#this is not a response written in anger or whatever else

[half-dead-writer]

Hello! Could you do a masc (gn is okay too!) reader with Boom Shadow where reader is a minimum wage worker (probably works at meh burger or some cheap store) and Shadow falls head over heels for him? Straight up love at first sight. Like it's completely one-sided and he's really embarassed about having a crush on some random guy (of all people lmao) but he tries his best to befriend him. It's based on a trope i have with my OC and i thought it'd be fun to see how someone else would interpret the dynamic! (If possible, maybe Shadow successfully asks him out on a date at the end?)

Author's Note

ty for that fun request!! :3 I had a masc reader in mind for this one but once again I couldn't fit the masc mention anywhere so it kinda turned out gender neutral lol idk if I made him too dramatic but I hope you enjoy it anyway! i don't really know how to call this format, it's like a fanfic but also loosely written, like in headcanon form oh well, whatever, it exists

Favorite Employee

Shadow keeps coming back to Meh Burger, but not because of the food.

character: Shadow The Hedgehog (Sonic Boom) words: 2,386 reader: gender-neutral (intended to be masc) warnings: none, I think?? slightly suggestive at the end but nothing bad

How did that happen?

Shadow would've never indulged in his craving for a burger if he knew what the day would bring.

But today, the ultimate life form entertained his stomach's demands, chaos controlling himself right in front of the cursed place.

He knew the citizens well, at least from afar. So the moment be laid your eyes on you he knew you were a new face. He hardly cared for newcomers, but something about you, your clothes, your attitude, seemed to draw him in.

Of course, he ignored the feeling at first, placing confident strides towards the counter.

His sharp voice cut through the silence. "One burger."

Whatever your response was, be it dull like the rest of the place, kind, or even shy, the mere sound of your voice as you handed him the bag with a burger inside, telling him the amount of money he owed, felt like a gut punch to his entire being. On the outside, his face remained hardened, but the frown he usually wore started to show a different emotion. Surprise? Confusion?

He grabbed the bag after paying for it, and then disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The cave did nothing to calm down his beating heart, his eyes hardly focusing on the glowing markings adorning the walls.

Why was this happening?

The hedgehog looked at the bag in his hand, fingers clutching the paper so tightly it caused creases to appear on it.

Even run-ins with the blue hedgehog didn't leave him so... exhausted? Like he was on the verge of falling down.

That stupid face of yours was etched into his brain, worming it's way into his thoughts.

It was all stupid.

He felt... anger.

Initially, he thought it was directed at you.

But the deeper he dug, he realized the anger was stemming from seeing himself as weak.

How could he react like that to a random Meh Burger employee?

It was embarrassing. And he couldn't even figure out why.

Struggling to confront his emotions, he carefully unwrapped the packaged item. The presence of the object reminding him of events that transpired moments ago.

He wasn't even hungry anymore.

Safe to say, you started to notice his face in the crowd more often. Always the same order, at the same time.

Shadow was not known for his predictable behavior, but from experience, you could swear he'd always be there to get his food on time. You always made sure to prepare the bag a few minutes before his arrival, starting to notice the approval in his poker face as he received the item. You had no idea about the sickening butterflies appearing in his stomach each time his hand brushed against yours as you passed him his order.

Every meeting of yours was simple. Shadow appeared to get the order. Took the goods. Then teleported back. No conversation exchanged besides except for the transaction.

Until the one time you got to work late and the first thing you saw after arriving there, was the ebony hedgehog, arguing with your coworker, Dave.

"This one is insufficient." His piercing gaze bore onto the burger as if trying to make it disappear. Some poor excuse of sustenance, not even served by you. "Where's (Y/N)?" He knew your name by heart now, catching a glimpse of it on your name tag.

"Sir, we ensure you all burgers are of the same quality. Fresh from the freezer." Dave explained, dead eyes staring back at the clearly annoyed customer.

"Not what I asked, fool." His sight narrowed, already impatient with this fruitless conversation.

Another lavender shirt with yellow leaf-markings came into his view, this time not as infuriating. You.

He felt the need to flinch but stood his ground, not moving a muscle as you approached closer.

Obviously confused, you asked about the commotion.

Shadow remained silent, glaring at Dave. He didn't have to explain himself.

"This guy asked about you." He shamelessly pointed at the hedgehog. "I'm taking my break." And then he was gone.

Your eyes met with his in a silent question.

Shadow wanted to speak, but no words were coming out. Why did he feel like was not the one in control of the situation?

It was hard for him not to sound like a fool when the reason for his annoyance was him not seeing you.

"I didn't like his attitude." He mumbled an explanation. It was close enough.

Seeing the smile appear on your face after was worth it.

It was official. You were a better employee than Dave. Which of course, wasn't a surprise, but it still fed your ego a bit.

You took the bag left by Dave, passing it over the counter.

Shadow almost hesitated to grab it, his brain flooded with several thought processes. Should he add something else?

The hedgehog slowly took the object out of your hand, fingers lightly brushing over your own. The contact was the final push for him to spill out the words.

"What time do you leave work?" His question sounded more intimidating than he planned to, the rushed rumble in his voice coming out almost like a growl.

You blinked, taken aback by the sudden question. Then quickly recovered, reminding yourself he waited for an answer. Looking at the time, you responded truthfully, be it curiosity, genuine fear or lack thereof.

Without breaking the eye contact, he asked, or more so commanded you to arrive at the destination and time chosen by him.

Without even waiting for your response, the last words you heard before him disappearing were "Don't be late."

And just like that, he was gone. Leaving you with... possibly a life or death situation. You really weren't sure whether the guy was asking you to hang out, or planned to murder you where no one could find your body. As a newcomer, you didn't know much about Shadow, but from the passing conversation, you knew he was not a creature to mess with. Why would he out of all people invite you to a hang-out? That question haunted your mind for the rest of the shift, but you'd be lying if you said you weren't interested. You had to know what was the hedgehog's deal, even if it killed you. Possibly, he wouldn't. By a stretch, you were his favorite employee, after all.

Shadow did not need to hear your response. He teleported somewhere calm where he could gather his thoughts. He didn't think he was able to hear the rejection coming from your mouth.

If you didn't accept his offer, you wouldn't show. All that was left to do was to wait for the time of the meeting.

Panic was not something he experienced often. Even fighting with the toughest foes was not as stressful as talking about his feelings. But at this moment, the place inbetween waiting for you to leave work and the meeting, Shadow couldn't escape the churning in his stomach. The dread reaching up his spine as he thought of his next course of action.

Shadow did not have a plan yet, but one thing was clear. He wanted you to stop invading his brain and making him feel distracted, weak. Wanted you to give him the attention he deserved. Wanted you.

Multiple scenarios played in his head, wanting to be prepared for every possibility. You running away, rejection, at worst, maybe laughter. None of them were positive, but he had to make sure he'd be able to accept the outcome, no matter the response.

He was rehearsing what to say in his mind. Wondering if he looks presentable. Checking the time over and over (he was not gonna be late). Picking where to stand so the lighting makes him look cooler, even if he wouldn't admit to that part. Everything had to be on his terms if he was gonna lower himself to be... vulnerable.

The time passed quicker than he'd like. He was already at the place, watching from afar, noting any movement that his eyes could catch. And alas, he had noticed your silhouette, approaching the meetup spot at the agreed on time.

He teleported behind you, earning a startled yelp that made a subtle smirk appear on his face for a moment.

“You’re late.”

You weren’t. It was just his way of managing the emotions threatening to rise to the surface.

Opening your mouth to respond, Shadow beat you to it and spoke first. He didn't wanna waste any time.

“Why did you smile?” His tone was flat, but the question held weight. “Earlier. When I said I didn’t like his attitude.”

He didn't know how else to ask "Do you like me?" without saying it out loud. He had to get some information before proceeding with the heavier stuff.

You hesitated for a second. Did he really have to get you out here just to ask that question? You decided to tell the truth.

“Well… it was nice to be appreciated.”

That caught him off guard.

His eyes widened slightly, just enough to be noticeable. His posture tensed, but not out of anger.

You gave a small shrug, trying to play it off, but the warmth in your voice betrayed you. “Nobody really notices when you do your job right. You noticed.”

He spoke after a second of suffocating silence. “That wasn’t the intention.”

You gave him a wry look. “You almost started a fight over a burger. Kinda seemed like it?"

His eyes narrowed, something in his expression shifting. His angry defensiveness was still there, but something else also shined through his attitude. Almost like he was... flustered.

“It wasn’t about the burger.” He grumbled, his voice keeping it's harshness. The questions were too much to bear.

“Then what was it about?” You couldn't stop the question from escaping your lips.

He looked away. Not down, but to the side, like your gaze was too much to handle. You could see the war behind his eyes. He wanted to retreat, teleport out, pretend this never happened. But he couldn't. His pride wouldn't let him.

“It wasn’t about the food. It was about you not being there.” The stiffness showed in the words that came out. Clearly, he wasn't used to spilling his thoughts like that.

You didn't know how to respond. Seeing your surprised and mildly confused expression, Shadow decided to continue.

"It shouldn't matter. Your absence should not distract me. And yet," he sighed bitterly, disappointed, more so at himself. "I can't get you out of my head."

His eyes returned to meet with yours with intimidating intensity. He took a step closer. "It's pissing me off."

You almost held your breath as the hedgehog approached, quiet yet heavy steps heading your way.

He stopped just a foot away from you. The silence between you both felt too loud, the lack of any response from him only adding to the rising tension in the air.

You swallowed, trying to make sense of the situation. “So… you like me, and that’s the problem?”

Shadow's cheeks get warmer, not used to such intimate matters in regards to him. It was uncomfortable.

“I don’t like you,” he snapped quickly, like a knee-jerk reflex. Then paused. A realization. “…I mean- I don’t just like you.” He mumbled the last sentence.

“I don’t know what this is. I don’t even know what I want from you,” he kept talking, not because he wanted to, but because now that the dam got broken, he couldn't stop. “I don’t even know why it’s you. But I can't keep pretending like it doesn’t affect me.”

Your silence stretched too long due to pure astonishment, hearing the raw sincerity in the hedgehog's words, and the hope for him to say something else

Shadow just stood there. His eyes searched your face, scanning for some sign, anything, that'd show him you weren’t about to laugh, dismiss, or worse, pity him.

But in that long several seconds, you were still quiet. Shadow was not satisfied with your "um"s and "uhh"s as you looked for a response that'd convey your opinion clearly.

His patience ran out prematurely and he took a single step back. Jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides, and voice filled with furious apprehension, barely keeping his cool.

“I didn’t say all that for nothing. You heard me. Now you deal with it.”

There was no warmth in his tone. Only a brittle edge, barely holding together the storm beneath it. He wasn’t angry at you. He was bracing himself. His harsh words were a desperate plea for you to do something.

Any hint of you reciprocating, be it approaching closer, a soft smile, physical touch or telling him about your feelings would give him the push he needed.

He'd close the leftover distance between you two, gaze locked into your eyes, your face, your lips. As if in disbelief. Adrenaline coursing through him like he was in the middle of a battle. Now that his emotions were fully on display, he had a hard time stopping them. The need to make you his. To express it.

He leaned in even closer. There was no doubt what the motion meant. He was about to kiss you, yet still gave you time to reject his advances, almost like a challenge.

When you didn't pull away, his lips finally pressed into yours.

The relief was immense, pulling his emotions out like a magnet to the surface. The kiss wasn't aggressive, but it was filled with restrained desire to devour you, now that he finally won.

Alternative take: if you'd be bold enough to kiss him first as your response (or showed obvious eagerness after he kissed you first)

One moment he was staring at your pretty face, next he felt the pressure on his lips.

It took him by a surprise, making him lose his cool for a second.

But as you showed him the extend of your approval, he quickly recovered, palms clinging to your sides, pulling you even closer.

Depending on your input, the kiss could get way more heated. You got this boy in the bag. Or vice versa.

As you parted ways, Shadow's expression was less guarded. He wore a satisfied smirk that went well with the gleam in his eye.

You were officially his.

[theglamorousferal]

Persephone's Binding Part 1

Hardcover/Anger Management ship Sacrificial Bride au

AO3 Prompt Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Fuck me, that's what I get for not wearing my helmet tonight. Jason came to with numb hands and legs, burning shoulders, a gag tight in his mouth, and a pounding headache. His ears rang and a groan escaped his throat before he could keep quiet. He slowly cracked an eye open and when he wasn't blinded took stock of the situation he was in. He was kneeling, tied to a post behind him and in the middle of what appeared to be a magic circle of some kind. At the edges of the circle there were candles, a bright Lazarus green, and beyond that were robed figures.

Great, cultists. Perfect. The ringing in his ears started to fade as chanting filled the room. After the first repetition of unfamiliar words the flames of each candle one by one turned black, and once it came around, the edges of the circle started to glow bright green. The glow followed the path written in what Jason assumed was blood until the entire thing was glowing bright enough that Jason had to squint to try and make out any of the symbols and commit them to memory, any little thing could be a clue after all.

As the chanting got louder and louder, the glow shone brighter and brighter. He could feel a build up of energy and his hair began to stand on end like lightning was about to strike. The light became blinding and the pressure in the air built up until he felt he couldn't breathe, he could smell ozone in the air and suddenly the light returned to normal, he collapsed forward and his cheek hit carpet.

"Oh my Ancients! Are you alright?" He heard a feminine voice say and let out a pitiful groan. "That's probably a dumb question, one second let me grab something to cut those ropes and I'll help you up."

He heard shuffling and opened his eyes to a purple shag carpet with the magic circled burned into it and registered the ozone scent shifted to a burning smell. He tried moving his arms and yelped in response. He heard a thud and a quiet curse as his apparent savior stopped rifling through their drawers with a quiet "Aha!" He turned his head towards the sound and his mind stuttered to a halt for a moment.

Stood there, with a sword at least as long as the Demon Spawn is tall, was a woman Jason would expect to find in Themyscira. She stood almost seven feet tall with long red hair pulled back into a high ponytail braid, a helm-like crown adorning her head. Muscled shoulders had a black capelet from one and a pauldron on the other. She wore golden bracers like Wonder Woman on her forearms and armor similar in shape, but black with a symbol blazoned across the chest, under the armor she wore a teal toga. He turned his attention to her face and found a sheepish expression in those teal eyes.

"I absolutely forgot I had my sword with me today because of the council meeting. Let me just-" she quickly strode forward and cut first his feet and then his hands free, and after giving up on the knot, carefully cut the gag from his mouth. She knelt down and helped him to sit more comfortably. "Do you think you can make it to the couch? it's very comfy, I use it when I need a break between council meetings."

Jason tried standing and his legs protested feeling like pins and needles and tv static. He shook his head and she nodded thinking to herself. "Okay then, here."

Jason blue-screened as he realized he was suddenly being held in a bridal carry by this woman like it was nothing. He blushed from his neck to the tips of his ears as she carried him to her honest to god fainting couch and placed him upon it like a swooning maiden.

"So, um, hi, my name is Jasmine, please just call me Jazz regardless of whatever you hear anyone else here call me. Do you need some water? I'm gonna order some water, and some painkillers maybe? Honestly, I'm just gonna ask them to send one of the yeti healers to take a look at you and I'll need to ask someone who can read ghost speak to translate whatever brought you here." She rambled and made her way to one of the doors and spoke with someone just outside.

Jason laid there for a moment, staring at the ceiling and trying to get himself focused on the situation at hand. So facts so far: he was just used as a sacrifice of some kind, he was teleported somewhere unknown to him at this moment, and whoever he was sacrificed to seems to be some form of royalty and was arguably the most attractive and so far kind woman he's ever met. He nodded to himself and carefully pealed the red domino mask from his face.

"Jason." He said to her as she turned back to him after closing the door. She stopped for a moment, eyes wide. "My name, it's Jason."

She blushed a moment. "Right, yes, nice to meet you Jason, I wish it was under literally any other circumstances." She said walking forward to shake his hand.

"So, uh, where are we?" He asked, gesturing to what Jason assumed was a window, but wasn't certain because the sky was green and purple and had floating doors and islands in it.

She closed her eyes and seemed to take a fortifying breath. "Right. What do you know about the supernatural, besides the obvious that apparently magic circles work?"

Jason thought about what he could say here. Should he bring up his time in the All Caste? Should he bring up the Lazarus pits? I don't know enough about the situation yet. "I know that magic is real, kinda hard not to what with heroes like Zattana and Raven making headlines and the fact the city I live in is hella cursed."

He watched some tension leave her shoulders, but not all the way. "Good, I won't have to go over that particular world-shattering revelation, though I'll probably ask you more about those heroes you were talking about, I haven't heard of them." Jason was stunned for a moment, but she continued. "We are in a sort of, Between. We are in the Infinite Realms, the existence between existences. The Infinite Realms is the space between the dimensions of the multiverse. We are currently in the castle of the ruler of the Infinite Realms, more specifically my office." She hesitated before continuing. " I'm, sort of, the Queen Regent actually." She said embarrassed.

