? That I'm a coward?”

“What?” All of your anger leaves you in a sudden rush. The hiding, the running, the water—that fear you can understand. But this? You stare at him in genuine confusion. “Why?”

“Because I was scared shitless about what could happen to you! That place was cruel to the men it was designed for. Whatever it had in store for you was going to be much worse. I thought…” He runs a hand down his face and over the scruff of his beard, now grown out beyond a neat trim. The action wipes his own anger away, and underneath it is something human: exhaustion and vulnerability. “I thought, if I kept you at a distance, it would hurt less when it finally broke you, but you made it so damn hard.”

“Oh,” you breathe out in shock, as though you’ve just had the wind knocked out of you. You have, in a way, because, gods, what can you possibly say to that? It's the last thing you were expecting—realistically, you thought he was worried your lack of strength or speed would get someone else killed. This, however…you couldn't have even imagined this. The implication of it… “Kino—”

“Don't. Okay?” He cuts you off. And then he turns away to shut you out as well. “Just…fucking don't.”

So instead you sit there in the uneasy quiet of the cave, feeling adrift. Helpless. Like you're right back in the middle of the ocean, at the mercy of the waves, with nothing to hold onto to keep from sinking; there’s only water in your fumbling grasp. At least then you'd known which way you were supposed to go, it was the getting there that was the problem. Now you don't even have that. You wonder if you’d have the energy to even try if you did.

A part of you wants nothing more than to reexamine every interaction, every look, and every word he’s ever spoken to you and see what you might uncover that you'd missed, but you can't do that with him right there. His presence just muddles everything up until you can't help but mix reality and memory, past and present, assumption and realization. You're nearly dizzy with it.

Plus, knowing that things weren't so black and white between you doesn't change what happened or how you feel. You’ve been hurting and angry for a while—especially at him, and most of which he still deserves for how he treated you. That something more existed lessens the intensity of those feelings, but it doesn't erase them completely. Not yet. Reconciling what you know and what you thought you knew will only come with time.

To the rest of you, however, that reconciliation doesn't seem as important as your fear at almost losing him or the realization that there is something more than just hatred on his end. Even if that thing is nothing more than kindness and compassion, it's something. And you could have died not knowing that. Or worse, you could have lived without knowing instead.

Gods, complicated is an understatement. If only you could have wanted something easy for once. You wonder if he thought the same thing as he watched you from across the work floor. And it feels odd to think that maybe it's not such an unrealistic hope anymore.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, breaking the silence between you at last.

He laughs, and it manages to sound condescending. The familiarity of it is grounding. “What do you have to be sorry about?”

“I guess…” What are you apologizing for? For misunderstanding him? For making his life harder, even if it wasn't your fault? For not agreeing with him? For being unable to shoulder his anger? For continuing to push and push and push. Maybe all of it, you realize. For your part in the making of this. “I guess for saving you when you didn't want me to,” you answer with a shrug instead.

At first, you think he isn't going to respond to that, and you can no longer find it in yourself to blame him. But then, with a voice that’s softer than you’ve ever heard from him—weren’t even sure he was capable of it—he says, “It's not that I didn't want to be saved.”

“Then why? Help me to understand, Kino,” you plead, praying that he won't clam up or lash out again. Not when you've come so far. “Please.”

He gives you a heavy, resigned look before settling his attention on the cave entrance where his gaze becomes unseeing. Though there are only a few feet between you, he suddenly seems miles away.

“When we were planning all of this, I knew what was waiting for us on the outside. I mean, they built the fucking thing in the middle of an ocean and I can't swim. How ironic is that? All that work, and I was gonna make it to the door just to drown.” Then, quietly, “I never gave a thought to what I would do if I didn't. Now I've got no clue what comes next.”

“Neither do I,” you say in disbelief.

He lets out a dark laugh. “Sure don't act like it,” he mutters.

“I’m just better at hiding it.” You give him a small smile that he cannot see.

“Maybe I should be, too,” he muses to himself. “It’d be a hell of a lot better than feeling so lost.”

“Hiding it doesn't make that go away,” you say sadly. You know that all too well.

His only reply is a non-committal hum, and it suddenly occurs to you that he has no clue what you actually went through. How could he? He lept into the water and woke up on shore with nothing but darkness in between. All he knows is that you saved him. Without the rest, he thinks he's struggling alone.

“I almost gave up, you know,” you admit quietly.

That gets his attention again. He turns to look at you, and his eyes are wide with fear and concern. “What?” He gasps.

“I could barely see the shore when the adrenaline wore off. When faced with that distance, all that water, and no strength left?” You shrug in an attempt to seem unbothered, even as the memory fills you with dread. “For one horrible moment, I suppose drowning just seemed easier.” Like going to sleep, you don't say. “But I couldn't. I looked at you, and I couldn't. Not without trying first. And before you say anything, leaving you behind was never an option. Not for me. If this place was going to win, it was going to have to take us both.”

“I never wanted that,” he says helplessly. “When I came to and saw you laying there, I thought you were dead.” His voice breaks and he takes in a deep, shaky breath, but it does little to steady him. “I knew then what you did for me, and I thought it killed you. That after everything, it was me. I broke you, and it wasn't worth it. Not me.”

“You didn't,” you insist, desperate to make him listen. You recognize that despair because it's the same one that haunts your dreams and doesn't let go when you're awake. It's the same fear that grips your chest in icy fingers whenever you catch his sleeping face or you're forced to sit by and listen to him cough—the water still won't let him go. You understand now that he needs the reassurance that it's over just as much as you do. So you push yourself to your knees and dare to move closer, despite the protest of your aching body. “I’m right here. See? I was just tired afterwards, that's all. Just tired. I’m right here.”

Without warning, he reaches for you, and, even though he's never harmed you, you flinch thinking maybe you’ve finally pushed him too far. Only, he grabs the front of your uniform and pulls you to him, just as unkindly as he dragged you across the cave. And then you think he's going to scream again, but when he opens his mouth, he leans in and crushes your lips together instead.

You freeze against him.

Because Kino Loy is kissing you, and that can't be right. He hates you. His mouth can only scowl and scream and cough and—there’s a little grunt from the back of his throat as he adjusts the angle of your lips, and, oh, this is real. Without another thought, you're kissing him back.

At first, there's only tentative relief—at the reassurance, the sensation, at finally getting something you want—but heat starts to build in the breath-humid space between your bodies the longer you kiss and kiss. Something born of more than lust or desire. And though they flicker in your belly as well, it's a bone deep desperation to feel alive that drives you forward and aches to be quelled.

When you break apart to catch your breath, he rests his forehead against yours. Close enough for your noses to brush together and to feel each hard exhale—that blessed, life sustaining air—across your skin.

“I’m sorry,” he says with a sob. His voice is low and thick with grief against your mouth. The sound and shape of it is so different from his anger—in the low light, only a ghost of that harshness is left, clinging to the shadowy lines of his face. You don't have to ask what he's apologizing for.

“Show me,” you whisper back. You let your lips brush over his again in invitation. He responds by delving into the wet heat of your mouth and wrapping you in his arms with a moan.

So you give yourself over to the exploration of his tongue against yours and his large, callus roughened hands as they engulf the sides of your face, caught in the whirlwind of him. It leaves you breathless faster than you like, and when you break for air again, you don't want to give him a moment to change his mind or to pull away completely. So your mouth wanders to his cheeks, the scruff on his jaw, his Adam's apple, the hollow of his throat above the collar of his uniform—seeking out every bit of him that you can reach as he pants and swallows beneath your lips.

He smells like sweat and smoke and saltwater, and his skin is sharp and briny on your tongue as you lap at a spot on his neck. He tastes like drowning, and for a moment you're lost in the memory of him in the water, his weight pulling you beneath the waves. His lifeless face staring up at you from the shore. But then he sucks in a sharp breath, jolting you back to the present, and his lips are on yours again. Warm. Alive. Not the cold flesh you forced air through. Not the same shared breath.

“Wanna see you,” you gasp into his mouth as you lift at the hem of his shirt.

Without a word, he moves to obey.

You both peel away your filthy uniforms with trembling hands, revealing bodies that are just as dirty and unwashed to the chilled air, but beneath all of that is color. His flush of arousal. Bruises that are starting to fade, a gruesome rainbow of healing. The shadows playing in the shifting of muscle as he reaches for you to pull you back into the warmth of his arms. Alive.

He's the first soft thing you’ve touched after days of nothing but rock. And before that, months of only tools and labor and struggle. You bask in the sensation: The greying hair on his chest, the roundness of his belly and hips, salt dried skin, his palm on your cheek. The other on your thigh. He’s softer than you remember from when you were hauling him through the waves—

You wrap your hand around his cock, and his heartbeat throbs in your fist. Alive.

He lets out a groan when you stroke him, something deep and guttural that rumbles through the cave like thunder. The sound sends blood and heat rushing to your core, where it pools between your thighs and leaves you aching and empty. You tease the silken foreskin over his length and work your thumb along the underside of the swollen head just to hear more of it.

With a growl, he falls upon you, pulling you in for a bruising kiss, all teeth and tongues and hunger. His hand cups the swell of your breast while his thumb circles your nipple. You cry out and arch into the roughness of his hand. Then you're both eagerly groping and learning all the ways you can draw more noises from each other until you're left squirming against the insistent throbbing between your legs.

“I want you inside of me,” you murmur into his mouth.

He clenches his eyes shut as his breath hitches, and you're thrilled you can get that reaction out of him. But then he opens his eyes again and, in a shaky voice, asks, “You're sure?”

“Yes!” You growl, impatient. “Fuck me, Kino.”

He lets out a groan. “If you keep that up, I’m not gonna last very long.”

“Don't care as long as your cock is inside me first.”

“Fuck!” He hisses. His hips involuntarily jerk forward at the thought, and said cock grinds into the bend of your groin. “Then I'll give you what you want.”

After that reaction, you think he's going to throw you down and do just that. Instead, his touch gentles, his palm cradling the base of your skull as he lays you out along the rock. The movement doesn't make you feel delicate or like something that's injured and cowering in a cave, but rather like something to be revered.

This is his apology.

A caress along your inner knee has your legs falling open, leaving you exposed before him. Before you can be self-conscious about it, he gives your arousal a heated look that drives the thought from your mind. Then he traces a fingertip up the tender skin of your thigh, and fire licks from your thigh to your belly.

For a moment, you wonder what it would be like to have this on the other side of the galaxy. Not in a cave, but in a bed, warm and clean with a full stomach. Maybe it would be sweet like this between you the whole time rather than something that's taking an effort just to maintain. Because you know this is only a moment—a reprieve. It can't last, not when that cold desperation and panic are rebuilding within your gut.

It's a lovely thought. But by the time he kneels between your thighs, you need again. You pull him down and he goes willingly, falling to brace his hands on the stony ground on either side of your shoulders. Then you hold your breath as he closes the distance, slowly, until the length of his cock is resting and throbbing, flush against your sex.

Your hips grind up against him, trapping him between your heat and his belly so that when he thrusts back, seeking more, he drags himself along your wet folds; the sensitive head of his cock rubs against your clit. Both of you moan, wounded and strangled sounds. So he does it again. And again. Over and over until you're both gasping and shuddering at the slick friction.

