#And this is after multiple instances of my being interrupted in trying to state my stance on modern art

[devoursbears]

auggh did a "hit the bricks" in a situation i couldn't actually leave. Screaming and kicking

[afreakingdork]

Weak Spot - Chapter 69

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

Donnie is anxiously waiting for this week's penultimate chapter with art by @aimike17

Warnings: Aged-up Turtles, Romance, Meet Cute, Villain Donatello, Cussing, Crushes, Xenophobia, Fear, Intimidation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort, Love, AFAB Reader, Vaginal Sex, Sex Rough, Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Teasing, Scent Kink, Sexual Tension, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Marathon Sex, Somnophilia, Bondage, Feral Behavior, Feral Donatello, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Public Sex, Dom Donnie, Human/Turtle Relationships, Turtle Noises, Roleplay, Sexual Roleplay

Synopsis:  A love story of villainous proportions! Though it hadn’t come easily, as these things rarely do, you found yourself in a whirlwind romance with a handsome and mysterious mutant. His idiosyncrasies had been easy to ignore as attraction grew into something more. However, will love endure when the unknowns about him end up being far darker than you ever considered?

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

“The make-up artist canceled!”

You sighed heavily as you tucked against the wall you’d ducked behind.

“Last minute! Absolutely absurd, this is exactly why I put a no-show clause in their contract. We’ll wring them dry! They’ll never decorate another face again as long as I-!! This puts only the photographer and officiant on time, but without the proper preparation then what is the point?! I dislike excessive editing. I want our photographs to be authentic! If only I could-!” Donnie thumped something loudly and you heard other voices trying to talk him down.

You pinched your phone between your shoulder and cheek so you could check your ring.

“Don’t touch me! Of course I’m not dressed yet! Do you see how filthy this place is! You! That garland is sagging! You petulant pond scum! If you think for a moment I will allow you too-!”

It felt like needles were pricking your skin.

It was stress.

It was frustration.

It was anger.

It was all Donnie.

Your mate was breaking down as the wedding planner and you were stuck in some backroom at the venue.

You rubbed your ring and wished the feeling would connect to your partner.

It wouldn’t yet.

You needed to put his band on him first.

“Where did you store these flowers!? You need to get them into water, now!” His voice rushed the receiver. “Darling, I apologize, I-! LUKEWARM WATER, YOU IMBECILE!!!”

You could be out there helping.

You could offset the pressure.

Together you could bear the load.

Only your fiancé had mistakenly gone off the deep end after his visit to Lady Nagami for his final suit fitting. She had asked where he was going to stay the night before. From that moment on you believed Donnie had subscribed to just about every wedding superstition that existed. Not that he believed a single one of them, he refused to let even a hoax interrupt your wedding day.

Your wedding party didn’t particularly mind the sudden booking of a luxe hotel, but being apart from Donnie in this instance was a terrible one. The closer it had gotten to the date, the less your mate left up to chance. Besides being the titular planner, he had removed others from their roles because he no longer trusted the work unless he saw it with his own eyes. It meant he was scarce not only that night before, but the five leading up.

Now a wreck and several hours out from the ceremony, you weren’t sure he was going to be in any state of mind to enjoy the wedding he so painstakingly coordinated.

You wanted to be with him so badly it hurt.

Spinning your ring loosely, you knew he could feel it if he just had his matching set.

You should have been the one to propose, you thought then.

“My heart?”

You breathed in deeply. “You know what I have to say.”

“Know that if it were at all possible to see you, I would cart you from room to room on my shoulders.”

You smiled at the imagery.

“I can’t chance it.” Donnie spoke softly. “I will see you as you walk down the aisle and not a moment sooner.”

“I know.” You held not only your ring finger, but your entire hand.

For the first moment on the call, Donnie quieted.

You heard the rumble of others.

Workers decorated.

Kaleb murmured in hushed tones.

Old lady Nagami must have responded because there was a sliding ‘s.’ 

Raph’s bassy tones argued with someone.

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. prattled off what sounded like an endless stream of numbers.

You looked around the room that smelled of oak and felt locked away. It was a glorified closet, yet there was nowhere to hook anything. For whatever reason, it had two door which you supposed were for amassing entrances and exits to get away. This was nothing more than a connecting nook and you’d squirreled away in here after texts no longer seemed to cut it.

“I love you.” Donnie spoke clearly through the phone.

“I love you.” That helped; he always helped. “Hang in there. I need you present when I get in front of you.”

“Oh.” The sound was rounded with a static puff against the line. “All else will fall away. All we will need is to follow the necessary cues.”

“Then don’t pop a blood vessel until then.”

You heard a rustle and just knew he was checking his tech gauntlet.

The silence spoke volumes. “What is it?”

“My blood pressure is a tad high…” There was a grimace to his voice.

“Have you eaten? Did you drink water?”

“He hasn’t!” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. bellowed.

“Mhm.”

“Get off the line! What have I told you!?” Donnie hissed.

“’Weh weh, don’t tap my phone, son. I love you, sport. Let’s go play catch after this!’” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. mocked.

“I-!!!” Indignity took Donnie’s very speech away.

“Caterer’s here!” Kaleb called and you heard sharp shoes click against hardwood.

“I… need to oversee this.” Donnie returned, regretful.

“At least they’re on time too.” You told him. “Get one of them to make you something plain. For me?”

“Alright.” He relented. “Soon. So very soon.”

“Soon.” You agreed and lingered until he hung up the line.

“Big green baby.” Coral’s voice drifted in behind you.

You didn’t have to turn to know she was reclined in one of the doorways. “I’m assuming your hair didn’t cooperate?”

“Shut up!” She spat, clearly scathed. “I’m last up! Don’t rub it in! I look bomb otherwise!”

You turned to give her attention and she struck a pose in a lilac dress.

It matched the color scheme and you approached.

She held out for a second before she came in as if there was a secret to share. “How’s he doing?”

“Not great. He’s worried.” You showed her the ring. “Nauseous, dehydrated, and tinges of vertigo.”

“You can tell all that from that thing?”

“Yup.” You closed your hand. “The make-up artist canceled.”

“Shit.” She clicked her tongue. “We could get by with what we got, but…”

“Yeah, Don does the best make-up I’ve seen but…”

“Still can’t believe he’s being all superstitious.”

You raised your brow in commiseration.

“Okay.” She clapped her hands. “Contacts. Let’s gather up all the phones and exploit people we know! Someone will know someone who can get their ass in here!”

Your ex-roommate turned with a pumping fist and you followed after her to what you dubbed the parlor. Another equally darkly stained wood room, there were a litany of leather chairs. The entire room almost seemed like something out of a Chesterfield catalog. Off to one side, Nelson and another of your bridal party members were trying to get a foosball table to work. In a corner near a window, Eugene and one of your cousins were doing their best to break into a liquor cabinet. You knew this was a space supposedly built for men to busy themselves while the bride prepared, but it had been passed to you for entertainment purposes. It was the safest hideaway while Donnie needed to rove the venue. It ensured he wouldn’t run into you.

You sat on an uncomfortable sofa and watched as Coral rounded up the room.

She had this, you decided.

You’d done most everything you needed. 

You were dressed up. 

You were otherwise primped minus make-up. 

You were free to sulk.

There was a sharp stab in your finger and you winced.

Before you could even wonder what was wrong, your phone was out and you were typing out a message to ask.

Donnie’s text of having dropped a chafing dish on his foot appeared before you finished.

You typed out affections and for him to get it checked.

You could have done that for him. 

You should be with him.

“Where are the parents?!” Coral seethed in a voice that broke the monotony.

You looked up to find everyone now gathered and furiously at work on their phones. “I heard your mom say something about the gardens.”

“That bitch.” Coral gave a crazed look and turned it on Nelson.

He had long grown from the nervous man you once knew because he didn’t break a sweat as he typed into his phone. “That bitch is more connected than any of us. She’s bound to know someone. You go. I got things here.”

Coral stamped her foot, clear emotion throttling her before she hugged him tight.

It took all of Nelson’s self control not to drop his device as his eyes shot wide.

Coral released and fled in a way that didn’t allow anyone to see her face.

Nelson stood a lolling figure as if Coral had wrung him out.

That was new.

You smiled and knew exactly how you were going to interrupt her speech during the dinner.

Nelson rebooted and whipped himself into shape. “Alright! We’re looking for a beautician! What have we got, people!?”

You should help.

You should stay here.

You should continue to sit on this terribly hard sofa.

You stood.

You meant to go over to them.

The room had gathered.

Without you. 

Getting that make-up artist would help Donnie.

You wanted to help Donnie.

No.

You wanted to be with Donnie.

You craved his side.

You didn’t care about the missing professional.

You barely cared about the photos.

It seemed like a waste without him.

You flittered toward a door without realizing it.

“Hey…” Nelson warned.

Coral had been minding you since yesterday night.

She’d gone above and beyond in her honorific role.

She’d gotten your favorite dinner.

She had games ready for the nervous and lonesome night before.

She’d forced everyone to bed at an appropriate time.

She woke everyone up the next day.

She’d fielded an incredible breakfast spread before you piled into a van for the venue.

Everything.

You also hadn’t been alone once. 

You hadn’t gotten a moment’s peace.

It helped in a way.

Of course she knew you wouldn't want to be alone. 

She knew you’d break the superstitions in a moment’s notice. 

In this way, she helped Donnie. 

You loved Donnie. 

You also very much needed a hit. 

The texting wasn’t enough. 

The call wasn’t enough. 

You blamed the ring. 

He was upset and you weren’t with him. 

You needed to see him. 

That would do the trick. 

If you could catch a glimpse of him, it might help.

Who was the addict between you?

“Bathroom.” You decided without really knowing where you’d land.

“I’ll go with you.” Nelson tried to rush whatever he was typing.

“Yeah, not happening.” You tilted your head and challenged him with your gaze.

He lived with Coral.

He sent a similar look right back.

The stand-off pulled your cousin in and they looked back and forth between you.

“I can go to the bathroom by myself!” You threw your hands up. “Two doors and on the left. If I’m gone for more than 5 minutes you have permission to restrain me!” 

Nelson studied you with narrowed lids before he found truth there and nodded once. “Fine. Anything else and it’s not my neck.”

“Yeah…” You turned and yanked the door too hard to get away.

Two doors.

One took you through that weird nook you’d taken your call in.

You went right.

Down a short hall that led to where you’d once seen a bunch of men congregating.

More family.

Family was crawling out of the walls.

You heard a voice and ducked toward the closest knob.

It surprisingly turned even though you weren’t sure this room was being used.

The voice’s drew closer and you closed yourself inside.

Your hand loosened as you took in the space.

It had a dreamy lilac tint to it and fine dust particles filtered through light pouring through the window panes. For a room that appeared neglected, there was also a sense of purpose. Fine wood furniture came in a matching set and was arranged like a set piece. You walked into it and felt like cameras could line the wall you had come in from to shoot this period piece. It would run on black and white televisions across America and you trailed a doily sitting on an end table. It was marked with a piece of aged porcelain that had finely painted details. You followed its pointed handle toward a mantle and looked over the scant knick-knacks there.

This was a room for photographs.

You knew your venue served all sorts of clientele. It had been part of the spiel during the initial interview. It was a conversation that had turned into a battle of wills between the employee and Donnie, but it had worked out. Their garden space was a stunning one and it was the rare moment during the many appointments where Donnie had taken a moment that wasn’t calculated. You could both foresee yourselves exchanging vows here and that was all that mattered.

You took one last stale breath.

You shouldn’t have felt settled.

You looked down at your hand.

Donnie was momentarily pacified.

Something was going right.

Each minute took you closer to one another.

A silly agreement in the scheme of things, it was yet another page in your life together.

You’d be alright not seeing your mate for now. 

Today was good.

You felt buoyed and headed towards the door.

You’d make a pit stop in the hair dresser’s room and see how things were going.

You could see what make-up was in the vanity you had seen there.

You rounded a chair to leave when a disc of blue light appeared in front of the door.

Leo clad in a suit with an untied tie hanging around his neck then stepped through talking backwards through it. “No, there’s protocol! They’re separate, but they aren’t! Just like how hair is attached to your head! You know? Where the face is!? You need to talk to the hair person, you can’t just drop a make-up artist on them and expect-!”

He tried to stall, but both his legs hit the ground due to momentum.

He looked up at the ceiling and toward a corner of the room you weren’t in. “The hell? This isn’t the prep room! This place is a maze, I swear-!”

He rounded your direction and you only watched as he caught sight of you. 

The portal behind him disappeared. 

You knew the look on his face and gave a smug smile. 

You’d seen yourself in a mirror not too long ago. 

You knew you looked good.

Dressed in expertly tailored finery, you were a vision.

You supposed make-up was the finishing touch that would enhance the image, but still.

You’d gone through the whole process of getting ready otherwise.

You’d be standing beside Donatello after all.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Leo tipped his head with an appreciative eye. “If you took my breath away, think of what you’re going to do to that jackass.”

“There’s a bet on whether he’ll cry or not.”

“Oh, don’t you know? I’m running it.” He had a scoundrel’s smile as he walked over. “You pulling a Julie Roberts?”

He made it obvious he was checking your footwear and you tutted him. “You watch too many movies.”

Leo mimed jogging. “Then you’ll know how prepared I am for this wedding!”

“What’d you watch?”

Leo made an excited trill and held up his fingers to count. “Four Weddings and a Funeral, My Best Friend's Wedding, The Wedding Singer, The Wedding Planner, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Mamma Mia! Duh!"

“Missing a few key ones.”

Leo scoffed so loud you could see the spittle in the air.

“Found a make-up artist?” You folded your arms. 

“Yeah, me.” Leo waved his hands dismissively.

“No.”

“Yes.” Leo chirped like a know-it-all.

“You cannot do make-up.”

“I absolutely can.” In a swing of his arm, his phone appeared along with photos already up of drag performers. “Long story, but I helped out with some shows because I needed a hospital hook-up.”

“Show me yours.” You demanded and stalked towards him.

He pulled his device back only for a second before it was in your hands. 

There you saw an image of Leo in a blond wig smizing his way out from the other queens he was framed with.

You couldn’t even laugh.

You smiled and blew out a harsh breath.

He was an oddity.

He was a pain.

He was a handful.

“You’re really our only choice?” 

“With two hours, 27 minutes and 16 seconds, scratch that 15, or did I say 14? And, what was that? Like 15 people who need their faces painted? Uh yeah, I’m the best you got.” Leo pinched his device back up.

“Drag make-up is-!”

“Hup, hup, hup!” Leo held a quieting hand out. “I’m not trained. I’m not gonna pretend, but I have the steady hand of a surgeon and I know how to do an elegant, but understated look. I swear. You think the rancid raisin would let me do this otherwise? I did Mikey’s make-up in demonstration!”

You frowned deeply before you tore out your phone to text Mikey.

Within seconds you got a selfie of him clearly chewing something where his lackadaisical expression was contrasted by the soft glow of his skin and lovely accentuated eyes.

“Okay… he does look good.”

“Right? It’s not fair with that damn hair of his!” Leo was behind you and admiring the photo.

You flapped him away and he scurried out of your arm’s length. “Why do you need to talk to the hairdresser?”

“There’s code!” Leo scoffed and turned towards the door. “C’mon! Show me where it is! Clearly my portal map was not accurate!”

“Hmph!” You followed after him.

He caught the knob, but didn’t turn it. “You look amazing, by the way. You’ll hear that all day, but from me it’ll mean something.”

You slowed and studied how he wouldn’t look at you.

“If you weren’t doing the whole, on the aisle thing, I’d say you should have let him see you in here. I thought I’d fallen out of space time.”

“Leo…” He was so earnest his cheeks burned.

He chuffed faintly. “From soaking you in hand sanitizer to this.”

The dousing steam brought with it irritation.

He ruined everything good.

You would never trust this annoying man.

“Life’s a funny thing, ain’t it Y/N?” There was something carefree about the way he turned.

His smile honestly wrinkled his crow’s feet.

There was no deeper scheme.

This was just Leonardo Hamato.

At a wedding.

Your wedding.

“Thank you.” You told him with the same unrestrained tone.

“Yeah, well, same. I’m doing this and you pay me back by holding up your end of the deal. I want to ride out my pseudo-retirement on purse snatchers and the occasional bank robbery, nothing else, got it?”

You pushed him and he chuckled as he finally opened the door.

Everything flew by after that. From you getting your make-up done to Coral screeching as her unruly locks were eventually set, a photographer came through and began to document last looks. You were shot with family members and the party members now in a strict alternation in the garden. You hadn’t quite gotten to view the ceremony area in full yet, but glimpses of it through bushes made it look lush.

Finally, you were in place outside giant doors and a venue attendant came through to remind you all of the procedure. Music started up and the procession began. You watched person after person trickle out and away from you until you and another were left behind. You weren’t to be escorted out and given away, but instead you would be led to your destiny.

For maybe about the thousandth time, but who was counting?

Your feet edged pooling light and your arm was taken.

You stepped into the door frame and on cue there was a gentle gust of air.

It flittered a few loose flower petals from their toss earlier in a guiding line.

They settled in front of highly polished oxfords and you moved up tapered white pants.

Pressed with creases so sharp they could cut glass, they led into a similarly stark white tuxedo colored only with lilac accents.

You knew that Donnie had chosen to wear white, but seeing him in it now made the vision of him a warbled one.

You were getting closer to him and when your eyes met his, you felt the crowd fall away.

There was only the leading carpet and you walked it to him.

You were left and made the last step of your own to where neither of you had broken eye contact.

Someone was talking, you guessed, but you were mesmerized by watery eyes and a fateful smile.

Your finger throbbed with yearning and you reached out to adjust Donnie’s lapels as coyly as you could.

His arms ghosted up to support yours as if your breaching the space between your bodies broke the spell on him.

He coasted up and down your arms with eager digits that needed more.

Words spilled a backdrop, but there were only the two of you as he stepped in closer and tucked his beak into the crown of your head.

“I didn’t think it was possible.”

You tilted your head to peer at him against the proximity.

“I had every adjective to describe you, but I can’t remember a single one.”

A grin split your face and loosed a few of his tears.

He didn’t bother wiping them and you felt someone that was very much not your partner touch your arm.

The officiant looked scolding and mentioned the vows.

You blinked wide.

Your wedding was happening all around you.

You went to look at the crowd, but as soon as you caught Donnie’s eyes, you were alone once again.

He oozed palpable affection and opened his mouth for a speech.

You waited.

Nothing came out.

His mouth closed silently and his eyes opened sorely haunted.

He then checked with you before he searched his person.

“Left breast.” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. leaned in from behind Donnie.

Your son was smartly dressed in a suit of his own and you wanted to appreciate it.

Donnie slipped his hand into his tux and pulled out some cards.

His hands shook.

Without thinking, you cupped to support them.

The moment the words steadied, he looked at you.

You smiled and squeezed his palms.