Jason processed that for a moment, and she let him. So, the multiverse is real, and he was apparently just sacrificed to the ruler of the dimension between dimensions. She let him sit with that information, letting him come up with his own questions, when there was a knock at the door.

"Excuse me your majesty, you called for a healer and scholar? I had not left yet from the earlier council meeting and figured I could be of assistance." A tall yeti with ice for one of his arms and frozen horns atop his head appeared in the doorway. What also appeared seemed to be a literal skeleton that pushed a tea cart with a pitcher of water and little finger sandwiches on it into the room and left again.

"Frostbite! Perfect, first, can you take a look at Jason, he was apparently sacrificed and judging from the blood in his hair he at least has a head injury. Then the circle he appeared in burned itself into the carpet, I'm still not great at reading ghost speak, especially in an older dialect, I can't figure out what it says." Jazz spoke in a rush as she walked toward the cart to get some water for Jason.

Frostbite had a kind smile as he turned to Jason and pulled out a first aid kit from seemingly nowhere. "Yes, hello, you must be Jason. How are you feeling? What hurts in particular?" Jason went along with the examination, and gladly accepted the glass of water from Jazz as she handed it to him. "Well it looks to me like you mostly just need to rest and maybe take some painkillers. Here," The yeti carefully handed him a small cup with two over-the-counter pain pills in it. "Alright, now let's take a look at this circle!" He stood to his full height, carefully ducking to avoid knocking his horns on the chandelier. He observed it for a moment, humming to himself from time to time. "Right, so this appears to be a binding ritual, somehow tied to the Solstice celebrations. Typically it entwines the soul of the sacrifice to the being they were sacrificed to. Somewhere in the archives there is likely more information about it, but you'll probably have to spend quite some time searching."

Jazz looked pained for a moment. "Okay, do you think it can be broken?" Her face showed hope, but with an underlay of resignation.

Frostbite thought for a moment. "There are some, though most are permanent. I can send over some of my scholars to help locate the correct ritual, I would suggest asking the Master of Time as he would know for certain, but you know how they can be." He straightened before bowing to both Jazz and Jason. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Queen Regent and Lord Jason, I must make my way back to the Far Frozen to gather those to help your search. Good day." With that, the yeti left the two of them alone.

Jazz sighed heavily and put her face in her hands. She growled, frustrated, before she straightened after having made a decision. "Okay, so you're probably going to be staying her for a little while while we figure all this out. Let me show you to a room so you can rest a bit, and I'll have one of my aides bring you some clothes so yours can get washed too."

She led him through the passageways of the gothic castle, it's black stone bricks and tapestries of silver seeming to glow. They stopped at the third of a row of doors and went inside. The room was large, twenty-foot ceilings and a bay window with a sitting nook framed by two large bookcases stood across the room. A massive bed with an intricate quilt portraying what seemed to be a battle between supernatural entities was braced against one wall with a grand fireplace on the opposite wall.

"The door to the left of the fireplace leads to the bathroom, the first thing I did when I took over was make sure there was hot water and large soaking tubs in all the bedrooms here. There should be bathrobes of varying sizes in the closet that offshoots the bathroom. If you need anything, I'm probably going to be in my office for the next few hours and there is always the bell by the door for stuff like, food or whatever. Um, I guess I'll leave you to it?" She shuffled nervously out the door, leaving him standing there, hand half raised in an awkward wave goodbye.

He chuckled to himself for a moment before striding over to the bed and sitting down to start unstrapping his body armor and boots. Once stripped to his boxers, he made his way to the bathroom and was pleasantly surprised to find not only a large soaking tub, but also a shower with a bench to sit. He quickly showered all the grime from the last few hours from his body, careful to get the matted blood in his hair untangled. Once finished, he started filling the tub before walking towards the closet where he found not only bathrobes, but also bath salts and bath bombs. Deciding to indulge, he grabbed one of each in similar enough scents and dropped both into the bath tub before easing himself into the hot water. He hissed at the temperature before it started easing the aches across all his muscles. He shut off the faucet and then leaned back and allowed himself to think.

So, he thought, I am in an alternate dimension, in the castle of the extremely attractive Queen Regent of said dimension, and my soul is apparently bound to her for the foreseeable future. He thunked his head on the walls of the tub contemplating the facts laid before him. He startled, shooting forward with his back straight.

"Wait a minute!" He said to himself. "Wait a god damned minute!" He smacked his forehead with his hand and ran it through his hair. "I'm in a romance novel plotline! Bound to an entity of unknown power against my will, but the entity is actually a kind and beautiful woman! Holy shit! I can't screw this up!"

Decision made, Jason Peter Todd, closeted romance novel enthusiast, began to plan.

[lovedrruunk]

'A Fresh Start 𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚🎐[part iv]

She's weird, she's creepy, she's a total stalker, and now she's... loitering outside your door...? [part iii]

You paced your living room, arms crossed tightly over your chest, teeth chewing the inside of your cheek. You felt like an idiot.

What were you thinking showing up to her house uninvited, banging on her door and shouting her name like a lunatic? No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't help but feel that showing up like you did had been a mistake. 

The look in her eye when she opened the door haunted you. It wasn’t anger, not really. It was something else entirely. Fear? Guilt? Whatever it was, you hated that look on her.

You stopped pacing for a moment, your arms falling to your sides as you let out a heavy sigh. What was the point of trying to fix things now? You’d probably just scared her away for good. Why did you always have to push things? You should’ve just left her alone, I mean clearly she didn’t want to be friends. 

But then you couldn’t help but wonder: why the hell had she been following you then??

You groaned and flopped onto your couch as your mind raced. It didn’t make any sense. If she didn’t want anything to do with you, why had she gone out of her way to be near you? Why had she constantly stared at you from afar as if she wanted to say something?

None of it added up, and the more you thought about it, the more frustrated you felt. Maybe you were overthinking it. Maybe she wasn’t following you at all, and you’d just misread the whole situation. But… no. The way she’d looked at you when you confronted her, it was written all over her face. She’d been following you. You were sure of it.

“Ugh.” you groaned, dragging your hands over your face. This was hopeless.

Every time you thought you had a grasp on her, she’d do something to throw you off completely. She was impossible to read, like a puzzle missing half its pieces, or a windup monkey without its gears. And as much as you wanted to forget about it, about her, you couldn’t.

Because deep down, you cared. You hated seeing her so… isolated, so withdrawn. And even if she didn’t want to be friends, even if you’d scared her away, you couldn’t help but feel like she didn’t deserve this.

Pushing yourself off the couch, you started pacing again. You wanted to fix this, to figure out some way to show her that you weren’t just trying to bother her. But how? After the way she’d turned you away, what was the point?

Part of you wanted to march back to her house and try again. But the other part screamed at you to stay put, to not make things worse, to wait until she was ready.

But god did you want to see her.

You huffed again. You felt like a stupid teenage girl kicking her feet and hitting her pillows while whining about her latest highschool crush. You wanted to see her, you wanted to see her so bad it was driving you crazy. It was irrational really. She was a total freak. New in town, avoidant, creepy, and frankly, a little bit of a bitch. All negative traits associated with someone you shouldn’t be seeing. So why did you want to so badly? All your alarm bells were going off but it was hard to tell if they were yelling or singing.

Either way, you decided that this time you wouldn’t be impulsive. You’d choose logic over feeling, because obviously that’s what any other responsible adult would do… obviously. Logic over feeling. Rationality over impulse. It sounded easy in theory, but as you sat there, staring at the blank wall across the room, it felt impossible. 

What if she thought you hated her? What if she thought you didn’t care? Or worse, what if she thought you pitied her?

She’d probably slam the door in your face again if she thought for a second you were pitying her. You knew nothing about her yet you couldn’t help but feel like she would be the type.

You groaned, flopping back onto the couch. "This is ridiculous," you muttered to yourself. "I'm ridiculous."

You stayed still for what felt like hours, the only sound you could hear being the faint ticking of the clock. You couldn’t sit here forever, pacing between guilt and worry. But you’d already decided: no more impulsive decisions.

…

So why were you halfway to the door before you even realized it?

Your hand froze on the doorknob. You couldn’t go over there again. What happened to all that logic over feeling talk? Before you could scold yourself and retreat back to the couch, a sound from the other side of the door made you pause.

A shuffle. A creak. The distinct sound of someone sighing.

Your heart skipped a beat, and for a moment, you wondered if you were hearing things. After a short pause you decided that it wouldn’t hurt to just check, for your own peace of mind if not anything. 

Turning the doorknob to quickly open the door, the sight made your breath hitch.

Powder was crouching on your doorstep, looking up at you like a deer in headlights. Her eyes were wide, her hair messy, and she looked just as nervous as you felt.

“You!” You shrieked.

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

"What... the hell are you doing here?" you managed to ask after a long pause, your voice softer this time so as to not freak her out.

She shot to her feet so fast she almost lost balance, quickly tucking something into her pocket. Her eyes darted to the ground as she fidgeted with her fingers. “I don’t- I wasn’t-”

“You weren’t what? Just crouching on my porch for fun?”

She looked back up at you with a sour expression, her cheeks flushing a bright pink. “I didn’t think you’d open the door!” she blurted out defensively.

“It’s my house!” you said, exasperated.

“I know that!” she snapped back, louder than she intended. Her eyes widened, and her voice softened almost immediately. “I just... I wasn’t ready.”

“For what?” you asked, but she didn’t answer.

The air was heavy and the atmosphere was thick as you waited for her to respond. Her lips parted again as if to say something, but instead, she shook her head and spun on her heel, dropping onto the top porch step with a huff.

You took a minute to look at her. Just a couple minutes ago you were telling yourself to stay away from her, and although you agreed, you couldn’t help but feel grateful for her visit. It felt right, y’know, her being around.

Staring at the back of her messily cut hair, you wondered why she’d dropped by in the first place. Two days ago she was shooing you away like a fly, but now, for whatever reason, she came to you this time. You wondered what changed.

You sighed as you followed her, sitting down a few feet away. Neither of you said anything at first, the silence filled only by the far away sounds of the townsfolk heading home as the sun set.

Finally, you spoke first, your voice quieter this time. “You know, you don't make much sense.”

She didn’t look at you, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk below. 

“I know.” she muttered.

“Then help me out.” you said, trying to keep the frustration out of your voice. “What’s going on here?”

“I... I don’t know.” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.

You turned to look at her, noticing the way her fists tightened. For someone so closed off, she looked more lost than anything else.

You felt a pang of guilt, and although you knew she'd never stand for being pitied, you couldn't help but feel bad.

“Well...” you said after a moment, leaning back slightly, “whatever it is, there’s no rush.”

She glanced at you out of the corner of her eye, her lips pressing into a thin line. She didn’t say anything, but the fact that she didn’t immediately run away felt like progress.

‘There's no rush’ the phrase replayed in her head for the millionth time. It was just like you to say something like that wasn’t it? Sweet, patient, so sure of yourself. Meanwhile, she felt like her insides were about to explode.

She hated how much she cared about your words, how they lingered in the back of her mind, how they actually managed to reassure her.

“You’re being too nice to me.” she said finally.

“How so?” You asked, keeping your tone light.

She shook her head. “You just are.”

You groaned dramatically. “You’re so confusing.”

She laughed dryly in response.

After a short pause you leaned forward, resting your elbows on your knees.

“I like being nice to you.” you said simply.

She froze. For a moment, neither of you said anything.

“I don’t know how to deal with that.” she admitted finally, her voice small.

“Then don’t” you replied. “Not right now at least.”

Powder looked away, blinking rapidly. She stood abruptly. “I have to go.”

You stood too, subconsciously copying her. “Powder, wait–”

She turned to face you, looking at you fully for the first time since you two sat down, before quickly cutting you off. “Here, this was for you.” 

She extended her fist towards you before opening it to reveal a crushed and wilted flower. 

You hesitated before accepting it, it was a cute offer but you were more confused than anything. You stared at it for a second before the sound of her boots rushing down the steps caught you off guard. 

“H-Hold on!” you called out.

She stopped in her tracks, turning her head slightly to look at you through her peripherals.

“Are you… free tomorrow?”

. . .

[Part v]

it wouldve been real fucking funny if i made her trip and fall down the stairs

ANYWAYS THEYRE SO CUTEEE AWWW (i say as i am the one who wrote it)

TRUSTTTTTTT that PART 5 WILL COME A LOTTT SOONER!!!! updating takes me awhile when im not sure how to go about the story BUT I HAVE RLLY CUTE AND FUN IDEAS FOR THEIR HANGOUT SO WRITING IT WILL BE MUCH EASIER!!!

also posting this on my bday is so funny to me like wow life of a teenage girl

[taglist ( ;´ - `;)!!]

@cattjull @kenqki @powderbomb-jinxed @iamastar @lostdreamingwallflower @errorlovernotfound99 @raven437 @cartalige @poncho-fisch @crushh-existz @slxtcity @jinxslapdog @radioheadfan699 @alduinworldeater11 @dulleyeddreamer @alicenasflowers

[USERS I CANT TAG 4 SUM REASON (◞‸◟；)]

@sacrasm-is-my-form-of-attack @wonylvxv

[tomieafterdark]

Toxic!Eren drabble (18+ minors dni) 

Synopsis: you want to break up but your bf is too toxic to allow that. 

Recently I had a conversation with someone and it kind of inspired this drabble (If you feel like Eren is not like canon Eren here, it is because his personality here is also based on whoever inspired this smut), except he did not fuck me after saying he would leak shit if i backstabbed him. Also a tiny disclaimer: I feel like this is obvious but I will say it anyway, everything written in this is purely fictional and should be kept that way. If anyone tries this with you in real life, get help. This is also not an accurate representation of my dynamic with whoever this smut is based on, he just has his “moments” and I like making smut out of them. That is all.

About ten minutes ago, you told Eren you wanted to break up. Things aren’t working out, and he’s way too much for you right now. Instead of having a normal reaction, he does the unthinkable—threatening to leak certain information about you and certain pictures.

It hurts you deeply, not to the core but close enough. Trust isn’t easy to build up, and it was even worse for you considering your past wounds that still haven’t healed. Every bit of trust you had built up just shattered in that moment, as if it was never there to begin with. 

He is dangerously good with words, sometimes it makes you feel like you’re his puppet and he pulls the strings whenever he wants to. Even if you can resist his words, his intense stare will pull you in instead. He has the most beautiful eyes, of course no one can resist their pull. 

When you were upset about him threatening to leak your information and photos, he just started pulling the strings without a care in the world which is what led you here; back arched, face buried in the plushie, whimpering and crying as he pounds you with no mercy. 

Your mind is foggy, you still haven’t processed the words that came out of his mouth when you wanted to break up. You did not, in a million years, expect those words to come out of him. It pretty much feels like a knife to your throat. Just as you are about to get lost in thought and perhaps cry some more, he grabs a handful of your hair and pulls on it harshly. 

“Get a grip.” He says coldly and lets go of your hair. 

You try to argue back, but he is 5 steps ahead and starts circling your clit before you even open your mouth. Whatever you were wanting to say just comes out as incoherent blabbers and whimpering as your insides squeeze tighter around him. He chuckles in response and mutters “that's what I thought” under his breath.

Since he is 5 steps ahead he is also aware you will cum any second now, which is why he switches positions quite hastily. He has your legs resting behind your ears as he teases your entrance by barely giving you the tip. He knows you get needy and will do or say anything to cum. You look up at him, that smug sadistic look on his face puts you in subspace faster than you can blink. At this point he practically got what he wanted, you won't want a breakup after this. Whatever else he does to you is just for fun. 

“Please..” you plead, looking up at him with puppy eyes. You had cried so much earlier that your face was glowing from it.  

“Repeat what you were telling me earlier babe,” he says while continuing to tease your sensitive entrance with the tip. “Tell me how I am too much for you and how you don't want to continue this!” You can hear the anger in his voice now, he does not take kindly to breakups unless he is the one doing it. This was peak betrayal to him. 

Something about him turns you into a horny nymph, even though this was your chance to resist and actually break up with him, your body and mind were both betraying you completely. You were so desperate for him, being manhandled and fucked disrespectfully hard by him was the only thing on your mind right now. His firm grip on your thighs, as he was pushing them back further, was not helping. He could feel your pussy squeezing and fluttering around his tip, even if you were not saying a word right now the rest of your body was very loud and clear. 

You feel your eyes watering again, from the frustration this time. It doesn't help that he is staring right into them, all while caressing your face. Staring into his eyes, especially with the state you are currently in felt like a trance. You were so lost in his eyes, you weren't even aware of how you were trying your best to move against his tip, completely desperate for any friction you could get.    

You have no idea how much your crying turns him on, same with your frustration and desperation. It was about time he reminded you again of how badly you need him, a reminder that no one but him could get you to act like this just for dick. He was equally desperate for you, probably more frustrated than you but he is so stoic and cold on the outside. You would never know. He had enough of messing with you though, and by the looks of it you were nearing your edging limit. 

His right hand lets go of your thigh, creeping up to your neck instead. He keeps eye contact as he chokes you very lightly. He is so close to your face, staring deep into your eyes with a predatory look. It makes you shudder, but it also makes you want to spread your legs even more for him. 

