#I am trying to figure out why this post appears as broken images on the blog itself

[r--kt]

Tenzo is a replacement for Obito.

From Obito's point of view.

contents | introduction · the essence · similar story: Jinx and Caitlin

[ I mention the similarity with Arcane here, but if you haven't watched it, you can just not read this part, the essence won't change much. ]

here's the thing: It's a headcanon, and it is simple in formulation, but a bit complex in explanation of the certain image. below I discuss the reasons for some of Obito's reactions during the war, and his perception in general.

if Kakashi and Obito had somehow happened to be in the same place once during the ANBU period, or if Obito had known about the members of Kakashi's team, he would be jealous of Kakashi for Tenzo.

not romantically jealous (it's up to you though), rather painfully possessive, with resentment and anger. and not in a vivid way. it's more of a gnashing feeling inside, clogged enough not to recognize it, but not weak enough that it doesn't affect anything at all. why would that even be? their kekkei-genkai, appearance and bond with Kakashi.

CH 317 on the left; CH 605 on the right.

Tenzo's mokuton is smooth, malleable, these are neat bars of wood, and Tenzo has no difficulty making large houses or complex thin figures out of them, such as keys or eyes (ANBU arc in anime) or cute figures (almost any scene where Yamato uses kekkei-genkai).

Obito's mokuton is broken and sharp, it's branches with thorns, which rather embody his frustration, instability and anguish. such wood is easy to use to injure, kill, block the way, isolate yourself from others, but not to build anything out of it. this can not protect gently (to make a shelter or a useful object), this mokuton can only attack. the detail parallels very well with the personalities of both characters and their connection with Kakashi, with how Obito perceives it.

no matter what Obito says, he's a good liar. the old bonds he had in his "past" life remain important to him. his anger at Kakashi in the war, among other practical reasons, is due to the fact that Kakashi dared to acquire new connections that are more important to him than that bond with Obito. at least that's why, among other things, Kakashi doesn't go over to his side (while Obito hoped he would, I'll make a post about it one day). and the connections Kakashi has, subconsciously or not, are perceived by Obito as annoying, as a disregard for everything they've been through together, for everything Obito went through. this is a resentment that provokes anger, the root of which is as follows: "you should not have new connections, you should suffer, because I am lonely and I suffer for you" (for others in general, but this one is the agenda).

his anger is sometimes about "I did so much for you, I gave you the most valuable things I had (life, strength, the ability to care for others), and you ruined everything, well, maybe not you, but I thought it was you at first... and now you, bastard, are trying to stop me?" but not about that today.

and that's why not only Tenzo would annoy Obito, but anyone else who's close to Kakashi. the man consistently selected the people most similar to his past experience, and here they are all around him. then Minato appears in the war. so why am I talking specifically about Tenzo, whom Obito may never have seen?

Tenzo's kekkei-genkai makes everything more confusing. This becomes something personal, which Obito perceives in the way described above. That's just an interesting parallel between these two.

And that's not to mention Tenzo's appearance. He is in some ways still looks like Obito, at least because of the silhouette, hairstyle, etc.

And what this can be compared to? Jinx and Caitlin from Arcane.

Arcane EP 7, "the boy saviour"

Of Course Jinx experiences it much vividly, it's her canon event. for her this storyline is more important than something like this for Obito, but the essence is the same. It is a feeling of betrayal from a person dear to you, who showed with all his appearance that he/she would be on your side until the very end. And it feels like you've been replaced by someone who's really more comfortable, or better at something, or more socially approved. And you're just a lonely sick weirdo.

It is not surprising that both Jinx and Obito treat Vi's/Kakashi's kind words or regrets as something annoying - subconsciously, among other things, they can see it as a mockery. They just don't really believe it.

so here it is. just the way I see all of this.

what is the role of this hc? to show the subconscious in Obito, which is constantly manifested in war through his action or inaction, through his words, through the way he manipulates, through illusions that he shows or sees himself. I like that about him. I like his big vulnerable uchiha heart.

[ I should have written some other post about Obito first, otherwise you will now decide that this is the only way I see him... ]

[mirorbo]

[Music playing in the distance]

Hello everyone!

I cannot apologize enough for my periodic popping in, saying I’m returning, and then nothing happens.

Life hits you hard and fast sometimes, and for a time I even fell out of drawing long enough to where just doodling for an hour exhausted me. But this time it’s for real.

We’re coming back!

~What happened?~

July: I intended to begin working on updates as soon as my trip visiting my folks concluded. But I ended up cracking open a wisdom tooth and being in ungodly pain for almost an entire month before I could get the extraction done.

August: The recovery followed and I had to do various things IRL and had trouble managing my time.

September: I was beat. I was having trouble keeping up on commissions without getting tired. I’ve even marked a commission as a freebie order because it had been taking so long and I felt so bad for my client.

October: I decided to do the Inktober Challenge to get my wrist and mind back in order. I succeeded. And you know what? I feel great!

November: Once I finish my Patreon image and actually finish the commission (the one I mentioned in September) I will begin working on actual updates on this blog and even stream some for those who may be interested. I have every intention to return here. I miss the blog, I miss the characters. And of course, I miss you!

Demember: Oops November ended up being a really good month in gaming!

Keep an eye out folks. Miror and his crew are coming back soon!

[harbouredsoulss]

LURK

Author's note: You have no idea how happy I am to post again! 💞

I've been working on this for a while and am so excited to finally share this with you all. This is set to be a series, with the current number of parts unknown (though I'm currently working on that).

I also appreciate every single person who helped me when I was trying to work out how long my posts should be! You were all super helpful 🥰

warning(s): violence. mention of stalking. blood. a hint of smut. friends x lovers! panic.

pairing(s): ez reyes x [OC] ivána

word count: 2.3 k

summary: Ivána has a secret. She is in danger, and has kept this from everyone including her best friend Ez. What happens when this danger finally comes for her?

Nights alone were truly unbearable, though Ivána knew she was never truly alone.

There was always that heavy feeling -an inexplicable feeling that haunted her, to the point where she knew that he had to be out there watching her each and every move. The feeling clung to her, never abating.

Her home was locked down with the doors bolted shut, and windows sealed and secured. She had made it into a fortress since the first time he had made his intentions clear. She knew his kind; had seen it before. They liked to toy with their prey, and strike fear into their hearts, not long before they consumed them, body and soul.

Ivána knew she was just biding her time before the games would truly begin. The intimidation thus far had been nothing but mere warning of what was to come.

She lay in bed, tossing and turning, thoughts all consuming. She knew what she could do to make the problem go away. The police would be the best place to start and a smart move at that. Though that wasn’t who she was really considering turning to.

There were people she knew and trusted enough to protect her from harm. She had connections with people from all walks of life, some of which she grew up with, some of them considered family.

Her best friend, the one she had been secretly in love with for the majority of her life, Ezekiel Reyes, would do anything for her and she knew that. But she couldn’t bring herself to drag him into her mess. He had already gone through enough; he doesn’t need her problems added to his list.

At some point in the night, she did fall asleep. She fell to the faint pitter patter of the rain, which was rare for Santo Padre. It soothed her restless thoughts, and nudged her slowly to an unbroken sleep.

For once her dreams were not filled with terror, though there was still a flicker of anxiety as her thoughts shaped and manifested to their final form. In her dreams she spoke to EZ, hands caressing his face softly, lips barely a breath a part, whispering to him, telling him the truth, and allowing all her fears to be released. She allowed him to protect her. He encased her in his arms creating a barrier that separated her physical form from all the uncertainties her life was set to face -that plagued her mind incessantly.

Her mind gave in to her desires, ones she not would let happen in the real world. It allowed her a glimpse at what safety and love would truly feel like.

Unlucky for her, the dreams did not last, it was the arrogant sound of her alarm which happened to choose that precise moment, when her thoughts morphed into something more illicit, to interfere with her reverie. The idea of snoozing the alarm was tempting, as was remaining in bed hidden within the confines of her room. Though she knew she would be missed, and staying here, locking herself inside forever, would arouse suspicion.

The hospital would be nothing more than a brief reprieve from the game she had been made part of.

At least that’s what she told herself.

It wouldn’t stop her from looking over her shoulder as she made rounds, checking each bathroom stall, and cataloguing each individual in a waiting room. She was in a minefield and was sure to explode if she made the wrong move.

He had been doing this for quite some time now, though usually he left her alone at work. He left toying with her for when she was alone with no one to reach out to for help. He knew her hours, when she would begin her shift and when it would end. She figured he had someone hack into the hospital’s servers and access her roster. She also knew that if he was not going to be physically present, there would always be someone else from within his inner circle there to stalk her.

She stood in her bathroom, scrubs gripped tightly in her hands, eyes glaring at the fabric as she debated her choices. Her skin was like ice, with goosebumps coating her flesh as she stood there naked in the room, allowing her mind to tick over like a clock. She didn’t want to leave, and it took every ounce of strength she had to force her body to cooperate.

Her mind was at war with itself. Different parts of it were broken up over what she should do. Parts of her wanted to run and hide, whilst the other parts wanted her to stay, too scared to step a toe out of line and be killed.

Her eyes remained locked on her reflection, fingers tracing the length of her skin, up and down, from the curve of her breasts to soft bump of her waist. Her eyes fluttered closed as the soft movement of her fingers pulled her into trance.

It was kaleidoscope of colour that flickered beneath her eyelids as her body began to relax. Soon the mirage of colour transformed in to one whole image of Ez and herself.

Their limbs were intertwined, sliding against one another intimately. His breathing hot against the crook of her neck, fingers torturing her in the most delicious way possible. Sliding down the slope of her body, caressing her breasts, kneading her tender flesh as they ventured lower. They slipped between her thighs, and began rubbing her gently and softly. Edging her, at a leisurely pace, to her release.

It was a sound reminiscent to that of a gunshot that shook Ivána from her fantasy and filled her to the brim with terror.

She moved as fast her body would allow, though it resulted in her tangling herself in her scrubs, tripping over her own feet as tried to dress herself. She could hear the thrum of her heart pounding in her ears as she made her body move towards the living room, grasping onto the baseball bat she kept hidden behind her couch.

It was at that point she came to the realisation that it was not a gunshot she had heard, only what sounded like one. What she had heard was actually the sound of someone banging themselves against her front door.

She had every intention of calling out and demanding the name of whoever it was that was trying to take down her door, but it was the fear that froze her where she stood. She knew with every fibre of her being that the person on the other side of the door was not a friend.

It was only when she took a few hesitant steps away from the couch towards the entryway that the wood began splintering and a large crack struck through the length of the wooden panelled door.

Particles of dust and wood chips scattered across the floor as the banging continued. Her knuckles turned white; her circulation sure to cut off as she continued to grip the handle of the baseball bat, tighter and tighter.

She could hear whoever it was grunting as they continued to throw their body against the door.

It went on for a limited time, mere minutes, before she saw her front door fly off its hinges, bang against her hallway table, and land right before her feet.

A jolt of surprise and dread iced her veins as she took in the scene before her. It was only one man.

It took only one man to break into my home.

Recognition sparked as the cog wheels in her mind began to turn.

His face was red, with beads of sweat clinging to his flesh, soaking his brown hair, and plastering it against his face.

Ivána had seen this man before.

He smiled at her faintly, chest heaving, struggling to catch his breath. He held up his hand, his index finger pointed upwards.

“One…. Moment…” he rasped out; face still flushed as he struggled to catch his breath.

Her eyes were fixed on him, as he stood there both hands pressed on either side of the door frame, his head hanging low. It was a surprising sight for her. One that took an edge off the fear that was gripping her.

There was no awareness of time as she stood there like a deer caught in headlights. All the awareness was honed in on the man before her and his breathing, and how much easier it was starting to become. She knew she was running out of time, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything.

It didn’t take too long for his demeanour to change. No longer was his mouth agape with salvia bubbling at his lips, slipping down his chin as he tried to capture his breath. He brought his hand to his mouth and begun wiping it slowly, removing any hint of weakness as he did so.

Finally, he took a step towards her, entering her home, stepping on the broken door.

“Let me guess,” she started, taking a step back, “you’re one of David’s men?”

Her fingers curled tightly around the handle of the bat, using all the strength within her, to hold herself up right. The target she’s had on her back, the dread, anticipation, never quite knowing when he would strike. It was always clear that he was waiting for the right moment, which had now come.

The intruder nodded in return, making sure to smile at her wickedly.

“Matteo.” He answered, though she had no care for his name. Being one of David’s lackies was all she needed to know.

Ivána ignored him and instead widened her stance, preparing her body for the inevitable swing that she would take.

Matteo took another step towards her, chest heaving. The knock down of the door had clearly taken a lot out of him, although he tried to show her otherwise.

He didn’t appear to be too old, though she could tell he was not in his prime.

“You know why I’ve come; I assume?”

“To finally take me?” She guessed with a slight shrug to her shoulders, stance still wide, arms ready to swing, “though after that little performance, you shouldn’t feel too confident on your mission being a success.”

He wasn’t fazed by the scorn notable in her voice. He just stood there with his hands on his hips; a smirk plastered on his face, pure excitement gleaming in his eyes.

His gaze remained locked on hers, never wavering, though that was not before he allowed it to lingered down her body slowly, zeroing in on the weapon in her hand. It transformed his smirk into something more wicked; sickening.

“Oh, baby girl,” he said, voice thick and husky, almost as if the mere sight of her holding a weapon turned him on. He licked his lips, clucking his tongue as he did so, with an evil gleam now luminous in his eyes, “surely you must know that it’s a massive turn on when you think you can fight back.”

“You’re disgusting,” she spat; voice laced with venom, “you and your entire crew are nothing but pigs. If your boss wants me, he can come and get me himself.”

He laughed, a hearty kind of laugh. One full of promise.

He began his attack.

_____________________

Blood trickled down the sharp edges of the blade at an unhurried pace. Each drop leaving a faint echo throughout the room one might miss if they weren’t listening out carefully.

Ivána stood there frozen, arms rigid, and glued to her side, clutching the kitchen knife. Her breathing ragged, chest heaving with every painful intake of breath. Her body was battered with cuts, and bruises which, unbeknownst to her, had already begun developing across her flesh. There was no mistaking the red, angry, marks on her skin that were sure to ache, leaving a clear reminder as to what had happened. Perhaps the physical marring of flesh would clear, in time. Though that moment, standing frozen over her assailant’s body, knife caked in blood, would never fade.

Her body convulsed, though she was unaware, as the shock washed over her like a tidal wave. The knife slipped from her hand, clattering to the floor as she fell to her knees. Her body was wracked with loud uncontrollable sobs as the image of the attack flashed through her mind at a hastened pace. Her hands crimson, caked in his blood. Her breathing grew erratic and the panic began to set in, eyesight blurred with tears.

“Yo! Hermana.”

Confusion triggered an innate reaction within her at the sound of Angel’s voice, one that she was not ready for. She jerked forward and frantically began trying to clean the mess around her. Hoping to hide the mess - afraid of anyone else seeing it.

Had she been in a rational state of mind, she would have stopped herself. The attempt she was making was needless given the fact that all she was doing was using her hands to rub the blood around her.

“Ivána…” Voice trailing off, Angel stood within the threshold of the doorway, gaze locked on Ivána as she continued to frantically clean her kitchen floor.

Crouching down he reached out to place his hand on her shoulder, his voice softly urging her to stop. As he touched her, she let out a shrill scream, and lashed out at Angel. Her body and mind were still locked in the fight of her life.

She mistook Angel for another one of David’s men, come to finish what Matteo had started.

“Please,” she begged, voice cracking as her sobs turned heavier, shaking her body further, “Please.”

“I’m here,” Angel murmured softly, attempting to soothe her, “it’s me… Angel.”

“I’ve got you.” He murmured again as he reached towards her, both arms open in attempt to pull her body towards his in an embrace.

She allowed him to take her, his heart shattering when her body went limp in his arms.

If you have stuck through with this part thank you so much! I am really excited to make this a series and worrying about it being a flop! Especially given this part doesn’t really have EZ it, merely mentions of him. I have honestly read and reread over this so many times it’s gotten to the point where I hate it lol. Please leave feedback (if you wish 😂) and pleeeease let me know if you are actually excited to see where this goes. Any guesses? Again, thank you so much if you have actually read all of this and didn’t give up! I appreciate you so much! 💞 I am truly sorry if this was boring!! It’s just the set up so pleeease stick around

TAGLIST (OPEN): @appropriate-writers-name @thesandbeneathmytoes @abby-splace @tartanbumsters @noz4a2 @sesamepancakes @montanaraed

[wesimpforxiao]

Say My Name and I’ll Be There:  6.3

Author’s Note:  Hello!  If you haven’t seen my post last night about choosing between two videos, I encourage you to check it out and give me your input! I need as much of it as possible.  Thanks!! Here’s the next chapter<3

...........................

Your eyes slowly opened to view the new cell Dottore had assigned you.  You thought the original cell had been bad, so when your vision finally focused, you realized in great annoyance that this cage was meant for a literal animal.  Bars replaced the entry wall and doorway, leaving you no privacy in this underground arena.  Even the toilet lacked some sort of curtain to hide you from prying eyes, though you sincerely doubted anyone would bother to cause that kind of trouble with you.

You forced yourself to sit up despite the horrendous pain that shook the very bones within you.  Yesterday was blurry, but the image of a not-so-kind Signora granting you rest remained prominent.  That awful interrogation was no doubt going to continue today, but at least you got the rest you desperately needed.  Your mind was clearer now, less weak and broken than last night.  If Signora never gave Dottore the order, what would have happened?  Would you have only passed out, or would you have actually died in the process?  Were you one to give in on the brink of death and spill what you already know, risking Xiao's life?

A sore throat plagued you, and the cold of the country seemed to seep into the building--even as low as down here.  Your puffy eyes slid to the bars that prevented your escape...Why weren't there any guards today?  A blink wiped away some of the blurriness and you slowly crawled over to the cell door.  A faint but unmistakable ruckus leaked through the prison's exit, and your posture straightened.  It was only when the door at the end of the hall burst off its hinges that you considered the possibility of an attack.

The door wasn't the only thing that clattered to the ground.  "X-Xiao?"  Your voice came out more broken than intended, and your drowsiness was swept under the rug.  Am I seeing things?  "Xiao!"

"Ha-ha!  Didn't think he'd wake up so early," a Fatui agent entered the corridor and lifted the unconscious adeptus by the nape of his neck.  "Must've been some sort of reflex, he's out cold again.  Pathetic.  This is the might of the adepti?"

Your blood ran colder when a third figure entered.  His eyes met yours as he retied Xiao's hands behind his back, half-pushing him forward to walk.  A devious smile slipped across his lips as he escorted Xiao past your cell.

"I thought you'd appreciate it if I was the one to bring him in," Childe teased as he walked past you.

"Xiao!"  You couldn't raise your voice as much as you wanted to, but the yaksha's eyes opened.  "Xiao! What happened?!"

"...a-ambushed..."  His body was too weak to lift his head.

"What the hell did you do to him?"  The shriek was like music to Childe's ears as he roughly discarded the yaksha into a cell you couldn't see from where you were placed.  "HEY! Don't do that!"

Childe returned to your cell and squatted down so he was level with you.  "I didn't do anything to him, ojou-chan.  He was like this when we found him."

"'Found?'"  The cell walls seemed to constrict you, force you into maintaining eye contact.  "What did you do?  What happened to everyone?  Where's Aether, Zhongli?"

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it, girlie," he booped your forehead and stood up.  "Just remember the sight I just gave to you; you wasted your love on someone that wasn't strong enough to protect you."  He passed the Fatui agent and made a face at the broken door that lay on the ground.  "Fix this."

"Yes, Master Childe."

............................................

"Ugh..."  A faint groan made its way to your ears.

"Xiao?"  You dragged your body to the corner of the cell so you could hear him better.  "Are you okay?"  The bars your hands were around seemed less cold and cruel now that a familiar presence was awake.

"This is nothing."  It was an obvious lie, but you didn't press further until he yelped in pain a few seconds later.

"Xiao!"

"Sigils," he coughed.  "I can't touch the walls."

"Sigils? What kind of sigils?"

"The kind that trap and seal adepti, obviously."  He shuffled around the best he could so that he was situated in the exact middle of his cell.  

"But I thought they didn't know where to find you..."  Your eyebrows furrowed as you thought aloud.  They couldn't have found him so quickly, and by the sound of it, they weren't planning on looking for him anytime soon either.  It didn't add up.

"Relax.  These aren't nearly enough to restrain me.  I can--"

A little metal object flew across the ceiling until it landed on the newly-fixed doorframe.  It was some sort of metal bird with eyes that glowed an ominous red.  The beak tapped the doorframe twice, and signaled for it to open.

"I see my subjects are up and about," Dottore stuck his arm out so his little bird could perch on his sleeve.  His leisure footsteps carried him to the halfway point between your and Xiao's cells so he could look at the two of you.  When his eyes landed on Xiao, a manic grin spread across his lips.  "Already planning on breaking out?  Go ahead and give it a try.  The amount of power you'd need to exert would kill her."

"Huh?"  Just what exactly was Xiao doing right now?  "Don't listen to him, he's trying to force submission."

"Am I?  I just saved your life right now, girlie," Dottore's eyes shifted to yours, then returned to Xiao.  The metal bird hopped onto the doctor's shoulder so he could rest his arm at his side.  Another smile plagued his lips.  "Your little savior here only just noticed the most powerful sigil right beside him.  To break it would require most of his strength and this entire underground network would be collateral damage.  There'd be no saving you."

Judging by the silence that emanated from Xiao's cell, he was right.  "Just do it, Xiao."  Your voice didn't hold any emotion, save for a longing for his safe return.  "You don't have to worry about me."

Dottore let out a cackle that momentarily startled his artificial companion.  "Ha!  I wasn't aware adepti could be defeated so easily!"

"What're you talking about?"

"Oh, my dear, you should see the look on his face right now.  Actually, I can make that happen."  He nudged the bird in the direction of the door and it took off.  This time it landed on the doorknob and pecked three times.  After a few moments of silence, the door opened.  "Since Childe has been with you two the longest, I've asked the Tsaritsa for his aid.  From his reports it seems like you three had quite the companionship."

You heard Xiao scoff at the words, then your cell door opened.  "Looks like we'll be stuck together for awhile longer," Childe lifted you off the ground with little effort.  His nose scrunched up when he realized he did it with such ease.  Is she just that broken, or just that skinny now?  He shrugged the question off as he escorted you to Xiao's cell.

"When was it you stumbled upon him yesterday?"  Dottore addressed his subordinate as he opened a small bag that was just handed to him by a Fatui agent.  That agent, along with Childe, forced you to your knees.  Xiao shifted forward, eyes widening slightly as he tried to read the situation.

"Sometime in the late evening, in Fontaine.  They were heading straight for Snezhnaya."  Childe pushed some of your hair out of the way and exposed the nape of your neck.  "Seems like they were on their way to rescue you, ojou-chan.  I only happened to stumble upon them by chance."

The way he said that made you think it wasn't at all by chance.  It would explain why these symbols were already painted within Xiao's cell...Your eyes scanned Xiao's surroundings.  Were those seals painted with red paint, or with blood?  Maybe it was better if you didn't know the answer.  At least Xiao didn't appear to be too injured.

"And you overheard them discussing Xiao's unconscious state?"  Childe confirmed with a nod as his grip on you tightened.  "Good.  I have a theory pertaining to his current state.  You see, Childe, I had been interrogating her last night as well.  I think there may be yet another connection we can study--"

Your heart dropped when you peeked up to see that he was filling a syringe with a mysterious orange liquid.  If that was the same liquid from yesterday--  "Please don't."

"Ha! 'Please don't?'  That's the only comeback you have today?"  Dottore let out another cackle and tapped the excess liquid off of the needle.  "Don't worry missy, this is a smaller dosage."

"No!"  The needle penetrated your skin and you immediately felt like your insides were being torched alive.  Childe and the Fatui agent let you squirm in pain on the ground, while Dottore had his attention on Xiao.

