#(I have in fact learned nothing about not getting carried away with angry rants but the pain doesn't need to know that)

[isfjmel-phleg]

<

[joltai-showa]

ah shit here we go again, let's reread Naruto again

reading it in official English translation for the first time and really have no idea if it's good or not lol (I've been translating MHA for 5 years straight and official English translation from the same company fucking sucks)

chapter 1 is huge as hell, which is normal for Shonen Jump, mangaka needs to introduce the concept and characters and all yada yada

what I find really funny about Naruto is a lot of the stuff is written backwards (meaning, we have some stuff introduced early on, but then more shit is slapped on top) to the point that pre-Shippuden things directly contradict what is going to be stated later. Kishimoto most of the time gave approximately zero shit about things outright not making sense and, y'know, you gotta respect him for that, cause I don't have balls like that

(unfortunately when writing anything canon-compliant in Naruto you have be mindful of things being rewritten and outright not making sense💀)

Anyway enough yapping, very first page is already ripe with shit that is going to be retconneced later

Firstly, description of Kurama's abilities. Naruto's orange puppy certainly can not start tsunamis and landslides with just his tails, lmao, this is something closer to Ten-Tails. If the terrain allows it, sure, I can see him starting a landslide, but orange puppy isn't starting anything in the seas, he's got siblings with lesser number of tails for that haha.

Secondly, the entire second paragraph feels like a fever dream honestly. "Suffering people gathered the shinobi clans to fight this menace" = Konoha was founded as a way to stop the endless tiny conflicts between the shinobi clans living in the Land of Fire (why have small-scale conflicts between each other when you can have literal world wars with the guys from beyond the border lol, jk, I know Hashirama wanted a peaceful future for the kids, but ultimately hidden villages system solves none of the issues of the previous system besides "7 year olds die on the battlefields" because now we have "15 year olds die on the battlefields"), Kurama literally wanted nothing to do with humans (as far as we know) during the warring states period, he was literally frolicking in some meadows and eating weird twins from to-be Kumogakure, got captured by Uchiha "read some mossy stone that my clan carried for years for some reason and went totally delulu" Madara, was used to attack Konoha, got bitch slapped by Hashirama a few times before Mito stuffed him into her stomach. And people are surprised why is the orange puppy so evil most of the manga lmao. But anyway, the entire sentence also implies that Fourth Hokage had some sort of mega-epic showdown with the evil puppy... while in reality it was something closer to Konoha's nuke being stolen by a delusional angry fourteen year old and Minato had to simply recapture the nuke again.

anyway, that was a long-ass rant lol

love the early style, it's so goofy, Kakashi is especially wonky in it

first question: why are we tying up school kids after they are caught for their terrible pranks? what is the educational idea behind this thing? like, i get doing that on the training field, imitating combat and all, but why do the same thing in the classroom? is it supposed to encourage the kids to learn how to run away after being tied down by some ropes?

(if that's the case i guess i know at least one academy student who always failed this task, yeah, looking at you, rin, i'm sorry, i can't hold myself back from bashing that thing, lmao)

anyway, back to the manga, i really love how it mentions that Naruto flunked this exam two times already (and it's not stated how often this exam is, so I guess yearly?), and only graduates at like 13, which is supposed to be a super late age and Naruto is such a lazy bum for that... but then you realize the funny fact that Naruto's classmates aka "genius" Sasuke, "book-smart" Sakura, team Asuma and team Kurenai are all the same age as him. Lmao. This isn't the first time Kishi will forget about this silly thing called "timeline".

let's... not adress this gag.

AHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH.

Naruto, allow me to introduce you to this wonderful concept called "nepotism". It's quite common in your village. Second Hokage was First's younger brother, Third Hokage was the student of the Second, Fourth Hokage is the student of a guy who studied under Third, Fifth is literally both the granddaughter of First and a student of Third, Sixth is the student of Fourth and you, Naruto, is the son of Fourth and the student of Sixth.

I absolutely love how early Naruto is trying to be this story about this poor underdog when in reality our MC is the nepobaby to ever napobaby lol. I think only Iwa beats Konoha at having the most absurdly nepotistic system for Kage, because 3 out of 4 Tsuchikage are directly related to each other through blood and the one guy that isn't happens to be the teacher to Third.

(I do remember there was so bullshit about Kazekage clan or something but I think it's pretty much only a title and only Rasa and Gaara are actually related to each other through blood)

>badge of adulthood

>given to literal 9-13 year olds who can't throw a kunai in a straight line

yeah, you know what, this actually checks out.

you immediately know that mizuki is fucking evil when he says "nah let him pass iruka, he managed to produce a single shitty clone, he's totally not gonna be killed after 30 seconds on the battlefield" like WHAT IS THIS SYSTEM OF EDUCATION

also another good question to the world building: does Konoha have other schools besides Academy? Like, what do kids do if they don't want to pursue military career? Their parents hopefully teach them how to read and count and that's it? I mean, Konoha is a military settlement at the end of the day, but they can't be teaching only guys who will be throwing knives at each other?

absolutely nothing, naruto, lmao. you were born a nepobaby, prepare to have an endless supply of chakra for any tricks of yours and the best senseis Konoha has to offer.

is the Hokage building supposed to be their residence as well? huh.

also let's not talk about this gag.

comically large kurama jpeg

[ererokii]

Line without a Hook || E. Jaeger & J. Kirstein

➳ Jean Kirsten x Fem Reader x Eren Jaeger

Word count: 4,517 Warnings: angst, fluff, unrequited love, cursing ➳ note: this is based off the song Line Without a Hook by Ricky Montgomery! I’ve been thinking this for a long time and I’m super excited by how it came out! Also big thanks to @reddriot​ for betaing!

➳ Synopsis: is love really worth it? Let me say, it’s not always worth it.

You can hold my hand if no one’s home.

Do you like it when I’m away?

☽✧ ✦ ✧☾

It starts out simple really. A boy and a girl. Childhood friends, to be precise. Those two are inseparable. Nothing can tear the friends apart, besides their parents, of course. Like two peas in a pod. 

Jean says he knows you like the back of his hand. He truly means that. He knows your favorite boy bands from when you were younger, how many terrible phases you’ve gone through, favorite foods, and places. If he wrote a novel about the things you told him, he would be a renowned author. 

Since kindergarten to now, in the middle of your junior year, you and Jean have been side by side. You told him everything. From random vents and gossiping about the rude girls in your class to how horrible your period cramps were— even though Jean hated hearing about the last, he stuck through it for you.

Only you. 

The pavement that followed the street your house was on is memorable. Jean can recall the amount of times you’ve had races, chalk scribbles covering the grey that would be washed away by the angry neighbors. 

He listens to you as you talk about a kid getting in trouble in your Calculus class, watches how lively your motions are as you speak. Jean can’t help but smile when a laugh slips past your lips and you glance at him. There’s an unknown sparkle in his eyes, one filled with love. 

You haven’t changed one bit, he thinks as he faces back forward, shoving his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. His mind begins to wander as you both continue down the pavement, part of your routine when school ends. 

Your houses are right next to each other. You’ve been with him since you were in diapers. He was there when your first tooth came out, congratulating you, and you were there for him when he finally learned to ride his bike with two wheels instead of three. 

The bubbly lovable five-year-old back then is the same as you are now. 

☽✧ ✦ ✧☾

Oh all my emotions

Feel like explosions when you are around

A sigh of disappointment leaves Jean’s lips when he listens to Connie talk about something he has learned over the weekend (something completely stupid— he just doesn’t care). Currently, the students are at lunch, the cafeteria full with loud shouts and random noises. 

“Connie, shut up,” Sasha groans, placing her water bottle on the table, wiping her crumbs off. “No one cares that you finally figured out how to stick a spoon to your nose.”

“What do you mean?! You were the one who showed me!”

The brunette gasps and looks over his way, cream cheeks tinted with an adorable shade of pink, pointing a finger at him. The bickering between the two commence as Jean listens, slightly amused. 

As much as he indulges in their argument, he can't help but wonder where you are. 

It’s not like you to skip lunch, especially without at least letting him know. Did you stay behind to talk to a friend? A teacher? Maybe you went to the bathroom.

But it’s at least 15 minutes in. 

“Sasha,” he speaks up, slicking back his hair. The sound of her name catches her attention, making her look at him. “Have you seen Y/N?”

“Y/N?” she asks in a whisper before her lips curl in a grin, already knowing why he asked. “Do you miss her?”

“Just answer my goddamn question!”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Connie asks, looking between his friends before stopping his gaze on Jean. “Why do you need Y/N?”

“Oh, you know! He lik-”

“Shut up!” Jean shouts, catching the attention of nearby students, his face heating up as his cheeks turn a darker pigment. “Just answer me!”

“If you must know,” she taunts him, twirling a strand of hair from her loose ponytail. “I saw her talking to someone in the hallway. Must be important, she’s been there for quite some time. Might want to be her knight in shining armor and saving her, huh?” she cocks her head to the side, staring at one of the windows in the room, watching as the branches of trees sway from the harsh winds. 

The atmosphere outside was cold, breezes rushing down on anyone who was not inside. The sun was hidden by the thick grey blankets filled with rainwater, waiting to shower the world. The temperature recently has been dropping, mid 50’s at least. The weather was a shock, to say the least. 

“I didn’t know Jean likes her!”

“What do you mean?!” Sasha gasps, turning her body to face her small-minded friend. “It’s only obvious! You must be really stupid then!”

“Well, how could you tell?!”

Before Jean has a chance to interrupt Sasha, she begins to rant. He prefers to stay silent, clasping his hands together in his lap as he lowers his head, finding interest in the marbled tiles of the floor his feet rest on. 

The words that slip past Sasha’s lips reach his ear and out the other. 

It’s easy to tell, Connie. Have you noticed the way he looks at her? Can’t you see the love in his eyes? The way he will actually go out of his way to help her with anything? Here you guys are, two close friends, I thought you would have known about his crush. I’m surprised you didn’t catch on every time he ditched plans with us to go hang out with her. He’s whipped, and you’re too stupid to know it. 

His cheeks turn a shade of pink as his eyes squeeze shut, her words replaying in his head like a broken record player. Each sentence is like a knife stabbing away at his brain, causing the slightest ache to form in his frontal region. 

She’s right. Anything she just said five minutes ago, is completely and utterly correct. 

He can still hear her talking about it to Connie, but he can only focus on three sentences that stick to him like glue. 

Have you noticed the way he looks at her? Can’t you see the love in his eyes? The way he will actually go out of his way to help her with anything?

Memories of him helping you in any possible way come to mind. He can’t recall how many times he has entered class two minutes late because you had so much to carry. 

He stares at you like you’re the only thing worth looking at. It reminds him of those cliche animated movies with hearts in the character's eyes. He’s blinded by his love for you, that he never noticed any signs that you don’t feel the same way about him. His heart races miles per hour when you’re around. Sometimes he worries for himself that maybe, his heart might explode within him. 

“Anyway, lunch has about 20 minutes left...where is she?” Connie mutters, scratching the top of his head.

“I don’t know, but,” Sasha grows quiet, listening to the ongoing thunder from the outside. The lights flicker for a second, a couple of yelps emitting from other students, slightly afraid that the power might go off while school is in session. “The storm is almost here.”

“Y/N!” Connie suddenly yells, pointing in the direction of the door, your body jogging closer to the table. “Where have you been?!”

“Sorry!” you laugh, out of breath as you drop your things on the bench, taking a seat beside Jean. “I got caught up in a conversation with someone! I guess I lost track of time for a bit.”

“I messaged you like four times,” Jean mutters, glancing over at you before looking at the table, playing with the plastic straw that he used to drink out of.

“You did?” you ask, pulling your phone out from your pocket, lips puckering when indeed he did so. “I’m sorry, Jean. I didn’t even feel my phone vibrate.”

“Oh, whatever, who cares! Eat! Or I’ll eat your food!” Sasha yells, pointing a finger at you, a smile gracing her features. 

You laugh along with her as you converse with your peers, the conversation you had replaying in the back of your mind. Jean chooses not to intervene, instead would rather listen. 

The roaring thunder plays in the background, everyone paying no mind to it. What he doesn’t know is that the storm is much closer than Jean could have thought. 

☽✧ ✦ ✧☾

Listen close, it’s a no

The wind is a pounding on my back

And I found hope in a heart attack

Oh at last, it is past

Now I’ve got it, and you can’t have it

Another evening, another study session, another day of bottling up his feelings until he can no longer hold them inside.

The storm made its way to shore, raining pouring down and even some hail; not what anyone was expecting. 

Jean mindlessly flips through the pages of his English book, not even paying attention to the words as he checks how many pages are in chapter five. 

“This seems pointless,” he adds with a sigh, tossing the book on your bed along with his highlighter he uses to annotate with. “I should just find a summary online or something, I don’t want to read this.”

“And why is that?” you ask, looking up from your book, placing the hardcover against your thighs. “Is it boring to you?”

“No,” he mutters, rolling onto his back. “It’s stupid. This love crap.”

“Well...it is a romance story, the teacher told us when we got the book. But why do you think it’s dumb?”

“He writes letters for her, and in the end, she ends up rejecting him. I don’t think that’s romantic.”

“And? It’s beautiful on his part,” you close your eyes as you stretch your arms over your head, letting out a grunt. “It’s the fact that he wrote to her every day. It’s like he poured his soul into every word. The words he uses are..literally everything. It makes me swoon over him, and he’s not real. Makes me wonder if someone would do that for me.”

Jean’s head perks up at your words, one of his eyebrows raised in curiosity when he notices the bashful look on your face, eyes averted to the comforter on your bed. “Why do you have that dopey look on your face?”

“Huh?!” your eyes are blown open as you look over at him. “What are you talking about?!”

“I’m talking about that, idiot,” he points at your face, watching your eyes cross faintly to stare at his finger. “You’re acting about that guy in the book.”

The patter of the rain is the only noise that fills the void called silence in your room. His warm eyes don’t leave your face at all, waiting for your answer. You’ve been acting weird ever since you were late to lunch this past week. 

He watches your mouth open as if you’ll say something but close it right away, like you were concealing anything you had to hide.

“...well? Y/N? Are you there?”

“Yeah!” you cough into your elbow, running a hand down your face. “I-- you can’t tell anyone.”

“You know I never tell anyone what we talk about.”

You’re silent, a bit too quiet than usual. You fiddle with your fingers before blurting the words that have been eating away at you. 

Jean’s heart stops for a moment, eyes wide in shock when he processes it. His blood runs cold as he’s unable to move, frozen like a statue. The signals in his brain begged him to respond, but he couldn’t. He could hear the faintest sound of bells ringing in his ears; all noise surrounding him was now drowned out by his thoughts. 

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds. 

“You like someone?” he asks in a whisper, barely audible to your ears, but you heard as you nod shyly, biting down on your lip. “Well... who is it?”

“That’s...I can’t say it.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I’m afraid to say it out loud because I don’t want to ruin my friendship with him.”

Friendship? That could be anyone at this point.

I have to figure out who, he thinks as he draws random patterns into the sheets. “Well, tell me about him then. Is he in our grade?” he asks.

“Yeah, he is. He’s in four of my classes.”

Jean was in four of your classes. Math, English, Foreign Language, and Science. 

“That’s it?”

You huff, rolling your eyes. “Can I finish before you interrupt? Thank you.”

You pause momentarily before speaking again.

“He’s stubborn. I’ve noticed that his demeanor changes when it depends on who he is with. He seems like a hardass and looks like he doesn’t want to be bothered, but he seems like a total softie when he’s with people he loves. Not to mention he’s hot...and tall. He’s blunt and straight to the point. He doesn’t bullshit at all. He’s really sweet as well, to me. He always goes out of his way to make sure I’m okay and how my day was. He just..he seems to care for me, and I feel the same way about him.”

Jean takes every word you say into consideration. He’s stubborn, it seems that he doesn’t like to be around people he doesn’t know but loves those he does know. He knows he’s hot. Practically every day he looks at himself in the mirror and thinks about how good he looks.

He’s blunt and straight to the point. He doesn’t bullshit at all. He’s really sweet as well, to me. He always goes out of his way to make sure I’m okay and how my day was. He just..he really seems to care for me, and I feel the same way about him.

Jean can feel his doubt and worry turn into happiness and confidence as you keep on ranting, to which he’s not fully paying attention anymore. He knows it's him. It has always been him.

No one else.

Jean likes you.

And you like Jean, that’s all there is to it. 

“Do you want to tell him?”

“Yeah...” you trail off, scratching the nape of your neck. “I want to tell him on Friday after school. Do you think he’ll like me back?”

“I think he would. How could he not? He would be a total idiot to reject you.”

You hum at his reassurance, placing your hand on his, squeezing gently.

“Thanks, Jean.”

☽✧ ✦ ✧☾

Darling when I’m fast asleep

I've seen this person watching me

Saying, “Is it worth it? Is it worth it?”

Tell me, is it worth it?

Friday comes, and Jean can hardly wait for school to end. He’s not paying attention, his eyes constantly staring from the whiteboard in the front to the clock that tauntingly ticks slower than usual. 

He bites down on the pink end of his pencil in anticipation, tapping his foot repeatedly on the floor, the noise resonating through the classroom. 

Maybe I should just keep my eyes off the clock, he thinks, lowering his head back to the worksheet their teacher gave the class.

Econ class was a drag. He could care less about the differences in macro and microeconomics, the same with Communism and Capitalism. It’s just a bunch of words that don’t make sense to his brain. 

This was one of the classes he didn’t have with you, the last class. 

Instead of doing his worksheet (luckily, the teacher said it would be for homework if it wasn’t finished), Jean proceeded to think about ways he could tell you his feelings.

He could be old fashioned, tell you how much he adores you and how happy you make him feel when you’re around. How his heart can be heard from the outside of his body, how his hands got warm and clammy, maybe sweaty when he became too nervous.

Or

He could ask you out on a date. Take you somewhere, one of the places you’ve told him in the past that would make a great date for you. He smiles when he thinks about taking you downtown at night, looking at the soft lights that would brighten the streets; loving the sparkle in your orbs as you look around in awe. 

He hums, pleased with himself when he figures out what he’ll do, scratching the back of his ear. 

He wonders if you’re thinking the same thing.

-

You glance at your table partner, looking at his piece of paper before looking down at yours, displeased how his is able to look better than yours. You pick up your eraser, gently wiping the shadings away from your drawing, careful not to crease your paper.

“It’s not that hard you know, you just don’t know how to shade.”

“I know how to shade, Eren,” you reply with a huff, placing your eraser back down. “It’s just...this is a bit harder than usual.”

“All you have to do is follow the markings,” he presses the edge of his drawing pencil against the reference photo both of you are using, tracing the shape of it. “You could honestly just copy the photo, I doubt this woman would even notice.”

You chuckle at his choice of words, shifting in your seat to get comfortable. “I don’t think she would anyway. She just stares at it and calls it an A. I bet for our expressive project, she wouldn’t notice if we copied each other.”

He shakes his head with a smile, the loose strands of his hair swaying with his head movement. “No, she wouldn’t,” he rolls the sleeves of his hoodie to his elbows, grabbing his pencil again. “Then again, we are working on it with each other.”

“Speaking of that, what should we do?”

“Up to you, Y/N. I don’t mind. I’m just trying to pass this stupid class anyway.”

You relish in the silence between you as you gaze at him from your peripheral. You take notice how his hair frames his face effortlessly to the dip in his nose. It’s perfect how it forms to his cupid’s bow to his lips; not too big nor too small either. Just right. 

You clear your throat, scratching at the nape of your neck. “Why not do...stages of love?”

That catches his interest.

“Stages of love?” he asks, moving in his chair to face you, a hand propping his head up. “Elaborate?”

“Like you know...how we gain a crush on someone. We like how they make us feel, and soon we think about them some more. Maybe make little scenarios in our head. Then we gain the crush and want to be around them. You know what I mean, right?”

He’s silent, hues that represent the blue of rivers, boring into your own. At first, you think he hates your idea, but then the corner of his lips curls into his infamous grin. “Yeah, I like that. Did you have anything else in mind?”

“Maybe...rejection?”

“Rejection?” he repeats, a bit shocked at how romantic your words were, to something filled with sadness. “And why would you want to do rejection?”

“W-Well,” you stutter, unsure how you should put it. “Everyone always talks about the good in love but never the bad. And I think it could be done good, you know?”

He hums, scratching away at his chin before nodding. “Yeah, alright. That sounds oddly specific, but I like it. We can honestly get started soon, that way, we can finish faster and not worry about it.”

His smile throws you for a loop, your face heating up as you pick up your pencil, trying to distract yourself. 

“Say, Y/N?”

“Yes, Eren?” you reply a bit too quickly, cursing yourself out internally for sounding too desperate. 

“Can we talk?” his cheeks are a shade of pink, his eyes averted as he plays with one of the strings of his hood, reminding you how a child would distract themselves. The tips of his shoe nudge against yours, barely kicking gently.

“Aren’t we talking right now?”

“No, I mean after school.”

☽✧ ✦ ✧☾

And in my eyes, there is a tiny dancer

Watching over me, he’s singing, 

Jean storms out of his Econ class with a grin, hands gripping onto the straps of his backpack as he looks down one end of the hallway before going down the other direction. The art room was three classes down his. Usually, Jean will wait right there by the door for you since you take ages to finally leave the classroom. 

When Jean finally reaches the room, he sees that the doors are locked, and the lights inside are off.

Huh, that’s weird, you’re always one of the last to leave, nor are you ever this early. 

He stands there for a few more seconds, peering in through the small glass, and sees nothing before taking a step back and quickly continues to walk down the hall. His legs are quicker, going down the two flights of stairs. 

His eyes frantically search for the yellow shirt you wore, unable to find you anywhere. 

“Sasha!” he calls out once he reaches the end of the stairs, running towards the girl and their friend, who was at the lockers, pulling things she needed to take home for the weekend. 

The brunette looks over her shoulder, stopping her conversation with Connie as she shuts her locker. “Yeah, Jean?”

He pants, leaning on his knees before letting out a deep breath and standing straight up. “Have you seen Y/N?”

She ponders for a while before shaking her head, looking over at Connie, who shakes his head, shrugging. “We haven’t seen her since Art class.”

“You didn’t see where she went at all?”

The events before class ending play in her mind before she gasps, snapping her fingers, pointing up at Jean. “Yeah, I know where she went!”

“...are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to guess?!”

She mocks him for a second before pulling her phone out. “I could have seen her leave with Eren. I think they went to the bench in the back. You know the one I’m talking about?”

He’s taken aback for a moment before shaking his head, retaining the information. “Alright, thanks.”

Why would you even be with Eren right now? You never meet with him after-

“Are we still on for this weekend?!” Connie yells when Jean is making his way down the corridor.

“Yeah, we are!” Jean's voice travels through the air, reaching both of his friends, hands clammy as they’re shoved in the front pocket of his pants. 

