#I was overthinking too much and having too many attacks but I decided to draw them anyway

[skretri]

here some argus & icely art i did while i was on my mental breakdown 💪💪💪

[yams-here]

So I like thinking about franchises that disappointed me in some way

and after watching too many reviews I redesigned the High guardian spice characters (and thought of how the plot could work way too much)

Rose in this version isn't a complete idiot, and may not be so book smart, but she is very good in combat because she's kind of a fangirl. Like, "she studies attacks and can probably name pretty much every guardian" fangirling. While she is still kind of a dumbass, she's the one that always brings Sage down to earth whenever she gets too stressed. Although she is mostly the source of that stress. Her mom was taken by the rot, but she isn't really sure what it is, so when Thyme mentions it devastating her home she's like "!" so they can actually have something that might bring them together. She decides to take on forging and weapon enchantments so she can have a moment where she steps out of her mom's shadow to do her own thing teehee Sage here is still kind of an ass (her sexist discourse to snap was NOT a Girlboss Moment) but here I think it would be interesting if it was something that other characters think its weird too. Like its a belief ingrained into her together with the more traditional upbringing by her family (thus her only knowing old magic) so it can be part of her character development learning how those thoughts should be changed and that not everyone thinks like that, But she still tries her best to be respectful and kind. (also, her parents sent her to the academy because new magic is VERY new, so the fact that it was being implemented in the curriculum was not widespread, specially in a small town like where she was raised in.) she's an overthinker to the core, so sometimes she needs her friends to calm her down, although sometimes that anxiety is what prepares them for something they weren't even expecting.

Parsley is honestly well written enough in the original show, so the only things I would change is that the progress with the conflict with her parents is stretched a little through episodes, and the conflict is that while her parents want her to be a blacksmith and take on the family business (and help take care of her three thousand simblings) she wishes to go out and do something for herself as a warrior, because she wanting to go to school to become a blacksmith and her parents fighting her on it because they want her to become a blacksmith is kinda dumb. also her short ass hammer feels so weird to watch in the series, so I think that a longer handle would make it a little better. also tiny irony of her weapon being taller than her. Thyme feels like she should be written better because shes the only one that actually has any correlation to the plot, but she kind of... isn't?? I like her backstory of being ran out of the woods she lived in because the rot was devastating it and her dad staying behind to try to solve it, but I think it would be more dramatic if her dad was killed in the conflict but she doesn't know so dramatic moment when she finds something that belonged to him (maybe a little charm she made? for protection? in the way children do that stuff for their parents) and she connects the dots. Also the rot here is because the overuse of the power new magic is able to draw out without the control of old magic is taking too much energy from the earth, and woodsy areas thrive on it, thus the root like structures of the rot. The trees are basically oysters for the magic energy of the world. When its bad, they turn bad too. Also make her more of a "expresses affection through favors and actions, not words" person. She, Rose and Sage took wayy too long to become friends. Amaryllis stays the same because she is perfect and I love her and if you disagree to talk to the wall I personally think Snapdragon is good too but I would make him genderfluid instead. I think that the idea of Caraway THINKING he might be a trans girl but that ending up not the correct answer would reinforce his "there's always more options than you think" speech. And someone needs to point out how he's drawn to women that scream at him. Also we need a better arc with his dad instead of the raw carrot that was the canonical "his dad reinforces toxic masculinity hurr durr" thing we got (that wasn't even well made btw) NOW TO THE SIDIES

Slime boy is now named Slime boy because of an accident he had in potions class the previous year (he's one year older than the main cast) which caused him to continuously produce a slime like substance instead of stuff like spit and sweat. It doesn't inconvenience him a lot other than him making bubbles when he speaks every now and then. He's just an assistant in the terrasphere shop, and the owners are Alloe and Anise (wow they actually do something else in the story!!) but he's mainly just a more experienced student that sometimes knows things the main cast doesn't like secret entrances and cool rooms and stuff. He's a full on bard because that was barely explored in canon and music based attacks are cool. He has the tiniest little crush on parnelle cuz I thought that would be fun Parnelle is ENBY because I SAID SO (and cuz cal is stablished as transphobic and I like payoffs) and since whatever they're doing at the academy is never really clarified, I made them kind of an animal whisperer, like they call on animals to assist them in battle and other stuff. (Maybe then we actually get to see the trixies again after their prolongued mating dance that lead to literally nothing in episode 1) being an animal whisperer is a very rare "old magic" hability thus why they entered the academy one year earlier than expected. They sew their own clothes and are still the generally weird little guy they are in canon, except this time its explained as them preferring to communicate with animals ever since they were a child. They are still very polite and friendly tho, always happy to help. Cal is (his full name is calamagrostis and like if I was named that I'd be an asshole too) still parnelle's cousin, but he doesn't outright bullies them. in fact, he isn't an outright bully, he just tends to look down on other people that don't follow what he believes in, which is a more traditional view on the world, kind of like sage, so I thought of him maybe being a catalyst to her being like "wow I can see why my way of thinking may be bad now, I don't want to be like him" which pushes her to grow and stuff. And I want him to grow as well, so I thought, maybe he and Snapdragon used to be friends, but recently they drifted apart and he started to kind of resent him after he came out as genderfluid, but deep down he still misses his friend, so maybe that pushes his character development. And other people saying that hes kind of a prick. idk I just really hate the trope of a bully character just being there to be the mc's punching bag instead of getting development.

In general, the lore would be (I think, I'm not the best at lore) that Guardians are generally like soldiers, but in a more captain america type of way. they're more like beacons of hope and symbols or power and peace than soldiers are, (thus rosemary knowing a bunch of them as they're usually famous) but they are still required to know combat. High Guardian Academy is known as a guarantee to become a good soldier, and a high chance to become a guardian. They VERY recently implemented new magic in the curriculum, but are experimenting with mixing its high power output with old magic's control of it, (thus why caraway knows how but why none of the students are being thaught it. It's a fairly new tecnique they'd rather get a good grasp on before teaching a bunch of children how to use it) because since they're expertly trained guardians they can tell that a terrasphere takes too much energy above what would be considered okay. They just aren't aware of how much tho, the extent of the rot is a secret held close to their chests by witch country, which is where the terraspheres come from, which has brought them tons of profit and advancements. So when someone knows about the extent, or tries to stop it, they are eliminated, (thus why thyme's dad died. People that stayed in the fairy woods and knew how bad new magic could be were all "silenced" so they could keep profiting out of it.) (Any letters or research about the rot, or from the people that knew, were burned and interfered with, thats why no one else knew about it.) idk what else to talk about cuz this show had such little things to explore but there's so much filler that almost none of it got explored but I think it had potential, even if I prefer to focus on character interactions and how they change eachother. Again, I'm not very good with lore. and plot.

[cherryp0p224]

~General ROTTMNT HC’s~

Here, I’ll be posting my personal headcanons for rottmnt. Over time, I’ve noticed a lot of traits within the characters and certain quirks that I’ve associated with ideas that would fit the boys and other characters perfectly.

(I’ll be adding onto this whenever I have new headcanons)

Headcanon #1

Both of the disaster twins use contacts. As seen in the episode ‘Air Turtles’, Leo wears protective glasses (glasses used for athletes to see better without harming their vision), which means his vision is possibly impaired. As for Donnie, we all know Donnie used to have glasses when he was younger, but since glasses can be a huge boundary when in battle, both of the twins decided to switch to contacts so they could still see when fighting

Headcanon #2

Splinters vision is just as bad as his two sons. Splinter sees things a little blurrier than everyone else so when he sees his sons, instead of identifying them by their features, he identifies them by their colors, hence why he calls them by their colors (Blue, Red, Purple, Orange). When he was still Lou jitsu, he had some glasses, but I feel like he had them designed to fit his movie star look, so while his glasses are for seeing, he had still wanted them to look good. Teen Lou jitsu and Leo are the same thing Fr

Headcanon #3

Donnie doesn’t do too well with emotion nor does he seem to interested in romance, so the first thought that came to my head was ‘ARO/ACE DONNIE’. Aro/Ace : having little to no romantic or sexual attraction. I do still believe Donnie could fall in love, the feelings just wouldn’t be as intense as it is for those who are neurotypical

Headcanon #4

I think Mikey definitely has ADHD. Mikey tends to be very impulsive and wild when he’s fighting. In fact, he’s so impulsive, Donnie made him an inflatable suit so he wouldn’t get hurt because this boy is a loose canon. He also seems to be very hyperactive and can’t keep his focus on just one activity, hence why he has so many hobbies like cooking, drawing, skateboarding, and other things. We gotta love this ball of energy

Headcanon #5

Raph has GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). We all know this poor boy has a lot of anxiety and always stresses himself out when it comes to his family. Due to carrying the weight of his family on his shoulders, he tends to stress out a lot, but when you stress out a lot, your brain finds it a custom and a normal occurrence, so anything that might start up the slightest bit of stress could possibly turn into a full blown panic attack (I know cuz I’ve got GAD :((). He also overthinks A LOT

Headcanon #6

Casandra has gotta be nonbinary/gender-fluid.I headcanon Cassandra using she/they pronouns, why? While cassandra is presented as female in the show, she seems to be in touch with both her masculine and feminine side and I definitely think that if someone were to refer to her as a boy, she would not give a flying fuck, she just doesn’t seem to care for gender labels and you gotta love that

Headcanon #7

Sorry to the people who don’t ship this, but I see April and Sunita as a lesbian couple. In Tmnt 2012, April was placed in more as a love interest for Donnie, but it was just so forced and his obsession with her was concerning. In Rise, April poses more as an older sister for the boys and her relationship with Donnie is so sweet too. Instead of April and Donnie being lovers, Rise decided to make them best friends and they’re dynamic is something I am in love with. Rise April doesn’t really seem to have much of an interest in men, nor does she seem to be interested in having a boyfriend period, but I have noticed that she seems more interested in creating a bond with other girls (like Taylor and Sunita). When Sunita was first introduced, she was presented as just beautiful (flowers along with a beautiful background) and the way she was presented was how April perceived her, we were looking from aprils point of view. So, in conclusion, I think the girls a lesbian, argue with me if you’d like, I stand by this

Headcanon #8

Casey Jones is most definitely a trans man. The first time I saw this boy on screen, I pointed to the tv and said ‘That is a trans man’. Now where Casey came from, I have no idea. I’m not sure if he was birthed out of Cassandra or if he was a dumpster child found by Cassandra, but either way, something about Casey caught my attention that made me come to this conclusion. Ofcourse we know Casey is a teenager, but it seems like he hasn’t yet hit the full point of puberty, he’s got little scruffs on his chin and I’ve noticed his voice does crack a bit (which I love. I would die for him) but I think he has these traits because he’s still in the process of transitioning fully. In all honesty though, I have a crush on this boy, I’m down bad bro, I wish there were more fics for him

[sharonisthebettercarter]

You rubbed many people the wrong way. It’s way wider than just deliciouskeys. You went into the fandom with that post about how the fandom doesn’t read the comic and needs to read the whole thing before deciding they don’t like it. So guns blazing. You keep setting yourself apart from the rest of the fandom, right from the start. You don’t make an effort to be friendly, or produce any fanworks. Then you wonder why so few talk to you or follow you. Then you force people to interact with you by going anonymous into ask boxes. Are you and the diamond person the same person? It’s really creepy.

correction~<3

you DIDN'T actually READ the post (or had a lacking reading comprehension education) because if you had (without some sort of preconceived idea in your head based on the title alone), you'd have very clearly seen it wasn't about that.

it WAS about the 'misconception' people, specifically, who *had not read the comics* had about them. something i gave an example of in screenshots. that i have seen touted about like fact when it's literal DISINFORMATION. or at the very least, misinformation, which i think it's fair to take issue with.

if that wasn't *YOU*, why do *YOU* feel personally attacked/called out by it?

and i wasn't even nasty to those people, i made my piece with too much passion sure, but to challenge the thought, correct the misinformation, and offer up ideas. hopefully get people to give them a try.

and i *did* try to reach out and interact with people. i was either ignored or met with hostility while i was trying to be neutral/nice, even when presenting a different opinion. gave screenshots of this too~!

and if you have a problem with the way i present myself, flare up my writing with ~<3<3 or ;)))))))))))) or whatever. or even how much i swear. i don't claim perfection, i know i can be a disaster rage monster with WAY too much passion, and i KNOW not everyone's going to like me, but treating me like a demon or ugly stepchild of fandom over fictional shit and bullshit opinions/prompts that have hurt no one who's tolerant of differing ideas?

i'd rather be treated like the village idiot. i was happy enough to go on *thinking* i WAS.

you just confirmed otherwise.

if you are honestly defending that kind behavior because someone YOU DON'T KNOW 'rubs you the wrong way' ONCE or over something you also don't bother trying to understand, you aren't interested in hearing anything they have to say or seeing them as anything besides 'other'. and YOU are guilty of the same awful habit.

work on it.

baby, i've been through this rodeo before, to hell and back, it used to be my default setting too.

a smart/kind person asks questions when they don't understand something or want it clarified. a stupid asshole assumes. and i have been BOTH and sometimes still am one or the other if not both at the same time!

smart and kind people can also be stupid assholes when they overthink things and fail to realize that occam's razor is what's applicable.

no human is a string of robotically predetermined actions, but we are creatures of habit. habits can be broken or made.

THAT's why i recognize it when i see it, TRY to diffuse it when i can, and TRY to work on myself and be better.

but EVERYONE has their limits and you DO NOT get to justify someone LYING about someone and pulling this kind of shit simply because you decided you 'dislike' them or 'they aren't part of the group', before ever even listening or giving them a voice.

that's called bullying.

and 'oh gee, i wonder why so few people follow or talk to me' has never once been written in any of the shit i write. i say my piece and if it gets no engagement, it gets none. whatever. but assuming i give a shit when that's of least concern on the topic is just you being obtuse.

that's called a strawman because you're making an argument out of thin air from a point i never made.

i draw the line when people drag my friends into this shit. no, dd and i are not the same person. not all of the fucking anons are me or her, i do not have that kind of time, health, or motivation. neither does she.

not that me saying that will fucking matter since you probably won't care/believe it anyway.

but we are like brothers, only closer~<3

but if you still think i'm the creepy asshole, fair enough. so fucking be it. learn to coexist and get over my annoying turd existence.

it doesn't justify you or anyone treating me or anyone else like shit when i don't bother anyone or have malicious intent.

[asavt]

Another cookie squad Headcanons

Featuring Sparkling, Vampire, cellphones and the Espresso and Madeleine Story of how they came together. Consider it an AU now baby!

-As a note, when I say the squad I'm mostly referring to the adults, so no worries about Walnut or Creampuff useless I mention them too

-Each one of the squad has been in Sparkling's bar at last once. There's no need to say who has been there the most. Sparkling has a time every time someone besides Roguefort comes, because to him it's mostly like "Oh I'll finally know the continuation to the burnt toast accident or maybe the cat catastrophe? Maybe a new POV of the--"

He practically knows a lot of what happens in between the squad.

-As another note, Sparkling's bar is called Milabo (You know, like the song from Zutomayo of the same name, which, btw, I relate a lot to Latte)

-*A great part of this “AU” is kind of inspired by the song. Part of its lyrics and vibe.

-Vampire is there most of the time when the squad visits the bar (it's almost as if he never leaves the bar and this is definitely not me low-key putting sparkvamp in this oh no--) Sometimes the fakes his sleep to listen to the things others say (Which is how he knows most of Rogue's pan-ic).

-Walnut has been in Sparkling's bar too, but at day and for case-solving purposes only. Sparkling will give her some alcohol-free drink for free sometimes (mostly because he gets along pretty well with the nut family and because Almond usually pays him whatever he serves her).

-If the squad had cellphones (and probably an app like discord because.), their group chat would initially be called "Coffee mage appreciation group" and then be changed to "Coffee bean appreciation group"

Coffee Bean: Can we please change the group name and mine?

Guided by the Devine: No <3

Coffee Bean: Fuck you.

-*And they all would dedicate half their time to make fun of Almond but with love.

-Espresso has been mistaken for a dark mage before by Almond. It was how they meet actually. Almond had pulled him to interrogate him and got a long lecture on the differences between black magic and coffee magic.

-Madeleine gets along rather well with Roguefort. Rogue seems impressed by Maddie’s acting skills.

-Madeleine is currently living with Espresso. Out of his armor most of the time. He usually takes care of keeping the house clean and preparing meals (He never really had to cook before but the first dish he made wasn’t bad at all). Sometimes he will tag along Almond in the detective’s work, or Almond will ask for his help.

-I’m still unsure if I want the Almond/Roguefort/Latte to be romantic or platonic. But honestly? Both are good. Latte is pretty close to Almond and Roguefort but not in the way she is with Espresso (that makes them look like siblings jkashduawhu). Perhaps I’ll keep it platonic.

-The Espresseleine/Madespresso story of how they came together, because I seem to not be able to write it down JSHALDHUIWADWA-

--It happens after the Puppet Show mini quest. Madeleine starts to ask for Espresso's "assistance" in different mission that are given to him. Angel is there too, of course.

--During these missions is that Essy clarifies that no, they are not friends, no, he does not like Madeleine. Bringing up the knight begin too prideful and self-centered if not all then most of the time.

--Is not until one of their missions goes wrong, were Angel is knocked out and Espresso (seeing and knowing that if Madeleine is knocked down too they might not be able to go back to the kingdom ever) pretty much receives a rather big attack for Madeleine is that he kind realizes the facts given by espresso true. All while he is carrying Essy and Angel back to the kingdom, running and exhausted too.

--Clover begin kind of a mediator between the two (I want to see more of my son--)

--"Devine, protect us" Should happen too after this. An scenario like, Madeleine coming to think something like "I'm the shield, the one who goes on the front line and receives the blows for those who can't, always looking straight ahead... but if I am doing that then who watches my back? Who do I rely on and trust to take care of most enemies so the damage received is not overwhelming...?"

Power of team work baby!!!

--As a note to this, Maddie getting his cape damaged as well as his hair. So, you get short hair Maddie~

(I've been drawing him with short hair in secret now I have an excuse to show)

-- "You...cut your hair..." *Madeleine touches the points of it with one of his hands, pensive* "...pft it'll grow back!"

--There's also this "Search for your own light" thing between Angel and Maddie. Angel encouraging Madeleine to do so. Maybe Madeleine giving his best wishes to them for their wish to fly before they decide to part ways.

--Madeleine trying other ways to befriend Essy. Which at first Espresso mistaken as the knight usual attempts to befriend anyone he sees out of habit and attention seeking, but once they realize the feeling is completely genuine, Espresso is rather perplexed.

--"You can't just befriend people by buying them gifts (although I do appreciate them)" "Then what?" "hmm..."

--Said gifts used to be rather expensive things, simple though. Eventually Madeleine settles to just pass by Espresso's place, give him any food he had bought that day (which usually is glazed donuts), ask if he needs any help with something (getting a vase, materials, moving things), and if not then he just says his good byes, best wishes and silently leaves. (A note on the "silently leaves": Madeleine is pretty much used to speak loudly and enter loudly anywhere, he still does this at this point, but when it's about Espresso he is a bit more quiet, a bit showy over his entrances still, but less loud, and he actually knocks the door)

--Madeleine eventually manages to go out with Espresso to other places that aren't some place in the forest full of enemies. Probably after some more visits to his place and more calm talks between the two, Madeleine brings up that Espresso tends to act a bit cold or distant towards a lot of people, and that, although he understands his discomfort at begin in public spaces or too long out of his work, he should try and open up a bit. This reminds Essy of a certain friend he hasn't seen in some time, and from whom he keeps getting letters.

--Shenanigans.

--There's still some bickering between the two, always with a playful undertone though.

--Espresso explains Madeleine, one time the knight has gotten Espresso wrapped in a blanket burrito again and got him to bed, that sometimes, no matter how tired he might feel, he is simply unable to sleep. Part of a headcanon of mine that coffee magic has this side effect on it's users, prolonged usage of this kind of magic will induce a high caffeine kind of state, which on the long run can fuck up the user's sleep schedule. Madeleine understands this, but remains stubborn about keeping Espresso in the bed so at last he can get some rest from his work and clear his mind a little, the idiot falls asleep in the process and Espresso doesn't try to wake him up.

--This happens several times after, neither of them thinking of the implications of not begin bothered by the sudden closeness they share until it's too late.

--Espresso realizes first that he has slowly, yet nicely, fallen for Madeleine. I think I talked about this before but I'll do it again: Is in one of the times Madeleine has gotten Espresso to bed to get some rest, Espresso not begin able to fall asleep and Madeleine doing again. Is while he thinks of how he has gotten to know Madeleine for real, not the Knight Commander from a noble family or the Chosen by the Devine, but as he is, that he comes to think that "Ah.... I love him" and he remains calm about it.

--Espresso doesn't overthink it, just thinks that, if Madeleine ever got an interest in him, he would surely show it. So he waits. Even if in the end his feelings aren't mutual he knows he'll do just fine remaining friends.

--Madeleine realizes not many days after. And the realization hits him like a truck. Alone in his place and probably in bed looking at the ceiling thinking about Espresso. Once he realizes and thinks about it a bit more his face gets all red and chooses to scream in the pillow.

--He would think about telling Espresso as soon as he can, after all, he doesn't want his feelings to make their friendship weird. He values it, a lot. Maybe because his friendship with Espresso it's the first one where he genuinely wanted to become friends with someone.

--Espresso takes the confession calmly, gets all flustered after they kiss for the first time.

--As a few extras of this: Madeleine goes back to the Republic, asked to be seen by his family and Espresso goes to Parfedia, where a few students have applied to his class to his surprise. When they see each other again is at Parfedia (Madeleine sending a message to Espresso beforehand about his arrival) -there was this one drawing I did once of Maddie running to hug Espresso, something like that happens-. Madeleine gets very clingy for some reason, which they speak later and comes out as “Home doesn’t quite feel like home…” “Why is that?” “I don’t know… maybe I’ve become used to be around you”

--Espresso lets ends up letting Madeleine stay with him until he either feels like returning to the Republic or is called back, whatever happens first (though none will happen for maybe a year or a little more).

--Ends with Madeleine meeting Latte and Almond.

[just--another--daydreamer]

How they realize that they are in love

» Katsuki Bakugo // Shoto Todoroki // Izuku Midoriya x gn!reader (no pronouns used)

» Genre: Fluff & Angst » Summary: Just some HCs about Baku, Todo & Deku (seperately) and how they realize that they are in love » Warnings: fighting, death, injuries & swearing (Bakugo) implied abuse (Todoroki) panic attacks, overthinking & mentions of fighting (Midoriya) » Words: ~1.7k » Author's Note: These were fun to write, if you’d like to see them for any other characters, feel free to ask! This was inspired by @/costellos, check their stuff out

You can find a link to my Masterlist etc in my bio and pinned post

⋘ ──────── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ──────── ⋙

» Katsuki Bakugo:

Bakugo realizes that he is in love with you when you put yourself in danger to help him

Usually, Bakugo would be furious if someone else saw him as a person in need of help and tried supporting or even protecting him in a dangerous situation, but this time it feels different

Instead of anger boiling deep within Bakugo, close to making him explode, he feels an unusual numbness at first, while he watches your body fall to the ground after taking a hit for him. Even though he is often unable to identify his own feelings and is out of touch with them, he notices that change withing himself

The numbness quickly gives way to fear. He tumbles forward as he screams your name. For the first time in a while he is not sure what to do; he wants to check if you are alright, if you are alive, if you are still with him. But he also wants to charge forward and rip the person who hurt you to shreds

He feels helpless, unable to decide and unable to push those sudden overwhelming feelings aside. Instead, shock is freezing his whole body, only allowing his arms and legs to tremble. His mind is racing and screaming and calling him weak. Weak for needing your help, weak for not being able to protect you, weak for not killing this damn bastard in front of him

“Bakugo!” Your voice is feeble and barely audible over the sounds of the fight, but he can still hear you. You reach him through the clouds in his mind, through his own voice in his head tormenting him

He regains control over his body and it only takes him a few blows to knock out the enemy

In the next moment, he is cowering next to you, pulling you close, checking your vitals. Once again, his fingers tremble. You are alive, but in dire need of help

Bakugo hates being afraid and he pushes the feeling down with full force, trying to let his anger take over once again. The anger that numbs his senses, makes him care less about the people around him, makes him unapproachable and lets him keep everyone at a distance

“You damn fool!” His voice cracks. “I didn’t ask for your fucking help!” You look up at him with half-lidded eyes. “Baku-” “Shut up!” The pain in his throat from screaming is a welcome one. “Just shut the fuck up! I didn’t need you to save me, dammit!” A lump forms in his throat, taking his ability to speak. He can feel tears in his eyes, but he wipes them away before they can fall

Bakugo leans down and puts his arms under your body to carry you to an ambulance. Under his breath, he mutters, “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

  » Shoto Todoroki:

Todoroki realizes that he is in love with you when you are patient with him

Most people in Todoroki’s life expect a lot from him, if not way too much. His father expects him to be the perfect hero and successor to him since the day his quirk awoke, UA expects him to always be one step ahead of everyone else and he puts those expectations on himself as well. Even though it is not hard for him to be all those things at this point in his life, having someone around who is patient with him and does not care if he fails or lets himself go from time to time is a relief

Like on most days, Todoroki and you walk home together after class, since you have to go into a similar direction. Most of the time both of you walk in silence or you try making conversation with Todoroki only to be met with silence or short answers

Todoroki knows that he is not the best person to be around at all times, that he does not always get jokes or acts distant with people – he just does not know what to say and how to react to certain things

Having friends is hard for him. Either he overshares about his past or keeps people at a safe distance. Todoroki needs time to figure out this new thing called friendship for himself. Can he even call his classmates friends? Can he call Midoriya, Iida and Uraraka friends? Can he call you a friend? What do you and the others call your relationship from your perspectives?