Xiao hid his pain well this time around.  He had dealt with it yesterday, after all.  He continued to glare at Dottore, his hands subtly curling into tight fists to deal with the pain.  The harbinger took it as a challenge, and he prepared another needle.  It was then when the yaksha let the pain show on his face, and he tilted his head in discomfort as the pain only worsened.

Dottore's hands froze when he noticed the glowing in his eyes.  "I see.  It looks like we have a breakthrough already, Childe."  He yanked your head up from the ground and forced you to look at him.  "See how quick progress can be made when you obtain all the variables?"

....................................................

"How are you feeling?"  Xiao's voice coaxed you out of the hysterical mindset the pain had put you in.

"H-How did I get in here?"  You were in his cell, head still spinning and stomach still churning.  Your body was slick with a cold sweat.  Your fingers were still twitching uncontrollably as you lay on the ground beside him.

"I suppose you don't remember," Xiao returned his gaze forward.  "They decided it would be better for us to remain in a single cell, that way the odds of you dying in an escape are high."

"Great--" A groan left your lips as you tried to prop yourself on an elbow.

"You shouldn't move."  When you ignored him, he pushed you back down with a gloved hand on your shoulder.  "You're pushing yourself too far.  Lie down and rest."

"I'm fine!" Your protest was accompanied by another attempt to sit up, but this time he pinned you down with both hands.  He hovered over you, but was careful not to be too forceful with your already-aching body.

"Your body cannot handle this much strain.  You don't understand the--"

"No, you don't understand.  I've been put through so much torture these past few days and you haven't seen--"  Your voice caught in your throat when he pulled away.  How insensitive of me; he knows more than plenty of what it's like.  "...I'm sorry for snapping, I..."

"I have felt some of the pain they put you through," his gaze finally returned to yours.  "That's why I'm telling you to rest.  Even I could not withstand that pain.  Zhongli said it was a new side effect, like how you can feel my thoughts.  I can now feel your emotions and physical pains."

"That's why you were found unconscious?"  It took you a moment to process the new developments.  Just what emotions could he feel from you?  Hopefully not your love for him...

"Have you not realized what he was injecting you with?"  Your confused expression made him shake his head.  "It was a synthetic solution made with your own blood."

"My own blood? But they didn't take any samples--"

"They could have when you were unconscious.  Then they must have enhanced it somehow, made it more concentrated.  The burning is attributed to a high amount of adeptal energy.  He's effectively poisoning you."

"Then why did it hurt you?  You're an adeptus."

"If they were to inject it directly into me, I wouldn't be harmed.  But since it was injected into a mortal body that's linked to mine and is not fully adeptus, I would feel what your body feels."

"When did you start feeling my feelings and pain?"  If he was feeling it the entire time you've been in this awful place, you were going to feel even worse for snapping at him.  

"Your emotions began plaguing me a few days ago.  As for your pain, only last night.  I overheard Zhongli explaining his theories while I came in and out of consciousness."  He absentmindedly stared at the hallway.  "Regardless, we're too late.  They already have the means of creating pathetic mortal versions of adepti; all that's left is to study us until they know the full powers and limitations of the bonds, and then..."  We'll more than likely be slaughtered when they're through with us.

"And...what about the others?  Zhongli, Aether?  Did they escape?"

The unfriendly metal bird impatiently hopped along the hall's floor.  Xiao watched it with a neutral expression.  "No.  They didn't."

...............................

Coming up:  The bond only strengthens.  An introduction to a new harbinger.

[super-freq]

Stompbox Studies - Class 1

Want to build your own effects pedals? A good place to start is understanding how transistors work. Transistors are those three legged devices seen populating many stompbox circuits.

Transistors are are a core building block in electronics. Integrated circuits, like op-amps, are made up of many transistors! Transistors are used in all of the circuits you’ve probably played or heard on recordings: Rangemaster, Fuzz Face, Tonebender, Big Muff, Tube Screamer, and too many more to list here.

The goal of this series of blog posts will be to present concepts you can use to understand how guitar effects pedals work, apply these ideas to debug, and make your own pedals.

Why I am I doing this? I have been building Stompboxes as a hobby for years now and want to build a deeper understanding of the electronic concepts underneath it all. I have been building pedals for years but it has always been sort of paint by numbers. I had some friends get into the hobby recently and they had lots of questions. Here are the answers I could come up with.

This class will be broken into three parts: a discussion in this blog post, a lab where your goal is to build the Dallas Rangemaster, and a reading assignment and study guide.

Discussion: Dallas Rangemaster

The Dallas Rangemaster is classic guitar pedal. Created by Dallas Muscial Ltd. in the 1960s. With a name like “Dallas” you’d think they were from Texas but in fact the company was located in London England!

The Rangemaster is a booster. Basically it’s a single transistor amplifier that filters the lower frequencies. It takes your guitar signal and shapes it and amplifies it.

Original Dallas Rangemaster

DIY Rangemaster

The Rangemaster was used by so almost every guitar player you can think of from the 60s. Here’s a short list of notables:

Eric Clapton

Tony Iommi

Marc Bolan

Rory Gallagher

… too many more to list

Many more used other pedals similar to or derivatives of the Rangemaster. Many companies sell boosters that are direct copies of the Rangemaster or are built from a single transistor like the Rangemaster for the same purpose. It’s definitely a pedal worth study.

Zvex Super Hard On

Electro Harmonix LB1

Hornby Skewes Treble Booster

Brian May Treble Booster

… and the list goes on

The Rangemaster circuit represents a basic building block that can be used in many guitar pedals. Understanding this circuit is a gateway to explaining how lots of classic effects work. It’s also a building block you can apply to effects of your own invention.

The circuit

Electronic circuits are expressed with schematics that have their own symbols. This is similar to the way music is expressed in notation or way a roadmap may be drawn.

Usually we give each part a number and a value. The lines represent an electrical connection between parts. Here is a list of the part numbers and values for the Rangemaster.

PartValueR1470KR268KR33K9C10.005µC20.01µC347µPOT1A10KQ1PNP

Rangemaster Parts

The parts here are four types: Resistors, Capacitors, Potentiometers, and transistors. lets look at each of these.

Resistors

Resistors are all listed with the prefix R in the parts list. There are three resistors R1, R2, and R3. Resistors impede the flow of electrons. We can use resistors to limit how much current is at any point in the circuit.

POT1 is a potentiometer, which is an adjustable resistor. Use a “pot” when you need a variable amount of voltage or current at a point in your circuit. For example a pot is often used as a volume control.

Capacitors

Capacitors are like little electrical reservoirs. They act as a gap that DC can’t pass but they allow and AC signal to pass! Capacitors used in the Rangemaster are C1, C2, and C3.

Capacitors are used to affect how audio is passed through your circuits. Capacitors are used to create filters and control the frequency of AC.

Some capacitors are polarized! One leg is marked with a + and that leg should go to the more electrically positive side of the circuit with the other leg going to the more electrically negative side of the circuit. Notice C3 has a + on the bottom that connects to the +9V in the schematic.

The transistor

In the original Rangemaster the transistor was OC44 or OC71. This was a germanium transistor. Transistors come a few varieties. Two of the most common are PNP and NPN. The OC44 is a PNP transistor.

You can build Rangemaster type circuits with almost any transistor. This is great because the OC44 and OC71 are hard to get and expensive these days. Some common transistors that would work as replacements are: 2N3906 or 2N5087. These are silicon transistors rather than germanium.

Typical transistors

The symbol for PNP and NPN transistors look like this. These are almost the same. Note the arrow! You can remember which is which with this: NPN = Not Pointing iN, PNP = Pointing iN.

PNP and NPN Transistors

The original Rangemaster was built with a PNP transistor. You could also build a Rangemaster type circuit with a NPN transistor. Some common part numbers for NPN transistors are 2N3904 and 2N5089.

NPN Rangemaster

Notice the changes to the circuit. (1) the transistor Q1 is NPN. (2) the +9v and -9v are swapped. This is where your battery would connect. (3) the capacitor C3 has been flipped around so that the + terminal is pointing towards the more positive side of the circuit and it’s other terminal connects to the -9v the more negative side of the circuit.

OHMs Law

OHMs law is a basic principle of electronics. OHMs law determines the flow of electrons through a circuit. If you thought of electrons like cars and the circuit diagrams above like a roadmap OHMs law could be used to predict the flow of traffic!

OHMS has three ideas:

Voltage (abbreviated E) is the electromotive force (measured in Volts, millivolts, and microvolts)

Current (abbreviated I) is the number of electrons in the flow of “traffic” (measured in amps, milliamps, and microamps)

Resistance (abbreviated R) is the opposition to the flow of electrons (measured in OHMs)

We can use math to calculate the flow of electrons through our circuit. Use the diagram above to help you remember the formulas.

E = I * R (find the voltage from the current and resistance)

I = E / R (find the current from voltage and resistance)

R = E / I (find the resistance from voltage and current)

The numbers you use need to be in the same realm. If you are working with Volts (E) then Current (I) needs to be amps. If you have voltage in millivolts then current needs to milliamps. If the units are mixed you can multiply or divide by 1000.

Volts VAmps AMillivolts mV (V / 1000)Milliamps mA (A / 1000)Microvolts µV (mV / 1000)Microamps µA (mA / 1000)

What does this mean? Take a look at the images below. You can use OHMs law to calculate the current and voltage.

In the first image we have 9 volts going through R8 which has a resistances of 2000 ohms (or 2K ohms). Whats the current? Using OHMs law we can figure it out!

I = E / R

I = 9 / 2000

0.0045 Amps or 4.5 milliamps or 4500 microamps

What about the second image. Image we don’t know the voltage but we do know we have 2 milliamps going through 1000 ohms resistance.

E = I * R

E = 0.002 * 1000 (Notice I converted milliamps to amps)

2v = 0.002 * 1000

Voltage Divider

Traffic moving down a road divides when it reaches an intersection some traffic will go one direction and some traffic will take the other route. The same is true of electrons moving through a circuit. If you were watching the road from a helicopter you’d see more traffic take the larger roads and less traffic take the narrow roadways. Think of the size of roads as resistors. Larger roads have less resistance and narrow winding roads create more resistance that slows traffic.

Look at the first example. There is 9 volts going through R1 and R2. What is the voltage at the intersection ?1. You can solve this if you understand voltage dividers. The formula is:

?1 = 9V * ( R2 / (R1 + R2))

?1 = 9V * ( 1K / (1K + 1K))

?1 = 9V * 1000 / (1000 + 1000)

?1 = 9V * 1000 / 2000

?1 = 9V * 0.5

?1 = 4.5V

Here I walked through the steps to solve the problem. Notice I converted 1K to 1000 ohms. Then finished up from there.

The formula is: V * R2 / (R1 + R2)

The shortcut here is if both resistors are the same value then voltage is divided in half. This would be true for any values for R1 and R2. Try it yourself. Imagine R1 and R2 are 10K. Then try R1 and R2 at 47K and 100K.

What happens when the values are not equal? What’s the voltage at the intersection: ?2.

?2 = 9V * 100K / (100K + 20K)

?2 = 9V * 20K / 120K

?2 = 9V * 20,000 / 120,000

1.5V = 9V * 0.166

Solve number 3 on your own!

To solve ?4 we have to know that resistors in series are added together. That means that we have a total resistance of 16.7K. To solve ?4:

?4 = 9V * (10K + 4.7K) / (2K + 4.7K + 10K)

?4 = 9V * 14.7K / 16.7K

?4 = 9V * 0.88

?4 = 7.92

Solve ?5 on your own…

With this knowledge you can start examining the Rangemaster circuit. Notice R1 and R2 for a voltage divider!

POT1 is also a voltage divider. Let’s take a moment to look at potentiometers.

Potentiometers

These are adjustable resistors. You’ll use potentiometers or “pots” when your circuits need to be able to adjust the resistance at a point in the circuit. A pot has three legs. Imagine the center leg is located between two resistors. The resistances change as you turn the pot!

We draw the pot like the image on the left. Internally it acts like the images on the right.

Imagine we have a 10K pot. With the knob in the center the resistance is divided equally with 5K on the top and 5K on the bottom. This is a voltage divider! In this case you would see have the input voltage at the center leg!

If you rotated the pot clockwise the resistor on the top (R3) might be 0 ohms and the all of the resistance 10K might appear at the bottom.

If we went counter clockwise it would be reversed.

If you rotated the almost to the end you might have 2K resistance at the top and 8K at the bottom. Imagine there was 9V at the top, use the voltage divider to calculate the voltage at the center.

Transistors modeled as a current controlled resistor

With these ideas we can now look at the transistor, which is the heart of the Rangemaster. The Rangemaster is an amplifier. It takes a small audio input and produces a louder audio output. The transistor is used to amplify the signal.

A transistor has three legs. For NPN and PNP transistors the legs are called: Emitter, Base, and Collector. The Emitter is leg with the arrow. The Base is in the middle.

To explain how the transistor works we will model it as a current controlled resistor. For this discussion we will use the NPN version of the Rangemaster schematic and the transistor will be NPN.

Take a look at the diagram above. Imagine the transistor drawn on the left is in your Rangemaster circuit. Imagine that inside the device is a resistor. The value of this resistor is controlled by the amount of current present at the base. Outside the transistor the Rangemaster has a 10K resistor (POT1) at the collector and a 3K9 resistor at the emitter.

With no current applied to the base there is so much resistance you can image that there is no connection at all. We would see about 9V at the collector.

When a small amount of current is applied to the base the resistance between the collector and emitter starts to decrease. Imagine the collector/emitter path is now showing 100K resistance. Now we have a voltage divider! You could use the formula above to calculate the voltage at the collector!

With more current applied to the base the C/E path might go down to 10K resistance. Using the voltage divider formula the voltage present at the collector goes down as more of the electron traffic goes through the 3K9 resistor.

With a lot of current at the base the C/E path might go as low as 100 ohms and the voltage at the collector would go even lower!

Did you notice when the current at the base goes up the voltage at the collector goes down. And conversely, when the current at the base is low the voltage at the collector goes up. A transistor amplifies because it allows out circuit to turn small changes in current to larger swings in voltage.

Notice the diagram above. When the current is high the voltage is low! This is an inverting amplifier. The signal at the output will be a mirror or opposite of the input signal.

Biasing the Transistor

There is a little more needed to make this work. Imagine the incoming signal might swing between +1v and -1v. When the input is above 0V the transistor starts working. When it’s 0V or less the CE path is closed off.

Look at the diagram above. The signal going in is a sine wave but the signal coming out is getting chopped. This would cause some distortion! In this case it probably wouldn’t sound too good. It also explains why your transistor circuits sometimes don’t sound right!

To make the amplifier work we need to bias the transistor so with no input the output settles at a point somewhere between the extremes.

Take a look at the diagram above. Here I’ve added R1 and R2 from the original schematic. These provide an amount of current to the base so that it sits around 7V. With this arrangement positive input pushes more current to the base opening the CE path and lowering the output. When the input signal is negative this pulls current from the base which increases the resistance of the CE path and the voltage at the output goes up.

Biasing is the term that describes applying a DC current to the base of a transistor such that it is it near the middle of it’s range. It needs bias so the output can go up and down from the bias point.

All 4 of the resistors play a part of the amplifier. R1 (470K) and R2 (68K) provide the current to bias the transistor. POT1 (10K) and R3 (3K9) also determine where the bias should be since the lowest voltage output is determined by the voltage divider created by these two resistances. Imagine the CE path had 0 ohms resistance.

? = 9V * 3.9 / (10 + 3.9)

? = 9V * 3.9 / 13.9

2.5 = 9V * 0.28

This concludes the discussion of the Rangemaster. From here the goal is to build your own! Along the way think of this discussion.

Building the Rangemaster

For this part of the lesson it’s up to you to figure out which build method and which circuit you want to build.

There are several approaches you can take to building the Rangemaster:

Kit

PCB

Strip/Vero-board

Perf-board

Terminal strip

Solderless Breadboard

Kit

Buying a kit will cost more but you’ll get everything you need in one package!

https://www.distortionltd.com/diy-kits/diy-kit-rangemaster

https://www.ebay.com/p/1572955451

https://puzzlesounds.com/store/rangemaster-treble-booster-kit/

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/effects-projects/boosters/rangemaster/

PCB

A PCB makes for an easier neat clean build but you’ll have to source parts yourself.

https://www.taydaelectronics.com/rangemaster-diy-pcb-guitar-effect.html

https://rullywow.com/product/serpentboost2/

https://puzzlesounds.com/store/rangemaster-treble-booster-pcb/

https://www.ebay.com/itm/203154217735

Strip/vero board

This is perforated boards with strips of copper. Use it for prototyping.

https://paulinthelab.blogspot.com/2014/04/rangemaster-treble-booster-stripboard.html

http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2014/02/dallas-rangemaster-pnp-negative-ground.html

https://www.sabrotone.com/request-dallas-rangemaster/

Perfboard

Like vero board but has one pad per hole.

http://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/2014/11/range-blaster.html

http://diy-fever.com/effects/dallas-rangemaster/

Terminal Strip

The original Rangemaster was assembled on a terminal strip. This is for the artists and historians.

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/diy-rangemasters-opinions.379310/

http://turretboard.knucklehead.dk/2011/02/28/terminal-npn-rangemaster-with-mods/

Solderless bread board

Use a solder less bread to experiment with the design.

http://diy.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/BreadboardRMs/BreadboardRMs.htm

Study guide

Here is some reading material to follow up the discussion above.

This guide to Breadboarding the Rangemaster at Small Bear Electronics is a great guide to circuit.

http://diy.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/BreadboardRMs/BreadboardRMs.htm

Stompboxology was a news letter put out in the early days of DIY when the internet was young. It never caught on and it and it’s creator mysteriously vanished. That said I found this issue to contain one of the best discussions of transistors for stompbox usage I have read. It also contains a discussion of core concepts for electrical engineering that you will need to know to build effects pedals.

http://moosapotamus.net/files/stompboxology-going-discrete.pdf

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the Rangemaster. Most of it is over my head but it’s still good reading.

https://www.electrosmash.com/dallas-rangemaster

Stompbox Studies – Class 1 was originally published on Super-Freq

[bookwyrminspiration]

is it still council-hating hours? even if not, this is something that's been bothering me for....so long. and i am going to explode if i don't say it right now. (In fact i actually have a doc titled "council incompetence rant" that is. getting a little long.)

One of the things that annoys me the most in Keeper is how utterly incompetent the Council is. They are shit at their jobs! They don't make sense! And that would be fine if that was something that was explored and talked about in the story, but it's not?

Like, sure, it's brushed on a little, but Keeper never goes in-depth in order to explain just how flawed and corrupt the system is! We have no idea how far the rot goes because we haven't been given a chance to see how far it goes, and despite the earlier books being really great setup for all kinds of plots and discussions surrounding the Council, it feels like Messenger is completely dropping that in favor of..."Neverseen Bad, Council + Black Swan Good". Which I call fucking bullshit on, by the way, because this series has gone to pretty decent lengths before to show that it's not the case! So WHY are we getting to that now?

Well, I think all of this is the symptom of a bigger problem.

Note: I don't want to be mean, and please tell me if I'm being too critical here, but this series has some serious problems actually delivering on what it's saying.

Like, it's trying to tell us that Sophie shouldn't be doing all this because she's a kid, but then it treats her very own existence as a project as background information when that should absolutely be at the forefront (like it was in earlier books)!

It's trying to tell us that discrimination against the Talentless is bad, but then every single member of it's cast has an ability, has a strong ability, and regularly uses their ability! Even Dex, who could have easily been talentless and good with tech, gets to be a Super Good Gadget Person thanks to his ability as opposed to his own creativity and ingenuity.

It's trying to tell us that maybe banishing children is bad, but also tells us that Exillium is now """fixed""" because Oralie gave them...better tents? Food? And never touches on the fact that children are still. getting. banished. It doesn't explore Tam's anger in detail, Linh is only there to be the token asian girl, it does nothing to fully dispel any thought of the Council being alright.

And it's trying to tell us that the Council fucks up, it's showing us that Councillors have no problem being incredibly selfish and violent and so many other terrible things, but that never changes. Nothing in Keeper is changing. It is only maintaining the status quo!

I'm confused as to what Messenger is trying to tell her readers! Are the Council good or bad? Is working with the Council good or bad? Are the Black Swan and Neverseen actually morally grey? Should I be angry at what's happening in these books? Am I meant to look at all the rot and shrug because "that's just how it is"?

And like...I wouldn't be mad if Keeper was just...bad! I mean, I would, but I wouldn't be as distraught! What really grinds my gears is that Keeper has the chance to be good. It has the chance to do great things - and at times it absolutely does! - but it keeps reinforcing belief in a deeply flawed and broken system that is regularly hurting people. And those examples were just off the top of my head!

And again, if this was explored within the series, that would be amazing, but the problem is that it's...not. And that's just...a real fuckin' shame, honestly.

- pyro

(sorry if this was like...too angry? i started and then kinda just...couldn't stop. i should probably get a hobby that's not tearing a middle grade series apart. oops.)

it may have been over a week since you sent this (thank you for being patient with me!!), but fuck yes it is still council hating hours. it is always council hating hours in this household that is not actually a house. (also that incompetence rant sounds intriguing)

yes! you are right! they are so bad at what they're supposed to be doing it's like they're just figures for people to look to and say "yea they'll take care of it" to keep everyone else from acting out! but it's really interesting to see a government so awful and incompetent be such an integral and influential part of the story...without acknowledging that they're actually really bad? I know in Unlocked there's a line where Shannon says something like "Sophie had to figure out who the bad guys were: the black swan? the council? someone else entirely?" but then it's never touched on again that I can remember. Thinking through the series, I honestly can't think of a situation that the council, of their own volition, saw was an issue and corrected in a way that was beneficial to those who needed it. Like yea, Oralie gave money to Exillium, but that was after Sophie chewed her out about it. I think i've said it before but in case not: it feels like they've taken the "for the good of the many over the good of the few" ideology too far in a society that doesn't work for. If someone threatens the majority (and often that's just in appearance only) they get rid of them to preserve the image of the rest. It doesn't care about their people, it cares about the majority of people feeling undisturbed.

considering Sophie is part of a huge organization created literally because their society, led by that system, isn't working for a lot of people, they (the Black Swan) sure do go along with the council a whole lot. I think one of the linked posts in one of my masterposts is specifically about how making the Black Swan work so closely with the council screwed them over and completely undermined everything they were working towards. I'm going to make a very vague comparison here, but the Black Swan feel like "we need to fix the system" while the Neverseen are "the system is broken lets start over" (except the Neverseen added a lot more violence into the mix). It's absolutely infuriating to have them working side by side: one, because the Black Swan aren't accomplishing any of their goals and should cut their losses and go back to being mysterious underground groups with more freedom to move (in my opinion), but two, because it makes the council seem like it's trying to fix things when really it feels like a publicity thing to make the public think they're addressing the rebel issue while they're really just showing up in places and causing problems. And!! that's another thing! it feels like their collaboration with the Black Swan is to address the problem of having rebels, not the problems these rebels have identified and are trying to fix. Unfortunately, it seems the council is getting their way more than the Black Swan, getting them to act more legally and work closer with less room for working outside the system. if that makes sense.

considering it's literally stated in unlocked that there is no "good" and "bad," there does seem to be a lot of focus on associating the Black Swan with being Right, and the Neverseen with being Wrong. I can hope that it's the outward reactions to the Black Swan realizing they've done some fucked up stuff (Sophie) and are now overcompensating and trying to make sure their every move is the correct one. But I do think it will be interesting to see if Sophie makes the connection in canon (as she's already started to) that there isn't always a right option, there's just the best you can do with a situation and the Black Swan's insistence that she was "in the wrong" (a summary) helps her realize her own values and think through their decisions with her own perspective instead of just trusting them

response to your note: you're fine! you bring up a good point that this book sounds like it wanted to be a unique perspective (by having the "good guys" also be questionable and give the "bad guys" reasonable motives) but the execution misses the mark for a lot of us. so you're qualms and observations are entirely valid and I don't think you're being mean at all! I think you're expressing a frustration you have with something, which I support and encourage.

at times it feels like Shannon bit off more than she could chew in terms of all the complicated things she could get into when it comes to this series. not saying she's doing a bad job or a horrible author or anything, just that there are some things she introduced that kind of get left behind or unexplored because there's so much else going on. I think we can see that in the whole being experiment part of Sophie life. we saw sophie was uncomfortable with it in the first few books and would sometimes bring it up, but I personally would've been more satisfied if she'd either taken the time to process it (opposed to her think about that later strategy) or come to the realization that no, she isn't okay with it and she deserves to have her thoughts on the matter heard. she was literally created to serve someone elses purpose, and brought into the fight too early at that. and yet it's treated like an "oopsie, guess we just gotta go with it" thing, like this minor part of her story when I bet her thinking about it for more than a minute at a time would absolutely wreck her. but I'm getting caught up in this, so moving on!