“A vow.” Donnie didn’t project in the slightest. “Noun. A solemn promise.”

He wasn’t looking at the cards.

“We’ll do the pre-written drivel last, but we decided to start with our own.”

You nodded.

The notes fell from his hands in favor of taking yours. “What can I pledge to you that you do not already have?”

“I don’t know.” You responded cheeky and the crowd giggled.

“You have it all.” Your hands weren’t enough and he caught your waist to pull you flush to him.

He took great care in placing one of your hands over his heart and held it there.

“I forgo this process. I have nothing more to give you. You own it all and this is merely a formality so I may say I am yours in yet another means. I would go through this hellish process a million times if only to sign the paper again and again. I would stand in line at the county clerk’s office as my purgatory if only to renounce my single being to a duo again and again. I have no speech. None of the hours I spent in writing it matter. Nothing I say will be comparable to all we’ve gone through or even the most inconsequential thing you’ve said to me. Instead, I wish only to declare my intent.”

He gave you one last squeeze before he looked out at the crowd.

“You wretches!” His fangs glistened as he grinned with every fiber of his being. “However you are known to me by association or cruel fate, I pledge thus…”

He left you completely and stared out as if someone would defy him.

You were sure there were reactions, but you couldn’t look away from your mate.

He was yours.

“Let it be known, from the moment I hatched to my dying breath-” Donatello turned toward you. “I was destined, am, and will forever be yours. In all forms and states of mind. In yours as well.”

You held your hand out to coax him back.

He took it, suave, and brought it to his lips, but did not kiss. “I love you.”

You signed it back and he scolded you by slipping back into his spot with a gentle nudge to your hip with his.

Anticlimactic, he addressed the officiant who didn’t seem to realize that was the end.   

You knew.

They were words that in no other realm would he ever state so publically.

To anyone, no matter how close.

Only now.

Only for you.

You responded.

You said your vows and heard none of them.

You’d practiced them so many times you would be able to repeat them in the next lifetime.

They felt meaningless.

You weren’t even sure Donnie was hearing them.

He was only watching you.

For all intents and purposes, this event was already over.

Then came the classic lines. 

To have and to hold from this day forward

You scarcely heard the officiant struggle.

For better, for worse

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. produced a ring.

For richer, for poorer. 

Words.

In sickness and in health. 

You didn’t need them.

To love and to cherish. 

Action.

Until death do us part.

It was useless.

Donnie only mimed putting your ring on.

You had been wearing it and it was never coming off.

His ring, however.

Three nights ago you had imbued it with a drop of your blood.

Its mere existence had put Donnie on edge.

He wanted to wear it.

If anyone else chanced putting it on, you were up for grabs.

It had taken literally opening S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. up and placing it securely within his circuitry before Donnie would calm.

Now you took his hand and felt how assuredly steady it was.

He brought his digit up incrementally so you could slip the band on.

The moment it hit his knuckle, he twitched and stalled. 

He felt you.

Felt how you had already written off the ceremony.

Felt how you were hungry.

Felt how you had the faintest nerves about the photos you’d been taking while the spaces were switched out for dinner.

All wholly new data that had never once been truly accessible to him, he might have given over to it had you not one more thing to do.

The officiant spoke those final words.

You moved into a kiss.

It was a cover.

As your lips met, the importance was your wedding bands.

Between your bodies and with cheers all around, your left hands met.

In a twist and lock, the two bands interacted.

You had seen mysticism.

Mikey’s chains.

Leo’s portals.

Donnie’s construction.

Raph’s form.

But you had never truly felt it until that moment.

It rushed through you on a cellular level and felt like an untamed thing.

It probed your worth.

It tested your bond.

It saw truths you held dear and ones you hadn’t committed to yet.

It then convened with ancient unknowable counsels.

It deemed you worthy and withdrew into your mystical item.

You were with Donnie.

Donnie was with you.

You parted from the kiss and it hadn’t been more than a few seconds.

You felt lifetimes intertwined as his forehead rested against yours.

His entire knowledge base wasn’t exactly yours, but you could sense it.

He could finally rest.

He had someone else to bear the load.

He would never be truly alone again.

You were rushed.

You had no idea who started it, but someone ran up to the stage and the other’s followed. 

Friends and family, if whatever had occurred between the two of you was too much, it had somehow translated outward.

Decorum was lost and you were swarmed.

Lifted and cheered, you were surrounded by love.

In a physical sense it separated you both, but you were not parted.

You looked over the jostling bodies and found Donnie’s eye.

He met yours with a wrinkled one of his own.

Your Donatello.

💜Follow me, the tag #weakspotfic , or Ao3 for updates! Behind the scenes deep dive for this chapter and others along with in-depth writing discussions, plot bunnies, and more are available for only 1$ over on my patreon~ 💜

My betas joined me with Weak Spot and they will carry on with the next work! @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

[fun-fun-chaos]

woooo just a lil stress-relief story i wrote about my Count the Ways AU, heehoo

it’s a lil rushed but uhh,, enjoy this short story of Millie being angry and Funtime Freddy being in absolute denial :]

———————

Millie stared down the injured clown bear in front of her, having an embittered gaze that almost seemed to pierce through him.

Funtime Freddy was used to interactions like these at this point; it was like clockwork hearing her vengeful ramblings. His rusted joints shook in her presence, like he was scared of her. He denied his fears at first, and tried to make light of all of it, but these instances weren’t really funny anymore. Almost having your face destroyed moments before being stared down by your attacker isn’t funny, isn’t it?

He stared back at the teenager, his eyelids twitching, as if he was trying to squint. The bears’ maws finally opened, his croaky voice slipping out

“Why do you kee-ep doing this—? I gave you exactly what you wished for, and this is what I get in return?”

Almost instantly, Millie was offended by his questions, gripping the crowbar in her hands tighter, as if she was preparing to land another blow

“Are you fuckin’ dense-?! I’ve told you MULTIPLE times that I never wanted to die!”

Ah, there it was: the “I didn’t really wanna die.” That was basically drilled into Funtime Freddys’ mind at this point. Even though she wasn’t wrong, those words always irritated him, like a mosquito bite that just won’t fade from your skin, no matter how many times you scratch it. His faceplates shuddered, silently and reluctantly listening as she continued

“Do you know what it’s like to have your neck constantly bleeding-? What makes you think I’d want to experience that rather than have the rest of my life to live?!”

The clown bear began to grit his metallic teeth; he was getting sick of her constant chatter, real sick.

In his mind, he thought he was the one in the right. He thought he genuinely helped her by setting her up with that cruel “date with death.” She let him kill her, yet begrudgingly, so why was she so angry now? Funtime Freddys’ faceplates shifted again. His fear slowly became anger. Ungrateful girl.. oh-so ungrateful. His eyes flickered to a bright white, but only for a moment.

Millie was about to say something else, but the animatronic swiftly interrupted her, shakily standing up.

“You’re so unappreciative, Millie..”

He boldly stated, scowling. However, the goth girl quickly snapped back, taking a daring step forward

“Unappreciative? UNAPPRECIATIVE—?! What makes YOU think I’m going to be appreciative about being in pain ALL THE TIME?! I’m not going to fucking be happy about being separated from my family-! They don’t even know I’m GONE!”

Anger, unreasonable anger. It began to boil within his metal dome. Funtime Freddy hated being ridiculed. He hated feeling like he was wrong. He felt like he needed to stand up for himself, even if he was the one who caused all this in the first place.

His eyes flickered to a blank white once more, his fearful, sapphire-blue eyes fading like they were swallowed by a ferocious wave of white noise.

“Listen here, chilly Millie,”

The animatronic clowns’ voice began to rumble and shake, visibly irritated

“You’re an ungrateful little girl. I’ve given you everything you wanted, and you still want more. Cut the bullshit, and tell me what you really want. Tell me what you want, tell me. I’m tired of waiting for you to be satisfied; quit being so indecisive, and decide what you wanna be. I’m SICK-K of being hurt, so just tell me what it is you really want. TELL ME! T-TELL ME!! I’M NOT GOING TO STOMACH THIS ANIMOSITY MUCH LONGER, SO TELL ME WHAT I DID WRONG-!!”

Millie was shaken by the bears’ yelling, her eyes widened and her body stiff. However, moments after his rambling, Funtime Freddys’ eyes flickered back to their usual blue, his expression suddenly becoming one of shock.

Did he really just say all that to her? Did he go too far?

His ears lowered whilst he began to nervously fidget his fingers. The clown bear occasionally had his outbursts, and this time, he had one at the wrong time.

Funtime Freddy soon noticed that Millies’ shocked expression reverted back to anger, and that she began to repeatedly clench and unclench her fist. He began to feel a sick feeling in his stomach; maybe he DID go too far.

“I… I didn’t mean to— I just-”

The bears’ words became muddled as he spoke. He just wanted to help her.. was asking what she really wanted such a bad thing? He didn’t want to end up making her angry; he wanted to make her feel happy by giving her exactly what she wished for. Was that such a horrible thing?

Despite his denial, despite all his excuses, somehow, he knew that the answer to that question was “yes.”

[nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice]

I couldn't really get into Azula, tbh. I mean, she is a Whole Look and I appreciate her lack of chill, but she felt like she needed more dimension.

AIGHT! LOOKS LIKE IT’S TIME TO WRITE SOME MORE AZULA META. Because I’m not about to have one of the most complex antagonists in television history slandered like this.

If you want to talk dimensions, let’s start there. From the basis of her actions, we can characterize Azula as many things: manipulative, ruthless, ambitious, and lacking in empathy. We see her as a military strategist: commanding the drill to go through the wall, conquering Ba Sing Se by staging the coup, and planning the destruction of the Earth Kingdom with Sozin’s Comet. We see her as a master manipulator: convincing Mai and Ty Lee to join her hunt in season 2, convincing Zuko to betray Iroh, lying to Ozai about Zuko killing Aang, and stalling Sokka at the invasion by taunting him about Suki. We see her trying to kill her brother and uncle all throughout season 2 just on her father’s orders, shooting Aang with lightning in the season 2 finale, almost killing Zuko multiple times in season 3, and nearly killing Katara in Sozin’s Comet. 

So from her actions, we can characterize her simply as power-hungry and lacking in empathy, sure, but it’s in her motivations that her dimensions lie. And everything, everything Azula does in this show is to prove to her father that she’s worthy of his favoritism.

We’re introduced to Azula in season 1 indirectly via Zuko and we know some things about their father already. The two main things being the whole ‘burned half of Zuko’s face off and banished him for speaking out of turn and refusing to fight him’ and the whole “[their] father said [Azula] was born lucky” and “[Zuko] was lucky to be born.” At the end of season 1, Ozai calls Zuko “a miserable failure” and we see him about to send this mysterious sister figure to do something about that. We know that Ozai had absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for his son and horrifically, publically abused him over what exactly? Showing weakness. 

That’s what we know from season 1. With Azula’s introduction in season 2, it’s clear that their upbringing was way more messed up than just this one instance. We start to see that there are these cracks in the royal family and the manipulation and callousness goes way beyond Zuko’s banishment. 

From the Zuko and Iroh plot of The Avatar State, there are a couple key moments where themes of favoritism, perfectionism, and jealousy enter. It starts with the three-year anniversary of Zuko’s banishment where he’s sitting in self-loathing just wanting his “father not to think [he’s] worthless,” holding onto Ozai’s approval as the achievable thing that will mean he’s worth something. We see Azula practicing lightning bending (something we have never seen a firebender do on the show before, it is clear that she is incredibly talented) but still berates herself for being ‘one hair out of place’. We see Zuko lash out at Iroh for implying that Ozai might not really want him to come home despite what Azula says, and we know that Iroh genuinely cares about Zuko and wants him to be safe, but Ozai doesn’t. Iroh introduces the concept that “things in [their] family are not always as they seem, but Zuko reduces this to sibling rivalry, and there’s a reason why. Zuko and Azula have been raised under a competition for their entire lives, and for that entire time, Azula was winning. And by this point she’s still winning. She’s ecstatic that she’s the favorite child while Ozai wants to “lock [Zuko] away where he can no longer embarrass him”. By the end of this episode, one thing is clear: Azula and Zuko are competing with each other. Only one of them can be good enough for their father. But while Zuko takes his first step to cut himself off, Azula doesn’t want to stray from this competition that she’s winning.

In Zuko Alone, this favoritism goes deeper. Just like with Ozai, Ursa’s approval and love is conditional, but these are conditions Azula isn’t meeting. She’s not as empathetic or sweet as Zuko and their mother isn’t shown treating her with the same affection as she does with Zuko. It’s not just Ozai favoring Azula over Zuko with that one scene of Ozai smiling when Azula performs her firebending and frowning when Zuko performs his, it’s Ursa favoring Zuko over Azula. It’s Ursa treating Zuko with gentleness and care and only reprimanding Azula for the way that she is.

Despite the fact that she’s obviously getting all her ideas from her father. This mentality of ‘I must do anything for the throne, even throw my own sibling under the bus,’ is all from Ozai. And when Ursa leaves, there’s no one to keep her in check. There’s only one parent to win the affection of and she’s already succeeding because all she has to do is be a better firebender. All she has to do is follow Ozai’s example of callousness and ruthlessness in order to be the favored child. And keep in mind, being ‘the favored child’ under this roof isn’t something petty, it means ‘one of you gets to be the heir and the other might not be allowed to live.’ This episode reveals what’s been going on in Zuko and Azula’s head this whole time. It reveals that they’re both constantly thinking that only one of them is going to be seen as worthy in their father’s eyes, as they were taught to believe that Ozai was more ‘worthy’ than Iroh since Iroh retreated from Ba Sing Se after Lu Ten died. And the other one, the one that wasn’t seen as worthy, that one was ‘disposable.’ And for most of their lives, the ‘disposable’ one was Zuko. 

But while Zuko spends most of the series slowly learning, with Iroh’s help, that the situation shouldn’t have been like this, that parental love and protection shouldn’t have to be conditional, Azula is still stuck in this mentality. And season 2 is full of examples of Azula doing everything in her power to prove herself to Ozai. Her task was to just bring Zuko and Iroh home for imprisonment, but along the way she added ‘capturing the Avatar’ and ‘conquering Ba Sing Se’ as additional tasks for herself. Why? Because those were the things Iroh and Zuko failed at doing. And she needs to prove that she’s better than them, otherwise what’s going to stop Ozai from deciding that she’s the person who he’s going to be disappointed in next? But if she does these things, if she conquers Ba Sing Se, if she finds the Avatar, that means she’ll still be considered useful to him, right? That means she’s the one who “has father’s love,” right? 

Because that’s what Azula strives to be over anything else: useful. She wants to be the person he relies on. The child he believes in. There’s a really good example of this early in season 2 when Azula goes to Omashu to get Mai: 

Azula takes control of the situation. She doesn’t really have anything to do with this city or the fake plague or the hostage trade. This is entirely the governor's responsibility and she’s just there to pick up her friend, but since she’s there, she has to make sure things are in order for her father. So she strips the governor of his power, takes control of the hostage situation to ensure that Bumi doesn’t slip through her fingers, and renames the city ‘New Ozai’ just for good measure. We see Azula as the actual proactive villain for all of season 2 and she would be well within her rights to name the city after herself. But she doesn’t. Because that’s not why she’s doing anything she’s doing. 

The flashback showing where she suggests burning down the Earth Kingdom reveals a lot with her body language. She suggests this by interrupting Zuko, who’s more resistant to the idea to ‘destroy their hope.’ He doesn't agree with Ozai’s idea, but she needs to show that she’s on her father’s side. She’s the one who can be as ruthless and destructive as he is. So she suggests this and looks to Ozai for approval, and once he gives it, that’s when she looks pleased. The actual plan to destroy the Earth Kingdom isn’t what brings her joy at this moment, it’s Ozai’s approval of her suggestion. We didn’t see her clap once his back was turned. This isn’t about the plan itself, it’s about Azula’s ability to be the heir she thinks Ozai wants her to be. 

And it’s in this moment in Sozin’s Comet shows exactly where Azula’s been coming from this whole time: 

This whole time, it hasn’t been about the destruction. It hasn’t been about what she wants. It’s been about being the favored child. It’s about being better than Zuko. In Azula’s eyes, she’s done everything right. She’s master lightning. She wasn’t the traitor like her brother or uncle. She conquered Ba Sing Se. She showed her father that she was on board with the destruction of the Earth Kingdom and proved her loyalty. She did everything right. But there’s a part of her that was waiting for this shoe to drop for years, ever since she watched her brother get his face burned off for not meeting Ozai’s standards. And she sure as hell remembers that all throughout the series and it shows: she can’t afford to be imperfect because she knows the consequences if she’s not. 

But in this moment, her fear shows. Her fear of not being good enough. The fear of being imperfect, disposable. She’s been terrified of this moment her whole life and has done everything to delay it. This moment: where Ozai casts her aside, where she isn’t good enough to come with him in her eyes. There’s no one left but her: no Iroh, no Zuko, no Ursa. Everyone else left and there’s no one else to compete with. And she’s left alone with this meaningless position of Firelord now that Ozai’s about to declare himself ‘Phoenix King’ and she clings onto that position because it’s her last chance to prove herself after this rejection. 

She goes off the deep end because she’s all alone. She’s snipped out anyone who was imperfect. She cut off her friends once they betrayed her. Azula isolated herself on the throne and demanded perfection because that’s what she saw her father do. Family wasn’t important to him. Loyalty and perfection were. So that’s the example she follows but it’s lonely and terrifying, so she loses herself. All her fears about not being good enough come back up after Ozai leaves her behind. That’s why she mentions Mai and Ty Lee. That’s why she sees Ursa. These are the people who didn’t choose her, and now that her father has left her behind and she hasn’t met his standards for the first time in her life, all those vulnerabilities and insecurities come to the surface. The thing Azula fears most over anything else is rejection, which is why she’s obsessed with perfection. Because she’s been taught that if she’s good enough: if she perfects her firebending technique, if people fear and respect her, and if people choose her, then that means she’s not disposable.

And at the end, she’s the one who challenges Zuko to an Agni Kai. To prove one last time that she is worthy. That she was worthy all along and that her father was right to choose her to be Firelord. 

And there’s an interesting parallel to consider here. The first time we ever see Azula is at Zuko’s Agni Kai with Ozai in the season 1 flashback, and at that one she’s smiling at her brother getting punished because it signifies to her that she won. Ozai picked her. Zuko was the disposable one. And in the end she wants that to still be true and finds that it’s not. In the end she loses and she doesn’t know what to do with herself now that she’s the one cast aside. 

And that’s the tragedy of Azula, really. This entire time she was conditioned to think that her value and the value of the people around her rested in perfection and she spent the entire series trying to prove herself. She was convinced that love was something that needed to be earned and that if she didn’t get results, if she didn’t win, then she didn’t deserve it. 

