#and then scroll through our system until I find it.

[liebelesbe]

I need a library to hire me so badly 😭 I need to do the work I did at our small town library but get paid for it PLEASE

[bakuslove]

OUR LITTLE SECRET

﹒ॱ˖ 🖇️ FEATURING. pro hero!bakugo x f!reader

﹒ॱ˖ ☆ CONTENT. fluff, sfw, established relationship, pro hero!bakugo, fem pronouns are used for reader themes of marriage ahead WC. 1.096

﹒ॱ˖ 💬 SYNOPSIS. privacy's hard to come by nowadays, all thanks to social media. luckily, you and your darling have found a way cheat the system. at least... a little bit.

It’s not easy being the girlfriend of one of the highest ranking pro heroes in the world but you’d gotten used to a majority of the daily inconveniences. 

Paparazzi somehow finding you no matter how many layers you wore to cover your face that day, crazy fans who were just a little too friendly following you from a distance as you made your way to and from the supermarket, the constant, and I do mean constant, private message requests and comments and responses on posts from fans and haters alike on every form of social media you own. It was hard to keep track of, to say the least. 

Sometimes you’d forgo using your phone entirely just to avoid the snarky comments or prying eyes and questions of loyal fans. And that was just from those who wanted to know about you. Bakugo’s fans were far more insatiable.

However, there were moments you two were able to bask in your solitude together. Peace and quiet filled your dining room and Katsuki stood over the stove, keeping an eye on a frying pan filled with vegetables as he seasoned a bit of pork you laid out earlier for dinner.

You sat by his side as you always did, phone in your hand as you snacked on whatever he handed you in the midst of his cooking. Your phone was buzzing with notifications just as always, but you did your best to ignore them as usual. At least, until a certain headline caught your eye. 

You tapped on it, waiting as anticipation caused your knee to bounce. There’s no way they saw it... right? 

Your last trip out with Katsuki had been two nights ago when he had planned an extravagant dinner just for the two of you at that new expensive place that opened up just down the street. It was the best night you two had spent together in a very long time, no thanks to his ever-changing, bustling hero schedule. 

Your eyes widen as the page finally loads and you zoom in on the little detail everyone seemed to be talking about. 

It was blurry to say the least and you had to really be looking for it to make it out, but it definitely difficult to ignore now with the bright red circle photoshopped over your hand. 

Fans had noticed the little silver band conveniently placed on the ring finger of your left hand and seem to have been going insane about its implications since the last time you and Katsuki had been out in public. Which you were sure had to be about... three days ago. 

A groan leaves your lips as you scroll through the comments of fans and haters alike wondering if you and Katsuki were finally planning on tying the knot or if it was all just a coincidence. Either way, many of the comments further down the line seemed to speculate more, pointing out that your boyfriend hadn’t been seen wearing anything on his hand, and while many pointed out that he probably wouldn’t be so careless with an engagement ring while on the job, various pictures of him in casual dress since then proved that he still wasn’t wearing a ring.

Too bad they didn’t spark conversation about the new black chain he frequently sported around his neck. Katsuki was rather proud of it, seeing as it was the newest addition to his daily wardrobe. 

“What’s wrong?” Katsuki calls from the foot of your bed, and you’re blessed with the sight of him fresh from the shower, a fresh towel hanging low on his hips as he drys his hair with a smaller towel that drapes across his broad shoulders. 

How was this man, your man, so breathtakingly beautiful. 

“Nothing, just... the media,” you huff, opting to let your screen grow dark before placing it on the nightstand to your left. 

Bakugo only raises an eyebrow as his eyes trail along your exposed legs, a common indicator you’ve learned to mean he wants you to continue.

“They saw,” you sigh, crossing your arms across your chest as you gauge his reaction. But, instead of him rolling his eyes in annoyance or grumbling about ‘never getting any goddamn privacy these days’, he simply runs the towel over his damp hair one last time before hanging it back onto its rack. As if he’d ever leave even a towel out of place. 

“They were gonna find out anyway, not let’s just make sure we don’t give ‘em any more than they need, yeah?” 

The bed shifts as he crawls onto the sheets next to you, his large hands finding the soft plush of your thighs as he pulls you against him. You’ll never get over just how perfectly you fit against him. The way his arms could so easily wrap you in his embrace, keeping you safe and warm each and every time. 

“Well, at least we don’t have to hide the fact that we’re engaged,” you smile, making a quite note about how all of your fans will probably want to know the details of just how you got engaged.

“That’s why it’s our little secret,” he muses, a smirk morphing onto his soft, pink lips before they meld against your own. 

You hum against him as his hands move to rest on your hips, the rough pads of your thumbs sliding along your sides as he effortlessly clears your mind of everything and everyone else in existence. Just as he always does. 

“Let ‘em wonder, those nosy ass extras,” he breaths once you pull away, and you hum again in agreement, watching as Bakugo finally slips off his black chain over his head- he only ever took it off while sleeping -and you smile giddily as you spot the wedding ring it sports. 

It’s a simple thing, a black band without a lot of shine or sparkle, but it fit him perfectly in your eyes. If there was one thing your fans got right, it's that his ring was a little harder to spot since it usually hid underneath the neck of his t-shirt and hero costume. Bakugo would be damned if he entered the field without your ring somewhere on his body, and with his quirk being so dependent on his hands, it only seemed logical to keep it on a chain around his neck. 

“Sweet dreams, Mr. Bakugo,” you smile as he places a kiss to your temple before pressing his body against yours under the sheets.

“G’night, Mrs. Bakugo.”

If only your fans knew...

[woso-fan13]

Sicktember 2023: 3

"What Happened To Your Phenomenal Immune System, Huh?"

Not for the first time, your overconfidence had come back to bite you. You had been psyched to find out you were rooming with Kristie, but you quickly became less psyched when she stumbled in the door. You could tell instantly that she was sick. 

She had apologized profusely, offering to rent herself a hotel room so that she wouldn’t get you sick. You had instantly protested, insisting that you would be totally fine- you had an immune system that others could only dream about. 

—-

Apparently, that dream is a nightmare, because you can barely open your eyes a few days later. Your entire body aches and you’re simultaneously freezing and sweating. You’re exhausted, too, only managing to turn over slightly, curl into a ball, and fall back into a restless sleep. 

Not long after, Kristie knocks briefly on the door before opening it. She had just gotten back from her combination morning walk and breakfast, and was somewhat confused when she didn’t see you downstairs. Assuming that you had simply wanted to sleep in, she grabbed you a bagel and an apple, bringing it back with her. 

“Rise and shine, Y/N/N,” she singsongs, “I know it’s our day off, but you-” 

She’s cut off abruptly when she sees you lying in bed. She sighs lightly, taking out her phone and texting the others that the two of you would not be joining everyone for whatever team bonding activity they had planned. 

She strides over to the bed, resting the back of her hand against your forehead before sliding it down to your cheek. Even before she makes contact with your skin, she can feel the fever radiating off of you. She uses her fingers to gently push the hair out of your face, frowning when you mumble slightly. 

The only positive was that Kristie was fully equipped for a sick person- not even needing to leave the room for any of the necessities. She pulls the shades, leaving the room light off. Grabbing an electrolyte drink out of the fridge, she settles it down on the nightstand next to some medicine. Moving into the bathroom, she soaks a washcloth in cool water, grabs a dry towel and the bag-lined garbage bin. She leaves the bathroom light on, pulling the door shut just enough to allow the dim light into the room. 

She lays the towel on the floor, placing the bin on top. ‘Just in case’ she silently reminds herself, hoping that you can sleep this off and not need it. 

She makes sure she has her phone in her pocket before climbing into bed next to you. She settles the washcloth on your forehead, smiling softly at you when you whine and blink awake at the cool sensation. 

Once you see Kristie, you sit up just enough to allow your body to crash on top of hers, your head resting on her stomach. You can feel her readjusting the washcloth with one hand as the other arm wraps around you. 

Kristie looks down at you as you quickly fall asleep, your fever exhausting you. 

“Oh, bubs,” she says softly, “what happened to your phenomenal immune system?”

There’s no response, not that she expected one. You were already quickly on your way to a fever-fueled dreamland. 

—-

Kristie spends the morning with you snuggled into her, catching up on social media and then mindlessly scrolling through TikTok. Around lunchtime, she could no longer sit still, slipping out from under you. 

She rewets the now warm washcloth, placing it back on your forehead and pulling the covers up to your chin. After making sure that the bin and a drink are within easy reach, she heads downstairs to eat lunch with the other girls. 

The door to your room is propped open, a silent parade of eyes peeking in at you. You sleep somewhat soundly, blissfully unaware of all of the attention. In fact, you don’t fully regain consciousness until sometime after dinner. 

Kristie has settled into the room for the night, already dawning her pajamas and climbing into her bed. It’s not really late enough for that, but the seating options are limited and she will not be having her outside clothes in her bed. 

She’s sitting propped against the headboard, video chatting with Sam. It’s Sam who notices you first, alerting Kristie to your rapidly approaching, blanket-wrapped frame. She barely has time to look before you’re plopping yourself down on her bed, cuddling into her. Your half-open, fever-dazed eyes are looking at her phone where Sam is trying to hold your attention. 

“Hey Ankle Biter!” she greets cheerfully in her Australian accent. 

You can’t find the energy to verbally reply, but you manage to weakly wave a hand while blinking sleepily and yawning. 

“Kris was just telling me that she had gotten you sick, which is such a Kris thing to do.” 

You look up at Kristie when she says this, noticing the blush that appears on her face at her girlfriend’s teasing. She quickly plays it off with a small laugh. 

“Do me a favor, yeah? When you’re feeling better, you do something to get back at her. Karma, and all that.”

Sam’s request gets the first genuine smile out of you all day. Kristie quickly spoils the fun, pulling you closer. 

“No way, Y/N would never. She’s my little buddy, right?” 

You simply shrug innocently at Kristie, watching as Sam laughs on the screen. 

“You just remember who had to clean your puke bucket today, missy. I think that’s more than enough karma.” 

You nod at Kristie’s remark. The two women continue their conversation, watching as your head slowly tips to rest fully on Kristie, your body relaxing into her. 

Sam watches with a fond smile on her face as Kristie gently strokes your cheek with the back of a finger, lulling you into a hazy state. The two women whisper quiet good nights to you just as your eyes slip shut for the rest of the night. 

On the other side of the world, Sam watches Kristie gently guide you into a restful sleep. Her face is wiped clean for the night, her hair pulled back messily and her pajamas are on. And Sam only has one thought, all consuming- she loves this woman so much that it hurts.

[slutforsilverfoxes]

Dinner and a Show

A/N: Ask and you shall receive, loves 🖤

English has always been your favorite subject. There’s something magical about the way twenty-six letters woven together in just the right combination can have a story coming to life, painting a picture behind your eyelids as your brain processes the lines on the page before you. It’s why you applied for graduate school as an English major.

But if your professor uses the phrase duality of man one more time, you might just blow your brains out.

You find yourself doodling random patterns in the corner of your notebook as your thoughts drift to a certain brooding brunette who would likely have much to say about Dostoevsky’s protagonist.

The unsub is a white male, twenty to thirty years old, with narcissistic personality disorder who struggles to reconcile his mediocre place in society with what he believes to be an above-average intelligence. 

Your phone buzzing on the desk beside you breaks you out of your reverie, and you flip it over to see a notification from your bank. A grin threatens to split your face in half as you open your messaging app and scroll down to AH 🖤.

Were your ears ringing? I was just thinking about you 😍

Before you have a chance to lock your phone, the speech bubble pops up and taunts you with its three flashing dots. It disappears, reappears, and then your phone buzzes once more.

I know you have class. Pay attention.

Says the guy who just distracted me with a nice little pre-weekend deposit

Is that your way of saying thank you, brat?

You feel a familiar heat prickling the back of your neck and take a quick look around to make sure your classmates are focused on the lecture. Hiding your phone in your lap, you hunt through recent pictures until you find a specific photo: a shot of your body from the neck down, clad in a lacy red set that barely counts as underwear. Attaching the image to your text, you shoot back a response.

No Daddy... THIS is 🥰

Shuffling from all around you alerts you to the fact that class has mercifully ended, and you stand to gather your things, slipping your phone into the back pocket of your jeans. You make plans to meet up with a classmate at a coffee shop on Sunday to peer edit each other’s final papers for the course, then start your trek to the parking lot. As you approach your car, your phone begins vibrating incessantly and you tuck it between your ear and shoulder after accepting the call. “House of Hotchner’s whores, how may I serve you today?”

You receive an exasperated sigh in response, but you can hear the grin behind it. “What if it wasn’t me on the other end, hm?”

Climbing into the driver’s seat, you give your phone a moment to connect to the Bluetooth system before firing back, “No one else calls me, old man.”

“This old man can easily revoke the allowance he just gave you.” He speaks in a low murmur, and you can’t help but wonder if he’s making this illicit call from his office.

“Wow,” you laugh warmly, “you just went from Daddy to Dad in record time.”

“Please, for both of our sakes, don’t ever say that again.” Another laugh punches out of you and you relent, “Deal.” Then, after a beat, “Are you still coming over tonight?”

He sighs again, this time with true remorse. “No, angel, I’m sorry. We just got a case out in LA.”

“Alright, go save the world, Mister Unit Chief,” you tease. “I’ll do the hard work of keeping you entertained while you’re gone.”

His voice drops even lower, now tinged with a gruffness that sends a bolt of heat through your body. “Thank you, Princess. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“I know you will,” you purr, knowing that the longer wait will make your reunion all the more satisfying. “Be safe.”

“Always.” You go to hang up the phone but pause when you hear him take a breath. “Princess?”

“Hm?”

“Get something purple this time.”

_____

Several hours and a stupid amount of money to be spent in one shopping spree later, you trundle up the stairs to your second floor apartment, arms laden with shopping bags. You let yourself in before closing and locking the door behind you, then head down the hallway to drop your purchases off in your bedroom. After a luxurious bath to wash the grime of the week away, you pull on one of Aaron’s t-shirts from your steadily growing collection and are preparing to settle on the couch to peruse takeout options when a knock sounds at the door. As if on cue, your phone lights up on the nightstand with a text.

Dinner’s on me, angel. Sorry I’m not there to enjoy it with you.

A pleasant warmth settles in your bones at Aaron’s thoughtfulness, and you open the door to find a delivery from your favorite Vietnamese restaurant and a bottle of Moscato to accompany it. After getting comfortable with your dinner on the couch, you hunt through your rented movies for the Fifty Shades trilogy and press play before typing out a response.

Keep spoiling me like this and I won’t know how to act

You’re my Princess- You deserve to be spoiled.

A giggle bubbles out of you and you resist the urge to kick your feet like a teenager with a raging crush. Instead, you opt for a much more dignified reply.

Thank you Daddy 🥰

With twenty minutes remaining in the sequel, feeling emboldened by several glasses of wine and the content playing before you, you send another text to Aaron.

I can’t wait to show you what I spent all your hard earned money on today 😘

He has yet to answer by the time the credits are rolling and you recall that, much to your dismay, he’s three hours behind you and probably still at the local precinct. Deciding that you’ll read to pass the time, you finish off your wine and put your leftovers in the fridge before heading to your bedroom. You open up a video call on your laptop and send an invitation to join to Aaron, then settle back against your pillow with your latest novel.

A few chapters in, you recognize that trying to distract yourself is a feeble affair when your eyes gloss over the same paragraph several times in a row. Giving up on the book, you place it on your nightstand and let your hands wander your body just as Aaron’s would. Wearing his shirt has you cocooned in his distinct smell, and you can’t help but close your eyes and imagine he’s there with you, touching you, teasing you. Desperately wishing it was his large hands caressing your curves instead of your own, you gently cup your breasts and roll your nipples between your fingers, hips arching upward of their own accord in search of some friction. You ignore the budding heat between your thighs, continuing to play with your nipples and enjoying the way the soft fabric of Aaron’s shirt heightens every sensation. Before long, soft pants are falling past your lips and your panties are soaked with your arousal.

One hand comes down to grip the edge of Aaron’s shirt as the other dips beneath the band of your underwear. You take it slow, drawing languid circles around your core, and you can practically hear the low rumble of his voice against the shell of your ear, telling you that You haven’t earned it yet. Sliding your middle finger between your folds, you try to imagine it’s Aaron’s thick cock, right where you want it but not giving in. He loves to watch you fall apart before he’s even inside you, letting your slick gather along his cock, the tip nudging against your clit now and then. The very thought has a low whine building in your throat, and you brush the pad of your finger over your sensitive button to draw out the fantasy.