The way he suddenly bottoms out fully, with no warning, has you seeing stars. You had been in this position with previous partners, but none of them reached this deep inside of you. You have to bite your cheek to not scream, especially when you look down on your stomach for a split second and you can see his dick print on it. You suddenly remember that back when you had just gotten to know each other, you texted him saying you want him in your guts. Looks like you got what you wished for. 

He chokes you harder while pushing your head back, making you look right into his eyes again. His stare is so intense, you want to look away sometimes. His stare made you feel so vulnerable and exposed, it cut right through all your layers and saw right through your soul. It would not be too far off to say his eyes were fucking your soul. 

“I-I’m gonna cum-” you whimper, struggling to keep eye contact. You know exactly what you have to say next if you don't want him to suddenly stop and edge you even more.

“I’m sorry for causing unnecessary drama-” you cry out. “I-I was wrong..I do not want to break up..I love you!” 

“That's right.” He smiles and starts thrusting into you even harder, he drops eye contact now and the focus shifts to between your legs. He is obsessed with how you take all of him in so well, he loves watching you swallow him whole and he especially loves that you are so sensitive that you quiver and squeeze around him at every movement he does. 

He doesn't stop fucking you when you cum. Not even slowing down the pace. 

Instead, both his hands are on your hips now slamming you against his pelvis. You keep squirting, but he doesn't stop even for a second. You are so overstimulated at this point, every few thrusts make you cum all over him. 

You are close to tapping out at this point, eyes rolling at the back of your head. You are in safe hands though, he may be toxic and not allow you to break up because he is too possessive and wants to almost own you, but with that comes him being extremely careful of you. He pulls out and slaps you lightly to wake you up, fully attentive of you now. 

“Babe, are you okay?” He asks, albeit in a cold uncaring tone, but that's just how he sounds in general. He really does care.  

He comes back and slaps you again lightly, holding a glass of water in his other hand. You wake up this time. 

You don't really say anything when you regain consciousness nor do you drink the water, you just mumble “I am fine” under your breath and start straddling him. There is something about his caring nature that turns you on so much, his attention to detail is already attractive as it is but when it shows like this during sex it just makes you want him on a different level. 

The breakup was history at this point, now you were on top of him whispering dirty things in his ears. You wanted him to fill you to the brim with his cum, then fuck you with all the cum in you and cum in you some more. You had never met a guy that unlocked this side of you, it feels unreal, he is so perfect it drives you mad. 

“Please fill me up, I need you so bad..” You were crying in his ears as you quickly slid his cock inside of you, wasting no time and starting bouncing on it. “I truly am sorry for earlier, I could never be without you!” 

He is both amused and extremely turned on by your behavior, mostly turned on though as he wastes no time, putting you on your back with your legs on his shoulders. Eren had no idea how hot he looked, the sounds he was making was music to your ears. You were staring in awe as he came inside of you. 

You truly can't get enough of him, so when he collapses next to you on the bed, you crawl over to him licking him clean hoping it will lead to a round two in the shower perhaps. 

Author's note: I did not proofread this. If you find any mistakes, take it to the grave pls. 

© 2024 tomieafterdark | All rights reserved

[beaucate]

Hello, I would like to say that your blog is very beautiful! Could I make a request? Maybe a Tom Riddle where the reader is also from the orphanage and likes him? Thank you if you decide to write! Please don't forget to drink water 🤍

LONG OBSESSION.

synopsis. you didn’t think you’d ever see him again, not until he’d abandoned traces of himself just for you to grasp onto.

warnings. angst if you squint, stand-offish tom, fluff, love sick / obsessed reader.

author’s note. thank you so much for being so sweet! I haven’t written in so long, so it’s a teensy bit short, I hope I did this justice ৎ୭ English isn’t my first language, so please kindly point out any linguistic mistakes I made lol!

Your eyes fluttered over the slopes of his nose. Glazing, ever so slightly when his tongue swept over the plush of lips.

He was taunting you, you think.

Tom had continuously spent his holidays away from the orphanage, coming back only when he deemed ‘necessary’ — you never did blame him. Though even that had been ages, and you’d slowly felt the cracks residing within the depths of your heart mend back. His absence had only done so little for the ache haunting you, but even a little went a long way.

And then he’d come back, and it felt like every ounce of effort you’d put into forgetting him had crashed down upon your shoulders.

“It is not polite to stare, you know.” His voice was sudden, shocking you out of your zoned out daydreams.

He was so close, it made you dizzy.

You looked up at him, squinting, though not even the tightness of your lips could hide the flush growing on your cheeks.

“I am free to do whatever,” you retorted back, glancing down at your lap before pushing yourself back onto the couch.

He hummed, amusingly so. You were the most tolerable thing that’s ever crossed his path, a soft rumbling in his stomach fluttering whenever you’re near, but he would never dare voice it out. “It is my last year here.”

Your jaw was clenched, and you nodded solemnly. You knew, of course you did, who else if not you to track down Riddle’s life?

Shrugging, you pouted, “will you visit me?”

‘Will you miss me?’ An indirect question laying heavily beneath your words.

He nodded, a stray curl falling on the pale skin of his forehead. “You do not think you will be homed by then?”

“I’m a 17 year old teenage girl,” you twisted in your seat, the motion causing you to brush gently against him, “I’ll be lucky if I’m even treated with kindness.”

His face was now turned towards you, and it took every surge of power within you to not caress the threads of his hair. His eyes narrowed, and head tilted — it was as if you could see the gears running through his mind, but he didn’t speak, staying silent while looking ahead.

“Tom,” you cleared your throat, pushing your knees forward to connect with his own, and you could see him tense, however he made no effort to move. “Have you— have you met anyone in that fancy school of yours?”

He scoffed, standing up abruptly, “you suspect to be homeless within a year, and this is what you question?”

You watched him turn around and scurry away, as if any response you gave would have been too ridiculous for him to hear. He was mocking you. Taunting, now you were sure of.

It was only late at night when you sat with your feet dangling over the edge of your bed, when the thought of him leaving crossed your mind, anger bubbling inside of you. A picture of Tom sat between your palms, clenched until you felt each wrinkle poke your skin.

The tremble of your hand resonated through your body, and you pushed the picture beneath your pillow-case in tender fashion.

You paused for a moment before reaching for your bedroom door; needing a breather to calm the erratic state of your heart. It didn’t take much however before you paused, brows furrowing as you eyed the letter sprawled across the wooden floor.

T.M.R.

Sounding out his initials was enough for the hurricane in your stomach to fuel its way into your heart.

With a lick of your lips, your fingers traced over the paper before gently tearing it open, careful to tread lightly and watching as a card fell out.

‘In cases you find no where to go,’ and attached was an address unknown to you.

You refused to let your hopes rise above to what you could handle, but as you stepped out of your room, your eyes widened when his own was left open from the other side of the halls; dimmed and empty.

A timid smile etched its way on the corners of your lips, tracing hearts on the paper as you held it close to your chest. Delusion was embedded into your blood, and Tom Riddle charged into that every chance he got. Even if it meant at the risk of his own secrecy.

[draculasfavoritewife]

Wild Honey

Summary: Gale is one stubborn son of a bitch, but if anyone could get him to open up, it's always been you.

Pairing: Gale Hawthorne x fem!District 12!Reader

Warnings: ANGST. Idiots miscommunicating and falling out. Heavy tension, sensuality, and implied smut at the end. Also by far the most sexually charged eating scene I have ever yet written, SO sorry everyone, that really deserves its own separate disclaimer lmao. Ye have been warned.

I would like to preface this by saying I know Gale stans sometimes receive hate, and while I do not condone his more problematic actions, I do deeply understand why he is the way he is -- most of my favorite characters in any franchise have done morally challenging things, but I will always fall in love with a survivor, and most times in dystopian fiction survival is messy and comes at the cost of someone else's. It is also worth mentioning that I was watching Hunger Games during one of the most difficult periods of my life a year ago, when a loved one's life was hanging in the balance and Gale became the comfort character I turned to in order to cope. He will always hold a particularly fond place in my heart 🖤

tl;dr -- If you don't like Gale Hawthorne, feel free to not read. No reason to be mean to anyone :)

*Takes place during Catching Fire

He hasn’t been the same since she came back.

That much is clear to anyone two degrees north of blindness. But it could be anything, really. His work in the mines is draining on both body and soul, the added responsibility of being the Everdeen family’s sole provider as well as his own would exhaust anyone.

Yet Gale Hawthorne is probably the only one who could still be standing tall at this point, his proud stride never faltering, shoulders broad enough to hold up all of Panem if he had to. 

The man’s just tired, people say.

Tired and angry at the world, let him be. 

What else is new?

Gale has been wearier than a young man should be and angrier than most could know for as long as you’ve been part of his life.

It’s not that. 

No, it’s the sadness darkening his gray-blue eyes and the new tightness in his full lips that you see setting in whenever he looks at her. Whenever her eyes dart away to seek out Peeta’s instead, or stare straight through him at the phantoms of horrors he would never quite understand. You see him reaching out more often, trying anything and everything to bridge the yawning rift that has opened up between him and Katniss ever since her return, and see how with each misplaced gesture, every time he tries to be soft, another piece of him turns to stone inside. 

And it breaks you, to watch and know you can do absolutely nothing about it. 

You’re surprised to find him hunting alone the next time you go out beyond the fence; you would have assumed she was with him as she usually is. You’ve known Gale at least as long as she has, but perhaps the fact that you don’t rely on him for sustenance has made the two of you less likely to travel together.

And besides, whatever complicated relationship the two of them had, you had never wanted to insert yourself into that mess. 

But for whatever reason, today he is alone, anger and something deeper sharply visible in the movements of his nimble fingers as they field-dress a wild turkey on the floor of the small clearing you’ve emerged into, his brow furrowed and mouth harsh. 

You say nothing for several minutes as you pull your bow and quiver from their stash, testing the pull of the string, fiddling with a crooked fletching on one of your arrows. Your relationship has always been different from what he has with Katniss — you would be lying if you said you weren’t sometimes jealous of how much time she gets him to herself, but you also doubt that he talks to her the way he does to you.

There are pros and cons to not needing him in the same ways. 

“What?” he snaps when you’ve stood there too long; he knows you’re too efficient to need that much time to prepare your gear. 

You shoulder your bow, staring down at those heavy eyebrows, long ebony lashes, and the rainy-sky eyes that are still stubbornly avoiding yours.

“I don’t know, Gale. You tell me.” 

He sighs, long and annoyed. “You’re gonna stand there all day if I don’t, aren’t you.” 

You give a noncommittal noise and make a show of leaning against a tree to keep watch for Peacekeepers while he finishes his work. 

The thanks you get for that is little more than a grunt. “Well don’t get comfortable, I’m almost done. And keep up — I still need more than this or we’ll have a lean few days.” 

“When have I ever not kept up with you, Hawthorne?” You raise your eyebrows at him, playfully miffed. 

There it is, the cocky smirk that pulls one corner of his pretty mouth slightly higher than the other. “That a challenge, Spark?” 

You roll your eyes in mock disdain of the nickname he’s used forever (“because you’re small, but I know you’ve got a blaze in there somewhere” he’d half-teased). “Why, are you gonna try and run away from me?” 

It’s his turn to shrug. “How badly do you want to talk, I guess?” He’s loading the bird’s carcass into his satchel, wiping off his hunting knife and preparing to head out. 

A quick grab and you’ve shouldered the bag instead, ensuring he can’t abandon you now without also abandoning his prize. “Pretty damn badly, I guess.” 

Gale huffs a breath out through his nose. “God, you’re stubborn.” 

“Look who’s talking.” You brush past him, aiming for a deer trail that takes you through some hidden haunts that usually yield rabbits and even some bigger game on occasion. “Now come on, spill. You’ve been acting more pissed than usual, and that’s saying something.” 

“Hm. Very funny.” He easily lifts his own hunting gear once more and falls into step behind you. “Hunt first. Talk later. I’ll be even more pissed if we scare off our dinner.” 

You turn and give him a brisk nod, grinning to yourself when you face forward again. 

It may not sound like much, but that was practically a promise that he will talk to you eventually. 

And you’re nothing if not patient enough to outlast him. 

The times the two of you have hunted together, your ambition and his tenacity tend to be a deadly combination, and as luck would have it, a rare buck deer had crossed your path today, resulting in an even more substantial promise of survival than the turkey. As the two of you worked quickly to prepare the carcass for packing it out, you could feel the tension ebbing away between you, could tell by the way Gale’s strong shoulders relaxed and his jaw unclenched that the immediate worry of ensuring his mother and younger siblings had enough to eat this week had faded.

He would never say as much out loud, but you know it keeps him up at night when they do go hungry, can imagine how he must pace the floors of his house at night, cursing himself for falling short of the herculean standards that the loss of his father set upon him.

He should be able to sleep somewhat peacefully tonight, knowing they will survive another day thanks to him. 

“That was a good shot,” he says after a while of working in silence, and there’s a deep-running warmth threaded through his tone. “You really slowed him down.” 

You shove his shoulder, making him laugh and then scold you for jostling him with a knife in his hands. “Not so shabby on that killing shot yourself, Hawk-eyes. You’ll have food for awhile.” 

“You’re not getting away without some of it,” he insists. “It’s as much yours as mine.” 

And because you know refusing Gale an act of service is a surefire way to start an argument and guarantee his sullen silence again, you agree that you’ll take a sizable portion back to your family when the two of you head back. Placated for the time being, he finally lets his tongue run — about how he’s managing in the mines, what his siblings have been up to, how even in the midst of his exhaustion, he still lives for the end of the work week when he can escape to the forest again. There are new themes of thought that surface and submerge like fish between his words, murmurs of rebellion, thoughts of standing up to the Capitol at last, but they are hushed and quickly moved on from. 

No matter how much you might support him, he doesn’t want to worry you too much yet. 

“What about you and Katniss?” you finally prod, trying to ignore the familiar jolt of envy that tastes so sour on your tongue whenever you say their names together in the same breath. 

He stills; when his eyes flicker up to yours again they’re guarded and cold. “What about me and Katniss?” 

“Well, she’s conspicuously not here with you.” You flick flyaway hairs away from your face in irritation, the damp air making them cling to your skin. “Don’t be like that, Gale. I’ve been your friend long enough to not deserve your cagey act anymore. Let me in. Please.” 

He stares up at you for so long from his position kneeling on the forest floor, you standing over him, pleading him with your eyes to let someone else shoulder part of the heavy load he carries for once. And you’re struck by those traitorous thoughts again in the silvery silence — how unreasonably lovely he is, with that sharply angled jawline, and those softly curving lips, that thick dark hair you’ve always secretly wanted to tangle your fingers in as he leans down, your name on his tongue and a teasing glint in his melancholy eyes — 

“I think I made a mistake,” he finally mutters. “I know I can’t understand fully what she’s seen or who she is now, but is it completely wrong of me to just wish things didn’t have to change?” 

The man who means more to you than anything has never looked more lost and uncertain than in this moment of admission, and you sink to your knees in front of him, suddenly overtaken by a wave of softness that takes a second to fully process. “I’m sorry, Gale, I am. We all change, and I know how it feels to wonder if someone still cares or not.” You shake away your own uncertainties you’ve been having ever since she came back and he’s been chasing her attentions around.

“It’s only natural to want to pick up right where you left off, I get it.” 

His gaze sharpens, though the rest of his face remains calculated and unreadable. “Have I been ignoring you lately, Spark?”

It seems like a genuine question, as if running back through the last few months in his mind he now acutely senses your absence from them. 

You reach out, trailing the tips of your fingers ever so lightly down his cheek. The gesture isn’t novel, you’ve used it to comfort him before, especially when you aren’t sure how much physical contact he wants on a given day, but something feels different about it today, some electric shiver passing between you that makes his mouth twitch and causes you to pull your hand away as if shocked. 

“I need you too, Hawk-eyes,” you murmur, almost under your breath. “I need you.” 

To your dismay, the intimate moment abruptly ends; he tears away from the echo of your touch and is on his feet again in an instant, eyes now pale and hard as ice as he smolders down at your upturned face. 

Reeling with confusion and hurt, you try to understand what just happened. “Gale, wait! What did I —?” 

“It’s that damn word,” he half-snarls, but you hear the raw pain bubbling beneath his attempt at anger. “Need. My family needs me, the District needs me, Katniss needs me to be there when she can’t find what she needs from anyone else. Everyone needs me, Spark.” 

You stare wordlessly into his face, silently begging him to help you understand. His eyelashes glimmer with droplets from the mist and maybe something else, the anger draining away as quickly as it had appeared. 

“I would just like to be here because I’m wanted for once.” 

He’s gone in only a handful of long strides, the undergrowth rattling in his wake. 

And you’re left alone in a space all at once too cold and quiet, wondering what the hell it will finally take to make it through those impenetrable walls and at last touch his solitary wounded heart. 

