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ducktoo · 2 days

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Syncing Dream [Aespa x M!Reader]

8. New year, new man(ager)

Note: genuinely appreciate everyone who enjoyed Arc 1. Hope y’all will enjoy this incoming Arc 2 as well!

Y/n paced outside the practice room, glancing at his phone as he triple-checked the schedule for the day. The past few weeks had been a whirlwind after MAMA, but somewhere along the line, things had started to fall into place. He wasn’t the same flustered manager he had been when he first joined aespa’s team. He’d made enough mistakes to last a lifetime, but he had learned. And today, he was ready to prove it.

“Alright, time to give the pep talk,” he muttered to himself, rolling his shoulders back.

Inside, the girls were warming up, Karina and Giselle going over a particularly tricky move while Winter stretched near the mirrors. Ningning was being her usual energetic self, bouncing around between them.

“Okay, everyone! Time to focus up,” Y/n said, clapping his hands together as he walked in. The room fell into a mix of mock groans and smirks.

“You sound so official now,” Giselle teased, giving him a playful nudge as she passed. “Who are you, and what did you do with the Y/n who booked us in the wrong studio that one time?”

Y/n grinned, shaking his head. “He’s still here. Just... learning from his mistakes.”

Karina crossed her arms, watching him closely. There was something unreadable in her expression—like she was analysing him, comparing the person in front of her to the frazzled trainee-turned-manager she first met.

“Alright, before you all get back to dancing, I just want to say…” He hesitated, clearing his throat. “You’ve all been working really hard last year, and I see it. Even when things get tough, you push through, and it shows. Just remember, it’s not about being perfect—it’s about giving it your all. So let’s hit this practice hard, but don’t forget to have fun. Let’s end the year strong, lads!”

The girls exchanged glances before Winter, grinning, gave him a thumbs-up. “Look at you, giving motivational speeches now.”

“I’m impressed,” Karina added, finally speaking up. Her tone was thoughtful, not teasing. “You’ve come a long way.”

Y/n blinked, caught off guard by the compliment. “Thanks, J” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I’m just trying to keep up with you guys.”

Karina stepped closer, lowering her voice so only Y/n could hear. “It’s more than that. You’ve grown into the role. Leadership doesn’t come easy, but you’ve figured out how to handle things, even when it’s chaotic. That’s what makes a difference.”

There was a sincerity in her words that Y/n hadn’t expected. He felt a weight lift off his shoulders, realizing that maybe he wasn’t as lost as he had once thought.

“Thanks, Jimin. That means a lot coming from you,” he said, feeling the tension that had lingered between them start to ease.

Before he could dwell on the moment, Giselle’s voice rang out. “Look at you two, having a heart-to-heart! I give Y/n… hmm, about half-professional status now. What do you think, Ning?”

Ningning, grinning widely, chimed in. “Three-quarters. He still hasn’t learned the choreography.”

Y/n groaned, throwing his hands up. “Oh shut it. I’m not trying to learn the choreography! I’m just your manager!”

They all laughed, the teasing familiar and light-hearted. As practice kicked into gear, Y/n watched from the side, feeling more comfortable in his role than he ever had before.

In the midst of the busy practice schedule, Y/n had noticed something peculiar: the other managers who Y/n met and befriended seemed to be acting a little more attentive and excited than usual. During a quick break, he caught snippets of conversation from them.

“Did you get the wrapping paper?” one of them asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got it. And the card?”

“Just make sure Y/n doesn’t see us.”

Curious and slightly amused, Y/n decided to investigate. He wandered into the break room, where the other managers were gathered, each one busily working on something. The moment they saw him, they froze, their faces betraying a mix of guilt and excitement.

“Uh, what’s going on here?” Y/n asked, raising an eyebrow.

Before anyone could respond, Red Velvet's managers, Minji, cleared her throat. “Oh, Y/n! Perfect timing. We were just... preparing a little something for you and Winter.”

Y/n looked around, noticing the wrapped gifts and a small banner that read “Happy Birthday Y/n & Winter!” The sight made him pause.

“We didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Minji continued, her tone earnest. “But we couldn’t let your birthday go unnoticed, especially since you’re new yet so integral to the team now.”

“Yeah, and we figured it’d be a good way to show our appreciation,” added EXO's manager, Joon.

Y/n chuckled, touched by the gesture. “Awww thanks, guys. I had no idea you were planning this.”

As they chatted, Winter appeared, drawn by the noise. Her eyes widened as she saw the decorations and the pile of presents.

“What’s all this?” Winter asked, her voice tinged with surprise.

The managers exchanged knowing glances before Minji spoke up again. “Well we found out that both of you shared a birthday, so…."

Winter’s eyes widened even further. “Aw, that's nice of you guys. Thank you for caring about this idiot here.”

"Huh? You guys share the same birthday? Ningning popped by with Giselle and Karina, now seeing the commotion.

“Yep, that’s the one,” Minji confirmed with a grin. “So, we thought it’d be fun to celebrate together.”

Winter laughed, clearly delighted. “That’s amazing. I had no idea you all were so organized.”

“Well, we try,” Joon said with a wink. “And we thought it’d be a great surprise, considering how hard you both work.”

The other managers handed Y/n and Winter their gifts with cheerful smiles. “Hope you like them,” Joon said as they both took their presents.

Y/n and Winter exchanged amused glances before unwrapping their gifts. It turned out to be an assortment of practical and fun items—a mix of things they both appreciated. Winter found a beautifully designed journal, while Y/n received a high-quality travel mug with the graphic "Most Improving Baby".

“This is really thoughtful, guys,” Y/n said, genuinely touched. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, it’s the least we could do,” Winter added, smiling warmly at the managers. “We’re really grateful.”

Unbeknownst to the two soon-to-be Birthday babies, the other three adorned a mischievous grin.

The last few days of December flew by in a blur of rehearsals, interviews, and last-minute preparations for the new year’s celebrations. Y/n barely had time to think about his upcoming birthday—shared with Winter, no less—before the big day arrived.

The plan was simple: get Y/n and Winter to believe it was just another ordinary day while secretly setting up a surprise party at the dorm. Giselle had somehow convinced Winter that Y/n needed help with something, giving the rest of the group time to set everything up.

Y/n, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on. He spent the day like any other, running around managing their schedules, completely oblivious to the plot happening right under his nose.

At the dorm, balloons were being inflated, streamers were hung, and a cake—decorated with both Winter and Y/n's names—sat proudly on the kitchen counter. It was a perfect setup.

That was until Y/n, ever the punctual manager, arrived a little earlier than expected.

The door to the dorm swung open, and he walked in, tossing his bag on the couch. "Hey, you guys here? I thought we had that—"

He stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening as he took in the half-decorated room. Karina was holding a balloon, frozen in place. Ningning was mid-streamer hanging, while Giselle had the cake knife in hand, looking like she’d just been caught robbing a bank.

They all stared at each other for a moment, time seemingly frozen.

“What the fu-” Y/n started.

"Abort mission!" Ningning yelled, throwing her hands in the air, and everyone scrambled to act like nothing was happening.

Karina hastily dropped the balloon and leaned casually against the wall. "Oh, Y/n, didn’t see you there. What’s up?"

Giselle, trying to shove the cake back into the fridge, smiled innocently. "Yeah, just, uh... normal day stuff."

Y/n blinked, looking around at the half-decorated chaos. "Suuure, normal day. Now tell me what exactly is going on here?"

Before anyone could make up an excuse, the door swung open again, and Winter appeared, looking confused. "What are you guys doing?"

Giselle groaned dramatically. "Well, there goes the plan."

Realizing the jig was up, Karina sighed and waved a hand. "Surprise, I guess?"

Y/n, despite being completely caught off guard, burst into laughter. "Wait, were you guys actually trying to throw a surprise party for us?"

"Yep," Ningning said, a little deflated. "But you had to show up early and ruin it."

“Yeah, screw you! Jung Y/n!” Karina pouted.

Winter, standing beside Y/n, grinned. "I guess it wouldn’t be our birthdays without some messes."

Despite the botched timing, the room quickly filled with laughter as everyone relaxed, the failed surprise only adding to the fun. Y/n and Winter shared a look before shaking their heads in unison.

Later, as the cake was brought out, the girls sang a loud, slightly off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

Just as Y/n and Winter blew out the candles, Giselle and Ningning smirked at each other.

“We got you guys some special presents,” Giselle said with a mischievous glint in her eye. She pulled out two neatly wrapped boxes, handing one to Y/n and the other to Winter.

“Special?” Y/n raised an eyebrow as he took the box. “What kind of special?”

“Oh, you’ll see,” Ningning said, barely holding in her laughter.

Winter, just as curious, began unwrapping her gift first. The second she opened the box, her eyes widened, and her face turned red as she pulled out a pair of fluffy, pink handcuffs.

“What the—” Winter started, but her voice was drowned out by the chorus of laughter from the other members.

Y/n, now dreading his own gift, slowly unwrapped his box. Inside, he found his own pair of handcuffs, except his were black and decorated with little hearts.

The girls erupted in laughter. Blackpink was truly in the area.

“I—what even is this?!” Y/n held the cuffs up, utterly flustered.

“Oh, come on, you guys have been living together now,” Giselle teased, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. “We thought these might come in handy in case you two planned to be-”

"NOOOOOOO!" Winter looked mortified, covering her face with her hands. “You guys are the worst.”

Karina, trying to maintain a serious expression but failing miserably, added, “We figured it’d break the tension.”

Y/n shook his head, laughing despite himself. “You guys are unbelievable.”

Ningning, still in hysterics, managed to choke out, “You should’ve seen your faces!”

The room dissolved into laughter once more, the ridiculousness of the situation bringing everyone together. Even Winter, after recovering from her embarrassment, couldn’t help but join in.

As the laughter died down and they settled in to enjoy the cake, Y/n stood up and cleared his throat. “Well, since it’s both of our birthdays, I have something for you, too,” he said, handing Winter a small box.

Winter blinked, surprised. “You got me something? Is it a choker this time?”