Unable and unwilling to deny yourself any longer, you hook your thumbs into your panties and shimmy them down your legs, kicking them off across the room. Your middle finger circles your nub once more, and then you ease two fingers into your core until your knuckles stop you from pressing any further. You whimper at the sensation, pleased with the fullness but frustrated it’s just not right, aching for Aaron to work his magic on your body. Letting out a determined huff, you clamp down on your bottom lip and begin working your fingers in and out of your pussy in earnest, your other hand coming down to collect your slick and spread it over your nub. You dig your heels into the mattress, raising your hips to try and mimic the angle of Aaron fucking into you, steadily increasing the speed of your fingers as pathetic little mewls fall past your parted lips. Your whines turn into full blown moans, and your cries are rising in pitch when you realize you’re no longer alone.

“Got tired of waiting for me, huh, Princess?”

Putting a pause on your self-care, you blink the haze of arousal out of your bleary eyes and find Aaron seated at a desk, presumably in his hotel room. His tie hangs loosely around his neck, the top two buttons of his crisp white button down undone and showing off a tantalizing sliver of chest. His mouth is set in a hard line in an attempt at disapproval, but even through the slightly grainy image you can spot the gleam in his smoldering eyes.

Using your foot to nudge the laptop between your legs, you give Aaron a clear view of your fingers resuming their path of easing in and out of your soaking wet pussy. You simper, “Just getting warmed up for you, Daddy.”

“What a good girl,” he breathes out, gaze locked on your core. “Turn towards me, let me see all of you.”

You obediently change positions, scooting your laptop back so he can see a majority of your body, and his breath hitches when he spots the shirt you have on. “Is that mine?”

You draw your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes fluttering shut as your middle finger circles your clit, and nod. “I hope you don’t- fuck- mind. Smells like you.”

“Whatever makes my little girl happy,” he says, and you nearly purr at the name. When you open your eyes again, you pout at the sight of him still in the same position. He picks up on your disappointment immediately and asks, “What is it?”

“Can you-” Your cheeks grow warm with a sudden shyness and you duck your head before softly requesting, “Wanna see you, Daddy.”

He raises one eyebrow at you, arms crossed, fixing you with that look. “Daddy’s right here for you to see. Use your words and tell me what you really want.”

A shudder races down your spine at his commanding tone coupled with your thumb brushing over your clit, and you suddenly find your voice. “What I really want is your fingers in my mouth and your fat cock in my pussy but-” A wanton moan interrupts your thought as your fingers curl against the perfect spot. “Right now I’d settle for just seeing your cock.”

“Was that so hard?”

You smirk at him as he rises from the desk and moves to the bed, settling in a reflection of your position with the laptop beside him. “Not as hard as you are right now.”

“Bold of you to assume, little one.” He laughs at how quickly you’ve adopted your brazen attitude, the sound rich and warm as it fills every corner of your bedroom.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” you challenge, slowly drawing your fingers out of your pussy.

You hear him unzip his work slacks, the familiar sound sending yet another bolt of heat to your core, before he growls out, “I can’t.”

“Oh fuck,” you breathe out, utterly mesmerized by the sight before you. Aaron is lazily fisting his rock hard cock, pausing to swipe his thumb over the head and gather the precum there before gliding his hand down to the base and gently squeezing until the vein on the underside is pulsing and your mouth is watering. Your body responds instinctively, walls clenching around nothing and desperate to be filled, your clit throbbing with need. Gathering the fresh wave of arousal dripping down your thighs, you press your fingers back into your hole and let out a frustrated cry. “It’s not enough.”

“Look at me,” Aaron says, his voice gentle but commanding, always in tune with what you need. You lift your gaze to meet his on the screen and he continues, “You’re not going to bed until we get you to cum, do you understand?”

You nod, and he praises you with a small smile. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Princess,” he begins, your eyes tracking his every movement as he slowly works his hand over his length. “You’re going to put three fingers in your mouth- go ahead, do it now,” he encourages, waiting for you to place your index, middle, and ring fingers in your mouth before continuing, “and get them nice and wet for me. Close your eyes and imagine they’re mine. Can you do that for me, baby girl?”

You close your eyes and mumble an affirmative around your fingers while your head drops into a nod, the taste of your own arousal bursting over your tongue as you swirl it around the digits. “Such a good girl,” Aaron coos, and you once again clench around nothing at the pride woven through his words. “You just love having my fingers in your mouth, don’t you?”

“Mhm,” you cry, the sound muffled by your digits as drool slips out between the corner where your lips meet.

“Now take your fingers out of your mouth and let me see those beautiful eyes.” You do as he says, eager to please, and Aaron lets out a ragged, “Fuck,” at the sight of your lust-blown pupils framed by delicate lashes. “Slide your fingers into that pretty little pussy all the way, then hold still for me. Just like when I’m fucking you, yeah, Princess?”

Your mouth drops open and you take a shuddering breath at the stretch. “Now what?”

“You’re going to watch me and do exactly what I do. Your fingers, my cock. Got it?” A slow grin spreads across your face and you nod eagerly, understanding his premise. He slides his fist up the length of his cock and you ease your fingers out of your pussy, perfectly matching his unhurried pace. “Good girl,” Aaron breathes out, “just like that.”

He slowly builds up to a steady rhythm, the sound of his fist repeatedly meeting his pelvis joining with your fingers pulsing in and out of your sopping cunt to form a depraved symphony. You watch your lover on the other side of the country, transfixed by the way his typical stoicism is dissolving before you into guttural moans and hedonistic cries of your name. He bites down on his lip, determined to not break eye contact with you as you both fight the urge to squeeze your eyes shut from pure pleasure. Aaron tugs his tie off and tosses it away, then hurriedly unbuttons his shirt, all the while working his fist over his length. Even in the dim lighting of his hotel room, you can see the sheen of sweat coating his skin, and saliva pools in your mouth at the thought of running your tongue over every delicious inch of him when he returns home. You tell him as much, in vivid detail, and he releases a low groan that reverberates throughout your room.

“I’m so close, Daddy,” you whine, and you see his pace beginning to falter as well.

“I know you are, Princess. Doing so well for me,” he pants, now squeezing the base of his cock on every downstroke. With Aaron, you always come first- in every sense of the word. “I need you to cum for me. Need you to clench that pretty pussy around my cock so I can fill you up. That’s what you want, isn’t it, baby?”

“Fuck yes,” you cry out, feeling your walls clamp down around your fingers in response to his words. “Gonna be a good girl for you, Daddy,” you babble, “always wanna be your good girl.” Your entire body tenses and your breath stutters in your throat just before the coil deep in your belly snaps and a desperate cry of Aaron’s name bounces off the walls of your bedroom. His moans grow louder and longer, his cock feverishly thrusting up into his hand until he finally gives in to his orgasm, thick ropes of cum coating his hand and stomach.

Lying back in bed to give yourself a few beats to calm your erratic breathing, you quip, “I don’t think I’ve ever been so jealous of a hand before.”

You hear Aaron’s warm laugh from a distance and then he’s filling your screen once more, now clean and fully sans clothing. “Trust me when I say the feeling is mutual.”

Propping yourself up on one elbow, you smile at the handsome man before you. “You know what my next purchase is gonna be?”

“Enlighten me.”

“A mold of your cock so I’m never without you.”

“Absolutely not,” he scoffs immediately. “Then you won’t need me anymore.”

“Of course I’ll still need you! Who else is going to fund my lavish lifestyle?”

He grunts, unenthused, the hint of a smile making his lips twitch. “Brat.”

You scrunch your nose in delight and grin at him. “Thank you for my little shopping spree today. And for tonight, of course.”

“My pleasure, angel,” he answers warmly. “Same time tomorrow, if our case continues on this trajectory.”

With a playful laugh, you tease, “You wish.”

He grows serious, mouth setting in a hard line. “I’m sorry, Princess, you mistook that for a question- it wasn’t.”

“Yes, sir, Mister Unit Chief,” you respond through a nervous giggle with a mock salute.

“That’s my girl,” he breaks into a soft smile once more. “Get yourself cleaned up, drink some water, and get a good night’s rest, okay?”

You nod obediently and blow him a kiss. “Goodnight, Aaron.”

“Goodnight, beautiful.” You go to exit the call, then stop when he calls your name, raising an eyebrow in question. “Save what you bought until I get home. I want to see you in my shirt again tomorrow.”

_____

Hotch taglist: @gothwifehotchner

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Urban legends Part 1: What lurks in the night

“What time is it?”

Zintal tore his gaze away from his drink and looked at his human friend. He had been convinced that Brooks had been in a coma until now after he had downed a pint of Teruziun Ale when they first arrived and he collapsed to the ground.   Some of the other patrons had laughed and propped him up in one of the waiting chairs while Zintal continued to enjoy the night.

Looking down at his watch, a strange human custom he had adopted since moving to the human world, he took note of the positioning of the hands.

“Half past midnight.” Zintal remarked as he took another sip of his drink. The bar was practically empty aside from them and the bartender who was wiping down several glasses and stacking them behind the counter.

“Oh shit.” Brooks murmured and tried to stand. He must have had some of the ale still in his system because he made it two steps before he fell to the ground.

“Someone’s in a hurry.” Zintal laughed as he finished his drink. He tossed a coin to the bar keep who caught it midair and then went to pick up his friend.

“We should have been gone an hour ago.” Brooks stammered as he tried to get back up but kept losing his balance. “We can’t be here after midnight.”

“You’re mommy say that?” Zintal chuckled as he helped Brooks up.

The first he knew something was wrong was how tightly his friend was grabbing his arm. Brooks was holding on to him like his life depended on it. It wasn’t just tightness either, but Zintal could feel their hands shaking as if he was afraid of something. A look in his friend’s eyes and Zintal saw that what his friend was saying was not the idle ramblings of a drunkard, but of a man who was genuinely afraid.

“Alright,” Zintal said in a calm voice as he took Brooks under one arm and together walked towards the door of the bar, “we’ll just call a transport vehicle and we will be home.”

“Jesus fucking Christ…” Brooks mumbled as they reached the door. “That’s not going to work.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone knows not to come here after midnight!” Brooks shouted back. “They know to stay the fuck away until the sun comes back up and it’s safe to come out!”

“Then why don’t we stay-“ Zintal began until he saw the bar keep placing a shotgun on the counter and shake his head slowly.

Zintal now felt a measure of fear himself. They were standing at the door to the pub yet his hands would not touch the handle leading outside.

“I need you to tell me why it is not safe outside.” Zintal spoke to Brooks. “What are you afraid of? Speak clearly to me.”

Some sense returned to Brooks as he wiped a hand across his face and slapped himself a few times. He pulled away from Zintal and regained his footing before answering his alien friend.

“There’s a story,” Brooks began, “about something that stalks these streets at night and takes people.”

“What?”

Zintal couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but Brooks kept talking.

“Nobody knows who it is or what it is, but what they do know is that about a month ago if you’re out after midnight it will get you.”

“Why in the thirteen hells then would you take us to a pub if you knew it was dangerous!?” Zintal demanded.

Brooks shrugged. “I thought we would have our drinks and been out of here before midnight; we were meant to be back home by now!”

Zintal shook his head in anger and pulled out his communicator. He scrolled through the services trying to find the summon ride application but no matter which application he tried all of them gave him the same error message.

No service…..

“I told you that wouldn’t work.” Brooks remarked but Zintal held up a hand to silence him. He needed to think, needed to use his enhanced mind to find a resolution to this problem, something that could get them home-

An idea popped into his head and he turned back to the bar keep.

“Where’s the nearest transit station?”

The bar keep pointed in direction and said “About six blocks down 3rd street and you can find one on Cheery Ave.”

Zintal turned back to Brooks with renewed hope. “We just got to make it there and we’re home free. Transit stations run all day and night, no exceptions.”

This news didn’t seem to cheer up Brooks as much as Zintal thought it would.

“We’ll never make it.” He replied; his breathing quickening as the last of the ale was burned from his system. Zintal grabbed him and imbued what strength he could to his friend. “We will make it if we stick together, alright?”

Brook slowed his breathing and looked at his friend; the clouds of fear diminishing from his eyes, but not fully leaving his sight.  “Alright, let’s do this.”

The pair steadied themselves and together pushed open the doors to the street outside. For Zintal it was like he had just entered an entirely different world than he remembered.

Where once the streets had been lively and full of crowds of people when they first entered the pub, now the streets were empty and a fog began rolling through the streets. He looked up and he could no longer see anything above the fourth story of the buildings around him. Looking down the street he saw that he could barely see to the end of the block as well.

“We’re fucked.” Brooks gasped as he saw the surroundings; his previous resolution having faded away into the depths of the surrounding fog. Zintal said nothing but instead grabbed hold of his friend and began making their way in the direction the bar keep had pointed.

The pair stuck close together as they made their way through the fog. Their footsteps run out against the cold concrete, echoing between the buildings as all other sounds seemed to have been silenced with the onset of night. A few of the street lights still functioned along the street, but with the fog’s thickness they gave a pale white glow that only illuminated a small area around their base.

As they passed by the stores and shops lining the road Zintal saw that nearly all of them were boarded up tight. Layers of metal grating, fencing, and chains sealed their occupants inside while trapping the pair of nervous friends out in the street. They’d made it a block away from the pub when a rather upsetting notion crossed Zintal’s mind.

“If I find out that this is one of your human pranks…” Zintal softly growled, but Brooks shook his head.

“I’d not joke about this mate.” Brooks replied quietly. “It’s bad luck to joke about death when you’re staring it right in the face.”

Zintal was about to chastise him for being overly superstitious when he heard something and froze. Brooks, who had been following behind him, bumped into his alien friend and nearly shouted from the startling when Zintal put his hand over his mouth. He put a finger over his mouth for silence and then another towards his ear to listen.

Brooks recognized the indication and likewise began listening as the fog swirled in closer around them.

The pair waited for what felt like an eternity until they heard the faintest of sounds coming from somewhere back the way they had just come. Brooks could feel his heart beating so fast it might pop out of his throat, while Zintal wiped a strand of purple sweat that rolled down his face as they waited in silence.

They didn’t need to wait long for just as when the pair thought they were going mad with fear and chalking it up to nerves they heard it again. Neither could make anything out from the fog but they knew the sound was closer than it had been before and was getting closer with each jut wrenching motion.

They heard the sounds of a soft pair of footsteps, and the screech of something being dragged across the ground.

[red-riot-unbreakable-heart]

💕BakuDeku First Kiss 💕

FanFic Summary: BKDK first kiss head cannon, Kacchan + Deku have feelings for each other but are dumbasses and don't know how to act on them, the pair gets stuck on a corny Tunnel of Love ride that Class 1B built for the school's annual festival. Easy peasy lemon squeezy content for funsies. Scroll down to enjoy! :)

Ok but imagine:

Katsuki and Izuku's first kiss is at the school festival in their third year. Izuku convinces Katsuki to go on the "Tunnel of Love" ride that Class 1B has put together for the school, saying he wants to support all of their friends from the class. Katsuki has been looking for an excuse to be alone with Deku for literal months and so he agrees (even though a "tunnel of love" is the dumbest nerd shit he has ever heard of).

Katsuki begrudgingly asks Kirishima to cause a distraction while he and Izuku get on the ride (because he'll be damned if anyone from class 1A sees him getting mushy with the green haired hero <spoiler alert - the entire class knows DK + BK have the hots for each other>).

Eijiro Kirishima of course agrees to help because he's an amazing friend and has a soft spot for romance. He enlists Denki Kaminari's help and obviously they do something ridiculously over the top and stupid. Picture Kirishima giving a speech about how manly romance is and it distracts everyone in line for the Tunnel of Love. Meanwhile Kaminari messes with the electrical system.

Katsuki and Izuku awkwardly hop into one of those cheesy swan boats and sail straight into the tunnel while Class 1B and the rest of the school are too focused on Kirishima + Kaminari to be any the wiser.

The ride breezes the boat through badly painted scenes from classic RomComs - How Harry Met Sally, While You Were Sleeping, You've Got Mail... Making matters worse, the whole thing is set to a cringe playlist of 80s and 90s love songs and it's all so over the top and cheesy and Katsuki WANTS. TO. DIE.

That is, until he looks over and sees Izuku admiring the scenery and taking everything in with a look of amazement. "Our classmates are just so talented, aren't they? They built this entire thing just using their quirks and elbow grease." And Katsuki just can't stop staring at the guy beside him. Deku is so pure and good and so utterly full of light. Once upon a time, that trait had pissed Katsuki the hell off. But now...now it's something he finds deeply endearing.

The ride slows down and comes to an abrupt stop in front of a giant cardboard heart painted sloppily with the words "Will You Be Mine?"

The lights flicker and spark before shutting off, plunging the scene into complete darkness. The music comes to a stop as well, silence resounding through the narrow tunnel. It only takes a second for Kacchan to realize that Kaminari and his overzealous electrification is likely to blame.

Damn Kirishima. I told him not to get Sparky involved. Katsuki thinks bitterly, standing up in the boat to look around for an exit. Everything is pitch black.