He has known you for a while now and you walk together every single day and you talk and you text, so you are his friend, right?

“Todoroki?” you catch him a little off-guard. “Hm?” “Would you like to hang out some time?”

He looks up at you and tries reading your expression. A friendly smile, waiting for his answer. It is his decision. You are not deciding for him, you are not demanding anything from him. Not many people have ever asked him to decide things for himself in the past. Everyone always decided in his place, especially when it came to big things like becoming a hero. It is a simple yes or no question over a small thing, yet Todoroki has trouble coming up with an answer

You seem to notice his hesitation. “It’s totally fine if you don’t want to hang out,” you calmly tell him. There is no undertone in your voice, only genuine kindness. “You can take your time deciding, you can take your time getting comfortable with having friends, or even just the idea of it.” Did you have another secret quirk that allowed you to read minds? Todoroki pushed that thought away. “Take your time. I promise that whatever you say, I won’t be mad or hurt by it. Alright?”

Even though you do not say anything to compliment or embarrass Todoroki, he feels himself blushing. Just a little, but he turns his face away to not let you notice. You are patient with him. You want him to be comfortable with you, you do not want to push anything on him. A warm feeling spreads through his body and for a second, Todoroki thinks that he is losing control of his fire quirk, but he quickly realizes that it is something else – something nice and good

“Yes, I’d love that, actually.” “Okay, great! I’ll text you then?” “Yeah.”

The two of you part ways but the warm feeling stays

  » Izuku Midoriya

Midoriya realizes that he is in love with you when you comfort him

Whenever something goes wrong during a mission or a patrol, that he goes on during his internship, Midoriya is quick to blame himself for what happened. He himself and everyone around him makes him think that he needs to be a perfect hero even though he is only an intern and a student

It starts with overthinking his steps, replaying the scene in his head again and again, and sometimes even ends in panic attacks. Most of the time he tries to deal with those things alone and disappears in his dorm room, but over time you have learned to see the signs that Midoriya is not doing well and you have been trying to find ways to comfort him

You both sit on his bed as Midoriya talks about what happened earlier. The civilians that got hurt, the villain who got away, his own inability to save everyone and stop the bastard. His voice is weak, tears run down his cheeks and sobs shake his body every now and then

He goes on and on about the mistakes he made until you interrupt him

“Midoriya.” Your voice is soothing yet insistent. “Not everything that happened today is your fault. Maybe even nothing. You are still in training, there are adults who are responsible for you. Putting someone as young as you and me out there is a risk, because we make mistakes. But that’s a way to learn. We learn from our past mistakes and become stronger. The next time you are in a situation like this, you’ll be able to handle it just fine.”

Some more tears run down his face, so you pull him into an embrace. Midoriya appreciates your words. He really does. But for now, he has lost his ability to speak

“You are not alone with this. And it’s not your fault.”

Another choked sob leaves Midoriya. He hugs you back, clings to your shirt and buries his face in the crook of your neck. The way your hands draw patterns on his back soothe him until he eventually stops crying. But he does not want to let go just yet

“Thank you,” he whispers after a while. “Thank you so much.” He is not alone. He knows that he can talk to you about this, about anything. He just wishes he had the courage to open up more often

You stay like this until it gets dark, until all the other lights have gone out. Until everything is silent and Midoriya can only hear your and his own breathing. He feels oddly warm and safe in your arms, so he hopes that you will never get up to go to your room, but he knows that you have to, eventually

Suddenly, one of your hands is on the back of his head, your fingers running through his hair. Midoriya has a hard time stopping himself from leaning into your touch more. “I hope you know that I’m here for you, Izuku.” You never call him by his first name. Midoriya’s heart skips a beat and heat rises to his cheeks. He is glad that you cannot see his face right now because he is sure that it is as red as a tomato

“The same goes for you.” And he wholeheartedly means it

You linger there for another moment before finally pulling away. Midoriya does not want you to, he wants you to stay there, with him, forever. But he cannot have that. Not yet at least. And even though the circumstances that lead to this are not the best, he wishes for this to happen again soon

[bl--ankhaeji]

hiii! :). can i request a fic where hendery or yangyang have y/n over at place and she accidentally gets period blood on his bed but after taking care of her, and assuring she’s okay they face another challenge at the store when they try and buy some period items/snacks for her. :) ty!

Pairing ~ Yangyang x Fem!Reader

Genre ~ Fluff, Humor

Warning ~ uhh very light mentions of a slight panic attack not really but really two ig if you count yangs,, also unedited  

A.N ~ Sorry took me so long to answer 😅 hope you like it!

W. Count ~ 1.4k  

  The bright rays of light bleed into the room in which you and your boyfriend of a year sleep peacefully, that is until yangyang throws his hand towards your face in his sleep, slapping you awake. You jolt awake from the impact, “Yang what the fuck.” you spit angrily throwing his hand back on him. “Fucking bitch.” rolling your eyes before closing them you start twisting and turning trying to find a comfy spot to go back to sleep until you feel something wet between your legs. 

Your eyes fly open instantly as you curse internally praying that you’re just overthinking and you sit up looking down to see that what you feared was really happening. Your period had decided to come on in the middle of the night and not only that but you had heavily stained YangYang’s sheets and partially his comforter. “Fuck!” hopping out of bed you start silently panicking pacing back and forth wondering how you’re gonna hide this from YangYang. 

In the midst of your panic you didn’t notice that the very person you wanted to stay asleep had woken up. “Babe, what are you panicking about so early I can barely dream with all of your pac-” he stops mid sentence sitting up on the bed as if he had noticed something and instantly your heart drops as you cease all pacing, “Baby,” he starts out slow, “Are those my joggers? I have been looking for those everywhere, shoulda fucking known you had them.” Standing up he walks into his en suite bathroom. 

A breath leaves your lips as pure relief floods your bloodstream and it’s as if someone lifted a brick off your shoulders. You swear you had never stripped a bed of its dressing so quick in your life trying to get it into the washer before YangYang comes out. Gathering everything in your arms you start to trudge your way out of the room, the end was near you could see the finish line just a few more steps and you’ll-. Yangyang’s hand lands on your shoulder causing your body to stiffen immediately and he makes his way in front of you grabbing the bed set out of your hands. 

“There’s some bath water in the tub for you, I’ll take these to the washroom real quick then bring you a towel.” He then leaves the room without another word closing the door softly behind him. The panic that quickly filled you at the thought of him probably seeing the stain on the back of his pants when he walked out of the bathroom leaves just as quick as it came when you realize that he had probably already known the whole time. In its place was an indescribable warmth accompanied with butterflies at the thought that he pretended not to notice because he knew how stressed out you were about it.

Making your way to the bathroom you grab some clothes to change into. The bubble bath that rested in the tub could only be described as fit for a queen; you could even see the freshly opened and used powdered bath milk packet resting in the garbage can. Stripping yourself you sit in the bath filled with water at the perfect temperature and you could feel all of the tension in your muscles loosen. 

You hear YangYang walk back into the room and then the bathroom standing at the door looking at you. “I hope the bath water temp is cool. The comforter should take a hour or two and I can order you some food if you’re hungry.” 

Looking down at the bubbles that rested above your hands, “Thanks for not making a big deal out of this. You’re the best.” YangYang nods with a ‘Damn right I am’ falling from his lips, and a bright smile splits his face before moving to make his way out of the doorway until your voice calls him back.

 “By the way what did you do with that pad I left here last time? I forgot to put another emergency one in my backpack.” At your question the smile that once threatened to tear his face falls and a guilty expression takes its place. 

“Uhhh about that..” he trails off, averting his eyes, his right hand reaching for the back of his neck, “I kinda used your last pad to wipe up my Arizona Green Tea when it spilled.”  

“Yang I- YOU WHAT?!?”  

“I’M SORRY. THEY’RE- they’re really absorbent okay?” A silence falls between the both of you and you finally look back up at him staring him dead in the eyes a serious expression taking over your face. 

“I take it back, you aren’t the best.” 

“WHAT NO?!? You can’t take that back away from me. It’s undeserved, I had nothing else to clean it up with cause we were out of paper towels.” 

“No, it is deserved because now what am I supposed to do? I can’t just sit in the tub until my period goes off.” You say giving him a deadpan expression. 

“I’ll go to the store and get you some more, okay? I’ll even get you some snacks, what do you want?” 

You give him a list of snacks and tell him explicitly what type of pads to buy, “And if all else fails you can always just call me and I’ll tell you which ones to get.”

Yangyang scoffs, “I’m not stupid how hard could buying some measly pads be.” 

“What the fuck is we doin?” Yangyang drawls out at the sight of all of the pads. “So many words and I have no idea what any of them fucking mean.” he whispers. He picks up a box of pads, “Ok I’m pretty sure the wings are those flappy things that got stuck to my hand when I was wiping up the tea. So that means she wants them to have them, right?”

“Super absorbent..Heavy flow. Does y/n have a heavy flow? I assume so from the amount of blood she got on herself and the bed this morning, so I should buy these right? Wait, but they say teen and she’s not a teen.” putting the box down he picks up another. 

“Maxi, overnight, Super Pads? What makes these super? What the fuck is all of this?!?” Meanwhile Y/n is at the house saying I told you so because she can feel his distress all the way from the store.

Apparently Y/n isn’t the only one who can sense his distress because another boy walks into the section scanning the boxes with precise eyes grabbing one confidently and on the way to the counter when he sees a panic ridden Yangyang. “Hey, bro do you uhh need help or something?” he asks a chuckle falling from his lips. 

Yangyang’s head shoots up looking at the man as if he was a god, “Bro please I have no idea what the fuck any of this means and my girlfriend offered to facetime me if I had trouble but I ran my mouth about how I didn’t ne-”

“Need help and now that you do you don’t wanna call her and hear the I told you so? Yea I know that feeling and I refuse to let another brother feel the same.” The stranger's hand falls on Yangyangs shoulder as a father would his son as he guides him in the ways of the sanitary pads. When he was done Yangyang knew not only of pads but tampons as well and with his chest puffed out he made his way to the counter with the snacks and the pads ready to tell Y/n how he didn’t need help picking out some freaking pads...well not her help anyways. 

“Wow, you actually got the right ones.” you say walking into the room flopping down on the bed beside Yangyang. Opening one of the snacks he got you you lean back on him waiting for him to press play on the movie. 

He clears his throat drawing your attention up to him, “Is there something you would like to say to me?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “It rhymes with Shime Shma Shmest...” 

Smacking your teeth you roll your eyes, “Fine, You’re the best.” 

Wrapping his arms around you pulling you more into his chest he nods, “Mmhm I sure am. Don’t forgot okay?” you shake your head at the saying he picked up from his roommate Haechan. 

Yangyang proceeds to press play on the movie and you get a couple minutes in, “Yangyang.” 

“Hm?” 

“I know you got help from someone cause I- mmgmhhmhMMSHSHMMHM” Yangyang’s hand flies over your mouth covering it in order to mute what you’re saying. 

“What’s that I’m sorry babe I can’t hear you. Did you say I’m the Best? Oh, okay thanks so much babe I love you too.” 

[forevfangirlwrites]

Hiiiii

So… I just gonna said I love the actress Au it just amazing and I don’t say this that easy but it true so… I had a really bad week, like panic attack really bad panic attack and after that I was also very sad and didn’t want to do noting but at some point I thought “ I can go and read that fan fiction it always make me happy “ so I did that and it boost my mood so I know this may sound dumb but it is true so thank you.

I have also a prompt but feel free to ignore if you don’t liked, so is based of some video I seen about boys who do very cheesy stuff for their girl like, if they don’t feel good like go and buy their favorite snacks or something like that, I would like see Percy go out and buy all Annabeth favorite things and prepared a nice movie night after she texted him or called and he sensed she sad or something, I don’t know but I thinks he would do that

(Also anyone how read this take cere of you mental health )

Bye 🤍

( if is there some errors I’m very sorry still struggling writing in English it not my first language and I learned just by myself)

The text message simply reads: very clever.

He frowns at his phone. Not the usual kind of response he gets to the little jokes he likes to text her throughout the day. Sure, this one had been pretty clever: What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question? But her response is still…off.

Worried he’s done something wrong, he meekly opens the door when he gets home later that day.

“Annabeth?” he calls out softly when he’s met with a seemingly empty apartment. Shutting the front door behind him, he peers into the kitchen and bathroom of the small place before stopping in front of the bedroom door.

He slowly turns the handle, revealing a mostly darkened room.

“Annabeth?” he repeats, more quietly this time. Moving towards the bed, he sees her asleep, clutching his pillow tightly. She looks peaceful but the way she’s gripping the pillow tugs at his heart.

It’s clear today had been a Not Good one.

Letting her rest, he backs out of the room, picks up his keys, and walks out the front door once again.

She has a particular affinity towards those chocolates with fudge in the center so it’s his first stop once he gets to the drugstore.

He can’t solve her problems, but maybe some of her favorite chocolate will help.

At least he hopes so, making his way down the snack aisle. Barbeque chips and root beer wouldn’t hurt either, probably.

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing here, if he’s being honest. A need to do something, anything, had stirred in him when he’d seen her lying like that.

So of course, his brain went to food.

Before he can overthink any further, he decides to head to the checkout. Only to get distracted by some face masks hanging at the end cap.

It’s been a while since Annabeth has last done one, but he thinks that these might be similar to what she usually gets.

The packaging says ‘refreshing,’ though, and he figures that it couldn’t hurt, so he throws a few into his basket.

But staring at the odd assortment of items, he hesitates resuming his course to the checkout. He was just gonna get snacks but with the addition of the facemasks, he feels like he needs…something else.

He wanders the aisles aimlessly, at a complete loss of what else to get until he notices a woman pick up a candle.

Maybe that’s what he needs.

(It takes him five minutes to pick one out because there are entirely too many scents to choose from).

More confident in his purchases, he finally makes it to the register. It’s still a weird assortment of junk food and spa things but he thinks she’ll like it.

He hopes so, anyway.

When he returns home, a flicker of light from the open bedroom door draws him in.

She’s sitting in the relative dark, laptop pulled up in front of her, highlighting the shadows under her eyes.

“Annabeth?”

She looks up at the sound of his voice, face visibly tired in a way that hurts his heart even more.

“What took you so long?” It’s not accusatory but there is a sense of…something…maybe longing? behind her words.

“Sorry.” He holds up the bag. “I stopped to get a few things for you.”

She frowns, pushing away her laptop and turning towards him. “What things?”

He hands her the plastic bag, and watches as she rummages through it.

Silently, she takes out every object and lays it out on the bed. His worry grows at her lack of reaction.

When she finally looks up, her face is unreadable.

“Do you…do you like it?” he asks, nervous that maybe he’s made things worse.

She crawls off the bed and stands in front of him.

“Percy…” she starts. He waits expectantly for her to continue but she doesn’t say anything else. A second later though, she’s launching herself at him and he wraps his arms around her as she presses her face into his neck.

They stand like that for a while until she whispers into his ear. “You didn’t need to get me anything.”

“I know,” he murmurs back, running a soothing hand up and down her back.

“I really just need you.”

His heart melts at her words and he just hugs her even tighter. He’s always going to be there for her.

“You okay?” he mumbles into her hair.

She just shrugs, confirming his belief that it hadn’t been a good day. But she’s smiling when they pull apart and he thinks that even though he can’t fix everything, he’s made it a little better.

She tugs him towards the bed and five minutes later finds them cuddled up against each other, eating chocolates while a lemon vanilla scent fills the room.

A/N: Thank you so much for the prompt! I’m so honored to hear that my fics make you happy and help in some way! That is truly all I can ever hope for! I hope that you like this and that it’s what you’re looking for! (And you never have to apologize for your English! It’s so kind of you to put in the work to send me such a lovely message as it is!)

[phoenotopia]

2020 July Update

Things have gone slowly... again.

The good news is that the game is now submitted to the console "authority" and it's entirely off my hands. Once it gets through the console "checking" process, it can get a release date and we can sprint towards release. Until then, it'd be at least a month's wait or more until I hear anything. Understandably, their checking process is impacted by Corona, so wait times are increased.

On my end, I was also slow to submit the game. I submitted it late late June, since I ended up spending 7 weeks fixing bugs (and not 2-3 weeks like I estimated in the last blog post). There were just SO many bugs - now squished, thankfully. Since this is a blog post, I'll talk about what kind of bugs I've been fixing.

The other thing that slowed down the submission process was simply due to unfamiliarity with how these submissions proceed. There were pages and pages of stuff to read, guidelines to follow, and legalese to wade through. It really made me wish I had a publisher to guide me through the process. But I was able to clear it with a couple days work. I had an impression that the submission process went like A->B->C->D, with no room for concurrency. Turns out I could have done steps B & C at the same time and sped things up by 2 weeks... So that's that. I'm taking that as a lesson for next time.

The Console Revealed

What is this console that I talk about so stealthily? So that this blog update isn't completely unexciting, I'll reveal which console I've been working on until now. Drumroll please!

It's Switch!

We actually got the Switch dev kit in late 2017. From my understanding, around this time in the USA, the Switch kit was quite hard to get for indies as it was just starting out and high in demand. So I was surprised that my application got approved. I didn't know it then, but the game would still need a few more years of development...

Tweaking performance and fixing bugs

Here you can see my "expert" playtest setup. Since the Switch is more powerful while docked, I needed to playtest it in handheld mode, so I could catch and profile any problem areas where the framerate was unsteady. The most common thing that caused framerate drops were areas that went overboard with lighting. For these areas, I'd tweak or swap out the lights with alternatives that looked similar while also being less computationally intensive. Maintaining 60 FPS is a must!

An old camera (Nikon D3100) trained at the screen recorded my playthrough and would let me rewind to any moment a bug occurred. It could only record in 10 minute chunks, so I'd have to repeatedly repress the record button. On the plus side, because it's so old the movie file sizes were small and convenient.

The number one bug that I tracked and fixed in the past two months was what I dub the "Gear Ring De-equip" bug. The Gear Ring functions as customizable shortcut keys for the player to map items and tools (see an old video demonstration HERE). Through regular use of the inventory, somehow the equipped items on the Gear Ring would be de-equipped. It was an elusive bug since the de-equip event would happen very quietly and you would only suspect something had gone wrong much later. By then, the trail had gone cold and you weren't sure if a de-equip had actually occurred or if the player had simply de-equipped the item themselves. Two other playtesters noted that something left the Gear Ring in their playthrough, but I dismissed them. "Are you sure you didn't just de-equip it yourself?" It was a bug that bred mistrust and discord. I didn't truly believe it until it happened to me...

Luckily, with the camera setup, I was finally able to track it. In the literal 67th video, I caught a live instance of the bug occurring. After which, it was all too easy to recreate the exact same inventory and gear ring setup and replicate it.

(With this exact item layout, combine the 2nd item with the 14th item... and viola! Gear Ring de-equip!)

After fixing this bug, I then proceeded to fix it 5 more times. Every time I fixed it, it would later reappear through a different mechanism. 

Why do bugs like this happen? Underneath, there are two lists of items. Tools on the right and items on the left. Items can occur multiple times because they're consumable. Both lists start counting their indexes with the value 0. However, both items and tools co-exist on the gear ring. So to uniquely identify an entry you need both the item ID and the data index. Failure to check both data types resulted in bugs like the Gear Ring de-equip. Now throw in a bunch of item operations that can confuse the system. You can split items, combine items, swap items, or discard items. The more freedom you allow, the more ways there are for the system to trip up.

If you didn't get all that, that's alright. It was needlessly complicated. Imagine doing more and better and with less code and less bugs! Such a thing is possible if you start with the right design. I'm definitely taking notes here on how to design inventory systems for next time. In the meanwhile, I'm very confident I've squished all inventory related bugs.

Other bugs squashed and features implemented in the past 2 months include the end game arts not unlocking properly, collection percentages climbing beyond 100, stray doors floating in the sky, low HP sfx blaring when loading different files, balance tweaks on bosses, a max HP display when the menu is open - too many to count really! It was only after I fixed them all that I was confident enough to move forward with submitting the game. I apologize for the delay this will cause!

PC version back in progress

You may recall in the March 2020 update I talk about how in pursuing the Switch version, I unwittingly ruined the PC version. Well, since the game is "done" now and I'm waiting for it to go through the checking process, I've started working to reclaim the PC version.

And there is some good news to report. The PC version can compile again! Of course, it will need to have some work done, since it was late 2017 when I last had a functioning PC build. 

The opening menu is broken, the underlying save file system needs to be updated, and the controls... oh Lord, the controls. Controls were probably the #1 factor in pushing me to pursue a console version first. There are just so many controller options. Even just the usual suspects are numerous: Xbox, Nintendo, Sony, Logitech, Hori, 8Bitdo, Steam...

One of the number one complaints received regarding the flash game (which was keyboard primarily) was that I didn't allow controller rebinding to start. It was then that I learned of the vast array of different keyboard types.

(Ever heard of an Azerty keyboard?)

I shan't make the same mistake twice! One of the things I'll definitely tackle is the Right/Left face button feud when it comes to which should one should be 'confirm' and which one is 'cancel'. I want to allow the player to choose which is their "YES" and "NO" preference and allow that to overlap other actions like Attack or Jump.

Even after control bindings are taken care of, some things just won't translate well. The right control stick is currently used to access the gear ring and for fishing. Keyboards have no right stick. Aiming the crossbow with a full 360 degrees of range is done with the left control stick - if keyboard only, would the crossbow simply be locked to the 8 cardinal directions? What about those tutorial prompts with button graphics (e.g. "Press 'B' to Jump"). If using the playstation controller, it'd need to be the CROSS symbol. How many button graphics are we gonna load into the text module? What if the player, mid-playthrough, decides to swap out controllers? Indeed, there are many issues to tackle where controls are concerned...

Perhaps I'm overthinking it because even some AAA games get this wrong (Dark Souls has 'B' as 'Yes' on Switch, and it's not remappable, which I find quite annoying). I've seen games on consoles where the controls wouldn't mention the console's controller at all but instead mention a mouse and keyboard. Or, if you remapped the controls, the tutorial prompts still showed the old control bindings, making for a confusing experience. I definitely want to do the controls justice, so this will take some time.

Phoenotopia DISCORD Channels

Ryan and Firana have been running a Phoenotopia discord since late 2017, which I promoted on this blog once. It's been a couple years and it turns out that the old discord link I promoted expired. It's long overdue, but their channel could use another shoutout. Here's their channel : https://discord.gg/cnjrYST

Also, Khalid recently reached out to me about creating a Phoenotopia discord as well. I see no reason why we can't have 2 or more discords, so he has created that one with my blessing as well. You can find his discord here : https://discord.gg/cfnsCwy

I personally don't use Discords, since I'm very busy and there's too much new tech to keep up with. I hear there's a Tik Tok now? Should I create a Tik Tok for Phoenotopia? Hmmm...

Anyway, if you'd like to chat with other people who are similarly enthused for Phoenotopia, do check them out!

Fan Arts

We have five new fanart submissions this time around from regulars and new alike.

Cody G. returns with this pair of sketches of Gail. One seeks to answer the question, "how is Gail so strong?" Cody's answer is that under her sleeves she's actually really buff! This might be the most ripped rendition of Gail yet. Also, in the right drawing, the letter 'E' kinda melds with her bat, making it look like a keyblade!

What if Gale was a Shrek character? A new artist, Samu Kajin, from tumblr answers that question with a rendition of Gail sporting ogre style antennae. Samu Kajin says she can be called "Gaek" or "Shrale". I like the poncho!

Shafiyahh returns with a pretty portrait of Gail. Unlike their previous digital pieces, this one was made with color pencils! I like how her hair blends pink and purple colors together, and this pattern is also present in the eyes. Reminds me of a certain character. And the eyes are so sparkly despite using color pencils! Major props!

Negativus Core also returns with this relevant image of Gail, masked and running, presumably from Corona. It gave me quite a chuckle! I like the angle and tilt of this run pose because you can see the sole of her foot - that's how you know she's at full sprint! A skillful blur localized to her left foot show's just the right amount of motion. Gotta love the robot's expression too!

A rare 3D art has emerged. Dany Q crafted this adorable figure of Gail that is as cute as a button! I like how well it translates the pixel character over to 3D, capturing the 3 stitches on her shirt and even catching her stray strand of hair. It kinda reminds me of a Wallace and Gromit character, so I can picture it moving and animating in that unique claymation style.

Next Time

I'm ~80% confident we can clear the Switch console checking process and drop the trailer with a release date before the next blog post. But once again, if things go slowly, you'll hear from us in 2 months...

