#and this is a me thing but for years I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of child actors to begin with | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morganas-pendragons · 2 years

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Haven’t We Given Enough? | Joel Miller

Okay, so hear me out. I've known about this game for years but have been exclusively an Xbox kid since like 2004 so I've never had the opportunity to play it. I heard Pedro was cast as Joel and I was shocked that I actually knew the actors playing Joel and Ellie. Saw the trailer, watched the entire first game gameplay, and now I'm here.

Whoops.

I will say this though: I'm really bothered that I could find like nothing but hardcore smut in the tag for this character. I aim to change that. Enjoy some hurt/comfort!

@ironmandeficiency

This is meant for a fem!reader. There are themes of past pregnancy in this that may come back into play later (reader had and lost a child) so if that is something that makes you uncomfortable, read at your own risk.

***

It’s remarkable how similar he is to the very thing you’ve thought him to be since you met. While Ellie is like a summer fire burning across empty, barren fields, Joel is the vengeful, unrelenting snow storm that threatens to pull you apart.

He becomes increasingly good at it the longer you know him. Those dexterous, strong fingers wrap around the rungs of your ribs and pull them apart until the fragile beating thing you call a heart is exposed.

That fragile beating thing has simply endured too much. It’s endured heartbreak, and loss, and pain, and it’s somehow still keeping you alive despite having lived through the beginning of the Outbreak and twenty years into it.

Sheer determination has kept you alive. Not love, not your little sister, just a culmination of all the things you’ve endured that have turned into anger.

It’s not like his anger though. Yours is calm. Methodical. Purposeful.

Joel Miller’s anger is exactly like him: Vengeful, unrelenting, terrifying. It’s only once you meet that your anger begins to temper down into something he has never quite known. Not in this life anyway.

Gentless. Compassion.

Peace.

And well, Joel Miller finds that the longer he knows you, the more he aches to learn what that really means.

It’s weird. You know it’s a weird habit, but you’ve been doing it since you were a little girl and have a difficult time not falling back into old habits. People have often accused you of being aloof. Bashful.

At the very least, people-watching is resourceful and educational. It really teaches you about what to expect from the ones you don’t quite know yet.

People watching was how you found yourself drawn to Joel Miller.

It started whenever Marlene sent Tess and Joel to smuggle the two of you out of the city. You were Ellie’s older sister - born before the Outbreak, almost fifteen years her senior - and her solely remaining blood family since your parents deaths. Your mother’s dying wish had been whispered into your ear with her final breath: Look after your sister.

So you did.

“I will be damned if you even think I’m not going to follow that girl,” You snarled, jabbing your thumb into Marlene’s chest. “That’s my sister. My blood. My promise. You will not take that away from me.”

The Boston QZ was, as to be expected, a literal hell. The only way that you and Ellie were going to survive was if you joined the ranks of the Fireflies. You did. You did, and it ruined you. Any remaining semblance of innocence that you had died years before.

You didn’t want to think about that. It was past, it was gone, just like that part of who you’d been at that point.

All gone. Just like the rest of the world.

Marlene knew better then to argue with a Williams. Where you lacked, Ellie made up for it. It was comical how a fourteen year old girl, in certain situations, had more diplomacy then you did.

She was the one who talked when Joel came into the room for the first time.

“Be careful with that one,” You warned afterward. Marlene snorted as both Williams sisters simultaneously crossed their arms over their chests and leaned into the counter as Joel left the room to confer with his partner. “He’s a storm.”

Ellie knew of your comparisons. She knew of your uncanny ability to read people, to see people, and she’d never doubted you. Not once.

“Funny. First time you told me this, you said I was a fire. If he’s a storm...” She nudged her head uncertainly in the direction Joel had left in. “Then what kind of storm is he?”

Your eyes flutter closed. You’d been able to gauge a lot just from those few minutes of conversation. “Winter,” You reply quietly. “One of those blizzards we got caught in the winter you turned four. Mom and Dad had us hunker down. We didn’t leave the bank we were in for well over a week. Stayed in the safe.” You pause. “If we had even threatened to step into that storm, we would’ve been obliterated. That’s the kind of storm Joel is. Unyielding, vengeful.”

“Your comparisons never fail to amaze me, kid,” Marlene commented. “You’re right on the nose. Watch out for Joel Miller.”

He’s nothing if not ruthless.

***

For the first couple of months you’re forced to travel across the country with Joel, you hate him. You hate how dismissive he is of you and you hate how he continues to act like dragging Ellie to the Fireflies who will then make the cure is the worst inconvenience he can possibly experience.

You hate him. You hate him so much because he seems to be able to see right through you. No one has done that since-

Not since him.

Ellie knows who he is. Joel doesn’t. He doesn’t ask why you sometimes wake up with a cry bubbling in the back of your throat, or why your hands always subconsciously drift toward your ring finger when there’s nothing there.

He also doesn’t ask why your hand is almost always lingering on your stomach when he sees you through the cracks in the doors of the rooms you and Ellie sleep in.

He doesn’t ask.

So you don’t tell.

***

You remember the first time he ever saved you from a clicker on your way through Pittsburgh with Joel, Henry, Ellie and Sam. It’s another one of those instances where you can recall things most other people can't: the details people cannot be bothered to remember.

The smell of the tunnel. Damp. Dark. The smell of infected wafting through your nose, a familiar smell now just like the burnt bodies you so often found permeating the air in the QZ.

The click of the shotgun. The desperate shout of Joel’s voice as he tackled that creature to the ground before firing once, twice, three times into its face while you struggled to regain your breath.

The way that, afterward, he’d tossed the gun into Ellie’s arms to take your own into his hands and survey your skin for bites.

“You good, darlin’?” He’d asked, and your brain short-circuited because this was not the same man who'd spent the last several weeks showing you and your sister nothing but utter disdain and contempt.

“Yeah, yeah... I’m good.” You murmur. “Thanks Joel.”

The most memorable part of that particular day - aside from the sunlight and the way it reflected just right against the grey and white of Joel’s hair and his eyes - was the way you had learned that, underneath the rough exterior, he had the same bleeding heart you did.

***

Jackson is nice. It’s clearly the beginnings of what’s meant to become a larger, thriving civilization somewhere down the line, but it’s the first place you’ve been in the last twenty years that feels calm.

Joel’s entire demeanor changes upon arrival, and it’s not until the gates open that you realize why: The man who steps through - and is clearly one of the few in charge - bears a remarkable resemblance to him.

You and Ellie later find out that it’s Tommy. His younger brother.

The details of that newly made memory are astonishingly clear: The curve of Joel’s smile, the feeling of the sunlight, the laughter that echoes as the three of you are led inside.

For once in the last two decades, you have finally met someone who doesn’t have malicious intent.

“So who’s the older girl, Joel?”

“Kid’s sister,” Joel replied curtly. “That’s it.”

Tommy clucked his tongue and shook his head as they entered the water plant. “I know you better then that,” He argued. “Way you look at her? Not just her sister. You’ll figure it out sooner than later even though that thick skull of yours.”

The plant is attacked by the bandits who have been trying to infiltrate the compound for the last couple of months. Your illusion of peace is shattered as you again are forced to take, take, take, until there’s nothing left but bodies to deal with.

That’s when you find out Ellie is gone. You find out Ellie is gone and for the first time in quite a while, you are properly afraid.

And fear fuels you. Just like anger.

Joel knows anger, but he doesn’t know your anger until he has the gall to tell your little sister she doesn’t know what loss is. It’s unfortunate you manage to hear the entire conversation through the bedroom door while staking out the house to ensure you’re in the clear.

She’d run away from Jackson. Why, you don’t know, but you had been more panic then anything else because it was the first time Ellie had ever attempted to do something like that.

You really just wanted to know her reasoning.

“What do you want from me?!” Joel snaps, harsh and sharp, as he storms deeper into the room.

“Admit that you wanted to get rid of me the whole time! Admit that my sister has been nothing but an inconvenience to you and you’ve felt burdened by us both!”

You can’t see Joel’s face. You can’t see his face, but you see the way his body reacts to that statement. He’s trying really hard to keep himself under control. It’s admirable.

They argue for what feels like years. Ellie calls him out, again and again, only to be stonewalled by Joel’s incessant need to keep everyone at arms length and provide as little information about himself and his feelings as possible.

What causes you to storm into the room is the statement that makes the whole world grind to a stop.

“I’m sorry about your daughter, Joel... but I have lost people too.”

“You have no idea what loss is.”

Ellie’s entire aspect shifts into something akin to both horror and shock as you storm into the room, fury radiating from your features, to only then whip Joel Miller around and slap him in the face.

Your handprint burns against his cheek as he stares at you slack jawed, raising his own hand to cradle him jaw. Joel’s seen you do a lot of things. He’s seen you kill, and he’s seen you comfort, but he’s never bore witness to the heart of the storm itself.

He immediately regrets provoking the argument now.

“El,” You say quietly, fury dripping from your words as you grip his shirt with tight fingers. “Go downstairs and join Tommy. Now.”

Ellie doesn’t argue. She never has because she knows better. With a curt nod, your little sister evacuates the room like a flood has just fallen upon it to leave you - the gentle storm versus the vengeful one - alone with Joel.

“Sunshine-”

“Don’t.” You snarl. “Don’t you dare. You don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to telling her she doesn’t know what loss is, you sanctimonious egotistical-” Your hands pound against his chest, once, twice, three times. Every hit makes you just a little more tired. “We all know what loss is, Joel! You’re not the only one who’s had to deal with the funerals!”