The boat rocks uncertainly beneath his feet, and he feels Izuku's hand grasp his own. The green haired hero slowly pulls Katsuki back into his seat. "Be careful Kacchan - you're going to tip us into the water! This boat doesn't seem so sturdy."

Katsuki grudgingly sits down. The damn nerd's probably right. He blushes when he notices that Izuku hasn't let go of his hand.

"You know, Kacchan, I was really surprised when you agreed to go on this ride with me. It really doesn't seem your style." He hears caution in Izuku's voice. The damn nerd isn't going to force him to move faster than he's ready to. They both know there is a mutual attraction between them, but neither have been ready to act on it until now.

Maybe it's the horrifically corny magic of Class 1B's Tunnel of Love. Or maybe it's the comfort of the total darkness surrounding them. Whatever it is - Katsuki suddenly feels brave enough to make a move.

"I knew those nerds from Class 1B wouldn't be able to pull this off. I figured this death trap would kill you - and I can't have you die before I have a chance to surpass you." Bakugo is cringing at his own words. He has zero rizz.

"I appreciate it." Izuku says, giving his hand a squeeze. Bakugo's heart starts beating double time, and his nerves are pissing him off.

"Listen, Deku. Let's drop the bullshit. Can I just kiss you already?" His face is beat red, but luckily Izuku can't see it.

Izuku's hand goes slack in surprise. Oh, shit. Katsuki panicks - has he read this entire situation wrong?!

"Ok this is stupid - forget I said anything dumbass!" Katsuki roughly pulls his hand away from Izuku, moving to stand up. This boat can go straight to hell, and he has no problem walking through a few feet of water to get away from this damn nightmare.

But just as he's getting up to leave - Izuku's hand reaches out and grabs him again in a vice-like grip. He pulls Katsuki roughly back into his seat.

"Kacchan..." Izuku reaches out blindly with both hands until he manages to find Katsuki's chin. His fingers feel more calloused than Katsuki would have imagined, toughened up from years of hero training. Once Izuku manages to find his friend, he slowly brings their faces together, fumbling a little in the dark. Izuku manages to kiss the corner of Katsuki's mouth, but with a little teamwork they adjust and find each other.

It's a slow kiss, and it's sweet. Izuku's mouth is softer than Katsuki could have ever imagined and the feel of it leaves him shaky. When Katsuki doesn't pull away, Izuku gains more confidence, his fingers moving to thread into the explosion hero's thick blond hair. The touch has Katsuki seeing stars - no one has ever caressed him so intimately.

Within minutes, he's trying to pull Izuku into his lap. He grips his friend's waist as he kisses him fiercely. Years of tension and unsaid words spur them on, causing their lips to collide again and again until...the lights snap back on.

Izuku and Katsuki are left blinking numbly as the gooey Spotify playlist starts up again. With a lurch, the swan boat starts moving forward again. The two scramble, trying to regain their composure as the end of the ride nears. Izuku climbs sheepishly out of Katsuki's lap, and Katsuki furiously tries to get his hair back to normal. Both are blushing like mad - they can barely look at each other.

A few moments later, the ride comes to an end. The swan boat moves jerkily back into the sunlight, and TetsuTetsu greets them with a grin at the exit. Katsuki groans internally - he has no doubts that Kirishima filled TetsuTetsu in on their plans.

"Sorry about the technical difficulties, looks like we had a little bit of electrical trouble." He says good-naturedly, swinging a wooden plank around to connect their boat to land. Izuku shakily exits the boat, walking lightly across the board.

"Thanks TetsuTetsu. Appreciate it." Izuku walks quickly through the exit, trying to hide the blush on his freckled face.

"Anytime bro." TetsuTetsu waves Izuku off, then turns to face Katsuki. "Enjoy the ride?" He says with a wink.

"Like hell I did!" Katsuki grunts, crosses the plank and pushing TetsuTetsu roughly to the side. He chases after Izuku but the festival is too crowded - the green haired nerd is nowhere to be found. "Damn."

Immediately, he feels his phone buzz in the pocket of his jeans. He fumbles to pull it out, seeing a text from Deku blinking across the screen. With shaking fingers, he opens the message and drinks in two quick sentences: Meet me in the dorms. Let's finish what we started.

Katsuki grins stupidly despite himself. "That damn nerd."

He makes a beeline for the 1A dorm building.

[oyesmendes]

message in a bottle

a/n: sadness, anger, breakups; and words, lots of it. this was inspired by a couple of new songs i've heard, and you can find them in a playlist i linked below! as usual... comments and love are much appreciated <3

in which singer!y/n leaves five messages on her new album for her ex-boyfriend, charles leclerc. 

masterlist here! | playlist here

"mate! did you see?" pierre opened the door to his best friend's apartment, eyes glued to the screen as he set the borrowed clothing items down. 

charles looked up from the piano score to him, "see what?" 

"razzo's new album, she just put it out last week." charles stared blankly at pierre. he hadn't heard your nickname on such a long time, it almost didn't register to his brain. but of course, how could the universe let him forget about you? 

his razzo. his little sky rocket. the nickname you'd gotten from his grandma the first time you visited monaco. and it stuck ever since then. 

"do you want to listen to it?" pierre asked.

charles felt like a deer caught in headlights. because he in fact, did really want to listen to the sound of your voice again, but will he ever admit to it? 

"no- no, no. there isn't a need to." 

"are you sure?" pierre asked again. charles nodded, distracting himself by arranging the score sheet that sat perfectly on the piano. 

"okay, i'm just dropping these off. gotta go." 

the door closes, and charles takes out his phone immediately, typing your name into the search bar on instagram. of course, you pop up almost instantly, and charles doesn't hesitate before clicking on your name. 

his heart flutters when he sees the first picture on your feed. a picture of you smiling from ear to ear, champagne in your hand - classic album release picture; 

thereal_y/n: more than a million streams in two days. you guys are unreal! 

he reads the congratulatory messages in the comments, scrolling through all your mutual friends until he stops by one that catches his eye. 

fans_ofy/n: tell me that cover isn't of monaco?

there's a flurry of other comments following it, and charles couldn't help but to continue scrolling through. 

then he sees it in the next post. 

the title of the EP - message in a bottle. it was in your handwriting, covering the center of a picture which made charles gasp. that picture. the one he was all too familiar with. the one you took using your film camera in the summer of 2019 - the sunset in monaco, with charles back view being the focal point of it all. 

his heart nearly plummets to the ground.

this is why pierre asked if he wanted to listen.

now charles couldn't help but to click on the link in your bio, which led straight to the album on spotify. twenty tracks. ten of which were your voice notes. 

he connects his phone to the bluetooth speakers, and pressed play. 

go the distance - 

"ahhh the opening of an ep. it has to be a banger, right?" you chuckle, "i wrote this a couple of years back when i was in a long distance relationship. It was tough, the both of us having to travel the world for our jobs, we hardly got to see each other." 

charles had to hit pause, the sound of your voice too shocking to his system. he covers his mouth with his hand. you sounded so soft, so gentle, like the calm in the absolute chaos of the world. he pressed play.

"and even if we did, it was usually only for a couple of days. it was rough, being so far from the one you loved, but i knew that deep down it was always worth to hold on, because we were so good, and we had the chance of going the distance."

it goes silent for two seconds, before jumping to the tune he knew all too well.

deep down i know, we'll go the distance. charles knew every word to that song. the familiar melody echoing through his house all those years before. hell, he had that song even before it was put together like this. the raw vocals, the squeaking of guitar chords was all he could remember. the way you both slow danced in the kitchen to the stripped down version of it. 

he knew the meaning behind every word, the story each line held. it felt like a cruel trip down memory lane, the silhouettes of you and him now floating around the apartment you once shared with him. it was your song with him - yknow the one that every couple has? yeah, this was it.

it wasn't long before the three minutes and forty seconds are up, and the song ends, allowing your voice to come through the speakers again. 

heart won't let me -

"now this one," you sigh, "it's a complete switch of moods, a switch in timeline. go the distance was very much at the start of a relationship, when you think everything would work; but then comes heart won't let me, which shows how things don't work. how you're constantly arguing about the same things over and over again. how you struggle to work things out with your partner and you should probably leave but your heart doesn't allow you to." 

charles heart squeezes at your words. it went back to you and him, standing in this very apartment, arguing about something he didn't remember - 

"why the fuck are we doing this, charles?" you stand, back pressed against the counter top, your arms folded in front of you. 

charles rubs his face with his hand, "i don't know! you're the one making a big fuss out of it." 

"yeah because you promised to come to the show, charles! my parents, friends, they were all there, excited to see you again-" 

"i had a bad race, y/n. forgive me if i didn't want to entertain your people." he said sarcastically. 

"then maybe i should leave." you mutter. you grab your keys, one hand on the door, but charles grabs your arm, pulling you towards him. he closes the gap between the two of you, resting his head on top of yours, whispering softly, 

"no, don't go." 

tears now ran down his face, and he wipes them with the back of his hand. everytime i try, everytime i try to leave, my heart won't let me.

"fuck me," he pauses the song, grabbing a beer from the fridge that he shouldn't be drinking. he scrolls through the tracks, reading each one of the titles. but it doesn't give him much hints, or any form of preempt for his heart. 

the next song plays. 

what a time -

"what a time - this one has got to be my favourite. it literally came about with one chord and one phrase from me. ahaha, we were in the studio pretty soon after my breakup, and mikey just looked at me, asking why i looked so grim. he was playing a chord over and over again and i told him about my breakup, about everything." 

"fuck." charles mutters, taking another swig from the bottle. he didn't know if he could take it. not hearing your voice for six months straight, and he's now listened to it for ten minutes.

"but yeah, this is about a night i had with someone. we were in belgium, it was literally in the middle of the night-" you laugh breathlessly, "we sat in a park and talked for hours upon hours about our future. and when i look back at it now i just think - what a time, yknow?"

"mmm, and i thought it would be good to have a male perspective of things; because breakups or relationships, they always involve two people, and i wanted to hear the other side, his side of things. that's how niall came into the picture. we wrote this, pretty much in twenty minutes? now i'm just rambling, haha- hope you guys like this one as much as i do." 

charles holds on to the neck of the beer bottle so tightly that his knuckles turn white. i admit that i think about it sometimes. your voice start to turn into white noise.

you both sat on a park bench at 2AM in the morning, just after the belgium gp. charles head was in your lap, your hand massaging his scalp. the air was cool, and quiet; the perfect setting for the both of you.

"how many kids should we have?" charles asked.

"i want two, at least."

"a boy and a girl?" you nod.

"where should we raise them?"

"monaco." you stated simply. he sat up to face you, "not in the states? or france - where your parents are?"

"oh never in the states. i live there because of my job, and besides, france is literally a stones throw away from monaco- we can decide when the time comes, love." you smile, cuddling into his arms.

irrational anger bubbles in his chest - who was this niall? and who the fuck is he to give his perspective on a breakup that he wasn't even involved in? what a lie, what a lie. charles disconnected his phone from the speakers and put in his airpods.

he needed to get out of here before he drowned in painful memories.

when you lose someone -

the elevator ride down seemed to last a lot longer than he remembered.

"more sad ballads...i probably should put a warning on this thing."

"this is about losing someone that you love. well to be honest, it was meant for my grandma, the light of my life that i lost last year. but in between then and the million things happening, the song got morphed into losing the love of your life. and yeah- i, i think it speaks for itself." 

your voice echoes in his brain now, fogging his mind. and he doesn't realise that pierre, his every loving best friend, was waiting downstairs. charles stops right in front of him, and the dejected look on his face tells pierre everything he needed to know.

"you listened to it?" pierre was stating the obvious. he knew charles would listen to it. he knew he didn't have the control to stop himself. he knew he still cared.

"i'm left with the last two." charles tells him.

"give me the keys."

"you're not driving my-" 

"then we'll take my car," pierre readily unlocks the honda. charles didn't protest, climbing into the passengers seat. 

he connects his phone to the speakers in the car, and the song plays while pierre drives into the night. It feels like a Ferrari racing. pierre hears the lyric, his eyes darting to his friend who's expression falters just slightly. he wants to press the radio button, but charles swats his hand away.

"maybe this was a bad idea." pierre mutters.

charles just looks out of the window, the skyline of monaco passing him, "just drive, please." 

he had to listen to it all, he had to know how much he hurt you. 

"maybe we should break up."

"excuse me?"

you had been arguing over the last ten minutes, over something so minuscule it was ridiculous. charles had had a bad race weekend, and you, well you had just lost your grandmother. the both of you in the worst frame of mind possible.

but you hadn't expected him to say those words.

"maybe i should leave." charles repeats. you frown, trying to close the gap between the both of you but he moves away. you knew the words were no longer an empty threat. they held weight; very heavy, heavy weight.

"why are you doing this, charles?"

"its for your sake, y/n." he couldn't even look you in the eye when he spoke.

"bullshit. don't put this on me when you stopped fighting for us. you stopped loving me."

"i love you, razzo."

"then why now? why after the funeral? why at my lowest, at my breaking point did you decide it was right to break up with me?!" you screamed so loud, charles was afraid the entire family was going to barge into the room.

"because i can't do this anymore, mon ange. but i promise-" he reaches to grab your hand, but you pull away quickly.

"get the fuck out of my sight."

charles takes a huge inhale, and pierre is at the verge of muting the radio. when you lose somebody you love. the hardest thing i've ever had to learn.

"charles-"

"pierre, please. just let me listen." but pierre hits the pause button on the speakers, stopping at a red light. he turns to his best friend.

"i have to tell you something." charles nods slowly, looking into his friend's eyes,

"she's in monaco."

time freezes for him. pierre doesn't have a choice but to turn back to the steering wheel and keep driving when the light changes. he sat in silence, unable to play the last voice note, the last song. the car pulls to a stop at a building, one that charles knew all too well.

and they let the next track play.

come back home 

"come back home," you sigh, "if you haven’t noticed, i wrote this for him." you pause, "this entire EP, from start to finish was a message for him. for us. i don't know. i thought alot about it, before i released this EP. i thought about the consequences of my actions and words. but the more i let these songs sit with me in a closet, the worse i felt. so i decided to release this, as a message in a bottle. you know? like the ones that you find at the beach? i don't know if it only happens in movies but yeah. this is for the both of us, for him, if he ever listens - to come back home."

from the outside, it wasn't clear who he was, because god knows you had your share of exes. but charles knew.

pretending that we don't care, but tension cuts the air. you never stopped caring. in fact, you cared more than ever. getting regular updates from the rest of the drivers on the grid about charles. watching every race, every interview, just to get a glimpse of him.

"why don't you ask him yourself, razzo?"

"we're not together anymore, pierre." you paced around your apartment in LA, the 2021 abu dhabi gp podium ceremony playing in the background.

"but you obviously still care." pierre sighs.

"i never stopped caring, pierre. charles was the one that left, remember?"

charles finally had the courage to speak, "she's up there?"

"she's with daniel and lando. but they're on their way back, if you want to see her."

he nods. hell, what do I know where you and I go? damn it, I hope you come back home.

both of them had gotten out of the car, resting on its hood in a comfortable silence until they hear a commotion.

they turn their attention to the noise, and there you stood, in all your glory. laughing at something the boys had said, arms linked with the both of them as you strut down the pavement. lando nudged you to the direction of the two drivers.

your breath is caught in your throat.

charles' heart races.

daniel and lando take the hint, unlooping their arms from yours, bidding you goodbye. charles had to admit that you looked amazing - dress hugging your curves in all the right ways, your hair cut till your shoulders, the way it framed your face so well. oh, how he missed you.

pierre pushes him forward, and they make their way towards you; giving small waves to the mclaren drivers as they leave.

"hi razzo," pierre hugs you, "hi pierre."

he pats you on the shoulder, then charles, and they exchange something in french before he leaves.

leaving you alone, with him.

you laugh nervously, "guess you listened?"

"razzo-"

"charles-"

"ladies first," charles chuckled. it felt too real.

"would you like to come up? for a coffee?" you gestured to the lobby of your apartment, "i really just want to get these heels off."

charles nodded, following you up to your home. he operates on autopilot, taking off his shoes, then kneeling on the ground to help with the straps of your heels-

"charles..." you breathe out, a pained expression on your face. then he panics. he pulls his hand away from your ankles, standing up quickly. you hurry to unbuckle the straps on your own, padding towards the kitchen.

"water, coffee, tea or beer?" you peek from behind from the fridge door.

"water." charles replies. you hand him a bottle, settling for a beer for yourself. it was awkward, standing in an apartment with your ex, after releasing an entire album for him- to him.

"razzo. i- i je suis désolé. i'm sorry." charles sighs, sinking his forehead into his hands. you squeeze his forearm, a sad look on your face.

"je ne trouve pas les mots" i can't find the words. he tells you.

"then use your actions."

it almost felt like a taunt, as if you were mocking him. but charles took his shot, leaning forward and kissing you softly. something that he had been yearning to do the day you packed up your bags and left. and you let him, gave him permission to continue. his hand cupped your face softly, and he could taste the same strawberry chapstick on your lips.

he pulls away first, forehead still pressed against yours.

