#based on a hc I have and which I didn't manage to actually explain

[litsenn]

Safe touch

Pairing: Astarion x reader [no gender mentioned] Word count: 1.7K Summary: Astarion is starting to have a panic attack, will you find a way to help him? Read it on AO3

Jaw clenching, alarmed eyes, trembling lips; Astarion isn’t feeling alright. And you, you recognize the first signs of a panic attack.

Approaching carefully, you try to catch his gaze with your own, but it’s shifty, elusive. You know it would be pointless to ask him how he feels.

“Astarion? Maybe you should try to breathe slowly.” You suggests in a gentle whisper.

“I don’t need to breathe.” He snaps, his voice hoarse, bitter, and his fists clenching at his sides. You can almost hear the heavy, painful lump growing in the back of this throat.

You don’t recoil. You’re not letting him down now, but you know you have to proceed carefully.

Your chambers in the Elfsong Tavern are awfully quiet. The other companions are downstairs, and you’re both supposed to join them. But you already know it won’t happen this evening.

“You might not actually need it, but sometimes it helps.”

Astarion shakes his head, his movements sharp. The wince on his face, filled with fear and anxiety, breaks your heart. You never saw him like this before, but you should have expected this to happen. After all, you’ve been back in Baldur’s Gate a few days ago only, and after the spawns’ intrusion the night before, you can’t expect Astarion to feel serene.

You need to be patient with him, and you will. He needs you to be patient.

The tension between the two of you is so heavy you can almost feel its weight on your shoulders, but it won’t stop you. You slowly walk to the bed behind Astarion and sit down on the edge. He observes you from the corner of his eyes but doesn’t make a single move.

“Please, sit with me, Astarion.”

No answer. Your heartbeat quickens with anticipation as you silently beg for him to accept.

After a moment that feels like an eternity, Astarion finally turns around hesitantly and makes a few steps toward the bed. His features are still tense, but they’re also imbued with a disarming vulnerability. You give him a gentle, hopeful smile. When he finally closes the gap between you and sits at your side, his body is still agitated with tremors and he refuses to look you in the eyes.

With great care, you slowly reached out for his hand. As soon as your skin touch, Astarion freeze for a second, before relaxing slightly just enough to let you rest your fingers against his knuckles. Your touch is light as a feather, barely brushing along his fingers. A gentle presence, but not an overwhelming one.

Your eyes never leave his face as you start to take long, deep breaths, quietly encouraging him to mimic you. He hesitates again, frowning as he watches your chest rise and fall rhythmically, the sounds of your breath like a soft music only he can hear. He opens his mouth but doesn’t speak. He breathes. You nod. One inspiration after another. He struggles to match your rhythm but eventually aligns his inspirations with yours. You’re breathing in synch, and you can easily see him relax, if only a little. Shoulders slouching slightly, his eyes finally finding yours. The moment feels precious, sacred almost. For a few long seconds, only the two of you exist, your featherlike touch on his hand, the air that passes between you, the melody of your synchronized breathing. You want to tell him it’s going to be alright. You want to tell him he’s safe. But you know words, right now, are meaningless. Your silent promises carry more truth than any grand declaration.

Another sparkle of relief rises in your chest as you feel his fingers react gently to your touch, intertwining with yours. You give a little squeeze, and he gives you sad smile that touches your soul so deeply you could have wept about it.

Breathing helps but Astarion is still unwell. No longer in panic mode, but clearly dismayed. His fingers are pressed against your palm, and another idea pops up in your mind.

Shifting slowly on the bed, you let go of his hand and sit against the bedstand. Astarion watches in confusion, a disappointed twitch of his eye as your hands part. Crossed-legged, you take a pillow and put it on your lap.

“What are you doing?” he asks in a raw whisper, as if rediscovering his breath was altering his voice.

“I’d like to try something with you, Astarion.”

He looks at you suspiciously, tensing up again.

“Nothing you’re not comfortable with!” You quickly add, desperate to reassure him. “Whatever happens, say the word and everything stops.”

The look on Astarion’s face is still that of suspicion, but you can already detect a few signs of curiosity in the way his lips curls, in the spark in his eyes. As for the tension in his body, that creeping anxiety, it hasn’t receded but it’s under control – maybe too much.

