#i cannot be that kind of miserable again

[vielle-art]

bad days just feel like 15 steps backwards for every step forward. i wish i could make it stop.

[neganium]

It is Moon Week and the cramps are Bad, and I am god's most miserable, wretched creature, atm. Who wants to throw Pity Money at me for no reason other than I am pathetic, and I, regrettably, exist

[aenthroppe]

Wtf. Why is there a tag limit of 30 tags. That's nothing :(((

[the-bluestreak-cat]

My extremely personal red flag is if you’ve never lived independently.

Do not open tags it’s just a personal vent and I hit the tag limit (30) and that’s never happened to me before ajskdlf

[mayanneaa]

hits different - ᴊᴊ ᴍᴀʏʙᴀɴᴋ.

PAIRING : jj maybank x ex!reader

SUMMARY : jj broke up with you two months ago, but this one party makes him truly realize what he’s done.

WARNING(S) : swearing, jealous and super drunk jj, a little angst, fluff, minimal use of y/n (like once), might have some grammar errors, english is not my first language

A/N : first fic on here heheh obv inspired by 'hits different' by taylor swift. i recommend listening to it while reading :) dividers by @roseraris !! not proofread dont kill me

WC : 1.7k

masterlist.

After a fourth beer, the party got too loud and the lights too bright. Normally, in a moment like this, he would run to you, wrap his arms around you, and inhale your sweet, calming scent. Just as he’s about to do it, the realization hits him like one of the waves nearby.

You aren’t together anymore.

He sharply inhales and looks around. His vision is softly spinning, but it’s no problem for him. JJ spots you in a second. With another boy.

You two are just talking. You don’t even know this guy, he came up to you to ask about something so random it got lost in your chat long ago. You give him one of those kind smiles, and JJ feels his fists clench. “Fuck.”

The music changes. As if he wasn’t already miserable, the speakers let out the first notes of your song. The one he first kissed you to. The one you two always played, alone at the chateau dancing on the back porch.

The memories flood his mind, and he can’t take it anymore. Jj feels his heartbeat loud in his ears, and he wants to leave. To go to any of the pogues, or, even better, drive away in the Twinkie. But his eyes cannot move from your face, and his legs just don’t work.

It baffles him. Not once in his life, he couldn’t move on. But this time, with you, it's different. It hits different.

You finally catch him. The guy is still talking to you, but your attention is on the other side of the beach. Before you can interrupt, you see John B. coming up to JJ. He tells him something, grabs his arm, and leads his best friend somewhere. You feel your heart sink. “Are you okay?” you hear the guy ask, making you turn your head.

“I’m so sorry, I have to go,” you quickly say, leaving him alone. You have to find JJ.

“Dude, stop this shit right now,” John B.’s holding the steering wheel, making his way to the Chateau. JJ's taken the passenger seat, shoulders slumped, and he runs his hand through the blonde strands.

"Yeah, easy for you to talk." he snarls, "You and Sarah are all happy together, you don't know how it's like-"

"I don't know because I don't just randomly break up with my girl over a bad day I had." John B. cuts him off and lets out a deep sigh. "JJ, you should talk to her. Everyone's done. You are constantly miserable."

JJ doesn't say anything. The words hit him like a slap, unnecessarily hurtful. Outside the window he sees the familiar place - they are at the Chateau.

"Get some rest, okay?" John B opens the door and helps JJ get in the house. "Call me in case something happens."

The blonde nods his head and plops on the couch, legs stretched out. Minutes pass, and he finds himself whispering your name, over and over again, as if he's scared he'll forget it.

His mind still replays that cold May night.

You two agreed to meet at the dock. The wind softly overflowed your face as you were waiting for him. When he finally came, you felt something was wrong. His usual smile was gone, and he didn't even look at you. You hugged yourself in your hoodie, "JJ? Is everything alright?"

He let out a shaky breath, leaning over the railings. "I think we should break up."

You blinked in surprise, your heart feeling heavy. "What?"

Your voice sounded smaller than you intended. You reached out for his hand, your own shaking.

"It will be better for both of us." JJ dismissively said, swallowing hard. A shiver ran down his body, and his throat tightened, but he brushed it off.

You felt so much hitting you. Tears burned under your eyelids, and anger started to bubble up. Did you do something? Or maybe he just decided you weren't good enough for him anymore?

"No," you whispered at first, but your voice was growing louder, "You don't get to just... just decide on my behalf!"

The moonlight fell on his face, and you tried to find any answers in his eyes. He stiffened, shaking his head before he repeated, "It will be better if we end it now."

You opened your mouth, but not a word came out. The tears threatening to fall finally flooded your face, a quiet scoff escaping your lips. "I can't believe this. This is how much it meant for you?"

You were met with silence. The atmosphere on the dock could be cut with a knife, and you couldn't just stand here. Before you registered it, your legs led you down, far from your boy- well... ex-boyfriend. JJ's eyes followed your every step. He wanted to run after you, to wrap you in his arms and never let you go. But he didn't.

It wasn't just a one-day whim he had. It stuck with him ever since you two decided to make it official. It grew with every late night you spent not on something you like, but on cleaning him up after another fight. You didn’t say anything—but he knew. He knew that sooner or later, it will be too much. He will be too much to handle.

The sweetest girl walking on the earth, a literal angel and him. A failure, a Pogue whose fate it was to end up just like his father—always drunk, always angry.

His heart ached at this thought. You had so many opportunities, and if you decided to let it go because of him, he would never forgive himself.

Breaking up before he got even more attached was for the better. It had to be. Right?

JJ doesn’t know how long he’s been lying like this. His breathing is now steady and slow, and he has to remind himself to breath in again.

He closes his eyes, but can’t escape you. The memories come fast—not giving him much time for defense.

Your face. Always in the sun, glowing as if you were a goddess. The lips glossed from the cherries you’ve been eating. Your eyes, the creases forming in the corners almost constantly from smiling.

Your touch. All these quick brushes, the way you traced your soft fingertips over his forearm every time you sat nearby. The long, tight hugs during which JJ’s hands wrapped your waist, him hungrily inhaling your perfume.

His breath hitches. Is it truly the best this way?

Before he can answer, the quiet crack of a key opens the door. He darts up and immediately regrets it, as the whole room starts spinning.

“JJ?” he hears a soft whisper, and his heart skips a beat.

The warm lights of the Chateau reveal your face. He feels the heat rising to his cheeks, “What are you doing here?”

His voice is quiet, almost as if he’s scared you’ll disappear. You step closer, with a cautiousness that kills something inside him. He avoids your gaze, staring at the suddenly interesting floor.

“You’re not doing great, huh?” you say, but there’s no mockery or anger in your voice. There’s just… worry.

JJ turns around on his heels and sits down on couch, fearing that if he stands for a minute longer, he might just fall. He runs a hand through his hair, a habit that intensified over the two months.

“Stop it, Y/N.” he finally replies looking at you for the first time. The light reflects of his watery eyes, and his voice breaks when he continues, “Go back to the party and your new stupid little boyfriend.”

Your eyes widen. “Are you fussing over me talking to a guy after you broke up with me?”

JJ shakes his head, looking at the floor again, “Doesn’t matter. Not anymore, I guess. You really should go—”

“Why did you end this?”

The question feels like an arrow through his heart. You’re standing with your hands crossed, not planning on going anywhere. “Why, J? We were happy. Did I do something…?”

“It wasn’t you.” In the response, he hears a snort.

Your gaze is heavy, with your eyebrows arched up. “Classic. Then what was it, JJ?” The tone of your voice is pushing, and you don’t even try to control it, “What happened that you decided to just leave me?”

“I was scared!” he snaps before he can think of anything better to say. “How do you imagine it? You… you can’t suffer with me forever. It’ll break you one day and—”

“JJ.”

The way you say his name pulls him out of the spiral. It slips off your tongue smoothly, just like it used to. You grip his arm, and JJ forgets what he was even talking about.

“You don’t get to make this decision without talking to me. Did you ever asked me how I feel about this?”

A blush creeps up on his cheeks, and whether you want it or not, the corners of your lips rise.

He tries to make any sense, the tears dangerously close to falling. “I mean— You deserve someone better. Someone who will keep you safe and… I’m not that person. And I don’t think I’ll ever be.”

You sigh. “Maybe. But I don’t want anyone better, baby. I want you. That’s my decision.”

With these words, with what you called him, his walls crash. You pull him closer, your bodies touching and he can’t take it anymore. JJ lets out a muffled sob into the crook of your neck, gripping you like he’s never letting you go.

Your fingers find their way up to his hair, running through the golden strands as he’s shaking.

“I’m sorry.” he whispers, his voice barely audible. “I’m so sorry. So sorry—”

“Shhh,” You draw small circles on his back, and his breath slows down after some time. “We will talk about it tomorrow, ’kay? You’re super drunk right now.”

“Promise you won’t leave.” JJ sniffles, the tip of his nose pink. You giggle, but he pulls away to look at you, a serious expression on his face. “I’m not joking! Promise me you’ll still be here in the morning. Please.”

You gently squeeze his shaking hand and can’t help but smile. “I promise.”

[bettystonewell]

Whatever This Is

Read on AO3 || Main Masterlist

Dean Winchester x Reader

You’ve been sleeping with Dean for weeks. You never established what you were doing, just going with the flow, until a vulnerable moment makes for an awkward tangent to ask and find out 2.3k words

Tags/Warnings: fluff, idiots in love, friends to lovers, miscommunication, menstruation, cramping, embarrassing moment for reader, lil bit of humour, Dean is unfazed and an absolute sweetheart, set somewhere in Season 3

Four AM and you’re freezing your tits off. Miserable. Cramping. You give Dean a petulant pout as he waits patiently on the sidewalk for you. Instant regret when you remember he’s currently the sweetest man on earth, navigating through your wrath in his stride, and doesn’t deserve whatever this is.

It’s not his fault your ovaries are punishing you for another successful thwart at reproduction. Not his fault your body is replicating a thousand knives, stabbing you at once in the same spot, even though you’ve had a dose of tylenol. 

Except it is.

He’s half to blame because he wanted the sex, too. There’s an IUD shoved up in there because you decided long ago that taking the pill was far too risky in this business, and he gets to go in without suiting up thanks to past you. 

You cannot have a kid right now. Not only are you both too young and this is far, far too new, but there’s the little detail about him being sentenced to hell to top things off. And you, stopping at nothing to stop it, when you’re not a whimpering puddle of hormones. 

You’re quite the pair.

“C’mon, sweetheart.” He pries your bundle of soiled clothes from your tight grip and offers out his other hand.

“I can manage from here,” you say, but he shakes his head. Pulls you out Baby’s door and through the one belonging to the laundromat, setting you down on the row of chairs in the middle without another word.

He drapes his leather jacket over your shoulders, wrapping you in warmth and whiskey. Sweats, also his, that had hung off your hips, now balloon at your sides.

He’s wearing what he went to sleep in. His hair, still road worn at the back as he feeds your laundry into the machine.  

Your cheeks are warmer. You were all for throwing a tonne of salt on your pjs and lighting them up, but his superhuman powers of simply existing had him rapping on the bathroom door before you’d so much as rinsed the evidence away under the faucet. 

He saunters back over to you and sits down with a groan. Makes a spectacle when he throws his arm over yours and kisses your temple. “You good?” he says, and all you can do is nod. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. S’only natural.”

You lean into him. Let his body further warm yours and your nostrils with the added fruity smell of Tide. “You didn’t bleed all over the place.” 

“Not this time.” He shrugs.

But you’re still not convinced. The blood on the motel sheets didn’t come from your arm or your leg. It came from your hoo-ha, and while he’s right, it’s nothing to be ashamed of because it is perfectly natural. It happened in the same motel room you were sharing with Sam. In the bed you were sharing with Dean. And it happened even though you’d been prepared.

Worst of all, he’d put his hand in it, and while he insisted it wasn’t an issue, you’ve only been sleeping with him for three weeks. Came about after a drunken confession that he was scared shitless ‘bout going to hell, and it kind of stuck. You don’t even know if he is that to you, which makes this ten times worse. 