"pas besoin de s'excuser," no need to be sorry, you finally tell him. you caress his cheek with your thumb, "i'm just glad you got the message."

taglist: @primadonnasdream @dr3lover @chicadelapartamento512-blog @thebagginsofbaggend @starlightoctavia @d0ntjudgemy50shades @cowspew @justthatgirlxox @ggaslyp1 @fromthedeskofjoii @lorenakaspersen @words-4u @o0itsjustme0o @ambrosialilly @totowolfff @gulsolsikke @enjoymyloves @rmaddens @care2703 @katcontrreras @tattered-tales @luvrboygaslys @piceous21​ @shristi-jaluka @kyomihann @sgkophie @jpotterdilf @guardians-ofthe-lastyoungkilljoy @idkiwantchocolatee @monte-carlando @bigdiccricc @organasith @anthonykatebridgerton @icecoldtires

[vennilavee]

the six of cups

pairing: geto x reader, background satosugu

summary: Tokyo and Kyoto have been ravaged by a serial killer targeting women. You're a journalist in the middle of it all and as the city grows more and more afraid, your determination to find the killer never wanes. In the middle of all of this, lies the fate of your relationship with your boyfriend and colleague, Geto Suguru.

warnings: this is a slasher au, there is murder, sex, blood, drugs, lying

word count: 10.3k

a/n: written for @strawberrystepmom's halloween collab (this is long overdue). i hope you enjoy and please rb/leave a comment/leave an ask if you did!

“Did you see the email that came through from corporate?” Mei Mei asks in a hushed voice, leaning over so that nobody around you can overhear. There’s no reason to be so discreet. It’s only you two on this section of the floor anyway. 

“No I didn’t, I’ve been working on this thing for Yaga all morning,” you reply before sending off an email and turning your full attention to her, “Why? What’s up?”

“Gakuganji sent this email to everyone,” she says, standing behind you and leaning over you to scroll through your inbox for you. The end of her braid tickles your forehead but you pay it no mind.  She has a bad habit of doing this, being nosy and prying into things she doesn’t need to pry into. But you allow her to- perhaps the scent of her perfume has deluded your brain.

You rip your eyes away from her freshly manicured lavender colored nails and focus on the screen in front of you. The email reads:

“Due to the increasing number of violent deaths in Kyoto and Tokyo over the last few months, we are recommending that you take precautions in ensuring your own safety. Please be sure to implement a buddy system for the coming months so that we may keep track of everyone’s physical whereabouts. Your safety is our top priority. Stay tuned for further updates.”

“Seriously? Keep track of everyone’s physical whereabouts? More like they want to make sure we’re alive so we can work until either we die or we’re killed by Tokyo’s latest serial killer,” you mutter, exiting out of the email.

“Is there a difference? Did you like how they just said ‘violent deaths’ and didn’t address the fact that it’s all been women who have been turning up dead?”

“Isn’t it weird that this is happening in both Tokyo and Kyoto?” you murmur, “What a weird choice to make.”

“Maybe you can ask the killer in person why they chose Tokyo and Kyoto to conduct their murder sprees next time we work late,” Mei Mei jokes.

“Yeah, I’ll definitely get a posthumous Pulitzer for that.”

Your job as a journalist hasn’t been completely glamorous over the last twelve years or so. You’ve gone from assistant, to intern, to junior editor, to junior editor and columnist. Now your role is a bit of a mixed bag- you’re mostly an editor and an investigator. And you dabble in overseeing the interns, to say the least. 

You didn’t have the ambition to be the best in your field, something some of your coworkers couldn’t understand. You just wanted to tell the truth because that’s what people deserve. And you’ve always had a knack for storytelling and weaving intricate words and topics together.

So here you were, starting your thirteenth year at the publishing company, itching for another series of truths to uncover.

You shut your laptop down and pack your bag as Mei Mei does the same in her cubicle. It’s a Friday evening and most of your team has taken to working from home on Fridays. You and Mei Mei happened to be here to finish up an article that’s due to Yaga on the following Tuesday. Otherwise, you’d be in your sweatpants in the comfort of your home with a warm drink in your hands.

But you’re not alone in the office. Another fellow coworker comes strutting towards you and you’re unable to suppress your groan and the roll of your eyes so far back into your head that you’re certain you see your own skull.  

Geto Suguru with the audacity to lean against the wall of your cubicle with that stupid smirk and those stupid obsidian eyes. 

You ignore him, and ignore the swirl of desire in the pit of your stomach. You refuse to be weak in the knees for him, not this time.

“C’mon, Mei Mei,” you say, meeting Geto’s amused eyes and not breaking eye contact, “Let’s go home.”

Mei Mei glances between the two of you, wondering why you sound so angry and why he’s just looking at you with that irritatingly mocking grin of his. The one she knows you’re weak for.

“Aw, but didn’t you see Gakuganji’s email? We need a buddy system,” he says, false honey in his voice and on his tongue.

You don’t reply, instead pushing past him and waiting for Mei Mei at the door.

“Uh,” she whispers once you’re far enough away from Geto that he won’t be able to hear, “Are you guys good?”

“Yup,” you reply crisply, popping the ‘p’, “I’ve just decided that he’s not worth my time anymore.”

“Oh, so now you listen? After like, six months?” Mei Mei chides, “I told you he was no good.”

“I’m a slow learner. But I get there eventually.”

You clearly don’t learn fast enough because it's not even two hours later that you eat your vitriolic words about your esteemed coworker. Geto Suguru has made himself at home in your apartment, legs sprawled across your couch with you laying on top of him.

The television is on but neither of you are paying attention. The noise is muted as he flicks his tongue into your mouth the way you like (as he’s come to learn over the last six months).

You haven’t even bothered to say that this was the last time because you both knew better. Geto had looked at you with that annoying, knowing look in his eyes. The way his lips curled told you everything you needed to know.

That he knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

His arms are tight around you, big hands splayed over your lower back as one roams the curve of your spine. He knows exactly where to touch you, to melt you into putty, to have you breathing songs into his lips.

Geto turns the television off just as it turns to the evening news. He catches a glimpse of the top headlines of the hour but the news anchor’s monotonous voice is too loud for him, too in his face. All he wants is to focus on you.

So he slips a hand under your shirt and swallows up your pretty whimpers.

“I thought you’d stopped this,” you murmur, raising an eyebrow at him. You’re holding a small baggie of white powder and Geto knows that you’re holding yourself back from raising your voice.

This isn’t the first time you’ve had this conversation with him. He can nearly hear your blood boiling with anger.

“It’s not for me,” he says honestly, “It’s for a friend.”

“Are you lying to me,” you say, squaring up to him and reading into his eyes. All you see are depths of sincerity and you let your shoulders relax.

“No. You can always tell when I’m lying, can’t you?” Geto says softly, reaching for you and pulling you into his lap.  You stare at the bag in your hands as if it’s harmed you. And maybe it has.

About a year ago to the day, Geto was an absolute wreck. His best friend had gone missing without a trace in the middle of October of last year and there were no leads. No trail to follow, no witnesses. Nothing.

All he had was a voicemail that he never got around to deleting. And a three page letter kept tucked away at the bottom of his desk drawer. Nobody knew about that letter, not even the police. Some things were meant to be kept to himself, he had reasoned at the time. Besides, the letter wouldn’t provide any indication of Gojo Satoru’s location.

If he was still alive, he wouldn’t want to be found.

Gojo always had a higher purpose in life, anyway. Even if Geto wouldn’t understand it, he knew that they were destined for different paths. He doesn’t know when the split really happened. All he knows is that when his best friend, his other half disappeared, he turned to that pretty white powder to help him forget. 

To help him get through the days.

And then there was you. His coworker of several years. He’d considered you to be annoying with your ability to sneak your way into his thoughts without even trying. You’d helped him pull himself out of his spiral and for the last six months, you’ve been in this on-again off-again relationship with him.

It’s taking its toll on you, though. You wonder if he considers you as a partner, an equal, or a caretaker.

But every time you say you’re fed up with him and want him to grow up, Geto always finds his way back into your arms. You continue to question your place in his life, in this world.

You wish you could just live in the moment with him, as he’s begged you to do before. You can’t help but wish for a future with him, but he always seems to be several steps behind you.

Which is why you’d given him the cold shoulder at work.

“Yeah,” you nod with a sigh, “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

“It’s not mine,” Geto repeats, his voice softer, “You know I’ve been sober, right? Look at me.”

He cradles your face and your breath catches in your throat when his thumb runs over your bottom lip. Your eyelashes flutter when he kisses your cheeks, your forehead, your bottom lip, your nose.

“I know,” you say with closed eyes to stop your tears from leaking out of your eyes and dripping onto his thumbs, “I just…I worry about you.”

Geto Suguru says nothing, instead pulling you into a hug and rubbing your back soothingly. With warm hands, he is a balm on your clammy skin. Easing you and lulling you into the safety of his embrace. He nuzzles your neck with his nose, pressing a soft kiss there.

It’s what he used to do with Gojo to comfort him. It seems to work for you, too.

The killings have increased steadily over the last few weeks. The women in Tokyo and Kyoto are on edge, and a curfew has even been put in place. The entire city of Tokyo is a former shell of itself. It’s a literal ghost town after nine PM in Roppongi- the eerie night lights against the sound of silence almost  makes the hairs on his arms stand up.

Almost. He’s the reason for the state of affairs in Tokyo, anyway.

He has nothing to fear, not when the entire island bows to him out of fear. They don’t even know who he is, no face or name to the atrocity. And yet, they force an identity on him. 

What a bunch of fools. They don’t know their place, do they?

Ten bodies in as many weeks.

The neon lights that blaze from the abandoned nightclub just ahead on the street, as if nothing has happened. The streets are abandoned, the clubs are abandoned, the stores are abandoned…

He laughs, the sound echoing in the stillness of the night. Pressing two fingers to his covered face, he curiously sees bright red blood on the pads of his fingers. Before leaving, he walks up to the nightclub and sees his reflection in the big windows.

Tilting his head to the side and humming under his breath, he smears the blood along the glass as he walks toward Akasaka.

The breeze ruffles his hair as he makes his way through the night.

“I don’t get why we’re not reporting on the murders,” you mumble to Mei Mei, “People should know. Women should know.”

“Yaga says his hands are tied,” Mei Mei replies, “But honestly, you couldn’t pay me enough to report on it. We’ll have targets on our backs.”

“It feels like we already do,” you say, “But it also feels irresponsible…Look online, more people are complaining about the curfew than the fact that there’s a literal killer on the loose.”

“Did you hear that he left a body in the middle of Shibuya station?” she asks in a hushed voice. You gasp and before you can reply, you’re both interrupted by Geto who stands a little too close to you. Close enough to discreetly bump hips with you while you cast your lovesick, wet eyes at him.

Mei Mei rolls her eyes and scoffs. 

You pretend you don’t hear it.

“Just one body? Heard it was four,” Geto says smoothly. Almost as if he’s unaffected by it. You don’t reply, instead following your colleagues into the conference room where Yaga has called a meeting.

There are only five of you in the office today- Mei Mei, yourself, Geto, Yaga and one of the interns, Okkotsu Yuuta. He casts his tired eyes to you and you feel a twinge of sympathy for him. His girlfriend was brutally murdered two years ago in broad daylight. The police had said that it was unrelated to the current string of killings, but you’re not sure.

He’s been struggling as he’s shared to you in not so many words. You think anyone would be in his position.

“You may be wondering why there has been no news about the recent…incidents,” Yaga begins.

“Yeah, the ceremonious killing of young women in two major cities are just incidents,” you say under your breath, earning yourself a glare from your boss. You shrug at him.

“The higher ups have placed a ban on reporting on this and so have the police,” Yaga says and before you can open your mouth to argue with him, “If you’ll allow me to finish.”

He looks pointedly at you.

“We should still gather information for when we’re allowed to report out publicly on this,” Yaga says, “And if this information somehow leaks between now and then… Well, that would be quite unfortunate, wouldn’t it?”

Another pointed look at you and Geto. Yaga seems to know who his troublemakers are, after all.

“Hey, uh, shit,” you say in a rush, “I’m running late. I don’t have a good excuse but I’ll think of one by the time I get into the office-”

“It’s the second time this month,” Mei Mei scolds you, “You’re gonna get lectured and your bonus is gonna be affected!”

“No, it’s not, Yaga wouldn’t dare. Not after what happened last year.”

“That’s what you think. Don’t underestimate him.”

“You mean don’t underestimate the higher ups?”

While you and Mei Mei bicker, your phone starts to ring in the middle of your conversation with her. Without looking at who’s even calling as you rush out of the apartment with the straps of your backpack barely on your shoulders, you answer the phone.

You assume it’s Geto Suguru to scold you for being late as well. 

“What, you can’t wait an extra twenty minutes? You in love with me or something?” you say, barely listening for a reply as you wait for the bus.

Except you never do hear a reply. Perhaps it's the noise around you? Maybe the sound is muffled? But no… you have your headphones in and they do a good job of canceling the noise around you.

“Hello?” you say, not nervously at all, “This isn’t funny, Suguru-”

You pull your phone away from your ear to look at who’s calling. The caller ID says ‘scam caller’ and you groan, pinching the bridge of your nose.

But before you hang up the phone, you pause a second. The hairs on your arms stand up and despite being on a chattering bus full of passengers, a street full of cars and a city full of people… You feel the anxiety that comes with being absolutely, utterly alone churning in the pit of your stomach, bubbling up into your throat.

Because for a split second, you thought you heard heavy breathing on the other end of the phone line. That can’t be right. You must be hearing things, it’s probably just the person in the next seat catching their breaths after running to get on the bus.

You tuck your phone away in your bag, trying to still the twisting of your heart against your ribcage.

By the end of the day, the strange phone call is tucked far away from your mind. Once you succumb to the swamp of your deadlines piling up in your mailbox, it’s easy to forget about it.

You stick your fifth sticky note of the day onto your desk, a quick reminder of the follow-ups and phone calls you still need to make. You have several leads on several of your stories and nothing gets your blood pumping like seeing your to-do list get smaller but your web of connections getting larger. If it wasn’t for the sudden hunger pangs, you’d have continued working at your desk with your terrible posture and all.

It’s one of your fatal flaws, as your boss says. You never know when to quit and someday you’re going to get yourself hurt because of it. It’s so easy for you to get lost in your thoughts, to scribble the day away and lose time. Yaga says you’re going to get yourself killed one of these days, the way you run into things headfirst and don’t look back.

Like last year, when against your own better judgment, you went into a clearly active crime scene that hadn’t been cleared yet. Police weren’t even on the scene yet but somehow, you were. Your assignment was to do an exposee on the underground connections between the Yakuza and local politicians. But like anything else, you got too wrapped up in it.

Yaga says that in a past life, you were a curious cat because of how many times you’ve dodged death.

But even then, all you felt was adrenaline and exhilaration. You may be reckless at times, but you’re not stupid. Or oblivious.

You were always in control no matter the situation- whether it was choosing your next assignment, writing a scathing article on the controversies and hypocrisies of the top leaders in Tokyo, or willingly going into the dragon’s den, you were always in control. Or so you tried to convince yourself.

Even as you type away on your laptop with your slouched shoulders and your retinas burning, the drop of uneasiness has already begun to spread and spread like a wildfire that you can’t shake.

***

You’d told Mei Mei and Suguru that you wouldn’t stay at the office for too long. And yet, it’s nearly eight in the evening, and you’re still typing away on your keyboard.Hunched over, with your glasses placed on top of your head and hardly recognizing the rumble of your stomach.

You don’t even realize that you’re the only one on the floor. All of the lights have been off for hours and the only source of light is emitted by your laptop and by the bulb right over your head.

The minty blue color of the walls has never seemed so bright to you as it did at this hour. Rolling your shoulders back as you click ‘save’ on your document and start to pack your bag, you take your first sip of water in probably hours.

Nobody said you had the best habits.

The silence of the office bounces off of the walls before settling in your ears. Your ears twitch when you hear the sound of the building settling. Or is it footsteps or is it laughter? The elevator, maybe?

It’s only the click of your heels as you head out of your office floor and towards the elevator. But you can’t help but chance a glance to your right and left. Are you truly alone? 

Further down the hall, a door hinge creaks loudly. It echoes down the hall, bouncing off of the walls and the floors. You press the elevator button more incessantly as the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Of course the elevator takes forever, when you need it to hurry up- it’s on floor 8, then 7, then 6…

Finally.  The doors slowly split apart and you ignore the shiver that goes straight down your spine when you hear the faraway sound of demented laughter. You all but jump into the elevator and don’t dare to look to your right or left as the doors close.

Maybe you should have.

The next evening is uncharacteristically quiet. 