“I’m listening.” He says, his sharp gaze following your every move.

“Would you rest your head against the pillow?”

His eyes widen as he watches you pat the cushion on your lap. “I don’t understand, darling. Why would I…?”

“Please, Astarion. Can you trust me with that? I promise I won’t insist if you don’t like it.”

He lets out a laboured sigh, gazes at the room around you, taking in the quietness of the moment but also the looming threat only he can feel as the night falls upon the city.

You wait silently, until Astarion finally decides to lay down. Resting on his back, his head against the soft pillow, he’s looking up at you. Now you can feel the little tremors in his tensing muscles.

“Thank you…” you whisper, and you mean it. You’re grateful for his trust, for his willingness to give you a chance. “I’m going to touch your hair. Nothing more.”

A sarcastic chuckle leaves his lips. “And why would you do that, darling?”

“Try to relax, please. And let me know if anything feels wrong.”

He shrugs but keeps his eyes on your face. The pressure of his head against your lap is somehow comforting. It’s the first time you see his face from this perspective, and he looks as handsome as usual, albeit the anxiety still haunting his features.

“This is ridiculous.” Astarion winces, obviously unconvinced.

You don’t pay attention to that last remark, moving your hands instead, putting your fingertips against this scalp. Your touch is careful, and you watch Astarion closely, observing his reaction. The vampire spawn doesn’t react immediately, waiting for you to actually do something. Your heart is pounding hard, and you know he can hear it, feel it. You take the time you need to calm down.

When you feel ready, you start combing his silver locks with your fingers. His hair feels like silk, and you can’t help marvelling at its softness. Of course it’s not the first time you touch his hair, but you never really had the opportunity to focus on it before, to really appreciate how soft it is, to observe its luminous shine in the candlelight. For a short moment, you even forget to check on his reaction, your fingers gliding hypnotically through the silky strands.

When you focus on his face again, you instantly notice the change in his features; Astarion has closed his eyes in the meanwhile, the tension is slowly leaving his muscles, but there’s still a confused frown on his brow.

“Is it alright?” you ask hesitantly, as if afraid of his answer.

The nod he gives you is instantaneous, visceral. And it’s followed by a deep, content sigh.

You smile, you can’t help it, and you go on. You play with his hair, brushing ever so slightly against his scalp and forehead, your fingertips tracing his hairline down to his temples. Your nails aren’t that long, not after so many weeks of adventure, and some of them are even broken, but with the tip of them, you follow his hairline until your reach the nape of his neck. A gentle caress there at the top of his spine, and he shivers under your touch.

He’s smiling softly.

Your fingertips keep on travelling through his hair, combing the silver strands, and each time you brush against his ear, a little gasp escapes his lips.

He’s relaxing, progressively, slowly, but it’s working.

“Astarion…?”

“Hmmm?”

“May I touch your face?”

A moment of silence. His eyes are still closed but you can almost see the gears in his mind.

“Yes…”

Tilting your head, you carefully place your thumbs against his temples while your index fingers begin to trace his jawline, gliding down to his chin ever so slowly. Then back up again, across his cheekbones, tracing soft patterns under his eyes and from the corners of them up to his forehead. With infinite care, you let your finger glide along his eyebrows until the frown on his brow finally vanishes.

“Does it feel alright?” You ask softly.

“Keep going, darling… please.”

Your heart skips a beat. Astarion is enjoying this, and so are you.

The whole world around has disappeared, you’re both tucked in your own bubble, safe and finally peaceful.

It’s like a dance, your fingertips on his skin, sweeping away the tension, leaving goosebumps in their trail as they follow the line of his nose, the line of his lips and the corner of his mouth. You can even see that Astarion is trying not to smile, and suddenly, you want to kiss those lips. But you don’t. Not now. This is not about kissing or groping, not even about flirting.

It’s something else. Something that needs no word, no explanation.

Just your touch, safe and soft against his skin, in his hair, and Astarion’s precious mind released from the growing panic that was plaguing it just a moment ago. His body, bruised and abused so many times, finally rediscovering what tenderness truly means, finally understanding that a foreign hand is not necessarily a violent hand. All fingernails don’t scratch and cut, some of them can caress and soothe.