I think we can see it in the talentless too, as it's treated like a "that doesn't affect me" thing for Sophie. because she doesn't have any friends that are talentless right now--the closest she's got is Marella, who I think is still legally considered talentless with her pyrokinesis. it's been acknowledged that she doesn't think the way talentless are treated is right, but it doesn't impact her right now so she's not really doing anything about it. maybe if this was brought back later with someone like Jensi, then that would be a satisfying conclusion to this issue (not a conclusion, but it wouldn't be left hanging, if that makes sense). And I can understand the benefit of leaving things open to go back and explore later from a writers perspective, but at a certain point it becomes more of a hindrance to the story than anything else.

and exillium! I have so many thoughts on Exillium that I actually started talking about it earlier in this post. They're not doing anything unless prompted and what they do is the bare minimum. With the tents and the food, they aren't fixing Exillium, they're making it into what it should've been at the very least were they going to actually go down that route. So I can't praise them for it when it's just basic decency to provide literal children with food and shelter when you force them to be somewhere they don't want to. But all this doesn't fix Exillium, because the problem is that it exists in the first place. The problem is that the council saw children who were struggling, and decided the best thing to do with them was to just get them out of the way for everyone else. Three coaches total for leadership? yeah, there's no way that place was ever supposed to be "alternate learning" or however Oralie phrased it, that was just so you could say you hadn't completely abandoned them in the middle of nowhere.

you're so right about the council fucks up bit--I think the most obvious example of this is with Sophie's ability restrictor. Yea, she's not wearing it anymore, but that's not because the council changed their minds. It's because she broke the law and the didn't punish her for it. this is a great example of how things keep trying to move forward, but the council isn't doing anything to stay up with it. "they are selfish and violent[...] but that never changes." yes!! this!! you put it so well! the council is still the same old council that we saw in book one, concerned with their own interests and their own views, just trying to mitigate the damage Sophie and her friends are capable of doing to their system. Note: the fact that a handful of teenagers who haven't even graduated can do this much damage might be telling of the structural integrity of their system. Bronte and Terik did a little flip, and Alina replaced the Now Crispy Kenric, but aside from that nothing has changed.

I will say, I personally don't want it to be clear who the good guys and bad guys are. (not saying that's what you're asking for! just piggybacking off your comment on the confusion). I'm glad that the characters make me think and I'm grateful there isn't just the "we're good and they're bad" element you see in other stories. not that that's bad, i just think realistically they'd be more complex and their simplicity grows repetitive after a while. But like I said, at times it feels like there's too much going on for there to be a clear message, which in and of itself could be the message. i could be seeing something where there's nothing, though. I think part of it might be Shannon trying to take on all these complex narratives and perspectives with a limited perspective (as in she only has Sophie to tell the story through), while also needing to make it enjoyable and palletable to a young audience.

and I agree with you! I think it's a lot of the potential we see not being used that makes us so infuriated (or me at least). Because there are some stories yo uread where you're like "ah. it's just one of those stories. cool." and you move past it. Because you know it's going to have a set perspective and you know it's going to accomplish what it wants, but Keeper seems to have so many possibilities and Shannon's getting stuck in this rut of good and bad after so long. maybe we'll get out of it in the next book with sophie thinking the Black Swan was in the wrong, but I also wouldn't be surprised if that Didn't Happen.

it's just like what i was saying about Ro! There's all these opportunities for these characters and this world to be really explored and fleshed out and complex, but we've gotten stuck in this romance drama and loosing fights again and again with little progress. All their actions are undoing the Neverseen's actions and counting it a victory because no one is dead. I just think there could be so much more that we're not getting because the story tried to go too broad when it wasn't ready for it.

this response got very long but in essence: I agree with your assessment of the story. is frustrating to see so many of the details and paths we'd like to see explored that often aren't in fiction just pass us by.

there is a special place for keeper in my heart and I will always appreciate it for that, but I also mourn what it could've been.

(also: you are not too angry! you have genuine thoughts about this series and they deserve to be heard! we are allowed to have complaints, even about the things we like. we don't have to appreciate every single aspect and we're allowed to be mad at the things we don't like.)

[jamestrmtx]

Fairytale Complex - [Undertale | Sans x Reader]

[Gender Neutral, Frisk's Parent Reader | Slow Burn]

Chapter Twenty Two | Another Medium (Part 2 of 4)

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

"Hurry, ren. We're gonna be late!"

You smile down at Frisk and watch as they tug at the edge of your shirt to try pulling you along with them.

The door's left open, and even though those meant to pick you up for the event aren't here yet, they still urge you to go outside and wait.

"It's only seven, honey." Your thoughts drift back to your video call and Sans's most recent text message, letting you know half an hour later that he'd be here soon. "We've got a few minutes left." You grab their hand and put a stop to their energy, facing their eyes. "Are you that excited about starting school?"

They nod and grin wide. "Even more, if you're gonna be working there, too!"

Your smile falls as you remember the folder Sans had given you. It had been thrown into the farthest corner of your bookshelf that same day, and you'd been too reluctant to look at it any more ever since. You didn't want to take their kindness and help for granted, just as much as you didn't want to forget about your reasons for learning more about monsters. Your godmother was right in terms of you needing to understand them more, so you've established it upon yourself to bring that up during your first, official date night with the skeleton. Understanding the changes being made to the Underground could aid you with the slim chance of finding a way to either halt or delay it from becoming a big tourist attraction, and you could finally be more clear and upfront about your feelings related to the dream -- even if all of that was easier said than done. Not only had you crossed far too many boundaries with him already, but you were still keeping your dubious relationship with him, all while continuing to be wary of him and everyone else for their past. The subtle but no less irate light to his gaze when having your aunt bring up the the Judgement Hall had been more than sufficient for you to try something -- or at least, assist him and every other monster with that process.

In short, hypocrisy's absorbing you bit by bit, and today's your very first attempt at trying to break free from that. Whether you succeed or not doesn't matter. Giving it a shot, on the contrary, does. Even the slightest amount of closure achieved with your research could help in setting your thoughts straight, and -- perhaps -- to finally stop yourself from comparing monsterkind with Jerry.

To put it this way: you couldn't allow yourself one thing if you were allowing the other to continue happening.

After all, why were you willing to engage in a relationship with someone like Sans, when you were still far from forgiving and much less forgetting Jerry over abandoning Frisk for so many years?

Why were you willing to befriend someone like Alphys, who'd been close to ending up in jail due to the failed experiments made on those of her own kind?

Why were you willing to book a night at Mettaton's hotel, knowing he'd once set Frisk into danger greater than any other monster you knew had -- Undyne being a close second?

Even someone like Papyrus brought harm to them once!

"Ren," Frisk calls out, tugging your hand. "You look angry. Are... Are you okay?"

You nod and let out a breath, composing yourself. "I'm fine, honey."

"Are you still thinking about avenging me?"

Your eyes shoot wide open at that, and you can't avoid suspecting they might have the capability of reading your mind.

Regardless of their word choice, you were -- in a sense -- wanting to avenge them from anyone who'd once caused them harm, be it Jerry, the monsters, or the loud and nosy neighbour from next door wondering why Frisk enjoyed playing with action figures just as much as they did playing with princesses.

"Ren!"

Hearing their whine of concern, you snap out of it and look down to see they've let go of your hand, both their arms now outstretched and in wait for your embrace.

"Do you want a hug?"

Your smile returns at that, albeit a bit more melancholic compared to the first time. You get down to their height and pull them in for a hug, sighing when you have them safe in your hold; it feels right to have them close and in your care, no matter how much your mind insists otherwise. The question you brought up back at the Judgement Hall still feels like the most subconscious part of your mind had possessed you, insisting you turn back to how you used to be after Frisk's fall.

"You don't need to protect me that much!" they say, letting go. "I... I know all the monsters well, so I'd tell you if any one of them's bugging me. You don't need to hate them for my sake, and you don't have to compare them to dad, either." Without a doubt, if humans still had the capability of using magic and spells, you would label them a mind reader. "You should get to know them on your own first, and not just based on who they are to me. Because if that's really all up to me, then the only one I don't really like much is..."

At that, they stop; they bring a finger to their chin and tap it twice, delving deep in their thoughts along the way.

"Huh..." Frisk taps their chin again and their gaze turns furrowed, scrunching up the more they think about it. "I mean, I don't really know if I dislike any of them... I just know I wanna have friends!"

You're compelled -- if not, urged -- to argue against that, though your heart stops you from spilling any of those thoughts out. Still, your mind attempts to push through it. Personal feelings couldn't cloud your judgement, if that meant it could bring harm to your child.

"Even if they-"

Hearing the engine rumbling as Papyrus parks close by the sidewalk is a blessing in and of itself; the aforementioned date night with his brother can't get here any sooner. You need to sort your thoughts out once and for all. Almost half a year of waltzing with the seemingly never-ending issue of Frisk's journey and the bonds they made through it was far too much. If you were slowly making friends with those same people too, then you needed to stop this at once. No matter how much you wanted to avoid said confrontation, that had to be done -- for both CPS and reasons beyond.

"You're right." You huff, bring a hand to your forehead, and go lower to massage the brim of your nose. Not a moment after, you fix your glasses, look back to their side, and form a smile. "Thank you, dear."

• • •

You close your eyes just before the monster presses a damp cotton ball to your wound.

Isopropyl makes it sting immediately, yet you're too busy with your thoughts to care about it that much.

"You okay?" Sans asks, meeting your eyes when you open them. "You've been quiet since we got 'ere."

"I'm okay, but..." You think back to how you greeted him with a wave, right as you did with his brother. While the monster before you didn't seem to mind it, you can't avoid the thought of how you used to be with Jerry. It was easier to be more affectionate back then, and it was easier still greeting him with a kiss -- be it a simple one on the cheek or a quick one on the lips. Now, you can't so much as imagine the prospect of doing that with your new partner without overthinking or feeling stressed about it. "I was wondering if we... if we should maybe keep our relationship private -- f- for now?"

He finishes wrapping the bandages and fixes them tight before replying with, "That's fine with me. Did you watch the video?"

"No, I'm..." You grow short of breath at the thought of how many people have likely seen it by now -- how many times it's been shared, and how many more discussions and heated arguments have revolved around it. "I'm too scared to."

You can't bring yourself to look at him any longer, so his expression falls unknown as he suggests watching it together, a question you answer to with a quiet and mumbled 'sure'.

Sans proceeds with a nod and stores all the items used back into the first aid kit before taking out his phone, settling down in bed, and holding your hand with his free one. "Really sure?" he asks, squeezing it once. You reply with an even quieter 'yes' and watch in silence as he clicks on the link sent by what you assume is several people, based on how Undyne, Brenda, and even the man from the train station -- now his friend and your co-worker -- have messaged him the same information, all three left unread. The one he chooses is farther back and dated with yesterday, this one sent by Jerry.

It plays in an instant and the first thing to appear is Asgore's garden, while murmurs are what compose the audio as the one filming shows himself around a field of trampled flowers, these now a mess of broken pots, thrashed earth, and missing rocks. A few others make him company and engage in small talk, though it ends quickly when one of them shouts for everyone to 'get over here quick'. The group does as told, leading for the cameraman to rush along with them out of the garden and into the Judgement Hall. The audio grows quiet as he ventures further, steps and voices now discreet as he films a fuzzy image of two people sitting at one of the benches laid around, with the exception that one sits on top and has their arms wrapped firm and tight around the other. Multiple people urge the cameraman to approach the scene more, making him show you and Sans kissing, albeit of a blurry quality with how much he has to zoom in so as to not be caught. Even the noise is recorded with how silent everything else is, this one mostly composed of hitched breaths and clothing shuffling against each other as you hug him closer. Thankfully, no kissing noises are recorded, something you assume is due to him having a shapeable skull rather than lips, along with how slow and careful your actions are.

The video ends when the kiss does, and it leaves you in the same silence created right before clicking on it.

Regardless, Sans opens up the page it was posted on to reveal more information about the creator.

'Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this stuff? This is the future that awaits us, if we continue to act as if we can live peacefully with these people. Opposing these changes is necessary, if we wish to keep our normalcy. Casual make outs with a being so far from human shouldn't be the norm of our world', reads the caption.

Below, some of the replies read from ones saying the poster isn't the only one who shares those thoughts, to ones who've taken the time to write an entire paragraph about the situation.

'🤢🤮'

'Absolutely not.'

'No, you're not. This is outright hideous.'

'Click here to see my 👄 HOT 🔥 noods 🍝: www.uhohspaghettios.xd'

'Wow, this is just like 1984.'

'Next thing you know, we'll be the ones living in the Underground.'

'I need eye bleach ASAP!!! 😱'

'Yeah, no. Hard pass on whatever the hell I just watched. Why did you even film this?'

'That skeleman is nothing but a closeted cradle-robber. Anyone who's met (Y/N) knows how naïve and childish they are, and them dating someone like that screams bad news. Forget that he's a monster, people! What's more important here's how he's got a liking for them despite that gap -- both mentally AND physically. He should be ashamed for bringing their reputation even further down with this video. At this point, I have trouble believing they'll ever recover from all this.'

'...Ok, but...... Am I the only one who finds this kinda.................. Hot? 👀💦'

'Of course, even a monster would try to have his way with someone like them. Look at how they're dressed!'

'To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand how wrong this stuff is. The degeneracy infesting the Surface nowadays is extremely subtle, and without a solid knowledge of social sciences, most of the immorality will go over a typical person's head. There's also the skeleton's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation -- his personal philosophy draws heavily from George Orwell literature, for instance. People like us understand this stuff; we have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these social rejects, to realise that they're not just ridiculous -- they say something deep about LIFE and SOCIETY. As a consequence, people who see nothing wrong with this truly ARE idiots -- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in the skeleton's existential catchphrase "Genocide is wrong", which itself is a cryptic reference to Er*n Yeag*r from Att*ck on Tit*n. I'm smirking right now, just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as our fight against this backwards evolution unfolds itself on their phone screens. What fools... How I pity anyone who disagrees with you and tries to defend this behaviour. 😂'

At the bottom of it all, a neglected comment reads:

'Not only are you and your companions trespassing in an unsafe location, but your recording shows clear evidence you were damaging former King Asgore Dreemurr's property. You have also chosen to film these people without their knowledge despite them being in a private area, and uploaded the footage to a massive social media platform, as well. This is punishable by law, and I will not hesitate to stand for these people, if they decide to file a lawsuit against you.'

What stands out the most goes beyond the commenter's name, as his profile picture is what captures your attention first, regardless of how well-dressed he appears in the image and how small it is without clicking on it. Sans seems to share the same thought as you, as he clicks on the man's account without thinking twice. It takes some time to load, but when it does, your mouth gapes and you find yourself at a complete loss for words.

'Gerardo "Jerry" Gonzalez Gutierrez del Valle. Family practice lawyer since 20XX. Co-founder of the first Alcohol and Smoking Helpline for monsters. Former quarterback for Ebott U's Football League,' his bio reads.

You're overcome by what feels like an hour of silence before you can process what you've read. The age-old experience of reviewing material from your textbook at three thirty in the morning arrives when you try to read through his profile a second time, then a third. Even his pictures are difficult to process, these a variety of him posing with his co-workers at the newly-opened helpline building, screenshots of his progress with quitting alcohol and his strike of days and months sober, images of him in different suits, and -- last but not least -- a couple of Throwback Thursdays from his glory days, featuring both high school and college memories. It's hard to decide which feeling out of multiple is stronger than the rest, as jealousy combines with the slightest thing you expect out of this discovery: being reminded of the good ol' days. Guilt arrives next when growing aware of your current relationship with the one sitting next to you, even if it's only the thought of how happy you used to be with the man in those pictures before everything went haywire.

"You're... You're seeing this too, right?"

You hear him chuckle and see him agree with a nod, though you can't exactly fall back down to Earth again; were this a dream, you would accept it as such.

"Yeah." The monster looks you over once before adding, "And am I imagining it, or did I catch you smilin' at 'im just now?" He winks.

"So you're telling me you're really not surprised by this, at all?"

"...Touché."

You stand up and give your back to him, irked by his assumption despite him being nothing close to serious about it. "But, please don't think I still like him." Your hands turn into fists at the thought of going back with someone like him, no matter his current intentions. "I still haven't forgiven him, and I still..." Bile rises to your throat as your stomach churns wildly. "I still hate him." Then, you take a pause to gather strength. "And maybe that's a strong word, b- but... It's hard for me to forget that's the same man who once accused me for every little thing that wasn't 'normal' with Frisk, from them running away the first time, to them refusing to call him dad -- even when I never prevented them from visiting him, and e- even when he stopped visiting them first." Your chest shakes as you huff. "I... I still dislike him, and I really hate that I remembered good things about him just now."

Your mouth refuses to shut up and makes you continue on with, "So if I still can't forgive him, how can I make a decision for CPS with so many of you and in so short of a time? I still can't decide what to do, no... no matter how much I've learnt about everyone else." Your throat turns dry, and you find it difficult to swallow. "Hell, it was only yesterday I finally gave into one of my doubts. I thought it twice before asking if you wanted to kiss, but it'd been in my mind for a long while before that."

"You're sayin' the kiss was you decidin' to trust me?"

"Yes."

He scoots closer to your side and furrows his gaze.

"Even after that dream, and even though I started it?"

"Y... Yes." You do the same as him and smile. "I trust you, and... And I know the dream's likely just me overthinking this. One thing's spilling the truth when you're drunk, and one thing's getting... too caught up in your fears -- to the point where you have these warped dreams about someone else, no matter how much they mean to you."

His irises soften in their light, and a hint of culpability seems to fall on him. "Then I'm sorry for bringin' your ex into this." You sit back down with him and hold his hand again. "It wasn't right."

"It's okay."

"Doesn't look that way."

Before you know it, you're held by your lower back, pulled close, and brought down in bed.

He stays on top, gaze focused on yours rather than on your lips or anywhere else suggesting something more.

"Have you found that help yet? Counseling, I mean." His gaze remains the same despite having changed topics so abruptly. "How're ya doin', puddin'?"

"Bubbles and Brenda suggested two recently, but I... I still haven't gotten around to calling either one of them."

"Want me to make you company while you try that now? We've got time."

"...Kiss me first, please?"

He lowers more and presses his teeth to your neck.

"Gladly."

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

• • •

Tag List (Comment or message me if you want to be added to [or removed from] it!)

@the-simp-express

@nektotersh

@disastrous-l0vebug

@therealchickenjoe

@mintyflakes025

@pandaquick

@timelock97

@candle-creeps

@paperb9gs

@merak0

@homesickinvader

[jaedore]

BINDING BONDS | 10

< prev | next >

parings: jung jaehyun x reader

genre: ceo!au, arranged marriage!au, angst, asshole Jaehyun, swearing

[ ☽ smut (suggestive) | ◇ angst (belittling, swearing) ]

note: BB deals with themes of mental and physical abuse, which can be upsetting for some readers. If you feel uncomfortable reading these types of plots, you are advised to not continue. MINORS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK, but I advise you to skip the sexual parts.

[ 8k words ]

You can feel the Spring breeze settle on your skin, the cooling wind planting goosebumps on your naked back as it brushes the blankets from your body. You reach for Jaehyun and his warmth, but the familiar body isn’t next to yours. Lifting your heavy head, you search for him in the room to only find him leaning against the balcony, overlooking the city below his feet. Putting on one of his t-shirts, you walk to him and put your arm on his back, rubbing circles on it. Jaehyun’s gaze continues to stick to the city. To you, it looks like he didn’t get a lick of sleep, dark eye bags painted his face, restlessness coating his eyes, his face showed no emotion. 

“Good morning,” you smile. You comb your fingers through his hair hoping to alleviate whatever weighed his mind, “you okay?” 

Jaehyun slightly nods to you, his head falling before he turned to face you, “yeah,” he said, “let’s get going or we’re going to be late.” 

With that, Jaehyun turned around to head back to your room. Confusion blurs your mind as you watch his figure pick up the discarded clothes from last night. Why was he acting like this? Usually, he’d still be in bed and holding you in his arms, being all lovey-dovey. Was it something that you did last night that he didn’t like? Were you giving too much? Or too little? Did he just not get enough sleep? Nothing but the latter would answer your question after seeing him rub his face. 

“Do you want to go grab breakfast before we go? We have a bit of time,” you glanced at the clock. 

“No, actually. I’d like to get home as quickly as possible,” Jaehyun responded, not giving you a glimpse as he shoves clothes into his luggage, his hands tightening in stress as he didn’t bother to fold them but instead bunch them in his fists. 

“Okay,” you drag out, “are you busy at work?” You asked. You wanted to know if something came up from work that he suddenly had to attend, but that thought disappeared as Jaehyun peered at you with a sliver of frustration. 

“Yes, please. Let’s go home.” 

You two board the plane, sitting next to each other not peeping a word. The tension between you two was so heavy that even the plane itself would struggle to cut through it. You sat still in your seat focused on your tablet as you did some work, but you also didn’t speak to him, afraid that you’d set something off. And Jaehyun didn’t say anything to you, afraid that he wouldn’t be able to control himself. 

You’re only married to her for business, you think this is all happy and fairytale-like? That everything’s all lovey-dovey just because you’re married upon a contract? No, I bet she doesn’t love you, she probably hates you because of you who are. A dirty, scathing, slug who only clings to the Jung name. Get your head out of your ass. The words his father spat at him echoed in his mind, it was like he etched his own words into Jaehyun’s brain, making sure they’d stick there. 

He turned to you, who fell fast asleep, your head hanging over your tablet. Like second nature, Jaehyun gently supported your head until it was up against the headrest, he knows you’d complain about the pain if you stayed in that position. You looked so graceful, harmonious, you are everything he’s ever wanted but he knows he’s far from perfect. Jaehyun knows that you are perfect, that you deserve someone perfect, someone better than him. Who was broken, unfixable, and cold. Last night was the last night you were going to have each other, for he was convinced that there will no longer be a moment to cherish, a moment to be intimate, a moment to love. You were too good for him and he had been too selfish. 

When he saw you about to wake, Jaehyun snapped his head back to the window, waiting for the sight of home to desperately reappear and for things to go in the way they were meant to be, just like how it was in the beginning. Maybe it was always supposed to be like that. 

Perhaps you were tired and drained, or possibly just sleeping to avoid conversing with Jaehyun. You knew he was still frustrated so you didn’t think it’d be the right time to talk about your trip, you hoped you could reflect on that with him when he’s ready. You genuinely enjoyed every bit of it and you have hope that he did too. 

It’s 5 AM when you arrive back home, the dark night sits upon you two like the mood. Not a word has been exchanged since this morning before boarding and the feeling that you did something that wasn’t pleasant to him still lingered in your mind. 

“Are you okay?” You asked, your body shifted in the passenger seat towards his.

“I’m perfect.” 

“You haven’t talked to me ever since last night.” 

“I’m just tired, the time zone has me all messed up,” Jaehyun responds, his voice calm. 

Bullshit. You thought. “What happened at work? You said it was because of work that’s got you frustrated.” 

“I fixed it on the plane. We just had to seal a hard deal, but everything should be fine now.” he keeps his gaze on the road, but you saw the way his fist tightened against the steering wheel like he was trying to refrain himself from saying something. 

You reached for his free hand that rested on the console, “you know you can tell me anything,” you caressed it.