You’d opted to leave the office early to balance out your late night from the evening prior. You hadn’t asked for permission, only telling Yaga as he gave you a wary, disapproving glance.

Sinking into your couch with your dinner on your coffee table, you turn the television on. Is anything good even on lately? You don’t remember the last time you caught up with a show, let alone sprawled out on your couch and indulged yourself. You keep the volume low, not wanting to inadvertently give yourself a headache.

Before you can sink into your cushions and erase the day’s events from your mind (including one frustratingly handsome Geto Suguru), your phone ringer pierces through the air. You eye your phone warily. This time, the caller is ‘unknown’ rather than ‘scam caller’.

“Hello?” you ask, tapping your nails on the edge of the coffee table impatiently. You’re ready to give this scam caller a piece of your mind for wasting your time.

“If you’re gonna try to get me to buy something, you might as well-”

But then you cut yourself off, hearing the sound of silence loud and clear. But it’s not just silence… It's laughter in the background. The same laugh you convinced yourself that you didn’t hear on the elevator. A chill shoots down your spine and you pull your phone back, staring at it as if it’ll give you answers. 

And then a muffled scream from far, far away comes through your phone. Bile rises in your throat and you’ve never hated the fact that you lived alone more until this very moment.

“Who’s there?” you say sharply, “Hello?”

Just more deep, long breaths and the sound of the television blaring in the background.

“This isn’t fucking funny, who is this?” you try to keep your voice even, but even you can hear that you’re on the verge of panic.

But you’re not expecting a response at all. 

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” the voice says on the other line with another laugh, sounding far away. Your blood runs cold immediately, your heart seizing in your chest and your legs about to give out.

But you hardly hear the voice anyway as you toss your phone across the room, hearing it thump on your rug. You still hear the voice on the other line, still demanding your name in that sugary, creepy way. You can faintly make out that the voice is deep and hoarse, as if they haven’t spoken out loud in several hours.

They hang up before you have the chance to crawl to your phone. You’re afraid to touch it, to look at it- as if the voice will materialize in front of you.

But you operate on autopilot, instantly calling Geto to ask him to come over. Hugging your knees to your chest as you sit on the floor, you muster up the courage to call him.

“Hey,” you mumble, “You free? Wanna come over?”

You do your best to keep your voice neutral- you don’t want him to think you’re eager, after all.

“Hey, baby,” Suguru replies, the same lilt to his voice as always. It soothes you only a little. “I’d love to but…” he sighs before delivering the final blow, “A… friend of mine is visiting for a few days. I can’t.”

This is news to you, but you don’t have the strength to argue with him. Not when you’re now coming to terms with the fact that you’ll be sleeping alone on the night that you had the biggest scare of your entire life.

“A friend? Who?” you ask. You won’t argue… you’re just asking questions. But you hear rustling, muffled voices, and a hint of laughter in the background. Before you allow your mind to wander, Geto interrupts you.

“I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, baby. I gotta go, though, I’ll talk to you tomorrow-”

And he hangs up before you can even say goodbye. 

***

You haven’t been able to sleep well and it shows on your face, in the lines under your eyes. Mei Mei had thrown you a look of concern when you had jumped out of your skin when she tapped your shoulder. She was only asking you if you wanted coffee and despite this almost daily occurrence, your heart races in your chest leaving you feeling nauseous.

“Are… you alright?” 

“Yeah,” you say hoarsely, “Let’s go get coffee and breakfast.”

She continues to offer you strange looks as she talks your ear off on the way to the break room about her latest story and her new lead. You try to follow but your brain feels melted and fuzzy while her voice sounds muted in your head.

No matter where you are, you keep getting flashbacks to the heavy breathing. The mocking, cheery voice asking you for your name. The jarring sound of the voice runs through your mind, haunting your waking moments.

Despite being face to face with Mei Mei, you’re on another planet, re-living one of the most frightening experiences of your life. You’re in a building full of people, and yet you’re so alone.

“Huh? Did you say something?” you say, blinking the fog away from your eyes. Mei Mei snaps her fingers in your face for added measure and sighs. 

“What the hell’s going on with you? Is it Geto?” Mei Mei asks knowingly.

“Oh, uh,” you hesitate, “It’s not Geto. I mean sometimes it is, but not this time.”

“Okay…?”

“It’s… stupid? I don’t know,” you mumble, hearing the ‘I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours’ chiming louder and louder. “I keep getting these weird phone calls.”

“Weird how?”

You don’t want to say it out loud. You haven’t even told Suguru yet, since he’d apparently taken a few days off to go on a last minute trip with his unnamed friend who was visiting town. 

Saying it out loud makes it real.

You keep your voice at a whisper as you recall to Mei Mei the phone calls and how you think you’re being watched in your apartment. You can’t shake that feeling that there’s another pair of eyes on you at all times.

“It has to be a prank,” Mei Mei says unconvincingly, “Right?”

“I don’t…know,” you murmur, “Whatever it is… I’m scared.”

A barely concealed sob escapes your lips as the words slip off of your tongue and hang in the air.

Mei Mei offers you a hug in the middle of the break room and you find yourself wishing it was Geto instead.

“None of my leads are panning out! Can you believe this?” you groan in frustration, leaning back against your seat in defeat.

“Well… there is a serial killer on the loose,” Mei Mei comments, looking at you pointedly over her laptop screen, “It’s not that hard to believe.”

“But it’s weird. Like every time I get a tip or a cop that is willing to talk, I just get ghosted…”

“People are scared,” Mei Mei shrugs, “Speaking of being scared, have you gotten any of those phone calls recently?”

“Nah, I haven’t. But the last one was three days ago,” you whisper, looking around to see if anyone’s listening, “They stopped ever since Geto started sleeping over.”

“Oh, you guys are on good terms again?”

“Yeah…”

The truth was, he had showed up at your door (bypassing the front desk by smoothly telling him that he was your boyfriend) with a bouquet of your favorite flowers.

You fold your arms across your chest, clearly not impressed with him. Barely casting a glance at the bouquet, you stare directly at him. Not allowing yourself to sink into his warm embrace, no matter how much you may want to.

“Hi,” Suguru says, at least sounding apologetic.

“Hey,” you reply coldly.

“I’m sorry that it took me so long to come to you.”

“Whatever. You were so damn busy with your friend, you have no idea what’s been-”

“Can I come in? It’s chilly,” he interrupts and you have to resist the urge to slam the door in his stupidly handsome face.

“No, you can beg for my forgiveness right here.”

“Alright, alright. I’m sorry I left you alone when you were scared,” Suguru relents.

“And?”

“And I’m sorry I left you alone when there is a literal serial killer on the loose. It wasn’t very boyfriend material of me.”

“You’re so stupid.”

But despite that, you pull him inside your apartment and let yourself sink into his embrace as his arms wrap around you. Suguru is many things- sometimes forgetful, he runs hot and cold…

When you’re with him, you’re not alone. It’s easy to forget your fear when you’re in his arms. It’s easy to forget how not even a full week ago, you were on the floor on the verge of a panic attack. Suguru rubs your back and kisses your hair. Maybe there’s another unspoken apology somewhere in his movements. You would like there to be.

You pull away just to catch a breath and peer into the depths of his dark eyes. Something about Suguru always puts your mind at ease. He always has conviction written in his irises.

You don’t notice it right then (or maybe you don’t want to notice it), but his eyes glimmer more in the light than usual. 

Shadows have begun to live in your apartment around the same time that Suguru moved in. You can feel them growing and shrinking with each step you take. Following you as you move from your bedroom to the kitchen, to your couch. The shadows weave into your rug and sometimes you think you hear a faint laugh or a footstep. 

With Suguru living with you, the shadows seem to hold back. As if Suguru calms them down the same way he calms you down.

Despite Suguru’s presence in your home, you can’t shake the feeling of being watched. But the creepy phone calls have stopped for the most part. 

It must be unrelated, but the killings have stopped, too.

The city is still on edge with a mandatory curfew. But you feel a little safer in your own home with Suguru there with you. You hate that you’d become so afraid in the last few weeks, but it’s hard not to be. Something strange is in the air, beyond the killings scattered across the country. You’re nervous leaving and entering your apartment and you hate every second of it.

You had your first night of well-rested sleep three days into Suguru moving in with you:

You push Suguru to your bed roughly and squeeze his cheeks with your hand as you climb into his lap. His hardness is evident through his pants and you only smirk at him.

“You,” a kiss to his cheek, “are,” a kiss to his other cheek, “fucking infuriating,” a sloppy kiss to his lips.

The way he likes it.

“Aw, come on. I finished unpacking my shit and this is the homecoming I get?” Suguru grins and you laugh. You don’t reply, instead pressing your lips to his again to drown out his teasing. He tastes like cigarettes and… something that you can’t quite place.

You lick the roof of his mouth before sucking on his tongue and swallowing his moan into the hollows of your throat. He tastes like cigarettes and chocolate, you realize. 

You don’t open your eyes, for fear that you may not be reflected in his irises.

His hands wander, squeezing and smoothing your skin over. Enticing you to rock your hips into his. A trail of spit connects you both as you impatiently lift his shirt off to run your nails over the sharp planes of his chest.

Suguru’s touch has always been all-consuming. One taste of him is just not enough. He always leaves you wanting more- more of his heart, his mind, his body.

His cock brushes against your clothed wetness, catching on your clit, and you shudder in his arms. Your nails dig into his shoulder blades, bucking your hips faster and faster, chasing a release that you know Suguru will deny you.

“Fuck,” you hiss, “Fuck, I need you-”

To your surprise, he pushes your pants and your underwear down your legs as far as he can in one fell swoop. Suguru groans your name when he sees your glistening pussy and brushes over your clit teasingly.

“You wanna cum like this?” he murmurs, sliding a finger into your pussy easily, “Or do you want my cock, like I know you do?”

“Your cock,” you reply, already tugging at his sweatpants, “Just want you to fuck me, I missed you so much-”

Suguru’s skin is flushed and while you want to take the time to kiss your way down his chest, you’re unbelievably impatient. He takes his cock out of his boxers and rubs your pussy with the tip, making you whine for more. Your wetness smears over the head of his cock as you slide back and forth on it for friction.

And when you finally sink down on his cock, Suguru thinks he sees a piece of heaven as you tilt your head back and a soft moan of his name escapes your parted lips. You set the pace slowly, allowing yourself to get used to the feel of him inside you.

“You feel so good, darling,” Suguru croons, “As perfect as I remember, so beautiful-”

You cast your eyes downward to peer at him and he feels as though you're looking straight through him. As if you can see every part of him that shadows touch and every part of him that the light touches.

The shadow grows behind you, watching you both curiously. Suguru looks over your shoulder, but you don’t notice.

A two week period in between the killings had apparently just been a cooling off period, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. It’s on day sixteen that another body shows up in Ginza, and then Shinjuku on day twenty.

Whoever the killer is, they’re increasing their rate of kills. 

Detective Nanami Kento, one of your primary contacts at the police department, says it’s a de-escalation. He says something must have set him off to increase the intensity and the rate of his kill sprees.

Nanami says it so matter-of-factly that you shudder. But you see the toll it takes on him. His brown eyes are dimmer each time you see him and his empty threats of leaving the department to open a bakery never seem to come to fruition.

You hope he gets to open up that bakery someday.

It’s no surprise that you’re walking into the police department first thing in the morning, bright and early. Because this is typically the time of day that you receive your daily phone calls from the unknown caller.

Not only have the kills been increasing. But the phone calls have been, too. Usually when you’re alone. Only once have you received your phone call when Geto has been with you, but they immediately hung up before you could say anything.

Afraid is an understatement. Each step you take, you can feel eyes on you. You can feel something lurking, a shadow following you through the city.

A light breeze tickles your face and it almost feels like a human.

You’re about an hour ahead of schedule. Just enough time to make yourself a cup of coffee and grab breakfast from the breakroom (while ignoring the glares of the cops around you). Nanami gives you special privileges here, and that includes coffee.

You take your time eating and say hello to Yuuji as you make your way into Nanami’s office. He welcomes you in by waving his hand and hardly looking up from his notes.

“I’d be offended if I didn’t know you so well,” you say, taking a seat in his leather chair.

“Who says you know me well?” he replies, looking up at you with a hint of a smile.

“I know how you take your coffee. I think I know you pretty well,” you say airily. Nanami mutters a quick thanks before asking you to bring him up to speed.

You place your phone on his neatly organized desk, closer to him than it is to you. As if you want it as far away from you as possible.

“I’ve received six phone calls in the last few weeks. Most of them have just been the caller breathing on the other line. Or I’ll hear laughter or just silence. Sometimes they hang up. But they only said something one time,” you say quickly as Nanami takes notes.

“What was said?”

“‘I’ll tell you my name if you tell me yours,’” you echo the voice from all those nights ago.

Nanami puts his pen down and takes a sip of his coffee. He tries his best to not look unnerved, not wanting to scare you even more.

“It’s not… related is it? To the killings? It can’t be. It’s just a weird, twisted coincidence. Right?” you whisper, squeezing the handle of your bag to anchor yourself.

He looks away for a second, a small sigh escaping his lips. Your stomach drops, dread settling in your bones. A shadow flashes across his face as he turns his eyes back to yours.

“Tell me. As your friend, not as your colleague,” you urge him, “You know something.”

Nanami hesitates before replying. “We haven’t shared with the press but… I’m telling you this as your friend.”

You nod, holding the handle of your bag even tighter.

“There was a survivor of the killings-”

“What?” you gasp incredulously, “How come we didn’t know-”

“To protect their identity. But she told us that she received phone calls before. From an unknown caller, where he would just breathe heavily. Ask a question here and there…

“And then she was attacked.”

“But she survived! Can I talk to her?”

“She’s dead now. She survived the first attack, but he found her again. It appears that he doesn’t like to leave a mess behind him…”

You sink in your seat as the weight of his words settles on you. His words hang in the air, frozen in the spaces between you both.

“So what the hell am I supposed to do while your police department gets its shit together trying to find this guy? Sit on my ass and wait? People need to know-”

“I don’t need you playing hero again,” Nanami hisses, “And getting yourself hurt. Like last time.”

You don’t allow your mind to replay a memory of last time, when you were sent on an investigative goose chase with your assignment on one of Tokyo’s biggest crime bosses. You’ll never forget the shade of pink that his hair was, or the black lines that marked his arms and his chest. You’d ended up in a warehouse bleeding from the wound in your stomach and you probably would have died there if Nanami Kento hadn’t found you. 

You blink back the memory of hyperventilating in the ambulance with a mouth full of fresh blood by digging your fingernails into your palms harshly.

“You do your job and let me do mine-”

Your phone rings, cutting through the awkwardness easily. You shrink into your seat when you see the ‘unknown caller’ light up the screen.

“You’re going to answer and we’re going to record the call and try to track it. Ready?”

There’s no time to answer, but you answer the call anyway while Nanami gestures for his team to work on tracing the call. Blood rushes to your ears as you hear the familiar deep breathing that you’ve become too accustomed to.

“H-hello?”

Nothing. You don’t hear Yuuji and Haibara hurrying to set up a trace and you don’t feel Nanami’s eyes on you.

It’s just you and this shadow of a person.

“Who’s there? Who is this?”

The soft hum that comes out of your phone sends a shiver down your spine. It turns into a chuckle, and then into full blown, maniacal laughter.

You look at Nanami as your heart seizes in your chest and the floor is swept from under you.

“You sound so stupid,” he jeers. His voice sounds like a figment of your imagination but the flabbergasted look on Nanami’s face tells you that it’s not just your mind.

“Who are you,” you whisper again, “Are you the one killing all those women-”

“Tell me something,” he whispers, his voice close to the phone, “What’s your favorite scary movie?”

He hangs up abruptly and you squeeze your eyes shut, trying to regulate your breathing. Nanami sits next to you and places a hand on your shoulder to try to calm you down in not so many words.

“We got a location,” Nanami murmurs, “My people are on their way now. I’m going to meet them there.”

“I’m scared, Kento,” you finally confess, feeling somehow lighter and heavier at the same time. Tears prick your eyes as your shoulders slump in his hold.

“We’re going to find him. I promise.”

Two police cars are stationed outside your apartment building after that. It’s eerie to start and end your day knowing that you’re being constantly watched.

You don’t feel the shadows rising and falling in your apartment anymore either.

It’s only you and Geto in your apartment. His clothes have filled up a drawer of yours, his skincare placed neatly next to yours, and his hair products in your bathroom cabinets. Your apartment begins to smell like him, too. It should be comforting and safe.

But you’re still on edge. You don’t know if it’s because of him or because of…well everything.

Two more bodies were found yesterday, haphazardly disposed of. You haven’t received a phone call since the day that you went to the police station, but…

Nothing feels normal.

So you busy yourself with cleaning obsessively. Today, you’re cleaning out your drawers and it’s your second time this week cleaning the bathroom.

At least your restlessness is somewhat productive.