[ashtheshortstack]

make them learn - ch 1

Rating: T Ship: Adrinette (sorta)  Chapter 1/3: broken frame 

Tags: Princess Justice AU, Akumatized Marinette, Bullying, One-Sided Reveal, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Read on Ao3

Next Chapter

“You’re either with me, or you’re against me.” 

Lila’s words were clear and harsh, but Marinette battled akumas on a daily basis. It wasn’t something she couldn’t handle. She feared some things, but Lila Rossi definitely wasn’t one of them. Did the lying brat piss her off? Oh, big time. At first, it was jealousy revolving around Adrien, however, the blond seemed to figure out Lila’s lies all on his own. He didn’t need the constant proof. So, Marinette was comfortable that Adrien would never date someone like that. He wasn’t the type. 

“From now on, you and I are at war. You will lose all your friends and be all alone. And Adrien will soon be mine.” 

Marinette had to give her credit. The brat tried her best, that was for sure. Lila had successfully gotten her expelled, but suddenly just recanted all of her statements the next day and confirmed she made it all up. Blaming it on some stupid disease that didn’t exist, but whatever. It worked. She was thankful for that. Even though Lila’s change of heart clearly had something behind it, Marinette decided to not fret on it too much. It was clear the brat was still out to get her, but Marinette knew that taking the high road was obviously the best option. Adrien was right, there was no need to feed the troll. 

No way could she have predicted that Lila had something more sinister up her sleeve. Of course, she hadn’t assumed that the incident was the last she’d hear from Lila, but Marinette didn’t realize there could be something much, much worse. 

It had been a typical day for Marinette. There had been an akuma attack the previous evening, so she was a bit sleepy, but nothing she’d never pushed through before. She was Ladybug for a reason. She wouldn’t let a little lack of sleep ruin her day. Besides, Marinette looked forward to school. Seeing Adrien every day always uplifted her mood. He was such a kind soul, often lighting up the room more than she was sure he realized. Marinette knew he didn’t have a great homelife with his mother disappearing, assumed dead, and his father being an uptight, strict, recluse. It amazed her that he could be so positive every day. That he could be such a good person. Knowing what he went through just made her admire him even more. 

Despite how she tried to hide her fondness for him, it was difficult. Luckily, Adrien was the oblivious type and had no idea what feelings Marinette harbored for him. And she planned to keep it that way. No matter how much she wanted to be with him, she knew that Adrien loved another girl. She assumed that it was Kagami. They had gotten awfully close lately. And it hurt even more because she and Kagami had become friends. So, it wasn’t like she could hate her or be angry at her for liking the same boy as her. Even though Marinette liked him first , she digressed. Kagami would be good for him. They had so much in common… so it was okay. No matter how painful it was. No matter how much it made Marinette’s chest tighten with an ache. No matter how she desperately hoped that Adrien would see her the way she saw him… 

Taking her usual spot on the bench, Marinette sat with her knees pulled up to her chest as she doodled a few sketches into her sketchbook. However when Adrien arrived in the courtyard and made a bee-line for Nino, Marinette couldn’t help but follow him with her eyes. She could feel a soft small cross her lips when Nino swung an arm over the blond’s shoulder with Adrien grinning in return. It was wonderful to see him happy. She was glad he had a friend like Nino. 

“Hey, girl,” a familiar voice chimed. 

Startling at Alya’s sudden appearance, Marinette gave a tiny yelp. “Oh, hi.” 

“You had that dopey look on your face again. You could try to be a little less obvious, you know,” her best friend teased. 

Marinette laughed and tugged at a pigtail, “Sorry, I don’t mean to,” she glanced back to Adrien with her smile returning and shrugged. “Besides, he never notices anyway.” 

Scoffing, Alya shook her head. “Adrien does notice you. You know that, right?” 

“Well, yeah. But in a friend kind of way. He doesn’t see me the way… well I see him,” there was a sadness in her tone that she didn’t like. 

Marinette didn’t want to be disappointed that Adrien liked someone else. He was human. He was allowed to have his own crushes, right? But… she was also allowed to be human as well. And be sad she’d have to let him go. Maybe it was for the best? She had to focus on defeating Hawkmoth before she could even think about pursuing anything romantic. The world she lived in was dangerous, and she wouldn’t dare get Adrien dragged into it. If he got hurt… well, she wouldn’t know what she’d do. 

Alya bumping her gently. “You sound like you’re giving up.” 

“Not giving up,” she said with a shake of her head, “just respecting his choices. He’s such an amazing person, and I don’t want to get in the way of his happiness.” 

“Oh, Marinette, he’ll see it someday…” Alya fell silent as Marinette gave a non committal hum in response. “In the meantime, are you gonna take all those pictures of him down in your room?” she asked.

“No way, he’s easy on the eyes.” 

The two shared a laugh at that. Marinette returned to her drawing as Alya watched over her shoulder. Eventually, Alya flagged down her boyfriend. Nino, with Adrien in tow, came over to join the girls. Marinette was able to keep her cool when Adrien took a seat between her and Alya and watched her sketch. 

“That looks great, Marinette. Have you thought about entering my father’s next contest?” 

With a giggle, Marinette did her best to stop her heart from pounding. Stay cool, she reminded herself. “U-Uh, maybe. When is it?” 

Adrien smiled. “It’s in a few weeks, I think. I can check with Nathalie and get back with you?” 

“Yeah, sure,” she replied quickly. 

There was a beat before the blond spoke again. “You really are talented. I wish I could draw like you and Nathaniel.” 

“I’m sure you can draw just fine. Someone as amazing as you? I’m sure you're great at anything,” she blabbered out. 

He laughed at that. “Well, thanks. May I?” he asked, bobbing his head towards her sketchpad and holding his hand out for her pencil. 

“O-Of course,” she sputtered and instantly handed him her pencil and book. 

Marinette couldn’t help but watch him as he doodled in her sketchbook. His tongue poked out between his lips, wiggling slightly as he focused on his art. She noticed his brows pinch as her eyes wandered along his face down to his hands. Hands she’d held so many times and wished she could again and again. Granted, it was usually when Adrien was tugging her along to escape an akuma or that time he pulled her in to dance. 

Sucking in a breath, she looked away as she felt her face warm. Marinette silently prayed that he hadn’t noticed the vibrant flush that kissed her cheeks. When he finished, he held up the completed product. “Ta-da! What do you think?” 

In the middle of the page was a poorly drawn cat with a large body, stick legs, and a thick tail. There were dots for eyes and a squiggly cat mouth. Marinette couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of it, and Adrien quickly joined her. 

“Maybe, I need more practice. You should teach me sometime.” 

Marinette’s heart fluttered at the statement. “Yeah, maybe sometime. You may need quite a few lessons though,” she teased. 

Adrien smirked at her. “You gotta be kitten me, Marinette, I thought I was pretty good.” 

She couldn’t help but laugh at the horrible pun. There was a dull sense of familiarity that she shoved into the back of her mind. It was common to make puns. No need to overthink it. 

The bell chimed, echoing through the courtyard. Her friends all stood, ready to head to class. Adrien returned her sketchbook, smiling at her. “You coming?” 

“You guys go ahead, I need to pack up my things.” 

The blond tilted his head. “Need help?” 

“No, no. I got it,” she assured him with a smile. 

Adrien didn’t seem convinced, giving her a once over with a concerned pinch in his brows. But after a moment, gave a slight shrug and started up the stairs. 

Letting out a loud sigh, Marinette took a moment to gather her wits. She was proud she was slowly able to interact with Adrien despite how nervous she still felt around him. Her heart always pounded while her palms felt clammy. Wiping her hands on her pants, she corrected herself. Marinette glanced down at her sketchpad, glancing over the drawing. Adrien signed his name at the bottom with a smiley face next to it. She smiled, hugging it to her chest. Marinette would always cherish any moment she had with him. 

Standing, she gathered her things and headed up the stairs. Class went as usual. Lila was absent for the day, making Marinette relax a little knowing she wouldn’t have the brunette glaring at the back of her head for the day. 

 She took her notes, occasionally glanced down at Adrien (no one could blame her, really, he was so easy on the eyes), and drew tiny doodles on the corner of her paper. Marinette surprised herself with a little cat drawing that replicated the blond’s sketch from before. There was so much to learn about Adrien still. Did he really like cats? Maybe, he was a Chat Noir fan? 

Marinette was yanked from her musings when an akuma burst into the door of the classroom. Her classmates screamed and took cover beneath their desks as Madam Bustier shouted for the akuma to be gone. But the akuma locked eyes with her before smirking wickedly. 

“Ah, there you are Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I was hoping I’d find you here. I’m Crush Detector, and I’m here to expose your crush.” 

Her heart pounded with panic. “W-What?” 

Crush Detector gave a mused hum before prancing over to Adrien who stood at his desk with a gritted frown. “Don’t you want to know the truth , Adrien? We know how you feel about people who lie. I’m here to be honest… because we’re friends, aren’t we? ” 

Marinette watched as his expression changed. His eyes hardened. “Lila!” he hissed. 

Gaping, she looked at the akuma. “Lila?” Again!? How many times could this girl be akumatized intentionally? Was she working with Hawkmoth at this point? 

With a grin, Crush Detector turned her attention to the projector holding up a camera that was clearly the inflicted object. “Why don’t we all see the truth, hm?” 

Marinette watched in horror as the pictures of Adrien on the walls of her room flashed onto the screen, then Adrien’s schedule in detail, her desktop screen, then her. There was literal footage of her pieced together from before school. The entire conversation she and Alya had before class was played back in front of her, as well as her hugging the sketchpad after he’d doodled in it. 

Tears pricked her eyes, her heart dropping into her stomach. Her throat felt tight as her hands began to shake. She was utterly humiliated. It wasn’t a secret to her classmates how she felt about Adrien, but for him to see…

Kim laughed aloud. “You have his whole schedule on hand?” 

“I knew you liked him, but I didn’t realize you were a stalker, Dupain-Cheng,” Chloe mused. 

Her bottom lip wobbled as more and more images of her cooing over the blond were shoved into her face. As booked towards the door, vaguely hearing Alya and Adrien call after her. 

Crush Detector blocked her exit. “Oh, running away from your feelings again , Marinette?” 

She saw red. Marinette shoved Lila’s akumatized form out of the way. She booked it to the bathroom. Knowing that the akuma would be after her any moment, she locked the door, knowing it’d at least delay the process of Lila entering. 

Taking deep breaths, Marinette held her head as she slid down the door. Sobs wracked her body as she buried her face into her knees. 

“Marinette…” Tikki’s voice murmured as she floated out of the purse. “I’m so sorry…” 

With a sniffle, she wiped her face. “We have to catch an akuma.” 

“Marinette, are you okay?” 

Her body felt numb. An emptiness swirled within her. There wasn’t time to care. Lila had done this to purposely humiliate her. And she wouldn’t let that witch get away with it. Marinette called on her transformation. 

She left the bathroom, seeing Adrien searching around the courtyard. He hadn’t noticed her, thankfully. 

Crush Detector laughed spitefully. “Oh, c’mon, Adrien! We know you don’t like her! Don’t pity her!” 

The glare Adrien shot her was bone chilling. “This was the last straw, Lila. I told you to leave Marinette alone.” 

“Oh, but… I’m not Lila anymore, am I?” she snickered as she sat on the railing. 

Ladybug’s fist clenched. Rage flowed through her veins. A heat took over her she’d never felt before. It boiled at her back, shooting up her spine. Her fingers trembled with anger, her teeth grit harshly together. 

“Shut up!” she screeched before wrapping the akuma in her yo-yo. Ladybug yanked her victim harshly, forcing Crush Detector off the high railing and down onto the concrete of the courtyard. The akuma shouted in pain as she met the ground forcefully. “That’s enough! That’s enough! ” 

Adrien was stunned by Ladybug’s appearance, jaw hung open. She didn’t blame him. Marinette had never felt so much pain… hurt… anger… bubble through her. She’d never hurt an akumatized person intentionally. But Lila deserved it. She deserved so much worse!  

Ladybug tightened her yo-yo. “Do you just love to hurt others!? Does it make you happy? What do you think will happen now, huh!? Do you really think Adrien will love you after this!?” 

“Adrien will be mine,” Lila hissed. 

She tightened the string. The akuma gasped for air. 

Adrien took action. He ran over, snatching the inflicted camera and smashing it on the ground. The akuma flew out, but Marinette didn’t budge. When she saw Lila deakumatize… when she saw her at her mercy… she kept her wound in the yo-yo. 

“You have so much hate in your heart. You’re a horrible person! You just love to humiliate others, and for what? It’s not going to make anyone like you. It won’t make Adrien like you. You’re just a coward! Too afraid to be yourself, so you lie to everyone and bring everyone else down to bring yourself up!” 

“Ladybug!”

She gasped, glancing over at Adrien. His face was red. Had he been shouting at her the whole time? 

Quickly, she released Lila and snatched the akuma from the air. She waved off the butterfly silently. Adrien was staring at her with an emotion she couldn’t read. Lila was glaring at her with more fury than ever before. Swallowing, Ladybug gave Adrien a nod before whipping her yo-yo and fleeing quickly. 

                                                           o~o~o~o

Sobs wracked her body. Marinette hadn’t even made it to her bed. She wallowered on the floor, her face in her hands. Hot tears spilled onto her hands. Breathing was difficult through her cries, unable to catch necessary air. She vaguely felt Tikki’s pats of comfort on her head. 

“Marinette, you have to calm down… Hawkmoth will--” 

“I know , Tikki… I know. I-I need to--” she glanced down at her phone. There were many, many missed calls from both Alya and Adrien. Even one from Nino… which may have just been Alya calling from his phone. She couldn’t be sure. Her throat felt tight as she scrolled through her messages. 

There were texts from Lila. How’d she even gotten her number!? Who would’ve given it to her? 

  Hope you learned your lesson about crossing me. He’ll never love you. 

  Marinette didn’t dare open any more of them. She felt sick. Nauseated from the pain and anguish that stirred within her. There were texts from Adrien and Alya, both begging her to call them. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to speak to anyone. 

She trembled as she reached up to take her earrings from her lobes. Tikki gasped, looking at her chosen with worry. Marinette held the miraculous out in her palm, gazing at her kwami expectantly. “I need you to take these and find Chat Noir.” 

“Marinette, no--” 

“Tikki, please. I can’t let Hawkmoth get my miraculous. This is the only way to keep the earrings safe.” 

Tikki’s gaze was pleading. “B-But Marinette, you could lead him right to Master Fu.” 

Shaking her head, she took a breath. “I can tell you… the only person I’ll be after is Lila. She--She’s the reason for all of this. This is entirely her fault. A-And if I get akumatized and whatever I do… she deserves it.”

“Marinette, don’t talk like that.” 

“Go to Chat Noir.” 

It was a command. And Tikki knew it. The heartbroken expression on the kwami’s face was answer enough. She floated over, giving Marinette a kiss on the head. Watching her kwami phase through the window, she knew she’d done the right thing. She knew that the best option would be for Tikki to go to Chat. Chat had used the Ladybug miraculous before. If anyone could save her, it was her crime-fighting partner. 

When the black butterfly floated into her room, she wasn’t surprised to see it. The utter feeling of hopelessness that overwhelmed her was like fodder to Hawkmoth. It absorbed into her purse, and a voice echoed in her mind. 

“Princess Justice… your feelings have been exposed to the boy you love against your will…” 

[cristalknife]

On Comments, feedback anxiety on both the writer and the reader’s side

 If one could look into  my WIP draw, or take a glance at the fics I’ve actually posted, it becomes clear misunderstandings based on miscommunication is something I seem have a thing for. In all honesty is more of a lifelong study and recurring theme I keep stumbling on or consciously walking into. Preface: I am only human and mistakes can happen, but usually I try to handle the detailed label (also referred as Read the Tin or as written on the tin) of major warning with my writings that is usually missing in any other aspect of life, sort of a lovely user manual/preview so one could know to walk away before getting invested or worse triggered. 

Or at least know exactly what they signed up for.

Is it perfect? No but at least it’s there, as a writer I did all I could to avoid unpleasantness, the rest it’s up to the reader’s discretion. Which leads me to the heart of this post: comments, feedbacks, criticism, politically correctness, manners and the anxiety they produce in both the writer and the reader. 

The picture is big so I’ll divide in sides, but remember that people are made of multiple sides, and sometimes those sides are at odds or outwardly warring against each other. That’s pretty average for any irrational human being with emotions.

From the POV of an overthinking anxious writer:

1)  Ao3′s Kudos are sort of like a watered down thumbs up, after about 4-5 fic posted (or ~15K words of stories out there to be consumed), they became the kind of anxiety triggers feeding thoughts of why so many people/guests left a kudo but the story wasn’t good enough to warrant the time of a comment/review 2) Comments are lovely reminder someone found something in your words that made them react so strongly they felt like sharing that reaction with you was worth their time. 

2.1) Comments are also the cause of anxiety about their content before you have the courage to read what they says...

3) Criticisms and feedbacks can be a wonderful tool to improve your writing for the next story. But not if they are laced with insult, personal attacks in that case they are the kind of black hole that pushes people to stop writing all together, or at least stop sharing what they write. 

4) single emoji (♥), 2 char long (<3) comments takes years of effort and a lot of conditioning to remember to slip in reader mode and appreciate the effort it took to stop and do even that, instead of allowing doubts to gnaw at the back of your head with waaaiiiiit that’s all? was it good? was it bad? arrrghhh what does it even mean??? 

5) Statistics and numbers, those are the evilest of the most buggering things and the most vile tempters that will push you to compare your stories against others (a futile exercise in frustration and pointless reason to shred one’s own self confidence to the tiniest of pieces for literally nothing)

5.1) Especially when you have two writing mind frames: 

 writing the stories you want to read (and usually it is either a niche where you’ve already consumed all you could find so you write it because duh, more content might ignite back the fire please, or you haven’t found yet someone to say it how you want to read it) vs what I simply call 

 exorcism writing (the kind of free therapy exercise when something is bugging the heck out you and not leaving your mind so you put it down to words and then let them fly free, instead of trapping them on a diary you’d just return to read and start the vicious cycle all over again)

5.1.1) and your exorcism stories become more popular than the stories you want to read, because at the end of your raw ranting exorcism you managed to write something that would end up falling within mainstream tropes. Which just makes you sad because those were not the result of love and planning and endless hours of writing and editing that you put in your other stories.

6) I’m not writing fan fiction to be an educator, it is possible that my day job is being an educator, but unless I’m there writing textbooks, as a writer it is not my responsibility to teach the reader something that has to be authentic, realistic and a good practice. I’m just here to tell a story.  Or are you really telling me that you watch superheros movies and series and expect them to appear outside your window? If you just laughed then why are you looking at fanfic smut with the expectation of finding a more interesting and alternative way to have a sex ed lesson? If you subscribe to the school that a story has has to make sense... Let me ask have you ever read some of the greatest literature works like Frankenstain, Moby Dick, The Hobbit, Journey to the center of the Earth, Alice through the looking glass, Aeneas, if you did and subscribe to “fiction as to make sense” then please please enlighten me I’m rady to sit back and hear all the points you can make how any of those are realistic representations of how things go. If you  says that those are just stories told oh so long ago... Lets pick more recent ones, the Harry Potters books, Goosebumps, Twilight, The Shadowhunters Chronicles, 50 shades of , all those are listed as fiction  which yes sadly too many used as a portrait of theme touched in there as realistic because the story was not set in a fantastical world and made the mistake of treating a work of fiction as a documentary... Sorry people I’m a writer, choosing the right words matters, words meanings and definitions matter please  learn to think critically, and learn your words, there is a difference between fiction and documentary  6.1) At the same time it might be that I am the kind of writer who loves to add factually authentic things in my writings, someone who actually had spent hours and hours on research to make sure that what they have been writing is not utter and complete made up rubbish, and that’s ok too. I do not expect readers to assume it is correct or that it is purely made up, and if someone is curious they could use the comment to ask a question, I’ve never turned out a curious question, even when it was difficult to answer it

7) Just because I am writing about something, it doesn’t mean I support it...  Again those are stories, not a scientific report on a lab experiment, I can write about abusive relationships, doesn’t mean I support them, I could write about self harm or depression, doesn’t mean I am encouraging those behaviors, in fact those usually come with a Trigger Warning, why? because a reader should have the option to walk away from what should be just a moment of pleasure and relax, not finding themselves triggered because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of what was going to come in a story posted on the internet... 8) This far I’ve personally chosen to not push for comment, no beg necessary, I decided years ago to be the kind of self centered bad ass who writes for themselves, who’s not going to dangle the promises of more chapters in exchange for comments, I dislike the practice, and I find too exhausting shouting left and right hey hey I’ve written this read it read it... So I do get why my stories do not have such a large audience, it doesn’t help I’ve actually posted way less than what I’ve written over the years. I do welcome comments, though I have no clue on how to respond to short ones, or a single emoji/<3 to all chapters to those I end up answering only to the most recent one of that person and thank for their support. Longer comments are easier to answer because it gives me something to say back or comment/thanks for, though it becomes weird for me when someone speculate on future developments in what they wish to see, and since I’ve recently adopted the policy of posting only completed stories (even for the chaptered ones that will not be posted at the same time, the number of total chapter is not an estimation it is exactly the number of files I’ve divided the story into for reasons) because I do know whether something of that sort will happen or not, and I don’t want to put someone out of my story if they are too invested in see what they imagined happen... Though as I do write stories I’d like to read I’m quick to encourage aspiring writers to feel free to take that what if and work with it, just to please mention that my story inspired theirs and that I’d love to see what they come up with. Constructive criticisms, I do not have a beta for most of my works, I do not work too well depending on other people’s time, I confess even in the past I received criticisms that were not constructive if we push the boundaries and call those criticisms rather than just plain old complains, which is sort of the reason why I stopped explicitly encouraging communication. Because I do expect respect, you don’t know anything about me or what I believe in, you might make some guesses from my profile because I haven’t been shy and pretty open on them, but I won’t accept being personally attacked or talked to in a disrespectful manner just because you didn’t like what I wrote. I have no problem accepting criticisms, as long as they are criticisms and not just whining. You cannot come to me with “I hate your story” and leave it at that, you already took the time to express your opinion instead of simply walking away, the least you can do is explaining why... Otherwise I seriously don’t get why you wasted both of yours and more importantly my time and energies... From the POV of a spoonie reader who barely has the energy to read: 1)  Ao3′s Kudos are a life saver that allows you to show your appreciation (even if you are allowed only one as registered user) with only a click (and some times even that click takes so much out of you) instead of relegating you to invisible reader, barely visible number (*coughs*ff.net*coughs*)  or forcing you to make a story a favorite/followed 

2) Comments are the source of anxiety, because you might want to show support but would they get that or would it sound strange? will the author understand that a a ghsafdgsakdjfh (read: key smash) happened with excitement and love and you’ve no other words to express it? 2.1) also trying to put your support in words when you are in your pj cozily being a blanket burrito and reading from your phone in bed because there’re no more spoon left for the day it’s hard 

3) The author asked for R&R, or welcomes comments and constructive criticism. You loved the story enough to spend energies to

point out things that were plain plot hole or downright inconsistency or lose ends, pointing out botched translations from your own mother tongue and offering correction that were not google translated, in ao3 case pointing out lack of some appropriate tags, which would have 1 improved your story’s visibility and 2 allowed the reader to choose whether they wanted to read it or not both points that would have benefit you as author...

Only for the author to react: 

- badly with a why are you such a nitpick hadn’t anyone told you that you should just stay silent if you have nothing nice to tell me? - Excuse me you’re the one asking for my opinion not my adoration, I gave you exactly what you asked for, if you cannot handle your work being nitpicked or the holes in your plot being publicly poked then there’re fabulous people called Beta reader who will give you the needed dose of though love in private get one..

- badly with a don’t like don’t read -  legit reader’s counter point is  I wouldn’t have read it if you had given me a way to know then what I discovered now  [personal addendum, on a not that well low energy day it takes me less about 3 mins and half to read 1.5K words don’t came at me on your 1k long story and tell me I could have stopped reading when I noticed it wasn’t that good for me...I was done with it before I could get any warning]

- dismissively because a meet cute  clearly is an AU  - Bless your heart if you need me to point out to you that there is a difference between an Alternative Universe (AU) and a Canon Divergence and the fact that   meet cute is a trope  which in fandoms usually implies different circumstances within the fandom’s canon world  of the first meeting between the characters in the main relationship but doesn’t automatically include different premises for the character example: 

in canon: characters from a magical supernatural fandom one a wizard with magic, one a fighter with superhuman speed and holy weapons, in their first meeting the fighter saved the wizard’s life. 

in a meet cute:  a wizard and a fighter with superhuman speed and holy weapons meet in the middle of the forest where the fighter was hunting for food failing miserably and the wizard took pity on the fighter and offered to share their dinner, if the fighter dared to step inside the wizard’s home

in a No Power/Human AU meet cute: where there is no magic, one of the two is a barista who uses flirty coffee jokes lines to call the other’s person order, and finally discover they are an accountant so instead they start using math puns to get the accountant’s attention. 