And that’s just a small piece of her character if we’re being honest. This doesn’t get into the details of how Ursa’s treatment shaped her, how her relationship with Zuko was ruined by their parents, how her bending is a reflection of her mental state, or how he relationship with Mai and Ty Lee reflects her view of herself and others. Azula is one of the most complex villains in television history not only because she has a rich backstory, interesting motivations, or unique persona, but because underneath everything, she’s just a teenage girl who doesn’t wants her dad’s approval and is so deeply terrified of being cast aside. She may be ruthless and she may lack empathy, but those traits stem from deeply rooted damage and vulnerability. 

(For some more Azula meta I did a deep dive into how The Beach foreshadows her breakdown and reveals her vulnerabilities and here where I talked about how she and Zuko were pitted against each other and had their relationship damaged by parental favoritism.)

[bubblesuga]

Safety Net

Summary: Kim Namjoon is very, very much in love with you. This shows in multiple ways, but his proposal is more than enough to let you know how much he cares. 

w/c: 2,441 genre: idol!au, established!relationship, smut, fluff warnings: slight impregnation kink, oral (f receiving), soft!namjoon, loving!namjoon,

A soft tickle brushed against your nose. It interrupted your dreams between the gorgeous white sheets of the room you found yourself in last night. For a moment, you fight the feeling, keeping your eyes shut and letting out a soft mewl, swatting away whatever it was that was disrupting your sleep. 

There’s a soft giggle, silence for a few seconds as your hearing begins to train in on the sounds surrounding you, then you feel it again. 

“Baby,” the light and airy conversational voice he usually held was replaced with a low husk, smooth and comforting. “Baby, it’s time to wake up.” 

You sigh, still not having opened your eyes but instead snuggling deeper into the duvet, shielding yourself from the harsh cold that winter has brought into the room. He laughs again, it’s breathy and just as comforting as his voice. His hand, calloused from years of playing instruments, rubs up and down your arm. His fingertips glide seamlessly against your soft skin, and he hums. 

“You’re always so pretty. Even when you’re asleep,” his breath fans your face gently and you can tell that he’s close, “you look like you’ve just stepped down from Heaven.” 

You open your eyes at the compliment, blinking away the light before focusing on your boyfriend. His dimples poke out as he grins, “There she is.” 

You smile softly, stretching your arms upward, “You’re just as poetic with your words as ever before.” 

“I try.” He sends a wink your way, pressing a gentle kiss to the tip of your nose. Your face scrunches momentarily and he bites his lip with a grin, poking your nose before standing up. You sit up in the bed, taking a second to admire your boyfriend from behind. You make a mental note to thank the gym gods as you notice just how toned and defined his back has gotten. He stretches upward, his muscles flexing and then he turns around, slipping on the black rimmed glasses that he loves wearing at home. 

“We’ve got to go get a birthday present for Hoseok today,” Namjoon states, “it’s my only free day this week and I’m not sure when I’ll get another one so I want to spend it with you.” 

You wipe the sleep away from your eyes, “Hobi’s birthday isn’t for another month though?” 

“Precisely,” Namjoon replies, “if I leave it until the last minute then there’s no way that I can get him something good. If I do it now, at least I have time to put some thought into it, and besides,” he crawls back onto the bed and places his face mere inches from yours, “I can have my gorgeous girlfriend help me out with this endeavor.” 

Without thinking much of it, you lean forward and place a soft peck on his lips. Pulling away, you realize Namjoon’s eyes are still closed. You giggle, pecking his lips again, and again, and again. Then, Namjoon pushes forward, slamming his lips against yours. 

You welcome the feeling of his tongue moving against yours, his knees bumping yours while he grips your hips tightly in his large hands. He’s always had a way of asserting himself against you while simultaneously being as gentle as he possibly could. It was a beautiful harmony, and made you feel wanted and safe. Especially when his fingertips danced along your exposed sides. 

As he moves to deepen the kiss, you let out a small noise of protest, causing him to immediately pull away. “What’s wrong?” 

“We’re never going to make it to the mall if we keep going like this.” You say breathlessly, unable to contain the smile on your face as he rests his forehead against yours. 

“We’ll make it quick.” He states. 

You feel your stomach fill with butterflies, “and how do you expect to do that?” 

Namjoon grins, yanking the covers away from your frame and exposing your t-shirt clad body. You yelp at the sudden cool air but it’s quickly wiped away when Namjoon grips your legs and pulls you down onto the mattress, spreading your legs in front of him. 

You watch as he slips your lace pink panties down your legs, inhaling your scent as he does so. You gasp as he blows air across your core, watching carefully as he sucks a hickey into your thigh. 

Despite having been with Namjoon for nearly a year, you still can’t help but feel the blush spread across your cheeks at the act. Before him, your experience was minimal. Namjoon made sure to make you feel good every time, though, taking his time until you were more comfortable with the more adventurous things in his sex life. Quickies weren’t anything new, but they usually happen in his locker room before a show or in the car before an event. He usually likes to take his time when you’re in his bed, so the prospect of him moving fast here has you doubtful. 

A whine leaves your lips as Namjoon licks a long stripe across your heat. “There we go, that’s the noise I like.” 

Collecting your wetness on his tongue, he drinks you in beautifully. His dragon-like eyes stay trained on yours, peaking out between your thighs. You can feel the smirk against you as you fling your hands forward and lace your fingers through his hair. Namjoon’s tongue moves expertly against you, paying special attention to the intense bundle of nerves.

“Namjoon,” you breathe, flushing at your eagerness, “more.” 

He buries himself between your folds, the pressure increasing and new sensations surprising you, jolting bolts of electricity firing through your body as your orgasm spreads from your core and into your body. As your back arches from the bed, Namjoon pulls away and uses his fingers to coax you through your release. As the stars disappear from your vision and your breathing steadily returns to normal, you gnaw at your bottom while you meet his eyes, a blush spreading across your face. 

“Don’t get all shy now,” Namjoon smiles, trailing soft kisses up your torso and sucking on your nipples before nuzzling his head into your neck, “you’re the most gorgeous girl in the world. I could watch you cum all over my tongue for the rest of eternity.” 

Namjoon’s admission isn’t a new one, but it definitely doesn’t stop the butterflies from swarming in your belly. The way his hand rests gently on your side, his thumb drawing small circles while his lips nip and suck beneath your ear was one of the many things Namjoon did that managed to raise your heart beat. Even after so long, after sharing yourself with him in the most intimate of circumstances, Kim Namjoon manages to make it feel like the first time every single time. 

“You said we were going to make this quick,” you giggle as he moves to pepper kisses across your face, “this isn’t quick.” 

“You’re right,” Namjoon stops suddenly, pulling away from you before positioning himself back between your legs. He tugs his boxers down in one felt swoop, and you gulp at the sight like you do every time. Your eyes glaze over as you lick your lips, admiring the pulsating veins on his cock. Sure that the feeling of him pulsing inside you would manage to push you over the edge quickly, you reach forward and stroke his cock a few times before tugging him closer to your entrance. 

“Ah-ah,” Namjoon ticks, “let me do it.” 

You smile, falling backward onto the bed and spreading your legs wider. Namjoon slips his cock between your folds, gently ghosting over your clit while you whine at the sensation. 

“Quickly.” you remind him. 

In another other instance you would have loved his teasing, watching the way he takes his bottom lip between his teeth while he focuses on rubbing your clit. However your hunger for him in this moment is insatiable, and you wrap your legs around his hips and pull him closer. 

Finally, he fully sheathes himself inside of you, instant boisterous gratification slipping from both of your mouths. 

It doesn’t take long for him to begin thrusting, seeing as last night’s activities left you more than ready for him. Namjoon growls your name, resonating deep throughout the room while you desperately rutted your hips into his pelvic bone. 

Namjoon’s hand cups the back of your neck, bringing you up to his lips. Although not the most sensual of kisses you shared, all teeth and need, you still felt yourself dripping with arousal, surely not only coating your own thighs but Namjoon’s as well. 

Suddenly, you felt his hips piston into you even faster, signalling his release is approaching quickly. He sloppily slips a hand between the two of you and rubs your clit, pushing you over the edge. As you tighten around Namjoon, he lets out a growl against your lips and you feel him release inside of you. 

To milk him just a little more, you squeeze around him once again and giggle when you hear his gasp. 

“You’re killing me.” Namjoon breathes, only causing you to grin. 

“You do the same to me, Mr. Kim.” 

Slipping slowly out of you, Namjoon reaches his hand forward and catches the cum oozing out of your cunt, pushing it back into you. 

“One of these days I’m gonna get you pregnant,” he murmurs, “which means you’ll have to stop taking those pills.” 

You stand, stretching your back as you feel Namjoon’s eyes on you. Making your way towards the bathroom, you respond, “You mean the pills that you made me get on so you could fuck me without a condom?” 

“Hey now,” Namjoon calls, his voice being heard from the other side of the now shut bathroom door, “you kept saying you wanted me to cum inside you.” 

Cleaning yourself up, the blush on your cheeks returns. You style your hair quickly and add some simple eyeliner across your eyelids. When you open the door, Namjoon is fully dressed and is slipping a hat on top of his head. He’s dressed in his usual earthy tones, complimenting his shining skin. Even fully dressed, Namjoon was the most delicious looking man on the entire planet. 

“As much as I would like to have you walk around naked all day, please get dressed so we can head out.” Namjoon points to an outfit laid out on the now made bed. 

“You have impeccable taste,” you say, your eyes scanning over the graphic tee and black skirt combination, “I didn’t even know I owned this skirt.” 

“Mm,” Namjoon hums, “I found it in my drawer.” He moves over to your top drawer, pulling out a matching bra and pantie set that Namjoon picked out for you when you just began getting intimate. There are fond memories associated with the red and black lace bra, the thread from where you sewed the strap back on after a particularly rough night sticks out slightly. You grin, getting dressed as quickly as you could. 

Namjoon grips your hand in his, and the two of you are out the door. 

Throughout the day, Namjoon was sure to keep you close. Although you two had to wear masks and hats to fight the risk of being spotted, Namjoon’s eyes were enough to let you know that he was smiling at you as you pointed out multiple gifts that would be perfect for Hoseok. 

It’s not until you’re sat in your car, take out in each of your laps do you speak about your earlier conversation again. 

“So, about that whole getting me pregnant thing...” 

Namjoon, cheeks full of food, looks up to you with darkened eyes. He doesn’t respond verbally, instead he simply winks. 

“What does that mean?” You laugh, picking up your coffee and taking a sip. 

Namjoon shrugs, “Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready.” 

You lean back into your seat, glancing back to the backseat to see the bags of gifts for Hoseok. Your eyes trail back to Namjoon, who idly inspects his sandwich before taking another bite, you realize that you’re in the perfect place. 

Without a shadow of a doubt, you’re one hundred percent ready to settle down with Namjoon. 

Clearing your throat, your hand shakes as you pick up a french fry and bite the tip of it. Namjoon turns to look at you, and you smirk, “are you going to get me a ring first?” 

“Oh, that’s already done.” He replies casually. 

“Excuse me?” You nearly choke. 

“I bought the ring like 3 months after we started dating.” The no nuance tone to his words shocked you, your jaw dropping instantly. 

“Well where is it?!” You ask incredulously, and Namjoon sets his sandwich down, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. Inside the first compartment of his wallet was a ring with a small diamond and a silver band. Your eyes nearly bug out of your head, looking between Namjoon’s eyes and his hand, your hand slowly raising to open your mouth. 

Instantly, you feel tears prick your eyes. You’re usually not one to cry, but the fact that Namjoon knew that you were the one just as early on as you knew he was the one was enough to get the water works rolling. It’s quiet enough that Namjoon doesn’t hear it, but then he sees a mascara stricken tear slip down your cheek while you shakily put your left hand out. 

“We’re not gonna cry, baby,” Namjoon says comfortingly, grabbing your hand with his and slipping the ring onto your finger, “because if you start crying then I’m gonna start crying.” 

You’re scared to speak, you know a sob is bubbling at the top of your throat. 

Namjoon grins, leaning forward and kissing the tip of your nose, “I was waiting for the right time to propose but since you asked for a ring I figured I’d give it to you,” he watches you for a few seconds, feeling his eyes begin to burn with tears, “so... will you?” 

“Will I what?” You whisper, mesmerized by the gorgeous ring. 

“Marry me? I- I know it’s a bit unceremonious but-” 

“Yes, dummy, of course I will.” You laugh, wiping away the tears and reaching across the console and taking Namjoon into a big hug. 

It’s only then that Namjoon breaks, inhaling your scent as his body wracks with quiet, happy tears. 

“I love you.” You whisper into his neck, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. 

“I love you too.” he responds, his smile beaming and his eyes filled with tears. 

Holy shit, you’re engaged to the love of your life. 

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

Serious | Damian Wayne

✦ pairing — older!Damian Wayne x gender neutral!Plus Size Reader

✦ word count — 1k

✦ summary — Damian wants to show you he’s serious about your relationship.

✦ request — Can I request a prompt with the S41 (with Damian), please?

✶ S41 - “Bite your lip one more time, I dare you.”

✦ warnings — light nervousness/anxiety, fluff.

✦ author's note — I thought the concept of someone finding Dick intimidating just from hearing Damian talk about him was hilarious so I went with that. Idk what I’m doing, I’m high on meds and I had fun writing this!!!

════════════════════════

“Stop biting your lip,” Damian chastised.

“I can’t help it.” You took another quick look around the coffee shop. “I’m anxious.”

“I know, and everybody around us can see.”

“I don’t like this place,” you mumbled. “Something feels off.”

“You liked it well enough last time.”

Damian failed to remember —or mention— that last time’s circumstances had been waaaaaaay different. Besides, this place wasn’t your spot, it had never been and would never be.

You preferred the small tea salon Damian and you frequented over the coffee shop you were anxiously sat at. Their coffee was good, you could admit that, but you weren’t in your environment.

“You’re nervous,” he asserted.

“No.”

Damian sighed. “It’s just my brother, you have nothing to worry about.”

“I want your brother to like me,” you repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

“I still don’t understand why,” he stated bluntly, “I like you, that should be enough.”

You gave him an unamused look. He was serious, though, you could see it in his face. So you explained, “He’s important to you. And he sounds a little intimidating.”

“Richard? Intimidating?” Damian snorted.

“Yes. You speak so highly about him and—“

He interrupted you, “I could tell you embarrassing stories about him if that’s what you prefer.”

If only that was your point...

“Embarrassing stories about who?” An unknown voice chimed in.

“You,” Damian said with no inhibitions.

You wanted to jump off your seat and greet his brother yet you found yourself frozen in place.

The older man smiled at you. “I’ve heard so much about you!”

Trying to mask your surprise, you blinked rapidly and smiled timidly. “Me too,” you whispered.

Dick invited himself to take a seat, eyes on you. “Dami didn’t say anything about you being shy.” He then added, “Nothing wrong with that, of course.”

Was he trying to impress you?

“Oh! You ordered my favorite,” Dick noted, this time smiling at his brother.

Damian ignored him, but you saw him divert his gaze in a familiar bashful gesture.

Dick let out a hearty laugh and took a sip of his coffee. You took a sip too, not really sure why.

Damian remained silent, eyes going from Dick to you. Needless to say, the moment went from awkward to worryingly silent.

Dick once again took initiative and instead of going for small talk, he went straight to tell you about how long he had waited to meet you.

That was on you, surprisingly. Damian had been asking you to meet his brother for weeks now, and you had been too scared to be hated by Dick.

════════════════════════

You softly dropped your keys onto the table, moving to the side so Damian could make his way toward the reading chair next to the window.

He threw his coat onto the chair and glanced outside for a brief moment before his gaze fell back on you.

“I told you everything would go well,” he gloated.

You had been around his smug version infinite times, but this was different. He had been right in multiple instances before yet a part of him looked relieved.

You bit down your bottom lip, nodding.

Damian groaned. “Bite your lip one more time, I dare you.”

“Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do if I do it again?”

“Don’t test me.”

“You’re not scary, Damian.”

“No?” He lifted both eyebrows. “I remember you saying I used to intimidate you.”

“Used to.” You smiled sweetly. “But now I know you’re a real softie.”

He rolled his eyes at the same time as he grasped your hands and tugged on them. Your front ended up flush against his which seemed to have been his intention.

Damian smirked. “Aren’t you going to tell me I was right?”

“Nope,” you teased him. It felt good to be able to tease him and joke around with him after a week full of nervousness and anxiety.

Damian would never understand how much you wanted his loved ones to like you.

He dropped one of your hands in order to grasp your face, smushing your cheeks as he applied a little bit of pressure. “Don’t be a brat. Come on, tell me I was right.”

You shook your head, attempting to defy him with your eyes.

“Are you sure? I’m not going to let go of you until you say it.”

You scrunched your nose up, feigning disgust.

“The glint in your eyes is betraying you, beloved.”

A whine escaped you. He knew you too well for your own good.

“What can I say?” Your voice was muffled by the insides of your cheeks. “I enjoy your touch.”

He smiled and brought your face closer to his in order to give your lips a short kiss.

“Now you just have to meet my father,” he told you as he removed his hand from your face.

You hummed. It was only logical.

“And Alfred, of course. Perhaps my other siblings if they’re around...” He made a pause, analyzing your reaction. He then said, “I will then give you a break so you can prepare mentally to meet my mother.”

If his father, siblings, and grandfather figure made you anxious, then his mother terrified you. He talked about her from time to time and although she sounded badass, she was by far the most intimidating entity ever.

“Step by step, yeah?” you croaked.

He nodded. “I’m simply trying to show you I’m serious about our relationship.”

“I know, and I appreciate it immensely. Just... well, you know how I am.”

“I do, but there’s no need to be nervous or anxious. They’re going to love you. And if they don’t, it’ll be because of their lack of taste.” You frowned so he added, “But I’m certain they will like you.”

“Now,” he sighed dramatically, “you promised me a movie marathon.”

Aware of that being his way of dropping the subject for now, you slanted your head in direction to your bedroom. “Or do you prefer the couch?”

He pouted. “Absolutely not.”

[sillybub]

If cats ever comes back to tour United States again they should give some Asian actors the right to perform on the play. I would really want them to seize their of triumph. How would that work?

Hello Anon! Thank you for such a great question!

First of all, I HARD agree on wanting a diverse cast! CATS is such a great show for having actors of all different kinds of backgrounds--the diversity of the cast should reflect the diversity of characters within the show. I would LOVE to see Asian actors being cast, along with other actors of color!

Second of all, I sense that you might be talking about the racism towards Asians within the show, and how that can be handled. I am more than happy to address this VERY in-depth.  I’m not sure if this is what you meant for me to do, you have provided me with a good chance for me to talk about my thoughts in-depth.  

So, the first instance of racism we have is in Pekes & Pollicles with the infamous "heathen Chinese" lines.

I've about this before: one fix could be to replace the word "heathen" with any other two-syllable adjective. My favorite fix here is probably "foreign Chinese", but I think the actor would have to be VERY careful with what tone they sing this line in.