“Hey.” He nudges you with his hip, squeezes his arm tighter. “We’re busting out of this place today. It’s not like they’ll even remember you if we stay here again.” He tries like that’s the problem.

You know it’s to make you smile, and you appreciate it, you do, but, “That’s not what I’m worried about,” you say. 

“Then what is?” 

He releases his hold on you. Leans forward and back at the same time. Finds the angle that works for him and narrows his gaze at you.

Green eyes pierce your mortified ones, because now you have to tell him, ask him, and you’re licking over your lips, trying to moisten them so the words have something to slip on.

You’re an adult. You got this. Asking what you are to him should be the easiest thing in the world, but there’s that stigma that you’re not worthy. Just a little girl who messes up her bed. Drags her guy friend out in the middle of the night to clean up said mess and watches on as he cleans it up. 

“This.” You splay your arm out in front of you. Wave it around the general expanse of the room you’re in. 

“What? The laundromat?”

“No.” It’s not the place you’re pointing out. Not the wall of washing machines ahead, thirteen of them empty, bar that one, top centre, tumbling your clothes through its big barrel. Not the driers on the other wall, just as big. 

It’s the being here with him. Him sitting here with you waiting. Him acting like boyfriend material, when you don’t know where you stand.

“This,” you say. “Us.”

“Me and you?” His brow furrows. Voice normal, because he still doesn’t get it. 

“Yeah. Us.” You exemplify the you-and-him part with your still flailing arm. 

“Me helping you with your clothes is the problem?” He sits up, though you still feel his eyes on you. 

“Yes.” 

Thank god he gets it now. Only, “How?” he’s asking next, and you could shake him. Why do guys have to be so dumb?

Your hand is moving back and forth between you. You’re stretching to sit up and match him, but it’s cramping your cramping and you’re trying desperately to calm yourself down before saying, “We’re just fooling around. But you’re helping me with my period? It’s a little—”

“You think I’m fooling around?” Dean stands, and though he doesn’t turn around, you don’t need to see his face to know he’s angry. His bowed legs are twitching like they do when he gets mad. 

“It’s not like you’ve asked me out,” you say, defensive. His hot-temper and the pain are a little too much to handle together, but it’s also a little too late to back off now. “We haven’t sat down and talked about this.”

“About us?” He turns, jaw cutting the air. Sharp lines cross his whole face, actually. His brows, the crease between them, his lips, and god those are perfect, and you’re about to lose whatever this was that allowed you to touch them. Taste them, and all you can do is nod.

“What were you expecting me to do? Take you out to some fancy five-star restaurant and buy you lobster?”

Your head rocks to the side. Cheeks rising to squish your lashes as you stare back at him and blink through it. If they were warm before, they’re as hot as the heat pack you’d used earlier during the night before all this occurred. 

“Why—”

“Saw it in a movie once,” he says, words coming out the quickest you’ve heard him speak. The usual gruffness dissipated like he’s de-aged a couple of years by simply standing there. “Snails look gross.” 

“Another movie?”

He nods. 

You wanna ask what the hell he’s been watching, but you’re more concerned by his unusual demeanor. His hands are fidgeting, smoothing his sides. His eyes have dropped to the floor and there’s the whole eating shell…fish thing?

“Look at me,” he says next, but you are. 

You’re seeing his tentative step forward. His arms splayed out like he’s showing you something more than what’s there, and that’s when you realise you’re the one that’s dumb. You’re the one that’s not getting it. 

He didn’t fuss once. Didn’t screw up his nose at you when he realised you weren’t hurt from the hunt like he originally thought. And you’re not saying all the men that have ever been in your life have been grossed out by periods and bodily functions, but Dean exceeded whatever expectation and stereotype you had. 

He’d insisted you stay at the motel while he came here for you, but you were too embarrassed to allow that. Too prudish to let the guy who’s seen all of you up close and personal do something even more intimate than even you’d prefer and now he’s standing there suggesting he’s not good enough? 

“I am looking at you,” you say. “Guess I wasn’t before, but I am now.” 

And even though it still cramps your cramps, you’re standing up and walking over to him. Feeling his jacket clip your sides where his sweats have fallen. You’re clinging to his shirt and pulling him in close so you can kiss those lips of his and taste. 

You’d put your all into it, but his hands are hovering at your waist and you know his eyes are wide open, watching. So you lean back, chew on your cheek, smooth the fabric of his shirt back from where your grip scrunched it up, and, “Sorry,” you whisper. You’re not sure what else to do, but what you’re apologising for is lost on you, too.

It’s not like it’s the first time. He’s kissed you plenty, and not just the peck on your forehead minutes earlier. His mouth has touched every inch of your body, and every inch of him has touched yours, so why is this so damn hard now?

Your chin drops like a scolded child. May as well have with the silence between you. Can’t say the same for the room, but the tumbling of the drum is only making things worse because the clicking of your clothes is acting like a countdown for the timer on the machine and whatever he’s going to do next.

Do you say something? Do you wait for him? Your cheek is going to have a hole in it soon if someone doesn’t say something and thank god, or not, his mouth opens to, but, “Forget I said anything,” you cut in. Shake your head and step away from his space. “I should’ve—”

“Would you just shut up?” His voice booms, and great, there’s that gruffness you were missing. 

Your nose tingles from his stare, and you’re opening your mouth again, but the look he gives you? Eyebrows to the heavens, green eyes looking more amber, like they’ve been lit by a flame? Yeah. You close it, chest heaving as you wait and listen.

“I just,” he says, and it’s quieter. “I thought we were on the same page.”

His fingers reach for yours and he pulls you back. If you were on a boat, you’d be dealing with motion sickness right about now, and truly, it’s how your stomach’s fairing. Just adding more to the discomfort of your middle, and why not? You’ve already given Dean a conniption. What’s one more grievance between the two of you?

“I’m no good, sweetheart. I’m going to hell.”

You want to interject with why that is. That it was a selfless act, but his thumb rubbing over the back of your hand, teed with the softness in his voice and the continual ‘I’m talking here’ glare keeps your lips tight. 

“Can’t say I’d be happy if I saw you picking up some other douchebag at the bar. Like to think I’m the only guy that gets to do your laundry. Least until,” he shrugs. Gives you a rueful smile, “y’know?”  

And you do know. You’re swallowing the ache in your throat, waiting just a little longer to make sure he’s finished before you try again. 

You nod, and it’s solemn, slow. You don’t want to think about it, but the truth is there, hanging over both your heads. An elephant in the room who’s laughing at you and your complaints. Where Dean’s going, he’s going to be feeling a lot more than any tylenol could alleviate, and it really puts things in perspective. 

So, “Yeah,” you say, and though you want to add you don’t want to pick up anyone else but him, ever, it’s a little too real, too involved than whatever this thing is now. You’d rather be trying that kiss again, but first you add, “As long as you’re not doing the same.”

“Cross my heart.” His mouth opens wide as he tugs your arm. Pulls you in and plants his mouth over yours.

It steals your breath away. The way he holds you. Wrapping his arms around your torso and squeezing, gentle enough to not cause you anymore discomfort, but present enough to soak in his warmth and solid form.

His tongue clips your teeth, spreads his morning breath and a taste that you know only from him over your lips. 

Your gut calms. The cramps overpowered by the tingles from his nose, his fingers, chin and arms surrounding you, touching you, and you don’t want it to end. 

But Dean lets go, only by a little. His face stays hovering inches from yours as he stares into your eyes. 

“So have I made myself clear?” he asks. Chuckles when you rap his shoulder. His hand lets go and swipes at a strand of hair that’s probably been sticking out since you woke. Tucks it behind your ear.

You’re a bigger mess than you’ve been letting on, but the gesture returns his grin. 

“Not fooling around?” you say, and he repeats it. Places a kiss on your forehead again, and drags you back to the seats. 

His arm wraps around your shoulders once more and your head leans into his. 

Four AM, and you’re no longer freezing your tits off. Cramping? A little, but the pouts, no longer there. There’s a warmth in your cheeks and one in your heart, though, and you’re sitting with the sweetest guy in the world.

You won’t label it. There’s no need. You know he’s hanging around, at least as long as he can. You just gotta find that loophole. Keep him here with you and Sam, and then who knows? 

Maybe one day you’ll leave this life of visiting laundromats at odd hours because you’ll have a place of your own. 

And then, the only red you’ll see will be the one you’re dealing with now, and the shade that crosses Dean’s nose when he says something real and important.

This started out as another idea for Couple Things involving Dean and his red gym teacher shorts, also at the laundromat, but it developed into what it is now. I’ll probably still write the other version as a part two to this eventually.

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[powderpuff-divines]

pick a pile: when love finds you again, how do you wish to be held by it?

what kind of love does your heart yearn for? pick a pile to find out! this is a general reading so not everything may apply to you. only take what resonates and leave the rest. please excuse any grammatical errors or typos. happy reading!!

pile 1 ✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

(TW: mentions of bullying, please exercise your own discretion.) seven of wands, queen of swords rev, nine of swords

oh pile one, when love finds you, you'll hiss at its hand the way a stray cat does when someone finally shows it some kindness after experiencing years of living alone on the streets.

people have been cruel to you by way of words and there are still cuts on your soul from that. i'm hearing death by a thousand cuts by taylor swift in my head, more specifically the line 'papercut stings from my paper thin plans.' maybe you made plans with loved ones (friends, family, lovers), went out of your way to do nice things for them and truly treasured them, but then had the gut-wrenching realization that it was not mutual. they could have mocked you for being so sensitive and taking things too seriously. ("oh that? don't tell me you actually thought i was being serious?"). some of you may have been victims of bullying in the past.

so when true, unconditional and kind love finds you, you will not be able to stomach it.

there's a deep level of mistrust and anxiety towards words of sweetness coming from anyone. but when love finds you again, you want do still want its words to be honeyed but true; not a coating of sugar covering rancid intentions.

you could still be beating yourself up for being swayed by other people's words and charms very easily in the past. please stop that. you cannot bully yourself into being better and being stronger. you live and you learn. you cannot be cruel to yourself for falling prey people who were actively trying to mislead you/ cause harm.

when love finds you again, you want its words, true and honest, to wrap you up and hold you in its warmth. to not need to worry about whether it's a ploy to get your trust only to break it again. you want a love so kind that it erases the pain from your past.

pile 2 ✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅��⋄✧

five of pentacles, seven of wands, knight of pentacles

someone dear to you could have betrayed your trust when it comes to money/finances/assets. for some of you, you do not even wish to acknowledge it or talk about it. 'it happened, i lived. it was miserable but i lived, and i'll never let that happen to me again.' is the type of energy i get from this pile. you could think that there's no point crying over spilled milk.

but that betrayal cut deep. so when love finds you again, you want someone who'll stand right by your side, especially if you go through a tough period like that again (some of you could have even been homeless for a while.)

the people who chose this pile do not necessarily want a flashy kind of love, with dates at the trendiest of places or elaborate gifts/ trips every month. you really want is someone to rely on, a shoulder to lean and cry on and someone who doesn't stab you in the back.

the type of scenario i'm seeing is someone having a breakdown in their dining room trying to balance their checkbook, but your person comes without you even calling for them, squeezes your shoulder, sits down next to you and starts helping you with it.

i feel like there's an emphasis on helping you with it rather than just doing it for you. you could be a very independent person, or maybe you just don't trust someone else to handle things for you again. you want a partner in the literal sense of the word.

