#|| brain burst - I have had so many ideas over almost what 10 years I have written her...

[courcgecus]

I would also love to include speculation and headcanons for Jonathan's history. Now, if you happened to have your own ideas / include parts of my thoughts, very welcome. I am willing to discuss when building world, especially if characters knew the same character, or someone happened to roleplay the said character. Note! These details are for world building for the Great Mouse Detective / Victorian / Other history adapted AU / Zootopia / Sing etc... since these AUs skip most of the canon storyline.

In these AUs especially, I see there being more of shady business going on. Mr Brisby might have been a man of his family, but also a thief, especially when situation required it - helping a group of rats to achieve freedom from their shared pasts. Playing around dangerous individuals. Yet, laws and regulations considered, the punishments would come even for noble ideas... or, a rival would get him first.

Marriage of Mr and mrs Brisby was looked at little strange. You have an urban mouse moving to country side, where mrs Brisby had lived her entire life in the small community. He apparently never had an education, talks strange and unknown things, and no one has any idea about his family line or his history. Suspicious, thought many. But mrs Brisby was always convinced he was good hearted - and right she was! As a husband and father, he was the best one could have. He built the house, educated the children, lived life at peace. They didn't have much but they had everything they needed - and during hard times, he always seemed to have a way to bring food on the table. Or something nice to treat the family once in a while. What ever trouble surfaced, he always seemed to have an idea or solution to solve it. Sometimes, he would leave for the night after work and dinner. To see a friend or do a task he had forgotten earlier, or do extra work.

And one day, he didn't come back.

And for many weeks, if not months, she had no idea what had happened to him. She refused to believe he had left them -

and when the time came it was discovered he had been killed for trespassing. Body wasn't found, but the witnesses had came forward for his disappearance. Not only, was she struck by grief, it forced the family tight. One secret after another revealed of his past life - streetlife, subjection to experiments, thievery and friendship with the rats. Discovering the stone from his stash, she kept it hidden, while in came people who claimed Jonathan owed them. One of them, the factory owner and politician, Jenner, contacting the fresh widow with multitude of accusations towards her husband. Without Jonathan's income, the increased costs forced the family out their home - and against her will, move to the cities where mrs Brisby could work.

The stone held many mysteries - from where such an artifact could have been found - was it one of items Jonathan had obtained dishonestly - or what was the story behind the marvelous gem? Why that gemstone, suddenly, meant so much to her she was willing to fight for it. When Jenner threatened to sue her for not revealing the location of the artifact, even that had not scared her to speak. She always denied knowing any of that. And as a settlement, it was brushed off for the lack of evidence. Yet, it hadn't meant he had given up for her.

[rubber-ducky143]

College Trip!!

A/N: Hello, sorry I’ve had a MASSIVE lack of writing recently!! Things have been crazy lately! I just finished testing last week and I’m hoping I can write a lot more. I’ve also had a huge lack of sleep recently (about 6 hours per night) but I've been making it through even if all I want is to close my eyes! I’m also working on SOO much right now but just don’t have motivation.. Anyways, I hope you like this :3

Inspo: Last night, I was at a hotel and a video from Caryn & Connie inspired me to do part of this story as well!!  Video here :3 

Warnings: Fluff, drinking, anxiety(?), that’s it I think lmk if I missed anything :)

Pairing: College Roommate!Felix x M! Reader

Word count: 1545

It was late at night, maybe 9 or almost 10 o’clock. You were sitting at your desk, waiting for your roommate, Felix, to come back. Where had he been?  You had absolutely no clue. He could’ve been in a jungle for all you knew. And for all you cared frankly. At this moment in time, you were so tired you just wanted to close your eyelids and fall asleep but something in your body forced you to stay up and wait for that stupid, attractive, blonde man. You wished you hadn’t been paired with him for roommate at times but, at other times, you enjoy it. Like the time Jisung came over and you three drank to your heart’s content and played lord knows how many rounds of the best game of truth or dare you can recall. 

You rub your temples with your index fingers and sigh. It was only mere moments that had passed when your dorm’s door burst open. It shocked you enough to lift some drowsiness off of your sleep-lacked brain. 

“Hey, sorry I’m so late.. I got so caught up in time.. I almost forgot to come home.. And almost passed out.. On the couch..” 

He sounded out of breath. The one who came clearly running through your door was no other than Felix. Or so you hoped. Who else would have the key-card to your room besides you, Felix, and possibly the main office? Also, no one else had a voice as deep and soothing as your roommates, therefore, it only made since that it was him. 

“Hey, no worries.. Honestly, if you had gotten here any later, I would've passed out myself.. What were you doing, anyway? Normally, you’re here before sun down..”

Felix hums in acknowledgment, removing his bag from across his torso and hanging it up on a little shelf you both (and friends) made about 3 or 4 years ago. He sighs and stretches, raising his hands into the air and leaning to the side and then to other.

“Hyunjin thought it be a good idea to have a game night and since this week has been full of end-of-the-year testing, I wanted to spend time with my friends and celebrate the end of those brain-wracking tests..”

You nod your head, allowing him to continue. “I didn’t know I was gonna pass out after seeing who could chug a bottle of vodka down faster..” You dumb-smack your face and rest your elbow on the table in front of you. “You.. cease to amaze me.. You know that, right? Who chugs a bottle of voldka at like 10 at night? At least do it around midnight..” “And you’re encouraging me, why?” “Not sure.. Anyways, I’mma go to bed.. We can hang out tomorrow if you have no plans, yeah?”

Felix hums and nods his head.

“Yeah, I’m free. We can go to that double-decker bus bar that opened a few weeks ago. It sounds really fun..”

You nod and force a drowsy smile. With that, Felix pulls you in for a hug with one of his arms and hugs you sideways before letting go and heading to the bathroom to shower.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------You stretch after being let go and crawl into the comforts of your sheets and comforter along with an army of squishmallows, pillows and other stuffies you refuse to let go of. You rest your head on your fluffed up pillow and close your eyes. It feels like 2 seconds when your roommate comes out with a white, soft towel around his waist. He runs to his dresser, grabs what you assume to be a pair of boxers, a pair of some sort of bottoms, and a shirt of some kind. You couldn’t tell. Fairy-lights only emit so much light!

After a few more minutes of trying to sleep, Felix comes back out of the bathroom wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He ruffles your hair before going to bed himself. 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, you wake up and lay in bed for an extra 30, 40 minutes. Once you finally actually get out of bed, you change into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. You waddle over to yours and Felix’s mini fridge to get some eggo-waffles and heat them up in the toaster that you use so often it isn’t even funny anymore. 

You sit at your desk and enjoy the 2 waffles that are still semi-cold. Who are you to blame your toaster that you’ve had for almost 5 years? Maybe it was time to get a new one?

While caught up in your thoughts about a toaster, you don’t realize Felix snatch a waffle off the paper towel you had placed down until he spins the sitting part of your chair around, snapping you out of your thoughts and noticing the now half-eaten waffle in his hand. “Felix! What the flip!”

Felix laughs and eats the waffle as quickly as he can before you can tackle him and rip it out of his hands.

You sigh and give it up, your body draped over his back as he hunches over on your bed. He originally hunched over to scoff down the waffle he stole from you but now, he’s just hunched over because you haven’t gotten off him yet. Not that he’s complaining. He being who he is, he’d be more than happy to have your body - or any one of his friends or family’s bodies in contact with his. 

“You wanna get ready to go to that bus-bar?” He asks, breaking the soothing silence between you both. 

“Yeah, sure.” You get off Felix’s back and he stretches after sitting up on his knees. You both get ready for the day. You put on one of the most classy outfits you know you own. A pair of ripped blue jeans, a white t-shirt that may or may not be your roommates considering the small yet noticeable size difference. You have a black sweater that has lighter holes and just holes in general. It’s been in your wardrobe since you were like 12 or 13. You still love it to this day and thank your past self for loving oversized clothes. You wear a black pair of messed up converse and some white ankle-high socks. You, of course, also have your own cross-body bag with all your own essentials and more things you probably haven’t seen for months. Felix wears something similar. A white t-shirt, just as big as your own, blue jeans but not as ripped, white socks, and a pair of converse for himself. He also has a jacket. It’s just a blue hoodie, nothing special. 

“You ready?”

You nod at your roommate's question and quickly check to make sure you have everything before leaving for your car with your roommate by your side.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

After about 10 minutes of driving (and being a little lost downtown), you finally make it to the double-decker bus that was turned into a bar and hang-out place. You and your roommate go into the bus and order a few drinks. Many other college students are there, enjoying themselves.Felix wraps his arm around your lower back to keep you safe in fear of you being taken away by some drunk person that wants to use you. 

After a few hours of sticking side by side and drinking a few glasses, you both go outside and sit on one of the many benches that was outside. You and Felix sit outside, resting in each other’s embraces because both of you are most likely too drunk to drive. 

“Hey, Felix? How’re we gonna get home..?”

“I can call Chan or Lee Know if you want..?” You nod and almost fall asleep due to being so drunk. Felix calls Bang Chan and Lee Know so one of them can drive you both back to the dorms with your car and the other can drive the one who drove you both with your car back to their dorm. (Did that make sense?)

About 15-20 minutes later, Lee Know and Bang Chan come out of a car to bring you and Felix home. 

Bang Chan ends up bringing you both home. He decides to stay for a while to make sure you both don’t die or something. 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, you wake up on your bed, Felix in his, and Chan on this floor. You blink to try to remember what happened and fail miserably. You rub your eyes and sigh. 

Just can’t wait for the migraine..

You think to yourself. Just great. As much as you loved spending time with your bestfriend and the light of your world, you wish his mind wasn’t all drinking. Or mostly drinking. Sure, it was fun every once in a while, but the aftermath of it was terrible. 

You stumble out of your bed, tripping on Chan’s leg in the process, and lay down with the still sleeping sunshine on the opposite side of the small dorm room. 

You lay there, head on his chest that was peacefully rising and falling. You put your wrist under his neck and rest there instead of your own bed, by yourself. It was much warmer and it relieved the pain of your migraine by a smidge.

[comfortbucky]

hey hey! can u do some fluffy bucky about having to share a hotel room w u and there’s only one bed!!!! and he’s trying to be respectful n stuff but man does he have the fattest crush on u! thank u <333

HEY HEY YES OMFGGG THE ONE BED TROPE (ur mind😌🤝)

i’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE I DIDN’T EXPECT IT TO COME SO SOON

𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗱, 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗶𝗱𝗶𝗼𝘁𝘀 ⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ｡˚

pairing: bucky x fem!avenger!reader

tags: enemies(?) to lovers BABYYYY, angst, fluff

A/N: i almost always write about tfatws!bucky in mind but let me try and branch out by writing about avenger!bucky hehe

i hope u enjoy🥺💗i absolutely loved this prompt and loved writing this!!!! (it is almost 4am for me as i am posting this :) i’m insane :))

this oneshot will not be following the canon timeline!

word count: 2k

my masterlist!

completed requests!

“Stick to the plan, Y/N.” Steve’s voice came through over the intercom. She rolled her eyes at his warning. He always seemed to be extra cautious with her, making her feel like an unimportant member of the team, and this mission was no different.

“I got this,” she said, completely ignoring his request and charging headfirst at the enemy. Her brash decision resulted in her receiving a heavy beat down, ending up with a split lip and fractured ribs.

Needless to say, Steve was pissed. He and Y/N developed a close friendship over the years, during his search for Bucky. She was oftentimes the one who would stay up all night with him, looking for any trace of Bucky’s existence online. She’d become one of the closest people in his life, which is exactly why he was upset with her, endangering her own life.

After the mission, he confronted her at the base camp.

“You could’ve gotten killed!”

“But I didn’t,” she snapped back. “And the mission was a success anyways, so I don’t get why you’re so mad right now.”

Steve closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.

“It’s reckless behavior like this that’s eventually going to get you killed, Y/N.”

Bucky walked into the room and immediately regretted his decision as soon as he laid his eyes on Y/N. He’d come to foster an animosity towards her, after seeing her close friendship with Steve. After Bucky joined the Avengers, he noticed how much time they spent together, and jealousy started to fester within him. Steve was the only person he felt comfortable being around in the tower and she constantly took him away from Bucky. Everyone else seemed to have an aversion to him, or so he assumed. He never gave anyone the chance to get to know him, locking himself up in his room most hours of the day. Bucky didn’t think anyone would want to get to know an ex-assassin, especially one that killed the Tony Stark’s parents. She was the one thing that kept Steve away from him and he despised it. So Bucky did what he did best and avoided any sort of interaction with her.

Steve looked at Bucky and suddenly, an idea popped in his head. He had noticed how closed-off Bucky had been since joining the Avengers and refused to let Y/N be alone, worried that she might make another brazen decision. He hatched a plan to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

“Bucky,” Steve said, making his way over to him. “You and Y/N will be assigned to the same room tonight.”

Bucky choked on his own spit in response and Y/N began to protest.

“You’re not serious, right?” Steve turned to face her with a stern expression.

“You’re not giving me any reason to trust you to be alone.” She let out a defeated sigh and crossed her arms across her chest.

“Why me?” Bucky asked, trying to figure out how he ended up in this situation.

Steve placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. “Because I trust you, Buck. I need you to do this for me.”

Bucky could see the desperation in Steve’s eyes and reluctantly nodded.

Steve was able to obtain another key card to the hotel room that Y/N was assigned to for the mission. He forgot to take into account the logistics of the sleeping arrangements, leaving Bucky to find a single bed as he entered Y/N’s room.

Bucky froze, his right hand on the door handle, keeping it open, his left hand by his side, holding his duffel bag. He racked his brain, trying to figure out what to do, when Y/N’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“Relax,” she started, motioning for him to come inside. “I’ll sleep on the floor, alright?”

Y/N knew that Bucky didn’t like her, despite Steve trying to convince her otherwise. It hurt her feelings a bit, especially after she’d learned so much about him through both Steve’s stories and the time she spent tracking him down. He was such an important person to Steve, her close friend, and Bucky hated her. At first, she figured he was shy and wasn’t ready to open up to anyone else, especially after all the trauma he endured. But she realized he actively disliked her over time, with Bucky always leaving the room when she entered or ignoring her offers to hang out with her and Steve. Eventually, she gave up on reaching out to Bucky, as she only seemed to upset him further, no matter what she did. She figured it was for the best.

Bucky stepped into the room and shook his head.

“Bed’s too soft for me anyways, I’ll take the floor,” he grumbled.

Y/N shrugged in response, knowing that Bucky would be too stubborn to try and argue against. She turned around and picked up the phone, calling the front desk to ask for extra blankets and pillows. When she hung up the phone, she turned back to Bucky to see him nod in thanks.

The rest of the night was silent, as they both prepared for bed, taking turns going into the bathroom to wash up and change. While Y/N was in the bathroom, Bucky arranged the extra blankets and pillows into a makeshift bed on the ground, something that he’d done countless times before. Y/N exited the bathroom in an oversized t-shirt that covered her shorts, and placed her toiletries bag in one of the hotel dresser drawers.

“Bathroom’s all yours.” Bucky grunted in response, grabbing some clothes and a bag headed for the bathroom.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he stated, just before shutting the door behind him. Y/N scoffed at his comment, gently climbing into bed, in an attempt to not further injure her ribs. She winced as she tried to get into a comfortable position before settling to sleep on the side of her unaffected ribs.

Bucky emerged from the bathroom to see Y/N lying on her left side, her back towards him. He assumed that she had already fallen asleep and quietly crawled into his makeshift bed.

Approximately 10 minutes had passed, when he heard her sniffling. At first, he thought the noise was coming from outside the window, but he traced it back to her. He remained lying on his back for a moment, deciding whether or not to say something. Bucky sighed before speaking.

“You okay?” Y/N immediately stiffened upon hearing Bucky’s voice. She was hoping that he wouldn’t hear her crying, despite his super soldier hearing abilities.

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” she replied back, her voice wavering as she spoke. Y/N hated how weak and pathetic she sounded in that moment. Her fractured ribs made it hard for her to breathe and the adrenaline, that was previously shielding her from the pain, had faded, leaving her to lie there in agony. On top of that, she also felt that this mission solidified her belief that Steve had little faith in her ability to be an Avenger. The last thing she wanted to do right now, was to confess her insecurities to Bucky.

Bucky’s attitude softened, hearing Y/N’s voice crack when she spoke. He knew she’d gotten hurt due to her own, dumb, decision during the mission. Bucky quietly pulled his blankets off and stood up, leaving the room without saying another word. As soon as the door shut, Y/N burst into tears. Bucky did exactly as he’d done in the past many times before, leave. She wasn’t sure why this time upset her more than the rest. Probably because she knew that he was aware of her crying and he’d still chosen to abandon her completely.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening, causing her to stop crying. Y/N listened to Bucky’s footsteps growing closer, and felt the bed dip under his weight as he sat on the edge she was facing towards. She peered over the blanket she was covering her face with, to see Bucky facing her, holding a bag of ice, wrapped in a towel. Bucky’s heart sank at the sight of her glossy eyes and tear stained cheeks in the moonlight.

“For your ribs,” he spoke softly, gesturing to the ice bag in his hands.

“Oh. Thank you.”

Y/N took the bag from him, attempting to slowly sit up. She closed her eyes as she grimaced, and suddenly felt a hand on her back, helping her up. Her eyes opened to reveal Bucky, with a soft smile on his lips. She silently thanked him again, placing the ice bag on the right side of her ribcage.

“Thought you hated me,” she mumbled, keeping her gaze down on her lap. He furrowed his brows, keeping his eyes on her.

“I don’t hate you.”

“Well, you definitely don’t like me.”

Bucky paused at her comment, thinking about his next words, before responding.

“I don’t like that you take up all of Steve’s free time,” he grumbled, causing Y/N to quickly look up at Bucky, his eyes averting her gaze. Her face fell, immediately realizing why Bucky had treated her so coldly all this time. He just missed his friend.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her in response. “I didn’t realize, I’m sorry.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t expecting her to be so kind and understanding, even coming up with multiple points to argue back at her. He realized then that he didn’t know her at all, but that he wanted to now. In an instant, she became an entirely different person. He studied her eyes and wondered if they had always sparkled like that, if her cheeks were naturally rosy, or if her lips had always been so pink and plump.

His expression softened and he cleared his throat. “It’s fine,” he muttered, tearing himself away from her gaze to look down at his lap. After a moment of silence, Bucky stood up to return back to the floor.

“Stay.” The words left Y/N’s mouth before she had time to process them. Bucky froze and turned to face her. “I mean, if you want to, of course. Just figured the floor must be super uncomfortable for you.” Y/N felt a blush creep up onto her cheeks and kicked herself mentally. She looked down at her hands, regretting the words she spoke, before feeling the bed dip again. She looked up to see Bucky. He smiled and she almost melted at the sight.

She shifted over, putting the ice bag on the nightstand, as Bucky crawled into bed next to her. The two rested on their backs, both staring at the ceiling in silence. Bucky remained at a respectful distance away, not wanting to overstep any boundaries. Y/N turned on her left side, her good side, to face him.

“I’m glad you don’t hate me.”

Bucky turned on his side to face her before responding.

“I don’t think I could ever hate you.”

A strand of her hair had fallen in front of her face and Bucky, instinctively, reached out a hand to tuck it behind her ear. Immediately, he regretted it, about to pull his hand back when Y/N took her hand and placed it on top of his, guiding it to rest on her cheek. He cupped her face in his hand and she leaned into his embrace. Bucky felt his heart rate increase as she moved her body closer to his, wrapping the arm she used to hold his hand on her face, across his side. He shifted towards her as well, wrapping his arm around her body, bringing her closer to him.

“Is this okay?” He whispered, nervous that he might have somehow misinterpreted the situation. He hadn’t been with a woman in such an intimate way in years and had no idea what he was doing. Y/N looked up at him and nodded, before snuggling her face into his chest and Bucky felt a wave of calm wash over him.

“Can you stay here tonight?” Y/N mumbled, her face pressed into his chest. He chuckled at the vibrations from her voice and kissed her temple, smoothing her hair back.

“I’ll stay as long as you want me to, honey.”

[mrpenguinpants]

Albedo HCs: Coming Home [Christmas Celebration 🎉]

For the Christmas Celebration Requests, please read this [we have 2 more days but I’ll possibly extend the deadline to Jan 10. I’m tackling all the Mondstadt rq first before moving onto Liyue]

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Ohhh, I love idea a lot (might have gone overboard anon haha). No worries about being specific, I love getting specific requests. I just finished a super depressing fic and I’m back at it again. Though I will do my best to make this one happy because that Mona fic hurt me. But I’m glad to hear you love my writing haha 💕💕

I also know nothing about Albedo and have never written this man in my life but I’m going to ignore everything because these are happy hours. I love his man so much so this is some self-indulgent stuff (if you couldn’t tell from the word count) istg hcs have turned into fics just without the dialogue. I took many liberties lol what the hell is formatting?  

Also, shoutout to @asheseiler​​​ A beautiful human being that started chatting with me because we both love Childe haha. But seriously, I appreciate you 💕💕💕

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[taglist]  <- if you want to be added, please read this first.

@hanniejji​​​​​  @mikeysbike​​​​​ @unionwitch​​​​ @musekala​​​​ @twistedsunnshiii​​​ @stanzastic​​​ @akaasea​​​ @xoneaboveallx​​​ @adoring-ghost​​​ @asheseiler​​​ @childelover​​

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Albedo HCs: Coming Home

As you finally reached the hill top by the Stone Gate, you could just make out the stone walls of the City of Freedom in Mondstadt. You were almost there and the butterfly’s racing through your stomach only seemed to fly faster. You had been on a long trip away by travelling between Liyue and Inazuma. From practicing your alchemy to finding new secrets, it had been awhile since you last saw Mondstadt. While it had been fun going from place to place and seeing all the new arts and techniques, you couldn’t stop the feeling of loneliness of not having an occasionally smug but talented ash blond companion at your side.