The sun has sunk lower in the sky by the time you find the fallen tree beside the stream and discover its unexpected bounty. You’re not too far from where you left the deer, knowing neither you nor Gale can pack it out by yourself, but far enough away to give him space if he goes back there first. 

He and his prickly attitude leave your thoughts momentarily, however, when you see the bees returning to the gutted form of the dead tree. Where there are bees there might be honey, and your mouth waters at the distant memory of that sweet, energy-filled delicacy. You swiftly fall to the work of building a small, smoky fire and holding the billowing branches underneath their main entrance, waiting for the buzzing to slow and finally fade out before carefully peeling away some of the cracked wood and extracting your prize, leaving a piece behind of course for the hardworking insects to enjoy themselves. 

Wrapping the majority of the honeycomb in leaves that you know are safe to be in contact with food, you settle at last in a spot looking over the water, ready to enjoy a taste of your labors.

Closing your eyes, you let the first drop of sun-warmed sweetness land on your tongue, and the sound of appreciation that escapes your throat is shamelessly suggestive of something else.

So you freeze for a second in horror when Gale’s familiar voice rumbles through your senses. 

“So is this your little secret, or were you planning to share with me?” 

You compose your thudding heart and suddenly hot face, glancing up at where he now towers over you, arms crossed over his broad chest and a wicked smirk on his handsome face. By the high-tilted eyebrow that asks a sensitive question without really asking, he definitely heard you, and he wants you to know that. 

So you hold eye contact with him, even as the thick honey continues to drip down, painting your tongue in cloudy golden shades of wildflower sugar.

And to your gratification, you don’t think you imagine the way his eyes dart away ever so briefly, or how his own tongue runs across his lower lip. 

“I was gonna share,” you finally say, your own voice coming out slow and sticky after swallowing. “But I didn’t know where you’d run off to.” 

“Hm. I’m not convinced.”

He lowers his tall body to the ground beside you, reaching for your piece of honeycomb, and because he seems to have let go of his earlier flash of annoyance, you let him take it, gaze now glued to the entrancing picture of him as he opens his own mouth and lets the sweet amber substance drizzle between his parted lips, tongue lifting to capture any stray drops that threaten to escape. 

“Don’t be selfish,” you tease, but it comes out strangely heavy, and something kindles deep in your chest as his eyes slide sideways to pin themselves to yours.

It’s an oddly incriminating image almost, though you couldn’t name why, to see him stare you down like that with fresh honey glistening on his lips and fingers; he, however, doesn’t seem to feel any such sense of indignity. 

Without a word, he holds the waxy section out once more, his free hand coming up to your face so that his thumb gently coaxes your lips apart again. 

“You want more?” he asks, a silky hum. 

You have no idea if he’s even talking about the honey anymore, but you nod anyway, too breathless at how close he is, how much bigger he is than you. 

So he complies, trickles the comb’s gleaming goodness into your mouth with an intense focus that you can hear in the roughness of his hot breath as it washes across your skin. His chest is inches away from yours, one of his muscular thighs resting between your legs. You’re aware that your own breathing is turning shaky, and you gasp softly when a splash of honey rolls from the corner of your mouth and starts running down your face. 

Gale is quick, but not quick enough, and though his other hand catches some of the rogue rivulet, he can only watch as the rest rolls to your chest, landing on the stretch of exposed skin right at the tops of your breasts, a single drop of gold hovering just above the scooping neckline of your black shirt, daring him to take some sort of action to solve the predicament he has caused. 

His eyes move up from the now very rapid rise and fall of your chest to your widened, startled gaze.

You look like a wild animal he’s surprised on the hunt, and he now finds that he fiercely hopes whatever comes next doesn’t spook you away. 

“Can I?” he whispers, honeycomb now forgotten and set aside. 

You nod your assent, keeping your focus fixed on his face. 

A hand approaches your body with all of the steady patience you’ve seen him exercise when stalking his prey, and the touch of two fingers to the delicate skin below your collarbone is warm and gentle. His hands are beautiful too, broad and long-fingered, the veins that hint at his great strength clearly delineated in the low-slanting sunlight.

You watch like a fascinated outside observer as those work-roughened fingers swipe the honey away, a shiver fluttering across your flesh as you feel the way he smoothly follows the swells of your bust and the dip between. 

He catches the tremor he caused and pulls away, looking back up at your face even as he licks the honey from his fingertips, and you wonder what’s running through his mind, and if it’s nearly as incendiary as what that simple action sends through yours. 

“Alright?” 

It’s a one-word question that leaves his mouth as something like a purr, though you sense the true concern behind it.

He worries he’s gone too far, and he’d never forgive himself if he pushed you into anything you didn’t want, no matter how small. 

He cares about you too much for that. 

“Yes.” You blink and gather your scattered thoughts. “Better than alright. Gale…?” 

He leans even closer, bringing your faces only a mere breath apart.

The blue-gray eyes have gone as feathery soft as mist in the early morning, and the sight makes your chest ache with something you cannot quite name. 

“You didn’t get all of it. I’m still sticky.” 

Gale searches your expression for confirmation, wary of his next move. “You know what you’re asking?” 

Your hands are on his chest now, and you can feel that despite his much more outwardly collected demeanor, his heart is beating just as hard as yours. 

“I want your help,” you tell him firmly, and you feel the way that simple word, want, finally pierces his armor, makes him twitch like the bite of a gnat. 

So he bends down, and the moment his mouth connects with your chest, time stops. 

It’s a lightning strike, crackling through your entire body. 

His lips are cool, chilled by the evening air, and they’re every bit as perfect as you’ve always imagined. You could stay there forever in the mesmerizing trap of his kiss, but the addition of his sultry tongue, sweeping a slow track along the path his fingers had gone only a few minutes before, is what fully unravels you, sending his name from your own mouth in a whine and prompting one of your hands to slide up his neck and into his hair — and it, too, is everything you’ve dreamed of, dense and wild and begging to be tamed by your grasping desperation. He growls in surprise at the unexpected sensation of your fingernails, but you feel rather than hear it, the vibrations of his voice thrumming deep inside your body. 

You know the entire exchange must only take a few minutes, but it seems like an eternity that he’s there, sucking the honey trail from your skin, his still-sticky fingers leaving behind more prints that he also endeavors to remove. You pull his body closer to yours, until it seems you breathe one breath, share one heartbeat as he rocks you back and forth with the barely restrained desire to push you over until he can cover you completely. 

But it can be deadly to lose concentration in the woods, especially so close to nightfall, and regretfully the pair of you pull away in unspoken agreement, staring at each other and trying to understand fully what just happened. 

“We should get a move on,” Gale finally huffs. “That deer won’t carry itself.” 

Temperamental, taciturn Gale.

Always concerned with the practical side of things. 

No more words are exchanged between the two of you as you pack up the day’s yield and slip back into the somewhat relative safety of the Seam. The meat is stored away at Gale’s house (he knows you’ll come back for your share, or else he’ll find you and force you to take it) and at last there is really nothing more left to do, so you step out the door and into the lengthening shadows. 

When you look back, however, he’s still standing there in the doorframe, and there’s a tentative curiosity written across his face, a reluctance to have this be goodnight and goodbye until his next free day. 

And you could lie and say you don’t feel the same way, but you and Gale have never lied to each other. 

“What?” you tease, echoing his demand of much earlier. 

He opens his mouth, then closes it again and shrugs helplessly. “I…I don’t know, Spark. Where do you want…this…to go?” 

You ponder that, taking in the familiar sight of him with warm fondness. He looks tired, shoulders slouched and face smudged with gray dust from the mines, but there’s something different there tonight, a fragile hope behind his resting sullen expression, some aura about him that pleads with you not to leave him alone tonight. 

Even a man as strong as Gale Hawthorne has his limits. 

So you give in to temptation. 

“The washtub at my house is bigger, you know. And we both could use a hand cleaning up.” 

He steps down from the threshold to follow you back to your home. 

You know what you’re really offering to him. 

And so does he. 

When you wake with first light, he’s already long gone. Only the dip in the other side of your worn mattress remains to suggest another body was actually there. 

You’re not surprised, and not really hurt. He has his job to get back to, after all, a family to feed and a whole village to look after. But you wonder briefly, after having watched him fall asleep with his arms wrapped around you and his face hidden in your chest, long eyelashes leaving butterfly kisses against your flesh, what it would be like to watch him wake up, too. 

You imagine his eyes are even prettier then, hazy with sleep and not yet hardened to withstand the day’s toils ahead. 

Last night feels like a strange dream of lukewarm water and skin on skin, sporadically interspersed with starkly clear images of his well-muscled form and those clever hands traveling across the width and breadth of yours. When you close your eyes you can still feel his heavy weight on top of you, pressing you deeper into the mattress, and you feel oddly empty and untethered now in its absence.

Only the dark blossoms his mouth left behind on your body and a selection of new — but not unpleasant — aches tells you that what you shared was in fact as real as this morning. 

What it means going forward, you don’t know. 

But you don’t regret a single moment of it. 

As you dress and prepare to head out for the day, your mother’s voice calls you into the main room. “One of the younger Hawthorne children brought you something — said it’s from your friend.” 

You see it there on the table, a folded scrap of rough paper and a single daisy, still fresh enough to mean he probably cut it on his way back to his house. 

A small smile creeps across your lips as you unfold the note. 

Spark — 

I don’t want this to be just a one-time thing. At least, not if you feel that way too. 

Sorry I had to go. I wish I could have stayed. 

You may not need me to survive, but you made me realize something. 

I need you. 

— Gale 

Hastily re-folding the paper, you tuck it away into your shirt pocket, close to your heart. 

Stubborn Gale Hawthorne. 

He’d never been much of a talker, so you know just how much those simple three words at the end of his message really mean. 

For the man who needs no one to admit he can’t go on without you?

He might as well rival the old poets in their epic declarations of love. 

Gale is much like the wild honey that started all of this, you realize, as you snatch a piece of the comb on your way out into the harsh world beyond. Once you manage to get past his defensive sting, there are so many intoxicating flavors to taste within. 

And whatever he still needs to work out with Katniss…. 

He doesn’t want this to be a one-time thing. 

[assortedcriminality]

Thursday - part II

part I

Monday

Civilian woke in the dark, lying under the warm covers of the bed. They blinked, eyes adjusting to their surroundings. A bit of light peeked out from the black curtains on the other side of the room. A glance at the side table, bare save for a small digital clock, told them it was already well past nine. They jerked into a sitting position, a jolt of panic electrifying their body, throwing back the blanket and preparing to jump into an accelerated version of their morning routine. Before they could, the sight of the completely unfamiliar room before them jogged their memory of the previous day.

With a loud sigh, Civilian collapsed backward, tangled hair splaying over the pillow. What a mess. They couldn't believe they'd even agreed to take a message to Villain in the first place. Hero had told them, a lowly assistant with no powers or training, to meet one of the most dangerous criminals in the city with no backup. And, like a total idiot, Civilian had agreed. They should've stood up to them and refused to do it. How did they not see that Hero had something planned? The crime-fighter could easily deliver a letter, there was no reason for them to ask Civilian—except, of course, an ulterior motive. To pay Villain back for whatever deal the two of them had together. It was all so stupid. 

Civilian sat up and pushed the covers back, glancing around at the largely empty space. They didn’t know what they would’ve expected Villain’s guest room to look like, but it was very… gray. Gray walls, gray carpet, gray sheets and blanket. The only furniture aside from the bed and side table was a dresser across the room. Atop it sat an empty flower vase and an envelope. Supposing they might as well get up at some point, Civilian stretched before hopping out of bed, haphazardly tossing the blanket back into place. They crossed the room, picking up the envelope. ‘Civilian’ was written on it in a looping script they never would’ve guessed was Villain’s handwriting. They were learning all kinds of things about their boss’ nemesis. Civilian ripped open the seal and pulled out the folded note. 

Civilian-

I have work to do today and won’t be back until tonight. There are clean clothes in the dresser and you can have anything from the kitchen. I’ve locked the doors and windows and taken out everything with WiFi--it’s for your safety. I don’t think Hero would try anything, but it’s best to be cautious. There are books and DVDs in the living room. Use whatever you want. We can talk when I get back.

Villain 

Civilian set the note down, suddenly uncomfortable. Maybe Hero wasn’t the greatest, but Villain was still on the wrong side. They didn’t want to know what their ‘work’ entailed. Hearing that they were fully locked in the house made their situation more real. They were truly, actually a hostage. A prisoner. Maybe it was for their own good, to pacify Hero and make sure someone else didn’t pay the price for their irritation. But that didn’t make Civilian’s situation any more fun. And neither did the fact that they apparently wouldn’t have any access to the internet for the next three days. 

“Think of it as a screen-free break,” they said aloud. “A totally voluntary vacation with no work and no responsibilities.” It didn’t make them feel much better. 

They picked out dark jeans and a white T-shirt from the dresser and put them on, folding their old clothes and placing them in an empty drawer. After trying a few doors in the hall, they found the bathroom, which Villain had apparently already stocked with toiletries. It was weird to think about the master criminal picking out a toothbrush for them. Hero had always made Villain out to be a monster to Civilian, often mentioning rumors of the terrible things they’d done. Recorded fights between the two looked brutal, each pummeling the other with their powers and fists. Hero was always fiery, literally, anger turning their face redder than the flames shooting from their hands. What made Villain scary was their icy calm, eyes sharply intelligent but bored and uncaring through their mask. 

And now Civilian was looking through that same terrifying criminal’s fridge, which mostly held takeout containers and yogurt. They supposed if Hero could force their own assistant to be their greatest nemesis’ captive, the infamous Villain could enjoy strawberry Yoplait. People were complicated like that.

After finishing a bowl of slightly stale wheat cereal, Civilian started snooping. The house wasn’t enormous, but it was tastefully furnished with expensive-looking decor and appliances. The halls were lined with paintings, several of which Civilian swore they recognized from articles they’d read about recent museum thefts. Most of the doors they tried were locked--in fact, it seemed as though the only rooms Civilian had access to were their room, the kitchen, the living room, and a sitting room with three enormous bookshelves. The books it held were worn, and every one Civilain flipped through was covered in annotations inked in Villain’s neat cursive handwriting. 

Deciding they were too tired to focus on reading, they chose to spend the day watching movies and eating whatever non-expired snacks they could find in Villain’s cabinets. The bin of DVDs in the living room was almost entirely made up of old detective films, with a few rom-coms thrown in. Civilian put in the disc for The Maltese Falcon and sat down on the plush couch, hugging their knees to their chest. They closed their eyes and let the noise from the movie wash over them, trying not to think too hard about their situation. There was nothing they could do about it now. They just had to wait until Villain got back, and maybe they could figure it all out. Maybe it could all be fine. 

* * *

It was past midnight when Villain landed back on their porch, moonlight casting a soft glow over their black hood. They unlocked the door with a quiet click, taking off their disguise as they went in and closed the door securely behind them. They could hear the TV playing quietly inside.

“Civilian, I’m back,” they called as they opened a panel in the wall that hid their suit and placed it inside. “I heard something today that I want to talk to you about.” They slid off their shoes before strolling down the hall and pausing in the living room doorway. “Civilian?” There was no response. Villain flicked on the light, revealing the captive curled up and sound asleep in the corner of the couch, head resting against the cushion. They couldn’t help the smile that tugged at their mouth at the sight. They crossed the room, pressing the power button on the remote to turn off the noir film Civilian had been watching. 

Civilian looked so peaceful like that, their chest slowly rising and falling, their face devoid of any stress or fear. If being Hero’s assistant was as bad as it seemed, maybe this situation was almost a blessing for them. Villain had known Hero for years now, well enough to have an idea of the kinds of things they would put their employees through. Their smile disappeared at the thought. Civilian wasn’t here on vacation. They weren’t here as a punishment, either. They were here because Hero thought it would be fun to meddle in their personal life, to force them to be held prisoner just because they could. And they’d made Villain the warden. 

Villain never should have mentioned their plans for Thursday to Other Villain. They knew better. The city might think the criminals created the masterful schemes, but Hero used everyone as their pawns. They gazed at Civilian’s tranquil expression, hoping the innocent assistant could escape Hero’s web once this was all over. Villain knew that Civilian would be safe as long as they stayed in the house, but they couldn’t account for what Hero might do on Thursday, or when Civilian quit. It was too much to put on someone who didn’t sign up for it, who didn’t even have powers to defend themself. It was Villain’s responsibility to take care of them, protect them--with force, if necessary. It was the least they could do. With a sigh, Villain took a folded blanket from the other side of the couch and gently covered Civilian with it, glancing at them one last time before turning off the light and closing the door behind them. 

“Goodnight, Civilian. Sleep well.” 

Word count: 1432

@sausages-things (sorry I forgot to tag last time!) @chaotic-orphan

[saulocept]

cardinal ache

pairing: totk! link/reader

rating: t

summary: You’re mad at him, angry, for reasons you can’t explain, not even to yourself. Naturally, he could tell, and apologizes to you in the only way he knows how – or perhaps, this too, is a confession some sort. You never know.

notes: this is more vibes than plot, sorry. wanted to get back to writing bit by bit so i'm sort of practicing again. hope i got this right. on another note, i'm opening requests as a belated celebration for reaching 300+ followers on this blog. guidelines can be found here. thanks for sticking around!