My personal fix for this would be to replace that line entirely with something more like "toy Pekingese". Same number of syllables, but we're talking about the dog breed now, and not an entire nationality. Pekingese dogs are classified as "toy" breeds (breeds that weigh 15 pounds or less when they are fully grown), and calling them "toys" would also hint that they're very pampered lapdogs who aren't actually that ferocious at all.

The Pollicle dogs are specified within the song to be Yorkshires, so I don't see why we can't call the Pekes Pekingese on top of that.

Now, more pressing is the Growltiger Issue, which is a little more complicated.

So, first and foremost, I'm strongly in the camp that Growltiger's Last Stand should be eliminated from the show forever.

My reasons for this are as follows:

1. Racism is baked deeply into the character of Growltiger. His song is all bout how he likes to terrorize Asians, original poem calls them slurs, and the entire thing just reeks of Orientalism on top of that. This should be reason enough to take it right out of the show forever.

2. This is much more of my personal opinion, and probably unpopular, but structure-wise, I think that the entire sequence is too long and interruptive. Growltiger's Last Stand in its entirely has a runtime of approx. 10-14 min. The only other song in the show of comparable length is the Jellicle Ball, which is a showcase of all the characters rather than just a very small handful. 10-14 minutes feels too long to focus on a single cat, who isn't even a real character within the show to begin with. The musical is interrupted to put on a different, smaller musical that feels vastly out of place from the rest of it.

Typically, an entirely new set is pulled on stage for the Growltiger sequence, with new pirate outfits for the characters. This is in contrast to the other show within the show, Pekes & Pollicles, where all of the props and costumes are repurposed junk. One of these feels much more authentic than the other. I have always LOVED the decision to give Pekes & Pollicles to Gus; the feeling of improvisation and unprofessionalism, and the absolute chaos of the cats feels much more natural and justified when it was literally an unplanned decision to help Gus relive his glory days as an actor. And since all the cats are involved in Pekes & Pollicles, it feels more intimate as well.

I'm going to expand more on my first point, now.

The Siamese cats are racist caricatures, and non-Asian actors wearing them should be considered yellowface.

Sure, they're supposed to be cats and not humans, but they are so obviously racialized. The masks feature exaggerated slanted eyes, and are very often yellow--hallmarks of a racist Asian caricature.  In early productions, they even sang in a vaguely Asian accent.  For predominantly non-Asian actors to don this costume, it’s yellowface.  

Now, I recognize that the 2020 Asia tour has updated the costumes to be less blatantly racist.  For reference, here is a typical Siamese costume:

(Hamburg 1997)

And here is the revised version:

(Asia Tour 2020).

As you can see, the color pallet has changed from yellow to blue, and there is much less Thai influence in the designs.  In changing the design, the Asia 2020 production has attempted a well-intentioned effort to de-racialize the Siamese cats.  However, these are still racist Asian characters being played by a non-Asian cast.  They context of the song is still the same, even though the costume itself is different.  

So, is it yellowface if an Asian cast plays the Siamese?

No, but it would be incredibly poor taste to cast Asian actors so they can play the Siamese.  

The act of an oppressed group adopting language and symbols that are normally used against them is called “reclaiming.”  For an all-Asian cast (especially with predominantly Thai actors) to put on their own production of Growltiger’s last stand could be an act of reclamation.  I’m not Thai, and only have East Asian heritage on my mom’s side, so it’s not for me to discuss how Growltiger and the Siamese could be reclaimed.

Now, I’m not afraid to call out people’s racism (whether it was intentional or not), so I’m going to talk about a small controversy with the cosplayer Pixiedustjellicle.  She had expressed interest in creating a Siamese mask to sell.  She viewed the Siamese as the heroes of the story, and wanted to create the mask as a homage.  That was a nice sentiment, but as I have discussed already, the costumes and entire concept of the Siamese are undeniably racist.  What Pixie was trying to do is an act of reclamation, but since she is a non-Asian (and specifically white) creator, it isn’t her place to do that.  (After receiving feedback about this from multiple people including myself, she has since apologized.)

Non-Asians should never try to put on Growltiger, and especially not white people.  The Siamese were created and brought to the stage by white men, and there is no way to divorce the racism from their characters. Staging it is something for Asian (ideally with a strong Thai presence leading) cast and crew to do if they so choose.

Additionally, several different Asian cultures are referenced in Growltiger. although there doesn't seem to be much intentional distinction between them, which is why I label it as Orientalism earlier. The Siamese are referred to as Mongolian, for one thing. Additionally, a Siamese cat mauled Growltiger's ear, but now he indiscriminately hates all Asians.

That being said, the Siamese cats are the specific villains of the song; ie, cats hailing from Siam (modern day Thailand) in Southest Asia, which is a very different region that East Asia.  It is for this reason that I place heavy emphasis on leaving it up to Thai people to reclaim the Siamese.

A few people have suggested a major re-write where the Siamese are replaced with the British Navy.  I think that if you truly want to keep the racist song, that’s one option to fix it.  Additionally, you could cut Growltiger and keep In Una Tepida Notte and The Ballad of Billy McCaw, who are fairly divorced from the context of the rest of Growltiger and have no traces of its racism within them.

I’m in the camp that it should just be cut forever, to be perfectly honest.  Even if it wasn’t racist, I don’t care for it.

[sery-chan-13]

Burnt Out

Bitches... (1, I love you all very much. 2, .... read 1) it's time for some angst...

And the start of me making poly relationship things-

Request away lol (I'm working on a request and small project chapters :) )

Warnings: Toxic Relationship, mentions scars, burns, Manga spoilers, swearing, emotionally abusive behavior, mentally abusive behavior, gaslighting(?) Let me know if I missed any!

You giggled as both men chased after you through the halls of the hotel. "(Y/N), you're wearing socks! You're going to- shit!" Niragi yelled after you, cursing when he saw you fall. You slipped down the stairs. You landed with a thud at the bottom. Tears filled your eyes at the pain, but you swallowed them back, standing up. You yelped, falling back to the floor. Chishiya stared down at you, kneeling besides you,  squeezing your leg. "Ow! Shi-Shi, hurts," you whined, slapping his hand away. He glared up at you. "Maybe don't be stupid next time. I'm just trying to help you," he scoffed, going back to trying to find out what was wrong. "You don't have to be so mean to he-" "Shut up. You're dumber than her, you're the whole reason this happened anyways." He felt people stare, and stopped. "Take her back up to our room. I'll figure out what's wrong there," Chishiya stated, getting up, and walking away. You expected Niragi to yell after him, or repremand him for something, but we're met by silence. "Gi-Gi, you ok?" You whispered as he picked you up softly. He pressed a quick kiss to your forehead nodding.

"Niragi... this isn't the way back to our room," you said, noticing he was taking you the opposite way. "Clever girl," he praised with a smile. You laughed at his words. "I'm taking you to Ann. She has more equipment to help you. I'll get Chishiya after I take you to her though," he explained. You nodded.

_______________________________________

"And then it was like bam, then woosh, and like... wow!!" You exclaimed, trying to find the words to explain your game. Niragi laughed, patting the top of your head. "Sounds fun sweetheart. Tell me all about it after I take a shower," he said. You nodded with a smile, sitting on the edge of your bed. Chishiya had been on the bed, listening to your rambling. "Chishiya, I think it was really cool how you tried to-" you started. "Gods you're loud. Quiet down. And I know. I'm clever, after all. Neither of you would be here without me. Probably dead," he lectured. "But Chishiya, Niragi and I survived without you before we came to the Beach, remember? We were t-" you started, confused at his words. "I get it, he's your favorite out of us both! You make it so fucking obvious. I bet the only reason you wanted both of us is because you're an attention whore who needs multiple men to use her to feel good about herself. Shut up and let me sleep," he shouted. Tears filled your eyes as he turned away from you. Had you really shown favoritism? You didn't try to, if you had. You always made sure you tried to do things with both. Was he feeling left out? Is that why he was being a jerk?

Those were all thoughts running through your mind, not knowing that you weren't the problem. You had spent equal time with both, giving them equal attention. Chishiya just never wanted you around him.

_______________________________________

"(Y/N), come with me. Now," Chishiya ordered. Ten of Hearts. That was tonight's game. And you were terrified. He had pulled you away before anything got to out of hand. You thought that maybe he was trying to be nice. Maybe he had finally come around? Had you given him enough attention? "W-where's Niragi?" You asked, jogging to catch up with him. "Don't worry about him let's go."

You followed him around the whole time, watching as his hands quickly grabbed items. ''What are you making?" You asked, hoping he didn't snap at you. You feared his response. "Something to beat the game with. If you can't bring the witch to the fire, bring the fire to the witch," he said. You sighed in relief. He didn't yell at you, and you were happy about it. "Ok... so... you know who the witch is?" You questioned. "I have a hunch. Now stop asking questions," he stated. "So annoying..." you heard him mutter. You frowned, keeping your lips shut.

Following him up the stairs, you kept to yourself. You knew he wouldn't care about your thoughts. He might yell at you, or call you annoying. You didn't want to make him angry... He was just trying to protect you, right?

"Niragi!" You shouted happily, seeing he was at the rooftop. He wasn't dead. He looked over at you with a smirk. "Ah, so he did keep you safe. Where were you hiding?" He asked, picking up his gun from the floor. "There's many places for me to hide," Chishiya responded. You tried walking towards Niragi, but Chishiya grabbed your sleeve. You tugged at his hand, trying to get away. "Let me go," you said, struggling against him. "No."

The next few minutes went in a blur. All you remember was Chishiya and Niragi arguing a bit back and forth. You were so overwhelmed already, the game getting to you, and now your lovers were fighting. Cards flying, fire, screaming. You couldn't tell if it was your own scream or Niragi's, but it didn't matter.

"C-chishiya what the hell?! W-what?!" You yelled, shaking, stepping back from him. "Hmm... guess he wasn't the witch then,'' he stated, dropping the homemade flamethrower to the ground. He started picking up the cards on the floor. You however tried taking deep breaths, trying to calm yourself. You couldn't. Tears slipped off your face, hands scratching you your arms. You couldn't scream, couldn't talk, couldn't move. It was like you were living in a nightmare.

_______________________________________

There was more instances, of course, but you were so done with everything. Niragi was still alive, to your relief. After all that, he was alive. And that's all that mattered to you. Chishiya had been with you, and still was. Understandably, you were scared of him. Niragi was angry at him, but couldn't do anything about it.

"Look, just tell me I'm right, and we're fine," Chishiya stated bored of the conversation. Both you and Niragi were so tired of this. The constant fighting, gaslighting, and hateful words. Chishiya was just too prideful to admit he was wrong.

It was a relationship between you three. You and Niragi shouldn't be putting in all the work, while he didn't try. At the begin he had. He had tried to be a part of the relationship, giving you both kisses and hugs. Random bouts of energy at 3 am to go to a random room. It had all started slowly going down hill. He pushed you both away, but didn't want to leave. He never left, giving you hope that maybe he really loved you both, and just didn't know how to express it. He had told you about his parents, and you just always tried to excuse his behavior as his trauma, but it just got to a point where you couldn't anymore.

"You're right," you started. You saw him smirk, and continued. "We couldn't fix you," you said. Suddenly he wasn't so sure of where this was going. "You're right, we shouldn't have tried to. Your pride is what you're concerned about?" Niragi said. He was tired of dealing with this as well. All he wanted was to find someone who actually cared about him, and who showed it. He didn't want to be with someone who made him feel alone. You didn't make him feel alone... "I'm still right, he wo-" Chishiya started, getting ready to argue back and forth with you two until you finally gave into him. But that wasn't going to happen today.

"Is "you're right" really all you wanna hear right now?" You whimpered, sitting on your knees next to Niragi.

"Well, you're right, we should've walked away faster... should've know You would only break our hearts after we were already in love," You whispered. You were all hurt. Niragi had severe burns, and bullet wounds, Chishiya had bullet wounds as well. You had burns on your arms and legs, cuts and bruises adorned your (s/c) skin. Most of which Chishiya had caused when he put you in danger at games for his own gain. Or when he needed to test one of the weapons he made, you were his test subject. "Yeah, I guess I'm just not good enough for either of you then. All you two do is act scared of me like I'm the bad guy-"

"You're right, you aren't good enough," Niragi stated angrily, caughing up blood after. He winced in pain at the sudden movement. You felt tears fill your eyes, and shook them away. ''I kissed your scars even after you hurt me, and he held your hand, even when you fucking burned him-" you shouted angrily. "Do you know how embarrassing that was?" Niragi whispered, his voice hoarse and raspy.

"Oh, because it's all my fault?"

"Yeah! That's exactly what we're saying! When was the last time you actually tried acting like you liked us?"

''She's right. You agreed to be with us. This is just fucking embarrassing to be with somebody who hates us, and doesn't even try to hide it."

"I don't hate you two I-"

"Liar."

"We hoped things got better, we hoped that love could turn a monster into a man," you stated, getting angrier by him trying to defend himself. "But it doesn't and it won't

Because you're beyond repair

But there is still someone for her somewhere, who will treat her so nice, you'll wish that you did-" Niragi retorted to his words. He didn't hate you both? He sure did a horrible job at showing it. Niragi knew he would die with his injuries. You would live. You could find someone who would treat you better than either of them could. "For someone so smart you're so fucking stupid to think that we're really that dumb..." you interrupted Niragi. He was losing energy, and anytime he coughed you could tell it was so painful to him. "We love you, but we're done... Pretending this was gonna work... Pretending loving you didn't hurt... Pretending that it doesn't burn when you think you're always right..." Niragi ended. Those words were hard for him to say, and hard for you to realize. You three had just been pretending this was going to work after Chishiya started pushing you two away. You two tried so hard to stay with him, and tried so hard to fit all three of you together, that you didn't realize how much staying fucking hurt.

" 'Cause you're still stuck on your past...You hate him so much but you're just like your dad!!" You screamed, shouting the first thing that came to mind. It hurt him. That was a first. The first time someone's words hurt him. And you, (Y/N), his sweet (Y/N), said them. You could see the shock written all over his face when you said them, and it made you feel a bit bad. Niragi was secretly proud of you, but focused on the situation at hand. Tears feel from your eyes, and you cursed yourself. "(Y/N), I- I'm- I can't... I-" Chishiya stammered. For once, he was at a loss for words. You and Niragi had made him happy. He didn't feel alone with you two, and that scared him. So he tried to push you both away, scared of hurting either of you, but I'm the end, he hurt you more than he meant to. He tried, he really tried at the beginning, the feeling of being together with you two bringing him the feeling of love, understanding, and happiness he'd never felt. But he ruined that. He hurt himself in this instance, he hurt the people he loved, making them scared of him. He realized you were right. He was turning out to be just like his father. He didn't want that. He wanted to wake up, this was surely a nightmare. He would wake up and you would be squished in between him and Niragi. You would be playing with his hair, talking about your dream. You wouldn't be scared of him, and you would all be back at the beach. Like the 10 of hearts never happened. But he knew that was wishful thinking. This was real, and this was happening. Everything he used to laugh about people worrying about was happening to him right now. This was his karma. It had finally caught up to him.

"And I know, that you tried...Gave it all that you had," you whispered through tears. No. He couldn't let the one thing that made him happy slip through his fingers. But... he had to let you go. You wanted to leave. Niragi wanted to leave. It would be cruel to both of you to make you stay. So he stayed quiet. Did you really think he tried? That made him feel a tiny bit better. You thought he tried. That he tried to make things work. "And being a monster doesn't necessarily make you bad..." Niragi added quietly. He was a monster. The words he had said to not only you, but Niragi could back that up. Not just his words either. His actions. He was a horrible person to both of you. Why did he expect both of you to stay with him, when neither of you had anymore energy to put into the relationship.

"But...even if we could staple it back together now... we all know that you can't light a fire that's already burnt out," Chishiya whispered. You both looked up, shocked he was agreeing with you. Was he crying? Neither you nor Niragi had ever seen him cry. Niragi chuckled a bit, not at the fact that Chishiya was crying, but at the fact that this was what it took for him to care. "Fuck... it hurts," Chishiya muttered with a laugh. "My injuries hurt less than losing both of you... fuck... I-"

He was interrupted by a voice. The games were over. "Oh my gods... we can go home! I reject citizenship in the borderlands," you said. "Same. I don't want to stay here. Fuck that," Niragi stated. "I also reject citezenship of the borderlands. This is like a personal hell..." Chishiya muttered. A bright light obstructed your vision.

You walked on crutches into their hospital room with a smile. " 'M back!" You chirped. You had all been in an accident, as a lot of people that were currently in the hospital were. You didn't know why, but the seemed so familiar. You liked being around them, and constantly visited them. "Ah, finally a pleasant noise to hear," the blonde man complemented. You could hear the teasing tone directed towards the other man in the room. "I can't really help it can I? So... shaddup..." the other muttered. "My nurse told me... that my heart stopped... for a minute," you mentioned, sitting in a chair in between their beds careful to not hurt your legs more. They had burns and scars, nothing tho serious. "What a coincidence. Us too," Chishiya said. You nodded, humming in acknowledgement. "I um... I also... get released tomorrow..." you said sadly. "That's great (Y/N). You can head back to your home," Niragi said. You shook your head. "I wanna stay. I don't know why, but you two seem familiar to me. And... I want to know why... it feels like...I don't know how to explain it..." you stated. "I... I've felt that as well," Chishiya admitted. "Ok, good I'm not crazy then," Niragi joked, coughing slightly after. "Well... how about I come visit everyday until you both get released... then we can figure out why? Or get to know each other more? It feels like... I've loved you in a past life kinda thing. Silly of me to say, huh?" You giggled. "I think... we'd both enjoy that... and it's not silly, in fact, we've both been talking about it, and that's how we feel. About you, and each other. It's quite weird, I've never met either of you in my life. You're both rather attractive though," Chishiya said. Niragi snickered and you looked over at Chishiya, who's eats had turned red.

"I said that outloud, didn't I?"

"Yep."

"It's a good thing I find both of you attractive too, blondie."

"Hey, I think you're both cute too! Lemme join in on this!"

"Of course. Join in on it (Y/N)."

I couldn't let you guys be sad, I'm sorry-

Also, I'm going on a trip to Arizona this week, so there will probably not be many (or any) updates. Sorry, but I do hope you enjoy this!

[fanfic-of-fables-of-kitkat]

Naruto OC ship week

Prompt: Hair

@narutoocshipweek

Synopsis: Temari, Kankuro and Gaara were adopted by the well reknowned couple Hatsue (OC) & Sasori, a few decades when the siblings had long been adults, they reunite and reminisce their childhood

[This prompt will become a future chapter to my existing fanfic at FF.net ]

"You know what, our parents are jerks." Kankuro grimaced and then downed his cup. With a tap, he set it down and his younger brother moved to pour more for him.