Those are all valid stories but as an author don’t came at me believing that just because you mention a trope that is enough to distinguish between the 2° and 3° examples, or that having mentioned the trope gives you the standing to look down at me if I do have my own reasons that you do not know about  for wanting to read only stories like the second pitch and get upset but still tell you in a polite way that there are missing tags in your story, especially when you’ve falsely advertise your 3° like pitch as if it was a 2° one and I get upset and let you know about it and do so with the curtesy of signing it with my name rather than leave an guest/anonymous comment 

- shrugging off issues with the tags with a Oh but I’m bad at tagging  -

then I have 3 things to say to you buddy one) that’s not an excuse if you haven’t learnt how to do it yourself get a beta, get a friend, read more and compare what your story tells with a similar one and how that one is tagged, there’re ways Ignorance is not an excuse; 

two) you can’t claim you’re bad at tagging but then refuse to listen when someone is pointing out to you more tags for your story, dud learn how search engines work, searching by tag is basically having a filtered search, the more tags your fit your story the more venues your story can appear in reader’s search for something to read... which means visibility for your work, are you really telling me that you dislike to have that and would prefer less people reading what you post? then sorry but I think you’re doing it wrong and should get a diary instead, not post them on the internet.

addendum: still claiming to be bad at it after having posted over 40 stories and all posted in recent times in the span of a couple of months, just suggest you lack the intelligence to learn how to do things. Which only encourages me to never ever get close to your works, certainly to never promote or share them if not actively discouraging my friends from spending their time on them.

three) and guess what?  there is a frikking I'm Bad At Taggingtag for that too!!!

As a reader I might be ranting in this post, but the long effect of those is a growing apathy and increased unwillingness to spend my energies for commenting unless I’d really really really really liked or loved a story, or I have something more than a one liner to share, which while I intellectually know it might be unfair to let the whole pay for the disrespect of few, my own survival instinct is glad I’m not spreading myself even thinner...

truthful disclaimer: in all fairness it has been my experience, that those reactions usually come from authors with already quite few stories or a decent word count out there. 

New authors are still very much enthusiastic and happy about even the smallest crumbs of recognition or encouragement, which in return is lovely because it recognise that my own time and energy as reader are worthy, that it does take effort to share an opinion or encouragement or suggestion.

4) The author might never know how that day I posted that single emoji, or two character <3,  it was one of those bad days when even opening a small water bottle to swallow down the painkillers was too much, when using a finger to scroll down the page to reach the end of the story had wiped out more energies than I could really afford and yet I still pushed myself to leave a sign that I was there and appreciated their story

5) readers should be allowed to have the “if you thought writing was hard, try commenting other people words” tag...  because sometimes especially on older platforms (yes ff.net I’m looking at you) as a reader I can’t find the energies to wipe up something to say so I become a silent invisible reader. And sometimes it’s really that I am able to stand only stories with certain characteristics, personally for example I do not have the emotional fortitude to read more a certain amount of Work In Progress at the same time across multiple fandoms because my brain can’t recall all the details and I might not feel to rereading the story from the beginning every single time there is a new chapter... 6) Maybe it’s because I’m way out of my teens, maybe it’s because even in my teens and before stories were my safe place, my escape, I do not expect things to be factually correct in stories, but I am a logic driven person, I will see those plot holes and I might even poke through 'em if I find your story good enough that I feel it would be a pity not pointing those things out. You cannot tell a classic vampire story (not the twilight kind of sun sparkling vampires but the sun burn me to ashes kind) and have your group of vampires prancing about at noon of a clear summer day without some sort of reason for that to work. I promise you, I’m not picky, I will accept ridiculous reasons like they were standing under and umbrella covered from head to toes and none of their skin was exposed to the sunlight, but do put the effort to give me a reason why I should believe it was intentional, or do not cry and complain if I do decide to point out dude you’ve normal vampires that are sunbathing and did not become piles of ashes that’s not plausible... 7) Stories are just that, something to listen to, they don’t have to have a moral for them to be worthy of being shared, they don’t have to be a mirror  of your thoughts, or they could be a mirror of your beliefs, and if I am commenting on them I’m commenting on the story itself not your connection to it. And I do need you to advertise in advance if there’re things that might be triggerish, because what might be  just a mental exercise of stepping outside your shoes, if not done might result in me walking into a panic attack while maybe I was just recuperating for one and trying to find comfort or a distraction. While I as a reader cannot know you author and where you come from, unless you want to make an ass of u and me do not assume you know where I am or what path I’m walking in my life as a reader.  8) I despise people telling me what to do, especially if I didn’t ask for an opinion... If someone (who doesn’t have an economical or authorative position over me) demands me to do something the chances I’ll be do it, especially if I was going to do it before, become nil instantaneously. I’ve been running and lurking in writing circles and fanfictions for closer to three decades at the time this is being written, and from the very beginning I found disgusting and deplorable the practice some authors adopted of bargaining reaching certain numbers of comments/kudos in exchange for the next chapter. I can respect an author saying I don’t want to get this or that, but the final result is that most likely I would walk away without commenting even if it would have been a story I would have otherwise supported. There’re few authors I do know personally, at least superficially through other channels, that have this kind of disclaimers and I still comment. But that’s because I have an appreciation and will to support the person themselves who also happened to be authors. 

[call-me-rei]

Chapter 31

“I can’t be your lover on a leash…”

---

The whole school was still in a commotion the day after Jacob tried to start shit. Most kids were talking about how Vic owned him while others were placing bets on whether Jacob or I would win in a fight.

I rolled my eyes as I walked past some kids whispering about me. I wouldn’t have minded it too much if they hadn’t been so obvious. Fucking freshmen.

I went to my locker and took out the books I’d need for my two classes before choir. I put them in my backpack, slung the bag over my good shoulder, and walked to class.

It was an A day, meaning I had first period. That was my government class. I chuckled to myself as I walked down the hall and into the room. I found humor in the looks some of the students were giving me as I sat in my seat for the day. Well, technically it was Vic’s seat. He did almost beat me up for it.

I had gotten to class early so there weren’t many students in the room, but the ones who were there looked at me like I was crazy or stupid. I ignored the stares and took my notebook out of my backpack. The whole school already thought Vic kicked my ass for sitting here so what else could he do? Why beat someone up for the same thing twice?

Did I actually think Vic would hurt me for sitting in a dumb seat? Of course not. Even if he wasn’t talking to me, I knew he wouldn’t attack me for something so stupid, especially since he knew why I was broken and bruised in the first place.

The first bell of the morning rang, signaling that students were coming into the building. I had at least fifteen minutes to zone out and draw before Mr. Davis started the lesson. I took my headphones out and put on one of my favorite playlists that I’d created on Spotify.

My “just because” playlist was pretty chill. It was mostly filled with songs from my friends’ playlists or songs I grew up listening to. Either way it was relaxing. I wanted to create a playlist of songs from the friends I’d made in San Diego. They each had such different tastes that it would be fun to hear how they all connected. And since I couldn’t find the inspiration to draw, I figured I could get started on that before class.

I went to Lynn’s page first. I knew she liked music with an electronic element. I listened to the first song on her playlist and liked it. I’d need to listen to it again to decide if I wanted it on my page.

I repeated this process with Kortney’s, Ashley’s, Tyler’s, and Savannah’s playlists. The vibes were different on each of them; that made them more fun to listen to. I had a couple minutes before the final bell, so I scrolled down my profile page looking for more of my friends’ pages to explore.

That’s when I saw it.

I had completely forgotten that Vic and I were following each other on Spotify. He wanted us to listen to some songs for inspiration for our music appreciation project and he wanted to share those songs with me on the app. I didn’t think too much of it at the time and I didn’t go back to his page since he had directly shared the playlist with me. But now that we weren’t talking I wanted to see what was up.

I pressed on his picture and saw his list of playlists. He had one titled Curty P Party Mix, whatever that was, and a couple others that were just an artist’s discography. One playlist in particular stood out though. It was titled For You.

I opened it. “Anywhere With You” by Saves The Day was on it along with “Talking to the Moon” by Bruno Mars. There were many different genres in between, but the message was clear: he missed someone.

Was it me?

I shook my head. There was no way I was going to put myself in that position again. He rejected me. He left me. He didn’t want to be with me! I wasn’t going to allow myself to think that he was sorry when he hadn’t tried to talk to me in a week.

The final bell rang while I was talking to myself, letting the school know that it was time for class to start. I put my headphones in my bag and locked my phone.

Mr. Davis stood from behind his desk ready to start the lesson but stopped short when the door opened. It was déjà vu. Vic walked in. Mr. Davis sighed and gestured for Vic to take his seat. Vic walked across the floor without a word. The kids in class seemed to hold their breath. Why? Oh, because I was in that damn seat.

Vic walked up to me and stared. I couldn’t help but stare back. Unlike my first day, he didn’t threaten me. He didn’t say a single word to me, just stared. I tried to read his face. He wasn’t angry or trying to threaten me. He wore his signature expressionless look. I tried to send that same look to him but I’m sure I came across as intimidated.

We continued our staring contest for what felt like half an hour when in reality it was probably a few seconds.

Mr. Davis cleared his throat. “Mr. Fuentes, please take your seat.”

Vic snapped out of his daze and took the empty seat next to mine. He didn’t glance at me and didn’t speak to me for the entire period.

***

I sat on the floor in a practice room after choir. It was quiet and secluded, so I didn’t have to worry about someone saying anything to me. Being at school had been rougher than I imagined. I ended up texting Lynn after economics telling her I wouldn’t be at lunch. She was concerned, but she understood that I was overwhelmed. She offered to drive me to McDonald’s after school if I was feeling up to it.

As much as I wanted to focus on the potential good that was going to come after a stressful day, my mind went back to Vic’s playlist. For You. As much as I didn’t want to think it, I wanted it to be for me. If he wasn’t going to talk to me then all I had was to wish that he’d dedicate some songs to me.

I went back to Spotify and Vic’s profile. I’m not sure why, but I hesitated. I should’ve picked a song to listen to immediately, but I was worried. Some part of me thought this was a trick. Like he knew I would find it and he set it up so I would think that he missed me.

Fuck, I was overthinking again.

I shut my brain off and picked a song from the playlist. “All That I’ve Got” by The Used started playing from my phone’s speakers. I sat back against the wall and listened to the lyrics. I figured that even if Vic hadn’t made the playlist for me, I could use it to describe my own feelings.

I felt like shit.

I missed him.

I sighed. I didn’t want to openly admit it, but I’d be damned if I could ignore it. The song that was playing wasn’t helping but to be fair none of the songs on the list would help.

We needed to talk. I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to talk to me. I’d thought about it for the entire week. I knew that I wouldn’t be obsessing over it if he’d just answer my questions and let me know. Damn him for being so aloof!

I closed my eyes as The Used stopped playing and “Only Us” by Thrice came on.

“There’s ‘only us,’ huh?” I said to myself. “Then why won’t you talk to me?”

“You wanna talk?” I hadn’t noticed that the door opened. I jumped in my spot and looked toward the voice of that son of a bitch.

“What?” I huffed. Seeing him in the doorway made me frustrated. Why was he there? What did he want? Why was this the first time in a week that he wanted to speak? I didn’t want to see him. It was as if I needed to be available for him but when I wanted to get close to him he had the right to reject me. Well maybe I wanted that right.

He cocked his head to the side. “You found my playlist.”

That was all he had to say? I scoffed and turned to face forward.

“So you’re gonna ignore me?”

I turned around swiftly with my mouth open. Did he really say that? The bitch who’d been ignoring me for six damn days was upset that I didn’t respond to him?

“Fuck off,” I spat. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. It looked like he was contemplating what to do next.

He turned around after a moment. I thought he was going to leave but instead he closed the door. I pursed my lips and watched as he stepped farther into the room and sat on the floor about a foot away from me.

“What part of ‘fuck off’ don’t you understand?” I asked. “I don’t wanna talk to you.”

“Well I wanna talk to you.” I shot daggers at him with my eyes. The nerve of this bitch!

“No,” I said. He looked at me quizzically. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do you not understand?”

“Kellin-”

“No,” I said again, cutting him off. “I tried to talk to you for six fucking days and you ignore me and push me aside like I'm a piece of trash. Now you wanna talk to me and I should just be ready? Fuck you! You don't get to tell me what to do. You don't get to just look at me and not say a single word to me for a week and not care about how it makes me feel. You also don't get to make fucking playlists for me and act like nothing is wrong! You don't deserve my attention; you don't deserve to be in this room with me. You are not allowed to string me along after you explicitly told me that you wanted me. It's not fair and I don't deserve it.”

I was standing at the end of that rant, my breathing heavy. I wasn’t sure where that all came from but damn, it felt good to get it out.

Then I saw the look on his face and I regretting learning to talk in the first place.

He sat there with his trademark blank expression. I couldn’t tell if he was taking everything in or was trying not to explode the same way I had.

“Are you gonna say anything?” I asked softly once I’d calmed down.

He stood up. “Do you really feel that way?”

I nodded slowly. I didn’t trust my mouth or my brain to give him a good answer.

He looked at me, chocolate brown eyes searching my blue ones. Apparently he didn’t find what he was looking for because he turned and walked out of the room without another word.

[anartic-monkeys]

[fanfic] opiate this hazy head of mine (chapter 1 of 2)

Summary: The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.

TRIGGER WARNING: Character is diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). If you are triggered by mentions of suicidal thoughts, depressive episodes, panic attacks, or even medication, please skip this story or proceed with caution.

Title is directly lifted from the lyrics of Medicine - The 1975

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23413189

FFN Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13537767/1/opiate-this-hazy-head-of-mine

CHAPTER 1

la douleur exquise: the heart-wrenching pain of wanting the affection of someone unattainable 

 August 4, 2002

He knows for certain that she’ll be leaving soon.

The timepiece on his wrist tells him it’s well past one in the morning, but he keeps his eyes open and trained on the woman lying next to him. Hermione Granger’s face is peaceful in sleep, the lines that usually mar the space between her eyebrows hidden from sight. He wants to touch her, her cheeks and the exposed skin of her shoulders, but he’s terrified of waking her up.

He knows that once those eyes open, she’ll realize what a colossal mistake it had been to sleep with him, then she’ll be gone from his life.

Forever.

So he stays still, tries to keep his breathing as even as possible so as not to rouse her. Just minutes ago he had been drowning in a sea of her—her eyes, her warm heat wrapped around him, her hands everywhere, her lips leaving marks that are not his to keep. Now he’s lost, the constellation of freckles dancing across the skin of her nose and cheeks drawing him in deeper into what would be very dangerous territory.

He has never been this close, despite the many cruel efforts on his parts to be physically near her.

The taunting.

The dirty looks.

The insults thrown at her face, right at her face, allowing him just a moment to be that close to her face.

Tomorrow she’ll be gone, but for now he allows himself to live in the reverie that she is his.

 He wakes and feels his chest constrict in panic, his breath catching in his lungs and his limbs freezing up. In the back of his mind, he imagines that this is how it would feel for her to wake up the morning of their N.E.W.T.s, realizing that she had fallen asleep in lieu of studying. The space beside him is empty, only the ruffled sheets and some stray strands of hair on the pillow serving as evidence that Hermione had spent the night with him. He had meant to watch her to the very last minute, savour the very last moment before she’d leave, and he had fallen asleep instead and wasted precious time. He doesn’t even try to get up, choosing instead to close his eyes and will the sharp pain in his chest to fade into a dull throbbing. He doesn’t know how much time passes but he finally moves his head to face the other way, discovering a kink in his neck.

“Draco, are you awake?”

His eyes snap open at the voice and he imagines that his body visibly stiffens.

“Do you mind if I use your kitchen to make breakfast?”

He rises slowly, leaning on his elbows, and finds her sitting on the wide windowsill. He swallows at the sight of her wearing his shirt, a book propped open on her exposed legs. For a moment, he entertains the idea of sleep-induced hallucinations, wracking his brain for an explanation for the anomaly that is Hermione Granger.

He opens his mouth to ask her a dozen questions, each one an attempt to explain why in Salazar’s balls she's still here in the poor death eater’s lair, but his mind blessedly decides to kick in before his mouth can do any damage.

She had said his name. His given name.

“I’ll make breakfast,” he says instead, swinging both legs off the bed and turning away from her for a moment to search for his pants. Only half-naked, he takes note of the time and beckons for her to follow him into the kitchen.

She doesn’t move from her spot (he has no idea how many hours she’s been sitting there but he knows for certain that it couldn’t have been long enough for it to justify him referring to it as her spot) and the minutes tick by with the two of them merely staring at each other. She would never hear it from him, but he would much rather stare at her than cook breakfast. A few heartbeats pass and then she’s pushing off the ledge, raising her eyebrows at him and he answers the unvoiced question with a roll of his eyes. “I can cook.”

“Here, I’ll give you your shirt back," she replies, ignoring his declaration.

He shakes his head, not even trying to hide the appreciate way his eyes roam over her body. He doesn’t know why she decided to put his shirt on, it doesn’t seem like something she would do, but he wants to keep her in his clothes for as long as possible.

Maybe then her scent would be permanently engraved into the fabric.

 She says she wants pancakes and Draco pretends he’s not thankful that she chose something he actually knows to make. He doesn’t burn anything, even when he feels her eyes boring holes into the back of his head, but he barely stops himself from going overboard with the blueberries.

Little triumphs.

He’s plating up a high stack for her, ignoring the curious stare she’s been maintaining ever since he poured her a cup of tea. He wants to run away from the scrutiny and jumps on the opportunity once he hears a light tapping sound coming from the window. His owl delivers him letters that he leaves in a drawer for later and a copy of the paper that he brings back to Hermione, wordlessly handing it over to her just to get her to stop studying him.

“Do you have powdered milk?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just,” she pauses, glancing up from behind the face of an elderly wizard being tried for tax evasion. “I usually put some powdered milk on my pancakes, but these are fine. You’re surprisingly good at this.” She makes a show of taking a rather large bite that has him hiding a smile behind his tea.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Granger,” he says, not without irony. She catches on his meaning and then they’re sharing a smile, an inside joke that only the two of them know, and Draco wonders at what exact moment did the universe tilt the wrong way and allowed him to have this with her.

To have her.

“This is odd,” she finally says, looking at him in a way that tells him its not his culinary skills she finds bizarre. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she means them, that she means it’s odd that she had slept with him and him with her and that he had made her pancakes with far too many blueberries and she had just shared a smile with him that made the darkest parts of his mind recede for a moment—

“Don’t overthink it, I can hear the cogs in your brain turning all the way here,” he responds, hoping against all odds that he sounds as nonchalant as he wants to be about it. He knows for a fact that if he wants to keep her from finding out the mess that is his thoughts around her, he best start putting up the occlumency walls he had so carelessly torn down last night.

He tells himself he will, in a minute, when she finishes her pancakes and she’s had enough tea. He’ll put up the walls when she stops looking as if she doesn’t hate him, doesn’t hate that she had fallen into bed with him, doesn’t hate that he’s standing shirtless in front of her because she’s wearing his shirt.

He tells himself he couldn’t have expected her to stay any longer. She has work, she tells him, and he doesn’t tell her that of course you’re working on a Sunday. He watches her tiptoe her way back to his room and he watches her emerge once again dressed in her own clothes, her healer robes tucked in the crook of her arm. He tells himself he isn’t disappointed when she only kisses his cheeks, tells himself he doesn’t feel his fingers warm when she tells him that she had a good time, that she’ll see him around soon.

He tells himself it’s not the hope that she would come over again that has him purchasing the tin of powdered milk from the muggle pharmacy. It sits in one of the cupboards, right next to the tea that she had picked out.

  February 11, 2000

Draco grits his teeth, mentally listing off a number of hexes that he could fire at the beady-eyed wizard sitting in front of him.

“I beg your pardon?” he asks, struggling to keep the drawl in place. To the untrained ear, they would hear an almost bored quality to the question. To anyone who pays attention, they would hear the unnatural lilt that his voices takes on right at the beginning.

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy, we need to perform legilimency on all ex-Death Eaters wishing to apply for a job at the ministry,” he eyes Draco, one hand coming to scratch at his whitened beard. “Of course, everyone knows you’re a skilled Occlumens, which is why we’ve prepared a special potion that will ensure you do not… keep things from our knowledge.”

Draco feels a muscle twitch somewhere on his jaw. “And why exactly would such a thing be necessary in the first place, if I may ask?”

The veil covering the cruel sneer falls away and the man in front of him openly shows him just what he thinks of Draco. “Mr. Malfoy, you can’t honestly expect the ministry to let you work here without the reassurance that you do not have any ill plans tucked away that mind of yours. Think of it as a way of earning your future employer’s trust. That is, if we do end up hiring you.”

Draco has no response, choosing instead to steeple his fingers against each other and stare back at the other wizard. When the silence stretches on, with no attempts from Draco to end it, the other man speaks up in a tone brokering no argument, “This is an absolute requirement. If you do not wish to go through with it then I will be bidding you farewell.”

“When?” he asks, feeling the last dredges of his pride slipping away from his grasp.

 A healer performs the spell. When it’s over and he feels like his mind has been repeatedly stabbed by a blunt knife, he turns away from the judging eyes staring right at him. There’s a flurry of papers and the sound of a book rapidly being flipped through. The healer furiously scribbles on his chart while Draco awaits the verdict.

“Mr. Malfoy, you’ve been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Here’s a prescription for anti-depressant pills that you are to take if I’m to clear you for work at the ministry.”

He turns back to the healer with a deliberate slowness, as if reducing the speed of his movements could aid his brain in keeping his mouth from falling wide open. “I beg your pardon?” he finds himself asking for a second time that day.

“Mr. Malfoy, you have suicidal tendencies—”

“Harry Potter has suicidal tendencies, did you also diagnose him with depression?”

“We value patient confidentiality, Mr. Malfoy, I assure you. You won’t be hearing about Mr. Potter’s medical business as he won’t be hearing about yours,” the healer states this with a pointed look, no doubt alluding to the fear she saw in Draco’s head about his thoughts becoming of public access. Draco takes little relief in this.

“I also know for a fact that when you say suicidal tendencies, you’re referring to the things he did during the war,” the healer continues. “Unfortunately, that was a case of reckless heroism, not a sign of depression.”

Draco raises his eyebrow at this, finding that the comment made him like his healer infinitesimally better than before. “I’m not depressed.”

“Would you like me to read to you all the signs I just picked apart from your mind? Aside from constantly thinking about your own death, you have severe insomnia, you have very little interest in doing things you like, you have virtually no appetite to speak of, you’re conflicted between the belief that your mother would be better off without you and the guilt of leaving her now that your father is gone—”

“Enough.”

The healer pauses, adjusting the spectacles that had started to slip down her nose. “As you know, depression is not something you need to be ashamed of. You’d be surprised how many of the British wizarding folk have been diagnosed with various mental health issues following the war.” 

For the second time that day, he chooses to answer with cold silence. The healer meets his gaze and wordlessly hands over a small sheet of paper. Draco takes it and his eyes drop to read the messy scrawl. His eyebrows draw together at the unfamiliar words staring back at him. “This is muggle medicine.”

“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

The question catches him off-guard and he looks up, realizing his mistake a second too late. The potion hasn’t fully worn off and he is unable to build up his occlumency walls in time to counter the healer’s legilimency.

Scared.

Don’t know how to buy these.

Don’t know where to go to get these.

Not depressed.

Can’t be depressed.

“Stop,” he finally grits out, turning away from the healer and finally breaking the spell. He wants to scream, wants to get up and run away from the room, job at the ministry be damned. He almost does the latter when he hears her ripping out a small piece of parchment.

“This is the address of a pharmacy I frequent. You may think of it as a muggle apothecary of sorts. Just hand your prescription over and make sure you have muggle money on you.”

Draco takes it, hating the trembling of his fingers as he fights the urge to crush both pieces of paper in his fists.

“Come back with the filled prescription and I’ll give you your medical clearance. Goodbye, Mr. Malfoy.”

 He likes to think he makes a graceful exit, but he knows that he all but stumbles out the room and into the lit hallway. The walls, white and suddenly so oppressive, seem to close in on him as he feels his breathing grow laboured. A panic attack, his mother had described it on the one occasion he had been weak enough to show her that he wasn’t as put-together as he would like everyone to believe. She had scoffed at him, her aristocratic face wet with tears, and had pulled his head to rest on her shoulder.

Now he thinks the healer would have listed off sporadic episodes of panic attacks if he hadn’t interrupted her.

His legs miraculously carry him towards the floo networks and he struggles to fight off the last vestiges of the potion remaining in his system, already working on constructing the ever-trusted wall around his mind. His throat has gone dry, all moisture seemingly travelling to his now-clammy hands, and his vision starts to blur when he’s only steps away from the floo that would get him away from this wretched place—

“Malfoy?”

Fuck.

If someone were to slice his ears off, damage the sensory organ enough that he would only be able to hear anything if one were to use a sonorous charm and shout directly into the mangled hole on the side of his head, he would still be able to recognize that voice. The last time he had heard her, last time he had seen her, was during his trial shortly after the culmination of the Second Wizarding War. He had been more surprised to see her than when he’d seen Potter, more surprised to hear her testify for him than when it had been Potter doing the same thing.