It’s cold enough in the cabin, colder still with the kind of silence surrounding you. Even with the furnace on, with the logs burning all around you – it’s still not enough to keep warm. Neither are the layers of clothes you’re wearing, thick and endless in your desire for survival. Outside, the snowstorm is relentless, unnatural in its persistence. You rub your hands together form warmth, pressing them against your cheek afterward, hoping the friction would be enough to transfer the heat to all remaining parts of yourself. It isn’t. It never is.

You shiver, grit your teeth, pretend you don’t notice the way your companion glances at you, the concern obvious in his eyes, pretend you couldn’t see the worry written plainly on his face, bared to no one else but you. You’re mad at him, after all; you had been for a while now, too caught up in your own jealousy to let him explain, or to explain to him yourself what’s happening. All you’re able to give him in turn is a silent treatment that’s lasted as long as this snowstorm.

It’s irrational, you know, senseless, even. Perhaps unnecessary too, if you’re only able to get hold of some responsible part of your brain. Link’s only doing his job, his duty as a knight (as well as the Hero of Hyrule) as best as he possibly can, and here you are, getting mad at something trivial, feeling something you’re not even supposed to feel. But you can’t help it, not really: feeling this way, acting on it, acting out – it’s as though some evil has taken root of your heart, giving control to all these emotions you know you shouldn’t even allow to get to you. It doesn’t help that you’re not entirely sure where you stand with him; you’ve known each other for a while now, accompanied each other in countless adventures, bonded long enough that you could almost think of him as a friend. But the two of you have done things that no mere friends should: shared a room, a bed, a kiss; spent a night in each other’s arms, enough times that you’ve lost count; lingered a little too long in the mornings each time it’s time to leave, as though you could somehow freeze the tenderness of the moment and stay in it forever.

You’ve never once talked about it. He’s never brought the topic up, and you’ve never been brave enough to call him out on it, content on whatever intimacy lies in the space between you, casual or otherwise; or perhaps, you’re simply too terrified to confront it, fearful to put a name on something that might disappear if you prod it too much.

But the nights only grow longer, colder. You’re not entirely sure how long the snowstorm has gone on, not sure how long you’ve been cooped up in this cabin, silent and not at all speaking; without ever seeing the sun, it’s hard to tell the hours, the days, whether a day has passed, or a whole week has gone by without your knowing. Still, you remain where you are. Too prideful for apologies, and too cowardly for confrontations, you sit there shivering from the cold, as far away from him as you can, while still remaining as close to the fireplace as possible.

“Cold?” he asks after a second, the first one to break the silence. There’s a hint of concern in his voice, genuine enough that it makes your heart flutter just a little, your anger melting for a fraction. For a moment, you’ve half the heart to ignore him, pretend you didn’t hear his words. A moment of silence passes, followed by another. You’re still thinking how to respond when his voice cuts through the silence once more, loud and firm: “Come over here.”

It’s not a request this time, but something stern, certain. A command, or something close to it. Still, he doesn’t let you dwell on it too much. He scoots over to you, huddling close enough that you feel the warmth of his body pressing against you, pleasant despite all your internal protests. For the briefest of moments, there’s a part of you that wants to be stubborn, to move away and bask in your anger until it consumes the rest of you, but something in him keeps you from doing so. Maybe it’s the warmth of his body against yours, or the way this sudden proximity lights up each one of nerve-endings on fire, just enough to kill off every protest you might’ve ever had.

A beat passes, and then another. You still don’t say anything, don’t do anything. You remain where you are, close enough that you could feel his warmth, hear him breathe. He’s the first one to speak. This time, his voice is soft, quiet, barely audible even in the growing silence between you. “You’re mad at me.” A statement, not a question, simple and straightforward, as though he’s been certain of it for a long time.

You frown, scoff, unable to keep the bitterness out of your voice, even now. “You’ve only just noticed?”

He ignores your comment. From the corners of your eyes, you see him scoot closer to you, turning his head so he can look at you fully. “I’ll make it up to you,” he declares, his voice steady, almost firm in its determination. You turn to him, frowning still, as though you’re not quite sure what you’ve heard, but he only repeats it once more, his voice loud, his words unmistakable. “Let me make it up to you.”

And then, before you can even say anything else, he’s making his move.

_

You should push him away, tell him no. A part of you knows he would’ve let you go immediately if you’d said the word out loud, if you’d even once dared to stop him: a hand on his chest, a shake of your head, some quick dismissal of a sort. But you haven’t, and he hasn’t yet stopped. He pins you down on the floor, kisses you again and again, enough to make you forget all thoughts. His mouth is warm against yours, his lips soft as they press against yours. There’s familiarity in his movements, certainty in his actions. It isn’t the first time the two of you have done this, but it’s the first time it’s ever felt this tense, this charged with atmosphere.

You’ve had him close him before, though in those moments, the lights are always off, too dark to make anything out of him: his face, the kind of expression he makes when he comes apart beneath your touch. But now, it’s different. Now, there’s the light of the fireplace behind you, and the flicker of the flames casts a soft glow upon him, makes him even more beautiful. Even the photographs you have of him in your locket wouldn’t do him any justice, nor would the poems that talk of him: the depths that hide behind his gaze, the brightness in a way that captures your reflection and makes it its own.

You wonder if this is his way of apologizing, trying to quell whatever anger sits in the pit of your stomach long enough to make you give him the silent treatment for long. Or maybe it’s something else. A confession, perhaps, or a show of vulnerability. You don’t want to ask him about it, afraid it’ll further ruin the moment, but you can’t rely on simple guesswork, or even your instincts. As if he could read your mind, however, he shakes his head, pulls back long enough to look at you. He places a finger against your lips, as if to shut you up. “Not now.” His voice is soft, a little raspy. “Don’t talk.”

You nod quietly, too startled to give him a proper response. Your heart races against your chest, and your mind swims with thoughts, none of which you can say out loud. Link smiles at you then, miniscule enough that it’ll be imperceptible had you not been this close. But you are, and it makes your heart flutter, your chest ache with a longing that your mind protests against.

Satisfied with what he perceives to be your obedience, he leans down, kisses you once more, long enough to leave you breathless. Even when it’s over, he lingers still, his face hovering inches away from yours as he stares at you, takes you in. You see your reflection in his eyes, and the look of longing in your eyes mirrors the one that sits inside your chest. It’s strange, almost embarrassing in the ache it carries, an echo so very similar to your own, and for a second, there’s a part of you that wants to look away, forget its existence, but something compels you to keep looking, keep staring.

There’s a tingle in your lips when he finally pulls away, a kind of warmth that makes you ache for more. When he starts to move away, your instincts begin to take root, take hold. Propelled by the weight of your desire, your hand moves, reaches out for the sleeve of his tunic, pulling him close, closer again. A moment of silence passes, one after the other. For the briefest of moments, you’re both frozen, not moving, not saying anything. You catch sight of his expression: the way his eyes widen just a fraction, imperceptible if you haven’t been paying any attention; there’s a flicker of surprise somewhere in there, perhaps at your sudden boldness.

It’s true; you’ve never been this brave before, at least not when you’re sober, and even now, you’re still not sure why you’re moving, why you keep trying to pull him closer: one hand on the back of his neck, the other still clutching at the hem of his tunic as you tug him back toward you without ever being certain as to why.

Everything that happens that is a blur, a little hazy. All you know is that he’s kissing you again, and it’s the different from all the kisses you’d shared before. There’s no gentleness to him now, none of the tenderness you’ve come to recognize from him. This time, it’s hungry, thick with something you can’t dare to say out loud. Desire, maybe, the same one that beats inside you like a second heart? Or perhaps, something else, something more – the kind you’re too terrified to name because it skirts too close to the truth you don’t want to acknowledge?

Either way, he doesn’t let you think much about it. He kisses you still, knocks the breath right out of your lungs, and it’s hot enough to make you forget the snowstorm outside. Sweat drips down your skin, and all of a sudden, your clothes seem far too thick, too much for the occasion. By the time it’s all over, you’re breathless and panting, your lips numb and swollen.

For a moment, there’s nothing but silence. You stare at him. He stares at you. The expression on his face is unreadable, and you’re certain that yours look like an open book, the ache in there bared to display like a raw wound. You swallow the lump in your throat, try to find the words to speak, but nothing comes except the sound of his name, soft and raspy in your own voice. “Link.”

Even now, you wonder what that means. There’s desperation behind it, some sort of plea, though you’re not entirely sure why – or what for. A flicker of emotion passes in his eyes, brief enough that you catch wind of it before it goes away for good, and you wonder whether or not he understands it, what you’re saying, what you mean without you explaining yourself.

He moves closer, leans in. The warmth of his breath tickles your cheek. He looks at you, takes you in, and you feel your heart race against your chest, an echo of desire, a product of your longing, one you’re not sure you want to acknowledge. He remains quiet, doesn’t say anything, though there’s something in the way he looks at you now that makes you feel exposed, like he could read your mind, whatever thought you’ve kept hidden from him.

He leans in, lets his lips hover inches just above yours, close enough to kiss though not quite. His breath is warm against your lips as he remains still, waits, like he wants you to make the first move. A question, one that’s directed you. If you were less chained by your desire, you would’ve been more rational, more stubborn. You would’ve sat in your anger, demanded for a more cohesive answer, stoked the conflict until the truth is plain for you to see, to understand. But it’s too late for all that anymore. Now all that’s left of you is this longing, an ache palpable enough that you feel in your chest, everywhere in your body, hot and burning.

There’s no need to think, no time to come up with the proper words, the most human of answers. There’s only instinct now, driven by emotions, an echo of a need that feels too familiar, too intimate to be that of a stranger’s. Here comes the answer now, long-awaited in your own impatience. You pull him down toward you, and he doesn’t seem surprised by your actions to yelp and protest. He yields easily, without hesitation, and when you lean up to kiss him, he’s quick to kiss you back, eager and impatient, as though he’s waited a long time for this too.

[merbear25]

How one piece characters handle an argument? Like which character will stay calm, get mad, ignore you, etc.

Like the “sending them nudes” fic if that actually makes sense 😭

Hello, hello! This was pretty fun to think about and I wanted to add on to each scenario. I hope you like what I’ve written for you! 💜💜

CW: gn!reader, headcanons/scenarios

How they handle an argument x OP

Stays calm: Rosinante, Robin, Mihawk, Sanji, Luffy, Ace, Shanks

With tensions rising, they’re able to take a step back and see the bigger picture. Maybe something snowballed into something else, leading to this argument or perhaps they did something to set you off. Either way, there are other factors at play, so they’d like to stay calm to better work through them together. Bonus if you aren’t the type to immediately start getting mad either. That will help strengthen your relationship. If you are the type to immediately get mad, then things will be bumpy when ironing out the issues.

Gets mad: Law, Usopp, Luffy, Nami, Kid, Caesar

Their buttons kept getting pushed in all the right ways to detonate their anger. They enter this (possible) screaming match with you, matching whatever energy you’re dishing out. Letting all of the emotions out can either leave both of you feeling like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders or nuke your relationship. If you aren’t the type to immediately get angry, it may be better for you. After all, it’s not as easy to yell at someone who’s non-responsive to it, meaning that you have a better chance at talking things out once they’ve calmed down. If you are the type to immediately get mad, tread lightly. It’s tempting to spiral into more personal issues which can easily leave lasting wounds.

Leaves to cool down: Ace, Zoro, Usopp

They can feel themselves getting heated and would prefer not to unleash it on you. It’s easier for them to collect themselves away from the situation to gather their thoughts. While they’re mulling it over, they’re considering how best to solve the issue. When they come back, they’ll approach you with a level head. Bonus if you’re similar to them. It’ll be nice for them to be able to have someone who understands them in this way and can give them that space. If you’re the type who feels as if you need to solve the problem at that very moment, listen to them when they communicate that they need space to cool off. Otherwise, it could cause more issues.

Leaves and goes mia for a while: Buggy, Doflamingo, Kid

It’s probably for the best that they left before blowing up at you, but it’s hard not to worry when they don’t come back after a few hours or until the next day. They know this may very well lead to another argument, yet they do it anyway because they felt it was necessary. If you start an argument when they return, you’ll practically be yelling at a wall. They’re far too tired and over it at that point. If you show concern and express that you were worried about them, they might roll their eyes at you. However, they may be more open to discussing the underlying issue from the previous night. If you’re the type to do this to them, they would be far from calm about it. There are a lot of emotions whirling around: rage, hurt, concern, spite, and regret.

Ignores you: Law, Crocodile

They definitely heard you. How could they not when you’re standing right there and laying into them about this, that and the other thing? They just don’t care. You’re not going to get much of a response out of them, and you probably don’t want any kind of reaction. Even though they’re quiet, they still have their own thoughts and feelings building on each push you’re giving them. If you are the type to give them their space, they may appreciate this but it won’t be the most productive when it comes to solving the problem. If you’d rather continue pushing them to talk to you and open up, you’ll get just that and surely regret it. If you do this to them, every issue will go unresolved. They’ll be annoyed at you for giving them the cold shoulder.

Uses it as foreplay: Doflamingo, Kid

Each shout, each insult, and each step towards the other fuels these hotheads of theirs. The way the passion danced in your eyes was alluring. The way the blood rushed to your cheeks was enticing. You looked delectable like this and they wanted a taste of that fervor raging within you. Bonus if you’re the same way. But however thrilling and exciting this may be, the argument is sidetracked and is left unresolved. If you shut them down to focus on the issue at hand, they’ll huff and puff at you, and just give you whatever answer they think you want to hear to speed up to the fun part.

[papiliovolens]

Spoilers for up to Ch. 20

This drabble was written as an exploration for Nightmare's motives for Ch. 25, so it will have some hints as to how he will act.

it also hints at more multiversal mechanics going on in the background of everything

This is a glimpse at his interpretation and first impressions of Classic, courtesy of an evil overlord who thinks he knows everything :)

this also became a lot longer than i was expecting, so enjoy 1000 words of nightmare being nightmare

The multiverse was nothing if not predictable.

Regardless of its infinite multitudes, it followed specific patterns. Universes fed off nearby ones to fuel their creativity, forming clusters whose links became jumbled in a heated mess of wired connections. The universes' influences on each other were palpable.

Ultimately, universes could dissolve into basic templates through which each spread its roots into the larger multiverse to cement a place for itself. Thus, despite the multiverse's infinitude, it lacked any carbon copies.

It seemed everyone had a different idea as to why.

So, Nightmare relied on the patterns in each universe- how, regardless of their separation from other universes or how out-of-place they seemed, they acted in predictable manners. It made most missions comically easy once Nightmare conducted a little research. The current state of affairs between monsterkind and humanity, the existence and status of the Underground, and the presence of resets told him all he needed to know.

Even Dream's responses had become expected, although that was more due to his inherent benevolence than anything else.

So, yes- the multiverse was predictable to a reliable degree.

- Until a week ago.

Nightmare planned his missions meticulously. They did not fail. Perhaps delayed, and he occasionally needed to iron out minor kinks, but outright failure was never a factor.

The fact that Dream happened to be in the universe Nightmare chose that day was unfortunate, but it was an easy fix. He sent his men to the Capital with a single order, causing enough panic to draw Dream's attention away, and his plan was back on track.

It worked flawlessly for all of about ten minutes.

Nightmare's goal had been simple. Investigate one of the negativity spikes that plagued the multiverse as of late- the same that had Dream floundering like a fish out of water. For all his supposed wisdom, Dream had failed to realize that the emotional spikes were not the result of any 'affliction' or 'sickness' as he seemed to believe.

So when the spike Nightmare was tracking vanished completely, he had nearly gone into a frenzy, and Dream, unfortunately, sensed his sudden anger. His brother came like a moth to a flame, and Nightmare was happy to turn his frustration to his pathetic brother.

The battle had been going as he expected. The arrival of a Sans was slightly unexpected but hadn't even made a blip on his radar. He begrudingly gave the monster a bit of respect at how they managed to get Dream away from his for a few seconds, but it was child's play to find them and send the Sans off to the pits of whatever hell awaited him.

Oh, the way Dream's face had fallen felt heavenly. His face crumpled like Nightmare had not witnessed in decades, and- yes, he wanted to take a picture to make the moment last forever. The way Dream shook, his frown, the tears brimming at the corners of his sockets, the way his face twisted with the hopelessness Nightmare had always dreamed of-

And then the Sans, whose soul Nightmare had just shattered, threw a bone at his skull.

Nightmare was not ignorant of resets, but the situation screamed foul play. It had been nowhere near enough time for a reset or load to occur, especially since the Sans was from a different universe entirely.

Nightmare could not deny his interest as the Sans reentered the battle and somehow dodged him at every turn. Yes, skeletons tended to have a high tenacity for dodging, but few could bear to stand so close to his aura without collapsing.