The walk to the back courtyard was tiresome. His feet seemed to drag behind him, an aching feeling forming in his gut. Thoughts pounded against his skull repeatedly, trying to force him to stop. He wants to stop, but he has to go.

He has to tell you he loves you. 

He can’t help but smile when you describe the boy you like this week. In his mind and most certainly his heart, he was the king of the world sitting on his high horse as he screamed in victory, letting the whole world know that the person he likes, feels the same way about him. 

The fresh air from the outside meets his nostrils as he deeply inhales, allowing it to enter his body before exiting. The sun is the first thing he meets with as he exits the building, bringing a hand up to shield his eyes away from the harsh light. He mutters something under his breath as he looks around for a second. 

“She’s a,

She’s a lady and I’m just a boy”

His honey orbs finally stop on a bench where you and Eren are seated, that’s not too far away, but his body is hidden from your view. He lets out a sigh of relief, leaves crunching underneath his feet as he walks, not taking long strides, rather walking slow to rethink what he’ll say.

“Y/N, I’ve liked you for a long...no,” he mutters, stopping in his tracks as he looks down at the green grass and leaves, kicking away at them. “I’ve loved- no, that sounds a bit aggressive, goddammit,” he groans, tugging at the roots of his hairs. “Why is this so fucking hard?!” he growls underneath his breath, leaning against the brick wall. 

He never was anything else but honest with you. How could he say it?

What if this ruins your relationship?

...what if you liked Eren?

His breath hitches in his throat when realization dawns on him. His lips part, a soft exhale releasing from within him. His fingers curl around nothing, as if he was holding the air’s hand. The tips of his fingers shake, his whole body stiffening as he stares hard at nothing. 

How could he be so stupid?

It all made sense now. How you stayed behind during lunch that one time without saying anything; in the back of his mind that day, he knew that someone had to be a boy, maybe a girl. Even then, you would always let him know. 

Jean should have known from the beginning that you only saw him as a brother. 

His chest aches as his vision goes blurry, biting down on the inside of his lip to the point where he can taste the bitter metallic on his tongue. He squeezes his eyes shut before opening, wishing he hadn’t at that moment. 

He’s singing

“She’s a, she’s a lady and I am just a line without a hook.”

His heart breaks, stomach-dropping when he sees Eren’s hand brings you closer to his body, lips pressed up against yours; your hand placed on his cheek, cradling his face. Even from where he stands, he can sense the urgency in the kiss, how your bodies move together as one, how your fingers grip onto him like he’ll leave any moment. 

His lower lip quivers for a second, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, clearing his throat. Jean cranes his neck upward, looking at the sky, muttering the words, “Why him?” over and over like a mantra, no other words coming to mind. 

When he closes his eyes, all he can see is you. Not Eren, just you. Those moments where you laugh, cry, or stay silent, those are the moments that flash in his head.

Did he do something to you? Was it something he said?

Did you ever like him at all?

“It’s pointless,” he whispers, pushing himself off the brick wall, immediately making a beeline for the doors. He swallows harshly, legs moving faster than ever, wanting to get out of this hell hole called reality. 

Like every day, you’ll walk down the same pavement you’ve been walking on for years.

Only this time, he’s walking alone. 

Oh, and if I could take it all back

I swear that I would pull you from the tide. 

☽✧ ✦ ✧☾

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[emeraldvagabond]

If we're talking about retcons can we also please talk about how Tamlin was retconned too? I have a list™️(sorry this is gonna be long): in ACOTAR it’s a big point that Tamlin didn’t want to be a cruel tyrannical high lord like his dad. This is stated SEVERAL times, in fact Feyre falls for him because he's vehemently anti slavery (compare that to Rhys, who says the NC freed their slaves ONLY because they became hard to brainwash and make them forget about Velaris. Ew). 1/5

But in ACOMAF, he's ok with the tithe? Not that he shouldn’t collect taxes, but at the threat of DEATH??? Because “that’s how my dad did it?” What happened to not wanting to be cruel like his dad? In TAR he's kind enough where people keeping seeking refuge, and long before Amarantha comes, Lucien, despite having friends in many courts, CHOOSES to stay with Tam. And Lucien spends 90% of the book mocking Tamlin or challenging him. He even sets Feyre up with the suriel, fearing no repercussions despite Feyre being important in, uh, breaking their curse??? (and there aren’t any from Tam). But in MAF Lucien is afraid of Tamlin? In TAR, Tamlin offers to teach Feyre how to read and to help her write to her family, and the book also mentions that he teaches her how to ride bareback. But now in MAF he doesn’t want to help teach her her powers and in fact, forbids her from training? And most importantly… in ACOTAR, Tamlin notices Feyre's moods despite being very busy with, you know. Running his court. Fighting off Amarntha's monsters. All that stuff. But he still sees when she's sad. In fact, noticing she's upset is what leads to him writing her poems, to make her feel better. So am I really supposed to believe that he ignores her and becomes emotionally negligent in ACOMAF because “he's busy”? That he doesn’t see her feelings or try to help and console her when he does so several times in book 1? Retcon city. Sorry, this is so long, but I’m angry ranting and Tamlin was retconned sooo much in later books.

NONNY THIS IS LITERALLY A TAMLIN STAN ACCOUNT WE CAN TALK ABOUT HIS CHARACTER ASSASSINATION ALLLLLLLLLLLLL MF DAYYY. IT'S MY FAVORITE PASS TIME.

So really, the tithe, I understand, it's even stated that most of the money and things are for running the estate and the land, upkeep etc. I think a lot of people have the tendency to hear(or read) estate and think....a very large house, but that isn't the case. A Lord's estate isn't just his manor, but his workers, his land, the villages that are built on that land, the animals in those villages, and anything and everything in between. He is literally collecting money to put towards their quality of life. HOWEVER, THE THREAT OF DEATH?

I understand he's vulnerable to Ianthe's whims, because as i've said before, he's never had anyone to guide him through this whole Highlord thing that he never asked for, but that is SO MUCH of a stretch for his character. In TAR he tells Feyre that he's no good for anything but war and death, and fiddling, that he's no good at being Highlord and he's terrified of being his father. Every action he takes is consciously for the betterment of his people and their lives, to the best of his ability while under Amarantha's rule. To the point where Fae, including Alis, flee from Amarantha and the effects of her and Rhysand's actions to his court. And when they get there they all choose to stay. Alis and Lucien, two of the main people who we know are refugees in his court, have nothing but kind things to say of him. And like you said- Lucien challenges him and makes fun of him for being awkward and laughs and plays with him as brothers do without fear. Because Tamlin literally does not enforce rank in his court. He doesn't just say that once, it bleeds into every interaction he has with his people. On the Summer Solstice, he sits among the people and plays the fiddle and drinks and dances with Feyre, and leaves everything long enough to take her to watch the wisps until the dawn breaks. He gets on his knees just to play HER a song, right there in front of everyone. He doesn't hide his feelings behind any type of mask, and he doesn't worry about what his people will think because THAT IS THEIR HIGHLORD. Their Highlord is JUST Tamlin, nothing more, nothing less.

He doesn't even wear the fancy, decked-out clothes of a Highlord, because they aren't practical, and he's just Tamlin.

He's never too busy for what Feyre needs- sometimes he has work and he can't spend every waking moment with her, but she never wants for anything. Even when she is so desperately afraid for her sisters...she has no need to be because he's already taken care of everything they could ever want or need. AND NESTA KNOWS IT WAS HIM!!!!! And even after Feyre does....everything that she does, he STILL cares for her family. When her sisters become Fae, he STILL cares for their father right up until the moment he steps onto that battlefield.

I bet, if Elain wanted to return to that house and live out the rest of her days in silence in the mortal realms....he would probably fund it because that's just who he is!!!!

He lets himself be trapped in that snare Feyre lays for him- just to make her smile. Just to see her triumph. Because he knows that's what she needs at that moment. He offers to teach her to read, but it's too embarrassing for her, so he doesn't press. He offers to help her write letters home to her family, but she doesn't know what she would even want to say, so he doesn't press. He keeps her painting of the woods- of a time when she was starving, now, in a time where she is fed and clothed in finery because it reminds him that is not the only one who feels desolate and overwhelmed with responsibility that they never asked for.

And then in the end, despite all this, despite being desperately in love with her, because he is desperately in love with her...he sends her away. He sends her home, back to that estate, away from the danger even when she is supposed to be his savior. Because it's a burden she doesn't know she carries, because he would rather find a million other ways or suffer under a woman who has been obsessed with him since he was a child than see Feyre suffer.

And she comes back for him because she loves him. She loves the freedom he has given her, the ways he's set her free. She loves the Spring Court and the people there, she loves dancing at the summer solstice and a male who plays her solos in front of hundreds of people like he's offering a gift to the goddess.

And then....all of that was just? A show? A ploy? What? What was it? It doesn't make sense. Yes, he's desperately afraid, but the last time he was desperately afraid he let her go. The safest thing for her in book two would be training. Harnessing her new powers, learning who she is now, and what she isn't anymore. But nooo now, suddenly it's lock her up and put her on a shelf? Now it's, he has too much to do, stay here and not, he has so much to do, stay safe? It's no longer teaching her what she doesn't know it's....owning her? I'd say make it make sense but literally, no one can.

And it makes me mad.

[sumu-samu]

Broken

“Hi i saw that you were gonna start writing stories and we're looking for ideas and things,, maybe a Luke x f!reader oneshot around the time of The Lightning Thief. I think it would be cool if the day before he snapped and revealed himself as the thief,, he confessed his feelings to someone or took an s/o on a special date as a type of "goodbye" without saying anything. There's not many luke fics and his TLT story is so fun to explore :3″

Pairing: Luke Castellan x daughter of Poseidon!f!reader

Genre: Angst basically. Some fluff, but angst.

Warnings: non that I can really think of

A.N: Literally listened to The Lightning Thief musical while writing this.This was super fun to write ngl, I also may have gotten carried away with the back story and such but meh :3. I also took a few freedoms and made you Poseidon’s daughter, hope you don’t mind it too much, and I changed the ending of the book a bit because I can’t remember exactly how it ended, just the basics, and I can’t find my book to fact check myself. Hope it doesn't bother you too much and that you like it.<3

Y/N sat at her cabin table, her newly found brother had just come back from a stupid quest he had to go on because her uncle was throwing a fit (as he usually does) about someone stealing his lightning bolt, and he immediately blamed it on her family. She knew all about the prophecy and the whole half-blood child of the big three turning sixteen and having the power to either save or destroy the world. Thing was she had already turned sixteen (if you’re not sixteen yet, just go along with it please) and nothing special really happened, so when Percy showed up at camp and killed a minotaur on the first day, Her and Chiron had been a bit weary of the new half-blood.

When Percy was claimed by Poseidon you’d think she’d be happy that she had found family, after losing her mother at five and never seeing her father, but she wasn’t, She was more worried than anything. Worried that she would lose the family she had just found. And when Percy left to go on the quest, Y/N felt like she couldn’t breath. She didn’t know him very well, but Percy was a good kid, she could just feel it, and she wanted to get to know him more. The thought that he may not come back from this quest in one piece terrified her. And what made it even worse was that he brought Annabeth with him. Annabeth was like Y/N’s little sister.

Ever since the day she found the seven year old blond they had been through alot together. She had run away from camp after getting into an argument with Chiron, she soon learned that it was a big mistake, then ran into the little girl somewhere in Pennsylvania. She then met Luke and Thalia, and then ran into Grover. The five had been through alot, especially when they lost Thalia, she was yet another pice of family she lost. She hadn’t walked into the camp with the other three, she just stayed and watched as Thaila’s body formed into a tall standing pine tree. She cursed Zues for letting this happen to his own daughter.

As the years went by she took care of the spunky little blond, and Luke liked to help every now and then. Feelings grew for the blond boy, no doubt about it, but she also remembered how Annabeth would squeal to her and rant about her little crush on Luke.

When they came back, all three of them, in one pices to say she was relieved, was an understatement. There had been a lot of events that happened after they were back, her favourite being the look on Clariese’s face when she heard that her father had stolen the bolt. The whole cabin was angry and Percy, and the fact that he had made their father look like a fool. But what she really cherished was right now. She was able to catch up with her brother and everything. Talk about his life, get to know him and how much of a good kid he really was. They talked about the prophecy and how he was confused about being betrayed by a friend and failing to save what matters the most.

“People who know nothing about prophecies may say something like ‘oh well you know the prophecy is crazy and could be wrong in some way,’ but, I know that isn’t the case. So I’d say, that the prophecy isn’t done with you yet.” She shrugged.

“Oh, how great.” he rolled his eyes.

“Hey, Y/N” She heard the smooth deep familiar voice and looked up to meet bright blue eyes. “Right before curfew… could you uh,” he scratched the back of his neck. “Just, meet me by the lake.” he quickly stated then walked off. She sat very confused, she had never seen Luke like that before. He was usually a cocky, joking fellow. Seeing him shy and flustered,and maybe even worried, had concerned her.

When the sun had fallen, and curfew was about twenty minutes away, she snuck out of her cabin and went down to the lake. “Luke?” she called out not seeing him anywhere.

“Y/N.” she then heard from behind her. Turning around she saw a familiar silhouette, She couldn't see his face due to the lack of light but she knew it was him.

“Hey, what’s up?” She walked towards him.

“I-” He looked around and took her by the arm to drag her further away from the cabins so that they could be somewhere where he knew they were truly alone. “I have something to tell you.” He sounded sorrowful and serious. This made Y/N’s heart race faster in worry for the boy in front of her.

“What is it Luke?” She moved her hand to his cheek so he could look at her. He just stared into her eyes for about a minute. He was dazzled by her (e/c) eyes, that she had gotten from her mum and her dark hair that she got from her father. His hands moved to her waist before he viciously pulled her close to him, foreheads touching. Her heart sped up even more, this time from the closeness of the two rather than worry. “Luke?” she questioned.

“I’m so sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut in pain. “I’m so… so sorry Y/N.” He wrapped his arms further around her waist, pulling her into a hug. She took in his scent as he did hers.

“Luke, I don’t understand, why… why are you sorry?” She pulled away to look into his eyes again.

“Y/N, I… I like you… I like you so much I think I love you. And it hurts me, ever since we lost Thalia, you were there, you were alway there. And I don’t know why I couldn’t be satisfied with just you and Annabeth, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry. I was just so pissed, I needed to get it all out. But in the end, I want you to know that it was you, It was always you.” And that's when he did it. He made her heart completely stop, He leaned in and kissed her. His kiss soft and gentle, the kiss was passionate. She melted into it, wanting it to last forever but alas he pulled away. “I just hope you will forgive me at some point.”

“Luke, what’s going on? What do you mean forgive you?” She was seriously done with this mysterious way he was talking.

“I can’t tell you, not yet. Just, stay with me, for the night. Tonight only, sleep beside me, let me hold you one last time.” He pleaded.

“Luke, where are we gonna sleep, we can’t go to your cabin, because… well,” She thought of the cramped cabin 11 and how embarrassing it might be to wake up in the morning with all those kids around her laughing, or how maybe the twins would try playing a prank of them in their sleep. “Percy’s asleep in my cabin, and we can’t stay out here… the harpies.” She shuddered at the thought of being attacked by those bird ladies.

“Y/N, i’ve seen Percy sleep, there's no way he's gonna wake up before us. I’ll be sure to leave before he even knows I’m there.” He rested his forehead on hers.

She thought for a while. “Alright fine.” She smiled and they walked back to the cabin.

That night she had the best sleep she had ever had. Luke’s warmth,and his scent. It relaxed her in a way that she didn’t know was possible. But he held true to his word of getting out before Percy knew he was there. In fact, she had to sit there for a while trying to be sure it was real and not just a dream, because when she woke up, he wasn’t there. Her heart dropped. It was too vivid, too detailed, too… too real, to be a dream. She got out of bed, and got dressed before hearing a snore. She grabbed her pillow and threw it at the drooling boy, still asleep in his bed.

“Wake up ragworm. You’re gonna miss breakfast.” She said, waiting till he got out of bed and started getting changed to leave and go to breakfast.

They sat at the table eating their food when Mr. D. had stood up to tell everyone to decide whether they were staying for the year or leaving before noon. “What are you gonna do?” Percy looked at his sister.

“I'm staying here.” She shrugged as if not going home was something she was used to.

“You’re not going back to your family?” He sounded confused. But he too was confused if he wanted to go back and see his mum or if he wanted to stay with his new found family. He was kinda hoping she was gonna go so that it would make it easier on him.

“Have no family to go home to, Perc. This right here,” she motioned to all the other kids at their respective tables, “this is the closest thing I have to family.”

As the day had progressed the thought of what happened with Luke last night being real faded as Luke had avoided her all day. And as she was walking around Camp, enjoying her last day with some of her friends she saw some wood nymphs carrying a body wearing blue jeans and a bright orange camp shirt. “Percy.” she gasped as she saw the black head of hair. They carried him to the infirmary where he was tended to and given some nectar to recover.

Once he woke up he started ranting off nonsense. “Luke, it’s Luke we- we need to look for him.” he tried to get up but Chiron stopped him.

“What do you mean it’s Luke, Perc?” She was worried by the tone of her brother's words.

“The… the friend who was supposed to betray me… it’s Luke. He’s the lightning thief” At Percy’s words Y/N’s head went fuzzy, her stomach turned. “He’s serving Kronos, hes trying to bring him back.” she didn’t want to believe what she was hearing, “ Oh… and Y/N… he said that if I happened to survive, to tell you… he meant what he said last night, and that he is really sorry.” Percy said that as if it was irrelevant.

“No, you're lying. Luke, he wouldn… He isn’t... “ She shook her head trying to deny it but then something came back to her.

“I’m sorry. I was just so pissed, I needed to get it all out.” She ran out of the infirmary, tears stinging her eyes and her head steaming. She ran into the cabin, and without thinking rationally started to throw things around out of… well, she wasn’t really sure what she was feeling, she just needed to get it out.

Once she was done throwing things around, and the cabin was totally trashed, she knew exactly what she was feeling. She ran to the lake, feeling angry and sad. She took her shoes off and sat at the edge with her feet in the water. Tears running down her face.

“I just hope you will forgive me at some point.” Luke’s words rang out in her head. “I don’t think I ever can.” She thought. It wasn’t because of the fact that he had betrayed her friends, her family, betrayed her. It was more the fact that Luke was so selfish, so so stupidly selfish that he had to dump that onto her. He had to tell her how he felt and then go and break her like that. Because of that, she hated him, but at the same time, deep in her heart she still loved him, something small was telling her that this wasn’t actually Luke, that he was really the Luke that she loved and that something was controlling him.

She looked up at the sky, the clear blue sky. To anyone else, on any other day, it would have been a beautiful day. But no matter how much the sun shined, all she could see was grey. “Why? Why can’t I be happy? Why do you insist on torturing me constantly. What did I do to make you decide I don’t deserve happiness? Was it because I was born? It’s not my fault that my father can’t keep a stupid promise. It’s not my fault i’m alive. I never asked for this. So why do you do this to me? You petty little brat! I hate you with every bone in my body.” She screamed at her uncle. Zeus wasn’t listening to what his pathetic niece was saying, but someone was.

His chest felt heavy. Listening to what the beautiful broken girl was saying. He had wanted to hold her like he should have for every heart breaking moment of her sixteen years. “I’m sorry i couldn’t save you from that. But I gave you Percy. You have each other now. Take care of each other like I can’t.” Poseidon sighed.

[cruelfeline]

Agh, it got so long I had to read-more it; no one look at this; I just had to get it out of my mind, but don’t look at it just ignore this and go examine a pretty nature photo; honestly these just keep getting worse why does this keep happening? And I hate dialogue. And I hate characterization. Ugghhh... just insert a Mermista groan here.

also a more mature Catra helping Hordak on his journey provides me with happiness don’t judge me

Please consider, a concept:

A few months have passed since Prime’s demise. Reconstruction of Etheria’s damaged settlements is well underway, and all parties involved have gotten... if not entirely comfortable with one another, then at least able to interact with civility. Enough so that, when Entrapta and Bow end up delayed on one of their interplanetary trips, Hordak is only moderately uneasy about heading off to Bright Moon on his own. Oh, of course he’d rather wait for Entrapta, but certain planned meetings (dictated by Etheria’s terribly inconvenient seasons) simply cannot be delayed. So off he goes, determined to maintain decorum and dignity and uphold his end of all relevant treaties. He is received by Glimmer, Adora, and Catra. The other Princesses are all otherwise engaged (with what, he cares little, though he is admittedly amused to learn that Mermista and Perfuma are occupied with an apparently disastrous seaweed-related snafu). So it is the four of them against a whole mess of administrative work.

The girls, for their part, are equally uneasy but likewise determined to proceed as usual (Adora and Catra seeming particularly determined). They meet Hordak’s reserved politeness with a tentative poise of their own, and the group’s work commences.

And for a number of days, it goes fairly well. Even Glimmer has to admit that, whatever anyone’s misgivings about how an Entrapta-less Hordak might behave, things are running smoothly. She maintains control of the meetings, guiding them through agenda after agenda, while Adora and Catra provide input based upon their recent scouting trips to Etheria’s various corners. Hordak rounds the discussions out with whatever technological information is relevant. Their sessions run long most nights (too long, if Catra were asked her opinion on the matter, which she pointedly is not), but they are productive. The four of them get an impressive amount of work done, and all without any tense moments or uncomfortable quarrels. One might even say that they are getting along quite well, all things considered.

In fact, Catra is nearly certain that, when Adora mentions appreciating the work of some Dryl-made construction bots in a seaside village, Hordak subtly quirks his lips in what a careful observer could term a smile.

So the three girls are legitimately stunned when, about three-quarters of the way through their intended time together, Hordak’s behavior abruptly changes. His calm demeanor turns sullen and tense. Previously comprehensive explanations gain a taciturn edge, eventually devolving into clipped, half-snarled responses and sneered refusals to provide clarification. More and more often, words are accompanied by the baring of red teeth and the angry glare of red eyes. 

Glimmer is... less than pleased, but between her own determination to make this treaty work and Adora’s dogged, somewhat frantic optimism, she strives to maintain civility long enough to get through the last few days. But, well... limits are limits. And limits are surpassed when, one evening, Hordak furiously declares that he has lost patience with their “embarrassing incompetence” and, with nary another word, storms out of the conference room. 

“That’s it! How dare he?!”

Glimmer promptly explodes, and Catra spends the next few minutes watching Adora try to quiet what is proving to be a very loud, very angry, moderately uncouth Queenly rant. It is in the midst of this rant that Adora catches her eye and, with a quiet groan and a nod and a mental wish of good luck, Catra slips away with Melog silently following at her heels. 