"Minjeong, what th-" Y/n laughed out. "Stop being dirty-minded and open it, crybaby."

Winter carefully unwrapped the gift, revealing a simple yet elegant bracelet engraved with both their names. Her eyes softened, and she smiled. “Y/n, this is beautiful. Thank you.”

Y/n shrugged. “Figured we might as well embrace the fact that we share the same birthday. Continue the tradition since old days.”

Winter, her smile warm and genuine, reached into her bag and pulled out a small package. “Well, I got something for you, too.”

Y/n opened it to find a sleek, custom-made pen engraved with his initials. He chuckled. “You know, after all this time, I was expecting something like more handcuffs.”

Winter rolled her eyes playfully. “I did say a choker. But please don’t give them any more ideas.”

As the night went on, the room was filled with laughter, teasing, and warmth. It was a night of unexpected gifts, hilarious moments, and heartwarming memories—one that Y/n and Winter wouldn’t soon forget.

#aespa #aespa giselle #aespa karina #aespa ningning #aespa winter #aespa x reader #karina #kpop #ningning #giselle #aeri uchinaga #kim minjeong #ning yizhuo #yoo jimin #x reader

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zombee · 11 months

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I feel like the luckiest Our Flag Means Death fan in the world after the season 2 finale. By a series of incredible circumstances - including a significant metatextual realization that came in at the 11th hour - it was close to perfect for me.

This essay has everything. Completely normal behavior over a television series. Steven Universe references. The David Jenkins School of Whatever is Best for the Bit. Humbling catharsis.

First: this piece does not exist with the central thesis of “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad.” I feel like thousands of words have already been written on this since Thursday, so I’m going to try to not get too in depth on that.

Second, cards on the table, because it’s relevant and I don’t want to waste your time if this is going to sour your ability to hear me out: I’m an Izzy Canyon hater. For MANY reasons, but from way before the concept of the Canyon existed, (some) Izzy fans pinged me in the same way as Snape/Kylo Ren fans did, and before May 2022 was over I went from genuinely enjoying Izzy’s character and place in the narrative to hating him because his fans made it impossible for me to enjoy him anymore.

(SOME! of his fans. Please don’t keep making me say this, although I’m not going to talk about the Canyon directly anymore after this. I know there are a ton of normal Izzy Enjoyers and even Canyonites, I am literally friends with many of them, please take this all in the good faith it’s intended and if you’re not One Of The Bad Ones then you’re fine! I very carefully don’t go anti-Izzy on main, and when I stopped enjoying his character, I stopped writing him into fics. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just want to be honest. Anyway.)

The season 2 finale made me weep over Izzy Goddamn hands.

ALL season long, I was disgruntled. All season long. I really, truly, DEEPLY appreciated what they were doing with his character and arc, I thought it was wildly on brand for the themes of community/queerness in the show, I saw the vision, I liked it!!! But. I wanted a fucking apology, yall. I needed three seconds of “sorry I called you a slur, Ed :/” and that would have been enough. But I had to let it go. It was poisoning my enjoyment of the whole season, which I loved with very little exception (not none!) and I just had to let it go. I wasn’t getting an apology. That didn’t negate what they were doing with his character.

Yall. They withheld the apology on purpose.

THIS FUCKING SHOW!!!

Let’s go back a bit. I was at the episode 6 + 7 screening, and the breakup shook me. Probably a LOT more than if I had watched it alone in bed at 3am on my laptop - five days of no sleep after NYCC, lots of emotions, seeing it on a big screen with a hundred other intense fans, etc etc - but I did see other folks reacting in parallel ways to me when the episodes aired to the regular public, so maybe I would have felt the same way. Regardless, I was mad at Stede and to a lesser extent Ed. I NEEDED AN APOLOGY FOR THAT FISH LINE. I needed it! “Whativah” autocorrects to “WHATIVAH” in my phone. I was going through it.

(When I rewatched the episode when it aired it was not nearly as bad as I remember, lol)

So now the episode 8 screeners go out and the reviews drop and I think I catch one half-glimpse of a “What a heartbreaking ending!” kind of snippet, and some of my friends who are spoiler fiends unintentionally drop little hints about similar ideas (devastating/heartbreaking/split the fandom) type shit.

And I was a fucking WRECK! about it.

I do love this whole show with my whole chest. I do!!! But I’m not rotted because this is an excellent television show, I’m rotted because two old men kiss each other! On the MOUTH!!! in an excellent television show. You get it, right? I’ve written 700,000 words across almost 100 fics and 98% of them are dedicated to those two men falling in love in different universes.

So it just did not even occur to me the “heartbreak/devastation/fandom split” would be about anything but Gentlebeard.

Another piece of this that was fucking me up - David Jenkins and his “satisfactory” ending biz. My brain was reacting like this show was ENDING ending, even if I knew logically! that this is just season 2!!! And I wasn’t ready for that, because what if it wasn’t personally satisfying, and I’m a mess about it? Why was I so worried about not liking it? I’d liked the whole season! Even if they didn’t nail the landing I wasn’t going to stop writing fic or hanging out with my pirate community & friends.

…is what I kept trying to tell myself, but the way anxiety disorders work is funny like that lol. What if I did stop writing fic and hanging out in pirate spaces? That would hurt much more than a show I like disappointing me. And for anyone who’s having that experience with ofmd s2, I’m so very, very sorry. It sucks and that’s where my epiphany came from on Wednesday before the finale.

Because it has happened to me before.

I flit from hyperfocus to hyperfocus, as ya do when you’re spicy, but the last thing to get its hooks in me PROPERLY like pirates was Steven Universe. And I did NOT like the way the regular season ended!!! (I actually really did like most of Future; that’s not what I mean. I mean season 5). I don’t like how they handled the Diamonds, tldr; I think the scope of their villainy got too out of hand, and I was left grieving the thing that had meant enough to me I ran a fan convention for four years based around it.

Side note: imagine if I had channeled the hyperfocus of almost a million words of fanfiction into an American OFMD con instead. We could have made magic :( I did consult with Our Con Means Death though so I am at least a teeny tiny bit of that one!

I did not like the way Steven ended… but I do respect the story they were telling and think they told it well.

I’m still sad about it. Steven is still one of my most beloved, it will always be beautiful and great to me, but that experience did and does sully my memories. There is so, so, so, SO much more good than bad from being in that fandom, and I cherish it. And I hope, if you’re having this experience with OFMD right now, that you’ll find similar comfort.

But, like I said at the top, “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad” has been belabored already by people better at writing about it than me. I just had the incredible privilege to remember my brush with lower case T trauma and having that experience in my last REALLY big deal fandom. That’s why I had been so extra anxious about being disappointed. Because it happened to me before. It helped so much to connect those two.

So the finale happens, and it’s actually about twelve hours of me going from “eh, rushed but fun, whole season was great” to “THIS MAYBE IS THE BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME, ACTUALLY!”

BECAUSE THIS SHOW MADE ME CRY OVER IZZY FUCKING HANDS!!!!

They literally told me this was the story they were telling this season. “Men can change” “The end of piracy” “Ed leaving Blackbeard behind (ish).”

As for me? I didn’t get an apology for the fish. Instead, I got “Sorry I was a dick.” “You weren’t a dick. Life’s a dick.”

Just… fuckity BAM. THREE FUCKING SENTENCES resolving that fight. Saying so much in so little.

In real life, should these two men have an actual conversation about this shit? Sure!!! But that’s not how OFMD tells its stories!

It works in symbolism. It works in vibes. It works in an hour’s worth of content into each half-hour episode, and for how much lamenting I have done about the pacing, I would prefer that 100x to having to stretch it out too much.

I have said since March 24, 2022 that OFMD wields anachronism as a weapon. First and foremost, it’s fucking funny, but in addition to that, it’s stating clearly: “This is a fantasy world. This is not real history. This show is about romance (and so much more than that), and the rest is just VIBES!!!”

Sometimes vibes can be historical accuracy. Sometimes vibes can be true emotional poignancy. Sometimes vibes can be Ed finding his sunken leathers in the sea, changing underwater somehow, and coming out of the ocean like the Birth of Fucking Venus, because water and rebirth and mermaids and shit is all very prominent this season. And ALSO, and this is very important! BECAUSE IT LOOKS FUCKING COOL!

I don’t want to do much real Izzy meta here. It’s been said by others, and better than me. But it was telegraphed and it was symbolic – he was the paragon of Traditional Piracy in season 1, for goodness’ sake, and Traditional Piracy is Toxic Masculinity, and he was a part of Blackbeard and Ed had to leave Blackbeard behind (yknow, ish), and he got this ABSOLUTLEY FUCKING LOVELY! storyline about appreciating what a (queer) community can do, and god fucking shit fucking dammit… most of all, best of all (for me), was Buttons landing on Izzy’s grave at the end. Men can change. And Izzy DID!!! He did it for Ed. For love. For community. I am puzzled by “it’s fucked up to use Izzy to further Ed’s storyline” because… this was Ed’s season, in the way that season 1 was Stede’s. And Ed cannot be removed from piracy as a whole (neither can Stede!) so to have this old, set in his ways, coded-queerphobic character blossom to the point he can give this gift to Ed and to piracy… idk man. I just find it so fucking beautiful.

It is okay not to like what they did. It’s okay!!! It’s okay, and it’s okay to mourn, and while it’s not okay to do [insert vile behavior here], it’s okay to carefully examine what you think is “bad writing” vs “what you would have preferred to happen” and give good-faith, textually-based criticism on that.

But I want to remind you over and over and over again, this show works on vibes. It tells its stories leaving many, many, many gaps. There are many things I would have liked to see, and y’know what? I would have told the Izzy story differently. I would have personally done it differently. But it’s not my show! It’s not my show, and I am humbled and delighted to remember that, and to appreciate Our Flag Means Death for what it is and not what it isn’t.