All the while he stares down at you, studying you. Taking in the way your face contorts and breaks with pleasure. His eyes are sea blue, you realize—the water, greedy—so wild and deep and pulling you in. It sets your pulse racing and makes your palms sweat against his shoulders. You turn away from the intensity in that gaze.

“No.” To your surprise, he takes your chin between his finger and thumb, not gentle but steady, and he forces you to look anyway. To face him. “Let me see you.”

He holds you there with the weight of his body as he shifts to nudge at your opening. It's so close to what you need. Your legs wrap around his waist in silent encouragement. Then, once he's lined up, he sinks forward with a groan and stretches you open on his cock until you're aching and full.

His mouth goes slack. Those eyes become heavy and lidded. Not closed—alive. Which makes all the difference to your wounded mind. So you drink in the sight of him like this, buried in the tight embrace of your cunt. A ruinous look.

You're drowning again.

It scares you, just how much you want to give yourself over and let go. How easy it would be to become lost. To believe that this is something more than desperation. But then his eyes refocus and whatever tenderness had gripped him is absent from that gaze. In its place is hunger. Need. Urgency.

“Gods, you're so tight,” he grinds out from behind clenched teeth as he gives a shallow thrust into you. The sound goes straight to your core, soaking him further. “Feels so good.”

Then he finally—finally—fucks you. Hard and fast.

The ground is cold and unrelenting beneath your spine where you're folded and crushed against it. Above you, he's blanketing you in heat and the delicious slide of flesh along your nerves. A lovely contrast already, but then his hand finds your hip, his fingers digging into your fresh bruise, and you gasp from the pain—it hurts, but if it hurts that means you're alive. He doesn't stop at the sound. Instead, there's understanding in those eyes as he pulls you in to meet each plunge of his cock, and, oh, that's even better.

You spare a thought for his knees right before he shifts. Then he's dragging against that spot inside of you, and your mind goes blissfully empty with pleasure. Your head falls back, weightless with it. At that opening, he buries his face in your neck, muffling every grunt into your skin. He presses the vibrations of them into your flesh and bones alongside his exhales, the scrape of his beard, the unconscious skim and purse of his lips. You shiver.

You won't come from this alone, but you don't care. This is enough. You just need to feel something—need the proof that he's alive. That you're alive. That this IS real and not some drawn out hallucination your dying brain came up with between the span of one heartbeat and your last.

But it has to be real. Even in your darkest moments, alone in your cell, you never allowed yourself to want this—the thing you could not have. The galaxy had been cruel enough on its own without any assistance from you. So there were no images or dreams in your mind to conjure this from. Which means these messy kisses, the wet noise of your joining, your sweat slicked skin, his hair, salt-stiffened and curled between your fingers, must be real. It also means every moment of this is new and unburdened by expectation or comparison.

It's everything else that haunts you.

All too soon, and just as promised, his body grows tense, and he starts to tremble above you. Between your exhaustion and his unrelenting pace, this was never intended to last. And he's so close, but when he meets your eyes, you see hesitation. Uncertainty. When he moves to pull away, you realize he means to finish by stroking and spilling himself across your belly instead. But that isn't what you need.

“No! Don’t,” you beg. Your legs tighten around his waist, and you grasp at his neck and shoulders, unwilling to let him go with a strength that surprises you both. Then you roll your hips and grind yourself onto his cock, dragging a hiss out of him. “I want to feel you.”

He groans as he yields to your plea, too near that edge to argue, so he falls right back into a punishing rhythm. Yet underneath the hunger and determination, there's anguish now, too. As if by doing this, he remains afraid he'll break you somehow. Still, he clings to your hips as every thrust turns short and sharp with purpose until, at last, he buries himself fully and chases that relief in the depths of your cunt.

When he comes, the only sound he makes is a harsh sob. And then his cock is pulsing inside of you, filling you with warmth. Life.

Alive. Alive. Alive.

He collapses heavily at your side with a few wet coughs, spent and too exhausted to hold himself up any longer. You lay there for a moment, listening to his ragged breathing, unsure of what comes next. You're afraid he’ll push you away once his mind clears. That he’ll go back to hating you from across the cave, now muggy with the scent of sex, as his come leaks down your thighs.

He doesn't.

Instead, he holds his arms open in silent invitation and you realize he's offering you a choice: move forward with or without him. And this time, you know he accepts that it's your decision to make. But you’ve already made this choice once, when you watched him slip beneath the waves. When you dove for him in the water, hauled him back out of it, and then forced it from his lungs. It was just as easy to make then. Maybe now he’ll understand what it means.

You go to him and curl against him in acceptance. He kisses the fragile skin of your temple, and then he helps you get settled by tucking your head under his chin and rubbing warmth in a soothing pattern along your stone chilled back. Your hand finds his waist. His leg entangles with yours. Back and forth until there's nothing but drying sweat between you, as if you have always fit together in this way.

You want to savor this. More than that, you want to have this if you can. If he’ll let you. If he doesn't go back to holding you at a distance out of habit and self-preservation in a day or so, always waiting for the worst to happen and scared of the hurt that might follow. As if anything could be worse than losing him now. Then he really would be the thing that broke you. A self fulfilling prophecy. You almost want to laugh at the irony.

All at once, the silence feels heavier than you can bear.

“Never again tell me you aren't worth it,” you whisper fiercely to the cave. “You are to me.”

He doesn't respond, but the hand splayed over your ribs twitches before clutching you tighter.

“We’ll try in the morning,” he says quietly instead. Under your ear, the compromise rumbles loudly throughout his chest. Beneath that, his steady heartbeat.

His statement doesn't fill you with anything as naive as hope. The Empire is still looking for you, and they aren't ever going to stop now. You’ve only traded imprisonment for the illusion of freedom. The thought claws at you, threatens to pull you under. But there's an arm around your shoulders that squeezes as it holds you close, and you remember that you can't let go. You can't lose him. You won't. You have to keep moving.

“In the morning,” you agree.

"Hey,” he said, half-asleep, “what were you before me?” “I think I was drowning.” A pause. “And what are you now?” he whispered, sinking. I thought for a second. “Water."

- Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

A/N: The song for this fic is Ocean Eyes by Billie Eilish btw.

#thank you so much jess 💖#i'm crying in the club (my living room)#fic responses #x reader #kino loy #kino x reader #remember you are half water fic

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redrobin-detective · 4 years ago

Text

Ben and Azmuth headcanons

It’s my city now and I say, strong but still sassy bond between Ben and Azmuth

- Azmuth initially hadn’t cared who got the Omnitrix. He was angry and afraid of repercussions by the time he finished it. He handed it off and hoped to never see it again, until an angry 10 year busted down his door on his hidden planet. He was willing to let the universe be destroyed out of bitterness and shame for what he had created. Until Ben shouted at him words that changed his perspective, his life and he realized hope did still exist. He saved the universe that day bc a child made him see there was still good.

- He did actually try and remove the watch, early requests for Ben to visit for supposed tuning and upgrades were actually attempts to separate the boy from the Omnitrix. It wasn’t out of malice, he fully intended to give it back but he wanted Ben trained first, give him breathing room without constant attack. It frightened him that all his overrides could not remove the watch. He swore never to tell anyone out of fear of what Ben might become. (He later dropped these fears but still didn’t tell him bc threatening to remove the Omnitrix was always an effective threat when Ben was being particularly stupid)

- Ben is actually very respectful to Azmuth, in his own way. He unconsciously talks quieter around him and avoids towering over the tiny Galvan. But Ben very much does not let Azmuth’s genius or reputation allow him to get away with being dismissive or a jerk. Azmuth too does not let being The Ben 10 get to Ben’s head. They both had to earn each other trust and respect. Both he and Ben do not like being fawned over.

- Ben is both a distraction and a source of inspiration when he visits. He asks annoying questions and fiddles with things he shouldn’t. But he brings in a perspective Azmuth would never think of and, by explaining and answering questions, Azmuth often comes to a solution. Ben is not blindingly intelligent but he’s good at seeing patterns and the big picture where Azmuth can be narrowminded.

- The amount of safety features Azmuth has added to Omnitrix over the years is downright ridiculous. His assistants, Myaxx in particular, like to tease him about it. Ben is functionally immortal at this point bc of all the back ups and fail safes Azmuth has put into the watch to keep him safe. Still knowing this, he has a small screen of Ben’s vitals running at all times in the background.

- If asked who Ben trusts most he would say Max or Gwen but a lot of times he thinks it’s Azmuth. He feels his family are too close to view his actions objectively and has called up the Galvan at all sorts of hours for an honest opinion. His mentor will respond back bluntly, sometimes harshly but usually, in the end, assure Ben and say that his worry over the situation means he is still worthy.

-Azmuth hates being carried by larger species, it’s demeaning not to mention uncomfortable. It took a long while for Ben to learn how to properly pick up a Galvan but now Azmuth will not allow anyone but the Omnitrix wielder to pick him up. “I trained him how to do it” “I need to be close at hand in case he messes with the device” he says as he stands perfectly at ease in Ben’s hands. Holding Azmuth is a guaranteed way to make Ben stand still.

- Has acquired more and more human sized objects over the years. Folding chairs became couches, tiny cups became Earth imported foods and drinks. Azmuth has some old clothes of Ben’s stuffed away somewhere, in case he needs it not really realizing Ben has outgrown most of them. Despite the couch, Ben still spends most of his time on the floor near Azmuth.

- Azmuth was initially perturbed by the idea of Ben growing up. While he moaned and complained about having a child have his creation, actually watching Ben grow was bittersweet in a way. He grew taller, his style changed, his voice deepened and Azmuth watched more shadows grow in his eyes as his responsibilities grew. He’s relieved Ben kept his humor and good heart through a tumultuous childhood.

- They are hidden away in secret but Azmuth actually has lots of pictures of ben saved on his computers. He looks at them sometimes, when he’s lonely, when he’s stumped on a project, when he’s losing faith in the universe. He sees pictures of Ben grinning, new and old and realizes hope will always be alive so long as Ben Tennyson is.