“I guess this is better than dealing with Sparkles,” she mutters to herself as she stands at the door to Hordak’s temporary quarters. Beside her, Melog trills encouragement, and she sighs. They’re right, of course: between the two of them, Adora has more experience dealing with an upset Glimmer. And Catra... okay, so she doesn’t have “experience dealing with an upset Hordak.” Not... not good experience. But she worked with him for nearly a year. And, given what she’s seen, what she knows... she has a fair idea of what’s been happening. She’d been quietly hoping that it would work itself out, or that it wouldn’t become enough of a problem to cause trouble before they finished their work, but alas: it seems that that sort of luck just isn’t on their side.

Which, given the fact that Hordak seems to have the worst luck of anyone she knows, probably should have been something she’d seen coming.

Melog trills again, adding a gentle headbutt this time.

“Okay, okay... give me a second.”

She takes a breath, lifts a hand to knock, grimaces, and drops said hand. She clears her throat.

“Hordak?”

Nothing. She frowns and tries again.

“Hordak? Are you-”

“Leave.”

His snarl is all-too familiar, and even muffled through a door, it causes her hackles to rise, her ears to pin back, her tail to lash.

“Look, I just-”

“Go. Away.”

She grits her teeth, clenches her fists, and turns away, ready to return downstairs with nothing to show for her efforts but a bad mood. Next to her, Melog meows in protest. She rounds on them.

“What? If he wants to be a jerk about it, then that’s his problem! Besides, what am I supposed to do? Break down the door?”

And she resumes making her way back to the staircase, ignoring Melog’s continued protest (which, come to think of it, sounds fairly alarmed, but... well, what is she to do?) and... she freezes. The world around her is starting to shimmer. She knows that shimmer: teleportation via alien cat.

“Wait! I said-!”

And just like that, they’re in his room, and though Catra’s first instinct is to make her displeasure very loudly known, said instinct quickly fades at the sight of Hordak.

“Oh, damn it.”

From his place on the floor, crumpled in a sweating, trembling heap, Hordak looks up at the intrusion. His eyes widen, face twisting with fury as he prepares to shout what Catra predicts will be his trademark “get out,” only to choke up and curl in on himself as some sort of painful spasm races through him. 

Once upon a time, this sight might have spurred Catra into a bout of cruel gloating, but circumstances are vastly different today. 

Today, before either of them can really take stock of what is happening, she helps him up and half-leads, half-carries him to the corner sofa, depositing him with a strained grunt before taking a step back and giving him a moment to collect himself. Which he does while glaring at her.

For some time, the only sound between them is the ugly rasp of Hordak’s panting, then: “Get. Out.”

Ah. There it is. As expected. As anticipated. Catra’s ears flick at the command.

A part of her still bristles at his snarling, at his combative ire, at his accusatory glare... but a different part notices instead how that glare comes through dull eyes, how that snarling fades into exhausted panting, how he’s still trembling, even before his very unwanted audience. As the seconds pass, this part maintains its position at the forefront of her mind, until:

“You want some water?”

“...”

“...”

“...what?”

There’s a sudden lightness to her thoughts.

“I’m gonna get you some water. Just... stay there, okay?”

Melog punctuates her words with a happy chirp before providing the necessary teleport. A minute later, they’re back from the kitchens, glass of cool water in hand. Hordak remains where they left him, though he actually gives a bit of a start when they reappear. The momentary surprise disappears under a scowl as Catra holds the glass out to him.

He curls his lip. He doesn’t take it.

Catra remains steady. Next to her, Melog sits, tail waving a constant, slow path in the air.

Hordak bares his teeth.

“I do not require your pity, Catra.”

“Good, ‘cause all I’ve got is this glass of water.”

He gapes at her.

“Which, y’know, you should take. Because my arm is getting tired.”

His expression closes off again in another scowl (he never did see the humor in her sass, did he?), but after a few more moments, Hordak relents. Slowly, clearly trying to keep his hand from trembling too much, he takes the offered glass.

Catra sighs and, suddenly drained, sits down on the ground a few feet away from him, resting her back against the arm of the sofa. Melog stretches out beside her, and Catra turns her back to Hordak to focus on providing the desired belly rub. She swivels an ear towards him, listening for him to finish draining the glass. He does so. 

She can hear that his breath has lost that ugly rasp, and a tightness in her chest that she hadn’t been aware of loosens.

“So,” she begins, trying to keep her tone casual, “do you... need to call Entrapta? Is it... is it your-”

“Entrapta is currently beyond the reach of our communication modules.” She’d steeled herself for another snarled response, but his voice is calm, almost quiet. “And no; it is not my armor.”

“...oh.”

A minute passes. Two. Catra starts to tentatively turn around, wishing to steal a glance, but Melog thrusts their head into her lap and refocuses her gaze downwards. Another minute passes, then:

“It... it has proven somewhat...” He starts, stops, starts again. Stops again. Something that is not pain chokes his words, and though she wants to somehow encourage him, a soft rumble from Melog compels her to wait.

“Even with the armor, there are times that I... have difficulties.” He is breathing quicker again, she can hear; not quite panting, but definitely breathing quicker. In her lap, Melog seems attentive but otherwise unconcerned.

“Particularly during periods of higher stress, or exertion. Though,” he suddenly hisses, and Catra hears claws scrape against fabric, “hardly anything about our current work should merit this... exacerbation.”

He falls quiet, and for what feels like a long while, neither of them say anything. Melog’s soft purring fills the silence.

“Sparkles is mad,” Catra finally says, “Adora’s calming her down.”

This time, when she tries to turn her gaze back to him, Melog remains quiet. She watches Hordak nod, sees his ears droop.

“My behavior has been... unacceptable. I shall go request an audience with Queen Glimmer and make an apology-”

“Uh-uh.”

He frowns at her. 

“Oh, I mean, yeah! Definitely apologize. You were a jerk. But not now; you should rest first. I’ll go tell them that you’re not feeling great, and-”

His scowl returns.

“That is not necessary.”

She matches his frown with her own and scoffs. “Uh, according to what just happened, it is. What? You’re just gonna... pretend you’re fine and keep going?”

He looks like he wishes to say something less-than-polite, scowl deepening, but instead he turns away with a quiet huff. His ears droop even further.

“The terms of the treaty are fair, and it is my duty to adhere to them. This... lapse... aside, I am entirely capable of doing so.” He sighs and seems to will his ears into a more neutral position. “So yes: I shall ‘keep going.’” 

Catra blinks at him.

“That’s... really stupid.”

He blinks at her. 

“...what?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s stupid. What’s the point of it... pushing yourself like that when you’ve obviously had enough? If you need a break, then-”

Suddenly he snarls, he rounds on her, teeth and eyes glowing too-brightly, and she nearly jerks back. Melog tenses beside her but remains still.

“Then what?! I should inform the Queen, and she will suspend proceedings and accept needless delays for my comfort? That is... that is-”

He stops abruptly because she’s laughing, a dry sort of chuckle that might have infuriated him save for the fact that, when she notices his attention and stops, it’s to smile at him. Catra smiles at him, and the expression holds an honest sincerity that he’s never seen her exhibit before. His indignation fades; his aggressive posture deflates.

“Yeah. That’s exactly what she’ll do.”

At first, he only stares at her, as if uncertain that he has heard what he believes he has heard, but eventually Hordak swallows, glances away, glances back, presses his lips together.

“That is... highly illogical, given the circumstances. I am not... I do not...” His voice fades, and his ears all but wilt.

For the second time that day, Catra does something without thinking, settling herself into the seat next to him and placing a hand over one of his. It’s tense and cold to the touch; her thumb begins to stroke his knuckles without her realizing it. Hordak remains silent, lips slightly parted, transfixed. He does not even react when, on his other side, Melog presses their body gently against his leg.

“It’s a treaty, Hordak,” she begins, and her voice nearly strains for a moment when her brain catches up with her actions, but she steels her resolve and continues, “not a sentence. Not a punishment. I thought it was, at first. I figured it had to be, because of all we’ve done... all I’ve done. But it’s not.”

Catra remembers how she first felt, all those months ago, and she makes the connection between her old fears and his current ones, unconsciously pausing to squeeze his hand; her ears have pinned back, and her chest is suddenly tight again.

“It’s not supposed to... to hurt. For either of us. Y’know? I mean... I was out with the flu for a week a couple of months ago, and the worst thing that happened was having to choke down Perfuma’s gross herbal junk.” She huffs out a laugh, but there’s no amusement in it. “This...”

Now her voice does strain, and she has to stop for a moment before continuing. Beside her, Hordak is breathing quickly again and trying very hard to stop.

“This isn’t the Horde. Either Horde. How we feel matters. How... how you feel matters. So if you need a break, you get a break. ...okay?”

It takes him some time to answer, and in that time Catra realizes what her hand has been doing; she snatches it back just as he finds his voice.

“If... if you believe that your suggestion is... appropriate, then I shall agree to it.”

Catra lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The smile returns to her face, and she nods. Melog trills happily and rewards each of them with a gentle headbutt.

~

For what had seemed such a dramatic conversation, the aftermath is anything but. Catra and Melog return downstairs and tell Glimmer and Adora of what has transpired. Their reaction is as expected: the work is postponed, and Hordak is given leave to rest as long as is necessary, no questions asked. 

He spends the remainder of that day and the next in bed, rising in the late afternoon to deliver a very formal, semi-awkward apology to Glimmer. She responds with a very formal, semi-awkward acceptance. Their working session resumes, though Hordak finds that he needs to excuse himself again after only a couple of hours. That evening, Glimmer has a basket of strawberry tarts delivered to his room. She also makes a point of ensuring that their sessions no longer extend into the late night hours.

Catra remains nearby, much to Hordak’s (admittedly only half-sincere) chagrin, and between her stubbornness and Melog’s perception, he is kept well-supplied with snacks, water, extra blankets and, though both refuse to admit it, friendly company. Adora spends her time trying to contact Darla; when she succeeds, Hordak happily accepts Entrapta’s enthusiastic check-in (and assures her that, yes, he is being provided an adequate amount of soup). 

A few days later, he is able to rejoin the group in full capacity, and they finish their work with little harm done by their extended schedule. 

Then it is time for him to return to Dryl (Entrapta arrives the next day), but before he boards his transport, he takes a moment to do something he’d once never imagined he’d do: thank Catra. Awkwardly, as seems is his communicative style this trip, but sincerely. 

She grimaces slightly, refusing to meet his eyes, and scratches absently at the back of her head. Next to her, Melog utters a noise that sounds like a warbling coo, their mane glowing a faint pink.

“Yeah... well... better than you passing out and bringing the wrath of Entrapta down on us. Bright Moon’s still rebuilding, y’know.”

This elicits an actual laugh from Hordak, sudden and rather loud, and Catra fails to keep the surprise from her face as he regains control of himself and gives his final farewell with a small, genuine smile.

Despite Melog confirming for the world that she is blushing under her fur, Catra smiles back.

[fascination-street-writing]

In the Gathering Gloom | Leone Abbacchio x Reader

You think you might want him to hold you, but you refrain from crossing that line. It is a game that lovers play – and he is not yours. To love him, for what he has done and more, is sacrilege.

A continuation of Stealing Past the Windows

Content Warnings: P-TSD

You never cared for bruttiboni very much, but you do not mind the ones that Leone purchases from the bakery down the street at La Torta e il Coniglio. In truth, you are thankful for anything he brings home, for you remember what it was like to nearly starve so clearly that it might have been an old habit of survival. It has made you appreciative of the dry almond biscuits. Besides, they are far better dunked in hot coffee.

Leone takes the seat across from you at the breakfast nook. Laid out in front of him is nothing more than a ceramic mug of sweetened tea. You have learned, in your time living together, that he seldom eats in the morning – something to do with luncheons with his coworkers and not wanting to spoil his appetite. You finish your meal but before you can rise to carry your emptied plate to the sink, he has already taken it from your grasp and placed it within the basin.

Water hails from the spigot. “Thank you,” you tell him. He nods.

You fasten the apron to your torso. You have taken up a job at a local café, though not out of a monetary incentive; Leone provides for you plenty. Anything you request, he brings to you on a hypothetical silver platter – so you have stopped asking. But you understand his sense of obligation. You suppose that, in his situation, you would do anything for the child of the man you might as well have killed with your own hands. Bruttiboni will not bring back your parents; though, you appreciate the gesture.

Truthfully, you work because you need the distraction. There are only so many books to read in a day until something miniscule reminds you of the circumstances you escaped in the not quite so distant past. Perhaps it is the turning of a page in a romance novel – the scratching of parchment to parchment – that reminds you of pattering mice in the rafters. Or, the air coolant system that sounds like the rusted box fan of your former abode; to call it that – an abode – is an underserved gratuity. On several occasions, you have had to remind yourself that the gunshots on the streets below are truly nothing more than the thumping of life and movement in the apartments around you. 

Regardless of it all, the verbal silence is the worse, because it is akin to the loneliness you once felt. It is unbearable when Leone is away. And so, you press espresso shots for underpaid businessmen and lattes for mothers who rush to work after dropping their children off at school – just as your own madre had used to do every morning. Occasionally, the businessmen congregate together and stay for at least an hour; they are always cordial enough, and never leave too much of a mess to clean. The mothers, on the other hand, are gone the moment their overpriced beverage meets their grasp. You are glad that you are neither a businessman nor a mother. But you wish you still had yours.  

Leone sets the cleaned plate atop the drying rack. Water splashes on the plates that have already dried. Somebody ought to put them away, you think. Although, it is convenient to leave them there for next use. What good is it to stack a plate in the cabinet when you are going to pull it back out for dinner?

You sling your purse over your shoulder. “I’ll see you later,” you say to Leone. Taking a quick breath, you leave the sanctity of the apartment, not quite ready to face the new day. You suppose you should be beholden to the predictable, albeit boring, cycle that has become your new life.

After all, you have found exactly what you wanted.

“Didn’t I?” you ask to no one in particular but yourself.

You did.

You settle onto the couch and twirl the fork through the mound of pasta. The tender trofie, complimented by the simple addition of pesto and cream, is the embodiment of comfort; content, you sigh and prop your sore legs upon the ottoman. It is a simple dish, to be sure – and Leone has perfected it. It has become a favorite of yours. He prepares it once a week now.

Seated beside you, he eats. The low hum of the television resonates throughout the room. It is nothing more than meager accompaniment to the words leaving your mouth. Between bites of your meal, you mutter unrepeatable expletives regarding incompetent coworkers and rude patrons. Regardless of the grievances that leave your tongue, you are relatively – though not quite entirely – happy.

Leone reaches for his wine glass, bending his wrist to swirl the nectar. Threads of red velvet flush the edges, only ever for a fleeting moment. He raises the Castello Silenzioso to his mouth. It will be his only glass tonight. It is plenty, for he drinks your soliloquy as if your words are a sweet wine poured from a from a bottle of blush – insobriety without consequence.

He enjoys listening to you complain about work far more than he should.

Once in your hand, the fork now rests against the plate, still. You catch Leone’s gaze, unexpecting to see the look of adoration that sweeps across his ombre eyes; perplexingly so, it fills you with a pang analogous to guilt. It is true that he is indebted to you. But that does not mean you cannot feel like an extortionist.

“I’m sorry,” you sigh. “I shouldn’t rant about work, especially considering that I don’t even need to be there. Mio Dio, I just feel like . . .”

A burden.

“You’re not a burden,” he interjects, as if he can peer through your clouded mind and devour the thoughts pulsing within. “If you ever say that again, I –” He cuts himself off, takes a second to breathe, and continues: “It’s not good to keep things bottled up inside. You know that.”

He is right; but the bottle has saved you once before. “You say that, but you don’t ever talk to me about your work, which is obviously something stressing you out. Perhaps, you should practice what you preach: pratica ciò che predichi, Leone.”

“No, because telling you would be a burden.”

You have no doubt that it assuredly is. And yet, your final threads of distrust for this man cling to the uncertainty of his identity. Leone gave you a home after he destroyed your first, and a family of two to replace that which he stole away. With each passing day – each morning spent in cool silence and evenings shaped by dinners of trofie – your once-steady flame of hatred for him extinguishes ever so slightly.

But forgiveness lies in the lavender fields still beyond your reach.

“Don’t I at least have a right to know what you do for a living?” you inquire, practically teetering on the edge of the soda. “Or how you came up with the money to pay off the debt?”

“No.”

You pout and desist. Perhaps he is right – perhaps it is better that you continue to dwell in the perpetual state of innocent ignorance of which you have lived in for so long now. Better that than to be the judge of something you cannot understand. Conceding is never easy, yet you do it anyways.

“Forget I asked.” You trail off, pausing before seeking an exit to the conversation. “It’s my night to do dishes; I should get started.”

Maybe tonight, you will put them away.

“Wait,” Leone says with a heavy sigh, catching you in mid-stance. “Just wait.”

You sit down. He supposes it would not hurt to tell you about his day – barring the incriminating details, of course. The smile upon your face when he begins to speak is confirmation that he has made the right choice.

Because you look at him as if his stories are as interesting as yours.

“That’ll be ₤11,500.”

“Grazie. Keep the change.”

The handle of the grinder is stuck again. The stray coffee bean catches betwixt the blade and the stainless-steel cup. You jerk the handle back and forth in an attempt to jostle the wedged apparatus free. It cracks under the tension of your grip, so much indeed that it might break at your touch. You would rather not be the one to break the stubborn coffee grinder, and it certainly would not be pleasant to have to pay for a new one. You decide that it might be best to leave it for the next person to find.

Pausini is scheduled to work after you. Though you would never say it to her face, you find her to be terribly boring and a klutz. Better her be the one to break it than you. Besides, your boss would not be surprised if she were in fact the one to do it.

“Hey, signorina.” The cramped space of the café smells of stale cigars and a peculiar cologne with the inclusion of the latest customer. It is a familiar blend that makes your palms clammy and your knees shake. “Seems like you have your work cut out for you, eh?”

You look to the man before the counter. Although a fresh, healing scar adorns the corner of his lip to the highest crook of his eyebrow – the stitching is so crude that it looks as if his torn skin had been zipped back together – his is a face you recognize in nightmares: the man, your former procurer, who murdered your mother and forced you to work the corner.  

With plenty of grit, fixing a jammed coffee grinder is easy. But confronting your past is as arduous as Atlas holding the globe with his own two hands. Regardless, you are not paid enough to do either.

The coffee grinder falls from your slackened grasp and shatters on the floor. You do not have the chance to meet the fearful look in his eyes, for you have already fled by the time he can process your face. He remembers you from nightmares as well. He remembers the man with sleek bobbed hair who split his cheek in half with the mere swipe of his finger, too. And the dirty ex-cop who nearly pulverized his kneecap with the heel of his shoe in the process, as if his bones were no more than fiberglass.

He leaves the café without bothering to place an order and finds himself glancing over his shoulder more often than not. Meanwhile, you push past street patrons and venders alike, ignoring the angry shouts thrown your way. Your cellphone vibrates in your pocket as your shift supervisor attempts to call you, to coax you back into work. But you cannot go back there right now. You will not. Instead, you squeeze your palms and bite your lip to ward off the ever-growing panic in your chest.

Never before has Leone’s apartment door looked so enticing – so welcoming – to you; not even on the night he first brought you home. You throw yourself inside and slide against the wall of the foyer, hand raised to your mouth to stifle your own sobbing. In the living room, Leone stands. You had not realized that he would be home. You are torn between running into his arms for comfort or running away. He makes the decision for you, catching you as your knees buckle and nearly cast you aside. 

He holds you flush, your head to his chest and his hand through your hair. For a moment, you are back in the alleyway with your skirt bunched around your ankles and a chill to your spine. Broken bits of green glass lie on the cobblestone and catch the fleeting glimmers of moonbeams. You stop and listen to the beating of your own obstinate heart. It tells you that you do not want his help – you simply do not. You need it.

“Hey,” he coos as you quake in his embrace, like a newborn fawn. A fawn with wings perhaps, for you feel your lungs inflate, as if you have been cast into the sky. To anywhere other than Napoli. You suppose the world will stop for a moment if only you just close your eyes. And so, you do. Though your teeth gnaw at your bottom lip, and your chest might split in two, you keep your eyes shut, to salvage that which has mended and threatens to unravel if you should let go.

The trouble of it all, you know, is that you had never really healed. You simply had not given enough thought to it.  You are young – trapped in what are supposed to be the grandest years of your life. But life is not forgiving, and you despise her all the same.

You feel only loss. And it is suffocating.

“Sei al sicuro, [Y/N].”

Leone does not ask why you have barged home hours before the end of your shift. But it does not matter.

“You’re safe.”

You do not believe him – you cannot even speak. You clutch him tighter and realize that he has been drinking. The scent of wine shrouds him like a perfume. Now you are dizzy and leaning on him is not enough: second-hand intoxication. He carries you to bed instead, for despite your shuttering of breaths and your gasps for air, you have asked him to do so. In the fortitude of a rumpled comforter and sheets, you lie awake, clutching the pillows that smell like his shampoo – honeysuckle, leather, and cedar. Admittedly, Leone has not slept in the comforts of his own bed in months, ever since he took you in. The couch is good for him, because you deserve the bed more, he thinks.

“You’re safe.”

But the pillows still smell like him, of course.

“I saw him, Leone.”

His hand brushes your back, hesitant, before it rests along your spine.

“I’m sorry.”

You meet his sunset eyes. He looks different without his makeup – he looks as tired as he truly is. And so do you.

“Please, just say you’ll protect me,” you bed, hushed. “Even if it isn’t true. Just give me something.”

Something to cling to, because the buoy is out of reach.

“Always.”

A wave knocks you adrift.

“Don’t leave me.”

You are pulled asunder.

“Never.”

You must be drowning.

He had not meant to fall asleep next to you. In your infectious exhaustion, you had succumbed, and he felt the temptation to do the same, soon enough. Though he promised himself that he would leave once you calmed down, he could not follow through. Your dampened cheeks had felt slick and sticky beneath his palms as he wiped them away. He lingered, admiring the way your lashes kissed the soft skin of your cheekbones, before he lied down. On his back, he memorized the pinprick holes of the ceiling, lost in thoughts of you.

He also promised that he would not fall in love with you – Leone never was one for keeping good to his word, was he? Feelings are harmless; if he does not act on them, he is content with longing. Alas, he settles in and away.

Hours later, you wake to the sound of gentle breaths next to you. Leone sleeps, caving after months without sleeping in a bed. Despite the additional blanket draped over both your bodies, you still shiver. You notice, too, that he has kept his distance. You think you might want him to hold you, but you refrain from crossing that line. It is a game that lovers play – and he is not yours. To love him, for what he has done and more, is sacrilege.

The daytime blues have blended into the nighttime rift of Napoli. The dark sky outside confirms that you have slept well into the evening, as if the analog lock on the bedside table was not telling. You glance over to Leone, who sleeps as if to forget the obligation of your existence. He looks younger this way, though you suppose that he is only a man of twenty, after all. He ought to look his age. 