You hadn’t seen Albedo since Master Rhinedottir had left and sent Albedo to Mondstadt with a letter of recommendation. You travelled with him to the City of Freedom but you only stayed for a few nights before you departed to Liyue. Your master had different plans for you and you didn’t know how long your own journey would take but you both promised to stay in touch through letters. 

He was now acting as the Chief Alchemist and Captain of the Investigation Team of the Knights of Favonius. He managed to get a lab from Alice and he even had an assistant named Sucrose. He sent over some sketches for you and even if the bottom half of “Sucrose” was just a stick figure, you were happy that he wasn’t alone and cooped up in his lab all the time. You were, however, worried about these “Klee disasters” but happy that he still had the energy to write to you. At first it was hard, you found yourself talking to the air as if Albedo was still there but even after all these years, you couldn’t help but miss him. The occasional letter you received did help to lighten the mood however and you always made sure to store them carefully.

It seemed that your dapping mood was noticeable because even the ever stoic Zhongli asked if you were okay. He was nice and easy to talk to, even if he had a problem with Mora that you sometimes had to bail him out off, but you trusted him so you explained to him your growing loneliness. Which he simply replied that if you missed someone, you should go see them.

So here you are right outside the gates. The knights at the front were nice enough and let you through with ease once they checked that you didn’t have anything destructive. Now the hard part was actually finding Albedo. The knights had mentioned that despite being a highly respectable alchemist and one of the Captains, no one really knew where he was most of the time. Originally, you were thinking of planning some sort of surprise, even had made an entire game plan, but now that you were here. You just wanted to tackle the man, pride be damned.

You began to wander around the city, in comparison to Liyue it was quite small but so much more lively and warm. Christmas was right around the corner so everyone was rushing around hanging up lights and finding presents but it was nice. Everyone seemed to know each other and unlike Liyue, you didn’t need to be afraid if the walls were listening. You looked around for a man with bright teal eyes and ashy light blond hair, even asking around, but no luck. No one seemed to know where he was and if he was even in Mondstadt right now. You were beginning to loose hope and that your trip might have been in vain when you felt a small tap on your shoulder and-

Sweet jesus, what the fuck?

You were almost jealous at how good he looked now. He was always handsome when you were both younger but now it felt like cupid decided to descend from the heavens, laugh at you, then riddled you full of arrows. Was your pulse working? Brain still computing? You knew you had a small crush on Albedo when you were younger- who were you kidding, you were in love with this man since he helped you create cecilia flowers from a dead denro slime - but this was just unfair!

“Albedo! I was looking around everywhere for you. This place is actually a lot bigger than it se-”

“You’re back.”

Albedo was surprised to see that it was really you. He only caught a small glimpse of your profile but he knew it was you. He almost suspected that his vision was tricking him or that he might have accidently set one of his sketches of you to life but you were here. Albedo has always treated friendships with a constant degree of distance, always working or traveling to gathering materials to avoid social interactions even if it wasn’t intentional. He also had no memory of any family, only adventuring deep within the domains with his master and you. But when his Master left with one assignment left for him he couldn’t help but feel a bit hollow, but you were always there to lift his spirits up even if on the outside he didn’t appear upset.

But then you had left and gone on your own journey.

“Hm? Oh, sorry I didn’t mention it in my last letter. It was a bit of an impulse trip. But I’m not intruding in on anything right? You’re happy to see me...right?”

“You’re here.”

At first he was alright with it, even encouraged you to set off to Liyue since it was the closest. Promising that you would both keep in touch even if he found relationships a taxing cycle. But when a few months had passed and it began to settle in that you weren’t anywhere near him. That he couldn’t talk to you about new discoveries, that he couldn’t hear you voice anymore, that he had even forgotten how to sketch you. It felt...weird. He knew what he was feeling was loneliness, he wasn’t deluded or naïve, but even when he had Sucrose or Timaeus it wasn’t the same. But now you were here. He could see you and how the lines in his sketchbook were wrong whenever he attempted to re-create you. He could feel your warmth that sketches he brought to life couldn’t do. He could feel your presence and how it slowly but surely filled the void in him until it was bursting at the seams.

“Albedo? Are you alright?”

“You’re here.”

You were almost afraid that the holidays had broke Albedo. You knew he would sometimes get too deep in thought and wouldn’t register his surrounding but it was just you two. With the sun slowly going down, the snowflakes dancing around you both, and the Christmas light reflecting off his unique blue eyes. You took a slow blinked at him. Once. Twice. The same way you would when you were studying something, trying to unveil its secrets. Before sighing amusingly and opening up your arms to him. He was still the same. 

“I’m here.”

The final assignment Albedo received was too hard, too complicated, far beyond his own limits and he was worried that if he never completed it, would he ever see his teacher again? When you took your first step outside the walls of the city, waving back to him as you set off on your journey, he couldn’t help but feel that like his teacher, you were leaving him too. But when you looked at him with those warm but understanding eyes, opened your arms to him, he let go and stepped into your embrace. He was sure he was borderline crushing your frame but you hugged him back just as tightly. 

“My apologies. I got overwhelmed. Come with me, let’s get out of the cold first.”

You tried to hold it in but you laughed at his statement. He didn’t seem to mind as you felt him smile into your neck. Even with those words he hadn’t let go or slackened his grip in the slightest. So you both stayed there outside in the cold, the christmas lights reflected off snow, the sounds of laughter and singing playing in the background as you both embraced each other. 

I’m home

You’re home

---

Although Albedo was happy to see you again, he was wondering why out of all the years you had been away, all the other holidays you had missed, you decided to come to Mondstadt today. You were at his lab and marveling at all his new devices when he popped the question. You flushed a bit but quickly brushed it off, saying that after all the letters he sent you were finally curious as to what Mondstadt was like and the people he met. Plus, Liyue and Inazuma didn’t celebrate Christmas as much as Mondstadt so it would be nice to finally celebrate the holiday again.

He simply smiled smugly and nodded along before you eventually caved, because that look could steal your heart away, and revealed that honestly, you just really missed him and wanted to spend Christmas together. There wasn’t anything wrong with that was there? So what if you missed him? It was natural. It wasn’t like you were wondering what he was doing on slow days in Liyue. It wasn’t like you we- 

“You can stop laughing at me. I know you’re doing it even if I can’t hear it Albedo.” 

“I’m sorry you must be mistaken. Perhaps your observational skills have rusted?”

You huffed at him before turning your attention to a small but worn sketching book. It was different from the ones he had showed you and much smaller compared to the ripped out sketches he sent you. Albedo noticed your curiosity and almost flushed before striding over and showing you what was inside. It was either he do it now or you would constantly eye ball it until he finally let you see what was inside. 

He took out the old sketchbook and flipped all the way to the first page. They had been sketches of you. When it had just been you, Albedo, and your teacher he would often ask to draw you but he never showed you the finished product. What was surprising was they were all full sketches. No simple lines or unfinished colours. His interest in things, especially when he draws, were fleeting leading him to always create unfinished or basic lines. 

“Wow, was this your first sketchbook? Did you draw anything else? Oh, like your assistant perhaps?”

“No. I only drew one thing here. It’s been sitting here ever since but I tend to make sure it’s in good condition. Should I ever need to draw in it again.” 

Albedo almost reached for his pencil to sketch your smug but bright smile. But set his hand down. While he wants to capture moments so they remain forever with him, he felt that perhaps, it would be nice to live in them. Just for a moment. 

---

I never write at the bottom of my fics but I wrote too much at the start haha (plus tagging my screaming doesn’t work anymore). Not gonna lie, this was going to be different and you and Albedo would have role reversed AND I WAS GOING TO WRITE MONA IN but that didn’t happen. I made it so disgustingly sappy at the end that I want to throw up but when do I not? 

But I kind of like this version more. He’s super out of character but I don’t care and you’re gonna have to take this hcs out of my COLD DEAD HANDS. But I hope you enjoyed this and I’m using this as my Albedo catalyst so come home elevator boy. (cough celebration hcs are still open if you wanna feed me 👀 this )

[thebangtancloud]

Hey guys :)) Hope you all are doing well. I miss all my readers, and writing so much.

I recently got diagnosed with Tinnitus. It's been over three weeks since I've had this constant ringing in my ears and it does nothing but add to the stress and anxiety that I've been experiencing.

I started writing many years ago, back in school for a few articles and school newspapers, then went on to creating an Instagram account where I published short quotes and stories that I came up with. The best thing so far in my journey of writing has been writing on Tumblr, here. It makes me SO happy and accomplished, especially when I get a lot of positive feedback from you guys.

I'm sure that you guys have noticed me being inactive a lot over here, but the fact is that... I'm running from my problems. I know it's very cowardly of me to do that, but I've finally come to terms with it.

I've always made it a point to write after the sun sets or before it rises, when there's nothing but silence around me and sometimes the buzz of my refridgerator keeps me company. I found that silence helped me write better than I ever had, it was as if it was suddenly quiet enough for me to listen to my brain come up with new ideas instantly.

But then this ringing started. And the worst part of this whole thing is that the ringing in my ears getting even louder and evident at night. Especially when there's nothing but silence.

To say that I'm devastated would be an understatement. Silence, sleep and music are some of the most important things to me (basically my self-care) and I feel like I've been robbed of the peace that they give me. I struggle to sleep, I can't write because this ringing makes me want to smash my head against a wall, and I can't listen to music anymore. I do, sometimes, but the volume is turned down so that I don't damage my ears even more.

I've never had the guts to open up about my issues on a public platform, taking into consideration that Tinnitus isn't the only problem I'm dealing with right now. I've been experiencing anxiety like never before, and the writing (my greatest escape) has suddenly decided to turn against me.

Maybe I'm being too pessimistic. The fact that I've seen so many people talk about having Tinnitus for the past 10 or 20 years scares me. How could I possibly live with this ringing for my whole life? But I'm sure there's a way, I've seen a few videos where people spoke of how they sort of...embraced the sound. As if they were accepting it, giving it a big hug. And even though all I want to do is throw knives at this ringing and punch it several times if it had a face, maybe I'd have to change the way I look at this.

None of it has been easy, and I've been super super grateful to have my mum by my side, and my best friend (who unfortunately is suffering from an ENT issue as well) with me. We sometimes joke that our friendship is so much like Jimin and Taehyung's friendship. We met in school, we work together, she's two months elder to me, my pinky finger is almost double the size of hers, and now we both are struggling with similar issues😂

I will never leave writing. Never. It has been my best buddy, a friend that taught me valuable lessons, a burst of freshness and peace, a source of thrill and happiness. I couldn't possible let go of that.

This in no way is a post about me declaring that I would be giving up on it, hahaha no. Not happening anytime soon. I just felt like I am finally ready to share this with whoever is willing to listen :))

If anyone reading this has Tinnitus, please let me know what helps you the most, I really really need it. I'm so new to this feeling and noise in my head that all I wish for is a moment of silence.

I'm hopeful, though. I know one day I will look back to these days of fear and laugh, because it will be a mere bump in the road that I would've overcome. That I will soon overcome.

If you've read up until here, thank you. I don't know you, but I feel comforted to know that someone took some time to read what I've finally had the guts to type out, a part of me that I've been running from, a part of me that I need to accept.

I hope you find a reason to smile, genuinely, today.

~Ray.

[inlovewithhisblueeyes]

Borrowed

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader

Word Count: ~1.4k

Warnings: Talks about Suicide, Survivor’s Guilt, Depression, Parental Abuse, Panic Attacks, Use of Platonic Pet Names

A/N: Today is my 22nd birthday. I have always had issues regarding my birthday and getting older. I spent 12 years of my life actively wishing I was dead and never expecting to make it to 18. It’s hard for me to understand that I’m still here 4 years after my believed expiry date. I’m getting better each year at dealing with all the feelings that come with my birthday. I’m okay and this piece helped me get out what I struggle with telling others. The nice thing at least is this year I’m not spending this day alone.

You let out a shaky breath as you laid out in the grass. The stars were just barely shining through the cloudy sky above you. The night breeze was still warm enough that you didn’t need a jacket. It would have been a pleasant night if the voices lurking in the back of your mind had taken some time off for once.

Tonight they were screaming at you, louder than ever before. Their voices bounced off the walls your mind, echoing endlessly. The pain in your chest was too much to bare. It was a crushing weight that threatened to flatten you to utter nothingness. No matter what you did to cope it just wasn’t working like it normally would.

Tonight they were screaming at you, louder than ever before. Their voices bounced off the walls your mind, echoing endlessly. The pain in your chest was too much to bare. It was a crushing weight that threatened to flatten you to utter nothingness. No matter what you did to cope it just wasn’t working like it normally would.

You had to swallow down the bile that was trying to creep up your throat. There was an ever present fear seeping from every single pore as you did the one card you had left to play. You didn’t want to do this on tonight of all nights. Hands shaking you type out the words that could save or damn you.

10:28 PM Midnight Picnic. Delivered …. Read ✓

The swell of anxiety becomes too much as you wait for those little dots to appear. You toss your phone next to you as you struggle to hold back tears. The voices seem grow into a roar as the minutes slip away. Everything he ever said to you is stuck on repeat in your head

Burden….

You held him back…

It was your fault…

You ruined his life…

If only you hadn’t been born…

You didn’t deserve to be alive…

They all loved him better than you…

Useless…

Replaceable…

Selfish…

You hadn’t even realized that the tears had burst out, painting your cheeks, your neck, your shirt and most likely staining the ground under you. It’s not until you feel something pressing down on you and warmness chasing the tears off your face that you realize you had been hyperventilating. A soft clicking comes from somewhere behind you as you finally open your tear-blinded eyes. There, resting on top of your shaking form, was a fuzzy face you knew too well.

“Kal, up,” the figure behind you utters,” You gotta let her up, boy.”

The bear of a dog gave a disappointed huff before doing as his master commanded. You felt warm hands gently help you sit up and soon after you feel a solid mass against your back and two long legs incase yours. If anything, the close contact caused your panicking to cease only for a moment. Henry’s arm wrap around your shoulders and he settles you against him. Kal lays himself down by the two of you.

“I’m here for you, Bunny. I know how you might be a little trapped right now, but I want you to try and listen to me alright,” he whispers and waits for the nod that comes between your gasping breaths,” See you’re doing so well already. Remember that exercise your gram does with you. I know you do. Can I help you with it?”

You nod again as you try to unscramble the wires in your brain. You feel his breath tickle the top of your head as he continues to hold you tightly.

“Good bunny. I want you to try and tell me 5 things you can see. Take all the time you need okay?”

“St-t-tars…” You start between gulps, “Grass…..Kal…..uhmmm”

“You can do it, sweetheart,” Henry says as he reaches down and gives your shaking hands a squeeze.

“Your Flops… Trees..”

“Now 4 you can feel.”

“Your Hand…the ground…the breeze…my shirt,” You respond with your voice a bit stronger than before.

“You’re doing great. 3 things you can hear,” Henry adds giving your hands another squeeze.

“You..me..the bugs.”

“We’re almost there. Tell me 2 things you can smell.”

“My lotion and detergent,” You voice, feeling yourself come back even more.

“Last thing. What can you taste?” The Brit asks.

“My tea from earlier,” You sigh slumping into him more.

The two of you remain there, listening to the night’s music. You continue to come down from your attack and your breathing gets softer and softer as he holds you. A few more moments pass before he loosens his hold on you because he knows that you’re back in control. You stay against him as you try to find a thought you can easily share. You wiggle away from him slightly and then turn yourself sideways so you can rest your head above his heartbeat.

“I’m so sorry.” You murmur into his warm chest,” I couldn’t be in my place anymore.”

“It’s alright, Bunny,” He mumbles, the nickname causing your nose to scrunch up slightly,” You’re the one who keeps wiggling that nose of yours like that.”

You chuckle softly before taking some deep breaths.

“I can’t stop thinking about it you know. How I never planned to be here this long and here I am still here. It feels like I stole someone else’s time. Someone more deserving,” You express, desperately trying to keep yourself from getting worked up again.

Henry wraps his arms around you again, giving a squeeze to tell you to continue.

“I know Megan says that it’s okay to not have a plan, but I don’t like that. I don’t like feeling like I have no control. I always thought I wouldn’t make it to 18 and every year that passes hurts more because I feel like I’m on borrowed time. That maybe this is all some sort of dream or something and I’ll wake up and I’ll be back in that house with him,” You blubber.

He keeps holding you tight and slightly rocks you in his arms. Kal even moves to rest his head on your leg.

“I still hear him in my head. He keeps telling me how I ruined his life, that he can’t see his girlfriend as much because of me, that I’m causing him all these problems-“

“Bunny,” Henry cuts you off,” Your father was wrong. He had his problems just like you, but he shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You’re not the reason why any of his life turned out the way it did…”

“But I killed him didn’t I? Speed up his desire to do what he did. The thing that I was supposed to do,” You cry into his chest.

“Y/N, you didn’t kill him. He should never have made you feel like killing yourself was the only way to help him. You are not on borrowed or stolen time. You were meant to be here. You deserve to be here. Your life matters to me and Kal and so many others. I know this time of the year is rough, but you did something you never did before. You reached out to someone instead of handling this alone and I am so damn proud of you,” Henry uttered and he held you tighter, blinking away the own tears in his eyes.

You sob harder at that, letting it all out. He lets you sob for as long as you need to. Occasionally rubbing your back and whispering how proud he is of you over and over until it sticks. The tears eventually run dry and you breathing evens out once more. You listen to each breath he takes, the praise he gives you. The silence only broken by a small dinging from nearby. Henry adjusts to slightly to see his watch alert midnight.

“I’m only going to say this once so don’t get too annoyed. Happy Birthday Bunny,” The man whispers to you,” Now I know we can’t do anything to crazy to distract you but I may have brought part of the festivities early. Theres two cupcakes in the car with your name on it. How about I grab those, we go inside, curl up on your couch, and watch The Little Mermaid? Maybe I can start calling you fishy instead huh? Kal thinks its a good idea right bud.”

Kal huffs loudly in approval before getting up to stretch and do his business. You laugh at that as you pull away from him slightly. “Thank you Hen. I really needed that.”

“That’s what friends are for. Now let’s go before my cheat day passes by.”

A/N 2: If you've read this far, I want you to know you're not alone. Trust me I know it feels like that sometimes, but there are people who are there for you. I'm one of those people if you need it. You deserve to be here in this life just as much as I do. ❤️

[darthkruge]

Anakin Skywalker x Reader ~ Help

Summary: The five times the Senator!Reader needs Anakin’s help but refuses to ask for it and the one time they do

Warnings: Language, reader is afraid of vulnerability, reader is going through it, angst, violence, fluff (it ends on a positive note, I promise)

Words: 4k

A/N: This idea has kinda been bouncing around my head for a hot minute and I finally decided to just go ahead and write it. And somehow it became the longest fic I’ve ever written! Is this self-indulgent? Who’s to say?!

(not my gif)

I.

Okay, so a right, then a left, then another left, then-

You groaned. You’d been going over the cryptic instructions Padme gave you back at the temple but they were, unfortunately, not helping. It was your first time alone in Coruscant and you were completely lost in the painfully literal sense. You had just been given your first actual mission with the Council as a senator, something you’d worked your entire career for. As an added bonus, you were on the same planet as your boyfriend, Anakin Skywalker. 

You’d gotten close over the last year and were elated when he asked you on a date the last time you were in the same place. This was the first time you were together in the two weeks it had been since then. 

Anyway, you were currently wandering around the bustling Coruscant streets, looking for the market. Well, you were looking for the market. Now, you realized you would probably never find it and were just trying to make your way back. 

You debated calling Anakin. You could. He would be able to guide you home easily, you rationalized. But it’s Coruscant! How difficult could it be? If people came here for missions all the time and didn’t get hopelessly lost, so could you! And Anakin was probably busy anyway, you didn’t want to disturb him. Besides, the relationship was so new! You didn’t want to annoy him. After weighing the odds, you pushed down the urge to reach out and decided to just find your own way.

This logic was ridiculous, you realized far too late. Fuck. There was no way around it, you were going to be late. Or at the very least, cut it exceptionally close. You started running, heart racing. It would be so stupid to be late to your first actual Council meeting because you got lost. You wanted them to take you seriously and think of you as a professional. Tardiness as a first impression went against all of that!

After sprinting and taking several aimless turns, by some stroke of magic you found your way to the Temple. You checked the time and realized you had two minutes to make it to up several flights of stairs.

Fuck it. You decided, taking off in a run. You took the stairs two at a time, stumbling occasionally before unceremoniously bursting through the doors to the meeting.

You gulped in air quickly, chest heaving while you desperately tried to calm your heart. You inelegantly brushed a hand through your hair and gave an awkward smile. 

“Hi, uh, everyone! Hi! I’m,” You took a quick break to breathe in some more oxygen as your gaze shifted to Anakin. He looked amused and concerned as he took you in. He gave you a discreet and supportive smile and head nod. You gave your own in return. He believes in me. “I’m Senator Y/N L/N” 

II.

Honestly, you didn’t know how your speeder had broken. You’d been flying them for years and, despite being a senator, you were pretty damn good at it. It was something that gave you solace as a kid, those little moments of freedom. Even then, though, you were a decently cautious person and didn’t break many of them.

Thus, you ended up in your current predicament. Staring at the fried wires under the hood of your speeder, trying to figure out what the fuck went wrong. You knew Anakin was freakishly talented at fixing basically everything. He could probably look at the speeder for 10 minutes, know what’s wrong with it, and get it back to you in perfect shape.

You think this is why you don’t want to tell him. What if he thought you were stupid? Shouldn’t you be able to figure this out yourself? You fought with your instincts, feeling the conflict build inside you.

You knew he wouldn’t judge you. You knew he’d be glad you came to him for help. Even so, you felt physically incapable of moving to call or find him. 

Frustrated, you turned back to your work. You decided to pull this one gear, thinking it might do something. Well, you were right about that. A stream of oil sprayed out of the speeder, coating you in its thick, black paint. You stood there frozen for a second, trying to mentally comprehend that you had just been sprayed with oil because you were too afraid to talk to the man you were in a literal relationship with!!

