#every time i come back here i'm like how did my tag system work again

[ysther]

aubrey & co. posting

[dustofthedailylife]

You were not supposed to hear that...yet

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Pairing: Alhaitham x (gn!) Reader

Summary: Alhaitham reveals a secret about the inner workings of his heart to his friends over a cup of wine and in between some banter. However, he did not expect it would go this wrong...

Tags: Fluff, crack, comfort, teasing, consumption of alcohol (by characters), the whole 4ggravate crew is here, friendly banter between friends, a small sprinkle of angst because reader is insecure (but it's unjustified)

A/N: Dust posting a new fic?! Not an April Fool's joke, despite the date! Finally felt inspired and well enough again to finish this fic that has been rotting in my WIPs forever. I hope you like it. And feel free to hit me up with asks and reblogs - it'd motivate me greatly after my long break 🥺

The usual friend group of Cyno, Kaveh, Tighnari, and him - Alhaitham, was sitting at the Tavern. A gathering like it happened almost every weekend at this point.

The wine bottle on the table had been emptied around two or three times already when Kaveh ordered a new one yet again. At this point, Alhaitham had actually lost count of how many glasses of wine he'd already had, too. But one thing was for certain, he could feel the alcohol in his system and the warm blood that was rushing to his cheeks. All things considered though, despite feeling a little tipsy from the intoxication, he was still able to think clearly.

"Let me guess I'm the one who will have to end up covering your bill again?" He took sarcastic a jab at Kaveh. 

The man in question just squinted his eyes and glared daggers at him before opening his mouth in an attempt to protest before it was quickly shot down by Tighnari's hand covering it.

Alhaitham leisurely leaned back in his chair smirking to himself, training his focus back onto the TCG cards in his hands and considering his next turn of action in the game he was playing against Cyno.

"What, am I just supposed to take it all the time and be quiet?!" Kaveh retorted, directed at Tighnari. The fox's ears were beginning to droop lower and lower as his expression became more and more deadpan.

"You all know as well as I do that if [Y/N] was here he wouldn't be acting like this. He would be on his best behavior and pay for the drinks without so much as complaining or being so cocky."

"By the way," Tighnari attempted to divert the attention away from Kaveh's ranting. "Where are they? Didn't you say they wanted to stop by the Tavern as well today, Alhaitham?"

Alhaitham played his round, throwing his card Cyno's way before looking up at Tighnari again.

"They mentioned it but I suppose something must've come up instead. I will ask tomorrow."

"Isn't it strange?" Kaveh addressed the others. "Whenever it involves [Y/N] he graciously offers himself up to talk to them and seek them out but whenever someone else is looking for him he is nowhere to be found."

"Maybe you just can't find me because I simply don't have anything to discuss with you." Alhaitham threw another jab at Kaveh with a smirk, which was promptly followed by a light punch against his bicep by the blonde architect.

"What? I constantly have to talk to you already when we're at ho-"

"SHHH! Don't say that out loud." Kaveh hissed, quickly covering Alhaitham's mouth in panic, since he didn’t want him to spell out that they were currently living together. “It's embarrassing enough that I currently have no other choice, no need to add to my misery.”

A witty quip was burning at the tip of Alhaitham's tongue after Kaveh's remark yet again, but he decided to swallow it. He didn't want to upset him too much, especially since he knew he'd had it rough lately. Even if it would've been said in jest, there was no need to add insult to injury. Instead, he simply resorted to taking another sip of his wine with a low chuckle and a glance in the blonde architect’s direction.

“Aaaaanyway…”, Tighnari cleared his throat, addressing Alhaitham once more. “What is it between [Y/N] and you anyway? You've become quite close haven't you?”

“That's an understatement.” Kaveh groaned, dropping his head on his folded arms on the table dramatically. “He can't stop talking about them. Day in and day out it’s [Y/N]-this, [Y/N]-that.”

“We started working on a project about six months ago. Things are progressing quite smoothly if I do say so myself. Certainly makes things easier if you're working with someone who is both hardworking and intelligent in every way. I’ve been lucky to have been assigned to the project with them.” Alhaitham answered Tighnari’s question rationally while ignoring Kaveh’s dramatic display.

“Here he goes again.” Kaveh huffed, directing his comment at Cyno and Tighnari. “Whenever he talks about them you hear nothing but praises.”

“If someone is doing a great job, is it not logical to give them the credit they deserve?” Alhaitham added matter of factly.

“No… I mean yes, but no. It's just not something I'd see you doing. It’s so out of character.” Kaveh huffed. “And before you say anything, yes, maybe I just don't know that side of you because I don't give you any reason to praise me. No need to add that, thank you.”

Kaveh poked his tongue out at Alhaitham before taking a big sip from his wine.

“Why, if you want to be praised you just need to say so, Kaveh. I think you're quite brilliant - your shortcomings aside.” He just had to add that last bit. Kaveh was just way too easy to tease. And what would this friend group be without the playful banter and jabs at each other?

Kaveh choked on the drink immediately and slammed his cup down onto the table with a loud clang. A fire burned behind his crimson eyes when he spoke next.

“This is exactly what I meant, thanks for proving my point!”

Kaveh looked at Cyno and Tighnari gesturing in the direction of Alhaitham with a move that said “Do you see what I mean now?”.

Tighnari just facepalmed and shook his head.

“And what is your point exactly?” Cyno inquired, playing a card from his hand.

“Did you not listen to what he said?” Kaveh gasped.

“Not really,” Cyno admitted honestly, his eyes trained back on the cards in his hands.

“It's the fact that he can praise others too, but never without also pointing out their faults in the same sentence. Did no one ever notice that? However, he never does that when it's [Y/N].” Kaveh explained.

“And?” Tighnari and Cyno replied in unison, looking puzzled as to where Kaveh wanted to go with this.

Kaveh put his head in his hand and groaned in frustration. “Sometimes you all make me feel like I am surrounded by idiots.”

Now everyone raised their eyebrows at him.

“You're all so clueless… anyway.” He sighed dramatically and accusingly pointed a finger at Alhaitham. “This guy. This admittedly handsome but blockheaded, know-it-all, stoic, annoying-”

“Get to the point.” Alhaitham chided, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Fine, fine." Kaveh spread his arms like he was holding a presentation and Alhaitham his canvas.

“This guy's right here, as alien as it may sound – has fallen in love.” 

“You're in love?!” Cyno exclaimed his eyes widening. “With who?!”

Tighnari rolled his eyes, knowing full well Cyno hadn't listed at all the past ten minutes because he had been so absorbed in his cards, and gently slapped the back of his head.

“[Y/N], of course!” The Forest Ranger exclaimed with a huff.

Cyno, now rubbing the back of his head just ushered a “Wait really?” while Kaveh and Tighnari just curiously began eyeing Alhaitham in the hope of seeing any type of confirmation on his face. However, it stayed as unreadable as ever.

He nonchalantly took another sip of wine from his cup while leisurely looking back and forth between the cards on the table and the ones in his hand before playing another turn as if this conversation just now hadn't happened.

“So!?” Kaveh asked, almost hysterically at this point. “Do you intend to enlighten us?”

Just how had he gotten into this situation now? Alhaitham suppressed a sigh before turning to Cyno: “Your turn. Two of your cards are down.”

“Archons!” Cyno cussed, immediately attempting to go back to study his cards but a fist slammed the table harshly, drawing all attention to it.

Tighnari flinched in shock and Cyno, too seemed to be pulled back to reality. Kaveh’s hand was trembling slightly, visibly agitated.

“Stop changing the subject, Alhaitham. The more you keep avoiding answering the question the more I think I am right in my assumptions.”

Alhaitham pinched the bridge of his nose beginning to truly feel a little stressed by Kaveh’s insistance. The man was truly too nosy for his good.

“Kaveh, just let it be if he doesn’t-” Tighnari began before being cut off by Alhaitham.

“And what if you are right? What then, Kaveh?”

Everyone at the table fell silent and everyone was staring at him with a mix of disbelief and shock.

He hadn't planned to reveal any of this yet, especially since he feared they would try to become his wingman. Which, admittedly, may be a nice gesture on paper but with them it could only end in disaster. Plus he would prefer to deal with his feelings alone first and think them through thoroughly, before talking about them with anyone. Besides, it should be you, if anyone, who should hear about them first - alas he was too deep into this now to weasel his way out.

“What?!” Kaveh’s mouth hung open in shock.

“So it is true then?” Cyno inquired, putting the card in his hand down on the table, now suddenly fully hooked on the tea that was being spilled.

“Hold on. Pause.” Kaveh sat upright, before quickly gazing over Alhaitham’s shoulder. “So you-”

“For Archon’s sake.” Alhaitham was beginning to get annoyed because he didn't know how much clearer he had to become for them to get it. “Yes - I’ve been in love with them. For a while now-”

“Alhaitham-” Kaveh tried to interject.

“No, don't interrupt me now, you pestered me about it for the past twenty minutes now you'll have to listen. I have never met anyone who is so hardworking, intelligent, and stunning in any way. Of course, I would be infatuated with a person like them. It would be hard not to fall for them.”

“Uhm Alhai–” Kaveh laughed awkwardly before being interrupted by Alhaitham’s ongoing monologue once more.

“At first I wasn't sure about it but I am now. I am thinking about them first thing in the morning and last thing when I go to sleep - unless you're hammering away on some project again that keeps me awake, Kaveh.”

Kaveh waved for him to shut up already but Alhaitham didn't let that bother him. If he wanted the full story with all the details - he'd get it. He hoped that would get this discussion out of the way once and for all.

“And guess what? They even remembered how I liked my coffee just after I told them once and gifted me a book that I had been trying to find for weeks. So yes, Kaveh. I love [Y/N]. There, does that suffice now, or?”

Kaveh let out a squeal as soon as Alhaitham had stopped speaking but upon further inspection of his expression, it hadn't been one of excitement but rather pure terror and awkwardness. 

“Alhaitham…” Cyno and Tighnari said in unison and he only then noticed as well how their gaze was trained on a spot behind him.

“What?” Alhaitham inquired, curling a brow up in confusion before all three men pointed their fingers at something behind him.

When he turned his head around to look at what they were trying to show him, he felt his heart drop to his stomach for the first time in ages.

To his utter shock, you were standing right behind him. Or rather, you were frozen in place, your hand still half lifted in greeting as if you had just been about to greet the lot of them. Your mouth was slightly open in shock still and your pupils were but the size of pinpricks and transfixed on Alhaitham.

And judging by your reaction you must've heard every last word he had said.

“I-I…” You started stammering, clearly confused about what you had just heard. “I uh-, I'll head back home.”

You abruptly turned around on your heel and marched straight out the Tavern door you had just come through as if someone was chasing you.

Alhaitham hadn't moved a muscle ever since he had spotted you standing behind him and he looked like he was frozen in place. Everyone at the table had fallen so silent, one would've been able to hear a needle drop.

Alhaitham's eyes were still fixed on the door you had left through. The little bell that chimed every time the Tavern door hit it on the way in or out was still dangling lightly from the impact. But the movement was dying down slowly but surely - just like Alhaitham, who felt like someone had dropped a boulder on his chest.

You were not supposed to hear that, yet.

“You uh…, Alhaitham you should probably follow them.” Tighnari was the first to speak again. He awkwardly scratched behind his ears. Cyno hummed in agreement while Kaveh just sat there with his mouth wide open.

Alhaitham exhaled in frustration, unable to properly place his emotions. But they were somewhere between unsettled, nervous, and discomforted.

When he got up it felt like someone had tied heavy iron blocks to his ankles that were weighing him down.

“Yeah, I guess I do,”  Alhaitham muttered before marching off.

When you stormed outside the Tavern the cool evening breeze gnawed at your skin and made goosebumps erupt all over. Although you weren't quite sure if it was the temperature or your emotional turmoil at play here.

There was no way Alhaitham had just said that and actually meant it. He wouldn't be the type of man to flat-out admit that he had feelings for anyone. Or would he? He had been talking to his closest friends after all.

You were questioning your sense of reality and thought you must've fabricated it all in your mind. Or maybe you misheard what he said and he was talking about something else entirely.

But no, he said your name, and the others looked panicked when you entered the tavern and approached the table.

As you rushed through the streets of Sumeru City the chilly wind kept whipping in your face. Not even you knew where you were going at this point. You simply went where your feet were carrying you.

But eventually, you realized you had run up the Akademiya and to the blue-green mosaic pavilion that glistened in the last rays of sunlight. The spot at which you and Alhaitham often spent your lunch break together. 

You sunk down on the bench exhaustedly and stared holes in the ground.

No way.

There was just no way.

Alhaitham. The man you had fallen for so hard that he had begun to occupy every waking thought you had. That man was supposed to have feelings for you and had just flat-out admitted it?

No, this simply had to be a dream. A bad joke. Or maybe even a bet between the group that they orchestrated to prank you.

You could feel your heart thumping in your head and it felt like your head was swimming. It was as if you had downed an entire bottle of wine by yourself, but you were as sober as one could be.

Yes, that had to be it. It was a bet between the boys over one too many cups of wine and they had all acted their parts out flawlessly.

You got up again walking to the railing, overlooking Sumeru city that shone majestically in the last remaining rays of sunshine that the day had to offer. Another gush of wind blew your way, making tears well up in your eyes. Although it may have also been your emotions who were to blame for that instead.

You inhaled deeply. Once. Twice. But nothing seemed to help calming the rapidly beating heart in your chest.

In your daze, you completely missed how someone had quietly come up to the pavilion as well.

Alhaitham leaned against the railing himself, looking over the city in silence, too. He was clearly ringing for words. Although you assumed the wrong reason for his struggle.

“Look,” you began, trying your hardest to suppress the tremble in your voice. “If you came here to apologize - please, spare me your words.”

He looked at you opening his mouth before closing it again right after with a silent nod. His cheeks were dusted in a light pink shade - you assumed it was caused by the alcohol he had downed at the tavern with the others.

“I hope that we can go back to normal tomorrow and just finish our project. I’d prefer if we kept our distance after that. I think it’s for the best” The words left your mouth at normal speed, but it felt like you had to force every single one out. They felt tenacious, like old chewing gum that you tried to pull out from in between your teeth.

“I understand.” He stated calmly before retraining his gaze back into the distance. 

You both kept standing next to each other in silence for a long while before you decided to confront him about it directly. You eventually decided it was for the best if you got things off your chest now so that you could get over him quickly. Ripping it off like a band-aid would hopefully give you the relief you so desperately craved right now.

“You know,” you began. “I don’t know who came up with the idea and I also don’t care, no need to tell me. But you guys should never do this to anyone again because you never know how much it might end up hurting someone else’s feelings.”