Your stomach churns into knots as you begin to recollect the events of this afternoon. Your phone has several missed calls from your boss, and a text from Pausini informing you that you have been fired for your transgressions. No questions, no inquiries: just fired. You wonder what did it. Fleeing before the end of your shift, or the broken coffee grinder – perhaps the culmination of both. Realizing that you are still wearing your apron, you untether it and throw it into the darkness of the room. If you never find it again, you will be better for it. Never mind the emblems of your mistakes. They will only make you grieve.

It is an undeserving punishment, and one that will tar your resume forever. It feels as if your dreams have slipped past your fingers yet again. Groaning, you bury your face in your hands, unaware of Leone’s stirring behind you. You wish to escape to the place where no one you have ever known will come – to start anew, wherever that may be anymore. Alone, with no husband, no baby in a bassinet, and no lavender fields.

You crave solitude to wallow in your shame. Leone sits up, casting the blanket aside.  “I lost my job,” you mutter through your palms. “They fired me. I lost my fucking job.”

“You don’t need it,” he tells you. You suppose it is his way of reassuring you, though it does you little good. “The job, or the trouble it’s caused.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Sit in the living room all day eating bonbons, reading books, and watching television, like a princess in a castle?”

“Would it really be that bad?”

“For me, yes,” you affirm.

He sighs. “Alright,” Leone begins, “then we’ll start job searching tomorrow. In the meantime, it would do you good to take some time off.”

You shake your head. “I don’t want to take any time off. I can’t, Leone. You don’t understand. I need a job.”

“What do you want me to do about it right now?” You have no answer. “Conjure up one out of thin air?”

Until you do: “What about at that restaurant you always go to? Il Libeccio, or whatever. Do you think they’re hiring?”

He stiffens beside you. A cold look sweeps his face. You know that you have said something wrong.

“No,” he tells you with little room for debate. “And even if they were, I wouldn’t let you.”

But it is not your folly. To Leone, the rationality behind his refusal is simple: he wants nothing more than to keep you away from Passione. Even from his closest comrades. And even from Il Libeccio. Perhaps, it is that he fears what you will think of him should you discover his occupation – or his self-professed fall from grace, to go from being a poliziotto alongside your father, to a soldato of the most powerful gang in Italia. Indifference, anger, trepidation; he cannot fathom, and he does not wish to. He tells himself that, by keeping you away, he is keeping you safe.

But you do not understand that. And yet, how could you? In your ignorance, you scoff, irked by his insistence. “Why not? Are you afraid that your friends might see the consequences of you’ve done to my family and hate you for it? Maybe they should, if that’s what you’re so worried about.”

You have wounded him, though still he will not tell you the truth. You regret the words before they leave your mouth. His face morphs into a scowl, for your accusation has struck him, as if a knife has been placed to his belly. Your heart grows heavy with regret even as he exits the room, long overdue, with nothing else to say. The door slams so hard that it rattles on the hinges, and it makes you flinch. You are certain that your neighbors have heard it, for in the distance, a woman shouts, and a dog begins to bark; you feel like a proper idiot and a child, sitting there in the remnants of your work uniform. You wish the bed could swallow you whole. You wish to be anywhere but here.

Leone was wrong – you understand that now. A new wave of tears spills from your eyes, and you hastily wipe them away with the corner of your polo shirt. You know that you are a burden to him, indeed. You wonder what kind of apartment you will be able to afford with the money you have saved up. Perhaps it is time for you to fly the nest that you and Leone have both built together.

Perhaps it is time for a new start. 

| 3492 Words |

Tagging: @honeytea8​ @gloomygoregirl​ @idontlikerisottounlessitsnero​

[write-orflight]

Trouble: Chapter 4

*Gif not mine*

Pairings: HotchxReader

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2  Chapter 3

Rating: M

Words: 3.8K

Warnings: SMUT, Oral sex(male receiving), fingering, choking, slight degradation, dom/sub overtones. mention of past rape/abuse. witch shit. 

Request: OPEN/CLOSED

Summary: After Haley’s passing, Aaron Hotchner has lost the light in his eyes. He seems to find it it the most unlikely of places, an occult themed coffee shop ran by a witch.

A.N: If you don’t like smut, i’d skip some paragraphs but not the whole thing because there’s some major plot points. Tarot, wicca, and crystal information is very secondhand if you see any inaccuracies, no you don’t.

Chapter 4: I been facing trouble almost all my life

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” Hotch asks, immediately standing when he heard the crash of the phone.

You couldn’t tell him. You couldn’t tell hotch about that period of your life, you guys just got to the place you wanted to be at for quite some time. Charlie couldn’t do this to you again, you couldn’t let him fuck more of your life up. 

“Oh nothing, butter fingers sorry.” You say, plastering a smile on. Hotch doesn’t believe you, you can tell he doesn’t but he doesn’t ask questions either.

After talking for another hour, Hotch kisses you goodbye, knowing somethings off but not saying anything. You head upstairs and relieve Silena of her duties, promising her details of the night tomorrow. Once you see her out, you instantly crawl into your daughter’s bed. 

“Mama?” She says groggily. 

“Yea honey, it’s me.” 

She nods sleepily before laying her head on your chest. You run your hands through her hair watching her sleep for a spell. 

Charlie couldn’t take this from you. 

You won’t let him. 

—————————————

It’s been a couple months since the phone call and things were honestly going good, scary good. Business was booming, a famous blogger had stumbled upon your shop by accident and posted about it since then you and Silena seemed to have your hands so full with hipsters and entitled elitists that you needed a full time sitter. You didn’t like it but money was money. 

You and Hotch were also doing good. He finally took you on that date, which was dinner at a small Italian restaurant. He looked at you in shock as you rattled off the menu items in perfect pronunciation. You just shrugged explaining that you worked at an Italian bakery through college, which is where you learned the language and most of the recipes you used in the shop today. 

Both of you didn’t account for weather though and as soon as you left the restaurant it began to pour. Hotch gave you his suit jacket to cover your hair as the two of you bolted across the parking lot to his car. The original plan was to just wait out the rain until it was safe enough for you to both drive home but what ended up happening was the two of you making out like teenagers in the backseat of his car. 

It’s been about two months since then and while he’s gone a lot on cases he seems to still make time for you and, by proxy, Artie. The weekends the both of you had free were spent at the park with your kids who got along swimmingly. Artemis had the same personality as you in that sense, nice and outgoing. It was no surprise that she’d befriended Jack in a matter of days despite his shy demeanor.

You were still worried about Charlie. You tried not to be but you couldn’t help it. You had already moved multiple times because of him you couldn’t do it again. You had the shop, Artie was finally at that age where she was old enough to remember so she needed stability and now you had Aaron, who had already lost so much you couldn’t be another thing he lost. So you issued a new deal that gave any law enforcement officer 50% off a coffee order. Was it the best for your bank in the long run? No, but it gave you and Artie the protection you needed so he wouldn’t think of trying anything. That didn’t stop the threatening notes and phone calls though despite everything. 

You had finally decided though you weren’t going to run. Not this time. 

------------------------------------

You’d never been inside the FBI building before and until today you never had an excuse to. But since Artie was with her sitter all day and you had the time you decided you’d take a long lunch and come see Hotch. 

You got off the elevator 2 carriers of coffee in tow, figuring it’d be rude to bring Hotch something and not the others. As you walk into the bullpen the first person to take notice of you is Spencer. 

“Hey, Y/N. What’re you doing here?” 

“I thought I’d surprise Hotch with lunch and you guys with coffee.” You smile, handing the coffee carriers to him as he makes grabby hands at them. You take out the two cups you knew were yours and Aaron’s. “Where is his office?” 

Spencer points to the catwalk above you. “Upstairs, his door is the open one.” You mouth your thanks as you head up the stairs and into the opened door of the office, rapping quietly on the door to announce your presence. Hotch looks up annoyed but when he sees it's you his face softens a bit. He gestures to the phone he’s talking into and a chair for you to sit and wait. You close the door behind you and walk in silently placing the cup you brought in with you in front of him silently. He gives you a gracious look while you sit quietly in the chair across from him as he finishes his conversation. 

You’d never seen Hotch at work so you’ve seen him like this. You always knew he had an authoritative energy, but you’ve never seen him like this in his element, in charge. Your eyes slowly pan up the charcoal suit he was wearing, broad chest and shoulders ridged with stress. You watched his stern expression get more annoyed by whoever he was on the phone with as he blew heavy exasperated breaths through his nose. 

He was angry. You could tell. 

But for some reason it was incredibly hot to you. 

“I’m not compromising when it comes to my team, now Goodbye.” He said, angrily slamming the phone into the receiver. He pinches the bridge of his nose, obviously frustrated. You decide to lean forward placing your fingers in the aforementioned hand. He instantly looks up and fully laces your hands together, pulling your hand up so he could kiss the swell of your knuckles. 

“Hey, dove.” Your heart swells a bit at the pet name, still not fully used to the development of your relationship despite being together for months. “What’re you doing here?” 

“The shop was pretty slow and Malia is watching Bean. I figured I’d take a long lunch to come see you. Is it a bad time?” You ask. 

“I’ll always make time for you.” He says. Hotch didn’t have many regrets but one of the major gut-wrenching ones was the fact that he drove Hayley away and made her feel unloved because he couldn’t tear himself away from work. And while you were very understanding, in fact much more understanding and patient than she was, he wasn’t going to do that ever again. 

“You’re angry though.” You say, stating the obvious. 

“I was.” 

“Can I ask why?”         

“It’s just… my boss doesn’t like me very much and because of that she puts the team under unneeded scrutiny.” He sighs, waving his hand. “I don’t want to bore you with that though, how was your day?” 

You shrug. “You know it’s just coffee, so uneventful. And you don’t bore me, if something’s stressing you out, I wanna hear about it.” You look him in the eye, thumb moving over his knuckles. “I wanna help.” 

Hotch sighs again. “It’s just, when Hayley was killed my judgement was clouded for a while. I was angry and I was taking unnecessary risks that were ultimately damaging to the team. I realize that now but not soon enough because Strauss is still on me about everything. And I’m trying to work on my anger about stuff like that but obviously when my abilities as a leader are questioned every 5 minutes, it’s hard.” 

You ran your thumb up and down his knuckles the whole time he ranted. You get up to circle his desk before standing in front of his chair, leaning back against the edge of the desk “Can I give you something?” You ask. 

“If it’s another rock, I’m going to have to get a chest to put them all at some point, having them on my desk is taking up space now.” He laughs. 

“I think we’ve established it’s always going to be a rock, Aaron.” You reach into your pocket. “I actually carry this on me all the time and maybe it’ll help you too. This is raw aquamarine. Because it’s water based it’s used for it’s cooling energy. Sometimes to calm anger, sometimes to provide wisdom in conflict.” Aaron holds out his left palm, knowing the drill by now. “Please be used as a conduit of peace.” You say, before handing the stone to him. 

“Thank you, dove.” He says, placing the crystal next to the others. “You said you carry this one all the time?” 

“Yea.” 

“Why?” 

You sigh. “I used to have a really bad anger problem. Raw aquamarine helped me with it?”

“You...had an anger problem?” He said, extremely confused. “You? I’ve never even seen you angry.” 

“That’s because you haven’t done anything but make me happy, Mr. Hotchner.” You smile, leaning down to kiss him which he instantly reciprocates. “Also, you haven’t seen me drive, I have real bad road rage.” You laugh. 

“Well, thank you for the stone. I don’t think it’ll help my situation but it’s worth a shot.” He says. 

“Well, there is another way to absolve some of your anger.” 

“And what’s that?” He asks. 

“You could take it out on someone.” You say, looking him directly in the eye. You notice his pupils darken extremely. “I don’t mind.” 

“When do you have to go back to the shop?” He asks, standing from the chair so he’s towered over you now, the desk still blocking you from being able to back away from him. 

“I have another 45-50 minutes before Silena calls.” You look back at him innocently. 

“Lock the door and close the blinds, please.” He says, you don’t have to be told twice before you are squirming from under him to do just that. Once you do that you look back at Hotch who is gesturing for you to come closer which you do. 

“Are you sure you want this, dove? I know we haven’t done anything like this yet.” He asks you, you nod fast. “And you’ll tell me the second I do something that makes you uncomfortable?” 

“Yes, Aaron.” You say, practically whining. “Please, I need you.” 

Aaron instantly sweeps you into a deep passionate kiss that’s already leaving you groaning as his tongue sweeps across your bottom lip. He presses impossibly close to you and you feel him erect against your side. His hands travel up your sides and under your shirt slipping a hand into your bra, unhooking it before toying with your nipple. You moan loudly as his lips trail down your jaw sucking bite marks into your neck. 

“Fuck, look at you.” He says, lowly in your ears. “Already so desperate and loud for me when I’ve barely touched you.” You can’t help moan at that too, touching him everywhere your hands can reach. “I’m going to have to shut you up somehow, huh?” He says, you whimper slightly and he grins, devilishly at you. “Get on your knees for me, baby.” He says, and you nod fast before settling on your knees for the man before you. 

For a minute he just looks at you, studying you as if this was going to be the only time he’d see you like this. You watch him with hooded eyes as his hands go to his belt buckle and fly, revealing himself to you. You’re agape for a second trying not to drool he was certainly bigger than you’ve ever had. He tilts your chin up slightly so you can look him in the eye easily. 

“You want to make me feel good, right?” He says, you nod. “Use your words, baby.” 

“Yes, Sir.” You say, breathy. 

“Then do so.” He says, you nod before grabbing his member in your hand. Flattening your tongue to lick up the underside. He groans, grabbing the side of your head, pushing himself further into the warm heat of your mouth. He goes slow at first, testing the waters, trying to make sure you won’t freak out on him but soon enough he hears and more importantly he feels you moan. He grips your hair tighter before more forcefully shoving himself into your mouth. You have no choice but to flatten your tongue and take the assault, squeezing your legs together for some form of friction. 

“Look at you, so desperate to please. You wanna make me cum, dove?” He says, voice straining as he nears his end. You answer his question by sucking him harder, inducing a groan from the man. You start to feel him twitch on your tongue. “Fuck yes, that’s my good girl. Take it all.” He says, releasing himself into the back of your throat. You swallow quickly before leaning back on your knees looking up at him putting himself back in his slacks. 

“Come here.” He says, you stand up instantly and he cups your jaw, kissing you harshly before moving you until you’re seated on the edge of his desk. He reattaches his lips to your neck automatically going for that spot behind your ear you can’t help the groan that leaves you as you feel one of his hands undoing your pants. He doesn’t waste any time undressing you, just brings his hand into pants, cupping your heat. 

“You’re so wet for me already, dove?” He runs a finger up your slit before pressing inside you. A gasp that dissolves into a loud moan rips through your body. He grabs your jaw roughly with his other hand so you’ll meet his lips. His tongue running over the roof of your mouth as he slipped a second finger inside of you, curling slightly to hit that spot inside of you every thrust. You try to keep quiet but the moans and whimpers keep slipping out involuntarily. Aaron’s hand moves from your jaw to your neck, tightening slightly. 

“If you can’t keep quiet, I’m going to stop.” He says, looking deep into your eye as his thumb circles your clit. Your eyes roll back at the sensation. “You want everyone to hear you? Hear how desperate and needy you are for me?” You shake your head as much as you can with his tight grip around your throat. Trying to keep quiet as you felt yourself coming close to the edge. “No, I think you do. If we had the time, I’d bend you over this desk and fuck you like the needy slut you are. You’d want that wouldn’t you, dove? You want me to fill you up?” 

You nod, hips moving fast to meet his hand. “Yes, Sir.” You say, brokenly as you approached the edge. Hotch groans in response, hand tightening around your throat again. 

“Fuck, next time, Angel.” He says, thrusting his fingers faster now. “Now I need you to cum, Princess. Go ahead, let go.” You bite down on your own hand to keep quiet as your orgasm washes through you then, not knowing you were waiting on permission. Hotch rides you through it, only withdrawing when he hears you whine. He instantly pulls his fingers up to the seam of your lips, you open your mouth, inviting him in. He groans as he watches you suck them into your mouth, tongue rolling over them. He kisses you the second he pulls his fingers out. 

“Are you okay?” He whispers. “I hope I wasn’t too rough on you.” 

You shake your head, picking up your bra and shirt to put them back on. “No, I’m fine. You were great.” You say, leaning up to peck his cheek. 

“Good, because I’m not done with you yet.” He says, with a dark look. 

You pout. “I’ve gotta get back to the shop, Gus.” 

“Can I come see you tonight then?” He asks, you nod, smiling. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.” 

You stop in your tracks for a second. “We didn’t think this through, did we?” You say. “Everyone on your team is going to know exactly what we did.” 

“Most likely, but I don’t care.” He smiles, pecking you on the cheek before opening the door holding your hand as you guys walk toward the elevator. 

“I do.” You mumble, he only laughs at you. 

Later, you walk into the shop, hair that was down before now in a tight bun. You didn’t even bother trying to cover up the marks on your neck. It wasn’t like you had anything to cover it with and it was way too hot for scarves. Silena looks up from the book she was reading. Smirking when she sees your disheveled appearance. 

“Have a good lunch?” She says.    

You flush, walking back to put your apron on. “Yea, i-it was fine.” You paused before looking at her. “Your reading was right.” You say, inducing loud cackles from your best friend. 

-----------------------------------------------------

Since you left, Hotch was having trouble thinking of anything that wasn’t you. After he saw how beautiful you looked losing control under him he knew he needed to see more. See just how much he could break you. He was just about getting ready to leave work when he got the call. 

“SSA Hotchner speaking. Who is this?” He says, he didn’t recognize the number on the screen. 

“Hey Hotch, This is Silena. I work with Y/N at HG.” 

“I know who you are Silena, what’s wrong?” He says, knowing something had to be up for her to be calling him. 

“Umm nothing yet, it’s just… Y/N’s ex is here and is camping in front of the store, I assume to catch her while she’s leaving… he’s not a good dude.” Hotch could make out some crashing behind her and someone he could only assume was Y/n yelling in very angry italian. “I just thought maybe if you came and flashed the badge a bit he’ll leave her alone.” he hears more yelling and crashing. “And you could save your girlfriend from a murder charge. Win-win.” 

“I’m on my way.” He says. 

“Great, come to the back door please.” Silena says hanging up. 

Hotch knocks tentatively when he arrives at the back door, Silena lets him in with a small smile. 

“Thanks for coming, Hotch.” We’re hiding out in the kitchen right now but he’s still banging on the front door. Luckily, we already locked for close so he couldn’t just walk in.” She says leading him to the kitchen where he sees you aggressively beating some dough. He looks back at Silena confused. “She’s pissed, sorry.” 

“This is fucking ridicous!” You yell. “Lo fa sempre, cazzo. quel ratto bastardo! Non posso vivere un giorno in una fottuta pace. Lo ucciderò, cazzo.” (He always fucking does this. that rat bastard. I can't live one day in fucking peace. I'm going to fucking kill him.)  

You turn and see Hotch who is looking back at you concerned. You level your angry gaze to Sil now. “I told you not to fucking call him.” You seeth. “You said you were calling Mike.” 

“Yea, but I figured it’d be better if I called Hotch since he’s an actual Agent and Charlie will probably listen if he said fuck off.” 

“I didn’t want you to call anyone. I wanted to handle it myself.” 

“Yea by killing him. Which I’m obviously not going to let you do. You have a shop and daughter to worry about.”  

“Un motivo in più per ucciderlo, cazzo! Non posso lasciarlo vicino a mia figlia!” (All the more reason to fucking kill him! I can't let him near my daughter) 

“Hotch, can you please handle it so we can just go home?” Silena pleads with him. He gives you another worried look before walking out the front of the store. Where he sees a disgruntled poor shaped man banging on the front door. 

Hotch opens the door slightly so the man could hear him “The shop is closed.” He says. 

“Who the fuck are you?” The man spits. Instead of answering, Hotch just pulls out his badge. 

“Since the shop is closed, you’re trespassing. I suggest you leave.” 

“Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are. But I know that whore is in there and I’m not leaving until she comes out.” 

As if on cue, you come out despite Silena trying very hard to hold you back, brandishing a rolling pin as a makeshift weapon. 

“Get the fuck off my property, Charlie.” 

“Where’s my kid, Y/N?” 

“You don’t have a fucking kid! I have a kid!” 

“I’m her father, I have a right to see her.” 

“Vedrai prima le porte dell'inferno prima che ti permetta di avvicinarti a mia figlia!” (You will sooner see the gates of hell before I let you near my daughter!) 

“You need to leave.” Aaron says, practically bodying the man out of the shop. 

“I hope this shitshow shop is doing well because I’ll just take you to court, Y/N.” He yells while leaving. 

“Oh yea, take me to court, stronzo! Let’s see what they decide. The mother with a successful business who raised her, or an abusive drunk!” You yell after him. “Fuck!” You yell, throwing the rolling pin deep into the shop thankfully not hitting anyone but putting a small dent into one of your paintings. 

“Can you believe that fucking asshole wants to take me to court! Me?! I’m the one who should’ve taken him years ago if i wasn’t so fucking afraid.” You kick a chair over. “You shouldn’t have stopped me, I should’ve killed him.” 

“Y/N, calm down. You don’t know what you're saying.” Aaron says. “It especially isn’t something you should be saying in front of an agent.”  

“Considering you actually fucking killed the man who killed your ex-wife, you have no right to judge me for saying I want to kill my fucking rapist.” You snapped at him. You see the hurt expression come across his face. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, Aaron. That was a really shitty thing for me to say.” 

“No, it’s fine. You’re right, I did do that and I don’t regret doing it.” Aaron grabs your hands, smoothing his finger over your knuckles, an action you had just done for him earlier that day. Which felt like lightyears away now. “I want to help you, Y/N, but I think… I think you need to tell me about it first.” 

You sighed heavily. He was right, you knew everything about Aaron’s past. 

It was only fair he knew everything about yours.