Nightmare's memories toward the end of the battle were fuzzy. He remembered his brother finally releasing his fragile hold on his aura, enveloping the forest in its sickly sweet tones. Nightmare responded in kind- flooding the air with negativity to choke Dream out.

Then the Sans, somehow still standing despite the clash in auras, dared to grab him, and then-

Nothing.

Nightmare had not slept in a millennia.

He would have thought the same nightmares he inflicted on others on an hourly basis would fill his dreams, but his sleep was oddly peaceful. No demons nor haunting visages visited him, and he idled in the darkness of his mind for what felt like days.

The multiverse was meant to be predictable. It moved in expected and flawed ways, but ways that could be measured and recorded for future reference.

This Sans was an oddity—an anomaly. A strange mystery in a multiverse Nightmare had already scavenged for everything of interest to him.

There was no record of this Sans, Classic, anywhere until a month prior. It seemed he had fallen into the multiverse out of, quite literally, nowhere. While a universe suddenly gaining access to the rest of the multiverse was expected, what was not was the extent Classic had spread his influence in such a short time.

With Ccino's report, Nightmare wasted little time reaching out to the destroyer and protector. Error had appeared particularly peeved when Nightmare reached out to him, dismissing him until Nightmare uttered Classic's name. The destroyer had gone quite still, seeming to hover threateningly near a crash at the name alone, and a wave of nostalgia flowed over him.

It was a plethora of information Nightmare had not been expecting, and he happily bid Error farewell when he recovered enough to threaten to decapitate him.

Ink, on the other hand, was a dead-end. Getting him to talk was easy enough, but he hardly reacted to Nightmare's probing about Classic, stuck with that annoying blank look on his face. Ink only muttered something about a metal chair, blinked at him, and then greeted him with a child's enthusiasm.

And, of course, there was his brother. From his and Classic's interactions on that day alone, it was not difficult for Nightmare to glean the burgeoning friendship between the two, and the expression that crossed Dream's face at Classic's fake death began to make more sense.

It seemed Classic had undergone a rather unconventional introduction into the multiverse. The more Nightmare heard, the higher Classic raised on his list of utter buffoons.

It was strange. Unexpected. Exciting.

Nightmare had not faced a new mystery in centuries. His studies were his first venture into the multiverse outside of spreading negativity, and it had successfully occupied him for most of his existence. But then things got predictable. Nightmare found that, with enough time, any question at all got boring quickly.

Classic presented a new project with novel results.

And Nightmare was very, very curious.

[autisminabox]

I’m going to be discussing spoilers from the new update, specifically entailing Eddie. Spoilers are below the cut, so, like. Spoiler alert

One thing that stuck out to me right before Eddie “goes to Toyland” (which is what’s implied to happen) is the anger he felt. To me it felt incredibly out of place. Out of place for what’s supposed to be a children’s show, and out of place for Eddie.

We’ve seen Eddie in situations substantially worse for his staying focused on the job than people not having any mail. We’ve seen people jump at him, get pressured into literally lifting other people (and possibly a fucking house), and was too nervous to speak up for himself. We’ve seen him take a lot of shit from both Howdy and Barnaby in the audios, and he more or less took it on the chin. Julie overwhelmed him with her business game, and instead of getting frustrated, he just kind of… curled up.

So this strikes me as particularly odd. There are two explanations I can think of to explain why it happened. The first is a theory I’ve seen floated around about the puppets slowly deviating from the in-universe writers’ design. We see this contrast between how everyone acts in the books and ads and how they act in the bug audios; Barnaby had a twinge of meanness, Julie had a personality beyond being ADHD incarnate, Frank expressed kindness. It’s not out of the question. The second theory is based off of a few observations from earlier on: Eddie is notably from out of town, and is loosely implied to have moved in last out of the main cast. It wouldn’t be absurd to say that this leads him to being “not with the program”, even if him being the newest addition is only in-universe for the show (as opposed to him being literally constructed and written last)

The second thing that was prominent to me was Home’s response to Eddie entering Toyland. This is quite plainly conspicuous and intentional, but I wanted to bring attention to it because of the interesting implications of it. First off, Home is pretty much confirmed to be sentient now. I’ll be damned if there’s any coherent counterargument that doesn’t boil down to going “nuh-uh”. Second, Home is at minimum recognizing that something is happening to Eddie. It’s not clear whether Home is aware of what specifically is happening to Eddie, or whether or not Home had a hand in setting off the incident, but the fact that home recognized that something was happening to Eddie nearly instantly solidifies how intelligent and aware Home actually is. This isn’t inherently surprising, since we’ve already gotten word-of-God confirmation that Home has repeatedly beaten Frank at chess, however, this is the most pointed and direct example that we’ve seen in the actual project.

Third, the fact that Eddie specifically had The Horrors™️ enacted upon him first specifically (at least, as far as we’re explicitly aware of; It’s unclear whether Wally counts as having experienced The Horrors™️ or if he is the arbitrator of them. More on that later) lends to some very interesting suggestions. Five possible explanations I can think of work as follows: One, he knew too much about either the nature of whatever specifically is weird about Home (town), whether that be Home (house), Wally, another character, the monsters of the night, something else about the night, or he knew too much about his nature as a fictional character. There is some speculative support for this; first, the aforementioned outsider angle that he’s been played with, and second, his parallels to the scrapped character Sunny. Sunny was the most recent to move in within the beta continuity, he was the love interest for Frank, he was smart and likely knew too much, and he disappeared first. Two, his outburst earlier in the day proved to be too out of character and thus a risk and liability to whoever was in control of what happened to him. Aside from my above breakdown of that scene, and from the fact that there’s very prominent examples of Playfellow and Marlo (or perhaps Wally, if for whatever reason Evil Wally ends up being true) blatantly straightwashing characters and possibly suppressing free will of the characters, assuming that’s what we’re meant to take away from the bug audios. Three, Eddie realized the actual absurdity of the Pea On A Plate and “woke up”, lucid dream style. I don’t really like this interpretation, since the fact that it’s in several promotional materials and companion merchandise suggests that it was an absurdist humor bit in-universe, which isn’t farfetched considering how children’s shows tend to be. Four, there’s another reason that’s yet to be revealed as to why Eddie got selected first. To be a total Devil’s advocate, we’re still relatively early in what’s looking to be a very slow-paced story. We’re not gonna have all the details, and red herrings are going to pop up, intentionally or otherwise. Five, Eddie was selected randomly or with no actual reason.

There’s also a few possibilities for who sent Eddie to Toyland, which is interesting to me. First, it could be Home. It wouldn’t be surprising considering its mysterious and noted uncanny nature, and its prominence during that scene. Second, it could be Wally. While I personally don’t find it to be the most reasonable, since something of this magnitude being perpetrated by a character we have a face to would likely involve that character, there’s enough evidence of Wally acting aware and generally odd where it isn’t completely absurd. Additionally, it’s entirely plausible that Wally’s conspicuous absence during the entire arc is indicative of some sort of guilt. Third, the show writers, someone at Playfellow, or another party along those lines somehow caused it, either by technological or supernatural means we don’t know about or by some accidental bout of supernatural fuckery, such as rewriting something and it having bizarre effects on the characters. It’s out there, but not out of the question considering the weird shit they’ve done. On top of that, it’s not impossible that another entity or force somehow caused this that either hasn’t been revealed or explained yet.

As to what Toyland actually entails, I’ve concocted a few theories. One, he literally got up and mentally teleported to a land of giant toys. Two, it’s full Star Trek mode and there’s Horrors™️ so mentally stimulating that the only way it could be perceived by either us or Eddie that that’s all it can be perceived as. Three, Going To Toyland is some sort of initiation, rite of passage, or method of psychologically controlling the cast that everyone else either doesn’t realize is happening or has their memories of it forcibly suppressed. This could be supported by the aforementioned “Eddie is an Outsider” and it’s possibly his first Homewarming since moving to the area. After all, a housewarming is a celebration that welcomes and initiates someone to the neighborhood; would it be that odd that Homewarming is a twisted version of that?

Anyways. Those are my observations and a bunch of interpretations. Part of why I love this project so much is how mysterious and unclear the exact details are, creating excellent suspense and a drive to theorize, and leading up to a truly gobsmacking reveal or conclusion. This update certainly delivered. Whatever the answer is for any of the branching paths I described, it’ll almost definitely reveal how truly fucked up the perpetrator is (or, alternatively, how utterly fucked up the situation is in general, if there ends up not being an instigator) for, y’know, doing that. Clown and Co., you’ve certainly outdone yourselves, and the wait was worth it; this speculative theorycrafting this update has provided is absolutely incredible.

[the-ellia-west]

Please tell me about your OC's from JoR also where can I find it it sounds completely awesome

AAAAHHHH TYSM FOR THE ASKKKK!!!

Sooo, Regretfully... JoR isn't out anywhere because I prefer to spruce up my art skills before I begin making a webcomic

However, I occasionally post about shenanigans and sometimes written scenes or dialogue!

It is, VERY MUCH a Work in Progress.

But the Main characters!!!! My lovely Hearth-wolves below the cut! (Beware, you told me to tell, and so I YAPPED)

Ronan, Our Lovely main character, is a vibrating ball of anger who loves sharp objects, punching things, and shouting. He is... by nature and motif, Violent. And not ashamed of it. He is driven by anger and high energy and to him, it's almost basically all he has left. Ronan is very loud and stubborn and doesn't like accepting help, and generally a little dismissive on accident. However, this energy does extend to how he loves and feels for things and people, as he loves very deeply and fiercely. He wears his heart on his sleeve and refuses to apologize for it. He's just a LITTLE stupid as he prefers to follow his heart rather than his head and very rarely thinks before he acts.

Next up is Finn, The wonderful leader of the group. He's level-headed and resourceful, making quick decisions and doing whatever he thinks is best for the greater good and his team. He's generally very respectful and well-mannered and loves to travel. He's an advocate for hard work and more than anything in the world he wants to be responsible and trusted with something big and important. He's the oldest of the group, very experienced and always does his best. However sometimes he takes too much responsibility on himself and leaves his friends and family with nothing to do, running himself into the ground. He's also prone to get VERY defensive if he's insulted or attacked without reason. He also has a crush on Morena.

Third Morena. Morena is a softspoken and kindhearted Healer who wants to help as many people as she can. She's very kind and never holds a grudge. She always tries to do her best and puts in all the effort to make the world even just a little bit better for anyone else. She finds joy in taking care of others and sees worth in every life, no matter how small or how horrible, and wants to bring out the light in the world for everyone to see. However, she is also prone to anxiety and often chooses to cheer on others rather than take time aside for herself. She sees only most murder and worse scenarios as the only things that can't really be forgiven.

After Morena is Rose. Rose is a confident and persistent VERY powerful life mage. She's fascinated with magic and the way it travels between the realms and every living thing. She spends most of her time in the library researching or testing the limits of her own magic. She's incredibly loving and loyal to the last breath to those she loves. Hurt her family and you will be plant food before you can even explain why or beg for mercy. She never gives up and will get back up until she literally can't anymore. She's very compassionate and kind alongside this. Her loyalty may get her into trouble, but if you are the subject of said loyalty, you have pretty much the best hope of protection you can get in the kingdoms of the Trifold-coast Alliance.

Then Jakkon. Or Jak as I call him. (He's my favorite) Jak is a deadbeat by definition, he didn't want to be here and he plans to make that everyone else's problem. He's hostile and hates the world and himself, and takes this out by being generally hostile to everyone and everything. He does have the charisma and intelligence to pull off a lot of high-stakes bargains and lies when he needs to, and as a former politician he's learned to weasel his way out of almost any situation, however he chooses not to use these skills just because he prefers to make things difficult. He's generally pretty quiet and solitary unless it comes to his sister Rose, or people he hates. He very much dislikes being called anything other than an asshole because he doesn't know how to respond. He's one of only two members of the group who doesn't have magic.

6th is Mangrove. Mangrove is a fallen god, young and egotistical, believing himself to be better than everyone because they're all mortals and he's not. He's got the sass of hundreds stored in his little head, and hates being told what he can and can't do. He's very powerful and very emotional. Alongside these factors, Mangrove is Bipolar, and because of the way he's been raised, he doesn't understand how to handle his disorder and behaves erratically most of the time. However, once someone has earned his respect, he will try his best to school his emotions around them and pretend that he is the perfect rule-follower to earn their love.

Second to last is Wild. Wild is the youngest member of the group. He's barely a teenager and bc of the abuse he's suffered and other such traumatic conditions, he is selectively mute and has suppressed almost all emotion. He wants to feel emotion and though he is very quiet, he loves his team to the best of his capability and wants to help. He's incredibly observant and doesn't have much of a filter, saying what he sees unless he thinks it will cause some sort of harm. He just wants safety and attaches himself to the most emotional of the group in order to maybe mimic them and feel again. He's very innocent and small.

@an-indecisive-nerd @sunflowerrosy @urnumber1star @homelessnerd @vesanal @darkandstormydolls @supercimi @corinneglass @sm-writes-chaos @thebookishkiwi @blargh-500 @lunaeuphternal @write-with-will @yolbert @thewritingautisticat @carb0n-m0n0xide @theweirdbox123 @inspirationallybored

Then Lastly there is Phenik.phenik is a cinnamon roll, a little snake. Boop noodle. He is innocent and very curious. He loves exploring and asks a ton of questions because he hasn't experienced a lot in his life and he's excited by a ton of things. Phenik sees the silver lining in every cloud and is the peace-keeper alongside Morena. He hates fighting and is the reason the group keeps going half the time. He's the sweetest sweetheart and just wants to help and learn more about the world.

[syluscore]

Every Version of You (3)

A reverse harem with three variants of Leon Kennedy and feminine reader.

~ Masterlist ~ Previous Part ~ Next Part ~

WORD COUNT: 3.4k

SONGS: To the End - My Chemical Romance and Broken Smile (My All) - Lil Peep

CONTENT WARNINGS FOR PART THREE: self-deprecating, angst, anxiety, depression, yelling, feelings of insignificance, death, talking about death, feelings of love, love confessions, mentions of wanting to die, arguing, teasing, anger, blood, bleeding out, descriptions of blood on skin, loss of hopes and dreams, trauma, tension

TAGLIST: @growingupnrealizing , @weneewinnie , @delulusimps , @yoonbabe-d , @missjoenowhere , @cassiecasluciluce , @greywardensaywhat , @kennedyswhore , @all-mights-babygirl , @weasleytwinscumslut , @pinkrose1422 , @british-mint-bunny

!!!!!!!MINORS DNI! THIS POST AND BLOG ARE 18+ ONLY!!!!!!!

PART "CHAPTER" THREE

Rookie sits on the cold floor with his back pressed against an even colder cement wall. But he feels uncomfortably warm with you sitting right next to him leaning your head on his shoulder.

It’s been an hour since he watched your random make out session with his older self. It stirred up feelings within himself that he’s not sure he wants to address. But sitting here in silence, there’s nothing else for him to really do. Of course his mind is wandering, threatening to burst out of his skull completely if he doesn’t suffocate the flames.

You’re not in any better state of mind. He feels less like a pussy seeing you struggle to process and cope with everything, just as he is, but he also wants to take it all away from you. He hates seeing you in so much pain, so torn up inside that all you can do is stare off blankly. He knows he’s useless to you right now. He’s staring off blankly at the same wall, so how in the hell could he ever be comforting to you?

Rookie never considered himself to be an overly anxious person, but right now, he feels like he merely exists as a cloud of anxiety over the room. 

He’s an insignificant man; he knows he isn’t destined for anything revolutionary or some sort of infamy. He’s looking at this older, well seasoned version of himself and doesn’t see how he could ever get to such a point in his life.

How is he supposed to meet the expectations layed out for him by his future self? Surviving apocalypses, outbreaks, and man made horrors? Somehow prevailing against all odds? He’s just Leon Kennedy, not a superhero. He’s been destined for failure since the day he was born. And yet, he’s somehow supposed to save lives and possibly even the world?

No wonder you freaking died! He’s irresponsible and not the leader type. He’s meant to do as he’s told and never fall out of line. That’s what Leon Kennedy is good at, not whatever this bullshit is. Time travel, for fuck’s sake? He’s entirely out of his element.

Then, he has to stand here quietly and watch as older Leon makes out with you. He sees this devotion and utter adoration in his eyes when he looks at you and it feels so foreign to him. That’s supposed to be him–he’s supposed to feel like that? Maybe not now, but one day? He’s capable of such a thing?

You’re a nice girl and everything, but he doesn’t know you all that well and he’s supposed to just accept that there’s something written in the stars between the two of you? How the fuck is he supposed to feel?

With the knowledge he now possesses, how is he supposed to authentically experience anything ever again? How does he naturally fall in love with you or know that he is in love with you, when in the back of his mind he knows he’s meant to? How does he go about his normal life, knowing an outbreak is coming and not to go running for the hills? Everything feels wrong–is everything wrong?

In all of the cheesy movies he’s seen about time travel, they say that this is the way timelines are destroyed. Is he responsible for completely fucking up the natural trajectory of the world? Maybe not this version of himself, but he still feels complicit. Something, or some things rather, happen to him and he’s messed up enough to be willing to destroy the world and society as we know it. What gives him the right–what makes him significant enough to do something so major?