Alhaitham stood upright and turned to face you directly. He crossed his arms over his chest and slightly cocked his head like he always did when he was thinking about something you said.

After a momentary pause, he asked: “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you shouldn’t toy with someone’s feelings as a prank. It’s never actually funny for anyone but the people who orchestrate such a prank. No matter if the other person reciprocates the feelings or whether they believe the statement, they always end up being the one who is being ridiculed.” You explained as rationally as possible, which was a stark contrast to the tempest that was raging both inside of your heart and mind.

“Especially when the person hoped to hear those exact words for the longest time, too…” You added. It wasn't more than an utterance under your breath - so quietly it was barely audible. But Alhaitham heard nonetheless.

“But I meant everything I said.” He stated matter of factly, seemingly catching on to the fact that you must’ve assumed the wrong things about the whole situation.

“What?! Alhaitham, please, there is no need to add insult to injury. You had your fun now–”

“No.” He gently took your hands in his, exhaling heavily. “Archons, you weren’t supposed to find out like this.”

He rarely swore which made the impact of his words even stronger.

“I wanted to tell you face to face and was waiting for the right moment to do so. But, just know that every word you heard and everything I said back at the tavern was the truth. No bet or scheme made me say it. Not that anyone would be able to make me say these things in the first place.” He sighed once more, giving your hands an emphasizing squeeze. “I meant it.”

“You did?”

“Every word.”

You felt the blood rush to your face and immediately lowered your gaze in an attempt to hide your flusteredness.

“Had I known this would happen, I would’ve told you everything right from the start. I don’t like how this went now but–”, he moved his hands up to cup your face. His beautiful turquoise eyes trained on no one but you. 

“I’m absolutely certain I like you. You drive me crazy. And I love and hate how much you occupy every waking thought of mine because I can’t focus on anything when you’re around. And when you’re not, you’re still always on my mind. So please – be mine.”

Do not repost, copy, translate or edit - © dustofthedailylife || reblogs, comments, and asks about Genshin or my fics are always greatly appreciated and motivate me! Maple dividers are mine - do not copy.

[17020]

BLUEPRINT

Soshiro Hoshina is great at following blueprints and maps, always finding his way back to you. Right?

TAGS . . . fluff/crack, clingy Hoshina, reader is called 'beautiful', this is my first time writing for kn8, expect more in the future! dedicated to @nyxypoo , for helping me organize my brainrot, and also to @maruflix , for introducing me to the manga in the first place.

Soshiro "Don't get attached to anyone" Hoshina had finally come to terms with the fact that, in order to sleep he needed warmth; one which only a human could provide.

Which is why he found himself in the wee hours of the morning completely awake, unable to catch a wink of sleep. His fingers desperately tapped over the screen of his phone, typing a message. When he sent it, his attention shifted to the background photo of his chat—a picture of a certain officer watching the sunset on the dormitories' terrace.

SOSHI <3 02:41 When are you cominggg I need you

YOU 02:41 I'm going in rn, I'll be there in 5

SOSHI <3 02:42 I'll get the toolbox then Good luck, sweetheart

Having been sworn to secrecy by Soshiro himself, you could not afford to have anyone find out about your relationship with the Third Division's vice-captain. It could jeopardize your job as a platoon leader, and also put both of your lives at risk. Because gossip flows like an endless river, and could eventually reach higher-ups, or worse, an identified kaiju disguised in human flesh.

You carefully aligned the screwdriver with the last screw left. Twisting it, you took it off and placed it with the other three under your pillow, inhaling deeply before taking off the vent panel and sliding in.

You knew the route like the back of your hand, the flashlight from your phone now deemed as unnecessary, for the amount of times in which you crawled through the Third Division's vent systems exceeded the hundreds. The cameras in the hallways would deem it suspicious if you went to sneak out to Soshiro's room directly, which is why you settled on using the vents.

You crawled and crawled, turning every few minutes until you reached your opening. Poking your head out you saw your boyfriend, waiting for you with open arms.

"Aww, is my little worm ready to be carried?" he cooed, his arms now on your sides as he pulled you towards him. You scoffed at the name, "You call me a worm again and I won't help you ever again."

He tilted his head back as he laughed, heading back to his bed, which had the covers already pulled back. He climbed in and patted the spot next to him, grinning from ear to ear when you laid next to him as he took the opportunity to place his head on your chest and wrap his arms around your waist.

"You've no idea how much I missed ya, darlin'."

"We saw each other in the cafeteria a few hours ago, Soshi" you smiled, your fingers running through his hair. You felt him pout as he whined, stating that a few hours were enough to drive him wild.

"Y'know that's not enough, beautiful."

When you agreed to date the Soshiro Hoshina you knew what you were signing up for. Every breathing moment, the vice-captain had to have his hands on you, whether it was his hand grazing yours during meetings, to him latching on to you in order to sleep.

You were his drug. Plain and simple.

It didn't take long for your boyfriend to fall asleep. Your presence alone was comforting, with your body offering him the peace and quiet that he longed for after a hard day at work. Unbeknownst to him, you took a bit longer to join him in dreamland, as you first had to hear the little sentences your boyfriend murmured here and there while fully asleep.

On tonight's menu? "...jus' wanna... be like this... forever."

Apparently, 'forever' lasted for around... half a day. 'Forever' did not include an incident with a honju, which ended up in you having to stay in the infirmary, after stepping in to help someone from your platoon.

Bed rest was mandatory. Those were the orders given to you by the vice-captain, after all. Having encountered and fought a fungal-type kaiju, he demanded you spend the night in the infirmary, in case there were any issues with spores.

Soshiro eyed the photo on his phone various times, only stopping to check the time. 1:34 am. Good enough, right?

SOSHI <3 01:35 Alright beautiful, I'm going in I think you're gonna have to get up from the bed to let me in tho I'll let you know when I'm there

YOU 01:36 The iv is in my left arm so I'll be good Good luck, handsome!!

The flashlight on Soshiro's phone was on, the photo on his screen displaying the blueprint of the vent system. The trajectory was simple: go straight, then right, then right again, and then straight into the infirmary vents. Plus, it would be way easier for him to recognize, as you promised him you would play some music from your phone for him to know which room it was.

And so, Soshiro Hoshina embarked on what could be the hardest mission of his life. He wondered how you were able to do this every night without fail, then do it again in the morning before the other platoon leaders woke up. He gained newfound admiration for you as he crawled his way into your room, his forehead red from hitting his head against dead ends multiple times.

At last, he found the panel.

There it was, the soft classical music playing in the room. Weird, he thought, Yn never really listens to this type of music. He shrugged it off, believing that it might have been a special signal just for him.

"Psst—hey—special delivery coming through."

Silence. You must have fallen asleep.

"Yn" he whisper-yelled, "Angel, open the vent for me, yeah? It's kinda cramped in here."

No response.

He sighed as he pressed the call button, uncomfortably holding the phone against his ear. When he noticed your phone didn't ring, he assumed it was silenced. The vibrations surely would wake you up, right?

YOU: Soshi, are you here? I don't see you anywhere

SOSHI <3: Angel I'm here, I followed the music—didn't know ya liked classical

YOU: Classical? Baby, I'm playing Ciara.

SOSHI <3: Then whose room am I in?

The moment Soshiro heard the growl of a feline, he ended the call.

SOSHI <3 02:53 HOLY SHHIT I THINK I ENDED UP IN CAPTAIN ASHIRO'S ROOM

YOU 02:53 HOSHINA THAT WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE DID YOU EVEN READ THE BLUEPRINT???

SOSHI <3 02:54 Oh so I'm Hoshina now. You don't love me. Btw I'm stuck and Bakko found me I love you

"Vice-captain Hoshina? Is that you in the vent?"

Soshiro Hoshina swore he had shit his pants.

[pinkthrone445]

~Partner in crime~ Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

Pairing:Melissa Schemmenti x Reader

Gender:soft, cute, young Melissa, friends to lovers, slow burn

Warnings:I don't think so, smut in the next chapter

Summary :When they send you to work back in your home town, you start to recall all your memories from your teen years involving the redhead.

The months continued to pass and your feelings for the redhead grew, it was easier and easier to identify that those nerves when she touched your hand or the way your heart beat every time she paid attention to you was because you were madly in love with her, that was how love felt.

Your little crush on the redhead grew little by little, at every step of your life and every moment you needed her she was there with you and that only made your feelings grow more.

More months passed and your 17th birthday came, and even if you weren't expecting nothing special to happen, Melissa's mom somehow convinced your father to let you go with them to a little road trip for the weekend.

The redhead's mother drove a car with her grandmother and the younger siblings, and in the other car driven by Melissa, you and the older siblings tagged along.

The trip started very early on a Friday and was filled with impromptu road games, radio karaoke, snacks and some naps, along with a few stops at gas stations so you could go to the bathroom and refill supplies.

After several hours, when the sun began to go down, you arrived at the house where you would be staying. The rooms were distributed in an organized way and you ended up sharing with Melissa and one of her older sisters, since a four-room house for eleven people was not enough for everyone to have a private room.

After unpacking the bags, everyone went out to eat a pizza.

Although Melissa's family didn't have a dad present, his absence wasn't noticeable, and even though there were a lot of siblings and they were fighting almost all the time, they were comfortable and fun to be around. They felt more like family than your own home.

After pizza and some ice cream, everyone went home to sleep early since almost everyone was tired from the drive. But you, with how much fun you were having and how peaceful it felt to be away from home, you were not very sleepy, which your friend Melissa immediately noticed and invited you to go to the backyard to see the stars since in this house there was no way to climb to the roof like you did in your house.

After taking a blanket, the two lay down on the grass, enjoying the tranquility and silence of the night, talking about random things

-"Have you thought about what do you want to study now that you are about to finish school?" - You asked and she nodded, very sure of her answer

-"I would like to be a teacher... Help those little kids that sometimes don't know where else to look for help, that's what I want to do... Well, that's my plan unless I win the lottery first" - she jocked and you laughed - "What about you?" - she turned her body to face you

-"I would like to be a cop..." - you murmured and she opened her eyes big

-"What?! A pig!? Come on! Don't do this please" - she couldn't contain herself and you frowned

-"I wanna help the helpless, I wanna be a good cop... Change the system from inside out. Protect people..."-your voice was smaller every time a word came out of your mouth, her approval was important to you, more important than everyone else's. She saw the shame in your eyes, trying to avoid looking at her because she wasn't very supportive of the idea

-"Hey kiddo...I'm sorry... You're very brave and I'm proud of you, I'm sure that everything you want to do, you will be the best at it and you will do everything right... You will be the first cop that my family actually like" - she jocked a little and you smiled again-"Come here"-She moved a little closer to you and hugged you to her chest protectively. It was a very intimate and safe moment but at the same time so fragile that you were afraid that someone or something would burst that perfect little bubble of perfection-"You need to follow your dreams, and I know it sounds cliché, but never let someone make you doubt about your dreams and goals, not even me. Support is important and I know it, but I also know that you are strong enough to fulfill your dreams even when you are alone or when you have the whole world against you... I can't wait to watch you be the best version of yourself, being free doing what you dream... I will be here rooting for you forever... I will be your number one cheerleader and your partner in crime if you need to kill someone...I will forever be by your side"-Although she was joking, what she said hid much deeper feelings. Her voice grew softer by every word she said and her arms hugged you tighter by every breath she took, like if she wanted to engrave her words on your skin and in your head so you would never dobut yourself and your dreams again, she wanted for you to know that you would never be alone again. Your eyes were watery from everything she was telling you, you carefully hid your face in her neck hugging her tightly

-"Promise?..."-you whisper with a broken voice and she nodded kissing your forehead

-"I promise" - she said without letting you go.

Without realizing it, a few minutes later you had fallen asleep hugging her. You didn't notice it until the next morning when the sun caressed your face. Slowly you opened your eyes to notice that you were in the room sleeping on the chest of the redhead who was going up and down slowly and peacefully. Not wanting to wake her up, you curled up in her chest again. But the beautiful moment was interrupted when you heard footsteps outside the room followed by a soft knock on the door

-"Ragazze... Wake up, we have a reservation for breakfast" - Melissa's mom said from outside the room and you untangle from the redhead to stretch your body a little bit

-"Okey mom, see you downstair" - The redhead talked with a raspy voice stretching behind you, you blushed a little because you thought she was still asleep when you curled in her chest-"Good morning monkey" - she said in a playful tone because how you were hugging her moments before

-"Good morning Mel... Did you brought me here last night?" - You asked and she nooded

-"Yup, I didn't wanted to wake you. Did you had a good night sleep?" - she asked and this time you nodded-"That's exelent... Now let's get ready, mom doesn't like to wait" - she got up from the bed after kissing your forehead and went to the drawers to pick something to wear.

When you were ready, Melissa's mother got in the car with you, ready to drive you to the reservation. For a moment it seemed strange that no one else from the family were on the house, but her mother explained to you that they had already left there earlier so you wouldn't lose the reservation.

After a few minutes in the car, you arrived at a small party hall with a large park and decorated tables, confused you got out of the car and Mel took your hand smiling, looking at her mother as an accomplice of something, which made you more confused. Before you could ask about the place, Mel's entire family and some of your old friends where you lived before came out of the small building carrying balloons and a beautiful cake decorated with your name on it

-"Happy 17 birthday (Y/N)!" - Everyone screamed at the same time taking you by surprise. You were so surprised that you even stood in the same place unable to react. It wasn't until your eyes scanned the crowd, that your eyes started to water so much making it impossible to stop, in the middle of it all of them you saw your grandmother sitting in a wheelchair holding a couple of balloons in her hands, with the brightest smile you'd ever seen, the same smile your mother had when she was alive. Before you knew it, you were already running and kneeling at her feet so you could hug her with all your love

-"Abu... What are you doing here? How? I missed you so much" - You said between sobs and she hugged you tightly letting the balloons go

-"My baby... I missed you so much, you look so big and pretty... Your friends somehow got a permit to take me out for the day so I could see you, this is all I wanted, seeing you again and be together on your birthday... I'm so glad to see that you have someone taking good care of you... I love you so much, you look just like your mother, I'm so proud of the young lady you have become"-she kissed your forehead and hugged you again.

After a few more moments of hugging your grandmother, you ran to hug the redhead, her mother and her grandmother thanking them for what they had done for you. You never imagined that they would remember your birthday, much less that the reason for the trip was to be able go to the city where you grow up to take your grandmother out of the residence so she could be present on your birthday 

-"How did you manage to pull this off? How did you take her here?" - You asked still with teary eyes of happiness

-"We know a guy"-that's all the explanation you got from the redhead's grandmother.