Funerals.

Huh.

Snatching your hands with his own, Joel’s response is quiet and extremely unnerving as he murmurs, “We didn’t have funerals. We just burned them.”

You don’t have time to reply. There’s people in the house, and you’re left to slip back into your mask as you remove your gun from its holster and flick the safety off.

You don’t spare Joel a second glance.

***

It’s another dead end. Another dead end full of questions and no answers that leave you asking more that no one seems to be able to give you. There might be nothing here but bodies and unanswered questions, but it does give you one thing that makes it memorable.

The way that Ellie has smiled more now than she has since your parents and Riley died. You don’t try to intervene, to make yourself apart of what are undoubtedly her memories to carry, so you watch.

It’s enough.

It’s pretty straight forward into the University - nothing, nothing, and more nothing - until you’re ambushed by another group that has you and Joel fighting hand to hand for the first time in a while.

You’ve only just managed to incapacitate yours when a resounding crash sounds from outside, and you just barely see the telltale salt-and-pepper hair go careening over the edge of the balcony.

Seeing Joel like that.. That’s the second time you’ve known the same fear in such a short amount of time: Fear of loss.

There’s me, the fool with the slow heart who dared to think I could love someone else again.

***

The storms feels like it’s dwindling now. Like it’s simply the kind you get in the early hours of the morning in December, where the clouds are thick and gray and cover the entire sky as snow slowly falls to stick upon the chilled earth.

Joel Miller has been this unyielding, fierce storm that threatens to tear everything apart from the moment you met him in Boston. He’s cold. Calculating. Sharp. You’ve seen what he’s capable of - and reacted quite violently the first time, you hadn’t realized the human body held that much blood - and have experienced the ramifications of what such things can do.

The nightmares, the abrasiveness, the need to push everyone away because it’s simply easier than allowing yourself to love something that death can touch.

You’ve always known Joel to be a storm, but since Ellie - and you, though you just don’t know it yet - have wormed into his heart, the storm has dwindled. It’s gentler. Softer. More willing to listen to reason, to fight for something other then himself.

The rough exterior that turns so many people away is slowly giving to show who’s under the surface.

You were almost positive that your heart was going to give out when you watched Joel fall from Ellie’s horse. You’d barely been able to do anything about the wound he’d obtained from the rebar at the university, using what meager means of medical supplies you had in your saddlebags to pack and dress it so the bleeding stopped.

Ellie had watched you from the top of Callus as you carried him to the horse and slowly eased him into her arms.

“Do you think he’s gonna make it?” She asked you later, long after you’d lost sight of the school over your shoulder.

“I hope so, El.” You reply quietly. “I don’t know what we’ll do if he doesn’t.” It’s half a truth with a confession hidden in between of your true feelings toward the matter. You’d spent so much time watching Joel - learning about the inner workings of a man your heart aches to know, to heal, to love - that you weren’t sure what you’d do if his steady, sure presence wasn’t around anymore.

The three of you have made your home inside a garage in an abandoned neighborhood when the snowfall hits. Ellie volunteers to take care of the horses while you situate yourself and Joel into a crude attempt of a sleeping situation inside, pushing two of the remaining mattresses together and scrounging up blankets for you to shield yourselves from the cold.

You don’t like how pale he is. His wound isn’t infected, which is good, but his heartbeat is too weak and you can’t help yourself from feeling somewhat responsible.

“Joel Miller,” You whisper, long after Ellie is gone and it’s just the sound of uneven breathing and the pounding of your heart from where you lay curled around him on the pair of mattresses. “You’ve gone and gotten yourself into my blood stream. You’re not allowed to give up on me. On us. Do you understand?”

Joel doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t answer. You don’t expect him to, but part of you wishes he’d open those dark brown eyes and gaze up at you with all the longing and desperation you’ve felt towards him since... since.

The bitter cold that settles in your bones is an alarming reminder that you need to curl around Joel to preserve body heat. Last thing you need is him dying of hyperthermia.

“Don’t leave us,” You whisper again, curling your fingers into his hair as you tuck your body around his own and press your chin against the top of his head. “Don’t leave us.”

We can’t take another funeral.

***

The first time Joel wakes up is the day before Ellie leaves for another hunting trip. She’s scrounged up a meager amount of supplies through the houses in the neighborhood, just enough for you to get by, but you can’t help but feel the weight of the guilt settling in your stomach when you hear Ellie’s stomach growl halfway through the night.

It’s not like you’re sleeping anyway.

Joel’s sudden state of awareness is brought upon by the fingers raking through his hair and the warmth that touches his skin from the body wrapped around him. It’s odd, foreign. After so many years of isolating himself from other people, he hadn’t realized how much he craved physical contact.

And the burn that follows is enough to make him groan.

“Joel?” Immediately your hands are at his sides, Ellie’s face just above his head as his vision swims. The pain is muted. Numb. He’s barely feeling is because he’s far too distracted by your hands. “Can you hear me? I’m going to check your wound again. If you stay awake enough, I want you to eat.”

Ellie has taken his head into her lap before he can protest. Joel is awake just enough to say your name, low and hoarse, before his vision swims with black spots and the last thing he can remember is the burn.

He can remember the burn, and he can remember how you made him feel in the midst of it. Peaceful. Safe.

Joel Miller has never known peaceful or safe. Not since her. Not since Sarah.

And as he succumbs to sleep, he finds that he wants to know it more.

***

Ellie’s been gone for too long. You know she’s been gone for too long, and you haven’t heard from her on the walkies the two of you had found a couple of weeks before.

She’s been gone too long. You need to go find her.

That’s the second and final time Joel wakes up.

You’re halfway through loading his shotgun when he finally comes to, wide eyed and alert as his hands scramble for purchase on the closest weapon to him. “Easy, Joel,” You chide gently. “It’s just me.”

Something settles in him. He seems at ease with your answer.

“Where’s-” Joel grunts as he sits up, pressing a hand to his side as he does so. You ease the shotgun to the side and kneel down to his level to meet the worry in his gaze. “Where’s Ellie?”

Your frown deepens. “She went out to hunt too long ago,” You reply. “I was just about to secure this place and then go look for her.”

“Why didn’t you?”

You fidget nervously with your hands as your gaze drops into your lap. “I didn’t want to leave you alone, Joel.”

He wants to scold you. Joel wants to chastise you for such a foolish decision when your sister’s life is on the line, but he can’t find it in him to do so because your gaze is so genuine. He’s not used to that.

Joel Miller is not used to real.

Pressing a gentle thumb to the divot in your chin, you’re captivated by the way the condescension and hostility in his demeanor is gone as he slowly moves his fingers to cup the curve of your jaw. “Thank you,” He murmurs gratefully. “But now we need to go find Ellie.” A pause. “Are you ready to do what we need to do, if it gets bad?”

He always asks you this. Right before he has to embrace the side of himself that scares you, that you’ve tried so hard to keep at bay, Joel warns you about it.

“Yeah. Yeah...” You pump the shotgun in response and press it against your hip. “Yeah, I am.”

It’s uncanny how quickly you’ve learned how to slip into your masks. The mask of the gentle, compassionate woman that Joel had only just gotten to know disappears in the face of the violence he’s so accustomed to - shifting into something darker, more apathetic, more willing to do what needs to be done.

Even for the sake of one life.

You don’t even flinch when he starts torturing two of the men patrolling the neighborhood you’ve called home for the last few days. Not when the screaming starts. not when the blood pours.

“Now, the girl. Is she alive?”

“What girl? I don’t know no girl!”

The poor idiot doesn’t start talking until Joel has driven his blade clear through his knee. According to his endless rambling, your kid sister has become the newest pet to someone named David.

And that makes you see red.

You don't blink twice when both bodies lay motionless on the ground.

“Hey Joel?”

“Yeah, sunshine.”

“When we find this David,” You drag your fingers across the expanse of his shoulders to rest them on the exposed skin of his neck. His pulse thrums steadily under your touch. “I’m going to be the one to put the bullet in his face.”

***

The storm has died down to a newly fallen December snow. The temper has eased, and the anger has dissipated - only to be directed toward the people who are most deserving of it - into something that searches, that yearns, for something.

Snow melts. Snow melts and reveals what lays beneath it.

You’re just inside of the Salt Lake City limits when it happens. You’re the one who volunteered to take watch while Joel and Ellie slept. The three of you were nearly in the endgame now being so close to the Firefly hospital. Once your sister was taken there, the world would finally be saved.

And you could finally settle. No more running, no more existing.

Chewing absently on the inside of your cheek, you fiddle with the edge of your rifle from your lookout point over your camp. You’re almost too deep into your thoughts to hear him scream.

But he doesn’t just scream. Joel screams Sarah’s name, and everything becomes astonishingly clear as to why he has been the way he is. Ellie had told you about Tommy trying to slip Joel the last photo of him and his daughter before the outbreak. How he’d refused it. How he, to this day, remained adamant that his departed little girl would never be a topic of conversation.

No one warns you about the loss of a child.

“Easy, Joel,” You warn, shouldering your rifle as you climb down from the tree to sit beside the bed. His shaking fingers are wrapped tightly around the hilt of his blade. “There’s just a couple of hours until the sun comes up. You thirsty?”

Dark eyes flicker to the next bedroll. Ellie is still sleeping.

“No,” He replies gruffly. “But thanks.”