Nothing has made sense since they showed up and pulled him from his life and timeline. He’s so overwhelmed and it’s only been a day or two since he was taken from his average life. 

You’re also overwhelmed and overthinking everything, but for very different reasons.

You’re sure of your feelings for Leon. When you thought he was dying, those feelings forced their way to the surface and demanded to be acknowledged. You could lie and blame it on the traumatic situation, but deep down, you know those feelings have always been there. It was easy to admit to them in the moment, simply because falling in love with Leon is one of the easiest things you’ve ever done. 

Now that you know Leon had to endure the same exact thing, except you actually died, it’s a hard pill to swallow to put it mildly. That’s not even mentioning the fact that you’re meant to die. You’re supposed to drop dead in what, a few weeks or maybe a few months? It fills you with an existential dread that you’ve never felt before. 

This must be how people feel when they’re told they only have a few months to live. The finality of it, the inevitability of it, fills you with a helpless feeling you desperately wish you didn’t have to address.

You keep replaying the conversation between you and Leon over and over and over. No matter how hard you try to push it out of your head, all you can hear are his words.

“...A life without you isn’t a life worth living for me.”

Dying? What the fuck is he talking about?

You pull yourself out of his grasp and force as much distance between the two of you as possible.

Leon speaks again. “I’m sorry. I know that’s a lot to process, but it’s my truth. I just needed you to know that.”

“I’m going to die?” Your voice is shaky, showing the nerves you’re trying to push down.

Leon shakes his head. “Not if I have anything to do with it. Hindsight is 20/20. If I have to sacrifice myself to save you, then I’m sorry I couldn’t live for you. But I’d choose you over absolutely anything any day. I’m nothing without you and I know you’d find happiness in this world, even without me. You’re resilient and beautiful and captivating. The world would bend to your will just to keep you.”

Your mouth falls open and all you can do is stare at him. You’re not one to ever be speechless, but you keep finding yourself in this state.

“How did it feel when you thought I died? Did you feel that emptiness–that helplessness? Do you understand how it feels now?”

“Not you. My Leon. And I’d rather not discuss how it felt, but thanks anyway I guess.” You avoid his eyes, but you have something else you need to say. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

You’re referring to the kiss and Leon recognizes that immediately.

“You’re serious?” He scoffs at you.

You scoff right back at him, “Yeah I’m fucking serious. You may be Leon’s older self, but you’re not my Leon. My feelings are for him.”

You feel like you betrayed him. Whether it’s his older self or his younger self or whoever, your loyalty belongs to your Leon. Fuck every other timeline besides yours and his. It’s the only timeline you give a shit about. 

“I’ll try to be patient with you. I know I’ve had a lot more time to process the dynamic of what’s happening, but my love for you is unconditional. I love every version of you. In every past life, this life, the next one, and the one after that.”

“We’ll be able to wake Leon shortly. He just needs to… marinate a bit longer for lack of a better term,” Luis snaps you from your thoughts.

You nod at him. The emotions are eating you up from the inside out and you’re starting to feel numb and disconnected. 

“Hey,” Chris speaks up this time. “You’re not going to die. We’re here for the sole purpose of saving you. We won’t let anything happen to you. It’d be a waste of time for all of us if we let you die anyway.”

His last sentence is humorous and even though you try not to laugh, you can’t stop the huff of breath that leaves you.

“What if we can’t save me? Or what if we destroy the world by messing with the timeline or something? What if God comes down and smites us all? If you believe in any of that. Whatever divine presence you could possibly believe in, it doesn’t change anything. How can we know anything we do will change fate?” 

The word vomit just keeps tumbling past your lips. You can’t help it. You’re terrified. You’re anxious. You’re every negative feeling to ever be translated into this language.

“We’ve succeeded before with a whole lot less,” Luis explains. “I’m supposed to be dead, yet I’m very much alive.” He does jazz hands. As if he didn’t just casually mention they’ve done the time travel thing before and it’s the only reason he’s standing here. He treats it like you’re discussing what to order for fucking lunch.

“He was the trial run,” Leon explains while shrugging. “Sort of like a crash test dummy. We weren’t going to put you through this without knowing if it could actually work. Plus he’s a scientist, or whatever.”

“Jee, thanks amigo.”

Chris’ lips thin as he fails to hold back a laugh.

“For Christ’s sake, what now?” Leon spits out at Chris.

“I think he calls us amigo to remind us how white we are. A more accurate translation of his amigos would be his white people. It’s funny.”

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s kind of funny,” you butt in and Leon’s head whips in your direction, shooting you a death glare. You throw your hands up in the air to feign your innocence, but he just shakes his head at you.

“Amigos, why must we always argue?” 

Chris responds, “See, Leon? He’s not denying it. He’s patronizing us-”

“What the fuck are you talking about-”

“Hey!” Luis yells over the two of them. “Kiss and make up, will you? We got shit to take care of.”

Both men finally quiet down; Leon getting one more dirty look in at Chris before shifting his attention back to the conversation at hand. 

“Any way,” Luis looks back at you, “These two managed to get their hands on the technology to come back and intervene in my…ending. But the side effects are pretty brutal. I’ve spent a lot of time researching and altering our methods.”

“The mechanics were terrible,” Chris grimaces.

“What gave you that idea? The fact that we almost killed ourselves in the process?” Leon scowls.

Rookie finally speaks up. “Is he always like this?”

“Hope not,” you mumble.

“As I was saying,” Luis once again has to bring everyone’s attention back to the actual discussion. “Your mission will be delayed due to an urgent matter. The president’s daughter is kidnapped and Leon will be sent to retrieve her. I was meant to die on that mission.”

Leon finishes the story for Luis.

“Then, I get back and we go on with our assignment and everything goes wrong. You die, I barely survive, it’s a shitshow. But now Luis is alive and we’ve figured our shit out, so now we can go on with our actual initiative; saving the girl who somehow considers me a different person.”

“Sorry this is a weird situation we’ve found ourselves in.” You snap at him and he gives you a look of complete surprise at the outburst.

And then, Leon laughs. It’s a humorless laugh as he cradles his face in his hands. You’re completely confused at his reaction and you know it’s showing in your expression.

When his head whips back up, his eyes instantly meet yours, your heart stops and you’re actually startled by the angry expression on his face.

“You died in my fucking arms!” He shouts and the whole room falls into silence. 

You can’t bring yourself to look away from him. You wish the world would swallow you up and remove you from this situation. Or maybe if you could fold in on yourself until you ceased to exist right before his very eyes. Anything to not feel the intensity in the heat of his stare. 

You don’t know what to say. What the fuck do you say to that? I’m sorry for dying? It wasn’t my intention to do so? Thank you? Glad you could join me there? 

“Can we have a moment alone?” His words express a question, but his tone iterates it as a demand not to be argued against.

The other three men quietly leave the room. As they walk away, you silently plead for one of them to stay–to not leave you alone to face his wrath and fury on your own. 

But your prayers go unanswered as Rookie gives you a sympathetic look before closing the door behind him.

You stare down at your hands as you fiddle with your finger nails. You don’t know which would be worse, the deafening silence or him actually speaking to you. Do you even want to know what he has to say to you? He’s furious, to put it mildly, and you dread the fact that he might take it out on you. Leon wouldn't do that though–or would he? Do you even know anything at all anymore?

He sighs heavily before walking over to you, sitting next to you on the floor. He takes over Rookie’s old spot, his presence much more crowding than he younger counterpart.

He takes your left hand in his much larger hands. You feel so small with the way your hand ceases to exist between his. It’s scary, it’s overwhelming, it’s comforting. It’s a perfect fucking fit is what it is.

“I don’t mean to be so angry. I don’t want to be, but I can’t control it anymore. I’m so fucking angry.” He speaks to you quietly.

“Why?” Your voice is even quieter than his. It comes out barely above a whisper.

“You were bleeding out in my arms. Your blood covered my entire chest and was dripping off of my arms. And it was so warm; it’s like I can still feel it coating my skin.”

You finally turn your head to look at him, but he’s still looking ahead. You bring your other hand to his, rubbing your thumb over his knuckles gently. You silently encourage him to go on and he finally sighs, relenting.

“I could feel the life leaving your body, could feel you weakening against me. And in that moment, even though you knew you were dying and there was nothing we could do, you were comforting me. Assuring me that I’d be okay.”

Your lips form a sad smile, because you know that that is absolutely what you would do in that situation. Even as you lay there dying, half way in his arms and half way in the grim reapers, you’d want to make sure he was okay. You’d want to assure him that everything would be fine for him even though it wasn’t for you. It wouldn’t matter if you could accept the fact that you were dying or not; you’d want to comfort him with the fact that you were at peace with it. All for his sake.

“And then you were just,” He looks over at you and releases a heavy breath, “Gone. You stopped bleeding and your blood slowly dried into my skin. The blood went cold on me. And I knew there was nothing I could’ve done to save you, but I wanted that warm feeling back. I wished you were still bleeding out in my arms and that your warm blood was running down my body, just so that I could have even a few more seconds with you.”

You nod your head as you listen to him. He probably takes it as you encouraging him to talk about it and release it from his system, but it’s more than that to you. You understand how he felt. You would’ve jumped into the vat of liquid with Leon just to have those last moments with him. You hated the thought of him dying alone in there and you would’ve given anything to hold him in your arms that one last time.

“You know, I denied my feelings for you until the bitter end. I sat there with your lifeless body and that was when I finally allowed myself to admit I was in love with you. I was forced to acknowledge all of those emotions I’d refused to for so long. All I could do was whisper to you how much I loved you even though I knew you were no longer there to hear it.”

He leans in and rests his forehead against yours, “I’m sorry it took you bleeding out in my arms for me to finally speak the words of what I knew all along. I still feel the pain every goddamn day. I spent every minute after that wishing I would’ve just died with you.”

You pull your hands from his and bring them up to his face, holding his cheeks in your palms and forcing him to look you in the eyes.

“I know,” your voice waivers. “I know because it was the same for me. Felt like the fucking world was ending. I just knew that I loved you so much, and that I would never get to love you while you were alive.”

Leon wrapped his arms around you and you wrapped yours around him. You clung to each other so tightly, your souls might have actually merged together right there in that basement. It didn’t matter how complicated the situation was, because you two understood each other. And that’s all that really mattered in that moment.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

After a while, everyone is back in the basement. Chris, Luis, and Leon are gathered around the control panel, talking amongst themselves. You and Rookie are once again left to your own devices.

He hasn’t spoken much and just by the lost look on his face, you can see his mind running a thousand miles per hour.

“Hey,” Rookie’s attention is immediately on you, as if he was just waiting for you to speak to him. “I know it’s probably not comforting at all, but um, the version of me in your time is oblivious to everything too. We haven’t gone through life altering atrocities together yet. If she was brought here, I think she’d have shut down completely. Like, fuck, I’m still trying not to shut down completely.”

Rookie smiles at your attempt to calm his mind, like an actual smile. His actual smile versus the ones he fakes are so different, it’s like night and day. And you’d do anything to see his real smile, so you continue.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you, having your dream ripped from you is devastating. Having to let go of everything you thought you’d have? Processing the world being completely different then how you always knew it to be? It’s miserable. It doesn’t matter if you save the entire world, you’ll never feel like a hero. But you are a hero, Leon. Nothing will ever lessen the burdens that are yours alone to bear and for that, I am so sorry.”

“Thank you,” he says before leaning his head on your shoulder, the opposite of your earlier position. When you were leaning on his shoulder in a subconscious need to be close to him.

“I think I’ll always mourn the life I wanted for myself. You know, the fulfilling career, finding my soulmate, the white picket fence. Can’t forget the house full of well behaved kids,” you huff out a laugh. “My dream is simple now, but seems so much harder to attain than my previous ones.”

“And what’s that?”

“To be happy.”

Rookie looks up at you, a solemn look on his face.

“Is it okay if I steal that dream and make it mine too?”

“Well, of course. Gotta shoot for the stars, right?”

You smile at each other, your smile only grows recognizing his genuine smile. And you stare at each other longer than what would be considered normal. But the longer you stare at each other, the harder you find it to look away.

In his eyes, you see every version of Leon and the feeling growing inside of your chest is foreign and new to you. Because he’s still your Leon, just the younger version. And the Leon leaning against the cement wall as he watches Luis and Chris argue over something on the control panel, is your Leon too. You have no fucking idea what to make of this realization.

You’re not sure how much time passes, when a throat clears, pulling you and Rookie’s attention over to the other men.

“His calibration is done,” Chris announces. “We can wake him up now.”

[sequinsmile-x]

Someone's Mother

The anger is fierce and overwhelming. It’s something she’d only felt once before in another life when she had to kill a little boy to allow him to live. She wonders what it means that the stakes are so much lower this time, that it isn’t a case of morality or life and death, but that it hurts so much more.

AKA the one where Jack brings home a Mother's Day gift, despite conversations Emily and Aaron have had with the school, and Emily is furious.

-x-

Hi besties,

Happy Mother's Day to all those who celebrate it today.

I know today can be a hard day for people, for many different reasons, so please know that I am holding space for those who are struggling and I am thinking of you <3

This turned out a bit differently to how I originally anticipated - as in it's much fluffier than what I thought I would write when I opened my laptop this morning!!

As always, let me know what you think! -x-

Warnings: None

Words: 2k

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

Emily smiles as her phone chimes in her pocket. She picks it up, taking a moment to look at her wallpaper - a photo of her, Aaron and Jack - before she unlocks it to read the text from her fiancé. 

The meeting didn’t overrun in the end. Packing up to go home. 

She chuckles as she types out her response, looking up from her phone as she hears the bell ring, signalling the end of school. 

I see how it is. Very convenient that the meeting ended just in time for me to do the school run. 

She sinks her teeth into her lower lip when she sees the three little dots appear in the bottom left of the screen. 

I’ll make it up to you.

She laughs outloud, entirely unsure when she’d become this person. When she’d turned into someone who would blush and giggle when the man she loved wasn’t even around, and she shakes her head, typing out one final response as she sees the hordes of kids run out of the school.

That better be a promise, Mr Hotchner. 

“Emily!” 

She looks up and smiles as she sees Jack run towards her, his backpack almost the size of him and another bag hanging from his hand, hidden behind his back as he looks at her with a mix of delight and confusion. 

“Hey sweetie,” she says, ruffling his hair and hugging him as he wraps one arm around her, “How was school?” 

“Fine,” he says, “I thought Dad was picking me up today.”

“He got held up at work,” she replies, turning and leading him towards where she’d parked, “So you’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.” 

“I like being stuck with you.” 

She smiles at him, “I like being stuck with you, too.” 

She still wasn’t used to the normality of the life she had now. She’d say she’d fallen into it, but she hadn’t. She fought for it. She’d died for it, and she hoped she’d never lose sight of that. That she’d always see the beauty in the ordinariness of it all. Even if it did mean doing the school run on Friday afternoons for the foreseeable future, a life with her family, the family she and Aaron were already trying to grow, hope permating everything in their home like the smell of the fresh paint still lingering in the hallway, worth so much more to her than anything else. 

“Want me to carry anything for you?” She asks, and he shakes his head fiercely, happy to walk alongside her, purposely holding the white gift bag that had been behind his back out of her way. 

When he climbs into the back of her car, she finally catches sight of the gift bag despite his attempts to continue hiding it from her, and she realises his handwriting is on the outside. The words ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ written in bright red pen stand out against the plain white card, and she feels a lick of anger burning in her blood. His teacher knew about Haley, and they’d asked to be told about whatever projects there would be for Mother’s Day so they could prewarn Jack. It was a fine balance between not wanting him to be singled out, not reminding his classmates that his mom had died, and giving him the option to do something else if needed. She desperately tries to think about whether they’d been told about it this year, if she’d somehow forgotten in the mix of moving into their new home and planning a wedding, but she’s sure she’d remember. She never forgot anything about Jack. It was something purposeful, something she did for Haley as well as the little boy himself, all too aware that she couldn’t fill the hole in his life but desperate to make sure he knew he was loved. 

She’s tempted to park the car, take him back inside and leave him in the hallway with her phone as a distraction so she can give his teacher a piece of her mind, but it’s something that she has to swallow back down. Something she has to let simmer in her gut, so Jack doesn’t catch on. He carries on talking to her from the back seat, acting as if the bag didn’t exist, while he tells her about his day. Whatever picture his teacher had their class make to mark Mother’s Day barely visible, just the edge of a canvas sticking out of the top. Small splashes of colour that she could see whenever she casts a glance in the rearview mirror, enough to occasionally make her stomach roll with anger. Her hands tight on the steering wheel as she grasps it hard enough to make her skin go bone white as it pulls over her knuckles, her love for the little boy rolling through her like a second pulse. 