Before long, his features look perfectly peaceful, the fears gone, for now at least. You soon realize that he’s truly resting. Not trancing. Sleeping. You wonder if he’s dreaming, you hope there will be no nightmare, but the slight smile on his lips doesn’t vanish, and you smile with him.

[realcube]

HAIKYUU!! BOYS VISITING YOU AT WORK HCS

characters ♡ tsukishima, nishinoya & kuroo

tws ♡ mentions of opoids & cursing

KEI TSUKISHIMA

♡ he would NOT come see you at work on purpose

♡ like he notices how exasperated and frustrated whenever you get off work so bro wants nothing to do with that

♡ plus, because you are always telling him horror stories about customer/co-worker interactions, he just assumes your workplace is a breeding ground for crazy people and wants to stay the hell away

♡ most boyfriends after you tell them about how rude customers are to you would come in to your place of work and give you flowers just to make your day, but not tsuki

♡ plus he hears the way you respond to your customers in these stories and he does NOT want to be a victim of your wrath

♡ on the brightside though, since he is a shithead himself, you might expect him to be the annoying type and play devil's advocate whenever you are telling him about terrible customers like:

♡ "customer is always right!" "it's your job to do [something completely unrealistic and overzealous]" "but what did you do to make the customer act like that?" "a tip is not a requirement!!!!!" "i think you're overreacting.."

♡ and he does try to be objective so he can be like that sometimes

♡ but keyword is try

♡ 99% of the time, as soon as you tell him the customer did something remotely inflammatory towards you, he goes into full Protective Tsukishima Mode™

♡ and since he is a cow himself, he is in full support of any cowish or "out of line" behaviour you may exhibit in retaliation to the rude customer

♡ you cussed them out? tsuki is like awesome, good job babe!

♡ you threw a drink at them? tsuki is like but great, hopefully you didn't strain your wrist with all power and vigour you used.

♡ you call them ugly? tsuki says that's offensive to kageyama and ugly people everywhere but you still ate that.

♡ and if you're manager has anything to say about it, tsuki says kill em

♡ anyway all that is to say he loves you but he won't be stepping FOOT near your establishment of employment 💜 willingly

♡ however, let's say you work at a drug store and tsuki has ran out of parcetemol and obviously he needs some more because of all the headaches his team is causing him

♡ and there aren't drug stores around every corner

♡ (even if there are, he's probably banned from at least a few for being a smartass)

♡ ("☝🤓 erm actually i think what you meant to say was oxytocin , oxycodone is an illegal opoid")

♡ (i'm jk ofc)

♡ (tsuki doesn't know the difference between oxytocin and oxycodone, he doesn't even know the difference between tanaka and that other buzzed guy from aoba johsai??) ( he gave them both dirty looks to make sure he covered all his bases)

♡ anyway under the circumstance that there was no other way he could source his medication and he needed it urgently, his only option was to sneak into your store and PRAY someone else served him besides you

♡ but of course you spotted him and called him over to your counter

♡ you'd go through the usual debrief of 'why tf are you here?' and him explaining that he literally had no other choice

♡ you're relieved because if he was becoming one of those corny boyfriends who visits you at work to tell you what a great job you're doing, you'd be afraid he was possessed by the spirit of daichi and you'd have to perform an excorcism at work which is toooo much effort

♡ thankfully he wasn't posessed though, just in pain

♡ you ring him up and the speed of light and then he leaves

♡ ...

♡ is what you WISH happened

♡ instead, once he finally realises the power he has in this situation, he takes the absolute piss

♡ he channels every terrible customer you've ever told him about and becomes the Avatar of Annoying Cunts: Stupid, impatient, loud and downright RUDE

♡ two of those things he's an expert at

♡ a scholar, if you will

♡ "good morning? it's the afternoon..." "why are you taking so long, it's only one item?" "cash or card, what does it look like?" "why are you in such a bad mood, calm down?" "you've overcharged me..."