“I don’t want to talk about y/n, I had a hard day today.” He responds in a calm tone, but it’s enough to slightly set you off in a bad mood because you were just trying to be considerate. 

You don’t bother to respond, so you pay no mind to him the entire ride back home. You two are quiet in your seats again, letting the hum of the car above the pavement take over the silence. 

The sun begins to rise as you two safely arrive home, ready to sleep through the day hopefully to prepare yourselves for the following weekday. You two are quick to shower and change and settle for bed. You wait up for Jaehyun as he finishes doing his nightly routine, gazing at his reflection in the mirror of the bathroom you try to read his expression as to what is really wrong with him. Jaehyun wasn’t acting normal to you, but maybe he was telling the truth, that it is the jetlag and he’s just had a really hard day. 

Jaehyun glances at your posture, reading how your arms are crossed and your forehead is creased, it definitely lets him know that you want to talk, but your features soften when you catch him glancing at you. Your arms fall to your sides and you turn away from him, covering yourself under the sheets as you let out a disappointed sigh. In the flash of a second, he knows that you’re disappointed. Were you disappointed in yourself? Or in the tension between you two and his lack of care to communicate to you?

Quietly, Jaehyun crawls beside you, mimicking your actions, his back facing you like there was a wall between and no one dared to knock it down, for who knows what chaos it would bring. 

The next couple of mornings brought coldness to your body. Every morning when you woke up, he was already gone and out the door, not a text was sent, not a note was posted. Nothing. Like he just vanished in thin air until he appeared with the moon when you were deep asleep. 

You went to bed every night alone, too tired to wait up for him. You tried to talk to him, but it’d always just result in him brushing you off like the dust on the picture of you two in Paris you gifted him. Even if you did talk to him, it was short and general. When you tried to ask him what was wrong, you’d apparently press the wrong buttons and an argument would ensue. 

One night you grew out of his silent treatment. As soon as he stepped through your shared apartment, the time had already reached midnight. Jaehyun walked in, surprised to see you sitting on the couch with a glass of wine in your hands as you gazed at the lights that protruded through the night sky. The image of you before him made him long for you. He knew you were upset, he could tell in the glint of your eyes when your head turned to the sound of his steps. 

“I didn’t think you’d still be up.” 

“I wanted to see you for once,” you respond.

“Look,” Jaehyun breathes, “it’s been busy at work.” 

“I can imagine-” you scoff, “-but do you think I haven’t been busy either? I still try to make time for us, but every time I do, it’s like you don’t want it.” 

“That’s not true. You know that.”

“But do I Jaehyun? You’ve been ignoring me for days! Every moment I talk to you, we always get on each other’s nerves and end up arguing. I haven’t even held you since we came back home. Please, please just tell me what’s going on.” You plead at the man in front of you, whose expression hasn't changed. You’re convinced that Jaehyun has turned off every emotion in his body, you’ve seen the cold, expressionless look too many times to count. 

“It’s just a bad time right now at work,” Jaehyun defends. 

“Yeah, I get it, everything is because of work. I got it,” you sigh, clearly too tired of the same answer over and over again. Perhaps it was a sign for you to stop. 

You stand from the couch, legs stiff from sitting so much, and you walk up to your room. Jaehyun doesn’t call after you. You even turn around to see him still sitting in the same position, his body facing where you once were. You wanted him to say your name, to run to you and envelop you, telling what was truly wrong. When the silence reached your ears, with sad eyes you left him in the living room until he was ready to come to bed. 

You don’t know when Jaehyun came, but when you felt the mattress dip behind you, you had a sudden urge to turn around and hold him in your arms, but when you turned around, you saw the well-known image of his back facing you. It took all of you to stop when you found yourself shifting your body towards him. You wrapped your arms around his large frame, sniffing the back of his shirt, inhaling the scent you missed every time you held each other. Leaning your head on his sturdy back, you heard his steady heartbeat. How peaceful it sounded. 

“I don’t know what’s going on, but please, let me know. I’m here for you, Jae. Please, please talk to me. I just miss you, I love you. I don’t know what happened that made us like this but please,” you beg, clutching onto him tightly as you prevent yourself from crying. You held him as tight as you could, afraid that if you loosen your hold, he’d slip right through your fingers like sand. 

Little did you know, Jaehyun heard you, he heard your sniffles and your broken voice. He knows you’re hurt because of him, but he also knows that this is for the better. It’s far better than if he were to completely give himself to you and let you do the same. So answering with silence, Jaehyun shifted away from your hold, leaving you alone and cold for the night. 

When he moved away from your body, you felt your heart clench. Your chest heaved and quiet tears streamed down your face as the cold air hit your chest. His silence and action threw answers that confirmed you were his problem. With a small part chipping from your heart, you turned your back to him, a regular body position you grew accustomed to. Minutes onto your side, you quietly turn back to check if Jaehyun was sleeping. His soft snores and long breaths proved your thoughts and with silent steps, you left.

You weren’t as silent as you thought, though. Jaehyun felt you leave, he heard you collect your things, shut the door, and exit the apartment. A big part of him wanted to sprint to you, but the other restrained him, bound him to the bed like the stars to the sky. 

Exiting the parking garage, you drove off into the night. You had no idea where to go at this time of the night, but the only person you wanted to see right now was your best friend. You took out your phone and dialed Haewon’s number, clinging to the hope that she’d pick up at 2 AM. 

After a couple of rings, the familiar voice rang through the line, “y/n? Why are you calling this late? Are you okay?” the grogginess could be heard in her voice and at once you felt bad for waking her up at such an inconvenient time. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Can I sleep at your place tonight?” 

“Of course. Text me when you’re here.” 

Haewon kindly offered you the other side of her bed, since it was big enough for you two and possibly even somebody else. The soft duvet fell over your figure as you wrapped yourself in the nostalgic blankets, remembering the feeling from when you were young and would always have sleepovers with her. What the old times brought.

As always, Haewon was kind in letting you lay in peace before speaking. You were a composed person always with organized thoughts, but how come the expression across your face contradicts that? 

“We’re fighting again.”

Haewon’s head shoots to you with wide eyes, your face still facing the ceiling, “are you serious?” 

You nod to her answer, not knowing what other information to provide to her that won’t make you break down in tears. You were always horrible at holding your emotions in for such a long time that the tears brimmed and streamed down the corners of your eyes, wetting the side of your face. 

“Oh, honey,” Haewon coos you as she wraps her arms around you, giving you the warmth of her hug and the comfort in her touch as she rubs circles on your back, letting you cry out everything you’ve shoved down. 

“Paris was fine, it was fun, and I thought things were going great between us. But the morning we had to leave, it’s like he shut off all of his emotions. He won’t even speak to me and every time he does, it’s short-lived,” you briefly explain as your breath is still stable. 

“Do you guys argue a lot?” 

You glanced at her, “yes, but it isn’t as bad as before. It’s not what you think, but whenever something small happens, he just bursts at me.” Even through complications, you still find yourself defending Jaehyun. 

“Arguing is still arguing y/n,” she breathed, “I can’t believe he’s still doing this to you. Have you talked about it to him?” 

You shook your head, “Every time I try to, he always disregards it or says it’s because of work.” 

“Bullshit,” it’s like Haewon read your mind, but only said them aloud. 

“I-I don’t know what to do Haewon,” you stuttered as your arms fell to your side. 

“Maybe something happened at home?” her voice rose in suspicion. No, she didn’t know about Jaehyun’s father, but there were always circulating rumors. 

You inhaled a sharp breath, yourself beginning to calm down from your high of crying, “maybe. I don’t know, I’m done trying to talk to him for now.” 

Haewon embraced you in her arms, “come,” she lowered your body to the bed, “let’s get some rest.” 

As you lay alone in the silence, with Haewon fast asleep, you couldn’t help but think that maybe the reason why Jaehyun’s been worked up is because of his father. Maybe something really bad happened between them and Jaehyun didn’t want to tell you. Were you two really lovers if he couldn’t communicate with you? But again, it is something very private to him. Your heart began to play games while your mind made sure to keep your thoughts linear, but your heart won the match and by the time the sun rose, you hadn’t gotten the slightest bit of sleep. You woke up before Haewon did, texting her your thankfulness before driving back to your apartment. 

Jaehyun also couldn’t sleep. Without you by his side, how was he supposed to? Even if he was the one to push you away for the better, he knows his heart only belongs to you now. His large body took over your space and his limbs stretched to all corners of the bed hoping that he could build the same amount of warmth your body did when it was here.

Carefully, you cracked the door open to your shared bedroom, Jaehyun laid on his back, conceiving all the space on the bed. The fall and rise of his chest made your heart waver because you just wanted to jump in bed, to feel him, and to smell that homey scent he always carried. How peaceful things were before...where and why did it go so wrong? 

“You’re here,” Jaehyun rose from his bed, snapping you from your trance, “where’d you go?” 

You shifted your gaze from him, “yeah, I spent the night at Haewon’s,” you grabbed your clothes that hung in the closet, not giving Jaehyun any attention and getting yourself ready for the day. You heard a small “oh” coming from him as he left for the bathroom. You let out a long sigh that neglected to relieve any tension your shoulders held. 

You swung your blazer around your shoulders as you sat down on the edge of the bed, after finishing making it. Just in time, Jaehyun came out of the bathroom. Hair wet, towel around his waist, robust body, what a sight that captivated your eyes. The last time you saw him this revealing was your last night in Paris and that was a while ago, everything has changed after that. He was so tender, soft, and kind, the longing feeling weighed on your chest as your eyes followed his naked figure into the closet. 

“Jae,” 

“Hm?” 

“Can we talk?” you asked. 

“What about?” 

“Why have you been avoiding me? Is it because of your father? Are you having nightmares again?” Your gaze fell upon your fumbling fingers before Jaehyun could snap his head at you. 

He hesitated, “no.” lies. Part of it was, but most of it was because of his own self. Jaehyun couldn’t risk ruining your successful life with his dark, corrupt one. You were the most perfect person he’s met, even with imperfections and flaws, he saw you as an angel. He saw himself as the dust that was even lucky enough to brush past your beautiful face. 

“Then what’s the matter? Why haven’t you been talking to me, Jaehyun? Everything’s changed since we got back from Paris.” You stood from the bed in your poor attempts to get closer to him. 

Jaehyun let out a loud sigh, clearly letting you know he didn’t want to talk about this, “can we just talk about this after work? I don’t want to start the day like this.” 

Again. Again and again. How many more times will he brush this conversation? How many more times will he brush you off? You felt hopeless like you were drowning and Jaehyun was in the boat above you watching you be engulfed by the water, yet refusing to give you the anchor. 

“This is pointless,” you mumble. You quickly collected your things and left after making sure to slam the door behind you. 

Jaehyun watched you leave, it hurt him every time you did because he didn’t know if you’d come back. Every time he made you leave, you were angry and the night would just end up being filled with slammed doors and cold nights, whether you were present or not. He stared at the bedroom door for what felt like hours, wishing that you’d come back and want to talk about it and fix things. But what was he expecting when he was constantly pushing you away at every chance that was given to him?

The day didn’t go by any faster, any moment you had to yourself, your mind was occupied with Jaehyun. Like he made a home there and didn’t plan on leaving. You found it hard to not overthink everything. From the home-cooked meals to the sex, you couldn’t find anything wrong that you did. Maybe he didn’t enjoy the sex? Am I too controlling? What if I’m not giving him enough? Or Any? What if that’s it??

You sat in your seat, completely disregarding the presentation. Who cares about rubber shoes? Audace is a chic, luxury fashion brand, we don’t do rubber. You were so occupied in your thoughts that with abruptness, you stood from your chair and left the meeting without a word. You carried your portfolio and bag out the door with you, not bothering to stop at your office. 

At Jung Corporations, Jaehyun had just finished a meeting while his father was at another meeting outside of the building. He thanked the gods for their grace in giving him his own office, he wouldn’t be able to last a minute in the same room with his father. Looking over the notes on his tablet, his mind wandered to you again. Like your mind, you lived in his. Jaehyun always pondered if you’ve eaten, if you were taking plenty of mental breaks, and giving yourself the kindness your heart needed. Especially when he was treating you like this, he was sure to tell himself that this is for the best. He knows deep down in his heart that you deserve someone who can love you better than he can. Someone who can not only give you the utmost, fulfilling love, but also life. 

Like his whispered wishes, you barged through his doors. Jaehyun stood from his seat as he watched you saunter up to his desk with determination and anger in your eyes. There was no greeting, no hello, no warning, but just you pressing your lips against his. Oh, how much he’s missed the feeling, the warming pleasure from your lips, and how they executed tenderness. Like his body was running on his own, his arms made their way home on your waist, pulling you into his embrace. You gently tugged on the hair that laid on Jaehyun’s nape as he lured you to his body, before picking your legs and brushing papers from his desk to clear a space for you. 

You weren’t even thinking clearly, you were only driven by your emotions, but you missed him so much that even this kiss was everything. It’s everything that you ever wanted and you were ready to surrender and give all of your morals to him. 

Wrapping your legs around Jaehyun’s hips, he made his fingers busy by unbuttoning your top that laid beneath your blazer, later tearing it from you. Jaehyun’s fingertips set your skin aflame, every follicle of hair, skin he touched was burning and aching for more. 

“Please, please,” you whined when Jaehyun’s kisses trailed to your neck, giving your sweet spot attention. 

Regrettably, those words snapped Jaehyun from his muse. This is wrong, he thought as he immediately pulled away from you. You stared at him with your mouth slightly open, ready to say something, but he beat you to it.  

“This is wrong,” Jaehyun choked out. 

“I thought that this is what you wanted,” you whispered. 

He scoffed in disbelief, “are you being serious right now, y/n? Do you even hear yourself? Thinking that I only want you for your body?” 

“Well, it seems like it is because this worked,” you shot back, jumping from the desk. 

“You think that I’m in this for the sex?” Jaehyun questioned you, as you collected yourself again. 

It was your turn to scoff, “I’d like to think that because you haven’t spoken to me at all.” 

“We just talked this morning!” Jaehyun retorted. 

“Not like that. I mean like, actually talking about things other than your day, your work. I’m tired of it, I just want to talk about the things you enjoy, the things you want to do with me in the future.” You explained, sliding your blazer back on your cold body. 

“Well, I’m sorry that I can’t talk about you for a couple of days.” 

“That’s not what I meant! Oh my gosh Jaehyun, you are so oblivious.” You grabbed your things and left. 

You sat in your car, your head falling in your palms. What has gotten into you? This is not you, you never act so rashly like his. You’ve changed and right now you’re beginning to think it was for the worse. Tears threatened to brim at your eyes, but you pressed your palm against them hoping that they’d stay in because you still had half a day of work left. 

“Where have you been? You left so suddenly at the meeting,” your mother asked. 

“I just needed to take care of something.” You lied. 

“Is it because of Jaehyun? Is everything okay?” 

“It’s fine, we just had to figure some things out. Don’t worry about it mother,” you lied, again. How many more times were you going to lie to your own mother? Lie that you were okay and that you weren’t hurt, heartbroken?

“Okay,” she sighed in defeat, you were indeed stubborn, “well if you’re not busy, go check how the Designing Department is doing, and then you can head home. You don’t look too good.” 

“Yes, mother,” you nodded and headed to the lower level. 

You stood in the elevator, waiting for it to get to the designated floor. Your mind replayed your little stunt. You still hated yourself for making your way to Jung Corporations, just how desperate are you y/n?

Ding!

You stride towards the prototyping of the outfits, double-checking that everything was right. Making sure that each outfit was according to the style of Audace. You were already in preparation for Paris Fashion Week, you can’t let a small bead even be misplaced. Every stitching had to have the exact, appointed color; every fabric must be to scale and cut sharply, no loose threads. There’s no space for mistakes anymore. 

“How is this going, Chaeyoung?” Your eyes narrowed to speculate the embroidery of a jacket. 

“Perfect, we’re almost done. All we have to do is to sew in the beads in the embroidery.” Her head nodded to the jacket as her hands were occupied with another mannequin’s outfit. 

“I’m pleased to hear.” 

“Um, Miss y/n?” Chaeyoung’s voice called, but her tone was informal like she was talking to you as a friend. 

You turn towards her, humming for her call. 

“Are you okay? If I’m being honest, you don’t look the best,” she worriedly states. 

You blink a couple of times, even your mother said that you didn't look too good. Just how bad did you actually look? Last time you saw your reflection, you thought you looked decent, healthy at least. You nodded to Chaeyoung, “I’m fine, thank you. I’m actually heading home right now, so I’ll make sure to get plenty of rest.” 

“Oh...okay. I hope everything is okay.” 

Before leaving, you smiled at her consideration. It was interesting how everything ended up this way, especially between you two. You’d think that she’d have bad blood for you, but her kindness always made you reconsider that. In another world, you hoped that you two were genuine, friends.

You arrived home before Jaehyun, setting your things down at your feet, your body couldn’t even grasp energy to change. As soon as you closed the door, you grabbed a glass of water and sat on the couch waiting for Jaehyun to come home. 

The sky that was painted in streaks of red and orange, transfigured into dark hues, letting the moon take care of the people for the night. You found your mind reminiscing about your past and the fun trip to Paris. Everything was fun as long as it lasted, you somehow knew things were going to get worse before they got better, you just didn’t think it’d be this bad and come so soon. 

The familiar click of the door perked your head towards Jaehyun who looked like he had a stressful day. Maybe it was because of you, but you were silently praying that you were wrong. 

“Hey,” he greeted, untying his shoes. 

“Hi,” you shifted in your seat, waiting for him to come your way. 

Feeling the dip on the sofa, you two sat in silence, letting the absence of sound drape over the apartment. Only the sounds of the beating of each other’s heart could be heard among the hum of the city and the heat that flowed into your apartment. The flickering lights of the city reflected against your tall windows as you let yourself speak first. 

“What happened between us?” 

Jaehyun shook his head, “I don’t know.” 

“You’ve been avoiding me every second you have and when you do have a second, you’re arguing with me. Clearly-” you emphasized, “-I did something.” 

“No, you didn’t.”

“Then what is it? Is it your father?” your head turns to him, brows creased in concern. Jaehyun gave you no answer and you sensed that you were right, his father was the core of all this. “Jaehyun, it’s okay. I can help you.” you reached for his hand only to have him yank it away from you. 

“Don’t you understand? You can’t help me.” Jaehyun stood from the couch, walking to the kitchen. Frustration coated his words and it began to dig into your skin. You didn’t want to pry too much or press his buttons again, you just wanted to help. 

“Then tell me how. We can do this together,” your strides attempted to reach his figure, “I can find a way.” 

Jaehyun’s body rapidly turns to you, immediately making you stop in your tracks. Especially when you see red, anger in his eyes, “no, you can’t. Unfortunately, you can’t help me at all.” 

You shook your head in disbelief, “No, Jaehyun. We can find someone professional who can help.” 

“You don’t understand and you never will y/n!” He shouted. Your body slightly jumps from the reverberate of his voice, it’s been so long since he’s yelled at you like that and this time, it stings your skin like salt on your past wounds. “You will never understand because this-” he points to his chest, the one over his heart, “-is who I am.”

“No it’s not, this isn’t you Jaehyun.” you walk towards him, but Jaehyun only steps back away from you. 

“Yes, it is, y/n. This is who I am. I have been like this until you changed me for the worse. I cannot be fixed. I cannot be helped! I am like this!! This is who I am!!” Jaehyun repeats it several times until it’s ingrained in your mind. His shouting shoots at the wall vibrating his voice into your ears and it doesn’t sit well into your stomach. 

“You’re angry. I get it, let’s just breathe, okay?” You offer your palms to him, understanding that he could just be stressed. You’re ultimately wrong when he aggressively slides all of the papers and decorations off the kitchen table, letting the plants and papers crumble to the floor. 

“Don’t tell me to breathe y/n! I have held it in for so long, that I can’t do this anymore!” His chest rises from his hard pants. 

You stay quiet, anxious to ask him what flashed through your head in red blinking lights, “do what?” your voice is barely above a whisper, but Jaehyun hears it break. 

“This. I can’t do this marriage,” Jaehyun replies in the same tone. 

“When?” 

He looks at you with furrowed brows, “When what?” 

“Since when did you know you couldn’t do this?” tears begin to brim at your eyes, but couldn’t find care in the world to hold them back. Not after what you’ve been through, what he put you through. 

Jaehyun’s face becomes expressionless, “I don’t know.” 

“Don’t hit me with that bullshit, Jaehyun,” you scoffed, “since when did you fucking know?” 

“Our last night in Paris.” 

A loud sigh escapes your lips as tears stream down your face, wetting your cheeks, barely holding onto your jaw. “Then did you mean it?” 

“Mean what?” Jaehyun asks. His meaningless questions burrow themselves under your skin, how oblivious could he be?

“When you said you love me you asshole!” this time it’s your time to shout, but it’s more of a cry for help. You’re begging for him to give you the answer you want, but the world never liked playing on your side. 

It was like time had slowed down. You only stood a few feet from Jaehyun but it felt like miles. So far, yet so close. He stood in front of you hesitating his answer, debating if he could give you the truth or if it was better to rip off the bandaid and put a new one on it. 

“No.” 

You’re hysterical at this point, your cries turn into scoffs of breaths, which turns into laughter. They’re quick to rebound into loud cries when you feel your legs becoming weak. Instead of falling to the floor, you force yourself to stomp to your bedroom. 

Jaehyun’s eyes follow you, wondering what you could be doing. His answer quickly comes to him when you leave the room with your large duffle bag in your hand, full and zipped. 

“Where are you going at this time?” Jaehyun asks, surprised he even found the courage in him to ask. 

“Out. I’m done Jaehyun.” You slam the door shut behind, leaving Jaehyun in the empty, cold apartment. 

You ended up going back home, finding yourself in a spot where you had to explain to your mother. 

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” you cried in your mother’s arms. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay to cry” she stroked your hair as she held you in her arms, “it’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to feel what you need to feel.” 

Since your father was overseas, you slept with your mother, you couldn’t stand not being alone at this time. Being in your mother's arms reminded you of when you were little and you couldn’t sleep without her by your side, it makes you miss how easy life was. How happy you were without a worry. 

It’s been days since you’ve texted or called Jaehyun, he hasn’t bothered to reach out to you either. Every night for you was filled with tear-stained pillows and the unnerving feeling of calling Jaehyun, but you never reached across your bed for your phone. You two were good at being stubborn in ignoring each other, it makes you wonder if this was now the end. 

However, Jaehyun wasn’t handling the situation well. Every morning brought him agony that it wasn’t a nightmare, that this was real and you were truly gone. He stayed away from drinking, the clubs, and only locked himself in the master bedroom, away from the world. Jaehyun often looked out the window, looking below at the city. Knowing that the road leads up to the apartment building, he always watched out for your car, but he only saw it in his dreams. Jaehyun waited and waited for you to come back. Again, what is he expecting? He’s done his deed in pushing you away in the worst way possible, how much more did he want from you? Why was he now asking for you to come back into his arms when all you’ve been is forgiving and loving to him? And he was the one to ruin all of it? The one to just throw it away like it meant absolutely nothing to him when it really meant the world. It’s fucked up, it really is. 

Jaehyun thought about you every day. You live in his mind, you go to work with him, you’re in the car with him, you go to bed with him. He pretends you’re there in spirit, but he knows you’re physically gone. Insane, that is what he is. 

“Come on, it’s been days! You have to come out,” Taeyong speaks through Jaehyun’s phone. 

Jaehyun sighs, “not tonight Yong.” 

“You’ve been saying that every time I call you. You never come out anymore, is it because of y/n? Are you finally getting tied down?” Taeyong only says it to joke around, but little did he know, it had a great effect on Jaehyun. 

“Can you just shut the fuck up man? Jeez,” Jaehyun hangs up on Taeyong, clearly angry. He’s not though, he’s been constantly hurting, but Taeyong finds out the second he’s hung up on. 

That’s why in the next ten minutes, there’s a hard knock at the door, forcing Jaehyun to drag his body to the door. 