His hands had been bound before him, but his heart had soared at the sight of her then. He had been so certain that he would never see her again, not when he had been on his way to be locked in Azkaban. He had barely paid attention to the words she was saying, his focus trained on the sound of her voice, the fire in her eyes. Not once during her speech did she glance at him and he had only been given the chance to look into her eyes when she had been about to exit the room.

He had sworn that day that he would never forget that image, would hold on to it through the horrors of Azkaban. When he’d been told that the Wizengamot had decided to put him under ten years of heavy probation instead of 10 years in Azkaban, he had let himself foolishly hope that he’d be able to see her again under different circumstances.

Nearly two years later and he finally gets his wish, but the circumstances are only marginally better than before. He attempts to take a steadying breath and only succeeds in affirming that he still can’t breathe quite properly. The last of the bricks fall into place and he turns to face her. A lesser witch would see nothing amiss, only an ex-death eater making a hasty escape from St. Mungo’s, but she’s no lesser witch.

Hermione Granger takes one look at him and the suspicion in her eyes is replaced by that of concern and he fucking hates it. He pretends to appraise her, feigns the slightest bit of shock at her healer robes, only enough that she would think he had failed at trying to hide his surprise at the knowledge that she works here.

Of course he knows she works here; he had almost worked himself up into an early panic attack worrying that she would be assigned his healer.

“Granger.” He notes that there’s only the slightest bit of a tremor to his voice and he imagines his godfather would have been proud. Still, he keeps his hands behind him where she won’t be able to see how badly they’re shaking.

“Malfoy, are you—” she cuts herself off, eyes narrowing at him. “Are you okay?”

He manages a smirk and a slight inclination of his head. “Never better. Goodbye, Granger.”

“What?” is the indignant cry. He’s already stepping into the floo and tossing down a handful of the powder when she calls to him. “Malfoy, wait—” 

He doesn’t think about the possible repercussions of fleeing from a healer, of fleeing from Granger of all people, the only thought running through his head as he’s engulfed by the flames is how he needs to get away from her and her worried eyes.

He doesn’t deserve her concern.

  August 8, 2002

He startles awake, hanging suspended between grappling for consciousness and holding on to the last images of sun-kissed skin against his tongue. He blinks away the fog clouding his mind and searches for the source of his sudden waking, feeling a throbbing behind his eyebrow that somehow falls into beat with the knocking outside his door—

He’s on his feet and rushing out of the bedroom, wand at the ready. The frontal lobe of his brain catches up to his adrenal glands just as he reaches the front door. He reasons with himself—the  wards wouldn’t have allowed just anyone within 20 yards of the door, and since the knocking isn’t a figment of his imagination, he can only imagine that it’s someone from the ministry on the other side of the door. With a wandless flick of his wand, the door opens.

Draco hadn’t known who exactly to expect, but he had not expected to see her. Her hand is raised mid-knock, her hair is flattened down by the knit cap keeping her ears warm, and her eyes are wide and bloodshot as they stare back at him in shock.

He barely has time to open his mouth and call her name before her face contorts and she starts crying, right there by the doorway. Something in his chest constricts at the sight and he almost rubs at it to soothe the sudden painful throbbing radiating right above his left breast.

In the back of his mind, he suspects that it might be his heart aching at the sight of her tears.

“Can I come in?” she asks, uselessly wiping at tears that are only followed by others. She all but collapses into his arms when he moves to pull her into the flat.

He tries to lead her over to sit on the settee but she shakes her head at him, hands clinging to the collar of his shirt and effectively wrinkling the fabric. He blames the epinephrine still coursing through his blood vessels when he finds himself leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. He freezes, lips still pressed to her skin, waiting for her to shove him away for daring to do something so intimate to her of all people.

Hermione releases her hold on his collar, her hands travelling upward to cradle his face. She tugs him down until their lips meet in a soft kiss, Draco all too cautious to deepen it and risk scaring her away.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” she asks against his mouth, breath washing over his face and leaving behind a distinct scent of chamomile and peppermint. He wonders if he’s being manipulated, wonders if he should allow himself to be manipulated by soft lips and cold hands.

Why?

“Please.”

“Okay.”

Hermione transfigures her clothes into something more sleep-appropriate and Draco slips away to prepare her a cup of tea. When he returns, she’s already settled in the middle of the bed, hands fidgeting with the edges of the quilt. She spots the cup he’s holding and reaches out to take it from him.

“Thank you, Draco,” she says, turning to him as he moves to sit net to her. “For all of this.”

He frowns down at his own hands, the adrenaline from before already well out of his system by the time he’d finish preparing her tea. Chamomile, the same thing she had chosen the last time she was there, with one heaping cup of honey and enough milk to turn the drink an ugly shade of Dutch white. She doesn’t comment on how he’s already committed to memory the way she takes her tea and he doesn’t ask her the barrage of questions assaulting his brain.

When the tears start flowing down her cheeks in a silent current, he takes the hand that’s not holding on to the delicate china in both of his. He feels foolish, offering her comfort when the whole wizarding world knows he’s the last person qualified to do as such, but she doesn’t pull away from his touch and the trembling of her lips still just enough for her to keep sipping her tea. Draco spots her wand lying on top of his bedside table and his grip on her hand tightens, the sight making him wonder when exactly he started to earn that level of trust from her.

He watches her lower the empty cup and start to pull away from him, moving to put the cup beside her wand. He vanishes the china with a wandless and non-verbal flick of his hand and allows himself to revel in the impressed look she gives him.

“Sleep, Granger,” he tells her. He moves to lie down, giving her enough space to decide the distance that would exist between them, telling himself that whatever she chose he would keep it that way all through the night. He watches her chew on her lip for a moment then promptly slide down to lie with her sides pressed against his. A few moments pass and then they simultaneously move, him raising his arm to circle her shoulders and her moving to place her head right above his erratically beating heart.

The silence stretches out long enough that he suspects she’s fallen asleep, her breathing even and her heart finally calm in its thumping. His own eyes start to drift close when he hears her soft voice whisper against his skin.

“Goodnight, Draco.”

 He wakes up to lips pressed against his neck and he thinks this is how he dies, a bite to his jugular that will drain him of his pure and ancient blood. When Hermione does move to bite him, he finds himself moaning in pleasure instead of pain, his hands shooting out to cradle her head and keep her mouth firmly in place. She soothes the bite with a languid drag of her tongue.

“I thought you just wanted to sleep?” he asks, voice thick with sleep and dick already half hard in his trousers. “Granger.”

“Draco,” she responds, her own voice just the right amount of rough. Her hands move down to work on the buttons of his shirt and he finally gathers enough sense to still her movements.

“Granger,” he grounds out, firmer this time. “We can’t. We shouldn’t. Not when you’ve been crying all night.” He wants to add not when you’re vulnerable but thinks better of it, suspecting it would only grant him a hex or two.

“I’m sorry,” she says, extracting her body from his hold and completely turning away from him. She hunches forward on her sides, curling into a position that makes her look so small and makes Draco’s eyebrows draw together into a frown of genuine confusion.

“Why do I feel as if you’re under the impression that I don’t want you?” he asks, tugging on her shoulder to make her lie on her back and face him again.

“Because I am,” she responds right away. The next part comes a few seconds later, in a much quieter voice. “Because you don’t.”

The occlumency walls fall apart and he grabs her hand and places it right where he wants it, rubs himself using her palm for a few wicked seconds before stilling them both. “You’re as much of a fool as I am.”

Hermione resumes stroking him through his trousers, her eyes alight and her mouth parted. She pushes him down to lie on his back and moves to straddle him, her hand still on his cock while the other works on completing the mission of removing his shirt. She helps him out of the garment and runs warm hands down his chilled torso, leaning down to once again attack his neck with her lips.

His hands map out an exploration of their own, gripping her hips through soft cotton shorts and seeking out the skin hidden underneath her jumper. His hands reach up until the tips of his fingers tease the edges of her bra, feeling up the lace and groaning when he feels her hand leave his crotch.

She pulls back and whips off the jumper, watching his steadily darkening expression. Hermione reaches back and unclasps the final piece of clothing holding her back from being equally half-nude as he is and he watches with rapt attention. The bra falls away, tossed to lie forgotten somewhere on the floor, but his eyes never stray from the sight of her full breasts just inches away from his face. He swallows and her eyes follows the motion, smiling down at him and grabbing his hands to pull them to her chest.

The first time he had seen her tits, he had ended up worshipping them for the better part of an hour, not neglecting to tell her she had the most beautiful breasts he had ever laid his eyes on. He had been granted a sharp laugh for his eloquence, a laugh that quickly evolved into a drawn-out moan when he had wrapped his lips around one nipple and used the nail on his index finger to tease the other.

Now he holds both of her breasts in his hands, testing out their weight much like the last time, caressing the underside with his palms and watching the skin breakout in goosepimples. She leans back to rest her hands on his thighs, pushing her chest out to him and letting out breathy little moans that fill the room. Her hips start a steady grinding motion, the heat of her clothed arse rubbing against his cock enough to drive him half delirious with need.

He rolls her nipples between his fingers, alternating between slow rubbing and fast swiping. He leans forward, sitting up, and catches one hardened nub in his mouth. The answering moan eggs him on to suck harder, switching between breasts with an almost desperate edge to his movements. This close, her scent invades his senses and overwhelms the part of his brain that usually has him questioning every move, every thought, every word coming out of his mouth.

“Fuck, you smell so good,” he tells her, lips pressed against a reddened nipple. She responds by further pushing her chest into his face and he is happy to oblige, continuing his ministrations on her breasts. He feels her hands fumbling to pull down his trousers and he lifts his hips high enough to assist her.

“It’s been days but I can still feel you inside me.”

Her words make him groan and he bites down on one nipple, just a light graze of his teeth. He helps her out of her shorts and her underwear, leaning back down to his original lying position with his hands firmly on her hips. “Think you can ride me, Granger?”

She takes his cock into her hand and the shock from the difference in body temperature has him biting down on his lip. She smiles at him, teasing her entrance with the tip of his length. “Not if you keep calling me that.”

“Hermione, fuck, Hermione,” he gasps, the syllables of her name rolling from his tongue with practiced ease. The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.

He watches her sink down on him, her heat engulfing him and obliterating any coherent thought he was previously capable of making. His muscles burn from the effort it takes him to not move, to keep still and let her do everything in her own pace. He thinks his grip on her hips may leave bruises in the morning, but he allows himself the selfish thought, forgives himself when he doesn’t loosen his hold on her.

She stops when he’s fully inside her, their skin flushed against each other, chests rising and falling in tandem. Hermione leans down and kisses him, her face overheated and her lips slow and wet against his. He lets her take charge of the kiss, following her lead, matching her peck for peck, tongue for tongue. When she pulls back, he catches a glimpse of the scar on her arm and he’s immediately overwhelmed with the familiar feeling of guilt. He swallows, hoping to physically push back the thought.

“Take what you want from me, Hermione. Take what you need.”

For a moment she looks like she’s about to cry, but she swoops down and kisses him with ardour, catching his bottom lip in between her teeth and giving a painful bite that she quickly soothes with a swipe of her tongue. She doesn’t break the kiss when she starts moving, moaning against his lips with every thrust.

He kisses the side of her mouth, making his way down to the spot beneath her ear that had her screaming his name last time. She whimpers when his lips touch the sensitive skin, her hips picking up speed. Her mouth attaches itself to the back of his neck and he feels her sucking, biting, leaving marks that he won’t hide with a concealment charm. The forward-backward canting of her hips transforms into a circular motion and he knows she’s close. Aside from the constant assault of his mouth on her neck and his hands groping her breasts, he keeps still, feeling her walls clamp down on him and her teeth press down on his neck almost hard enough to break the skin.

She lifts her head, kissing him while riding the waves of her first orgasm for the night. Her body collapses on him and he pulls out of her, still painfully hard, and moves her to lie down on the bed. Even in the dim light of the room he sees the flush of her skin, the light sheen of sweat on her chest and on her legs. He kisses her face, pushes away the curls stuck to her forehead, kisses the arch of her brow, both of her cheeks, the tip of her nose and the dip of her upper lip, and kisses his way down her body.

She shudders when he takes his time kissing her shoulders, biting and sucking and selfishly leaving marks that she’ll have to hide with a concealment charm. Her hands shoot out to tangle in his hair when he reaches her breasts, torn between pulling him away from the over-sensitive flesh or pushing him to keep sucking on the spot just centimetres from her right nipple. He promises to worship her tits later, when he’s inside of her again, and begins to move further down her body.

As he draws closer to her centre, her scent grows stronger. He kisses her inner thighs, careful not to touch the swollen folds of her cunt. Hermione has grown progressively louder as he grew progressively bolder in his exploration, his tongue dipping into her wet hole. They moan in unison and he thinks he may get drunk on her taste. He fucks her with his tongue, letting her grow accustomed to the feeling, waiting for her to come down from the high and demand for more.

When the last of the tremors from her orgasm fade away, his lips find her clit and he sucks the sensitive nub into his mouth. Her hold on his hair borders on painful, her hips bucking up into his face. He pushes her down with his hands, keeping her in place as he uses the flat of his tongue to massage her clit.

He alternates between swiping and circling the kernel with his tongue, using two fingers to fuck her hole. He feels her walls tighten around the appendages and he withdraws them, determined to make her cum using just his mouth. He sucks on her clit, pulling her impossibly closer to him and allowing her to mindlessly fuck his face. When she comes for the second time he barely hears his name pouring from her lips, her thighs clamping down on his head and effectively blocking out the world.

He doesn’t give her time to ride out her orgasm, pushing into her in one swift thrust. He makes good on his promise, kissing her to let her taste herself on him then moving down to worship her breasts once more. Draco only half recognizes the things she’s saying, a mix of familiar swears words and his name and then things his orgasm-deprived mind just can’t seem to put together.

“Your cunt feels amazing,” he replies when she tells him how good he feels inside her. “You feel so goddamn good, Hermione.”

“Harder, Draco, please,” she mewls, fingers clawing down his back and leaving even more marks for him to keep. “Please, please, I’m going to come again.”

She comes a third time, not nearly as intense as the first and the second one, but enough to pull him spiralling into his own orgasm. He spills himself inside of her, the euphoria of his release settling deep into his bones. In those blinding seconds he forgets that they’re former enemies, that they were only tentative acquaintances before this whole fling started, forgets that he doesn’t understand her motivations and forgets to question his own.

He doesn’t pull out of her, remembering how she had asked him to stay inside of her the last time, and he’s rewarded with a smile and a tender kiss. He moves them so she’s half-lying on top of him, the sheets shielding their naked bodies from the cold. He’s internally debating with himself on whether he should go back to sleep when she makes the decision for him.

“Sleep, let’s give it another go when we wake up.”

 “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He only nods, moving to gather his clothes from the floor. He finds his trousers first and slips them on, facing away from her.

“Not yet,” she amends, as if she had somehow known her response had hurt him. “In the morning, I will.”

He doesn’t point out that it already is morning. They had woken up multiple times during the night and had satisfied each other countless times. The first time he had been the one to wake up, pulling her warm body into his arms, kissing her shoulder as an overwhelming feeling of gratitude took over his heart at the sight of her still curled up beside him. She had taken it as him initiating and things had quickly escalated from there. That had been followed by more sleep and even more sex, and now the sky is tinged with a warm orange and he can’t bring himself to feel regret at the prospect of being sleep-deprived at work. 

He looks down at her and catches her watching him, his shirt from last night hanging open on her shoulders. He wants to know if this is her own cruel way of revenge—false hope, a taste of what could have been and what may be but will inevitably never happen. He wants to know why he’s been allowed to feel as much as he has only for it to be violently taken away from him in the end.

“Come back,” she says, delicate hand patting the empty spot beside her on the bed. “It’s far too early to get ready for work, isn’t it?”

“I’ll make you breakfast later. Get some more sleep.”

He retrieves a fresh shirt and leaves her alone in the bedroom, not turning around to give her a chance to seduce him back into his own bed. He waits by the door for a few seconds, listening for any tell-tale signs that she’ll follow him out, and breathes a sigh of relief when his ears are met with silence. The papers he had been reading before turning in for the night lay abandoned on the coffee table, the sight of them prompting images of Hermione stumbling upon them and asking him questions he can’t and won’t answer, even for her. 

His legs carry him to the sitting room and he hastily shoves the papers into the drawer, eyeing the half-empty bottle of pills staring back up at him. He grabs it, pops one pill into his mouth and swallows it dry, then tosses it back in to join the papers. The drawer is locked with a flick of his wand and he starts to breathe easier.

There are many things he doesn’t know about whatever it is going on between them, but one thing he is certain of is that she must never find out about his depression. The thought that she had only slept with him four days ago out of pity had plagued his mind during the interim between then and now. It had taken him every logical cell in his body to convince himself that the impossibility of her finding out about his illness came second only to the impossibility of her sleeping with anyone out of pity for their mental predicament.

He had spent hours every day thinking about what had happened between them, thinking about how and why it happened, how he wanted it to happen again. He wouldn’t go as far as deluding himself into thinking that he was anywhere near done thinking about it, and her showing up in his flat and then fucking him senseless for hours certainly did not offer any help.

What he didn’t have any problem accepting was that there wouldn’t have been a repeat after the first time. Another thing he had been certain of—that Granger would never set foot in his flat again, that it had been a one-time thing. Then last night happened, and now she’s in his bedroom, possibly sleeping, and he’s in his kitchen preparing the ingredients for pancakes.

He’s finally going to put that tin of powdered milk to use.

 Draco suspects that it’s the smell of food that has her emerging from the bedroom, his shirt buttoned up around her form and her hair resembling a nest of some large bird species. He’s torn between the desire to fix her hair for her (with his hands, not using magic) and the desire to see if it would be possible to mess it up even further. He slides her a plate of pancakes and pulls the tin from the cupboard, presenting it to her.

“Is that… did you get me powdered milk?”

His brain tells him to lie, to downplay the gesture, make up a story about seeing it during one of his grocery runs and purchasing it out of curiosity. He knows she would stop believing him the moment he tries to pretend he does his own grocery.

“Yes.”

She stares at him, mouth hanging slightly ajar, and he braces himself for the questions to come. “I have so many questions about that, but I must admit I’m more hungry than curious.”

It’s his turn to gape at her. The many years between them has given him the privilege of knowing enough about her to know that she must be burning to ask him, to clarify, to make sense of whatever it is that isn’t making sense to her brilliant brain. He watches as she pops the lid open and spoons out a generous amount of the milk, pouring it all over her pancakes. The sound she makes when her lips close around the first bite is devilish and he feels his face heat up.

“Here, try some,” she says when she catches him still staring at her. She catches him by surprise when she leans forward to feed him off her own fork. “Go on, it won’t bite you back if you bite it first.”

The milk is too sweet and it dries out the edges of the pancake. He tries to hide his grimace by drinking from his tea but she catches it and openly laughs at his reaction.

“Bit weird, is it?” she asks him, still eating the ruined cakes. “My parents made me these, but they had forgotten that we’d already run out of syrup. They were arguing about it, so I just grabbed a tin of milk and poured it all over my pancakes so they would stop fighting about the bloody syrup.”

He finds that he’s at a loss for words. He’d heard about what happened to Hermione’s parents, what she’d been forced to do to keep them safe from Death Eaters, from people like him. The sweetness from the milk turns sour in his mouth and he feels his hands begin to tremble. Once again he’s left wondering why she would ever associate herself with him, why she would ever trust herself to be vulnerable in his presence, why she would look at him and talk to him like he isn’t scum on the bottom of her shoe.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. The words are inadequate, useless, but he continues to speak. “I’m sorry about your parents. I’m sorry you had to do that. I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear this from, but I’m so sorry about everything that happened to you during the war. I’m sorry about everything I did to you, every nasty word I told you before the war. I’m sorry, Granger, I’m sorry I stood by and did nothing but watch when my demented aunt did that to you—”

“Draco, shh.” He hadn’t even realized his voice had risen and had taken on a hysterical tone before she was suddenly standing before him, his face in her hands. “It’s okay, Draco, I forgive you. I’ve forgiven you. We were children. I don’t blame you.”

“Well you should,” he says, stepping back from her reassuring touch. “I was your bully, I was a Death Eater, I let those people into Hogwarts and let them torture and kill children. I called you that word, that fucking word, for years.”

She looks like she’s ready to argue but he doesn’t let her, speaking over her attempts to placate him and tell him he’s not a monster. “I let her do this to you,” he says, grabbing her arm and pointing at the word engraved there. The letters are still an angry shade of red against her skin, framed by other tiny scars that have already faded. “You lost your family trying to hide them from us, from me. Many people hate me, Granger, but none of them should hate me more than you.”

She looks like she’s on the verge of tears and he doesn’t know which one of them is shaking harder. He thinks she might slap him, maybe wake up from whatever delusion she had the he could be someone she should be sleeping with. Whatever they had, surely she’s going to end it now that he’s talked some sense into her.

“Are you sorry?”

The words are spoken so quietly that he half believes them to be a figment of his imagination. He stares down at her, into the fire of her eyes and the set of her shoulders. Forget a slap, he thinks she might punch him.

“More than anything,” he replies.

“Then I forgive you,” she tells him, moving to wrap her arms around his waist. With her head pressed against his chest, her voice comes out muffled when she adds, “And don’t you dare presume to tell me that I shouldn’t forgive you. That’s for me to decide.”

He doesn’t doubt her words, doesn’t doubt for a second that her Gryffindor heart has forgiven him. Draco wouldn’t be surprised if she’d forgiven him before he asked for her forgiveness; it’s simply her character to be the forgiving one, to be the person to look for the good in people even when they’ve been swallowed whole by the bad.  He allows himself a moment to embrace her to him, pull her body even closer to his and kiss the top of her wild hair.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t meet her gaze. “Eat your pancakes, Granger.”

 She’s redressed in her old clothes and about to floo in to work. He wonders if she’s not worried about people commenting that she’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday sans the knit cap but decides to keep his mouth shut on the matter. There’s a myriad of questions in his head that he’d much rather voice but, just like the last time, he chooses to savour the last moments. He doesn’t know when he’ll see her again, but he knows last night had only been another moment of weakness on her part. She had been emotional over something and for some twisted reason he had been the one she sought comfort from.

It’s never going to happen again, he knows. A one-time fluke that just so happened to be repeated a second time, but he wouldn’t dare raise his hopes up for a third. The world simply does not work that way.

She looks like she wants to say something, her brow furrowed and her bottom lip caught in between her teeth. She looks up to meet his eyes and they just stare at each other for a few moments, her working something out in her brain and Draco just waiting for whatever it is she’s going to say.

“I never got to tell you,” she finally says.

“Tell me what?”

“I never got to tell you what happened, I said I would in the morning,” Hermione explains. There’s a hint of a smile playing at her lips but she looks nervous and he immediately regrets asking in the first place.

“It’s okay, Granger, I won’t pry into your personal business,” he says, feigning boredom. He sees a flash of trepidation in her eyes and wonders if he could fuck things up any further than he already has.

After a few terse moments, she seems to come to a decision and clenches her fists at her sides. “Would you like to talk about it over dinner?” she asks, her chin raised and her eyes staring directly into his.

He feels his mask slipping through his fingers, the surprise showing in his face and fuelling her confidence. His mind is reeling with about a dozen thoughts per second. She looks less scared and more determined, and she looks beautiful like this. She looks beautiful brandishing her Gryffindor courage. She looks beautiful in old clothes and with her hair smelling like his shampoo. She looks beautiful standing in front of his floo, standing inside his flat, she looks beautiful wearing his clothes—but she’s not his and why is she asking him out to dinner?

“Why?”

“To eat and converse, obviously,” she replies, her cheeks coloring. He thinks she looks beautiful like that too, flustered and annoyed at him. “Do you not want to, then?”

Draco decides then and there to stop trying to pretend that he would ever understand the inner workings of Hermione Granger’s head. He knows very little about her—she’s the most brilliant witch of her age, she eats her pancakes with powdered milk and takes her tea with one heaping cup of honey topped with an obscene amount of milk, and she uses about half a dozen drying charms on hair. She’s the poster girl for all Gryffindors, she’s a reluctant war heroine, she’s a healer and she probably overworks herself to near death. She’s the only girl he’s ever been in love with and she can never be his but there she is, asking him out to dinner.

“I would like to have dinner with you. When and where shall this take place?”

She giggles at his words and he decides that when she leaves his life for good (in the very near future, he knows) he would endeavour to keep the sound of her laughter playing in his head.

“Would tomorrow work for you? I have the day off,” she says, still smiling up at him. “I’ll bring takeout here.”

He realises that it’s only to be expected that they would have dinner at his place, not outside, not where people can see them and judge her for her choice in company. Whatever they are, it could never become public information, which is why he nods his head even though he doesn’t have the slightest idea as to what takeout is.

Her smile grows bigger and she also nods. She seems to hesitate for half a second before pushing on her tiptoes and kissing the corner of his mouth. The contact only lasts for a few blissful moments but it’s enough to leave him the slightest bit breathless.

“Right. I’ll see you tomorrow, Draco.”

[bubonickitten]

TMA fic: Who’s There?

Sooo, I wrote a follow-up to this fic.

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

Summary: Jon has a panic attack after Elias shows him exactly what happened behind the door after Mr. Spider took its victim. Martin helps him calm down, and Jon tells him the story of his first Leitner.