Temari, the eldest of the Sand Siblings, giggled in her drunkenness, letting out hiccups afterwards, her eyes half-lidded as the alcohol kicks in. "No kidding."

Gaara couldn't help but snort at that, an action he wouldn't be caught doing in a sober state.

"I mean first, there's our birth mother who couldn't keep herself alive." Kankuro complained. "Don't worry, Gaara, I'll say this again and again: you didn't have to anything to do with her death. Mother protested against Father from making you a jinchuriki and strained herself, risking you to be prematurely born."

The red head sipped generously from his cup. "Then there's our birth Father, who tried to have me killed multiple times for the sake of testing my control over Shukaku."

"Which was real shitty of him." Temari concluded. "He was a stellar father... in another life, probably. Kami, he was terrible."

"He was indifferent to me." Kankuro huffed, downing his shot in one go.

"I could never get a single praise out of him, no matter how well i perform my jutsu." The eldest of the three complained, wiping her face with her hand.

"He tried to have me killed. Multiple times."

The three looked at each other and barked a laugh.

"Oh gosh, are we competing on who among us siblings he treated the worst? Gaara wins that contest hands down." Temari grabs the bottle of sake to herself and orders a new one for her brothers.

"Hey, you should slow down, if you drink too much, we'll get your husband and we'll be cutting our reunion short." Kankuro nagged, squinting his eyes at her.

"I can hold my liquor, Kankuro, besides I know my limits, after this one I'll try to sober up before Shikamaru arrives." Temari assures her brothers, and then takes a swig out of the bottle. She looked... solemn now. "Sorry, I couldn't be here for their burial."

Kankuro gave her a sad smile and Gaara nods at her. Burials here at Suna, when a person dies, the body is buried at the same day because of the heat. The hot weather makes a dead body permeate a strong foul odor so funerals are held almost immediately.

"Hatsue-kaa-san was a damn jerk too." Temari says this without bite, her eyes dulled as she remembers memories of their adoptive mother.

"Yep, mom was a jerk." The middle child agrees, snorting in his drink.

"Agreed." The red head nods, not only to affirm his elder siblings' statements but because the room starts to sway.

"She was so disgustingly kind."

"She was. She had no business on what happens to us and yet she goes ahead and adopts us. Strangers. We would have been orphans if it weren't for her."

"In a way, we already were. Mother died early. Father was negligent."

"She let me use her paints, her paint brushes and... she would paint on my face too.", Kankuro reminisced, a nostalgic smile graced his lips. "She used to tell me I was handsome-

"it's either I'm biased to say you're handsome because you're my son or you're really handsome", the three simultaneously quoted.

"Such a jerk, blowing up my confidence like that."

"Yeah, I remember her combing my hair, hated my hair because-" She looks at her brothers alternately then her eyes went back to her bottle. "Kankuro looked like he got his genes from Hatsue-kaa-san, Gaara looked like he got his from Sasori while I look like neither of them. I look like Uncle Yashamaru. that bastard."

"Everyone here in Suna, knows what's the deal with us. It doesn't matter."

Temari shrugged nonchantly "When we would all travel for Sasori's spy network... It was nice to pretend that we were their real children."

"Yeah."

"... The people would give us scandalous looks, doing the math, it would seem they conceived Temari at 16, Kankuro at 17 and I at 18."

The blonde and the raven head guffawed hysterically, remembering the instances conservative people coming up to their mom and passing down unwanted advices. Sasori would hide a smile and Hatsue-kaa-san would turn as red as her husband's hair.

"Hatsue-kaa-san would tell me she loved my hair. She said every time she brushes my hair it's like she's spinning threads of gold."

Kankuro made a vomiting sound. "She was such a... sap."

"... i miss- ... She would hug me the longest."

"She taught me how to care for myself... and I loved it every time she would do her skincare with me." The memories brought the distinct smell of rose scented lotions and citrus moisturizers.

"She would hover around whenever I would get ready to paint my face." Kankuro chuckled fondly.

"You were their favorite." Temari says, a hint of envy was there and there was also acceptance with the way she shrugged her shoulders.

"Me? No way-" The puppeteer tried to deny it; he didn't believe it anyway since there was this saying about middle children often are ignored.

"You are. Hatsue-kaa-san loved that you were interested in painting and Sasori .. bonded with you through puppet making." The red head gave Kankuro a slow nod.

"You don't need to feel bad, our birth mother, Karura's favorite would be Gaara and Rasa's favorite was me, being the first born and all... before he got into the council."

"You were Uncle Komushi's favorite too, Temari, not just father's."

She laughed at that. "Oh, I miss that old man. I think I only became his favorite because of the fact that I was the eldest. He used to say I was what Sasori owed him."

"And Chiyo-baa-san favored Gaara the most."

They had grins on their faces and it slipped quietly to sad smiles. Memories flooded them, brought them happiness and warmth more than they could ever hold, thus it was no wonder if their eyes were a little misty. They blame it on the alcohol.

"I should've spend more time with them." Kankuro opens up, sake really did have a way in making an honest man out of him.

"I should've brough Shikadai more for a visit." Temari regrets

"I should've called him otou-san, at least once."

The three shared a look and couldn't help but be immersed in their shared regrets.

"We should've."

"But Sasori was an asshole."

"Agreed. He made it hard to call him so."

"His guard was up."

"He was stern."

"He threatened to kill me." Gaara paused, and then added. "Understandable since at that time, I recently attempted to kill his wife."

The older siblings froze and stared at the youngest.

"That happened?"

"You never told us."

The red head shrugged.

"But... he was a father to us. In his way. He would find wind technique scrolls for me to learn. When we were younger, I remember him tying my hair up, although Hatsue-kaa-san made him do it but still..." Sasori had a stoic expression the whole time but the slow, barely there tugs as he gently brushes her hair, belies that he cared despite his seeming indifference. Temari remembers catching an almost imperceptible smile he gives her when he was done, and patted her head.

"He told me, after developing my Red Secret Technique... that it was impressive. It was stupid, I admired him and respected him, idolized him even. He was an example to follow as a Puppet shinobi. It was stupid that I-.. I wanted to hear him say he was proud of me." The middle child confessed, whispered his words, one of his vulnerabilities. "But he was such an asshole, he made us look up to him as father figure but we always felt like we weren't allowed to call him that."

"Shukaku was always loud in my head but Sasori- After defeating me, Shukaku was... cautious of him. He'd grumble alot in my head. But he quiets down when I'm near... Sasori made me feel like... everyone was safe because he was there to stop me. That's why I always asked you to go with me and sleep in their room."

"I think we interrupted them a whole lot." Temari snorted.

The three siblings burst a laugh. They remember Sasori opening the door, breathless and Hatsue-kaa-san disheveled, her pajamas looking suspiciously crumpled. Their laughter faded after a few minutes and they sat there for awhile, wondering about their parents. They didn't doubt that their parents loved them but... they wondered if their parents knew they reciprocated.

"I used to think Sasori tolerated us, you know?" Temari waved the bottle, her head was resting on the table. "That us being his kids was only an extension of his love to Hatsue-kaa-san."

"Not gonna lie but I think that's how it was for him in the beginning. Just a bunch of brats he tolerated for mom." Kankuro says, shaking his head a little. "He was a damn good father, though."

"Except... he just didn't make it known that we were allowed to call him that." Gaara stares blankly into his cup.

"Everyone said we could, if we wanted. But I wanted him to say it."

"We were stubborn. And so was he."

"Yet we follow after them. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"Because we love them more."

"More than our birthparents."

"That's why..."

"Our parents.." Temari hiccuped, cheeks red.

"They're..." Kankuro was swaying his head, as if he was hearing a lullaby.

" All..." Gaara rubbed his eyes, trying to keep the drowsiness at bay.

"..jerks!" The siblings all said simultaneously, clinking bottles and glasses.

[dangan-meme-palace]

Analysis – Kokichi's Plan in Chapter 4

The concept, the execution, and the failure.

Before we start, it's my personal recommendation that you read this analysis before rewatching the chapter 4 trial, and then reading it as you rewatch it. Unfortunately, due to tumblr limiting the number of pictures I can put in a single post, I've decided to refrain from adding screenshots as I just have too many I want to add. However, my points are evidenced by the trial itself if you watch carefully with them in mind, and so I'm encouraging you to do so. Please, please do so.

Concept

By my analysis, Kokichi's plan was to implicate himself as the culprit and for Gonta to get away with the murder in order to mercy kill the rest of the students and save them from despair.

Kokichi mentions this much before and after the trial, most people remembering the moments after and not the moments before; probably because between subtle admittance and loud screaming and crying, you'll remember the screaming and crying more. This analysis is based on the fact that his words pre- and post-trial are true, which is backed by several canon instances and also it just makes sense.

Execution

Now! This plan required a few things to work:

It required Kokichi to make everyone hate and be suspicious of him

It required Gonta to cooperate

It required Kokichi to be able to get around Shuichi's deductive reasoning in some way

It required a majority of the class to vote for Kokichi

If that wording seems specific, it's because it is!

I'll be talking about each major component of this plan and how each factor (almost) worked together to create a perfect storm + when, how, and why this plan failed despite quite frankly being a fantastic display of Kokichi's talent as the Ultimate (Supreme) Leader.

The 1st component is pretty much accomplished before the chapter even begins, he is a self-proclaimed liar that annoys people regularly after all, but in order for the 3rd and 4th components to really work he needed to sink his reputation even lower. He does this in a multitude of ways both before and during the trial: making sinister faces or looking nervous at appropriate times, antagonizing everyone (but most importantly Gonta and Kaito), and just in general being a lying nuisance that no one really wants to listen to.

The 2nd component was accomplished inside the Virtual World... and then immediately undone as soon as Gonta logged out due to a couple of crossed wires. The fact that Gonta forgot remaining undiscovered by everyone (including Kokichi) until two-thirds of the way through the trial is important to how the plan failed and adds perspective in areas, but I'll hold off on explaining why until it's time to talk about it in-depth. Make a mental note and let's move on.

The 3rd component explains why during the investigation every single surviving member of the cast told Shuichi that they trusted him but then when we get really into the trial we start seeing them doubt him immensely, Kaito being among the people that doubted Shuichi the most. Why is that? How did everyone go from relying on Shuichi to thinking for themselves and doubting his reasoning, and what does it have to do with Kokichi? It's simple: Kokichi lead the others into doing so.

We see this a lot during the investigation period, or at least the prep work of it. Kokichi constantly encourages the others to say things like: "We can't leave this all to Shuichi, we have to work hard too!" by telling them that they should all rely on Shuichi and to never doubt his judgment. Kokichi was using his bad reputation to make them come to a conclusion that is the exact opposite of what he said. More on that a little later as well!

Kokichi knows his reputation, he's the one that made it that way after all, and frequently you will see him use it to his advantage. Whether he's trying to cover up an emotional outburst or he's trying to make someone admit something, you will often see him use his reputation as someone untrustworthy to lead conversations in subtle ways.

I use the word "lead" with great emphasis as that is his Talent. He is the very best of the best at leading people; The Ultimate (Supreme) Leader. When he wants someone to think a certain way or do something they end up doing it whether they realize it or not, because he is extremely talented in his field. I cannot stress enough how good this man is at leading conversations and people into going where he wants them to go. Oh shit back to the point–!

During this time we also see Kokichi acting strange, so strange that Shuichi mentions it four times in his internal dialogue. Following him, being helpful, offering advice and hints... it seems nice until you realize his intention wasn't to become good partners with Shuichi, but to instead ruin Shuichi's reputation with the others by having them associate Shuichi with Kokichi, who they already hate thanks to component 1.

During the trial you'll see this subtle manipulation working as soon as Kokichi starts calling Shuichi partner and making Shuichi agree with his points, putting on a false show of partnership. To the others it seemed that Shuichi was picking Kokichi over all of his friends even when Shuichi himself tries to explain otherwise, and this is absolutely no coincidence.

Kaito is especially affected by this because Kaito and Kokichi are sworn enemies, and in Kaito's mind, Shuichi just picked his enemy over him. It really hurt him to be "betrayed" like this, causing Kaito to turn his back on Shuichi despite the numerous promises that he would never do such a thing he made prior to this trial. Kokichi really focuses on breaking their friendship too, interrupting Shuichi multiple times when he tries to tell Kaito that it's not personal and making sinister faces while saying that Shuichi is his partner now, taunting and gloating to Kaito's face about the loss of his sidekick. Breaking them apart was actually key to how Kokichi used Kaito's influence to his advantage in component 4.

Focus on Kaito aside, everyone else also refuses to agree with Kokichi –and Shuichi by association– which means that no matter what Shuichi says or how hard he tries to prove it, as long as Kokichi interrupts him and spins the story to make it look like he was somehow involved in that deduction, no one will agree with Shuichi no matter how much logic he throws at them. He has placed Shuichi's deductions in a permanent state of check. No matter what Shuichi says or does, Kokichi can and will get in the way of it immediately to control the narrative of the trial.

During this time Kokichi also says that Gonta is the culprit and I know that it tripped a lot of people up so I'll elaborate on what he was doing before we get to the next component. You have to remember that Kokichi's style of lying for this trial has predominantly been him saying the exact opposite of what he means in order to make the others do it. If Kokichi says "go left" they will all go right, that is how he uses his reputation. Notice how when he says Gonta is the culprit everyone's immediate reaction is to defend Gonta and persecute Kokichi even more than they were before, effectively framing himself by making it look like he was framing Gonta. When looking at Kokichi's lies it is sometimes essential to analyze the reaction he got than the lie on it's own because what he wants out of people is just as important as what he says to make them do it.

This leads into the 4th component: Kokichi getting the majority vote.

Kaito unquestionably holds the most influence in the trial after Shuichi loses all of his, gaining more by spearheading the hate campaign against Kokichi, and because of this everyone almost lost their lives in a mass execution.

After Shuichi's reputation in the eyes of the others is seen as being led astray and therefore less trustworthy, Kaito is the one that causes and loudly encourages everyone to rally against Kokichi, and by extension, doubt Shuichi's deductions. Kaito doing this more out of a hatred/distrust of Kokichi than anything related to Shuichi, with the rest following suit because they can't trust Kokichi, who they've been lead to hate so much in this trial by both Kaito and, unbeknownst to them, Kokichi. Kokichi essentially created his own witch hunt, with the cast's irrational anger without proof almost leading to a false conviction.

Allow me to further emphasize the fact that everyone but Shuichi was convinced that "Kokichi was a cold-hearted murderer trying to frame poor Gonta for his own crimes." Also allow me to remind you that according to the rules you don't need everyone to vote for the same person in order to win, you just need a majority. Kokichi had that majority and was about to "win" the trial.

...So why didn't he?

Failure

Two. Crossed. Wires.

That's it. All it took was one little piece to be out of place and Kokichi's astonishingly brilliant strategy crumbled in an instant. Allow me to clarify:

Everyone remembers the moment when Kokichi yelled at Gonta, right? The big, bad moment? That one? Good. I'm about to explain to you what Kokichi was thinking while he yelled.

In Kokichi's mind, his plan was almost complete. He had done the impossible! Everything had gone according to keikaku! He had gotten Gonta's cooperation, he made everyone blame him, he made everyone stop listening to the Ultimate Detective, all that was left was for Gonta to condemn him in front of the others and they would all vote for the wrong man. That one little nudge at this very crucial turning point and the plan would finally be complete, his effort made to bear fruit...

Except... Gonta never condemned Kokichi with any sort of evidence, all he said was "I don't know!" and "I didn't do it!" Gonta was about to trip them at the finish line and so Kokichi, as subtly as he could, told Gonta to blame him, the "culprit". Once, twice, a third time... he really tried to explain to Gonta what he was meant to do without alerting the others. It didn't even have to be true, as long as Gonta denounced Kokichi with even the slightest bit of evidence, the others were in enough of a frenzy to believe anything that pinned Kokichi as the culprit. Still, Gonta doesn't catch the hints from his collaborator. How could he? He didn't remember ever becoming partners in the first place. However, Kokichi doesn't know that and gets very frustrated that Gonta is about to throw away their one ticket to stopping the game, so he screams "Just make up an excuse or whatever" in his anger, still trying to get his point across. Gonta can't fuck up now. This is their only shot. Despite this, once more Gonta doesn't know what's going on and misses his cue.

Shuichi finally notices this as well, coming to the conclusion that Gonta's avatar had been the one with the error. Kokichi quickly realizes that his partner isn't available to him anymore, his memories lost in a bundle of wires and code. The moment is over, the frenzy has cooled off by the time Shuichi was done explaining and there was no way for him to lead the conversation again after ruining his own reputation like that. The plan failed.

All because of two little wires.

From here on out we see Kokichi visibly withdraw. There isn't anything left for him to do but complete the trial and think of a new plan. He's less motivated than before, insults everyone less than before, offers his input less than before, and generally seems like he can barely keep up his facade. You can't blame him though, with everything that happened that day and the fact that it was all in vain anyway really must have taken it's toll on Kokichi. From his friend trying to kill him to trying and failing to plan around his own murder to orchestrate and get away with a mass mercy kill... it's an unbelievable understatement to say he was having a bad day.

He speeds the trial up as much as he can with Kaito stubbornly getting in the way, forcing Shuichi to cross everyone off the suspect list except for Gonta, the unwitting blackened. Whether it was out of pity for Gonta's confusion or just him wanting the trial to be over already due to emotional exhaustion, or perhaps even both, doesn't neccesarily matter. Shuichi ends the trial regardless, and it's all over. Kokichi wasn't able to save anyone from despair and two of his friends died for nothing. He has no one to rely on now and no one left would ever consider letting him close to them. Roll credits... until he comes up with a new plan moments after Gonta is executed because if there is one thing about Kokichi you can always bet on, it's his quick wit.

Afterword

Now that we're at the end, I would like to make something very clear because with how much emphasis I put on Kokichi's capabilities as a leader I'm worried that I might be misunderstood.

I do not believe Gonta was manipulated into murdering Miu. Canon proves that Gonta was a willing collaborator due to external factors not relating to Kokichi's talent as a Leader, but instead because of despair and his own desire to protect everyone and that's that.

It's not really related to this anaylsis, however if I see someone using my own analysis to try and prove that Kokichi was anything but friends with Gonta I will go apeshit. Do not fucking do that.

[howtosingit]

Fic: my love, he keeps me warm

“Wait, don’t pull away just yet.” * The 126 gives TK and Carlos matching gifts for their one-year anniversary.

1.6K | Also on AO3

A/N: This is inspired by yesterday’s Tarlos selfie because everything related to these two makes me emotional these days.

- - - - - -

TK and Carlos’s one-year dating anniversary ends up being a surprisingly popular occasion, and not just for the two of them.