“What?” Jaehyun deadpans at his best friend who wore a smile on his face, which shortly falters after noticing the darkest bags under a pair of eyes. 

“What happened to you?” Taeyong walks past Jaehyun, welcoming himself into the apartment. He looks around, for never being in here, he considers it as a luxury apartment, but something was missing. It felt cold and empty in here. “Y/n here?” 

When he doesn’t get an answer, he turns to see Jaehyun silently crying, his head hanging in his palms. His shoulders shake from his cries as Taeyong embraces his best friend. Taeyong is completely lost, not knowing what was going on, but the only thing he knew was that he needed to be there for Jaehyun. 

“She’s gone,” Jaehyun sniffles. 

Taeyong pulls away to hear it again, hoping that the words Jaehyun expressed were false. Each time they’d meet up Jaehyun would never shut up about you, in the beginning, he’d grumble about the little things that you did that irked him, but as time went on, he found the little things to be the most precious. Taeyong found Jaehyun as a new jubilant person, he’d always look forward to things, he’d smile more at others, there was an unbeknownst glow that you brought to Jaehyun’s heart. 

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Taeyong’s brows creased. 

“She hasn’t been home for days Taeyong. She’s fucking gone!!” Jaehyun shouted at his friend, bloodshot, red, painted within his eyes. 

Days turned into weeks, which turned into a month. Yes, you kept count. It’s been almost a month without a sound from Jaehyun. You despised yourself for always checking your phone, thinking that the ding you heard was a text from him or a ring was a call from him. Your hopes failed you when you were faced with the ghost presence of him. A huge part of your heart wanted to forgive and go back into his arms, but another wanted to completely disappear from his world. You wanted to erase yourself from his story. You knew you couldn’t go back after he admitted that he couldn’t find it in himself to marry you or the fact that he didn’t mean a single action or word when you two were in Paris. 

Lies everything was a complete lie. You slam your portfolio shut as you gather your things into your bag. You informed your mother that you’d be home later, you had to go back to the apartment to collect your belongings. All of them. 

As you drive down the old road, little memories of you and Jaehyun lingered in your mind. The late, late ice cream runs, the drives to watch the sunset or sunrise at the pier, the little bits of laughter echoed through your ears, and the cold walks among the beach where you’d walk close to him. You two built many sandcastles that were washed away too soon by the harsh waves. 

The familiar, tall, silver building came into view too quickly. You parked your car into the parking garage and walked up to your room, your feet remembering every single step so well that you could’ve gone up safely with your eyes closed. You softly knock on the door, fully knowing that Jaehyun was home. After Taeyong visited Jaehyun, he called you that day, and several days after that, begging you to visit him for Jaehyun had been isolating himself and was completely miserable. 

The door swung open, letting a brisk wind blow past you, the nostalgic smell of your apartment softly hitting your nostrils. How much you’ve missed this. 

“Y/n.” 

“Hey,” your eyes scanned the man in front of you. Disheveled hair, dark eye bags, swollen eyes, and he looked like he’d been lacking in cooking for himself. Taeyong was right, he was completely miserable. But as much as your heart longed to forgive him, you couldn’t find it in yourself to give him that kind of benefit again. 

“Come in,” Jaehyun opens the door wider for you to come in. Nothing about the place has changed. You’re surprised by such a messy image of him, the place is well kept. 

“I’m just here to collect my remaining belongings,” you reply, already making your way up to your once shared bedroom before hearing a quiet “oh” from him. 

The room resembled your heart, it was chaotic. The bed wasn’t made, the curtains were halfway drawn, drawers were slightly opened by his inability to shove his clothes fully in, the laundry basket was overflowing and spilling of clothes, letting it scatter amongst the carpet. 

“Jaehyun,” you silently whisper at the state the room was in. You weren’t mad, you were just disheartened that Jaehyun had been this frustrated that he couldn’t even take care of himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he shoved past you, “I didn’t know you were coming,” he tripped over his feet by trying to pick up his dispersed clothing from the floor. 

“Jaehyun,” you choked out at the poor man who sat on the floor, scrambling on his knees unable to get back up, and you couldn’t resist it any longer.  He looked so frail, like a broken vase that had just been recently glued. You rushed to him and held him close to your chest, letting out a choked cry and tears streaming down your face. 

Along with your cries, Jaehyun’s was also heard. He clutched onto your arm that settled around him, afraid that if he’d let go he’d lose you forever. Heavy sobs left Jaehyun’s chest as his tears stained your shirt, were you here to stay with him?

Jaehyun pulled away from your embrace, he caressed your cheek as he brushed a tear from your eye, “please stay. Stay the night before we both decide we’re over.” He didn’t let you give him an answer because he knew you’d stay. Picking you up into his arms, he carried your frail body to the bed as you attempted to calm your breathing down. Jaehyun was careful in changing you out of your clothes and into a shirt of his, for that was the only thing that was left now. 

Nonetheless, you let him carry you, change you, you let yourself stay because you knew that this was going to be the last night you’d see him. It was a horrible thing, but you prayed for only one more night with him. 

Jaehyun’s body came flush to yours, letting his arms wrap around your waist to bring you impossibly closer. He looks at you with eyes full of love but also drowned in sadness. He knows you’re not here forever. Without hesitation, Jaehyun pressed his lips against yours, the very distant memory of his lips sliced through your mind making you yearn for him. It’s only been a month, but it felt like years since you’ve felt those pink, plump, soft lips of his. Like always, it interlocked with yours like the key to a lock, like the last piece of a puzzle, like the calming of a river. There was no stripping of clothes, no coitus, just the two of you locking your lips together, feeling nothing but the actions of your mouths molding together. Jaehyun’s hands wandered your body, his mind needed to memorize the landscape of your body just in case you’d leave forever. But soon, they found a home in your hair and on your waist, while you found your place on his back and nape, occasionally tugging his strands. 

It continued for a while until your jaw grew tired, your mind was worn and you were emotionally and mentally drained. As much as you didn’t want to, you pulled away. Jaehyun’s head softly fell on your chest, hearing the steadiness of your heart before he closed his eyes.

“Thank you,” Jaehyun whispered before drifting off. 

When Jaehyun woke up the next morning, you were gone. The cold, wrinkled bed sheet telling him that you left hours ago without a sound. From the corner of his eyes, a glint coming from your side’s drawer glared his vision from the sun. It was your ring and a key on top of a handwritten letter from you. Jaehyun firmly rubbed his eyes, hoping that he was seeing things, but it was too good to be true. 

Dear Jaehyun, 

We’ve spent these past few months in hate, lust, and love. We have so many lovely memories that I’ll cherish forever in my heart. From the drunken laughs to the pillow talks, I’ve enjoyed each moment with you, don’t you doubt it. 

I wanted to thank you for the things you’ve taught me. You have given me the patience that I didn’t know I needed, you taught me how to forgive, and you’ve helped me acknowledge that it’s acceptable to stand up for what you believe in. Along with that, you taught me that people can change. I want you to understand that I was nowhere near trying to change you or fix you. You are not broken, you have the infinite ability for self-growth. I wanted to be there for you, I wanted to help you, trust me I really did. But I cannot be with you until you love yourself. I cannot see you love me more than you love yourself. 

Don’t lie and tell me you haven’t meant anything you’ve said or done up until now. I know your heart, I know there’s love in there for me, your actions were always better than your words. You were never good at lying, your ears gave it away, but even so, your words found its way to my wounds and like salt, I gave it to you to pour on me. 

We were always good at ignoring each other and running away from our problems. To this day, I will forever wish that I woke up next to you, but I can’t do this anymore. If you don’t want this marriage, and you mean it, please forgive me for giving you every access to my heart. I wish that I hadn’t settled into the feeling of being someone you loved. 

My last wish is for you to find love for yourself. You are worthy, you are worthy of love and to be loved. You were never broken, you just had some cracked areas and I hope that you can go back and paint those areas with gold. You are a strong man, you’re capable of love, always remind yourself that. 

By the time you get this, I’ll be out and probably somewhere lost among the crowd. Please don’t look for me anymore. I need time and I need to make peace with my heart. This key and this ring is my returned gift to you. I hope you can give them to someone strong enough to teach you what I couldn’t. 

And perhaps if fate allows, we will meet again when we are older and wiser, but for now, goodbye Jaehyun.

With all my love, 

y/n.

[mrsbarnes107]

Secret of the Widow

-part ten-

Summary: Post Endgame time period. The team is healing, trying to navigate this new normal they’ve found themselves in when Bucky and Sam bring home a stray with an attitude and a secret. Will the broken team take her in? Or is it too much to bare?

Warnings: language, violence, smut, death, fluff, angst, blood

Pairings: Bucky x OC

Our footsteps thundered down the halls, narrowly ducking corners and vaulting stairs as we make our way to the containment unit.

"Do you have your suit?"

"No I didn't think I'd need it!"

"Shit. Okay. You stay back and find the one straggling okay? I know you're good hand to hand but without the suit your vulnerable and significantly weaker."

Luckily I always keep two knives strapped to my belt, so I toss one to Peter as we near the hallway leading to the prisoners.

"Aim between the ribs or the center of the throat. Don't stab yourself."

Just as we burst through the doors, the room shakes, pieces of the ceiling crashing to the floor, throwing us against the wall.

Immediately one of the bombers is on top of me, fist connecting sharply with my jaw. From the corner of my eye I can see Peter handling himself decently. With a swift knee to the gut I have the man under me, one knee pressing into his throat.

Before I can react, his fist slams into my stomach, sending my body further down his own. Taking advantage of my pause to get air back into my lungs, the man hauls us up and slams my skull against the wall then shoves me away.

Hot, thick blood crept slowly down over my brow, dripping into my eye, and flowing down my cheekbone.

With a sigh I plant my foot on his leg while hooking the other around his neck, throwing my body forwards. Bitches belong on their back, he seems to have not gotten the message.

Peter let's out a pained yell from across the room that has me leaping up, pausing to throw my knife straight into the piece of scums heart.

Before I can get to Peter the building is shaking again, a loud roar coming from the adjoining room. With a glance in the kids direction I can see Clint pushing him back while jackknifing the other bomber.

Heavy stomps make there way into the large room. A man well over six feet tall, covered in a billowing cloak, stalks towards me.

His face is obscured by a hood, but from what is exposed, it looks like a decomposing skull.

Black eyes meet my own, a low chuckle reverberating from his chest. "After a year of searching, here you are beautiful."

Not breaking eye contact I bend down to pull the blade from the dead mans chest, standing upright with my head cocked and a brow raised.

"I'm certain I would remember meeting you. Might I suggest a better moisturizer? You seem a little dry."

To the left Clint has disposed of the other prisoner, bow aimed at the beast before us.

The room is filled with black shadows, lit only momentarily as the red alarms flash in sequence.

As the man takes a slow step towards me Clint releases the arrow piercing the beasts arm. With a pause the arrow is snapped in half, point still embedded in the muscle.

Suddenly Clint is running at him, ducking into a slid between his legs while slicing the ankles. The large man grunts and turns as Clint swings a fist towards him. Immediately the man begins mirroring Clints every move. Matching each punch and kick, never once allowing the archer to land a blow. The avenger however was growing weaker with every hit.

With his back facing me, I jump onto his narrow hips, stabbing the blade into his shoulder, dragging it as far down his muscled back as possible. The gash is flowing with blood, covering my hands as the man throws my body to the floor, launching Clint into a wall across the room to land with a thud.

The beast of a man turns back to me, pure rage written across his dead face. "You're incredibly lucky I was ordered to bring you back alive, otherwise that pretty face of yours would be carved to pieces."

A second too late I see Peter sneaking up behind the man. His knife plunging into the mans ribs, likely grazing the heart. With a roar he falls to a knee, ripping the knife from his side. As he turns towards the boy I launch myself at him. Throwing my body weight into my punch, his head snaps to the side, his face glitching for a split second before I drag my knife up his abdomen. His large fist meets my ribs, sending me back a few yards.

He looks into my eyes and laughs as he turns to Peter, the kid stares up at him with doe eyes, terrified but standing his ground. I wish the idiot would run.

"However beautiful, him I can enjoy killing."

He launches his body at Peter, blood flowing down his back and chest, movements stuttering and slowed from his injuries.

A scream is ripped from my throat as I launch my knife into his open side wound and close my eyes.

I appear at the kids side within a blink, yanking him to me.

The last thing I see is the beastly man walking from the room slowly, his body red and weakening.

"I'll be back beautiful."

My eyes close again, opening to see Peter and I back in the lab.

***

Hours later we're sitting in the medical unit, me stitching up the boys as Peter looks at me with confused concern.

"Ali... did you know him?"

I press an alcohol cloth to Clints head, ignoring the dried blood sticking to my face.

"No, not in the technical sense. I'm pretty sure I know of him though. I called the team while you were helping Clint, they're on their way back, as is Nicky."

"O-okay, are we gonna talk about what happened earlier? In the lab?"

"Yeah Petey, we'll look at the video after the meeting. They'll be here in a couple minutes." With that I finish the last stitch and head out of the room.

Rounding the hallway I stop and fall against the doorway, a shuddering breath finally heaving from my lungs, tears welling in my eyes.

I was so fucking close to loosing them. And I'm so fucking tired.

"Ms. Romanoff, the quinjet has landed."

Letting out a deep breath I wipe my eyes and drag my body upright, forcing my legs to walk steadily to the conference room. Only faltering as I fall into the chair I sat in just yesterday.

After a few minutes Peter comes in, Clint hanging off his shoulder. They sit in the chairs to my right as I take a deep sip of my water, hopping it revives the little energy I have left.

"Hey Red, couldn't handle a few lowlifes without-" Sam playfully said as he waltzed into the room, pausing as he took a look at the beat up members in front of him, face becoming livid. "What the hell happened?"

Behind him stood Wanda and Banner, neither saying a word as they silently sit at the end of the table. Wanda eyeing me with curiosity, so I let her see the events herself.

She lets out a small gasp just as Bucky rounds the door, coming to a halt as his eyes meet mine.

Flashing a small smile I shrug, "At least you didn't do anything stupid."

That was definitely not what he wanted to hear it seems. His jaw looks like it's about to break from clenching so hard, his blue eyes cutting into me like steal as he slowly stalks forward.

He stops once his feet meet my own, bending down as his hand cups my chin, raising my eyes to meet his.

His gaze is terrifying. He looks murderous.

But his hand is gentle as he moves my head, eyes scanning my injuries. He growls from deep in his throat, "How the fuck did this happen."

***

After finally getting Bucky to sit down, albeit practically pressed against my side as his leg is hooked underneath my own, Nicky walks in demanding to know how a non-mission went to shit so hard.

I have Friday pull up the video footage of the containment room in the center of the table. All of us watching as Clint walked in and opened the cell, ordering the men out. All eyes glanced his way, but before anyone could speak the Clint in the video shimmered and turned into the beastly man.

Peter looked from the footage to me."He shapeshifts?"

"No. He projects a hologram. He likely walked past the guards straight through the front door."

I hold in a breath as I lean forward to move the footage to our arrival.

Bucky feels me tense in pain, his large hand coming to rest on my knee as his thumb rubs circles against the muscle.

Nicky stands to my right, his hand resting on the chair above my shoulder. Knuckles cracking as he watches me and the boys getting thrown around.

Bucks hand squeezes my thigh as if holding himself in place as he watches the fresh blood run down my skull.

The footage stops after I disappear with Peter from the room.

The team sits in silence for a moment, everyone staring at the paused hologram.

I take a sip of water and clear my throat. Jeez, I think Nicky is infecting me with his throat problem. "Well today wasn't boring am I right."

Nicky let's out a very burdened sigh as he shakes his head. I don't know why he seems fed up with me.

"Okay. We're going to ignore that little disappearing act for the moment while you tell me why the hell that guy seemed to want you so bad."

Buckys hand clenches tighter. Reaching down I lay my palm over is unwavering fingers and give them a soft squeeze.

"Friday, bring up a frame of Skelator please."

A grainy image of the decomposing man hovers in the center of the team. I nod at the photo as I take another drink, trying to keep from collapsing.

"To answer that very snarky comment I'm gonna have to also explain the uh the little 'disappearing act' as well."

I sit up a little straighter and push a clump of blood soaked hair from my face with a sigh.

"Having to go dark is a part of the job, we all know this. There's been a few instances where I've had to go underground for a month or so, like I said it's common in our line of work." I have to pause for a moment, trying to figure out how to best word my story. "You see, while the avengers were all tearing at each others throats after the accords, I was dealing with a group of terrorists in the mountains of Siberia. I suspected they were old Hydra members, however I did not expect getting trapped in a very well functioning base."

I glance up at Nicky, "You remember a few months ago when you asked why I went dark for six months before the snap?" A weak chuckle escapes my lips. "I was kind of taken by Hydra. The only reason I even escaped was because the snap."

Living up to his name, Nicky is looking at me with pure fury in his eye as he calmly berates me. "And you never thought to mention this?"

"There was a lot going on okay. Anyways, there were a couple others like me being kept there. Hydra was running experiments again-" Buckys body has been rigid since I mentioned being taken, but now his hand turns to weave his fingers in mine "-dozens of injections and tests, torture meant to stimulate a reaction to the serums. I was the only one to survive. And well, you saw what I can do."

"You teleport?" Sam asked with interest, concern hidden beneath the words.

"Um kind of I guess. I don't do it much, which is why I've never mentioned it. It takes a lot of energy. Like a lot. Just moving myself a few miles away requires a Barnes size serving of food and a short nap. Moving myself to another continent? I'm out within a couple hours. Moving another person? Well.." I shrug. "It's hard and it takes a lot. I can only jump to places I can visualize: my room, Tower of London, I can't just jump unless I've been there or have seen a photo."

"Have you practiced much?" Banner looked like he was running equations behind those glasses, trying to piece together an explanation.

"Not really, besides my time at Hydra I haven't used it much this past year. I think that's why today wiped me out so much."

I take another drink of water, draining the glass.

"Anyways, during my stay at the base I heard the doctors talking about a hired assassin a couple times. A man they have train new recruits and take out certain hits."

Bucky gives my hand a squeeze, his eyes never leaving my face.

"They call him Taskmaster. He has photographic reflexes, meaning he can mimic anyone's fighting styles, sometimes even their powers. I never got to see him and they never described him, but based off of what we saw with Clint and the fact that he's so adamant on finding me, I'm gonna guess he was sent by Hydra. And I think it's safe to also guess that the bombing from yesterday was to lure me out, while today's separated and weakened the team."

Peter gets up and pulls me into a soft, firm hug. Pulling away he looks into my tired eyes as I give him a smile. "Oh Petey-" "Shush and accept my thank you while I go get you some food." With a kiss to my check he jogs from the room.

[rhaenyratargeryn]

A few weeks ago I wrote slutty, slutty Kent x Button fic and then didn’t post it-- but now I’m gonna and reveal myself as a thirsty ho.

title: reciprocity rated: explicit fandom/pairing: Mind Blind (IF) Kent Zarneki x f!Button Wiseman summary: One photo leads to another leads to another... Button could open a gallery with the sheer volume of nudes she possesses of one Kent Zarneki.

It had started innocently enough. At least, that was the lie I was telling myself because in all honesty, what was innocent about sending your boyfriend a selfie— when that selfie was really just a strategically cut close up of the new strappy bralette you’d bought, peaking out from the unbuttoned V of your Aeon uniform top? Nothing. Absolutely god damn nothing.

The text I sent: new! shockingly comfortable. didn’t want to rip it off as soon as I got home

Kent’s message bubbles were silent, but the “read” notification had gone off. I grinned slyly to myself, getting comfortable back up against my bed pillows. Kent blushed so infrequently, I had made a game of it as much as Glitch, though I had had unprecedented success. Glitch had given me a withering look at the boast.

I mean. It was obvious why I did.

My phone dinged, the notification image showing that in lieu of a text, Kent had sent an image of his own. I clicked the tiny preview and was awarded with a picture much like my own, Kent’s tie loose around his neck, the buttons of his shirt undone to show the pale expanse of skin beneath. I could just barely see the line of his jaw, the smirk ticking up the corner of his lips.

I responded by undoing my own shirt down to my waist, pushing the fabric down around my shoulders and using my arms to help my cleavage look fuller. This was dangerous. Very dangerous, but I shook my head to let my hair cascade down across me, took a few shots and sent the best one.

Are you in bed?

Kent’s reply. Followed shortly by another photo. He had put aside ceremony and fully removed his shirt, revealing he was in bed himself. The dark sheets contrasted against him. All that Aeon training had sculpted and carved him into a lean, but strong figure. He was not bulky, like Grayson, cut more narrowly at his waist which gave his shoulders an even fuller illusion of broadness that made my hands ache to run over them.

Kent Zarneki, in short, was too fucking hot for his own good.

I am

Im taking my clothes off

I assume that is what we are doing?

I sent the three texts in quick succession. The message bubbles in reply were brief.

yes

The image that followed was enough to send a hot pang right down into my stomach. He’d unbuttoned his trousers, using the thumb of his free hand to hold down the band far enough I could see the line of his pelvis and the dark hair that dusted across.

If you want to

I want to

I took off my shirt, throwing it aside without care. I had chosen to wear a high-waisted black skirt that day, which was all the better. I very carefully slid my hand up the cup of my bralette, letting the fabric rise up to show the under curve of my breast, appearing fuller when pressed up into my palm.

I sent it and in a second got a reply.

Off

I smirked. Kent had already been naked from the waist up for some time now. I received a sequence of three images, all of which where very flattering shots of Kent’s own torso and abs.

Seems only fair

I pulled the lacy fabric up and over my head as easily as my shirt, looking down at my own pale breasts, my nipples already hardened in the cool air and in anticipation. Shyness fell over me like a cold shower. Kent had never seen me naked before. What if I was too small? What if I was too big? Was my right breast always that much different from my left? Anxiety panged in my stomach as intense as arousal and despite my delay, Kent’s messages remained silent.

Patient. Waiting.

I could cheat. Brushing my hair over my shoulders, the strands lay perfectly over the tops of my breasts, hiding them from clear view, but not as much as my bralette did. I let the photo catch just the bottom half of my face, my tongue stuck out to the side. Teasing. Taunting. Like it was on purpose, not because I was nervous.

Kent didn’t respond for several minutes. The next image, I felt my mouth go dry. I could very clearly see the outline of his erection, pressing against the groin of his pants and going down the leg.

He wasn’t wearing boxers. Of course he wasn’t. This was Kent Zarneki, a man who was one bad day away from leaving everything and joining a nudist colony.

Is this okay?

It was more than okay. It was super okay. It was, please-send-me-more-now okay.

I relayed as much through the text message and got a photo that sent my heart racing. It was just him. His cheeks flushed, his gray eyes dark and storming, a smug smile half formed on his lips. His dark hair was messy and I nearly groaned with frustration at how badly I wanted to run my fingers through it, tug on it, pull that smirk against my own and kiss it off his face.

The next photo I sent him I hid nothing, cupping my breast in my hand and making as if I was drawing my thumb over my nipple. I showed my face, trying my best to look as effortlessly sexy as him— though no matter what I did, my smile was always more playful than sultry. My cheeks flushed with more than just wanting.

Cute

High praise

I replied, trying to remind myself his short responses were normal and not to read into it.

You want praise?

You’re driving me crazy

His words hit me like a sucker punch. His next photo is the second one I didn’t see coming.

No man this gorgeous should ever be blessed in such a way. There were really no words other than “pretty” to describe the flushed skin of his length, not overly long, but definitely blessed where it counted. Or at least where I had heard it counted. It’s all about the girth. My mind supplied in its best Cosmo magazine voice.

The tip was, in all honesty, a very pretty shade of darkened pink, and curved with a sort of perfection that should have been reserved to— I don’t know. Porn stars? Dick models? Do dick models exist? Hand models sure do, and the way his hand was wrapped around himself was enough to make me think he could easily be one of those too.

Cute

I snap back and I can practically hear him laugh in my mind.

High praise

More?

Is that an offer or a request?