You groaned, wiping your hands on your pants before grabbing a towel to wipe some of the grease off your face. You walked back into your apartment quickly, praying to the Maker that no one would see you like this. Honestly, they’d probably smell you first and run the other way.

You finally got back without problems and made a bee-line straight to the bathroom. Pulling off your clothes and turning on the hot shower, you sighed as you finally felt the oil washed off your skin. You spent about twenty minutes in there, scrubbing furiously to ensure you didn’t smell like a fucking garage. 

Finally, you went out and saw Anakin sitting on your bed, messing with a piece of wiring. 

“Hey, Y/N! Did you know your speeder was broken? It looks like you blew a cable, easy fix, don’t worry. I’ll have it ready for you by tonight.”

He looked up and saw your exhausted state and the clump of dirty, grease ridden clothes you were holding. 

His brow furrowed, trying to piece it together. “Maker, what happened to you?”

“I had a fight with the speeder. And lost”

Anakin bit back a laugh before his confusion compounded. “Wait, you know I can fix this, right? Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I didn’t want you to think I was an idiot. I mean, I did something and broke an entire speeder and somehow didn’t even know what I broke! It’s humiliating!”

“Cables are hard, it’s not your fault you didn’t know what to do, love.”

“Really?” You asked, unconvinced. 

“Really. Come on, let’s go throw those clothes in the wash and I’ll get back to fixing this.”

“Oh, no, Ani you don’t have to-”

Anakin cut you off with a kiss, distracting you enough to quickly take the clothes from your hands.

“I’ll have it ready within the hour, my love.”

III.

Who the fuck decided to put the plates that high up?!

You jumped again and again, arm outstretched as far as possible. Once again, you didn’t even get close. Sighing, you looked around the apartment and noticed a ladder. It looked a bit unsteady but you would be fine, right? You were a whole ass senator, you were sure you could handle an old ladder. 

Pulling it over to you, you climbed up and reached out. Much closer this time, but you still couldn’t reach them. You went on your tiptoes, eyebrows furrowed and lip bit in concentration. You angled your body just a little further, a little further-

The ladder was suddenly ripped out from under you and you desperately shot your arms out, hands clawing to try and stop your imminent fall onto the hard kitchen tiles. Bracing yourself for the inevitable pain, you squeezed your eyes closed. 

“Y/N!!” You heard as your fall suddenly stopped. You opened your eyes and noticed you were barely floating above the floor. Anakin ran toward you and noticed the ladder strewn on the floor beside you. 

“What the hell were you doing?” He said, offering you his hand and pulling you up.

“I was just-” You gesture lamely to the plates, realizing how ridiculous you must look.

“Y/N, no one can reach those! Next time, just call me, I’ll get them for you!”

“But-” You sigh, hating this. “I wanted to be able to do this, I don’t want to rely on you and your Jedi powers all the time”

Anakin’s gaze softened. He knew you had trouble relying on others. Even so, he couldn’t even start to think of what would have happened if he’d arrived home even 10 seconds later.

“I know, baby, I know. But, please, try. You’d have to rely on me a lot more if you break your legs falling off a ladder.” 

“I know” You reply softly, giving him a shy smile. “I’m working on it, I promise”

IV.

You’d been up all night working on a new presentation for the Council. You’d spent hours going over it, the facts, the plans, the details. Everything was set. Well, everything except one little piece. To make your point stronger, you needed the statistics from the latest Jedi missions. 

The only people with access to those were Anakin and Obi-Wan. You knew, logically, that if you asked Anakin he’d give them to you without hesitation. He supported you always and knew that you only used your power as a senator to improve lives. 

Even so, there was that part of your brain that told you he wouldn’t give them to you. He would think you’re just trying to use him for his connections as a Jedi. Or perhaps he simply wouldn’t care enough to search through the reports to find the information.

All of this was, of course, completely inaccurate. But you’d never had someone who actually wanted to help you. It's always been “okay I’ll do this for you but only if you do this for me, too.” No one ever looked out for you and you’d grown accustomed to it. It’d become almost comforting, in a way. At least you knew what to expect. 

This was how you ended up seeing your beautiful boyfriend across the halls of the Jedi temple and walking another way. Your heart tugged painfully and your brain screamed at you. Why don’t you allow yourself to trust him? Why would you assume the worst? Why can’t you fight these thoughts? 

You took one more look back at him. You didn’t want to be closed off by any stretch of the imagination. You wished you could turn off the thoughts and the doubt. You knew Ani didn’t deserve it. You sighed. There he was, training by himself in the courtyard. You looked away and took a moment to compose yourself before your legs carried you away and toward your good friend.

“Hey, Obi-Wan, could you help me with something for the next Council meeting?”

V.

You were running. You were running and as fast as you moved, you never got closer to him. You were never safe. A masked figure was chasing you and you just couldn’t get away. Your legs burned with the effort, your lungs straining to grasp oxygen. You were exhausted to your core, your sheer panic the only thing keeping you awake. 

You looked back and saw the man gaining on you. Tears started streaming down your cheeks. You knew what he was capable of and had no doubt he would kill you if he caught you. You didn’t want to die, not like this. You didn’t want him to beat you. You were so, so scared. You screamed as he caught up to you, your body no longer moving. You pleaded with your legs to work, reasoned with the heavens, did anything you could, and yet you wouldn’t budge. 

The stranger’s claw of a hand twisted around your neck, squeezing. You fought. It was pointless. You began to black out, feeling the life slip out of your body. Dark spots appeared in the corners of your vision and you tried once again to kick your way out of his grasp-

You bolted awake, eyes shooting open. Your chest was heaving and tear stains marked your cheeks. You placed your hands on the bed sheets, bunching them up and trying to feel the texture to remind yourself that you were safe. You tried to breathe, tried to calm yourself but nothing was working. 

You got up, pacing quietly. Out of all the nights to have a nightmare, it had to be today. The one night you and Anakin weren’t together. Since you had to hide the relationship, you couldn’t technically share an apartment. This didn’t stop you from spending basically every night together, though. His chambers became yours after the first month or so of dating, neither of you wanting to spend time apart. 

But, unfortunately, the Council seemed more cautious as of late and you didn’t want to risk it. Thus, you decided to spend tonight apart. Still, you couldn’t bring yourself to care right now.  You grabbed one of his Jedi robes, pulling the black fabric around your body. You were immediately calmed by his scent and wrapped it closer around you. You started to make your way down the hall. You knew it was risky but after that nightmare, you just needed him. 

You made it to his apartment, went to knock on the door, and abruptly stopped. What are you doing? You can’t just go to him! He’s exhausted, he’s been working all week! He finally got home from a mission and you want to wake him up in the middle of the night because you had a nightmare? It wasn’t even real! Maker, get a hold of yourself, Y/N! 

Your hand hovered over the door. You wanted him, you did. But those lingering thoughts, those lingering emotions remained. A childhood of neglect, of constant feelings of unimportance left scars you couldn’t avoid. You hated that your parent’s inability to show you affection or care manifested in your inability to be vulnerable. Despite this, you somehow understood. You’d spent years letting them in and only getting invalidated in return. Like all patterns, this one wouldn’t go away just because you wanted it to. 

Now, every time you tried to let Anakin in, it’s like an alarm was tripped in your brain. Every part of you that wanted to allow him to know you was combated with the overwhelming fear that, if you did, if you went to him for comfort or help, he would think of you as a burden. He’d leave, just like the rest of them did. So you pushed the urge for comfort aside, dropped your hand, and made the lonely walk back to your room. 

You got back to your room, mentally beating yourself up. You wished your brain worked differently. You wished you would allow yourself to be loved. You wished you could trust, fully and completely. You sighed. Knowing you wouldn’t be getting any sleep, you made yourself a cup of tea and sat on your cough, the room solely illuminated by the moonlight. You kept Anakin’s robes around you, wishing it was his arms. You sat like that until morning, sipping the drink on and off until it grew cold. You were zoned out, staring out the window at the Coruscant traffic. Your thoughts either drifted to him or your past trauma. Maker, you wished you could change it. 

I.

Fuck. You’d been driving around on your speeder, zipping in and out of alleys, for the last twenty minutes. There was a bounty hunter after you. A damn good bounty hunter, at that. Being a high profile senator, it made sense you’d run into the occasional person trying to kidnap you. Or kill you. 

Damn, this bitch is good. You kept trying to lose them but you couldn’t shake them. You didn’t even  know who they were but it didn’t matter, you supposed. At the end of the day, regardless of who was in that speeder, they wanted you dead. And if you didn’t figure out how to get out of this mess, you would be. 

They’d been shooting at you for a while now but you’d been able to avoid the blasts. Whether it was skill, luck, or a combination of both, you weren’t sure. Even so, you didn’t know what to do. You couldn’t shoot back at them, as you stupidly forgot your blaster. Who could blame you, though? All you wanted to do was go for a ride to clear your head, you didn’t expect to be fucking shot at!

You continued like this for a while. All you had to do was get back to the Temple. You were probably about 10 minutes away if you continued at this pace, 7 if you really pushed it. You looked ahead and saw the walls of it come into view and suddenly safety didn’t feel so far away. Despite the circumstances, a smile graced your face. You could do this. 

Or maybe not. As you tried to swerve between more buildings, they hit you. You felt your speeder plummet 10 feet instantly and screamed. Your engine sputtered and your heart dropped. Mind racing, you tried to drive but came to the chilling realization that there was no way you’d make it back. Your engine was done for, it wouldn’t make it 3 minutes, yet alone all the way back. 

Your mind went to him. Anakin. Fuck, you loved him. You let out a humorless laugh. Since you started dating, you almost never asked him for help. You couldn’t let him in. Something in your brain stopped you every single time. And yet, now, all of that felt stupid. It felt juvenile. When you looked at your speeder, slowly but surely stalling and the bounty hunter approaching, you felt this overwhelming sense of clarity.

You were going to die. This person, they would get to your speeder and shoot you. You didn’t have a single weapon. It was inevitable. Your mind, however, wouldn’t relent. It was stuck on him. In this moment, you pressed the comm button in your speeder, hoping beyond hope that it would still work. 

“Y/N?” Anakin’s staticky voice cut through the speeder and went straight to your heart. 

“Hey, Ani” You said, your voice broken up with unshed tears.

“Y/N? Where are you? What’s happening?”

“I’m- Anakin, I’m in trouble. A bounty hunter is after me, my speeder is hit and going to stop working probably within the next 20 seconds. I don’t have any weapons to defend myself. I, I, uh, I need your help”

“I’m coming to get you, stay where you are.” His voice was firm, his need to protect you overruling everything else in his body. 

“I’m just a few-”

“I’ve got you, love. I can sense you in the Force. I know where you are”

Of course he could. You took a few deep breaths and you speeder sputtered out, stopping in a deserted alleyway. You looked around and saw the bounty hunter, now obviously male, stepping out and making his way towards you. 

“He’s here, Anakin” Your voice was tight, anxious. You were quiet, paralyzed by fear. 

“Please, Y/N, fuck! Hold on, I’m almost there”

“Ani, Anakin I’m scared! Ani! Ani!” You were hysterical now, screaming and sobbing his name as the man punched the top of your speeder, fracturing the glass. He pulled you out of it by the hair and threw you harshly onto the concrete. 

You yelped in pain as he kicked you directly in the ribs. He backhanded you across the face, the power from his hit making blood pool in your mouth. Harshly you spit it onto the ground, looking up at him with pure hate. 

He placed the blaster to your head, right on your forehead. You let your eyes flutter closed. Your knees were scraped, legs bruised. You were sure at least one of your ribs was broken. You could feel blood running from your temple. Your arm was radiating pain from landing on it. Despite all this, the only thing you thought of was Anakin. Funny, you thought, how the brain chooses what to focus on in its last moments. All you hoped was that he didn’t feel responsible for your death. All you hoped was that he knew you loved him. 

“You’re finished, Senator”

“I don’t think so” Anakin’s smooth voice, tight with anger, cut through the air. His lightsaber unsheathed, he swung it directly into the man. You gasped, everything happening so quickly. As soon as the blaster was gone from your forehead, you scrambled back. 

Anakin walked up to you but, from the shock, you pulled back even further. 

“Hey, hey, it’s me, it’s Anakin, okay? I’m not gonna hurt you”

You whimpered, looking at him and placing a hand on his jacket before harshly jumping into his arms. He gripped you to him, both of you sighing in relief. 

“You came for me” 

He looked at you like you were insane. “Of course I did! You needed me, you called! I’m always going to be there for you, Y/N. I am always going to show up”

“Thank you” You said, voice muffled against his chest. His hands raked through your hair while you just breathed him in. His scent comforted you, his strong chest and large arms grounding you after a day so intense and horrifying that nothing felt real. 

You were still trembling, the aftershocks quite apparent. 

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you. You’re safe, he’s dead, he’s gone. No one’s ever gonna hurt you again, I promise.” Anakin whispered these affirmations into your hair, holding you until the shaking ceased. 

“Thank you for calling me, Y/N. I know that couldn’t have been easy for you.���

“It wasn’t that hard, to be honest, I- wait? What do you mean, you know it couldn’t have been easy for me?!”

Anakin looked at your sheepishly. “You honestly think I haven’t noticed your problems with asking for help? We’ve been together for almost a year and, contrary to popular belief, I can be quite perceptive. I didn’t want to call you out on it, I assumed you’d be embarrassed. But I’m glad that when it actually came down to life or death, you called me.”

“I’ve always known I could call you, Anakin. Please, I don’t want you to ever think my inability to be vulnerable is rooted to anything you do. You’re, fuck, you’re perfect. You’re kind and compassionate and caring and you’re always looking out for me. Look, I know I haven’t been too open about my past and I still struggle with that. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve never had someone who actually wanted to be there for me. This thing where you care and want me to come to you when I’m hurting or simply just want affection or company or help with the little things, it’s foreign to me.”

Ani’s heart broke at your words. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you back then, Y/N. I hate that this” He said, gesturing between you both “is unique to you. But, seriously, anytime you need anything I’m someone you can come to. I honestly want you to come to me. Regardless of if you think it’s something small or this life-altering favor, ask me. I doubt I’d turn you away and, on the off chance I do, I’m not gonna hold that against you.”

“You won’t leave? Even if I show you all of me? Even if I rely on you?”

“I won’t leave you, beautiful. So long as you allow me to show you all of me, too. And you let me rely on you, too.”

Your eyes widened at his words. “Of course! Of course, Ani! I’m here for you, I got you, too, always.”

“I know you do” His flesh hand went up, cupping your cheek. 

“I know you do, too.” You sighed into his touch. You were exhausted beyond belief, your body and mind pretty much shutting down from the stress of it all. Even so, you relaxed further into his body. Yeah, this was new. Yes, it was scary. But you were going to try. Even though it terrified you, you wanted to be loved. You wanted to be loved by him.

--

tagging julia bc she asked when i was textpost-complaining about having to edit this <3

@anakinswhore 

[catzula]

dreams that smell of caramel

Hello, hello. I know I disappeared for a hot minute, i blame depression for everything. i think I’ll be more active from now on, and thank you for reading!

btw, I did take a break form my 400 followers event cuz I burned out really really bad sorry about it

pairing: Bakugou x gn!reader

genre: fluff

warnings: cursing, 3.6k

synopsis: Really, who falls asleep in a subway? Apparently, you do, and Bakugou can’t help but feel protective over it. It’s because he’s training to be a hero, right? It’s not like he likes you, right? Right?!

Bakugou hated the subway. 

There was almost nothing there to like. It was dirty, caused Bakugou to feel like he couldn't breathe, and frankly, ever since the day he read that the air in a subway was %30 pieces of human skin, he didn't want to breathe, either.

The traumatic effect that piece of information had on him was something he never got over. But it wasn't only how dirty the air was, either. It was dusty and dry, and it always caused his eye contacts to dry on his eyes, causing him to see blurry for a while, and there had been many incidents where Bakugou had furiously rubbed his eyes, and made himself blind for a good few minutes.

People there always seemed to be almost as rude and angry as him, most of them thinking they had the right to sit wherever and whenever, and people invading his personal space wasn't something unusual, either. And the smell, oh god, the smell. Some people obviously hadn't discovered what a fucking soap or deodorant was since he could sometimes feel the smell in his brain. 

All this, even though he hadn't even seen the real torture. With the mean, scary look on his face and the way he stood that screamed, stay away from me if you're smart enough, people usually tried to do just that, so Bakugou didn't know what his space being invaded actually could be, or how bad the smell could get.

It was a warm day when he had met you. When he saw you barging in the last second, right before the doors closed behind you, he scoffed, slightly amused. You looked like you were running for your dear life, chest heaving, a thin layer of sweat forming on your temples, clothes disheveled, and hair messy, but you had a proud smile on your lips despite all that.

Crimson eyes followed you as you happily sighed when you noticed the seat across Bakugou was free, dropping yourself on the hard surface. You looked around, realizing there was almost no one around the 10-meter radius of you, the seats were vacant, but people were crowding a bit further down the subway. Your brows furrowed with confusion, and only then did you notice the ash-blonde across you, his gaze piercing through you, the mean scowl on his lips reminding you of a wolf. 

The moment your eyes met, Bakugou had expected you to jump to your feet and run away since he had become well-known after the sports festival and many incidents that had forced him to the tv. And even if someone didn't recognize him, the slightest glare from him was enough to make people run with their tails between their legs, but not this time, apparently, since you dared to cock your head to the side and smile at him.

Smile at him! It was almost an insult! When was the last time anyone actually did that? Especially a stranger? Or maybe you weren't a stranger, was that it? Looking at it now, you did have a familiar face, and it felt like he had seen you quite a few times before. But the more he tried to remember, the more the memory of you went deeper into his brain, causing him to grit his teeth subconsciously and look at you even more intensely. Bakugou wasn't aware he was staring at you like he was trying to see your soul, red gaze never faltering a second away from you.

It was when you tilted your brows slightly upwards, your pretty smile turning into an awkward one, he realized he was staring for the past station. Bakugou's brows snapped together, annoyed at himself, but he was also aware of how his face felt warmer than usual. He gritted his teeth with an angry grunt, looking away from you and fixing his eyes on the stupid advertisement that was right across from him, and he could swear he heard a muffled laugh coming from your way. Bakugou was surprised at how much he wanted to look at you, but his pride wouldn't let him do so, and so he kept staring at the poorly made advertisement brochure. 

Bakugou was a proud, smug man, and he always prided himself on the amount of control he had over himself. But that day, he had let himself down. What was this stupid force that kept making him flick his eyes your way almost every five minutes? It felt like his body was possessed, and it was impossible to suppress his curiosity and not look at you. Bakugou had looked around if there was anyone else looking at you and to try and see if this was a quirk of some sort since it made no sense. 

He grunted in annoyance when he couldn't help himself once again and glance at you, but it wasn't a curt look this time. His eyes narrowed and widened when he took a glimpse of you, of your relaxed body, head falling back and eyes closed. 

"What the hell?" He muttered to himself, leaning forward slightly to try and understand just what the fuck you were- were you sleeping? The realization of how you were, in fact, fucking sleeping had hit him hard, brows shooting upwards, his eyes were wide with confusion and a wave of slight anger. 

Were you dumb? Did you have no rational part in your brain? General knowledge of some sorts? Who in their right mind slept in a fucking subway? Where criminals swarmed, thieves lurking in the corners, waiting for people to slip for a second so they could steal a watch, phone, or a wallet easily, and you were sleeping? 

Bakugou had no idea why he was so fired up about someone he had seen only half an hour ago. He couldn't help but jump in his place, ready to fight, hand itching for a punch whenever someone as much as walked before you, growling and shooting a dirty, scary look when he caught anyone looking your way more than half a second, even the baby that stood in the corner.

He was a hero, after all, right? It was only normal he wanted to protect you, right? Right? God fucking damn it, when were you even going to wake up? He had no idea how you were so relaxed to be able to sleep in a subway, but it caused him more stress than he had felt the past ten years. 

When Bakugou noticed you finally shifting in your place and opening your eyes the second the next station's name was announced, he took a breath of relief. You started to gather your stuff as if you hadn't just woken up from a deep ass slumber, yawning and checking your phone for the time. Bakugou was watching you dazed, shocked at how someone could even do that. If pulling his interest and gaze towards you wasn't your quirk, this had to be it. 