#ben 10 #azmuth #shut up i love them and the relationship they have in my head #I hear they fight a lot in AF so I'm ignoring that #or rather fights are fine but they always make up stronger than ever #Ben has so much respect for Azmuth and looks to him for guidance as a mentor #Meanwhile ben gives Azmuth hope for the first time is so long makes him smile and socialize #it also takes some time but they do genuinely like each other #they're both incredibly powerful (in their own way) and famous so being able to discuss and relate to each other helps #Azmuth himself is almost doting in his jerky #standoffish way #he complains up a storm but is secretly happy when Ben visits or calls

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tobiosmilktea · 4 years ago

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hiii can i request tsumu, kenma, oikawa, and kuroo where they’re in a secret relationship and the reader feels like they’re hiding her bc they’re ashamed of her ? like a hurt too comfort type of thing? thank u bb 🥺🥺

- 🍒

secret relationships w/ atsumu, kenma, oikawa, and kuroo

a/n: i have so many angst requests,, yall must like getting hurt 💀 also this wasn’t as angsty as i thought it was gonna be since im going through writers block yet again and i can not handle pain rn (also not proofread, so read with caution lmao)

— m. atsumu

it honestly surprised you at first, the way someone like miya atsumu returning your feelings the moment you told him you liked him near the start of the school year

there wasn’t that instant gratification though, knowing that one of inarizaki’s golden boys still felt out of your reach

despite being in a relationship with you, it wasn’t like anyone knew of it besides osamu and your closest friend

of course you didn’t really mind as you’ve always thought couples who were obnoxious with their relationships 24/7 and constantly making out in the hallways wasn’t your cup of tea either, so you get why atsumu wanted to keep it a secret

besides, with a guy so popular like him, you really just thought he was sparing you from the harassment (not that it would be bad if all the girls crushing on him new)

you get that he was just trying to protect you, and yet the more you thought of it, the more than it was simply just an assumption and you really didn’t know why your relationship was kept secret

it wasn’t like either of you would get backlash in any way, so what was the problem?

you weren’t exactly the type to be the most insecure either

sure, you were aware of the flaws you had, but it wasn’t something you were ashamed of as you learned to get used to it

yet it’s hard to fully love yourself when your boyfriend isn’t even comfortable with the fact that no one knows you two are even together

you hated jumping to conclusions, but you couldn’t help but to think the worst case scenario—was he ashamed of being with you?

you honestly thought the idea was impossible

if he was seriously ashamed of the thought of being with you in public, why would he even waste all those months dating? were all those dates and nights sneaking out to see each other for nothing?

it was like this for weeks with the way your own thoughts sabotaged you as you stood next to him during lunch

in moments like this in school, surrounded by your classmates and acquaintances, you and atsumu were only friends who sat next to each other occasionally and shared conversations that only friends would have

only friends

god, you hated the way that atsumu wouldn’t even look at you the way that he would when you two are alone

was he that embarrassed to be with you?

you didn’t want six months of all your hard work and effort of making time to be with him for nothing,, you had to do something about it

everyday, you, atsumu, and osamu would walk to school together with osamu typically walking ahead of you and your boyfriend

most couples would hold hands as they walked together, but atsumu had made it explicitly clear as the closer they get to school the farther they had to be from each other to avoid suspicions

thinking of it now, it sounded wrong to begin with and you had no idea why you even agreed to do such a thing

the school was close, maybe a block away and instead of slowing down your pace to create a gap between you and atsumu, you stubbornly stayed next to him to which he flickered you a weird look

he shrugged it off but the moment you two passed the gates and into campus, you slipped your hand into his

without missing a single beat atsumu immediately pulled his hand away from you with a look on his face that held all the questions running through his head at that very moment

“what are you doing?” he asks, almost in a harsh whisper

a frown melted upon your expression at how quickly he pulled away, almost as if he was disgusted by you. “i um, didn’t know you hated the thought of people seeing us together so badly.”

you didn’t know where all your strength went as it disappeared the moment you needed it the most

yet as you were about to walk away, atsumu tugs at your wrist lightly and pulls you into his embrace—his warmth and comforting scent of chamomile from saved you from the embarrassment that was tainting your cheeks red

“no, no it’s not that,” he mutters, lips tickling your forehead. “i just wanted to keep you to myself a bit longer.”

— k. kenma

you honestly weren’t surprised at the fact that kenma wanted this relationship to be kept secret

he never seemed like the type to be in a relationship let alone get the attention of being in one in the first place, yet it irked you to the core

it was fine at first; acting like you two were just friends while at school or at volleyball practice and it wasn’t at all weird or out of the ordinary

maybe that’s why you were okay with it in the first few months of your relationship with kenma as you were always near him the majority of the time

yet you constantly had to fight the urge to not be so touchy with him from wanting to hold his hand to leaning your head onto his shoulder—you often had to stop yourself especially in front of your friends and his teammates

you were good at keep secrets, but it was absolute hell not being able to even tell kuroo considering you always hung out with him too (it was a given obviously but you digress)

kuroo is a bit curious in his closest friend’s antics so his constant teases of how you and kenma would be such a cute couple annoyed you to your core

he laughs as if you and kenma being together would be absolutely impossible and wouldn’t happen in a million years, and yet here you two were, pretending to laugh at his jokes and agreeing and it would be, in fact, impossible

as mentioned before, you’re more annoyed at keeping your relationship secret rather than angry

your actions were more abrupt and cold rather than your usual warm self and kenma definitely noticed

despite his usual calm and collected expression that he has on a daily basis, it covered up his own emotions of blatant insecurity and worry that you were losing your feelings and losing them quick

the last thing kenma wanted was for everything that happened between the two of you to be wasted over his own fear of being judged for being with you

you were his first in everything and he certainly wasn’t going to let you become his first heartbreak either

he worried about this for a few days, overthinking while he played video games with kuroo, lev, and yaku that they noticed how quiet he was being over the call

it was then did he impulsively asked kuroo to go on a separate voice channel with him just so he could blurt out, “i’m dating (y/n).”

and to his surprise, all his best friend said was: “yeah, i know. (y/n) told me.”

“what? why?” kenma asked with confusion evident on his visage

“she had no one else to go to vent.” kuroo answers, his amused laugh echoing through kenma’s headphones. “don’t worry, i won’t tell anyone.”

“thanks, but... i think (y/n)’s angry at me and i don’t know what to do.”

“she told me that she was getting tired of keeping your relationship a secret. she asked me if you felt embarrassed or even ashamed of being with her.” he explained.

confusion and a bit of worry washed over kenma as his words suddenly faltered, “i could never be ashamed of being with her,”

“then i guess, you should tell her that.”

“what should i do?”

his best friend lets on a smirk (not that kenma could even see it, anyway), “i’m so glad you asked.”

you weren’t exactly sure what you expecting to be honest

you knew there was something going on between kenma and kuroo as if they were planning something intricate, but you weren’t bothered to even ask

perhaps you were still in that petty mindset of giving kenma the cold shoulder after having to keep your relationship on hold all the time that stopped your curiosity

sure, it was a bit childish, but you were planning on talking about it with kenma the moment he came back into the classroom after going off somewhere with kuroo

which by the way, where the hell were they? lunch was ending soon and you needed to talk to you boyfriend asap

the timing was almost perfect the way the thought of him entered your mind was at the same time as his familiar blonde hair walked back into the classroom with a melon bun and a canned drink in his hand from the vending machine—your favorites

“i noticed you didn’t eat lunch, so i bought you this.” he says, placing them down onto your desk.

“is this supposed to be your way of apologizing to me or something?” you mused at him.

there was a faint smile on kenma’s face when you did. this was your usual self, one that constantly smiled at him rather than deadpanned and cold. “no,” he simple put it. taking in a breath of confidence before pressing his lips on the corner of yours. “but i was hoping that would.”

with wide eyes, your eyes scanned the room to see if anyone noticed, afraid at the fact that you broke the first rule. despite being a blushing mess from a minuscule peck on your cheek, there was an inkling of confusion still evident within you, “why did you do that?”

“kuroo told me everything.”

“i knew that guy couldn’t keep a secret,” you mutter as you tried to ignore that infamous feeling of butterflies in the pit of your stomach. “i don’t think people saw, so they won’t think we’re together—”

“what if i wanted people to know we’re together?” ded asf

— o. tooru

you honestly should’ve known oikawa was going to keep this relationship between the two of you a secret since the moment he confessed his feelings to you

what else could you have expected from aoba johsai’s most popular boy wonder with an actual fanclub full of naive girls

perhaps you’ve become naive yourself considering you dealt with months of having your relationship constantly being swept under the rug, psyching yourself out that he was doing this for your sake

and you understood that

it was the reason why you even agreed to keep your relationship on the downlow considering how annoyingly notorious oikawa’s fangirls were, they wouldn’t have let you see the light of day if they were to find out

if you were in fact being honest, there was a period in time near the beginning of the relationship how cautious you were being—barely talking to oikawa unless it had to do with school, avoiding his gazes during class, and even swallowing your pride by just watching his fangirls flirt with him and there was nothing you could do about it

you honestly had to give yourself a pat on the bat for dealing with six months of this treatment

you figured it wouldn’t be that bad, especially after schools where you and oikawa could finally have alone time to yourselves, but even those times alone with him there was a lingering feeling of tension and unease

the thought of someone from school even finding out of you two being together even affected your relationship outside of school hours

you were tired of waiting outside the school gates for hours just for him to come out of volleyball practice and apologize that he couldn’t walk you home yet again

you figured that oikawa had grown far to used to seeing you waiting for him all the time that it was practically common sense that he was going to reject you again and again

you had to stop waiting for him at some point, but there was an inkling inside that for once, just for once, he would look at you with a smile so sweet that he would finally go with you

but not once has it happened

was he really that afraid of people finding out of his relationship with you that he’s willing to disregard all your hard work to even make this thing (whatever is was) to even happen?

if you were truly being honest with yourself, the only reason why this relationship is still up and active for this long is all because of you

you’re the one always asking him when he’s available during the weekends so you two could finally see each other, you’re the one always texting him first, you’re the one always being the most understanding of the situation

and yet it’s almost like oikawa isn’t even batting an eye at how difficult it has been for you

you absolutely hated jumping to conclusions and thinking of the worst case scenario and yet here you were, suddenly drowning at the possibility that the only reason why oikawa wanted a secret relationship was because he was ashamed to be with you

it was a thought that kept you up at night, tainting your optimistic thoughts of hope that this relationship would actually work out to decimate into thin air

the more is simmered in your head, the worse it became—what if his feelings that he confessed to you was a lie?

you hated overthinking

but if you really thought about it, even before you and oikawa dated, neither of you two were close. just two acquaintances in the same class that occasionally shared answers with each other just by the convenience of sitting nearby

you even went as far as believing that him dating you was just a joke, that this whole goddamn relationship was just some mindless prank just because he was bored

six months of wasted time. you were over it

the next day at school, you didn’t even look at him, you didn’t smile or even acknowledge the way he said good morning to you (as a friend does)

you figured he’s probably too dense to even notice, but he did. the usual glow you had each morning when you said good morning back to him was gone

he already missed the way your gazes would meet and how he would constantly find himself lost in your irises, but now you couldn’t even look at him in the eye

the only person who’s aware that you and oikawa were dating was iwaizumi. it was a given as who else would oikawa ramble on and on and on about how pretty you looked or how smart you are if it wasn’t his best friend?

if anything, iwa was the only guy oikawa could complain about how you were ignoring him

“maybe she’s bored of you for once,” iwaizumi cuts straight to the point. there was really no point in beating around the bush

offense was written all over oikawa’s face, utterly surprised, “how could she?”

“you can’t keep your relationship with her a secret forever, you know.” his best friend goes on to explain, “with the way things are going with you two acting like you’re nothing but acquaintances, (y/n)’s bound to lose her feelings.”

“but i don’t want her to lose feelings for me! and it’s not like i can suddenly tell all my fangirls that i’m dating someone, they’ll freak!” whines oikawa.

“why do you care about your fangirls’ feelings more than your own girlfriend? seems to me, it doesn’t even look like you care about (y/n) at all the way she’s constantly waiting for you after practice only to be rejected.”

it’s obvious iwaizumi wasn’t here to sugarcoat

“i just don’t want them to harass (y/n)...” oikawa reasons, trying to ignore the way his heart drop at iwa’s words like a gripping poison

“then that’s your job to tell those girls to back off.” he suggests, “they literally treat you like a god, surely they’ll listen if you tell them to leave her alone.”

the following day, you came across oikawa waiting outside your door, dressed in his uniform with his gaze lingering about to occupying his attention

“what are you doing here?” you ask him as you close your front door behind you. he’s probably here to break up with you, you thought to yourself

you had to force yourself to ignore the way your heart dropped at your own self-destructive thoughts

taking a deep breath as you approached him, you readied yourself for harsh news to come your way

but it never did

instead, you were greeted by oikawa’s infamous smile that made everyone at school to fall in love with this guy (including you)

he takes your hand into his, intertwining his calloused fingers that dwarfed yours in size. you don’t remember the last time you held oikawa’s hand, but it felt so familiar and warm

it was like home

you couldn’t help but feeling the ends of your lips tugging into a smile as you looked up at him, “what if someone at school sees us?”

you were expecting some kind of excuse, but all he did was shrug. “who cares?”