♡ you could tell he was just joking around but the fire that raged inside you was very much real

♡ the thing about tsuki though is that he is easily embarassed so stops as soon as other people start looking his way or your manager tries to get involved

♡ the switch up is kinda insane because after hearing a customer call your attitude "foul" and "noxious" one of your co-workers chimes in and asks if there is a problem and he is like

♡ "no, no problem at all 😊 just amazing service here haha! 😗 the only problem is that i'm being served by an angel! 😇 shouldn't you be in heaven? 🤭"

♡ jk he wasn't actually that sweet he was more awkwardly like "we're good!" then shuffles off with his painkillers but he actually forced a smile when he said that so he may as well have have called you an angel and all that bologne

♡ when you see him next you both agree never to dicuss that incident again because it was just too awkward for either of you to bare

♡ and he's petty asf so if you do ever try to bring it up, he will seriously just pretend it never happened

♡ like at a restaurant tsuki is like "this stew i ordered is cold. i'm going to flag down the waiter to complain."

♡ "let me do it! we both know how ruthless you are when complaining about service workers."

♡ "huh?"

♡ "remember? when i rung you up at the drug store? you were so mouthy."

♡ "i don't know what you're talking about.. i've never been to your drug store.."

♡ "..."

♡ "it could be a front for an illicit drug cartel for all i know..."

♡ "..."

♡ "now that i think about it, probably is."

YŪ NISHINOYA

♡ okay .. so

♡ it all started when he invited you to come over to his house to play mortal kombat on his ps2 and you said yeah sure, but after you finished work

♡ you had a very complicated shift and NO energy to play video games but the last thing you wanted to do was disappoint nishinoya because that would only make you feel worse

♡ so you muster up the will power to head over to his house, sending a precursory text that you're on your way but warning him that you may not act like you're usual self because you've had a rough shift

♡ as soon as you step foot inside his home, he leaps at you and envelops you in a tight hug, asking you to recount in detail everything that happened today and what has upset you , if you're up for talking about it

♡ you're original plan was to be strong and tough it out, hoping that playing mortal kombat would help you take your mind off of it anyway, but as soon as he starts acting all sympathetic and being so kind, you immediately burst into tears and spill your guts

♡ you explain that there is a regular who comes in every friday that is always a bit bold and sassy but never anything too bad

♡ however, today you were the one that made this regular's order and when you gave it to them, they spat it out onto your shoes and claimed it was the worst thing they've ever tasted and demanded you give them a refund

♡ your manager hates giving refunds so you politely offered to remake their food instead but they continued to be uncooperative and scream all sorts of terrible things at you

♡ it all ended with them getting a refund and leaving but it still left you jarred

♡ he holds you, comforts you and tells you no one deseveres to be treated like that. eventually you are able to put it all into persepective and realise that what's done is done and it's not like you could relive the past and change what happened. no one was physically harmed and you didn't lose your job so there was no point dwelling on it

♡ he was the positive light that guided you through such a grim situation

♡ him, and the hope that they'll never come back after that interaction, and you tell him this

♡ which is about the time he recalls that you refered to them as a 'regular' and starts acting strange and asking a bunch of — what you deem to be — random questions

♡ "so.. what were they wearing?" "you said their hair was brown? what shade: poopy chestnut or sludge coffee?" "what shape were their eyebrows?" "on a scale of tsukishima to me, how defined was their jawline?" "when they flipped you off, did they use their right or left hand?"

♡ you answered most of his questions, assuming that he was giving you a platform to call them ugly or maybe he just wanted to create a very realistic and detailed image of the confrontation in his brain

♡ regardless, once he was done with his questions, that's the last you spoke of the situation for a while, and you prefer it that way

♡ ... that is, until next Friday rolled around

♡ there was no way nishinoya could let you go to work when there was the possibility that an abusive customer could come in and start berating you again; what kind of boyfriend would he be if he just let that happen?

♡ so, shortly after the store opened, he camped outside near the doors, in such a position that no one from inside could see him, even through the windows

♡ he stood there looking intimidating (as intimidating as a 5"3 boy can be), any family walking by would've thought he was some sort of McDonalds bouncer (a McBouncer, perhaps)

♡ during the morning, it was busy but not an awful not of people were coming inside, the majoirty were going through the drive-thru (but you mentioned the regular always comes inside so he knew he was guarding the right place)

♡ however, since there was no one coming and going, he felt as though he didn't need to pay much attention so he took a seat on one of the nearby dining benches and started playing games on his phone

♡ 40 levels and 0 adhd pills later; it's the afternoon, rush hour and there was a bunch of people entering and leaving the establishment

♡ he took guard by the enterance once again but when he peered inside, he was afraid he might be too late

♡ he couldn't see their face, but he could see you at the collection counter talking to someone with a disheartened expression. the person you were talking to was moving very sternly while talking to you, which he wasn't fond of

♡ he snuck inside without you noticing, which wasn't hard considering there were so many people and also you were currently engaged with a customer

♡ when he came in, his suspicions were only confirmed and the customer wasn't yelling at you but speaking in a loud voice and saying all sorts of nasty stuff like "this serivce is unacceptable! can't even make a damn whopper... let me speak to your manager!"