(some of you could be thinking 'even if it's someone who doesn't contribute to helping me get back to a good place, i just want someone who won't make it worse. otherwise, i might as well just be alone, right?' and i just want to tell you that please hope for more. you deserve to be loved and taken care of. someone not harming you is just the barest of bare minimum. expect more from your loved ones)

what you really what is someone who'll tell you to hold your head high, put their reassuring hand to your back and guide you. they'll do the scut work with you, they'll make it easier for you to go through the murky waters and not complain about it.

i have a feeling that if someone like that were to actually appear, you would just stare at them for a few moments-- shocked and emotional, but grateful that you get to experience a love like this.

when love finds you again, you wish for it to be steady and unwavering, to hold your hand tight and not let go even once even as it knows that difficult times are ahead. to silently hold an umbrella over your head as it begins raining. to be as comforting as hot cocoa on a cold day. to stay. you want love to be loyal, kind and to stay.

pile 3 ✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

(TW: mentions of sexual content. please exercise your own discretion.) ten of cups, page of swords, ten of swords

you want to find the love you've been dreaming of, to get your happy ending, to find the one. you're sick of meeting people who aren't your forever person.

you, out of all three piles, dream of domestic bliss the most. a happy home, a happy family with pets and/or kids. but with the way things have been going, you've become mentally resistant to this dream after so many failed tries and ,if you're aware of it, you hate that. because you never wants to be the type of person who doesn't like love or runs away from love, not after you've spent so long yearning for it.

this could be the pile that daydreams about a soft and romantic love.

the type of love where you're in the kitchen, baking something, and your partner comes behind you, wraps their arms around your waist and kisses your neck as they mutter something that makes your heart skip a beat.

you want someone who won't shut down your ideas, and wants to do fun (and tbh chaotic) stuff with you. you want to go on adventures with this person. (like the way the old couple from Up did when they were young.)

and also really good sex where by the end of it, you're exhausted and completely sated; after which, you lie in your lover's embrace, mindlessly drawing patterns on their skin (they could also do the same for you) with some pillowtalk.

you could also really want to travel to other places with this person and make a lot of memories.

when love finds you again, you wish for it to be in the form of a person in whom you see home. a home for your love, for your joy and smiles. a home that will accept all of it, nurture it and multiply it tenfold. whether it be now, a year later or even decades down the line, you wish to be held in its loving embrace. one could even say you wish to be held by it throughout the ages. you want a love that will transmute the bad days into something easier; a love that will stay forever soft and young as you and your lover grow old and develop wrinkles on your faces (from laughing and having so much joy in your lives.)

i recently decided to join tumblr and was surprised when i discovered that there was a pac community here. it's been super fun going through all the readings here so i thought maybe it would be fun to dip my own toe into it. i had a ton of fun editing the images and this post!! tumblr's so cool. i hope the reading resonated at least a little bit and it was fun to read!

[loversrocktvgirl2]

my mini multiverse of madness…

Bickering (John Walker x Reader)

word count: 1k

masterlist

Okay, so in my opinion, y’all wouldn’t be friends at first. You hop on the bandwagon of kind of making fun of him, which is fair. He’s a rather easy target. Plus, it’s not like he’s nice.

So while y’all don’t say anything rude about each other behind the other one’s back, you’re mean as hell while you’re talking to each other. 

Unfortunately, it’s funny. 

Yelena has an absolute ball listening to the two of you. She’s even started writing down her favorite quotes that she’s heard from you two.

From you: “Shut up, easy bake oven.” “You’re like an expired coupon: useless.” “If you ran like you run your mouth, maybe you’d be in better shape.”

From John: “I’ve heard enough from you, unnecessary movie sequel. You’re like the third Matrix.” “The trash gets picked up tomorrow. Might wanna get ready.” “I will pour yogurt into your ears if you interrupt me again.”  

It’s better entertainment than reality TV, and even Bob, who is often bothered by bickering, is amused. Because no one’s really getting hurt.

Bucky kind of loves it. He’ll intentionally get you two going and then just kick back and watch it. 

Yelena occasionally slips you lists of ideas for insults and then cheers when you use them. 

Ava tries her best to ignore it but she gets wound up in it, too. It’s sort of like when your mother watches something you have to pretend you have no interest in, even though you wanna know what happens. 

Alexei believes that it’s a weird form of flirting. And ever since he found out what shipping is, he definitely ships you two together. 

You catch a flu, and Alexei has you on the couch, compress on your forehead, and the TV on. Until you fall asleep, and the TV shuts off. When you wake up, sweaty and exhausted, you can’t get it back on. Miserable, you shove your face into your pillow.

“Oh, God, what now?” John asks you. “You need medicine or some shit?”

“Probably,” you groan. “I don’t know what time I had any, though.”

“Why is the TV off?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want it on?”

“...yeah.”

“Fine,” John picks up the remote and tries for a minute or two to get the TV on and working. “It’s not working.”

“I can see that,” you reply, sounding congested. 

John hits the same button he’s been hitting five times rapidly. 

“Well, there’s no cure for stupid,” you say. 

John groans. He tosses the remote to you on the couch. “Here you go. You want the TV on, you can get it on yourself like a normal person.” 

You toss a pillow at his head.

You eventually give up on the TV, take your medicine an hour later, and fall asleep again on the couch. John sees you there, face flushed from the warm blankets piled on top of you and from being sick, late that night. So he gently pulls the blankets off of you and brings you to your bed, turns the fan on to keep you cool, and pulls a light quilt over you, making sure your head rests on a comfortable pillow so that you won’t get a neck cramp. 

It is unbearably nice, and Alexei sees it. And Alexei cannot keep secrets, so he runs and tells Yelena and Bob immediately, and the story quickly ends up at the feet of Bucky and Ava. Soon, everyone but you knows. 

You are asleep, as comfortable as you can be while you’re sick, in your room. 

Once you’re better, you get right back to arguing with John over iced coffee, figuring that it had been Alexei, who had been taking care of you while you were sick, that had brought you upstairs. John never brought it up. 

Eventually, Ava kind of corners him and says, “I think you should flirt with her.”

John looks confused. “Who? What are you talking about?”

Ava rolls her eyes. “C’mon. Y/N. I think you should flirt with her.”

“Wha-what the hell? Why?” John stutters out. 

“Because you like her!! C’mon, John, you’re an idiot!”

John sees you that night, sitting on the couch on your computer. “Hey, broken toaster,” you greet, not looking up. 

“Spam email,” he replies casually, sitting down next to you with his book. The two of you sit in silence, doing your separate things side by side. 

“That does not count as flirting,” Ava tells John later. 

“Well, what am I supposed to say?” John asks. “I don’t want her thinking I’m a complete weirdo.”

“You called her spam email.”

“And apparently I’m a broken toaster. What do you want from me?”

“Some romance. Flirty energy. See if she plays into it! You like her, and I think she might like you,” Ava argues.

“Fine, how about we end this song and dance and I just ask her out?” John argues back.

“Fine! Great!” Ava yells.

“Great!” John yells in return.

John power walks into the kitchen, Ava hot on his heels. You look up from your phone confused. 

“Do you wanna go out?” John asks, almost sounding frustrated. 

“Uh, sure?” you reply. 

John throws his hands up in the air like he won something. “Excellent. Seven. We’ll do dinner. You like Italian?”

“Sure,” you shrug.

“Great,” John gives you a thumbs up and turns to Ava. “Voila, I’m done. We’re gonna go out. Next time you want me to try to flirt, maybe start by giving me some actual pointers.” And with that, he points at you and says, “Seven, I’ll see you,” and leaves. 

Ava turns to you, trying to hold back a laugh. The smile on your face indicates you’re trying to hold one back too. Then the two of you burst into happy laughter. “Oh my God, what did you even do to the poor man?” you ask.

“Just gave him a push in the right direction.” 

taglist

@spaceycat @vidanand @xo-cench @raikan624 @yeehawgiddyup13 @wpdarlingpan @puer-aurea

just thunderbolts

@papitas-con-sal

[spidermanifested]

heres MY rambly black sails analysis for the day, after watching the show twice in as many months i wholeheartedly believe in the "long john silvers quote unquote missus in treasure island is max, not madi" theory

the most obvious thing, as others have pointed out, is that in treasure island long john silver runs an inn with his wife, a black woman, in bristol, which is absolutely not madi behavior-- i cannot imagine madi would take him back in the first place much less move with him TO ENGLAND-- but IS maxs exact area of expertise. but theres so many other things that cement it for me

as early as episode 2, max tries to convince eleanor to buy out the inn and run it together with her when england takes nassau back. this is her dream-- to share power over her life with a woman she loves, free of the pressures of the outside world. (youll note this also happens to be silvers dream for himself and madi. the parallels)

in season 4 shes faced with the suspiciously similar option to take a husband to be the face of her business, completely on paper, for the sake of the public eye. and she refuses! she doesnt want to give a man that kind of power over her. not only that but she desperately wants to retain some kind of truth in her identity-- she admires anne for her honesty, her courage. these are things she can rarely afford to express. in refusing a marriage of convenience, she asserts her autonomy.

But. black sails tells us over and over again that an oppressive society will always find ways to batter down these private boundaries. there is no island safe from colonial rule. mirandas peaceful house in the interior is burnt to the ground. the maroons are forced to accept a freedom that comes at the price of abandoning those still enslaved and taking part in their continued subjugation. the things it takes to make these spaces are terrible, and unsustainable, and when it comes to being gay in the 1700s there is a tightrope to walk between privilege and privacy, one that destroyed flint and the hamiltons, thats even narrower to max as a self-made woman of color.

given all that, i do not believe she can girlboss her way out of her circumstances no matter how many lessons she took from what happened to eleanor. nor do i think the show believes it. i think the political-marriage-offer plot point is another illustration of that theme-- maxs desire, and silvers desire, to build a warm, happy room in the middle of the imperial machine, without meaningfully striking out against the machine itself, is destined to be futile no matter how strong they are as individuals.

max and silver are mirror images of one another. each of them is essentially the narrator of one half of the story. it is absolutely agonizing how BOTH of them tried to convince their lovers to abandon their ambitions, to settle for a quiet life with them, and in doing so saw that relationship destroyed by their own fear of an uncertain future....

....And its even MORE agonizing to imagine them finally securing the trappings of a domestic life... but without the love. and they know the love was what mattered! theyre always going to know!!!

it bookends PERFECTLY with their alliance at the start of the series. theyre right where they started, trusting no one, pretending to be humble and harmless, planning to steal the EXACT SAME TREASURE, except now theyre 50 years old and jaded and bitter and both pining after their lost loves. silver probably pictures madi whenever he tells people about his wife. when he and max have time to themselves they talk solely about finances and nothing else. its honestly impressive how miserable this is for every single person involved. im losing my mind

[pomefioredove]

Can I have a chocolate cookie, #1, with frosting and chestnuts? :3

HEHE ofc! actually the first thing I've written in ages that I actually really like :3

order #1, chocolate with frosting, chestnuts

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ in sickness and in health

summary: just a little cold tropes: only one bed, sic fic characters: rollo additional info: romantic, gender neutral reader, reader is yuu, cuddling

Infernal cold.

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

Rollo coughs into the sleeve of his student council robes, snot and spit darkening the fabric.

He can't remember the last time he's been such a mess.

It must have been one of those Night Raven College devils. He hasn't been this sick since-

"President, you look unwell," his vice president says, hand on his hip. "Are you ill?"

"Absolutely not. I'm perfectly well,"

His voice is hoarse and scratchy. Each breath of cold air stings the back of his throat, and yet he can't breathe through his nose...

"You were up all night clearing the school of fire lotuses. You're exhausted," says his aide.

"I'm fine,"

"President,"

It's a losing battle (he just cannot win any, lately), and his defeat is spelled in the embers of the dying fire in his room.

The door is locked from the outside, a chair placed under its handle. To keep him in, as if he were an animal... though, it wasn't without reason. Rollo would work himself to death if he were allowed. Temperance has never been kind to him.

"Rollo?"

He jolts at the sound. Surprise is an odd look on the council president, but he's had a lot of it, lately.

Especially from you.

"What are you- who let you in here?" he asks. You look just miserable- tired and dull, sniffling and coughing just like...

...Well, him.

But, (and this is what Rollo was truly fixated on), you are miserable in his room. In his bed.

"Your, um... vice president put me in here. Quarantine. It's the only dorm room with a fireplace, for warmth, he said..."