There’s a long moment of companionable silence that passes as you sit beside him, finally feeling courageous enough to spill your heart at his feet, “For all those months when we started this, I hated you. I hated you because you clearly hated me-”

“First off,” Joel interjects sharply. “Never been a time in which I hated you. Don’t know what gave you that assumption.”

“So if it wasn’t hate, then what was it? I’m not an expert at reading Joel Miller,” You shrug. “At least not yet.”

The sun is just beginning to creep over the edges of the three line in front of you. The sky above is shifting from the deep black to a soft, gentle blue that will shift into the golds and oranges of dawn.

You’re running out of time.

Joel swallows the knot in his throat as he contemplates his answer. Giving the real answer means being real and vulnerable. He’s not sure if he’s ready for that yet.

He’s not sure if he’s ready for that but with the open, earnest way you’re looking at him? He’ll get there eventually.

“Sarah was my daughter,” Joel says quietly. He can’t look at you. If he looks at you while he says this he will come apart at the seams. “She died at the start of the epidemic. Longer that goes by, more I’m almost.. grateful.” The words are sour on his tongue. It sounds so wrong. “She was too good for a world like this one. Too pure. Any kind of innocence I had was gone a long time ago. I was made for this kind of life,” His eyes slowly shift to meet yours. You haven’t taken your gaze off of his face once. “You and Ellie weren’t.”

You smile. “That’s sweet, Joel. Really. But you could not know-”

“I do know. I know because you have something that doesn’t exist anymore.’’

You tip your head to the side in confusion. “Which is?”

“Goodness. Compassion. You’re real,” Joel pauses, running his tongue along his teeth. “That’s why it looked like I hated you. I hated you because I was afraid of how real you are. How gentle you are.”

“Why would that be something you’d fear?” You ask softly.

“Because I don’t deserve that kind of thing, Sunshine. Goodness? Compassion? All the soft things that died with my little girl?” He shakes his head. “Those aren’t something you give to someone like me.”

You’d noticed over the last couple of months that every time you touched Joel, he recoiled like he had been burned. You’d seen that before too. It was the look often accompanied by the quiet desire to seek more of something you’d been deprived of: The look of a touch starved man.

It was why you’d been more deliberate in starting slow. Cheek touches, chin touches, gentle fingers raking through his hair to scrape across his scalp and kisses to bloodied knuckles on the nights things were bad.

If he wanted real, if he wanted peace, you were more then willing to give it to him.

“I had a son,” You whisper. This is not something you are ready to divulge to Ellie. Not yet. “He was born around the same time she was, though she never knew it,” Something akin to realization flickers through his eyes before he’s opening his mouth to apologize, most likely, but you hush him with a raised hand as you continue. “He died before he ever turned one.”

You didn’t want to continue. It was still too fresh. Too raw. He would’ve been fifteen soon.

Joel took your hand into his own and spread your fingers apart, dragging the tips of his own fingers across the back of each of yours before lifting them to his lips to kiss all your fingertips.

“They have a word for someone who’s lost a spouse. What do you call someone who lost a child?”

And there it is, that quiet understanding you share that makes you ache to pull back what remains of his walls and finally reveal the man who lay underneath.

You hum thoughtfully as you then lean forward to just barely graze your lips against his cheek.

That’s also the same time Ellie decides to wake up. She sees the way your silhouettes cast across the grass as the rays of early morning light emerge from over the trees. She sees the way Joel leans into you like he’s seeking something, and she sees the way scarlet dusts your cheeks when you finally pull away.

Hm.

Seems like you’ve finally found what you’re looking for.

***

Everything finally feels right. You’ve finally started down a path that ends with Joel realizing that you love him, with Joel realizing that he’s deserving, and with you hopefully realizing that he’s been reciprocating for quite some time.

The three of you are at the hospital in Salt Lake after being caught in the flood. You’re the one who took the most damage. Battered and bruised, Joel is left to watch helplessly from your bedside as you sleep. He’d only just woken up himself in the same state.

Marlene comes in much, much later to tell you what’s going on with Ellie. What the real cure is, what it will do to her.

And suddenly, again, everything comes screeching to a halt.

This is the story of how, despite everything between you and Joel going right, everything begins to go wrong and you’re left with a decision that will inevitably cost you your sister.

All of those lives, for the sake of one.... is it worth it?

Haven’t I given enough?

part two??? :D

#The Last of Us #tlou #tlou1 #Joel Miller #Joel Miller x Reader #Joel x Reader

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angelicyouth · 1 year

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Youth ; Chapter 15

⇢ pairing: kenny mccormick x marsh!reader x craig tucker

⇢ synopsis: ❝Growing up with the boys as the sole girl of the group, it was only natural for them to grow protective over their pseudo-little sister as the years went by.❞

⇢ [AO3 link] ; [series masterlist] ; [previous] ; [next]

The shrill sound of the telephone wakes up the sleep deprived group of teens slouching in on each other for more comfort. The rickety chairs that have been more or less their tentative homes in the recent days squeak and groan at every movement of their too-large bodies as they shift to forced consciousness.

Their bleary eyes scream at them when they fight off the last dregs of sleep desperately begging to bring them back into its embrace, the glowing numbers of the clock hanging on the wall announcing to them that the time is now currently 2:48AM. Tired hands come up to their faces, languid in its motion as it takes a couple of times to direct the appendage to wipe at their sleep encrusted eyes when it repeatedly misses its intended target.

Hearing the muffled words coming in through the transparent window separating the boys from the detectives at their desks, Stan immediately shoots up in his seat when he hears my name being tossed around. He shushes the tired groaning of the others, bringing a hand up as a nonverbal command to keep their bodies still.

Results.

Phone tracking.

Location.

Now.

This is the last thing the elder Marsh hears before he clumsily heaves his body up, hands blindly reaching for his jacket to throw onto his rushing form as he runs out of the double doors leading to the outside world of the police department.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

A sea of luxurious silk linen lightly caresses every curve of my body, the softness of the mattress surrounding my form as I lay in the depths of its smooth embrace. I’m seated upright in the temporary fortress that I’ve woken up in since the day of my abduction—a four poster queen sized bed with a canopy of gentle white, the soft material cascading down into billowing curtains over the metal rods that support the structure.

Shackled around my ankles are a cool metal, heavy in its weight and linked to the bedposts at the base of the two rods in front of me. Higher above the swollen, red skin that’s been uncomfortably chaffed into tenderness from my confines is nothing but a babydoll dress made up of black lace adorning my frame.

To erase anything from your old life, they had said.

Sick pervert, I had thought back in discontent.

My wrists are currently screaming in searing pain, the bones that make up my non-dominant hand dislocated and mangled beyond belief as I forcibly slip it free from the rough texture of the ropes that bind them together. I will myself with all of my might to not pass out from my self-inflicted agony as my head becomes increasingly light, the mounting dizziness forcing black spots to teeter into the edge of peripherals.

Body trembling from the excruciating torment, I can feel my perspiration begin to lightly bead against my hairline as I force my shaking hands to bring the thick cord back around my wrist to keep up the illusion of detainment. My throat tightens around itself as I force the bile that threatens to come out back down from the burning feeling. I try to focus on the distinctive, copper taste that my teeth invokes from my lip in an effort to discourage any sounds from escaping my mouth.

I curse inside my head when the door to the room opens up, my perpetrator perching themself down onto the length of the bed in front of me. Their added weight makes my body lean closer to theirs, the slight shift of my faux bonded hands behind my back making me want to scream into oblivion. In stark contrast to the binds that keep me in place, their touch is gentle as they carefully bring the metal edge of a spoon towards my lips, silently urging me to take in a mouthful of food.

My head stays slightly lowered in submission, my eyes never making eye contact when a few seconds pass by with no movement on either end. I don’t even flinch when my captor predictably loses their temper at my disobedience, the piping hot bowl of soup getting thrown at the nearest wall when I refuse to eat.

As always, my assailant will become violently upset when I don’t part my mouth for any sort of nutrition they try to provide me with and I wonder when it will inevitably turn into their seething appendages against my flesh. My eyes don’t waver from its unrelenting focus onto a particular spot on the blanket covering the bed as they loudly curse to themself at my predictive unwillingness to cooperate, their thundering footsteps echoing out into the hallways before they come back to clean up the mess they have made.

Investing their time into bringing the room back to its orderly state allows them enough moments to calm down before they resume their undivided attention to my still form, their body settling back down onto their previous position from before their little tantrum. A warm yet damp washcloth glides over my smooth skin, running along the droplets of stew that became a casualty in its demise as my perpetrator’s hands softly tend to me.

“... I’m sorry you had to see me like that. You know that I just care about you, right? I wouldn’t ever hurt you. It only worries me when you don’t eat.” Their voice is hushed in the otherwise quiet room and my mouth remains shut.

I have not deemed my captor worthy of my voice for anything unnecessary since the kidnapping and they routinely sigh at my expected muteness, their larger hand coming up to lightly cradle my cheek when my skin is deemed soup-free. I’ve been extremely selective with what I say, the rare times my lips part to let out my thoughts are when I ask them to let me talk to or see my friends and family—nothing more.

My throat is sore from disuse and my refusal to drink even a bit of water. I don’t even allow myself the short respite of sleep because if I do, the waking world will greet me with severe disorientation and a panic attack when my eyes settle onto my unknown location. I didn’t need my captor rushing into the room from my distressed cries and screaming to comfort me, not wanting a repeat of the first time it happened. The less contact with each other, the better.