The party was full of food, games, music and people you loved, it was perfect.

It lasted late into the night, it was so perfect that no one wanted to go home and although it was hard for you to say goodbye when your grandmother was taken back to the residence, you were so grateful to have had her at your party.

You and Mel took her back and you were able to hug her a little more before saying goodbye.

Your grandmother thanked the redhead for everything she had done for you and asked her to take care of you, which she assured her she would do.

When you were about to get in the car, your face hurt from smiling so much and you couldn't avoid hugging the redhead again to thank her. But the excitement played against you, because before you could think about what you were doing, you grabbed her cheeks and kissed her.

Melissa froze for a few seconds, but when you were about to pull away in panic, she grabbed your blouse in her hands preventing you from moving away and kissed you back. You couldn't help but close your eyes enjoying her lips on you, letting your hands travel down her neck and play a little with the hair that held her tie.The redhead tried to move away from your lips a little to get some air after a few seconds of kissing, but you didn't let her and started giving small and short kisses on her lips, not wanting to be separated from her

-"Honey... What are you doing?" - she asked between kisses and cute laughs

-"This feels so good" - You said kissing her back

-"Kissing? Haven't you kissed before?" - she asked confused

-"I have, but it has never felt this good... I don't wanna stop" - You said bitting her a little bit and she couldn't avoid letting a small whimper go out. Her hands caressed your waist

-"I don't wanna stop either, you feel too good" - she said kissing you again.

[mammalsofaction]

Don't Leave Me Here Alone

Rating: E

Relationship: Heinz Doofenshmirtz/Perry the Platypus

Tags: incredibly emotional smut, fuck or die, human Perry, talking Perry, bath sex which is incredibly inadvisable considering Heinz's age specifically, a Perry that is so so whipped for his nemesis

Summary:

I need you, he thinks. Loudly, loudly, never loud enough. "Heinz," he says instead, and Perry realizes he has said short of nothing else since he has arrived, as if he scantly remembers any other words. The heat has travelled; flushing and concentrating in his system into points beneath his breastbone, his throat, and most urgently, his groin, and he refuses to look up for fear of Heinz seeing him bleeding tears as hot as magma. When he presses his face into the pudge of Heinz belly, lips brushing the small scant of skin along the line of his belly, Perry does not mistake the sharp intake of his breath.  I need you, Perry thinks again. "If-you need me to leave, I-," The hand on his nape fists, tight-but-not-quite pulling, and Perry shuts his mouth with a click, for fear of moaning. Another hand brushes down the side of his face, and the sweat that sticks up the front of his temple. And Heinz says, equally quietly; "Come on." 

He's burning.

Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated is dark when Perry lands on the balcony of Heinz's laboratory, and Perry shucks off the straps of his jet pack from his shoulders with a vengeance. Distantly, he notes that it must be the hours right before dawn; Heinz's sleep disorders and insomnia often translate into working well into the witching hour, and he wakes by 7 or 8 to begin his schemes. 

Perry had left for his mission on Tuesday, right before Sundown. How many hours would that make before he could crawl his way here? 8? 12? 

Perry itches to tear his own skin off. 

He gets to the kitchen, lights left unlit which leaves him scrabbling the drying rack for a cup, a mug, a bowl, anything. He could not tell if he was making a ruckus, and he is not entirely sure he cares. The sound of running water from the desperate twist of the tap was akin to the angel's choir, and the first gulp to drink was nirvana. Tap water spills down the front of his shirt, mixing into various chemicals, sweat and blood, and he is abruptly overcome by the need to take them off, off, off. 

He refuses to stop drinking while he does it, no doubt tearing the garment into rags as he pops all of his buttons with his head dunked down beneath the running water of the sink. Perry feels irrational. He feels mad. Like a snarling, sick thing. 

"Who is that?" Demands a voice from beyond the kitchen. "If you're here for my money I'll have you know I have this place armed to the teeth. I'm an evil scientist, you know, I've got this umbrella and I am not afraid to use it. For violence reasons, and not the weather." 

The familiar, nasally tone--one that does not sound as sleepy as it should be--makes him smile, despite himself. His insides churn with a nauseating rush of emotions; warmth, bliss, heat, relief, hunger, need. Perry clenches every muscle in restraint, his jaw, his biceps, his muscles. The joints of his fingers dig painfully into the stonework surrounding the sink, and it creaks in alarmed protest. Perry does not answer. The light flicker on with a soft click, and Perry does not turn around from the sound of Heinz's disbelieving gasp. 

"Perry the Platypus ?" Heinz demands, as if it isn't obvious. Who else could it be? "What did they do to you?" 

What did they do, he asks, and not what are you doing here? How did you get in? Do you even know what time it is? 

Heaven, Earth and every listening God, Perry has missed him. 

He feel a gentle touch to the back of his shoulders. Perry stiffens, before he unclenches, all at once, and he slumps into the flooding sink. Heinz swears, and Perry lets the man manhandle him as he'd like, pulling and tugging and pushing and sitting him down into the straight backed wooden chair of the dining table. He leans into the headrest as Heinz fusses, muttering to himself as he pats Perry down, clinically checking for wounds. 

He knows how Perry made his way in. He knows why, too. Perry's told him months ago, when he demands an explanation for having found him beaten and bleeding into his love seat by the fireplace. I don't have anywhere else to go. 

Heinz knows who did this to him. Or rather, he knows who let them do it. Knows there is no talking Perry out of his career choices. 

Heinz was, first and foremost, a scientist, and for all his fondness of talking and mumbling and asking, it is so that when time comes he knows all the right questions to ask. 

What did they do? 

"Heinz," Perry mumbles, when he feels the man checking over his cranium for injuries, and investigating for concussions no doubt.  Heinz doesn't answer. "Heinz," he calls again, louder. and finally the man stops, eyes wide and alarmed and blue as a baby's bassinet. 

Perry doesn't quite know what to say, now that he's gotten the man's attention. He had unconsciously grabbed for his wrist, and he makes his grip gentle. "I'm fine," he tells him, and Heinz scoffs, straightening. 

"You are very clearly not fine, Perry the Platypus." He argues, fuck, and Perry loves that, loves his stubborn fire, how much he cares, the way his codename rolls straight off of his tongue like butter on a hot pan. "You're burning up for one." The penchant for stating the obvious is less attractive, he won't lie, but it's an impressively accurate deduction to make without tools and bionic arms, Perry thinks. "Sheiße, and your pupils are huge, Perry the Platypus, were you drugged? Are you high right now?"  

High? Is he high? Was he drugged? When was he drugged? Was it the food his captors had fed him? Something in the bullets they used when they captured him? A gas released in the air when Perry had trashed their laboratories? 

Had something spread through contact of the girls he had been sent to save, feverish and shivering in cuffs and manacles strapped to dirty beds and locked rooms? A residue from the skin rubbed off as he carried each one of them to safety? 

He doesn't know. It had not felt so important to think about, at the time. He had just felt so angry. He had thought of the burning heat in his chest as rage, but here he was now, leaning into his nemesis' touch in the man's kitchen at dead o'clock in the morning hours later, fantasizing about sucking the man's kind soul through his cock. 

Read the rest on ao3

[ghostoffuturespast]

WIP Whenever

*takes a deep breath* Tagged by @streetkid-named-desire @wanderingaldecaldo (you two I think at least twice lol) @seeker-of-truth

@baublekute @scarlettspectra @aggravateddurian. Thank you all very much for thinking of me! 🧡

Tag backs for everyone above 😘 and @luvwich @merge-conflict @shimmer-like-agirl @mynonsenseistingling

@fly-amanitaa @dani-the-goblin @tarmac-rat @lavnderkiwi @morganlefaye79

Cash your tag in now or later and feel free to do whatever creative projects you're working on! Doesn't even have to be fandom related.

It's been a minute. This one got long.

I largely haven't been doing any fandom stuff other than VP because my work schedule has been insane the past two months. And the only reason I have VP to post is because I'm generous about snapping pics and the vast majority of photos y'all are seeing are ones I took back in March/April/May.

Things at work are starting to be slightly less hectic though, so hopefully I can get back into the swing of things. I'm trying to be gentle with myself about the time and energy I do have but it's been frustrating wanting to do things and not having the beans to do them. Spending most of my workdays outside for extended periods of time means I'm bone tired when I get home. And then I have more work to do outside...

Gardening

My garden is gonna be very scraggly looking for the rest of the year, but if I can keep it alive, in theory, the plants should come back bigger and bolder next year. Shortgrass prairie plants spend the bulk of their first few growing seasons establishing their root systems since water is often in short supply, so the tops of the plants are very unimpressive rn. Most of them probably won't get much bigger than this or even flower this year.

I've gotten a good chunk of the plants in the ground, have irrigation lines going to all of them, and did the lil concrete paver patio. I still need to finish planting the plants that have been languishing in their pots for over a month, bury the irrigation lines, and do a bunch of other random things, but we're getting there. Not planning on covering the bare dirt with mulch because I'm doing fall and spring seeding and I want the plants to self-sow. Going for wild pocket prairie and I'm gonna let it go absolutely feral. I'd eventually like to get rid of the river rocks too but baby steps.

What's really funny is all my native plants seem to be doing reasonable well. My vegetable garden on the other hand... It's sad. I know where I fucked up though (I should not have done that soil experiment lol and attack of the cutworm catepillars), so I'll just have to cut my loses this year and reevaluate for next. The worm composter is doing good though 🪱

Drawing

Attempting to get back into drawing. Again, it's been slow. Have been doodling some mutual's CP2077 OCs when I have the time and still have a ways to get through my list. I'm surprised by how much fan art of Grandpa I've received so I figured I'd return the favor for some folks. It's always a pleasant surprise getting some lovely art in your inbox. Probably won't be coloring most of these from here on out. I have a love hate relationship with coloring. Sorry, I just find lines more interesting. All of these were done with dip pen, ink, and watercolor.

I've got another more formal piece I need to work on as well and get done by the end of the month. Keep forgetting to do the layout sketches...

Writing

The slowest of them all. Been working on the same damn short fic (No. 1 of Les Preludes) and then brainstorming for about fifty other projects that are waiting their turn in line. Plus, I'm still trying to read too. But when I can only manage a chapter of a fic about every two weeks...

Most of my writing efforts have been bopping into my drafts now and then and pecking out a sentence or two. However, I did manage to spend 45 minutes detangling a section of about 200 words 🐢:

Have you or a loved one been in an accident or injured on the job?  Are you missing your former quality of life?  Holed up in the bathroom, Robert winced at his reflection in the mirror and at the crusted blood he picked at underneath his nostrils.  Then consider Arasaka Cybernetic Implants!  Fully functional prostheses are capable of replicating the full range of human motion and more!  Available in a range of sizes and styles to suit all your lifestyle needs.  The body of the future is NOW. The corners of his mouth tugged on a bruised eye and what former experience had taught him was a broken nose. Call 1-800-IMPLANT today for a free consultation! Low-interest financing and payment plans available. A rapid fire of unintelligible fine print was drowned out by the sputter of the faucet. Robert cupped his hands and scrubbed at his face, the pain disappearing for the briefest moments with the black of shut eyes and splashes of cold water.      Arasaka Corporation.  What can we do for you? Dry flecks of red decorated the sides of the sink before rehydrating into inky swirls of blood that slipped down the sides of imitation porcelain. Yellowed, cracked, and starting to chip. The plastic hadn’t aged well.

This snippet gives me the hardest war flashbacks to those late 90s/early 00s TV phone ads. Anyone else old enough to remember these things?

[thebisexualdogdad]

hi! love your writting, super glad you're keeping the male reader tag alive- there's so few of those out here.

prompts:

39. tell me something i dont know about you

+ "when im with you i feel like myself. i feel like every side of me is present and accepted. and i feel good about it- i feel good about who i am when im with you"

with Stiles x ftm reader?

fluffy & a little hurt comfort-y, with Stiles letting the reader know that despite dysphoria, he sees him exactly the way he wants to be seen.

thanks!

Stiles Stilinski x FTM!reader

You and Stiles had been friends since you were in diapers, your dads worked together so when they found out they were both expecting kids around the same time it was basically fate that brought you two together.

You finally started dating your freshman year of high school, Stiles had been crushing on you since kindergarten after all and Scott was the one who talked him into actually telling you how he felt but two years later when you were ready to come out as trans he was who you were most terrified of telling.

You're laying in his bed, just cuddling and listening to music, weeks have gone by and you still haven't found the right words to tell him the truth.

"Have you ever thought about how crazy it is that we've literally known each other our entire lives?" Stiles states.

"No one knows me better than you do," you reply despite knowing you have a huge secret you're keeping from him.

"There has to be something left to learn still, come on Y/N tell me something I don't know about you," he chuckles.

You're silent for a moment, Stiles believing you're just thinking really hard to find some weird obscure fact about yourself but finally you reply with, "when I'm with you I feel like myself. I feel like every side of me is present and accepted and I feel good about it- I feel good about who I am when I'm with you."

"Woah that was unexpectedly deep, where did that come from?" Stiles laughs.

You sit up, Stiles suddenly getting concerned at the change of energy in the room.

"There's something I've been trying to tell you for a while now and I don't know how you're gonna take it," you say nervously.

"Hey, you know you can tell me anything," he says rubbing your arm to try to comfort you.

"Stiles… I'm trans," you blurt out.

Stiles looks at you for a moment trying to process what you said, "okay… can you tell me what that means exactly for you?"

"I uh… never really felt like a girl you know even as a kid but it wasn't until about a year ago when I realized that what I was feeling was gender dysphoria."

"So you're a guy?" He asks.

"Yeah I am," you say looking away from him assuming he wouldn't want to be with you anymore.

Stiles puts his hands on your cheek and gently tilts your face to look at him again, softly kissing you.

"You aren't mad at me?" You question.

"Of course not," he assures you, "I love you, I have since we were five years old and nothing will ever change that. I see you for exactly who you are and if you say you're a guy then that's awesome, no matter what I will always love you."

You just smile and kiss him again, feeling the love radiating off of him.

"Have you told anyone else?" He asks.

"No you're the first person I wanted to tell."

"Do you want me to be there when you tell people cause I will fight anyone who doesn't support my boyfriend," he says.

"I like when you call me that," you chuckle.

"You mean my boyfriend? Better get to used it cause I'm going to be telling everyone that I have the coolest boyfriend in the world," he smiles, pulling you in close and laying you guys back in the bed to cuddle again.

Of course it took him some time to adjust but he really was the rock in your support system and even spent an entire week pulling all nighters researching how to be the best ally and partner to you.

He was there for you when you told your parents and your friends, he helped you picked out a new name and was always the first to correct anyone who used your dead name or the wrong pronouns.