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[esotericakit]

Fancy ranting about why you love kit snicket?👀 tbh I never found her character that compelling but I’m extreme open to changes of opinion hhh? pls feel free to ignore this hhgkkgkg

oh my god i’m so sorry i’ve been super busy I only just saw this but ahhh I love this question ((also sorry if some of thisk doesn’t make sense, i just got off a 7 hour bus ride and I am sleep deprived)). also a tw here for some discussions of painful stuff like death, loss, grief, implications of suicidal thoughts (nothing graphic)

okay so that’s valid bc she doesn’t get a lot to work with in tpp BUUUUUT what you do get is very rich. so basically it’s all tied in with vfd and what they’ve done to the sugarbowl gen. every member of the sugarbowl gen has been ripped from their family extremely young and recruited into this organisation, forced into life threatening situations, kept from loved ones for long periods of time (like kit and lemony in atwq) and have sort of convinced themselves, to varying degrees, that it’s important because the organisation is important. with lemony, he’s disillusioned and disappears after heartbreak. with beatrice and bertrand, they decide to pull away and leave. with jacques, he buries himself so deeply into his work with vfd so that he doesn’t have to reckon with what they did to him. and then you have kit.

with kit, I think she isn’t as sold to vfd as jacques and can still be somewhat critical of it, but also recognises that she’s trapped and always will be at their beck and call, and it’s not easy to break out from this illusion of the mighty organisation she’s a part of. she’s a quick thinker, she’s a mechanic, she’s resilient, she’s quick-witted, she’s as good a volunteer as they come, and so they exploit that and use her gifts (like building the queequeg and having her make the poison darts). for the most part, she buys into vfd’s bullshit, but i think it’s a sort of defence mechanism where she knows that resistance is going to be harder than compliance, so she puts her head down and does the work.

and this leads her to do things that she maybe wouldn’t have done of her own free will, like aiding in the murder of olaf’s parents. we don’t know exactly what kit and olaf’s relationship was like, but from what’s given in their interaction in te, i think they were young sweethearts, i think kit did genuinely care for him, and i think that it was vfd that ordered the murder, and not beatrice and bertrand, as many people have implied. so, by giving beatrice and bertrand the darts, she chooses the organisation over her relationship, and it can’t have been an easy choice. this then re-ignites the schism, olaf becomes a firestarter and kit has to watch as her brother is framed by olaf for crimes he didn’t commit.

and then lemony dies, or so she thinks. i’m of the mind that kit never learns that her brother is actually alive, and dies thinking she lost him. and we know that family is one of the most important things to the snickets; “we snickets look out for their own”, and I imagine kit going beside herself trying to find ways to protect lemony from all the attacks, the frame jobs, the rumours, only to have it be too late, and she’s lost her brother forever.

and so she’s left there, mourning lemony, and all she has left of her family is jacques. and she loves jacques but his first priority is vfd, it’ll always be vfd. she has beatrice and bertrand, but they’ll leave to the island soon, and they’ll leave vfd after that, and be largely out of her life for good.

she starts building the queequeg and at last, her vfd work seems to be doing some good. she meets ink, monty’s latest discovery, and at last, it seems that other members of vfd are doing some good. and then she hears about the medusoid mycelium, and the illusion of vfd cracks a little bit more. she desperately tries to stop gregor from creating the mycelium, only for that to fail. another loss.

then, we don’t know the nature of kit and dewey’s relationship so again, going off what we have with the fact that she is pregnant when we meet her and that dewey’s last word is “kit”, not to mention the way that she explicitly asked about dewey’s wellbeing when she meets the baudelaires on the island, the implication is heavily that she and dewey are romantically involved. and I think she found a lot of solace in dewey. dewey, in his own way, had lost a lot, from his parents to his brother (joining the firestartera), to his own identity, all to vfd, and he understood where she was coming from in terms of being disillusioned but also being trapped.

and then the baudelaire fire happens, and it’s very clear to everyone that olaf was involved (whether he actually was or not is a different debate). so this is now 3 people who kit has loved that olaf has had a hand in their deaths. someone she loved killing other people she loved, and it’s the most painful thing.

we don’t know where kit is for the events of asoue, but regardless, she has to hear how other associates and friends have died or been killed at the hands of olaf, and each one hurts more than the last, because she can’t stop or slow down how many people she’s losing, and I think there’s an element of not being able to help but blame herself for his actions, because if she hadn’t helped kill his parents, maybe he wouldn’t be doing this.

and then jacques dies, and it’s the biggest blow yet. she just lost the last member of her family she had left, and she can’t cope, she stays in bed and decides that, despite dewey, despite her child, she’ll never leave her bed again.

what does make her leave, however, is vfd business; the message from quigley. she knows that she can’t even take the time to mourn her brother, she has to keep moving, and the pressure to carry the whole “good” side of vfd, to continue what her brother started, is on her shoulders, and that’s immense.

and so that’s when we meet her in tpp, and she is a broken person. she has lost so many people, been put through so much, had her entire worldview and foundation turned upside down, and she’s still doing all of this work, putting her life on the line over and over again, for an organisation that has done nothing but take things from her and hurt her, but there’s absolutely nothing else she can do. she’s pregnant and she can’t allow herself to be happy or excited about that because she just doesn’t have it in her. all she knows is that she has to get through this as quickly as she can, losing as few people as she can. her conversation with the baudelaires is interesting too, and is so exemplary of how she’s mourning; she remembers little details about beatrice and bertrand (like the feathers on bea’s shawl) and reminisces about how much the children look like them, and you can tell that it’s extremely painful to go through

she then leaves the baudelaires and risks her life again trying to rescue the quagmires, and it’s unclear whether it was a success or not but regardless, when she finally pulls herself up onto that stupid book raft she insists on making, she’s so so so so tired. she’s in labour, she doesn’t know what’s happened at the hotel denouement, she doesn’t know whether she’ll return to the city and find more destruction or not. i think the only thing stopping her from giving up while on that raft is the thought of her child and dewey, so she holds on.

she washes up on the island and the baudelaires are there, which means they’re alive, so that’s something. but then she hears that dewey’s dead. that the hotel went up in flames. that all that’s waiting for her in the city is more pain and more loss. and that’s the final blow, that’s the moment that she knows that there is nothing can happen that can repair the damage created by what’s been taken from her. she refuses the apple, citing fear that it would harm the baby, but I think the truth is that she couldn’t bear to consider continuing her life after all that’s happened, even if it means sacrificing a life with her child.

and then olaf shows up and he rescues her from the raft and she’s suddenly face to face with the reason for so much of the loss she’s faced. it was him who killed so many of her associates, her friends, her brothers. and she doesn’t forgive him, because she knows she isn’t big enough to do that. we can also hypothesise about whether or not olaf could be the baby’s father (i like to headcanon that she doesn’t know either way but it’s either dewey’s or olaf’s, and the stress of that makes this moment even harder). but she also doesn’t have the energy to be angry at him. she knows these are her last moments, and she knows that olaf was a victim of vfd, just like she was. so she touches his tattoo and chooses instead to recite poetry, because it’s easier than being angry, it’s easier than hating him. he recites poetry back, and then dies. and despite the fact that he’s hurt her so much, she did care for him once, it’s one more person she’s lost, when she didn’t think she had anyone else to lose.

and then she gives birth to her daughter, using the last ounces of strength she has left. it’s a horrendously sad thing, because i think she could have had the capacity to love her daughter, to be a good mother, but the pain won out and she stopped being able to want to help herself, if that makes sense. so she gives her daughter life, the only thing she has left to give her, and then dies.

I think it’s so staggering to think about this person, who could have lived a life full of colour and fire, and see her completely beaten down to what she ended up as in tpp. she’s a prime example of what vfd does, she’s the last one standing of her generation, and the toll that takes on her is immense. i think the juxtaposition of her recklessness and her grief against the fact that she’s pregnant and about to become a mother is even more heartbreaking. she’s such a compelling character and so gorgeously written, even though what we see of her is so brief. she’s a person who so desperately wants autonomy and control over her situation, things she’ll never truly have, so she does reckless things that endanger her life, to get that control back and because she truly stops caring about her well-being.

and it’s a little comforting i guess? i tend to project onto kit a lot because of some of my own life experiences and losses and i understand where she comes from a lot of time time and it’s such a difficult place and my heart just hurts for her a lot

i’m sorry that this was so long, i got carried away lol thanks for the question though!!

[uchihasakurawrites]

Of T-Shirts and Monsoons

Rating: T for language

Summary: In which Sasuke proposes to a fuming Sakura in a cave in the middle of Rain. 

Word Count: 2,243

A/N: Hello everyone! It’s been about seven years since I last wrote for this fandom (or wrote creatively at all, really). This random idea popped into my head while I was watching old SasuSaku AMVs, and I just thought I’d go for it! I have a few ideas for longer SasuSaku fics, so I wanted to test out a few drabbles/oneshots to shake off some of the rust since it’s been a while. Let me know what you think! Also feel free to send prompts my way. This was done in about an hour, but I hope you enjoy~

Cross posted on Ao3 and Fanfiction.net

___________________________________

Sakura was fuming as she stomped into the cave, ignoring Sasuke’s wary gaze as she slung her pack to the ground with enough force to create fine cracks in the stone beneath it. She stripped out of her blood-and-rain soaked jonin vest and tossed it equally as haphazardly to the side, not sparing a glance to where it landed with a decided thwack. Sasuke rubbed the bridge of his nose and made quick work of using a small katon to set a small fire in the back of the cave. Typically, it wouldn’t be worth the risk of attracting unwanted attention, but he figured the benefits of not having to deal with an angry and cold Sakura were decidedly worth dispatching any rogues that were foolish enough to have followed them. Not that he and Sakura had left any of the nin in a state to pursue them, he thought with a smirk.

“Stupid Rain with it’s stupid freak monsoons and stupid rogue nin who ambush anything that fucking moves through their ‘territory.’ Sure, take out the fact that you’re bored in a time of peace out on civilians who can’t fight back.”

The clang of Sakura’s weapons pouch against the cave wall punctuated her impatience with the recent trend of rogue bands staking claim to smaller civilian towns and merchant paths. They’d managed to defend three different merchant caravans and liberated two villages from rogues in the past month and a half alone. She didn’t mind helping the civilians, of course, but why couldn’t these rogues get it through their skulls that this was peace time? She just wanted a little peace, dammit!

Sasuke crouched down next to his own pack to dig out a spare change of clothes. After just over a year and a half of traveling together, he was more than used to Sakura’s flinty temper and knew she would tire herself out soon. Best to keep out of it.

Sakura dropped to the ground to hunt for a clean shirt of her own. She pulled out shirt after shirt, noting with growing frustration that each was either covered in blood, lacerations, or sand. If she ever saw another grain of sand, it would be far too soon. A growl tore from the back of her throat.

“Stupid Suna with it’s stupid sand. Why the hell can’t some other village have poison experts so I don’t have to trudge through the damned desert just to collaborate on our new Inter-Village Poison Center? Who the fuck even came up with that idea?” Sasuke sent her a pointed look, knowing full well that she had fully supported Shizune’s initiative, which Sakura missed. “And why the hell can’t an epidemic break out in, I don’t know, the Land of Tea and not the middle of fucking Rain? At least then-”

Sakura nearly choked when she glanced up  just in time to see Sasuke pull off his rain-soaked shirt and wring it out. No matter how long they spent together or how intimate they became, Sakura’s mind never failed to short-circuit at the sight of Sasuke’s bare skin. It didn’t matter where or how much - one glimpse, and her mind checked out. Although he would never express it outright, Sakura surmised that Sasuke knew exactly what his body did to her and used it to his advantage - say, when he was trying to distract her from a particularly troublesome conversation or train of thought.

It worked more often then she cared to admit.

Her sharp eyes caught the way Sasuke shifted his weight away from his left side as he moved to pull on a fresh shirt - crisp black with the Uchiha fan emblazoned proudly on the back. After a brief moment admiring his figure before it was hidden by the fabric, Sakura frowned at the inflammation beginning to flare up around his ankle. She cleared her throat and motioned for him to come over, tirade momentarily forgotten. Kami knows Sasuke would never admit that he had lost his footing for a moment during their earlier confrontation, unused to fighting on branches that had been rotted through from near-constant rain, and actually ask her to heal him. He’d become much more willing to allow her to heal him after a particularly difficult fight, but it was rare for him to outright ask for her assistance. She usually offered before he needed to.

She met his withering look with a hard gaze of her own.

“You,” she jabbed a finger in his direction, and he raised a brow, “stop being a stubborn ass and sit.” She motioned to the spot next to her with a touch more force than necessary. Sasuke didn’t budge and continued to ruffle through his pack. Sakura’s eyes narrowed.

“Sasuke-kun, --”

With a sigh, Sasuke fixed Sakura with a stern look and tossed her one of his extra shirts before coming to sit next to her. Laying a hand on Sakura’s shoulder, he formed the tiger seal to send a small katon over her skin to dry off the remnants of water that clung to her skin and hair. His jaw tightened at the blue-purple tint her lips had begun to take in the chill. A smile worked its way onto Sakura’s face when she realized the telltale signs of concern in his posture as he hovered near her.

“Change, Sakura. Then heal.”

His gaze dropped pointedly below her chin, and Sakura’s cheeks heated as she followed his eyes and realized her state of undress. Over the course of her rant, she had stripped down to her chest bindings and fitted shorts. Although Sasuke had seen her in far less, embarrassment washed through her as she scrambled to unfold the shirt he had tossed to her.

Her demeanor shifted when she went to slip it on. Sasuke glanced over when he felt Sakura stiffen at his side, brow furrowing when he noted the pensive look on Sakura’s features. Her eyes, previously a battle-worn seafoam green, took on a deeper, more thoughtful jade. She snagged her lip between her teeth, and Sasuke glanced down to see her fingers gently tracing the outline of the Uchiha fan printed on the back of the shirt.

 Spine going rigid, Sasuke wracked his brain for the other instances Sakura had borrowed clothes from his pack - a shirt here, a poncho there. Her hands-on approach to fighting combined with the blood, bile, and poison that came with being a medic meant that her clothes tended to ruin more quickly than his. The sight of her rummaging through his pack for a spare change of clothes was a familiar one. What he hadn’t noticed, however, was that Sakura was always careful to select one of the few articles of clothing he carried that didn’t carry his clan’s symbol. He kept a few basics on hand just in case they needed to be incognito through a town that was still hostile towards the Leaf.

His mind jumped to the easiest explanation he could think of for her hesitation: she was ashamed. Not that he blamed her for wanting to distance herself from his clan’s marred legacy, but the very thought lit a fire in his veins that had him pulling away from her. Anger and bitterness combined with a pang of disappointment that he didn’t particularly want to address.

Sakura started, broken from her thoughts as she took note of Sasuke’s sudden change in demeanor. It was a testament to the time she had spent becoming attuned to the small giveaways of Sasuke’s emotions that she pieced two-and-two together. His flinty eyes shifted between the shirt in her hands and the cave wall as he refused to look at her.

With another quiet smile, Sakura carefully folded the shirt, laid it on top of her pack, and moved to stand next to Sasuke. She could feel some of the tension leave him when her shoulder brushed his, but his eyes remained stony.

“Sasuke-kun.” She waited for a moment before his gaze flickered down to hers, hoping that the softness in her own gaze would convey whatever she wasn’t able to in words. She placed a gentle hand on his bicep, hoping to ground him as she mulled over her words. Talking about the Uchiha Clan with Sasuke took a delicate touch, a touch she had learned after a short but explosive period of trial and error.

“Sasuke-kun, your clan’s history has nothing to do with why I won’t wear the Uchiha fan. Your legacy is a part of you, and I love you. All of you. Even the darkest parts that you don’t think love can reach. You know I’m damn persistent, and if I can wait this long to get you to accept that I love you, then I can wait as long as you need me to before you accept that that includes everything about you.”

She took a deep breath, averting her own eyes now that he had fixed her with an unreadable gaze of his own.

“Even if you won’t outright admit it, I know that your clan is precious to you. I’ve watched you carve the clan’s symbol into your kunai every time you replenish your stock. And I’m not an Uchiha, Sasuke-kun, so wearing the clan’s symbol - even casually like this, just feels like I’m not giving it the honor it deserves.”

Silence. Sakura was used to silence from Sasuke, and had learned how to interpret his different silences. There were the more distraught, brooding ones that required a bright, calming touch and the occasional pouty silence after she had smiled just a touch too openly at a flirty cashier; the explosive silences that she usually drew him into a spar during to release some energy and the frustrated, yet concerned silence when he thought she was too reckless in a battle.

This seemed to be one of his thoughtful silences - one that she didn’t feel she should interrupt. Noting with no small amount of satisfaction that most of the rigidity had melted away from his body, Sakura moved to turn back towards her pack.

“As for clothes, I’m sure I can put together something for tonight, so don’t worry about me. I’m pretty sure there’s a little merchant town not to far from here that we can stop by tomorrow to stock up on some new -”

Sakura swallowed her words as a cool hand enclosed her wrist and tugged her back. Her eyes widened when she found herself pressed to Sasuke’s chest with his arms wrapped tightly around her back. While Sakura was no stranger to small acts of affection from Sasuke - a forehead poke here and a sleepy  arm around her waist there - it was incredibly rare for him to initiate a hug. In fact, she was pretty sure she could count the number of times he had hugged her on one hand.

“Sa-Sasuke-kun?”

He huffed into her hair, something between a laugh or a sigh - she couldn’t quite tell. So she simply decided to remain quiet, tracing her fingertips along his back as she waited for him to voice his thoughts. She swore Sasuke Uchiha was going to be the death of her when he spoke again and she quite literally choked.

“Marry me.”

The words were so quiet that Sakura nearly convinced herself that they were a figment of her imagination. A statement, not a request. She pulled back slightly, wide eyes meeting Sasuke’s steady gaze.

“W-What?”

Sakura winced as soon as she asked the question, knowing Sasuke loathed repeating himself (though it was a well-kept secret that Sasuke didn’t mind repeating himself for her and her alone). But surely he couldn’t hold it against her given the situation. He simply sighed at her request, arching a brow that said he knew that she had clearly heard him yet repeated himself anyways.

“Marry me and wear the damn shirt, Sakura.”

When she continued to stand in front of him with nothing more than a shocked stare, Sasuke huffed again and half-rolled his eyes in a rare display of amusement. Tonight seemed to be a night for rare occasions, it seemed.

Sidestepping Sakura’s frozen form, he retrieved his spare shirt from its place on Sakura’s pack, unfolded it, and gently worked it over her head. A warm glow replaced the earlier fire in his veins as Sakura came to and allowed her arms to be guided into the shirt’s sleeves.

Sasuke spent a minute admiring the fan on her back, pride burning in his chest at the thought of Sakura as the Uchiha matriarch. A small part of him idly wondered if his mother would be pleased to see her position passed on to Sakura. He liked to think she would.

Sakura turned towards him, feeling a tug in her chest at the vulnerability in Sasuke’s expression. She wasn’t sure what kind of proposal she had expected from Sasuke - hell, she hadn’t even been certain she should expect one at all. At least, not for a while. She certainly hadn’t imagined one of the happiest moments of her life to come in the middle of a freezing cave in Rain after treating a minor epidemic, getting ambushed by a plucky squad of overambitious rogue nin, and nearly drowning in a monsoon.

So yes, she hadn’t expected a proposal to come in this type of situation, but she had known her answer to this question for nearly a decade.

“Yes.”

[blue-alien-boi]

It was silent, he hasn’t heard that in a long time.

Normally he would beg for the noise to stop. Constantly hearing Tommy shout insults and jokes making him pitty his parents, or Tubbo who seemed to be a new talkative person every day, even Wilbur’s insane rants and dramatic songs made him long for ear plugs.

He only now realized how much he missed it. Tommy and him singing along to music disks, Tubbo rambling on about his friends or a bee fact he learned, and Wilbur strumming different notes on his guitar letting out a gleeful shout when he found something he liked.

Hell, he would even take their screams, jokes and taunts, anything to fill the soundless home once full of laughter that now felt so lonely.

His healed boots made a click with every step and the whine of a lever echoed against the walls but it wasn’t nearly as loud as his mind which wouldn’t shut up.

The pride in the clink of swords colliding and the blast of fireworks beginning to provide new memories of victory. The gasps when he stood where Tubbo was, blood on his sword. The screams and shouts of the people who trusted him as the explosions from withers and TNT became deafening. The loudest tho, was the look on their his families.

Looks of anger fueled him, made him feel powerful. looks of fear didn’t phase him, he was used to it. Even looks a betrayal he could ignore, after all it was their fault for trusting him but he couldn’t deal with disappointment.

As he stood where he killed tubbo (again) he saw Wilbur’s face from the remains of his button room. He wore a smile but his eyes showed how he really felt. He was disappointed. Not in himself but in him. Wilbur had needed someone to help him deal with his feelings.

Tommy had tried but he was young and just as emotional. Philza was no where and couldn’t offer his dad advice. He was supposed to help. He was the least emotional but he had experience with losing control. Wilbur needed someone to say it was ok to feel angry, betrayed, and sad. He should have hugged him until he could feel the other fall limp, tired out like a kid. Instead he used his feelings to further his plans.

The look Tubbo gave him wasn’t one of fear or betrayal it was acceptance, a I told you do. This kid was so young and had dealt with so much. There was never a peaceful moment for him, they both knew that.

Even when he stood as the new president his eyes darted around anxious. He had been here before, he knew good things never lasted for him. He should have lt the boy be happy even if it was only going to last for a moment longer. He should have been there letting him enjoy himself or even show him happiness as the world burned. Instead he proved his point, good things don’t last.

Tommy was emotional, his face counld never his what he felt. Complete joy when he played his disks, anger when they fought in the pit, even fear when he talked to a slowly breaking Wilbur. He thought he had witnessed every emotion but that day Tommy showed a new side. Sadness.

Unlike Tubbo he let himself feel happy. He danced, cheered, and even had tears in the corner of his eyes. When he turned and saw techno the tears started to fall. Tommy watched as he stood next to tubbo, weapon in hand. Anyone else would have thought nothing of it, he always carries a weapon and Tubbo was his friend, but Tommy knew better. He had seen this all before.

Time slowed down for Tommy as he shook his head making direct eye contact with him. He saw the remains of joy leave his face, fear setting into his features, anger curling his hands into fists, and sadness. His body trembled but frozen in place as the memories of the festival flashed back. He opened his mouth but only mouthed a single word, please. His eyes had started releasing tears, wanting to look away but he watched. He was no longer a warrior but a sad child who wasn’t ready to face reality. He had to look away but he knew Tommy was still watching and after that day he would never look at him the same way.

Those looks hadn’t left his brain and he doubt they ever would but there was one look or lack of that haunted him. Philza, he didn’t look at him, he looked at a monster.

His eyes were glazed over, despite looking in his direction they looked through him. The land he once heard great stories of now lay rubble under his feet. He held his son with his blood still on his hands as he looked out. He watched as he killed Tubbo and Tommy, his own brother.

Philza looked to him but his gaze didn’t meet his eyes. It looked everywhere but there. He stopped to focause on the blood, eyes trancing over scar he had helped bandage years ago. When he look at him he no longer saw a son but a beast destroying his family.

He shrugged off his boots, hung up his cape, and checked what supplies was left. He nearly smiled seeing that they took his words to heart when he said what’s mine is yours. Their looks replayed in his head and the smile stopped in its tracks.

Exhausted he collapsed on the first soft surface he saw. Not bothering to change out of his clothes that were covered in blood, sweat, and tears.

Tears?

He touched his face. He was crying and he hadn’t known. He wondered when it started and when would it stop. His body wasn’t shaking, his breathing was steady, and his heart felt numb.