My assailant’s thumb is almost nonexistent, my brain not registering the carefully gentle movements as they attempt to soothe the soft skin of my cheek as I begin to disassociate. “You haven’t eaten anything since you’ve came and you don’t talk to me. I’m just trying to help you, you know? You’re safer here and I can give you anything you want, Y/N… I can make you happy.”

Better than most situations, yes.

But it was still disgusting, to be frank.

Almost vile.

Sickening.

Granted, my perpetrator didn’t mistreat me in any way or intentionally inflict any abuse either physically or psychologically onto my person. But, their sick delusions in keeping me locked up for their own selfishness made me sick to my stomach—the obsession this person harbored that grew until they couldn’t hold themselves back any longer when they saw me alone at the parking lot.

The one, rare moment that I wasn’t seen with any of the boys and they jumped at the opportunity. Just thinking about it brings up the nauseating question: how long have they been closely watching me to seize such an infrequent occasion?

There’s a stretch of silence between the two of us before they sigh in defeat from my unwavering stubbornness and I try my absolute hardest to refrain from sneering in disgust when they plant a gentle kiss onto my forehead. My jaw tightly clenches and my eyebrows crease together as I feel my anger manifest into the physical remnants of tears beginning to thinly coat my eyes in frustration.

I count it as a small victory when nothing escapes from my eyes—they didn’t deserve my tears.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

It’s a whole operation, one with full combat gear and everything. Exhilaration fills everybody’s system as they follow the glaring colors of red and blue sitting on top of the multitude of police cruisers rushing down the desolate streets of South Park.

It’s quiet in the car, the teens forgoing the sound of music in exchange of the wailing sirens from the Tactical Response automobiles that they closely keep their eyes on. The prospect of finally getting their missing member back fills every pore in their body with a nervous thrum of anticipation, hands trembling on their seated laps in bottled up energy as they come across a swarm of officers exchanging words and talking into radios behind the police tape.

When the boys unload the two vehicles that they all crammed into, they’re predictably denied entry from getting closer to the site as they were deemed unauthorized personnel. They instead take the time to take in their surroundings and from mere observation, it seems that the signal they traced from the phone call brought them to an industrial block close to seemingly nowhere.

Most of the buildings seemed to be factories and warehouses, almost eerily abandoned from the husks of cement that encloses them. The windows adorning the stretch of structures are eerily dark, resembling the empty eye sockets of a person in its lifelessness.

Kyle subtly motions his head in the direction of the surveillance van that is heavily armored and the group catches his nonverbal cue as they pretend to leisurely check out the area in order to bring their bodies closer. From their position, they can see an abundance of green-tinged surveillance screens and a multitude of unfamiliar electronics that flash LED lights.

Interlaced with the humming and whirring of the electrical devices, they can hear a detective murmuring directions into their mouthpiece as they keep their eyes glued to a live feed of one of the helmets of the men inside. The night vision of the cameras give the screens beyond the mess of wires and cables a green hue, looking similar to the ones you’d see in ghost documentaries or horror movies.

Suddenly, words become more rushed and frantic as fingers rapidly begin to dance along the keyboards stationed inside the array of devices, the boys instantly surging into impulsive action when they hear the words: getting away.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

My lack of clothing causes goosebumps to arise all over my body as it hits the cold Colorado air, my perpetrator hastily shoving me into an unmarked van in an attempt to put distance between us and the frenzy of law enforcement that steadily gets louder as they approach our location. Curses cut through the air of anxiety ridden breathing when we suddenly hear loud footsteps, a foreign body suddenly tackling my assailant from behind.

Taking this opportunity of transferred attention, I finally cease my charade of faux restraint as I push the tangle of bodies away from me to run in the opposite direction and take cover to the closest area. The sound of scuffling continues with the added noise of yells so I keep my body hidden in a mixture of nervous anxiety, not wanting this sliver of hope to diminish if I were to be seen.

My body curves in on itself as I crouch as low to the ground as I can while my hands cover my ears, shaking fingers curling over my unwashed hair as I pray that no one finds me. I force myself to pay attention to the pieces of gravel painfully digging into my bare feet while I try to regulate my breathing, my body hunching in on itself even further to insulate more heat.

It isn’t until the sounds of grunts and fists making contact with flesh come to a stop that I chance a peek over the broken rubble of what was possibly a wall long ago. My eyes widen in surprise when I see that my boys have come to my rescue, covered in an array of both cuts and bruises with their chests rapidly heaving up and down from exertion.

The moment of elation immediately turns into dread when I see that my captor has unfortunately obtained a new hostage in my absence, the air thick with newfound tension. Butters winces at the tightening arms locked around him, his hands shooting upwards to soothe the exerted force of the headlock he’s in.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Adrenaline starts to pump through my veins as I try to desperately rack my brain for any ideas on what to do when something catches my eyes. The reflection of moonlight creates a glare over its shiny cover, the item that piqued my interest under stray pieces of rubble. I silently make my way to the object and feel the corner of my lips quirk up when I’ve identified the heavy steel as a compact handgun—a fully functioning glock that must’ve been knocked away during the altercation minutes ago.

I would say that I’m pretty adept with using the weapon—my Uncle Jimbo having taught my brother and I at a young age whenever he took us out to spontaneous camping trips as a sport, but most importantly to teach us a decidedly lethal form of self defense. He began to take us to shooting ranges instead, however, when our combined stubbornness caused us to refuse the purposeful harm of inflicting wounds on innocent animals.

I step out of the concrete camouflaging my body to reveal myself, my face devoid of any expression and my voice flat yet loud. “Let him go.”

“Y/N!” All of the boys exclaim in relief when they spot me but I don’t acknowledge any of them, refusing to look away from my target for even just a second to allow them an opportunity of escape.

My perpetrator’s eyes widen behind the material concealing their identity when they land on my form, a black ski mask with just a large oval cut out of it for their vision. They laugh, irritatingly confident with fake assurance of our time together.

“Come on, babe. You wouldn’t shoot me. Now be a good girl and come back here so I can let your little friend go.”

I let a few beats of silence go by and when time proves that they won’t relent, I tiredly close my eyes.

Breathe in, and out.

Concentrate.

My chest rises up as I inhale a deep yet steady breath to bring clarity into my mind, my neck leisurely rolling my head around before I grant myself my vision back and focus. Steadily bringing my arms up into the stance deeply ingrained into my body from my adolescence, my fingers take off the safety to pull the trigger and shoot.

The sudden onslaught of meticulously thought out bullets causes my assailant to drop Butters in their surprise, but none of the shots I take pierce at their skin. I only have the metal pieces graze at the fluttering material of their clothes in warning and the outline of their body in an effort to intimidate them. I walk forward with confidence, expertly dropping the first magazine and quickly reloading it as I let muscle memory take over.

In my ruthless shooting, I don’t take notice of Kyle whacking both Craig and Kenny behind their heads in admonishment when their lips slightly part at the sight of me in awe. Deep vermillion shades their cheeks despite the situation, their hands distractedly coming up to pat Butters in reassurance when the blonde hastily makes his way back to the group.

My eyebrows don’t even furrow in my unwavering concentration, my face apathetically blank as I finally stand in front of my disguised perpetrator. The conservative amount of openings on their mask doesn’t provide much but the sight of their eyes is all I need to know that their body is racked with fear.

Without breaking eye contact, I reach into the front pocket of their flannel shirt to lightly graze my fingers against the box of cigarettes that I know is almost permanently etched in there. Bringing a stick up to my lips, I light it up with the lighter kept in the box for convenience and languidly inhale the toxic fumes until it fills up my lungs.

Tendrils of smoke begins to slowly leak from my mouth before I mockingly blow a stream of it onto my assailant's face, my eyes lazily trailing down when I see the growing pool of wetness that forms between the material of their shaking legs. The pungent smell of urine invades my nostrils from our close proximity and I cruelly smirk around the rolled-up nicotine, my hand bringing the pistol in between their eyes.

I slowly lift up my unoccupied hand, ignoring its screams for medical attention as I lightly graze the cheek of the person in front of me. Gently grasping the course material covering their face in between my fingers, I take my time in lifting it further up and away from their head.

The boys behind me suck in a sharp breath when it’s finally revealed that it was none other than the teen that approached me at North Park Funland’s food court when I was waiting for the guys to grab lunch.

“What the fuck?” Someone exclaims from behind me in a mixture of confusion and exasperation, desperately grasping onto the faint remnants of memories that contain the face in front of us.

Pressing the cool metal further against his skin in threat aides him to nervously speak up, his mind running at a million miles per hour as he answers the unprompted questions in all of our heads.

“Don’t you recognize me, Y/N?” Despite the anxiety overcoming his body, there’s a manic grin that begins to stretch wide on his face yet I continue to keep my face devoid of any emotion.

He laughs and the sound of it makes everyone in its vicinity uncomfortable, the madness and hysteria in his tone sharply bleeding through his vocal chords. “See, this is why I took you. I bet you only remember me from the time I came up to you at the amusement park, huh? I went to North Park High with you, and I loved you. You never dated anyone so I thought you returned my affection too, just waiting for me to finally gather up the courage to speak to you.”

“… Holy shit.” A voice exclaims from behind me at the deranged confession.

“But before I could, you suddenly disappeared at the beginning of sophomore year. I was devastated, Y/N. How could you do that to someone who loves you? How could you do that to us? How could you just leave me so easily? When I finally saw you back at the amusement park at North Park, I thought you finally came back. I knew I had to talk to you when I took all of the times that I could have for granted but when I finally did, these bastards interrupted. They took you from me, Y/N.”