Other words have been written better than I could about the 18 months between seasons 1 and 2 and what that does to us as rabid fans with expectations of how things will go. Millions and millions and millions of words have been written about OFMD, fictional and non, and that is going to color our expectations and experience. We had built it up SO MUCH in our minds and along the way I think some of us forgot (INCLUDING ME!!!) that it is first and foremost about Vibes.

The vibes of Izzy’s death are about rebirth and forgiveness and leaving traditional piracy behind. And he got to die in Ed’s arms, knowing (HAPPILY!) that he had been wrong, and giving Ed the gift of letting him know he is loved, and being a part of something. We had a funeral but we also had a wedding. The only constant is change. Men, piracy, Blackbeard; it all changes. And Izzy found peace in that.

Before my last point, I want to @ myself on things I felt versus realizing in the end it is (I will say it until I’m blue in the face) about vibes.

· I was convinced they left Buttons’ transformation ambiguous because they wanted to leave room for it not having been real. NO!!! It is real, until they decided it isn’t. Magic in the OFMD universe? Fucking why not!!! IT’S SYMBOLIC!!! IT’S IMPORTANT TO ED’S STORYLINE AND THE CENTRAL THESES OF THE SHOW!

· I was unhappy, and still am a little, about the Polycule Situation, but now that I realize Oluwande is Zheng’s Stede… I am less so. The Zheng : Auntie :: Ed : Izzy vibes, btw? Fuckin immaculate.

· Obviously they touched on Stede/Ed’s “killing people trauma” but I’d reallyyyy like Stede to address it, and even though I think Ed’s is left on a very satisfying note, I’d like him to dip a bit more into it as well. But if they don’t, oh well! It’s not like they ignored it, they just didn’t have a Deep Dive like I Wanted Them To!

· They didn’t deal with Ed throwing Stede’s shit away. They just ignored it! Stede started to collect new trinkets, and I believe that was as much about giving the audience back the old feeling of the Revenge as it was anything important (not to say it wasn’t also important thematically!!!). Just like Ed going back to his leathers is both Extremely Important thematically and about putting Taika back in the leathers because that’s what Blackbeard should be wearing for the epic final scenes for the sake of visually keeping the show consistent. That’s Blackbeard’s uniform.

· Stede’s frilly little outfits my beloved. God I hope they give him back some of his frippery in season 3. I think they will re: cursed suit BUT his journey this season was about something else, so!

· Ed’s stupid little non-profit non-apology, oh my god. It was so funny. And there is a transition from eps 5 to 6 where Ed is back in his leathers and the crew is more comfortable around him. They didn’t have to have him do a Real Apology, it’s implied it was all settled. What was the timeline? A day? DOESN’T MATTER, BABY, VIBES!!!

· Lots more, I’m sure, but now that I’ve tried to let it all go, I’m remembering less of what I wanted and appreciating what I got!

And, last point here, I think it is also very very very important to remember that a lot of people are normal about this show. In fact, WAY more people are normal about this show than aren’t. And that is EXTREMELY! IMPORTANT!!! because otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable and we all know what would happen then. We are the core of it, to be sure. Without word of mouth that stems from our intensity, this show would not be NEARLY as successful as it is. I truly, truly believe that.

But.

Do normies need deeply emotional discussions dissecting the central relationships? No. What normies need is Ed and Stede running dramatically toward each other on the beach and kissing. And I am happy, so fucking happy, to realize that’s what I need too. I’ve got fanworks for the rest.

I love this fucking show and this fucking fandom and its fucking creators so much. Fuck.

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2

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polkadotpenguin16 · 7 months

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#MarchFicMadness24 Rec List

Here's my contribution to @the-blind-assassin-12's March Madness Reblog Challenge: reblog 63 fics in 31 days!

Below are stories/drabbles/whatever that I enjoyed reading and give the Penguin Stamp of Approval 🐧™ (very exclusive)

Expect a lot of Carisi/Barba love 😍

Part 1 | Part 2

🥰=Fluffy 😔=Angsty 🥵=Saucy 📋=Masterlist

1. Carisi and reader's first kiss by @kryptonitejelly 🥰 Sonny Carisi x reader This is just an adorable little snippet that made my heart flutter

2. Mistakes We Knew We Were Making, Chapter 1 by @lovecarisi 🥵 Sonny Carisi x reader Hot damn - that's it, that's all my thoughts lol

3. Slow, soft love making with Barba by @adacarisi 🥵 Rafael Barba x reader This was my gateway fic into the Tumblr-SVU-Fic-Verse (came here from a random pin on Pinterest). And it is still one I enjoy going back to because it is so delightful. Anyone who enjoys smutty SVU fics should check their stuff out!

4. Sweet Tangerine by @whoevrwhatevr 🥰😔 Sonny Carisi x Rafael Barba My guilty pleasure is sick/comfort fics, and this one checks all the boxes for me. Pathetic, ill Sonny has a special place in my heart lol

5. Second Chances, Part One by @tropes-and-tales 😔🥰🥵 Sonny Carisi x Reader I read this on the recommendation of @misscharlielulu, and it did NOT disappoint! It literally has everything - broken hearts, adorable dates, a sensual satisfying climax. It goes from angsty, to fluffy, to saucy, and it is near close to perfect.

6. Overtime by @storiesofsvu 😔🥰 Rafael Barba x Reader Honestly, read any of her stuff, you're guaranteed to enjoy it. I like this one in particular because it is such a well composed story. And she nailed Raf being a lovable dick 😂

7. Tears For A Good Man by @escapingrealtiylovinginsanity 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader I always get excited when a new Sonny fic comes across my dash, and this one is just GAHHH **insert incoherent happy noises** Probably the sweetest version of Sonny you will ever come across **swoon**

8. 19 (aka losing your virginity to Sonny) part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 by @carisi-dreams 🥵 Sonny Carisi x Reader If I was on a deserted island and was only allowed to bring one fic to read, THIS WOULD BE IT!!!! I love how relatable the reader is, I love how attentive Sonny is, and it's just GOD DAMN HOT 🔥

9. Relaxation Therapy by @mrsrafaelbarba 🥵 Rafael Barba x Reader Who doesn't want a sexy Cuban lawyer to take care of them after a long day 😏 #life is hard and barba is hot

10. You're My Dream Girl by @pascalispretty 🥵 Sonny Carisi x Reader Apparently @misscharlielulu and I are on the same wavelength because we were both thinking about this one today lol. This one is hot, heavy, desperate and it's AMAZING

11. Line Without a Hook by @writingdayandnight 🥰 Rafael Barba x Reader This reads like a delightful romance movie, and is a beautiful alternative for Undiscovered Country-deniers (seriously, what were they thinking?!)

12. Carisi realizing he’s in love by @kryptonitejelly 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader Another adorable snippet courtesy of @kryptonitejelly - keep em coming!

13. “i’m yours, in every way possible.” by @qvid-pro-qvo 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader Y'all wanna cry happy tears? Cuz this made me cry happy tears! I found this gem last week, and have become completely obsessed.

14. HCs: Being in a Relationship with Sonny Carisi by @locke-writes 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader This is wonderfully written, in-depth, and simply put, it's heartwarming 💓

15. Rafael Barba Masterlist by @melk917 📋 Rafael Barba x Reader If you're a Barba fan, this is the Tumblr to go to! Seriously, just pick any of them. You'll find a little bit of everything, and you'll enjoy yourself.

16. A Fight With Sonny by @storytimefromthecreed 😔🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader The dialogue in this is so perfectly written. Honestly, it's #truelovegoals

17. Rain, Candlelight & Pumpkin Spice by @beccabarba 🥵 Rafael Barba x Reader This one is so soft and sensual and makes me miss fall. Standout quote - "I love that you think you’re the lucky one" - I'm literally melting 🫠

18. Taken Care Of by @plaidbooks 😔🥵 Sonny Carisi x Reader There are LOTS of stories out there about Sonny taking care of the reader. Not nearly as many about Sonny being cared for, and by god does that man deserve it! This is a fav of mine, Julie's so talented, and I've got 45 more fics to go so I'm sure I'll be adding more of her stuff to this list.

19. Perfect / Love Won’t Die by @cathrrrine 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader When this fic dropped, I got absolutely nothing done that day because it was the only thing I could think about. It gives you all the nice mushy feelings a good fluff piece should!

20. Movie Night by @adarafaelbarba 🥵 Rafael Barba x Reader This is one of the first Rafa fics I ever read. Then I freaking lost it and thought I was imagining the whole thing. And when I finally found it again, it was even better than I remembered lol

21. Mistakes We Knew We Were Making, Chapter 2 by @lovecarisi 🥵 Sonny Carisi x Reader Chapter 2's out y'all!

22. Public Transportation by @amaroforpresident 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader An utterly adorable meet cute 😍

23. Caught in the Act by @svuwritings 🥵 Sonny Carisi x Reader Just absolutely filthy smut; might need a cold shower after this one.

24. 4th of July by @australiancarisi 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader I love reading fics with a focus on Sonny's family. We got such a small sliver of that part of him on the show. This fic just makes me smile ☺️

25. Decisions by @detectivesvu 😔 Rafael Barba x Reader This is a heavy read, but it's oh so good. Sidenote, this reader is a saint - I wish I could practice this level of patience lol

26. Paradise Lost & Paradise Found by @cycat4077/@cycat-carisi 😔 Sonny Carisi x Reader So Tumblr will not let me reblog these for some reason, but I just had to share because I love them so much. This story breaks my damn heart and then glues it back together and I am HERE for it! All of their stuff is a joy to read 💙

27. I Want You to Touch Me by @writefasttalkevenfaster 🥵 Rafael Barba x Reader Sexy bearded Barba, anyone? “I told you it wouldn’t be a bed,” - GAHH I'm blushing 😳

28. Gallery by @svu-ncis-criminalminds 😔 Sonny Carisi x Reader Is "deliciously angsty" a thing? I have issues dealing with conflict in my personal life, so reading about people fighting and making up is kind of cathartic for me. It does wrap with a sweet ending.