He smiled. Maybe because he wanted to feel somthing again, maybe out of a crazed tired, or simply because he remembered the last time he cried. It was when he was a younger, he had gotten in a fight with Tommy or Wilbur over somthing childish.

They didn’t realize how upset he was until he said something that he knew would hurt. He should have remembered what he said but he didn’t or maybe he choose not to. Tommy ran away with Tubbo to their fort and Wilbur wouldn’t leave his room not even playing his guitar. It had been silent.

He had thought things would go back to normal they fought all the time this was no different, but when dinner came around tommy ate at Tubbo’s house and Wilbur ate in his room. He was never good with emotions but he knew he needed to say he was sorry. He got Philza’s help to get all gathered and he stood in front of them silent.

He always had hid him heart under layers of armor and sarcasm but under their gaze he let himself become vulnerable. He said some apology he doesn’t remember but he rememberers the realization he was crying.

He closed his eyes trying to get the tears to stop but instead he felt arms around him and Wilbur’s voice shaking with tears saying he was sorry too. Tommy and Philza joined the hug and he didn’t have to look up to know everyone was crying too. He had never liked hugs but he missed that one.

He open his eyes the warmth from the memory fading, his powerful body was still, eyes took in the blacks stone walls of his base, he felt his clothes coated in dirt, blood, and sweat, and he felt tears slowly collect on his chin.

The crown that was lopsided on his head began sliding off and it fell to the ground with a echoing crash. It rolled in place making a lot of small noises before coming to a dull stop.

Staring at the ceiling he was was still until somthing caught his eye. He laughed and couldn’t stop. He sat up and clutched his stomach shaking with laughter as he looked back up. On the ceiling was writing, even now he couldn’t escape them.

One message was in a silver sharpie saying, I’m dad’s favorite but if he was here he would be proud -Wilby. The second was in a red pen saying, I WUZ HERE. He had taught Tommy that if he wrote that the people couldn’t prove he did it and he used it even since despite using the same red pen which destroys the whole point. The last one was upside down and he had to turn around to see it. It was a drawing of him Tubbo, Tommy, Wilbur, and Philza drawn in a green crayon. It was stick figures but the amount of love in it made up for the lack of artistic skill. Underneath the drawing he say the words, love Tubbo with a B written back words.

Despite all the laughter the tears never stopped and as he calmed down and rolled back around he stared at his crown. Unlike the rest of his clothes it was still clean and shined against the black walls.

He watched as a few of his tears fell on it’s surface. It was made of pure gold but it felt fake. Unaware oh what he was doing he reached for the paper crown his family had made him as a joke. He held the crown close.

He decided he hated the silence wishing he could hear their laughter, rants, even them yelling at him would be better. His brain rotated through the same four looks the same silent sound.

His eyes began to give in as his body and heart begged for rest. His brain normally would pile on thought after worry after regret making it take hours to fall asleep, but this time his mind was as quiet as the rest of the world.

Blood stained his clothes as he lay still. The only proof he was alive were the tears slowly streaming down his face. He had survived with hardly a skratch but something died in him that day. The man powerful and feared was curled in on himself clinging onto a paper crown now covered in tear stains. As he drifted to sleep he heard a familiar guitar softy strum the tune to Melohigh. Warmth surrounded him as he learned into the imaginary hug.

A foolish king who tried to destroy everything and ended up destroying himself, is there a sadder sight?

[ariesrondeletia]

Which yandere haikyuu characters do you think would end up kidnapping their s/o?

Art credit:  ながる

Thank you so much for this request! I haven’t made a list before and this was so much fun to do. Because of that I got kind of carried away tho… If you want me to write another school team let me know, I’m more than happy to rant about these haicuties. Sorry, that’s cheesy but I love them.

I think almost every yandere has the potential to kidnap their darling if they’re pushed far enough. There’s a lot of reasons to kidnap a darling ranging from wanting to protect the darling to a desire to keep the darling all to themselves. That said, some yanderes are more likely to kidnap their darling than others. For this list, I’ll just go through Karasuno and rank them from least to most likely. 

Yachi wouldn’t dream of locking her darling up. She’s undeserving of even the slightest glance. She could never bring herself to do anything that could potentially harm her darling. Plus, she doesn’t have a clue about how to kidnap her darling. The furthest she’ll go is sneaking into your room to watch you sleep and maybe grab that old t-shirt in the back of your closet. You can always feel her presence just over your shoulder but she’s good at hiding herself away before she could get caught. Honestly, it’ll take ages for her to gather the courage just to speak to you. And when she does, she can only stumble through a compliment. She’s so adorable that you’ll forgive her stranger habits, even though she leans in to smell your hair from time to time. She won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to and it’s because of that very kindness chances are you’ll become such a cute couple. With her doing her best to make you happy, you find yourself making more and more time for her. Just pray that you never stumble upon her twisted shrine. All in all a 1/10.

Asahi worships his darling and would never risk anything that could potentially make his darling hate him. He desperately wants to ensure the safety of his darling, but the thought of them being angry is too much to bear. He’s far more likely to try to persuade his darling to stay with him. It’ll start with him just suggesting the two of you becoming roommates to cut down on costs. From there he’ll push himself into your life, staying on the sidelines, but always nearby should you through any scrap of attention his way. He’s so needy and clingy, but he’s such a sweet guy. He’ll make you paranoid by subtlely pushing his anxieties off on you until you become just as afraid of the outside world as he is. It takes some convincing, but he’ll do everything he can to make you work from home. You’ll spend most of your time indoors. He’ll beg you to stay here any time you mention the outside world. But if you push wanting to go outside, he won’t stop you. He’ll trail you like a helpless puppy, but he won’t ever stop you from doing something you want to do. He also gets a 1/10.

For the most part, Yamaguchi is in the same vein as Asahi. The main difference is that Yamaguchi’s fears lie less with the outside world and more with you leaving him. He’s not used to being completely independent, it’s something he’s only beginning to learn throughout being on the team. He’s very dependent on you. Whenever you’re around he wants you to make every choice for him. He’ll ask about which shirt looks better on him, what kind of meals he should make, what kind of flowers he should plant, whether or not he should change his hair. He wants you to praise him at every turn. And he’s willing to go to any length to become your ideal man. Because he’s so dependent on you he’ll beg you to stay by his side. He simply can’t live without you and it’s so hard to say no to him. He’s a lot pushier than you’d expect. He’ll cling to you and cry if you try to leave. You can push him away and go despite his protests, but it won’t stop him from stalking you. I’d put him at a 2/10.

Suga seems like such a sweetheart, but he’ll do almost anything to keep his darling safe and happy. He’s already incredibly clever and when you combine that with his intense love for you it results in a very manipulative yandere. He’s not cruel about it, he merely wants to convince you that the two of you are perfect for one another. He adores you and that comes through with every gift he gives, every smile he sends your way, and with every compliment that is just so genuine, it makes your heart soar. What you don’t know is that he’s spent hours watching you in order to ensure that he can give you the perfect gift and know the exact compliment to quell your anxieties. It’s painstaking work but it’s worth it if it means you’ll stay with him. When he asks you out you won’t hesitate. Your relationship is the best you’ve ever had, at least from the perspective you have. Suga’s good at keeping all of his less desirable tendencies out of sight. But now that he knows every need, every insecurity, every desire, and every thought that goes through your head, he’ll have no trouble finding the right words to keep you away from the world. He’s so subtle about it you’ll forget why you even wanted to go outside. There’s nothing for you there, he’s all you need. He gets a 4/10.

Kiyoko believes that she knows what’s best for her darling. She’s spent most of her highschool life subtly mentoring a team of volleyball players. At this point, she’s so used to people looking up to her that she’s shocked to find someone more perfect than she is. Even if no one else can tell, she knows what a catch you are. She’s so sweet as she babies you. She’ll act like an older sister type, always watching over you. She’s there to help you with your homework, so kindly fixing your mistakes. You can come to her for advice anytime you need. It won’t be long before she gets more and more controlling. She’ll pick out your clothes for you and she’ll cook healthy meals for you. It feels like she’s just a loving girlfriend taking care of you, but in reality, she’s making you dependent on her. Soon you’ll be coming to her for every little problem you have, not realizing how helpless you are without her. If you try to leave, you’ll find life to be significantly harder without her. As soon as you face any challenge Kiyoko will appear by your side, showing you how much easier life could be if you’d just let her love you. Matching Suga, she gets a 4/10.

Right in the middle, we have Ennoshita. He’s used to being left in the background to make room for other, more passionate players, which makes it very easy to fly under your radar. He’s always around you, hovering on the outskirts of your gaze until he can build up your trust in him. You’ll get used to him being by your side for a while. And then things will start to get uncomfortable. He’ll hang around you much longer than he should, coming over to your house to study, only to stay despite the fact that the two of you are done studying. He’ll go through your stuff in a casual way, as though everything is totally normal. The comments he makes about your room and the things you own are… off-putting. It’s like he already knows everything about you. He brushes it off as he just knows you well but there’s this one-sided intimacy. He doesn’t do anything, not really. And yet, you feel trapped. He won’t physically kidnap you. He doesn’t say anything cruel. It’s just the atmosphere, though there’s no evidence to suggest otherwise, you know you can’t escape. Dead center, 5/10.

Tanaka is a unique blend of a worshipper and a possessive. He reveres you as a god. He expects you to hate him, most women do, but that won’t phase him in the slightest. He can take your hatred, he’ll relish in anything you give him. He’ll let you curse out his name or kick him to the ground if it’ll bring a cruel smile to your face. But that doesn’t mean he’ll let you do whatever you please. He doesn’t want anyone else to dirty his precious darling, so he’ll keep you separated from anyone that isn’t him. He knows how disgusting people can be and he views it as his life’s mission to protect you from them. Everyone is a potential threat. And you’re just too kind, too forgiving, he has to step up. He can keep you away from those perverts while still basking in your presence. Of course, if you want to it’s easy to escape. Tanaka will inevitably make more than a few mistakes. The only thing is, he’ll work terrifyingly hard to find you. What he lacks in intelligence he makes up with pure determination. When he finds you he’ll take you back to your shared home, carrying you so gently despite how much you thrash and fight and struggle. He’ll apologize as soon as the two of you are home together. Was he not good enough? He’ll be better, spending every free second by your side. He leans to a 6/10.

Noya is insane. There’s really no other way to put it. The most perverse out of all of them, he’s practically drooling at the chance to be by your side. He has such little relationship experience it takes 0.5 seconds for him to be head over heels. He’s also the clingiest one on this list, if you stray from his side for an instant he’s immediately panicking and calling the cops. He’s basically a needy puppy, glued to your hip and begging for attention. He’ll do anything to please you, he’ll learn to cook, show off his volleyball skills, listen to every word you say. He’ll conform himself to being your perfect husband. If you praise him, do it sparingly. If he receives praise too often he’ll become more deluded and push past your limits more and more. You didn’t want him to lock you up? But he’s been such a good boyfriend, you’ll let it slide, won’t you? You said he was a perfect match for you and you can’t go back on your word. Going to the opposite side and being cold makes him more desperate for praise. To finally get you to notice him becomes a goal and he will achieve it, even if he has to chain you to the bed. He gets so jealous it won’t take long for him to be the only person you’ll ever see. 7/10.

Daichi just wants you to be safe. This world can be so cruel and he can’t bear the thought of you getting your heart broken. You’re too sweet to be working so hard, just let him take care of you. All you have to do is sit at home patiently. Don’t talk to your friends, they might seem nice but Dachi knows that they’re all wicked. Trying to lay their hands on you and abuse a gentle soul like yours. He can’t let that happen. He’s the only one you need. The only one you can trust. Everyone else would use you as a stepping stone, but not him. He loves you. You just have to obey and your life is set. The two of you will be married after high school finishes. He’ll go on to college and you’ll be a house spouse. Once he gets a job, you’ll be dependent on him for a steady income, it seems every company you apply to turns you down. Complaints you have about your monetary vulnerability seems to upset your loving boyfriend. Why would you need a job? You have him. Every little thing you don’t like gets shot down by him. No friends, no family, no jobs, no freedom. He’s just trying to protect you, why would you ever want to leave? He sits at an 8/10.

Tsukishima loves the power he has over you. He’s smarter, stronger, more attractive and he’ll spend every second rubbing it in your face. He’ll taunt you, but if you show a negative reaction to his words it’ll make him awkward. If you cry or yell, he’ll be stunned for a second. He feels like it’s right for him to jeer at you, but if you do the same, his love for you will result in him crumbling. He puts on a facade of cruelty because he hates feeling powerless and his love for you is power too strong to be acknowledged. Yell at him, scream, cry, and he’ll snap like a twig. When he’s upset, he’ll isolate you, trying to separate himself from the fact he really does care, but can’t ever show it. He wants control. To feel like he isn’t addicted to the feel of your skin, the taste of your lips, the reflection of himself in your eyes. He’ll kidnap you and is smart enough to get away with it. He’s not kind to you, chains are forever around your ankles and his room becomes your hell. But there are moments of softness, though rare, where he’ll give you a gift or compliment you like he’s trying to gain your affection. Make a comment about it and he’ll have no qualms about abandoning you for a few days. Be unfailingly kind and act as he wants, and maybe he’ll be gentle, but he will never ever let you go. I place him at a 9/10.

If you’re looking for someone completely delusional, Hinata is the one for you. He’ll believe that the two of you are made for each other and no amount of protesting can ever change his mind. He’s basically a lost cause as soon as he meets you. You’ll engulf his every thought, the same fixation he had on volleyball now focused on you. You’ll have almost no free time once the two of you start ‘dating’ but you’ll have no problems with it because you clearly love him as much as he loves you. And perfect couples should live together, of course. The two of you are so happy together, he can’t stop talking about how great you are. It’s such a lovely mask that he can’t ever look past it to see how you really feel. He’ll do anything to keep his idyllic vision. If you tell him you hate him, he’ll say that he just hasn’t been giving you enough love and will increase his clinginess tenfold. If you try to run away, he’ll say that you needed a breath of fresh air. The two of you can go on a walk together, as long as you’re handcuffed to him. Sometimes you need to be tied to the bed because your ridiculous temper tantrum is getting in the way of hugging you. For better or worse, the two of you will be together forever. 10/10.

Kageyama is one of the few people that can match Hinata’s obsessiveness. He’s been attached to volleyball all his life so it basically gave him whiplash when he met you. It was a cheesy love at first sight situation, but Kageyama never knew how to love. His love is unfortunately vicious. His love letters are scribbled and unintentionally threatening. His gifts are strange and sometimes bloody. His touch is rough. He’s trying so hard, but can’t seem to find the words to tell you how much he loves you. It doesn’t take him long to get jealous, the more afraid you are the more you run to somebody who isn’t him. He unlearns all the lessons his team has painstakingly taught him and suddenly he can’t get along with others. He’s practically hissing at anyone who comes near you. A glare from him cuts through bone. Your friends will stop being your friends when he pays a visit. He’s always been good at volleyball, great even, but he can’t do a damn thing to earn your heart. So he just takes it. Regardless of how you feel, he’ll have you trapped in someplace secluded where he can practice being a better boyfriend. He loves you and you should love him too. Even if it takes time, he’s sure you’ll come around. He’s the only one you’ve got after all. Another 10/10.

[dakotacrisis]

Ursula

Okay so with that whole Cruella movie thing going on there is a post floating around about why they haven’t done something like this for Ursula who is mysterious and cool and has this interesting untold backstory. That just reminded me of the fact that back when Maleficent first came out 7 years ago I was thinking about that same premise but with Ursula and wrote what is basically a plot synopsis for an Ursula backstory I created and never did anything with.

I also didn’t want to hijack the original post I had saw addressing this so I am posting it here.

---

Ursula is from a race of merpeople with tentacles instead of fish tails that abandoned their home in the deeper part of the sea when food became scarce. During the move baby Ursula got separated from her family and found by a passing octopus who sees her and takes her to Atlantica. The then childless King Poseidon and Queen Amphitrite take Ursula in as their own. A couple years later Triton is born.

At first Ursula is a normal child. She is raised in a loving but strict home and groomed to assume the throne of Atlantica as she is the oldest child. Triton will get the other half of the sea to rule and start his own kingdom when the time comes. The King and Queen are actually really happy about having multiple children since it’ll divide the workload of ruling to a more manageable degree.

King Poseidon is strict and stern with a stubborn streak and a short temper. Despite this he is also a very brave, wise, caring, and protective father figure. While he may act distant and aloof he deeply cares about his children and is not afraid to be downright silly to make them smile. He takes a vested interest in teaching Ursula magic as she had an affinity for it as a child. Triton on another hand is taught more combat by Poseidon.

Queen Amphitrite is confident and charismatic with an effortless grace and elegance. She is highly intelligent and a gifted diplomat able to persuade others easily. She has a habit of being vain about her looks but only when out in public. In the comfort of her home with her family she is much more laid back and almost childlike and bubbly. She loves her children and takes a leading role in their studies and teaching them how to be leaders.

As children Triton and Ursula get along fine. They tease and fight like normal siblings do, but you can tell that there is a lot of love between them as well. As teenagers they are still close but puberty, maturity, and peer pressure cause them to make poor decisions.

Life goes on and while Ursula does face prejudice from some of the kingdom for her species she is assured by her family that they love her and she doesn’t need to change to please others. While it does help she still carries a certain resentment for those who do hate her just because of how she looks.

Growing into a teenager is where it really comes to a head. Ursula is a proud, intelligent, kind of arrogant and flamboyant young lady. She often has to fight back against the harsh comments and passive aggressive treatment of her peers which gives her a thick skin and pessimistic attitude.

Triton as a teenager has grown up to be very much like his father. He is stubborn and short tempered with a tendency to be dismissive and highly opinionated. He still cares about his family, especially his older sister, Ursula, but with pressure from his friends starts to act colder and more distant with her. When he stands up for her when she gets bullied he is ostracized by his friends. Eventually he stops helping altogether although he knows it is wrong and feels guilty about leaving her to fight her battles alone. As the bullying gets worse and her best friend, Triton, becoming more and more distant with her Ursula gets angrier and more selfish so to keep herself safe.

One day things are going a little too well. People are nicer and happy to see her. Confused at this sudden turn around but encouraged by her brother she opens up to them and starts to enjoy herself believing that maybe things are turning around.

This goes on for a couple days and Ursula lets her guard down and enjoys herself with her new friends. It is her birthday and the kingdom gathers together to celebrate. Ursula invites her new friends as her personal guests to the festivities. Unbeknownst to her though was that this was a long term con to get to this exact moment.

A thing about Ursula’s species is that they are predatory hunters. They hunt down live fish and other aquatic life for nourishment and like sharks get attracted by blood. This was a problem growing up for Ursula as it was a natural part of her biology that she had to learn to control but does go out and hunt away from the kingdom as needed.

Her peers use this information to their advantage and gift her a bunch of chum. Angered that her friendship with these people was all a ruse to embarrass her Ursula goes into a rage. She uses her magic to animate the chum and have it chase and stick to the party goers. Her parents try to calm her down and manage to get through to her for a moment to stop but at this point the blood from the chum has attracted a group of sharks that break into the party and start chasing everyone.

Poseidon, Triton, and the guards are able to drive the sharks away but the damage has been done. Everyone blames Ursula for the shark attack despite the fact that they only showed up because of her bully’s “gift”. Despite everything Ursula does get a lecture from her mother about learning to control her temper and that she was not taught magic to use it in such a way. Ursula tries to explain her side of things but is shrugged off and told to lay low while they fixed things. Ursula is essentially under house arrest and encouraged to not so much as leave her room as much as she can until things die down.

Triton comes by to check on her and tells her that it was messed up what those people did to her. One act of aggression did not make her a bad person and her species definitely did not. Ursula asks him that if what they did was so wrong then how come he didn’t say anything when she unwrapped their present? How come he’s been pushing her away these past couple of years? Did he think she wouldn’t notice that he abandoned her to defend herself?

Triton gets defensive and tells her that it was not like she made it easy all the time to defend her. Could she try to be a little more sociable and nice to people instead of holing herself up with her spells all day? People would probably like her better if she didn’t act so strange.

Ursula is stunned. He did not just tell her that it was her fault that she has been ostracized by the community because of her species and her keeping herself locked away from others was what was most beneficial to her mental health. He did not!

That’s not what he meant--

It sure sounded like that’s what he meant.

Ursula, please, let them talk about this.

No. She’s done talking. She’s done waiting for everyone to accept her. They are never going to accept her. Not as one of them and certainly never as their queen. If Triton, her brother, her best friend, could not see what was happening, could not support her, then she had nothing left here.

She flees the castle. A massive search is launched to find her but Ursula has retreated to one of the farthest and darkest reaches of the ocean. There she hones her power. Her memories also morph turning her reasonably pleasant childhood into a lonely recollection where neither of her parents loved her. Her teen years are even worse as she takes the rejection and scrutiny and amplifies it tenfold in her mind until she has convinced herself that everyone in the kingdom hated her and didn’t care about her at all. The only thing she has from her old life being the nautilus shell her mother had gifted her on the birthday everything went wrong. It was a symbol of power and her right to be ruler of the ocean.

Sometime during her isolation she befriended two moray eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, that she enlists to spy on Atlantica for her. There she sees preparations being made for Triton’s coronation. She crashes the coronation and while at first everyone is scared and guards are called Triton recognizes the necklace and his long lost sister and swims to embrace her and welcome her home.

Ursula is not taken in by his sincere relief and gratitude that she is back and tells him that the throne was hers alone. Triton of course is confused because he does not understand why she is so angry with him. He did not choose to be king alone, everyone thought she had runaway never to be seen again years ago. They were supposed to rule together as brother and sister until she left.

Ursula goes on a rant about how he couldn’t have truly believed that. They had never been friends. They were never even family as far as she was concerned. She alone was supposed to rule the seas and she was here to reclaim her birthright and she was ready to take out Triton to do it.

Triton is now angry that his sister does not believe him and hurt that she hates him now. He tells her she does not deserve the throne after abandoning it and the two get into a large fight. Triton’s brute strength versus Ursula’s magic. It is pretty close with Ursula almost getting the upper hand before Triton manages to knock her back and she is subdued. Unable to do the deed of sentencing what was once his beloved sister to death he instead banishes her back to where she came from. Ursula vows to have her revenge and take back her crown.

Back in Atlantica Triton stares at the one remaining portrait of Ursula that remained hanging in the palace. A family picture of Poseidon, Amphitrite, Ursula, and Triton. Triton has it taken down and hidden away. It would be better for future generations that Ursula be seen as an evil sea witch that must be avoided than the rightful queen of the ocean she had been raised to be. He has his own growing family to worry about after all and it is better if they don’t know who she really is.

Epilogue brings news to Ursula via Flotsam and Jetsam that Triton’s youngest daughter has been seen skulking around sunken ships. Interesting. Be sure to keep an eye on this one.