— k. tetsurou

when you and kuroo started going out, you certainly wasn’t expecting it to be like this

if anything, ‘going out’ would be a stretch if you count late night dates and sneaking out at midnight just to see each other as dating

it certainly wasn’t your usual definition of dating either as you yearned greatly to be able to do normal couple things with your boyfriend—like actually going out on dates during the day, eating lunch together, hell, even just holding hands!

it almost seemed laughable how normal things done in relationships were something you never even experienced with kuroo even after a few months of being together all due to him wanting to keep the relationship a secret

and if you were truly being honest with yourself, you never really understood why he wanted to keep it on the downlow in the first place

you never really questioned it as you just that much of an understanding person, but at a certain point it just wasn’t adding up

it wasn’t like he had girls going after him 24/7 despite being at the top of his class, popular, and nekoma’s volleyball captain

it wasn’t like oikawa who had an actual problem with hoards of girls surrounding him and tracking his ever move, so what was the big deal of letting your relationship public?

it was then did it hit you

the suddenly downpour of insecurity within your own loving boyfriend that you trust so much was getting the best of you

“what if he’s embarrassed to even be with me?” you contemplated in a harsh whisper to your best friend

it was in the middle of lunch and you two were sitting alone on a bench in the school’s courtyard chatting while eating—well, more like overthinking in your case while you friend just sat there and nodded

“if he actually felt that way, then he would’ve broken up with you already.” your friend stated in between bites, “besides, if i didn’t have feelings for someone, i wouldn’t put in the effort to sneak out just to see them.”

you hummed, not sure what to say as she did have a point

but could you really blame yourself for wanting an actual relationship rather than one that’s forced to go unnoticed?

“i should talk to kuroo about it...” you sigh out.

“talk to me about what?” an oh-so-familiar voice calls out to you and your friend

kuroo’s figure approaches the two of you as he give you a curt smile with hidden meanings that you weren’t able to even notice. you were too caught up in your own meddling thoughts that you also didn’t notice the way kuroo frowned slightly at the way you avoided eye contact with him

“nothing,” was all you said before standing up and throwing your trash away. “lunch is almost over so we should all get to class.” was all you said before briskly walking away

kuroo’s brows furrow in confusion as he looks over to your friend, “what’s up with (y/n)?”

“she thinks you’re too embarrassed to be with her, that’s why you hide your relationship.” she cuts straight to the point (homegirl just wants to eat her lunch in peace ffs)

“what?” your boyfriend huffs out in shock, almost offended at the fact that you out of all people would believe such a thing. “why does she think that?”

your friends shrugs, “not sure. that’s something you should be asking her, but if it were me, i would want a normal relationship as well.”

kuroo doesn’t say another word before walking away. and yet his walk quickened so he could catch up to you before you could get to class, footsteps echoing through the hallway in patters as he sees your familiar figure near your classroom

“(y/n)!” he calls out to you as you slide the classroom’s door open. it was sure to catch the attention of the rest of the students already in the classroom as you turn towards him, brows furrowed in the same confusion

as he neared you, there was almost no sign in him stopping, sending your heart beating in a frenzy as you parted your lips to tell him to slow down

but before a single syllable could even fall from your lips, your boyfriend’s own pair press against yours harshly. it was sweet like caramel and you swore everything moved in a slow motion when you suddenly realized where you two were

he stole your breath away when he pulled apart from you, eyes immediately scanning the room of his own classmates staring at him in awe

“since when were you two dating?” matsukawa asked rather loudly, it seemed that others were interested in knowing as well.

panic suddenly coursed through you as you gave kuroo a look, gravely ignoring the way yoru heart was thumping against your chest and the dozens of unanswered questions running through your head

“w-we’re not actually dati—”

“we’ve been together for a few months actually.” kuroo cuts you off, sending you a wink before entering the classroom

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callsigndreadfrost · 1 year ago

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Let's go back to this because I woke up in a weird way and this is how I filter out self-destructive needs.

Anyway.

Reading this again I feel like I didn't really make it clear enough but like I said, Jela has spent plenty of sleepless nights creating scenarios in his head where he finds them again and this time he gets to kill them or at the very least torture them. Especially Chris. Yeah, all 8 of them are guilty but Chris was the worst of the bunch so his hatred for him outweighs his hatred for the rest of them.

But those are just scenarios in his head where he can control the outcome every time. In reality it would end horribly for Jelani though. He'd freeze up from fear and while he's a person that can be considered brave, smart, capable and just foolhardy enough he would absolutely freeze on the spot the second he'd see any of them especially Chris and given Chris's propensity to be a walking cancerous tumor on the roster that is humanity he would absolutely without a doubt pick up where he left off and that would completely destroy Jelani on a mental level of which there'd be no coming back from.

So not only do I not want him to confront them on a story telling level, he wouldn't want to either because he knows damn well he'd come out of that situation either dead or far too broken to ever be able to come back from that and I think he's gone through enough. He's still going through shit. Like I said before recovery is its own type of hell and on top of that he feels like a burden to Angelus, Uthorim and especially to Loke. This is the wasteland where people barely get medical care for physical injuries, psychological injuries rarely ever get addressed and while his family can try the best they can it's a slow and often grueling process full of good days, okay days and horrible days. Loke may feel absolutely guilty that he wasn't there to protect him but Jelani feels a guilt that's so embedded into him that he can practically taste it.

As close as he is with Loke he can't bring himself to talk about it with him because he knows Loke feels guilty and knows he blames himself for not protecting him so Jelani doesn't wanna put that burden on him despite Loke constantly telling him he absolutely can talk to him about it or anything else he may be going through. He's so afraid that he's so mentally messed up that Loke wouldn't want to put up with him any longer.

He blindly trusts Uthorim with his life. So much so that he's confided in him how he feels and while he hasn't talked to him about the actual assault he did tell him about the times he tried to kill himself and how he tried it. He talks to Uthorim before he talks to Loke because he wants Uthorim's opinion on what he thinks Loke would be able to handle and what he wouldn't be able to handle. He admitted to him why he uses so much Calmex that he'd practically become addicted to it and knows about his constant drinking. Jelani's kind of oblivious to it but Uthorim has been steadily showing him ways to deal with the thoughts, self-destructive tendencies, memories, flashbacks and the other stuff that's affecting him without needing to rely so much on Calmex, leaving the use of the drug for when things get really ugly and impossible to manage. Jelani feels an incredible amount of guilt because as soon as something's up he runs to Uthorim and part of him feels like it's completely unfair to lay all of that on Uthorim and is scared to death that someday he'll have had enough and leave which would then cause Loke to hate him for driving his husband away.

Then there's the guilt he feels when it comes to being with Angelus. Angelus is very much the type to show affection by being physical. Kisses, hugs, leaning on, pats, scratches, gentle head bumps, holding hands, intertwining limbs and sex. He constantly assures Jela that he loves him and what feels like every twenty minutes Jela can hear him either yell out or chirp out different variations of "I love you" but at the end of the day Angelus is far more physical. While he's grown comfortable with being touched, by people he trusts, he's still on and off about sex. He's not fully repulsed, more like afraid of it. Any seemingly random sensation, touch, sound or word will instantly trigger him and he'll need to stop. Even if he does feel the urge he's hesitant to ask for it because of that fear. He's turned down Angelus so many times he's afraid he'll get sick and tired of it all and leave. There's been more than a few times when he didn't want to but felt that turning down his boyfriend would upset him so he lies to Angelus about wanting to. And before anyone misreads the situation, Angelus has been nothing but patient with him and understanding. He would never get mad at Jelani for turning him down. He's made it a habit to ask him if he can hug him, touch him in any way whether affectionally or sexually, he asks before kissing him and has made it a point to ask several times if he's okay with and sure if he wants to fuck. Jelani's just gotten really good at faking being okay with it and holding back tears mostly by dissociating and letting his boyfriend move him. The only thing that he just does not and cannot cope with during sex is being grabbed by the hips or choked. He will freak the fuck out. Angelus has made it a point to never touch him in those two areas and the one time he grabbed him by the hips was because he didn't know not to do that and it was the first and last time it happened. And no, Jelani has never told him that sometimes he tells him yes when in reality he doesn't want to.

I feel like I need to defend Angelus a lot in this AU because he can easily be seen as predatory by people who aren't paying attention. Angelus's one and only concern is to make sure Jelani feels comfortable and safe. As soon as Jelani tells him to stop he stops, he doesn't question it and he doesn't try to convince him to continue. If he tried to initiate and Jela says no he doesn't get mad, he doesn't express frustration much less does he try to convince him. He 100,000% respects his choice and supports him.

And you know, it isn't always some tragedy when it comes to their sex life. Angelus has proven time and time again that he can be trusted and that Jelani's safe with him and that he genuinely loves him; Jela feels safe enough with him that he's, on several occasions, initiated sex himself and has actually enjoyed it. Jelani's even felt safe enough that he brought up being collared and has been since. Little by little Jelani's been feeling better and better. There are bad days and days where even if he's the one initiating sex he'll need to stop over something that triggered a memory but he's getting there. It's gonna take him a very long time to be okay with it all and despite his worries and fears his family would never abandon him and would never do anything to hurt him despite what those nasty little intrusive thoughts might make him think.

Oh! And while yes, Loke killed one of the 8 people that did that to Jelani he's never ever gonna bring that up to anyone other than Uthorim or tell Jelani. He's taking that to his grave. He has no idea how Jelani would react to knowing Loke killed one of them. Truth is he'd be terrified because like I said, Chris threatened Jelani with finding both him and Loke, killing Loke in front of him and doing it again if he told Loke who attacked him and he's been living with the fear of losing his dad since then. Loke thinks it would piss Jelani off that he wasn't the one that killed one of his attackers but then again Loke operates more on a revenge system so he might be projecting a little bit with that. Jelani just wants to forget it ever happened and to try, emphasis on try, and move on.

I've decided on something that I'd been contemplating regarding Jela's attack. I've wondered if having Jelani come across the 7 assailants (there were 8 but Loke killed one of them, we'll get back to this in a bit) again would be ideal. Of course this second time around he'd be able to get closure in the form of revenge for what they did. I mean, usually in a story when a character is wronged, and in such a brutal manner to boot, the story often leads to the character that was wronged getting their revenge. I know it's not always the case and it doesn't always need to happen and in a way I don't really feel like this is headed in that direction. Who would benefit from Jelani being exposed to Christian and the other 6 assailants? Who would feel a sense of satisfaction in spilling their blood for what they did to a seventeen-year-old who was just doing the right thing? Not Jelani that's for sure. As his parents Loke and Uthorim would feel vindicated and avenged even though it didn't happen to them. Angelus sure as shit would revel in slowly killing off the sick bastards that assaulted his boyfriend and left him severely traumatized.