A shaky hand reaches forward in an attempt to caress my cheek but I just press the cool metal harder onto the skin of his face in wordless threat. “You understand, right, Y/N? That I had to do it, for us. They changed you—you weren’t like this last year so I knew it was all of their faults.”

My eyes apathetically blink slowly at the pleadings leaking out of the mouth in front of me, the glowing embers of my cigarette casting a warm light against the visage of the begging teen in front of me. The mixture of shades are reminiscent of the color I’d associate with the blazing pits of Hell, a place that’d be worthy of housing the pathetic figure in front of me.

“Just come with me, Y/N. I didn’t hurt you, right? I showed you that I could take care of you and I wasn’t lying when I said that I could make you happy. Come on, Y/N. Let’s go.” He offers me a placating smile, wobbly around the corners yet gentle all the same. But despite the soft way his lips curve around his cheeks and how his voice noticeably lightens when addressing me, the deranged undertone of his intentions cannot be ignored.

A beat of silence stretches on as everyone tentatively soaks up the onslaught of information, a whistle cutting through the area. “… What the actual fuck.”

“This guy is actually batshit insane.”

“More like pathetically delusional.”

“You sick fuck! I swear I’ll bash your fucking head in!”

“N/N! Back up before he tries to do something!”

In answer to everything and everyone, my wrist fluidly turns the object in my hand around to harshly slam the butt of the gun onto his face. When his hands shoot up to nurse the blood streaming down from his now crooked nose, I pounce on his larger form and begin my assault on his face with my relentless fists.

There’s a small quirk to my lips when I hear the satisfying sound of his bone crunching underneath my knuckles, the voice below me just begging for reprieve. The point of contact between the both of us that I know will inflict a world of hurt causes an overwhelming sense of euphoria, the body trembling underneath me in both unadulterated fear and absolute pain.

For the first time in days, I feel good.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

My revenge didn’t get as far as I would have liked it before a cacophony of panicked voices fill the air at my merciless revenge, arms settling themselves over my waist as they heft my body away from my assailant. When the distance between us steadily grows, I take petty satisfaction in spitting at the vivid reds and deep purples beginning to bloom in a sea of blood.

When my cigarette is but a slowly diminishing roach, my hands flail to extinguish the flame onto the skin of his face. I struggle for a bit as a scream of anguish rips out of the gurgle of blood in his throat but my quick attempt as a last resort of revenge proves to be fatal when my perpetrator quickly grabs onto my mangled wrist.

I yell in excruciating pain as they purposefully exert force in the hold that they have over me, knowledgeable of the tender skin laying underneath their grip and using it to their advantage. Their unoccupied hand hurriedly reaches into the denim of the back pocket of their jeans, the arms wrapped around me frantically trying to pull me further away as I desperately try to wrench back my screaming wrist.

Their efforts prove to be successful as if in slow motion, a syringe filled with a sickly green gets brandished before they try to stab the thin metal into the expanse of skin onto the arms wrapped around me. I can physically feel the color drain from my face when I can feel a slight pinch in my skin come from the needle being ruthlessly jammed into my arm in its haste, my veins beginning to feel like they’re burning as he mistakenly injects me with a foreign liquid.

My body immediately falls limp like a puppet whose strings got cut off at the unknown intrusion, the other boys quickly tackling my assailant to properly hold him down. He begins to maniacally laugh as he eerily smiles at me, my eyes glassy and distant as I stare back. It’s like I have no control of my body, my mind desperately willing my fingers and toes to move, to do anything but all my attempts are otherwise unacknowledged by my body.

I can’t do anything as I fall onto the rough asphalt of the floor, pieces of gravel painfully digging into my exposed body as Tweek falls from my unexpected dead weight. The blond cushions the rest of my body as he cradles me in his lap, my head facing up into the dark sky from my new position.

There are no stars up above to provide me Craig’s gift of everlasting comfort, I realize.

Tweek’s shaking hands push my limp head to the crook of his elbow, my form draped across the safe solace of his lap as he adjusts my body for comfort. Slender fingers tremble as they try to clumsily push away the stray strands of hair that fell over my face, my sticky cheeks making it harder as silky locks are wet from the tears that were invoked when my assailant forcibly applied pressure to my self-mutilated wrist.

My body feels as if it’s alight in pure hell as every single cell in my body begins screaming at me, willing it to do anything to rid my system of this tortuous sensation. Tears begin to gather at the corner of my eyes, my vision glassy and unfocused at the pure agony that my nerves rapidly signal to my brain for some desperate help.

“Guys! GUYS!” In my silent suffering, I fail to notice the apprehension of my prior classmate as the boys begin to quickly gather around me at the sounds of Tweek’s frantic yelling.

His erratic fingers continue to desperately push away the locks of hair obscuring my vision, his chest quickly heaving up and down in panic as he takes in my state. “Ngh! She hasn’t moved since the guy injected her with something—she hasn’t even BLINKED!”

“What?!” Kenny roars in anger, not comprehending how the situation got even worse than it already was at the slight error on their part for not quickly capturing my perpetrator as soon as I started attacking.

“What the fuck did you do?! Fucking ANSWER ME!” My brother thunders out loud this time, but nobody can provide an explanation as they watch my terrifyingly still body.

Kenny shoves his way to where Tweek has me, the blonde getting roughly pushed aside as I’m forcibly transferred onto another lap, the new face revealing itself to be my blonde lover. His brows are furrowed in frustration and his normally crystal-like eyes have a thin film of cloudy tears around it, threatening to break free when he heaves a shaky breath out at seeing my unresponsive face.

“No. No, no, no. Princess?” His whisper is so feeble and weak, his normally confident and easygoing voice utterly distressed as he frantically scans my face for any detection of life.

“Come on, baby. Don’t do this to me, please. No more, I just got you back.” Shaky hands gently grasp at one of my shoulders, softly urging me to do something as his pleading voice transitions into feeble begging.

He lightly presses his forehead against my own, his fingers softly grasping onto my hair and twirling it around his fingers as an outlet to release his nervous energy. My body screams out at him but no one can hear me, my form as limp as ever and still burning. However, Kenny’s arms wrapped around me so securely after so long apart causes a bit of relief from my own internal torment.

He can’t help the sob that shakes his entire body at its sheer magnitude when I don’t respond to his familiar touch or the soothing cadence of his voice like I usually do after minutes of trying. The blonde’s breathing becomes increasingly panicked, every inhale and exhale of his chest shaking my own form as he cradles me against his clothed one.

“Always and forever, remember? You can’t leave me now. We’re supposed to get old and grey and when our lives are almost done, you’re supposed to grin and turn to me and Tucker and tell us all about how much fucking fun you had.” His voice comes out in broken whispers, almost becoming delirious from his haywire emotions in its rawness and how utterly torn it sounded.

As ironic as it is, up until this moment the blonde truly thought he knew death. Dying as often as he did, Kenny figured that it could never get worse after all of his gruesome experiences with it. But it never quite prepared him to consider the other perspective of it, to watch someone else pass and the foreign emotions that came with this new territory. He’s lost his limbs, even his own heart, but he has never felt such a loss like this in his entire life.

In the privacy of the darkness that overtakes his room with nightfall, he would consume a conspicuous amount of alcohol and drugs in order to numb the pain of constantly dying. But after the discovery that I’d remember if he left, he realized that he didn’t need all of that anymore when he knew that someone was expecting him back. That sole moment of discovery was an absolute dream come true because Kenny absolutely hated dying, the way the hurt never got better and how it made him feel so forgettable and insignificant.

It was the reason he opted to take home economics in elementary school instead of the shop class filled with sharp material and dangerous equipment with the rest of the boys. It was the reason he chose to be a fucking princess in their fantasy role-playing game, wanting to be the one who got saved for once in his life from his intimate relationship with death and his time as Mysterion, the superhero who rescued others.

Because he never understood—who saved him while he always saved everyone else?

But at this very moment, he thinks about how he’d gladly take my place if it meant seeing my smile again. Despite how much he grew up absolutely dreading the familiar emptiness that came whenever he woke up to the water-stained ceiling of his bedroom. Regardless of the way the people he held so dearly to him acted so normal when he came back, as if something wasn’t amiss despite their swollen red eyes or the lingering smell of alcohol on Stan’s breath.

Because to Kenny, the blonde saw the heavens every single time my lips curved in happiness. And he didn’t want to lose the one good in his unfortunate life full of poverty provided by his deadbeat parents.

Not now, not ever. Not when there was still a promise of always and forever.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

Red locks suddenly appear in my peripherals, a large hand going over my chest as Kyle leans his head closer to my still body. After a few seconds, he places his fingers on the pulse of my neck and wrist before ultimately placing a finger in front of my nose.

“… There’s no sign of breathing.” It feels like a cold bucket of water drenches my body at the curly haired teen's whispered words, my mind screaming that no, I’m still alive.

“How the—but she was just… Is she dead..?! Please don't tell me she's dead.” Clyde’s panic-stricken voice wobbly sounds out from somewhere to my left, the boys yelling out shocked expletives at Kyle’s solemn announcement.

“There’s just no way. Try again, Kyle. Please.”

“No. No, no, no. Not her. Please, not N/N.”

“Are you sure you checked correctly? Maybe it’s faint, check the pulse on her neck or wrist again!”

“How..? She was just breathing.”