Both

How could I say no? I definitely didn’t want to. I found the zipper at the top of my skirt and slid it down. I was left in just my panties and hose. I rolled the hose down low on my thighs, sitting up on my knees to take a photo. Hesitating for just a moment, I flicked the camera over to video and let my hand run down over my thigh and then across my hips. I drew my finger over my center, my breath hitching and my hips moving forward as I rolled against my own touch.

I sent it.

And after a moment I got a video in turn. I watched Kent’s hand glide up over his length in slow, languid motions, pausing to rub his palm against the tip of his head. Teasing himself with the lightest touch. His cock flexed and jumped, a tiny gruff sound escaping his lips and reminding me that even though I couldn’t see his face this was Kent. My Kent.

I nearly dropped my cellphone as it began to vibrate, an incoming call displaying on the screen. I laid back, pushing my hose off the rest of the way as I answered. The line was silent before I finally broke it with a breathy- “hey.”

“Are you naked?” Kent’s voice was low, strained, but somehow eager.

I took a quick moment to slide my panties off, kicking them away.

“Now I am.”

Kent took in a deep breath. I let my hand trail between my legs, touching myself in the familiar way I did when I was alone. I traced my index and middle finger up my labia, spreading the soft warm skin, dipping my fingers into the center where I was slick and hot.

“I’m touching myself.” I said, my voice a broken whisper. Kent made a gruff sound of acknowledgement.

“Kent...” I said, “You made me so wet.”

He moaned.

“Is that okay?” I said, teasing him. I appreciated his caution, his check ins, making sure I was enjoying myself.

“Yes. Yes, it’s okay. Tell me.”

“Wow. Six whole words? Be careful, you’ll make me come.”

“That’s the idea.” Kent said, a breathless laugh filtering through his words.

“What about you? Having fun yet, Zarneki?”

Kent made a sound and I heard the rustling of sheets and the faint click of the phone camera shutter. My phone chimed, an image appearing of the head of his cock, wet with pre-cum he was smearing around the tip.

My tongue slid out against my bottom lip.

“Kent, don’t take this the wrong way— but you have such a pretty penis.”

He snorted.

“I’m serious. I want to put it in my mouth, which is not something I thought I’d ever say to any guy. But like? It just looks so appealing.”

“You’re killing me.” Kent said, a groan that sounded almost exasperated coming from his throat. It was hard to tell.

“With my witty charm or because I put a very naughty image in your head?”

I slipped two fingers into my mouth, pursed my lips, made a show of how wet and soft they looked and sent it to Kent.

“Shit—“

I felt a burst of pride at his expletive and found my clit with my fingertips, circling in a quicker pace.

“I like listening to you.” I said, thoughtless. I sighed, feeling my whole body warming, “Wish it was closer.”

“...I’m just down the street.” Kent said, trying to play it off like it was a fact and not a very tempting invitation.

“But this is fun. And naughty. And I get a keepsake.”

I heard the question in his voice, almost masked by a small groan. I wondered what his hands were up to.

“The photos. Speaking of which... I wouldn’t mind an after shot.”

“After?”

“After I make you come all over yourself, Zarneki.”

I heard his breath hitch.

“Only if I get one too.”

“You got it.”

Talking became a non-priority then. The only thing I strained to hear was his breaths, his soft moans, the faint wet sound I sometime thought I heard over the receive— or maybe that was me. I felt flooded, with heat and wanting and need. I pressed harder, worked my palm flat against my clit and stroked my fingers inside, imaging how much further Kent’s slender fingers could reach. Imaging his tongue. That pretty cock.

“Kent.” I whimpered, the involuntary clutch of my walls around my fingers my bodies way of telling me it wanted all of that and more.

“Good?” Kent murmured, a faint reply.

“Yes— I... I just keep imaging if it were you.” I don’t need to explain. I can tell by the way his breathing has fallen into faint rhythmic pants that he got my full meaning and he liked it.

“...me too. I want... I want you.” Kent paused, his next words coming out with earnest sweetness, “I’ll wait as long as you need...  but I’m ready. I want it. This. With you.”

Whatever I was thinking, whatever I wanted to say fuzzed out around the edges as a prickling sensation spread out from where my fingers were rolling and pressing in tandem. I coaxed my climax out, the peak hanging on the edge for a wonderful few tense moments before it fell. I whimpered, the sound coming out louder than I intended.

I heard Kent swear, or say my name or some combination of the two and then his voice pitched up for just a moment, a gasping moan aching from his throat.

I was hot, messy and completely boneless, laying back on my bed and feeling like I could fall asleep right then and there.

But I owed Kent a picture.

I spread myself open, the puffiness, the redness and slickness hopefully all the evidence he needed to see I had most definitely orgasmed. The moment I opened the chat to send it I received his in turn. His cock lolled back against his stomach, a line of cum connecting to the opaque white puddle settled there. There were drops across his chest and a few splatter across his hand.

My walls clutched hard as I thought what it would feel like to lick him clean.

I sent my own photo, the two of us quiet now, content with just listening to the sound of the other breathing through the phone speaker.

“So. Shower photo shoot next?” I said, unable to hide a nervous giggle.

“Give me just a second to get a towel.”

I had been kidding, but the eagerness in Kent’s voice was enough to make me decide to not correct him.

[mazzy-moon]

A Lone Butterfly - Chapter 1

Title: Chapter 1 ~ Captive

Word Count: 1650

Warnings: Mentions of kidnapping and brief descriptions of violence. Allusions to rape. Overall this story has some pretty heavy subject matter. 

Pairing: Javier Peña (Narcos) x Isabel Cotrille (OFC)

Summary: Isabel is captured by the cartel and seeks to find a way out.

Notes: This chapter is not explicit, but things may get spicy in later chapters. Go to my blog for more chapters. I will post chapters every few days as I finish writing them. If you take the time to read this, thank you so much! Would love feedback if you are so inclined.

I wake up to my hands tied above my head. The thin cord of rope gnaws against the tender skin of my wrist, immobilizing me. A numbing ache runs through my head as I tilt my eyes back to find the binding. The skin of my wrists are rubbed practically raw and every tiny movement of my hand is torture. I force movement anyway, pushing through the pain. My numb arms start to wake up also, and with it comes stinging soreness. I've been trapped like this for quite a while. I start to panic. Where am I? How will I get out of here? I have to get out. I have to. I wriggle my wrists against the binding desperately, immediately regretting it. The pain travels down from arms into my shoulders. I groan, not being able to keep quiet. I wish for the oblivion of sleep to relieve me once again.

Through tears, I look down at my scantily clad body. Bruises. I'm covered in them. A canvas of blueish purple splotches appear on my chest, and my upper thighs. One larger area, darker than the others covers the skin underneath my breasts. I take a sharp breath in and muffle a scream at the pain. I'd broken a rib, at least one anyway. I do my best to shove the pain away to a place at the far reach of my mind. I can't let it distract me. I have to get out of here. For a few minutes I just sit, taking soft breaths, willing myself to be strong. My memory slowly but surely comes back into focus.

I remember fighting. Kicking, screaming, punching until I was completely devoid of the energy to do anything at all.  I remember rough hands shoving me onto the threadbare mattress, pinning my arms down. The same mattress I am on now in this dark, cement walled room. I try to remember the time before this black hole of a room. How the hell did I get here? Pieces of my memory come to me as images flash through my head like a scrapbook.

I'm driving along an empty country road. Where was I going? Two men in workers uniforms stand before me. A rusted vehicle. An accident. Did they hit me or did I hit them? Squirming between two sets of iron hands forcing me in the back of the van. Pushing. Shoving. Both from me and him. Hands. Hands on me while I'm in a half daze. Waking up in a room similar to this one, only there's no mattress just a cold concrete floor. I can still feel it chilling my exposed skin. A man is there above me. Forcing myself to stand, to fight. Blinding pain as he throws me back on the ground. A punch to the temple. Darkness.

I will myself to focus on something else, anything else. I can't force the unrelenting memories away, but if I don't forget them for now I won't be able to figure out how to get out of this nightmare that has become my reality. I survey the small space as my eyes start to adjust to the dim lighting. A small wooden desk placed near the pallet I'm on holds a lamp. There's concrete floors here, too. No windows though, and I realize the faint light illuminating the room comes from a crack beneath the door.

I freeze. Noises come from somewhere outside. I make out a hoarse male voice, speaking harshly in Spanish to someone. I try to decipher what's being said but my Spanish is limited to a few a phrases. A few seconds pass and loud grunting noises intensify as I realize what must be taking place somewhere not far from me. Is a there a room beside me? Is there another girl here? How long before someone comes in my room?  I'm terrified to find out. I hear feminine cries and lose some of my hope.

What if I die here? I will never see my mother again. She can't lose me and my father. I won't let it happen. She must be worried sick. How long has it been that she hasn't known where I am? With no siblings, and no other family left we are all each other has. I left my apartment in the states after my father was killed to stay with her here in Columbia. Now she will be all alone.

I continue to breathe slowly in and out to keep from trembling.

"Focus, Isabel," I whisper to myself.

I attempt to inch up into a sitting position. It's tortuous. Everything hurts. It seems as if every muscle in my body has been pulled, and I catch an achy feeling between my legs that I choose to ignore. My shoulders introduce me to a new kind of agony as I shift them and the rest of my torso upright. My sense of time is nonexistent, but from the suffocating ache spreading from my shoulders, down my arms, and through my back I realize I must have been contorted like this for many hours. Once my rear is almost flush with the wall, I allow myself a break. Tears cascade down my face at the pain from my ribs. Determined, I peer over at my bound wrists. They're tied to a metal rod protruding from the wall on my right side. Immediately, I start rubbing my hands back and forth against the rod, hoping the friction will disintegrate the cord. I keep at it for what seems like an eternity, but must have only been around five minutes. The rope doesn't budge.

I search for an alternative solution. My eyes hunt for something  sharp enough to cut through the ties. That's when I spot something purple lying on the ground. Flung a few feet from the desk is a pair of underwear I recognize as my own. A wave of nausea cascades through me, and I almost throw up. The realization of what's been done to me sinks me into a fury of grief and anger. A silent sob escapes me and I can't breathe. My throat threatens to close up, and the air in the room feels sticky against my skin. I brace myself for some violent memory, but it doesn't come. Maybe I was knocked into unconsciousness. Maybe that's why I can't remember. I suddenly feel the urge to escape my body, to be somewhere else. I want to scrub layers off of my skin until I'm clean again. I float off for a second and force myself back into reality. I have to stop. There's no time to process what I'm feeling right now, and I have to get out of here. The new wave of anger makes me even more determined and I take advantage of it. There's nothing sharp that I can tell, nothing to cut through the rope that is nearly cutting off my circulation. I'll have to be more creative. I glance at the desk lamp to my right. There's no lampshade, just an exposed bulb. My right wrist is within inches from it. I lift my feet from the mattress and onto the cold floor. I stand up, hands still bound to the wall.

I mutter a curse as my ribs scream at me again from the movement. I position my arm in order to attempt to use the force of my elbow to crack the glass bulb against the brick wall. It doesn't work. I try again, and again, and again. The fourth time I gather strength from a place I can't comprehend, and manage to crush the glass bulb. Now there's nothing protecting the exposed filament from it's surroundings. I hunch myself over so that the base of the lamp is between my shoulder and the side of my face. The position of my body is awkward and painful, but I'm able to angle the lamp so that the lit filament comes in contact with the rope. It's working. The rope is turning to ash against the heat. I cry in relief as the scorching wire sizzles at my skin and the rope breaks free.

The victory gives me a rush of adrenaline, but I still have to figure out how to get out of this hell hole. I look down and see that I'm still in the outfit from the day the van hit me. My pale orange sundress is filthy and ripped nearly to my hip. I remember having my denim jacket on that day, but it is nowhere to be found. I look around for shoes to cover my bare feet, those are missing also. Okay, so I was going to have to do this barefoot and barely clothed.

Male voices approach outside my door and I scoot to the small space behind the door. There's no place to hide in here, and I don't know what I'll do if one of them comes in.

The footsteps grow louder and then fainter as they pass by my room. I wait until I can't hear them anymore, then let go of a nervous breath. Carefully, I try at the door knob. It twists underneath my hand. The idiots actually left it unlocked. I let go of the knob and scan the room once more, this time looking for some kind of protection to take with me. I know my options are limited, but I can't go out there with nothing. Who knows who or what I'll run into. I run over to the desk and quickly open the small drawer. Nothing. I swallow hard. My eyes fall to the ground and settle on the shattered glass from the lightbulb. One jagged piece is larger than the others. I pick it up and head back to the door. I listen for voices or footsteps once more. Nothing. I ease the door open and step outside.

[fleetingpieces]

Alone at night

It was 4 am and my brain told me it would be okay to write this.

Picture me crying right after I finished writing and singing over and over “Just did a bad thinggg, I regret the thing I diddd”

I’m so sorry for posting this on Sirius’ birthday

Trigger warning: panic attacks, trauma, mention of major character’s death

Sirius sat up in bed abruptly, his ragged breathing coming in painful bursts, and looked around at the empty space next to him.

“Remus?”

Everything was silent and dark, oh so very dark and for a moment Sirius thought he was back in his damp cell, with looming black figures closing in on him.

“Re, where are you?” his voice came out shaky as the panic started to wrap its nasty claws around his neck. He looked around frantically for any sign of Remus, any sign that he was really in their old bedroom and that it hadn't all been just a dream. 

Curling in on himself, Sirius wrapped his arms around him to keep himself together, trying to block the images from flashing in his head. He didn’t want to give them anymore of his memories, he needed those to stay sane, he didn’t want to forget the few good years he’d had in his life. But as the cold started creeping in on him, fear rose like bile in his throat and he hugged himself tighter.

“No no no, please don’t,” he chanted over and over.

He could see everything flashing in front of his eyes, the same two memories that had been playing out in his head for over a decade: the night his two best friends were murdered, and the night he let Remus walk away from him. The moments when he’d lost everything.

Those were his most painful, devastating memories. The pain he’d gone through as a kid, the years of torture and abuse, were absolutely nothing if compared to those two.

Compared to rushing to his best mate’s house after he heard the news, only to find a pile of rubble, the house where they had built so many memories together, where they’d built a family, broken. Sirius had broken then too. His mind had snapped like an elastic band, because surely it couldn’t be true. Lily and James couldn’t be dead.

Nothing could have prepared him for the undeniable evidence he’d found between the rocks as he’d inspected the ruins.

And then Hagrid was there, holding baby Harry, and all Sirius wanted to do was take him with him, protect him, make sure he was happy.

He should have fought harder for his godson. He should have insisted on taking Harry with him, but then he’d thought perhaps it was for the best. If he had failed to keep his best friend safe, why would it be any different regarding his son?

He’d failed Remus too. Sirius had tried to convince Remus to confess about being the spy, to tell the truth about what he’d been doing, to come back to their side. It was the first time Sirius had seen Remus so broken since the Marauder’s had told him they knew he was a werewolf, and Remus had thought they hated him. Sirius hadn’t understood the connection between those two moments right then, he’d just wanted to make Remus see the light again.

He had been so, so stupid. A fucking blinded fool.

Remus had left, and that was the last time Sirius had seen him. 

Mistakes. So many, many mistakes he’d made.

He started trembling and a whine escaped his lips. That noise brought a thought to the front of his mind, something that could help him against the monsters surrounding him. He promptly changed into Padfoot, and curled in a tight circle, glancing up between his paws at the shadows lurking around. He whimpered as they started getting closer and closer, other noises he didn’t quite identify ringing in the background.

Then another figure appeared a bit further away, took a look at him and rushed forward.

“Sirius?”

Padfoot whined, hiding his face as much as he could beneath his paws when the figure reached his side and kneeled next to him.

“Pads! What’s wrong?” A hand reached out to stroke his head, and as it did, Sirius caught a whiff of its scent.

Was this a trick of his mind? He’d had many of those over the years too. But the concern and love in this voice was not usually there when Sirius had been locked up. In those cases it was mainly an accusatory tone. It’s all your fault, it would say.

He looked up and there was Remus, his amber eyes fixed on him without a trace of the hate he’d come to expect, just trying to assess the situation, and he was just so gorgeous that it was too much. A small noise of distress escaped his canine throat, and he nuzzled into a shocked Remus, who wrapped his arms around him tightly, burying his face in his fur.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” Remus started saying. He was on the brink of tears, and even in his animal mind, Sirius could tell that Remus was only holding on because of him. Remus understood exactly what Sirius had been going through, and that thought alone filled his broken chest.

Sirius transformed back to his own body so he could hug Remus just as tight, his hands fisting the back of Remus’ jumper.

“I thought you were gone,” Sirius sobbed. “I thought I was back there, that I’d lost you again.”

“It’s ok, you are ok, I’m here, I’m with you,” Remus choked out, his voice sounding strained, but he never stopped murmuring soothing words into Sirius’ ear until he calmed down. Being held like this, Sirius had no idea how he had survived his darkest years without Remus by his side.

As the first rays of sun filtered in the room, Sirius promised himself he would do everything in his power so that nothing would take them apart again.

Please feel free to ignore the fact that he dies two years after this, I sure as hell do

[austarus]

Harrison Wells (Eobard Thawne) x Reader - Integrated Revelations (1/3)

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me.

*I attempted a thing where I try to get back into the groove of writing for my murder speed husband... It’s probably shit, but here goes nothing. Sorta another theory I’ve had and had all these scenes connect together. I’m a shit writer so... Also, I’m dying and crying. Hahaha. I literally am dying. My uni work online is being ridiculously overwhelming along with my work hours for school. I really need a week with no deadlines or work just to get caught up with three weeks of work for certain classes. I really need to take a break. But I can’t, started to loose sleep. Can’t even have time to write or play Pokemon Reborn. Anyway, that a bit of an update from me. I wrote this back in July, hoping to have written a fic a week (which turned out to not happen, but hey, I tried) until October to post things. Also this most likely has grammer errors. I’m sorry. Once again, a shit writer. Please don’t forget to comment, like, and reblog. It means a lot to content creators of all kinds!

Word Count: 3584

Part 2  Part 3

“Well...” Eobard’s raspy voice didn’t seem to alarm the two speedsters that had phased into the Time Vault. The futuristic speedster had sat with a leg crossed over the other, and elbow resting on the arm of the chair. “Things just got a lot more complicated, didn't they?” Eobard pushed from the chair, standing up and taking a few steps forward. Nora and Barry looked on, one adorned a look of uncertainty and the other masqueraded his rage and pain through the years. “Barry Allen.” Barry nodded along, gauging the black-haired man’s façade. “But which Barry Allen? Clearly, you're… from a lot later than this one.” Eobard maneuvered his body and pointed to the unconscious form of an earlier Barry Allen.

“Way later.” Barry simply answered, looking indifferent.

“Way later,” Eobard echoed the response, putting emphasis on the word ‘way’. The scientist nodded along, pursuing his lips as his electric blue eyes flickered to Nora. Before anyone could speak, could even move the Time Vault door dematerialized. Nora watched as an earlier version of yourself entered the Vault hurriedly and out of breath. You had entered looking over your shoulder with a tablet in hand. You had been scanning for the supposed Time Wraith that had attacked Barry, but not your present time Barry.

“Eo, I traced-” You froze in place as you turned your gaze forward. Fear crippled your heart as you saw a version of Barry, much older through the years, and a woman not too far off his from his age. You swallowed thickly, clutching the tablet tighter. There’s three Barry Allen’s now?? Who the hell decided to break time? A small throbbing sensation erupted at the back of your head, but you dismissed it. Eobard had swiftly moved to stand in front of you. His eyes connected with yours for a moment.

“You knew?!” The young woman spoke up, stepping forward towards you which caused Eobard to hold out a subtle arm out to the side to keep you behind him. “All those years.” The older man narrowed his eyes at what the female had called out to you. You frowned at her words in confusion. Who is she? An image flashed through your mind of the woman, smiling proudly at Barry while wearing a dark purple and white suit with a yellow emblem. She clearly knows who I am, but… What even happened? Are they from a different future? You pushed away the image to the back of your mind. “How could y-”

“If you even think about touching her, either of you, then you’ll regret ever running back here,” Eobard steely replied. You took a step closer to your speedster boyfriend in case something were to happen and he needed to speed you away to safety. Not that you needed saving, but you were still working on defending yourself via your lessons with the futuristic speedster. So, they’re from the future, and I’m guessing far off from this other Barry, but not too far for him to age too much. You spared a small glance to the cuffed and unconscious Barry Allen on the ground. It hurt your heart to see him vulnerable like that, but Eobard had confided to you his suspicions regarding this Barry Allen. One Barry Allen problem at a time. Taking a breath in, you remained silent and studied the two speedsters that confronted your speedster.

“Let it go.” Barry grabbed onto the speedster’s shoulder, holding her back. Oddly enough, Barry’s words coldly cut through you. 

“Now,” Eobard’s cocky attitude returned to him as he established the safety of your presence. He had that kind of affect, putting himself on the air of superiority and intellect with his attitude and words to belittle the person in front of him rightly so to get the desired reaction he wants and anticipates. Eobard knows how to tug on Barry’s strings. “Who's your friend? Let me guess. Jesse Chambers- No. Maybe Lawrence. Wait- Danica Williams-”

“-It doesn't matter who she is.” Barry cut off Eobard’s rattling of names.

You eyed Eobard’s deceptive small smile as he held Barry’s gaze then turned to the young adult. The female remained silent, avoiding Eobard’s icy eyes. “She's your daughter.” You scrunched your face in confusion before the neurons clicked in your head after a few seconds. Lemme guess, she’s a speedster that ran back in time and met a younger version of her father. Weird flex bro, but whatever. You do you. If I was a speedster, I’d do things differently. Obviously not up to scale what with the tampering that Eobard likes to do with the timeline to get his way with things. “You've brought me your daughter.” Your eyes flickered back to Barry before taking another look at the female and seeing a bit of resemblance, other than the fact that she was a speedster like him. Then the article Eo’s been obsessing about did reveal something true. Barry does take Iris as his wife. The West-Allen family. “It's, um... Dawn, if I'm not mistaken.”

“Nora.” The young speedster forced out after briefly glancing at her father.

“Nora. Oh, that's nice.” Eobard turned back to Barry with a smirk, “At least you still have one.” That’s cruel, Eo. “What- Nora- time travel's so weird-”

“Why did you come here?” You found the nerve to speak up, moving to stand beside the man masquerading as Harrison Wells. I’m not going to be afraid; I can’t always cower behind Eobard if something unexpected happens. I need to take things in my own hands. Even if they do find out about- You cleared any evidence of distress at their sudden appearance from your throat, “What do you want?”

“I need him to fix this for me.” Barry held up a broken tube-like device in his hand.

A thought hit the genius scientist instantaneously, his blue eyes widening. Turning your body, you saw Eobard take a few steps backwards, “No...” The headache didn’t go away, instead intensifying slightly by the second. Negative emotions flooded your system at Eobard’s crippling composure. He shook his head at them. “No, if you're here...” Eo turned to face the unconscious Barry, cuffed to his motored wheelchair, pointing to them and him. “And he's here... that means-”

“-You don't get home.” Barry simply stated. Your heart shook, terror and dread feeding into your system at his words. Uncertainty of the future- your future with Eobard- plagued you. How does this all end?

“I get home!” The yellow speedster whipped his head around in agitation, his voice raising with every statement. Barry smirked cruelly as he shook his head. You held your breath at Eobard’s spiking wrath, you hadn’t seen him this angry since General Eiling’s interference with The Flash and Plastique. Even then he’d mask his resentment to pull the strings in the game strategically. “I get home. I go home! I get everything-”

“-You don't go home, Thawne.” The Scarlet Speedster halted the Man in the Yellow Suit. Eobard clenched his jaw. You reached out a hand to rest it on his arm in an attempt to calm him. His eyes met yours for a fraction of a second. You felt the tension hang heavily in the air. “Unless… you help me.” Barry held up his broken device once more, mockingly this time. Your eyes flickered to the ring on his right hand. Similar to Eobard’s. A future version of Cisco must have been able to figure out how to use microtech to compress Barry’s suit. He’s the greatest mechanical engineer that I know. Eobard’s shoulders sagged a fraction as Barry held his ground. Turning around, the genius scientist rubbed his face before kicking the spare Barry in annoyance. Barry, all clad in black, winced because he probably ended up feeling that kick. You and Nora remained silent, eyeing the exchange between both speedsters.