29. Getting Flowers from Sonny by @duchesschameleon 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader I've only received flowers once from someone (who wasn't family) and I remember just how goddamn special that made me feel and this perfectly captures all those warm fuzzy feels 😊

30. "Hey, just look at me. Breathe." by @amirightcounsellor 😔 Sonny Carisi x Reader Oh, to be held by Sonny after a nightmare...

31. Sonny in an accident part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 by @carisi-dreams 😔 Sonny Carisi x Reader Scrolling through Violet's blog is like the best box of chocolates you've ever received - always something new and exciting to find. I cannot believe I only just read this today. I think it is a contender for my most favorite fic of all-time. Violet, I bow to your greatness 🙌

32. Unsure by @svucarisiaddict 😔 Sonny Carisi x Reader I love this story so much. It really resonates with me deeply. And Sonny is such a dear in this :)

33. The Tum by @plaidbooks 🥵 Rafael Barba x Reader I love me a fluffy man, and Raf deserves all the adoring attention in the world <3

34. A Misunderstanding by @minidodds 😔 Rafael Barba x Reader This is a cute shorty about a silly miscommunication.

35. Toy Box by @detective-giggles 🥵 Sonny Carisi x Reader Did someone turn up the heat, cuz it's getting a little steamy in here. This is filthy...please enjoy 😏

36. All Wrapped Up by @melk917 🥵 Rafael Barba x Reader I know the holiday season has passed, but this is a good read all year round.

37. Come Home part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 by @enamoured-x 😔 Sonny Carisi x Reader In case you needed your heart torn up this evening! This whole series is amazing, I love it so much. Why do I we love to see Carisi suffer so much?!

38. Do Not Disturb by @foryouthem00n 😔 Sonny Carisi x Reader I do enjoy me some Cranky Carisi lol. Can hardly believe Sonny would turn down cuddles 🥺

39. how the svu characters would react to you pranking them by texting “i miss being single” by @cathrrrine 🥰 The whole SVU gang These are all just a laugh and a half 😆 and so accurate! "Not now. I'm not done sulking yet." OMG seriously Rafa?!!

40. fluff #1 by @writingsforfandoms-multi 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader Ya know, I'm just a sucker for some domestic bliss. This one is so precious!

41. Your first five dates with Sonny… by @reddielov-e 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader This is such a fun read! Very well thought out, lots of details. "you’re an outstanding woman and you never fail to make me laugh" - ya killing me!

42. Jealousy by @minidodds 😔 Sonny Carisi x Reader This is an oldy but a goody. I go back to this one whenever I'm in the mood for some angst.

43. Trust Me by @ambivertdreamer 😔 Rafael Barba x Reader I really like Rafa stories that follow the plot from Intersecting lives (wtf were you thinking giving out your address Barba?!) and seeing the fall out and consequences that the show didn't really give us. This is a great story that ties up really nicely.

44. Coming Home by @seekret-fanfic 🥰 Sonny Carisi x Reader Warning! Your heart may not be prepared for this amount of fluff!! I fucking LOVE this story - it pulls at the heartstrings in such a delightful way. Warms my cold dead heart 🖤

45. On Takeout and Yoga by @inflagranteinnuendo 🥵 Sonny Carisi x Reader Not your conventional smut piece. This is so well written. I love the flow of the whole story. I love the build up to ending. I love just how goddamn sweet and endlessly understanding Sonny is!!

46. SVU guys picking out engagement rings by @adacarisi 🥰 Sonny Carisi, Rafael Barba, Mike Dodds I've been a wedding-y mood recently, and this just tickles my fancy.

#marchficmadness24 #63 stories in 31 days #fic rec #sonny carisi x reader #rafael barba x reader

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stabbyfoxandrew · 1 month

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omg!!! i didn't miss it this week! happy wipwednesday my beloved! <3

I missed your askbox it's so cozy here... only thing missing is a little arson neil snippet underneath now that would make this perfect

mwah! <3

WIP Wednesday (8/14) | Arsonist Neil / Firefighter Andrew AU (Part 212)

“You’re keeping them, I presume?” Andrew begins, watching as Aaron turns so he won’t be speaking into fake-granite.

“Yeah. I told you. I’d never give a baby up.”

“Just the one then?”

Aaron raises his head. “Andrew.”

“Give the cute one away. Like mother, like son. No?”

“No.” Aaron says firmly. “I just don’t know how we’re going to manage this. I mean, we can clear out our extra bedroom.”

“You mean that horrendous catastrophe of a room you call a study? The one that’s piled with junk? That extra bedroom?” Andrew asks, leaning heavy against the counter and staring across it at Aaron’s face.

“I just said we would clear it out! It’s not like we’d have a couple babies precariously balanced on stacked-up boxes.” Aaron says hotly. Andrew shrugs and he continues. “It’s big enough for two cribs, I think. But I don’t even know how big cribs are. And now we have to buy two of everything, you know?”

“Or they could share. It’s good for them to share the same space, they’ll be used to it. Having shared a womb and all.” Andrew says, making Aaron’s brows a straight line. “What? It’s basic knowledge that twins should be kept together. Though, certain unnamed, horrible women have obviously forgotten that in the past.”

“You’ve read up on twins. On baby twins.” Aaron says, sounding accusatory.

“Of course I have. Sometimes it’s nice to think about how we could’ve been had we not been deprived of each other for half our lives.”

#:)<3 #andreil #aftg #WIP Wednesday #Arsonist Neil / Firefighter Andrew #🕊️#answered #tisaqslur

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hyenasnake · 1 year

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Here’s my receipts that ineffable bureaucracy will be canon this season

This snippet from a Gizmodo article

This clip of an interview with movieweb that seems to hint at Shelley having to act out an emotional relationship with someone

This part of an interview with Screenrant

4. The fact that on the next question in the video, Shelley’s response is edited out of the Final Cut

5. Beelzebub being Gabriel’s emergency contact on Hell’s wanted poster

6. The Graveyard Scene (BTS and official screen cap from the trailer)

7. Gabriel getting harassed by flies in the last sneak peak and Beelzebub holding a fly in their poster. Possibly checking up on him, as others have speculated?

EDITED TO ADD MORE:

8. That one line from Gabe in the trailer

9. the mug that seems to represent Gabriel having a heart over it

10. Beelzebub’s Scene Partner?

11. This post Neil Gaiman reblogged back in 2019 saying that After Hours by The Velvet Underground was a perfect song for Beelzebub, and this post where he says he’s discreetly told us a lot about season 2. These are the lyrics btw.

In conclusion:

#good omens #ineffable bureaucracy #beelzebub #beelzebub good omens #archangel Gabriel #archangel fucking gabriel #Gabriel x Beelzebub #Beelzebub x gabriel #ineffable beurocracy #good omens 2 #good omens 2 speculation #shelley conn #Jon Hamm

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hangmanbradshaw · 10 months

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Happy ho-ho-holidays everybody!! As a celebration, I'm going to be posting fic related treats (new chapters, new fics, one shots, story add ons, snippets, etc) each day, a chaotic advent calendar of sorts full of my (and your so voted) favorite things. I hope y'all have as much fun with this as I do. Some of it I have planned, some I'm taking the inspo as it comes so ;) you never know what I'll run with

Day 1: i find myself running home to your sweet nothings (IWTBY Part 3, chap 1) tumblr post

Day 2: sometimes all it takes is a thursday (javy pov one shot: After the mission, Javy watches Jake and Bradley become Jake and Bradley again, and then become more, OR, Jake and Bradley become friends again, and sometimes love is actually easy.)

Day 3: that little farm where every wish comes true chap 5 (hallmark sugar daddy au) tumblr post

Day 4: i talk a big game that i'm scared of losin' (one shot: Jake's a professor ready to jump back into the dating pool, Bradley's a little rough around the edges, and Nat swears they're perfect for each other. She might be right. OR Jake dumps his loser ex and moves to California to be near Nat and Javy. Nat knows a guy, and sometimes opposites attract.)

Day 5: and i feel like my castle's crumbling down (Bradley POV add on to rival princes au. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.” All it took was nine words for Bradley's heart to rebuild and break again.)

Day 6: santa, can't you hear me chap 2 (Jake Seresin didn't want to live the lyrics of Last Christmas, but in the aftermath of a breakup, he finds himself meeting someone different, someone maybe even special, in the form of a reporter sent to do a profile on him. Bradley Bradshaw wasn't what he expected, but maybe that's a good thing. The rest, well, he can honestly say he never saw it coming.)

Day 7: take me home where we met so many years before (one shot: On the day of Jake and Bradley's wedding, three best friends look back on how they got there. OR the Seresin-Bradshaw guide to laying under the stars through all stages of life) (aka the FGCC's fault lmao love you guys)

Day 8: cuz you know i love the players and you love the game (one shot: Jake's the star quarterback, Bradley's the star baseball captain. They both like playing games, turns out they want the same prize. OR. Bradley dresses as a cheerleader for the team and Jake hates him (except that he totally doesn't))

Day 9: the set it up/football/baseball/fall in love with the city idea that almost was (before I went with IWTBY which I'd been dreaming up for so long)

Day 10: santa, can't you hear me chap 3 finale

#love you all!!!#2023 has been good to me so this is my gift to the universe vibes #figured i'd start off with a bang #i'm excited about some of my plans and im open to ideas #anyways! enjoy #thoughts?#steph's stuff #steph's 10 days of ficmas

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jtl-fics · 1 month

Note

Tbd snippet for wip wednesday please🙏

8/7/24 WIP Wednesday (Closed) | TBD AU

The pasta was good, but Andrew had in no way been prepared for the cheesecake that Smith set in front of him.

It’d been impressive with the the graham crackers and the chocolate mirror glaze on top of it but then Smith had put some marshmallows onto his slice, “Excuse me Andrew.” and proceeded to torch the marshmallows to a perfect golden brown right in front of him.

Andrew briefly considers shifting his preferences if it weren’t for how explicitly married Smith is.