END

---

gosh I wish I had 17 year old me’s motivation to write this and fully flush it out.

[katiebruce]

adios, amigo.

Well, 2020. What is there to say that hasn’t already been said, tweeted or Instagram-ed a thousand and two times about you? I’ll save us all the generic stuff—“unprecedented,” “nightmarish,” “absurd”—yes, 2020 was all of those things, but on a deeper, more personal level, there is so much more I have to say that doesn’t fit quite into those clichés.

So, this will be my attempt to document and reflect upon one of the strangest years I’ve encountered in my thirty-one years on this planet. Buckle up, buttercup.

Like many others before me have frequently observed, the way I spend my New Year’s Eve has always set the tone for the year to come, and boy, was this year a picture-perfect example of exactly that. Because I had to work on January first, I spent my New Year’s Eve at home watching a depressing movie with T, quietly kissing on the cold back patio as fireworks went off in the distance. I remember feeling both happy and sad about this evening (a duality that was a major theme for me for the fifty-two weeks to come, if only I had known). I was sad not to be celebrating my favorite holiday and even remember telling T that I didn’t want the year to come to be one I spent not going out, staying home, and becoming reclusive as I finished up the stressful process of finishing my MFA thesis in the course of ten (or, what I thought would be ten) short months.

But on the other hand, being held in T’s arms, I remembered feeling so happy that I could have this little quiet holiday—something that felt so private and personal—so entirely our own. It really set the tone for our relationship for the year, and for the obstacles we not only overcame together but dominated, one right after the next.

January was cold, snowy, and full of flight cancellations, which I remember to be something worth celebration at the time. I stayed home and snuggled my way into Aquarius season, the time for me and my brethren to shine, feeling positive that I had lived my thirtieth year to one of great satisfaction and maximum travels taken. (If only I had known then that that late-January El Paso layover where my crew and I walked across the border into Juarez to eat street tacos and laugh over Mezcal would be one of the only times I would leave the country for the year, well, I might have taken a few shots of tequila and really enjoyed my stay abroad just a bit longer).

February came, and with it, the promise of friends. My darling Kristopher, as always, flew to Chicago on the day of (also the day I completed and passed my eighth recurrent [!]) and, thanks to my other darling baby, Nicole, scored tickets to one of the highly coveted format reunion tour shows happening in March* for me, her, and my momma.

(*It did not, in fact, take place in March).

I turned thirty-one in the way I’ve come accustomed too—surrounded by my favorite people (this year at Dorians—a jazz club to end all jazz clubs) too drunk and too smiley to even coherently remember the evening properly. As much fun as I remember having, I told T that I thought it was my last year to host some sort of birthday gathering, and to hold me to it come next year. (He did very well—a few weeks later, after spotting an ad in a discarded newspaper for the Chicago tour of Moulin Rouge happening on my birthday weekend, we bought tickets and I sat peacefully with the fact that one of my new year (or, new age) resolutions was so quickly and poignantly adapted).

By this time, I was already deep in the throes of my first thesis writing course, meaning that I was pretty stressed out all of the time and surely a misery to be around (sorry to those of you who were). Basically, in three semesters’ time, I was expected to draft, edit, and rewrite a fully formed novel (70,000+ words) and the idea of accomplishing such a feat felt like a ton of bricks being carried on my shoulders. I had at least four mental breakdowns in the beginning of the year (again, we all know what lays ahead for the year, I know—but at the time, this seemed like an unbearable amount of stress for one person to have to carry. The joke is not lost on me).

In the coming weeks, things began to get even weirder. Covid scares began sprouting up in cities all around us, and as the government asked people to stay at home, airline ticket prices became massively reduced, so more people began traveling. I mean, this shit was like spring break on acid—it was hugely stressful, and though the threat of the pandemic had yet to reach Chicago, I felt more and more at risk with each passing day as careless amounts of people cashed in on what they thought was the deal of a lifetime.

By the time March reached its midpoint, I, like so many others, was terrified. We had no PPE at work—literally nothing. No gloves, masks, or even hand wipes. Cleaning the aircraft still wasn’t considered a “no-go” item, as far as regulatory practices go. I remember watching the news on my layovers only to keep myself up at night wondering if the virus was going to take hold of me or anyone around me, and if so, how long until they would recover, or perhaps wouldn’t.

St. Patrick’s Day came, and after fighting about whether or not to go out with friends (we didn’t—and for the record, T and I rarely fight—but this was, after all, his first St. Patrick’s Day as a Chicagoan—so his resentment was more than justified) we saw a matinee movie (Onward) and while in the theater, read about how Chicago restaurants, as a precaution, were shutting down the next day due to rising concerns about the spread of the virus. We reacted by grabbing drinks & lunch at one of our favorite neighborhood eateries and tipping the waitstaff more heavily than I think I’ve ever tipped anyone in my life (not mentioning this to brag, or whatever—just remembering what it was like to feel utterly helpless and unsure of what to do or what was to come—we had to find our positivity in some way, and on that day, this was how we saw fit, and it helped).

Then it all sort of happened at once—Lauren’s store was closed with no impending reopening date. The grocery stores (and I swear to god, I will never forget this) became a madhouse—people taking things out of other people’s carts when they weren’t looking. I remember going into Mariano’s with T and insisiting we tie bandanas around our faces for safety, feeling like a goddamn bank robber about to make a heist. But there was nothing left to even take. Frantically, we got what we could and got out of there, and I went home to have a full-fledged panic attack about the state of the world we were currently living in and what we were going to do if things didn’t turn around quickly.

As if overnight, everyone cancelled their airline tickets. It was for the better, and though it put my job in serious jeopardy, I was in massive support of it but still felt an eerie sadness looming around the countless empty airports, airplanes, hotels and city streets. There were times when my crew and I were the only guests in a place—times when I had zero passengers on a revenue flight. And then came the mass flight cancellations—and I mean mass. Everyday became a battle of anxiety as to what was going to happen to my job in the next twenty-four hours, and then cooing my stressed-out thoughts to sleep, only to relive the anxiety with every phone buzz waiting to find out if I had lost my job overnight. By mid-spring, I was hugely considering dropping out for a period of time, just due to the stress of it all, but thanks to support from my friends, family and T, I chose to stick it out and roll with as many punches as I could until I was finally knocked-out.

Quarantines were happening all around me, and without the ability to travel or the (former) grueling expectations of maintaining a social life, I started to reconnect with myself in ways that felt both organic and new, yet much like returning home after a long time away. Lauren taught me to knit, and we celebrated her birthday on the floor of our apartment in an Indian-food induced daze renting Emma and making thousands of tiny knots onto needles that would eventually become blankets. We took walks, did puzzles, and Lauren drove me to and from the airport on the rare occasion that I actually had a flight to work, as the CTA had, unfortunately, become a cesspool of targeted attacks on flight crew members (seriously) because they were often the only person in any given train car.

A rare glimpse of optimism then presented itself via two different opportunities: a chance to take a ninety-day leave from work, and a job offer in the form of editing a book for publication. I said yes to both and hoped that I would be able to take a step back and deal with the crumbling world around me easier with both of these opportunities now on my horizon.

This period of the year (May-July) started off swimmingly. Knitting, reading, and even smoking weed for the first time in nearly a decade (I took two hits and spent the rest of the evening sinking into the couch painfully aware of how bad I am at breathing and worrying that I might stop at any given moment). I fell in love with yoga and felt myself loosening up parts of my body and my mind that had been twisted into a series of knots for god only knows how long. I spent days reading in the sun, baking bread like everyone else in the world, and learning to make my own pies. Things were going really well, and I was even ahead in school, now on track to graduate in August—when things started getting heated.

I’m not going to go on a rant about race, although I very much could, but I will say this—the fact that we are still in a race war in this country in the year 2020 (and even now, a few days into 2021) makes me so sick to my stomach I don’t know what to do. Every injustice that passes by us, overshadowed by the next untimely death or wrongdoing makes me angry in ways that I cannot even fathom putting into words. It burns the color red that is so hot and so vibrant that I can see it soaking through my eyelids even when I squeeze them shut. This country lost a lot of love from me this year, and even more respect. There are not only things we can do better—there are things we must change. And honestly, most days, I don’t think most of the country is ready to not only admit that but to also work for. And that not only sickens me, but depresses the living hell out of me. I feel so stunted all of the time when I picture a world so at peace with its own injustice. It’s just so unfair.

I watched as the world was (rightfully, although woefully) destroyed around me. My neighborhood turned into a desolate, looted shadow of itself—one where Lauren and I could sit on our back patio safely until dusk, when the crime and gunfire became so rabid that on occasions, we sat in the living room in total darkness, listening only to the radio, afraid to let anybody at street level see that we were, indeed, at home. The opportunists that took advantage of the message of this movement made me numb to such a large demographic of the population, and I found myself crying myself to sleep enough times that I thought it might be time to leave the warzone that had become Chicago for a little while as escape down to Florida. So, we packed our bags and left. It is not lost on me that so many did not have this option, and for so many minorities, just simply existing during this time was enough to cause assault. I know I am fortunate—I carry it like lead in my pockets every day.

While in Florida, the first retailers began to reopen and I found myself waiting in an hour-long line to buy soaps and hand sanitizers, and to get a glimpse of what this “new normal” might look like when things started picking back up again. Like many, it was jarring to see empty tables, capacity limits on items, cashiers behind plexiglass sheets shouting to be heard over both the physical barrier and the cloth one strung across their faces.

By the time T & I arrived home, Lauren was already making plans to reopen her store “safely” and I felt sorry for her. How could anything be safe when nothing had changed? Why were companies acting as if business could go on like before—even though nothing had gotten better?

My final months of my MFA were just ahead of me, and I had one month remaining free from work to finish my first full-length novel, and I all I really remember is stress stress stress.

And then Andrew, being Andrew, offered a glimmer of hope, in the form of a drive-in concert celebrating fifteen years of Everything in Transit in southern California, a mere matter of hours from where Nicole had been working. It took a matter of two or maybe three text messages to confirm that we would be attending, and once the ticket was purchased I practically packed my bags and headed off to visit her and try and make light of my heart.

As suspected, the trip was magical. Being around Nicole, per usual, was magical. My heart felt so fully aligned seeing a little piece of her story and getting to experience her way of life once more—drunken hot springs and all their glory. There truly are few things in my life I love more than sitting in the passenger’s seat as Nicole drives us all over the country, and experiencing it again felt so right and so perfect that I honestly thought it was one of the happiest experiences of my life. Because I had requested so, she drove me all the way to Venice Beach the day of the concert so we could see where the infamous album cover was taken. We ate cbd gummies and listened to jack’s and ate in-n-out burger like our lives depended on it. When the concert began, it was eerie, yet hopeful to see all the new protocols of something that had become so familiar to me in my former life. Drinks were ordered through an app and delivered, as was merch, and clapping was replaced by the exuberant honking of car horns. We streamed the sound through the radio and laid the in the back of Nicole’s converted SUV as we cried and sang along to the songs that made everything, even just for one night, feel like it was all going to be okay again. We ended the evening marking ourselves with our first stick and poke tattoos—hers a sun to my moon, positioned to kiss one another when we stand next to each other on our preferred selfie side (lol). I left worried about how long it might be before I could feel her warm embrace again, the embrace of one of the truest friends I’ll ever know, but also recognizing that we were lucky to have had such an experience at all during such an insane year and feeling eternally grateful for its memory.

The last weeks of what I referred to as my Rumspringa were ahead of me, and one sunny afternoon I wrote the final pages of my novel. In a mad rush to edit, revise and complete my portfolio for official review, I never really sat with myself and what I had accomplished or congratulated myself; I wrote a book in seven months’ time, and even though I am unhappy with it (more on that later) there’s no denying that I actually did it. I did it, and nobody can ever take that away from me; it’s an accomplishment I will forever have, and it’s all my own. And I need to remind myself of that. I need to let myself feel proud.

I was back to work in September and taking a huge pay cut, though working the same hours. It was stressful, but once I found out my portfolio had been accepted and I, indeed, would be receiving my MFA I felt a bit at peace for a while. I had let my hair grow long all summer, and all but stopped wearing make-up (mascara makes me feel entirely dolled up now). I felt in an odd way free—almost bare.

The fall came and went fairly quickly—the weekends alone at home and grocery-store-only outings feeling more and more like normalcy. It had been such a tough, trying year, that it suddenly felt nice to just stand still for a bit. So, I did.

In a brief amount of time, I watched (safely) as friends got married, got sick, got older and fell in love. I watched, with great anxiety, as our country voted in the most important election of our lives so far and took the deepest breath I’d ever taken as I watched that man face defeat—although he’s yet to swallow it. I watched as ex-lovers had babies, got engaged and never really stopped to think twice about any of it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the safety (and not in a lame, “safety-net” sort of way) of having T in my life has turned me into someone who not only craves quiet time at home, but really also sort of fell right damn into it very easily, though unexpectedly. I’ve heard the saying so many times before, but you really don’t realize everything is different once you find the right fit because that place feels like it’s always been home. I am grateful to not only have that now and moving forward, but most certainly throughout the trying, unstable times of 2020. In fact, I don’t know how I would have survived without it.

The holidays always creep up on me, and after being dealt a shitty hand from work (don’t even get me started, I’m still fuming) they came that much quicker. T & I were lucky enough to spend the holidays back home in the swamp, visiting my parents and his Dad. The time went by fast but was relaxing, fun, and reenergizing. We spent New Year’s Eve playing giant Jenga and yard Yahtzee with my parents in the cool, tropical winter of Florida. It was nice. We got tired right around 11, so we laid in bed until midnight talking, staying awake just long enough to share our new year’s kiss. It felt right—a proper send off to such a strange and unusual year. I was exctly where I needed to be—wrapped up in a blanket of T’s embrace, comfy in a bed in my childhood bedroom.

So now, here it is: 2021—the supposed upgrade to 2020, or so everybody secretly hopes. So now, as I sit here, drinking a warm, soy-chai latte (homemade!) I find myself having great difficulty setting an intention for the days ahead of me. I feel so beaten and bruised and physically fatigued for no reason but the experiences of 2020 and the courses they ran all over my life. I’m feeling reflective of having finished yet another year of my life (and my Saturn return! Halleluj!) and finding it hard to be anything but fatigued. I guess it’s from the year that’s just finished—more so than any other year it physically pained me at times to be alive at times. I’m missing so many of my friends who I haven’t been able to see for extended months at a time now. I am craving a sense of normalcy, of safety, so that I can feel better about making plans, but as for right now I just don’t have it. I am quietly trying to make subtle changes within myself and how I react to the world around me, but just like the start of this new year, that process is a slow one.

One of my resolutions (though I’m growing to hate that word more and more with each passing year) is to get back to writing. I had a good, albeit stressful, thing going while still in school, and after finishing my novel and receiving feedback, I couldn’t shake the feeling of absolute failure. It’s still there—it’s really hard to try and celebrate an accomplishment when you don’t feel like your work was good enough to warrant anything at all—especially not a fine arts degree. I never said I was a fiction writer—I just wanted to get better at writing fiction—so I need to remember that and allow myself to veer away from that for a while, to work on something new. Something I’ve been saying I’m not ready to write for many years now, something that when I now say that is just a plain old lie: My memoir. I’m ready to close the chapter in my life where I am a flight attendant, so the timing feels more than perfect.

I learned so much about what I want to do within my career and what sort of boundaries I don’t want to place on myself—and I’m trying, I really am. T gifted me with my own pottery wheel for Christmas and we are going to set it up this weekend and I am so excited to get my hands muddy and start creating. Until this year, I didn’t realize how much I needed a creative outlet other than writing—I had been depending on it for too long, my little cup felt bone dry. So, I’m excited to see where this new hobby takes me and how it influences my ability to return to the blank page—quite literally.

I know this year will not be the quick fix that so many are hopeful for—I think quite the opposite, actually. But here are some things I know for sure will happen: I will move out of my apartment and in with T. We will then, immediately get a dog and a new apartment. This, alone, feels like enough to fill the pages of the blank year ahead of us. I will go long periods of time without seeing my loved ones, and without traveling (bleak as this lifestyle may be). I will write, even when it’s hard to. I will publish something—I’m at work submitting pieces as we speak, and though the process is slow, I can tell this is my opportunity—I am ready t fight for it. I will turn 32, and the numerology of my life will seem more aligned. I will spend my birthday at home, alone, because of course Moulin Rouge has now been cancelled (I’m fine with it). I will learn more about myself the more I use my hands to create, to plant, to sculpt, to mold. I will love with fervor. I will smile more, because it’s actually healthier for you, even though my black heart hates to admit it. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get to attend a live concert, though I realize this might be wishful thinking at this point. I will do mushrooms and giggle with the colors. I will cry. I will hurt and I will cause harm. But through it all, I will persevere. Because if 2020 taught me anything, it’s that I am capable of regenerating into new versions of myself that I didn’t even have the time to dream up. I can adapt to whatever is thrown at me, though it will often times feel impossible. I can, and will, create. I can be reborn (as many times as I’d like to, too).

So, thanks, 2020, for teaching me more about myself than any other period of five years has ever taught me. I definitely feel like I’ve been through the ringer a couple of times, yet I find myself still standing day after day. It must be the way a domino feels, standing up, time after time, knowing that something right in front of you is about to knock you down. But instead of thinking about what I’m bringing down with me, I’m thinking of the entire collective as a whole—we are all experiencing this together. And maybe, just maybe, on the other side, there’s a kid with a smile waiting to do it all over again. And that’s perhaps where the beauty lays: we have to tear everything down in order to do better, be better, make change. Nobody likes to catch fire, but everyone loves rising from the ashes. We’ll all get to where we’re headed, one way or another. And eventually, I hope, we’ll see that the other side is better than we could have ever dreamt of.

I hope that 2021 is a bridge that brings us from destruction to creation. I hope the journey is long, so we all appreciate the outcome.

I love you all and wish you warmth and wellness into this year and beyond.

Happy new year—honor the circumstances you have around you and let them help you grow.

[violetlunette]

All Might and Bakugou Rant Chapter 8-11

Okay, before I start this rant I want to say that I LOVE All Might; he is a sweet sunflower man and I love him! He is in my top 3 favorite BNHA/MHA characters. HOWEVER, just because I love and adore him doesn’t mean I’m not going to get upset when his actions, or in actions in this case, potentially cause serious harm!

As for Bakugou--I like him when I’m not forced to like him if that makes sense? He has a lot of good qualities and I love that he has a unique backstory for rivals. There’s no angsty reason for his assholeness he’s just a brat who got a big head from being praised all the time and for actually being talented. I really want to see him grow which is why I get super angry when the story ruins his potential growth moments.

The rest of my thoughts I’m saving for a future post.

For those who are confused, I started a post series where I’ve been collecting every image I can find to explore Izuku and Bakugou’s relationship because it’s a big thing in the BNHA/MHA community and I wanted to judge myself. This rant is about Chapters 8-11 and how All Might handles things. Spoilers ahead! I should also warn that this is also very, very Bakugou critical as we are dealing with early gremlin Bakugou who goes overboard with Boom-boom. Also this is a rant, so things might not be very coherent and may repeat.

Oh and this is a LONG rant so I wouldn’t open on tumblr search. New tab suggested.

And finally; no beta reader. We die like dumbasses. Enjoy if you like rants.

The set up;

So here’s the stage; Bakugou vs Izuku. All Might tells Bakugou to adapt a villain mindset, and BOY

DOES

HE

EVER

Because of Bakugou’s temper he unleashes an explosion that both he and All Might admit could kill Izuku. Not just injure or maim, but KILL. And this wasn’t a small attack ether;

Look at this;

A large chunk of the building was taken out and the structure on the rest was damaged and cracked. I don’t think the building will collapse, but I’m not an architect and this is still serious damage.

And in this test run the area is supposed to be a nuclear plant. I’m not going to say too much considering Japan’s history with nuclear stuff, but I will say that if this was a real run Japan would be in serious trouble all because “King Explosion Murder” is having a hissy fit!

But this is a test, so I’m just going to focus on the fact that Bakugou used a literal killing move on Izuku and All Might did nothing!

Remember this part? “I will stop you if you take things too far?”

How

is

THIS

NOT TOO FAR?!

Is it just me here? I get we’re dealing with some value dissonance /blue and orange mentality as this world isn’t like ours, but come on!

YES!! Listen to Kirishima, the only one in the whole class that seems to care about the potential death of a classmate!

Even if Bakugou wasn’t intending to kill, he was going in to severely injure and maim Izuku. And what if Izuku tried to dodge the wrong way and it was a direct hit? What then? The only reason Izuku’s blood isn’t everywhere is because in anime world people are durable as fuck.

Isn’t it their job to teach these kids not to use moves that could kill someone, or at least be responsible and not use said moves on classmates during a training course?

Yes! You should!

Okay, to be fair to All Might it’s clearly stated by everyone around him that while All Might is smart and knows how to hero he doesn’t know how to teach very well at this point, though he does improve later on. And I do understand his thinking; if Izuku told him about the bullying then this is Izuku’s chance to get back a little at Bakugou and show him what he’s made of. That’s what he’s thinking here;

Yeah, that’s one way to describe it.

It’s also shown very clearly that Izuku wants this fight, to finally be able to challenge Bakugou on equal ground for once in his life.

I also understand that the UA teachers are getting these kids ready to fight real villains, so they are pretty lax on things to help them. That’s why I give Aizawa a lot of slack with his teaching methods.

And All Might does warn Bakugou not to do it again;

Also calm? Petty? Really? THAT’S what you see? Yeah, he’s “calm” and thinking clearly (which makes everything worse, btw), but “petty?” The word is genocidal, All Might. Bakugou does use the attack again! RIGHT ON IZUKU’S FACE.

Even if this was a different attack, how is this not too far? Okay, I guess Izuku blocked it as we see below;

But Bakugou didn’t know he would block and look at Izuku’s eye; did that attack do eye damage?

And what really irritates me is that All Might wasn’t going to do shit until he saw that Izuku was going to use OFA.

So, explosion fist that took out part of a building was fine, but using OFA that’s just too far!

Kirishima has to plead with All Might to stop things before he starts to give in. (And seriously? WHY IS HE THE ONLY ONE?! Does no one else care??)

But I’m not even that mad that he allowed the fight to continue. I wanted Izuku to have a chance to prove himself and beat Bakugou’s ass (he deserves it here. FIGHT ME). I also like that with Izuku’s hard earned victory Bakugou is momentarily humbled.

I agree that for both Izuku and Bakugou this fight needed to happen (but only if Izuku won). Bakugou needed this moment for character development.

He really needed this.

No, what I’m mad about is that BAKUGOU WAS NEVER SCOLDED FOR HIS ACTIONS. Hell, All Might goes the opposite way and tries to comfort Bakugou as we see here;

which okay, maybe he needed a little. He needed to hear these words, but he also needed a major scolding! But he never got that.