Eobard shifted his body back, hands on his hips and fueled hatred present in his eyes. “What do you want?”

“Like I said, you're gonna fix this for me.”

“To do what?”

“Drain dark matter.”

What could Barry possibly need with Dark Matter? Hasn’t it done enough damage? “Whose dark matter?” You crossed your arms with the tablet close to your chest, a frown on your face as Eobard stepped beside you once more.

“None of your business.” Barry sneered at you. You narrowed your eyes at his demeanor, the young man who you gradually grew close to and considered as another brother like Cisco.

“Barry-”

“-It is our business.” Eobard retorted, taking your hand in his tightly. Both men were frustrated at the others persistence.

“No, it's not.”

Eobard started, letting go of you and rounding heatedly on to Barry, “There's no chance that I help you-”

You reached a hand out. “-Eobard, don’t-”

- It's none of your business-”

“-Cicada's!” Nora blurted out. Silence filled the room between the four of your, outbursts settling. You blinked a few times, taking a step back and resting a palm against your temple. Grimacing, you cast your eyes down as images of a half-masked man in green stood with a dagger. A glowing dagger with a look of emptiness and death in his eyes. That man looks dead to the world, as if willing to kill for an estranged purpose. It’s so cold. You shook your head subtly and stood your ground, unwilling to show weakness, but you saw Nora’s eyes shift when she looked at you. Barry eyed his daughter with a sort of incredulous look while a calculating and analytical look flashed through Eobard’s eyes.

“Cicada's.” The name seemed so familiar to Eobard as it easily slipped of his tongue. The hushed tone in Eobard’s voice expressed a calm before the storm. A deceptive man full of secrets and knowledge of many, many years to come. Especially when it came to The Flash. “The one who got away. You want to destroy Cicada's dagger, don't you?”

“We want to save lives.”

A cynical laugh leaves your speedster’s lips as you pursed yours, trying to tease out the logics from Barry. “You want to save lives.” Eobard chuckled mockingly at Barry’s response. “I bet you do. I bet you do. Especially your own, right, Barry Allen?”

“Look, that me,” Barry pointed to the other version of himself in the room, “he's gonna wake up soon. He sees me standing here, your whole timeline is gonna be blown to hell. You're never gonna get home. You know that's true!”

“I know! I know!” Eobard sighed, his facial expression contorted, and his eyes held a different motive as he flicked his gaze to Nora, who hadn’t stop taking glimpses of you. “Where are my manners? Can I get you a cup of water?” You rolled your eyes at Eobard’s ploy.

***

The four of you had moved to the small lab, far from the Cortex in avoidance of Caitlin and Cisco. The timeline was a fickle thing to speedsters, Eobard had told you that. But oddly enough, when it came to Eobard it seemed to be malleable to his every whim. Tools and spare wires littered along the desk your speedster boyfriend was working at. The monitor held a camera feed of the Time Vault where Barry’s unconscious younger version was still unconscious.

How hard did Eobard hit him? Like, how the hell is he still asleep even through all that yelling and seething??

“Here,” you handed Nora a bottle of purified water.

“Thanks,” she quietly spoke, you nodded at her. You really didn’t know what to think about someone who knew you in the future, yet you had no idea who she would be until a few years later. Would I even still be in this time period by then? Or would Eobard had kept his promise? … Nothing’s making any sense right now. You felt frustrated for not really being part of their conversations. You were… just there.

“So, who made this?” Eobard examined the piece of teach as he started working on it.

Barry answered with pocketed hands, “Someone smarter than you.”

“I doubt that,” You snorted as Eobard laughed at Barry’s statement. Leaning against the dark blue beam of the side lab, you crossed your arms avoiding Barry’s gaze when he glanced over to you. You chewed on the inside of your cheek. “If so, then why come here? Why go through all the trouble to come here when you can get help from the person who made it? Why then would you need Eobard’s help?”

“We-”

“It’s… complicated,” Barry sighed before Nora could finish saying anything, pocketing his hands.

“I think that’s an understatement to the type of trouble that seems to find you, Barr.” You crossed your arms. “At least a Time Wraith didn’t follow you this time. Which I’m still having trouble tracking down.” You nodded to his former self on the monitor. Barry rolled his eyes at you.

“You know, Allen,” the yellow speedster wheeled around, electric blue eyes meeting Barry’s green gaze, “for your plan to work, you're gonna actually have to have his dagger in your possession...”

“We've got that covered.”

The villainous speedster raised an eyebrow at the forensics scientists. “You got that covered. How’s that?” He humored them.

“With this.” Nora pulled out a dark piece of metal, holding it out for you and Eobard to observe momentarily.

“What is that?” You piqued up, causing Nora to look over at you. An odd emotion flickered in her eyes. Eobard reached a hand out to it only for Barry to pluck it from Nora’s grasp. Your eyes flickered between the two then back to Nora. She didn’t seem to be cautious around you and Eobard at all. Revealing the reason for aid and showing Eobard exactly what he seemed to want to see. You weren’t a genius, but you obviously saw the pointed looks that Barry subtly gave his daughter. The cogs were turning in your head as well as in Eobard’s. He masked his growing speculation about the two speedsters.

“Is that-”

“It's a piece of Savitar's suit, yeah.” Barry stoically responded, since Nora had already shown Eobard the metallic piece, to Eobard’s oncoming question before he could even finish. Barry knew Eobard recognized the object, shaking his head that that cat was out of the bag for this secret too.

“Savitar?”

“Savitar. The Future Flash and the self-proclaimed God of Speed, kitten,” Eobard simply explained as he worked. Images of a metallic suit flashed through your mind as it hummed with energy; a familiar face shrouded in shadows and a hauntingly course voice. “A twisted time remnant of the man you know to be your friend. Another big bad that Barry’s had to face in the future, primarily due to the mistakes of his growing unhappiness. Isn’t that right, Flash? The pain you’ve caused the people around you just for you selfish wishes.” Barry rolled his eyes but remained silent.

“Eobard, play nice,” you scolded the older man, “they’re still guests here after all.”

“Hmph. You know what's funny about your dad, Nora,” the futuristic genius caught her attention, “is he hates me. Hates me with a passion, and yet a version of him, this Savitar, is a much bigger jerk than I ever was. Did you see the face?” Eobard gestured to his own face, primarily to one side of his face while snickering “Did you- did you see the, like, pizza face-” Nora awkwardly stepped from foot to foot, looking away.

“-Pizza face?-” Eobard Tiberius Thawne you owe me so many fucking answers when we get home because these images aren’t making as much sense as they should.

“-Can you hurry up?-”

“-Yeah, I'll hurry up.” Eobard smugly nonchalantly threw the tiny screwdriver onto the desk. He picked up a different on. “I gotta tell you, Allen, using Savitar's suit, it's a smart idea.”

Barry tilted his head to his daughter. “It was hers.”

Eobard gave her a hard look. His eyes flickered towards you then turned around. “Clever girl.” You picked up an odd indication in his tone. The speedster narrowed his eyes at the tech as he ignited it, illuminating in his hands to signal its functioning aspect. On the monitor, the four of you noticed that the other Barry was coming to consciousness. Eobard inhaled silently. “Oops.” Eobard swiveled his body around to hand them the piece of tech. “Gotta go.” Barry narrowed his eyes, quiet hatred behind them as he took the tech from his nemesis. “I still look forward to seeing how this all pans out. Nora. Kitten, make sure they see their way out,” Eo glanced at you one last time before speeding away in a torrent of red-lightning to the Time Vault. The three of you watched as the villainous speedster reclaimed his rightful place, crossing his legs once more. An analytical look across his features.

You spoke before the two speedsters sped away in a torrent of lightning. “Cicada’s the one with the lightning-shaped dagger, the one that glows ominously? Heartless eyes? Breathing problems?”

“Yeah? How did you…?” Nora trailed off. Barry figured that your powers were still manifesting themselves and it seems that their run back in time has triggered sporadic post-cognitive images to be revealed through certain key words.

“It doesn’t matter how-,”

“Your powers are still developing,” Barry interjected, pocketing the tech safely. “It seems that our visit has amplified what you can do. Let’s just what it doesn’t shift anything else”

He knows about my powers… Right, time travel. “Just be safe. I-I don’t know too much and I’m not sure what the future holds, but whatever trouble you two have run into just be cautious. Not for me, but for the ones you love. The past will always have some sort of domino effect to the future. I may not be able to time travel, but Eobard has taught me a thing or two about it.” You stopped, looking off to the side while rubbing your arm. “Barry?”

“Hmm?”

“Just answer me this one thing.”

“… It depends.”

“I know, timeline and speedster stuff. But…” You took a breath in, “Is he safe?” The speedster avoided your eyes. You swallowed thickly, moving your gaze to Nora. “Does he live?” She opened her mouth a fraction, moved by the desperation evident in your eyes

“I can’t answer that.” Barry whispered without hesitation, an alien emotion behind those eyes, replacing the kindness and warmth the Barry you knew had. It was bitter. “Nora, it’s time to go back to the night it all began.” Barry flashed away to the pipeline. Nora remained.

“I’m sorry,” She whispered, your body felt numb at the absence of answers. You turned back to the monitor, running both hands through your hair before picking up a spare tool and frustratingly throwing it at the wall. Picking up the tablet once more, you ran some algorithms and diagnostics privately on your powers as you made you way to the Time Vault.

Eobard’s head perked up in question at your entrance. He remained seated catching your troubled look. You only whispered, “We need to talk after this is over,” before leaning against the wall and tapping at the screen of your tablet. He hadn’t missed the embittered look in your eyes, the prominent frown on your face. A peculiar emotion hidden behind those lovely eyes of yours when the speedster had been so accustomed to seeing lights and twinkling of stars within your irises.

Eobard rubbed his wrist as he attained messy hair due to Barry and Nora’s revelations. You speculated he had been running his hands through it in thought as he tried to decipher the truth and what his next plan of action would be. King vs King. Eobard and Barry. It was a dangerous game and it’s clear that Team Flash are Barry’s pieces to move while Iris was by his side. From the future’s perspective. But you… at this point, you hazard a thought of what Eobard saw of you as. Queen… or Pawn. Pursing your lips, you shoved those thoughts away as your mind reminded you of all you and he had gone through since he had revealed himself and his truth to you. But right now, you were feeling so conflicted and insecure at how everything would play out. He promised to take me home with him… That we could start a life together. I don’t want to be used up and thrown away again. I’m tired of being broken and alienated.

The restrained Barry shifted once more in abrupt confusion as he found himself slumped against the cool metal of Eobard’s motorized wheelchair. A prop to his act. His mind felt foggy and arms felt heavy, particularly his right hand. You stopped tapping and eyed him indifferently because you really had no idea how to feel, but you realized you need to be cautious with how you act and what you say until you and Eobard clear things up from earlier events.

Barry’s eyes darted rapidly to the seated, smirking speedster in front of him then to you then to the metacuffs before lingering back to Harrison. The Scarlet Speedster assessed the guarded expression on your face. You saw this Barry feign confusion, eyebrows raised as he eyed the metacuffs and Dr. Wells. You cracked your neck as Eobard did a little hand-wave gesture to Barry. The young speedster looked baffled, probably at getting caught, as he opened and closed his mouth.

“Now, who are you?”

[elyvorg]

It’s Shadow Maki’s berserk form, in the same vein as the Shadow Kaito design I once did!

In short, this is a concept from Persona 4 in which a person’s suppressed thoughts and feelings manifest into an abstract, symbolic representation of their issues. I’ve made a couple of posts mentioning vague, general ideas about Maki’s Shadow before, but now that I’ve finally managed to piece together enough ideas for her berserk form in my head, I couldn’t not draw it.

Since I’m not going to be writing a fic about this like I did with Shadow Kaito (there’s no need; Maki effectively already faces her shadow in canon thanks to Kaito’s encouragement and support), I’m instead going to just talk about all of the symbolism involved right here.

The Shadow initially manifests as just a giant box without any holes, upright and closed, thudding and rattling like something inside is trying to get out. As it tips over and falls open, the Maki doll clambers out from under a huge pile of weapons. The hands appear before she can leave the box itself, their strings piercing through it to take hold of the weapons and stab them into Shadow Maki, keeping her trapped in there under their control.

A significant part of this design was based around the fact that I’d already decided that Maki’s Persona would be Pandora. Pandora got associated with all the bad things that escaped when she opened her box, but that shouldn’t be considered her fault – it’s the fault of the asshole gods who filled the box with those things and gave it to her in the first place, knowing she’d open it.

So that’s why there’s a box filled with weapons, and why one pair of shadowy hands is holding it. The hands represent the members of Maki’s cult who trained her, or perhaps also the rich assholes who hire her to kill people, so the box with all those horrible things inside really originated from them.

The imagery of the box also fits very well with Maki’s tendency to cope through compartmentalisation – she’s become very good at just shutting away the things she doesn’t want to think about so that she can do what she needs to do. In fact, Pandora’s myth also works really well here, because after letting out all the bad things, Pandora shut the box in such a hurry that she left Hope, the one good thing, trapped inside. That’s basically exactly what Maki did with her own hope – her wishes that one day she could escape this hell and have a normal life – in order to cope. Shadow Maki starts out trapped inside a box because she’s been firmly sealed away inside a metaphorical box by the surface part of Maki for a long, long time.

(This compartmentalisation idea also works for the weapons being sealed inside the box to start with, since Maki also tries to shut away and avoid thinking about all the horrible things she’s been through and done whenever it’s possible for her to do so.)

I am aware that actually in the original myths, Pandora had a jar, and it’s a modern(ish) mistranslation that made it a box. However, while the original correct version of Atlas worked way better for Kaito (he carried all of space, not just the Earth!), this time the misinterpreted version happens to fit a lot better for Maki – because toy boxes are a thing. Except oh god those aren’t toys those should not be anywhere near children.

That was the other main idea I had in mind for this, before I’d even figured out Pandora and knew a box ought to be involved: this sort of imagery that’d disturbingly juxtapose Maki’s child caregiver and assassin talents, because it is horrifying and heartbreaking that she was put through all this and turned into a killing machine as a child.

So it was a pretty neat bonus that Pandora’s box could also be presented as Pandora’s toy box. There’s some more symbolism in the idea of the Maki doll having been alone and forgotten at the bottom of the toy box, because Maki on the surface hasn’t allowed herself to think about her normal, happy life as a child in a long time. Meanwhile, the weapons piled on top of her get taken out of that box and “played with” by surface-Maki a lot more often.

Even if anyone did pick up the doll and try to play with it again, it’s broken and mutilated and can never be the same any more. Maki’s traumatic experiences have messed her up enough that she can never have that normal life back now in quite the same way.

And even if she did try to be free anyway and live her own life despite being broken, she still can’t actually escape that box that she’s shut herself in, because she’s being controlled like a puppet by evil outside forces beyond her reach. That puppet imagery was another thing I knew I had to do with this – fitting neatly with the child-caregiving image of the doll – because a lot of the tragedy of Maki’s story is the fact that she never had a choice. Everything she’s been through has all been her being controlled and manipulated by people who don’t give a damn about her.

The box also helps here in that she can’t even see the hands puppeteering her, because Maki doesn’t actually see her situation as herself being controlled and feels like she deserves to bear every single bit of the blame and responsibility for her actions herself. (And the owners of the hands can’t see her in there suffering either, because like hell any of those assholes care about that.)

I had the strings be attached to the Maki doll via weapons impaling her partly just as an efficient way to combine the toy mutilation and puppeteering motifs into one, but also because that control and manipulation is precisely one of the main things that’s been hurting her and messing her up so much. She’s technically holding those knives in her hands and could use them to kill someone like this, but doing so is hurting her just as much. And trying to break free of it would only hurt her more – so it’s easier for her to just stop struggling and give up.

[ice-cream-nekogirl]

i’m falling again (Bakugo Katsuki X Reader) (sad ending)

Guys... Harry Style’s newest song is... heartwrenching and I fucking love it, it’s such a tearjerker and I love it so much, I NEEDED to write something with it... it’s that good and it made me cry... >.< </b>

Think of this as an extra to my ‘Dump His Ass’ series that I never expected to become oddly popular!! Thanks you guys!! <3</b>

However, while I love me some angst, I think after I’m done with this I’ll hafta write another fic with a happier ending, but for now... here’s the sad ending!! :3 

FROM: https://ice-cream-kitsunegirl.tumblr.com/post/188898319229/i-needed-to-lose-you-to-love-me-bakugou-katsuki-x

Summary: Bakugo isn’t known for his soft heart, but when he saw you kissing another man, it physically hurt...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olGSAVOkkTI

Nothing hurt or scared Katsuki Bakugo.

Nothing. 

He’s been strong and brave-hearted since he was a child, fearless by nature he didn’t let anything get to him and never showed any moment of weakness and never cried about anything, no temper tantrums didn’t count. 

He wasn’t afraid of the dark as a child, he wasn’t afraid of the bullies who were bigger than him. His fear didn’t waver as he got older and stronger. Because he wasn’t afraid of the villains who attacked him and his classmates at the USJ. He wasn’t even scared of the villains who captured him at the summer camp.

They held him captive and tied him up so he couldn’t escape or try to fight back, he wasn’t scared then. Nothing could get to him. Nothing could make him break down, he didn’t cry when he got his first shot at the doctor, he didn’t cry when those older kids fought with him, he didn’t cry when he wiped out on his bike and hurt his ankle. 

He didn’t cry and he wasn’t afraid of anything. 

Aside from maybe getting nearly possessed by that Sludge Villain, and then All-Might going into retirement. Those were the only two moments in his life that probably scared and internally harmed him the most to bring him to tears.

However...

There’s only one person who really knew how much that scared and hurt him. And that person was you, his beloved girlfriend. Even when he didn’t want to, because Bakugo didn’t open up to people, it wasn’t in his nature. Still, somehow you knew everything about him, and even enabled him to open up to you on the rare moments where he would let you see even a SMIDGE of vulnerability from him because he trusted you.

You were always more openly emotional than him, so much it was annoying especially when you would just chat and chat about something you loved whether it was a movie, a TV show or something he thought was dumb. Still, he listened to you, and God he wished he did more of that. But he especially listened when you were being vulnerable and opening up about everything. Ever since you and him were kids, he’s had a soft spot for you and actually let you open up.

You knew him, you trusted him, you loved him. And he knew you, he trusted you, and he loved you.

But then you dumped his ass, told him what a shitty boyfriend he had been and said you wanted absolutely nothing to do with him for several months as you avoided him, froze him out and showed how little you needed him because he failed you.

Now that both terrified him and hurt him...

I'm in my bed And you're not here And there's no one to blame but the drink and my wandering hands Forget what I said It's not what I meant And I can't take it back I can't unpack the baggage you left

It’s been almost half a year since the two of you have broken up, and only recently you and Bakugo got some closure and you didn’t take him back. And honestly, Bakugo knew that was nobody’s fault but his own. He hated admitting it to himself but he knew there was no one else to blame but himself.

As he lied in his bed, he tried his hardest to ignore the fact that you still weren’t with him. Valentine’s Day wasn’t long ago, but he didn’t buy you anything because you and him weren’t together anymore. 

The worst part? He didn’t even get you anything LAST Valentine’s Day because he said it was stupid, commercialized and a game that you shouldn’t have played into even as you gave him those chocolates and even a card that he still secretly kept.

He really was a shitty boyfriend. He realized that the more he lied down with an anguished scowl and growled. Bakugo was aware that he could have been a better boyfriend, but the breaking point was when he called you something he swore he’d NEVER call you.

That’s why you left him. You put up with his bullshit long enough, you could handle him being a jerk, saying ‘no’ to spending time with him, but then he insulted your appearance, your weight, and your interests. The same things all the assholes from school used to insult you for, the assholes HE protected you from.

“Dammit!!” He yelled at no one but himself, “You fucking idiot!!” Even though you said that the two of you could still be friends, Bakugo wished for more than that. He wanted you back...

He wanted you back so fucking much even though he knew he didn’t deserve you. Bakugo refused to shed any tears even as he eventually closed his eyes...

“I dump your ass!”

“WHAT?!”

“You heard me. I. DUMP. YOUR. ASS!” You enunciated the words slowly and deliberately to annoy him and he was extremely indignant and appalled that you were… seriously breaking up with him?! HIM?!

“You’re dumping me?!”

“What the fuck do you think I said it two fucking times!!” 

“You’re not seriously breaking up with me over a fucking insult?!” Bakugou’s pride started talking for him though, because he refused to let you bruise his ego by dumping HIM.

“Yes I am Katsuki, and that’s not the only reason… It’s because you’re also selfish and mean! You’re the worst boyfriend ever and I’ve put up with your shit plenty of times but this is just WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH! What you said is just too fucking much for me to even put up with, you’ve completely broken me down I feel like shit and I’ve HAD it and I’m dumping your ass!”

...

“You called me ‘fat’, ‘ugly’ and ‘lazy’ Katsuki. There’s nothing to talk about.” 

“I did NOT call you ugly!” Bakugou replied defensively, aware that he called you ‘fat’ when he really shouldn’t have and he didn’t deny it, but he did NOT call ugly at all. He never thought you were ugly, but you didn’t believe him.  

“Yeah you did… you implied it.” 

“No, I didn’t you idiot! I said shit I shouldn’t have but I never once called you ugly and I didn’t fucking imply it either!”

“You know I’ve been struggling with my self-image and my weight for years Katsuki, and yet you go and say all the things people from school had said to me for years, the people who made me feel ugly, so… you must think I’m ugly if you would say what they’ve been calling me…” 

“I don’t think you’re ugly…” His voice came out as a soft growl, but you shook your head, “Then you wouldn’t have said what you did… it’s okay… I’ve known it for years… well you know what? You’re free now, you don’t need some ugly, fat girl like me dragging you down, maybe now you can go out with that chick from Shiketsu High now..”

...

“How fucking long are you going to punish me (Y/N)?! HOW FUCKING LONG?! ARE YOU REALLY STILL PISSED OFF OVER SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED MONTHS AGO?!”

“Of COURSE, I’m still kind of pissed off! And for the record I am NOT punishing you, you narcissistic asshole, I’m TRYING to think about how I should forgive you for the things you swore to NEVER call me! Or if I even should forgive you! W-What? You want me to j-ju-ju-just… make out with you like its old times?!” You exclaimed with the same vexation that you had been keeping at bay ever since the two of you broke up, not seeing Bakugou’s narrowing eyes and shaking figure as he seethed when you once again, reminded him of the big mistake he made with you.

“I… I mean I… I can’t even look at your face Katsuki! Without… thinking about and hearing the words you said to me and the expression of anger and disgust on your face when you said that I was just some fat pig who was wasting your time!” Emotion nearly choked you up as you wiped your eyes when tears started to cloud them and you couldn’t see just how aggravated and distressed Bakugo was as he clutched his hair out of frustration.

“I FUCKED UP!! How many times do I have to say that I fucked up?! How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?!”

Throwing his hands up, he shouted that he had indeed screwed up, louder than before, frustrated with everything, with you, with himself, with the fucking guilt that just started eating away at him again.

“You can say you’re sorry all you want! I just… I can’t ignore the fact that you would stoop so low to say the same things the people YOU protected me from would say to me. Why did you do that?” 

“ARGH! Dammit! I don’t fucking know! I was pissed off! I had shit I was dealing with and I took it out on you but I shouldn’t have! I admit it!” 

“I just… god… here’s my real question… why are you such a fucking asshole to me?” 

“For God’s sake I said I was sorry for what I said all right?! I’ve said it a million goddamn times! I’m SORRY (Y/N)! I didn’t mean what I said to you! I want to take it all back because it was the worst fucking thing I could have ever said to anyone! Especially you!” He shouted his apology, the angry tears threatening to spill but you shook your head at this.