<< Prev | First | Next >>

#TBD AU #AFTG #AFTG AU #Andrew Minyard #Neil Josten #Andreil #TBD - Chapter 2 - 52 #8-7-24 WIP Wednesday #WIP Wednesday Ask Game #17

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thekristen999 · 2 months

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Seven Sentence Sunday

I wasn't going to share anything today, but I wanted a distraction. This is for the 911 Fanworks Festival exchange so I'm calling this my secret fic. Will be posted on July 31st.

Previous snippet here.

...

Buck began pondering his drink choices when a voice caught him off guard. "Is this seat taken?"

He sighed internally. "It’s a free country," Buck replied.

"You and I both know that’s not true," Diaz said, sliding into the stool next to him.

Gone was the ratty tank top and shorts, replaced by the midnight blue blazer and button up shirt that had to be custom tailored to match his enticing frame. Buck bit his bottom lip.

"You’re staring, not that I mind."

Buck snorted. "Just wondering how you got inside here."

"Through the front door."

Diaz knew how to lay down the charm, his charisma was the perfect counterbalance to his cockiness. Buck had spent the last few years charming and seducing circles around anyone and everyone. He was too good an agent to allow Diaz to rile him up. Hen was right. Buck was on R&R, might as well mix a little business with pleasure.

Buck nodded at Ravi, the bartender. "Clase Azul Gold Tequila, please."

Ravi straightened to full height. "Nice one, sir."

Eddie raised an eyebrow. "Someone’s been checking up on me."

"Just returning the favor for breakfast."

"Breakfast wasn’t that good."

"What can I say, I enjoy raising the stakes."

Ravi placed a glass in front of Eddie who picked it up with appreciation. "This blend is specially crafted reposado tequila matured in French oak casks and in 8 aged in American ex-bourbon barrels."

"Sounds delicious," Buck said watching Eddie’s lips. " I'll have one, too."

tagging few people who might be interested or want to share.

@andavs @homerforsure @renecdote @mellaithwen

@favouritealias @thebestbooksaround @exhuastedpigeon

@diazsdimples @spotsandsocks @dangerpronebuddie

@hippolotamus @tizniz @fleurdebeton @ci5mates

@the-likesofus

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #kristen999writes

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mazzystar24 · 4 months

Note

Hello

Hope im not bothering you and I dont know if this had been talked about before on your blog but I was really really curious about your opinion on something. I know we have to take a grain of salt when it comes to actors interview cause they don't write the show but what are your thoughts on Ryan using neutral gender pronouns when talking about Eddie's possible futur relationships? (Using partner and themselves instead of girlfriend or herself when he has been until the marisol break up very much explicit with using lots of femal pronouns concerning Eddie's love interest and relationships)

Like I said I know Ryan most likely isn't aware of much for season 8 but its very likely that some stuff must have been talked about and I dont want to be that buddie shipper but to me it's screams that it has been talked about, and I'm not saying it has been confirmed among themselves but with him using gender neutral it screams so loud that at least buddie has been talked about. Sorry that was long but its been wracking my brain and I really wanted your opinion cause honestly I love being one of your avons cause you are always lovely and sweet and formulate very lovely responses (thank you so much btw cause I really really love when you answer me ❤️)

Lots of love from anon that appreciate you like im sure many others do ;)

HI BABE IM SO SORRY I NEGLECTED YOU💐💐💐💐 I only just caught up on the interviews that had dropped

Like these bits oml the secret optimist in me is SCREAMING

Like yes Ryan is stressing a million times that s8 is very much a question mark on what will happen and that he as an actor is the last to know yada yada but I love the way Ryan is like “partner” and “them” very interesting indeed

Also love how much he understands Eddie but that’s a whole other story

But yeah what he wants with Eddie stopping the cycle of looking for a mom for Chris and instead looking for something NEW and for himself is just so perfect and exactly what we’ve been begging for

Also I keep seeing people referencing more stuff so if you have specific snippets you wanna send me please do because I think I might not have found all the articles

Ahhhhh and I love having YOU as one of my anons you guys are literally the sweetest people ever 🫶🫶🫶

Lots of love and I appreciate you sm 🥰🫶🫶🫶

#911 #buddie #evan buckley #911 abc #911 fox #911onfox #eddie diaz #evan buck buckley #buckley diaz family #asks open #send asks #my asks #send me asks #answered asks #asks #ryan guzman

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justabigoldnerd · 1 day

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Thank you so much @pippinoftheshire for the tag!!! 💕💕💕💕

Here's a snippet from "Flufftober Day 8: Chopping Wood"

Her chest is heaving by the third quartered log, and the mud from her hands has transferred in streaks onto her face from where she wipes at the sweat beading along her brow. Gaby pushes her sleeves up farther, and Illya's gaze is drawn to the olive skin of her arms, the lean muscle flexing as she prepares another log. Illya's mouth is dry. He is unable to focus on anything other than her perfect form, the way she glistens in the falling rays of the sun, the force behind each throw of the axe, the strands of dark hair falling from her headwrap. Oh, how he wishes he could tuck them back in place for her. Tame the wild frays that dared to defy her, put them in their place. Trail his fingers down the side of her face, tilt up her chin and– “Peril?" Illya jumps out of his skin, heart hammering against his ribs. He whips around to face the unexpected voice, forcing a city-leveling glare. However, judging by the amused mischief on his concussed partner's face, he's failed to hide his fluster. “I thought you had concussion,” he snaps. “I wanted coffee,” Solo crosses his arms and leans a shoulder on the door frame. His eyes, while still a bit glazed, sparkle like fresh snow, “I got entertainment instead.”

Illya 🤝 Me

Getting enamored by a blue-collar Gaby

No pressure tagging @huggiebird @happybean17 @falling-into-peril @heytheredeann @bighandsforabigheart

@kcscribbler @yallwildinrn @cha-melodius @the-golden-comet @thattripleabattery

@times-up-alone-tonight @vnyu73 @nicijones @prettyboynapoleonsolo

And an Open Tag for anyone who wants to join!! 💕💕💕

#tmfu #the man from uncle #tmfu movie #illya kuryakin #gaby teller #napoleon solo #fanfiction #fanfic #ao3 #gallya #wip wednesday #tag game #flufftober

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thedaythatwas · 2 months

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How to be Alone

Summary: Goro Akechi has 30 days to vacate his apartment. If only moving on were half as easy as moving out.

CW: alcohol, emetophobia, run-of-the-mill violent thoughts from Akechi, and more repression than you could possibly fathom

This is just a little snippet of a post-canon Akechi character study I've been working on! I want to share it here on tumblr as a standalone oneshot. Please don't expect any tension to be resolved <333 because that's not happening here <333

Big thank you to my lovely betas, lambsear (ao3), @cardiganbear, and @cloudysonder. Another massive thanks to @chaoticconstellation – thank you for all of the inspo and motivation (and for making me aware that apartments that evil-looking exist!)

House Hunting (or, I'm not hung up on you anymore, but here's why I hung up)

Shopping for apartments online was hell.

Akechi was no stranger to feelings of mind-numbing rage. Even so, there was something about the website he was using to search for a new living space that made him particularly angry, even by his own standards. His cursor drifted across its screen, its interface lagged, and despite his perfect internet connection, it seemed as though every thirty seconds the damn thing refreshed itself.

Akechi wasn’t sure where exactly he was looking to live; his requirements for a new place were the vague but apt key terms, ‘Tokyo,’ ‘cheap,’ and ‘studio.’ Unfortunately, his criteria seemed to be mutually exclusive. A room of his own would cost an arm and a leg; a room with a roommate or two would take a doable (albeit still exorbitant) chunk from his savings. It was tragic, really, that Akechi would be at risk of causing grievous bodily harm to himself and others if he were forced to share a living space. Forking over cash he didn’t have was quite literally his only option.

Akechi might have been able to search out some middle ground between striking gold beneath the streets of Kichijoji and committing another homicide if he had the luxury of time to plan his move. He had always been scrappy, even if he was seldom lucky.

Time, however, was something that Akechi didn’t have. That, of course, had to do with the circumstances that had pushed him to bearing the indignities of online apartment hunting in the first place.

On February 3rd, Akechi had woken up in his bed. This was strange for a number of reasons. One: he didn’t make a habit of waking up when his bedside clock brightly proclaimed it to be 8:37pm.

Two: Goro Akechi was supposed to be dead.

And, joy of all joys, he was not. Upon registering this unfortunate new development in the saga of misfortunes that was his existence, Akechi had rolled over, buried his head in his pillow, and screamed. When soreness in his throat informed him that screaming was no longer a viable way to spend his time, he had walked to his near-empty kitchen and grabbed the frilly bottle of expensive single malt scotch that Shido had given him the day he had reported to his office to confirm Wakaba Ishikki’s death.

Akechi had been saving the bottle for the day he won.

Well. Cheers to that one.

He had sat down on the linoleum tile floor and taken a large swig out of the bottle. Presumably, he’d repeated the act a number of times, because the next morning he’d woken up in his bed – again, ironically, with no memory of how he’d arrived there – and promptly thrown up on himself.

He’d tossed his unlucky shirt in the garbage, along with the bottle he’d found lying knocked over and bone dry on the kitchen floor. He really had always hated it.

After spending several days lying in his bed, only leaving it to periodically feed himself one of the instant ramen packets he stockpiled in the one cabinet in his kitchen he actively used, Akechi had washed his sheets and moved on.

What else could he do?

He had contacted Sae Niijima first, because while he had been spending several days laying horizontal in a dark room, adding an abstract collage of broth splatters to his sweatpants and trying to convince himself that any of his recent decisions actually mattered, Akira Kurusu was probably behind bars giving testimony that would damn Shido and potentially put himself away for good in the process.

And like hell was he going to let Joker one-up him by rotting away in jail while Akechi – clearly, the most deserving party in this scenario on both counts – walked free.

As soon as he’d heard the click of his phone connecting to Sae’s, Akechi had come in guns blazing announcing his intent to march down to the police station and confess to everything he’d done. He would gladly go down with Shido’s ship if it meant he could anchor him well and truly to rock bottom.