Damn it.

"I see," Rollo sniffles, and dabs his handkerchief under his nose. "I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling unwell."

"You don't sound too good, either,"

True enough. Rollo allows himself the indulgence of sitting close to you, his hands folded neatly in his lap.

"I seem to have come down with a cold, yes. Do your... friends know you're here?"

"I don't know,"

Good, he thinks. The last thing he needs is to be accused of holding their beloved pet prisoner in-

Rollo stiffens. He feels you tug at his sleeve again, thrice more, like a small child, or a petulant goat...

"What is it?" he asks, voice almost trembling, "Can I get you something?"

Another tug. You pull his hand out of his lap. You're asking him to come closer.

Rollo feels his body still.

If he weren't already so pale from sickness, he certainly would have gone white.

"...Is that truly what you want?"

You nod.

"What would your friends think?"

"They aren't here,"

Rollo's heart thrums in his chest. There's something so... satisfying about that. He wants to hear you say it again...

"Are you certain?"

"They won't know," you insist. "I think you need it, too."

Rollo would, in health and the right state of mind, dislike having such assumptions made about him. Even if they're entirely correct.

Luckily, he's not exactly lucid, and your offer is almost as tempting as the sight of the blankets over your body.

"Very well," he concedes, as if it were a chore, and he removes his shoes and hat and lies beside you.

It's as if you were never strangers. Or, perhaps, as if you were- as if you had just forgotten about all that he'd done and said in the past two days. Your arms come around his waist, holding him to you, your head on his shoulder.

His head on yours.

You're warm. So is he. It's the sickness, he tells himself, but he does allow himself this one fantasy, that your warmth is from each other.

"Comfortable?" he mutters. You nod against him.

"Hm. Then I'm pleased. I did say that I would make sure you enjoyed your time here, after all- in sickness and in health."

[lupinqs]

CHAPTER TWENTY ━━ Final Four Fever

❀ ━ pairing: paige bueckers x oc (jo jacobson)

❀ ━ word count: 7.0K

❀ ━ warnings: illness

❀ ━ links: my masterlist, nobody gets me masterlist

❀ ━ author’s note: two chapters left, shit goes down next

IT STARTS WITH a sneeze.

Just one at first, sharp and sudden. But then another follows right on its heels, and then another after that, leaving Jo hunched forward in her seat, sniffling, trying to keep it quiet. She scrubs the back of her wrist against her nose and sighs, low and frustrated.

Of course. Of course she's sneezing now. On a packed flight. The week of the Sweet Sixteen—and, hopefully, the Elite Eight. The one stretch of the season where everything—and Jo means everything—has to go right.

She glances around like maybe someone has tissues out in the open. No one does. Most of the team is either knocked out cold or watching some downloaded Netflix show with AirPods jammed in their ears. Across the aisle, Azzi has her laptop resting in her laptop, typing furiously—probably locked into her accounting class she's been complaining about for weeks now. Next to her, Caroline's already got her mouth open and her head tilted back like she's in a NyQuil coma.

Jo shifts a little in her window seat, already uncomfortable. Her nose twitches. This cannot be happening.

The seat between her and Paige is empty—not by accident. She wanted space. Forced herself to ask for it, even when Paige had looked at her kind of confused, like you sure? Because Jo knows if they sit too close, they'll end up curled together without even thinking. They always do. And maybe that was fine before. But now that people are looking—asking questions, whispering, speculating—they can't afford to be careless. Especially not on a plane with their coaches only rows away. And Celeste, too. God only knows what might provoke her into spilling their secret.

So: space.

Except now Jo is sneezing and miserable and Paige is the only one who might be able to help her.

She sighs again. Paige has been asleep for over an hour, knocked out in the aisle seat, head tilted back against the seat, glasses sliding down her nose in a way that would be funny if Jo wasn't feeling like death. She's snoring a little too, soft and almost rhythmic. Jo doesn't really blame her—travel days are brutal, and even though she hasn't been playing, her rehab has been exhausting.

But when Jo sniffles again, she finally decides to nudge Paige's thigh with the back of her hand.

"P," she says, voice just above a whisper. "P, you got tissues?"

Paige makes a quiet sound, a little grunt, not quite awake. Jo bites back a small laugh and nudges her again. "Paige."

"Huh?" The blonde blinks blearily, rubbing one eye under her glasses. "What?"

"You got tissues?" Jo repeats, sniffling once more for emphasis. "I think I'm—uh, I don't know, I think the air's just dry or something."

Paige blinks at her again, then yawns, already digging around beside her. "Yeah, yeah—hang on."

She grabs her massive, beat-up UConn backpack from under the seat in front of her. The thing looks like it's one zipper away from a breakdown, stuffed within an inch of its life. Jo doesn't even know what she's got stuffed in there—she's not sure she wants to know. She just watches her fumble through it with sleepy hands, reaching and scuffling.

Finally, Paige pulls out a half-crushed pack of tissues and hands it over.

Jo takes it with a quiet, "Thanks," and immediately blows her nose—loudly, ungracefully—and then coughs a little, deep in her chest. She hates the sound of it. Too wet. Too real.

Paige's eyes narrow, a little more alert now. "Bro," she says slowly, watching Jo. "Are you sick?"

"No," the brunette says fast, almost too fast. "I'm fine."

She sounds like she's trying to convince herself, too. Which is stupid. She's not sick. She can't be sick. There's no time for it. She has to be at a hundred percent. They're flying to Seattle, across the fucking country, for some of the biggest games of her college career, and she needs to be able to play forty minutes of lockdown defense and then drop twenty-points and carry the team if she has to. There's no time to get sick.

Paige keeps staring at her, not buying it. "Joey, I was sick last week. What if—"

"I'm fine," Jo cuts her off quickly, a little sharper than she means to. She forces a smile. "I'm good. I probably just didn't drink enough water today or something. It's the plane. Or my allergies. I'm not sick."

Paige watches her for a moment, silent.

And Jo can feel it—the way Paige is holding back the urge to argue. She can see it in the corners of her eyes, the twitch of her lip like she's about to say something about how Jo doesn't have allergies, or how her "probably just dry air" excuse sounds like bullshit. She knows her too well. Paige has seen her with colds. With food poisoning. With cramps so bad she almost cried. Paige knows almost every version of her that's been miserable—and she can definitely tell when Jo's pretending not to be.

But she doesn't say anything.

She just sighs and pulls her glasses off, folds them, rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Aight," she says eventually. "If you say you're good..."

Jo nods, trying not to sniffle again. She pinches her nose a little, like that might help. She doesn't want Paige to worry. Doesn't want anyone to worry. Doesn't want to even acknowledge that she might feel worse than she did yesterday. Or that her throat hurts a little. Or that her skin feels hot and achy under her hoodie.

She turns toward the window like she’s looking out at something important, even though it’s just clouds and the faint reflection of her face in the glass. She closes her eyes.

Jo doesn’t make a big deal about the All-American stuff—hasn’t all week. Everyone else has. She got, like, a hundred texts. Her family posted about it on Facebook. ESPN highlighted that she was the only freshman on the list. It’s all a little surreal. First-team All-American. Her. It's not as if she didn't believe in herself, but it's a pretty cool achievement, to know that she performed well enough to be considered a top-five player in the country, that when she graduates as a senior, her name will forever be hung up in Gampel.

But now, on this plane, all she can think is: please don’t let it go to waste. Please don’t let this be the week her body decides to shut down.

She feels Paige shift beside her, settling back into her seat again, trying to go back to sleep.

Jo keeps her face toward the window, eyes still closed. She's got her hood up, her legs curled a little toward herself, and her arms folded over her chest like that can protect her from whatever’s creeping in.

She’ll sleep it off. She’ll chug water when they land. She’ll pop a Tylenol and pretend she feels like a million bucks.

She'll have to.

THE NEXT MORNING, Jo wakes up in the hotel bed in Seattle, twisted in a mess of white sheets and UConn-issued sweats, and immediately she knows.

She’s sick.

Not the “scratchy throat, drink some tea” kind of sick. Not the kind you can shake off with DayQuil and some extra sleep. No, this is full-body, all-consuming, “your immune system has betrayed you” sick. Her head is pounding—like pounding, like someone is physically inside her skull with a hammer. Her skin is both clammy and burning, and her whole body aches in a way that feels personal. Like her muscles are pissed at her. Like her bones are tired of the bullshit.

She doesn’t move at first. Doesn’t even try. She just blinks blearily up at the hotel ceiling, dry mouth hanging slightly open, nose completely clogged, chest tight, and thinks, No. No, no, no. Not now.

The blinds are drawn, but she can tell it’s morning—light’s leaking in around the edges. Across the room, Caroline is still passed out in the other bed, hoodie over her face, breathing slow and even. Jo bites the inside of her cheek and slowly peels the covers off of herself like they’re made of lead.

Everything hurts. Even her eyelids hurt.

She stands. Her knees buckle. She locks her jaw and pushes through it, arms wrapped tight around herself like that’ll keep her upright. Step by step, she makes her way to the bathroom, shutting the door as quietly as she can behind her.

And then she stares at herself in the mirror.

Fuck.

She looks bad. Like, actually bad. Skin pale except for the fever-flush blooming across her cheeks. Eyes glassy and rimmed with red. Hair sticking out at weird angles. Nose red and chapped from wiping it too much. Lips dry. She leans closer. Her pupils look weird. Like she hasn’t slept in days, even though technically she did sleep—it just wasn’t restful.

She looks like the physical embodiment of a “Do Not Let This Person Around Your Basketball Team” sign.

But the worst part is how she feels. And she doesn’t even need to take her temperature—she knows. She knows her body well enough to tell when it’s overheating from the inside out. Her joints feel hot and slow. Her back aches. Her throat is sore in that particular way that makes it hard to talk, let alone yell through a full-speed scrimmage.

She’s sick.

She is sick.

And it makes her feel like she might throw up—not from the actual illness, but from panic.

Her eyes sting suddenly. Shit. She blinks fast, trying to will the tears away, but it’s useless. They’re already welling up. It’s like this wave of pressure that crashes over her without warning: the schedule, the tournament, the travel, the stakes. The idea of things going off-track. The idea of being the reason they go off-track. Of letting the team down. Of letting Paige down. Of letting herself down.

Because Jo knows—knows—that she’s a vital piece. She’s not saying she’s the best player on the team or anything, but her role matters. Since post-season started, she's played the most minutes out of anyone. She's been locked in, everywhere, doing the dirty work and scoring. She an All-American, for Christ’s sake.

And now?

Now her legs feel like they might buckle again just from standing in front of a mirror.

She grips the edge of the sink and breathes, nose clogged, breath coming out rough through her mouth. Get it together. Get it together, Josephine.

No one can know.

She can’t let anyone know. If Coach even suspects she’s sick, there’s a chance they pull her back. Lighten her load. Sit her if it’s bad. And if she sits?

No. That can’t happen.

So she takes another shaky breath, straightens up, and studies her face again. “Okay,” she whispers to her reflection, her voice hoarse and strange. “This is okay. This is fine."

Because it has to be. She has to be. There is no other option.

Today’s a light practice—travel day work. Walkthroughs. Shooting. Lifting, maybe. She can fake her way through that. She can rally. It’s two days until the Sweet Sixteen. That’s forty-eight hours to pump herself full of cold meds, fluids, electrolytes, whatever it takes. She’ll nap every second they’re not doing team stuff. She’ll find some tea. She’ll pretend to be normal. She has to pretend to be normal.

She opens the bathroom cabinet and searches for anything useful. Finds a few tissues, a washcloth, and one of those weird hotel mini soaps. Great.

She splashes water on her face and pats it dry. Her skin is so hot it stings. Then she stares again.

She begins to rifle through her toiletries, searching for her makeup bag. She literally never wears makeup to practice—none of them do—but she needs to cover up some of the sick. Just a little bit. Just to look more alive.