[CW for unreality, dissociation/drdp, panic attacks, tactile hallucinations, descriptions of spiders/arachnophobia, blood/injury, self-harm mentions (accidental in the context of a panic attack).]

By the time Jon shuts the door to Elias’ office, he can barely stand.

  Trembling, he leans – nearly falls – back against the wall and squeezes his eyes shut. He's trying to untangle the dueling instincts to flee and freeze when his knees buckle and he slides down the wall to the floor. He’s breathing in gulps, shallow and quick, and when a long exhale dissolves into a shuddering sob, he Knows that Elias hears it and that he smiles, and Jon hates himself for it.

  Elias.

  A new wave of panic crashes over Jon when he realizes that the only thing between them is an unlocked door. The thought is enough to force him to stand, steadying himself against the wall with one hand as he makes his way down the hall on wobbly legs.

  It’s easy, he tells himself: one shaky step at a time, no need to overthink it, just keep moving –

  He’s nearly to the door at the end of the hall when it happens. Something in his mind fractures and he is a stranger to himself, a bemused observer floating somewhere else, somewhere outside himself  –

  …depersonalization: an altered state in which one feels unreal, as if one’s thoughts and emotions do not belong to oneself; often accompanied by a feeling of detachment from one’s own body and a dreamlike perception of the world around …

  The Beholding pummels him with the information, an intrusive thought somehow made worse by Jon's awareness of its supernatural origin. Jon usually finds it comforting to have a word to describe his experiences, but it's no consolation now when he did not ask for it, did not ask for any of this. The way knowledge forces its way into his head these days, seeps into his mind unsolicited before he even notices what’s happening – he hates the invasiveness of it, the sense of violation it brings. Facts and figures bleed into the edges of his mind like so many worms pouring in through the crack under the door and burrowing into him and –        

  …he is a marionette with gossamer wire wrapped twice, thrice, a dozen times around his wrists and…

  – Elias’ words wriggle in his mind like worms through flesh, writhing like a fly caught in a web, and just like that –

  …the spider silk winds its way through the crack in the door, sticky and writhing; slowly and deliberately it twines itself around his arms, his knees, his neck, and he is pulled inexorably…

  – and his head is full of cobwebs and all at once he is the struggling fly and the too-curious child and the hapless victim and the human prey –

  …you opened the book, you stood on the threshold, you just as good as opened the door…

  – and he is the hungry spider and the monster behind the door and the inhuman predator in the dark just watching, watching, watching –

  …we both know that the Archivist in you can’t leave a question unasked or unanswered…

  – as something Watches him back.

   Jon is barely conscious of where he is until he's crossing the threshold to his office, smacking his shoulder on the doorframe on the way. The impact snaps him back to the present with a jolt, like a puppet jerked backward by its strings, and all at once he is aware of the staring. His assistants’ eyes bore into him as he passes them by; he feels their judgment and mistrust and anger and fear trailing behind him like the wispy threads of a broken web –

  He shuts the door behind him.

  But there is no escaping the watching.

  The Not!Them watched him for months, delighting as he spiraled into paranoia and sabotaged his relationships. Elias knew all along, was always watching, is probably watching right now. And whatever patron Jon now serves – it never stops watching, does it? Watching him, watching through his eyes, watching through doors and walls and floors -  

  Is it still paranoia if you actually are being watched? 

  Jon is an insect under a microscope and a dispassionate Eye pries him open, considers the component parts, catalogs and categorizes, files him away and never once deigns to share its verdict: whether his classification is Jonathan Sims or Archivist, and what criteria should be used to measure personhood.  

  He is a thing behind a door, unsorted and undetermined, and he cannot breathe –

   Knock-knock.

  He opens bleary eyes and does not immediately recognize where he is.

  Knock-knock.

  “Jon?”

  There is someone at the door, he thinks absently, but everything is muted, thick, cloying, and the thought disintegrates in the fog.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  Someone is at the door, but the sound is distorted, as if he’s listening to it from underwater.

  “Can I come in?”

  His thoughts are molasses-slow as he takes inventory his surroundings: He’s under a desk. His desk. (He thinks it’s his desk.) He’s huddled under a desk like a child playing hide-and-seek and, oh, there’s someone at the door. 

  Knock-knock-knock-knock  –

  “Jon, please open the door.”

  He reaches up to rub his face and stops short, because there is something wrong with his hands. They're coated in something adhesive and coppery-smelling and when he clenches his fists and feels the skin stick, all he can think about is spider silk, tacky and clinging to his hands, his arms, his neck, his face –

  KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK- 

  There is someone hammering on the door.

  He is breathing too loudly. The thing behind the door will hear him.

  KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-

  He clamps his hands over his ears, mindless of the mess. The thing behind the door cannot hear him.

  Silence.

  Then:

  “Jon, I’m coming in.”

  As the door creaks open, Jon jumps at the sound, smacking his head on the underside of the desk. His eyes fly open and all at once he is present.

  “Jon? Are you okay?”

  Martin's voice, tentative and concerned.

  As the footsteps draw nearer, Jon hugs his knees tighter to him, shrinking as far under the desk as he can. It’s childish, he knows: there are only so many places to hide in here. He knows when Martin spots him because he can feel those eyes burning into him and –

  “Jon? What – Christ, Jon, are you bleeding?”

  Jon looks up then, pupils blown wide. Even the low light stings, and he squints against it.

  “Your hands are – is this your blood? Jon, let me see –”  

  Martin leans down to get a closer look and all at once Jon remembers his hands, covered in cobweb. He frantically rubs his palms on his clothes, digs his fingernails into his skin to claw away the layers; his heart is thundering in his ears, pulsating in time with his thoughts: get it off get it off get it off getitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoff - 

  “Jon, stop it! You’re hurting yourself!”

  And so he is: one of his fingernails catches the skin on the back of his good hand and now it’s bleeding freely. Jon stops scratching, recognizes the blood for what it is now. He begins flapping his hands uselessly, flailing, overwhelmed; he feels the tears coming again –

  “Jon! Jon, listen to me. You’re – you’re hyperventilating, just… look at me.”

  It takes a moment, but he does. His hands still.

  “I want you to breathe with me, okay? Just – watch me, okay?”

  Jon watches. He does not blink. 

  “Okay, copy me. Four seconds in, hold seven seconds, eight seconds out, okay?”

  Jon breathes, mesmerized as he watches the steady rise and fall of Martin's chest.

  “That’s it. You’re doing great.”

  Jon isn’t sure how much time passes, but eventually his breathing evens out and the palpitations start to recede.

  “Okay. Okay.” Martin sighs; Jon can hear the relief in it, almost feels it vicariously. “Listen, Jon, stay right here –”

  Jon’s eyes go wide again and his lips move in wordless protest.

  “I’ll come right back, I promise, I just – I want to get a damp cloth, clean off some of the blood, okay?” Jon hesitates, but gives a curt nod. “Okay. I’ll be right back. Just… keep breathing, okay?”

  Martin stands and moves away slowly, quietly, like one might around a wounded animal. Once he’s out of sight, Jon hears him pick up his pace.

  Martin leaves the door open.

  Jon isn’t sure how to feel about that.

  He focuses on breathing.

   As soon as Martin enters the break room, three pairs of eyes fix on him.

  “Well?” Basira begins, schooling her expression into careful neutrality. “What was –”

  “Just a panic attack,” Martin replies, walking briskly to the sink. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” Tim says, feet on the table and tipping his chair back until the front two legs are dangerously high up off the floor.

  “Martin,” Basira asks, “is that blood?” 

  “Yeah. Your friend slit his throat, if you hadn’t noticed.” Martin hadn't intended it to come out as biting. In fact, he didn't even register how angry he was until the words had already left his mouth.

  In all the commotion, Martin hadn’t really had time to let it sink in, but now that he's seen the damage up close, he feels properly horrified. He thinks of how proud Daisy had sounded in Elias’ office when she admitted that she had slit Jon’s throat. He remembers how she interrogated him when Jon was missing, how she didn’t care about what happened to Sasha, how she had already decided that Jon was guilty, how she seemed to be enjoying herself. He realizes now that all along her plan was to hunt Jon down, to murder him, to leave his body in the woods where no one would ever find him, to - 

  To let him become another goddamn mystery.

  A quiet fury coils tight in Martin's chest, heated and itching to claw its way out.

  “I thought it had stopped bleeding,” says Basira. She doesn’t sound cold, exactly – just tactful, cautious. It’s a de-escalation voice, Martin realizes. The caretaker and mediator in him recognizes it - he makes frequent use of it himself - but in this moment it just makes him bristle.

  “Yeah, well, he opened it back up,” Martin mutters, turning on the faucet and holding one hand under the stream, waiting for the water to run warm. “It’s fine. There’s just – there’s a lot of blood.”

  “Can’t he deal with that himself?” Leaning against the wall nearby, Melanie rolls her eyes in disgust. “He’s a grown man. You don’t need to coddle him.”

  “Lay off, alright? He’s scared –”

  “He’s scared – Martin, we’re all scared,” Tim snaps, rocking forward in his chair. The front two legs slam back into the floor with a loud crack. “He’s the one who went and –”

  “I know, alright, I know – and you’re right to be angry.” Martin would be lying if he said he wasn’t still hurt over Jon’s behavior toward him in the previous months, but he’s had this discussion with Tim so many times now, and he's tired of talking in circles. “I’m still not just going to leave him like that –”

  “Why not? If he wants to wallow in his office, let him,” Tim says viciously. “It’s all he’s good for these days anyway.”

  “That’s not fair,” Martin says, tight and defensive but trying so, so hard to keep his voice even.

  “None of this is fair,” Basira chimes back in.

  “No. No, it’s not.” Martin sighs as he pulls a large bowl out of the cabinet and sets it in the sink to fill. “But fighting each other isn’t solving anything.”

  “More to the point,” Basira says, still composed and so deliberately impartial, “we all saw what he can do. We need to talk about that at some point.”

  "Is he really all that different from Elias at this point?" Melanie makes it sound more like a statement than a question.

  “He’s nothing like Elias." There is no hesitation when Martin speaks. 

  Melanie lets out a derisive laugh.

  And Martin’s anger finally boils over.

  “You know, it’s not Jon's fault you’re here, Melanie!”

  Martin rarely loses his temper. He hates conflict, hates the inevitable second-guessing and guilt that always settle over him after the moment has passed, hates how his size and height can make his anger look so much more threatening than he feels. Whenever he senses tension building, he puts all of his energy into modulating his voice, regulating his emotions, mollifying and pacifying until the storm passes, even if it means swallowing his own hurt in the process. 

  Right this moment, though, he doesn’t have the mind for appeasement. He’s angry with Elias. He’s furious with Daisy. He hates being in the Archives with the ever-present feeling of being watched. And he’s frustrated with Jon for – for always being in danger, for turning up every day with fresh hurts and new scars. Martin knows he’s not being fair – Jon can be reckless, and careless, and self-destructive, and his obsessiveness eclipses his sense of self-preservation to an unhealthy degree, but it still isn’t his fault that so many things want to hunt down the Archivist. It’s just – Martin worries, and Jon gives him a lot to worry about.

  When he feels Melanie’s glare on his back, senses her gearing up to tear into him, he slams the faucet off and whirls around to face her.

  “You chose to come here the first time, and you chose to keep coming back, and – and you were just as curious as he is, just as fascinated, just as obsessed, just as – as reckless." He breathes a short laugh. "God, you two are so similar sometimes, you know that? You chose to go chasing monsters knowing full well you were putting yourself in danger, and – and hell, Jon wasn’t even here when you took the job!” 

  Martin is shaking. He takes a deep breath, counts to ten, tries to rein in his outburst.

  “I don’t care,” Melanie spits, her voice low and dangerous and laced with venom. “He’s toxic. This whole place is toxic and he’s so wrapped up in it he may as well be part of it.”

  “We’re all part of it."

  “Whatever.” Melanie throws her hands up and stalks towards the exit. “Go fuss over him and have him berate you for caring.” Pausing at the threshold, she adds, scathing, “Seems that’s all you ever do.”

  With that, she storms off, leaving a heavy, electric silence in her wake.

  “She… didn’t mean that last bit,” says Basira after a moment. “She’s just – she's not herself lately.”

  “Yeah,” Tim says, all sarcasm and resentment. “Welcome to the Archives.”

  Martin says nothing. He grabs the overfull bowl of water, snatches a dish towel from the counter, and heads for the exit, water sloshing out of the bowl and onto the floor on his way out.

   Jon hears footsteps coming back down the hall – Martin’s, he thinks distantly; isn’t it strange how you unconsciously learn to distinguish a person’s footsteps when you spend enough time around them? – followed by the soft click of the door as Martin closes it behind him. He walks around the desk and kneels down, slow and soft and careful, as if any quick movement would shatter Jon’s uneasy calm.

  “Sorry for the wait,” Martin says with a forced smile. He tries to keep his tone light, but Jon can sense the strain underneath.

  Jon had heard the shouting echoing down the corridor, had been faintly surprised when he heard Martin raise his voice, however brief. He couldn’t make out everything that was said, but he had a general idea. He didn't have to Know; it wasn’t that hard to guess.

  Martin places a bowl of water on the floor, dips a dish towel into it, and looks at Jon expectantly. “Is it alright if I –?”

  Jon nods once, slowly. Martin starts with his hands, wiping away the congealed blood coating his skin. It’s odd, Jon thinks, how absorbed he is in the task. Martin pays attention to the smallest, strangest details; scrubs at the blood-encrusted cuticles and scrapes away the stains under the tips of Jon's fingernails, frequently dipping the towel in the water and wringing out the mess.

  There’s a little crease between his eyebrows, Jon notices, the familiar one that he gets when he’s deep in concentration. Jon plays back all the times he’s seen it: Martin standing in the break room, carefully measuring sugar before stirring it into his tea. Martin judging a trajectory as he aims to throw a crumpled ball of paper into the bin across the office. Martin making handwritten notations when working on his assigned statements; whenever he made a connection, one corner of his mouth would quirk up and his writing would become more feverish. Martin writing poetry. And Jon could always tell when Martin was composing poetry at his desk rather than doing his job: he worried his lower lip between his teeth, and he always leaned closer to the page.

  With a distant sense of wonder, Jon notes that he… never really made a conscious decision to memorize those details. He ponders vaguely whether it’s something he Knows, or if he’s simply been paying attention all along without even realizing.

  “You doing alright there, Jon?”

  Jon inclines his head and closes his eyes. It’s – surreal, how safe he feels just then. He lets himself drift, loses himself in the sensation of a soft touch.

  When Martin turns his attention to Jon's burned hand, healing but still stiff and sore, he braces himself for the searing pain, but it doesn't come. That feels wrong, somehow, and - and, God, what does that say about him? When was the last time anyone touched him with kindness? He didn't realize until just now the extent to which the boundary between physical contact and intentional bodily harm has eroded for him lately; how automatic his associations between touch and fear and pain have become. 

  When Martin pulls away - How much time has passed? - Jon's eyelids flutter open groggily.  

  “Will you be okay if I clean your neck?”

  Jon lifts his head to expose his neck and sits up straighter and -

  He immediately hits his head on the underside of his desk again. That seems to animate him. He huffs irritably and glowers up at it as if it’s the desk’s fault for being in the same place it always is.

  Martin snorts at that, then winces. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to laugh –”

  Then Jon's mouth twitches in a tentative smile, and Martin relaxes. 

  “Are you alright to come out from under there now? It’ll make this easier.”

  Jon says nothing, just scoots out from the little hollow under his desk. He still presses himself up against the side, still feels safer the more compact he makes himself, but he's unfurling, slowly but surely. 

  “Okay, tip your head back for me. That’s it – just, hold still.” Martin pauses, considers Jon’s nonverbal state. “Tap me if you need me to back off, alright?”

  Closing his eyes, Jon lets himself drift again, allowing Martin to dab at his neck with the damp cloth. How is he so gentle? Jon isn’t relaxed, exactly, but he can’t remember the last time he felt safe enough to let down his guard like this. It was only hours ago that he had experienced firsthand how simple it would be for someone to take a knife to his throat and press; he should be much more hesitant to expose it like this, to have someone touch it when it’s still raw and stinging, and yet… somehow, this is fine. Good, even.

  Jon’s hair has gotten long - When was the last time he had a haircut? - and some of it clings to his neck, matted with drying blood. As Martin peels the strands away from the skin, Jon shivers.

  Martin draws back immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Mm.” Jon’s lips move mutely for a few moments before he manages, “No.” It comes out as a hoarse whisper and he clears his throat. “Ticklish.” Still raspy, but better than before.

  “There you are.” Even though Jon's eyes are closed, he knows - Knows? No, just knows - that Martin is smiling. He can hear it in his voice, can almost feel it radiating off him. Martin adopts a deliberately bland tone when next he speaks. "You... really did a number on yourself."

  “Accident,” Jon croaks out. Opens his eyes, clears his throat, tries again. “There were – they were in my throat, and I – I needed to – I wanted them out.”

  It’s still fuzzy, but he vaguely remembers scratching at his throat, trying to chase away the sickening feeling of hundreds of tiny legs skittering down his throat and into his lungs and –

  That little crease is between Martin’s eyebrows again. “What was -" 

  “It was – nothing, stupid, imagined, just – felt them crawling and I couldn’t –”

  “Worms?” Martin guesses.

  “No, no. Too many legs.” An involuntary shudder rips through him; for a moment he can feel feather-light legs scuttling across his skin again; he flexes his good hand, chasing the tactile distraction, nails biting little crescent shapes into his palm. “It – just, too many legs. And – and cobwebs, blocking my – couldn’t breathe –” Growing agitated, his hands start fluttering again.

  “Okay,” Martin soothes. “Okay. Stay with me. You’re safe. Take some breaths for me.”

  “Mm.” Jon breathes, ragged at first, but evening out after a minute.

  “Good.” Martin leans back in and continues dabbing lightly around the wound on Jon’s neck. "Keep breathing, just like that."

   Several minutes later, Martin pulls away and drops the towel in the bowl. The water is stained a muddy red, now, and Martin frowns at the sight. God, he wishes Jon was better at keeping his blood in his body.

  There are still some watery, diluted traces of blood on Jon's neck and hands, but at least he's not caked in the stuff anymore. Looking at the inflamed gash on his neck, Martin feels that little flicker of rage again, and tries not to let it show on his face.

  “I have to change out the water before I do more. It might be easier to do the rest in front of the sink, though. And we should really bandage your neck and - and your burn. You, uh, probably want to change, too – you’ve got blood... well, everywhere. I assume you still have some spare clothes in the storage room?”

  Jon is looking down now, picking at a ragged cuticle on his burned hand. Martin assumes that means he’s not ready to move quite yet.

  “Do… do you want to talk about what happened?”   

  “No,” Jon whispers, but he has a peculiar look on his face, like he’s working up to something. Martin recognizes it – a sort of faraway look, like he’s gone into his own head for a moment to commune with his own thoughts. It always puts Martin in mind of a wait cursor or a blinking ellipsis. 

  It isn’t uncommon for Jon to trail off and walk away mid-conversation. When they first started working together, Martin assumed it was that he said something wrong, or that it was just one more way for Jon to snub him. But more often than not, a few hours would go by and Jon would pick up the conversation right where it left off, as if it had never stopped. Jon is buffering, Martin thought to himself with a smile when he first realized what was happening. It was almost endearing, the idea of Jon taking something - something Martin said, no less - so deeply into consideration that he spent hours thinking on it before composing a response. 

  On the other hand, Jon was equally as likely to dismiss something outright without even entertaining the possibility of a discussion. The contrast could be jarring, and even after all this time, Martin still hasn’t quite discerned any pattern that will let him predict which version of Jon he’s dealing with at any given time.

  Either way, Martin is good at sitting with silence. And this silence is heavy, but not uncomfortable.  

  “I don’t,” Jon continues eventually, frowning slightly. “But… but I think I should?”

  “Okay?” Surprise slips into Martin’s voice before he can tamp it down, but if Jon notices, he doesn’t comment on it.

  “Apparently Elias can – can put knowledge in someone’s head? Or – mine at least, I don’t know if it has something to do with what I am, or if he can do it to anyone, but he…” Clearly searching for the right words, Jon opens and closes his mouth a few times. “I mean, I was already on the verge of a breakdown, wasn’t I?” His voice breaks and he covers it with a bitter smile. “I suppose I – I just needed one more little push.” 

  Martin resists the urge to point out that having the threat of imminent death hanging over your head every waking moment is more than a little push.

  “He showed me – I saw – it… he made me Know, and I had to watch, and I felt how it –”

  “Stay with me, Jon.”

  Martin rests his palm on Jon’s unburned hand, then pulls back immediately, instinctively feeling as if he had crossed a line.

  But Jon chases his hand and grasps it tightly. He doesn't make eye contact. “Is this okay?”

  “I – sure, I mean – yes, of course,” Martin sputters. He feels his face heat and hopes Jon is still too foggy to notice how flushed he must be.

  “Mm.” Jon shakes his head and laughs nervously. “I… this is harder than I thought.”

  “Would... would it help to frame it as a statement?”

  Jon seems to consider that for a long moment before shaking his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. I already gave a statement about this matter, and it feels... wrong, in some way, for me to offer the same statement a second time.”

  Martin doesn’t really get it, but he takes Jon’s word for it.

  “What if I… if I asked a direct question, would that help? I mean, I can’t compel you, obviously, but –”

“Okay.”

  “What?”

  Martin has never known Jon to be this receptive to his input. Jon just shrugs, not meeting Martin’s eyes.

  “Ask me.”

  “O...kay. Right. Um, so, what did Elias say to you?”

  After a moment's pause, Jon begins to speak. 

  “He… he Knew something that I never told anyone before.” He starts slow, but seems to gain confidence after a few words. “The thing that first pushed me toward the supernatural, that started me on the path to – well, to all of this. Odd, to think that just… opening a book could lead me here.” His voice drops to a near-whisper. “I was only eight.”

  “A book?” Martin frowns. “You don’t mean –”

  Jon smiles, but it’s a fragile, humorless thing. “My first Leitner.” He takes a deep breath and speaks through the exhale. “A Guest for Mr. Spider.”  

  “Oh,” Martin whispers as the pieces fall into place.

  “Yeah. I knew it was – wrong, somehow, but I just… I had to know, so I opened it, and I… I read.” Jon swallows hard and leans forward, curling in on himself somewhat. “I started walking. I didn’t know where the book was taking me, and I couldn’t stop reading, couldn’t even blink.” A pause as he maps out his next words. “There was… an older kid in my neighborhood. He wasn’t very keen on me. I was an annoying child, easily bored, always trying to show off how much I thought I knew. Never really was good at people.” He huffs a short, self-deprecating laugh. “Guess that hasn’t changed. Anyway, he – he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or – or maybe I was, but he decided to knock the book from my hands and it… broke the hold it had on me.” Jon gives a little half-shrug, and his voice drops to a low murmur. “He didn’t mean to, but he saved my life.”

  Jon’s thumb rubs absentminded little circles on Martin’s hand, and Martin feels his heart skip a beat. Focus. 

  “Anyway, he – he picked up the book, and he opened it, and then he was reading. And he started walking. I didn’t know what to do, so I followed him.” Martin notices frantic, rapid little movements behind Jon's shut eyelids. “And then he was standing in front of a door, and he knocked, and it opened, and the – the thing behind the door pulled him in. I never saw him again.” Jon falls quiet for a long moment, his jaw tensing and unclenching. When he finally opens his eyes, they’re brimming with tears. “I don’t even remember his name. He died in my place, and I don’t – he deserves to be remembered, but I can’t –”

  Martin gives Jon’s hand what he hopes is a reassuring little squeeze.

  “I – I never knew what really happened to him, you know? The door closed, and I just… left him to his fate, what was supposed to be my fate. I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened after the door closed. I was certain he must have died – hoped he was dead, because the alternative was...” Jon shudders miserably. “I obsessed over it, how he died, how long it took, whether it hurt, whether he was afraid, and – well, you can guess what a child’s imagination can do with that. Though I rather think my imagination now is just as overactive as it was back then. Certainly still obsessive enough.

“There’s something uniquely torturous about the not knowing, about the way the brain can flesh out a scene with mere scraps. I used to think that – that if I knew what happened behind the door, it would be better, because at least I would know, and I wouldn’t have to see a million variations in my nightmares. I could just – just have the one nightmare, and acclimate to it.

"But I was wrong. Elias – he showed me – showed me what happened, and made me feel it and it – I…” His voice gets very soft, and he glances at Martin with haunted eyes. “You know how spiders feed, Martin.”

  “Oh, Jon.” Martin can hear his voice crack. “I’m so sorry, I – I knew you didn’t like spiders but I didn’t realize – God, all the times I’ve prattled on about them –”

  “No, I – it’s fine, you couldn’t have known.” Jon waves him off. “In fact, I actually used to seek out information on them when I was a child. I thought if I learned everything I could about them, examined them through a – a detached, academic lens, I could get over the fear. But apparently a phobia doesn’t care about – about ecological niches, or the wonders of evolution, or…” He trails off and a shadow passes over his face. “I suppose I’ve always assumed that I could solve a problem if I just learned everything there is to know about it. Spent years making myself miserable obsessing over spiders and nothing changed.” His laugh is brittle. “Knowledge at any cost."