The elder Niijima sister had rolled shockingly well with Akechi’s punches. After expressing mild surprise that he was alive, Sae had efficiently talked him off his ledge.

“Do you want Shido to be locked away for life? If your answer is yes, I suggest you stay well away from my case. I have a strategy, and it will be much less effective if I have to account for the testimony of a magical teenage assassin confessing to cognitively killing some of Japan’s most powerful men just as they’ve begun to take me seriously.”

Akechi had never answered her question, because Akechi didn’t want Shido to be locked away. Not like this, anyway. What he had wanted hadn’t involved Kurusu, and yet, here Kurusu was in the center of it all, robbing Akechi of his chance to make Shido’s fall really hurt.

Still, Akechi had come to terms with the fact that what he wanted and what he would get were two very different things in regards to the fate of Masayoshi Shido, and to this brave new world where Akechi was meant to be long dead.

What he had done was take a deep breath, swallow down his very reasonable retorts – he had at least five – and ask about Kurusu.

His inquiry was fruitful, if aggravating. Akechi hadn’t been naive enough to expect that any update on Kurusu wouldn’t be aggravating.

Per Sae, it wouldn’t be long until Kurusu was released from juvenile detention (implied: so long as Akechi didn’t butt in). Apparently, his extended posse had banded together, and Sae doubted it would be more than a few weeks before he was out. He was actually on track to have his criminal record completely overturned.

Kurusu was relying on the power of friendship to not only avoid a life sentence, but to completely exonerate himself from the year he had spent galavanting around the Metaverse, stealing hearts and minds and Akechi’s life’s work, too. One might say that Akechi was less than enthused. Mostly, because he was near certain that using the force of true love to outrun his mistakes would actually work for Kurusu, because he was Kurusu, and of fucking course it could.

He hadn’t told Sae as much, but he sensed she’d intuited his frustration from his chorus of ‘...I see,’ ‘...I see,’ ‘...I see,’ through the phone, each repetition darker than the last.

With that sorted, Akechi had told Sae in no uncertain terms that she was not to tell Kurusu or any of the other Phantom Thieves that he was alive under any circumstances. She said that she would respect his wishes. She hadn’t asked any follow up questions. It was a refreshing change of pace from the back and forth that talking to the rest of Kurusu’s loyal followers always seemed to entail.

Then again, this was Sae. She had been a fixture in his life long before she had become a mainstay in Kurusu’s.

That little detail out of the way, Akechi had been prepared to hang up. Before he could, Sae had invited him to coffee. Bewildered, Akechi had accepted.

“You are aware, I presume, that I’ve killed more people than the number of cases you’ve litigated over the course of your entire career, aren’t you?” Akechi had said as soon as he had slid into the stiffly upholstered booth across from Sae at the too cold, overly gray café where they had agreed to meet the following day. “Including among them Wakaba Isshiki and Kunikazu Okumura.”

Sae had pulled her credit card out of her sleek handbag and rapped it on the table between them.

“I am. Could you give me your order Akechi-kun? Drinks are on me today.”

Akechi had ordered a black drip coffee – far from the best he’d ever had – and the two of them had talked about his future, not his past.

Sae told Akechi that she would be willing to hire him as a personal assistant. She couldn’t swing him a position interning in the public prosecutor’s office; it went without saying that Akechi ought to stay as far away as possible from any branch of law enforcement for the foreseeable future. Sure, very few people recognized him nowadays – the demiurge had fallen and taken Shido’s influence with it, and Akechi had been out of the public eye for a sufficient number of news cycles for even his most avid fans to lose interest – but it seemed unwise to tempt fate.

They both knew that most of Shido’s conspiracy was still at large. As repentant as their former leader was, his sentiments were not widely shared. Shido had done more damage than a single change of heart could fix.

All this to say, Akechi would be keeping a low profile. Not that he would have acted otherwise, regardless of who might want him imprisoned, or who might want him dead.

Akechi was, quite frankly, tired.

His employment would hinge on agreeing to take his high school equivalency and college entrance exams before the next university matriculation cycle. Akechi had, more or less, finished his final year of high school. Unfortunately, the less in that statement meant that he had never actually graduated. Still, he could easily pass a high school equivalency exam – an inconvenience, but a bureaucratic necessity, and hardly an insurmountable one. Before his life had gone to shit, he had been on track to get top marks on his entrance exams. It wouldn’t be difficult to keep himself versed in the material he needed to know in order to pass with flying colors.

He didn’t have strong feelings for or against Sae’s vision for his future. Akechi had been slated to die long before he had shot shut the bulkhead door on his father’s ship. He had gone to cram school because it was what the detective prince was supposed to do, and he had excelled at it because the world had told him that he couldn’t. He wasn’t like Makoto Niijima, with her good marks and bright future.

Sae would pay him for doing this, though. More, she had that earnest look in her eyes behind the stoic contours of her face that suggested she really thought she was doing what was best for him.

Akechi had agreed to her terms.

Besides, he’d always been told that college wasn’t in the cards for him. The idea of proving those people wrong lit something up inside him that he hadn’t realized had been smothered until then.

Akechi would work for Sae on weekdays and study on weekends. She would check in with him once a week to confirm that he was indeed making progress on his personal studies and to assign him new memos and forms to copy edit. So long as he was on track, she would pay him another week.

It had all sounded so easy. Too easy. Akechi needed to ask.

“Why?”

Sae had taken a long sip of her cappuccino. “Why what?”

“You know what.” Akechi had crossed his arms, his mouth drawn in a hard line, “Why this?”

Sae had set her cup down onto her saucer without so much as an audible clink. “Is it really so difficult to believe that I’d want to help you?”

“You pity me.” He’d said it like a fact, because it was a fact, and he didn’t take kindly to it.

Sae hadn’t looked surprised to hear Akechi’s words. She raised her eyebrows.

“No, I don’t. And I’m not absolving you, either. You made choices that hurt people, and you need to face consequences for that. But, Akechi-kun…”

Sae paused, as if weighing her next words on her tongue. “Goro. You were sixteen.”

Akechi didn’t know which part of her addendum offended him most: Sae’s use of his given name – he’d bristled, he couldn’t remember how long it had been since someone had been presumptuous enough to call him Goro – or her implication that he hadn’t known exactly what he was doing back when he first approached Shido.

She hadn’t seen how proud he had been when Shido handed him his first pistol. She hadn’t been there each time he’d pulled its trigger. Akechi had stopped feeling anything about his hits after he’d downed a handful of targets. Through it all, he’d never felt remorse. He’d even smiled, the first time.

That smile hadn’t lasted, of course. It had fallen right along with Ishikki. Still, everyone knows that it’s your first reaction to a thing that really counts.

Her eyes on his were resolute, as if she were daring him to object. She wasn’t budging.

Sae had sounded awfully confident for someone who had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

Akechi remembered their long days at the police station and the late night dinners Sae would treat him to after, when he’d watch as she scarfed down cheap conveyor belt sushi and let her dignified mask slip like the rice that fell from her chopsticks to her perfectly starched dress shirt. He remembered their constant shop-talk that always seemed to border on something more personal.

Sae knew what it was like to prove yourself in a world that wanted to see you fail. He remembered watching her come undone in October, how he almost felt bad as he watched her slip further away from her sister, and from him.

Gripping his mug hard enough to put its handle in peril, Akechi had bitten back the urge to inform Sae that he was eighteen years old now, and had done very bad things continuously from age sixteen through now, thank you very much. He was suddenly aware of exactly how juvenile it would sound if he did.

He decided that Sae could call him what she wanted. ‘Goro’ didn’t feel wrong, he supposed. It just felt new.

She was wrong about him, but he had let her continue without correction.

“You did things that were unforgivable. What our system did to you was unforgivable.” She took a sip of her cappuccino. The action was smug, somehow, like she knew just how much she’d gotten away with when Akechi kept his silence. At least she was self-aware. “Masayoshi Shido is being brought to justice, and Kurusu-kun isn’t facing anything that he can’t handle. This will be over soon.”

Akechi could hardly believe that. While he had faith in Sae’s legal prowess, Shido was just one head of a veritable hydra of corruption and intrigue. Rooting out his conspiracy would air out Japan’s dirty laundry in a way that he doubted the powerful men who soiled it would permit. It would be dangerous business to try.

He couldn’t fathom that Shido was a problem that had an imminent expiration date. He was supposed to be Akechi’s Gordian knot. Shido was his arms race, his mutually assured destruction. Unraveling him couldn’t possibly be so simple, and it couldn’t possibly be done without Akechi.

Could it?

Where the hell did that leave him?

Of course, Sae’s words were meant to be encouraging, even if Akechi could actively feel his vision tunneling and his pulse jackhammering up. He clamped that feeling down and shoved it somewhere to sort through later – or never – as Sae pushed on.

“I want you to move forward. I don’t see any reason for you not to. That’s where you’ll find justice.”

It all sounded so scripted. Akechi wondered how many times she had practiced her little speech in the mirror after she’d drafted it on her legal pad. He knew it was her standard practice for high stakes days in court. Sae never let slip that she was nervous, but that didn’t mean she never was.

While Akechi was almost flattered that she considered him worth a rehearsal or two, her dedication had been proving to be rather inconvenient that day. A Sae who had decided she needed to win seldom lost. The Phantom Thieves had helped her reorient her sense of justice towards good ends, but there was no version of Sae who wasn’t as stubborn as the one they’d encountered in her casino.

Fortunately, so was Akechi.

“I’ve earned execution ten times over.”

He barely managed to keep his words level as he forced them out. It was vexing that he needed to remind the woman sitting across from him – a public prosecutor with one of the most gleaming case records Tokyo had seen in recent memory – that per the word of her own law, he deserved to die.

She tucked a wayward strand of hair neatly behind her ear and clasped her hands together on the tabletop between them.

“And I’m telling you that executing you doesn’t help anyone,” she hadn’t raised her voice, but Akechi could hear it harden with authority, “Learn to be a better person. You still have plenty of time to grow. Don’t forfeit this opportunity that you’ve been given to do that.”