She dabs some concealer under her eyes. Applies a tiny bit of color to her cheeks. Blends it with her fingers. She doesn’t even know what she’s doing, not really, but it’s better than the fever-flushed zombie face she woke up with. She swipes on some chapstick and takes a step back.

Still rough. But maybe not contagion movie rough.

It’ll have to do.

Her knees feel like they’re on fire. Her sinuses are pounding. Her arms ache just from moving. But she zips up her hoodieand checks the time on her phone. She’s still got twenty minutes before the team meets downstairs for breakfast. Caroline’s still asleep.

Jo lays back down on top of the covers, closes her eyes, and whispers to no one, “You’re fine. You’re good.”

She repeats it over and over, hoping that manifestation actually works.

Because maybe, if she says it enough, it’ll be true.

PAIGE COMES INTO PRACTICE a little later than usual, her gait even, careful but confident. She's walking alongside Ice, both of them still slightly flushed from their earlier rehab session, which they'd squeezed in during warmups and shooting drills. It's one of the downsides of tournament travel—the schedule's tight, the windows for recovery even tighter—but today, Paige feels good. Like, actually good. Better than she's felt in a while. Her knee feels strong. Responsive. Trustworthy. Her ACL isn't screaming at her with every movement, and her mind isn't shadowed by that familiar static of caution and fear.

She feels lighter.

And because of that, she's grinning when she walks into the gym, catching the tail end of Geno's barked "Water!" call.

They've just wrapped a fast-paced transition drill, and Paige notices Jo immediately—bent slightly, hands on her hips, chest heaving in and out like she's trying to play it cool but also sort of dying, standing next to Nika at the far sideline. The second Nika sees Paige approaching, she perks up and lifts her water bottle in a toast-like motion.

"How's the knee?" she asks, grinning wide, already reading Paige's body language.

"Good," Paige says, a little breathless, a little giddy. She's genuinely happy—maybe even a little proud. The kind of good that feels hard-earned, the kind that feels like a win even before a game starts.

Nika claps her solidly on the back, the friendly kind that rocks her forward half a step. Then, CD's voice echoes from the far corner, calling Nika's name, and Nika groans like she's being sent to the gallows. "This better not be about my turnovers," she mutters as she jogs off, water bottle swinging by her side.

And then it's just Paige and Jo.

Paige turns toward her automatically, still riding that warm post-rehab high, still smiling. Jo's holding her water bottle with both hands, kind of fidgeting with the cap, and when she notices Paige looking, she clears her throat. It sounds... not great. A little gunky. And when she speaks, it's quiet. A little too quiet.

"Hey," Jo says.

Paige brightens even more. "Hey, JoJo," she says teasingly, bumping their elbows together as she comes to stand next to her. She doesn't miss the way Jo flinches—barely—but it's enough to notice. Enough to pull her smile back a notch.

Jo gives her a smile in return, but it's off. Like it hurts to smile. She takes another long chug from her water bottle and Paige tilts her head, studying the brunette more closely.

"Why're you wearing makeup?" Paige blurts, eyes narrowing as she squints at Jo's face.

Immediately, Jo stiffens. "I'm not."

Paige lets out a short laugh, incredulous. "Babe, I can see you sweating it off."

And she can. There's definitely something on Jo's skin—concealer, probably. Light foundation. The faintest smear of blush that's traveled down her cheek now that she's worked up a sweat. Not a lot, but enough for it to be odd. Jo never wears makeup to practice. Literally ever.

"It's—nothing," Jo says, voice clipped. "It doesn't matter."

And the tone is so not her. Not Jo. Not the Jo who Paige knows like the back of her hand. Not the Jo who usually meets her with soft smiles, or playful jabs, or eyes that shine when they land on her. This Jo sounds defensive. Weirdly guarded. Like Paige has caught her doing something she wasn't supposed to do.

Paige blinks at her. "Jo—"

But before she can even start to press, Coach is blowing his whistle and clapping his hands. "Let's move! Half-court sets!"

The entire team jolts into motion around them, the moment pulled out from under them like a rug. Jo's already walking away, jogging toward the group with her head down, and Paige has no choice but to go to her normal sideline spot.

But her mind doesn’t let go of it. Not even a little.

Something’s wrong.

She knows it the way she knows her own pulse. The way Jo had looked at her just now—like she was barely holding it together. The way she was sweating more than usual. The flushed cheeks that didn’t look like exertion but something else. The weird edge in her voice. The defensiveness. The fact that she put on makeup to go to practice. It's not like that's a bad thing, but it's not a Jo thing.

Once the scrimmage starts, Paige's eyes stay locked on Jo. She stands on the sideline, a practice pinny draped over her shoulder, technically supposed to be "watching and learning," as Coach put it, but in reality, she's doing one thing and one thing only: tracking Jo.

Jo, who's in the game, repping the navy squad, already drenched after like... two minutes. Paige notices it right away—how her shoulders are rounded in a way they usually aren't, how her movements are slightly off-tempo, like her brain is telling her legs to go but her body just can't quite match the urgency. It's subtle, maybe something no one else on the court would catch, but Paige does.

Because she knows her. Every rhythm, every read, every gear shift Jo usually has. And right now, it's like she's missing a gear entirely.

She's dragging.

Not dramatically, not so much that Geno stops everything immediately, but it's there. It builds over a few possessions—just enough time for Paige to build her case like she's solving a mystery she already knows the answer to. She watches Jo get caught on a simple off-ball screen that she normally would've slipped through with ease. Watches her jog back on defense a step slower than she should. Watches her take a corner three and miss everything—everything—and then immediately turn to run it off like it didn't just happen.

Her face is flushed, shiny and red in a way that doesn't come from effort, but from overheating. Her chest is rising and falling way too fast. Her hands are bunching her shorts in between plays. Her mouth is open constantly, trying to gulp air. There's a sheen of sweat clinging to her hairline that's way too thick for this early in practice.

Paige knows exactly what this is.

She was sick just last week. The flu—fever, chills, dizziness, all of it. Jo had been the one constantly nagging her to take her meds, to sleep, to drink water, to rest. And Paige had kept her at arm's length the whole time, refusing to let her so much as sit next to her on the couch. She'd made them sleep in separate beds for the first time in months—which, admittedly, had been torture—and she'd hated it, but she'd done it to keep Jo from catching the flu.

Clearly, that didn't work.

Because Jo was sniffling the entire flight yesterday, and now she's out here trying to scrimmage like she doesn't look like she's about to drop.

And Paige is pissed.

Not because Jo's sick—okay, maybe a little because Jo's sick—but mostly because she's pretending she's not. Because she clearly thought she could push through. Because she didn't say anything and now she's turning the ball over and slipping on screens and dragging herself up and down the court, and Paige can feel the anxiety crawling up her spine.

Jo turns the ball over—just loses it straight into Nika's hands, honestly—and Geno's whistle cuts through the gym like a gunshot.

He calls Jo out, puts Ines in her place. Paige watches as Jo jogs up to Coach, forehead shiny, cheeks splotchy with heat.

"What's wrong?" she asks, breathless.

"What's wrong with you?" Geno fires back immediately.

Jo's shoulders straighten like she's been accused of something. "Nothing. I'm fine."

Bull. Shit.

Paige can see just how not fine she is.

Geno stares at her, then sighs sharply through his nose. "Go have Janelle take your temperature. If you don't have a fever, you can stay. If you do," he says, voice low and dangerous, "go get some sleep. Don't come to my practices sick and risk giving it to the rest of us."

Jo just nods. She doesn't argue, which might be the biggest tell of all. If she were even close to okay, she would have fought to stay, to help the team. But she doesn't. She just exhales like the fight has left her completely and walks off the court toward the trainer.

Paige follows without thinking, practically jogging after her, catching up before Jo even makes it to Janelle.

"Why're you here?" she asks, voice low but tight with concern.

Jo doesn't stop walking. "I needed to be."

"Jo—" Paige starts, but she doesn't get to finish.

Janelle is already motioning for Jo to sit down and grabbing the thermometer from her kit. Jo does, hunching over with her forearms resting on her knees, sweat dripping down the side of her neck. Paige stands nearby, arms crossed, jaw clenched. Watching. Waiting.

The beep is loud.

"102.1," Janelle says simply.

Paige sucks in a breath. She knew it, but hearing the number out loud solidifies it.

Janelle doesn't say anything else. She just tilts her head toward the door and says, "Let's go."

Jo nods, defeated. She stands, shoulders slumped, moving slow like her bones hurt.

Paige watches her walk out of the gym, wanting to go after her. She wants to grab Jo's bag and walk her back to the hotel and sit on the bathroom floor with her while she pukes if she has to. She wants to be the one pulling her hair back, making her tea, holding her while she shivers. That's what she's supposed to do. That's what she wants to do.

But Geno didn't give her permission to leave. And she's not technically benched. She's not technically anything, which means she can't just dip.

So, she turns back toward the coaches, heart still somewhere near her feet, brain completely unfocused. The scrimmage is setting. CD is going over matchups again. None of it matters. All Paige can see is Jo's sweaty, flushed face and the way she liked and said she was fine.

CD glances at Paige after a minute. She frowns. "Go be with her."

Paige blinks. "What?"

"You heard me," CD replies. "Go be with Jo. It's not like she can get you sick."

Paige hesitates, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. "Why wouldn't she be able to?"

CD deadpans, "Because you got her sick."

Paige's eyes widen a little too fast. Her heart jumps to her throat. Just because Aubrey, Nika, and Azzi know about them does not mean that the coaches—especially CD—should.

"Why—why would you think I'm the one who got her sick?" Paige stutters far too quickly.

CD gives her a look that suggests she thinks Paige is stupid. "Because you live together?"

That tracks. Makes sense. Normal logic. Paige nods, relieved. At least CD isn't speculating further.

"Go," the older woman says, shooing her off with a flick of her wrist.

Paige doesn't waste another second. She grabs her bag and jogs toward the exit, barely registering the sound of sneakers squeaking behind her, her focus already ahead—already locked on Jo. On taking care of her. On being there for her.

Paige catches up to her quickly. She doesn't say much, just wordlessly takes Jo's bag from her. They don't talk as they ride the elevator up to the hotel floor the whole team is staying on, don't talk as Jo quietly unlocks the door to her room and steps inside. Paige follows, dropping her and Jo's bags onto the ground with a dull thud. It's not even noon, but the room already feels dim and still, the curtains drawn halfway and both Jo's and Caroline's beds still rumpled.

Jo sighs and stands there for a second, looking from her bed to the bathroom like she's trying to decide which one to collapse into first. "I need a shower," she finally mutters, her voice hoarse and scratchy.

Paige watches her, watches the way she doesn't move right away, like the thought of lifting one more limb is just too much. "Gotta take a cold one, though," Paige says gently, stepping closer and curling a hand around Jo's elbow. Her skin is hot, burning. She's been fighting this off since the plane ride and probably even before that, and now it's just caught up to her in full.

Jo groans softly, leaning into the touch like she's too tired to pretend anymore. "I hate cold showers."

"I know," Paige murmurs, brushing a stray hair out of Jo's face. "Me too."

Jo starts toward the bathroom slowly, tugging her practice tee over her head and letting it fall to the floor. Her sports bra comes next, slow and clumsy, like she can barely life her arms without it hurting. Paige watches, her throat tight, not even trying to hide the way her eyes linger. Jo's always been pretty. It's kind of ridiculous, how even now—sweaty and sick and clearly miserable—she still looks like the most beautiful person Paige has ever seen.

Jo turns halfway, pausing in the bathroom doorway, and asks, "Can you just—can you be with me?"

She's not talking about sex. Paige knows that instantly, knows it from the way her voice cracks around the edges, the way her arms wrap protectively around her own ribs like she's trying to hold herself together. It's not about being naked. It's about not being alone.

Paige nods without hesitation. " 'Course," she says, already tugging her own shirt off as she follows Jo into the bathroom.

It's a nice hotel bathroom—marble tiles wide mirror, glass shower—but right now, none of that matters. Paige turns the water on cold, wincing a little as the stream splashes over her fingers. Jo gives her a betrayed look.