Being exposed to them, especially Christian, would more than likely unravel the little bit of recovery Jelani has had in the months following the assault. All that shit and trauma is still affecting him even almost a year later in ways that not even Loke, Uthorim or Angelus even know. The last thing Christian did after he was finished with Jelani was threaten him. If he told Loke who did it he would find both of them, kill Loke in front of him and do it again only that second time Chris was gonna "not be so merciful". So while, yeah, Jelani's spent plenty of sleepless nights just fantasizing about brutally killing them all or at the very least Chris it's one thing to fantasize about something. It's a whole different thing to actually be there and do it. Seeing Chris or any of them would literally be opening up semi-healed wounds and pouring salt on them. And honestly with how traumatized he is he'd probably just freeze on the spot. The little bit of recovery he'd done would just burn away.

Getting back to one of them getting killed. Loke got lucky. One of them, Nathaniel, had left the group after the assault. He was the only one that refused to do that but only because Jelani was a minor, don't think he's a decent person just because he refused to at first and "took it easy on him" he still did it anyways plus he's done other terrible shit to other people. He just didn't want to because Jelani was a kid at the time it happened. Loke just so happened to find him and tore him to pieces. Yeah, there was some satisfaction but killing all 8 of 'em wasn't gonna magically take back what happened or make Jelani instantly better. This is also coupled with the fact that Chris is a vile piece of shit and wouldn't go down without a fight or at the very least hurting Jelani again. He's as vile and evil as Iain is.

Basically everyone (Loke, Uthorim and Angelus) except for the actual victim (Jelani) would benefit from this clash and he's been through enough already not to mention that recovery is its own type of hell so it'd just be adding more to it.

#fo: Jelani tag #au oc things #idk if i should tag this with anything but just in case feel free to lemme now #i know these topics can be a bit heavy for some

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kaidenya · 4 years ago

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Yandere Types ✧ MHA

Description: A breakdown of the types of yandere I think the MHA characters would be like. I will be using the Yandere Chart that I created in order assign each characters type and danger level. Part One :: Hanta Sero, Shoto Todoroki, & Tamaki Amajiki,

WARNING: yandere content, toxic relationships, v light smut NOTE: kidnapping, non-con, violence, in order of danger level, not proof-read, a shit post really

“If I can’t have you, no one can...”

HANTA SERO — 16

Motive :: Isolating (3)

Behavior :: Possessive (6)

Executions :: Wrong Idea Type (2) | Monopoly Type (5)

Hanta Sero is extremely charismatic and many find it very easy to relax around him. Most people wouldn’t think the ability to fit in with any crowd was a disadvantage, but it had left Hanta with a shaking fear that he couldn't stand out among his peers. That was the last thing an aspiring pro-hero needed while trying to climb to the top. It’s because of this lack of control in his social life that his yandere motive would be isolating you. He would wish to keep you away from all things that could potentially draw your attention away.

It wouldn’t take much to catch Sero’s interest. He’s a wrong idea type which means the shortest interaction can spark his interest- whether it's lending him a pen in a moment of need or smiling at him in passing. He would very much like to keep you safe, more so if you’ve been open to his advances. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he offered you substances such as cannabis or alcohol to speed up the process of you growing comfortable in his presence. He would get physical faster than most as he is naturally a touchy person, most likely going down on you multiple times before attempting to get pleasure from you. Hanta is very intelligent, it would be relatively easy for him to earn your favor, and making sure you are constantly satisfied would be a major factor. Besides, he has a wicked mouth that would murmur sweet nothings as he sucked and licked at your arousal making it nearly impossible for you to think about anything else.

You would not doubt that Hanta had your best interest in mind. Even when he would express his concerns about the intentions of others. He would appeal to your logic and be sure you knew how much you meant to him— how he couldn’t lose you. Of course, he was always right about the ones you decided to keep around despite his warnings. Whether they made you uncomfortable, turned their backs on you, or vanished completely- you always lost contact with them. By the time you've started to run low on outside connections, you wouldn't mind pushing people away. Hanta Sero would be your constant. Besides, his peace of mind meant more to you than certain relationships and you were sure he'd do the same for you.

SHOTO TODOROKI — 17

Motive :: Submissive (1)

Behavior :: Overprotective (5)

Executions :: Obsession Type (3) | Self-Sacrifice Type (8)

Shoto Todoroki is motivated by his family trauma. There is no doubt that he is touch-starved and desperate for affection, beneath his hard protective exterior, of course. He looks at life through a calm and calculating gaze. On the off chance that he came in contact with someone who caught his interest, he would keep his distance, which is for the best considering his social cues are severely lacking. He would most likely be the one to watch you for the longest before making a move. Shoto would be sure to look out for you without making it on your radar. There would be times he would even go as far as to turn away your potential suitor or lead you away from an upperclassman prank. His infatuation would only grow with time, but there would be a breaking moment where his yandere behavior worsens. It would be a particularly heartfelt moment between you, whether it's sharing a traumatic moment or assisting with an injury, that would push him past the point of no return. He would be obsessed.

Todoroki's overprotective nature would take an aggressive turn when he would catch others interacting with you. It didn't matter if they had glanced your way for a beat too long or went as far as to seek out your attention. By the time he began courting you, rather than just watching from afar, you would begin noticing the changes in his behavior. Specifically when others were around. There would be a point when he told you not to interact with certain classmates. His social understandings would be his downfall as he wouldn’t note your negative reaction. Not until you stand up to him. After that, you could expect plenty of gifts and apologies. He would so clearly feel guilty and stop at nothing to make sure you knew that, to the extent that you almost feel wrong for being so upset. He was just worried that he would lose you.

The turn in your relationship would be when you grew intimate. Oddly enough you would have to be the one to take this next step in your relationship. However, once he's given free rein to touch you, he won't stop. Shoto isn’t the type to plan for one romantic relationship, let alone anything after his first love, so the moment he slid his cock into your tight, wet concave he would own you.

TAMAKI AMAJIKI — 24

Motive :: Isolating (4)

Behavior :: Obsessive (3)

Executions :: Stalker Type (6) | Worship Type (10)

Tamaki Amajiki is rarely sure of himself or his actions despite his undeniable intelligence and talent. He had taken to hiding in the shadow of his peers, though that was difficult with best friends who pushed him into the spotlight. Being a member of the Big Three only drew the attention of more. It was safe to say that his anxious personality could be a setback. However, it also made him very observant. Through that observance, he can decypher environments and body language much faster than most. He liked to stand back and watch- to feel the tension around him. That tension would be suffocating when he officially met you. It could be a number of instances. After Nejire had knocked his books from his hands in a fit of excitement, arms swinging and sending the stack right to your feet. Or perhaps Mirio would be bursting into laughter, cheerfully slapping his arm and sending him tumbling into your around a sharp turn. Either way, he would be a stuttering mess. If you met his apologies with soft smiles or reassurance it would surely set his gears turning.

It would be his lack of confidence that encouraged his yandere-like behavior, specifically stalking. Within a week he would be able to put together your schedule and your locker location. How he hadn’t noticed you before would remain a mystery as he would begin seeing you everywhere. Some days he would fall into step with you, keeping a safe distance as he marveled at your routine behavior. As time went on he would feel more confident in closing that distance. It would remain that way for a few months until something pushed his interest into a fixation. Every good quality that you possessed would become far more impressive to him and spur him to get closer— to learn more. He would begin breaking into your personal items be that your locker or bedroom, it didn't matter as long as he got closer to you. It wouldn't be surprising if Mirio and Neijire had started to notice the way his gaze would linger. They would take it upon themselves to reach out to you without realizing the severity of the situation.

The tipping point for his yandere behavior would a moment of absolute panic. You would have already grown close, fully integrated with the Big Three, when you would begin spending time with another student. Tamaki would be able to contain his jealousy when it came to his friends, but someone outside of that close-knit group? He would see them as a direct threat and he would deal with it accordingly. In the beginning, he would explain how he feels comfortable with you, making sure you knew how different you compared to others. That would most likely lead to the two of you spending more time alone. If that didn't keep the threat at bay then he would waste no more time, prompting threatening or attacking them. In the long run, the only thing that would ruin his hold over you would be pushing too many people away and getting caught, but he would deal with that the best way he knew how.

#sero x reader #shoto x reader #tamaki x reader #hanta sero x reader #shoto todoroki x reader #tamaki amajiki x reader #mha x reader #mha headcanons #yandere #yandere:hanta #yandere:shoto #yandere:tamaki

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landonkirbyappreciation · 3 years ago

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Wow, so um... what is actually wrong with Brett?? Something is not right with that man, seeing that new interview of him talking about Landon is actually shocking. He literally mistreated Landon the entire time he was in charge and kept him dead and trapped alone all season and ended it with him losing part of his soul and still being trapped and not getting to live his life. And he’s talking about how this ending is happy for Landon?! How he finally found his place in the world, he found a home, he found purpose and power, and now he doesn’t need to fear the constant threat of death?!? This is genuinely sickening and so wrong?? It really feels like he’s trying to gaslight people (which is what it’s felt like with the writing for Landon all season, honestly) that this horrible fate for Landon is a good thing? This has to be a joke.

First of all, Landon had already found a place at the start of the show with Hope and Raf! That’s literally what a huge part of the first season was about for him, him finding a place at the school with his loved ones and within the world of the supernatural. Because he was supernatural! Therefore, he belonged at the school, he literally said that in 1x14. That was the point? Him finding out who/what he was and being able to stay at the school with Hope and Raf was supposed to be about him finding a place and finding a home. And a purpose as well. He’d already been helping to fight the monsters with his smarts, and he had started to find more purpose and power as he started to activate more of his phoenix powers. He was growing into more of a hero, and someone who could also be more equal to Hope in that sense, as far as his powers went. And then Brett decided to take that away! But then even without his powers, Landon supposedly learned to fight monsters in the prison world (and before that he had also beaten the Necromancer to a pulp), which should have meant he’d be more capable dealing with monsters and other threats and have more power that way using those new skills. But of course, they did nothing to explore that either and decided to forget that ever happened.

And Landon not having to face the constant threat of death? Are you kidding me?? Oh so if there’s a lot of danger surrounding Landon, he should just die and that way he won’t have to worry about it, good for him? He wouldn’t even have had to worry about those constant threats if the writers hadn’t kept killing him over and over again for no good reason! They unnecessarily created the threats themselves and wouldn’t stop. And him being a phoenix was meant to protect him from death anyway?? He was a phoenix! They’re supposed to be one of the most powerful supernatural creatures, he was already capable of surviving death, and could have done so much more and definitely wouldn’t have had to worry about the threat of death if they’d actually kept and explored his phoenix powers and abilities. Not to mention, he survived a prison world full of monsters without any powers, he had gotten through so much. Landon’s a survivor, that was stated at the beginning of the show. He survived all these things, and he could have continued on surviving. And it’s not even like he feared the threat of death anyway, he constantly faced it bravely and actually believed in his own survival. It was Hope who struggled with the fear of Landon’s death, like... what?