You couldn't have asked for a better boyfriend.

[nobodysdaydreams]

THE WOLF359 CAST IS INCREDIBLY TALENTED AND I LOVE THIS! (or my reaction to the Wolf359 Live Show)

"Another Wolf359 reaction already? But Bods, I thought you said you were busy?" Yes indeed I am my friends, if I wasn't busy, I would have finished the podcast by now. In my younger days, I did all of ATLA in a weekend. Sadly at this age, I can't be doing that kind of bingeing. I'm also tired, because I've been studying all day and figured why not take a little break and watch the Wolf359 Live Show?

I firstly wanted to give a shoutout to @commsroom for not only telling me about when to watch the live show (after episode 26), but also telling me that it is on youtube where you can watch it live so thank you so much!

Tagging the mutuals who got me invested in this, and if you want to be tagged or untagged from these posts, lmk, or you can follow my blog or simply follow the tag "#bods wolf359 reactions". Anyone who has followed me for a while knows my updates are inconsistent, so I apologize in advance for that and for any spelling/grammar mistakes in my posts. Especially in this one because it is late, and I am tired.

@sophieswundergarten @oflightningandstars @acollectionofcuriousreblogs @herawell

Wolf359 Live Show Reaction:

"First ever life show" - are there other live shows?

Oh okay this is very helpful. So it's in the middle of Episode 26, so right in the middle of what I just listened to, that makes a lot more sense.

I honestly don't care about the audio quality difference this is amazing.

Uh...pretty sure Cutter is not the forces of good... see Doug this is why you always read the fine print! It's like that ominous song...the one that was a tik tok audio? The one about an evil corporation in space? I think it might have been video game music? You guys know what I'm talking about please tell me I didn't imagine this.

YES THE ONE COPY OF HOME ALONE 2 COMES BACK!

PLEASE- the way Doug is telling the story is the way I tell stories "Hilbert strikes back: specifically Doug's circulatory system" 😂

"Palpatine MD" 😂

I love how they enter in as their characters are introduced.

I love Hera though it is weird to hear her voice clear without coming through the intercoms.

Zach is doing a fantastic job I love how he's moving around Minkowski to play both Hilbert and Doug 😂 and he's doing a great job switch characters.

Lovelace!

I love how he crosses over to whisper to Hera, I can just see Doug's character whispering into her intercom or in the general direction of the computer even though it doesn't make a difference to her.

I also like Hera's character position on stage away from the others, it's kind of symbolic.

"Team Eiffel's on the case" I have literally used the phrase "Detective Bods is on the case" multiple times on this blog, why do I relate so strongly to every ADHD character I come across sasjdkfjsl;kdfj;slk. Not the talking to himself too... NOT THEM LOOKING AT HIM IN THE BACKGROUND...oh no...

I love how Hera says "yeah we're all here" when she's always there.

17 months Doug? Oh dear...

"No one told me it was my job" Valid Doug, valid, what you're told when you're spaced out doesn't count. ADHD rule #1. Oh she told him multiple times? Well maybe they could have written it down for him. Would that have been too much trouble?

Hilbert shut up.

Poor Hera. The way she shuts them down 😂

SHUT UP HILBERT. THANK YOU.

Oh not the Pyrce and Carter thing again. Do we ever get to meet Pryce and Carter? Do they work for Goddard Futuristics? Is this a NASA textbook? At first I thought she said something about a price and then "Cutter", and I was like "PLOT TWIST" but never mind it's just the tips book.

Minkowski's Lovelace impression 😂 HIS HERA IMPRESSION IS JUST A HIGH PITCHED VOICE. Hahaha...his Hilbert is hilarious. Her Doug impression. 😂

"No no she's Eiffel, that's impossible" This is perfect, and then the switch back to Hilbert. Comedic perfection. I love it so so much.

"Hilbert you're fine try to be less fine" I love Hera.

"Can I ask you to act like an adult?" "That's not my thing" the comedic timing of this is excellent.

"What do you even do here?" Hold Hilbert's Decima virus of course.

Comms line? With who?

PLEASE 😂OH MY GOODNESS CUTTER. The way he stands up from the audience with his smug little smile...

You just know he's been waiting his entire life to play a role like that. Honestly me too, so good for him for getting to live the dream. DID HE JUST PAT THE HEAD OF A RANDOM PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE. HE DID. HE EVEN HAS A SUIT.

"We'll break bread, we'll dance, we'll kiss-" Cutter man, I'm pretty sure you can't say that. I know that you're an evil corporation that murders people on the regular and unethically experiments on people in space so the law can't get you, but you don't even have one HR rep?

Another call Cutter? What deployment?

"He remotely destroys station, then goes on lunch break" Yep sounds like Cutter.

The way Cutters reenters... it's so dramatic I love it.

They are really gonna have to make sure their stories match.

Huh. "Communication problem of our own." I wonder what that could be Cutter? A little issue at Command?

"Alone at last" That sounds creepy Cutter.

Oh so Cutter worships at the alter of the Pryce and Carter manual too. Maybe he forced them to write the book and killed them. Maybe he wrote it under two pen names to make it sound more legit. Either way I can't imagine him memorizing anyone's book but his own.

CUTTER'S ASKING ABOUT HER FAMILY? oh he's threatening her. IS HE THREATENING HER FAMILY?

They are very low on toothpaste.

"I want to help in every way I can, but I can only do that if I know what's going on" Cutter I hope you die. Painfully. Very slowly and very painfully, and if it doesn't happen in the show, I'll write it into a fic.

Oh he's speaking to Hera now because of what she said... that's interesting. Cutter didn't think of Hera as a person or member of the crew before he realized that Minkowski did.

Doug is me cramming for my exams. DOUG IF ITS NOT A VIDEO CALL YOU CAN WRITE STUFF DOWN.

Or fake an illness.

Oh dear poor Hera.

"Manufacturing errors." I hope that doesn't mean anything bad for those robots, otherwise that has to be sad for Hera to hear.

Okay...I love how Hera and some of the other actors look straight at the audience like they can't see Cutter, but Cutter looks directly at them as if he can see them. It adds so much to the creep factor.

Oh my gosh that manual again. Why is he obsessed with it?

"You'd be shocked at how much I know about the Hephaestus" Cutter knows everything.

AND DO NOT CALL HERA PATHETIC.

Oh my gosh Hera talked back to him for a second. I think she's the only one who ever does thus far, which is odd considering all her code that stops her from doing that.

"A real person" THAT CROSSES A LINE CUTTER.

"I don't know if someone like you can understand this. We're trying to change everyone's lives" CUTTER SHUT UP. YOU ARE THE ONE WITHOUT A SOUL YOU HAVE NO ROOM TO TALK.

YES HERA TALK BACK TO HIM.

Hera's memory files? Personality setting? oh never mind...this is awful that he can just go in like that. Maybe that's why he programmed her with the ability and personality that would talk back to him. So that he can get the truth from someone he can easily destroy.

"The people who made you decided you were a mistake, and you were so desperate to rise above who- what you are" Who made Hera? Are they important? Or did Cutter just scrape her up from a tech company that didn't want her? And Cutter "correcting" himself on that line I hope he's blown into space.

"Don't you dare" wow Hera's still talking back. "You have no idea." DID SHE JUST CONFESS THAT HILBERT IS STILL ALIVE. Oh Hera...

"To err is human" oh dear...

Doug looks terrified. Me too buddy.

It's okay Hera. You deserve better.

"I'm sick!" I love that.

Cutter's like wow, I should have started with him.

The way he puts his hand on Doug's shoulder as if they are in the room together, like he has a way to reach them even if they can't get back to earth, I love the choices the actor's are making.

He knows that Doug doesn't know Pryce and Carter. He's been listening in on him. For sure. Bro. Not everyone has read your manifesto that you by this point probably ghost wrote under two fake names and declared the best book of all time. It's like when a professor uses their own text book, I've heard this song and dance before.

Cutter. Doug should have memorized it but YOU HIRED HIM. He is CLEARLY in no way qualified for this line of work. YOU know that. YOU'RE using him as a science experiment. If I knew my professor was using me for lab science that could kill me at any second, do you think I'd waste time studying for their pop quiz on silly tips?

"How did Renee stop him?" Just say that it was all a blur Doug.

"Getting around security protocols, tricking a multiple PhD...stellar Doug" "Thank you?" Doug that's not a good thing. A target is on your back right now.

Not the arm on his shoulder again. Cutter for SURE killed their HR rep and their IRB rep, and ethics department.

"I would have had to skin you alive" There is no "had to" here Cutter.

3 seconds or incredibly painful things will start happening. WHAT THINGS?

DOUG HOW DID YOU FUMBLE THAT? YOU COULD HAVE JUST PRETENDED YOU WERE NERVOUS BECAUSE YOU FAILED. YOU HAD THE PERFECT OUT RIGHT THERE.

"I got the feeling that I would be the same convo you and I just had" I love the fourth wall break.

Oh dear. LOVELACE YOU BETTER BE QUIET. NO NOT ALL THE STUFF DOUG YOU AT LEAST KEPT LOVELACE QUIET. DON'T BLOW THAT TOO.

"Is there anything I can do for you? I want to help you?" Get. Them. Back. To. Earth.

Cutter's little schoolboy laugh. Oh yikes. He's mad now.

Good job Doug, take the fall. Good solider. No, what are you doing, just say you forgot, don't say you kept information from him intentionally. Faking incompetence is so much easier when you actually are incompetent.

The ultimate sacrifice. He will memorize Cutter's stupid textbook.

"If you keep anything from me again, holiday's over..." I don't like it.

"I want to know the second anything new happens with those transmissions".

Haha...well as a matter a fact, after that last episode...

Exactly. Shut up Hilbert.

Yeah the book is unusually dark. Pryce and Carter have clearly been through some stuff, or it's Cutter being ominous with his ghost written book. At this point, he either wrote it under fake names, or he's a Pryce and Carter fanboy. (Is it spelled Pryce or Price, I just realized I have no idea. I've heard of the last name Pryce, so I'd assume that's how it's spelled?).

"Did I mention that I'm sick"

Careful what you wish for.

Well that was amazing. I loved the way the cast used the space to make the characters come alive, the way they moved, the choices they made, it all fit really well. I really enjoyed watching this. It brought me back to when I used to do high school theater. I kinda of miss it. Hilbert, Cutter, and Doug are exactly the kind of overdramatic and unhinged roles I always loved playing (that is if I was lucky enough to have a director who went for gender bent casting, we as a society really need more comedic relief and unhinged women roles with crazy accents). Although I did once win a medal at state in middle school for a 10 minute monologue that was very much in the tone of Minkowski. I was playing a babysitter.

And ask the show said: back to work. Thanks everyone for listening, I hope you enjoyed my reaction. Only two more episodes left in season two so we should be done soon. Excited to see what comes next!

[purplekoop]

(@daylightcommand3 once again responding in a separate post to keep things tidy with the original)

First off, thanks! I wrote the bulk of that story log a while back, only touching up a few minor details that I wanted to add, change, or clarify, and I'm still pretty proud of it. It felt important to properly establish the world and how it works before I could really figure out how these characters work as more than just gameplay functions. There were a lot of things I didn't feel right just shrugging off as "don't worry about it", like how they made more robots and what makes a new sentient bot different from a person-shaped pile of metal and circuitry. There's still a few gaps in the logic, like "how did they repopulate and rebuild if humans depleted all the natural resources", but like. I'll get there. probably.

I haven't talked much about the plants (or to use the official and also very temporary term "Plantoids"), and while they deserve their own posts soon, I'll say for now that their intelligence and capacity for strategy is comparable to ants or other eusocial insects more than anything else. This is actually based (very loosely) on behaviors some real plants can do! While not to an extremely apparent effects to us, plants can communicate through roots or chemical signals, warning each other about environmental dangers so their systems can prepare accordingly. This is an extension of that, where most individual Plantoids have evolved a capacity to communicate and cooperate similar to eusocial insects. The main unique advancement is that separate species can cooperate seamlessly, both to increase their odds of taking out opposition that could take on one species but not another, and also to increase enemy variety within missions. That said, it's rare to see an ant colony without a queen, so expect some even more advanced plantoids to be responsible for coordinating their attacks...

The comparisons to Overwatch are very much fair and intended, which should make sense considering... *vaguely gestures around everything here.* While the whole "rag-tag team of heroes stepping up against a sudden threat" angle is very much Overwatch inspired, the rest of the backstory is actually much more directly based on Splatoon, particularly the logs from Splatoon 3, in both structure and content. I wanted this log to feel like something that could semi-convincingly be a historical text in-universe, hence why the knowledge is limited to what could be common knowledge to the bots themselves.

That's also a big reason why I included dates, to add to that historical record feeling. Admittedly I was pretty scared to add them at first, since I wanted to avoid a time scale so absolutely incomprehensible to us (zelda timeline ever since the BotW trilogy my detested), but still long enough to explain the state of the world. I actually just recently added a whole extra millennium to the timeline, with the awakening originally taking place in 4000 CE/AD instead of 5000. 2,000 years is probably still a little short to explain how the plantoids came to be, but again, I'll get to that. This cast in particular also has some interesting things to consider when it comes to character ages (every Overwatch fan's favorite subject), since there can very realistically be characters who've been around since the dawn of their civilization, so it's gonna be interesting trying to decide who'd make sense to be a new blood bot and who'd make more sense being around since the awakening. Ages are weird for these guys since they don't really need to age like we do from childs to adults, and with proper maintenance are theoretically immortal, so the main difference between a 1 year old and a 500 year old in this world is experience and knowledge past basic innate functions. Again, dates and years are the part of the story I have the most caution tape around right now, it's a hazardous construction zone.

Another thing I wanted to note with that last paragraph though is that I wanted there to be a solid start point where every character could theoretically be there from the start of the main action. While I think a story where characters are more scattered in factions we follow and when they join those sides, I want something plain and simple for the sake of the mission mode feeling like "the canon" while also letting players pick the characters they want from the start. It's like a DnD party: the campaign starts with everybody in the same place, though their backstories differ on how they get there. And while the whole cast is fighting the same fight, their thoughts on the mission and each other can differ greatly as well. Velenna for instance isn't exactly the friendliest member of the crew, and she especially isn't happy working with Arber, but she'll tough it out so she can get what she wants out of the mission. Every job has people you do and don't get along with, including fighting off hordes of mutant plants.

Lastly in this overly long session of tooting my own horn, I'm also pretty content with the state of the mysteries I've laid out already. While I don't think literally everything needs an explanation, some things are better left unanswered, I don't wanna have the big questions be JJ Abrams unopened boxes. Some things I still need to figure out, but there's one big mystery in particular I already have a very fun answer for. At least I think it's fun, opinions exist, but like. I hope it's cool anyways.