"You sure we can't do, like... lukewarm?" she jokes weakly.

"Nope," Paige says, stepping in first and reaching out a hand. "C'mon, let's get your fever down and get this over with."

Jo groans again but takes her hand, letting Paige pull her in. The second the water hits her back, she flinches, shivering hard. Paige wraps both arms around her and pulls her close, bare skin against burning skin, heart pressing into heart.

"You got me sick," Jo mumbles into Paige's shoulder, her voice muffled and tired.

"I know," Paige says quietly, kissing the top of her head. "I'm sorry, baby."

And she is sorry. More sorry than Jo probably knows. She'd been careful—or at least, she thought she had. Last week, when Paige had the flu, they'd slept in separate beds. Paige had avoided kisses, had kept her distance, had even worn a damn mask a couple times around the apartment. It had sucked. Not being able to touch Jo had felt like a punishment, like she was grounded from the one person who made her feel human during a shitty stretch of recovery. But she'd done it because she had to—because she couldn't risk getting Jo sick.

And it still hadn't been enough.

Paige tightens her grip, hand smoothing slow circles along Jo's spine. "I really didn't mean to," she adds. "I tried not to."

"I know," Jo mumbles, curling into her closer.

After a few more minutes, Paige turns off the water and reaches for the two towels she set on the counter. She wraps one around Jo and then one around herself.

"Let's go to bed," Paige murmurs, guiding Jo out of the shower. Jo doesn't argue, just lets Paige grab clothes from her suitcase, essentially dressing them both. She's half asleep by the time Paige gets her settled under the blankets, her damp hair sticking to her cheek.

Paige pulls the comforter up to Jo's chin and smooths it down, brushing a hand over her forehead. Still too hot.

Jo watches her. "You gonna stay?"

Paige climbs in beside her without a word, wrapping an arm gently around her waist. "Nowhere I'd rather be."

Jo hums. "Good."

And Paige just stares. The kind where her whole face softens, where her heart aches a little from how much she feels—like it's pressing hard against her ribs, too big for her chest. It's been like that a lot lately, with Jo. She watches the way the younger girl's lasher flicker, heavy with exhaustion but still holding her gaze. The way her lips part just slightly, pink and chapped. Paige's hand moves before she even realizes it, tracing gently along Jo's cheekbone, brushing under her eye, following the curve of her face like it's the only map she trusts.

She leans in a little and nudges Jo's nose with her own, soft and slow, and Jo lets out a quiet exhale. Like she's trying not to cry. Like she doesn't want to admit how shitty she feels—physically, mentally, all of it.

"You shoulda said something," Paige murmurs, barely above a whisper. "You didn't have to go to practice today."

Jo looks away for a second, eyes fluttering closed like the weight of Paige's words is just too much.

"I know," she breathes out. Her voice is small. Raw. "I just—" She swallows, opens her eyes again. "I'm afraid admitting I'm sick might mean I'm not a hundred percent this weekend and... I don't know. I might be the reason we lose."

It's said like a confession. Like something she's been holding in all day, chewing over in her head during every sluggish drill, every mistimed screen, every deep breath she struggled to catch. And now it's out, just sitting there between them, making Paige's heart squeeze with a new kind of ache.

Jo adds, even quieter, "I just don't wanna let anyone down."

Paige breathes in slow. She doesn't rush to answer, doesn't brush it off with a joke or tell her she's being dramatic. That's not what Jo needs.

She just keeps touching her. Thumb brushing along her face, hand sliding gently down to her jaw. She watches the flicker of worry in Jo's eyes and wants to wrap her up in something warmer than a blanket. Something safer.

"Joey," she says, soft and steady, "you aren't letting anyone down."

Jo doesn't react right away, so Paige says it again. Firm this time. Like she needs Jo to hear her.

"It's not your fault."

Jo's lips twitch like she wants to believe her but can't quite get there.

Paige keeps going. "But your body wasn't up for that today. And trying to push through it—it could've made things worse. Like, really worse. You just need rest right now, if you wanna be good for Saturday."

When Jo still doesn't answer, just scoots a little closer to Paige, the blonde adds quietly, "I mean it. You've already done enough. You don't have to prove anything to anybody."

There's a pause. Then, Jo finally speaks, voice rough with sick but honest. "I didn't wanna be the weak link."

Paige blinks. "You're not," she says immediately. "Jesus, Jo—you're never the weak link."

Jo looks at her. Really looks at her. Eyes glossy and red-rimmed and full of something unspoken.

Paige leans in again, their foreheads touching now. "You've been carrying this team all year. You've been one of our constants through all the shit. No one's blaming you for getting sick. It's okay to miss a practice or two. It's how you're gon' get better for the game, 'kay?"

Jo exhales. "I just don't wanna miss anything," she says. "I don't wanna sit out and watch, even if it is just practice and I am okay by Saturday."

Paige feels that deep in her stomach. Like a mirror. Like someone's playing her own old fears back to her in a voice that isn't hers.

"You won't," she asys, brushing a kiss to Jo's cheek. "You're not missing anything. You're resting. That's different. Swear."

"Okay," Jo murmurs, burrowing her face into Paige's neck. She's still burning, but Paige pulls her closer anyways, grips her tighter. All she needs is rest—and then she'll be fine.

JO'S ALWAYS BEEN ANXIOUS. Always.

She's come to accept it, mostly. She used to think nerves meant she wasn't ready. That something was wrong with her. But now, she knows they just mean she cares. It's not like the nerves go away, but they've started to feel less like panic and more like fuel. She can recognize them now, like an old opponent she's played enough times to scout. Her chest goes tight, her hands feel jittery, and her thoughts race faster than the warmup drills. But she knows how to breathe through it. She knows where to look—who to look at.

Paige, there on the bench. Steady. Secure. Safe.

The nerves are still here, but they're quiet now. Manageable. Even better than they were during the Sweet Sixteen.

God, the Sweet Sixteen.

She's still thinking about it. It's been two days and she still hasn't fully shaken it from her system.

She hadn't felt ready. Not really. Her fever had broken, but she still had that lingering fog in her head, the kind that made her feel like her body was reacting half a beat too late. She couldn't get loose in warmups, and her shot had felt like it had a weird hitch in it, and by the end of the first quarter, her lungs were already fighting for air.

But she played. Not well. Not terribly, either—but not like herself. She got pulled early. Minutes restriction, Janelle said. Health precautions. Geno didn't want her body crashing mid-game. It made sense, but it sucked to watch from the bench while Ohio State clawed and scrapped and made everything a mess.

They were extremely physical. Every possession felt like a wrestling match. Nika got elbowed in the gut. Lou got double-teamed so hard she hit the floor twice in five minutes. Azzi couldn't get a clean look for almost the entire second half. Aaliyah picked up her third foul midway through the second quarter and Jo felt like she might actually puke.

It went to overtime. In the Sweet Sixteen. UConn hadn't had that close of a game in the tournament this early in years.

But during overtime, Jo was more in her groove and Lili somehow avoided fouling out. The second the ball was back in play, things seemed to click. They went back to the basics. Two-person actions. Defensive rotations. Get stops, push the tempo, make shots.

Jo hit a pull-up three. Aaliyah got a block and a putback. The momentum shifted.

It wasn't pretty, but it was gritty. And it got them here, to the Elite Eight. One game away from the Final Four.

That's what today is.

Jo's fully healthy now, finally, and finding her spot for tip. She feels the nerves crawling up her spine again, but she breathes in deep. She stares at her shoes. She thinks about how far they've come.

No one is really expecting them to lose. But Virginia Tech is good. Really good.

Liz Kitley and Georgia Amoore. That's their one-two punch. One inside, one out. Veteran, experienced, efficient. It'll be tough. Jo know that.

The tip goes up. Aaliyah wins it.

Jo takes the first possession slowly, reading. Letting the game show itself. Nika brings it down, swings it to Azzi, then back to Jo. Amoore is right on her hip. Not overly physical, just smart. She studies the way Jo moves. Tries to guess her next step.

Jo gives her a hesitation dribble, then steps into a middy. It sinks, easy. That spot has improved a lot for her this season; Paige helped.

They run back on defense. Georgia gets a clean look on a flare screen and drills a three.

That's how most of the game goes. But, by the time the buzzer sounds, UConn has come out with the win.

Jo doesn't cheer at first. She just drops her head, hands on her knees, tired but satisfied. She had thirty-two. She played her heart and soul out. And now they're going back to the Final Four. Back where they're supposed to be. Where UConn always is.

Dorka crashes into her, and suddenly she's being yanked upright, being hugged and grabbed and jostled by her teammates. Amari's screaming something in her ear, Nika is squeezing the life out of her, Azzi's smiling so hard her dimples have popped.

Jo just laughs, shaky and breathless, and lets herself get pulled into the celebration. They go through the handshake line before hats and shirts begin to get tossed around. Someone throws her the regional champions tee and she doesn't even look at it before tugging it over her jersey. The trophy appears, and Jo is named the regional MVP, and there's cameras everywhere. She's not even sure where to look.

Not until Paige is in front of her.

Jo doesn't even hesitate—she just pulls her in, arms tight around Paige's waist. Paige hugs her back just as tight, and it takes everything in Jo not to close her eyes and just melt into her. It's longer than the other hugs she's shared. A little quieter. A little softer. Jo feels Paige's chin rest on her shoulder for a second longer than normal.

Jo swallows hard. Her chest is full. So full it hurts.

Because Paige hasn't played a single minute this season. She hasn't touched the floor. But she's been here every day. Every film session, every lift, every practice, even when it probably made her want to scream. And Jo—Jo knows for a fact that she wouldn't have made it through the last few months without her. Wouldn't have made it through today.

She pulls back just barely, enough to murmur. "Couldn't have done it without you."

Paige smiles, soft and gummy, and just says, "I know."

After the confetti settles and the trophy’s been passed around and Jo’s done her on-court interview with Holly Rowe (which she thinks she blacked out for), everything gets blurry. There are cameras and noise and people yelling her name and someone giving her water and someone else grabbing her arm like press is in ten, but Jo barely hears it.

She’s spinning.

She finds Paige again, pretty quickly.

It’s quiet in the hallway outside the media room, away from all the celebration and bright lights. They’re just standing there, leaning against the wall, talking low like it’s any normal day. Paige has her warm-up jacket off and slung over her arm. Jo’s shirt is soaked through, her ponytail’s half-falling out, and her body’s screaming for a shower and an ice bath, but she doesn’t move.

She’s playing with the chain around Paige’s neck—thin and silver, worn and familiar. The necklace. Her necklace. Her fingers trace the edges absently, not even thinking about it. Paige watches her, quiet.

Then she says, “Here,” and slips it off.

Jo frowns as Paige reaches forward and carefully fastens it around her neck. “What’re you doing?”

“Probably need it for press,” Paige says, voice teasing but eyes soft.

Jo groans. “I hate press.”

“I know.” Paige grins. “But you’re Region MVP now. You gotta go smile and answer questions like a real grown-up.”

Jo scrunches her nose and mumbles, “Can you just do it for me?”

“Nope,” Paige says, popping the p at the end. Her smile widens and she leans in, pressing a quick kiss to Jo's forehead.

Jo almost forgets to breathe.

And then—

“Uh… Jo?” a voice calls, awkward but familiar.

Jo flinches slightly and glances over her shoulder to see Celeste, who's coming around the corner with her phone and the mini mic she’s been using all season for her little TikTok interviews.

Celeste’s gaze diverts slightly when she notices Paige standing so close. “Sorry—uh—can I interview you real quick?”

Jo gives Paige a very obvious wide-eyed help me look. Paige mimics it. Jo has no idea what to expect from the redhead after what happened a couple weeks ago. She knows she's not exactly Celeste's biggest fan—Paige gave her the rundown on the crash-out that ensued following the locker room interruption.

“Good luck,” Paige murmurs under her breath as Jo sighs and steps toward Celeste.