♡ when he heard this, it instantly activated some sort of reflex in noya that made him act on instinct: he spirited towards the customer, weaving through the crowd, and leaped onto them from behind, clinging to their back like a vicious koala bear while trying to pull them to the ground and biting them

♡ screaming stuff like "don't you ever talk to (y/n) like that you freak!! you have no idea how hard they work so you have no reason to be so mean all the time!! lay off the attitude and the burgers and maybe you'll be able to afford a HEART transplant !!!"

♡ eventually the customer lost balance and ended up on the floor while noya hopped on top of them to start punching them in the face, but before he swung he noticed the face of the person he was about to hit

♡ "if you don't like their burgers, taste this— !! oikawa??"

♡ once noya falters, you are able to react by jumping over the counter and explaining that oikawa isn't the one that chastised you last Friday; he just came in today and was a bit upset over his burger with no mayo , that had mayo on it and you were about to remake for him

♡ once noya realised this he helped oikawa to his feet

♡ oikawa muttered something about his bad knee and hating small people but after that he silently waited at the side for you to remake his burger

♡ you brought noya to the back and told him that you appreciate him coming to your work to protect you but you really didn't need him to and that you can fight your own battles

♡ he understood but insisted that he at least stay for the rest of this day in case that crazy regular from last week came in and harassed you again but your manager swiftly kicked noya out

♡ so now he is banned from his local McDonalds and also Aoba Johsai High but he says it's worth it for you

TETSURŌ KUROO

♡ suuuuch a hoe about it icl

♡ whenever he is going out to eat with friends, he will always bring them to where ever you work, especially if you work as a waiter or a host or some other occupation in which you deal with the customers directly

♡ and he will sit there and pretend like he doesn't know you and has never seen you before in his life

♡ and you just thought this was a funny little bit he does. y'know just to be jovial and fun lol like you genuinely didn't think much of it and thought he just pretended like he didn't know you for the shits n giggles so you played along

♡ HOWEVER the real reason he would bring his friends to this restaurant was to pretend like he has hella game by flirting with you (and obviously you'd playfully flirt back bc you're his s/o...) and impress his friends by successfully 'pulling' their waitress

♡ sometimes before going to the restaurant he'd be like "guys if i can get our waiter's number then you all owe me ¥1000 (approx £5/$6)"

♡ technically fraud but he'd make more in tips that night than you

♡ (💔)

♡ although this scheme would only work on each friend once and he couldn't even do it to his closer friends like kenma or bokuto because they know y'all are dating so they wouldn't fall for it

♡ he did it once while lev and yamamoto were at the table and they went CRAZY

♡ they genuinely asked him to teach them his ways

♡ not knowing it's all a lie....

♡ one day though kenma is in the changing room and makes a remark about kuroo being a loser virgin for taking his switch and lev and yamamoto SPRING to his defences

♡ "NAH you should've seen kuroo at that restaurant. he got the hot waiter's number and was hitting on them the whole night!"

♡ he knows you work as a waiter, and he asks them what restaurant they are talking about and when this whole interaction happened and they confirm his initial notion

♡ he then appears at your work immediately after school and says all ominiously "i have some information about your boyfriend i'd be willing to exchange for food"

♡ one long conversation and a portion of soba later, he confesses to you everything he knows and how he suspects kuroo only pretends your not his s/o to impress his friends

♡ you find it hilarious but you know you can't let that slide

♡ so the next time he comes in, you have your game face on

♡ instead of going to typical route and aknowledging kuroo, thus making it evident to the party that you both are acquainted, you opt for a more entertaining plan

♡ you go along with the premise that you and kuroo don't know each other and you are just a random server who happens to be attractive, waiting their table and also completely receptive to his advances

♡ until... you aren't!!!