So yeah, thanks again! I'm at least assuming you don't mind me taking this chance to mention a few more meta things that wouldn't've fit with the story log and would be more convenient to say now rather than later.

I think next up I'll introduce just a taste of what the plantoids are like, with some rough concepts I have lying around and some info on how the hordes operate on a gameplay level. Stay tuned!

[sailorblossoms-snowbaz]

Happy Sunday! 

I’m updating my comphet haunted house fic daily (I called it The Same Old Story) and if everything goes well, it’ll be finished by next Sunday. I wasn’t sure what to share, so instead of sentences I’m gonna cheat and share a peek behind my process. When others share these types of posts, I find them very helpful, so... hopefully this will help someone!  

My thing with this fic was “I’ve written enough scenes to want to finish it” (I had 34 different docs, some with only have a couple of sentences written, because I like to write things as soon as they come to me without worrying what I'll do with it, and if I put it all out of order in the same doc it’s going to be so messy I’m never going to open that thing) and also “I don’t want to spend too much time on this and overthink it,” because then I wouldn’t write it at all. 

This was my solution (more under the cut) 

I used this instead of a refular outline – I figured it was the best way to quickly organize 34 dang docs without losing it. I know some use handmade cards for the same purpose, but for me it’s better to do things digitally, especially if I want to shift around bullet points (If I did this with handmade cards, I’d use a pencil and eraser, not a pen, or I would use sticky notes on a bigger surface so I can easily shift them around). Having everything where I can easily see it helps with “looking at the big picture” in terms of how it all comes together, and it’s super helpful with the time-loop and the repetition. It helps when I’m writing chapters out of order so I'm not getting lost: like if I finish chapter 9 and chapter 4 is only half-way done, I know that because I marked chapter 9 with a green circle here, and 4 with a yellow circle. (A necessary system for me because if I relay on my memory I’m just going to get lost)

It also helps with writing faster, because I’ve already thought about everything I wanted to happen while I was completing the squares. So I’d just look at this while writing whatever I haven’t written yet, and I write it just as it comes to me without caring much about mistakes or wording or the like. I might even write it as [this thing happens here and this character says this] and quickly move on, because it’s faster and so much easier to come back later to re-write. 

In terms of re-writing, I was like “this is an experiment, I don’t care if it’s good, I care if it’s done,” which takes off a lot of self-imposed pressure. When I wrote love song for a vampire I agonized over every damn word and that’s simply no way to live. Here, I didn’t let myself spend too much time on re-writing, wondering whether something could be phrased better or just done better. There’s always room for improvement etc etc but I limited this to “the idea is out and readable.” I read a chapter again when I’m about to publish, I quickly check if I want to make minor changes and then I let it go. 

In short: this is great for experimenting while keeping it manageable, for maybe speeding up and/or organizing the writing process if you need a lot of order to make an idea work, and if for some reason you need to easily see the general plot/outlines of all your chapters at the same time (this sounds very specific haha) (it might also be useful to quickly refresh an author's mind with long fics or fics that are being worked on over the period of months/years) (i didn't use word to make this but you could totally make it in word with the table tool)

tagging @ionlydrinkhotwater @hushed-chorus​ @basiltonbutliketheherb ​ @johnwgrey​ @erzbethluna​  @raenestee​ @carryonsimoncarryonbaz​ @chen-chen-chen-again-chen​ @bookish-bogwitch​  @ivelovedhimthroughworse​ @artsyunderstudy​ @whogaveyoupermission​ and whoever wants to join! 

[thewingedwolf]

sorry i keep saying this but my god voting discourse is making me insane.

“anyone who tells you not to vote is a psyop” i’m not a russian shill or a cia plant you fucking idiot i live 20 minutes out of chicago and i’m active in local politics, im telling you my vote doesn’t fucking matter and i can protest vote or leave the president slot empty because chicago will always go for the dem. that’s not being a psyop that’s a fact of how this shitty system works!!

"you're not a real activist you're just complaining" i'm not doxxing myself to score points on tumblr thanks!! you don't have to believe me when i say that i'm involved in local politics, that people i know are involved in grassroots campaigns against corrupt officials and regularly call out, protest, riot, whatever against specific politicians and police officers while risking their Literal Safety bc the mayor loves to use the cops to harass people or that i got pushed out of my job in part because of my political views but that's what fucking happened, you can go back through my text post tag and see me crying about it in real time!!! i know it's crazy but some of us actually DO care about this stuff outside of "trump bad" unlike so many of you vote blue no matter who losers.

"the revolution is going to kill thousands" citation fucking needed thanks

"what's the point you're trying to make with letting trump win" i'm sorry beyond the fact that i think this framing is so disingenuous because centrists and libs will insist that they don't need leftists for the vote so we should all just shut the fuck up but when voting time comes around they always blame US because THEY ran a shitty candidate, people hating biden isn't THE LEFTISTS fault it's BIDEN'S FAULT, but also IT'S NOT LEFTISTS WHO ARE HANDING TRUMP THE WIN. every single fucking vote shows that a) young people find it extremely difficult to vote because of how shitty our voting works while seniors who are disproportionately conservatives have literally all goddamn day to vote and b) leftists come out in DROVES to vote!!! the people not voting are largely low info voters who don't think about politics In This Context, watch their one (1) lil news show with the anchor or journalist they like, and base who they're voting for off of how their life is Right Here Right Now. not only that, but it is heinous and obnoxious to put the blame squarely on the voter when biden is just objectively running a shitty ass campaign.

"this is just like the gore/bush/nader vote" this is how i know all the people on here bitching about voting are not serious people and not serious leftists. just like hilary, there were a LOT of factors that led to this and blaming solely nader just like blaming bernie is insane cope. gore ran a shit ass campaign and gave up way too soon. hilary ran a shit ass campaign and blamed everyone but herself. biden is running a shit ass campaign too. the dems never fucking learn that the vp pick is important, campaigning in important, optics are important (they've been part of our elections since fucking JFK AND NIXON!!), and having a memorable and appealling platform is important. you can't just run on "but the other guy sucks" IT DOESN'T WORK IT'S NEVER WORKED.

"vote-" DEMS HAVE WON THE POPULAR VOTE EVERY SINGLE VOTE SINCE CLINTON. WE DID OUR PART!!!!! WE SHOWED UP AND VOTED. IT'S THE SYSTEM THAT FUCKS US OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND YOU'RE BLAMING SOME RANDOM 23.5 YEAR OLD WITH A SICKLE IN THEIR USER???? ARE YOU STUPID. ARE YOU SILLY???

[coquelicoq]

*whispers* howdy i'm afraid I have been summoned again by one of your "ask me bout/why" so please, why do you tag "not anon" instead of the username?

two reasons:

i'm thinking about the tag from the perspective of my primary audience, i.e., future me. future me is someday going to want to find this post (let's assume). what sorts of things will future me remember about this post that could help me find it? i'll remember it was an ask. i'll likely remember if it was sent on or off anon, but if it was sent off anon, i may or may not remember who exactly sent it, so tagging the username might not be that useful to me as an indexing tag. tagging an ask #anon or #not anon (as opposed to only tagging it #asks) means future me can find it about two times faster than if i had to look through all asks. the balance is between having specific enough tags that if i need to find a post it won't take forever to go back through that tag, and having general enough tags that it's not too hard for future me to guess which one current me might have used. i get asks from enough different people, and the number of asks i receive from each individual person is low enough, that giving each person their own indexing tag would be inefficient overall (time t1 to find a given post within the tag would decrease, but time t2 to figure out which tag to look in would increase, and t1 is already low enough that it's not worth the memory-cost of maintaining and retrieving dozens of different subtags).

i had my original username for about five years. my then-bf did not have a tumblr but knew my username and would sometimes look at my blog. when we broke up, i didn't want him to be able to find my blog anymore, so i changed my username. at some point after that, tumblr changed the way asker and poster usernames were displayed (it used to always retain the username as it appeared at the time of posting, regardless of whatever that user's current name was; after the update, it displayed the current name). i did a search within tumblr to see if there was still anything connected to my old username and found some asks i had sent people during those five years that they had tagged with my old username. the problem was that my new username was displaying in the ask itself, such that if you did a search on my old username, you would immediately learn the new one. this defeated the purpose of changing my username at all lol. so ever since then i've been more careful about when i use people's actual usernames because they're searchable within the body or tags of posts, and people may not always want to show up in searches. it can't always be helped, but at least when it comes to answering asks, not tagging the asker's username is very easy and costs me nothing. but tbh i'm mostly driven by resentment here (so upset i gave up my old username for NOTHING) rather than logic (pointless to apply logic to this situation because i can't be redoing my tagging system every time tumblr changes how searching works and/or how usernames display).

[scuttle-buttle]

Chapter 17

WC: 1131

Rated: E

Chapter Tags: angst, language, discussions of student/professor relationships, age difference

A/N: so I'm actually going out of town for a week and I'm not sure I'll be able to write much if at all so I figured I'll be nice and not leave yall hanging too much

🧠

A sea of petrified students part as you come raging down the academic building’s hallway. You waste no time in throwing open the heavy wooden door to his office. It hasn’t even had time to slam shut before you begin your tirade.

“What the fuck is your problem?” you seeth.

Laszlo sighs, annoyed at having his work interrupted for the second time in the last hour. The headache from his encounter with Sara made his temples throb uncomfortably. He once again removes his glasses, tossing them indelicately onto the desk, before running a hand through his neatly combed hair. “What, is it not allowed that I do my work in peace?” He does nothing to hide his exasperation as he lifts his head to face you. The dark bags under your eyes remind him of his own.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, some high and mighty hot-shot professor, but I do not need your pity money,” you spit at him. “It’s disgusting and patronizing and quite frankly fucked up. It’s bad enough that you fucking fire me over text for no goddamn reason, but then you go rub it in my face just how much I needed this job and the money. I’m not some pathetic charity case, Laszlo. I can figure out my own shit and I don’t need your help to do it!”

Midway through your rant he stood up from his desk. Now Laszlo is more confused than angry at your outburst. Charity case? “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re on about.”

You scoff. “Oh, don’t play dumb, it’s beneath you. You were supposed to fix the system to say that you removed me from being your TA. But no, you went and kept me on payroll on purpose so that, what, I didn’t go starving on the streets without you? You think that I’m so incapable of taking care of myself that only you, the great Dr. Laszlo Kreizler could help, and just so you could feel better about yourself?” The sarcasm drips heavily in your tone.

With the raising of your voice so did your frustration. Laszlo could feel it pushing off you in waves, stoking the fire within his own emotions. He lets out a dark chuckle at the preposterousness of your accusation. “If you think for even a moment that I have done anything out of pity for you then you truly must be beyond yourself. I have not done anything outside of what is required for my position as your supervisor and professor at this university. If you have a problem with that, you may take it to the Dean," he sneers. "As for your accusation of treating you like a charity case - that was never my intention nor purpose. I became preoccupied and did not find the time to change your status in the system.” He looks you up and down from where he stands, his eyes cold. “You have much to learn if you are going to expect people to take you seriously as an academic.”

Jabbing a finger towards him, you yell “don’t you talk down to me like I’m a child! God, you are infuriating!” You throw up your hands and begin to pace the office. Taking a breath, you try to bring some logic into your fuming thoughts. “Okay fine, let’s say I do believe that you forgot to fix it. That still doesn’t explain why you fired me out of the blue. Was I not doing my job correctly?”

“You did what was asked of you.” He does his best to sound neutral in his response.

“That doesn’t- ugh- that doesn’t answer the damn question, Laszlo! For once, why can’t you act like a human being and not like some omnipotent god that just takes pleasure in pointing out everyone else's flaws?” The fire behind your eyes blazes hotter than the surface of the sun.

Circling the desk he comes to stop a few feet from you. His shoulders are rigid as he glares down at you. “Perhaps I will the day you yourself get a hold on your own actions. You are intelligent beyond your own comprehension, yet you present yourself as a naïve child might. You speak as though your ideals are the only ones that could possibly be entertained. You are loud and confrontational and irritating-”

You cut him off; “I could say the same thing about you!” You pause a short beat. At this point you decide to rip the proverbial band aid off - “Is it because we almost kissed? Did I really fuck it up that bad or are you just unable to grow up and be a big boy with your feelings? Because you’ve been giving me all these signs and if they aren’t really there then fuck, Laszlo, you need to figure out how to actually talk to someone without making them think you have feelings. Or is it because you’re a professor and I’m your aide? Am I some stupid little girl that caught feelings for her teacher? Does the idea offend you that much that you had to get rid of me-”

“I CAN’T!” he yells mere inches from you. His shout stops you in your tracks, your eyes darting between his own pitch black pupils. Laszlo's face is flushed, his temples throb.

He sees red as he tries to defend himself from your onslaught. “I cannot be around you!” He growls, pacing away from you towards the back wall.

You don’t let him get away so easily, following him with a single measured step. “Laszlo… why not?” You are enraged and heartbroken, but you need answers no matter how much they might rip your soul to shreds.

He runs his fingers through his already mussed hair, pulling at the strands. “Because I feel my control slipping when you are around. Everyday you sit here and all I want is to be near you, to feel you against me, to know every thought that crosses that beautiful mind. I become more and more alienated from my own when I am with you. I’m not sure I have much sanity left. There are certain things a man cannot control...” You hear his swallow. “I’m afraid of what I might do if you stay…”

When you do not respond he glances over his shoulder. You stand where he had left you, your jaw clenched, eyebrows scrunched together. He continues to study you from across the room. Neither of you say anything.

Finally, you open your mouth to whisper out “I’m afraid of what might happen if I don’t.”

The words are barely past your mouth when he launches himself towards you, his left hand tilting your jaw forward to crush his lips against yours.

Tag list

@hardlyinteresting @lorna-d-m @livvyshmiv @somethingthatsaysbubbles @greeneyedblondie44 @unbeatablecurlgirl @apparrio @marchingicenotes7 @anteroom-of-death @bruhidaniel @lemairepstuff @thehuiabird @zemosimp05 @alindeluce @iamnotthecatladynextdoor @laura-naruto-fan1998 @trelaney @boneheadduluc @i-am-dead-inside-666 @fictionlandslanddreams @thatoneartgalsstuff

[vdlest]

You matter

Characters:

Bucky Barnes x Girlfriend!Reader

Summary:

You and Bucky together with the other Avengers went to Florida for a mission. When your ex-suitor were also in the same area, your boyfriend, Bucky Barnes, is triggered by your ex's words. How can you make him feel better?