“I’m not talking about what you said, I’m talking about everything! Ever since we got together you’ve still managed to treat me like shit! Even before we got together you still treated me like shit, and yet it got worse when we became a thing! You hardly spent anytime with me, pushed me away when I tried to help you, made fun of what I liked, insulted me and called me other names for what? Cuz I’m a geek like Izuku, cuz I like geeky things and like to watch TV and eat sweets and say dumb puns and hang out with Izuku and Hitoshi, well I’m sick of it Katsuki! I’m fucking sick of it!”

...

“Look… Katsuki… I mean you no ill will. I still care about you, and I still love you but… I really, really don’t think you’re a good boyfriend…” You said a little bluntly but made your voice soften as he gasped quietly.

“You’re not a bad person… but you’re not a good boyfriend either… and I don’t really think that I can really return to a relationship like that… sorry…” 

“I know I wasn’t! But… look just… dammit (Y/N) I’m not going to say any of that shit to you ever again! I won’t fuck up like I did last time I swear!” He sounded desperate, as if he was pleading to you as he moved closer and you fought the tears starting to build in your eyes when he grabbed your hands. He would beg if he had to, he just couldn’t lose you.

“I love you.”

He said calmly and yet sincerely, out of pure impulse but that’s what he truly meant. He loved you and he just wanted to hear you say the words back to him. He knew you did…

“See that’s just it… I know you love me… I love you too… but… I thought you loving me was enough, at least… until… you said the things you did… now I know you’re sorry… and I don’t doubt that you do love me but… I started hating myself again when you said those things and it made me realize that… I need to love me too, I need to start loving myself… and I didn’t love myself when I was with you. I let you do that for me, and… I can’t do that anymore. It’s not fair to you, and not good for me.”

...

What am I now? What am I now? What if I'm someone I don't want around? I'm fallin' again I'm fallin' again I'm fallin'...

Bakugo’s eyes snapped open as the memories played in his head like some kind of fucked up movie as he remembered every word you said, every tear you shed because of him.

And now here he was, holding in his own tears that he refused to let fall as he angrily wiped at his eyes. No, he did not and would not cry, and he couldn’t cry over spilt milk no matter much it fucking hurt. No matter how much he wanted to just sob and cry out for you to come back to him so he could tell you how fucking sorry he was.

Dammit he couldn’t fucking take it anymore. He got up out of bed so he can go to your room and knock until you answer. He needed you, he needed you now...

He outright dashed to the floor where your room was and knocked somewhat vigorously. No answer. Growling, he knocked a little bit harder but again, there was no answer.

Were you asleep? Probably, you were a pretty deep sleeper, but dammit, he wished you were awake to answer him. But then he froze as soon as he heard the tell-tale sound of laughter...

YOUR laughter.

Relief overwhelmed him as he didn’t even realize that he was running so he could find you and not look as pathetic as he probably did right now. He could still hear you, you were near. The commons, duh, you were a late sleeper and watched Netflix when you couldn’t sleep...

“That is disgraceful...” 

But then the ash-blonde stopped dead in his tracks and froze the second he heard someone else’s voice that wasn’t yours. No fucking way...

Eyebags...

“I know...! Oh my God... how humiliating... I love this show but it so uncomfortably hits close to home...” That was your voice and you were giggling as you happily watched that gross show Bakugo didn’t care about at all. Big Mouth it was called, on Netflix too. You were watching Season 3′s ‘How to Have an Orgasm’ to be specific and of course, it was hilarious...

Unlike Bakugo, Shinsou appreciated the show, and watched it with you as he had with other shows on Netflix such as Stranger Things, Kimmy Schmidt, The Good Place, and Big Mouth.  

“Tell me about it... puberty’s a bitch... still is to be honest.” And to make matters worse, Shinsou was laughing with you and it wasn’t the first time. Bakugo was never a fan of Shinsou, he knew you were friends with that bastard, but naturally he was jealous of him because it just seemed like you two were just so damn buddy-buddy and it was annoying.

And yet there was now, just watching TV with you, while he himself was probably the furthest person from your mind...

What if I'm down? What if I'm out? What if I'm someone you won't talk about? I'm fallin' again I'm fallin' again I'm fallin'...

“Hee-hee... okay~. What do you say? The Office? Since...” Sighing sadly and dramatically you raised your fist in the air, “Friends got taken off...? Or The Good Place maybe?” You binge-watched the entire series before the New Year, because Netflix took it off, but at least you still had The Office and The Good Place.

“Yeah... Friends is gone, but The Office is here for us. Thank God... So yeah... let’s watch The Office. I’d watch The Good Place but I need to watch Season 4 since it just came out but I haven’t seen it yet. And I’ve been dodging spoilers ever since...” Shinsou gave you a smile even though he was just as unhappy as you were when they took Friends off of Netflix.  

“All riiiight~! Hee-hee good idea... I haven’t seen it yet either, I’m waiting til we get the chance to see it with Fumikage, Yuga, Denki and Mina so we can watch the last one altogether~.”

Bakugo had no idea why he was still standing there, but something in him told him to just fucking move already and say something to get your attention so you could see him. He opened his mouth to speak but...

“Can you believe this show’s been out for like 15 years and it’s just getting popular? Like crazy popular?” You nudged Shinsou playfully as he chuckled a bit, “Guess they finally realized how great a show it is...”

Shinsou thought outloud, having gotten closer to you over the past couple of months and spent a lot of time chilling out with you and also training with you as well. Then there were days when you and he would just spend the hours gabbing away about things you both liked. 

“That’s true... some people thought it was uncomfortable... but then they started to like it... which is nice.” You smiled a bit even though you were kind of sad for some reason. The last few months had been... awkward. After all, you had broken up with your boyfriend and went through quite a bit of drama until you cleared it up and made up with Bakugo. You didn’t get together with him, but the two of you reached an understanding and were still friends.

You still talked to him, and you lost your hostility towards him and became more cordial towards him. Although you’d be lying if you said you didn’t still love him. But this was for the best, you couldn’t go back to that, and you were in a better place anyway. You started to feel better and you were able to use your quirk again to fly without your sadness holding you back. You were happier, and not only that...

“Like me.” Shinsou smirked a little bit even though it was a self-deprecating joke which made you roll your eyes. “Hitoshi... okay... you’re a little uncomfortable to be around sometimes, but that was like only in the beginning, you’re great! You’re super great... and awesome. I mean your quirk is so cool, you can fight and punch someone hard enough to knock them out now! AND... you also like Friends, The Office, The Good Place, Stranger Things, smart as hell and you’re nice... well, not nice, but you have a nice side... anyone who can do all those things and like all of that HAS to be great in my book.” You kinda poked at him a bit as he playfully smacked your shoulder with a little grin which made you giggle.

And Bakugo hated it...

“Oh yeah? Well... you’re giving me too much credit (Y/N)... Here’s the truth... I think... you’re great.” 

But Bakugo’s eyes widened when he heard Shinsou say those words to you and you blushed and looked at him with wide eyes that practically shined with stars in them. “Really?”

“Yeah...” He sounded kind of flustered but he didn’t really stop because this was something he needed to tell you even though his face was getting increasingly hot just saying all of this as he nervously scratched the back of his neck, “I mean... your quirk is unique. You made yourself fly, you gave yourself wings to fly, no one else did that but you, you used your quirk creatively and it shows even outside of that, when something bad happens, you managed to make yourself fly again. And you’re weird... in a good way, everyone’s so fake and plastic that they don’t even try to be who they are, but you’re not fake, you’re just... you. Even if you know not everyone will like it, you don’t try to hide it or change yourself for anyone whether they like it or not, and that’s just... great.... I try to do that, I make no effort to change myself but... when you do it it’s actually cool.  I guess... I mean... yeah I just... I think that’s all great. I think... you’re great (Y/N).”

Shinsou stopped making eye contact with you as he felt somewhat bashful, but only when he finished is when he finally looked at you and saw your (E/C) eyes wide and your cheeks flushed. Neither of you aware that Bakugo was still there, listening...

That stupid brainwasher was right... you were great but dammit... HE wanted to tell you that... HE wanted to tell you how great your were and everything else that you were. Beautiful, amazing, intelligent, powerful...

However...

You were so stunned by everything Shinsou told you that you didn’t even think, you acted on pure impulse as you quickly leaned in and you didn’t even hear the gasp coming from your ex-boyfriend’s mouth once he saw your lips on Shinsou’s.

And I get the feelin' that you'll never need me again...

He was falling. Bakugo felt like he was falling as he watched you kiss that brainwashing bastard who made a startled, surprised sound once he felt your warm kiss. Yet Shinsou didn’t deter as Bakugo clenched his fists when he saw his eyes closing as he kissed you back.

He didn’t exist. You didn’t even see him and he knew it because you were lost in such a deep kiss with this extra and it fucking hurt...

He wanted to scream, he wanted to push Shinsou away and tell him to fuck off and tell you that he wanted you back, but he did nothing...

And he knew he was just a fucking loser because all he did was stand there, until his feet started moving as he turned his back so he could get the hell out of here. No, Bakugo couldn’t bear to see you kissing that bastard, he couldn’t bear to see that you had officially moved on.

He didn’t matter anymore to you, he knew it...

Nothing hurt or scared Katsuki Bakugo. Nothing. Except for seeing the love of his life kissing another man. He was a coward, a fucking weakling because now everything was hurting, his chest ached as he lied back in his bed. And he was letting this hurt him, but dammit... it hurt because he loved you. He still loved you and still wanted you here...

What am I now? What am I now? What if you’re someone I just want around? I'm fallin' again I'm fallin' again I'm fallin'...

You were his biggest fan,  his biggest supporter. Not anymore. He knew that... but he didn’t love you just because of that, he loved you because you were you. A dork, a weirdo, unafraid to be your loving and quirky self. You softened his heart and yet he let his own stupidity and asshole self treat you like garbage when you deserved better than that.

He refused to cry, but because he was such a damn weakling the tears just fell and betrayed him by streaming down his face as he swallowed the hard lump in his throat that was threatening to crawl up and make it’s presence known. His breath hitching as he stared up at his ceiling and his mind just showed the image of you kissing Shinsou.

Along with the image of him yelling at you and you ending it with him. It was all he could see through his teary eyes as a soft sob choked him while tears continued to fall and drip down his neck. 

Because you didn’t love him anymore, and you weren’t going to need him again and that fucking terrified him more than anything as he cried and fell back into his misery and wished that it was him kissing you, and wishing that you were here with him to catch him as he fell.

What if I’m down? What if I’m out? What if I'm someone you won’t talk about? I'm fallin' again I'm fallin' again I'm fallin'...

[afni-fics]

Red Robin: In Hindsight - Chapter 1 (In the Present... Memento)

In Hindsight: Chapter 1 (In the Present... Memento) (3266 words) by C_R_Scott Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tim Drake/Tam Fox, Jack Drake/Janet Drake, Janet Drake & Tim Drake, Jack Drake & Tim Drake, Lucius Fox/Tanya Fox, Tim Drake & Tam Fox Characters: Tim Drake, Tam Fox, Janet Drake, Jack Drake, Lucius Fox, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Jason Todd Additional Tags: Tim Drake-centric, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Family Feels, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Childhood Memories, Childhood Sweethearts, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

Story Summary:

What if bleeding out in a Middle Eastern hotel room was not the first time Timothy Drake-Wayne and Tamara Fox met? What if they were actually childhood best friends, but life and circumstance forced them apart for years to the point of forgetting each other?

Concept/Prompt: What if Tim Drake was originally raised by his maternal grandmother for the first eight years of his life due to "circumstances" involving his biological parents? What if Tim's grandmother was also the next door neighbor and occasional sitter for Lucius Fox's family?

Chapter Summary: It's another rough night in Gotham City. The Scarecrow is on the loose and the Bats are out in force trying to recapture him. Unfortunately, Red Robin got hit with large dose of fear toxin and had to retreat to a safe place to administer the antidote and wait for it to kick in. The closest safe place just happens to be Tam Fox's apartment.

(A/N: All "In the Present..." events take place post-Red Robin #26)

---

"--ed Robin? Can you hea--"

Tim groaned softly as he slowly clawed his way back into some semblance of consciousness. Almost by reflex, he began going down a silent mental checklist to determine his current situation:

"Uniform, cowl, belts in place... Still Red Robin... Not disarmed... Not disabled... Okay...

"No sounds of combat... City noises muffled... Carpet beneath me... Indoors... Apartment?... So far so good...

"Groggy... Vision blurry... Hearing ok... Movements sluggish... Drugged maybe?... I can work with this..."

"Tim? Are you... alright?"

"And that was my real name... Well shit."

Gingerly, Tim tried to push himself up off the floor. A glance around himself revealed he had been lying amidst what appeared to be the remains of a wooden bookshelf along with its contents and a disturbingly large amount of shattered glass in some unlucky civilian's living room. Then his head turned to the source of the voice that had pulled him back to awareness. A lump rose uncomfortably into his throat.

"Tam?"

Kneeling a yard or so away from him was Tamara Fox, with a nervous wide-eyed expression, clutching an empty auto-injector pen with an orange label that Tim recognized from his own utility belt stash as fear toxin antidote. 

Tim felt a spike of panic as he looked into Tam's face. "Oh God!" he exclaimed as he tried get to his feet as quickly as he could. "Are you alright?! Did I hurt you?!" Unfortunately, as soon as he got to his feet, the world pitched sideways and he nearly felt fell back to the floor, were it not for Tam rising to her own feet to help steady him.

"Woah there!" Tam said as she tried to help the unbalanced vigilante stay upright. "I'm fine. Don't worry. I'm ok." Then she glanced around the apartment with a weary sigh. "My living room, on the other hand, not so much."

Tim grimaced as he followed her gaze around the room. Near as he could figure, he could visualize how he must have crashed through the glass balcony door while trying to grapple between buildings, based on the gaping hole letting all the cold Gotham air in from her balcony. Following the shard pattern of the broken glass on the floor, he could see how he must have been flying with some speed and hadn't even been able to slow his descent before crashing, if the evidence of the demolished bookshelf that had been leaning against the wall opposite the balcony and the prominent new aches in his own body was any indication.

"I heard on the news that the Scarecrow was on the loose," Tam said as she tried to ease him to the sofa so he could sit down. "I guess you got hit with fear toxin?"

Tim nodded as he sat down, then pushed back his cowl to reveal his face, savoring the cool air as it hit his skin. "Last thing I remember is trying to get somewhere safe to take the antidote and ride things out," he murmured as he scrubbed his face with his hands. "I thought I was trying to get to a safehouse we have in the area."

Tam sat down on the arm of the sofa, her back to the recovering vigilante, and looked at the empty antidote pen in her hand. "And yet you ended up here..." she mused.

"I'm really, really sorry Tam," Tim apologized as he raked his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. "I don't know what happened or what I was thinking with the fear toxin took hold." He dared to glance at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Are you sure you're alright? I really didn't hurt you?"

Tam shrugged, then glanced back at him out of the corner of her own eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine. Whatever that Scarecrow put in that toxin didn't make you go crazy violent or anything." She looked back at the remains of her bookshelf where she'd found him curled up in a fetal position, disturbingly still and silent. "You... you'd gone completely catatonic." She wrapped her arms around herself tightly. "Nothing I said or did reached you, and for a bit the antidote didn't seem to be working. I thought..." Tam shook her head and got to her feet. "It doesn't matter what I thought. The antidote kicked in finally and you'll be ok now, right?"

"Yeah. I'll be ok." Tim watched sadly as Tam immediately knelt down to gather up some of the books that had been scattered by the destruction of their shelves. As she worked, he made a few mental notes about the effects of the Scarecrow's new fear toxin. The old toxin was known for triggering horrific visions and violent reactions in its victims. This new version, triggering catatonia instead of violence, could potentially be a greater threat against anyone in Gotham's vigilante family seeking to subdue the villain.

Tim ought to have been reaching out to Batman and the rest of his family to warn them about this new variant.

However, he couldn't get his mind off the fact that somewhere in the back of his brain, while Scarecrow's fear toxin was trying to take root, the closest safe place he instinctively tried to go to was Tamara Fox's home... no matter how broken their friendship was right now.

"Here. Let me help," Tim offered as he cautiously got to his feet and tested his balance, which was better than it was earlier. 

Tam tried to wave him away, though, as she set a stack of books on the sofa and out of the way. "Don't worry about it," she said in a tense voice as she reached for what looked like an old leather bound book. "It's fine. I'm fine. Shouldn't you be getting ba--"

Whatever she was about to say was cut off abruptly when, upon trying to lift up the book by its spine, about thirty pages full of photographs spilled out all over the floor. Tam could only stare at the mess of her beloved childhood memories scattered at her feet, until she felt hot tears begin to fill her eyes.

"Goddamnit," she snapped softly in frustration, her voice breaking slightly as she closed her eyes tightly. "Well isn't this just a perfect metaphor for my life right now?"

Tim looked and felt absolutely gutted the moment he saw and heard all those photo album pages spill onto the floor. For a moment, he was as frozen in place as Tam, unable to do anything except stare at those pictures, at Tam's precious memories scattered haphazardly around her

However, as Tam sank to the floor with another frustrated sob, clutching the remains of her album tight to her chest. he finally jolted into movement. 

"I am so... so sorry Tam," he apologized with deep, sincere regret as he knelt beside her and began to carefully gather up the photo pages. The childhood photographer he once was chided him mercilessly in the back of his mind for being the cause of this damage. 

Tam sniffled a little and used her free hand to try and scrub the tears from her eyes. "I know... I know..." she murmured as she recomposed herself, set aside the remains of the album cover, and started collecting some of of the photo pages herself. Between the two of them, it should've taken no time at all to pick up all the pictures.

At least, that's how it should have been.

Though the light in the living room wasn't the greatest, only a single nearby floor lamp close to the sofa provided any illumination, Tim kept pausing every now and then to take closer looks at the images, slowing his progress.

These were all clearly pictures of Tam and her family back when she was a child in and around her childhood home when she was maybe nine or ten years old. Everyone looked happy, or at the very least content. He also recognized a younger Lucius Fox interspersed among the pages as well as who he assumed was Tam's mom, her older sister Tiffany, and her younger brother Luke when he was still a toddler.

They were nice photos full of what looked like warm, happy memories.

So why were they giving him such a strange nagging feeling of deja vu?

Tim noticed the corner of a photo that had been dislodged from its album page. Unlike the other photos in the album which were all standard 4"x6" glossy prints, this one appeared to be more squarish in shape with an obvious white border that was thicker at one end.  "A Polaroid?" Tim thought to himself curiously as he tugged the photo out from under the other pages. "I haven't seen one of those in years..."

Then, as Tim got a good look at the photo, his breath caught in his throat.

In the photo a young boy and girl were sitting close together on a wooden porch swing, both smiling brightly on a warm summer day. The girl was hugging the boy, who looked a few years younger, as he appeared to have both arms outstretched in front of him just off the image, as if he had been holding the Polaroid camera to take the picture. On the white section of the photograph right beneath the image are words written in black marker by a childish hand.

"Timber & Tami - July 19, 20XX"

About that moment, Tam noticed the photo in Tim's hand. Her gaze softened. "That's my favorite picture," she said fondly as she reached out to tilt the image slightly her way, though she didn't try to take it from Tim. 

"Who... was he?"

Tam couldn't help the sad, nostalgic smile that formed on her lips. "He was my best friend." She sighed softly as she continued reminiscing. "He lived next door to me and was raised by his grandma. We practically grew up together because Nana was always babysitting me while my parents were at work."

She glanced at the photos in her hands, and the ones still on the floor. "He was such a geek about cameras and photography," she chuckled warmly. "I remember, Nana gave him this vintage Polaroid camera for his eighth birthday. He was so excited, you'd think he'd won the lotto. I think... this was the first picture he ever took with it." She glanced at the photos in her hands and still on the floor. "He took most of these other ones too, and he gave me the album for my birthday before--"

"Before?"

Tam sighed. "Before his Nana got sick, and he had to move away."

It took a long minute, but finally Tam noticed Tim was strangely quiet. When she turned her attention from the photos to him, she was startled to see him staring at her with an intense wide-eyed expression she'd never seen in those blue eyes before. For the first time in the year since she'd met him, he looked like he was close to tears.

He looked at her like he was staring at a ghost.

Tam felt a tendril of unease coil in her chest. "Tim? What's wro--"

"Tami?" he whispered to her in a small, vulnerable tone. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion and completely unguarded. "Is it really you?"

At first Tam was confused. She glanced between the Polaroid photo held in Tim's now trembling hand before her gaze drifted back up to his face and looked into eyes that were suddenly more familiar than they'd ever been before.

Suddenly, her world shifted.

Tam's own brown eyes went wide with shock as she tried to stifle a gasp with her hands. Then, slowly, she lowered her fingers from her lips.

"Timber?" 

The tears that had been threatening to escape Tim's startled blue eyes finally coursed down his cheeks with Tam's word. There was so much emotion warring on his face, and while his mouth opened and closed, nothing seemed able to come out. 

Tim reached out for Tam, who was still frozen in her own silent shock.

But before he could reach her, Tim's communicator began to ping, cutting through the silence between them and making both of them jump. Tim's hand retracted away sharply, as if he'd been burned. After taking a second to compose himself, he reached up to press a button on the communicator in his ear.

"Red here," he said, his voice all business, all Red Robin, but stretched tight to near the point of breaking.

"Thank goodness," Oracle's synthesized voice on the comm crackled to life. "Batman and Robin need backup. Batgirl and Nightwing both got hit with fear toxin, but their trackers haven't moved in several minutes."

Tim rose grimly to his feet and turned toward the doorless balcony. "Crane's got a new variant. Triggers catatonia instead of fight or flight. The current antidote works, but takes longer to kick in." He checked his belts to see how many more doses of antidote he had. "If they're immobile either they took the antidote and we're just waiting for it to take effect, or they went catatonic before they could administer in the first place." He sighed as he pulled out his grapple gun to insert a new cartridge. "Who's closest to my location?"

"Nightwing. Sending you coordinates for both."

"I'll be there soon. Make sure to warn B and Robin about the variant. Red out."

Once the comm was disconnected, Tim bowed his head. When he spoke, his Red Robin tone was nowhere to be heard. "I'm sorry Tam..." he whispered, voice full of regret and longing and... something else neither of them could identify. "I have to go--"

But as he turned to glance back timidly at her, Tim's eyes went wide when he suddenly found himself tightly wrapped up in a pair of soft warm arms. His breath hitched in his chest as he felt, more than heard, Tam sob into his shoulder, "It's you."

Without even thinking, Tim wrapped his arms around Tam, pulling her closer and tucking his own face into the crook of her neck. He held her tighter than he ever had before in this past year. All his emotions felt raw and exposed, but in this moment that was ok.

This was his Tami...

His big sister...

His best friend...

His first-- 

With a deep, shuddering sigh, Tim pulled back slightly, just enough to speak clearly. "I need to go."

Tam pulled back slowly too, until just their hands were interlaced. Finally, she raised her gaze to meet his. "Be careful," she whispered. The weight of so many other things they wished to say to one another hangs in the space between them, and they both know it.

Tim nodded wordlessly. Then, with painful reluctance, he slipped his fingers from her grasp, pulled his cowl back on launched a grappling line out of Tam's apartment. He spares just one final backward glance, his expression masked almost completely by his cowl, before launching himself into back into the night.

Once Tam can no longer see his silhouette against Gotham's skyline, she shivers as a cold wind cuts through her apartment. As she kneels down again to gather her photos, she pulls out her phone with a free hand.

"Hello?"

"Daddy?"

"Tami? What's wrong?"

At the sound of naked concern in her father's voice, Tam's couldn't hold back the tears as they stream down her face or the way her voice trembled and made her feel ten-years-old and broken-hearted in a way she never thought she'd ever feel again.

"Nothing..? Everything..? I don't know..? Can you pick me up please? Can I come home?"

"Of course. Where are you?"

"The apartment." 

"Stay right there, baby. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"I will."

Once the call was ended, Tam's eyes fell on that precious old Polaroid photo. With another sob, she gathered it up and held it close as she cried softly until her father arrived.