You glanced at him, his gaze meeting yours, and you smile once again, causing his heart to make an odd fucking pause, a snarl appearing on his lips, and he scoffs. But instead of that making you furrow your brows and turn around, you laugh again and turn around. 

~~~

Bakugou had replayed that day over and over again in his head and had arrived at one conclusion. 

You were mad.

You had to be at least a bit mad since it wasn't the most normal thing to smile at strangers as if you knew them for years, especially with a smile as charming as yours, and it was straight-up insane to sleep in a public place, a dangerous place like a subway. 

But whatever conclusion he ended up with, he still couldn't get you out of his mind. It was the stupidest fucking thing ever, made no sense thinking about a stranger you had seen once, but you somehow didn't feel like a stranger. Of course, he didn't feel like he knew you for years, (even though Bakugou thought everyone else but him were just extras, he never forgot a face he saw), but you didn't feel like a threat, either. 

The alerting feeling that formed in his stomach whenever he was around people he didn't know, or sometimes even with the people he did know, wasn't there that time. 

Maybe he was just overthinking. 

Of course, he was over fucking thinking. He had been thinking about a stranger for almost two days straight. (And he hadn't seen you ever since.)

It was such an odd behavior of him that even his friends had noticed something was wrong. Mina had done her best to get a word from him but failed, and Kirishima and Kaminari had declared it their mission to try and cheer Bakugou, and it only meant more for him to deal with.

"Hey, Bakubro, I'm going to the mall today with friends, wanna tag along?" Kaminari asked him the 20th time that day, not even aware it was the worst thing to say if he wanted Bakugou to come. "Look at me you damn Pikachu," Bakugou finally snapped, "If you ask me that one more fucking time, I swear to god-"

"Hey, hey, let's not get violent." Kirishima interrupted before Bakugou finished his threat, thinking it was the best before he spat some illegal shit out. "Then make him fuck off." Bakugou snarled. 

"Yeah, actually, Kami? What are you even trying to do, asking him to come to your date?"

"It's a fucking date?" Bakugou burst, but Kaminari had already sprinted out of the room. "Did he ask me to third fucking wheel? How dense is he?!"

"Calm down, Bakugou." Kirishima sighed. "What's up with you these days, even more irritated than normal?"

"Huh, what the fuck does that even mean?"

"I'm just sayin'." Kirishima shrugged. "You're acting extra grumpy these past few days. You know you can talk to me if you-" 

"Ah, don't start with the cheesy shit, shitty fucking hair. I'm fine." Bakugou cut him off, but his frown was now a bit softer, voice calmer.

"If you say so," Kirishima shrugged. "Hey, by the way, I'm going downstairs to the general studies to change something about my costume, wanna come?"

"General studies? Why the fuck would I go there? You've been visiting that place a lot lately, too." Bakugou asked a little too aggressively, his brows raising when Kirishima grinned. "What, afraid I'll steal your fan?"

"My fan?"

Fan? Bakugou had a fucking fan? Not that he cared, of course, but it still did feel-

Kirishima shrugged with a grin. "You know, the cute student who helped with your gauntlets? Maybe pay a visit to them sometime, they seem to like you a little." Kirishima chuckled when Bakugou kept looking at him blankly. All Bakugou could remember about the person who did his gauntlets was just how pretty their eyes were since he hadn't seen anything but that. He remembered how they always had a flimsy mask on, so it could filter the dust that covered everything in their work station, including the open half of their face.

"I'm not gonna go see an extra just because they like me." He scoffed, but Kirishima could see how Bakugou was dying inside to learn more about this fan of his.

"Sure, whatever you say, bro." He grinned cheekily, gathering his bag and walking downstairs.

~~~

It was the third-day Bakugou had finally stopped thinking about you nonstop, and it felt like freedom. The third time was the charm, wasn't it?

Of course, not. 

You just had to show up the day he was over it, didn't you? You had once again sprinted through the doors just before they closed, heaving in the dirty air, face flushed. You stood up, trying to regain your composure as you smiled proudly at yourself and looking around to find a free seat. 

It didn't take long for you to spot the angry blonde, lips pressed together angrily and vermillion eyes looking directly at you. 

A bright smile appeared on your face just then, and even though you hadn't expected him to do anything, you were surprised when he averted his eyes away from you with a curt nod and a grunt. It had to mean he had acknowledged your smile, right? Well, you hoped it did since you were grinning stupidly at yourself.

You sat on your spot across from him, noticing how people stood even further away from you this time. Glancing at the handsome blonde across you, you tried and couldn't catch his crimson eyes. 

You sighed, frustrated, not aware that Bakugou was even more so. He had promised himself that he wasn't going to be a creep and stare at you like the last time, but your occasional side-eyes and those doe-like glances weren't helping his case the slightest. He wanted to meet your gaze, he really did, but Bakugou also had pride that forbade him from doing so, so he was left there, frustrated and confused.

He was able to keep that up for eight minutes (he had checked, eight minutes and 34 fucking seconds) before he had finally looked at you. Apparently, all it took was eight minutes for you, too, to fall asleep.

You had fallen asleep.

Again?!

"For fucks sake." Bakugou cursed, pressing his fingers on the bridge of his nose and clenching his teeth. He had already concluded you were mad, but a second time? Was this a fucking habit or something?

He grunted in annoyance, but he couldn't take his eyes off you. You looked so relaxed and calm, the smallest smile on your lips, your head moving along with the movements of the train, hands weakly clutching your bag and phone. He felt almost jealous of how reckless you were.

Almost being the keyword, though.

"Don't you fucking get close." He snarled at the man that had been watching you for a few minutes, and he had only taken a step towards you before he heard the blonde and immediately retreated.

His 'come a little closer and I'll bite your head off' look never once faltering, Bakugou was feeling exhausted when he heard your station's name announced, and you opened your eyes. (despite the earbuds that were in your ears? You couldn't have heard the station's name, so how were you able to wake up right on time?)

You gathered your stuff and raised on your legs, just as the train took a sharp turn and caused you to lose your balance, stumbling over to the blonde. "Fuck!" You muttered as you tried to gain your balance back, but the hand that caught you from your wrist did it for you.

"Th-thank you." You told him, sounding a bit out of breath. You chuckled when he grunted. "Be careful, dumb- just be careful." He muttered, eyes slightly widening when he realized he was about to insult you.

You chuckled once again, and Bakugou had to stop himself from smiling back. "See you later, Bakugou-kun." You waved a shy hand, expecting him to sit back in his place, but instead, he looked at you, baffled.

"How do you know my name?

It was hard to surprise Bakugou. Not only was he extremely smart, but he was also very cautious and usually thought almost everything that could go wrong or not.

But he was genuinely, very sincerely shocked when you had started laughing at his question. Out loud, too. You were bending slightly forwards as you laughed, and Bakugou was both amazed and afraid of the motion. You had one of the prettiest laughs he had seen or heard, but this was the most awkward time you could have shown him that.

He had asked you how you knew his name, and you were laughing? He was starting to think you were even crazier than he thought you were. "You're quite popular, you know." You told him. "It's almost impossible to not know about you, especially if- well, after the sport festival, I'd say." You shrugged, pressing your lips in a mischievous smile, and Bakugou had noticed how you stopped yourself before something had slipped out of your mouth.

"Of course, I am." He replied smugly, but his eyes were watching you now even closer as if he was trying to solve a puzzle.

"Well, I have to go now, thanks again!" You smiled and waved goodbye, and Bakugou couldn't stop his scowl turning into an awkward smile.

~~~

It had turned into an odd form of agreement. 

As days passed, you found yourself sitting closer to him, and after almost a week of bumping into each other, you were now sitting next to him, and he had no complaints. 

He thought it was a bit better, actually. Not because he liked, it, of course, he didn't like being so close to you that your shoulders brushed when you moved, your head falling on his shoulder after only a few minutes of riding the train, sitting so close that your smell filled his senses. 

No, of course, he didn't like that, and Bakugou liked having you sit so close to him because that was more convenient, and nothing else. It was easier to scare people away, to track if anyone walking before you was picking and sliding your phone into their pockets. 

And maybe, just maybe, he might be liking your conversations, too. It wasn't much since you were almost always asleep, but when you weren't, Bakugou decided it wasn't the worst. 

"So, mr. future number one hero," ah, and there was that. You referred to him as that often, and even though he was well aware it was mostly teasing, he had to admit it did affect his ego. "How was your day?"

"Fucking long." He sighed, and you giggled. "You always say that!"

"That's cause every day is fucking long!" He groaned, but he had an odd, almost affectionate smile on his lips that just made your heart giddy. "Well, that's hero course for you." You chuckled, biting your lip as you debated whether he'd push you off if you dropped your head on his shoulder now.

This had become your favorite part of the day. Not only was his caramel scent addicting, and it caused you to have the best sleep of your life (you found yourself unable to sleep without caramel scent and the safe feeling it brought to you, so you had to purchase caramel-scented candles), but he was also always warm.

So you did, deciding to live the moment to its best, closed your eyes and dropped your head, half expecting to be thrown off. But he didn't, chuckled instead, the vibrations of his laugh sending chills through your body. "Sleepy already?" He muttered into your hair, surprising you since you thought he wasn't the type to be comfortable with intimacy much, but he looked relaxed.

You could almost feel him smirking when you nodded softly. "Your day was obviously fucking long as well."

~~~

"Ah, man! I forgot my phone downstairs." Kirishima cussed, rolling his eyes at himself. "Hey, Bakubro, I have to leave immediately, but could you pick my phone up for me?"

"Do I look like a fucking maid from there?"

"Please, please! I have to go, and maybe you'll see your fan, too!" Bakugou's brows furrowed, "Whatever, if it'll make you shut the fuck up." He sighed annoyedly, he wouldn't have agreed any other day, but he had nothing better to do since you had texted him about an hour ago that you were going to be late for the train that day. Something about the school, you had told him.

"Really? Dude, you're a lifesaver, thanks!" Kirishima sighed relieved. "Just wake them up if they're asleep! They're like a cat, almost always sleeping in a corner." He added before he left the room. 

Somehow, that description sounded awfully familiar, Bakugou thought.

"Oi, is anyone fucking here?" He called into the dim litten room when he arrived, mumbling to himself something about extras and dumbasses. He had visited the room once or twice when he was having his gauntlets remade, and why did he feel like he was missing something?

"Oi?" He shouted one more time, red gaze stumbling on the figure that was in the corner of the room, almost hiding behind the table, sleeping. His eyes found a half-melted caramel-scented candle on the table, wondering if it was safe to have a candle in a workshop like this one. A mask and workshop clothes stood right next to the candle.

"Hey, I'm fucking talking to... you." His voice trailed off when they lifted their head, stretching their arms when their eyes found the dumbfounded blonde.

"Oh, hey Katsuki-kun!" You cheered, rising to your legs. 

"What the hell are you- why are you... What the fuck?"

You kept your silence, a mischievous smile on your lips as you waited for him to regain his thoughts. You watched as he connected the pieces, a lightbulb almost visible above his head. "You're a fucking student here!" He yelled, and you couldn't help but giggle at how accusing he sounded. 

"Guilty as charged." You raised your hands, teasing him, knowing this was a one-time chance.

"Ah, would you look at the time." You spoke, inspecting the nonexistent watch on your wrist. "We should hurry if we want to catch the next train, you know." You grinned, watching him as he tried to suppress the smile creeping upon his lips. 

"I guess so." He muttered, frowning as he looked away, but it was only to hide the blush that was settling on his cheeks. 

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

whumptober day 10: crying

slightly more straightforward h/c this time!

summary: set after the ric grayson/joker war arc in nightwing. 

dick’s been missing for two months. jason finds him first, but it’s just the first step in finding how very, very lost dick really is.

warnings: SPOILERS for the aforementioned nightwing arcs. plentiful cursing. moderately graphic descriptions of injuries.

crying

The last time Jason received a family-wide SOS to help them rescue Dick, the guy was a twice-brainwashed mess whose brain was being pulled in opposite directions by the Court of Owls and the fucking Joker, and that was after said brain had been shattered by a fucking sniper’s bullet. (And a period of being left to fend for himself with a broken brain in between, but Jason doesn’t really like to think about that.) This time, he doesn’t know quite what to expect. He can’t imagine things have gotten even worse than the last go-around, but then again, Jason knows from personal experience that there’s no end to the list of ‘things that are worse than dying’.

Besides, the alert came from Babs. And, in quick succession, Tim, Bruce, Duke, and Cass. If nothing else, Jason is curious.

Dick disappeared from Bludhaven about two months ago. The reason the oh-so-precise Bats have the word ‘about’ in that statement is because nobody can really pinpoint the exact date it happened. Donna can recall dropping by his place ten weeks ago. Tim maybe exchanged a few emails or text messages a few weeks ago but didn’t really get alarmed about Dick not responding to his messages until the radio silence stretched for over a month. Bruce had his trackers on (that bastard) but Dick hates them and is known to destroy the ones he finds. And they can’t even really depend on reports of Nightwing sightings in the city because having his brain knocked around and pulled apart like taffy means Dick takes regular holidays from patrols if he’s not feeling particularly steady that day. (Look what being sensible and having a smidgeon of a sense of self-preservation got him.) And the CCTV in his apartment complex was shit, so. 

It’s almost like it was a planned thing, like he was kidnapped, but honestly it’s how things go and how they’ve gone for a very long time: they drift in their own worlds for long periods until an event brings them together, and then it’s back to being scattered across the country again (or sometimes the world, or sometimes the galaxy). Dick is more prone to this than most; he’s probably gone undercover more than any of them, and he’s lived the longest on his own as well. 

Even after the clusterfuck that was the last year and change, it’s nothing new. And if that isn’t the most fucking depressing thing that Jason’s had to think about today, it turns out that not only have the Family figured out where Dick is, but that Jason is the one that’s closest to his location. 

So here he is, shivering, on a particularly icy night on the Gotham docks, scoping out the warehouse where Dick’s supposed to be. It’s not very well-guarded, which either means there’s nothing in there and this is a massive waste of his time, or that it’s a trap and what’s waiting on the other side is a fucking bomb or something even worse. It’s not a great situation to be in either way, and Jason’s got half a mind to have Tim or even Bruce take over--but it’d take too long for them to get there and Jason’s never been fond of the idea of handing over to someone else anything that he could potentially do by himself.

Besides, like he said, he’s curious.

He crouches down at his vantage point overlooking the warehouse and presses the communicator in his ear. “Two guards in front but nothing else; the place is practically abandoned. Infrared picking up three people inside.” He shifts his weight from one foot to another, bracing, ready to spring. “I’m about to go in.”

Tim grunts. “I’ll be there in fifteen, give or take a couple.”

“Twenty,” Bruce says. Then: “Hood, you--” An uncharacteristic pause, and Jason can feel the sudden, uneasy chill across the entire comm channel. Bruce clears his throat. “Be careful. Assess the situation first. Don’t engage alone unless it’s an emergency.”

There’s a thanks for stating the obvious on the tip of Jason’s tongue, but something about the gravity of the situation, the mildest quaver in Bruce’s voice (he’s been missing for two months, god, two months) has him say, instead: “Roger that.”

Jason makes quick work of the guards in the front, leaving them in unconscious heaps on the ground before he creeps in. They’d hardly put up a fight, which just makes Jason’s stomach twist in anxious knots. The anxiety is made worse by the complete lack of resistance when he’s actually inside: there are only two huge, cavernous rooms, and one of them has two of the three people that he’d detected. They scatter as soon as they see him and Jason considers chasing, but now his nerves are stretched so taut that he thinks he’s going to vomit if he doesn’t see Dick now--

The night-vision on Jason’s helmet catches a figure sitting, slumped, in the corner of the room. A chain connects a manacle around its ankle to the wall, and another between the same wall and… a collar around its neck. Jason’s blood is already boiling before he steps closer and recognises the figure as Dick. His hair is long and shabby, having grown past his chin, curtaining his face. He’s shirtless but wearing ripped, stained jeans. His hands are cuffed in front of him, the thin metal biting into his wrists enough to leave his hands puffy and slightly purple from the lack of effective circulation. He looks considerably thinner--Jason can just about count the ribs under his skin--and every visible part of his torso is painted in bruises in various stages of healing. And--

--and he’s breathing.

Well, thank fuck. That’s a start.

Jason crouches in front of Dick and presses his comm again. “Found N. Little worse for wear, but alive and safe.”

He ignores the immediate clamour of questions from the others to focus on trying to get Dick awake. He brushes Dick’s hair aside and gently lifts his chin to have a look at his eyes. 

Dick smiles at him. “Hey.”

Jason is beset by an onslaught of emotion that’s part relief, part incredulity and part anger, so much so that he thinks he’s going to fucking burst with the pressure of it. Of course that would be the first thing out of Dick’s mouth--hey--like he’s meeting Jason for cocktails after work instead of being rescued after two months of captivity and torture! Well he can take that hey and shove it right up his fucking--

“Is there anything else here we need to worry about,” Jason says, busying himself with picking the locks on Dick’s manacles so that he doesn’t snap and say something he’ll regret.

Dick shakes his head. He’s got a shaggy beard going and he stinks of sweat and urine and filth, but there’s a sense of… togetherness to him, like he’d always known that Jason was going to show up at this exact minute and that had always been part of his plan. “They scattered as soon as they got word that you guys were coming,” he says, voice thin and raspy. “I guess not enough of them were curious to stick around to find out why so many capes would be coming for me.”

Jason pops the manacles and collar loose and goes to work on the cuffs. “So you weren’t taken as Nightwing.”

Dick sighs, then winces as the motion pulls on the gigantic bruise around his neck. “I wasn’t taken as Dick Grayson, either.”

The cuffs come off with a click. Jason stares at him. “So… what, you were just some poor mug they picked up off the streets to… torture for shits and giggles?”

Dick is silent for a moment. His eyes flick to a point behind Jason and back again. “They knew me as Ric.”

It takes a moment for the name to click in Jason’s brain, but he finally remembers that it was what Dick called himself during his brain-injured year in Bludhaven. “Why would Ric have enemies?” he says, without thinking.

There’s that smile on Dick’s face again, but this time it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Ric did have a life, Jason. And friends. And… enemies.” He begins to move, bare feet shifting against the floor and shifting his weight onto his hands as if he’s trying to figure out a way to stand up, but barely manages an inch of elevation before he runs out of energy, breathing heavily. “Ric--I used to fight. Street fights. Involved a lot more money and people than I remembered, and… apparently a lot of people felt betrayed when I just up and left the city one day. I’ve been fighting matches here almost every day.” A sudden, sharp grin. “I haven’t lost yet.”

Jason--stops. Utterly freezes, hands midway to helping Dick sit upright, because there’s something terribly, terribly wrong here. “Why didn’t you ever try to escape? And how--I mean, in the first place--”

How did you even get caught?

To Jason’s horror, tears start rolling down Dick’s face. His expression doesn’t really change, so Jason’s not sure that Dick’s even aware that he’s crying, but right now Jason is already halfway to being mortified. “I was on my way back from the gym,” Dick says finally, “and I think I--I blacked out. It happens sometimes.” Dick gives a wet laugh. “Talk about bad timing.”

“And--and what, you blacked out for two months?”

At this Dick’s face crumples, and suddenly Jason gets it: this is a man pushed and pushed to the end of his rope and beyond, utterly exhausted, past the point of caring who knows about it or why. “I guess…” Dick swallows. “I didn’t really see the difference. Between--between here and out there.”

Jason wants to scream, shake his shoulders--a shameful part of him even wants to hit Dick--and tell him that of course it was different outside of this stupid, dank warehouse: he has friends and family and a lifetime of experience to support him while he flies free. It’s ridiculous to even compare the two, and Jason is ready to put these words down to the effects of too much pain and too little food.

Except--

(plucked you right out of one life and stuffed you into another, didn’t they? treated you like a puppet without a past and a future, didn’t they? didn’t let you entertain the idea of a different life even for a minute, did they? punished you for straying, reminded you there was just too much at stake, and that those stakes were always, always bigger than you or your health or your happiness or your future--)

“Dick, I--” Jason really doesn’t know what to say. Tim says, “ETA five” in his ear while Bruce says, “Right behind you, Robin” and Jason knows, just knows, that this isn’t how they would want to see Dick, and more importantly, this isn’t how Dick would want them to see him.

He gathers Dick in his arms and presses him to his chest. Dick freezes for a second, surprised, then melts into his embrace. His shoulders shake, hands coming up to weakly grasp at Jason’s jacket. The sobs reach a crescendo quickly, a pathetic keening muffled into Jason’s chest, before tapering away and Dick is still, just… breathing. 

Jason breathes with him.

That’s how Tim and Bruce find them a couple of minutes later. Dick peels away and somehow musters the energy to reassure them. Bruce helps him up and carries him to the car while Jason follows; just as Dick’s lowered into the backseat his hand shoots out, grasping Jason’s arm in a silent plea. 

Jason gets in with him. Neither he nor Bruce say anything through the whole drive at the tears that continue to pour down Dick’s face, but Jason doesn’t let go of his hand for the whole ride.

[sortasirius]

Programing The Winter Soldier

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, heavy angst, this is seriously big sad hours

AN: This is so very sad and I definitely cried writing it lmao.  I love Bucky Barnes so much. 

Pairing: Steve/Bucky

Words: 3873

Read it on AO3 here

January 23, 1945

General,

Sgt. Barnes has undergone an initial mind wipe.  Dr. Zola has succeeded in attaching the weapon to his shoulder.  He has been put in the cryo-chamber as a test, and after some initial pain it looks as though it has worked.

We will begin reprogramming shortly.

Longing

Bucky wakes up in pain.  His arm hurts.  After a few moments of long, deep breaths where he decides he’s not, in fact, dead, he tries, experimentally, to move his fingers.  To his relief, he finds he can, but something feels different, wrong.  The clicking in his index finger, from where he had broken it when he was twelve defending Steve from some guy he had tried to fight in an alley after the creep had tried to grab at a woman on the street, was gone.  The pain is gone there too, in fact he can’t feel anything below the burning where his shoulder meets something cold, something foreign.

He tries to look around, but it’s pitch black wherever he is.  It’s also brutally fucking cold.  He shivers violently, trying to get away from whatever cold metal is touching his skin, but no matter how far he leans, he can’t seem to get away from it.

Suddenly, without warning, fluorescent lights above him burst into life, and Bucky screws his eyes up against the sudden brightness.  Blinking away the mild pain, he sees a man he vaguely recognizes coming toward him.  He’s a shorter man, wearing round glasses…

Like another switch flipped, Bucky suddenly remembers this man, remembers a saw taken to the shattered remains of his arm, remembers being tied down, with a rag stuffed in his mouth to keep him from biting off his own tongue.  He remembers the arm that doesn’t belong to him attached to his left side.  He remembers throwing someone across the room as though he was weightless.

“Sergeant Barnes,” the man looks him up and down, ignoring the way Bucky shied openly away from his gaze, “Let us begin.”

They don’t release Bucky from the restraints while the doctor, Zola, measures him from head to toe, has him flex his new arm, takes his blood pressure and heart rate, checks him for infection.  He only occasionally stops to speak to an assistant, who all keep their distance from Bucky, or say something in German to a soldier watching everything.  He makes Bucky watch a grainy video of ever-changing shapes, and sticks him painfully with a needle whenever he tries to look away.

“Now Sergeant,” Zola addresses him after nearly an hour of poking and prodding, “Can you tell me a memory of yours?”