Warning:

Jealousy

A little bit of smut

Swearing

You and the rest of the Avengers are staying in the safehouse for a few days now. This mission lasts longer than you think. But since you are in a mission with your Bucky, everything seems alright. However, things became off-handed between you and Bucky upon the arrival of your ex-suitor, Frank, who is currently working under Stark Industries.

It turns out that Frank has been living in Florida for quite some time now, so Stark thought he'd be useful to this mission. On the other hand, you haven't seen Frank since high school and you must admit that you also liked him back then, but that's not important anymore since you're happy with your relationship with Bucky.

Speaking of Bucky, the guy clearly doesn't like Frank that much. He hates it when he is too confident when talking to you and the rest of the team. It's like he's showing you that he is better than Bucky, but you have no care or concern about how he thinks. All that matters to you are your work as an Avenger, your friends, and the love of your life.

"Sir, the information I gave you could be accurate if only Mr. Barnes here did not intervened and change the strategic plan I made based on my research," Frank said.

Everyone is in the dinning room for a meeting of what happened in yesterday's tasks.

"Excuse me," Bucky glared at Frank as he points himself, "Are you seriously blaming me for your inaccurate research?" he asked then he chuckled, "I am not the one who made that research, boy. So whether I intervened or not, your strategic plan could've worked out."

Whenever Frank and Bucky would be in the same room, a heated argument should be expected.

"Enough," Steve stopped Bucky and Frank, "We should just think of something else. We're running out of time already," he pointed out.

"Y/n and I could sneak off the building tomorrow morning and we'll give access to Barton and Banner," Wanda suggested.

"Yeah, I think the only way to get this mission done and over with is to use the "disguise & sneak off" tactic," you added in support of Wanda's suggestion. You turned to Steve, "Once Barton and Banner are in to hack the security system, the rest of you can take it from there."

Steve seemed to like your plan so he nodded and asked all of you to get the rest you all need because you have an early day tomorrow.

You left the dinning room alongside with the other Avengers, while Steve, Tony, Bruce, Clint, and Bucky are left inside the dinning room to finish their whiskeys that they started before the meeting. You're about to go to the kitchen to grab something to drink with Wanda and Nat when Frank approaches you.

"Hey Nat, Wanda, go ahead and find something to drink. I'll go catch up," you said to Wanda and Nat, they gave you a nod. Wanda gave you a warning look, she knows how jealousy and Bucky don't match up well enough. You faced Frank, "Hey, you need somethin'?" you asked him.

Frank smiled at you, "I was wondering if you want to go and visit a few places the day after tomorrow and before you and your friends go back home," he proposed.

You didn't want to be rude but you are not clearly into him anymore and you know that he isn't the guy you want to be with in visiting tourist places here in Florida. It's Bucky.

You clicked your tongue, "That's a very nice offer Frank, but I don't think it's a good idea."

His face turned into a disappointment, "It's Bucky, isn't it?"

You nodded, "Frank, Bucky and I are together. He's my boyfriend. I know things were pretty well between us during high school, but we didn't make it because it wasn't meant to be at all. So, let's just be friends and stay like that." You wanted to tell him about this since you got here in Florida, but he keeps on disregarding whatever you say about your relationship with Bucky.

Unknown to you, Bucky's near both of you and can actually hear your conversation with Frank.

"But y/n..." Frank moved closer to you and held both of your arms, "...he was a killer. He's the winter soldier. He killed millions of people."

You moved a step back away from him, making you free from his hands. You gave him a disbelief look upon moving away from him.

"You don't know him, Frank," you shook your head and glared at him, "You don't know who Bucky is. You may know him as the winter soldier but it wasn't him. He didn't have a choice when he did those awful things. He is the love of my life and the bad things you're telling me about him won't change how I feel for him. First of all, you have no right to judge him. You have no idea who he is."

Before Frank could say anything in reply to you, Bucky approached both of you. He stood besidd you as he give Frank a death defying stare.

"Say another word and I will break your neck. You'll see the winter soldier you are telling y/n about," Bucky said.

"See, y/n!" Frank said as he waved his hand to motion towards Bucky, "He killed lots of people from the past and he could do it again! He's a threat to your life, he's a threat to every man's life!"

You saw Bucky clenched his jaw and how his knuckles been wanting to punch Frank's face, but you immediately put your hands on his shoulder to calm him down. Steve, Tony, Bruce, and Clint came out of the dinning room and were already sensing not so good things between Bucky and Frank.

"Frank, I don't think it's advisable to go across my pal," Steve said as he drag Frank away from Bucky.

"Wait, Steve," you stopped Steve from dragging Frank away. You walked towards Frank and held him in his collar, his feet can't even touch the ground anymore as you lift him up in the air, "Bucky is not the winter soldier, he never was and he never will be. Put that in your mind. You understand?" when he did not answr you, you tightened your grip on him, "Do you understand?!" you repeated.

"Yeah, yeah! I understand." he answered.

The moment you put Frank down, Steve and Clint dragged him outside and talked to him.

You turned around to face Bucky, but when you're about to approach him, he walked away and went straight to your room.

"He's still sensitive about the winter soldier thing," Stark said behind you. He taps your shoulder before making his way to the kitchen where Nat and Wanda are, "You should go and talk to him. Make out after," he joked.

•••

You did not have to knock on the door of the room that you and Bucky shared in the safehouse, it is open and it is also your room anyway. When you entered the room, you found him near the window, staring outside and you could feel that he's thinking of something.

"You know what Tony asked me to do after I talked to you?" you closed the door behind you and rested your back against it, "He said we should make out."

It was just you, trying to lighten up the mood.

But he did not even dare to look at you. He is just staring at the glass window and what's outside.

"Bucky," you walked towards the edge of the bed, which is only a few inches away from where he is standing, "You know he's just trying to tear us apart. Whatever he said was all a lie," you reached for his hand to make him face you.

His eyes met yours, making you see how Frank's stupid and baseless words affected him. He has always been sensitive when someone is bringing up his past. He is not denying the fact that it was part of his past, but he also know that it wasn't him anymore.

You put his hand on your cheeks and leave a few kisses on his palm while your eyes are still with him, "No matter what happened in the past, it doesn't dictates who you are now. You are a different person from who was inside your head before. It doesn't even matter what happened in the past, only you and I matter. You matters, only you. So please, stop doing this to yourself over and over again," you said, almost in a pleading voice.

"I'm not affected by the fact that people are still seeing me as the winter soldier or who I was before, but I..." he kneel in front of you as he grabbed both of your hands, "...I am asking myself if I really do deserve you."

"You what?" you asked and you shook your head, "Bucky, come on. We're really doing this shitty conversation? Of course you deserve me. When you and I became a couple, there's not a day or any time of the day that I'd find myself smiling like a fool. Whenever you're out of my sight, in a mission or something, I'd find myself longing for you, your hug..." you pulled him towards you as you lay on the bed and putting him on top of you, "...your touch, and most of all..." you twisted your finger in his dog tag and pulled him closer to you, "...your kiss." you said before you kissed him on his lips.

You didn't have to wait, he kissed you back as soon as he felt your lips against his.

You found yourself deepening the kiss both of you are sharing, and few seconds later his hand moved to your waist and the vibranium one removed strands of hair blocking your face.

He pulled from your kisses as he caresses your face, "How did I get so damn lucky to have you, y/n?" he asked as he look into your eyes deeply.

You smiled, "We're both of lucky. We'll talk about your cocky attitude later, but for now..." you pushed yourself up and push him on the bed as you straddle him on his waist, "...I need you to do me."

He smiled as he pull your shirt up, undressing you and leaving you on your brassiere, "Oh, on the contrary..." he pulled himself up and unclasps your bra, "...I'm the only person who deserves you."

You grin but before you could say anything, he kisses you and claims your lips like a hungry beast and you're his last meal. While he's busy ravishing you with his lips, your hands are busy unbuttoning his shirt, but when you ran out of patience, you just rip it off.

Upon hearing the shattering sound of fabrics, he stopped kissing you, surprised with your aggressiveness, "Did you also learned that from Nat?" he asked.

You chuckled, "No, I learned that with you, asshole. Now stop talking, just do the work."

He pinned you against the bed, feeling the matress behind you as he slowly tug your pants down alongside with your panties.

"Spread your legs for me, and let me taste you, my love."

You obliged and spread your legs to the hungry man in front of you.

"This is gonna be a long night, so hang on and let me make it up to you," he said before he went down between your legs, remembering that Tony told you to make out, but you ended up doing a lot more. MORE.

-v.dl

[barnesbabee]

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴ - ᴡᴏɴᴅᴇʀʟᴀɴᴅ

WONDERLAND MASTERLIST ⇜ ᴘʀᴇᴠɪᴏᴜꜱ - ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴ-  ɴᴇxᴛ ⟿

CHARACTER LIST: White Rabbit - Choi Jongho Absolem (Blue Catterpilar) - Kang Yeosang Cheshire Cat - Kim Hongjoong Mad Hatter - Choi San Haigha (March Hare) - Jung Wooyoung Tweedle Dee - Song Mingi Tweedle Dum - Jeong Yunho Bloody Red King - Park Seonghwa

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ: @myunvillage @mirror-juliet @jess-1404 @earth-to-leiki [Send me a DM, an ask or comment to be added to the tag list]

"Teach you what?"

"How to be a better man, how to have mercy, and compassion."

Unbeknownst to you, a little purple and pink cat watched every step you took. Of course, it wasn't because he cared. Cheshire (unlike many other Wonderland villagers) genuinely wasn't affected by your presence, or lack there of, but the Hatter had asked him, in exchange of a hefty reward, of course, to keep an eye on his beloved Y/N.

While watching over you Cheshire just did a whole bunch of growling and nose scrunching. He hated the sight of the King, and even worse, was the sight of such a man in love.

"Such a shame to be the bearer of bad news dear friend," Cheshire said, not at bothered by the fact that he had bad news to tell "but it seems as if Y/N will be our new Queen."

The cat twirled a strand of his coloured hair around his index finger, as he fell down onto one of the many chairs along with the Hatter's never-ending table.

The Hatter's eyes widened and so did his toothy smile.

"She's carrying on with the plan! She will decapitate him herself and become our Queen! Oh but I'm so happy I could dance the Futterwacken again!"

He clapped feverously and suggested a toast, clearly missing the meaning of Cheshire's words.

"I'm afraid you missed what I meant, Hatter. She will be our Queen, because she will be marrying the King."

The atmosphere suddenly became silent, eerie even. The Hatter's green, sparkly eyes transformed into an ugly, rage-filled, yellow. The man gripped the teacup on his hand so hard it broke, but the rage, disappointment, and growing heartbreak fogged his brain to the point where he didn't even notice the pain, nor the blood trickling down his palm.

The Hatter was rarely angry, but when he was, it was enough to scare poor Cheshire, who didn't hesitate in disappearing into thin air. Or he tried to. Before every bit of his body could be gone, the Hatter grabbed Cheshire's hair, making the cat groan in pain, and threw him on the ground.

"What has he done to her!? Was it a curse!?"

Cheshire caressed his head and stood up to look at the Hatter.

"It wasn't a curse Hatter, she fell in love. After you deceived her and the King showed her nothing but truth and love, the choice was pretty evident."

The reasonable explanation seemed to calm down the Hatter, whose eyes morphed back into their greenish colour. However the dread and panic in his face were still evident. Cheshire, still quite upset at Hatter's tantrum, could see on his friend's face an expression of someone about to spew a terrible, terrible idea.

"We must get her away from the Palace. It's gotten into her head. Let's get her back to us!"

The man-like cat floated back to his usual place in the air, twirling in the process. He chuckled audibly, showing his sharp canines in the process.

"Hmm yes, let's steal her away from the man she's come to love, so she could be with us, the people who lied to her for our own benefit. Sounds like a party if you ask me..."

"A party!?" Haigha exclaimed, his left eye twitching as he smiled widely at the mention of his favourite hobbie.

"That's where the King's behaviour comes in our favour," the Hatter said, patting Haigha's head so he'd sit back down "once he sees her take her beloved Queen away, he will show his true colours, Remember how scared and freaked out she was last time we saw her? She said he seemed really sweet while talking to her until he eventually snapped. Once he snaps, he will freak out and bring out the tyrant's behaviour and scare her away."

It was hard for Cheshire to admit, but his mad friend's plan wasn't so mad after all. It was possible to accomplish what the Hatter suggested, and there was nothing to lose, you already hated them anyway.

The Hatter slapped his thighs and stood up, fixing his big top hat in the process.

"Shall we go?"

Haigha was already standing up from his seat when Cheshire stopped them.

"Perhaps we should discuss the plan further... Something tells me we might need some help from Absolem and Bayard..."

Sneaking you out past the Card Knights would take a lot of help, and Cheshire had already worked out in his head the escape plan. It would take a little pressure on Absolem, as he managed to care even less about the people around him than Cheshire did, but the cat was sure he could get a shrinking cake out of the blue catterpillar. After shrinking you and hatter down to the size of a strawberry, Bayard (the loyal dog friend of Hatter's, that Cheshire tried his best to keep a distance of) would bring you to the White Rabbit's house, as it would be too obvious to come back to the Hatter's cabin.

The cat had no intention to help you, but he did like to see some drama and commotion in Wonderland once in a while, and this was his chance.

Whilst all of the furious planning went on on the greenlands of Wonderland, in the Palace you and the King sat opposite of each other on his bed, gossiping like two high schoolers.

"And then my best friend at the time, Anna, slept with my boyfriend and said it was 'because of a dare'. I forgave her because we had been friends for so long but then she told my crush that I smelled so I stopped being her friend."

The King nodded along and listened attentively (trying his best to cross his legs just like you, but failing miserably) to your story.

"Hm yes, yes, I understand. My best friend ate one of my tarts so I cut off his head."

You couldn't help but scoff at the way he compared the situations, although you reprehended him right after for the heartless act.

He had asked to know of your previous life, how it was back in your world, and so you sat there reminiscing your past for hours on end. Most people in Wonderland came from other places, but Seonghwa had never been elsewhere, as he was born in the Kingdom.

"So this establishment you call 'school', was it like a club you went to where you reunited with your peers?"

"No, no. School was a mandatory thing for all kids, we went there and a bunch of teachers taught us about different things."

"Hm, but all you've told me so far were anecdotes about these friends of yours, what were these classes like?"

You blushed slightly, realizing that in fact, you didn't remember shit from school, aside from past dramas.

"Well, they told us many things about earth, about what makes the world move, about how society works, and what makes things work. We learned about gravity, about numbers, about stars-"

"Stars!?"

The King's eyes lit up as if he was a child whom you had promised ice cream to.