As you sort through your things methodically from bottom drawer up to the top drawer, you operate on autopilot. Take whatever is in the drawer (the bottom drawer is random stuff like stationary), wipe it down for dust, rearrange the items, close the drawer, wipe down the outside and over on to the next drawer.

It’s soothing to you, makes you feel like you’re in control of your life. Makes you feel like receiving phone calls from a serial killer is a faint nightmare and not your actual reality.

The next drawer is the drawer you gave to Suguru to put his clothes in. One thing you’re grateful for is how neat and clean he is- he may be neater than you. You don’t expect to have to rearrange much in his drawer but you begin your process. His clothes smell like his favorite cologne, the scent wafting towards you comfortingly.

But you notice something stuck in one of the sleeves of his sweater. You feel around for it, thinking it may be a lighter that Suguru forgot about.

Your eyebrows furrow in confusion when instead, you pull out a pair of round, black sunglasses. They can hardly be called sunglasses though, since the lenses are so… small. Who’s eyes could ever be covered by these sunglasses?

You’ve never seen your boyfriend wear sunglasses, much less these. 

The lenses are shiny, as if they’ve been freshly cleaned. Maybe it’s a new pair that he forgot about?

Yeah, that’s probably it. Despite the fact that you know his memory is impeccable, you convince yourself otherwise.

Days feel longer than weeks and you can feel the anxiety clawing both you and Suguru up alive. You know that the location Nanami had didn’t pan out to anything meaningful, because nothing has been on the news. The killer is still out there, scoping out the streets.

Suguru’s been trying to put on a brave, reassuring face but you can tell that he’s nervous, too. He’s been biting his nails more frequently. He holds you close when you sleep, always burying his nose in your neck. As if he has to feel your heartbeat pulsing with each breath he takes, even in his sleep.

Suguru tries to keep his worries away from your ears, but he knows how observant you are. The last thing he wants is for you to be afraid or feel burdened by him.

Despite Tokyo literally becoming a ghost town over the course of the last month, he can’t help but think of his best friend. Where is Gojo Satoru- dead or alive? Why did he leave, who took him, is he happy…

Why did he leave?

Suguru doesn’t think he’ll ever get an answer, but he has a faint idea of one.

He shouldn’t be thinking of Satoru, not when you’re wrapped up in his arms and holding onto him tightly. As if he’s the only thing keeping you grounded to the thin thread of sanity that you have left. He anchors you, but his mind is far, far away. Reminiscing on times with Satoru in Okinawa…just a few months before he disappeared.

The police said there was foul play involved, but Suguru isn’t so sure. The letter that Satoru left him doesn’t indicate that… Besides, why would he leave his favorite pair of sunglasses behind with the note, only for his best friend to find them?

It was deliberate. It must have been. Satoru has never done anything that he didn’t always mean to do, after all.

Suguru hasn’t allowed himself to think of Satoru in that way in quite some time. If he allows his mind to go there, he knows he’ll be swallowed by sentimentality instead of reality. He can’t, not when your hand is loosely curled around his chest in the spot right below his heart.

He can’t think of Gojo Satoru and the way he used to smile into his skin, not when you do the same and you’re real and you’re warm.

Gojo Satoru is nothing but a memory, a memory packaged up in the pair of sunglasses and the old blindfold tucked away in your dresser drawer.

He’s been watching you for quite some time now, around two or three months. Staying hidden in the shadows is easy when you’re as oblivious and foolish as you are. Watching your daily habits- your breakfast, your shower, how you rush every morning to work, how you always toss your shoes in the right corner next to your coat closet before laying on the couch for exactly six minutes and going to change your clothes…

He’s watched Geto Suguru join you as part of your solo routines. He’s watched Suguru kiss you, fuck you, make love to you, cook for you, wash your blankets for you. Suguru kisses you with his heart on his tongue, slipping into your mouth and stealing your breath away as if it comes so easily to him. 

He knows it does. You’re so stupid to take him for granted. As if he wouldn’t leave you in less than a minute when the timing is absolutely right. Suguru is a man of calculations and he would never make the wrong one. Not when it came to him.

You look at him with love in your eyes. It infuriates him, because Suguru looks at you the same way.

Purple eyes landed on bright blue eyes one evening after you both had showered together. Shock had colored the sharp planes of his face but before Suguru could reach out to him and touch his skin once more… He had to return to the shadows again. He’s not ready for his grand finale. All the pieces haven’t settled on the chessboard just yet.

He’s not finished with his masterpiece, he’s not finished painting Japan with the broad strokes of red. Can’t he see that he’s doing this for him? For your well being?

He won’t forget Suguru’s eyes in that moment for as long as he lives. Your figure was the focal point of his vision but instead he was reflected in Suguru’s irises, shining like an ember that never quite died. He wins, like he always does. You don’t know it, but he’s competing for Suguru’s love. And he always wins.

Suguru has a big, bleeding heart but there’s only room for one other person in it. And he refuses for it to be you.

Goosebumps rise on your skin from the chill of the night as the moon keeps you hidden from plain sight. You’d forgotten your jacket in your haste to leave your apartment. Suguru would have scolded you-

The same Suguru that you’re currently trailing after. He’d slipped out in the middle of the night after you’d heard him whispering furiously on the phone.

The only thing you’d heard him say was ‘Shibuya Station’ and that’s where you will follow him to. 

You had to know why he’d all but ran out in a panic at 2:19 AM.

It’s eerily quiet as you try your  best to keep up with his long strides without making noise but it becomes nearly impossible to. Suguru doesn’t look back, not even once, as he cuts through the dimly lit streets as fast as he can.

You look both ways out of habit before sprinting across the next street. You have to sprint just to keep up with his strides, despite that he’s about thirty feet in front of you. Something in you is forcing you to keep up with him, to follow him down this path no matter where it takes you. How can he just leave you in the middle of the night? With no explanation? He must be going somewhere important.

If it’s important enough to hide from you, considering that he’s nearly running through the empty streets. How can he just leave you behind so easily and keep you in the dark?

Your mind is running a mile a minute as your legs struggle to keep up. A deep sense of foreboding fills your belly when frigid whips of wind tickle your face. But you keep going. You have a burning desire to know why your boyfriend snuck out to Shibuya station in the middle of the night. 

Yaga always said your curiosity would get you hurt someday, after all.

Suguru’s ears twitch as leaves crunch behind him along with the quiet sounds of the night, but he pays no mind to it. He’s stuck in concrete quicksand as the ground is swept from under him as he stares with wide eyes in disbelief. Is he in some old memory plucked straight from a deep crevice in his brain? Or is this the current reality? Blinking his eyes rapidly changes nothing. Because in front of him stands someone he hasn’t seen in over a year. His best friend who he never was able to say goodbye to.

It’s like he’s staring into a mirror, but a pair of strikingly blue eyes stares back at him. 

“It was you this entire time,” Suguru exhales.

“Oh, please,” Gojo Satoru says airily with a too casual shrug of his hand, “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know.” The neon lights of the train station bounce off of his skin eerily, almost making him appear translucent. 

Suguru tries, and fails, to look shocked.

“Oh, fine,” Suguru shrugs, finally allowing a smile to spread across his face, “You’re such an attention whore. And always so dramatic.”

His footsteps are slow as Suguru grits his teeth to force his legs to move. With his breath hitching in his throat and the wind blowing through his hair, he finally gets a good look at Gojo Satoru. His eyes are as bright as ever, iridescent and eerie with the backdrop of the moonlight. 

Dried (or is it fresh) blood is splattered along his porcelain skin. Suguru ignores the urge to rub it away.

“I brought your sunglasses,” he manages to say, the words feeling choked in his throat. Blood hums under his skin, singing at the sight of a very much alive Gojo Satoru.

“I was wondering where they went,” Gojo says with a laugh. Suguru’s skin crawls with the sound.

“Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“You didn’t, did you?” he asks in a sing-song voice, “You knew this entire time. You sly dog.”

Suguru says nothing, only stepping forward closely enough to place the sunglasses over Gojo’s eyes. He’s not very different from a year ago, apart from the dead look in his otherwise sparkling eyes and the fresh scar on the side of his face. Gojo winces when his fingers brush over the mark on his smooth skin.

“I guess someone put up a fight, huh?” Suguru says with a soft laugh.

“Yeah, what a pain,” Gojo snorts, “Are you…mad at me? I did this for you, you know-”

“I never asked you to, Satoru,” Suguru replies, “Don’t put this on me.”

“Yes! Yes, you did! You said it, you said I had to prove it to you. Prove that I was serious.”

“And this was the answer?” he chides him, cupping his cheek, “You didn’t have to fall off the face of the earth and commit a killing spree just for attention, you know.”

“Besides, did it even matter? You were with that whore anyway. I know you love her, you liar-”

“She’s not a whore, Satoru,” he says with a wide grin and pauses for two full seconds, “You can apologize to her yourself. She’s right behind me, hiding in those bushes.”

You stumble backwards into fallen leaves and branches despite your failed attempt at staying perfectly still and trying to blend into the trees. Should you run? Should you stay? Should you confront your boyfriend for being in love with a serial killer?

You should’ve just stayed home instead of following your boyfriend into the woods.

The sound of your heart thudding in your ribcage as the light autumn breeze whispers in your ear to run keeps you stuck in place. But you can only keep watching as two pairs of eyes, one of them belonging to the man you love, turn fully to stare you dead in the face.

Shards of cerulean wash over you as Gojo Satoru, the man you’d only read articles about, stares at you as if you’d offended him.

And then he laughs. Loudly and derisively, the sound gnawing at your skin. A wave of realization tumbles over you- it’s the same laugh you heard on the elevator, on the phone, in empty spaces…

You shiver, the frigid air seeping deep into your bones and settling in as melancholy.

You want to go home- to the place that you shared with Geto Suguru. Does that place even exist anymore?

“You can come out, sweetheart. I don’t bite,” the man with blue eyes has an oddly soothing voice. It still sends goosebumps up and down your arms, but you still shuffle out of the bushes and stand with your shoulders squared and your head held up high.

“I have the cops on speed dial,” you lie, your voice coming out a whisper rather than the roar you want it to be, “You- fucking- murderer!”

“Oh, that’s cute. Your friend is so smart,” he jeers, winking at Suguru, “You call the cops on me, you call the cops on your pretty boy boyfriend over here.”

It doesn’t fail you that they’re holding hands.

“H-how,” you finally let the mask fall, “How could you- I love, loved you and this? This is what I get?”

“I’m sorry, just so we’re both on the same page,” Gojo interjects, “Are you mad because he cheated on you or because he’s in relations with a murderer-”

“Shut the fuck up-”

“I can see why you like her so much, Suguru-”

“Enough!” Suguru interrupts you both as his patience begins to wear thin. He pinches the bridge of his nose before casting his eyes to you. You try your hardest not to wither in the iciness of his gaze, but you’ve always struggled with feeling small around him. There is nowhere to turn to, nowhere to go when he closes the gap between you both.

“I gave you everything,” you all but beg him, “I loved you, I-I wanted to-”

“You still do love me,” Suguru gently corrects you while cradling your jaw with his hand. As if he wouldn’t shatter you into a thousand pieces just with his touch. He already is. 

“Fuck you,” you manage, feeling your hands begin to shake, “You? And him? Are you aware that your boyfriend is a fucking murderer? Or did that slip by you-”

“Love makes you do crazy things,” Gojo Satoru interjects, his voice sugary sweet and dripping with condescension. His voice sounds much closer than where he was before and he almost sounds displeased. “You should know.”

“And how would I know that, you stalker, you murderer-” you shriek, all sense of rationality slipping out of your grip, “With those fucking phone calls! I bet you got a kick out of it, didn’t you? All those terrified women-”

“Don’t worry, your fear was the most delicious, sweetheart,” his voice comes from right behind you and you rip your cheek away from Suguru’s hand to glare at Gojo.

“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you weren’t suspicious that something was going on! You can’t be that stupid. Suguru has better taste than that,” he jeers, his phony smile morphing into a sinister smirk.

You stay quiet, letting your gaze fall on Suguru. He at least has the decency to meet your eyes once more, his grip on your cheek tightening. Suguru struggles, watching your eyes swell with defeated tears. You close your eyes so he doesn’t see but his thumb catches them anyway.

“Just tell me one thing,” you whisper, “Were you with him? Those times you said your friend was in town? Were you an accomplice?”

Suguru’s silence is deafening and it crushes you infinitely. You close your eyes in despair and a little disgust, the images of him in your home, in your lap, in your bed fogging up your mind. This is the man who was at his rock bottom a year ago and now he stands tall in front of you with no remorse in his unreadable eyes.

He used to be an open book to you, his heart hanging high on his sleeve. You used to be able to read right through him, seeing through his mask of indifference. But maybe that was on purpose. Suguru wanted you to see only what he wanted you to see. He kept you close enough for you to care about him but far enough for you to actually know him.

Geto Suguru is layers deep of blood, bone, and sorrow and you never even touched the first layer of him. 

“I loved you, I really did,” he says quietly.

“But you love him more? A serial killer?” you mumble, looking at him with lovesick eyes, “Nothing would’ve been enough for you. Nothing is enough for you, Suguru. When your boyfriend realizes that, he’ll kill you, too.”

You pause with a shuddering breath, your love and trust for him coalescing at the tip of your tongue. The words die there and you seal your fate with just a few words.

“Or maybe you’ll kill him first.”

A pair of unfamiliar, unwelcome hands wrap around your throat before you have the chance to dispel a breath from your shaking lips. All you can do is watch Suguru with pleading eyes, wordlessly begging him to just remember who you are to him.

You choke, breaths sputtering out as your lungs both expand and collapse with each blink of your eyes. You reach out for Suguru while clawing at his hands and kicking, trying to scream into the night for someone, anyone, for Suguru to do something as simple as save you.

He can’t take it anymore. Suguru turns away, looking up at the moon.

“Enough, Satoru. Not here.”

Eight Months Later

Mei Mei hasn’t stopped searching for you and Geto Suguru. Not when any credible leads led to dead ends, not when the police have slowed their search. Not even when the string of routine murders abruptly stopped. But the damage was done- the people of Tokyo and Kyoto were terrified to leave their homes and it would take time, maybe even years, to change that.

The police released a statement that they have a few persons of interest. Mei Mei isn’t so certain. 

Nanami Kento has taken a leave of absence from his role as lead detective on the case. He refuses to share the details with her, but Mei Mei knows that something far more sinister is happening deep within the underbelly of Japan.

She can’t place her finger on it.

So, she continues like this for nearly nine full months, chasing down anything remotely related to you or Suguru or the murders. But it’s as if there’s a concrete wall up between her and the rest of the world. Information is hard to come by.

It’s only when she is in her kitchen a few nights later, putting together something resembling a dinner relatively late in the evening. A piece of stark white paper stuck under her coffee machine catches her eye. She doesn’t remember seeing it there this morning, how strange-

Mei Mei gasps and nearly falls to the floor when she sees familiar handwriting written on the piece of paper. She looks around, eyes darting to her front door and her balcony. How could anyone have possibly gotten inside without the alarms going off?

Reading the note over and over again for the seventh time doesn’t do anything to silence the noise of her rattling heart:

“Don’t look anymore.”

TAGS: @kentobean @aeanya @kalineedsasupportkento

[multiplicity-positivity]

hello!! do you guys know if there’s a good way to find out if we’re a really low communication or possibly monocon system VS if there’s just a mental barrier between front and headspace? im not sure if this is a good description but we don’t notice super distinct shifts but rather at any given moment to find out who’s fronting we go through a list of all our names and see which ones cause anxiety and which ones fit ok. our communication is abysmal and it feels like there’s a “wall” between whoever is at front and the rest of the system. do we just try and accept plurality until someone from the other side of the “wall” shows up? or are there ways to try and make everything run smoother? sorry this is kind of a lot!!! thank you! — las creaturas sys

this may be a bit more complex than we (a nonprofessional) can really help with. it may take some work with a therapist or even just some time spent focusing on self-reflection and discovering yourself in order to find these answers.

that being said, here’s some stuff we can say with confidence (more or less…):

1. all there is to being plural is being or existing as more than one. if you feel like you share others in your mind, that’s all it really takes to be plural. if the plural framework helps you and is useful for you, you’re welcome to use it, even if you have absolutely no contact with other members of your system.

2. the way that you describe figuring out who’s fronting reminds us of an article we read a while back by a did system. here it is -

maybe the way this system functions can provide a bit of insight into your own system, even if you don’t suspect having did or a dissociative disorder.

3. as far as we understand, headspaces are imagined places created by visualizing something in your mind. we wrote a post about headspaces here:

not all systems actively had to create their headspaces, but for the majority of them, this is true. our own headspace was created through conscious choices made by members of our system. however, our host also struggles to access our headspace. we’re not quite sure why this is. as far as we know, dissociative barriers work by blocking off traumatized alters and trauma memories from the alters who handle day-to-day functioning. we’re not sure if being blocked or cut off from the headspace is a dissociative barrier thing.