Bucky doesn’t even consider, just says the first thing that comes into his brain.  Whatever this guy wants, it’s going to be easiest to just give it to him.

“Steve and I were walking along Rockaway beach two years ago.  I remember it was nearly dusk, summer, we were watching the sunset and Steve brought some bread to feed the birds.  I remember they were swarming us, you show them any kind of food and they all come swooping in.  Steve kept laughing because they were trying to land on me.  I remember the smile on his face and his eyes matched the water.  It was the first time he really laughed since his mother had died.  He told me later that he really needed that laugh.”

Zola looks at one of his assistants and gestures to the red book on the table next to him.

“First word: Longing.”

March 10, 1945

General,

We have had limited success reprogramming Barnes so far.  Zola has been working extensively with him, and while we are now seeing less incidents of outward aggression to staff or soldiers, his rate of noncompliance has skyrocketed.

Please advise on any alternate methods we should attempt.

Rusted

Bucky tries not to think about his new normal, but the repetition of each day makes that difficult.

Each morning, he’s awoken by a prison alarm and the instantaneous switching on of all the lights in his cell, followed immediately by his first meal of the day served through a slot in the door.  Steel door, reinforced, at least four feet thick.  Even the new arm doesn’t make much of a dent in it, though he’s tried.  God knows, he’s tried.

After breakfast he’s led to the combat cage where he meets with Zola, before being led through drills that he must comply with.  Noncompliance leads to pain.  Stepping out of line leads to pain.  Not eating leads to pain.  Not answering a question leads to pain.  His whole life revolves around inflicting pain and trying not to get pain inflicted on him.

On bad days, when he’s been too slow or asked one too many questions, they wipe him before lunch.  He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy.  There is nothing else to say.  It’s beyond unbearable.

On good days, they’d give him lunch and Zola would run his usual tests.  Ask him about a memory, ask him about his family, his parents, his sister, his friends.  For some reason, it always came back to Steve.  Every time, no matter how Bucky tried to steer his brain away from him, it always came back to Steve.

This time he tells Zola about an old motorcycle they had rescued from the junkyard one summer.  It was more scrap metal than anything, rusted out from the wind and the rain and the New York winter it had suffered through outdoors, but they had scraped together pennies from odd jobs and had gotten it to run again.  It was a blast, to go zipping through the streets of Brooklyn in the dead of night, looking for trouble or whatever they could find, having to stop what felt like every ten minutes to fix some part that had fallen off or sprung a leak.  A total hassle, but totally worth it.

After his tests, Zola would send him back to the unnamed soldier who was responsible for his physical activity, this time to put him against enemies.  In the beginning, Bucky would refuse to fight them, but in his new quest of not putting himself through more pain if he could help it, he had started obeying the commands given to him, even if that meant using the strange attachment to his body that he hated looking at, that was welded to his skin, the burned and tortured flesh above it just a reminder that he used to be fully human.

After his second round of drills, they either send him to bed and give him dinner an hour later, or they put him in cryo.  He longs for the cold metal of the room they keep him in on the nights when he goes to cryo.

It’s the same every single day.

Zola starts saying a new word to him: Rusted.

May 7, 1945

General,

After three weeks, Barnes’ hunger strike has ended.  He can barely stand anymore, let alone lift the arm, but he is willing to eat.  Zola has suggested that we put him back in cryo and get his weight up so he can at least stand.  Your suggestion of a controlled shock each time he refused to eat worked perfectly, we always appreciate your input in the construction of our new weapon.

Seventeen

They let him out of cryo after what they tell him is four weeks.  When he looks down at himself, he can’t see his ribs or the sharp definition of his hipbones anymore.  They make sure he can stand, that he can punch, that he can shoot a gun.  They work on the strength of the punch.  Zola is angry that it’s been weakened.

The hunger strike was a stupid idea, it was too much like what Steve would have done, and Bucky would never be Steve, or be with Steve, no matter how much he would like to.

His body is littered with burn marks from the shocks they gave him when he wouldn’t eat, and Bucky winces at the memory of the pain, the memory of his body seizing up and being outside his control.  He supposes he should be used to the out-of-control thing by now, but he isn’t, he can’t, because then he’d really have lost.

Bucky hates cryo, he hates cryo almost more than he hates the mind wipe, because at least when his mind was wiped he could still dream.  They couldn’t control what he dreamed about, and they didn’t know what he dreamed about.  Rather, they never asked him what he dreamed about, therefore they didn’t know.

Bucky thinks about his last dream, the one where he and Steve were on a beach somewhere.  Not the Northeast, somewhere tropical, maybe California.  They have their toes in the sand and Steve remarks that the sand is so hot here, how do people walk on sand this hot?

“Sergeant Barnes,” Zola breaks him out of his thoughts, “Tell me why you stopped eating.”

Bucky looks up at him, he’s so tired.  He doesn’t want to fight anymore but he has to, the skinny little kid from Brooklyn with blue eyes and a blinding smile would want him to.

“When I was seventeen my family couldn’t afford food for the week,” the words pour out of him of their own volition, and he’s too tired to stop them, “Dad was out of work, we were desperate.  Steve and his mom brought over dinner and made us keep the leftovers.  It was a pot roast, best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t want to be a weapon.  I don’t want to be your weapon.”

Zola leans back and considers him.  A smile spreads across his face.

“What you want doesn’t matter.  It never did.”

Bucky wants to hit him with the weapon on his left.  He wants it more than anything.  But he can’t.  He’s not allowed.  He really just is a lapdog for them now.

Zola adds a word the next day: Seventeen.

June 15, 1945

General,

It has been noted recently that Barnes is unwilling to lash out or attack any combatants that fit the following profile: blond, blue eyes, male.  Zola has insisted this weakness is an asset in his reprogramming and that it will not last.  We have brought in two soldiers that match this profile at Zola’s request, I will report any findings.

Daybreak

He’s not Steve, Bucky tells himself over and over as the handsome blond solider smiles at him when he brings him his dinner.  They open the door now, just so Bucky can see the man clearly, just so he can see his smile and the slight edge to his light blue eyes.  They’re lighter than Steve’s but something in Bucky simply doesn’t care anymore.  The eyes were wrong but they were something he could cling to.  The hair was just a shade too dark but it reminded him of a different time.  The smile was just a little too wide, but he remembered one that was a little softer, a little more slanted.

“I remember watching the sun rise in Germany during the war,” Bucky tells Zola blankly in their meeting that day, so used to the stab of the needle in his skin that he doesn’t even feel it, “Steve told me his favorite time of day was this early in the morning, right at daybreak.  He told me that before, too, before he was Captain America, but we got to just sit quietly and watch it, watch the colors.  I don’t remember them.”

“Very good,” Zola stands, beckoning to the blond solider to take Bucky to his next assignment.

Bucky walks along silently, head held high as he approaches the cage, where a larger soldier is waiting for him, outfitted head to toe in combat gear.  Shouldn’t be a problem.

“Soldat,” Zola stares through the bars of the combat cage minutes later, where Bucky has paused, fist raised above the quivering man in front of him, “Don’t hesitate, you wouldn’t want to disappoint your audience.”

Bucky looks over to Zola, the blond soldier who smiled at him the night before is watching.

Zola’s right, he can’t disappoint him.

“New word,” Zola mutters as Bucky straightens up, shaking his hand to get rid of the red on the metal knuckles, “Daybreak.”

July 4, 1945

General,

Barnes had an unfortunate breakthrough during today’s training.  He seemed to remember something from prior to his fall and was unable to complete the mission set in front of him.  I am becoming frustrated with Zola, he insists that this is all part of the process, that to break a man down there will be moments of pure weakness, but Barnes is looking less and less like the man we thought he was.

Furnace

Steve is the only thing he thinks of when he has a clear mind anymore.

He doesn’t remember little details of his memory anymore, but he remembers Steve.  He doesn’t remember his birthday, but he knows when Steve’s is.  He doesn’t remember the smell of spring in Central Park, but he remembers the way Steve wore newspapers in his shoes.  No matter what, he knows Steve.

Zola knows this, he uses it against him.  Every day, the talks get longer, the punishments get more painful, and the amount of times he’s wiped go up.

“Tell me a memory,” it feels like Zola’s asked this a thousand times now.

“Steve’s furnace in his building broke last winter.  We had him over for two weeks until the landlord could be bothered to fix it.  Mom loves him so much, she would have him around all the time if he’d let her.  He always thinks he can do everything himself.”

“You speak of him as if he’s here.  Why?”

“I don’t know.”

That’s the truth.

Zola adds Furnace to the list of Bucky’s words.  He can feel himself slipping away every time they’re uttered.

August 12, 1945

General,

Thank you for your visit last week.  Your insight into our project is much appreciated.  I agree that we must continue to press on, we have no put so much man power and energy into the project it would be a shame to shut it down now.  Zola believes that we are close to a breakthrough, despite occasional noncompliance by Barnes.

Nine

It’s starting to get harder and harder to fight against the constant onslaught of change they were forcing on his mind.

He can’t dream anymore, so the cryo chamber at least lets him rest, because the only dreams he has are dark and shadowy.  He’s losing his already tenuous grip on himself, his memories becoming indistinct, with only a few bright spots left to cling to in his mind.

“Tell me a memory.”

It takes him a second to think of one.  He cowers as Zola stands over him.

“When I was nine we went on a field trip to the Met.  Steve made me read all the little cards next to the paintings, even though it made us lag behind everyone else.”

“Do you still think of him?”

Always.

“No.”

“Good.  Add Nine.”

September 1, 1945

General,

Zola chose to move forward with giving Barnes the news of Steve Rogers’ death last week.  So far, it has proven an excellent tactic in breaking his resolve.  After an initial disruption in his usual pattern of behavior (consisting of a violent outburst that left his entire holding cell destroyed followed by a complete emotional collapse), Barnes has been much more compliant in the process.

I believe we may be close to a breakthrough.

Benign

Bucky has been unmade, strand by strand, bit by bit, atom by atom, he has been unmade and put back together for the purposes of following orders, of being a human weapon of mass destruction.  There has been so much pain in his unmaking, so much unrelenting physical and mental pain from being ripped apart and put back together over and over and over again.

And yet, none of that pain was like the pain of knowing that Steve Rogers was dead.

Bucky would take it all over again, spend a thousand lifetimes in this room, in the cell, in the combat cage, in the cryo chamber, having his mind wiped like a problem on a chalkboard just so he could unlearn that Steve was dead.

Zola is the one that tells him.  He shows him a newspaper in English, then Russian, then German, all with the same headline: Captain America Dead!

Bucky feels like a feather caught in a windstorm, torn to shreds by the whipping downdraft of mother nature’s power, by the power of his own grief.

Bucky knows better than to move while Zola is in the room, but the second that he leaves, the rage, red, blind, hot, overtakes him, and he uses the weapon attached to him, which has become a part of him, to destroy everything he can.  The metal table, reinforced with steel, comes apart like wet paper in his hand.  He destroys the sink, leaving nothing but powdered ceramic and plumbing hookups behind.  He gouges marks into the walls with his fingers, he slams his arm onto the floor.  And then?  He collapses in the middle of the cold metal room with his cold metal arm, just a cold metal soldier who’s lost the only reason he wanted to get out of here, to stay who he was.

“Come on Buck, we don’t have to do this.”

“When was the last time we snuck into a Dodgers game?  It’ll be fun, I promise.”

Steve rolls his eyes, pausing as they waited to cross the street to cough into his jacket.  Bucky, almost subconsciously pats his jacket pockets.  Good, he’s got an extra one of Steve’s inhalers in case it’s a bad night for his asthma.

“Come on Steve,” Bucky nudges his shoulder as they approach the stadium, “I know it’s been hard recently, but hey, at least we have baseball.”

Steve laughs at that, and gives Bucky an almost radiant smile.  Whatever it was, it makes Bucky feel like he has the sun in his chest.

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a date,” Steve jokes as they sneak in behind an older couple, heading up to their favorite spot to watch the game.

“Who says it isn’t?” Bucky is glad his face is hidden in shadow as they make their way up the stairs of the stadium to the very back row, “But don’t think I’m gonna buy you a hotdog or anything.”

“Come on, what kind of girl pays for her own hotdog?” Steve winks at him, and Bucky can’t hide his wide smile at the words that settle themselves right in the middle of his beating heart.

“Soldat.  Stand up,” Zola’s voice comes through the speaker, and Bucky can’t comply, he tries, but he’s crushed by the weight of the loss of Steve Rogers, the only person that could pull him out of this, that could undo the work of HYDRA that had been inflicted on his mind and body.

He hears the stomping of boots outside the door, but he still can’t stand, he still can’t make himself be the good lapdog he’s supposed to be.  He’s broken, empty, unusable, unloveable.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps, not even thinking about fighting as the soldiers pull him up to standing.

Zola’s voice comes over the little speaker they have in the room, the one that Bucky couldn’t reach to rip to pieces.

“Next word: Benign”

October 29, 1945

General,

Zola had a long conversation with Barnes today.  The loss of Steve Rogers is still affecting him.  Zola tells me he has a plan, that our work is almost finished.

Homecoming

They take him to the combat cage again.  There’s someone waiting for him.

“We have a test for you today,” Zola swings the door open, and he sees that it’s the blond soldier who reminds him of Steve, tied up and bound and already bloody.

Bucky takes a step forward, staring at the terrified man.  He feels something, he can’t identify what it is.

“Tell me a memory.”

Bucky doesn’t take his eyes off of the soldier as he speaks.

“When Steve brought us back from the HYDRA base, they called it our homecoming.  I wasn’t used to him yet, him being taller than me, being okay with being the center of attention.  I wasn’t used to him being different.  But sometimes I saw flashes of the old Steve, when he looked at me, when he was drawing on a scrap of a napkin, when he made a joke that everyone laughed at.  And then, sometimes I thought he forgot about me.  He didn’t need me anymore.”

He looks down at the soldier.

“Kill him, soldat,” Zola tells him, “You don’t need him.  You never did.”

The cowering blond soldier might as well be Steve, Bucky can’t tell the difference anymore.  He snaps his neck anyway, pretending that he doesn’t feel the shattered remains of his heart split just a little bit more.

“New word: Homecoming.”

December 15, 1945

General,

Only a few more weeks I believe, Barnes has become more and more compliant, completing missions with ease and without hesitation.  We put him in front of a live target yesterday, the man captured at the border three weeks ago.  Barnes did not even seem to hear his pleas, even though we have been assured he can hear and understand them.

One

He kills easily now.  He does it without thinking.

“Tell me a memory.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Good.  Add One.”

January 23, 1946

General,

Congratulations.  The asset is ready to begin service.

Freight Car

The Winter Solider does not hesitate.  He does not disobey orders.  He pulls the trigger as easy as breathing.  He’s a ghost story, a legend, the new fist of HYDRA.

Zola speaks to him, he answers.  A soldier speaks to him, he answers.

“There is one last word to add,” Zola tells him, walking around where he stands, straight, like a steel rod.  He’s more metal than man now, anyway, “Tell me about the day you fell.”

“I ziplined onto a freight car.  I took out the targets.  I fell.  I was found by HYDRA.”

Steve was there.  He tried to save me.  We joked about Coney Island.  I miss him, I wish I was with him.  I wish I had died when I fell.  I wish I could just be Bucky.  I don’t want to be a weapon, I just want to be Bucky.

“Very good, soldat.  Final word: Freight Car.”

As each word is read, Bucky departs his mind, taken over by The Winter Solider.  Each word takes away a layer of memory, a layer of who he was, who he had fought so hard to stay.  Now it doesn’t take weeks of time, or months, to unmake him.  All it takes is ten words, ten words that connect him completely to Bucky Barnes, yet somehow, ten words that remove him altogether.

Zola finishes the list.  Bucky Barnes is long, long gone.

“Ready to comply.”

[xmyshya]

Bumpy road

summary: What if two of your favourite boys were pining after you? genre: angst, fluff, crack warnings: stupidity special thanks: the whole HQ Headquarters DS, for giving me ideas, for hyping up, for everything, I love you all. a/n: Colour coded! Red for Kuroo, Yellow for Atsumu, black for neutral/both! There's an Easter Egg! wc: 3.9k words

[April]

“Please take a seat in the last row”, your eyes followed an extended arm of your new homeroom teacher until they landed on a boy with the messiest bedhead you’d ever seen. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to you though, instead resting his eyes on a faraway point on the other side of the window. Until he heard the noise you made while shuffling your chair, that is. “Hiiiiii, I’m L/N Y/N, nice to meet you neighbour!”, a wide smile formed on your face. “Kuroo Tetsurou, nice to meet you too”.

One week later, you were standing on the gym's threshold, filling your lungs with a deep breath before taking the first step in as a new manager. Volleyball had never been a sport close to your heart, but you had had some experience with it, as well as basic knowledge, so you were up for a challenge. All the more reason to after being asked by an unexpectedly fun friend. And being able to spend more time with said friend. But more time spent on talking came with another consequence. You started hearing rumours and whispers. Things like wow, she’s really talking to him or oh, another victim to his charm reached your ears from everywhere. “Kuroo, am I not supposed to talk to you or something?”, slipped your lips one day. You might as well continue, since he already heard you and was now looking at you with a confusion clear in his eyes. “I just heard people being… surprised about this”. “Oh, apparently I’m either intimidating or hot enough to be a fuckboy”, you choked on your own saliva. “You’re what?” “Intimidating or hot, or both”, did he really say that with a straight face, not once but twice? You just burst out laughing, eyeing him up and down. “Sorry, where?”, laughter bending your body in half, you bumped your head against the desk. “Ouch”

[July]

School premises were swarmed with sweaty boys. Some of them were familiar, like Bokuto or Akaashi, who had been friends with Kuroo for quite a long time. You recognised Karasuno, also known as Country Bumpkins, due to a practice match 2 months prior. The rest? Well, you only knew they were parts of the Fukurodani group. There was a mock game going on, and you, being a diligent manager, observed every move of your teammates to give them performance feedback. Further into the game though, your eyes shifted more and more onto your best friend’s lifting shirt, every time he went for a block. Or spiked. Or served. And wow, his thigh muscles were really… “Okay people, time for a break!”, a shout somewhere near you brought you back to reality. You stood up and made your way to the door, to catch some fresh air, while you bumped into quite a firm body. Looking up revealed it was Kuroo. His smirk made you wonder if he noticed your stares. His wink convinced you he, in fact, did. “Y/N, your name should be Neon, cause daaaaaamn you’re a perfect 10” “So you must be Helium, cause I sure as hell want you on top of me on a table”, few people whistled. Oh shit. His reaction gave you an extra boost of confidence, because now it was painfully obvious that all the rumours about the man in front of you were pretty much it, rumours, since his ears could as well be beacons. You winked at him on your way back to the door, and he still stood there dumbfounded when you looked back after reaching it.

[October]

Something had changed. You couldn’t quite put a finger on what exactly, but it was different. Like a tiny heat wave whenever your hands brushed, and they brushed more often. Like an extra beat of your heart whenever you felt his touch on the small of your back. Like your eyes lingering on for a second longer, before dropping to each other’s lips. Like a blush tinting his ears when you smile at him. Or like the way his heart clenched, when your thick tears threatened to burn their way through his chest, because the world had been unfair to you once too many, while the only thing he could do was to hold you so tight and kiss the top of your head so gently.

[November]

Having to stay late at school really was a blessing, when it was just the two of you in an empty train compartment on your way home. Otherwise, you surely would be scolded or at least stared at, because the decibels of your laughters while fooling around were beyond socially acceptable limits. He was now chasing you, fingers threatening to tickle you once you’re caught… You started to turn just in time for your back to hit the wall, and you definitely didn’t expect him to be so close, with the way he hovered over you and his hand making a loud thud. Or maybe it was your heart. “Oh sorry, the train bumped”, there was something in his eyes that compelled you to look into them, even when he leaned on his forearm above your head. He was so close, you could almost feel his breath on your skin. “Are you sure it’s not you falling for me?”, a chuckle in your throat died instantly as you saw his eyes open wide in fear for a fraction of a second, before his usual cocky smirk curled his lips again. He booped your nose before leaning against the wall next to you. The rest of the way home was silent.

[January]

It was time for you to run to your own team’s match. There was no way to miss a game for a manager, even if it was just your presence serving as a support on court. Your eyes slipped down to your watch only for a moment, but it was enough for a disaster to occur. You felt your body clash with another. “I’m so-” “Watch where yer running, ya fucking idiot”, you really wanted to apologise, you really did. But obviously not anymore, not when the other person was shouting at you like that. “Excuse me?! And where the fuck did your eyes go, huh? And don’t you dare speak to me like that”, your finger digging relentlessly into this stranger’s chest, despite his posture being so much bigger than yours, rage boiling in your veins blocking successfully any feeling of intimidation. “Do ya have any idea who ya talkin’ to? Miya Atsumu of Inarizaki, ya pig”, he straightened up and lifted his chin, looking down at you with a half smirk. You, however, only raised a brow. “Ooohhhhh…”, you squint your eyes for a moment, tapping a finger on your slightly pouty lips. “Never heard of ya”, you gave him a wide smile as you continued your rushed steps towards another gym. “W-wait a sec!”, shit, you really didn’t have time for this, “I uhh, sorry? I thought ya were one of dem stalking fangals and uhh...”, it was clear he wasn’t used to apologising. “The way ya talked back at me was so freaking cool! Can I have yer number?” You were shocked that he dared asking you that after the insults he spouted. Even more so, when you found yourself tapping your digits into his phone.