"Yes, stars. Why?"

Seonghwa stood up from the bed in such a violent manner, he nearly fell. The man ran over to his closet, from where he retrieved an old book. The hard cover was beginning to tear, and the once white pages had become a weird mix of brown and yellow, but you took it in your hands nevertheless.

"This book once fell into the Wonderland when I was a child. I was alone most of the time, so it kept me company. I can tell from the images it talks about the stars, and I think I learned a lot from it since I stared at them a lot, but I cannot comprehend the alien language."

The King leaned against the headboard, and you laid beside him, placing your head on his chest, so you could hear his now nervous heart beating fast from the contact. Out of instinct, the King placed his arm around you and pulled you closer, as you opened the book.

You chuckled slightly, after seeing the author of the book and opening its pages.

"Seonghwa this isn't an alien language, it's Italian. Well, I guess it's an alien language to you, but it was funny that you said it that way... The person who wrote it was very influential back where I'm from, he taught the people of Earth many things about our space."

The male listened carefully as you tried your best to explain the things in the book as best as you could.

"This here is what we call the Solar System. It has nine planets, but only one of them has people, this one, where I live." You told him, pointing towards Earth.

Seonghwa noticed how your posture changed, after you remembered once more that you would never return home again, and panicked for a second. He disliked many things, but your tears had definitely gone up to his number 1 on the list.

"How about I ask for a picnic to be arranged in the garden, and at night we can watch the stars."

You turned to face him and smiled as you nodded. Seonghwa's thumb caressed your arm, and you couldn't help but to place a soft kiss on his lips, as a 'thank you'. No matter how many times you did that, the King never seemed to get used to it. He would always feel butterflies in his stomach and fireworks exploding on his chest. Sometimes you felt perverted, thinking of how he'd react if one day you decided to take it... further. You imagined how pretty he'd look... But you decided to take your time. Baby steps...

The King couldn't wait for dinner time, and you could tell from the number of times he had gone up to the window and pushed away the blinds to see if the sun was finally setting.

As he was staring out the window, you came behind him and wrapped your arms around his figure.

"Can I tell you a secret?"

Seonghwa looked around, to make sure no one was nearby eavesdropping. He wouldn't want your secret to being known.

You tiptoed so your lips could be leveled with his ear.

"You're adorable."

Once you got back down and looked into his gleeful eyes, you smiled.

"Let's keep this secret between us!" He joked along.

"Yes, I wouldn't want the other ladies to know and steal you away."

Seonghwa held your face and lovingly placed a kiss on your forehead.

"The other ladies don't stand a chance next to you princess."

Your cheeks heated up and you slapped his chest out of embarrassment. The King's face grew worried and confused.

"Why did you hit me? Have I done something wrong? It was meant to be a compliment I'm sorry I compared you to-"

You grabbed his face and squished his cheeks, making him form an adorable pout with his red lips.

"Seonghwa, it was a good thing. I slapped your chest because I was embarrassed, I was really touched by your compliment."

Once you let go of his face, the King tapped his chin with his index finger, in a pensive manner.

"I have much to learn about our future interactions, I do not understand many things."

You just chuckled and took his hand in yours.

"We have many years ahead of us, you will learn someday."

The small acknowledgment of your future made Seonghwa very happy. Never in his pitiful life had he even thought of being this happy over small actions... Last week the only thing that brought him joy was the sound of a traitor's head hitting the concrete floors of the palace's main area, but since you arrived, a smile was all it took for his cold heart to start beating again.

It didn't take long before one of the frogmen knocked on the door to inform the picnic was ready. Seonghwa didn't let go of your hand as you walked outside, to sit among the red roses.

You had finally come to terms with Wonderland's weird food. You had no choice really...

"Have you never been attracted to anyone, Seonghwa?" You asked as you munched down on a sandwich of... whatever it was.

Seonghwa's expression faded a little.

"Once. I had just become King and I thought that the next step would, logically, be the find a Queen. Every woman displeased me. All but one. She was beautiful, hair as dark as the night sky, tanned skin from the sun, and a beautiful mole under the eye. But she was cold, evil... I thought that it was a perfect match. After all, I wasn't the most caring person. But she would treat me like a servant. Our relationship was purely to serve a purpose to the Kingdom, nothing else. We slept in separate rooms and spent the day apart. We only dined together, but since I saw the same behavior from my parents I thought that that was love. Our wedding had been scheduled long before she moved into the castle, we were simply waiting for the preparations to be finished. Everything was custom made, from the clothes to the flowers on every table. The day before the wedding I walked to her bedroom and found her laying with a servant of mine. You know, back when they weren't... Frogs. I had them both decapitated, of course. And I swore off love forever. That is until you came along."

You flashed him a sad smile and set down your food. He looked awfully confused as you climbed onto his lap, but he didn't protest.

You brushed his dark hair away from his eyes. Both of them. He suddenly felt very exposed and insecure, but you kissed his cheek, reassuringly.

"Ever since I came down here you've shown me nothing but love, and honesty. You didn't try to sugarcoat who you are, or what you've done, and I appreciate your honesty. My place in Wonderland is with you."

The male smiled, and kissed you, a little more passionately than all of the previous times. The male's hands trailed down your ass, and pulled you on top of his growing erection.

"For someone who has never been with anyone you're quite good at this."

"Well I... I lied. I had a fiancé after all, and we laid together but we didn't get far. There was no kissing involved, she just wanted to get it over with since I was the one who suggested we should... do it. But she made fun of me for not being good at it and I became... insecure. I was insecure and for the longest time I've wanted to try it with you, because you give me those special butterflies but I was afraid I'd disappoint you."

"What a cold, heartless bitch!" You thought to yourself. No wonder he was so bad at human interactions, every relationship he had was a trainwreck!

You grabbed his face and placed a long kiss on his lips.

"Well then, let me lead at first. If you start feeling more confident, you can take the lead, if not, I'll stay in control, okay?"

The King simply nodded and kissed you once more. This time deeper than he had ever kissed anyone. Tongues fighting so intensely the King nearly missed the way your hand expediently undid his trousers. Your hand slipped inside his boxers and took out his length. You looked down at the dick in your hand and widened your eye.

"Well aren't I a lucky girl."

You spat in your hand and kissed him again, as your hand worked up and down his shaft. The King was surprisingly very vocal, and he didn't try to hide or suppress any of his pretty moans (and for that you were thankful.

You stopped your hand, right as he was getting riled up.

"Ready for something better?"

The King watched you strip from your panties, and he cursed the frilly dress that covered your womanhood, but as soon as you sunk down on his cock, all of his worries and anguishes washed away. It was automatic, the way he gripped your hips and made you bounce on him as he snapped your hips against yours was something he did naturally as if he truly knew what he was doing. You brought out something different in him, and the King was simply doing was his body was telling him to do.

You gripped his shoulders, overwhelmed with the feeling of having him inside you.

"S-shit Seonghwa, you're good, r-really fucking good."

"Oh yeah?"

He flipped you two around, so he could pound into you with all the strength he had. Your words of encouragement were all he needed.

Your consistent (and loud) moans got him on the edge quickly, and he knew he wouldn't last long.

"Y/N forgive me, but I don't think I can last much longer."

Your hand reached down and began circling your clit, so when he came inside you, filling you up with his cum, you came right after, with a loud cry for his name.

Seonghwa laid on top of you, his face nuzzled on the crook of your neck, trying to regain his breath. You ran your hand through his hair as you did the same, looking up at the sky.

"The stars sure look beautiful today."

[kojinnie]

Something About Pain | Reiner Braun

Pairing: Reiner Braun x Reader (she/her pronoun)

Summary: You ran away from home and your boyfriend Reiner Braun is desperate to bring you home. When the two of you meet, you share a conversation about how pain inflicts the two of you differently.

Tags & Warning: Angst, (eventual) fluff, (mild) hurt/comfort, slow burn, major miscommunication problem, past trauma, abandonment issue, mention of anxiety, Reiner is a grumpy, hurt individual yet delicate inside | SFW

Word Count: 4.5K

A/N: Based on the request by @okubean for Twisted Match-Up! I hope you like it, boo! (More A/N at the end of the fic)

.::My Masterlist::.

Twisted Match-Up (x Reader): Zeke | Hange | Jean 

There was a vivid look of worry on the face of Reiner Braun as he drove through the empty neighborhood streets. His right hand on the steering wheel, the other one tapping anxiously on the phone, dialing the same number over and over again to no avail.

All of his calls had gone straight to your mailbox, and his text messages were no longer delivered. Reiner came to realize that you've blocked him. "Idiot," he muttered to himself, cursing this whole modern affinity to accommodate people running from their problems easier. Reiner thought the feature was the stupidest thing ever created by humankind, he was pissed, but more annoyed. He realized how tired he was, and if he could, he'd rather be in bed right now. Not roaming your friend's neighborhood at ungodly hour.

"Where... the fuck... are you..." he was pissed, evident from the grunt as he tried one final desperate attempt to call you. It went straight to your mailbox. Your cheery voice didn't make him feel any better, if any, Reiner wished he could tell the mailbox-you to shut the hell up.

Reiner finally hit the brake, sighing annoyed. His black SUV stopped underneath the streetlamp, at a random neighborhood he could only vaguely remember. He had been here before, when he picked you up from your bestfriend's house after one of your "night out" with your friends from college, but he could barely remember which one of these identical suburban houses did she live.

He rested his forehead on the steering wheel, racking his brain trying to remember the house number. Is this even the correct cul-de-sac? There are tens others. Who the fuck came up with the concept of suburban housing? Strips and strips of uniformed houses. And even worse, who the fuck thought that it was such a great idea to live in one? Like some Stepford Wives nightmare. Reiner couldn't believe some people would save up money for all their lives to pay off their mortgage to live in complete conformity, like a communist utopia with capitalist credit system. Were these people right in the head or had their brains fucked over by the boring 9 to 5 jobs they've had for decades?

That's beside the point. Reiner sighed. He ranted a lot when frustrated.

He knew you'd be there, in one of these houses, curled up crying in your bestfriend's bed, perhaps pouring your heart out on how much of a bad boyfriend Reiner was. He knew because you've passed the micro-aggression millionth times, muttering under your breath, saying that you'd be fine if Reiner kicks you out because your bestfriend would take you. What kind of fuckery was all that? Why would he ever kick you out? Reiner thought. He was clueless. Why were you so adamant that he would leave you eventually? Reiner could feel his annoyance grew while reminiscing your antics. He began to think, maybe he had never understood you to begin with.

But Reiner was wrong, because he was right about a lot of things about you. You were exactly in your bestfriend's house, curled up in her bed, ranting how hard it was being with Reiner. Although the tears had dried since hours ago. You were in your PJs and drinking the hot coco your friend had made you, comfortable in the bliss of obliviousness upon the fact that your boyfriend of one year was now driving aimlessly trying to locate your position. You were adamant that he was going to leave you anyway, you thought he wouldn't exert an ounce of energy trying to plea you home.

It was 4 AM in the morning and you hadn't come home. The trace of you had gone completely from Reiner's apartment since early morning. Reiner knew that this was bound to happen, had he done anything differently - would you stay? He thought of you and the state that the two of you had been tangled in. All the unresolved tension, or the persistent insinuations coming from you that you always shrugged off in the end, saying "Nothing." as if it did not matter, each time Reiner shot them with, "What did you say?"

You sipped your hot coco and let a troubled whimper as you told your bestfriend what was happening. It's the culmination of small things, your feeling of inadequacy and the anxiety of waking up every morning, being convinced that each day would be the day that Reiner finally leaves you. Every day you’d be mentally preparing yourself for the ultimate fate until Reiner returns home with his big, warm hug until your anxiety caves in. And that the anxiety would appear again in the next morning.

The idea of him leaving became incessant and you could never bug it off. You wondered why, maybe because you believed that you were inherently flawed. Maybe it's the way Reiner made that small "Tsk," when he came home to see the garbage piled up, "Babe, didn't I tell you to put out the garbage?"; or the deep, annoyed and condescending sighs he made when he missed his favorite show because you forgot to pay the cable bills while he was out at the office.

Maybe it's the way you couldn't match his sharp memory and reliability with you constantly forgetting things and your seeming inattentiveness despite the abundant reminders, notes and alarms you've made to keep yourself alerted. At times, your mind just wandered, and you needed him to rope you back in, but he never got the gist.

So, you were adamant that you had grown to be nothing but inconvenience for him, hence when he spent the night over at his office due to what he called "Shit load of work" over the phone, you were certain he wouldn't come back at all. You knew that the pain of being abandoned would haunt you to myriad of miseries, so you'd rather leave first. You knew it would be the end you both needed, because you knew Reiner did not care about you enough to tolerate your shit any longer. He was always quiet, there was hardly ever any expression on his face, God knows what he was thinking underneath. Each of your "Reiner, I'm sorry." would only be met by a singular hum or a quick, "It's okay." that left you wondering, did he ever mean it at all?

So that morning you left. While he was still at the office, because you knew there was no feelings strong enough for Reiner to keep him from leaving you eventually. You left first.

Your bestfriend nodded in reassurance, "You gotta do what you gotta do." she said pulling you into a warmly hug, but your attention was suddenly caught by the pile of plastics and packages from your take-outs at the corner of your friend's room. It just bothered your mind, and you got up to take it out. A small token of atonement to what you wish you had done to Reiner.

Your bestfriend immediately scrambled and took the garbage away from you. Insisting for you to stay in bed and let her take care of it. You nodded and retreated to the pillow fortress. You felt bad for her because the temperature was dropping, and there was no necessity to take the garbage out right now, but your impulse was often hard to subside, and your friend had grown to acknowledge and take sympathy over that. Unlike Reiner, you thought.

Maybe it's because Reiner never shown anyone openly about what he felt, but what you did not know, sometimes he wish he had. Sometimes he wished he'd opened up about how hard it is for him to breathe when unfortunate things occur that he did not have the answer to. Sometime he wished he could share his fear, worry, anger and disappointment, but he was always thought that a man got to suck it up, and perseverance was the only way he knew how to survive.

Sometimes he wished he had told somebody that the constant worrying about his loved ones consumed him too, to the point it became hard for him to let his guard down even when things are okay. He was always on alert, and sometimes it got exhausting too for him. He wished he had told all that, so in times like these he did not have to assume the heartbreak alone while trying to find the solution to it. Sometimes he wished people knew that he cared too, he loved too, he knew too when someone he loved was struggling, but he never learned how to show it. Reiner knew your mind often raced hundreds of miles per hour, Reiner knew your state of agitation, but he never had anyone to teach him how affection should look like, other than be of service, which he tried his best at being. It was no wonder that Reiner was left clueless when you chose to leave without warning.