So Landon already had those things and was happy and then Brett purposefully took it all away from him. Then he tortures Landon and puts him in the worst situation possible and now he’s claiming that doing this to Landon is what made him finally gain all these things that he already had before? The very things Brett took away? And when there could have been literally any other way that Landon could have these things that would have been better than this horrible way that Brett claims he’s done it. Which is a total lie and messed up on so many levels to say that Landon has all these things now. Because Brett is saying that the place Landon belongs is in a purgatory. That is Landon’s home. Even though he should have had a place at the school, the school could have been his home, he’d had his own room, or he could have later had another home with Hope, but no. Apparently the only place Landon can belong, the only home meant for him, is limbo. A dark, depressing place where he is alone and can’t truly live or be with who he loves, and now he can’t even feel anything? What kind of a home is that? Has Brett totally forgotten that Landon became su*cidal in season 2 when Hope was gone and Raf was a wolf, and he was depressed and said “being alone is hopeless” and tried to “self destruct” by drowning himself? And now Brett has made Landon’s “home” one where he is alone? What? Also the fact that Landon had been trying to get out of limbo all season, he didn’t wanna be there! Of course until, out of nowhere, they switch to him suddenly being “happy” in limbo. And again, out of nowhere, they have him accepting the role as the ferryman despite wanting to escape all season, and despite how devastated he looked the episode before when he couldn’t go back with Hope and learned his soul belonged to the ferrywoman? But he accepts this and is fine with it, all while he’s constantly drinking? And when in 3x02, he didn’t even wanna stay in the prison world with Raf because he said it wasn’t living and he wanted to do more with his life? But now he’s fine with being alone in a much worse dimension for eternity? It’s like Brett really doesn’t understand Landon at all.

And his idea of Landon having purpose and power is him serving people forever while he suffers? He has to get souls to peace for eternity when that shouldn’t even be a thing, it doesn’t even exist in the rest of tvdu, so Landon’s role in limbo shouldn’t even be necessary. Plus the ferryman curse was supposed to be lifted anyway, Landon shouldn’t even have to do this? But that’s Brett’s idea of Landon’s purpose and him having power as the ferryman? Even though Landon was born a phoenix and he could have had so much power that way if they hadn’t taken it away. And he could be finding even more purpose in the real world as a phoenix. I mean, he could have had healing tears! Imagine with Landon’s abilities all the good he could do in the real world and how many people he could help and save. But no, they throw away all that potential and keep him in limbo instead? Because apparently that’s the only place where he can find purpose and power. (Might I also say that Landon does not have to find a purpose and power in order to live. He should just be allowed to live and just be. He can find many purposes throughout his life, as anyone can, and him having power is not a requirement for living either. So him finding “purpose” and “power” in limbo does not justify him staying trapped there.) And Brett’s solution to Landon dealing with the threat of death being to keep him dead, even though that issue was already solved with Landon’s phoenix powers, is unbelievable. So being dead is the only way Landon can be safe, that’s really ironic.

The fact that he’s acting like he gave Landon these great things, when he’s the one who destroyed those things for Landon in the first place when Landon did actually have them, is appalling. He’s really acting like Landon getting screwed over is some kind of win for him, as if he now has what he never had before. It really says it all. There’s no way Brett possibly likes Landon or had any good intentions for him with what he’s done. Or if he really does believe all that he’s saying and that he did something good for Landon, he needs help because that sort of mentality is not it, it’s damaging. And he certainly shouldn’t be writing for television, especially television aimed at teens? He did this to a foster kid. And he’s trying to make it seem like a good thing. What kind of message does that send to any foster kid watching the show? Or those who are Middle Eastern? Or really anyone who relates to Landon or has struggled with or been through similar things that he has? Brett’s done worse than severely mistreat Landon. He has manipulated the writing and his own words in a way to try to trick people into believing he hasn’t mistreated Landon, that what he has done to Landon is actually a good thing. But no way am I ever buying that, it’s the exact opposite. What’s been done to Landon is tragic, and no amount of lies or fake, toxic optimism is gonna hide it, at least not for me. I’ve never seen a show with so much bs and harmful messages. I’m glad it’s over, and just wish I could erase the memory of all this from my mind.

#text #my posts #spoilers #4x20 #anti legacies #anti brett matthews #i'm sorry but that man is disgusting #or he’s just deranged idk #he's really going out of his way to try to cover himself #and to try to cover up his prejudice too probably #it's sad some people seem to buy it #and don't seem to think what they did to landon is as bad as it is #when it’s as clear as day

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tommysparker · 4 years ago

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Never Forget You [Chapter 1]

Obi-Wan Kenobi x Jedi!Reader

A/N: here’s the first official chapter! thank you so much for the support this series as already gotten. chapters will be posted every Saturday! enjoy :)

Warnings: angst. fluffy flashbacks. this isn’t even the worst of it mwhaha. paragraphed italics = flashback

[10 YEARS LATER]

The sky was as blue as his eyes. Not as dark and cloudy, but gave the same feeling of hope, peacefulness, and comfort. You could picture them vividly in your mind, even the small crinkle at the edges and the kindness they held, a warmness that matched your current aurora.

The two of you sat in the gardens for what felt like hours, deep in meditation. Your force signatures quickly became entangled with one another, your bond radiating around you, creating almost a shield bubble between the rest of the world and the two who sat inside.

Obi-Wan was the first to open his eyes, having never been one to sit still for long periods of time. He’s improved since he was a youngling, but still had a long way to go.

You, on the other hand, looked completely invested in your meditation. Your face was relaxed, although every now and then your eyebrows would furrow as you tried to maintain concentration. It was hard when a certain other was very distracting, even if he wasn’t aware of it.

“I can feel you staring,” you said, eyes still closed. Obi-Wan was thankful for that fact because it means you wouldn’t see him blush in embarrassment from getting caught.

“I can feel you blushing, too.” This time, you opened your eyes and smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t last long.” Anytime the two of you tried to meditate together, it would always end with Obi-Wan getting bored and asking to duel instead.

He quickly hid his face, pulling the hood of his robe over his head. “I’m not blushing, that’s childish.”

You giggled, leaning forward to lift the front of his hood. “Obi-Wan, you are the most childish person I know.”

The young man was about to protest before you hushed, eyes already closed once more as you returned to your deep state of awareness.

You opened your eyes and sighed, long and deep.

Standing up from the cold floor of your room, you looked out the window and gazed at the cloudy sky of Gyfill. The air felt chilly from the lack of life-forms in the area. After your first week on the planet, you decided it was a safer idea to seek shelter away from town. Considering your mission was to spy on the local Separatist groups, keeping a low profile was essential.

Today was different, however. The same cold and dull atmosphere were present, but the future is what held the divergent. For today, was the day you were finally to return home.

Home. The word itself felt familiar but distant. As a Jedi, you trained to hold little sentimental value. Attachments were forbidden, a path to the dark side. They provoked fear. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

Once your bag of belongings was packed, you made your way to the marked location someone from the Jedi council sent earlier that morning. Mentally, you were not prepared to see everyone again. After being isolated for years and having limited contact with any life form outside of business, the many faces from your time at the Temple became slightly blurry. Except for his.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was on his way to the Archives when he bumped into Ahsoka Tano.

“Oh, Master Kenobi! Perfect, I was about to go look for you.”

“Ahsoka,” he smiled. “What can I do for you?”

“Who’s Y/n Y/l/n?”

Obi-Wan froze. The sound of that name echoed in his mind, paired with memories that he had locked away in the back of his mind. “Well...that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time,” was all he could manage to say, still trying to process all the past recollections that suddenly surfaced.

“So, you know them?”

“Uh, yes I suppose so. We were...close as younglings and trained together as Padawans. They were...the most skilled Jedi I ever had the pleasure of knowing, almost as good as Master Yoda.”

“If they’re so great, how come I never heard of them before?” Ahsoka tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, resting a hand on her hip in classic ‘Ashoka manner’,

“They were sent away on an important mission years ago as far as I know. Er, why do you ask? And how did you come to know of that name?”

“Oh right. Anakin said the Chancellor told him that Master Y/l/n was returning today. He told me to ask you about it.”

Once again, Obi-Wan’s world paused.

He stood across from you, trying to maintain a neutral expression as he watched you load your bags onto the ship. However, you knew him better than that.

You walked up to the young boy and he took in your appearance. Gone was the braid that draped over your shoulder. Gone were the long robes you liked to hide in, in their place was a heavy jacket that looked like it was built to keep out the cold. Perhaps you were going to Hoth?

“Obi, you know I can’t tell you where I’m going. Master Windu was strict about his instructions,” You sighed, sensing your friend trying to deduce as much as he could. Your Master was very clear when he told you how classified the mission was. No one can know, especially Obi-Wan.

“Can you at least say how long you’ll be gone?” He practically begged, wanting something, anything he could get to keep his hope alive. Hope that you'll return soon. Hope that you weren’t truly leaving him.

You looked away, staring at the towers and passing hover-vehicles that littered the planet you’ve grown up on. “I don’t know.”

Everything had happened so suddenly. You were called into the council room that day to hear the news every Padawan dreams of. When Master Windu said you were ready for the trials, the first thing you went to do was tell Obi-Wan. The two of you celebrated that night in the gardens, a moment you would treasure for the rest of your life. Soon after you gained the title of Jedi Knight, you were once again called into the Jedi Council room to be debriefed on your first mission as a proper Jedi. You didn’t want to mess this up. You couldn’t.

Obi-Wan resists the urge to pull you into a hug and never let you go, instead opting to hold your shoulders and give you his signature charming smile. “Be safe, darling.”

You smiled, but it didn’t reach your eyes. You held his wrist, bringing his knuckles to your lips and pressed a hesitant kiss to them before pushing them to his side. “May the force be with you.”

There was no pet name at the end, no ‘my friend’ or even his own name. It was a sentence that was meant to bring comfort, but the way you phrased it, the edge in your voice, made Obi-Wan feel everything but comforted.

He didn’t get the luxury of responding, for all he did was blink and suddenly you were on the ship, taking off into the clear blue sky.

You gazed at the clouds passing by as the ship flew into Coruscant’s atmosphere. The bright light and sunny day was a harsh change from the grey sky that fell over Gyfill. The energy emitting off of all the life-forms gave you a headache. You felt the Force all around you, swirling in the air and penetrating your soul. It was like a breath of fresh air after drowning for over a decade.

You flinched at the light as the door opened, suddenly feeling like a hermit crawling out of its shell. Slowly walking out of the ship, you pulled the cloak hood over your head, inhaling the strange but familiar scent of the Jedi Temple. You were still wearing your Gyfill civilian attire, the wool fabric made the Coruscant heat much more intense causing a few beads of sweat to form on your forehead. Or was it just the nerves of seeing all the people you left behind?

Master Windu stood at the end of the drop door, a smile on his face at the sight of his former Padawan. It was an occasion that called for a little joy, a moment to celebrate outside the war that raged through the galaxy.

You descended down the ramp, taking in a sharp breath at the feeling of another force sensitive. “Master Windu”. You bowed your head and he did the same to you.

“Master Y/l/n, it’s great to see you in person rather than as a hologram.”

You both chuckled lightly. “The feeling is mutual, Master. It’s...it’s good to be back.” Your eyes wandered over the people that roamed about. Jedi Masters walked with their Padawans at their side. Distant memories resonated within you. Some time ago that was once you and your Master, the man who stands before you know who has grown significantly older. Then again, so have I, you thought to yourself.