They’ve been planning their weekend getaway for weeks, each putting in time off of work and renting a lake cabin outside the city. TK cannot wait to get his boyfriend into bed the minute they arrive, with no plans to leave it until the weekend is over. He can already tell that it’s going to be incredible; he loves any time that he gets to spend with his best friend, but it’s always so much better when they don’t have to wear clothes. In his opinion, a person hasn’t lived until they’ve stumbled sleepily into the kitchen to find a butt-naked Carlos Reyes hovering over the stove, frying eggs and dancing to music. 

TK will never forget the first time that happened, the image of his boyfriend’s backside branded onto his brain for what is sure to be the rest of his life. It’s a gift that keeps on giving, and he’s really looking forward to recreating that image over and over again throughout the next 48 hours.

But, the really surprising gift is how big of a deal their anniversary is for the rest of the 126. 

His team plans a whole surprise party at the very end of their Friday shift, right before the getaway - complete with a big pot of Grace’s famous chili and a cake that says “CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’RE BOTH STILL SICKENINGLY ADORABLE ALL THE TIME!” in blue frosting. There’s music and laughter, and even a highly intense game of foosball between Mateo and Judd that ends with Mateo dancing on top of a table in victory. 

Carlos shows up an hour in, having just finished his own shift, and the screams and cheers that ring throughout the room as they greet one another with a hug and a quick kiss are enough to make them both blush all the way down to their toes. The police officer seems just as surprised as TK was by the unexpected event, and when Carlos spots the cake on the table, he laughs so hard that tears appear in his eyes. His smile is so stunning, so beautifully bashful, that TK just wants to wrap him in his arms and never, ever let him go.

Later, when Carlos finds himself wrapped up in a conversation with Paul, TK pulls his dad off to the side. “Why did they make such a big deal about this?” he asks, gesturing to the room and all of the people gathered for them. “It’s just a dating anniversary, I didn’t think people really cared about those.”

His dad just gives him a small smile, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Because they love you, TK,” he states simply, like the answer is obvious. “And they love Carlos. They’ve had front-row seats to the two of you getting your shit together and falling in love, and I think they just wanted you to know how happy they are for you.”

TK doesn’t say anything, blinking back uninvited tears. His dad pulls him closer, pressing a kiss into his hair. When it becomes clear that TK can’t respond, his dad moves away without another word, giving him time to collect himself before rejoining the party at Carlos’s side.

Things begin to wind down when the evening crew leaves to respond to a call, leaving just their small team, along with Carlos and Grace. TK knows that they should probably leave soon, or else he’ll be up late packing for the trip. Carlos, naturally, has been packed for two days; he’ll be gloating all weekend if TK loses any sleep because of his procrastination.

They’re sitting side-by-side on the couch, fingers linked, talking to Grace and Nancy about their “weekend plans” - the fake ones that they’ve created to share with other people -  when the rest of the crew approaches them, mischievous smiles on their faces. TK notices that Marjan and Paul’s hands are hidden behind their backs.

“Why do I suddenly feel unsafe?” Carlos asks, clearly having noticed the same concerning signs that TK did. 

“We got you guys something,” Paul says, his eyes almost twinkling. TK wonders if it’s too late for him and Carlos to escape from their own party without being noticed.

“You really didn’t have to do that,” he replies, sharing a look with Carlos. His boyfriend’s eyes are wide as saucers, his eyebrows rising further up his forehead the longer TK looks. 

“I think once you see the gifts,” Marjan pipes up, laughter clear in her voice, “you’ll see that we absolutely did have to do this.”

At the same time, Marjan and Paul pull identically-wrapped boxes from behind their backs, handing them over. TK and Carlos unlink their fingers to take them and, with one more look back towards the crew, they tear into them.

From the box, TK pulls out a soft, black hoodie. His mouth drops open when he sees what’s printed on the front: above an illustration of Carlos’s face are block letters that read “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GUY?” and below, “IT’S NOT AN EMERGENCY, I JUST WANT TO TELL HIM I LOVE HIM.” TK feels a smile pull at his lips as his face heats up, his mind immediately understanding the joke.

A month or so after they started dating, TK and Carlos developed a habit of seeking each other out when they were on calls together. Before they lived together, it was one of their few ways of seeing each other around their busy schedules. Even after TK moved in with Carlos, they made it a point not to leave a scene without at least saying a quick hello to one another. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the call, they don’t get a chance to speak at all, and those times always leave an uncomfortable itch under TK’s skin. It’s almost like his body can’t make sense of being near Carlos and not touching him at least once. 

His team quickly noticed how they would gravitate towards each other on calls and, after one instance when TK returned to the truck with a deliriously happy grin on his face, they had questioned him endlessly, wanting to know what was going on. “Carlos just wanted to tell me he loved me,” TK had shrugged nonchalantly, moving on to put his equipment back on the truck, not realizing his mistake in sharing that tiny detail.

Ever since, their friends have teased the two of them endlessly, telling TK to go collect his “I love you” from Carlos so that they can finally leave a scene, or reminding Carlos in passing that he should consider sharing his “I love yous” with other members of the team who also deserve positive affirmations. It’s gentle ribbing, and TK secretly loves it.

Which is why his brain is going insane over the gifted hoodie. “Oh my god,” he hears from next to him, and he turns to find Carlos with an identical black hoodie. The only difference is the image of TK’s face between the words instead of his own. TK bites his bottom lip to try to hide his smile, leaning in to press a kiss to Carlos’s fire-red cheek. 

“Okay, okay, put them on,” Marjan interrupts, and TK realizes that she’s pulled her phone out. He spots Judd filming them behind her, Grace at his side. “We have to get a picture.”

Carlos groans, but TK can see a brightness in his eyes and he knows that his boyfriend is a little touched by the gift. He understands completely, feeling the same emotions himself.

They both sit up on the couch, pulling the hoodies over their heads. TK is unsurprised to find it really soft and comfortably warm. He looks over to discover Carlos looking absolutely adorable in his own hoodie, and reaches for his hand to link their fingers together again, the need to touch him in some way too strong to ignore.

“Get closer, act like you like each other,” Paul jokes, reminding them of the task at hand. Carlos leans back again and TK presses into his side, smiling up at the camera. He hears multiple shutter sounds as Marjan takes dozens of pictures on her phone.

When he’s sure that she’s finished, TK moves to rise off of the couch, ready to start saying his goodbyes, but he’s stopped by Carlos’s tightened grip on his hand.

“Wait, don’t pull away just yet,” his boyfriend says. TK turns back to him, taking in the soft gaze on Carlos’s face, the way his smile stretches wide, laugh lines appearing at the corners of his mouth. He looks so warm and cuddly, and TK can’t help but to sink back into his side, their faces inches apart as Carlos wraps his arms around him.

“I love you, TK,” Carlos whispers, giving him a wink. TK huffs out a laugh, realizing that he’s staying true to their long-established habits, now documented on the hoodies they’re both wearing.

“I love you, too,” he whispers back, leaning in to press a kiss against Carlos’s inviting lips. It’s just a quick one, but it sends a wave of sudden heat from his ears down to his toes. A kiss from Carlos always feels like a sudden electrical surge coursing through all of his bones, lighting him up in ways that nothing else can.

“Ugh, you two are shameless,” Marjan scoffs from nearby, but TK ignores her and everyone else around them. Instead, he takes in the crinkles at the edge of his boyfriend’s brown eyes, the way his entire face is alight with love and affection as they stare openly at one another. Then, because he just can’t help it, he leans in for another kiss, this one deeper than the one before.

It consumes him completely, the warm feeling of being loved always and forever by Carlos Reyes.

[m39]

Beyond Canonical Extravaganza - YEAR 1: Chapter 11

A moment of silence for this poor bastard.

I forgot how fast I am while making reviews/first impressions related to Homestuck. Maybe because they are small in content, maybe something else.

Anyway, we are still in the Meat timeline… I think. It’s not completely stated if Alt!Callie and her crew are in this timeline but hey! It’s not Candy (asides from a small cameo from the Epilogues) so big thumbs up from me already.

Remember the Davebot from Candy cesspool? The one who is supposed to be the Ultimate version of Dave? Yeah? Then have a look:

Even though I saw his design coming, I’m still shocked at how he looks. I was expecting him to look closer to his original God-Tier outfit, closer to how Rosebot looks but nope, something completely different. I’m not saying he looks bad, far from it, I think he looks sick as fuck. I’m just surprised that he looks different than I could imagine.

Aradia is, of course, also here. She’s fucking adorable in these space/cherub-themed pajamas.

I’m kinda struggling between deciding if she or Neppers is my 2nd most favorite Post-Scratch Troll. I warmed up for her after a while.

Alt!Calliope is still the same, mostly non-humorous cherub. I like how Davebot interrupts her pretentious narration without even trying:

Also, she has some sass despite all the odds against it.

There is also, of course, dialogues worth mentioning. For instance, there is a dialogue that mentions Aradia’s adventures in Pesterquest:

I honestly forgot if this stuff that she said happened since I played her route almost a year ago when Volume 8 was released and my memory is iffy sometimes. Also, Calliope says that the Pesterquest events were non-canon (which now that I think about, it’s more like a dubiously-canon stuff like in Homestuck^2’s case) so some of the more nonsensical stuff like Sollux being Trans (which contradicts the bipolarity-related joke about him possibly having two dicks) should, more likely, be taken with a grain of salt.

There is also this dialogue spoken by Calliope:

Call me an idiot but I think that it indicates that Calliope can possess multiple bodies at the same time and that headache at the very last page of this chapter indicates that it happens right when Meat!Jade is fighting her over the control of the former’s body.

And that’s pretty much it. Getting rid of K*** was a good choice. This chapter seems to be even better than the last one and let me remind you that I found the last chapter good. It also looked like the writers tried to minimalize the use of the purple prose addict calling themselves the narrator.

But unfortunately, I’m afraid this is going to be the last good update of YEAR 1. Because the next is Chapter 12 and… It’s pretty clear what it is about since people were not subtle about it...

You are holding your head. You are frightened to the bones.

sigh

Let me tell you something folks, this is how the nearest future will look like:

Yyyeeeaah… I’m gonna check with Liquid Bogan if we have enough alcohol and guns for the next few days. Let’s hope there will be more of the former.

See you next time.

[fairydust-stuff]

Enemy Yut Lung & Eiji one shot: Warning  this one is not romantic or soft plantonic friends.

“ I’ve decided i’m going to be Ash Lynx’s enemy,” Yut Lung casually states.

Eiji freezes the implications of this statement slowly seeping into his brain. What the hell was this guys problem? He said he was just like Ash if that was the case why did he want to make his life harder?

At first Eiji had viewed Ash as untouchable, a powerful shonen hero like the ones from his childhood heroically fighting against evil men who wanted to control him but after that night. Eiji had seen the look of devastation on Ash’s face as he put a bullet in Shorter Wong’s brain. Even covered in the blood of his enemies ,Ash had such a shattered look about him.

The nights that followed were full of raw howls and heaving sobs as Eiji soothed Ash Lynx back to sleep. By day his gang members cowered from his wraith since the slightest thing they did seemed to set him off.

He cann’t handle anymore he’s been brutalized for far too long and as much as Eiji wished he was like those magically girl characters who made everything all right. He couldn’t just reach inside and rewire Ash’s brain or fix his heart with gentle fingers. All the love in the world could not repair the damage Golzine had inflicted.

Yut Lung had the means to tear what was left of Ash’s heart straight from his chest and crush it under his heel. Which is why Eiji said what he did next.

“ If your Ash’s enemy then i’ll be yours!” Eiji proclaimed defiantly.

Yut Lung’s usual hateful mocking expression was replaced by pure shock. Then he laughs.

“ Very well if you're my enemy” Yut Lung motions to the gun in Eiji’s hand and raises a delicate eyebrow as if to say get on with it.

Eiji raises the gun and points it at the other boy with one bullet and he can get rid of one more problem for Ash, but something about the other boy’s eyes makes him hesitate. There’s an uncomfortable familiar vibe to them that unnerves him and makes Eiji unable to pull the trigger and end things. Also killing an unarmed person, even one as vile as Yut Lung still isn’t right. It goes against everything he’s been taught.

“ Disgraceful, how can you be my greatest enemy if you cann’t even pull the trigger?” Yut Lung looks at him as if he’s a disappointing liar who cheated him.

Eiji’s plan was too escape and run directly to save Ash. he was just about to get back to that plan. When the younger boy who had looked pissed when he saw Eiji in the elevator shows up and tackles Eiji to the ground.

“ You ok?” he asks Yut Lung softly

“ I’m fine!” Yut Lung brushing the boy's concern away. “ Just get him back to his room” he snapped with irritation…

Eiji threw himself upon Yut Lung Lee who moved swiftly out of the way, he fell and smacked his head on the door.

“ Is this your way of persuading me you’ll be a good enemy or a court jester?” Yut Lung said with some amusement.

“ How did you know?” Eiji asked rubbing his head

“ I’m not the person to fall for the same trick twice” Yut Lung said …

Eiji shoves his dinner into the face of Yut Lungs servant and hurls the plate at him, the other boy dodges.

“ I’ll have another plate brought up for you, if you toss this one you can go to bed hungry” The younger boy warns with a pleasant smile…

“ How the hell did he get a lighter!” Yut Lung exclaimed furiously using expensive cloth to douse the flames to save his precious plants as the guards restrained a smirking Eiji...

“ Fine you can be my enemy, I certainly hate you enough” Yut Lung spat.

“ Great now please free me so i can save Ash” Eiji said.

“ No, though you have managed to irritate me, your technique is sloppy and unrefined. If you're going to be my enemy, you're going to become worthy of that title” Yut Lung makes a motion to his mafia goons who drag and blindfold Eiji when they take it off he sees he’s in an underground room.

“ Lets start with your breathing” Yut Lung states.

“ breathing?” Eiji demands

“ Its loud i can hear you coming, we need to change that” Yut Lung says simply “ But i need to” the mafia heir cuts him off “ I’ll keep an eye on the Ash situation” …

“ What? you have a shooting range on your estate?” Eiji exclaims looking at the fancy targets one of Yut Lung’s guys hands the boy a gun.

“ You should see the interrogation room in the basement” Yut Lung says sardonically and lines up his weapon and takes aim bam bam bam! Three straight shots in a row.

“ I cann’t tell if your fucking with me” Eiji said with a scowl.

“ Here” Yut Lung hands him a gun. Eiji frowns, forgive me Ash but i’m doing this to save you. He takes a few shots.

“ Disappointing” Yut Lung states.

“ What are you talking about i got half of them” Eiji argues.

“ Half isn’t good enough in a shoot out with me and my men” Yut Lung shot back. “ Lets talk about your shooting stance”

“ Ash showed me this!” Eiji argues.

“ What works for one person doesn’t work for everyone” Yut Lung informed him. “ Lets try some different stances and see if we can find one, That works better for you”

Eiji placed his arms and legs where Yut lung told him “ This is weaver stance its a boxer type, it might work better. You have a wider frame, Ash is more slender in build.”

It was surreal Eiji thought being taught by the one person he couldn’t stand who actually had some good advice. He found the second time he actually hit more of his targets. Yut Lung made him practice until almost nightfall...

Eiji found his days of being a captive were now loaded with lessons every day he was led blindfolded to some obscure location of the house. Where Yut Lung would instruct him on one topic or another...

“ Again” Yut Lung commands as Eiji pulls yet another acupuncture needle from his body. He was just glad they were clean; he still had awful memories of suddenly blacking out from whatever horrible substance the mafia heir put in those things.

Though he could do without Yut Lungs constant criticisms which made him want to curl in a corner and cry and took him back to his school days of struggling to balance athletics and still maintain perfect scores on every test. Eiji told himself at least the mafia heir wasn’t focused on Ash. Besides it was the same pressures he grew up with and this time he was determined not to crack…

A month later and Eiji was sitting at the dining room table apparently after no instances for a couple of weeks and Yut Lung had loosened his restrictions. Though he was still being lead to and tied to the table with one hand.

The boy who recaptured him who Eiji learned was called Sing Soo Ling was loading up and gobbling down what appeared to be multiple dishes.

“ You can at least use a napkin. I'm sure the Wong’s didn’t raise you to be a pig” Yut Lung remarks.

Sing responds by opening his mouth and giving the other boy a view of his chewed food. Yut Lung makes a soft sound of disgust as he delicately dabbles at his mouth. He turns to Eiji “ You made some slight improvements” he remarks. Coming from Yut Lung, it's almost a complement.

“ Are you seriously training this guy to be your enemy?” Sing demands incredulously

“ Honestly he wasn’t even my first choice” Yut Lung responds.

“ You ritch types are weird” the fourteen year old said.

“ i don’t go around with something called dragon fang” Yut Lung retorted.

“ Maybe if you did, you’d get taken hostage less!” Sing responded.

“ He got the jump on me. How is that my fault?” Yut Lung exclaims

Eiji watches incredulously as the two of them get into a pointless argument going back and forth there’s no heat to it really, rather a sense of comfort. Its the kind of argument he might have with his younger sister. Its just odd seeing this casual behavior from Yut Lung Lee of all people.

“ So Eiji has this guy dangled you over a snake pit yet?” Sing asks cheerfully

“ Where did you hear something so ridiculous?” Yut Lung complains

“ Servant gossip” Sing replies.

“ They’ve gotten chattier since my brothers illness” Yut Lung scowls.

“ Come on Yue don’t be so uptight” Sing coaxes

“ What’s the point of having a staff if they don’t know how to stay quiet” the mafia heir points out.

“ Their not spilling any secrets, just making up odd stories ” Sing pointed out.

“ If i hear one word of actual Lee businesses pass anyone's lips…” Yut Lung was interrupted by the entrance of a servant girl who whispered something in his ear.

“ What!” Yut Lung hurled one of the dishes at the wall.

“ Getting hysterical again!” Sing teased him.

“ Shut up!” Yut lung got up “ No one can seem to find Ash”...

Eiji sits in his room Yut Lung is too off kilter to continue his training. Sing gives him updates saying that the mafia heir spends a lot of time sending his people out, waiting by the phone and has even headed out a few times himself. It worries him that Yut Lung hasn’t actually given up on Ash. So he does push ups and pull ups every day to keep in shape. Eiji practices the stealth techniques Yut Lung showed him. He steals a pen so he can practice writing the codes on the walls he was taught to decipher and study. He has Sing bring him firearms so he can practice taking them apart and putting them back together.

Then Yut Lung visits him a few days later“ We found Ash” Eiji watches all of the tension from the past few days vanish from him with those three words. This guy was actually concerned for Ash?

“ You really are devoted to becoming my enemy” Yut Lung comments tracing codes on the walls with astonishment.

“ Ash?” Eiji asked

“ He escaped from one of Dino Golzine’s secret government funded organizations ” Yut Lung looks bothered like this is something he hadn’t known about. “ He’s been experimenting on criminals with Banana Fish” …

Its one more day then he’ll finally see Ash and the others again. “ Now before our final lesson there’s someone i want you to meet” Yut Lung leads Eiji into a room down the hall and opens the door. He gasps there’s a grown man with eyes like Shorter’s drooling on himself! He groans at Yut Lung who touches his cheek lightly.