He was pissed because he knew how daft he was, yet none of it was ever intentional. He cursed himself for not knowing what went wrong, for not being more observant, for not being open with his feelings, for not telling you how much he had grown to love you and how much his apartment immediately grew cold at your absence. But mostly, at this moment, he cursed himself because he wasn't attentive enough to know you friend's house number.

The air was crisp when your bestfriend stepped out of her porch. She made quick steps to the garbage can when she saw bright headlights coming in from the end of the street. She grunted, wondering what was her neighbor doing, cruising around with dramatically low speed. It seemed odd.

She put her fingers above her eyes, trying to recognize the plate number or the driver, but the black SUV lights were dispersing her sight.

She closed the garbage can and tried to immediately return inside but the car cruised closer and pulled over in front of her. The window rolled open.

"Hey," There was an immediate look of surprise from the person that Reiner barely recognized. But he was sure enough that it was her, judging from her body language; all tensed and alerted, "This is Reiner."

For a moment, there was an awkward silence between Reiner and your bestfriend. She was considering carefully on what to say next.

"Uhm yeah, I know." Your bestfriend finally spoke, her voice creaked, caught by surprise. "What do you want?"

Reiner spoke your name, "I want to meet my girlfriend." Reiner could hear the desperation in his own voice, but your friend jeered in response.

"My girlfriend." she passingly mocked the way Reiner spoke, she came to dislike what she thought was possessiveness in Reiner's nature of speaking, "She's not available. I suggest you to scram. Before my neighbors complain."

Reiner furrowed his brows in dismay, couldn't seem to understand the hostility presented by your friend, "I need to talk to her."

She stood unyielding. Reiner opened the door and climbed off of the car, sighing as he walked closer, propelling your friend to keep her distance away even further. "Please, let me talk to her."

"Not a chance." She turned around and scurried back into the house. Reiner was quick to yell, to her expected dismissal. Without thinking further, Reiner got back to behind the wheel and moved his car forward on to the curb, proceeding to close off the exit way for her small city car in the driveway.

Reiner jumped off the car as your besfriend realized what he had done, "I'm not moving the car until she comes down."

She let out a restraint shrieked, "What the fuck?! I got a dentist appointment tomorrow morning!"

"Then please, tell her to come down and talk to me," Reiner said, sounding almost apologetic. He threw a glance at a lonely swing set in the small park across the street, "there."

The occurrence happening before your eyes was unexpected to say the least. You closed the small slit from your bestfriend's window fold, trying to manage your heartbeat that had become almost deafening. At the same time your bestfriend appeared from the door, face red with flustered, "I think he really wants to see you."

Thousands of thoughts made a commotion in your head. It did not make any sense. You made it easier for Reiner by walking away with clean slate, you were sure this was what he had hoped secretly.

Your friend shuffled inside and shot you a deep stare, she sighed heavily and told you that whether you liked it or not, you had to face him. Reiner looked genuinely worried, she said, twisting your guts even further.

You sat in her bed for a moment, trying to relive every waking moment with Reiner. Sure there were moments when your own thoughts chased you into a deep corner and you wished Reiner had seen it. Sometimes you wished he’d hold you tight, kiss you with reassurance and told you how meaningful you were to him. Sure, sometimes being with Reiner could feel lonely, but he had never treated you back nor was he ever intentionally mean to you. What do I want? The question hung heavy in your mind.

I want him to say that he wants me, the voice within the nook of your brain said, I want him to say that he loves me.

You nodded, finally ceasing from running away further.

             Reiner never thought that at his 20-something he would sit miserably on a random swing-set at a random neighborhood just an hour before the dusk cracked. Reiner was a big man, but even with his figure and the aid of his tailored suit and shirt, wrinkled after gruesome hours at work trying to keep his company afloat on the thin ice of his personal relationship with you – Reiner was tired, and miserable, and desperate. Even more, he was cold as the temperature continued to drop down.

He hung his head low, trying to fight the shivers. It was quiet, too quiet, only the faint sound of the wind and the creaking sound of the swing-set holding off to its dear life under Reiner’s massive weight. The man sighed, never he thought that the sight of you coming out of someone’s house in the dead of a  night would be a spectacle he looked forward to the most.

He closed his eyes, shutting himself off from any sound and thought. Thinking that maybe in the bleakness of his sense, the time would pass faster and your heart would soften.

In the nothingness Reiner could feel a sudden warmth crept from the tips of his fingers, he opened his eyes to see you standing before his eyes, towering him who was sitting like a pathetic boy on the swing. You were wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, hiding your PJs underneath. In your hands were two cups of scalding tea, you shoved one into his hand, “You came.” You stated.

Reiner let out a deep sigh of relief as he saw you safe and sound. He felt warmth travelled across his body, he did not know whether it was the tea in his hand or simply the sight of you that made him felt so. His eyes latched on to you as you sat on the swing next to him, “Hey. What are you doing?” Reiner asked.

“Running away.”

“Why?”

Reiner looked at you intently, and the guilt started to consume you. You gazed afar, softly shook your head, “Dunno.”

“I see.”

Yet another silence ensued.

“How’s work?”

Reiner sighed again; the heavy breath seemed to be the only way the two of you communicated. Just two troubled minds pouring their burden at each other, “Bertholdt abruptly resigned—fuck, it’s been a nightmare, but—” Reiner pressured his thumb over his brows, trying to ease his sharp migraine that suddenly came, “—that doesn’t matter now. Will you come home?”

He looked at you again, you were still gazing to god-knows-what, everything other than his eyes. Reiner grew antsy on his seat, the swing creaked again. Please look at me. Please look at me. The words resonated incessantly in Reiner’s head but nothing came out of his mouth. Just a stoic, to-the-point question.

Don’t you wanna know the problem, Reiner? Is that all? I said I don’t know and you didn’t even try to dig in deeper? You came all the way here and you just straight up asking me to go home with you? Your mind was nowhere better. It’s in uproar but there was only silence coming out of your mouth. But he came, he didn’t leave. Contradiction danced inside your mind like an unwanted guest.

The silence grew heavier. You saw the lights from your bestfriend’s bedroom lit off, she had got to be tired eventually. Suddenly, you felt so alone. Just the two of you in this odd morning.

“It’s hard, right?” Reiner broke the silence, he looked at you again, this time he was desperate for you to look into his eyes. Little did he know, you were refusing to do so because you could feel your fragility forming in your eyes. You swore not to cry.

“What?” Just a depthless answer you uttered.

“Growing up.” Reiner muttered. The man sounded almost contemplative in his defeat. He sighed again and shook his head, “I thought I’d be someone better by this time in my life.”

The answer surprised you. You thought he would say something like ‘Relationship is hard’ or some jargons he picked up from one of the movies he watched without you. You felt bad for undermining him just because you were upset with him. Does it really mirror your true perception of him? Maybe you really hadn’t known him that well.

You had no resolve to his statement, so you just nodded, allowing him to pour out his thoughts.

“I thought I’d be better with my job, with myself, and most importantly,” he shifted to lurch towards you on his seat, the wire strings of the swing twisted to your direction, “with the people I love. But obviously, I still… suck.”

“And here I am. 4 AM. A fucking adult on a fucking neighborhood swing-set.”

You could feel the air suctioned out of your lungs, as you felt guilt loomed bigger inside you. He came and he felt bad – what more could I ask for? But then you remembered the nights of loneliness despite having Reiner sleeping next to you. You had a bad day, but you were too prideful to come clean. You wanted him to be intuitive, but he never did. Being with Reiner, you had mastered the art of crying in silence while sharing the bed with him. It’s exhausting. Yeah, Rei, maybe you’re bad at this.

Despite that, you stayed silent.

“Will you hate me if I say I don’t know what’s wrong?” Reiner knew how daft he sounded, “God. I’m pushing my luck coming clean at you.”

You were at loss for words. You had so many things to say, but too few of a courage.

Reiner called your name. He reached over and tried to tangle one of your fingers with his. From your periphery sight, you could see him forcing a smile, “I—”

He sighed again. Reiner’s chest was filled with words and all he wanted was to vomit it out, but he never knew how to properly addressed the feelings he had—he couldn’t even describe what he felt. All he knew was one thing: he wanted you home, back in his arms, “I am a stupid man. I really don’t know what’s happening between us. You.. just.. gone. Please, just tell me what’s wrong. I’m not smart enough for all these..”

There was almost a childish plea in Reiner’s words, and you couldn’t help but to threw a faint smile. You chuckled, “What did you say? You’re—what?”

He scoffed at himself, “I am stupid.”

You finally caved in because you realized there was an undeniable genuineness in the way he spoke. And the sentiment was mutual, you felt stupid as well for you had not realized how completely, utterly, truly clueless Reiner was.

Eventually, you looked at him. His hardened face quickly turned wary to finally see how puffy your eyes were from crying earlier, you forced a smile, but it was clear you were pretending, “You make me feel so lonely sometimes.”

The words came out of your mouth like a canonball that had been stuck in your chest for too long. You felt relief, but on the other side, Reiner could feel his heart broke. A pain from a man realizing too late of the damage he had caused.

You thought of everything that had made you feel so. The way Reiner rolled over in bed away from you, drowsy and unaware, when you called him in the dead night as your anxiety kicked in; when his hand let you go as you tried to hold his hands in public; the complete non-existing mention of you in his social media; the take-outs that he mindlessly brought home when you had cooked dinner; his easiness in dropping a problem after he said sorry without checking up with you further.

It was the absent of his intuition that made you felt invisible – but you realized too late that maybe he was truly oblivious, evident as he said, “But how?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Babe,” he further tangled your fingers into his grasp. Your hand and his, they hung in the middle of the two swing seats, “I swear on my mother’s grave.”

“I’ve always thought you wanted to leave me but never got the right moment to it. The affection—I hardly ever got it from you. Not the affirming words, not the reassurance. Hell, maybe I want that public kiss and hugs that you thought was stupid, Rei. Just—”

You could feel the tears forming, choking you mercilessly, “—just to feel loved. To feel wanted. For once.”

You finally let your tears dropped. And Reiner was slapped with realities that both of you were in. He let go of your hand and stared down at the pavement, “I’m sorry. I never knew.”

“You never asked.”

“But I never knew. How am I supposed to know that I should ask when I didn’t know I should ask on the first place? I’ve always thought you wanted to be left alone when all your crazy thoughts come in—but you—”

“—you—"

Reiner groaned, obviously frustrated. He rested the blabber, “Maybe we’re just not good at this.”

Like a train, you could feel the ending coming to hit you. This is it. This is it. You thought to yourself, picturing how Reiner would finally leave you. You secretly wished Reiner wouldn’t give in, you wish he’d put up more fight, so at least you’d know that you carried a weight in his heart. But you knew this was bound to happen, so why were you so upset?

“Maybe.” You wiped your tears dry, “That’s okay, Reiner. I know that’s what I am.”

“What?”

“I’m just an embarkation point, right? Everyone will leave me eventually. That’s why I left, because I know eventually, we’ll be talking about this. So I’d better leave first.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Reiner grew even more frustrated with the way you danced around your words.

“It’s okay if you want to leave me. That’s what all people do to me.”

“You left because you think I was planning to leave you all along?” Reiner asked, sounding painfully offended as he finally got to gather what you were insinuating, “So that is the problem?”

“Yeah, so I better leave first, right? Before I get hurt again? Before you leave me like other people and—”

“Fuck other people!” Reiner raised his voice, which he immediately regretted. He ran his fingers over his hair irritated, turning it into a complete blond mess, “Are you trying to avenge your revenge for other people—those exes you’ve had—on me?”

Tears welled up again in your eyes, as you looked away from him. But he called on your name again, this time there was a deep sternness in his call that you couldn’t help but to face him. Reiner was glad that you finally gained courage to speak the truth, when he had not, “So you want reassurance, yeah? How about the times I told you how beautiful, how smart, how great you are – only for you to tell yourself the opposite immediately.”

Reiner looked directly into your eyes, “I can’t make you something you’re not. What you are is who you think you are.”

“You can never matter – if you don’t think you do.”

An expressionless, soundless tear fell onto your cheek. A heart broke to your dismay. Reiner finally said the truth and there was no way you could delude yourself into thinking that he was wrong, “Then… why don’t you just leave me, Rei? Why don’t you get rid of me a long time ago?”

“Because I’m giving you something that I never received in my entire life, ever. I’m staying for you.” There was a palpable pain in the way Reiner spoke. He landed his finger on to your heart and you could feel it pierced through your skin with heavy realization, “I’m staying. Like no one ever did in my life. Not my ex-girlfriends, not my friends, and certainly not my father. That’s what makes us different. I have more faith in you than you have in me.”

Reiner was a man with heavy heart. He had been through a lot of things in his life, learned how to fend on for himself since very young, and dreamed of the day when he could finally put his hair down with someone he cared for. And what you hadn’t realize, was how essentially similar you were to him. How both of you longed for someone to let go of your inhibitions and fear? Just two broken people finding refuge in each other’s longing for the same thing. And that’s what you failed to see. He understood you, just in a way you didn’t understand.

And that’s the thing about pain, they are inherently personal. No matter how much you have shared yourself to others.

The two of you went dead silent for a moment. In the horizon, the sun rays were starting to emerge, the morning had arrived.  Your tears cascaded painfully slow; Reiner was looking at his feet trying to sip his tea that had gone cold. His hands were trembling with both sadness and anger that were beginning to secede.

Reiner finally called your name, this time it was delicate, “I’m sorry, alright?”

You looked at him with tears in your eyes as you nodded, “Alright.”

“Will you come home, now?”

“Yes,” you muttered, “I think I will.”

The two of you got up and Reiner immediately drew you into his chest, holding you the tightest you had ever been held, reconnecting all the broken pieces scattered inside you. You buried your face into his strong chest as you sobbed once more, while he kissed the top of your head with affection more vivid than thousands of words of affirmations.

“What do we do with these hearts, Rei?” You asked as you felt your chest throbbing with pain and love.

The man loosened his embrace and smiled, “Persevere.”

A/N:

First of all thank you so much to @okubean for giving me a hellish prompt! This one really made me faced my own abandonment issue and poured it into a writing. I tried to touch about the absent-mindedness as the implication of ADHD but I’m really worried that it doesn’t really do it justice. So hereby my sincere apologies! 😭🙏

Nonetheless, I really hope that you may enjoy this piece and I’m so sorry if it comes off as boring!

I literally drafted this on the metro, and got really carried away with it!

Did I enjoy it? (Yes)

Did this turn out longer than I expected? (Yes)

Am I worried this will bore people? (Yes)