Nekoma won the match. Not that it was surprising, you always believed in the boys, and you had believed in their plan. But now that the game was over, you were heading to have a sneak peek at your Crow friends. You didn’t expect the situation to be so dire. From the scoreboard, your eyes moved to their opponents and… oh shit. Preparing to serve was HIM, none other than self-proclaimed “THE” Miya Atsumu. He noticed you too, surely, because he was grinning your way and oh my god was it a wink? Because it definitely looked like a wink. The whole match was a pain to watch. It had you hyped, it had you devastated, it had you crying and laughing uncontrollably. But when Oranges finally won, indescribable joy overwhelmed you, while you screamed and jumped around. Sudden hand on the small of your back startled you, emotion quickly replaced with surprise and confusion when you saw Kuroo attached to it. He hadn’t touched you in 2 months. “C’mon, time for us to go”, he pushed you gently towards the door while staring down the blonde setter behind your back. His gaze said he was taking up the challenge.

In the evening, the whole team was gathered in front of the tv to watch repetitions, over and over again, and figure out a strategy. Honestly your focus only could last that long, mind already looking for distractions, when you heard a ding from your phone. [unknown]: Ya know, could’ve been less happy about our loss. ‘M heartbroken now. [Y/N]: That’s what you get for playing against my friends ;) who’s this, btw? [Miya]: Whaddya mean ‘who’?! It’s Miya Atsumu here! [Y/N]: Aaahhhhh… Never heard of him :D [Miya]: We gotta change it then “Maaaaan, I wish we could play against Miyas”, Yamamoto’s voice dragged you back into the room. “Yeah, me too”, Kuroo hissed through clenched teeth.

[February]

Recent weeks were crazy. Preparation for college entrance exams was consuming most of your time, along with your sanity. If only Kuroo was with you, he would surely tell you to take a short break, instead, your mind was spiraling into educational anxiety. Am I doing enough? What if I fail? What if I forget something? What if… the soft sound of a notification brought you down to Earth. Miya Atsumu sent you a friend request. Ah, right. You were overworking yourself so much lately, that you almost stopped replying to his texts, still you were sure to receive at least one every 2-3 days. Request accepted. Just when you were about to re-focus on the textbook in front of you, another notification came. Miya Atsumu liked your photo. Amused, you click on it only to discover the picture was from… 4 years ago. Reaction disappeared, however, almost as quickly as it appeared. On the other side of the line Atsumu’s hands were shaking and sweating, his face red, as his brain was sent into an overdrive. Oh no, oh no, ohnonono, what have I done, has she noticed, do I look desperate, what do I do now, whatdoIdo. But you never said anything about it.

[Miya]: Ya need ta relax once in a while, ya know? [Miya]: Stress ain’t bringing in results [Y/N]: Wow, so you can say something wise :0 [Miya]: HA. HA. HA. [Miya]: Now please wouldya get me? I dunno Tokyo too much. 10 minutes later you were scanning the crowd on the train station in search of a familiar blonde. It wasn’t too hard to find him, but unexpectedly… he had company. Of 2 other guys, including one looking exactly like him, except for a different hair colour. They were introduced to you as ‘Samu (apparently Atsumu was too nervous to go alone) and Suna (he would never miss a spectacle like this). “So where do you need to get to?”, Suna looked at his friend with amusement, and you could swear you heard his twin whisper “she doesn’t know?”. Suddenly you had a phone screen right in front of your eyes, pictures of your favourite cafe on display. How did he.... “I wanna take a certain gal here”, Atsumu tapped on the screen, his eyes focused intensely on yours. As soon as you shifted your gaze from his mobile to his face though, he looked away. “Let’s go then, I guess”

Having your favourite hot chocolate in your hands would have been relaxing, if not for the deafening silence and weird smirks between two extras. “Soooooo, care to explain what you’re doing here?” “Sightseeing?”, blonde sitting opposite of you looks quite adorable with the pink tint, hand on the nape of his neck. Wait, adorable? “Yeah, y/n here being the sight, OUCH”, Suna jumped in his seat, definitely kicked by Atsumu. Maybe he was right, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have a breather from books and notes. On the other side of the window, Kuroo was clenching his fists, as he watched you laugh, not really sure of the reason behind his anger.

[April]

Being late on the very first day is a bad omen, you cursed as you ran through the campus. It was NOT your fault that it was so needlessly big. It also wasn’t your fault that you spent way too much time searching for motivation to attend this class, which was clearly added to the program to harass students. It was bound to be the most boring subject, you just felt it in your bones. You opened the door to the lecture hall as quietly as you could, and then tiptoed to the nearest free seat, eyes trained on the lecturer (you thanked gods she was turned back to the room). Luck was on your side, she hasn’t noticed. “Whatcha doin’ here, babe?”, a sudden whisper and lips barely brushing your ears made you jump in your chair. You almost screamed, but the man’s reflexes were almost inhuman, as he covered your mouth with his hand. Truthfully speaking, it might have been better to prevent your knee from bumping against the desk, because now you had all the unwanted attention. And a hurting knee. “K-Kuroo?!”, you whisper-shout back at him. “I knew we enrolled in the same university, but same class?” “I think this might be the only one, since it’s mandatory for everyone” You thought this course might actually be your favourite.

Obviously he noticed it. It was impossible not to, since the pisshead was a new follower on almost ALL of your social media. Not just a follower, no. He was commenting on nearly each photo, and reacting to every. Single. One. At first Kuroo was just mildly annoyed. Then angry. And then he could feel his blood boil whenever he saw his name under your post. He wasn’t going to tell you though how he checked every hour or so if you had replied. That day, when you both sat in your room, working on some early assignment (two heads are better than one), your phone was blowing up. Tetsurou knew who it was, he saw the bubbles popping up on your screen. You didn’t pay attention to them, much to his relief. On the other hand, Atsumu was going crazy. “Samuuuuuu, she ain’t replying!” “Samuuuuuu, ya think she’s on a date?” “Samuuuuuu, did I annoy her too much?” “Samuuuu….” “Shut up, Tsumu” “Y/N? Smile for the photo”, he laughed when your head snapped towards his raised hand, and your eyes opened wide. Kuroo pushed the shutter button exactly when you smacked his arm. “What the hell’s wrong with you?!”, notes and the search engine slowly reclaimed your main focus, partly because you wanted to hide a blush blooming on your cheeks. “Just wanted to commemorate our first study session in our university life!”, he mused as he entered First assignment with the best girl <3 - @y/n in caption and pressed <upload>. Let’s see if you react to this one, asshole. He didn’t.

[May]

[Y/N]: Are you okay? You’ve been awfully silent lately. [Miya]: ‘M ok! Didn’t want to bother ya. [Y/N]: Huh? [Y/N]: Why the sudden change? [Miya]: Idk, maybe I shouldn’t text “best girl <3” [Y/N]: Atsumu… You’re an idiot [Miya]: Am not! He was. He realised this few days later, right before hopping on a train to Tokyo. Or rather… his brother made him realise this. “Huuuuuuuh?! Whaddya mean I like her?! I mean, I do, she’s cool, but whaaaat?!” “Tsumu… Yer about’a get on a train ta see her!” “So?” “Yer an idiot” “Hey! That’s what she said too!” Looking back at it, that might have been true. Maybe. After all, he was on his way to a city 500 km away, just to see… a friend. Would he do that for just a friend?

He found you outside, and he swore it was the prettiest scene he had ever seen. Gentle breeze blew your hair, as you basked in the sunshine. With your floral dress you reminded him of a flower praising the sun. In that very moment he regretted he hadn’t bought you anything, not even some flowers. Not that they would compare to you. He watched you turn to him in slow motion, as if he was in a movie, and you were about to jump into his arms. You just smiled instead, but its brightness could rival the orb up in the sky. At that moment, he knew he was gone.

“So ya say… there’s anime about volleyball?” “Yes! And it’s so good! Seems pretty accurate too!” “Ya hafta show me! That’s so cool!”, he reminded you of a kid, with his eyes shining like glitter, and a smile covering at least half of his face.

He had exactly the same expression, when he suddenly stopped walking and you bumped into him, ice cream spreading nicely on your nose as he was taking a selfie of both of you. And then again at the train station, when he was worried his arms might have lingered a tad too long around your waist, but you didn’t pull back. Later, a screech could be heard in your room as that photo appeared on your timeline. With your name attached to it. In yer face, rooster bastard, Atsumu thought as he had clicked the <upload> button. Kuroo only scoffed, original much. But if that’s how he wants to play…

[July]

Lunch break was your favourite part of the day not just because it was, well, a break, and not only because of lunch. It was the time spent on talking, goofing around and stealing each other’s food, together with Tetsurou. That day, however, exhaustion took over and you couldn’t do much more than just lay your head on the cantine table, your hair a messy veil. “I can’t wait for summer break to come, I want it to come already! My brain is so tired” “Hang in there! It’s just 2 weeks of exams, and then we’re free!” “Why are you doing this to me, Kuroooooo” “I’ve always been a nice person” His hand was soft as he gently uncovered your face, strand by strand. “Wanna go somewhere and relax a little before all hell breaks loose?” Soft hum was the only thing leaving your lips as you melted into his touch.

The sun was merciless, as if its sole purpose was to burn the Earth to ashes. The fact that you were ankles deep in a stream and shielded by dense leaves didn’t help at all. Undeniably though it was soothing for the soul. “Okay, let’s move on”, Kuroo said, despite wanting to watch you forever. There was something about this relaxed expression that strung the cords of his heart. Yes, you looked happy. It took you too short a while to have shoes on and be ready to walk again. Summer breeze felt wonderful as you climbed up a rocky hill, scorching heat finally letting up a little. Temptation to just stand there with eyes closed and arms open wide almost too strong. Still, you let yourself submerge in it enough, not to notice a slippery boulder. You were preparing yourself for the impact, but instead, you felt a pull on your wrist and then a firm chest in front and a strong arm around your waist. “Please be more careful”, a whisper rather felt than heard, barely louder than a breath. This and his scent intoxicated you. “Let’s go?”

The view was magnificent. Just behind the hill, there was a lake, as clear as glass. Its naturally azure colour was tinted with golden afternoon light and rosy flowers covering the trees growing around the coastline. Some of the petals were floating on the surface, between the sun kissed shimmers. It was truly breathtaking, both of you wished you could stay in that moment. Neither of you noticed, none of you had let go of each other’s hand.

[Y/N]: Random thought. [Y/N]: What if I were a werewolf? [Miya]: … [Miya]: Are ya? oO [Y/N]: Hmm? Would it be a problem if I was? [Miya]: I… ‘m allergic to dogs… :( [Miya]: I swear I’ll get meds! [Y/N]: Wow, such a sacrifice! You would do that for me? [Miya]: I would even hunt squirrels for ya! [Y/N]: Squirrels? [Miya]: Or whatever werewolves eat [Y/N]: Wow, I’m speechless “Samuuuuuuuuu, she sent me a heart! A HEART!”, the fluttering in his chest was almost unbearable. “Shut yet mouth, ya simp! It’s 1 am!” He wasn’t a simp, of course not. Sure, he did watch whatever you recommended to him, and listened to whatever song you said you loved. He did research on things you had said were interesting, and rushed to his phone whenever it announced a new message. But being a simp? Him? Never.

[August]

If this wasn’t heaven, you didn’t know what would be. Warm sand under your back, cool water coming in waves to wash the heat off of your skin, and the sun watching you from the clearest sky. You heard a click somewhere behind your head, and opened your eyes to see your relative, showing proudly their creation. “You just looked so blissful, Y/N. Couldn’t help it”. You couldn’t blame them. You didn’t remember feeling this much at peace either. “Send it to me, please!”

Tucked gently in your covers, you were swiping through your gallery, admiring the pictures you and your relative had taken. After another round you finally decided which ones you wanted to share with the world, a mixture of landscapes, sunsets and portraits. As soon as you were informed about the post being up, you silenced your phone and closed your eyes ready to sleep… This might have been one of the best decisions you had made recently. You had never seen that many alerts on any of your content. Majority of these were from Atsumu, who obviously made sure none of your uploadings went unnoticed, which spread a warmth in your chest. What really caught your attention though, was how many times one particular picture was mentioned. Yes, the one on the beach. It was almost scary. {Kuroo}: Babe, you shouldn’t expose yourself like that, there are thirsty bois around. {Atsumu}: Who tf are ya callin’ thirsty?! {Kuroo}: Never said I was talking about you, but I guess I found one {Atsumu}: Listen here ya smug ass’ole, ya think yer funny? Suna only sent a gif of popcorn eating {Osamu}: Okay Y/N, as much as I find this exhilarating…just choose already, spare those two poor souls! Suna sent another gif, this time a very disappointed one.

Choose? Wtf does that mean? And then it hit you. Kuroo suddenly getting touchy again after distancing himself from you. His sudden clinginess whenever Atsumu interacted, phone in plain sight. Miya’s constant attention. His willingness to travel and never asking for anything in return. His eagerness to learn about anything you liked. Had you really been so oblivious for this whole time? Well, it could wait until you were back home.

Memories flooded your mind as you were typing the message, your heartbeat rate over the roof, your hands shaky, but you knew you needed to do this. For your sake. For his sake. One last glance over the text “I think it’s time for us to talk…” before you press <send>

Epilogue 1 - Kuroo Epilogue 2 - Tsumu Epilogue 3 - both

[wexhappyxfew]

Shannon! I have a question for today, it might be a little broad, but how did you come up with Natia’s character? :)

AMY!!! hello! sorry that i have *just* gotten to this as my weeks have increasingly gotten insanely busy between my job starting back up, school, college stuff, and ap exam chaos as well haha! i did this at about 11pm(?) and i'll be queuing it up for the morning for you, but outside of tumblr, i've thought a lot about this question and what i really wanted to include in this question. having almost spent 10 months spent writing and developing natia to who she is today makes a whole lot of stuff move through my brain when i go back to my developing stages for her! thank you for the question (and the broadness, never fear, i absolutely love it!)

Natia's character really came from the idea of just wanting to really push myself out of the box and *out there* to see what I could do. And I will say Landslide is one of my most *out-there* projects in terms of content - I mean we have Death as a personified character, crazy Agent Mortem, all these past connections to Natia? It's chaos haha! But, I had experimented previously with a partly Polish-OC, Hazel Parker of "The Soldier of Stars", and from that, I went, well there's no centrally focused Polish OC yet that I have seen (this was back in like June-July 2020 mind you, so there probably has been Polish OCs created since this time!!) and I had always felt that the Warsaw Uprising was inherently important! I also read up on the Polish Resistance and how they were the most effective resistance group of continental Europe during the war, with ultimately the Warsaw Uprising being their last final push that did sort of end that.

Something I've really enjoyed about creating Natia's character was putting a great focus on her flaws. Now, her strengths are just as important - she is a great soldier in the field, she's highly intelligent and can make quick decisions on the fly, she withholds a lot of strength when it comes to situations where she needs to focus, she's observant, and she keeps herself fairly humble when not bursting at the seems. She doesn't let herself get stepped over very often (unless it's Mortem) and if anything she will insert herself, and show what skills she has, but she won't go overboard. She's also passionate about her country and her people and she always has something to fight for and even when she feels all hope is lost, she withholds a tiny little sliver no matter what, even if she doesn't feel it. But her flaws I feel are a massive part of her character. She's stubborn, she won't let people help her, she has trouble expressing emotion, she numbs herself more often than not to not feel the pain that she is supposed to feel, she blames everything on herself, she gets hot-headed quite easily, and grows to the point of nearly irrational at some moments in time and even will let her emotions get the best of her in times like this. But that makes up who Natia is as a character and who she is as a person in general.

But even with the strengths and flaws of her character, it makes her very much still a human being. And that was one of my main goals when creating Natia - make her human enough to make that angst HURT, but make her human enough that when you see her succeed or even the little wins here and there, you want to cheer. Because those are human moments. And I know this sort of character creation is not for everyone, but for me over the past near-year, this has been one of my favorite things about creating Natia because I've found myself able to relate to her even though I'm so vastly different from her.

I did some research on a British-Polish SOE Agent, Krystyna Skarbek otherwise known as her alias Christine Granville and I took a few liberties from this amazing woman and used it on Natia. But things such as Agent Mortem, Death/War connection and the eventual introduction of another character Solomon Campbell (who will be in Part 3), as well as the Resistance group of Part 1 and her siblings and parents, are all more of my own ideas and connections!

Something I have had a LOT of fun doing is showing that even though on the exterior Natia seems cold-hearted and dark and numb, and whatever other *cold+dark* ideas can be thought up, she is very much underneath -- not that. We can see how much evidently she cares for someone like George Luz; I mean even Joe Liebgott has pointed it out to her. She always is just trying to do her best and do what is best in the situation - no longer it is about what is good or bad anymore to her, it's about doing what's best in the situation for the time being, and I really love that aspect of her character a lot! We can see that when the war ends, she wants to live on the English coast, far away from war all alone with a dog and even a little goat in a seaside cottage. She grew so attached to the word AWOL after Joe Toye came and sat with her that night in Holland and they talked for once about something other than war. She even withheld her name, her nationality and just about everything else to keep the idea of the cold-face agent she thought she was up so the men of Easy Company don't have to know the real her. But -- was it to protect her...or to protect Easy? All these little ideas I threw in there to show that she is actually, very, compassionate in many ways, and caring and attentive and observant of the men and women she works with.

I really try to show that Natia listens when she listens to someone speak and she observes and she pays attention more than anything. And she ends up, holding information like that close to her and finding comfort in it.

My goal with Natia was to show that there can be a balance to "the bad-ass fighter" idea who fights for what she believes, but also remain human as well. We can see how much things affect her, especially the loss of friends. Of course, she doesn't show this to other people, but to use as readers, we see this and we see her occasional breakdown - and in a way, she continues living on their legacies because she listened to what they had to say. For example, Zdzich told her to not let the war overtake her, and throughout the story so far, we've see her sort of repeat this to herself in various ways. Because Zdzich meant that much to her. She's lost so much by this point in war that almost it's so sad to see that she, from what we all know of BoB, still has to go through so much, but at that point, she's fought so much, that all she can do it keep pushing on with it.

I think one of the most interesting moments from writing Natia was when the first few chapters were actually uploaded on platforms and there was someone really coming after Natia for her decisions and for this, that and the other thing (amy if i vaguely remember i think you remember who this person is as well because you clapped back at them once, and man your response was GOLD!!!). One of those things was Natia's approach with food (TW: mentions of struggling to eat with food, references of depression and struggling to eat, mental health issues relating...) and the person who commented would always be saying something about how she needs to eat, and she needs to remain strong and she needs to snap out of it with her depression and all this other stuff and to be honest, I sort of sat there for a moment like??? But there's reasons WHY she's not eating? Why she's holding back? (And of course ones I had mentioned so...) But let's move on.

Mental health was a prevalent thing in World War 2, though it was not looked upon fondly and Natia essentially does have depression as well as a border-line eating disorder. And so when the comment said that she had to snap out of it, I don't know it sort of off-put me because I have family with both those disorders and they've had treatment for it for years and you can't just snap out of it. I really tried to stress that 'the snapping-out-of-it" does not work, and the person kept firing back a bit at it, so I just moved on from it and ignored it. Natia's struggle with eating, as one can see, also comes from the heavy guilt and grief that is slowly uncovered throughout the story of what Natia has done and what has happened throughout the course of the war to her. Natia's number one thing she constantly does and has now become the focus of many character relationships with her (ie Doc Gene Roe) is the clenched fists, that she squeezes until they bleed and eventually need wrapped up by the Doc. Something she also refuses to accept she has a problem with. As we can see, acceptance is a concept she struggles with more than anything and something she will essentially have to learn to simply, accept.

That's just sort of one of the many bits of information about her character that I added, especially in society today as mental health is so important and so I just wanted to share a bit of the backlash I got from someone for it. But I guess that's life, but I'll continue to write Natia Filipska as an OC who does struggle with depression because of her life in war.

Natia's character and her story is probably one of the most complex characters and stories I've written and crafted and created and I'm just extremely happy with how she ended up coming out in the end! I'm about to go and do some writing and editing for her and it's just so exciting writing her because of all these various levels she withholds and she slowly lets uncover as the story unfolds! I just love it! OH - and we can't forget about the infamous mentions of the piano....yep that'll be coming up soon haha!! <3

THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTION AMY!!! IT MEANT SO MUCH!!!! just getting to talk about Natia a little bit and her character and what my mind set was creating her - it means so much. my mindset with her is somehow always changing and shifting as she goes through her character arc throughout the story and how her developmental shifts and it's just something i really love and enjoy more than anything!!! <3 so thank you for letting me just talk about it for a little while as well as my thoughts and opinions, it means a lot :)

[aethersea]

you know what, I never do these things, but actually I’ve decided I would like to get to know people better! I would like to partake of the mortifying ordeal! I would like to talk about myself for a bit!

ok for the next...let’s say five days I will answer any of these things that people tag me in, or any random personal questions you plop in my ask box. I don’t have an ask meme on hand but just....pick one you’ve seen recently, or make up questions of your own, and I’ll answer. (the answer might be ‘nope that’s private’ but I will answer.) (@ the anon who asked for book recs - I see you, I’ve been thinking of books all day, I’m going to give you SUCH a long answer, I hope you don’t regret your choices bc it WILL be full of gushing)

alright, let’s go!

🌻 Tag 9 people you want to get to know better

Tagged by @booksandchainmail​

Last Song: I’m currently listening to “Falcon in the Dive” from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical on loop. I watched one or two Scarlet Pimpernel movies when I was just barely too young to fully get what was going on, and the story’s held an odd but deep-seated place in my heart ever since. A few years ago I found out there’s a musical and most of the songs are pretty stellar (go listen to “Madame Guillotine” if you like big ensemble broadway numbers, it’s a banger, the bit where he cries out for God has been running through my mind on and off for a few days now haha not like that’s topical or anything), so every once in a while I spend a few days listening to them a lot.

Sometime last year I read the actual book, and got super into the whole concept of the Scarlet Pimpernel for a while. I plotted out Pimpernel aus for several fandoms, I read the entire wikipedia article, and I went looking for bootlegs of the musical. I didn’t find one, but I did find a full radioplay-style recording of the script, complete with full musical numbers, and listened to it like a podcast.