All variations of false hope, all coming to the same conclusions no matter who checks and how. Stan doesn’t relent in his desperate attempts, determined to hear the sound that belongs to the other half of him.

It just didn't make any sense, it couldn’t even register in his mind despite everyone’s efforts and their repeated confirmation. I’ve always been there with him. Who was Stan Marsh if not the twin of Y/N?

My heartbeat is all that he's ever known, the one thing he’s so sure of in a universe filled to the brim with the undiscovered. It’s something that he's so in tune with—he knew the exact beats of it and could recognize the warmth of it whenever he was near me. But right now as I lay still with my eyes wide and glassy, it was like listening to deafening static and hoping for nothing.

I would’ve jolted if I had control of my limbs as an agonized scream sharply cuts through the air, my brother’s voice full of anguish at the reveal. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!”

“You better speak the fuck up or I swear to fucking God that you’ll wish the police got to you before we did.” Craig’s monotonous voice rings out from somewhere to my side, my screaming brain wailing out to my raven-haired lover because I feel scared even in the comforting presence of the others.

I hear something loudly make contact with the ground, my perpetrator grunting a little further away. “FUCKING DO SOMETHING! YOU WANTED US, RIGHT? NOT HER! YOU WANTED TO MAKE HER HAPPY YET YOU STILL DID THIS TO HER! TAKE ME INSTEAD!”

In the quietness of the night, so soft that it’s almost hard to hear he speaks again. “Please. Please, just take me instead.”

The raw pain colored in Craig’s voice hurts my apparently unbeating heart even more, his voice breaking apart as it dissolves into a small plea at the end of his sentence in unadulterated desperation. A drop of liquid falls onto my face as he threatens the teen and my eyes shift up to see Kenny softly weeping over me, the sight making my heart feel like it's breaking into a million pieces as I desperately wish to just reach out and soothe the weeping boy.

Nobody says anything, the sound of sobbing and sniffling the only thing filling the air.

When the blonde pulls me closer to his chest in order to bring my limp body into a tight hug, the slight alteration to my position allows me to see Craig as he takes a few quick strides to where he threw my assailant. The groaning teen begins to cry out in pain when the ravenette intentionally grabs him by the shoulder where a deep crimson begins to bleed through his jacket.

“FUCK YOU, you sick fuck. I can’t believe you’d kill someone you claim to love. If you make it out of this alive, just remember: when you killed her, you didn’t kill just one person.” He raises his fist and roughly slams it against the already battered visage of the bleary eyed teen in front of him, quickly lifting his curled fist to deliver repeated punches again and again.

He laughs but it’s devoid of any emotion. Yet it’s somehow ruthlessly cruel in its emptiness and hollow in its hurt.

“Never get too attached to anyone, dipshit. Unless they also feel the same way towards you. Because one-sided expectations can mentally destroy you. Well... I guess it’s too late for that, you crazy fuck.” Craig cuts off the boy begging for mercy or for any sort of undeserved reprieve as he kicks him down onto the ground, pressing a knee onto his chest as he scoffs at the delivery of his too-late advice.

He exerts as much of his weight onto the wheezing body in front of him, the struggling teen spitting out the onslaught of blood that pours into his cut lips from his broken nose. His hands clumsily shoots out to try to relent some of the pressure from the ravenette’s knee as a large hand reaches for his hair to harshly slam his head onto the ground.

My unnamed assailant frantically begins to yelp, his voice raspy as he tries to force out the words from his throat. “Stop, STOP! She’s alive, okay?! Just let me go and I’ll do something.”

Kyle backs away from me and I feel the tears begin to leak out from the corner of my eyes quicker than when I was in pain and I know that my body would have been absolutely sobbing in distress if I could move. The diminishing presence of the boys around me causes my brain to go into a frenzy of panic, desperate to be heard from the others and to keep their comforting presences with me.

Already overwhelmed with the ongoing pain coursing throughout my body, the additional panic of the boys losing hope wills myself to open my mouth to yell out for them. When nothing works, I curse at the fact that my eyes were left open because now I just wanted to block everything out—for everything to be over with. Whatever was injected into my body was killing me and I could feel it.

It’s as if whatever higher deity is up there finally answers my prayers as tufts of silky blonde hair enters my vision from the corner of my eyes, Butters expression filled with melancholy as he scans my face. He brings a hand up to the skin of my cheeks, his touch so soft that it almost feels nonexistent. He lightly skims his fingers over the expanse he has access to and when they creep towards my damp eyelashes, his hand stills from their gentle ministrations.

His eyebrows furrow, his voice soft in its disbelief as he speaks up. “She’s crying.”

“What?” Tolkien approaches my view, his own expression tensely mirroring the blondes in his well-deserved skepticism. He carefully watches as Butters brings up the soft material that makes up the sleeves of his jacket to gently dab at my eyes, the area not staying dry for long before my tears immediately resurface.

“Holy shit, she’s crying.” He echoes out in confirmation, a mixture of bewilderment and confusion painting his words.

A beat of silence tells me that they’re all looking at the previously masked teen for answers, the boy speaking up at their expectant faces when the sound of a fist meeting skin sounds out through the air. “Fuck! I told you, it’d be a slow and painful death. She’s not dead, yet. She’s still alive, I can do something if you just let me.”

“No fucking way! We can't trust him!” Cartman barks out to the group in caution, a sneer deeply curled onto his face as he stares down at the beaten teen.

Butters immediately starts sobbing at my lifeless face, the salty tears that are escaping his eyes begin to gently drop down his face until they meet the already damp skin of my own. He’s frantic in trying to catch every drop that trails down from my own orbs, his aim not that accurate due to his shaky hands.

“Fellas! FELLAS!” The blonde musters up what little of his strength he has left as he yells over the boys arguing, effectively cutting off the voices fighting over our heads.

“We have to help her. We have to. She’s my little sister, I can’t lose her.” He hysterically babbles, his frantic speech making it hard to make out his words.

“Butters, calm the fuck down.” A hand tries to placate him by laying itself on one of his shoulders, the blonde venomous as he urges everyone to just listen as he sharply slaps away the comforting touch.

Although hope was beginning to form due to Butters’ efforts, the pain coursing my veins was starting to change, feeling like something within me was ominously shifting. While everything still hurt, my senses were beginning to gradually fade as my body began to give up its fight. Everything around me felt like it was getting duller, my brain slowly starting to not register the feeling of Butters’ fingers against my face and the surrounding voices of the others.

“We can’t trust him! He can’t do anything, he’s just fucking lying again! He’s deceived us once and he's just going to do it another time. She’s GONE! He can't bring her back!” Cartman impatiently tries to yell some sense into the boys, everyone lost on what to do and sharing conflicted looks with one another.

“Let him go. Do it.” Stan decidedly breaks the silence, tensely forcing his demand out through gritted teeth as he vehemently glares at my assailant.

I felt so… gone.

But my brother knew he had to take the chance, however small and uncertain it may be. He had promised and he was going to do whatever he was capable of doing at this moment to keep it. Every time he was there, he always told me that I’d be safe and he’d be damned if he turned his back on his baby sister. Because if there was even a chance, a small sliver of hope that I was still alive…

“He might be lying, Stan…” Kyle shakes his head, a pained expression crossing his face as he whispered logically to the furiously demanding teen.

“DO IT! I’M NOT FUCKING AROUND, FUCKING FIX HER!” His scream pierces through the air, a few of the boy’s bodies jumping slightly at the sheer volume of his distressed voice. He ignores his best friend’s reasoning, not even sparing a moment to acknowledge that his emotions may be irrationally controlling the decisions he’s making.

No one moves for a moment, everyone warily eyeing each other. Cartman furrows his eyebrows and takes a step forward before Kyle stops him. “If you do this and something happens, it’s on you. Would you be able to live with your conscience if nothing happens to N/N and he’s able to get away?”

“It’s a chance that I’m willing to take, Kyle. Don’t fucking question me, this is my fucking sister.” Stan impatiently snaps at the curly haired teen, the redhead glaring back at the bleached blonde from the insinuation of his words.

“Don’t fucking play with me, Marsh. She’s my little sister, too.” He bitterly bites back as he roughly pushes past the sneering teen and grabs the discarded gun from the floor before kneeling down, freeing my perpetrator from the thick rope the boys used to crudely detain him with.

Kyle threateningly points the heavy metal towards his head, the other boys closely watching to see if he’ll flee as their bodies tense on the chance that they may have to jump into action. My captor grabs something from the unmarked vehicle, his hands nervously shaking as he brings another syringe out to imbed into my skin. The boys all collectively flinch when they watch the long needle trespass against my arm, their breaths baited as they tensely observe from the crowd formed around me.

The second the liquid enters my system, it’s as if my body got released from the paralysis keeping me shackled in its silent hold. Only one deep breath gets heaved out before I let out a bloodcurdling scream to vocalize the intense agony I’ve been feeling all this time.

Shocked, the boys didn’t know what to do as they watched in muted horror as I begin to scream bloody murder on Kenny’s lap. They just kind of expected me to wake up, never having guessed that they’d be presented with the painful image of my back contorting to an exaggerated arch and my limbs violently flailing everywhere.

My sobs begin to combine with my torturous screaming, my hands failing multiple times before they’re able to grab onto the material adorning Kenny’s frame as I shake his still body. “MAKE IT STOP!”