♡ it begins as soon as they are start at their table, you and kuroo make flirtatious glances at each other from across the restaurant; his friends pick up on this and are utterly enthralled

♡ when they order their food, kuroo makes a comment "everything looking so delicious" while looking at you instead of the menu, and you blush

♡ even when you drop their food off at their table, you remark that it might be "too hot to handle" and that really gets them all going

♡ however, at the end of the meal, before you start taking the dishes away, you ask them if everything has been alright for them and he responds, "everything has been perfect, doll."

♡ and your face just DROPS into one of absolute horror and disgust, "Don't call me that!"

♡ Kuroo is caught quite off guard by that and you walk away while all his friends are still snickering, but he brushes it off as it being a pet name you're not fond of or something

♡ When you leave the cheque at their table, he blows you a kiss off his finger and you just give a dismayed look in response which all his friends pick up on and laugh at him for

♡ finally, when he had wrote up the cheque, he wrote his number where it said "tip" and you picked it up and read it while they were all still standing near the table, getting ready to leave

♡ as soon as you looked at the paper, you glared at him and yelled, "just give me a real tip, weirdo!" and all his friends opened their mouths with the intention of laughing but a involuntary gasp was pulled from all of them as they watched you bitch slap him right across the face

♡ ...

♡ yeah needless to say he had a tough time explaining to his friends why he didn't press charges and you a tough time explaining to your boss why you smacked a customer

[basedstoutland]

#If this didn’t make sense im sorry I am very Sleepy™️#But honestly dude i read one of your fics and it went downhill from there#i actually love you and your au of ssb#and your headcanons#yes i managed to find your hc’s on super smashy headcanons and i am all here for it#i really feel like the smash bros community is very small now#so i try to cherish my only sources of serotonin for this community as much as possible

Once again, honored. And yeah, the community is super small now... I take what I can get but...I'm unfortunately rather picky in my tastes- especially since I have very concrete opinions on how certain Smash things go. I'm glad you like the headcanons I've shared there...so far! As for the non-tagged reply- funny enough, their interactions, their sillier ones at least, were partially based on how me and my older sibling talk sometimes. Shoot...you know, I haven't actually thought about it like that. I usually thought about it like 'he sees himself as one of the most powerful forces in his universe (which he kinda is), so of course he wouldn't want to think of anything that implies he's weak'. So I'd say that's definitely part of it! Part of it is also just...not acknowledging or processing what happened until body and mind literally force him to. Believe me, I already have a fic planned going into it. And with Tabuu and by extension MH knowing about Ganondorf's plans from the get go? Like my fic offhandedly mentions, it was mind reading- involuntarily on MH's end. If the canon story implies he was able to manipulate not only Master hand's body with the chains, but his words as well (since even though there's no dialogue to us, it wouldn't really make much sense if him just pointing at Ganon equalled...essentially Order 66.) it would only make sense that he'd be able to force him to do...a lot more. Who's to say he didn't force Master Hand to design the Subspace Army's troops too? And as for the Chains of Light being essentially hot knives, that was something I came up with to justify MH's wounds looking like that cuz uh...they don't look like they were just stab wounds to me. Plus, they are most likely hard light, and some other media I'm into has shown that something like that could be super hot to the touch. Personally, I'd love to write a fic about that whole situation...it'll probably take a lot of time. More time than usual... The fic I have explaining the Master Core situation...is actually the same one that goes into him being forced to process his trauma when he put it off for so long. And uhhhh. Spoilers for this upcoming fic but! It's not possession! It's just a really dangerous trauma response both literal and metaphorical. This interpretation is very much inspired by Smashy-headcanons's take but with my own spin on why it showed up when it did involving trauma from Subspace. ...Basically a repressed PTSD fuelled meltdown turned horrifically violent. Like I said, I will hopefully get into it. I love how you've been breaking down what I write and will gladly discuss more...probably over DMs so this post doesn't get way too big?

Woe, headcanoned fic be upon ye. Anyone else wonder why Ganondorf's design changed to have his scar in Smash after not having it in Brawl? This fic is partially an explanation on that and partially inspired by @toomanyf4ndoms7 own take on how things went. (Hiii hope you don't mind me @ ing you here)