Unbeknownst to you, you weren’t the only one registering your growth. Obi-Wan stood behind a pillar, glancing over the hanger in search of a familiar face. He was aware it would not be the same face he knew as a young boy, but he certainly was not prepared for what he saw.

You look older, which was the obvious and expected observation. He noted how you wrapped yourself in your cloak, similar to how you would in your youth. You stood tall in front of Master Windu, another trait you had kept since your days as a Padawan. He remembered how you would always act mature in the presence of Masters, something he never really understood until becoming a Jedi Knight. The need for approval by the superiors was a constant.

It wasn’t just your appearance that had changed either. He could feel it in the Force. There was a shift in it when you had landed that made an excited yet nervous chill run down his spine. You were stronger and held more control in your signature.

Before, he remembers being able to feel it from across the Temple. Now, it was barely there. He remembers feeling your bond drift farther as he watched you leave, and how it had dimmed over the years you were gone. He remembers the pain that tortured him every night as he laid awake in bed, trying to reach out across the stars but only being met with the vast emptiness of space. There was something in him that broke the first time he slept without having a tendril of your force signature connected with his. He felt cold, resorting to sleeping in his Master’s quarters in an attempt to ease the loneliness.

Overall, it would appear that nothing about you had changed, and yet it seemed everything was different. Almost everything.

His eyes were just as blue as the last time you saw them. They looked tired, haunted by the ongoing war but still filled with determination. Classic Obi-Wan.

You quickly broke eye contact the moment it was made, but that one second was more than enough for Obi-Wan to get lost in the familiar colour. His favourite colour in fact, not that he would ever admit you had any part in the decision.

“Master Obi-Wan?”

He jumped at the sound of a voice and suddenly became aware of the presence right next to him, that presence belonging to none other than Master Yoda.

“Master Yoda! I er I was just...uh...looking...for Anakin! Yes, uh have you seen him around by any chance?” Obi-Wan quickly tried to cover his stutter, feeling embarrassed about getting caught gazing from afar. Not that Master Yoda would know he was looking at you...right?

“I see,” the little green creature smirked in amusement. “Whatever it is, wait it can. Council meeting about to begin there is.”

Obi-Wan furrowed his eyes. Typically he was able to keep a good track of the meetings, but this was news to him. “What’s it about?”

“Master Y/l/n.”

“Hmm?” You hummed absentmindedly.

“Are you listening?” Master Windu raised an eyebrow.

“Oh uh, my apologies Master. I’m just...readjusting.” You tried to focus your attention on what Master Windu was saying, but the recognition of his presence made it difficult. For years, you tried to forget about him. You ignored the empty feeling in your stomach at night, the thoughts and memories that plagued your dreams. After some time, they eventually began to fade but never forgotten. It was for the best.

Master Windu crossed his arms. “There will be plenty of time for that after your debrief of the mission. Master Yoda and the rest of the council await.”

Oh, Force, not the council.

You would never dare to admit or even show it, but the council and being in the council room had always intimidated you. How could it not? You had to stand in the center of all the best Jedi of that era while they stare at you, judging you, sitting high and mighty in those stupid chairs.

“This way, my old Padawan.”

You followed Master Windu through the large halls of the Jedi Temple. You masked the nervousness that was no doubt radiating from your force signature. A multitude of thoughts ran through your mind, good and bad. Worst case scenario, you had done something so wrong that you were about to be kicked out of the Jedi Order. Nothing came to mind when you tried to think of any offence you had committed in the recent weeks since you earned the title of Jedi Knight.

You were pulled out of your thoughts by the sound of the large council room doors opening, the creaking of the hinges made you cringe slightly.

The room was ominously lit, the only light source being the setting sun shining through the glass windowed walls. Master Yoda sat in his seat. All the other chairs were empty.

Master Windu took his seat as you stood before the two of them. He could see the questions rise from your confused facial expression. “Everything we discuss in this room stays between us, young Jedi.”

You nodded, inhaling and exhaling slowly in an attempt to calm yourself. “Master Windu, Master Yoda. What is this about? Have I done something wrong?”

The two men looked at each other and shared an unreadable expression before turning back to you. Master Yoda was the first to speak. “Sending you on a mission we are. To Gyfill you will go.”

Whatever anxieties that you held before were washed away with this information. You contain your excitement, but the sudden mood shift was still noticeable. “Who am I going with? When do we leave? What’s the mission for?” It was rare that a Jedi would be sent on a mission alone, typically you were partnered up for safety measures. Obi-Wan’s face flashed in your mind, and although it was unlikely, a small part of you hoped he would be going with you.

“This mission only requires one Jedi. There’s a Separaist organization on the planet and we’re sending you to gain intel and report back to us. No one outside of this room can be aware of this information. You leave within the week. Understood?”

You frowned, “Forgive me Master, but why can’t anyone know?” The idea of having to leave your home seemingly without a trace made you iffy. Obi-Wan once again appeared in your mind.

Master Windu and Yoda exchanged a look before Windu responded almost hesitantly. “We have reason to believe someone in the Order is a traitor, and the number of people who are trustworthy is very limited.”

“You mean someone has betrayed us?” You asked in shock. How could anyone do such a thing? And a Jedi nonetheless.

“Time to answer your questions, there will be, young one. Prepare for your first mission now, you must.” Master Yoda said. “Prepare to say goodbye you should.”

It was as IF he could read your mind, which he probably could. You dreaded the idea of saying goodbye, especially when it was clear that there was no guarantee of your return date. How would you explain to your friends that you won’t be around anymore? What will Obi-Wan think?

“That is another subject that needs to be discussed.”

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what else needs to be discussed? who’s the traitor? how will obi-wan and y/n get on after all this time? lemme know what you think!!

taglist: @queenariesofnarnia @dwarfplanet69 @katsukink @blondekel77 @generousrunawaydonut @fandomtrashwhore @fortheloveofaqueenfan @mrskenobi19 @mellowstatesmanhandsempath @hotleaf-juice

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syubub · 4 years ago

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What makes BTS most vulnerable

Woo! A reading! I wanted to do this bc its been on my list for a little while now!

I just got off work and wanted to do this asap! Pls forgive mistakes! I'm not gonna proof read bc im lazy.

Cheeky disclaimer: this is for entertainment purposes and not to be taken as fact! This is my interpretation of the cards!!

So so so so

First off, I did each member and also one for the group! I didn't have a specific plan in mind when I started, so I just went with the flow!

Let's start with the group first

So. The 5 of pentacles is what makes them most vulnerable. This card talks about isolation, feeling lost, anxiety, not having money or influence. Most of all, a mindset of lack.

All of this to me makes me think that what makes them most vulnerable is the fear of being right back where they started. Feeling exiled from the industry, not having the funds to be sure of a stable future and also not having a strong sense of identity as a group and within the group. It's like their vulnerability comes from something almost like ptsd? Let me try to make that make more sense. I genuinely think that where they started and the uncertainty and constant ridicule really had an impact on them. The vulnerability they have as a group is essentially emotional distress? Like, I wish I had better words to explain. It's the fear that they haven't actually grown or gotten anywhere and that they are insignificant that is their vulnerability. Fear based on where they started?

I really hope that made sense. Moving on though, 7 of swords is how it manifests for them. This card is sneaky. It talks about getting away with something and betrayal but I think this meaning is the most relevant: strategic moves. So how their vulnerability manifests is that the fear that they have causes them (and the company) to make very specific moves to keep their fears from happening. It's like, they take steps to make sure their fears don't get realized. Career wise but also personally. They can sometimes force growth because they fear stagnation. Kinda like rolling something uphill? Once it loses momentum it starts rolling back down.

The other two cards, Wellness and busy times and multitasking, are what they can do to lessen that vulnerability. Keeping healthy in mind body and spirit (also keeping the group bond healthy too) as well as channeling their emotions and fears into productivity. (Think the ly:tear album)

Seokjin

This is really intresting. So, what makes him most vulnerable is repressed emotion that causes inner turmoil. The moon is all about your insides and the vastness it has. In its reverse it talks about the darker parts of your subconscious. So, him bottling shit up and repressing it becomes a monster that affects him without him even necessarily knowing.

As for how that manifest in his life, it literally affects his judgment. Like, literally. It messes with his decision making.

As a fellow human with a similar problem, I can almost bet that any issue he has with another member will be shoved away and it will fester until he's at his breaking point and he'll absolutely weaponize it but disguise it as "just poking fun" or he might also purposefully create low level chaos. It's really intresting because this could manifest in so many ways. It could be his insecurities, issues with other people, fears ect and they fester in his brain space fucking with his judgment.

What he can do to lessen this vulnerability is deep emotional healing. Istg these cards are too perfect to make up. He needs to do THE WORK and heal it. He probably recognizes this and is working on it. Its not fair to himself to put himself aside in order to put other people first. (I think this probably happened a lot in the early bts days bc he had to be an older brother and a responsible figure to 6 other kids so he prioritized group harmony over his own issues and emotions)

Yoongi

????

Um, okay. So what makes yoongi most vulnerable is the dark side of wealth. That's the 10 of pentacles rev. But it gets interesting bc the 10 of swords isn't what makes him vulnerable but it also isn't how it manifests?? So here's my theory time. What makes him most vulnerable is the dark side of wealth. I can only assume that it's the isolation and internal conflict of benefiting off of a system that fucked you over in the first half of your life and also feeling bad for having wealth that most people can never imagine? I really don't know? But with the 10 of swords talking about betrayal and deep wounds, it could be that he's extremely afraid of being taken advantage of? Like, that's another downside of wealth. Maybe people have tried to use him for money or influence? Especially in his personal life. Like, he probably finds it extremely hard to get close to people because he's afraid of betrayal over something that is already hard for him to deal with?

Also loss. He wasn't born rich. He worked his ass off to get what he has and he's probably afraid to lose it. He might "stash" money?

Anyway, knight of swords, how it manifests. This card is about a drive to succeed. So essentially this makes him run and push himself hard and harder and harder to out run what he sees as an inevitable end? Sometimes this can blind him.

As for what he can do to lessen this vulnerability, we have, self confidence through God confidence. This card to me talks about having faith in your actions and skills and trusting in yourself even if you doubt your ability. Essentially, yoongi just needs to trust in himself to land on his feet no matter what happens. Life is always uncertain so he needs to trust that he can weather any storm he might face.

Hoseok

This was one gave me some thoughts. So, similar to jin, it's the bottling shit up and having you subconscious mind eventually figure shit out because it's been neglected but with the 2 of swords in reverse, talking about confusion and being indecisive, I think this kinda causes him to shut down? He might get apathetic. It's almost like when you work a computer so hard that it crashes.

And how this manifests for him with the 3 of pentacles in reverse is that he gets thrown out of alignment with the group. Kinda like how you shouldn't drive on a flat tire. He withdraws and becomes hard to reach and puts up a wall that causes a lot of problems for him as well as those he is around. It's a defense mechanism. It can also manifest in him preferring to work alone as well instead of group settings.

This exposes him to depression and doubt.

Also similar to jin, for how to lessen this vulnerability we have Bless your heart with talks about reaching out (breaking down that wall) and healing your heart and healing the root issue.

Namjoon

Okay. This is the one that makes so much sense but also confuses me.

So. What makes him most vulnerable is the magician rev and 10 of cups. Unrealized potential and poor planning as well as love, harmony and alignment.