She offers to carry the bag into the house for him, but he shakes his head, insistent that he carry it himself as he runs into the house and up the stairs, the gift disappearing with him into his room. As soon as he’s out of sight, she lets the tension settle into her jaw, her teeth clenched as she rolls her neck, her hands tight around her keys as she considers going back to the school. She hears Aaron’s footsteps coming from the kitchen, and she blows out a breath, desperate to calm herself down. 

“Was that blur that just went upstairs Jack?” Aaron asks, “Thanks for going to get him…” he drifts off when she turns to look at him, her outrage painted across her face.

“You don’t have to thank me,” she replies, smiling tightly as if she can fool him, as if he can’t read her like like a book, as if he hadn’t studied every page so he could understand her like no one else ever had, like no one else had ever tried to. “We’re a family. It’s what we do.” 

He stares at her a second, waits her out to see if she’ll say anything else, but she doesn’t. He clears his throat and steps towards her, his hands in his pockets as he raises an eyebrow at her and purposely puts himself in her line of sight.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

She sniffs and crosses her arms over her chest, her keys still in hand, still not entirely unsure she wasn’t going to head back out, “Nothing.” 

“Em…” 

“He has a Mother’s Day gift with him,” she admits in a whispering shout, still able to remind herself that Jack was only upstairs, even with her irritation getting the better of her. The anger is fierce and overwhelming. It’s something she’d only felt once before in another life when she had to kill a little boy to allow him to live. She wonders what it means that the stakes are so much lower this time, that it isn’t a case of morality or life and death, but that it hurts so much more. The space in her chest that she’d carved out for Aaron and Jack, the space she thinks might have always been their waiting for them, aching as it fills with anger and a sense of protectiveness that she’d call maternal if she didn’t think it would be overstepping. “We’ve told them to give us the heads up so we can talk to him-”

“Em-”

“And I knew Mother’s Day was coming up,” she says, carrying on as if he hadn’t said anything, “And I should have thought about it, but with the move and the wedding planning, it’s just slipped my mind, and I should have known better-”

“Em-”

“But he’s just a little boy, and he doesn’t have a mom.” She’s holding her keys so tightly now that they are sharp against her palm, a throbbing pain she thinks she might deserve. She doesn’t notice Aaron getting closer to her, doesn’t see the smile he’s trying and failing to suppress, and she carries on, getting herself worked up in a way only he and Jack were able to bring out in her. “And Miss Whitmore knows that and she still sent him home with a painting in a Mother’s Day bag he decorated himself,” she finally stops talking long enough to blow out a breath, “I should go back, tell her that this isn’t acceptable-”

“She told me about it,” Aaron says, his words finally registering with her, and she looks at him, her head tilted as she swallows thickly, hurt catching in her throat as she tries and fails to swallow it back down. 

“Oh,” she replies, releasing her grip on her car keys, smiling tightly as she nods, dropping the keys down on the side table. She knew she wasn’t his mom. She knew that, but Aaron usually involved her in things like this, usually let her in on his parenting decisions, asking her for advice and her opinion, so she had let herself forget, allowed herself to get lost in the fantasy of the family she had built around herself. The family she wants to grow and cherish for the rest of her life. “I see. I should go change-”

“He made it for you,” Aaron says, catching her as she tries to slip past him, his arm around her waist as he stops her in place. She looks up at him so quickly he thinks it must hurt, her eyes wide and full of confusion that makes her look adorable, her beauty somehow accentuated by it. 

“Wh…what?” 

“It’s meant to be a surprise,” he says, squeezing her hip, “But I can’t have you spiralling over this until Sunday,” he smiles when she opens her mouth to deny that she was spiralling, but she stops herself, her lips pressed together for a moment as she places her hand over his on her hip. 

“He made it for me?” She asks, her lungs cramped, all the space in her chest taken up by love for the two of them. 

Aaron nods and cups her cheek, runs his thumb back and forth over the slope of her cheekbone, “The teacher spoke to me about it last month, and she said he told her he wanted to make you something this year. So before I spoke to you, I spoke to him, and he said he wanted it to be a surprise.” 

“Oh,” she says, and she clears her throat to try and remove the shake in her voice, “That’s…” she blows out a slow breath, “Why?” 

He chokes on a sound that he thinks was originally supposed to be a laugh, his disbelief turning it into something else. He makes her look at him, only realising then that she’d looked down in an attempt to cover her emotions, her eyes shining with tears she still tried to hide from him from time to time, so unused to having someone she could share everything with that she was still prone to act as if she was facing the world alone. As if he wouldn’t set it all on fire to make sure she was okay.

“Well, in his words, you do everything a mom does for him,” he says, smiling softly when he sees the sharp breath she inhales, sees how it catches on her ribs, “And in my words, it’s because whether you know it or not - you’re an incredible mom, sweetheart. Jack and whoever else may come along are lucky to have you.” He smiles and she leans against him, everything she can’t say - everything she can’t find the words for - said in silence when she hugs him close, her hands fisted in the back of the shirt she’d picked up from the dry cleaner for him just a few days ago. He kisses her temple and runs his hand up and down her back, hugging her back just as fiercely as she was holding him. “You’ll have to act surprised on Sunday,” he says, pulling back just enough to look at her. “He’ll be mad at me if he finds out I told you.” 

“Well, we can’t have that.” She laughs, the sound wet as it catches in her throat, and she nods, resting her forehead against his, “Your secret is safe with me.” 

[the-volume-is-astronomical]

How would you feel if I walked up to you and ripped your heart out?

a/n: its been so long since I've written, welcome to my new obsession! the title comes from the song Losing You by boy Pablo :] enjoyyyy (THUNDERBOLTS SPOILERS!!!)

Tags: (can be read as pre or during) Sam/Bucky, missing post credit scene, they be arguing, a few characters get mentioned but it’s only the boys

The amount of disdain in Sam’s voice was a complete rarity nowadays but unmistakable through the phone.  

“Is this really how I find out about this new team of yours?”, whispered in a wounded-anger, the worse kind to be directed your way. 

“Sam, augh, Valentina just--”, the exasperate tone was dismissive and definitely not the way to go, but Bucky was tired, 106 years old, and grumpiness came naturally with those two things. 

“Oh do not. Get me started on you working for ‘rebrander of the U.S. Agent’ Fontaine. I got intel from Everett Ross-- do you even know anything about this woman?!”, as he sorted his thoughts into words, the frustration naturally escalated as more reasons to be mad at Bucky popped into his brain. 

“Okay. I know this looks…pretty horrible.”, adjusting to whatever situation comes his way is something Bucky does everyday on the field, so taking a hard left to placate his Cap was par for the course. 

“‘Looks pretty horrible’? I talked to you while Joaquin was in critical condition, to air out everything I had been dealing with because you fucking encouraged me to. The mantle Steve left behind, reconsidering the serum, and the weight on my shoulders because the president wanted me to rebuild the Avengers-- only for you to go and announce the ‘New Avengers’ months later!” 

All energy quickly left Sam, leaving a breathless, “Buck, what did you want me to think?”, behind.

“...I-I’m sorry. Fuck, this does look bad”, taking a small reprive to gather his thoughts by rubbing his eyes. “We were trying to get Valentina arrested. She went behind the curtain-- we didn’t think she was going to have an entire press circut ready!”, who knew sounding innocent, when you are, could be this hard. He's usually guilty of whatever he’s accused, so this is a new experience. 

“She announced us as the new team…Yelena seemed to have a plan because she whispered to her, something like ‘you owe us your life’, knowing her.”

Sam stayed silent for a moment. 

Bucky never feared silence, he still didn’t, but he was not used to wanting to fill it when he was with Sam. It was either comfortable or the other would fill the quiet with the start of some long winded banter. 

“You didnt know the team…was being formed…or that you were in it?”, Sam was cautious with his words, still wary that he will get an answer that will fracture the closest relationship he's allowed himself in years. 

“Of course not, Sam. I would have fucking told you!”, he meant it. Sam respected honesty and earning Sam’s approval had become a constant nagging in the back of his mind for some time. “We’ve been through it together…I- wouldn’t want you to not tell me shit because of a random impeachment case I wanted to get recognition for.” 

“Fine. You didn’t know but why wouldn’t you just… say as much? Tell the press she was full of shit and have her on her way.”, the anger was still there but temporarily brough to a simmer. 

“We thought there could be something to get from this. A new Avenger’s team is in order and they all want recognition, a life of a hero instead of a criminal.”,

“But that’s my responsibility now--”, there was a frustration of when someone has completely missed the point, when you think they’ve finally understood, and they say something to disprove that. 

“Yes but--I’ve been there before…I know how it feels. To go from a Hydra tool to celebrated after Thanos? I couldn’t deny that to anyone else.”, theres been enough conversation similar to this one, Bucky always backed out before getting too close or deep to the truth of what he feels. 

That anger Sam started the conversation with, the hurt, actually made him hesitate. He could still lose him, by being an idiot and not communicating, not explaining what was going in the frozen recesses of his mind. 

That's not an option. 

“Sam, maybe that’s what I was searching for…with this whole campaign for congress”

“D-did you not think I would have you on the team?”, voice a whisper to not allow it to crack, not now. 

“I’m sure you would've. It’s just…in this team, we all have a past, yet we get presented as the ‘New Avengers’. Could you imagine that back then?”, something he could’ve never dreamt of, accomplished. 

“There’s a lot of ‘we’ talk considering the whole lone White Wolf reputation. What bonding could I have missed?”, it was bitter, and ugly, but the anger had caught up to Sam. He was a righteous man, not a saint. 

Bucky, had to deescalate. If the shield fiasco didn’t strain his relationship with Sam, this could still work out.

“Have you heard of trauma bonding? The Void is one nasty power.”, jokes and banter. That’s who they were.

“Why is he on your team? Sentry was unstable and it led to New York being turned into a void, no light, or people, while those inside suffered reliving their worse memories.”, it was worry that drive the accusation. Of course for the general population but mainly Bucky. 

There are so many memories from the Winter Soldier and before then he could be forced to relive. An entire eternity trapped in the Void and he probably wouldn’t run out of memories, literally having more that one lifetime of memories. 

“His name is Bob, pretty pleasant kid. He’s just gone through a lot.”, there was an attempt to make the words sound nicer than he meant them to be but he probably failed. 

“Well that, kid, is dangerous. We should be preventing something like this from happening. Not babying the temporary mass murderer.”, in Sam’s eyes it was so easy to see. They needed a reliable team that could serve and protect. Having someone with such limitless power and trauma packed into one human body hadn’t gone well in the past. 

“Well, Sam. I actually am a serial mass murderer. What are you suggesting be done with me?!”, he couldnt hold back the rage any longer. That boy had been through enough and he wasn’t going to allow any other injustice against him, no matter how well intentioned. 

“That’s not the same.”, it was Sam’s turn to tread carefully. This was sensitive territory and he would never want to distress Bucky, not after all the work he had done. 

“How is it not the same?!”, so much fury behind it.

“Bucky, do you not remember Wanda? I got to know her when we were on the run, she had her demons but she tried, kept them at bay with a support system. In one fell swoop it was all gone. She couldn't handle it. No one would expect her to! But she kidnapped a town, dead to the rest of the world, making them have her nightmares. Sound familiar yet?!”, there was no way Bucky wasn’t understanding what he was trying to get at, it felt purposeful. 

“We can get him a therapist! He has us! Yelena promised to basically never let him out of her sight--”, Bob wasn’t unfixable, wasnt unlovable. He was a much better person than Bucky, his darkest thoughts literally manifested into a supervillain. How could Sam blame him for that?

“Were you not listening to me?! Wanda had all of that. Yet she’s still fucking dead. Went insane trying to get back her dead husband and children that never existed. It can all just---”

“Tell me what would you suggest to keep him in check then?”, there was still the slightest effort to calm down, barely noticeable due to the amount of seethe within him. 

“I was suggesting it could be better to provide him a facility where he could learn to control his powers--”

“Oh, yeah? Sure! Get him to a facility where they can experiment on him. Oh wait! That’s exactly what happened and one of the most disturbing things he’s experienced.”, it was complete irritation and pettiness exuding from Bucky in waves. 

“I know. But maybe that’s the only way to get him to anything near normal after everything he’s gone through. Some intense therapy or a neurological breakthrough that can get rid of The Void!”, Sam was being misunderstood again and this was a feeling he really didn’t enjoy, and he can’t say he’s had Bucky be the reason for it. Sure they aren’t the best talkers but they were good listeners. 

“Oh great idea, just brain wash him! You want some suggestions for the trigger words because I’ve got a few--” 

“I didn’t say that!” 

“Y-yeah, but it could easily turn into--”

“If you think I would ever say that… I don’t think you know me at all.”, Sam’s voice cracked at that last word. He knew it wasn’t true. Bucky knew him better than anyone else but in the moment he felt like they were strangers to each other. 

Bucky’s throat was so dry, he could barely breathe, or maybe he was breathing too much

“...Sam--” 

“This conversation obviously isn’t fruitful. We should find a different way to talk about this because this was a definite mistake--”, defaulting to impersonal language. It made the hurt a little less, frostbite numb. 

“Sam. Please--”, it was desperate, raw and vulnerable. Bucky layed on a table for display

“Goodbye, James.”

Once again, silence. From the one person he could hear talk for the rest of his days.

[siriusblackdevotee]

I just saw a fanart of Sirius and Snape. What was that? Why was that hot? How the fuck was that hot??? TELL ME ABOUT THEM! I'M NOT GETTING THEM OUT OF MY BRAIN. What is the deal here??!?!?!?

Is the fanart from intotheswollenriver...bc yeah, god they are hot.

It's hot because they absolutely hate each other but they would also wholeheartedly trust each other when it comes to achieving their number one goal, which is protecting Harry. Like their vibes are enemies, so a divorced couple with phenomenal co parenting skills?? Best friend of Lily, best friend of James??

Besides that, I'm pretty sure they have a lot of parellels. Which is why I reallyy love shipping them.

Sirius hated his home life but he was forced to live back there again though it was for a short while, Severus also lived back in his childhood home, though he spent most of his time Hogwarts for his career.

Sirius and Severus had a huge part in the deaths of the Potters, and therefore felt responsible/guilty. "I as good as killed them." (Can't remember the quote) and Severus's...well you know.

Other DEs suspecting Severus to be a traitor and other Order allies actually convicting Sirius as the traitor?? Also the literal ex death eater believes Sirius was a DE and the wrongfully convicted one doesn't even know Severus had a dark mark?? Like??

There's more but I can't remember lol.

Snupin is sad angst but snirius is like...angry angst. Snupin is recovering from their teenage bs and the war but snirius is making it worse. Like... reverting? Relapsing??

Because Sirius says shit like he wasn't proud of his teenage treatment towards Severus, and drops quotes like oh the world isn't black and white harry or whatever and then turns around and says Severus deserved the Prank happening (although I think this happened first) and speaks to Severus like he's the worst scum on earth, even before he finds out Severus was a DE. Like despite how impulsive he is, Sirius does understand, he has logic and everything but literally all of that goes out the window the moment he talks to Severus?? Like, heed your own words bro, why can't you??

Severus gets to be an asshole to Sirius for obv reasons, PTSD and all. I forgive him.

Anyways, they literally get under each other's skin like no other. The only marauders era characters to be written this way. Like it's been more than a decade since their childhood "feud" (/sarc) and they still revert back to their teenage self whenever they fight. It's so fascinating because we know Severus is the rationally composed one. Even Sirius has his moments.

And yet, even though every one of their canon interactions were bitter and heated, Severus handles the unconscious body of Sirius carefully, he doesn't knock his head around on purpose (unlike Sirius with Severus's body) and Severus genuinely did not want Sirius to die. Before they even properly had a conversation, Severus seems to have uh moved on? He was ready to forget the whole "getting back" at Sirius thing, he's over it but all that past resentment, anger and bitterness comes back immediately the moment he talks to Sirius. Which, I don't blame him for. Human response honestly.

At his core, he understands that no matter how horrible Sirius was to him, this is Lily's friend, this is someone Harry cares about. So kind of like Harry to Draco, this guy is a piece of shit but he doesn't deserve death

And this is somewhat similar to Sirius's oh Snape? Hated that Slytherin guy, sucking up to all those horrible slytherins, I wouldn't mind if he died back then lol... what do you mean he was a death eater? Are you sure?

Hence, they are enemies and lovers. I don't think they'll ever move past the enemy phase. So they are both. Their conversations are 100% full of witty quick comebacks and sarcasm. They've lived through experiences literally no one else shares. Like who else would know what it's like to unintentionally play a key part in orchestrating the Potter's death??

Even besides that, how they're written too. Severus is poor, working class, bullied, ugly, greasy hair, goes from the lowest of the barrel and works his way up, rational, and introverted, inherits almost nothing valuable from his pureblood mother. Sirius is rich, highest of the highest elite, peaked in highschool, handsome, gorgeous hair, falls from disgrace—a young man with a huge inheritance to an escaped convict, irrational and extroverted, inherits like?? Everything?? From his family???

Also, there's Severus who hates his name from his father because abusive guy and Sirius who hated what his family represented. Hmm, they're not exactly the same but the vibes....

Like it's so...ugh compelling?? It SPEAKS to me.