Turns out, she didn't really need any. Because, surprisingly, Celeste is very nice and professional. The interview is short and sweet and Celeste smiles the whole time, watching Jo answer her questions like she genuinely wants to know the answers. Maybe Jo was wrong for expecting something more. Maybe the whole thing with Celeste was blown out of proportion.

When the interview is done, Celeste puts a gentle hand on her arm and gives her a genuine smile. She's either a very good actress or this is real. Jo, being Jo, obviously assumes the latter because she doesn't really know how to not give people the benefit of the doubt.

"You played really well today, Jo," Celeste tells her warmly. She sighs before adding, "I'm sorry about all the recent drama. It's stupid."

"Thanks," Jo says, smiling a little, before all of a sudden, a media handler appears out of nowhere. He ushers her, guiding her down the hallway for the formal post-game press conference. As she goes, Jo tosses Paige a little glance. Her eyes flash, saying don't disappear. Paige gives a tiny salute. Jo fights the urge to grin wider.

She's on a high.

Too bad she can only go down from here.

[leashybebes]

several sentences smonday

tagged by @ambernotember, @rcmclachlan and @liminalmemories21 - thanks, gang. made some decent progress on allying yesterday so here's a little more of buck being the one going through it while tommy's happily oblivious (we love a role reversal!) special guest star: the author's barely disguised longing for thai food

"Hey," Tommy says. "This place looks great. You know I'd have been happy with the usual street meat, right? What's the occasion?"

There's an opening right there, but Buck hears himself say, "N-no occasion. Just heard Hen talking about it and I thought it sounded cool."

"Awesome. Did she have any recommendations?"

"The kang pah with catfish is supposed to be really good."

"Cool. I would fight god for even a mediocre massaman curry, honestly, so we should get something with a little spice too," Tommy says. "We can share?"

Buck files that away for future reference. He doesn't know if massaman curry is in Bobby's repertoire, but maybe he can figure it out himself. God, he wants to kick himself, thinking back on the way he had Bobby help him cook up a feast for Tommy when he got hurt, so eager to deliver it and share it with Tommy and - how didn't he know, he wonders, for approximately the seventy five thousandth time.

Tommy's leaning forward a little so they can look at the same menu, the low light making him look just - breathtaking. Like, Buck literally cannot get a proper breath and he wipes his hands on his slacks under the table, agrees to Tommy's appetizer choices without really hearing them because he's so fixated on Tommy's hand as he points out options, his short, neat fingernails, the hangnail at the base of his index finger.

Tommy has such good hands - they're capable and sturdy and strong and flecked with scars and freckles from work and time outside, and his fingers are big and blunt and - Buck wants to hold his hand so badly it's making him crazy. He can almost see it - the way their fingers would look intertwined, the way Tommy's knuckles would flex when he squeezed.

He could reach out, take Tommy's hand. That would - that would make it clear, right? If he reached out and slotted his fingers through Tommy's, that would say it for him. But it won't, will it? If he reaches out and takes Tommy's hand he'll probably just get a weird look in response. God, they blurred those lines so comprehensively that Buck isn't sure if there's any way back. The idea makes him feel miserable, and he only startles out of it when the server comes to take their order.

Tommy rattles off the appetizers and entrees Buck apparently agreed to while deep in the fog of the most PG fantasy he's had in years. Tommy launches into a story about his latest shift and Buck nods, makes affirmative noises in the right places, takes slow sips of his water, tries to calm the fuck down. How can it possibly be so much easier to fuck Tommy, to get fucked by Tommy than to have a conversation with him about what he wants?

"So uh - h-how was your date?" Buck asks. He kind of desperately does not want to know, but he guesses if Tommy met the love of his life last night he should probably know about it.

"Yeah, it was nice," Tommy says with a shrug, and something in Buck settles. Nice doesn't scream 'whirlwind romance of the century, eloping to Vegas next weekend'.

"You gonna see him again?"

"Well. Not for a date," Tommy says with a smirk, and Buck abruptly feels like his insides are on fire.

no pressure whatever day it is tags for @trombonechurchill, @setmeatopthepyre and @bidisasterevankinard

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Platonic Yandere Jason w/ Batsis darling

A/N: This is supposed to be post death and all that.. Like he's just trying to integrate back into his family and society but it's been hell. His batsis is the one thing that is actually helping him through it thus becoming over attached. He's obsessed with being normal again..for you. (Any Jason Todd)

Warnings: Rather soft yandere actually. but i guess obsession and possessive tendencies.

Requests: always open. please read pinned post which is the masterlist

Masterlist

Yandere Jason Todd who finds an immeasurable amount of comfort and stability in his Batsis. He doesn't particularly understands or even knows why he does but he does.

He still feels awkward and out of place with the rest of batfam. He feels anxious, judged and annoyed around them. It overwhelms him and stresses him to the point of mental breaks. But you ground him. You don't make sudden movements or loud sounds. You don't ask invasive questions or bring up past memories. You're gentle and mindful of him.

The others try bonding but they never fail to eventually overstep boundaries and cause more wounds. He's appreciative of you.

Yandere Jason who cannot help but get possessive over you. He hates when his other siblings command your attention over his. It boils him. I like to think he's constantly comparing himself to them. How normal and fun they are in contrast. He wants to be just like them and do fun things again...but he just cant...not yet. He especially despises Dick and just how pretty and perfect his older brother is. This often causes fights between the two. You and him have tons of inside jokes, secret handshakes and hangouts often. Jay wants that too.

Jason is fearful of going in public with you. He's been craving that local diner spot and love to treat you as a thank you but he doesn't want the stares. He's riddled with scars and looms over everything. He really don’t want his sis to be ridiculed and questioned on his behalf.

Jay tries his best to keep you locked in the house with him. He tries pulling you away from them as much as possible but he feels guilty. This is a miserable life and he doesn't want that was misery on you too, but he just cannot bear you being with them instead. Sometimes he'll offer to sneak out late at night and hang on rooftops with you, but he knows it's nothing compared to the arcades and parties you're missing out on.

He does try very hard to come out of his shell on your birthdays or times like Christmas ect.. He wants to be a good brother and give back how kind you've been towards him. Whatever will make you happy, he'll power through it.

Yandere Redhood who goes after the people that make you cry or feel unsafe. He knows what he promised Bruce but it's to keep is sibling safe. Bruce would understand if he went through even half of the traumatic experiences he did. You have to cut off potential threats at the roots. That's how you prevent lunatics like the joker and to keep souls like you pure.

Yandere Jason Todd who is adorably obsessed with your room. He hasn't done much decorating to his. It's boring and bland, he doesn't remember much of what he liked as a kid before everything happened. But yours is covered in personality. Books, figures, plushies and tons of posters...it's cute. He likes it a lot. Sometimes he just sits in there, even when you're not home because it makes him feel nostalgic? In a good way, it gives him a warm glimpse into what his life could've been as a teen/young adult. Plus it's filled with all the things you love which by default he loves it too. I like to think he steals trinkets from your room that you love the most when he's anxious.

Like you've come home before to him in the corner of his room with one of your big plushies in his arms during an episode. It smells like you it grounds him back into reality. Whatever he's seeing in his head isn't real, but you are. You signify safety.

Yandere Jason who mimics anything you do to learn how to act normal. He doesn't mean to but he spends so much time either with you or lurking near by. Your food options are a major thing is copies. He's often overwhelmed by the many choices in store so when he's hungry, he'll just pick up anything he's remembered you eating. Even if he didn’t like it much.

He doesn't realizes these habits are a bit strange. enviably, one of the other siblings poke fun at him for how his face scrunches up at the taste of your favorite snack. They laughed how he should just get things he likes instead of trying to copy you all the time. They weren't trying to be cruel, just playing like siblings do but it made his world crumble. Was that really strange? Jason didn't mean to make you feel weird. Did you feel weirded out by it, have you been telling the other siblings how bothered you were by his antics?

"Jason, its okay. It's seriously not a big deal, it's slightly odd but i don't mind." You tried reassuring him but it just confirmed his thoughts.

You did think it was weird. That he was weird. You laugh about him behind his back all the time, don’t you?

He knows he's a bit off the drum. He knows he's an embarrassment but a deluded part of him thought maybe the difference wasn't as big as he made it out to be. It was just paranoia. guess..not. He's shattered. His one safe space wasn't real. He wasn’t good enough like the others….yet.

Yandere Jason has to become like a normal brother for you. He needs to be like Dick and Tim. He needs you to think he's cool and fun to be around. He needs to be a good brother...one you're not weirded out by.

[attaiii]

HEAR ME OUT, HEAR ME OUT, I HAVE A SOUKOKU/CHUUYA HEADCANON.

Chuuya has stressed induced mutism. BUT BUT, not in the way you think. With missions, interrogations, the Mafia life, he can manage stress very well. Rarely gets stressed, actually. He's a leader at heart and he knows how to compartmentalize better than most people.

But what can get him silent is emotional stress. Like betrayal. Dazai remembers that when the Sheep betrayed Chuuya, Chuuya didn't speak a word for weeks. Gradually, his speech came back as he got more attached to Kouyou, Dazai, etc., but he goes silent when that kind of stress hits him.

And when Dazai left the Port Mafia and blew up his car, in the first year that Dazai was gone, Chuuya did not speak a fucking word. Barely a sound from him.

He was interrogated and questioned on where his partner went but couldn't answer any of them. Again, slowly, his speech did return but it got so bad, newe members just thought Chuuya was mute.

oh my god this is my new favorite headcannon and I cannot even begin to imagine how miserable he must've been after everything that happened in stormbringer 😭 like what if it took him MONTHS to get a word out again? and he had to learn to communicate other ways to still be able to get his work done? which probably feels so humiliating for someone as prideful and independent as him and makes him feel even more trapped in his own skin. he's such a loud and expressive person so having the ability to express himself (in the traditional sense) taken from him is probably so suffocating and AGGGHHH THIS IS SUCH A GOOD HEADCANNON

[sightseertrespasser]

"I have a whole other tangent I could elaborate on about Tacnet specifically" Staring at you with big HUGE eyes. I would love to hear the tangent

Alrighty then.

First things first, what is Tacnet?

Sometimes also referred to as a Battle computer, Tacnet is short for Tactical Network and its ostensibly the worlds most demented excel spreadsheet.

In more literal terms, Tacnet is a type of supercomputer.

Supercomputers are incredibly useful pieces of technology. Able to run simulations, predictive algorithms and utilizing real world statistics to essentially speculate the past, present or future. The bottleneck for a regular old supercomputer is that someone has to sit down and manually input all the information necessary for those calculations.

You want to know what kind of gun made that specific bullet hole?

Well first the supercomputer needs the ballistics data off as many kinds of guns as possible, then it needs data on the material that was shot, and it also needs as much information as possible on the bullet hole in question.

You skip out on any of that input and the odds of the supercomputer being correct gets progressively lower.

Problem is, the supercomputer can’t actually think, and therefore can’t estimate how accurate its own calculations are. A computer works in total binary. If it only has the ballistic data for three kinds of guns, it doesn’t matter how much the bullet hole doesn’t match the data sets its been provided, the supercomputer will select whichever of the three matches the hole the most closely.

A computer, no matter how advanced, is incapable of knowing when it doesn’t know something.

But people on the other hand. . .

We turn now to an ambitious young R&D developer many millennia ago.

Once upon a time, this member of Research and Development was on the team responsible for designing new Cold Constructed mechs for Sentinel Prime. And they had a GREAT idea.

“I’ve got it!” They say, unaware of the ominous music rising in the background.

“The great powers of the supercomputer cannot be realized within its current limitations! Its greatest flaws are that it must be stationary, it must be manually fed information and all calculations it does generate must be reviewed by a thinking mech!”

Their coworkers groan. It’s too early in the morning for this shit.

“Therefore!” The mech says, quickly sketching out a box full of smaller boxes that is supposed to be a computer and the miserable approximation of a mech.

“We simply remove the separation, and make the mech itself the data intake for the supercomputer!”