Izuku was carried away on a stretcher and severely damage, but does he care? No! What does he care about? Bakugou’s fragile ego!

Yeah, I know Izuku’s body is broken, but poor Bakubabe’s not feeling very confident. SERIOUSLY ALL MIGHT?!!

Why is this a big deal? Why am I so mad? Same reason why I was mad at the other teachers. By not telling Bakugou what he did was wrong and making him listen he did what every. Single. Damn. Teacher. Has done so far; taught him there was nothing wrong with his actions; it was okay that he unleashed an attack that could KILL on someone, especially on Izuku. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. Because no one ever tries to correct Bakugou he keeps acting this way, losing his temper and hurting people, mostly Izuku. And it doesn’t just hurt Bakugou, the inaction of no one ever scolding Bakugou teaches Izuku that it’s okay for him to get hurt. It’s okay that others hurt him, no big deal. It’s no wonder Izuku is always breaking his bones! Why would he listen to others telling him to to take better care of himself when the world keeps saying that it’s okay for people like Bakugou to hurt him?

There’s also the fact that Izuku was severely hurt here;

These are not comical anime wounds, these are serious, oh shit wounds so bad he has to be carried away on a stretcher.

No. Don’t laugh it off! You are hurting Izuku and Bakugou for reasons I already stated.

Even Recovery Girl tells him that what he did was stupid!

See what a good scolding can do? All Might made a mistake and he’s being called out on it.

An ego trip does not make this okay. Just like All Might needed to be told that his actions were wrong, so does Bakugou. Hell, Bakugou needs it even more!

I love RG. If she was there I’m willing to bet Bakugou would have gotten at least a time out. She’s the best teacher. She knows when to be kind, when to bee strict, and when someone needs to be called out. LEARN FROM HER All Might!

Bakugou’s quirk is EXPLOSIONS. It’s just as dangerous as Thirteen’s Black hole, or Shigaraki’s dissolve quirk and just as deadly! He needs to be taught to understand that along with controlling his temper especially because he’s going to be a hero, but he’s not going to learn if his ego is always babied and never faces consequences. I’m not asking for All Might to turn Bakugou over his knee or anything, just to tell Bakugou that what he did was wrong. Especially since he’ll be dealing with civilians in the future.

But no, instead of focusing on the fact Bakugou needs to control his temper All Might decides he needs to nurse Bakugou’s ego. I highly disagree because in addition to everything I stated above. Bakugou’s case a little ego bruising might teach him some humility which he SORELY NEEDS. He needs love and care, but when he does something dangerous and deadly, he needs a kick in the pants or at LEAST a strong NO, DON’T DO THAT.

How is he going to learn otherwise? Seriously, does anyone ever scold Bakugou for his temper? His ego is always called out, but what about his temper?

Again, I adore All Might. He is a great hero and he gets better, but I wish he bought that teacher’s hand book before his first class.

Rant finally over, I swear I didn’t intend for it to be this long, but oh well.

[elaboratedbee]

Bigby x Reader

Request For: @awfullest​

Rating: E

Summary: The Mundies think that there are five love languages, and Bigby’s going to need to learn how to speak every single one of them if he’s going to get you to understand how he feels.

Word Count: 4623

Note: i loved this prompt!! i thought it would be super cute to come up with all the ways bigby could try and get the reader’s attention without being obvious :’) big thank you to @punxgal​ for teaching my dumbass what a taglist is, so i started one! just hit me with a message if you want to be added (or just want to rant about bigby lmao) ily guys!!

Taglist: @punxgal​

Five Ways To Say I Love You

 “You know, the Mundies think that there are five love languages,” Snow informed him, watching with a faint smile of amusement as Bigby quite literally banged his head against the wall of the Business Office. While usually she didn’t enjoy dispensing love advice; after all, she was a very busy woman, watching Bigby experience any kind of emotion, let alone love, was more than worth it. His pining was probably the most amusing thing that had happened in Fabletown in a long while, so she was happy to be his confident. 

“And I can think of five ways to tell Mundies how that sounds fucking stupid,” came Bigby’s gruff response, but he did finally move away from the wall and come around to join her at the desk, which she could only assume was Bigby Speak for her to continue. 

“Words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch.” After Snow had revealed them, the wolf repeated the list under his breath as he committed them to his memory, before he huffed in frustration. 

“Nothing I do works! Nothing I say comes out right and they’re just so –”

“ – perfect, I know,” Snow cut him off, more than familiar with this particular rant, “maybe if you ever did something about it and made it clear that you were interested, they might actually respond positively. You’ve been pining for months, Bigby! It’s getting embarrassing.” His scowl was lost on her, as she was more than used to dealing with an angry Bigby and his frustration at his own love life certainly wasn’t the worst she had dealt with. 

“Fuck off, it’s not pining,” Bigby growled at her, as he produced a cigarette from his pocket and placed it between his lips. Snow didn’t bother to argue the point, because she could tell by the long and hopeless drag he took of his cigarette that the Sheriff already knew that it was true. “I’ll try that Mundy thing.” Bigby admitted after a long time, before he nodded at her and stalked out of the office to patrol the streets of Fabletown, or whatever else he got up to whenever there wasn’t some major emergency that he contacted her about. Well, that was about as much thanks as she could expect. She sighed, and rolled her eyes as she watched him retreat. Men. 

Words Of Affirmation

Bigby was head over heels for you. Since Snow had become the Deputy Mayor, there wasn’t much about Fabletown that hadn’t improved. Not everything had changed drastically of course, and there wasn’t a night that went by on the job that the wolf didn’t wish that things could be better for all of the Fables that lived here, but he could console himself with the fact that they were getting better. Slowly was better than not at all, after all. He supposed that he should apply that same philosophy to his feelings for his current infatuation, since he did think that he was making slow progress. You had taken a job casting spells and creating glamours on the thirteenth floor almost half a year ago, now, and it had taken barely any time at all for Bigby to realise that you were everything he had ever wanted.

Every so often, a crime occurred that could benefit from the help of someone who was proficient in magic, such as covering up the scene of a particularly noticeable crime from Mundies or assisting with the aftermath. Bigby had recently found himself running to you every single time a matter like this befell, with the whispers and teasing from some of the other staff at the Business Office being more than worth the chance to spend so many prolonged hours working with you and witnessing your gift. This often came with the additional bonus of being able to show you that he was made the Sheriff for more than his strength. Most of the Fables thought that he was given the position purely due to his violent streak, so to be able to display his prowess at investigating crimes made a nice change.

Tonight, was one of those nights and the two of you had ventured out to cast a spell over a building that had been set on fire by an arsonist. Although the fire had been combatted with the help of some water nymphs, the plumes of black smoke obscuring the horizon were sure to pique the interest of any Mundies within a couple of miles radius. It struck the Sheriff that now was the perfect opportunity to use the first of Snow’s techniques as he walked you back to the Business Office, enjoying the pleasure of hearing you rant and rave about howof all of the possible crimes, arson was certainly the most pointless and dangerous. Bigby loved how passionate you were, how you could probably form a strong and justified opinion on almost any topic. He loved the way you used your hands and gesticulated wildly without even realising, like you were always casting a spell. It certainly felt like you had cast one over him, after all, he was constantly thinking about you. The first thought on his mind in the morning, and the person running through his mind whenever he attempted to sleep.

The two of you reached the business office and entered the deathtrap elevator. He took the opportunity to employ his first method as you had fallen silent when pressing the button for the thirteenth floor, before hitting the one for Bigby’s Office, too. The wolf felt a spark of happiness as he noted how well you knew him, his routines and habits. Although he hadn’t known you for very long, it was obvious that the Sorcerer was the kind of person that noticed the little things, that cared for each and every person that came into the Business Office looking for help, whether it be a standard glamour or something with far higher stakes. The dedication to their job was something that Bigby could very much relate to, and the fact that you often complimented the Sheriff on his duty to Fabletown made his heart warm in his chest – not many people did.

The only problem was, every time Bigby had tried to compliment you back, he failed miserably. Either it came out completely wrong, or it didn’t come out at all. But this time, it would be different. He had used the entire walk to plan what he was going to say, and now was the time to implement it. As the elevator rose, Bigby removed his cigarette from his mouth and met your eyes, trying not to focus on your mesmerising beauty. “Thanks,” he managed to get out, his voice rough, “I couldn’t have done it without you. You’re the best Sorcerer I know.” The words were genuine, even if they were a little bit gruff and came out a little fast, and the Sheriff internally celebrated. Finally. He watched closely as your eyes lit up with joy and pride and you stood up just a little bit taller than before. It had made every bit of stress worth it, in Bigby’s eyes.

“Thanks, Bigby. I’d say you were the best Sheriff I know, but you’re sort of the only Sheriff I know,” you teased him with a smile, and leaned forward to punch his shoulder gently. God, everything seemed to come so easily to you, he noted. The way you spoke and joked with him, managing to drag a smile out of him even on his darkest days, the way you touched him so casually. Perfect. The elevator doors slid open, and you flashed him one more bright smile before you were gone.

Taking a deep drag of his cigarette, Bigby slumped against the elevator wall and luxuriated in the feeling for a long moment. On some level, he could recognise that it was mildly insane to feel such euphoria over such a minute interaction, one that you probably wouldn’t even remember when tomorrow arrived, but he didn’t care. The elevator arrived at the Business Office and the door opened to reveal Bluebeard standing there. His eyes narrowed when he saw the Sheriff, and his mouth opened, but he was cut off as the wolf walked right past him, dropping his cigarette at the man’s feet.

“Fuck off, Bluebeard.”

Acts Of Service

“Bigby, you really don’t have to do this,” your voice came from behind him as continued his way down the hall, carrying the large wooden desk in his arms. Considering your hard work, it was really only a matter of time before they got promoted, and Bigby was incredibly pleased that your talent was being recognised. Along with the promotion came a brand-new office, that Bigby was currently help you move your things into.

“It’s no trouble, really,” he insisted once again and that was telling the truth. The desk was really no problem for the wolf to manage, but the praise made it feel even lighter. You followed along behind him with a box of personal affects, pictures and stationery, along with a little cactus that, to quote you, ‘even you couldn’t kill.’

They entered the office, which, like most of the Business Office, was somewhat in a state of disrepair. The lighting was dim, the window dirty and the paint a faded, peeling yellow. Even still, he watched you regard it as if it were a silver palace, a spark in your eyes. Unlike Bigby, you were an optimist, always able to see the bright side of life and the best in people. It was a refreshing change to the wolf, who very rarely had a reason to give people the benefit of the doubt in his line of work. You saw the best in him, having never been afraid of him for a second, and throwing him a bemused look whenever he tried to pull his ‘big, bad wolf’ act around you.

“Thanks for helping me,” he felt a hand on his arm and the warm pressure grounded him, causing him to meet your eyes, “there was no way I could’ve dragged that heavy ass desk down this hallway. You’re handy, you know that?” The compliment was strange, and Bigby huffed at the word. Handy. There was something almost domestic about it, which caused a warmth to spread through his chest.  

“Yeah, well, I’m only downstairs if you need me,” Bigby reassured you, the feeling of being needed satisfying the more primal parts of his nature. To be able to help you, provide for you, was what the wolf inside him desperately craved.

“Good to know you’re not just a pretty face,” you teased him with a wink and Bigby almost choked on his own spit. He felt hot under the collar all of a sudden and he cleared his throat before he was able to answer, much to his enchantment's clear amusement. Even though you were clearly fucking with him, the implication that you thought he was attractive was enough to imprint this very moment on his mind for what he was sure was the rest of all time.

“I’m a man of many talents,” the Sheriff managed to reply, his voice rich with sarcasm as he bumped his cigarette packet, making one shoot up out of the box. He raised it to his lips, quirking his eyebrows at the other Fable as means of asking for permission, a very rare honour that was not often bestowed upon. You nodded their approval and the wolf sparked up, taking a deep drag. After all, he was fairly sure that if he didn’t find something to focus his thoughts on, he was going to kiss you here and now. The way that you were leaning against the desk, the one that he had moved for you, was testing his self-control in ways that he hadn’t expected. What he wouldn’t give to just push you over the desk and –

“I think it just needs a new coat of paint,” your voice (thankfully) interrupted his thoughts before they could spiral any further. Bigby grunted and exhaled his smoke.

“I can help with that.”

Receiving Gifts and Quality Time

It had taken him forever to find, but Bigby didn’t plan to admit that to anyone else. He held the cassette tape in his hands, remembering so clearly the first time you had showed him one. One late night, he had caught you leaving the Woodlands as he approached, bruised and tired after a long day. He wasn’t particularly happy that you were here at such a late hour, you work ethic concerning at times; it made him worry that you didn’t get enough rest, which was more than ironic coming from him. Despite how battered he must have looked, it didn’t stop the smile from breaking out on your face at the sight of him, and it made his long day seem just a little less long. As you walked through the glass doors, Bigby noted a strange device in your hands, with wires that followed all the way up to your head.

“What the fuck is that?” He asked, amused at the sight of it. It was cold on the street, but the Sheriff was more than happy to linger outside for a little more time as long as it meant he got to speak to you.

“It’s a Walkman,” you informed him brightly, and it was immediately clear from your tone that this little device brought you no shortage of joy, “it plays cassette tapes.” The wolf had some vague recollection of what a cassette tape was, although he had never heard of the “Walkman,” so he could gather that it had something to do with music at least. His brows furrowed as he tried to decipher the little thing, when suddenly you were stepping forward into his space. With bated breath, Bigby tensed as you pulled off their headphones and held them up between the both of you, leaning close.

Don't leave me this way.

The music played and provided him with something to focus his mind on and flood his senses with, which was a welcome release now that your scent was flooding his nose so distractingly. When you were this close, Bigby could see every little detail of your face, and he found himself committing every last detail to his memory. The faint scar you had just above your eyebrow that he so desperately wanted to know the story behind, the permanent imprint on your lower lip that you had left from biting it so much, every shade in your eyes.

I can't survive, I can't stay alive.

You met his eyes, clearly waiting to hear his judgement, but Bigby didn’t offer one, wanting to prolong the moment of intimacy for as long as he could get away with it. He couldn’t help it, after all, having you so close to him was intoxicating. It was a feeling of pride and accomplishment to him, that you had chosen to share this part of yourself  with him.

Without your love, no baby.

“I like it,” he admitted, although what he really liked was the way his approval made a smile emerge on your face, illuminated by the soft yellow lights of the Woodland. The simple praise was enough, although Bigby wished that he could find better words, more impressive ones. You had a way of making him feel like that way; of making him feel that for all of his inadequacies, he was enough. It was a more addicting feeling than smoking his damn cigarettes.

Don't leave me this way.

Bigby knew that if he stayed stood there for much longer, he would inevitably do or say something that was going to get him trouble, so he cleared his throat and stepped back, watching you click a little button the stop the cassette from playing. You looked almost disappointed that you had to go, but it was late and cold, so Bigby was glad you would finally go home and get some rest. The song’s words came back to him as you bid him goodnight and retreated into the night, hailing a cab. Don’t leave me this way.

He didn’t want you to leave at all.

The Sheriff had laboured over finding the perfect gift for you after that, stopping by many Mundy places whenever he had a spare moment, or his work brought him close to the edge of Fabletown. Gently, he placed the cassette down on your desk, wrapped carefully by Snow after she had seen Bigby’s attempt at it and laughed outright.

Even better, it had become a habit of yours to sit side by side in his office every so often and listen to whatever song had become your recent obsession. He would listen to you talk about what made it good, or why you loved the band and enjoy your company much more than he enjoyed the songs themselves. It had been a long time since Bigby had done something just because he enjoyed it. Not to escape, or distract himself, or to forget, but something that made him grateful for the here and now. Sometimes, he was in a good mood and he offered his opinions, which slowly became more informed over time as you listened and asked for his favourites. Other times, he was exhausted and broken after a day of dealing with the worst that Fabletown had to offer, and he would sit in silence, letting the sound of your music and your voice wash over him. It was like the tide, eroding a jagged stone smooth, corroding away all of his edges and damaged parts so gently that he hardly even noticed.

Stepping back, the wolf smiled proudly to himself and propped a cigarette between his lips. This whole love languages thing was getting easier all the time.

Physical Touch

For all his success, this was certainly the one that Bigby was most nervous about. After all, he wasn’t exactly known for his ability to be gentle. A good chunk of the Fables probably thought that the Sheriff was directly synonymous with bruises and a ringing pain in their heads after he had used force to encourage them to comply with the law so many times.

The ballroom spread out before him, as picturesque and charming as it was every year. Bigby was so nervous that he regarded it more like a battlefield than a ballroom, the polished wood floor masking countless traps and landmines, the spinning and smiling Fables his enemies, waiting for him to slip up. The many twinkling lights gave the room an iridescent glow, but he felt like they were interrogation lights, his nerves rising in his stomach as he waited for you to arrive.

It had been the first year of the Remembrance Ball that Bigby had been the one to convince somebody else to go, considering he was usually the one to be dragged along so unwillingly by Snow. Not this year. This year, he was prepared. He had sacrificed his pride and given up far too many evenings to twirling around the Business Office with Snow once the building quietened at night and while he still lacked a fundamental sense of grace, he was now at least proficient enough that he wouldn’t stand on your feet. For the first time in centuries, Bigby had sought out a brand new suit, one that wasn’t as terribly dated as his previous one, although it was still a simple and understated design. Goddammit, Bigby had even been extra careful on the job the evening before, carefully avoiding taking any hits to the face, so that he wouldn’t be bruised and bleeding. There was nothing else he could do; he was ready.

At least, he thought he was. But no amount of preparation could have prepared him for seeing you walk through the ornate doors. He imagined that the feeling he experienced must have been akin to being struck by lightning, as it travelled through his entire body within the span of a second and paralysed him. It completely broke his brain trying to process how completely and utterly perfect you looked when you were dressed to the nines and he suddenly understood why the other Fables enjoyed this damned dance so much. For in that instant, Bigby would have done it all over again, a million times and lived a million miserable lives just to be given the chance to dance with you tonight.

To his delight, your eyes scanned the crowd and settled on him, so he lifted his glass as a means of greeting, beginning to cross the dance floor so that the two of you could meet in the middle. He quickly lost sight of you in the crowd, but eventually, he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Well, you clean up nice,” the voice was familiar and teasing, which made Bigby feel hot under the collar.

“I could say the same about you,” he returned easily, gesturing to your elaborate clothing. The Sheriff wanted to vocalise it so much better. You looked positively divine, to the point where the other Fables within a visible radius had their eyes stuck on you, either jealous or starstruck. Bigby was overcome with the overwhelming desire to make sure they all knew who you had come for and it was the push he needed to step forward and take you in his eyes. He watched your eyes widen slightly, clearly surprised that Bigby had been so forward and so confident in leading you into an, albeit very simple, dance. All those evenings were certainly paying off.

Emboldened, Bigby made a second and better attempt, “you’re breath-taking. Nobody can take their eyes off of you.” Watching the blush break out on your face, coupled by your closeness, was enough to make Bigby feel that he was in heaven. Your scent was in his nose, even sweeter tonight with whatever scent you were wearing, and you were safe in his arms, his and only his, even if it was just for tonight. Physical touch, he thought, was quite possibly his favourite love language in the world.

It wasn’t enough, he could never get enough of you. He wondered if he would ever be fully satiated, surely not when felt like he wanted to drown in you. Pulling you close, he could feel how rapid your heartbeat was in your chest, and a smile crossed his face. “I didn’t take you for a dancer,” the surprise was evident in your tone, and not at all unjustified. After all, the Sheriff had refused to dance at this damn thing for quite literally centuries, so he supposed he was equally responsible for the stares they were receiving as you spun on, unphased.

“Like I told you, I’m a man of many talents,” Bigby repeated the sentiment from one of your older conversations, which earned him a laugh that he could feel resonate through his body, which was even better than simply hearing it.

“Alright, alright, be all mysterious, then,” you didn’t push him for a real answer any further, which filled him with a sense of relief, because he was certain that once he admitted to begging Snow for lessons, he was never going to live it down. His reputation as the big, bad wolf was already sure to take a large enough hit just from the fact that he had now been seen by almost every Fable dancing, so he really didn’t think it would be able to survive that on top of it all. Slowly, he could feel you relax into his arms as one song turned into two, then three. The orchestra played beautifully, but after a few songs, he felt a murmur in his ear.

“Man, they should have let us pick the music for this thing,” you joked quietly, as not to offend anyone in the near proximity, and Bigby fought to prevent himself from laughing too loudly and causing them to gain any more attention. The novelty of seeing the Sheriff dance had mostly faded by now, the whispers and comments over with for the most part, so he was eager to retain your low profile. He nodded his agreement, struck by how pleasant he found it that you were so similar to him in some ways and different in others. You were not the type to be overly enamoured by the illusion of glamour that the Fables created for Remembrance every year, but more the type to focus on the simple and understated beauties of everyday life. That, Bigby thought, was something truly rare and special and he intended to never let it escape him.

Bigby knew that he wanted to be with you forever. For the first time, he could imagine waking up next to someone every day and falling asleep with them at night. He wanted to be the person on your mind at all hours of the day and the one to comfort you after a terrible day or listen to your stupid jokes after a good one. Bigby wanted to come home to music blaring out of the tape player, instead of the silence and damp of his apartment. He wanted to part ways not just with a smile when you shared the elevator ride to the Business Office, but with a kiss. God, he was head over heels, and no matter how he said it, any one of the godforsaken five ways, he no longer cared. He just had to say it. He needed you to know.

You moved your hand from his shoulder to straighten his tie with a fond smile and that was it for Bigby. Pulling you close, one of his rough hands came up to cover yours, pressing your hand against his chest so that you could probably feel his heartbeat, rapid and strong. The other cupped your jaw, his touch gentler than he ever thought a monster could be capable of. He watched a thousand different emotions flicker through your eyes as he leaned in, too fast for even the Sheriff to be able to process and recognise them all. Your lips met and everything just stopped. It was like Bigby’s mind went completely blank of thoughts and all he could do was feel. His arms tightened around you as he tried to put all he had into it – every last word that he could never find, every smile that he had wished were a kiss, every song that he would never be able to hear and not think of you and this very moment.

Eventually, you pulled back from one another, but not far. You stayed close, your foreheads pressed together as you recovered, breathing together. “The Mundies say that there are five ways to show someone you love them,” Bigby informed you, after a long moment of silence, not entirely sure why he had said it.

“That’s so fucking stupid,” you replied, your voice much breathier than it had been a minute ago, and Bigby grinned widely at how closely your response had echoed his own. It was stupid, and he didn’t care. He didn’t care because it had worked, and he had you in his arms and he had kissed you, and he was never going to let you go. You began to sway again, finding your way back to the music and to reality, as much as he wanted to stay wrapped up in that moment forever.

It didn’t matter how many ways there were, Bigby thought, because he was going to discovery every, damn one.