  Another heavy silence falls. Judging from Jon's expression, there's more; he treats conversations like impossibly complex puzzles sometimes, picking his way through words to find one that will slot just so into a sentence. Martin wonders how Jon would react if he ever told him that that's what writing poetry is like. 

  "The thing is, though," Jon continues after a minute, "I think it’s only right, for me to know what happened to him in the end? Because why should I be spared from the knowledge when it’s my fault he –”

  Jon’s breath hitches; he struggles to compose himself before continuing.

  “But beyond that, it just feels right for me to know. Like I’m owed every scrap of knowledge that comes my way, as if I have every right to consume and possess these stories. And I hate it, Martin,” he says with sudden, surprising ferocity. “I hate it because I’m just this – this uncaring watcher drinking it all in, and there’s a sick, detached fascination that comes with it, and I don’t know if that’s me or whatever master the Institute serves – that I serve, now, or… I hope it’s not just me, but even if it isn’t, I – I still feel it, it still feels right. But it’s not. I know it’s not,” he says, breathing in erratic, shaky gasps.

“When I read a statement, it’s like I’m there, experiencing it right along with them, but the fear is also – muffled? Like the fear is being filtered through the words – through my voice, before it reaches me. And hovering in the background there’s this alien thing – part of me, but not me – gorging itself on a story that doesn’t belong to it, doesn’t belong to me, doesn’t belong to anyone except the one who actually lived it. It just… worms its way into my mind, forces me to feel its pleasure at their fear. At my fear.”

  He shakes his head, his voice thick as he chokes back tears. “God, I’m sorry. I’m treating you like a therapist.”

  “It’s alright, Jon.”

  “No, it’s really not.” Jon sighs. “I tried counseling once in uni, you know. Georgie suggested it. Quit after a few sessions, though. Not good at opening up, I suppose.” He shrugs. “And – and now? I mean, what am I supposed to tell them? That - that closed doors make me uneasy because I almost met a monster when I was eight, and let it take someone else in my stead? About the flesh hive, how some days I still feel the worms burrowing into me and it’s everything I can do not to – to grab a corkscrew and start digging for them?” He laughs, a little hysterically. “That any time I look at my own hand, I can still smell the flesh melting? That a man dropped me into the sky and let me fall, and then he was shot in front of me by a rogue cop who made me dig his grave? That she tried to shove a knife through my voice box for good measure? That I’m becoming a monster, no different than that thing behind the door, and I can’t stop it, and it’s my own fault for asking too many goddamn questions?”

  He’s not even crying anymore, Martin notices. There’s something… hollow about his voice. Resigned. Tired. Martin’s heart aches with it, and he grips Jon’s hand more tightly.

  “Jon, listen to me. You’re not – you’re not a monster.” Jon scoffs. “I’m serious. Look at you. I mean, no offense but – you’re a mess. Right now all I see is a frightened, exhausted human covered in his own blood, putting way more thought into what it means to be human than most humans do, and – and when’s the last time you even slept?”

  “I don’t know,” Jon murmurs. He loosens his grip on Martin's hand and pulls away, scrubs at his eyes to wipe away the residual wetness there. “That’s not high on my list of priorities right now.”

  And just like that, Jonathan Sims throws a wall back up between them. Martin recognizes the slightly stiff quality his voice takes on, and knows that he won’t get anything more out of Jon today.

  But then - 

  “Thank you, Martin.” Jon’s voice is quiet, but somehow loud in its impact.

  “Oh! Don’t worry about it, it’s – it’s no big deal –”

  “It was to me.”

  “No, that’s not what I – I didn’t mean that it’s not a big deal, I just –” Martin puffs out a breath of air, feeling flustered. “What I mean is, I’m glad that you – that you trusted me to help.”

  “I trust you.” There’s a finality to it. It’s similar to the terse this-conversation-is-over tone that Martin is so familiar with, but somehow… gentler. Warmer. “Present tense.”

  “Oh.” Martin’s voice is very, very small.

  “I just…" He heaves a sigh. "Thank you. For being here. For being patient with me. I know I’m not – I’m not exactly pleasant to be around. I don’t make it easy to be near me. And I treated you, and Tim, like enemies when I - when you - when all of us needed allies.” He looks up and meets Martin’s eyes. “I'm sorry. But - I’m trying to be better. So, thank you. It… means a lot.”

  He can’t stand to see Jon hurting, but some small, guilty part of him is still glad that Jon trusted him, opened up to him, accepted help – Martin’s help – for once.

  Martin smiles. He intends it to be reassuring, but he’s pretty sure it comes off as a little delirious instead. “Any time.”

  When Jon tries to stand, he accepts Martin's outstretched hand without another word. 

[levirens]

[fanfic] opiate this hazy head of mine (chapter 1 of 2)

Summary: The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.

TRIGGER WARNING: Character is diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). If you are triggered by mentions of suicidal thoughts, depressive episodes, panic attacks, or even medication, please skip this story or proceed with caution.

Title is directly lifted from the lyrics of Medicine - The 1975

CHAPTER 1

la douleur exquise: the heart-wrenching pain of wanting the affection of someone unattainable 

 August 4, 2002

He knows for certain that she’ll be leaving soon.

The timepiece on his wrist tells him it’s well past one in the morning, but he keeps his eyes open and trained on the woman lying next to him. Hermione Granger’s face is peaceful in sleep, the lines that usually mar the space between her eyebrows hidden from sight. He wants to touch her, her cheeks and the exposed skin of her shoulders, but he’s terrified of waking her up.

He knows that once those eyes open, she’ll realize what a colossal mistake it had been to sleep with him, then she’ll be gone from his life.

Forever.

So he stays still, tries to keep his breathing as even as possible so as not to rouse her. Just minutes ago he had been drowning in a sea of her—her eyes, her warm heat wrapped around him, her hands everywhere, her lips leaving marks that are not his to keep. Now he’s lost, the constellation of freckles dancing across the skin of her nose and cheeks drawing him in deeper into what would be very dangerous territory.

He has never been this close, despite the many cruel efforts on his parts to be physically near her.

The taunting.

The dirty looks.

The insults thrown at her face, right at her face, allowing him just a moment to be that close to her face.

Tomorrow she’ll be gone, but for now he allows himself to live in the reverie that she is his.

 He wakes and feels his chest constrict in panic, his breath catching in his lungs and his limbs freezing up. In the back of his mind, he imagines that this is how it would feel for her to wake up the morning of their N.E.W.T.s, realizing that she had fallen asleep in lieu of studying. The space beside him is empty, only the ruffled sheets and some stray strands of hair on the pillow serving as evidence that Hermione had spent the night with him. He had meant to watch her to the very last minute, savour the very last moment before she’d leave, and he had fallen asleep instead and wasted precious time. He doesn’t even try to get up, choosing instead to close his eyes and will the sharp pain in his chest to fade into a dull throbbing. He doesn’t know how much time passes but he finally moves his head to face the other way, discovering a kink in his neck.

“Draco, are you awake?”

His eyes snap open at the voice and he imagines that his body visibly stiffens.

“Do you mind if I use your kitchen to make breakfast?”

He rises slowly, leaning on his elbows, and finds her sitting on the wide windowsill. He swallows at the sight of her wearing his shirt, a book propped open on her exposed legs. For a moment, he entertains the idea of sleep-induced hallucinations, wracking his brain for an explanation for the anomaly that is Hermione Granger.

He opens his mouth to ask her a dozen questions, each one an attempt to explain why in Salazar’s balls she's still here in the poor death eater’s lair, but his mind blessedly decides to kick in before his mouth can do any damage.

She had said his name. His given name.

“I’ll make breakfast,” he says instead, swinging both legs off the bed and turning away from her for a moment to search for his pants. Only half-naked, he takes note of the time and beckons for her to follow him into the kitchen.

She doesn’t move from her spot (he has no idea how many hours she’s been sitting there but he knows for certain that it couldn’t have been long enough for it to justify him referring to it as her spot) and the minutes tick by with the two of them merely staring at each other. She would never hear it from him, but he would much rather stare at her than cook breakfast. A few heartbeats pass and then she’s pushing off the ledge, raising her eyebrows at him and he answers the unvoiced question with a roll of his eyes. “I can cook.”

“Here, I’ll give you your shirt back," she replies, ignoring his declaration.

He shakes his head, not even trying to hide the appreciate way his eyes roam over her body. He doesn’t know why she decided to put his shirt on, it doesn’t seem like something she would do, but he wants to keep her in his clothes for as long as possible.

Maybe then her scent would be permanently engraved into the fabric.

 She says she wants pancakes and Draco pretends he’s not thankful that she chose something he actually knows to make. He doesn’t burn anything, even when he feels her eyes boring holes into the back of his head, but he barely stops himself from going overboard with the blueberries.

Little triumphs.

He’s plating up a high stack for her, ignoring the curious stare she’s been maintaining ever since he poured her a cup of tea. He wants to run away from the scrutiny and jumps on the opportunity once he hears a light tapping sound coming from the window. His owl delivers him letters that he leaves in a drawer for later and a copy of the paper that he brings back to Hermione, wordlessly handing it over to her just to get her to stop studying him.

“Do you have powdered milk?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just,” she pauses, glancing up from behind the face of an elderly wizard being tried for tax evasion. “I usually put some powdered milk on my pancakes, but these are fine. You’re surprisingly good at this.” She makes a show of taking a rather large bite that has him hiding a smile behind his tea.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Granger,” he says, not without irony. She catches on his meaning and then they’re sharing a smile, an inside joke that only the two of them know, and Draco wonders at what exact moment did the universe tilt the wrong way and allowed him to have this with her.

To have her.

“This is odd,” she finally says, looking at him in a way that tells him its not his culinary skills she finds bizarre. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she means them, that she means it’s odd that she had slept with him and him with her and that he had made her pancakes with far too many blueberries and she had just shared a smile with him that made the darkest parts of his mind recede for a moment—

“Don’t overthink it, I can hear the cogs in your brain turning all the way here,” he responds, hoping against all odds that he sounds as nonchalant as he wants to be about it. He knows for a fact that if he wants to keep her from finding out the mess that is his thoughts around her, he best start putting up the occlumency walls he had so carelessly torn down last night.

He tells himself he will, in a minute, when she finishes her pancakes and she’s had enough tea. He’ll put up the walls when she stops looking as if she doesn’t hate him, doesn’t hate that she had fallen into bed with him, doesn’t hate that he’s standing shirtless in front of her because she’s wearing his shirt.

He tells himself he couldn’t have expected her to stay any longer. She has work, she tells him, and he doesn’t tell her that of course you’re working on a Sunday. He watches her tiptoe her way back to his room and he watches her emerge once again dressed in her own clothes, her healer robes tucked in the crook of her arm. He tells himself he isn’t disappointed when she only kisses his cheeks, tells himself he doesn’t feel his fingers warm when she tells him that she had a good time, that she’ll see him around soon.

He tells himself it’s not the hope that she would come over again that has him purchasing the tin of powdered milk from the muggle pharmacy. It sits in one of the cupboards, right next to the tea that she had picked out.

  February 11, 2000

Draco grits his teeth, mentally listing off a number of hexes that he could fire at the beady-eyed wizard sitting in front of him.

“I beg your pardon?” he asks, struggling to keep the drawl in place. To the untrained ear, they would hear an almost bored quality to the question. To anyone who pays attention, they would hear the unnatural lilt that his voices takes on right at the beginning.

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy, we need to perform legilimency on all ex-Death Eaters wishing to apply for a job at the ministry,” he eyes Draco, one hand coming to scratch at his whitened beard. “Of course, everyone knows you’re a skilled Occlumens, which is why we’ve prepared a special potion that will ensure you do not… keep things from our knowledge.”

Draco feels a muscle twitch somewhere on his jaw. “And why exactly would such a thing be necessary in the first place, if I may ask?”

The veil covering the cruel sneer falls away and the man in front of him openly shows him just what he thinks of Draco. “Mr. Malfoy, you can’t honestly expect the ministry to let you work here without the reassurance that you do not have any ill plans tucked away that mind of yours. Think of it as a way of earning your future employer’s trust. That is, if we do end up hiring you.”

Draco has no response, choosing instead to steeple his fingers against each other and stare back at the other wizard. When the silence stretches on, with no attempts from Draco to end it, the other man speaks up in a tone brokering no argument, “This is an absolute requirement. If you do not wish to go through with it then I will be bidding you farewell.”

“When?” he asks, feeling the last dredges of his pride slipping away from his grasp.

 A healer performs the spell. When it’s over and he feels like his mind has been repeatedly stabbed by a blunt knife, he turns away from the judging eyes staring right at him. There’s a flurry of papers and the sound of a book rapidly being flipped through. The healer furiously scribbles on his chart while Draco awaits the verdict.

“Mr. Malfoy, you’ve been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Here’s a prescription for anti-depressant pills that you are to take if I’m to clear you for work at the ministry.”

He turns back to the healer with a deliberate slowness, as if reducing the speed of his movements could aid his brain in keeping his mouth from falling wide open. “I beg your pardon?” he finds himself asking for a second time that day.

“Mr. Malfoy, you have suicidal tendencies—”

“Harry Potter has suicidal tendencies, did you also diagnose him with depression?”

“We value patient confidentiality, Mr. Malfoy, I assure you. You won’t be hearing about Mr. Potter’s medical business as he won’t be hearing about yours,” the healer states this with a pointed look, no doubt alluding to the fear she saw in Draco’s head about his thoughts becoming of public access. Draco takes little relief in this.

“I also know for a fact that when you say suicidal tendencies, you’re referring to the things he did during the war,” the healer continues. “Unfortunately, that was a case of reckless heroism, not a sign of depression.”

Draco raises his eyebrow at this, finding that the comment made him like his healer infinitesimally better than before. “I’m not depressed.”

“Would you like me to read to you all the signs I just picked apart from your mind? Aside from constantly thinking about your own death, you have severe insomnia, you have very little interest in doing things you like, you have virtually no appetite to speak of, you’re conflicted between the belief that your mother would be better off without you and the guilt of leaving her now that your father is gone—”

“Enough.”

The healer pauses, adjusting the spectacles that had started to slip down her nose. “As you know, depression is not something you need to be ashamed of. You’d be surprised how many of the British wizarding folk have been diagnosed with various mental health issues following the war.” 

For the second time that day, he chooses to answer with cold silence. The healer meets his gaze and wordlessly hands over a small sheet of paper. Draco takes it and his eyes drop to read the messy scrawl. His eyebrows draw together at the unfamiliar words staring back at him. “This is muggle medicine.”

“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

The question catches him off-guard and he looks up, realizing his mistake a second too late. The potion hasn’t fully worn off and he is unable to build up his occlumency walls in time to counter the healer’s legilimency.

Scared.

Don’t know how to buy these.

Don’t know where to go to get these.

Not depressed.

Can’t be depressed.

“Stop,” he finally grits out, turning away from the healer and finally breaking the spell. He wants to scream, wants to get up and run away from the room, job at the ministry be damned. He almost does the latter when he hears her ripping out a small piece of parchment.

“This is the address of a pharmacy I frequent. You may think of it as a muggle apothecary of sorts. Just hand your prescription over and make sure you have muggle money on you.”

Draco takes it, hating the trembling of his fingers as he fights the urge to crush both pieces of paper in his fists.

“Come back with the filled prescription and I’ll give you your medical clearance. Goodbye, Mr. Malfoy.”

 He likes to think he makes a graceful exit, but he knows that he all but stumbles out the room and into the lit hallway. The walls, white and suddenly so oppressive, seem to close in on him as he feels his breathing grow laboured. A panic attack, his mother had described it on the one occasion he had been weak enough to show her that he wasn’t as put-together as he would like everyone to believe. She had scoffed at him, her aristocratic face wet with tears, and had pulled his head to rest on her shoulder.

Now he thinks the healer would have listed off sporadic episodes of panic attacks if he hadn’t interrupted her.

His legs miraculously carry him towards the floo networks and he struggles to fight off the last vestiges of the potion remaining in his system, already working on constructing the ever-trusted wall around his mind. His throat has gone dry, all moisture seemingly travelling to his now-clammy hands, and his vision starts to blur when he’s only steps away from the floo that would get him away from this wretched place—

“Malfoy?”

Fuck.

If someone were to slice his ears off, damage the sensory organ enough that he would only be able to hear anything if one were to use a sonorous charm and shout directly into the mangled hole on the side of his head, he would still be able to recognize that voice. The last time he had heard her, last time he had seen her, was during his trial shortly after the culmination of the Second Wizarding War. He had been more surprised to see her than when he’d seen Potter, more surprised to hear her testify for him than when it had been Potter doing the same thing.

His hands had been bound before him, but his heart had soared at the sight of her then. He had been so certain that he would never see her again, not when he had been on his way to be locked in Azkaban. He had barely paid attention to the words she was saying, his focus trained on the sound of her voice, the fire in her eyes. Not once during her speech did she glance at him and he had only been given the chance to look into her eyes when she had been about to exit the room.

He had sworn that day that he would never forget that image, would hold on to it through the horrors of Azkaban. When he’d been told that the Wizengamot had decided to put him under ten years of heavy probation instead of 10 years in Azkaban, he had let himself foolishly hope that he’d be able to see her again under different circumstances.

Nearly two years later and he finally gets his wish, but the circumstances are only marginally better than before. He attempts to take a steadying breath and only succeeds in affirming that he still can’t breathe quite properly. The last of the bricks fall into place and he turns to face her. A lesser witch would see nothing amiss, only an ex-death eater making a hasty escape from St. Mungo’s, but she’s no lesser witch.

Hermione Granger takes one look at him and the suspicion in her eyes is replaced by that of concern and he fucking hates it. He pretends to appraise her, feigns the slightest bit of shock at her healer robes, only enough that she would think he had failed at trying to hide his surprise at the knowledge that she works here.

Of course he knows she works here; he had almost worked himself up into an early panic attack worrying that she would be assigned his healer.

“Granger.” He notes that there’s only the slightest bit of a tremor to his voice and he imagines his godfather would have been proud. Still, he keeps his hands behind him where she won’t be able to see how badly they’re shaking.

“Malfoy, are you—” she cuts herself off, eyes narrowing at him. “Are you okay?”

He manages a smirk and a slight inclination of his head. “Never better. Goodbye, Granger.”

“What?” is the indignant cry. He’s already stepping into the floo and tossing down a handful of the powder when she calls to him. “Malfoy, wait—” 

He doesn’t think about the possible repercussions of fleeing from a healer, of fleeing from Granger of all people, the only thought running through his head as he’s engulfed by the flames is how he needs to get away from her and her worried eyes.

He doesn’t deserve her concern.

  August 8, 2002

He startles awake, hanging suspended between grappling for consciousness and holding on to the last images of sun-kissed skin against his tongue. He blinks away the fog clouding his mind and searches for the source of his sudden waking, feeling a throbbing behind his eyebrow that somehow falls into beat with the knocking outside his door—

He’s on his feet and rushing out of the bedroom, wand at the ready. The frontal lobe of his brain catches up to his adrenal glands just as he reaches the front door. He reasons with himself—the  wards wouldn’t have allowed just anyone within 20 yards of the door, and since the knocking isn’t a figment of his imagination, he can only imagine that it’s someone from the ministry on the other side of the door. With a wandless flick of his wand, the door opens.

Draco hadn’t known who exactly to expect, but he had not expected to see her. Her hand is raised mid-knock, her hair is flattened down by the knit cap keeping her ears warm, and her eyes are wide and bloodshot as they stare back at him in shock.

He barely has time to open his mouth and call her name before her face contorts and she starts crying, right there by the doorway. Something in his chest constricts at the sight and he almost rubs at it to soothe the sudden painful throbbing radiating right above his left breast.

In the back of his mind, he suspects that it might be his heart aching at the sight of her tears.

“Can I come in?” she asks, uselessly wiping at tears that are only followed by others. She all but collapses into his arms when he moves to pull her into the flat.

He tries to lead her over to sit on the settee but she shakes her head at him, hands clinging to the collar of his shirt and effectively wrinkling the fabric. He blames the epinephrine still coursing through his blood vessels when he finds himself leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. He freezes, lips still pressed to her skin, waiting for her to shove him away for daring to do something so intimate to her of all people.

Hermione releases her hold on his collar, her hands travelling upward to cradle his face. She tugs him down until their lips meet in a soft kiss, Draco all too cautious to deepen it and risk scaring her away.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” she asks against his mouth, breath washing over his face and leaving behind a distinct scent of chamomile and peppermint. He wonders if he’s being manipulated, wonders if he should allow himself to be manipulated by soft lips and cold hands.

Why?

“Please.”

“Okay.”

Hermione transfigures her clothes into something more sleep-appropriate and Draco slips away to prepare her a cup of tea. When he returns, she’s already settled in the middle of the bed, hands fidgeting with the edges of the quilt. She spots the cup he’s holding and reaches out to take it from him.

“Thank you, Draco,” she says, turning to him as he moves to sit net to her. “For all of this.”

He frowns down at his own hands, the adrenaline from before already well out of his system by the time he’d finish preparing her tea. Chamomile, the same thing she had chosen the last time she was there, with one heaping cup of honey and enough milk to turn the drink an ugly shade of Dutch white. She doesn’t comment on how he’s already committed to memory the way she takes her tea and he doesn’t ask her the barrage of questions assaulting his brain.

When the tears start flowing down her cheeks in a silent current, he takes the hand that’s not holding on to the delicate china in both of his. He feels foolish, offering her comfort when the whole wizarding world knows he’s the last person qualified to do as such, but she doesn’t pull away from his touch and the trembling of her lips still just enough for her to keep sipping her tea. Draco spots her wand lying on top of his bedside table and his grip on her hand tightens, the sight making him wonder when exactly he started to earn that level of trust from her.

He watches her lower the empty cup and start to pull away from him, moving to put the cup beside her wand. He vanishes the china with a wandless and non-verbal flick of his hand and allows himself to revel in the impressed look she gives him.

“Sleep, Granger,” he tells her. He moves to lie down, giving her enough space to decide the distance that would exist between them, telling himself that whatever she chose he would keep it that way all through the night. He watches her chew on her lip for a moment then promptly slide down to lie with her sides pressed against his. A few moments pass and then they simultaneously move, him raising his arm to circle her shoulders and her moving to place her head right above his erratically beating heart.

The silence stretches out long enough that he suspects she’s fallen asleep, her breathing even and her heart finally calm in its thumping. His own eyes start to drift close when he hears her soft voice whisper against his skin.

“Goodnight, Draco.”

 He wakes up to lips pressed against his neck and he thinks this is how he dies, a bite to his jugular that will drain him of his pure and ancient blood. When Hermione does move to bite him, he finds himself moaning in pleasure instead of pain, his hands shooting out to cradle her head and keep her mouth firmly in place. She soothes the bite with a languid drag of her tongue.

“I thought you just wanted to sleep?” he asks, voice thick with sleep and dick already half hard in his trousers. “Granger.”

“Draco,” she responds, her own voice just the right amount of rough. Her hands move down to work on the buttons of his shirt and he finally gathers enough sense to still her movements.

“Granger,” he grounds out, firmer this time. “We can’t. We shouldn’t. Not when you’ve been crying all night.” He wants to add not when you’re vulnerable but thinks better of it, suspecting it would only grant him a hex or two.

“I’m sorry,” she says, extracting her body from his hold and completely turning away from him. She hunches forward on her sides, curling into a position that makes her look so small and makes Draco’s eyebrows draw together into a frown of genuine confusion.

“Why do I feel as if you’re under the impression that I don’t want you?” he asks, tugging on her shoulder to make her lie on her back and face him again.

“Because I am,” she responds right away. The next part comes a few seconds later, in a much quieter voice. “Because you don’t.”

The occlumency walls fall apart and he grabs her hand and places it right where he wants it, rubs himself using her palm for a few wicked seconds before stilling them both. “You’re as much of a fool as I am.”

Hermione resumes stroking him through his trousers, her eyes alight and her mouth parted. She pushes him down to lie on his back and moves to straddle him, her hand still on his cock while the other works on completing the mission of removing his shirt. She helps him out of the garment and runs warm hands down his chilled torso, leaning down to once again attack his neck with her lips.

His hands map out an exploration of their own, gripping her hips through soft cotton shorts and seeking out the skin hidden underneath her jumper. His hands reach up until the tips of his fingers tease the edges of her bra, feeling up the lace and groaning when he feels her hand leave his crotch.

She pulls back and whips off the jumper, watching his steadily darkening expression. Hermione reaches back and unclasps the final piece of clothing holding her back from being equally half-nude as he is and he watches with rapt attention. The bra falls away, tossed to lie forgotten somewhere on the floor, but his eyes never stray from the sight of her full breasts just inches away from his face. He swallows and her eyes follows the motion, smiling down at him and grabbing his hands to pull them to her chest.

The first time he had seen her tits, he had ended up worshipping them for the better part of an hour, not neglecting to tell her she had the most beautiful breasts he had ever laid his eyes on. He had been granted a sharp laugh for his eloquence, a laugh that quickly evolved into a drawn-out moan when he had wrapped his lips around one nipple and used the nail on his index finger to tease the other.