So.... what? How does love and the happiest happiness make him vulnerable?

Well, I think he's suspicious of it. I think that he can't help but wonder in his big big big brain if THIS is the right happy or if its really happiness at all? Almost like commitment issues but also not? It's like, he's afraid that it won't last? He might have trouble fully allowing himself happiness. Also, what makes him the most vulnerable is love. It opens up every bit of his soul and puts it on a laundry line for everyone to see and I don't think he thinks he's worthy enough to be seen like that?

As for how it manifests in his life, 9 of cups, personal fulfillment and a strive to have everything else in hislife sorted out? Essentially wanting to have a perfect foundation so eventually he can share with all the important people in his life.

As for what he can do. Value your self worth. pretty straight up. He needs to value himself more. He deserve love and he deserves to feel seen even if it's uncomfortable at first.

Jimin

Oki. What makes jimin most vulnerable is choice. The 7 of cups talks about focusing on what's best for you and making choices based not on illusion. I think jimin is plagued by unrealistic expectations and confronting the fact that it's not possible is what makes him most vulnerable. He makes choices that are driven by illusion. Usually about self. I think specifically about how he doesn't always see how good he already is so he pushes himself to chase after something that isn't always right for him or even there in the first place. Acknowledging and facing it brings vulnerability that he doesn't always want to face. I think he might equate vulnerability to powerlessness.

How it manifests. 9 of wands rev. Paranoia and being defensive. It's his own fear and insecurities manifesting outside of himself.

As for what he can do, passion and purpose and multifaceted. Focus on what is close to his heart and don't get side tracked. Theres so much more to this situation and there isn't an easy fix. There's a lot of things that need working on in order for him to feel comfortable.

Taehyung

Oki oki oki. What makes Tae most vulnerable is strength rev. Raw emotion. He doesn't always express his emotions and when he chooses to be more open, his emotions go through a bit of a filter. Showing his unfiltered emotions makes him most vulnerable because it's him as he is. In his truest form. It's all of his wants, joys, fears. Everything.

As for how it manifests, 10 of wands and Hanged man, it becomes a burden that he carries because he feels like he can't just be honest. He pauses and allows himself time to feel on his own but that means possibly being misunderstood and a bit isolated.

Now. What can he do to lessen it? Bless your heart and healthy communication in relationships. TALKING TO PEOPLE AND ALLOWING HIMSELF THAT VULNERABILITY. It's not bad to be vulnerable. Heal that shit bb bc you are worth it.

Jungkook

So, what makes him most vulnerable? The world in rev. Not having closure and seeking it. The process of seeking closure for himself about things that could have or putting to rest something that has come full circle. It brings vulnerability because he has to face things that he could have done better. He has to face things coming to a close and be okay with is.

How it manifests, the tower, ace of cups, 5 of cups reversed.

The tower is essentially everything crumbling down. I think jk thinks too much? If you follow a ball of yarn all the way to the end then you just unraveled a whole ass ball of yarn.

Him going to close those things cause him to unravel his foundation.

With the ace of cups, creativity and love/ new emotions, I think him taking the time to pursue personal closure helps him to be more open to love as well as giving him creative fuel.

The 5 of cups rev. Means that him doing this closure thing helps him to forgive himself bc he's taking time to move on and tie up loose ends?

For jk this closure thing manifests in every aspect of his like and I almost see it as him shedding? Sounds weird but he's consciously moving on and paying attention to what he needs?

As for what he can do? Deep emotional healing! He runs the risk of feeling more of the tower manifestation so he needs to keep himself emotionally healthy in order for this to be productive instead of destructive!

~~~~~~~

I hope y'all like this! I feel like the cards didn't always follow what I was kinda going for with my questions but it all works out in the end I guess?

My next reading will be up later this week (I've already done it and taken all of my notes. I just have to type it all out) so look foward to that as well!

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tales-unique · 4 years ago

Text

FAITH, LOST III

I gave myself a small case of blue balls with this chapter, I apologize! It gets a little, ahem, spicy. ❤️

Edit: @chelseareferenced forgot to tag my boo! Sorry love!

Chapter 3

Lords grant you mercy you were going to kill him if he didn’t let you out. Heisenberg had, quite quickly, established a set of ground rules that you were to adhere to at all times when in the Factory, the most notable being that you weren’t to leave the upper floors without him under any circumstances. This, of course, left you alone for the majority of your time there since he never allowed you to aid him in his work.

You’ll just get in my way — he’d sneer at you, patting your head in a condescending manner. Not to mention the Lycans have a preference for young, supple devotees — he would tease you, wiggling his gloved fingers at you from inside in the elevator, chuckling to himself as he descended into the bowels of the factory to continue his projects. You had no idea what he was creating down there, but you knew that it often didn’t work out as planned from the way he’d fume when he returned. Once again you have been left to your own devices, only this time you have a way to alleviate at least some of your boredom. With a huff of effort you slide to the floor and crawl over to an old vent duct in the wall. It had caught your attention one night when the echoing of his voice through the shaft had woken you up, realizing that one of his work rooms below you was connected to yours via this duct. Though it provided you with minimal entertainment, it did give you insight to the type of work he did. Experiments; this was where he made the Lycans and the other twisted creatures that roamed his Factory. One night, against your better judgement, you had read an extract from an open journal on his desk when trying to make yourself useful. It mentioned something called Soldats and an army he was trying to create. You were lucky that you had moved away from it to straighten his sheets, otherwise he would have caught you red handed. Not that he was happy to have you in his space at all. “Fuck!” The loud cursing pulls you back to reality and you peer down the shaft expectantly, gripping the grate that covers it as you listen to Heisenberg rant about his latest creation being a failure. He had a tendency to speak out loud, likely recording his findings. The echo of his boots thudding against the metal floor betrays his movements and you follow it along the floor until you can’t hear it anymore. It means one of two things; either he’s leaving the Factory altogether or he’s coming back up. Quickly, you get to your feet and smooth down your clothes; a pair of simple trousers and a tunic top. You’d managed to scrounge up the modest outfit with the help of the ever amicable and charming Duke after a rather abrupt introduction from Heisenberg. Begrudgingly he allowed you to pick whatever you deemed necessary, and even a few luxuries like a fancy hand mirror, even though he complained that you were going to bankrupt him. It didn’t stop him lingering nearby, supervising the exchange through the puffs of cigar smoke. It was on your return to the upper levels, Heisenberg fancying the stairs instead of the elevator this time, that you’d properly come into contact with the Lycans. You weren’t sure what possessed him to give you a glimpse of inner workings of his Factory. Maybe it was another cheap shot at frightening you, or maybe it was pride that drove him to parade his creations before you. Needless to say, they did scare you. The lower reaches of the Factory was their domain and as you followed Heisenberg closely, his one clear instruction, you couldn’t help but feel their eyes watching you from afar. They snarled and growled and howled at your intrusion, sniffing the air curiously. It was rare for their Master to bring something new to their den and not let them tear it limb from limb. You were quick to beg him to take you back to the relative safety of the upper floors, which he did so with immense satisfaction and shit-eating grin on his face. The sound of the elevator dings and you come to stand in the doorway, watching him stalk out as soon as the gate opens, muttering heatedly to himself. In typical Heisenberg fashion he stalks right past you and into his office without so much as a grunt of acknowledgment. Clearly someone was having a bad day. Steeling yourself, you pad gently to his office door and find that he’s left it open for once. A good sign. Usually if his mood is dangerously sour the door is slammed shut and you avoid him like the plague until he makes himself known, but that isn’t necessary this time. “Is everything alright?” You ask from the threshold, careful not to enter until you’re invited. Like the ever faithful woman you are you try to serve him as best you can, even if he does make it very difficult at times. Heisenberg sits in his metal chair, leaning back. His stance is exasperated, but the tight grip on the shot of liquor in his hand is angry. His hat and coat have been discarded on his bed, his glasses sit on the desk, and you see blood on his knuckles. Upon closer inspection you see the trails of splatter on his exposed forearms, his shirt sleeves having been rolled up while he was working no doubt. “Yeah,” he breathes, raising the glass in a mock toast, “I’m just dandy.” He is definitely not dandy. Toying with the prospect of overstepping the mark or remaining respectful to his status, you rock on the balls of your feet. On one hand he always seemed so annoyed when you’d remind him that you were there to serve him, as Mother Miranda had instructed, but on the other he often chastised you if you tried to take the initiative; frankly, the constant push and pull drove you mad. “Heisenberg,” you chide quietly, approaching him cautiously. He hated it when you called him my Lord, or even sir, heatedly telling you to just call him by his surname like everyone else did. You obeyed, accepting it as the happy medium. Vibrant green eyes watch you closely as you settle for leaning against the desk, careful not to disturb the organized chaos that was his research. It’s still a work in progress, the way you navigate around one another, but you’re slowly making progress. “You can talk to me, you know,” you remind him, trying to remain resolute under his intense stare. There’s no denying that his rugged appearance, scars and all, are attractive and his more wolfish qualities gave him a uniqueness that was equal parts exciting and intimidating. You swallow nervously at the notion that you may be growing a little too comfortable in your thoughts of Lord Heisenberg. “Is that right?” He hums, knocking back the shot in one. He sets the glass down slowly on the desk, lulling you into a false sense of security that you had no business having in that place. In an instant he’s up on his feet and towering over you, hands braced on either side of you. You stiffen at the sudden closeness, looking up at him with a startled expression; he always gets a kick out of scaring you. “And just what would we talk about?” Comes his veiled question, shrouded in feigned innocence, asked in a voice like sin. You can practically feel the static in the air, the room electrified. He’s trying to tempt you, to trip you up so you’ll fall into his trap and make a fool of yourself. It’s a game he likes to play. That little hummingbird caged within you is in full flight when he runs a clawed finger gently down your cheek, the threat of him slipping and slicing your flesh too real to ignore. Oh, how he finds your fear so tantalizing. Your lips part in a shaky exhale, chest tight with the onset of emotions you’d really not want to be unpacking right now. The metal edge of his desk digs into the back of your thighs, boxed in by his large frame. This close you can feel the heat that emanates from him, a consistent wave, that mingles with the scent of oil, leather, and something wholly him. It leaves you reeling, panicked by the unsettling notion that you like it. You’re losing the game so early on and he knows it, even though it was rigged from the start to be in his favour. Just at the point when you’re about to crumble, your body yearning for that delectable touch to trail just that little bit lower, Heisenberg cuts you off. It’s cold and efficient, with all the precision you’d expect from someone of his talents. With a low, downright sinful chuckle he takes a step back, leaving you a wide-eyed, wanton mess. He’s won and you just let him do it. Colour burns shamefully on your cheeks and you’re quick to scamper away to hide in your room, proverbial tail between your legs. You’re furious that you made things so easy for him to play you, and play you he did. Utter fool. Little did you know that the fourth, and most dangerous, Lord had played himself for a fool too.

#RE #RE8 #RE 8 #Resident Evil #Resident Evil 8 #Resident Evil 8 Village #RE Imagine #RE Imagines #RE8 Imagine #RE8 Imagines #Resident Evil Imagine #Resident Evil Imagines #Karl Heisenberg #Karl Heisenberg Imagine #Karl Heisenberg Imagines #Karl Heisenberg x Reader #Heisenberg Imagine #Heinsenberg Imagines #Heisenberg x Reader

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