The screeching finally prompts him into action as his hands attempt to restrain my thrashing body, my chest painfully heaving as I blabber nonsense to anyone listening through my thick tears. All the boys could do was cry at the sight, feeling useless and frustrated as a few of them join us on the ground to assist the blonde in keeping me still.

From upside down my vision, Craig gently but firmly grabs onto my cheeks to still my flailing head as he presses his soft lips onto my skin to speak against my forehead. “Shh, I’m here, babe. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

All the boys let out their own shaky variations of both verbal or physical assurance and comfort yet nothing changes. Clyde hysterically sobs, turning his face from where it was nestled into my neck to beg at the teen who administered my pain. “STOP THIS!

He glares at my former classmate without breaking contact with me, the teen looking sheepish as he averts his gaze from the deathly looks of the group of teens. His voice is low and meek as he mumbles to the others, “... Her body’s been getting tortured like this since the moment the liquid entered her system. It’s just that now, she's finally able to physically and verbally react to it.”

Everyone feels their entire guts plummet at the information revealed to them, my body beginning to weakly curl in on itself as my screams fade away to loud sobs. They’re speechless at the fact that I’ve felt like this the entire time, all of them ignorant to my silent pain and for thinking I was already dead.

“I’m going to fucking kill you.” Kenny vehemently seethes from where his own body is wrapped around my own in an attempt to comfort my relentless weeping, his form shaking in unbridled rage.

My whole body twitches and throbs before the pain manifests itself into bile forcibly exiting my mouth, my delirium unable to put a name to the voices and hands trying to soothe me. Whatever happened with the second dose made my eyes heavy with fatigue, my head going eerily limp from the sudden decrease in energy.

“Stay with me, okay, beautiful? It’s over now, you just need to stay awake with me. We’re going to keep you safe.”

But I was too tired, too filled with pain, and too weak to keep the promise of the comforting voice. I could feel gentle fingers stroking my cheeks, soft kisses placed against the skin of my face, and both of my hands in someone else's grip.

“Come on, baby. You can do this. Stay with me.”

The sounds around me gently morph into an orchestra of panic but all I can do is lightly smile at the cacophony of hysterical noise as the warmth from everyone comfortingly surrounds my whole body to rest.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

My parents had offered to drop my brother and I off to school, the both of them pulling Stan aside to exchange a few hushed words as I patiently wait along the pavement of the frosted sidewalk. I vibrate in place as I wait for Stan, excited to finally be away from the sterile, white confines of the hospital walls.

Once their conversation concludes, he walks the short distance between us as he intertwines our fingers together, his moving feet leading me along the almost desolate hallways of the school. His body is slightly ahead of my smaller one, as if shielding me from anything that we could possibly come across and I just softly smile at his ridiculous yet endearing overprotectiveness.

I unconsciously shrink in only myself before he notices and shoots me a comforting look, his supportive smile making me stand a little bit taller in confidence before he pushes the heavy wooden door to our first class of the day–homeroom. My eyes flicker from side to side, slightly widening as I take in my surroundings to look at the faces around me in a mixture of both anxiety and excitement.

Not paying much attention, I fail to notice that my brother has stopped walking as my body softly runs into the thick material of the jacket that adorns the back of his body. I lightly giggle at my clumsiness, my inattentiveness making the both of us grin as he begins to slightly pull our interlocked hands to bring my form a little forward.

The expression on his face is soft as he lightly smiles down at me as a form of reassurance, his eyes taking the time to run along my face to take note of any signs of discomfort. Once satisfied after nothing sets off his instincts, I offer a soft grin of my own when my brother brings my attention to the group of teenage boys gathered in front of us.

They’re all in varying stances, some perched onto the seats of their desks while a few lean against the table top of the hard structure to be in closer proximity with their friends before the school day starts. My face slightly angles downward towards the linoleum floor when I notice that all of their expectant gazes are carefully watching me, nervous energy reverberating from their bodies in barely contained energy.

Of what, I’m not quite sure as my eyes look back to search for ones identical to my own in encouragement as the nervous thrum begins to run along my veins at their attentive stares. My brother’s voice is patient when he speaks up, soft in between the contrasting air of chattering students surrounding all of our bodies.

“N/N. Do you remember any of them..?”

My body seeks refuge from the intense gazes of everyone as I slightly retreat to hide half of my face behind Stan’s clothed arm, my hands clenching around the ones in my hold in anxiety. I shake my head, the nonverbal answer knocking the bated breaths out of the group of teen’s bodies in a mixture of evident disappointment and apparent anguish.

There’s an apologetic expression on my face as I whisper honestly to my brother.

“No.”

#south park #south park x reader #kenny mccormick x reader #craig tucker x reader #kenny mccormick #craig tucker #south park fanfiction #lalawrites

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vulpecular-draconic · 16 days

Text

so… i think i finally consciously figured out something.

this lull that i’m experiencing, that i’ve mentioned in previous posts? i know where it began. or, the two things that i think began it. i don’t remember which order they happened in? so i’ll just describe them.

incident one: i tried to talk about alterhumanity with my mom and sister. not just in vague, this-is-a-thing way — they already knew it existed and thought it was weird — but i tried to explain phantom limbs to them. i asked them if they experienced phantom limbs, and kinda told them about mine. which was a mistake. they didn’t make fun of me exactly, but my sister gave me weird looks (and thought i was confusing it for imagination, which i didn’t have the energy to correct at that point), and my mom just said she thought i had a strong imagination (in a less-frustrating way than my sister). but i left the whole interaction feeling VERY much like i’d shared too much of myself. i still feel that way about it. i noticed afterwards that it was harder to feel connected to my ‘types.

incident two: i filled out an alterhuman survey. i’m not sure why, but something about one of the questions — or rather, something in the way i answered it — left me feeling… empty, in regards to alterhumanity? i closed the app and got up from my chair suddenly feeling like i’d broken something. i don’t really know why it made me feel that way. the question had been asking about how much i viewed myself as human. my answer was that i felt like “human” was more of a job title, a purpose, than something i was. it was the first time i’d contextualized it that way — outside of my head, at least? — and… idk. but everything felt Different after that.

these both happened around the beginning of 2024, i think. for a few weeks afterwards, i clung on to posting about alterhuman stuff, trying to get that feeling back. eventually though, i accepted the lull and stopped trying to wring connection to myself out of tumblr.

i didn’t fully accept the reasons for the lull, though. it’s true that i’ve had natural lulls before even knowing i was alterhuman, but i pretended that was all it was.

since the lull began there’s been a few spotty days where my connection feels stronger, but hardly ever to the strength i felt it before, and hardly for longer than a day or two.

what really worries me is that the only kintype i feel consistently connected to now is being a pearl fox (and avian-humanoid, but that’s less of a species and more just limbs that almost always feel comfortable to me. and dragons, which feel more like otherheartedness, but i always get shifty about those whenever i interact with dragon content). but even being a pearl fox feels more distant than it did. all my types felt very real as i was feeling them, but i worry that they won’t come back. what if they were hyperfixation-induced identities, and now that the hyperfixation has abated, i’ll never feel like them again?

because i am a psychological alterhuman. i’m at the whims of my own subconscious. i think i definitely was everything i said i was back then at the time i said it, but i don’t feel like i am anymore, not in the same way. i tried, but i can’t force it to come back. i’m still not quite sure why it left.

to be honest, the only thing that’s keeping me from completely doubting if i’m alterhuman at all is remembering how i found out i was alterhuman in the first place.

i acted nonhuman (specifically, cat-like) since i was eight, until i was shamed out of it.

i constantly pictured myself as a dragon and had dragon phantom limbs around the ages of eleven-thirteenish.

right before finding out about alterhumanity in 2023, i realized i was placing an unusual amount of weight on the question “what is your favorite animal.” my answer had been cats as long as i could remember, but that had become increasingly uncomfortable to say in recent years (dysphoric, in hindsight). i felt that my favorite animal had to encapsulate my personality, and for some reason, cats no longer did. i realized i was drawn more to foxes the same week i learned about alterhumanity.

i kind of wish i had learned about alterhumanity a bit later than i did. a couple months later maybe, that would’ve been ideal. give myself more time to learn about foxes and i connect to them on my own, without getting it tangled up in preconceptions, yknow?

because red foxes? the species that pearl foxes are a color morph of? i initially discarded them too quickly, because i didn’t feel connected to the classic red fox color morph. so i went searching for a whole different fox species, and found bat-eared foxes. it’s hard to describe in with words, but think that made everything a lot messier in the months afterward.

i’ve always had a fascination and connection with dragons, which hasn’t faded in the same way my connection with cats did, but i’m wondering if i was too eager to call it a kintype. i’m definitely at least dragonhearted, that’s for sure. i’ve definitely been a dragon before. i think i’ve been all the kintypes i list in my intro post, but i don’t know if that being was something that was ever meant to last.

i’m thinking about the list of animals i wrote down before discovering alterhumanity, when i was trying to figure out which creature was my favorite. i think i want to go back to before i found out about bat-eared foxes, and i want to start from scratch. make absolutely sure i’m not tying myself to an exceptionally long, hyperfixation-induced cameo shift. they have all been very important to me, and still are in many ways, and i’ve been scared that admitting to myself that things might have Changed and that it would mean they could never be important to me again. but that’s silly. they can be important again if that happens to happen.

i’ve only been awakened for what, a little over year now? compared to so many other alterhumans, i’m just a kit. i’ve barely started my journey with nonhumanity.

so i’m tentatively starting with a new status quo; i am a pearl fox.

i think i’m comfortable saying that, but i need to parse what exactly that means to me. i’m less so a pearl fox in a real-world all-fours fox kinda way (though it feels like that some rare occasions). i’m more so a fox in fable-trickster-figure kinda way, creative and clever and skulking around. (i think that may be where my fae/changeling kintype came from — it melds with my pearl fox ‘type in a way that may mean it’s not entirely its own thing. i don’t feel comfortable calling myself a fae anymore, not in a literal way. changeling i still have to think about.) sometimes i feel more like a pearl fox in a grungy way; less whimsical, more grounded, listening to rough music and wanting more from life. sometimes being a pearl fox feels more like a metaphor: a metaphor for how various parts of my identity has been dehumanized, and a channel to express the parts of me that snuck around to stay safe.

but it always, in some way, feels like me. it feels like it fits my pre-awakening criteria for a favorite animal: an animal that can encompass my personality completely.

i should probably make a new intro post with this info soon, but i’m not quite sure how to explain it in that format yet. but i’m happier now that i’ve figured this out. all my other kintypes, and even my hearttype and hearthome, i want to put away for now. not necessarily abandon forever; if the connection is still there in some form, they’ll come back. but i want to make sure i’m not forcing myself to make them stick around.

so yeah, reintroduction, i guess! i’m vuldra, i’m a pearl fox, and i don’t know if that’s ‘heartedness or ‘kinity or both in fluctuation.