Reader, I was so disappointed. The play adds some scenes, bc a lot of the dramatic tension of the novel comes from internal conflict and that doesn’t stage super well, and the very first scene of this play – a play written in the NINETIES – features our dashing hero rescuing some aristocrats from a French prison, and then saying to the person in the next cell, who begs for rescue but is not an aristocrat, “We have enough of your kind in England.”

Enough! of your KIND! What in the merry frickety HECK my dudes!! The book has some rather unfortunate™ takes but it is from 1905, it’s regrettable but sadly to be expected. This play is from 1997. It has NO excuse. This scene wasn’t even in the book! What! the heck!

I was so disheartened that I lost my excitement for the play, and a couple songs later I stopped listening. It occurred to me just a few days ago that you could actually stage that ironically, with the person in the cell giving the audience a “can you believe this” look, and then the rest of the play could feature assorted non-aristocratic ensemble members constantly looking at the audience like they’re on The Office. And hey, maybe that’s what they did, or something similar – maybe that was never meant to be taken as a cleanly heroic stance, and the play deals with it in a complex way. It’s possible. I wouldn’t know. Kinda doubt it though, based on song lyrics.

Favorite Color: red, probably

Last Movie: I watched that new lesbian christmas movie with my family for christmas, the one with kirsten stewart and the guy from schitt’s creek. it’s very sweet and good and kinda sad, and I really enjoyed it. it also incidentally has the best gay best friend trope in probably anything ever, bc it’s not a trope (I didn’t realize until several hours after watching that it technically fits), it’s just a guy who is the protagonist’s best friend, and they’re just all gay, and then when he Gives Relationship Advice as a gay best friend always does, it’s advice about how to deal with your partner’s hangups around coming out.

actually every part of the gay best friend trope becomes better when they’re just best friends who are both gay. the big dramatic gestures (in this case, driving some ungodly distance in the snow on no notice) go from “haha how kooky” to “queer man will do anything he needs to to rescue his queer friend from an isolating & potentially triggering situation”. the relationship advice isn’t “honey you deserve some self-respect, treat yourself”, it’s a deeply sincere reminder of the vulnerability that is shared across almost everyone’s queer experience, and look I could ramble about this for a long time before reaching a coherent point but I’m INTO IT, okay? I’m into it.

Last Show: you want me to remember what show I last finished???? impossible, cannot be done, it was a long time ago and the adhd has eaten everything that happened before last week. here, instead I’ll tell you about another movie I watched, late at night with my mom in cozy companionship just a couple days ago. it’s called Quigley Down Under and it’s about a cowboy who goes to Australia and kills a bunch of racists, 10/10 would watch again. it’s from 1990 but it feels much older, with the music choices and the cinematography of a 70s Western. the cowboy is great, honorable and fearless and kind, but the breakaway star of this movie for me is the woman who attaches herself to his side and refuses to leave. her name is Cora, and she’s crazy, in the sense that she’s not altogether tethered to reality, but this never for a second diminishes her agency. she’s fierce and clever and compassionate, and she basically never does anything she doesn’t want to in the whole movie. her arc is about overcoming trauma by taking charge of her own fear and facing it head-on, she is never belittled or dismissed by the narrative or the protagonist, and look she’s just so cool. I love her. she’s so vibrantly alive. her story could probably have been handled with a bit more nuance, but honestly for the 90s it’s pretty great. I’m no expert, but I found nothing objectionable in it, just a bit of heavy-handedness.

anyway the theme of the movie is that racism is evil and racists deserve to be shot, and this too could have been handled better (not a single aboriginal character speaks a single line of english in this movie), but it follows through on that message in every way, while still being a fun kinda campy cowboy movie. overall a very good time.

Currently Watching: started showing my sister Hilda the other day, and she’s liking it! I love that show, it’s so incredibly cute. can’t wait to see season 2

Currently Reading: lmao I wish. lately the brain has firmly rejected all attempts to read anything of any length. currently pending, bc I was halfway through them when my brain stalled out, are tano’s fic What Does Kill You Can Make You Stronger, Too, a Toby Daye book - I think it was The Brightest Fell, I got like half a chapter in and haven’t picked it up in over a month, the Locked Tomb series, and probably a few other things too. ooh! also a book called Making Sex by thomas laqueur, which is my fancy academic reading that I’ve been doing in short bursts for the past year or two when I feel fancy and academic. it’s about the development of the concept of biological sex and of gender in Western society, and it’s fascinating. has among other things introduced me to the idea that until quite recently, fathers were a matter of faith. the mother? yeah, you can watch the baby pop out, we all know who the mother is. but the father? how can you know? how can you really know? we have paternity tests these days, but for all of human history up until now, we've just had to take fatherhood on faith. (not to mention we didn’t even know what fathers were contributing to the production of a fetus. clearly it was something, since you can’t get pregnant without a penis getting involved, but we have literally not known what until the past few decades. and that is wild. it has colored ALL of human history, all of our conceptions of society and family and kinship and gender, all of it, and it hadn’t even occurred to me until it was spelled out for me in this book, and it’s just......wow.

Salty, sweet or savory: for christmas my sister and I made seven different types of cookie, most of them involving chocolate somehow.

Craving: no bc I ate so many cookies. unless sleep counts. or maybe pringles, it’s been many moons since last I had a potato chip and I miss them.

Coffee or Tea: no thank you

Tagging: @coloursisee, @krchy-tuna, @sam-j-squirrel, @xzienne, @mirandatam, @viciousmaukeries, @sepulchritude, @elidyce, and @navigatorsnorth bc it’s been a while since we’ve talked, and I’m super hyped that you’re married now. v happy for you!

[kmpac]

Caught in the Rain

➸ 13+

➸ Summary: Being a college kid is a lot of stress, especially when you get deserted by your best friend and have to ask your crush to give you a ride in the rain...

➸ Word count: 2K

➸ Pairing: college student Min Yoongi x college student y/n

➸ Genre: So much fluff

➸ Warnings: like...one curse word, maybe?

➸ A/N: Two nights in a row I had this dream of Yoongi. He had something to say for his birthday, so for his birthday, I decided to put it on paper for you all. I have not edited it at all, so please be gentle with me until I’m able to go back through it. I didn’t want to miss his birthday...

You knew you shouldn’t have opened your big trap. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here in the cold, drenched with rain. But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

It was a regular Wednesday evening for you, a college student, desperately trying to juggle your 19 credit hours, as well as study time. As such, you were entirely focused in that moment on getting a few studying hours in before you inevitably had to get home and go to bed, only to start all over again, especially since you had a test tomorrow in Anatomy. Your best friend, Sarah, however, had different plans for how to spend her free evening and talked to you non-stop, while you stressed over your grades versus being a good friend.

Her boyfriend was acting suspect, and being a pretty big jerk when Sarah confronted him about a text message on his phone from a girl that looked like a request for a booty call. She hadn’t snooped, just seen his phone light up on the coffee table, while she was over “Netflix and chilling” with him one night. You were trying so hard to equally be a good friend, and a good student, but after mixing up the Parietal and Occipital bones in the skull for the 5th time in a row, you turned to Sarah and said “Honey, he is cheating on you. You need to break up with him. Cut ties. You don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

While the sentiment was certainly meant to help, it was said in a raised voice that instead communicated frustration, rather than understanding, and it sent a bulldozer straight at Sarah. Your brain took a little longer to catch up to what you had done, but Sarah didn’t have the same problem as she grabbed her bag and, with tears in her eyes, flew toward the stairs. When you woke up from your temporary daze, you started down the stairs after her, trying to apologize, but Sarah wasn’t hearing it. Down the stairs through the humanities building she went and out the front door into the rain and cold of night. You were a bit behind, so when you finally made it out into the pouring rain, she had already entered her car and drove away when you remembered she was your ride.

You stood under a portico, trying to shield your phone as you called Sarah repeatedly, to no avail. She refused to answer. The realization that the campus was mostly empty and it was 10pm on a Wednesday night suddenly struck you, and the tears started to fall as you kicked yourself at your stupidity.

Sarah always had been sensitive about her boyfriend. She should have broken up with him 10 times over, but you always dried her tears and ate ice cream with her listening to her problems, but never interfering. It would have continued to be that way, if not for that stupid test. Remembering the test had you running back up to the second floor to grab your bag and pack it the best you could with tears clouding your vision. The building was dead silent and most of the lights were off at this point. You hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. Somehow, being alone always intensified the awareness of silence, and this was no different. 

You were shivering as you had gotten soaked to the bone in the rain, and were only wearing a hoodie over your tee shirt and jeans. You pulled your phone out again to call Sarah. She again didn’t answer. You tried Deanna, your neighbor, no answer. You tried Amy, your lab partner, no answer. You weren’t exactly the most social sophomore on campus, and unfortunately your family were all miles and miles away, unable to help, so why scare them with this?

You were frantically searching your brain for anyone you could call, while also contemplating trying Sarah’s boyfriend, the jerk, when you noticed a light on in the building next door. It was the library, and should have been your study spot, but there were generally too many people there, and you preferred the quiet of the Humanities building, where you could stretch out on a couch and comfortably absorb information. But right now, that building might be your saving grace. You scanned the lit window for a familiar face when you stumbled upon Min Yoongi. 

THE Min Yoongi.

Coolest guy on campus, as far as you were concerned. Quiet. Speculative. Barely spoke or acknowledged anyone except when absolutely necessary. Always had a pair of headphones in his ears, even during class, like he didn’t even care if the teachers noticed. And while such a person might normally seem like a snob, he was the opposite. He had a kind of quiet patience with everyone around him. You had first met him Freshman year in a Music Theory class and you were astonished by his knowledge and creative thinking. You started sitting next to him, to hopefully absorb some of his genius, as you were not the most naturally gifted at Music of any kind, though you loved to listen to music (hence why you chose the class for your elective). 2 years later, you liked to think of him as a friend, but the kind of friend you want to make out with.

Did you mention he was also incredibly hot? With cat like eyes, a soft nose, skin like porceline, and the poutiest mouth you’d ever seen, you were constantly one bad choice away from attacking him. You had always held back, worried that a guy like that would never see a total nerd like you as anything but a friend. Hell, here you were with your hair pulled into yesterday’s ponytail and your baggiest hoodie and jeans, and that was before you got drowned in the rain.

Either way, you needed a ride home, and Yoongi was your only shot at a knight in shinning armor.

Thinking that thought had you imagining him scooping you up and rescuing you, even as you ran down the stairs and back out into the rain.

It was embarrassing to say the least to walk through the library, probably looking a hot mess as you passed other late night studiers who lined the library tables and chairs. You got more than one odd look as you tried to tuck your frizzed wet hair behind your ears and make your way to Yoongi, but you felt the tears coming again as your situation only grew worse with each step. Not only had you lost your ride, and precious last minute studying hours, but now you were being stared at like a lunatic, while you went to beg your crush to rescue you, while looking the exact opposite of how you wished to look in his presence. 

When you made it to where he was sitting you noticed he had headphones on and was working on something on his laptop and didn’t notice your approach until you were directly in front of him. When he did notice you, his eyes only marginally widened at the look of you, but otherwise his face remained unchanged as he slowly removed one headphone from his ear in a universal signal to speak. 

You coughed and tried not to cry more as you explained your situation. As you gestured, you noticed water cascading from your sleeve and something about it set you off again and you burst into silent tears as you turned around to hide it from Yoongi. This was a bad idea. But then you heard his laptop close with a snap and when you turned around he was standing and slinging his backpack over his back. 

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, y/n?” He said in his deep monotone voice. “I’m taking you home.”

You started to apologize and tell him, he didn’t have to leave that you would find another way home, but he told you to shut up, so you did. You followed him out into the rain and into his car that was parked in the adjoining parking lot, berating yourself the whole way. What were you actually thinking? This was a terrible idea. The voice in your head was so loud, you almost didn’t hear him ask for your address until he handed you his phone with GPS open. You typed in your address and put on your seatbelt, apologizing silently for all the water you got in his car.

At first, you traveled in silence, with only the radio to fill the awkwardness of the situation. You had never been in such an intimate setting with Yoongi before and you were feeling it, but for his part, he looked as cool as a cucumber.

“So what is Sarah’s deal anyway?” He asked suddenly, snapping your attention back forward to the road.

“What do you mean?”

“Why does she put up with that guy? He’s a jerk.”

“My words exactly.”

“So she got mad because you told her the truth?” He asked with a laugh in his voice, though his eyes never left the road.

“It’s kind of girl code. Only offer your opinion if it agrees with the person you are giving the advice to.”

“That’s stupid.”

You laughed in a nervous manner as you agreed with him.

For a time after, you both drifted into companionable silence as the music coming out of the speakers mixed with the rain sounds outside. It was like a lullaby to calm your wounded soul, and you finally felt at peace and content; healed by this quiet soothing man beside you.

“This song is pretty,” you said as your head rested against the window, letting the vibrations of the song float through your body.

“Thanks. I wrote it,” he said causing your gazes to clash, one in astonishment and one in shyness.

“Yoongi, it’s...amazing.”

You were lost for words and his face looked sheepish, but the darkness of the night didn’t reveal if his cheeks were colored pink in that moment.

“Almost there,” he said and coughed to draw your attention away from him and onto the road. Sure enough, you had just turned onto your street, lined with apartment buildings, and at the end stood yours that you shared with Sarah. You sat up and mentally prepared yourself for the fight you would have when you went in, so you didn’t notice Yoongi assessing you from the driver’s seat.

As he pulled to a stop, you noticed Sarah’s car wasn’t in it’s normal spot. She must have gone to her boyfriend’s place. You felt a wave of emotions again, but you stamped it down, not wanting to fall apart in front of Yoongi again.

You turned to him with an affectionate smile, and he returned it with his signature grin of a flat line with just a slight upturn on either end. It had more of an impact on you than he probably intended. He not only rescued you, but he was acting as though it was the easiest thing in the world, to pick up everything and drive you across town because you didn’t have a ride. And maybe for him, this wasn’t a big deal, but it was to you. It made your cold, wet body glow in affection for this man who quietly stood up from a table like the obvious answer was to drive you home.

In light of this fluttering feeling, your body seemed to have a mind of its own as it lunged forward to kiss his cheek. If you had time to realize what you were doing, you would have certainly stopped yourself. What a silly notion, to kiss your crush on the cheek! AND so spontaneously. That was so not you!

And yet here you were, whole body in motion toward your savior, your crush, your friend. But in your bid to sweetly wish him a goodnight, you miscalculated and ended up just a few inches to the right and your lips, however briefly, made contact with the corner of Yoongi’s mouth. Your eyes went wide, as did Yoongi’s once he realized what was actually happening, and as though time went from going much too slow to going much too fast, you flinched as your face became a flame.

“I am so sorry, I don’t know why I just did that,” you started to say as you turned away toward the door, but before you were able to pull the handle, a hand at the back of your head was pulling you back again. 

You had no time to appreciate the coolness of his fingers against your feverish neck or the look on his face, for before you could even form a thought your mouth was firmly pressed, not to the corner, but fully on his pouty mouth. You were sure you were imagining it, but it definitely seemed, and felt, like Yoongi had pulled you into a searing and rough kiss. It was just lips to lips, and probably only lasted a moment, but the electrical current that ran through your entire body, set you alight. And then before you knew what was what, he was letting go again and turning back to the steering wheel.

“Goodnight, y/n,” he said, and now that you were only inches from his face, you could clearly see the blush, and notice the way his fingers tapped in a jittery pattern against the steering wheel. Your shyness somehow caught up with you and you pulled away abruptly and turned again to the door with a mumbled, “night,” or so you hoped. You couldn’t be for sure, as your head was reeling.

You were right at the door when you heard a voice in your head tell you to shoot your shot. Oddly it sounded a lot like Yoongi’s voice, which made you giggle and bite your lip as you turned. The view was one of a nervous Yoongi looking like he was internally berating himself, and you were pretty certain you had never seen anything cuter in your life. So before you had time to second guess yourself, you turned your whole body toward this perfect, wonderful man…

And kissed him.

Not like he had kissed you. No. That was rushed as though you would never get another chance. Full of uncertainty and nervousness.

No, you kissed him so tenderly and gently that he could not misinterpret your intentions.

Your mouth caressed his and he returned in kind as his arms left the steering wheel to latch onto either side of your head, fingers buried in your hair. You opened your mouth as invitation and he didn’t hesitate as his tongue found yours in a dance of equal energy. You found yourself gasping, and your wet fingers found either side of his hoodie to pull him closer. You wanted to be sure he knew exactly how you felt about him.

Suddenly a low deep moan escaped his mouth and you realized where you were. In his car, 10:30pm the night before a test, drenched and probably getting sick from the rain, with your dream man’s tongue down your throat. This could easily become something else, but you still had a friendship to redeem and a test to ace. Giving Yoongi the biggest smile you were capable of, you pulled away. His face was lit up, like it so rarely was, with so many emotions and you knew this would not be the last time you’d find yourself lip locked in his car.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” you said softly as you rubbed your nose against his cute one.

“Anytime,” he said with a half grin, showing his teeth.

You turned again to reach for the handle and this time he let you. By now the rain had stopped and you marveled at how you hadn’t even noticed. You pulled the door wide and felt a shiver run over your wet clothes and you grabbed your bag and exited. 

Before the door closed though, Yoongi called your name.

“Can I call you tomorrow?” he was asking as he leaned against the center consul to get a good look at you from under his hair.

You smiled and laughed as you walked backward with your bag swinging in your hand.

“You better.”

You laughed at your absurdly flirtation response as you jogged up to your apartment and went in the main doors. From the other side you peeked out the window to get your last good look at Yoongi and he was leaning back in his seat looking like the cat who got the cream, and you figured you probably looked the same.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. You were glad yours was a cute cat eyed, gummy smiled, gorgeous boy.

[lifeofkaze]

An Art of Balance #1

A/N: I can’t believe I’m doing this, welcome to my fanfiction comeback after more than ten years. Jesus Christ, I’m nervous af. Feel free to comment and correct me (not my first language, sorry if sth is wrong), I’d be super happy for someone to beta me in fact! As the quidditch timelines are kind of messed up, I put Skye and MC in the same year, ignoring the fact that they are not supposed to know each other initially. Orion and McNully are one year above them. Enjoy!

 Word Count: ~ 2.800

______________________________________________________________

“What I dream of is an art of balance.”- Henri Matisse

 Chapter 1: New Beginnings

It was a hot day. It was, in fact, far too hot for this time of the year. The sun was blazing down relentlessly on Kings Cross Station, its windows shining in the glaring sunlight. It was not only hot, the air was also muggy as well. Lizzie Jameson fidgeted in her clothes as she pushed her cart through the dense mass of students and parents saying their goodbyes, looking for familiar faces to begin her ride to Hogwarts for her fifth year with.

“Do try to stay out of trouble this time, will you, dear?”

Her mother was walking closely behind her, eager to give her daughter last minute advice on how to behave properly for once. Lizzie rolled her eyes at the huge grey cat towering above her trunk in its cage, only listening half-heartedly.

“Sure, Mum, I’ll try my best… it’s not like I’m asking for trouble, you know?”

She heard the soft laugh of her mother and turned around to see her smiling fondly at her.

“I’m not so sure of that one.”

She opened her arms and Lizzie gave her a hug.

“Oi, Jameson! Over here!”

She looked up and saw a familiar head of black and blue hair waving through the crowd. Lizzie let go of her mother.

“Mum, there’s Skye over there, waiting for me.”

“It’s alright, dear. Go on ahead.”

Her mum gave her another quick hug and slightly pushed her away. “Just promise me to try. Be good, study and write sometime!”

Lizzie just laughed, barely listening anymore, waved and made her way over to Skye, who was standing beside her father in a thick mass of flustered students admiring the Quidditch star. He broke into a smile as he saw her approach.

“Well, if it isn’t Elizabeth Jameson, the second best chaser Hufflepuff has seen in a while!” Ethan Parkin, famous chaser of the Wigton Wanderers, gave her a slap on the back. “Are you ready for another shot at the Quidditch cup, Lizzie? I already gave Skye a detailed briefing on how to- “.

“It’s alright, dad,” Skye piped in, “I can recite your strategies in my sleep, we’ll be good.” She grinned at Lizzy. “Let’s go find a seat and some of the others. I can’t wait to tell you what stunts I’ve been trying out over summer break!”

The Hogwarts Express was slowly running out of Kings Cross station when Skye and Lizzie finally had a chance to look for a place to seat. Having been on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team for several years now, they had gained quite the popularity with their house mates.

Exhausted from greeting what felt like the whole of their house, they finally found the department they had been looking for. Inside sat the rest of their little Quidditch gang, their fellow chaser and team captain Orion Amari and the not-so-impartial commentator Murphy McNully. McNully was excitedly telling Orion what seemed to be the new statistics he had come up with during summer break, while Orion was sitting cross-legged on his seat with his eyes closed and a zoned-out smile on his face. When they entered, he opened his eyes and smiled warmly at the sight of them.

“Ah, there you are! I knew there was a 77% chance of you coming here to join us, we kept seats for you!” McNully shouted excitedly.

“What are the other 23%?”, Lizzie wanted to know.

“You might have run into Penny Haywood or Rowan Khanna first. I think the chances of Rowan actually enjoying our company are at about 16 %. At best. So, I figured she wouldn’t want to sit with us. Which means, if she would have met you first, she would have asked you to sit with her, which you would of course have agreed to, as she is you best friend because you met her back in Diagon Alley before your first year and- “.

“Shut up, McNully.” Skye rolled her eyes at him and looked over to Lizzie. “It’s true though, she doesn’t really seem to like us that much.”

Lizzie shrugged. “No idea really, she actually really enjoys Quidditch. I guess she is just more of the watching type. Or reading about it, for that matter. But don’t you worry about her.”

Lizzie laid back in her seat next to Murphy, enjoying the cool air that was streaming from the partially open window into the stuffed cabin. She leaned forward again, putting her feet on the seat opposite of her and looked at her friends. “So, what have you guys been up to this summer? Ready for a brand-new year, brand-new season?”