4. when first discovering a system, establishing contact with other alters can be ridiculously difficult. especially if you have high dissociative barriers, or system members who are heavily in denial or can’t accept that they’re part of a system. however, we firmly believe that with practice and patience, internal communication can improve with time! our system used to be a huge mess in this regard, but at this point we can communicate with each other decently. it’s still a work in progress, but after 2 years of parts work in therapy and lots and lots of time spent focusing on trying to get in touch with each other, we’re in a much better place and find communication much easier to manage.

we have a post with some basics on establishing contact with headmates. it’s designed for folks with dissociative disorders (as that is our experience), but it may be useful for any kind of system. here it is:

…and that’s pretty much all we can say here. if you’re questioning whether or not you’re monoconscious, perhaps try scrolling though @monoconsciouscultureis to see what sort of experiences systems often submit there, and find out if their experiences align with yours. other than that, we don’t really know what else to say that might be useful.

sorry if this post is all over the place or doesn’t make much sense. we’re wishing you luck with figuring this out. remember, with practice, patience, and persistence, you probably can achieve better communication or at least a better understanding within your system. sending you our best!

🐢 kip and 🌸 margo

[poppyandzena]

Yeah, Saige is very done for me at this point. Her willingness to editorialize the narrative just to support her abusive partners is disgusting.

Saige. Read the doc. Actually read the doc. Your words make it clear you didn’t. Because everything you say is barely applicable to what Spawn went through.

“I exchanged harsher words with my ex-spouse on occasion.” Yeah, and I’m sure Zena and Poppy did too- sorry you can’t have voice recordings of everything. You think Poppy/Zena would admit to harsher? Or even fully recognize it? If I recall, your own partners admit to making Spawn cry on multiple occasions. They just paint the story as “oh they cry in such a way to make me disassociate. So manipulative.” Hmm, bo red flags? To blame their kid for being driven to tears from their actions? Alright. Sure, whatever you say, Saige.

“If drawing boundaries and setting expectations is abuse, idk how you function with others.” This is just proof you didn’t read the doc more than anything. If you think having narrow (less than 10 minutes in some cases) windows for bathroom, food making, JUST GETTING WATER is boundaries and expectations, then you are delusional. And, more importantly, If you think ‘the kid’ should have to follow expectations/boundaries, but Zena and Poppy shouldn’t have to (the document makes it clear they didn’t- they skipped on dishes/chores, took up the kitchen way longer then Spawn ever did, and more), please detail why for me. I’d love to hear THAT excuse.

“I suppose it was abusive to have to check in before making purchases that weren't already budgeted bc they kept spending our income on shit we couldn't afford.” No, that’s not abusive, and also proof you didn’t read the document either. There’s a huge difference between ‘the kid’ and your ex/you- the kid had their own bank account/job/trust fund. That was only their money. Not Poppy’s. Not Zena’s. Your ex and you? Joint money, most likely. If Spawn was on their bank account/using Poppy/Zena’s money to buy things? Yes, completely reasonable to monitor and discuss buying things. The kid’s own money? No, Poppy/Zena had literally 0 rights to control that. You would tell a 18 year old that if their parents are trying to control their kids spending- you’d say “fuck them” I bet- you should in most cases. Why not Poppy/Zena’s kid? Literally just because it’s Poppy/Zena? The only way you could argue this point at all is if you could prove, actually prove, that the kid spent enough that it affected Zena/Poppy (by forcing them to cover for rent, utilities, food, something on Spawn’s behalf).

"Saige Alexis was an abusive spouse bc fae asked her spouse to do things for themself & not constantly expect faer to do everything for them” Saige. Just scroll through until you find Spawn’s chore list for one day. You articulate to me what is POSSIBLY left for Zena/Poppy to do. Spawn did everything FOR Poppy/Zena. Your precious partners are the ones that could afford to do more for their kid WITH A LITERAL, DIAGNOSED HEART CONDITION

I notice a distinct lack of mention of internet restriction. So just because they have physical and mental disabilities, Poppy and Zena had a right to completely restrict internet access? Restrict Spawn from friends and support systems? Reminder- Spawn is an adult that was paying bills too- paying for that internet. But they were still allowed to be punished and have it taken away completely? I have a feeling you and your ex spouse never turned off the internet for each other. “Oh but Spawn had a hot spot.” 10gb. That’s literally nothing. If it was enough to do anything? Spawn wouldn’t have had to go to the library for job applications. So please, give me an excuse for this one this time. Love to hear it.

Just… Saige, either actually read the document, or stay in your fucking lane. You talk a big game about not being believed on your abuse and experiences yourself, but when there’s an abuse victim that’s right there, right in from you, basically begging to be believed- you continue to just blindly believe your partners. You’re no better than everyone you have villianized for not believing you.

You don’t deserve awful shit to happen to you as you are a fellow human being. But you don’t deserve to put victims names into your mouth and minimize their stories just to try and validate your path and make yourself feel good about your life choices.

Read and actually learn or go away, Saige. Live in denial about your choices, or bother to learn your partners may not be these perfect, do no wrong people they try to pretend to be.

^

[deathofpeaceofmiiind]

high infidelity | thirteen

Aquamarine, moonlight swimming pool...what if all I need is you? *Ellie's POV* I woke up to the sound of the hotel door opening up. Noah appeared immediately with two coffees in his hands and the softest smile on his face when he saw I was awake. My heart fluttered as I saw him, I don’t think I’ll ever have a normal reaction to seeing him. He was wearing gym shorts, his Canucks hat he bought after the game last night and one of his band t-shirts, and he made it all look so damn good. He put his AirPods away and walked over to me with my coffee. “I would’ve got you a matcha, but I figured you’d needed something a little stronger.” “This is perfect, thank you.” I mused before he kissed my cheek. I took a small sip of my coffee and realized he got me a caramel macchiato, my second favourite. “Did you enjoy yourself last night?” “Absolutely.” he replied with a grin, rubbing his hand on my thigh. “I liked the post game show more though.”

“Yeah, that was…” My voice trailed as I looked over at him, remembering what happened. My mouth went dry as my entire body began to tingle. “I’m sorry that I needed a break, it’s been a while for me.” “Don’t be.” He replies as he leaned over to kiss me. “Just means I did my job.” I rolled my eyes, I could tell he was basking in his accomplishments from last night. Noah ordered us room service before he went to go take a shower so I drank my coffee as I scrolled on my phone. I stopped when I saw Tyler sent me a lengthy text. “Fine, you win. Your lawyer will contact you next week for our court date. I’m going to go live with my parents until everything is done so you can go back to the house today. Start looking for your own place though cause I want to put our house on the market as soon as possible. I’m keeping Liam until your next rotation at work is done. I will drop him off at daycare next Thursday and then you can pick him up. I’m still sorry about everything.” “Okay.” I didn’t want to argue with him, all I wanted was for this done and over with. I quickly texted my manager and said I needed to be on stress leave for the month. There was no way I could work in this state. I put my phone down and just sighed. Suddenly I heard Noah lightly singing something in the shower, I didn’t know what it was but it sounded angelic. I lied back down on the bed and just listened to him. There’s just something about his voice that resets my entire nervous system. “With your boots beneath my bed …forever is the sweetest con” I smirked… he’s a swiftie. A few moments later Noah came out of the bathroom and I almost choked on my own spit. He had on a pair of tan Lululemon jersey shorts with a black Lord of the Rings T-shirt. Seriously…how does he make casual clothes look that good? “So…Cowboy like me?” “Oh, you heard me.” He bashfully replied, his face flushed pink. I shrugged my shoulders, “I just never expected you to like Taylor Swift.” “Are you kidding me? Evermore was the reason I wanted to do an unplugged album.” He exclaimed as he went to grab our room service that just arrived. I bit my lip, he was too perfect.

“So Tyler texted me while you were showering.” I said as we sat down to have our breakfast. Noahs jaw clenched and I grabbed his hand to calm him down. “It’s a good thing. He basically said he’s not gonna fight it but I do have to find somewhere to live as soon as possible.” “I’ll come help you look for an apartment.” Noah suggests as he takes a sip of his coffee, “If you need to stay in hotel for the time being I can set it up for you.”

“Thank you but Tyler is staying with his parents until we put the house up for sale. I can stay with Danielle if I have to but I’ll start looking tonight.” I replied as I analyzed Tyler’s lengthy text message.

“I’m here every step of the way.“ He expressed as he gave my hand an assuring squeeze. I half smiled, trying to wrap my head around this.

“I’m sorry I’m putting you through this.” I replied, feeling equal parts defeated and guilty. Noah lifted my hand and gently kissed it, sending me the most sympathetic stare. Someone needs to pinch me cause this still doesn’t feel real, he doesn’t feel real. 

“Ellie, you’re worth all of this okay?” He assures me, “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

I just nodded cause I could feel tears filling my eyes. I took a deep breath but couldn’t stop the guilt from clouding my mind. Just a short few days ago Noah didn’t know who I was and was living his life perfectly fine. I had to come in and fuck it all up for him with my problems. Noah grazed my neck before he lifted my chin with his thumb. I stared into his somber eyes as he wiped the tears I couldn’t fight back anymore.

“When do you have to leave?” I asked changing the subject.

“Next show is tomorrow night, so either tonight or tomorrow morning. I’m just waiting for Matt to text me flight details.” he replied, meeting me with sad eyes. “We only have a week left so I’ll be back when everything is done.”

“I wish I could go with you.” I pouted, hoping that me joking would keep the tears at bay. I never had a problem being alone but the idea of being this alone was foreign to me. I selfishly wanted Noah around me every second of every day. I didn’t feel like eating anymore so I sat down on the bed as Noah tapped away on his phone. I watched him, begging for some kind of response from him but he was still typing on his phone. He finally put his phone away and turned his attention back to me.

“Hypothetically…when would you need to be home?”

“Wednesday night.” I replied with a raised eyebrow. Noah knelt down in front of me and reached for my hands. I sometimes forgot how tall he was cause he was still eye level with me despite being on his knees. I stared down at his hands that were tangled in mine, still not having the courage to look at him. “Ellie, come with me.”

“Really?” I gasped as finally met his gaze. He just smirked at me as I tried to find the words to say, but I was speechless.

“I may or may not have texted Matt to change my flight so we can go together. We’re going to be in Vegas tomorrow so it’ll be a good place to take your mind off things. We’ll get our own room, you can come to the show, then after we can gamble or drink a lot and bitch about how awful Tyler is…whatever you want.“

“Why are you doing this Noah?” I sighed. I had this overwhelming feeling that I was becoming such a burden to him. He was uprooting his tour routine for me and getting on more flights than he needed to. I know we had this incredible connection but it felt like a lot of effort on his end.

“How honest do you want me to be?” He answered, tucking the hair that fell in front of his eyes. 

“Like your life depends on it.”

“Ellie, I…I’m really fucking scared of how much I care for you already. Those few hours where I thought I lost you for good were absolute torture. My mind is telling me I’m coming off too strong and I need to back off but I’m sorry, I can’t” he stopped to catch his breath and fight the tears forming in his eyes. “You deserve to know how it feels to be truly loved, and I want to be the man to do it.”

He looked down at the ground and I sat there in disbelief at what he just said to me. No words were escaping me, all I could do was get on the floor and give him a hug. His arms immediately pulled me closer to him. My body was fighting every urge to tell him I loved him. I know it’s too soon to have feelings this deep but I was overwhelmed with emotion.  

“Do you need to do anything today?” Noah asks as he closes up his suitcase.

“I should go to the house to change and pack some stuff for tomorrow.” I sighed, dreading going back to the house. “Also maybe pick up my car, I can leave it at the airport.” “Do you want me to come with you?” “I don’t know.” I confessed crossing my arms, “Tyler said the house was empty but I don’t want to take any chances. I’ll be quick”

“Works for me.” He replies as he puts on a few sprays of his cologne. The smell reaches my nose, fuck he smells so good. “Since we have a free afternoon, where is the one place in this city you’d take a tourist?”

I pursed my lips, “Oh! The aquarium!”

He looks over at me and smiles. If there was in thing in this life I’ll always be sure of, is that I wanted to see that smile every day from now on.

[acesolaris]

Education in a Solarpunk World

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. ~ Socrates

I'm very passionate about knowledge. I'm extremely curious and love to share everything and anything. As you might notice when scrolling though this blog, I love to deepdive into topics and pile and sort the informaton I find, both for me but also for others.

I'm also living in a western european country and my school system is terrible. So bad in fact, I gave up my wish to become an schoolteacher and followed another passion. There are other well articulated and better researched sources that go into the why our school sytem is this way. I'll only talk about my vison to make it better.

The whole plan is creating an individualized curriculum for each student with a focus on creating citizens who are mentally-balanced, socially well-adjusted and know how to think, so the teaching would differ for each student.

My Solapunk version of education, has three pillars.

The first is free education. Free acess to the Institutions, but also the knowledge through libraries, free acess to the Internet, free acess to academic studies. Free acess reagardless of age. there is a minimum time you have to spend in education, but lifelong couriosity, learning and exchange is encouraged, even after you started doing your chosen daily labour in the community.

The second pillar is the fact that the concept of general knowledge is a construct by the society and state you live in. So let's completely revamp this. I strongly believe that general knowlede should be considered everything that helps you taking care of yourself when you don't have acces to the help of others. Examples out of my head are cooking, basic maintenance of your home/prosessions/garden, first aid, but also how to get and revaluate knowlede you need and don't have. That, and a basic understanding of numbers, reading and reading comprehension to evaluate what you are reading and be able to apply it to your life. To properly form arguments and comunicate in a non-vilolent way. Thats the basic curriculum, the shell so to speak. It doesnt matter how you learn it, via games, from your parents or classes you take. You can't leave education untill you have proven to function in those in your way.

Ok, so the kids earn those skills in peer groups of around five or six people for as long as they need in their own pace, but what about, you know, everything else? They get let loose. There might be some age restriction on topics, but what I envison is pure interest and passion driven learning. There's no classes or grades, just develloping skills and knowledge. Every day there are three or four discussion pannels or lectures to a weirdly specific topic, like the manuscrips of Timbuktu, the life and times of Ghandi or how to best craft a basket out of different plant fibres. And anyone who wants can submitt a topic, and if it interests you, you go, otherwise you stay and work on your linewight in your drawing or solve math problems. Depending on your learning style, there 're videos, audiobooks, texts and writings in differnt lengths in differnt formating from bullet points to tomes. There are workshops, and studygroups, games and media that cover every topic you possibly want to learn about. It doen't matter when you do it, it matters that you do it. If you are a night owl, you come at 9pm, if you only can focus for 30 min before having to switch the topic, you can, if you leave with 15 because you are sick of learning you can come back with 21 when you regrett dropping out. Time doesn't matter.

There is a third pillar which is the treatment of children as actual people. Up until I was 18 years and suddently an adult my no was never respected, unless I gave an essay on why I didn't want to. Simply because I was a child and my parents knew better- every adult knew better. Which I see everywhere, and people are wondering why consens is such a dificult concept to establish as we have to learn that No is adequate. No justifications, just a No. So the learning Institute has scientists and social workers present, who are accessible as someone the students might go to for advice when needed with whatever neeed might come up: assist in finding resoures or give input and correction on fake news, or they may act as mediators in case-you know- kids being kids. Overall however, there is the understanding that children have a certain autonomity they can adjust themselves to give up or keep. Children are people and are treated as such.

The students keep a portfolio of their skills, both as a resource of knowlege and memento. Plus, after spending a specific minimum time depeding on how easy you learn the "general skills" you would be allowed to submitt this portfolio to a council of scientist chosen by you who will certify you for your chosen field of studies. You don't need to, but from my own experience having a ceritficate of your skills is damn sattisfying. And you can do it immediatly when you are free to or wait five more years because you don't feel ready. Again, the choice is yours.

Remember, you can stay as long as you want and even after shifting your focus away to the application of your skills in the community, you are free to participate in the discussions and give lectures. Everyone is allowed to give them, after all. Scientists are conducting their reserach at specific research centres that are connected to the education centres and the students are allowed there after a certain age or reaching a level of knowlege deermined by the scentists working on the project.

There are questions up for debate of course, especially how we want to teach history, tackle the things we did to each other and the planet. My country is prized for how selfreflected we are but our political climate sugests otherwise so, it's still open.

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

A small Linkspam on topic:

@safety-net-did muses about what should be considered general knowledge which inspired this post as well as @queerspacepunks contribution.

one of the many tumblr discussions on how children are a repressed class

another one on the same topic

a post of @missmentell on resources to learn basic life skills of adults

this reddit discussion on how to remember history.

~@acesolaris

[bmbochangetales]

Okay, this might be an odd request for radio... but could you play "Chun-Li's theme" from "Super Street Fighter II"?