“ Eiji may i introduce Hua Lung my older brother”

“ You used that horrible drug on him!” Eiji backs up.

Its wrong, even worse is the way Yut Lung pulls his living human puppet into an affectionate embrace, his eyes gleaming with hate.

“ Hua Lung was my former enemy” the younger boy pauses. “ Tomorrow i’ll be giving you back to Ash”

Eiji stares stunned at how his arms are still wrapped so tenderly around the one who he had so thoroughly destroyed.

“ Don’t look so surprised” Yut Lung says, misunderstanding the reason for his reaction.

“ I only wanted to deliver Ash to Golzine to force him to be my enemy” Yut Lung looked Eiji in the eyes over the shoulder of his zombie brother. “ Now you are my worst enemy, who will someday destroy me”...

“ Eiji!” Ash embraces him tightly as if he never wants to let him go. Eiji manages to persuade Ash, Yut Lung was just giving him a safe place to stay. The blond would go ballistic if he knew the truth.

Their just about to go then Yut Lung pulls him into a hug Eiji’s body goes entirely stiff he feels the softness of the other boys hands on his skin his voice in his ear like a lovers caress “ Goodbye for now, Eiji”

then the hands are gone his body feels chilled as he remembers exactly who else was embraced with such vindictive tenderness.

“ Eiji .what’s wrong?” Ash asked

“ Yes Big Brother Eiji are you cold?” Yut Lung asks innocently.

Eiji suddenly feels the full weight of the obligation he’s agreed to pressing down on him. How is he supposed to look at those oddly familiar eyes and manage to close them forever? But if he doesn't, well Eiji doesn’t want to think about it.

[shoryubug]

Standing Up. Chapter 2: Andre Glacier

Ahhhh so it's been a while, and my laptop got back to me today...but I'm not feeling that great D: plus with everyone around me assuming it's the big plague going around (when in fact I don't interact with other humans so it's very much indeed just a dang cold), I haven't been in the best of moods to write...but I did promise as soon as I could that I'd get Standing Up continued, so I hope you guys don't hold it against me! Tumblr: Chapter 1, 2 (here), and Ao3 (for registered users).

Alya was always doing this kind of thing, pushing her ideas and thoughts and plans aside...it wasn’t just hers either. Continually she’d been witness to Alya doing the very same thing to Nino, and it was frustrating. It didn’t matter that it had just happened, Marinette wanted to stop thinking about it, so after stomping her way over to Rose and Juleka who were both outside the school gates, she wasn’t exactly angry, that would be too simple, she was more irritated. The fact that Alya continually railroaded her time and time again was frustrating, and the worst part was that it was getting to the point that Nadja Chamack wasn’t willing to trust her as much as a babysitter, so all the spare money that she was earning before was now reduced heavily, due to every instance that Alya was around both her and Manon.

"So Marinette, we got a trailer for Juleka’s bike so that we can all go to Canal Saint-Martin for the photographs, Luka said he’d meet us at your place so that we can all ride down there together because he found a place that we can all change in!" Rose gushed as Marinette had felt a wave of peace wash over her for a moment.

"Yeah, let’s just go to my place for all of it!" she said cheerily as the three of them made their way to the bakery, Rose waited outside guarding the bike while Juleka and Marinette had gone inside to gather a few piles of clothing, three outfits for each Juleka, Rose, and Luka, and Marinette’s mind began to wander to Juleka’s older brother for a moment while the pair of them silently went down the various rows of stairs to dump the folded piles of clothing in the trailer.

Luka was definitely a godsend to her in these moments, and she didn’t know what she would have done without his support. She had given up everything she felt before for Adrien, to give him and Kagami a fair chance at being together, because they were both her friends, and they both were interested in each other, and they both deserved to be happy...even if it had meant that she had to sacrifice the potential of any future she might have wanted with him. That wasn’t as important as the happiness of two of her friends, no matter how much it hurt her in the end.

Marinette found herself to still be lucky to have the support of friends like Juleka, Rose, Luka, Mylene, Alix, Kim, Nino, and of course Tikki in the moments that she could feel the weight of that sadness pulling her down and she was grateful for it. Not a lot of people in the world had that kind of support.

"Wasn’t there also some jewelry you wanted us to model?" Rose asked, breaking Marinette from her reverie.

"Ah-umm, yes, but I wanted it to be a surprise so let me go get the box, and once you’re getting dressed in the outfits you can choose what jewelry you want to model!" Marinette stated, rushing back up the stairs to search her room for the three boxes of jewelry she had packed away, each labeled with her three models names affixed in permanent marker, written in the same fancy script as what was on the T&S bakery door before she made her way back down the stairs.

"So, since you’re getting us ice cream after I kind of wanted to bring something up…" Juleka stated as Marinette turned her gaze to the girl, setting the boxes in the trailer then zipping the casing up and turning her gaze to the girl.

"Oh yeah! I wanted to know too, but I’m going to ride ahead to meet Luka! Please let me know the answer Juleka! I’m really curious!" Rose’s sweet voice broke through as Marinette nodded, trying to follow along confused while Rose grabbed a helmet from the trailer and sped off like a speed-demon, making Alix’s speed craze look tame in comparison.

"So...you had a question?" Marinette offered as she looked up at Juleka, admiring the girl’s beautiful figure and face.

"Well...everyone is assuming that your new flavors are hinted at Luka...but the colors seem more like you yourself, don’t you think?" Juleka’s question lingered between the two of them for a moment as Marinette sighed.

"I don’t really know what to think...I try not to think about the ice cream...I know my dad proposed to my mom with a scoop of it, but...I think I lost my faith in it when Andre was akumatized because I didn’t want to eat it." Marinette admitted, giving Juleka a knowing look.

"Wait he was akumatized because you didn’t want to eat ice cream?" Juleka asked, perplexed "I thought it was because something else happened, that’s what everyone made it sound like!"

"Well...Mylene, Ivan, Alya, and Nino invited me and Adrien to go get ice cream with them...a couples thing I guess...but Adrien couldn’t go, and I was upset, so I felt like a fifth wheel to them, you know, two pairs of couples and one single person...and when they all went to get their ice cream, he kind of...tried to force me to take some myself, claiming that it would 'make my true love materialize'" she used air quotes at that. "And I was fooled for a second, into thinking that this boy was Adrien for a moment...but then I dropped my ice cream and my appetite was gone, so I told him as much...and he insisted on making another one, and...I kind of said that I didn't believe ice cream could bring true love...that ice cream was just ice cream...and I left...everyone kind of followed after but mostly I just wanted to be alone..." she stated with a sigh before shaking her head.

"Wow...it sounds a lot more like he was being a jerk," Juleka whispered, and Marinette sighed.

"I don't know...I shouldn't have overreacted the way that I did...but I didn't know what to do...he was a grown man, and he wound up getting akumatized over it...and I don't know how long it took him to find me, luckily for me Chat Noir was with me that night, or I might have been turned into an ice cream sculpture..." she stated, wrapping her arms around her frame.

"You were with Chat Noir that night? You know how funny it would be if he was your true love? I mean, your old colors kind of match his too." Juleka offered as Marinette burst out into a fit of giggles.

"Yeah, right, me and Chat Noir. That's the best joke I've ever heard!" Marinette managed through her fit of giggles, though aware in the back of her mind that even the possibility of her and Chat Noir together was the making of something catastrophic.

It figures that it would start with the word cat too, effectively making it a pun. Ugh.

she thought, before bouncing in her step trying to match Juleka's pace.

As they had finally gotten to their destination after a few more minutes of chit-chat that was more lighthearted, Juleka and Rose had gone off to one bathroom while Luka stood and waited in one of the new outfits that he was modeling for her, a smile plastered on his face the moment that she'd approached him, and as he was about to speak she held up a finger to silence him, her eyes raking over every detail before she went to the trailer of the bike and came back with a small sewing kit, quickly setting up a ladder stitch on the back of the coat, while it was still on him, then pulling the seam to make it better fitted to his form.

"That looks much better...you were about to say something though? I'm really sorry for interrupting!" she murmured before he shook his head and smiled wider at her.

"Nothing, it's always great to watch you when you're in your own mind, it's like watching a rickshaw in action, something you just can't peel your eyes from because it's intricacies are too alluring." His compliments set her cheeks ablaze for a moment. Leave it to Luka to make her blush. "Anyway Ma-ma-ma-Marinette, how have you been? Rose said you were having some trouble earlier." He patted the space beside him, beckoning her forward. "You can always talk to me if you need...or not talk, you know." His intense aquatic gaze made her feel at ease for a moment.

"It's...It's not that it's bad or anything it's just that...Alya keeps...pushing my buttons. I mean...before when she tried to invite herself to everything I had always thought it was just her trying to be a good friend, but today it just felt too intrusive. She tried to pull Adrien and Lila in too, and just disregarded me telling her no...it was just...too much." she stated, giving a sigh. "I know I probably shouldn't have gotten so angry about it, but I couldn't help it! I mean, she just wouldn't listen! Sometimes she's so stubborn that I just...want to scream at her!" Marinette felt her eyes beginning to water. "I guess I kind of did today though, huh? So much for keeping my cool..." it was then that she had felt Luka's arms around her, embracing her tightly, the warmth of his body spilling into her like an ocean meeting the sand.

"You don't deserve to have your plans stomped on by anybody Marinette...standing up to her was the best thing that you could have done in this situation, maybe now she'll start to understand that she needs to take your requests seriously," Luka stated before he pulled away and his gaze met his sister's who had quickly turned away as if she were caught up in an embarrassing moment...though there was nothing embarrassing about it. Intimate maybe, but not embarrassing.

"Thank you, Luka...I guess I really needed to hear that," she stated before wiping at her eyes.

The photoshoot had gone well, each of the three models posting around the various spaces that Marinette wanted them to while she took multiple high-resolution photos from her phone, which now had a special magnifying lens affixed to it. All in all the four of them had fun, them in making new poses and her in fixing things up, jokes all around between them, and it was one of the happier moments that Marinette had experienced in a while, full of laughter and joy.

"So now that we're all done, do you guys still want to go for ice cream?" Marinette offered, pointing out the Andre Glacier ice cream cart to the trio. Juleka and Luka had simultaneously shrugged while Rose's wide ocean eyes had somehow gotten wider.

"Yes! Ice cream sounds amazing! We should all get our own though if that's okay! I'm just not in a sharing mood!" Rose stated which had made Juleka burst out in laughter. All of them had made their way over to the ice cream cart where Rose and Juleka had gone first.

"We'd like some ice cream please!" Rose stated in earnest as Andre had looked the duo over.

"Strawberry for her darling smile, blackberry for her hair, and blueberry for your ocean blue stare! This shall keep your love together through any affair!" Andre sang out, scooping out the ice cream and putting a cherry and two-scoop spoons on top, to which Rose gave a disappointed look, taking the ice cream to share with Juleka, before Marinette pursed her lips while Luka approached, being gifted some ice cream himself, the same pink and blue colors that he and Marinette had often gotten before Marinette had gotten to Andre.

"I'll take one of each of the previous sets please," Marinette stated as Andre gaped at her then awkwardly laughed.

"Ah, pretty Marinette! You know how the ice cream is here---" he began before Marinette's gaze turned to steel while she looked directly into Andre's eyes.

"As I said, I'll take one of each of the previous two sets of ice cream please." Her voice was cold, anger seeped into her words.

"That isn't how I run this stand Marinette--"

"This isn't a practical way to run a business Andre." She snapped before grabbing two five euro bills and slamming them on his stand before stomping off, notably without ice cream as she made her way over to the trio that had made their way to the bike as Juleka had taken leave on it, to go drop off the clothing and jewelry at Marinette's and the trailer at Rose's. Luka himself had been there with Rose who shrugged about it, though Marinette only sighed.

"So...do you wanna share?" Luka offered as Marinette shook her head 'no'.

"I'm fine...thank you though. I'm not really in the mood for ice cream...I was hoping Andre would be understanding, but apparently, he isn't." She murmured, as the first time that she'd gotten ice cream with her friends replayed in her mind for the second time that day. Irritation laced that memory, just as it had infected her formerly happy mood. "I think I'm gonna head home...actually...thank you guys for today, and let Juleka know that I'll get her some pastries for breakfast tomorrow to make up for what happened with Andre today..." Marinette offered as Luka nodded, Rose softly sighed.

"It's just too bad...I don't like this ice cream much now..." Rose whispered. "I think I might just go get it from stores from now on! You get more for your money in them!" Rose offered, joyously.

"That sounds like a plan to me!" Marinette stated. "I hope you guys have a great rest of the day! I've gotta study for this Friday's test in physics, I'll see you guys later!" She stated as she began to make her way home, no doubt to hear about how rude she'd been that day from Tikki, and get a lecture from her kwami...which she wasn't in the mood for.

@spicybelladonna @vixen-uchiha @doglover82 @captainmac6 @my-name-is-michell @schrodingers25 @mewwitch @princertain @geminikessa @legallyspawned @falling-electricxangel @miraculous-mango @novicevoice

[nemo1230]

Delayed flights and delayed romances

Eddie was exhausted. Suddenly being hit with tons of memories about huge part of his life that had been wiped out of this mind for 27 years, reconnecting with people that had once meant the world to him, and killing a psychopathic killer clown with said people, wasn't the easiest process mentally and physically, nor was being impaled trough the stomach and bleeding out an extreme amount of blood.

So yeah, Eddie was exhausted. It has been a month of being in intense medical care, constantly being surrounded by doctors, the white of hospital walls and the extreme sterile atmosphere. Eddie was pretty sure the smell of medicine had already soaked into his pores, since that's all he could smell these days.

Usually it was fine, being enclosed within hospital walls wasn't anything unfamiliar for him yet sometimes he knew that the shortness of breath, tears that blurred his vision and the panic rising in his mind had nothing to do with his newfound wounds. He wasn't a stranger to panic attacks. He had had them for most of his life, but only now, finally piecing together the missing parts, he understood the roots of them. Finally, after so many years of constantly feeling lost and empty, like something was always missing, but never quite being able to grasp what exactly it was, he could find the explanation to so many things in his life.

For instance, now he knew why he was married to a woman that was the exact replica of his mother. He now understood why he went such extreme lengths worrying about his health. Now, he knew why there always was an empty, hollow space in his heart that he never seemed to be able to fill no matter how hard he tried. At some point he even stopped trying. He just simply let go, continuing to live on with this void, deciding that maybe, he just simply was this way, that there really wasn't any hope for him. That he was meant to lead a meaningless, insignificant life. Also, he now understood why he never in his life felt any real attraction to his wife, nor any other woman for that matter.

But now he knew. In the heat of the moment, there hadn't been much time to entrain that thought, but spending a month in a hospital really did give a lot of time to think. Especially, spending that time with Richie. Richie, trough it all, had stayed with him. The rest of the losers, after a lot of convincing had left to continue their lives. Still, it included a lot of Skype calls multiple times a day.

Yet Richie had stayed. Richie, with his stupid jokes and weird antics that Eddie still rolled his eyes at yet couldn't stop the chuckle that usually escaped him. Richie and his stupid Hawaiian shirts that he still seemed to wear despite it being 27 years passed, Richie and his face that's still as handsome as Eddie remembers it being when they were kids. And Richie and his worried, caring and desperate expression that he sometimes caught having while watching Eddie, when he taught he wasn't looking. But Eddie was always looking. He hadn't been able to take his eyes away from him, if he had to be honest.

Which he found himself doing being while sitting next to Richie in an airport, in New York, waiting for Richie's flight to LA. Once Eddie was discharged from the hospital, Richie had insisted on coming with Eddie to New York to help him. Eddie had said that he's not a baby, and he can do shit by himself, Richie had said he knows that, but he still wants to help, to which Eddie had replied that he already has helped plenty, to which Richie then had loudly said that maybe he just wants to spend more time with Eddie. And that had shut Eddie right up. And that settled it.

Richie had helped Eddie get to his home, patiently waiting outside when Eddie had gone into his house, feeling like he was willingly accepting a death sentence, to tell Myra that he wants a divorce, calmed him down in the car, and then offered Eddie to just come with him to LA. Eddie had said that he needs to think about it.

He did need to think about it indeed, because even though he had finally accepted that he was, in fact, desperately in love with Richie, he didn't want to just throw himself in this whole relationship thing. First, he had to finalize his divorce, because even though his wife was just his childhood trauma making him subconsciously seek out the very same things that had hurt him in the first place as well a result of years of trying to repress his sexuality, by law she still was his wife, so any romantic intercourses with other people would still be cheating. Then, he would probably need to find a job. And a therapist.

And also there always was the slight chance that he was reading this whole thing wrong and Richie really was just being a good friend and his actions held no romantic intent. Oh lord, Eddie really hoped that wasn't the case.

But yeah, anyway. Eddie was exhausted. He was ready to fall into a bed and sleep for days, even though that's pretty much all he's done this past month.

Richie's flights boarding was supposed to start in about 10 minutes when trough the speaker they heard a monotone voice announcing that flight number 232 Air LA to Los Angeles International airport from New York JFK, is delayed by 5 hours.

"For fucks sake, really?!"

"Are you fucking kidding me?!"

Yeah, now Eddie was exhausted and pissed. Five fucking hours? Well, technically, it wasn't his flight, he could leave any time he wanted, but well, the thing was, he didn't. He promised Richie to see him off, and he was determined to keep his promise. He didn't really know why to be fair, Richie wouldn't be angry, he even tried to convince Eddie to go home, or rather the small temporary apartment that he had rented, to rest, but he had refused. Something held him back. Something told him to stay, so he did.

They had fallen into silence after the first hour, both tired and perhaps, for the first time, they were in new territory. A still, simple moment between just the two of them, with nothing to hold them back, besides their own fears. Of course, they had been alone together plenty this last month but never really like this. Before, there always was something bigger standing in the way. Returning to Derry, Pennywise, in the hospital, Eddie’s horrible state, going to New York, Eddie's nerves about having to talk to Myra. But now? Nothing stood between them, except the obstacles they put there themselves.

They were sitting side by side, knees touching and that for some stupid reason made Eddie’s cheeks heat. What, was he in high school? Jesus.

Richie was looking at something in his phone and Eddie was reading a newspaper. Not actually reading though, because he really couldn't concentrate with Richie being this close.

The atmosphere was strained and stiff. It was like there was something both of them wanted to say, but the words were trapped between them, never being able to move forward.

He was used to feeling tense around Myra all the time, but back then, it didn't matter. It didn't matter that there were things left unsaid, it didn't matter that he, while marrying his wife, had wondered what it was like to hold another man's hand.

But now it did matter. At least to him. And a small voice inside of him told him that it did to Richie as well.