Skye’s face immediately lit up with excitement. “You bet I am! Wait ‘til you see the tricks my dad taught me! We will stomp Ravenclaw into the dust in no time, just you wait!”

McNully only shook his head next to her. “Winning against Ravenclaw only makes up 30 % of what it takes to win the Cup, Skye. There are still Gryffindor and Slytherin to beat as well.”

Skye tilted her head, looking at him questioningly. “That’d make 90 %, what’s with the missing 10 %? Luck or what?”

McNully laughed. “I don’t believe in luck. No, it’s way better than that! We’re talking team compositions, daily form, weather conditions, bludger flight path velocity…” He gazed dreamily into the distance. “I could go on forever.”

Skye shook her head. “Don’t. Besides, all that stuff doesn’t help you win a match if you can’t hold yourself on a broom when you need to.

“But it can!”, McNully retorted, “There are so many factors influencing that as well. Just think about the grip factor on the broom handle, or centrifugal powers during turns or- “

Leaving them to their discussion, Lizzie got up and sat down next to her team captain. Watching them bicker back and forth, she couldn’t help but smile fondly. “They will never find middle ground, will they?”

Orion watched them thoughtfully. “Why would they? All the different beliefs we have are but representations of the many sides of Quidditch.”

Lizzie looked at him, processing what he just had said. “I guess you’re right.” She smiled. “How has your summer been?”

He shrugged. “I’ve let myself flow wherever the universe destined me to go.”

Lizzy shook her head at his answer, nebulous as ever. “And have you flown any interesting place in particular?”

“I did spend a lot of time surrounded by nature, reconnecting with myself, finding the balance to focus on what’s to come.”

Lizzie grinned. “So, wandering about in the woods, is that it?”

Orion chuckled softly. She had a way of breaking down his words. “Yes, you could put it that way.”

They chatted on about hiking and the trails Lizzie’s parents had taken her to this summer for a while before they fell into a comfortable silence, watching the trees outside rush by and listening to Skye’s and McNully’s bickering.

*

Lizzie jerked awake when the door to their department banged open and a whirlwind of blond hair burst in. Judging by the golden light outside, she must have slept for almost the entire ride.

“Lizzie, Skye! It’s so good so to see you all, I’ve been looking for you since we left London.”

Penny Haywood smiled her radiant smile at them, letting herself fall into the seat next to Lizzie. Lizzie rubbed her eyes, brain still foggy from her nap. “The train is only so long, and we’ve almost arrived, what have you been doing for so long?”

Penny giggled. “Oh, you know, catching up here and there, saying hello to people… There is SO much stuff I have to tell you later!”

Lizzy grinned at her. “Lots of juicy gossip?”

Penny laughed out loud. “You bet!” She lowered her voice. “Did you know that Billingsley apparently blew up his pumpkin pastry earlier, right in Merula Snyde’s face? And rumour has it, Tonks and Tulip have declared a prank war for this year!”

Lizzy shot an annoyed glance at Skye, who had started talking considerably louder, waving her hands in McNully’s face when Penny had entered. “No, I didn’t know that,” she replied. “Sounds like we’re in for quite a ride.”

“As always with these two.” Penny turned towards the cage where the ears of Lizzies cat had jerked up upon her entering. “Aw, hello Mousey, my sweet darling, have you missed me?” The grey cat purred, rubbing her head against Penny’s outstretched hand through the bars of her carrier.

Skye snorted. “Are you talking to that little devil over there? I swear, if that fur ball so much as touches my quills this year, I’ll make a hat out of her!”

Ignoring her, Penny rubbed Mouse’s chin. “We have no idea who she is talking about, right, Mousey? Such a good girl you are!” She suddenly looked up, waving at someone passing by their carriage. Lizzie followed her gaze just to see whoever she had been waving at quickly picking up their pace. But not quick enough for her to not recognise the familiar face.

She got up off her seat and stepped out into the hallway. “Hey, Rowan! Hey, wait up!” Rowan Khanna, her best friend since the beginning of her Hogwarts journey together, stopped dead in her tracks and turned.

“Oh… hey, Liz… sorry, didn’t see you. How’s things going?”

Lizzie frowned. She’d imagined Rowan being excited to see her, hugging her and asking about her summer, like she always did. She opened her mouth to speak when Penny, who had followed her, spoke up.

“Hello Rowan, how are you? Congratulations again on becoming a prefect, first step to being Head Girl managed!”

Rowan said nothing, looking sheepishly at Lizzie, whose gaze had dropped to the shiny yellow and black prefect badge sitting on the chest of Rowan’s robes.

“Wow, Rowan congrats! You really deserve that,” Lizzie exclaimed. She’d had no idea her best friend had been being chosen as one of Hufflepuff’s new prefects.

Rowan’s cheek blushed a little. “Yeah, well thanks, I guess. See you guys at the station.”

She awkwardly waved goodbye and hurried off. Penny arched her eyebrows. “What was that about? She was rather weird, wasn’t she?”

Lizzie didn’t answer, still staring after her friend. She remembered what Penny had said. “You knew about her becoming prefect?” she asked.

Penny looked at her bewildered. “Of course, she wrote to me as soon as she learned. Didn’t she tell you?”

Lizzie shook her head. “No, not a word. We didn’t write a lot this summer, in fact. I thought she would have told me something that important to her.”

Penny shrugged. “Don’t worry, maybe your letters were just badly timed or something.” They stepped back into their cabin and Penny dropped into her seat. “Do you know who else was chosen?”

“I only know Charlie is a prefect now, he told me as soon as the owl arrived.”

Penny smiled a very innocent smile at her. “Charlie Weasley instantly sent you a letter when he learned he was appointed prefect?”

Lizzie shot her a glance. “Stop looking at me like that. Yes, he did, because we happen to be friends. Just friends, alright? No baseless assumptions before the new term has even started!”

Penny just grinned, prompting Lizzie to roll her eyes. “Actually, I had thought they would choose you, Penny. Top notch grades, loved by everyone, barely getting into trouble, sounds like an ideal prefect.”

“Not since she started hanging with us,” Skye chuckled. “Penny’s been to too many pre- and post-match parties for the teachers’ liking, I guess.”

A light laugh escaped Penny’s throat. “Busted! But how could I say no to celebrating victory with the Skye Parkin?”

Skye said nothing and looked out of the window for a moment. “More celebrating defeat when it comes to last year.” Her attention shifted over to Orion. “Seriously though, do you have a plan for this year? Like, we finished last year in not the best state and we need a new beater as well.”

Lizzie went pale at that. “Merlin forbid, you won’t have me play beater again, will you?”

Orion looked at her calmly. “As you know, to me all positions are equal, merging into one another to form one complete team.”

Skye grabbed hold of Lizzie’s arm possessively. “Oh no, no, no, Amari, don’t you dare taking her from me again. That season with her as beater was mediocre at best. We want to have a shot at the Cup, we need her as our third chaser.”

“Don’t fear Skye. While I think Lizzie made a formidable beater, I agree with you. She’s evolved into a true chaser. No, we will hold try outs to see if a new calling arises in one of our fellow housemates.”

Satisfied with his answer, Skye let go of Lizzie, who was peering out of the window.

“I am really glad to hear that.” She pulled Skye to her feet.

“Come on, girls, we’re almost there, let’s get changed.” She grabbed the bag with her school robes inside and waited impatiently until Skye had dug up hers out of the chaos that was her trunk.

***

They had nearly arrived at Hogsmeade Station when Skye, Penny and Lizzie returned.

Orion was clasping his robe over his sweater, feeling uncomfortable. He hated wearing his school uniform, he always felt confined in them. He was already looking forward to changing into his loose shirt and coat again.

He touched his tie, looking at McNully questioningly. “Good?”

His friend grinned at him. “Not as good-looking as me, but good enough, I guess.”

He pointed to Orion’s neck. “You forgot your necklace, though.”

Orion ran his hand over the round pendant he always wore around his neck, tucking it down his shirt. “No, I didn’t. I am not taking it off if I don’t have to.”

“I know.” McNully waved a hand at him. “I’ve never seen you without it, except when you’re playing Quidditch, which is because all pieces of jewellery have to be removed for safety reasons, since we became friends, which was in our first year, of course, when you took the bed next to me in the dorm and we started chatting and…”

He actually managed to stop himself. “What I want to say, I know you don’t like taking it off.”

The door opened and Penny, Skye, and Lizzie re-entered the cabin. Skye wasn’t looking too happy to be wearing a skirt and robes instead of her signature house sweater and jacket. Orion saw her touching her tie in the same uncomfortable way he had just done.

“Ugh, I hate this uniform so much, it’s just so uncomfortable,” she complained promptly. “I really don’t see why we have to change for, what, two hours, before going back to the Common Rooms and getting out of these. We’ll be wearing them enough during the year.”

Lizzie rolled her eyes at her before reaching for her cat snoozing in her cage. “Can you just stop complaining, please? It’s not like you can change it.”

“Yes, but I can make a point about not liking it.”

“They just want everyone to look proper when the new students walk into the Great Hall for the first time.” Penny casually brushed some dirt off Skye’s shoulder, who shut up immediately.

“Speaking about looking proper, Lizzie, you should really brush out your hair, I don’t think Professor Sprout would appreciate you walking in with hair that messy.”

Lizzy touched her hair she still had tied up in a bun, now worse for wear from the heat and the wind coming from the window. “Oh, I forgot about that.” She pulled her hair band out, shaking out her light brown curls, brushing through them with her fingers as a makeshift brush. “Better?”

Penny looked at her dubiously. “Not much, but it’ll do, I think.” She ran her fingers through a strand of Lizzie’s hair. “I do have to say though, that new length suits you so well, Liz, I’m glad you listened to me and chopped it off.”

Orion watched Lizzie tucking her hair behind her ear. Penny was right, it suited her a lot. Until the end of last year, Lizzie’s long hair had almost come down to her waist. Not being the tallest, it had always made her look younger than she was, almost drowning her.

Now it ended just below her shoulders, the shorter length allowing it to curl stronger than before. She looked much more grown up like that, more feminine. As they were leaving the train, McNully, who was pushing his wheelchair in front of him, shot him a side glance.

“Lizzie looks changed, doesn’t she?”

Orion wondered if he had seen him looking. On second thought, of course he had.

“Is it important how we look on the outside when all that matters is our inside?” he evaded his question nebulously. For once, McNully didn’t reply, following the girls up to the carriages waiting for them.    

[sweetiepie08]

RebelZ (Chapter 9)

Invader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn, @agentpinerulesall​

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list feel free to message me. Also, if you’re on the tag list and you changed your name, please just let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

[-]

“Care to tell us what the fuck that was?” the Dib shouted as they ran down the hall.

“A coup, obviously,” Zim shot back. “Just not one where you seize power at the end. So, half a coup.”

“So then who seizes power now?”

“The Tallest Red and Purple still have it,”

Dib nearly tripped over his own feet in his shock. “You mean you didn’t kill them?”

“It’s nearly impossible to poison an Irken,” Tak explained. “The PAK filters out most toxins. You can incapacitate them, though, for a short period of time.”

“So you basically just quit your job in spectacular fashion,” Dib said indignantly.

Tak almost couldn’t believe it. Zim must be sincere in his betrayal. He poisoned the Tallest and declared to the entire upper crust of the Irken military that it was intentional. There was no coming back from that. Every other disaster he caused could reasonably be argued as a mistake. But there could be no doubt here. Zim truly had turned on the empire.

Yet, something still didn’t sit quite right with her. If he had gone rebel, if he had truly turned traitor, then his life clock would have gone off like hers did. One would reasonably assume the impotence for this betrayal was her discovery of the Control Brains parasite, but she was with him ever since she told him that news and she never saw his life clock go off. But that could only mean something else prompted him at an earlier date. So the question was, what made Zim finally snap?

They came to a split in the hallway. Tak started going right while Zim went left.

“Uh, the Voot is this way,” Tak called.

“I’m not going to the Voot,” Zim yelled back. “I’m going to the control room.”

Dib and Tak cast each other a glance, then followed him. They found him crouched behind a door at the end of the hall and joined him in his hiding spot. Dib took a peak inside. There, dozens of Irkens worked at their stations. They seemed unaware that, for now, their leaders were incapacitated.

Zim tapped his PAK and a metal ball flew into his hands. He pulled a pin, tossed it in, and smashed the control panel, shutting the door. They heard coughing from the other side and, after a few minutes, opened the door to find the Irkens unconscious on the floor.

“So, what are we doing in here again?” Dib asked, as they stepped into the room.

Zim grabbed one of the Irkens who still slouched in their chair and threw them to the floor. “Wiping Urth off the navigation map.” He sat down and the monitor and started messing with the buttons. “If I’m going to continue to use it as my home base, I can’t have them finding it.”

“Not so fast,” Tak slapped his fingers away from the buttons. “Before this goes any further, I need answers. If you’re truly on our side, there’s only one way your life clock didn’t go off.”

“We don’t have time for this!”

“You had a rebellious thought!” Tak declared. “When?”

“Three Urth years ago.”

“Three years?” Dib shouted, stepping up to them. “But I’ve been watching you. Why were you still trying to conquer Earth if you kinda-quit three years ago?”

“I wasn’t.”

“But I saw you building machines!” Dib argued.

“They weren’t for me!” Zim shot back.

Tak began to ask “But how-” before Zim cut her off.

“Silence!” he shouted. “Silence your questions! I need to concentrate.”

Zim continued typing on the buttons until a picture of the Earth appeared on the screen. The stats were scarce, save for the coordinates and the note, ‘that place where Zim is.’ The little blue ball of dirt and water had gone unnoticed by the empire, noteworthy only as a banishment site. To them, it was merely a place to keep Zim contained, far away from anything important. But after the stunt they pulled today, it would be a target.

Another few clicks of a button and the Urth was gone, leaving only a blank file in its wake. All Irken military ships automatically synced with the Massive. If it was gone from this data base, it was essentially invisible to all Irkens. If they wanted to find Urth again, they’d have to scour the universe for it. But why stop at Urth?

“Let’s dump it all,” Tak said.

“What?”

“Erase the database,” she said. “It’ll be a crippling blow to the empire.”

“Do we really have time to erase everything?” Dib asked. The human made a good point.

“Jut the maps then,” she suggested. “They would have to rebuild their navigation systems from scratch and it would send the fleet into disarray.”

“Zim is no radical!” Zim snapped. “I’m only doing this to cover my own ass.”

“Not a raical?” Dib scoffed. “You just poisoned your own leaders.”

“That was personal,” Zim argued. “This is political.”

“And what about those weapons you’re building?!” Dib shot back. “If they’re not for Irk, then who are they for?”

“Zim’s business deals are none of your… um… business!”

“Shut up!” Tak commanded, taking a seat at another monitor. “We don’t have time for this! Let’s get these maps erased and get out of here.”

“If you even make it that far,” a chorus of voices answered.

Dib looked around. “Who said that?”

“We did, human.”

Every Irken in the room rose to their feet. Tak prepared herself for a fight. Her eyes darted as she watched them all, poised to deploy the weapons in her PAK. But none made a move to attack. They all stood there, stalk still, with a dead look in their eyes.

Dib gaped at the sight. “H-how are you…”

“Silence Urth Creature!” the possessed Irkens shouted in unison, turning their cold eyes toward Dib. “Do not interrupt us again!” Dib shut his mouth and the Irkens calmed. “Congratulations defectives” they said, now addressing Zim and Tak. “It’s been centuries since we had to resort to total override, but mark our words, you will pay for this waste of food.”

“What do you care for waste?” Tak spat back at them. “You throw Irken lives away every day in your conquest.”

“A calculated cost to bring me more to feed from in the long term,” the Irkens explained with their eerily monotone voices. “You should know about calculated risks. Don’t forget, we see everything you do.”

“When have I ever sacrificed good soldiers?”

Every possessed Irken in the room wore the same mocking smirk. “All through your training days. Don’t you remember? We saw everything you did, every little cheat to get ahead.”

The Irkens tapped buttons on their control boards and soon, every monitor showed various scenes from Tak’s training years. “Electrodes hidden in your boots to cripple race opponents. Stealing test answers and planting them in a rival’s locker after copying them for yourself. You got top scores on your exams and excelled at your drills, but is it really victory if you have to sabotage your competitions? Oh sure, you studied and trained, but it never felt like enough, did it? Never thought you could win a fair fight. Had to tear someone else down first. Maybe, if it weren’t for all your cheating, we’d have let you make up your Elite ranking test. After all, we allowed everyone else who was inconvenienced by the blackout to take it.” Their smirks grew as they twisted the knife further. “Just not you.”

Tak ground her teeth together as she watched the images play out on the screen. There was no denying them. The monitors played footage from her own memory bank. They showed her and everyone else who she really was. She work so hard. She clawed her way to the top and did everything she could to stay there. But it was all a lie. And now they knew it. What was worse, Zim knew it. That little pain in the ass managed to make it to elite the first time, even while being a walking disaster, and he never had to deliberately cheat. The idea of him lording that over her was enough to make her blood boil.

“Perhaps you can prove everyone wrong, though,” the Irken voices went on. “Take the honest route for once in your life. Tell Zim what you learned on your little trip to Refirencee. Tell him what you suspect.”

“Fool!” Zim scoffed. “Zim already accessed Tak’s memories. I know everything she knows about the Control Brain parasite.”

“Yes, you saw the same books. But did you reach the same conclusions?”

“Guys! Don’t you see what it’s doing?” The Dib burst in. “It’s distracting you. It’s keeping you here until your leaders recover. Let’s erase those maps and get out of here!”

“Silence!” Zim snapped at Dib, then turned back to the dead-eyed Irkens. “Tell Zim what you know, creepy hive-mind…thing!”

“Have you ever wondered why you’re such a failure? Why you destroy everything you touch? Why, no matter what you do, everything always blows up in your face? It’s because you have no choice in the matter. It’s what you were made for.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Before we push for something big, we require extra sustenance. We take this sustenance in what some have called a blood toll. On our first planet, we made many mistakes, one was asking our hosts directly for sacrifices. We know better now.”

“Ans what does this have to do with me?” Zim growled impatiently.

“Since the beginning of our reign, one PAK has been passed down through generations, carrying a suppressed impulse for destruction. We need only to activate it and we have our blood toll. Clearly our PAK has become quite damaged over the years. It no longer works quite right. You’re so defective, you couldn’t even declare your name right.”

The screen flashed the name Zim across it. It then reversed the letters and spread them out to reveal an acronym. ZIM became MIZ. And MIZ became Massacre Initiator Z.

“You were supposed to live as a low-ranking drone until we activated your destructive impulse and die in the disaster. You, however, defied us at every turn. We kept you alive out of sheer curiosity. We wanted to see how your life would play out. It’s been entertaining, however, you’ve become too great a burden to bare.”

Zim stood motionless, staring straight ahead. They waited for the typical Zim outburst of “lies!” or declaring his greatness, but nothing came. His eyes looked as dead as the possessed Irkens around them. He said nothing, did nothing. As much as Tak couldn’t stand Zim’s obnoxious voice or erratic behavior, watching him be so still was chilling.

Tak’s antenna perks at the sound of footsteps trooping down the hall. The Dib’s head darted for the door. “Guy! Come on! We’re out of time!”

Tak smacked Zim’s lifeless body away from the control panel. “Do you think you can stop us by getting into our heads?”

“Oh simple Tak,” the Irkens sighed. “We've lived in your heads since you were fitted with your packs.”

Tak sneered at them. “I cut you off for me and I won't rest until every Irken is free of you.”

“Please, you worked your whole life to get our attention. You finally have it. Do you want to throw that away? Perhaps we can find a place with someone of your drive and ingenuity.”

“Liars!” Did they think she was stupid? She knew as well as it that treason of this scale would never go unpunished. Even if they tried to appease her with a higher rank or a cushy job, it’d only be a matter of time before they got rid of her. But even the fact that it was trying to negotiate meant something. She was a threat to it, and she would stay a threat until the day she died.

“We you know you, Tak. You’re a plotter. You won't do anything rash.”

They don’t know me half as well as they think. “Want a bet?” She started hitting buttons on the control board. An alert came up on the screen and the voice blared from the speakers. “All maps queued for deletion. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

She hit one more button and the screen went black. “Deletion successful.”

“Take that you parasite bitch.”

“Come on,” Dib begged, pulling on her arm. The footsteps were noticeably louder. “We have to go now!”

Tak took off running and Dib pulled on the frozen Zim until his legs moved. They burst into the hall and immediately came across a group of Irkan soldiers. “There they are!” one of the soldiers cried.

Tak led the way as they ran toward the ship’s hanger. The soldiers fired at them. A laser cannon popped out of Tak’s pack and returned fire, but it was difficult for her to aim while leading the dash to the Voot. She wished one of her companions had could back her up with a pistol but Zim was still barely conscious and Dib was preoccupied with keeping his legs moving. The sound of little metallic feet running beside them gave her an idea.

“Zim, tell me your SIR unit to go into defensive mode.

There was no response. Zim was as helpful as a sack of empty ginzor cans.

“Hey Zim’s robot,” Dib said to the little SIR unit.

Gir looked up at him curiously. “Hmm?”

“Don't you have any weapons or something?”

“Huh?”

“You know, something that makes pretty lights and goes ‘pew, pew’?”

“Oh that. I got that.” A giant laser cannon popped out of his head and he fired wildly into the soldiers behind them, forcing the Irkens to scatter for cover

Finally, they made it to the hangar and all jumped in the Voot. Zim slid zombie-like into the pilot seat.

“Come on,” Dib said, shaking Zim’s shoulder. “Get us out of here!”

“Zim!” Tak snapped. “If you don't fly this ship, I will!”

That seemed to work. Zim shook off whatever stupor he was in and his usual look of single-minded determination returned to his eyes. “No one pilots Zim’s ship but Zim!” He took hold of the controls and the ship roared to life. In a flash, they took off into the stars.