He scoffed. “And if I can’t?”

“Then don’t. But I think you can.”

She had said it without hesitation, like she really believed it. At that realization, Akechi let out a laugh that bordered on a snort, the kind he never would have allowed to slip through his throat when Sae had known him as someone else.

“You’re all insane.”

She hadn’t seemed surprised by his outburst as she took a long drink from her cup. As she swallowed, clearly unperturbed, Akechi found himself wondering if he’d given her too little credit, or himself too much. Probably both.

Sae’s lip quirked up. “Maybe. But I’ve realized that you need to be a little insane to believe you can see the world change for the better. Your teammates helped me learn that.”

Akechi’s hackles raised. “They are not my teammates.”

“Oh really?” She set her cup down onto her saucer, “I think Kurusu-kun would disagree.”

That half-smile of hers persisted, like she thought she knew something he didn’t. “You know, he asked about you earlier this week. He seemed riled up. I think he would want to know that you’re alive.”

It didn’t even take eyes to notice Akira Kurusu’s bleeding-heart obsession with who he thought Akechi was. It practically radiated off of him in waves you could touch, like he was some sort of sad magnet for homicidal lost causes. Sae wasn’t telling Akechi anything he couldn’t have reasonably inferred, knowing what he did about Kurusu.

If Sae said that Kurusu was ‘riled up,’ he knew that Kurusu must have been near hysterics. Well, per the yardstick of Kurusu’s typical emoting capacity. He could envision the way Kurusu’s lips had probably gotten all drawn, the way they tended to when he tried to hide that he was feeling more than he let on.

Kurusu didn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve, but he wasn’t impossible to read if you knew what you were looking to find. His brow had probably furrowed, his fists had probably clenched, and his eyes had probably gone just short of misty.

Akechi wasn’t sure how he felt about that mental image.

“Well, we can’t always get what we want, now can we?”

“I understand, Goro,” Sae stared him dead in the eye as she said his given name, leaving Akechi no option but to immediately take a good long drink of burnt coffee from his mug. “But consider it for me, won’t you? I don’t think that it would be a bad idea for you to build a support network for yourself.”

Akechi cursed to himself. He should have known that she wouldn’t let this topic lie so easily.

Akechi grit his teeth. “I don’t think Sakura or Okumura would take kindly to seeing me.”

“Then don’t see them.” She said it matter of fact, like it was that easy. “But, for the record, I think that Kurusu-kun would.”

Of course Kurusu would. Even a child who couldn’t add two and two could piece together that Akira Kurusu would probably lop off a limb to have been in that booth with them that day. The idiot had wished Akechi back into existence and into his life, and he would again if he could.

That was why he couldn’t know that Akechi was alive.

Well, it accounted for half the issue.

The other half rested on the fact that Kurusu had been the first thing to cross Akechi’s mind in that half second that passed between realizing he was alive and resolving to scream about it. He hadn’t had the decency to fully leave Akechi’s thoughts ever since, with the exception of the several hours he had spent blackout drunk.

Somehow, that last bit was less than reassuring.

Even worse, none of it was exactly new.

The long and short of it was that Akechi needed to get himself clean, and he couldn’t very well do that if Kurusu came chasing after him.

And so, he made his words as sharp as he could muster. “I think that Kurusu-kun should get a grip and realize that I very sincerely tried to murder him.”

Sae stared him down. He was under no illusions – this was an interrogation. It was a surprise when her gaze softened.

She hummed. “Do you regret it?”

And wasn’t that a loaded question?

He regretted that it had all amounted to nothing. He regretted that Shido had played him for a fool, and that on the evening of November 20th, he’d gone home and damn near cracked open his bottle of Shido revenge scotch. He regretted that at some catastrophic point in the past year, besting Joker had become something bigger than besting his father, and that just as soon as Akechi had thought he’d managed it, the metal on metal scent of blood splattering onto the interrogation room’s table from Kurusu’s too-blank face became something he needed to forget.

Of course, he also regretted that he’d been tricked, and that he’d wasted several nights wide awake thinking about the way Kurusu had looked at him that night in the bathhouse, sweat on his brow and droplets of steam condensed on his irritatingly long lashes, like he had really wanted to be there with him, listening.

His brief brush with insomnia had cost Akechi twelve dollars in drugstore coffee, five dollars in sugar-free energy drinks, and at least three years of his life, if you accounted for the carcinogens that made up the latter. Akechi did.

At least he’d saved that bottle of scotch. It had gone to waste anyway, but it was more about the principle of the thing.

But he couldn’t very well explain any of that to Sae. So, Akechi had lied.

“No.”

“I see.” If Sae was disappointed in his answer, she didn’t show it. She gave him a nod, drummed her fingers on the table, and checked her watch. “Let me know if you change your mind. I’ll keep your existence to myself until you tell me to do otherwise.”

Sae had swallowed down the last of her drink, and that was that.

Since that day, his life had gone on. He spent his weekdays looking over Sae’s contracts and his weekends grinding out practice problems from study books. Sometimes he would work in his apartment. He’d draw open the blinds and spread his papers across his bed – he had a desk, but it was cramped, his chair was stiff, and he’d never really brought himself around to using the space as it was meant to be used.

Other days, Akechi camped out in cafés around the city. He operated under the assumption that any place that had the audacity to charge 700 yen for a barely passable latte must have presumed he would use said latte as an all-day pass to free wifi and a climate controlled workspace. Akechi felt vindicated in taking full advantage.

He found that the more tasks he had to fill his time, the less liable his mind was to wander.

Not that it was always easy. It had been hardest at first, when more mornings than not the was filled with the urge to lay under his comforter and rot through the day. He’d learned quickly that when that urge struck, it was best to call Sae and pick up an extra stack of whatever she could push off on him before her work day started. He would chip away at it during the daylight hours and catch up with his other tasks at night, a can of cold brew in one hand and a highlighter in the other.

He never slipped behind Sae’s expectations for him, because he was Goro Akechi, and he didn’t let himself lose if he could help it. Still, it wasn’t lost on him that he wasn’t supposed to be alive. Sue him if that got to him once in a while.

He hadn’t planned for any of this, and if he did anything besides move straight through it all, the shiny paint of productivity he’d slapped over his unplanned extension pack to living would slide right off. It would become obvious that there was little holding his life together besides spite, busywork, and a lawyer who had willfully decided she wouldn’t let him quit as her part-timer, or as anything else.

Thinking about that never did him any good, so he didn’t. Fortunately, Akechi was no stranger to doing what needed to be done first and wondering how on earth he had managed it after the fact.

Now, he needed to move forward. So he did.

That wasn’t to say his strategy always worked.

It tended to happen late at night, when Akechi didn’t have the energy to stop his thoughts from drifting to the subjects his wiser, more conscious self refused to engage.

Typically, that meant Joker. No. It always meant Joker. Shido, too, but it was infuriating, really, how even those thoughts tended to meander back around to Joker, too.

As Akechi had taken his post-hibernation shower months ago, his sheets in the wash and grease sloughing from his hair in the suds of overpriced shampoo, Akechi had come to a number of resolute conclusions about the state of his life. Namely, if he was going to continue to live it, he had a few non-negotiables.

To start, he would keep a wide berth from any news outlets covering the Shido trial – he was sure there would be more than a few. He’d find a way to get his hands on another, cheaper bottle of something high-proof. He would learn to use one kitchen appliance besides the microwave. The oven, maybe.

And, of course, he would keep himself far, far away from Akira Kurusu.

Akechi would have liked to think that his thoughts always seemed to land on Kurusu out of force of habit. After all, he’d spent months tracking his every move. He’d never quite learned to think like Kurusu – he doubted that anyone could – but Akechi certainly knew the timetables of the trains he took to get around town, the names of his managers at each of his (many) part-time jobs, and which vending machines he preferred to get his snacks from.

Had he strictly needed to collect so much information on the leader of the Phantom Thieves in the name of reconnaissance? Perhaps not. It wasn’t as though knowing that Kurusu routinely arrived at his station around three minutes before his scheduled train would actually give him an edge in battle.

(Akechi of the past had tried to posture that it might, but Akechi of the past was an idiot, and Akechi of the present could admit that.)

He had never been one to half-ass, though, and Kurusu had always been so interesting. His calendar protested his reprioritization, but there was nothing new or surprising about that. The detective prince’s life had been a scheduling impossibility, and Akechi had managed regardless. More than managed, really.

Tragically, ‘reconnaissance’ couldn’t account for the way Akechi’s vision tunneled around Kurusu. It couldn’t explain away the thoughts Kurusu always managed to coax out of his head and into speech.

So, no. Akechi wasn’t stupid enough to believe that his continued fixation on Akira Kurusu was ‘force of habit.’ It was something much more dangerous, and he couldn’t afford to allow himself to succumb to it. Not after everything.

If Akechi was going to live a life, that life would damn well be his own. He refused to live for anybody but himself, and that included Akira Kurusu.

Still, the version of Akechi that lay awake in his bed at 4am, strung out on caffeine, had been known to have other thoughts from time to time. When his eyes were bloodshot and jargon swirled on his ceiling, he thought back to the look on Kurusu’s face when he had caught his glove. Cocky – Joker always was — but something more behind that. Akechi could only describe it as the expression of a boy missing something he hadn’t yet lost.

It had taken him too long to realize that Kurusu had known exactly what the glove had meant from the moment it had been thrown. It had taken him even longer to realize that Kurusu had understood it better than Akechi had.

It was enough to make him want to tear Kurusu apart, nice and slow, piece by piece. It was almost enough to make him want to reach for his phone.

He didn’t, of course. There was a lot of power in ‘almost.’ It meant that he was in control.

It was easier during the day. Sae always had something to shrug off on him if he needed it.

Of course, there was also the pesky matter of his father.

That day at the café, Sae had mentioned that she’d spoken to him. Shido had said that he wouldn’t implicate Akechi in his trial. Apparently, he’d expressed regrets about his treatment of his son.