Now he holds both of her breasts in his hands, testing out their weight much like the last time, caressing the underside with his palms and watching the skin breakout in goosepimples. She leans back to rest her hands on his thighs, pushing her chest out to him and letting out breathy little moans that fill the room. Her hips start a steady grinding motion, the heat of her clothed arse rubbing against his cock enough to drive him half delirious with need.

He rolls her nipples between his fingers, alternating between slow rubbing and fast swiping. He leans forward, sitting up, and catches one hardened nub in his mouth. The answering moan eggs him on to suck harder, switching between breasts with an almost desperate edge to his movements. This close, her scent invades his senses and overwhelms the part of his brain that usually has him questioning every move, every thought, every word coming out of his mouth.

“Fuck, you smell so good,” he tells her, lips pressed against a reddened nipple. She responds by further pushing her chest into his face and he is happy to oblige, continuing his ministrations on her breasts. He feels her hands fumbling to pull down his trousers and he lifts his hips high enough to assist her.

“It’s been days but I can still feel you inside me.”

Her words make him groan and he bites down on one nipple, just a light graze of his teeth. He helps her out of her shorts and her underwear, leaning back down to his original lying position with his hands firmly on her hips. “Think you can ride me, Granger?”

She takes his cock into her hand and the shock from the difference in body temperature has him biting down on his lip. She smiles at him, teasing her entrance with the tip of his length. “Not if you keep calling me that.”

“Hermione, fuck, Hermione,” he gasps, the syllables of her name rolling from his tongue with practiced ease. The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.

He watches her sink down on him, her heat engulfing him and obliterating any coherent thought he was previously capable of making. His muscles burn from the effort it takes him to not move, to keep still and let her do everything in her own pace. He thinks his grip on her hips may leave bruises in the morning, but he allows himself the selfish thought, forgives himself when he doesn’t loosen his hold on her.

She stops when he’s fully inside her, their skin flushed against each other, chests rising and falling in tandem. Hermione leans down and kisses him, her face overheated and her lips slow and wet against his. He lets her take charge of the kiss, following her lead, matching her peck for peck, tongue for tongue. When she pulls back, he catches a glimpse of the scar on her arm and he’s immediately overwhelmed with the familiar feeling of guilt. He swallows, hoping to physically push back the thought.

“Take what you want from me, Hermione. Take what you need.”

For a moment she looks like she’s about to cry, but she swoops down and kisses him with ardour, catching his bottom lip in between her teeth and giving a painful bite that she quickly soothes with a swipe of her tongue. She doesn’t break the kiss when she starts moving, moaning against his lips with every thrust.

He kisses the side of her mouth, making his way down to the spot beneath her ear that had her screaming his name last time. She whimpers when his lips touch the sensitive skin, her hips picking up speed. Her mouth attaches itself to the back of his neck and he feels her sucking, biting, leaving marks that he won’t hide with a concealment charm. The forward-backward canting of her hips transforms into a circular motion and he knows she’s close. Aside from the constant assault of his mouth on her neck and his hands groping her breasts, he keeps still, feeling her walls clamp down on him and her teeth press down on his neck almost hard enough to break the skin.

She lifts her head, kissing him while riding the waves of her first orgasm for the night. Her body collapses on him and he pulls out of her, still painfully hard, and moves her to lie down on the bed. Even in the dim light of the room he sees the flush of her skin, the light sheen of sweat on her chest and on her legs. He kisses her face, pushes away the curls stuck to her forehead, kisses the arch of her brow, both of her cheeks, the tip of her nose and the dip of her upper lip, and kisses his way down her body.

She shudders when he takes his time kissing her shoulders, biting and sucking and selfishly leaving marks that she’ll have to hide with a concealment charm. Her hands shoot out to tangle in his hair when he reaches her breasts, torn between pulling him away from the over-sensitive flesh or pushing him to keep sucking on the spot just centimetres from her right nipple. He promises to worship her tits later, when he’s inside of her again, and begins to move further down her body.

As he draws closer to her centre, her scent grows stronger. He kisses her inner thighs, careful not to touch the swollen folds of her cunt. Hermione has grown progressively louder as he grew progressively bolder in his exploration, his tongue dipping into her wet hole. They moan in unison and he thinks he may get drunk on her taste. He fucks her with his tongue, letting her grow accustomed to the feeling, waiting for her to come down from the high and demand for more.

When the last of the tremors from her orgasm fade away, his lips find her clit and he sucks the sensitive nub into his mouth. Her hold on his hair borders on painful, her hips bucking up into his face. He pushes her down with his hands, keeping her in place as he uses the flat of his tongue to massage her clit.

He alternates between swiping and circling the kernel with his tongue, using two fingers to fuck her hole. He feels her walls tighten around the appendages and he withdraws them, determined to make her cum using just his mouth. He sucks on her clit, pulling her impossibly closer to him and allowing her to mindlessly fuck his face. When she comes for the second time he barely hears his name pouring from her lips, her thighs clamping down on his head and effectively blocking out the world.

He doesn’t give her time to ride out her orgasm, pushing into her in one swift thrust. He makes good on his promise, kissing her to let her taste herself on him then moving down to worship her breasts once more. Draco only half recognizes the things she’s saying, a mix of familiar swears words and his name and then things his orgasm-deprived mind just can’t seem to put together.

“Your cunt feels amazing,” he replies when she tells him how good he feels inside her. “You feel so goddamn good, Hermione.”

“Harder, Draco, please,” she mewls, fingers clawing down his back and leaving even more marks for him to keep. “Please, please, I’m going to come again.”

She comes a third time, not nearly as intense as the first and the second one, but enough to pull him spiralling into his own orgasm. He spills himself inside of her, the euphoria of his release settling deep into his bones. In those blinding seconds he forgets that they’re former enemies, that they were only tentative acquaintances before this whole fling started, forgets that he doesn’t understand her motivations and forgets to question his own.

He doesn’t pull out of her, remembering how she had asked him to stay inside of her the last time, and he’s rewarded with a smile and a tender kiss. He moves them so she’s half-lying on top of him, the sheets shielding their naked bodies from the cold. He’s internally debating with himself on whether he should go back to sleep when she makes the decision for him.

“Sleep, let’s give it another go when we wake up.”

 “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He only nods, moving to gather his clothes from the floor. He finds his trousers first and slips them on, facing away from her.

“Not yet,” she amends, as if she had somehow known her response had hurt him. “In the morning, I will.”

He doesn’t point out that it already is morning. They had woken up multiple times during the night and had satisfied each other countless times. The first time he had been the one to wake up, pulling her warm body into his arms, kissing her shoulder as an overwhelming feeling of gratitude took over his heart at the sight of her still curled up beside him. She had taken it as him initiating and things had quickly escalated from there. That had been followed by more sleep and even more sex, and now the sky is tinged with a warm orange and he can’t bring himself to feel regret at the prospect of being sleep-deprived at work. 

He looks down at her and catches her watching him, his shirt from last night hanging open on her shoulders. He wants to know if this is her own cruel way of revenge—false hope, a taste of what could have been and what may be but will inevitably never happen. He wants to know why he’s been allowed to feel as much as he has only for it to be violently taken away from him in the end.

“Come back,” she says, delicate hand patting the empty spot beside her on the bed. “It’s far too early to get ready for work, isn’t it?”

“I’ll make you breakfast later. Get some more sleep.”

He retrieves a fresh shirt and leaves her alone in the bedroom, not turning around to give her a chance to seduce him back into his own bed. He waits by the door for a few seconds, listening for any tell-tale signs that she’ll follow him out, and breathes a sigh of relief when his ears are met with silence. The papers he had been reading before turning in for the night lay abandoned on the coffee table, the sight of them prompting images of Hermione stumbling upon them and asking him questions he can’t and won’t answer, even for her. 

His legs carry him to the sitting room and he hastily shoves the papers into the drawer, eyeing the half-empty bottle of pills staring back up at him. He grabs it, pops one pill into his mouth and swallows it dry, then tosses it back in to join the papers. The drawer is locked with a flick of his wand and he starts to breathe easier.

There are many things he doesn’t know about whatever it is going on between them, but one thing he is certain of is that she must never find out about his depression. The thought that she had only slept with him four days ago out of pity had plagued his mind during the interim between then and now. It had taken him every logical cell in his body to convince himself that the impossibility of her finding out about his illness came second only to the impossibility of her sleeping with anyone out of pity for their mental predicament.

He had spent hours every day thinking about what had happened between them, thinking about how and why it happened, how he wanted it to happen again. He wouldn’t go as far as deluding himself into thinking that he was anywhere near done thinking about it, and her showing up in his flat and then fucking him senseless for hours certainly did not offer any help.

What he didn’t have any problem accepting was that there wouldn’t have been a repeat after the first time. Another thing he had been certain of—that Granger would never set foot in his flat again, that it had been a one-time thing. Then last night happened, and now she’s in his bedroom, possibly sleeping, and he’s in his kitchen preparing the ingredients for pancakes.

He’s finally going to put that tin of powdered milk to use.

 Draco suspects that it’s the smell of food that has her emerging from the bedroom, his shirt buttoned up around her form and her hair resembling a nest of some large bird species. He’s torn between the desire to fix her hair for her (with his hands, not using magic) and the desire to see if it would be possible to mess it up even further. He slides her a plate of pancakes and pulls the tin from the cupboard, presenting it to her.

“Is that… did you get me powdered milk?”

His brain tells him to lie, to downplay the gesture, make up a story about seeing it during one of his grocery runs and purchasing it out of curiosity. He knows she would stop believing him the moment he tries to pretend he does his own grocery.

“Yes.”

She stares at him, mouth hanging slightly ajar, and he braces himself for the questions to come. “I have so many questions about that, but I must admit I’m more hungry than curious.”

It’s his turn to gape at her. The many years between them has given him the privilege of knowing enough about her to know that she must be burning to ask him, to clarify, to make sense of whatever it is that isn’t making sense to her brilliant brain. He watches as she pops the lid open and spoons out a generous amount of the milk, pouring it all over her pancakes. The sound she makes when her lips close around the first bite is devilish and he feels his face heat up.

“Here, try some,” she says when she catches him still staring at her. She catches him by surprise when she leans forward to feed him off her own fork. “Go on, it won’t bite you back if you bite it first.”

The milk is too sweet and it dries out the edges of the pancake. He tries to hide his grimace by drinking from his tea but she catches it and openly laughs at his reaction.

“Bit weird, is it?” she asks him, still eating the ruined cakes. “My parents made me these, but they had forgotten that we’d already run out of syrup. They were arguing about it, so I just grabbed a tin of milk and poured it all over my pancakes so they would stop fighting about the bloody syrup.”

He finds that he’s at a loss for words. He’d heard about what happened to Hermione’s parents, what she’d been forced to do to keep them safe from Death Eaters, from people like him. The sweetness from the milk turns sour in his mouth and he feels his hands begin to tremble. Once again he’s left wondering why she would ever associate herself with him, why she would ever trust herself to be vulnerable in his presence, why she would look at him and talk to him like he isn’t scum on the bottom of her shoe.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. The words are inadequate, useless, but he continues to speak. “I’m sorry about your parents. I’m sorry you had to do that. I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear this from, but I’m so sorry about everything that happened to you during the war. I’m sorry about everything I did to you, every nasty word I told you before the war. I’m sorry, Granger, I’m sorry I stood by and did nothing but watch when my demented aunt did that to you—”

“Draco, shh.” He hadn’t even realized his voice had risen and had taken on a hysterical tone before she was suddenly standing before him, his face in her hands. “It’s okay, Draco, I forgive you. I’ve forgiven you. We were children. I don’t blame you.”

“Well you should,” he says, stepping back from her reassuring touch. “I was your bully, I was a Death Eater, I let those people into Hogwarts and let them torture and kill children. I called you that word, that fucking word, for years.”

She looks like she’s ready to argue but he doesn’t let her, speaking over her attempts to placate him and tell him he’s not a monster. “I let her do this to you,” he says, grabbing her arm and pointing at the word engraved there. The letters are still an angry shade of red against her skin, framed by other tiny scars that have already faded. “You lost your family trying to hide them from us, from me. Many people hate me, Granger, but none of them should hate me more than you.”

She looks like she’s on the verge of tears and he doesn’t know which one of them is shaking harder. He thinks she might slap him, maybe wake up from whatever delusion she had the he could be someone she should be sleeping with. Whatever they had, surely she’s going to end it now that he’s talked some sense into her.

“Are you sorry?”

The words are spoken so quietly that he half believes them to be a figment of his imagination. He stares down at her, into the fire of her eyes and the set of her shoulders. Forget a slap, he thinks she might punch him.

“More than anything,” he replies.

“Then I forgive you,” she tells him, moving to wrap her arms around his waist. With her head pressed against his chest, her voice comes out muffled when she adds, “And don’t you dare presume to tell me that I shouldn’t forgive you. That’s for me to decide.”

He doesn’t doubt her words, doesn’t doubt for a second that her Gryffindor heart has forgiven him. Draco wouldn’t be surprised if she’d forgiven him before he asked for her forgiveness; it’s simply her character to be the forgiving one, to be the person to look for the good in people even when they’ve been swallowed whole by the bad.  He allows himself a moment to embrace her to him, pull her body even closer to his and kiss the top of her wild hair.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t meet her gaze. “Eat your pancakes, Granger.”

 She’s redressed in her old clothes and about to floo in to work. He wonders if she’s not worried about people commenting that she’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday sans the knit cap but decides to keep his mouth shut on the matter. There’s a myriad of questions in his head that he’d much rather voice but, just like the last time, he chooses to savour the last moments. He doesn’t know when he’ll see her again, but he knows last night had only been another moment of weakness on her part. She had been emotional over something and for some twisted reason he had been the one she sought comfort from.

It’s never going to happen again, he knows. A one-time fluke that just so happened to be repeated a second time, but he wouldn’t dare raise his hopes up for a third. The world simply does not work that way.

She looks like she wants to say something, her brow furrowed and her bottom lip caught in between her teeth. She looks up to meet his eyes and they just stare at each other for a few moments, her working something out in her brain and Draco just waiting for whatever it is she’s going to say.

“I never got to tell you,” she finally says.

“Tell me what?”

“I never got to tell you what happened, I said I would in the morning,” Hermione explains. There’s a hint of a smile playing at her lips but she looks nervous and he immediately regrets asking in the first place.

“It’s okay, Granger, I won’t pry into your personal business,” he says, feigning boredom. He sees a flash of trepidation in her eyes and wonders if he could fuck things up any further than he already has.

After a few terse moments, she seems to come to a decision and clenches her fists at her sides. “Would you like to talk about it over dinner?” she asks, her chin raised and her eyes staring directly into his.

He feels his mask slipping through his fingers, the surprise showing in his face and fuelling her confidence. His mind is reeling with about a dozen thoughts per second. She looks less scared and more determined, and she looks beautiful like this. She looks beautiful brandishing her Gryffindor courage. She looks beautiful in old clothes and with her hair smelling like his shampoo. She looks beautiful standing in front of his floo, standing inside his flat, she looks beautiful wearing his clothes—but she’s not his and why is she asking him out to dinner?

“Why?”

“To eat and converse, obviously,” she replies, her cheeks coloring. He thinks she looks beautiful like that too, flustered and annoyed at him. “Do you not want to, then?”

Draco decides then and there to stop trying to pretend that he would ever understand the inner workings of Hermione Granger’s head. He knows very little about her—she’s the most brilliant witch of her age, she eats her pancakes with powdered milk and takes her tea with one heaping cup of honey topped with an obscene amount of milk, and she uses about half a dozen drying charms on hair. She’s the poster girl for all Gryffindors, she’s a reluctant war heroine, she’s a healer and she probably overworks herself to near death. She’s the only girl he’s ever been in love with and she can never be his but there she is, asking him out to dinner.

“I would like to have dinner with you. When and where shall this take place?”

She giggles at his words and he decides that when she leaves his life for good (in the very near future, he knows) he would endeavour to keep the sound of her laughter playing in his head.

“Would tomorrow work for you? I have the day off,” she says, still smiling up at him. “I’ll bring takeout here.”

He realises that it’s only to be expected that they would have dinner at his place, not outside, not where people can see them and judge her for her choice in company. Whatever they are, it could never become public information, which is why he nods his head even though he doesn’t have the slightest idea as to what takeout is.

Her smile grows bigger and she also nods. She seems to hesitate for half a second before pushing on her tiptoes and kissing the corner of his mouth. The contact only lasts for a few blissful moments but it’s enough to leave him the slightest bit breathless.

“Right. I’ll see you tomorrow, Draco.”

[singing-robot]

For Knowledge’s Sake

The idea was too much for me to draw, so I wrote a short story that takes place after the monsters have been freed from the Underground. It’s a fun idea to explore :)

“If you could go back in time, would you?”

A common question, asked many times over by many different people. On the surface, it’s a harmless question, but it can dig up answers that would rather stay buried. Among friends, however, it’s another angle to see everyone in the room.

In this room is a circle of monsters (and one human), at what some would call a “party,” but others might call “chilling with your friends and their friends in a room together.” The question is a thought-provoking one, and the air is brightened with their collective thought. Alphys continues her sentence. “Not that we all h-have some sort of t-terrible regret to go back and fix, haha! Ha! N-no, but, l-like, in general, I guess. Unless you wanted to f-fix something, heh.”

There’s a beat of silence following her quick ramble, the purpose of which was to cover over the silence of her question. She instantly looks like the ground might swallow her whole. Anxiety is a funny thing like that. “I WOULD GO BACK IN TIME AND MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOU ALL MUCH SOONER,” Papyrus throws out. 

Everyone looks at him with endearment. 

“YOU’RE CERTAINLY NOT CROWDS THROWING YOURSELVES AT MY FEET IN ADORATION, BUT THAT IS OKAY. I COULD HAVE THAT BY THE TIME I REACH THE PRESENT AGAIN!” Everyone feels... less endeared, for some reason. 

Undyne gets a vicious glint in her eye. “I would go back in time and win the war against humans so that monsters were NEVER trapped underground.”

“didn’t you lose against frisk?” Sans says, winking. She smiles wide. “Yeah, but we’re friends, now! I went easy on ‘em.” 

“sure.” “What about you, Frisk?” Undyne beams, her smile now a stressed mask to ignore Sans’ comment. 

Frisk is quiet, running a list of possibilities and responses through their head. They shrug and softly say, “Yeah.”

“CERTAINLY NOT TO LEAVE US IN THE UNDERGROUND FOREVER, YES?” Papyrus asks. “YOU WOULDN’T REVERSE OUR PRESENT, WOULD YOU?” The earnestness of the question catches Frisk off-guard. It’s always hard to tell when Papyrus is joking, but there’s something in how pointed it is that unsettles the human. Maybe it’s because that was his first thought. Maybe it’s because that could very well be a result of what they would reverse. 

“don’t take it so seriously, kid,” Sans says. “if you think too hard, you’ll end up doing everything over again.” Alphys snorts in laughter, and Undyne looks a bit confused by the statement. Their next few words are lost to Frisk. It was a joke, as is most of everything he says, but... well. Frisk knows a thing or two about overthinking and doing everything over again. Those times, it ended up being for the better, because monsterkind is free. Every time after then has been a battle of whether their period of overthinking again is in the right or if it’s nothing. 

Papyrus doesn’t have pupils, but Frisk can still tell he’s looking in their direction. When it comes down to it, he’s just as expressive as Sans. Frisk’s inability to read his thoughts brings a nagging feeling into their gut. When it was decided that the party was over, Papyrus offered to walk Frisk home, with the reasoning that “EXERCISE KEEPS THE MIND SHARP” and “HOW WILL YOU LEARN TO WALK PROPERLY WITHOUT OBSERVING SOMEONE AS MASTERFUL A WALKER AS MYSELF?”  Sans shrugged and said his brother has a weird way of saying he cares about others’ safety before disappearing into his room. Frisk almost felt dread. 

Frisk is silent, for most of the walk home. Papyrus goes on about how nice it is to hang out with friends, and places he’s been thinking about visiting in his car, and how the sky changes colors even after the sun has set. Normal things,  really. Someone who had never caught onto it before wouldn’t notice how one-sided the conversation really is, how his pauses for Frisk’s responses are structured to have one-word answers that would let him keep talking. They wouldn’t notice how the changes between topics aren’t marked by calm, natural changes, but are directed enough to allow no room for someone else to speak up, to take charge, to make their own conversation. Even if someone did notice these things, they might think it’s a product of mental hyperactivity, a train of thought unable to end simply because the mind doesn’t rest. Frisk is not someone else. They’ve taken up a habit of noticing as much as they can the first time around, since they don’t plan on having an opportunity to catch it a second time around. And they’ve noticed the flow of Papyrus’ words, not practiced like a speech, but almost predictable. They are so aware of this, in fact, that they fail to notice when Papyrus makes a few wrong turns. 

“OH, LOOK! THE PARK! I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS ON YOUR WALK HOME,” he said. “WE CAN WALK THROUGH IT AND CONTINUE OUR TALK AS FRIENDS.”

May as well rip the bandaid off and let Papyrus get what he wants. He’s done this much for it. 

The two walk down the neat path along the circumference of the park, where they can both see that no one else is present. Papyrus slows down his stream of words as they get further from the entrance, until there’s a silence between them. Opposite the entrance is a body of water, too small to be a lake, but larger than what most would consider a pond. Papyrus stops when they reach it, and he looks out over the water. 

“FRISK, YOU ARE NEARLY AS CLEVER AS TH- PAPYRUS, SO I AM SURE YOU KNOW THERE IS SOMETHING I WANT TO DISCUSS WITH YOU.” Frisk tenses, bracing for the impact. “DO YOU THINK WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS?”

What?

“YOU LOOK SURPRISED! YOU MUST NOT HAVE HEARD THIS BEFORE.” Nervous ice clutches onto Frisk’s heart. “Where would I have heard this from?”

Papyrus returns his gaze to the still water that darkens with the sky. “THAT IS DEFINITELY WEIRD TO SAY. I DON’T KNOW WHY THIS SCENE WOULD BE FAMILIAR TO YOU.” Papyrus looks back at Frisk, an intensity in the hollows of his sockets. “WHY WOULD I SAY THAT?” The eye contact is too much to bear with the weight of their forgotten sins behind it, and Frisk looks at the ground, instead. “You say weird stuff sometimes.”

“THAT IS TRUE!” he says. “HOWEVER... I AM SORRY. THERE ISN’T AN EASY WAY TO ASK THIS. I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT FOR SOME TIME.”

He drops to Frisk’s level, and the human turns their eyes to a spot between Papyrus’ sockets and teeth. It doesn’t help them to look less guilty. 

“I ONCE HAD A FRIEND WHO KNEW EVERYTHING BEFORE IT HAPPENED. EVEN AFTER YOU CAME ALONG. BUT IF HE KNEW EVERYTHING THAT WAS COMING TO HIM, HE SHOULD NOT HAVE LOST HIS BATTLE TO YOU.”

Frisk nods. They remember far too much of fighting that “friend.”

“YOU KNEW MANY THINGS BEFORE, TOO. YOU WEREN’T SURPRISED, AND YOU EASILY WON EVERY BATTLE—EVEN UNDYNE’S. AND SHE CAN BE QUITE SPONTANEOUS IN A FIGHT. EVEN I HAVE TROUBLE DODGING EVERY ATTACK. FORGIVE THE MORBIDITY, BUT YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE SURVIVED.” 

Frisk begins to fidget. Why must Papyrus’ speeches last so long? But if they interrupted... well. That’d be rude, to say the least. He might even start over. “FRISK, YOU HAVE ADMITTED THAT YOU WOULD GO BACK IN TIME, IF YOU WERE ABLE. I MUST ASK: ARE YOU?”

“Am I what?” “ABLE TO GO BACK IN TIME. I THOUGHT THE QUESTION WOULD BE OBVIOUS.”

Maybe in writing, Frisk doesn’t say. Instead, very quietly, they say, “I was.” “CAN YOU STILL DO IT?”

Frisk’s shoulders draw up. “Yeah, probably. But, I don’t want to. This is- this is nice. I like how this turned out.” “I SEE.” Papyrus stands, and begins walking again. “THANK YOU FOR BEING SO WILLING TO SHARE THIS WITH ME. TRUST THAT I WILL KEEP IT BETWEEN THE TWO OF US.” 

It takes a second for Frisk to catch up. “That’s it?”

“YES. I DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING ELSE.”

“You won’t even tell Sans?” “I TELL HIM AS MUCH AS HE TELLS ME. WHICH, IF YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, ISN’T VERY MUCH.” 

Frisk hadn’t noticed. “OH! I NEARLY FORGOT!” he exclaims. He spins to directly face Frisk, bending to be level with them again. “DO YOU THINK WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS?“

Frisk pauses. There are many actions that could prove to that they don’t. But, why would they still be here, if that were the case? They wouldn’t stay attached to these monsters if they didn’t feel something, right? Frisk smiles, and says yes. 

Papyrus is as elated as usual with the response, and as the path takes them back to the entrance of the park, his words turn back to a constant stream of thinking, but a little more natural this time. Frisk is content with it. Not every outcome needs to be explored, especially when they’re happy with the one they have.