My girlfriend--*cough*I-I mean, my best friend who just HAPPENS to be female is an old school gamer girl and could use a pick-me-up. You see, she has this thing against modern game emulators, but her SNES died on her a couple days ago and she hasn't been able to play any of her favourite games since.

So, I figured it might cheer her up if you played the theme music for her favourite character from her favourite fighting game!

“How about some nostalgia for all our video game lovers out there with a bit of a new twist. Here is a remix for you of Chun Ali’s intro from Street Fighter”

Your best friend remained in a huff on the couch. Pouting like a small child. The death of the SNES was really bumming her out. You thought this song would help, but it seems like nothing would.

The music filled the house. As you went to give it one final shot to fix her beloved game system. She had tinkered with it several times since it’s untimely passing. Each time she was hopeful but then came back in a worse mood.

Strangely enough, when you went up. The machine had a light on. You turned on the TV and it was working fine. On the screen was a character design screen. She must have downloaded something to make her own character. That’s probably what broke it in the first place. But it seemed to be working now.

Wouldn’t it be a fun surprise to make a version of her to surprise her when she came up to see her game console had come back from the dead.

You named the character after her and chose a base skin. She always played as Chun Li so it was an easy choice.

The next screen was a personality chooser. This was pretty advances for SNES but hey it was just a game and more modern games had this too. She had definitely overloaded the system.

It was currently on vintage game snob. You scrolled through until you came across silly gamer girl. She would love this joke. She always joked she should become one so she could make more money on her hobby.

There was even a cosplayer streamer skin with it. Minus intelligence and up body score. Didn’t seem too bad. It added flirty points too.

The last screen was character controls. You put your name of a controlling player. You could even put in a relationship status. You were Going to jokingly set it as boyfriend. If she freaked out you could always change it back. You knew she would find it funny.

You clicked save and the machine sounded like it might break again. It gave a flash and just said changes complete. You went to get her.

“Hey! I think I fixed it” you hollered. You heard some high pitch whines from downstairs. It almost sounded sexual.

You walked downstairs to see her standing in a copy of what you picked on the machine. You should have been concerned that she looked different than when you left but you were too busy staring at her.

“I need to stream soon but first I need a good fuck from you.” She ran her hand down your chest straight to your cock, stroking it through your pants.

“Ready? Then show me”

[morgan-says]

"sysmed" usually equals "child abuse survivors with a highly stigmatized disorder trying to stop misinformation"

Do you guys realize that?

People with DID are abuse survivors. Abuse survivors since CHILDHOOD

We know systems with littles as young as three years old, due to their trauma. We have a little who is six years old, who holds the trauma of us being raped. At six years old. By our own brother.

Do you not understand that when you argue and tire out and trigger anti endos, "sysmeds", you're doing this to people who have been traumatized since early childhood? You wouldn't do this crap to a war veteran with PTSD, would you? So why do you do it to people with PTSD?

Do you see us as lesser than? As toys? As subhuman? "Look at those stupid sysmeds, they're not worth human respect, they're just dumb little TRAUMATIZED people, they're so lucky to be TRAUMATIZED, to be hurt so badly their brain did not develop correctly. Look at them, they think they're superior to us because they're TRAUMATIZED."

(these are things I have seen endos/supporters say)

Casual reminder that so many of us are taught through childhood that we're lesser than and are finally breaking from those beliefs, just to have those exact beliefs pushed back onto us.

Do you not realize this? Do you not understand?

Let's put this into an example, in case it's still not clicking.

Imagine, if you will, being a little kid maybe you've been abused all your life, and you don't feel safe in your own home. Maybe you've grown up in hospitals, in constant pain, and you don't understand why it won't stop. Maybe you were kidnapped and put in human trafficking at a young age. Maybe you were multiple of these.

Now, imagine. You're older now, you have access to Internet. Perhaps you've gone to therapy and been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Perhaps you didn't and made an educated self diagnosis, based off weeks and weeks of research and see reflection and talking to other systems. You've found your place among people who understand. Who understand the flashbacks, and the memory loss, and the identity confusion, and the blackouts and the denial and the self blame and the internal conflict and never knowing what's real and the dissociation and the -

You've found people who understand your suffering. They get it. They feel it.

Now imagine. You're scrolling online. And you come across people who are saying you can be a system "without trauma". "for fun". "it's an identity".

They clearly don't understand. Systemhood is pain. Systemhood is suffering. Sure, maybe the alters isn't too bad. Sometimes. But the rest of it? This isn't "having alters" disorder, this is dissociative identity disorder. DISSOCIATIVE. The base of it? Dissociation. The cause of it? Being traumatized so badly that your brain couldn't handle it. And now you're seeing people treat it like a game. Like something fun and quirky.

And then they say how you're entitled. How you're jealous of them. You don't understand what they mean - this is something that is disabling. And they're making it a game. Do they not understand? How they're harming you and your friends, just by spreading the misinformation they spread?

And then, as of this wasn't bad enough, they attack you. They fake claim you. They run your friends off the internet, they push your friends to suicide. And they don't care. They take these as WINS. And while you're mourning your friends? They're busy finding their next target. They harass and abuse them until they're gone. They intentionally trigger them until they can't handle it anymore. They dox them and suibait them and all these things that you'd think they'd know better than to do just based off human decency.

But then you realize. They don't consider you human. They consider you lesser. They consider you subhuman.

And then you realize. They're using the same tactics your abusers did. Do.

And then you realize. It's come full circle.

And they think they're in the right because "I'm defending my identity!"

But it isn't an identity. It's a disorder. It's a trauma response. It's changed your life and you'll never get those moments you've lost back.

Imagine that.

Now you understand why "sysmeds" are so upset. Because this is what we receive. This is how we see it. You see it as an identity? We see it as a normal life we never got to live. That we will never get to live.

Think about that.

This is in endo tags because this is pointed at endos.

[ottiliere]

Ok so, 2 things

1. Oh? System Dirks are coming in here to show their appreciation? Because ours also DEVOURS this AU. It is genuinely so relatable and cathartic. When people don't think sharing vent art is good, I point at this AU and how it shows the ugly side of recovery so perfectly.

2. I was idly scrolling through the JTHM tag as I do frequently and got such intense whiplash seeing your recent post about asks in it. Like. Complete opposite side of our dash radar. What is this I hear about a JTHM ask?? I am fascinated already I font care if it's related to Dirk or not I just genuinely would love to hear your thoughts on it.

1) pulling all the dirks who follow me in for a hug through the walls of my plastic isolation bubble. it really makes me so happy to hear this. I can't give an extended answer to this point because I spent so much time talking about the next one but I hope you feel the mind waves of love I am bombarding you with.

2) The ask I got was in fact about Dirk, but as I'm drafting it it is...drifting...very much...into being about JTHM. "hear my thoughts on it" … this would be nothing shorter than a dissertation. I think about JTHM very often. I don't think it's possible for me to be concise about this in any sense of the word.

JTHM, to me, is one of the formative experiences that made me who I am. It is one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever made, that I have ever engaged with, and I know for a fact I will struggle to find something that is told in such a captivating way from an author with such an open soul. I discovered fanart of it by chance on DeviantArt, and, being naturally drawn towards edgier themes, searched everywhere on the internet until I found it uploaded onto some woman's livejournal account. I was obsessed with JTHM for a very, very long time. I reread it periodically, once or twice a year, and I have been doing this since I was 12. It has heavily influecned the way I go about making art and telling stories and engaging with everything I watch or read or what have you.

Everything about this comic blew my mind as a child, artistically absolutely, thematically especially. The narrative style that is glib with occasional moments of morose clarity that never lasts too long... we will never see anything like the suicide scene in anything else ever written again, of that I'm sure. It is unique in its existence. once you read that it unlocks something in your brain and you just can't go back. Multiplied by a million if you read it at a formative age you weren't really supposed to be reading it. Like homestuck.

Nny... he is the base of the character trope I always return to in fiction, usually unconsciously. I didn't realize that what I was doing to dirk mirrored nny until some friends pointed it out... it is a fascinating phenomenon. He is the first of his kind I have ever encountered in anything, ever. Blatantly unwell, the focus of a story that isn't necessarily slotting him into an antagonistic role. Like, he's the protagonist who I guess is also the antagonist but he's also a human. He's this guy with severe mental illness who is lead around like a puppet on strings first by the society that torments him for existing and then by the creature living in his walls that steals his memory and cognitive ability and manipulates him into doing his bidding. I had never seen that before? Usually I am not one for "made mentally ill by inorganic sources" trope, but the fact that it's stated in the comic that he was already seriously unwell before he became a flusher... it's just sad. He is not a good person, but his life is inherently tragic and the outcome of a society that does not care for him, or people like him, at all. forgive me for the comparison, but he is like the joker 2019. I mean this in a way that I love joker 2019. if you didn't like joker, well. sorry. but it's true.

This ties in, obviously, with the way that Jhonen goes about fiction: he does whatever he wants, to an extent. I have recently very closely befriended some individuals and while pondering how we were meshing so well on the creative side of htings, it eventually came to light that the singlemost defining moment in our lives was how we all read JTHM at a very young age. And it is insane, stepping back and looking at all of our narrative and art styles and seeing that the similarities we've all evolved independently stemmed from JTHM, in addition to our view of what it's like to be an artist. we are but jhonen's warriors in a world that is currently characterized by a very homogenized mixture of “art”. I mean, just look at the current box office trend. look at the “genre” that is marvel movies. not that I don’t enjoy marvel movies, I DO like them, my loki phase was strong and hard, but objectively... these things are what they are: mass-produced consumables. there is a reason people got excited when it was announced that Cronenberg was making a new film (which was awesome btw); art is dying. milquetoast narratives, stories afraid to push boundaries and be "weird", authors not trusting the audience to pick up on their intended message so instead of leaving it just a little ambiguous, they must instead spoonfeed it to every reader... There is some equation of what it means to make art and how it equates with your moral standing; my stance has always aligned with dear Jhonen's.

in a way my view of the world is the direct inverse of nny's; I truly believe in the best of people, I love humanity, I love the world and I am fundamentally incapable of being outwardly cruel towards others. my natural setting is to logically empathize, to put myself in the shoes of other people and look at their life the way they're living it. there is nothing more important to me than showing unconditional positive regard towards others. I have not always been this way. I used to foster great amounts of animosity in my heart for the things that have been done to me. I used to be an abjectly miserable person, I used to be violently suicidal every day for years and years and years etc. now though... I don't know how to describe it. something alights upon you after vast quantities of self-reflection, detached from the scrying eyes of swathes of people, of strangers, fandom most relevantly but I do also mean society as a whole. at this point in my life there is nothing more important to me than being a nice person, and helping others in what ways I can. if that's through posting raw depictions of mental illness, I will happily do so. I didn't realize that people didn't KNOW they can do this, and it is heartwarming that I can touch people in such a way even parasocially. I have worked on myself, I love people and I love when people are weird and their true creative selves because that is what the world needs in this day and age. art is dying. If you let bitterness into your heart it will consume you. it will cloud your judgment and prevent you from making a true connection to the medium, it will block you from making what you REALLY want to make. It will poison how you interact with other humans on a fundamental level, if you are constantly walking into interactions suspecting the worst intentions.

it almost seems like critical thinking is a dying skill...or, at least, it is when it comes to interacting with art and not relying on other people to tell you what to think. but even still I still do not hold ire towards those who seek me harm for what I make. I do not answer many of the asks I get on purpose, the death threats, etc... because these people are hurting in a multitude of ways, and they have not yet learned how to cope with their own pain. You could call being an optimist a character flaw, maybe it is. I don't know. That is, for better or worse, the epitome of what I am: an unrelenting pollyanna who believes in the best of people and the potential they have to heal. The one anon hate I got about the AU months ago that I actually deigned with an answer; they eventually came off anon and admitted they were just frustrated they didn't know how to properly use tumblr's UI to filter me off their dashboard and displaced their emotions onto me. They apologized. Such is life. We are all humans inhabiting this great big earth and I love to love people. contrary to what I depict in my art, I am a very happy person. I love my friends and I'm currently in a very good life situation with occasional downfalls and eventual upturns. Jhonen, I know, as stated in the second interview image, was often like this as well. nny was a speakerphone for little observations about life and pessimism; he was a character, a means to tell a story.

so ya I guess those are some of my thoughts about JTHM. not all of them though. here’s some nny

[direwombat]

💭 Sybille’s thoughts on Cooper?

ahhhh thank you! have a little bit of syb and cooper waking up from their most recent stoner film adventure lol. Coop's maybe a bit quieter here than he normally is but he's also hungover so...i hope i did him enough justice ;w;

Cooper goddamn McCoy has a hell of a way of bringing out the absolute worst of her in the best way possible. He's her favorite enabler.  

What had started as a simple night drinking turned into what must’ve been a series of poorly made gambles because the two of them had woken up four days later somewhere in the mountains wearing Cheeseburger costumes from the F.A.N.G. Center that were covered in blood. 

Fresh blood. 

Sybille moans, pressing her palm against her head. Her temples throb and she’s not entirely sure if she’s still got something Tweak gave her pumping in her veins or ambient Bliss causing the glimmering lights to dance in her vision. Christ her head hurts. 

“Jesus,” she hisses under her breath at the exact same time Cooper groans, “Sunnuva bitch.”

She pops the obnoxiously large bear-shaped mascot head off her costume and throws it to the side. Cooper does the same and the two of them sit in the grass, staring at each other dumbfoundedly. 

“The fuck happened last night?” Sybille asks?

Cooper hushes her with a meandering shush. “Words too bright,” he groans. 

Sybille ignores him and squints, taking in their surroundings. “Where are we?”

“Dunno,” Cooper groans.

“Well, whose region are we in?”

“Dunnoooo.” 

“‘S too warm to be the Whitetails,” she says slowly. “‘N those trees look like the ones in the Valley. I think we’re in the Valley.” She grows more confident in her assessment as she says it aloud. She stretches her arm out, slapping lightly at her companion. “Hey. Hey, we’re in the Valley.” 

“Okay."

They sit there in silence for a long moment. 

“We should probably try to find a road. Make our way back to town….or just someone’s house…” Cooper says.

Sybille groans, but she gets up, wobbling on her legs like a newborn deer. Her stomach churns and bile rises in her throat. “Oh God,” she breathes, She leans over with her hands on her knees to catch her breath. “Okay. Okay….” She rises. “Let’s go.” 

She helps Cooper up to his feet and the two begin to stumble their way down the mountain. 

“Fuck, this is Testy Festy all over again ain’t it?” Cooper says after a while. 

Sybille snorts, and picks her way over a gnarled system of tree roots. “Yeah, well at least then we were close to town. I ain’t got no clue where we are.”

“You remember anything from last night?” Cooper asks.

“No,” she answers. “You?”

“No…” Cooper says. “Shit. That ain’t good…what’s the last thing you remember?”

Sybille pauses, thoughtfully scrolling back until she finds something other than a black void. “We was at the Spread Eagle. Just came back from blowin’ up John’s sign. Came in for a victory round…”

“Oh yeah,” Cooper says. Then he starts laughing. “Some asshole bet we couldn’t do a Clutch Nixon stunt!”

“Shit, Cooper, what’d I tell you about gamblin’?” Sybille scolds.

“You were the one who made the bet!” Cooper exclaims.

What? No way. That can’t be right. But no -- wait…shit, maybe she did. She wracks her brain, scrubbing through her memories like it’s security camera footage. And lo and behold, she gets a flash of spitting in her own hand and shaking another man’s for a friendly wager of 500 bucks and an endless supply of moonshine if she and Cooper could not only pull off one Clutch Nixon stunt, but all of them.

She doesn’t remember the stipulation for losing, but given her and Cooper’s current state of affairs, she doesn’t feel too worried about that. 

Shit. She really is her daddy’s daughter, huh?

“Well, I think we won that bet,” she says flippantly. She’s then hit with another wave of nausea and almost vomits. “Shit. How many drugs did we take to pull that off?”

“All of them I think,” Cooper responds. And then he asks: “So, how do you think the bear suits came into play? And whose blood do you think this is?”

“No fuckin’ clue. ‘M sure Mary May will tell us when we get back,” Sybille sighs. She and Cooper are a riptide of destruction that puts Hurk and Sharky as a duo to shame. Half the county must be up in smoke after what they got up to, and hopefully a few Peggies fewer than before their memory failed them. It’s fun -- Cooper’s fun, Sybille thinks. Doin’ dumb and reckless shit makes me feel like a teenager again.

They lapse into silence, continuing on for another twenty minutes before seeing a break in the trees. Paved road. With a directional sign pointing towards Falls End. Just ten miles East! Both of them breathe out a sigh in relief.

“You wanna get a beer after this?” Cooper asks.

“Yeah, sure,” Sybille sighs. “Why not?” Whatever shit the two of them got up to, she needs to drink it off. And there’s no better drinking buddy she could ask for than Cooper McCoy.