Lightning crashes in the distance, someone tiredly gets the fire extinguisher. Again.

It’s not a hard sales pitch for a totalitarian government to go “Yeah we want super-cops. Here’s the money, make it happen.”

And in a tale as old as capitalism, an untested feature was rolled out with catastrophic consequences.

If you’ve read my tangent on how Crashes work, then you already know about logic cascades.

Tacnet is a supercomputer. A tool. Like any tool, it’s only as good as the person using it, and someone who really doesn’t know what they’re doing is liable to hurts themselves.

So what can Tacnet really do in the hands (or processor) of a master?

Some psychic-type level nonsense. Anyone who’s gotten the hang of their Tacnet, in their own fields of expertise, are able to know exactly what will happen before anyone else.

Let’s compare Smokescreen, Bluestreak and then Prowls Tacnets and how they’re used.

Every Tacnet starts the same, but can be developed and trained to excel at different things.

Smokescreen - Place Your Bets

Smokescreen has trained his to work best for gambling. “Training” can be anything from downloading tables of statistical analysis to personally observing the phenomenon and making notes.

Let’s look at rolling dice. If you rolled a six sided die, any number is equally likely to be rolled. Or 16.67 % odds for each.

So if 3 dice are rolled, then every total value outcome from 3 to 18 must be equal odds as well, right?

Nope! If three six sided dice are rolled, there is a 12.5 % (or 25% if you combine them) chance it’ll be a 10 or 11. And that’s out of sixteen possible outcomes.

So if you know the difference but your opposition doesn’t, then suddenly you have a huge advantage while betting. And this is just the most simplified example I can think of.

If you’ve got the time, statistics are absolutely wild and there’s a mathematical equation for pretty much anything.

All Smokescreen has to do to get good at a game is learn the rules and then plug in the numbers. You know how card counting will get you banned from most casinos? Well Smokescreens worked that out too. Talking to other players (collecting preexisting data points) he can find the average of how much he can win in a night before people get too pissy.

Another thing Smokescreen has going for him (especially over Prowl) is that Smokescreen is much better at reading people. He doesn’t just have statics on the games, but the players.

Mapping out the connections between individuals and taking personal motivations into account, Smokescreen at his peak can not only predict who the winners will be, but he can also predict who will loose on purpose, who will bet the most, who will cheat and who will seek to take their winnings by force.

Experience, experience, experience is the golden ticket.

Also, it’s Smokescreen himself who has to craft the profiles of his victims gambling buddies. Once fleshed out, Tacnet can do wonders mid game, giving Smokescreen room to focus on his social schemes instead.

Luckily, after the burning of Praxus, most people don’t really know what a Tacnet is truly capable of. So Smokescreen looses just often enough to keep folks from realizing that he always knows how every game will play out before they even start.

Bluestreak - Shoot Your Shot

Going in the opposite direction of utility, Bluestreaks Tacnet is all about kinetic calculations.

This fucker is doing the type of math that’s more letters than numbers. Constantly.

Air resistance, velocity, acceleration, gravity, weight, density, temperature, vector, displacement and time.

There’s equations that call for each and every one of those factors, usually in combination.

Your average sniper, even a good one, is usually considering wind speeds, the pull of gravity and the distance from the target when lining up a shot. Bluestreak is taking in all that and then working out the influences of about 15 more factors on top of that. Even before he’s picking where exactly on the target he’s going to hit. Since remember, if he’s got data on not just his own weapons but his enemies defenses, then it really becomes as simple as “would you like them disabled or dead?”

Aim is no longer a question of ability, but an equation to be solved.

Still, physical capabilities does play a part since a steady hand goes a long way towards realizing those calculations.

Tacnet may crunch the numbers, but Bluestreak is the one who has to find all the details relevant to the shot and pick which ones to feed to the machine.

Additionally, Bluestreaks Tacnet in particular has the experimental feature of massively increasing the amount of sensory data he can take in per second, effectively causing him to perceive things in slow motion. This is less something Tacnet is doing, and more a case of Bluestreaks own processor utilizing the bandwidth normally taken up by Tacnet.

Tacnet itself takes a substantial amount of power to run. Normally, it causes problems by siphoning too much power from other systems to do its job (see logic cascade crashes). But Bluestreak has the funny little quirk of somehow doing that in reverse. So when his sense of time dilation becomes maxed out, Tacnet isn’t running the formulas to help him shoot anymore, it’s just Bluestreaks own skills at that point.

Outside of that rare circumstance, Bluestreak is effectively playing with aimbot in real life.

Prowl - Know Your Fate

So we’ve established that Tacnet is powered by mathematical formulas and data collection.

What would happen if someone just, kept going? Kept feeding it? Building up more and more infrastructure for Tacnet to grow around until it has a point of reference for almost anything?

You get an oracle.

Prowl puts the Tactical back into Tacnet. He’s essentially the Jack of all Trades and Master of several of those subjects actually.

Sure, Smokescreen has him beat for behavioral analysis, and Bluestreak is leagues beyond what Prowl can calculate for trajectories. But no one has doubled down on what Tacnet can really do like Prowl has.

You know that (not actually true) statistic about how humans only use 25% of their brains? That’s your average Tacnet user.

Prowl just happens to be insane.

He is constantly taking in new data. He is constantly taking notes, making observations, stripping it down to the raw numbers involved and packing it away into monumental resource centers for Tacnet to refer to.

You ever see someone who’s really good with excel sheets and then see them do some shit you didn’t know excel sheets could even do?

It’s kinda like that.

If you’ve ever read the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, a lot of what makes Sherlock so effective is having such a detailed knowledge of the world around him.

Let’s go back to the bullet hole analysis.

Prowl could look at the bullet hole and tell you after two minutes: “It was this specific Cargo vessel at this time with an illegal weapon.”

From the outside, this looks like a baseless guess. But to Prowl it looks like this:

a) The gun must be a new imported weapon as nothing he currently has on file matches the marking its made in that kind of material.

b) The shooter not only missed their shot, but was shooting downward at an excessive angle. Indicating this was a very large mech firing downward at a much smaller target, likely a mini bot.

c) The shooter can be exactly tracked by looking at the local registry for recent out bound flights, specifically ones with no cargo.

Why? Because the shooter is most likely a transport shuttle. Easy access to imported goods, very large but not a war frame (hence the missed shot) and having failed to kill their victim, would flee town immediately without waiting to take on cargo.

Of those two minutes it took, he spent 1:30 waiting for the flight records to load so he could look up the name of the shuttle.

Scale those skills up to a war room, and Prowl not only knows why an enemy troop is retreating, but where they’re retreating to, what losses they must have taken and whether or not it’ll be worth it to finish the job.

Prowl isn’t smart because he has a Tacnet. Tacnet is OP because Prowl is that smart.

When I write his perspective, Prowl often has an accuracy percentage attached to his calculations. Tacnet isn’t the thing making those estimates. Prowl is the one judging how accurate Tacnets suggestions are.

Dudes just a freak.

—————————

In summary, Tacnet is like if you had every kind of calculator in your pocket and the only limit was how many equations you’ve added on and the amount of information you can feed it.

That last bit is the biggest challenge for Tacnet, as conflicting or flawed data can cause. . . Issues. Aka Logic Cascades. Aka “Why can’t I make it make sense.” Disease.

Let’s just say there’s a reason not many people know what Tacnet is capable of, as a lot of early Praxian Enforcers could be taken out by confusing emotions, plot holes, and particularly well executed magic tricks.

Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when your new shiny police force can be hospitalized by watching Back to the Future 2.

Being one of the first Cold Constructs built with a Tacnet, Smokescreen figured out how to mostly get around that glitch early on and taught Prowl and Bluestreak how to do the same. In this particular setting, Tacnet is poorly understood and best kept mostly secret for those reasons.

(Bizarrely, between Tacnet and the radar uses of doorwings, Prowl and his brothers would actually be really good at predicting the weather.)

———————————————————————

Bonus bit: Good fucking lord it would absolutely terrifying if you could somehow combine Smokescreen, Prowl and Bluestreaks skills into like a Tacnet hivemind or something.

Though with wing speak, to an outsider that’s probably what it already looks like.

———

The three brothers look at the same bullet hole, silently communicating in a way the local non-Praxian officer couldn’t pick up on.

“Oh yeah, looks like Rotor didn’t like Brick cutting into his half of the dirty money. Slippery little guy but you can find both their hideouts here and here.” Smokescreen, the eldest, pulls up a map for reference.

Prowl is already out the door, Bluestreak is lining up a shot through the window.

“What is he. . ?” The other officer looks from Bluestreak. Then to Prowl, trailing off, “Where is the other one. . ?”

“Oh Prowls off to arrest the shooter.”

“But he’s a grounder, can’t Rotor fly?”

A shot rings out.

“Not anymore!”

[chsopnk]

「 ✦ DADDY’S HOME ✦ 」

☆. # SHIP — gojo satoru, nanami kento, toji fushiguro x gn!reader

☆. # AUTHOR’S NOTE — the guys as the father of ur kids.

☆. # WARNINGS — mentions of puke

GOJO .

i could see him as a boy or girl dad. or both

tries to give his daughter cute hairstyles and fails miserably. crooked pigtails where half of her hair is still hanging down is the best he can do. but hey, he tries

definitely hangs his kids upside down by their feet. probably shakes them too.

the kids are definitely small gojo’s. sorry not sorry

every single day is chaos.

when he goes out with the two on his own, he loses one of them about 80% of the time (he always finds them again, don’t worry 😭)

let’s them have snacks before dinner and tells them not to tell you. they always do.

despite all of that, he’s a fun father

gojo has a lot of energy so he runs around with them all day and plays with them <33

(then he complains about how tired he is when they’re in bed :/)

lots of fun trips. to the playground, amusement parks, places in japan, different countries. the beach.

if his kids have hobbies, he’s always ALWAYS!! the loudest and most embarrassing parent there. he says it builds character and he needs to support his babies ‼️‼️

NANAMI .

girl dad. twin girls.

he definitely does their hair!! and he’s good at it too <3 nanami has done their hair since they had hair.

he spoils them TO DEATH.

the girls only want to eat the food he cooks 😒 they say it tastes better

he dances with them in the living room when no one’s home. ugh he’s so CUTE 🥴🥴

nanami’s a very very loving father but he’s also strict when it comes to certain things

example a: the girls will never not do their homework. he makes sure of it 💯

just imagine nanami sitting at a table with his two little girls while explaining math to them 🥹 he’s so so gentle and understanding but he will not let them give up

imo he really loves it when they wear cute dresses and look all pretty. he’s a girlie girl dad.

he will play with them no matter what they want to do. play dress-up? he will wear the tutu. want to play house? of course he’ll be the baby. the girls wanna do his hair + make-up? he’ll be the test subject no problem ‼️

he’s also never ever going to miss any special day his girls have. their first day of school, bring your father to school day, their dance shows — whatever their hobbies are, he’ll be there to support them <33333

also: a REAL father. never had a problem with changing diapers or cleaning up baby puke.

TOJI .

not the best father, but he’s damn sure trying

the child was definitely unexpected and not exactly wanted but once he came to terms with it, he tries his best to be there as best as he can

he doesn’t have the money needed to take care of a child, neither do you (not really)

but whatever his kid wants, his kid gets.

mostly, that includes fast food and cheap toys from the dollar store

but hey!! the kid doesn’t care where the toys are from (/gen)

definitely the type of dad to get one of those leashes for kids. he’s not risking losing his kid somewhere 💀 and he knows damn well what kind of menace that child is

he can and will bribe his son with candy to get him to stop crying or throwing a tantrum

toji cannot deal with his kid screaming or crying. honestly mostly leaves you to deal with those situations because he’s unsure how to handle them

will change diapers but not without complaining and almost throwing up 💀 it’s not his fault !!! it stinks okay?!!

acts like he doesn’t care about the kid but then shows up after a mission with a bag of candy. or pulls out some toy the kid’s wanted

cannot, will not & should not help with homework.