Akechi hadn’t asked her for more information. She had already said too much.

Once, there had been nothing Akechi wanted more than to hear his father drool out how big of a mistake it had been to leave him. Now, the thought of Shido feeling at all guilty, or heaven forbid, apologizing to him, made bile rise in the back of his throat.

Just one hit, and Akechi would want another. There would be nothing of him left. It was a trend, it seemed, that Akechi needed to learn when to keep well enough away from people he’d let spin him in circles.

Fortunately, he had always been a quick study.

Akechi hadn’t tried to contact him, and he and Sae hadn’t discussed Masayoshi Shido any further since.

Given his track record with all things luck and Shido related, Akechi really should have expected that decision to come back and bite him.

The rabid dog that was the universe’s refusal to let Akechi live his life in peace caught up to him one day in early June. Coming home from a coffee shop, mini-mart sushi in hand, he’d seen it.

He had thirty days to vacate his apartment, because of fucking course he did.

Akechi felt six years old again. Seeing the notice pasted to his apartment door, he may as well have been holding his mother’s hand. He felt it clench around his pudgy fingers tight enough to hurt. He knew that she didn’t mean it. He knew that she hadn’t meant to fall behind on rent, either. He knew that some nights at her club were lucrative, and that some mornings, she couldn’t find it in herself to get out of bed. Their income had never been stable, and neither had their address.

But his mother wasn’t there, she hadn’t been for a long time, and Akechi was the only one responsible for the little crescent-shaped indents in his palms as he stared at the paper on his door and tried to will it away with the sheer force of his – in his humble opinion – very justified righteous anger.

He’d called Sae immediately, right as soon as he’d ripped down the notice, gone inside, and poured himself a drink. Apparently, all of Shido’s hidden assets had finally been frozen. Even if he wanted to continue to pay Akechi’s rent, he couldn’t. Akechi hadn’t been affected until now because Shido had, prior to recent events, had his apartment bills set to auto-pay from one of his more clandestine bank accounts.

That was something that even now made the part of Akechi’s brain that had stayed young and poor recoil. To have so much cash that a transfer of that size could simply be counted on to go through every month, no risk of declining – from an auxiliary checking account – seemed almost gluttonous.

Well, the payment had finally bounced, it seemed. Nobody was untouchable. It would have been more gratifying if Akechi weren’t the one being left high and dry. He had hung up the phone and downed the last of his drink. His mediocre room-temperature sushi forgotten, he’d taken a seat on his floor, opened his laptop, and typed in a preliminary search for Tokyo-studio-cheap.

That brought him to now. It was remarkable, really, how his day had only managed to get worse and worse in the hour that had passed since then.

Staying in his current apartment simply wasn’t an option. Akechi had tucked money into his savings account during his time as the detective prince, of course, but even the sizable amount he had slowly accrued for himself over the last several years wouldn’t be able to cover more than a month or two of rent in the place Shido had picked out for him. It had a separate kitchen, living, and sleeping space, alongside a full bathroom. It was fully renovated and featured in-unit laundry. It even came with a parking spot (not that Akechi owned a car, could drive, or feasibly use his space in the garage in literally any capacity).

All of it had been an undeniable power play on Shido’s part. The place really was too much for him. It was a needless show of excess – an in-your-face sort of look what I can do for you, aren’t you scared to lose it?

Sure, Akechi could spend three years worth of residual earnings on thirty extra days in this place, but all it would do was buy him time, not to mention drain the last financial cushion he had left. He needed to put down a deposit on another place, after all. His bank account would be running on fumes after that, and rent at his new place would be due almost immediately.

Fuck. He’d almost forgotten his utilities. His phone bill. His Wi-Fi. He didn’t need to be a genius to know that any day now, those expenses would hit him too.

Shido would be burning in hell for a whole host of reasons – Akechi knew this, because he’d spent the last several years of his life passively looping his long, long list of them through his head like a rallying cry. It was always a solid hit that got his head where it needed to be to do whatever he needed to do. This newest slight was a tiny drop of water in the ocean of ways his father had wronged him.

Still. If there was any justice in the world, Akechi would be allowed to spit on his father during his fiery descent. Just a little bonus to him for needing to go through this after everything he’d already endured.

All roads led to moving. May as well get it done sooner rather than later.

Akechi would need to pick up a second job to somehow come up with the difference between his dwindling savings account, Sae’s weekly commission, and the cost of living accommodations that would let him avoid adding to his death toll. It would be a less insulting prospect if any of the studio apartments he would be able to afford after that looked remotely liveable.

This one said that the paint on its walls might contain traces of lead, and that its landlord wouldn’t be held liable for medical damages that resulted from it. That one had visible mold on the bathroom tiles, even in the very obviously postured online listing photos. He shuddered to think of the state of that shower if he saw it in the flesh.

Every listing Akechi had looked at so far seemed to come with its own set of shockingly diverse hazards, their one continuity being that they evoked similar feelings of dread in the pit of his stomach. The ones that didn’t come with a laundry list of health and safety violations stated up front that they required an application pre-screening. Akechi’s credit score was perfectly fine – the detective prince had always paid off his statements in full, and on time. What he didn’t have were two good references. As it turned out, that was rapidly proving itself to be a serious problem.

Even on a webpage with the best user interface imaginable, the experience would have been bleak. That said, Akechi might have felt slightly less homicidal if the website didn’t reload every single time he clicked the back-out arrow after he decided he wasn’t (yet) desperate enough to risk braving exposed wiring in his combined living-bedroom-kitchen-foyer-bathroom space.

It wasn’t as though Akechi hadn’t expected this would happen – he just hadn’t expected it to happen now. He had wanted to be able to really plan his move. The fact he’d even thought that taking his sweet time could be an option for him was proof that he’d let his guard down.

He clicked on another listing. Wonderful. This one was just under 150 square feet. He honestly hadn’t known that was legal.

Well. Actually.

He paused. Zoomed in.

On second glance, maybe it wasn’t so bad. It looked clean, recently renovated. The move-in date fit his needs. It was small, sure, but it seemed like the space was well allocated. He mentally crumpled up his commitment to learning how to use an oven. It wouldn’t be happening in a place of this size, but maybe that was for the best, anyway.

He decided to click the button to arrange a tour with the landlord. Maybe his situation wasn’t so dire after all.

Of course, that was when the website decided to crash.

The noise that wrenched its way out of his throat wasn’t unlike how he expected a dying cat might sound. He slammed his laptop shut and rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyelids.

He needed another drink.

He poured himself a coffee mug of vodka and water. It was like vodka and soda for people who barely had the means to buy themself vodka, and for whom also needing to buy mixers felt like adding insult to injury. It was disgusting, but a disgusting necessity. Today, his crime against good taste was the housing market’s fault.

He took a sip, grimaced, and climbed into his bed. He propped himself up on his pillows and took another long drink. It didn’t taste quite so bad now that he’d whet his palate.

Fuck. He hadn’t even had the chance to change when he’d gotten home. He undid the top buttons of his dress shirt where they pinched at his neck. It wasn’t as though Akechi had anyone to look nice for, nowadays, but his wardrobe hadn’t gotten a radical overhaul since the detective prince’s fall from notoriety. He’d worn designer shirts then, he’d wear designer shirts now. They looked slightly worse for wear, but at least that meant they were incrementally more comfortable to wear out now than they had been back in the day.

Not by much. He sighed as the stale air conditioning of his room hit his skin. He took another sip of his drink. Then another.

It wouldn’t be so hard to find that listing again. He was pissed on principle. Websites should work. Apartments should be bigger than closets. You should be able to beg a landlord to let you live in a closet-sized apartment on a website that at least functioned halfway decently.

He took another good long gulp from his mug.

He could have really gone for coffee, right then. Not the glorified overpriced milk you could get from any old chain. The good stuff.

It had been a long time since he’d had good coffee.

There was only one place Akechi had ever had truly, honest-to-god good coffee.

His cellphone was lying at the foot of his bed.

He could send him a text, right now. Something clever. Akechi knew that no matter what it was, it would shock him, but it needed to be witty, too, because he would expect nothing less. He would kill to see the look on his face. He would look down at his phone, see Akechi’s name light up his screen, and his eyes would get all wide and scared.

You’ve been alive all this time?

They would meet up, and Kurusu, he’d be miserable, he’d probably cry or do something equally sappy, and – once he really processed – he’d be mad as all hell. Akechi would laugh at him, say something as snarky as the situation demanded, and watch the anger melt right off of Kurusu’s face in real time.

Akechi would finally have pulled one over on him. He’d finally win. He could feel the rush already.

Kurusu wanted to lose so bad, it was embarrassing, really.

Right as fantasy Kurusu threw himself at fantasy Akechi, real Akechi felt a wave of cold dread wash over him.

He walked to the sink and poured his final few sips of vodka water down the sink.

No. Hell no.

He turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. It dripped down his neck. He couldn’t bring himself to mind as it trickled down to the collar of his undone shirt.

He was better than this. He knew damn well that the only one ‘losing’ in the situation his addled mind had cooked up was himself.

It had only taken half a drink to get him there.

Fuck. He doused his face in more water for good measure.

He walked back to his bedroom, unlocked his phone, and scrolled through his message logs to find his last conversation with Akira Kurusu. Taking care not to click anything damning, he swiped to delete it.

There. It was over. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t done that sooner.

He rinsed out his mug and poured himself a glass of water from the tap. It didn’t need ice – he’d already confirmed that it was sufficiently chilled.

His laptop was still on his kitchen floor. Akechi took a seat, cross legged, and reloaded the webpage he had been on previously. Surely, he’d have more luck this session. Maybe he’d even find a place larger than 150 square feet. 175 seemed like a reasonable goal.

He would make this work. He was moving apartments, and he was moving on. He’d managed far more difficult things in the past.

He looked at his phone, sitting on the floor to his right. He tapped the display once.

No new messages. And why would there be?

He sighed and got to work.

#p5r fanfic #p5r #goro akechi #shuake #post-canon akechi #akechi drinks vodter

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