Overcome with sudden recklessness, he decided that maybe he actually could say something.   He cleared his throat. Okay. He could do this. Richie won't judge you. He might laugh a bit, but then it's fine, you can write it off as joke. It's fine.

"Richie..." He started, but my found himself unable to continue.

"Mm?" Richie mumbled, not looking away from his phone.

Maybe that's better, that he's not looking at me, Eddie thought. Eye contact always makes everything way more real.

"I.. I am, would you, that it is to say, well-"

"Dude, is Bill's stutter now contagious? Just spit it out." Richie had now paused the game he was playing and was locking his phone and finally looking at Eddie.

Eddie swallowed and mentally cursed himself. He was a 40 year old man, perfectly fine with delivering bad news to people, he was a risk analyst for god's sake, yet here he was, stuttering and not being able to even word the things he wanted to say properly. Richie was now raising an eyebrow at him, question in his eyes. "Wanna go fuck around in the shops? I'm bored out of my god dammed mind." For fucks sake.

Richie snorted, "That's what got you stuttering so hard? Eds, you secretly have a phobia of shops that you want to overcome or something? Because you have come to the right man, my dear fellow, I will show you the deep dark depths that those poor airport shops carry." He exclaimed, getting up from the uncomfortable, squeaky airport chair and taking his only luggage - quite old looking vans backpack.

Eddie shook his head, partly at Richie's theatrics and partly at himself. He could have just said something. But then again, at least, now, if Richie really hadn't been desperately in love with him since their childhood, or at least since meeting again in Derry, then they wouldn't have to spend 4 more hours in an awkward silence, or worse, Richie being accepting of him, yet gently turning him down and saying he loves him as a friend. That would be the end of Eddie Kaspbrack.

They walked through every possible shop the airport had where they were allowed to go, Richie picking up every weird object and making a stupid joke about it. Eddie joined in too.

When, 2 hours later they exited the last shop, each carrying a few bags of completely useless items, Eddie found himself panicking again. They had 2 more hours now. Perhaps he should stick to his initial plan, which is keep his mouth shut. Maybe it was better this way. And he had already made a mental list of all the benefits that would bring. His sanity however, was not one of them.

"Wanna grab something to eat, spaghetti man?" Richie's voice interrupted Eddie's inner struggles.

"Fuck you, asshole, I swear to god if you keep calling me that-"

"Spaghetti, spaghetti, spaghetti-"

"SHUT UP!"

They kept bickering as they reached a nearby McDonald's. While Eddie could cite reason by reason why eating there was bad for your health, he was rather hungry, and well, to be fair, a burger did sound quite good just then, after a month of eating incredibly flavorless hospital food that tasted more like cardboard than anything, really.

He ordered a BigMac and even with Richie's teasing about the irony of the word 'big' and whatnot, it was worth it, since he at least finally could actually taste the food after thinking that his taste buds really had died.

They ended up spending there almost 2 hours and would have spent more if it weren't for the security guard that had thrown them out after they had starting throwing fries at each other and Richie accidently hitting another costumer. Eddie hadn't had this much fun since their childhood.

As Eddie finished wiping his tears from laughing too much, he checked his phone for the time and his eyes widened as he realized Richie's flight was supposed to take off in 20 minutes.

"Shit, Richie your flight, we gotta run!" He exclaimed, grabbing Richie's shoulder and shaking him.

Richie cursed as well and they stared running to Richie's boarding place, bumping into other people and laughing like teenagers once again, at their reactions.

With a little searching they found Richie's terminal soon enough and suddenly were faced with the fact that they had to separate.

Richie leaned down and put his arms around Eddie, hugging him tight. Eddie immediately wrapped his own arms around Richie, placing his head on his shoulder.

This was it then. Richie was leaving and it was fine, Eddie was perfectly fine with that. He already had made up his mind, earlier that was very foolish of him to even think of confessing and ruining everything they had rebuilt in the past month from the ashes that the missed years had created.

Richie took a deep breath and then let Eddie go. "Bye, then, Eds." he said, and perhaps Eddie would have heard the sadness tainting his voice, if he hadn't been so desperately trying to convince himself and he is, in fact, fine with all of this, and no, he does not want to go with Richie to LA. Why would you think that? Absurd.

"Bye, Rich." Eddie forced a smile and watched as Richie stepped backwards, still looking Eddie in the eyes, as if waiting for Eddie to say something else. What was there to say? There really wasn't. Nothing at all.

Finally, reaching the lady who checks boarding passes he nodded at Eddie one last time, before turning around and taking out his ticket and passport.

Eddie stood there, frozen, his mind blank. Something wasn't right. Something was missing. He felt like he was standing on an edge, the way forward was foreign. The way back was familiar, fell walked in but it didn't feel right. Yes, he had been on this road all his life, yes he was existing but.. it didn't feel like...

Richie was putting his backpack on the security gates, putting his phone down.

"Attention passengers on Air LA flight 232 to Los Angeles. This is the final boarding call. All passangers, please proceed to gate 3 immediatelly. Boarding will end in approximately 15 minutes time. I repeat. This is the final boarding call, boarding will end in 15 minutes. Thank you. "

There was no way. No fucking way.

Richie was on his way to take back his backpack.

For fucks sake. There goes Eddie's well crafted, perfectly structured plan right out of the window.

He took a step forward, leaving behind the world he had known for 27 years, letting it crumble to pieces.

He took a step into the unknown, felt the blood rush in his veins, ringing in his ears.

... It didn't feel like he had been truly alive. And dear god and all heavens above, he wanted to live.

"Richie!" He screamed on the top of his lungs, making several heads of other passengers turn in his direction.

Richie, startled, turned back. "Eddie?" As he saw Eddie running in his direction, he rushed towards him as well.

Somewhere in the distance the security could be heard saying 'sir your what about your luggage’, but none of them heard.

They met in the middle, stopping only inches apart from each other, looking into each other’s eyes, both holding a deep desperation that maybe, finally, none of them could write off as anything else than what it actually was.

"I've got to say something to you," Eddie breathed, voice a bit shaky, his hands trembled and he had trouble deciding where exactly to put them.

"I think I've got something to say to you as well, but you can start." Richie replied; his voice held the very same breathlessness as Eddie.

"I.. Fuck! I'm in love you, have been since our fucking childhood, and I actually do want to go to LA with you." He finally rushed out in one breath, heart beating right out of his chest.

Eddie could see the exact moment when the words his Richie like cold water. His eyes widened, and while he perhaps, already had expected Eddie to say something along those lines, actually hearing them out loud shook him down to the very core.

"Looks like your mom and I will have to call it quits because I am too far gone for her son," Eddie rolled his eyes, Richie didn't pay any mind and continued, "I am in love with you too, Eds. And have been since our childhood as well. Well look at us, two dumbass, we could have had this-"

"Richie, I'd love to talk about this literally any another time, but right now you've got a flight that's leaving in approximately 9 minutes, so can I please kiss the shit out of you, so you can get on the plane?" Eddie interrupted Richie hurriedly.

Richie didn't seem to mind as he exclaimed rather loudly, "Oh god, fuck yes, of course you can."

Eddie immediately threw himself at Richie, smashing their lips together. Eddie seemed to have lost any self control by the entrance of the airport, as he kissed hard, not holding back whatsoever. Richie put his hands around Eddie's neck, pulling him closer, while Eddie put his around his waist, doing just the same.

Thread by thread fell apart any hesitation between them; they kissed with burning passion, breaking down all and every degrees of separation between them, years’ worth of longing clearly doing their part.

They recurrently pulled apart and panted into each others mouths, foreheads pressed tightly together. Eddie felt like maybe he had actually died and gone to heaven or something.

As Eddie willed to calm his emotions, which were going off charts at the moment, he stepped back slightly, to look Richie in the eyes. He took his face in his hands and smiled as he saw that Richie seemed to be on the same level of being absolutely wrecked, as he was.

As Eddie was about to open his mouth, to remind Richie to get in the fucking plane finally, Richie, as if reading his mind rushed to say, "Maybe I could stay? And we would fly together later? It's not like I've got anything important waiting for me there." He bit his lip, and looked at Eddie with pleading eyes.

As much as Eddie would have wanted that, he knew he had to have some time to actually get his shit together and he didn't want to put all that on Richie's shoulders. He wanted to get back on track on his own. Just with Richie by his side. Eddie smiled a small smile and signed, "Rich, you gotta go. You've already got a ticket, and I need to sort some shit out here as well. But don't you dare to worry; as soon as everything's done you bet your ass I'm going to be on the first plane over to you."

Richie looked like he wanted to argue, but then signed as well and nodded. “We better talk on the phone every single day, because fuck, if I don't hear your voice, I might go insane."

"Of course. I think it’s the same for me.” Eddie then pecked Richie on the lips and then pushed him forward, "Now go! This flight already got delayed enough; don't want to wait for the next one."

Richie stepped back and pecked Eddie multiple times until Eddie pushed him again and said a very warning "Richie".

Richie then finally made his way back inside the terminal, where a very intrigued security guard and the ticket check out lady were sitting, and upon noticing Richie returning, quickly pretended to not have seen the very dramatic love confession just now.

However, Eddie did see the small smile and wink that the lady directed at him, and he, now for tor the first time, thought about the fact that two dudes had just made out in the middle of the airport, and nobody had even really paid much mind to it. It filled him with incredibly euphoric feeling and he smiled back at the lady and then watched as Richie very hurriedly took his stuff and after blowing Eddie one last kiss, ran to his plane.

A little later, while sitting in a taxi back to his apartment, he got a text from Richie - 'made it to the plane. Missing u already xxx' and then a second one - 'cant wait to see ur dick ;)'

Eddie smiled to himself. Finally, after years in the darkness, he could see a bright future ahead of him. He couldn't wait to get to it. 

[laceymorganwrites]

The Genius idiot

Word Count: 2,138

Pairing: Senku x reader

Warnings: swearing

A/N: So guess who watched Dr Stone and is utterly in love with Senku?

You didn´t like high school. At all. It was shit, the people thought you were weird and they were right, but being weird wasn´t a bad thing like they said it was. The teachers were all total nutjobs in midlife crises who didn´t have their shit together and took it out on you instead of teaching. And for fuck´s sake was the stuff they taught you boring.

The only good thing about the institution were the things you could out of the lessons, you were in the computer programming club for instance, you also were a member of the crafts club.

That´s where you met Yuzuriha, she was kind and sweet, quickly warming up to you.

You liked to think that you were friends, but when you saw her with her real friends Taiju and Senku, you knew you´d never belong anywhere like they did.

They were always hanging around and having fun, doing some science stuff you didn´t get.

It was none of your business anyway.

But still you were sad that you weren´t part of their friend group, they seemed to be so close and you wanted to be too. You never really bothered much with making friends, creating strong bonds with people in a relationship was something you never quite understood.

People were selfish, they only wanted others around them to make themselves feel better, to stop the cold loneliness that was creeping inside their hearts, to stop them from thinking about things they didn´t want to think about, about truths that couldn´t be denied.

Life wasn´t give and take. It was take all you can get and run as fast as you can.

Like there would be no consequences.

Surely enough though, you felt yourself become intrigued by the friend group, letting Yuzuriha introduce you to them.

You didn´t mind it as much as you thought you would, quite the opposite truly.

It was as if you finally found the true meaning of life, the source of genuine happiness and you finally understood why people glorified high school so much.

You never intended for people to get so close to you, never expected to have friends you could tell anything and feel save with.

And you sure as hell didn´t anticipate to fall in love with Senku.

You guessed it was the take of life after giving you friends.

It was like a sick joke, a sort of cruel humor Senku would appreciate if it didn´t involve him.

He was too busy to notice you anyway. Maybe it was better this way, but your mind couldn´t help but wander to him in the most irritating times.

Why did he have to be so cunning, charming, funny and have the same interests as you? And why did he have to be so devilishly handsome? And why did you have to fall for the person who made you feel so incredibly stupid all the time?

The only person who knew was Taiju and that was only because he too told you about his crush on Yuzuriha, even before Senku. He thought you could help him since you knew her.

It was nice having someone to talk about this embarrassing inconvenience without being judged or criticized. But that didn´t help the situation, so you two made a bet.

It was a win-win situation: it was a race who would confess first. And if things went good, the loser had to finance the first date. If it went bad however the loser had to make up a scheme that the confession was a lie and another bet.

You really tried to confess your feelings to Senku, on multiple occasions too. But he never seemed to get it, or rather you thought he did get it but simply wanted to avoid the topic to be able to concentrate more on his science experiments.

If you only knew how different the reality looked…

Senku might give the impression of complete disinterest in all things romantic, but really he was just scared of making a fool of himself, of being vulnerable, getting hurt, so he shut love out of his life.

Until he laid eyes on you that is.

And fuck did you turn his world upside down, he told no one, not even Taiju.

He was too embarrassed, after all those years of swearing never to bother in having a crush or something more, he didn´t want to admit defeat.

And when Senku thought you were giving him hints that his feelings were reciprocated by you, he suppressed every possibility of you getting together. Because that would mean he would have to initiate something, which he couldn´t do for the life of him even if he wanted to.

That was the downside of completely refusing gathering any knowledge on romance, love and honestly, just being a decent human being.

If it wasn´t science, he wasn´t interested in it.

To him, you were the embodiment of science and that was what scared him.

It especially scared him after the stone broke around his body.

He felt helpless and useless, trying to figure out how to get you back all those months.

3,700 years passed, it felt so unreal, like a number too big to count, all those years wasted.

You remembered waking up to a bunch of new faces alongside familiar ones.

The scenery was different. Very different.

“Where´s the school?” you asked, looking around and meeting Senku´s eyes looking at you with wonder, relief and another feeling you couldn´t quite identify. For an instance you thought it was the way you looked at him, but that couldn´t be.

It took a while to get used to the new circumstances, but with the quick explanation of the new faces and situation of the earth, you at least had some starting point.

Kohaku, a warrior from the village that Senku´s father built, which was still weird to you, led you to said village.

It was nice, people were running around happily and working one some science stuff.

For a world that was completely set back to year one, this fast progress wasn´t bad at all.

“You did all of this?” you asked Senku in awe, it was hard for you to hide your feelings around him after not seeing him for so long, even though it felt like yesterday. But then again, it would always feel that way with him.

He stopped in his tracks, somehow embarrassed by your praise and looked sideways.

“I could´ve never made it on my own though...” he admitted, it wasn´t like him, the Senku you knew would boast the shit about his success.

“You´re amazing, Senku! Bringing all those people together like that, building all of this… nobody could do it like you” you smiled at him and he swore his heart stopped for a second.

To avoid giving into you, he showed you around and introduced you to everyone.

They were all so nice and bright, so energetic, it was refreshing to be welcomed with such open, warm arms.

They explained their next big project and you immediately were woven into the daily routine. But you liked it that way, how else would you get used to this drastic change?

Senku was even more distant than before, but that was okay, he had much to do.

Well, it wasn´t really okay to you, but what did you expect from him? To confess feelings that weren´t there to you in such an important situation? It was vital to win the war to have the cellphone. You simply weren´t part of the plan. You never have been.

This revelation made you feel sad and lonely, especially since the whole village never seemed to shut up about Senku.

The priestess in particular sought you out to make you tell her all about him, that´s how you found yourself gushing about him to her and she gushed right back, making you like her and be jealous of her at the same time.

“You like him quite the bit, do you not?” she chuckled and you gulped before nodding.

“But don´t tell him, I don´t want to make things awkward. We have more important things to worry about right now” you sighed.

The priestess looked at you with an amused expression before chuckling mischievously.

“But he likes you too, I can tell, he´s different around you. There are no rules in love, I think that´s what makes him scared and unsure, he keeps talking about the rules, how if you follow them you will always get the right solution. I think he´s scared that there is no solution in approaching you.” she thought out loud.

“Don´t give me false hopes, he doesn´t have time to be in love nor is he interested in it” you groaned, it hurt to say it out loud.

Not wanting to dive deeper into the matter, you went back to the village where the others were.

You noticed Senku sitting away from the fire, closed off to himself, deep in thought.

Despite your better knowledge, you grabbed a blanket , walking up to him, thinking about how you shouldn´t all the way.

But now it was too late and you were awkwardly standing two feet away from him, stretching out the blanket.

“What are you doing?” he stated, eyeing you and the blanket.

His cold attitude made your heart sink, this was a stupid idea after all.

“I thought you might be cold” you quietly said, sinking the blanket and your gaze.

“And why do you care?” he mumbled, you were interrupting him sulking about how he couldn´t seem to approach you right.

“I don´t want you to be cold” you said bluntly, pondering about when the right moment to leave would be.

“But wouldn´t you be cold if you gave me the blanket?” Senku questioned, cocking an eyebrow at you.

“Yeah, but I don´t care, I can just sit nearer to the fire. I´ll be fine as long as I know you are” you answered truthfully, cursing yourself for saying too much.

“That´s illogical” he told you, making you groan.

“I know, Senku. That´s the whole point” you never heard of anyone that love was logical.

“I mean we could always share the blanket” Senku smirked, looking you straight in the eyes like a smug bastard. That wasn´t like him at all, but he regretted his bold words as soon as they left his mouth. This could only backfire.

“You...want to share a blanket...with me?” you repeated the question like an idiot.

“We are both cold, it is the only logical solution” Oh. What else did you expect? Your heart sunk to your knees and you let your shoulders drop.

“I think I´ll go back to the others” you numbly said, throwing the blanket next to him.

Why did you even try? There was a reason he was avoiding you after all.

“(Y/N), wait! I really want to share a blanket with you, but… it´s not because I´m cold” he rambled, blushing a bit at his own awkwardness. Why did he have to be like this? Why couldn´t he be smooth in those things?

You stopped in your tracks, looking at him in disbelief.

“This isn´t funny, Senku” you coldly told him, thinking he was only fucking with you.

“I know. It´s really not. It´s also not logical, at all. Nothing makes sense to me when you´re around but also everything does? If that makes sense...and I can´t concentrate and I don´t know how to feel about that but I know how I feel and… I´m an idiot” he fiddled with his fingers, wanting to take back every word he just said. You would just laugh at him. There was a reason why nobody liked him that way.

“It makes perfect sense, Senku. Because I´m an idiot too and I feel the same” you smiled at him clumsily.

Senku stood up abruptly, his eyes wide and shining with a ray of hope.

“(Y/N). Can I do the only thing that seems logical to me right now?” he said urgently.

You nodded subconsciously and before you could think about what he meant, his lips were on yours.

The suddenness of the kiss took your breath away for a minute, yet you adjusted quickly. It was like a mechanism which only worked when you two were together. You couldn´t help yourself but smile into the kiss as it commenced, you couldn´t believe this was happening. Senku´s hands were shaking as he put them on your waist, pulling you closer to him, making your heart jump.

It could´ve been a magical moment if it wasn´t for your stupid grin because you couldn´t help yourself and Senku´s clumsiness because how the fuck should he know how to kiss?

But none of that mattered, you´d figure it out together.