#i say some stuff #pearl fox kintype #otherkin #therian #alterhuman #nonhuman #foxkin #i am slightly nervous to post this haha

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loreleismusings99 · 9 months

Text

Two Body Problem

Ch 4

[Masterlist]

Qualifying exams are stressful. coming to terms with budding romantic feelings is somehow even more stressful. In which Mark and the reader critique each others' work and a surprising amount of sleep happens.

Thank you for reading! sorry this took so long to get out, I just graduated(can't believe I have a bachelor's degree now omg), and my life has been kind of a whirlwind lately, but I'm glad I was able to get this out. I don't think this is my strongest chapter, but I can move on to other parts of the story now this is done. As always, please let me know of ways I can improve this and if there's anything that should be fixed about this. Tysm, and I hope y'all are having a wonderful holiday season! Happy Perihelion Day!

also, y'all, I am running out of Matt Damon gifs to use for these so if you have any suggestions, please send them to me!

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○

God, my back hurts…

You shift under your blanket and grumble at the uncomfortably stiff structure that's currently cradling you. Cracking open an eye, you look around at your surroundings, becoming increasingly familiar as the clouds of sleep part and slowly return your senses to you. Why am I in the living room? Cracking open the other eye, you’re nearly blinded by the morning’s sunlight. Letting out a raspy “ugh…” at the unpleasant stimulus, you turn your head into your blanket again to shield your eyes from the offending ball of ionized hydrogen.

A new piece of sensory information halts your thoughts almost completely when you bury your face in your blanket though; notes of honey with an afterthought of what might be soil flood your senses, layered with something bergamot-y and a mystery spice that gives warmth to the smell. The smell reminds you of your night in the library, labs full of undergrads extracting caffeine from tea leaves, and office hours in the too-cramped grad office in the biosciences building. You remember a hand brushing yours as you both reach for the same homework packet, then mousy blond hair, striking green eyes, and a smattering of freckles.

The realization that your blanket smells like Mark hits you like a freight train and you're suddenly ripped from the clutches of sleep as he fills your senses. You try to find it within you, but you can’t quite locate the discomfort you thought you’d experience being confronted with Mark’s presence--however fleeting and ephemeral-- first thing in the morning. The feelings it stirs within you are… pleasant?? Being enveloped by the earthy scent is calming for whatever reason; like being held, wrapped in a profound sense of home and safety that you rarely have felt in your adult life. He must wear lavender… you think, trying to explain away the state you're in before drifting off again, sleeping in for the first time in a long while.

☆☆☆

“I'm sorry, you did what?!” Mark whirls around, his sandwich still clutched in his left hand while his right is holding his laptop in a precariously loose grip.

Colin rolls his eyes before responding to Mark's dramatic outburst. “Oh please, don't act so scandalized; that's a completely normal and average thing to ask--”

The door slamming at almost midnight tonight was certainly not on Colin’s bingo sheet for the evening’s events, but it was a harbinger of more unexpected happenings starting with Mark’s sour mood after returning from what should have been an enjoyable get-together with his colleagues in the bioengineering department.

“Sure, yes, normally, but they’re about the least average individual I’ve met up until this point in my life, Colin; you can’t just--” Colin has had a front-row seat to Mark’s gradual descent into denial for almost 6 months at this point. As Mark starts waxing poetic about how inviting you over to do moc quals presentations together would be the single worst decision Colin’s made, he remembers the night he came back from that mixer the two of you met in late spring earlier this year.

“The fucking audacity, how did they get this far being so unprofessional--” Mark tosses his bag onto their shared couch a mere foot away from where Colin was sitting writing up a first draft of the introduction for his thesis proposal on improving science communication with the general public while avoiding misleading sensationalism. Mark storms off into his room before poking his head out the door to say, “Did you know using a switch case to find the number of elements in an array is apparently--” Mark mimes air quotes “‘so clunky that it should be considered a syntax error’? Fucking hell…”

As Mark ducks back into his room grumbling, Colin responds with,“ Mark, I promise you I had no clue… and good evening, why do you look and sound like someone just told you agriculture and botany are the same thing?” Colin waits for Mark’s response as he stomps out of his room, having exchanged his business casual garb for his pajamas, and sulks into their kitchen.

“Oh, no reason. I just had the displeasure of getting publically ridiculed by a EE who wouldn’t know the difference between a spanner and a set of calipers, their head’s so fucking deep in electronics they don’t know how to communicate with other humans.” after grabbing a bottle of lemonade from the fridge, Mark collapses down on the chair to Colin’s left, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut.

He has it bad… Colin remembers thinking, as he does now, as he watches Mark run up his blood pressure, postulating about critiques you haven’t even had the chance to make on his quals paper and presentation yet. “Mark… Mark, listen.” Colin says to interrupt his wayward roommate’s self-sabotage. “It’s not that serious. They’re going to come over to get their paper looked at too--actually, they’re presenting the same day as you. They’re coming here with the same level of vulnerability as you. I don’t think they’ll go easy on you, but I don’t think they'd be cruel either.”

Colin waits a couple of seconds before asking,“... what’s their name?” Mark pauses and looks up at the ceiling with a faraway look in his eye before saying your name, calmly for the first time since he’s returned home for the evening. Colin and Mark sit in this pause before Mark continues, describing how you were a vision of confidence and poise in your sweater vest, oxfords, and slacks--likely due to unfounded pride, he added after snapping out of his momentary revere. It took everything in Colin’s power not to laugh in Mark’s face every time he tried to explain away every positive thing he noted about you, from your ‘surprising competence in biomechanical design to your managing to land a graduate assistantship in one of the best-funded bio-instrumentation labs in the department.

“How would you know? Hell, they were probably thrilled by the idea of getting to take me down a peg and ruin my faith in my thesis in the process--”

“Well, they certainly seemed eager, but likely not for the reason you think…” Colin responds absent-mindedly as he returns to prepping his presentation materials for their moc quals presentations.

Mark pauses in his nervous pacing and looks finally directly at Colin before asking, “What… exactly did they say? When you asked?”

“My, you’re awfully interested in the minutia of their reactions to you. I wonder why…” Colin postulates slyly, looking up from his computer and smirking.

It takes a few seconds of gear-turning in Mark's head before he finally picks up on what Colin is insinuating before the man in question lets out a guffaw and states, “Absolutely not. No. Impossible, inconceivable--”

“Explain yourself then; you've been emotionally constipated since the day you met them,” Colin crosses his arms before continuing, “You aren't very good at hiding the inner machinations of your head you know, it's written all over in how you act.”

“What I feel for them is probably the farthest thing from affection, they make me sick to my stomach--”

“You sure those aren't just butterflies?--”

“Can you please just answer my question?” Mark sighs in exasperation, and Colin lets out a chuckle before explaining how the events transpired.

“So, I found them in the lab--I think they were soldering something? Honestly, it's beyond what I was willing to ask about so I don't know, but I asked them how they were doing and if they're interested in doing moc quals with us--”

“How do you know where their lab is?”

“I majored in journalism, Mark--I have my methods, don't worry about it. Anyway, they perked up at the mention of moc quals and said that they're about to give their presentation on Friday and that they'd love to have extra practice presenting to people who would ask similar questions to what their committee would ask them. They even mentioned that, quote,‘ despite your likely lack of appreciation for their work, your opinions would be useful,’ end-quote.” Colin utters the last sentence with a chuckle.

Mark opens his mouth to say to retort before he's interrupted by a gentle knock at the door.

Mark looks up at the door and then frantically around the apartment, looking at the mess of dishes he had left from his dinner yesterday before uttering a soft “shit!”, tossing his computer onto the couch next to Colin, and holding his sandwich in his mouth as he picks up his dishes and runs them into the kitchen. “You didn’t say they’d be here now!!” Mark yells from behind the divider wall that separates the kitchen from the living/dining room area, hiding dirty dishes in a panicked frenzy as Colin gets up to let you in.

“You didn’t let me get that far before you started questioning me--Hi there, welcome in!” Colin calls over his shoulder before greeting you and stepping to the side of the open door to let you into his and Mark’s shared space.

“Hey, thanks for inviting… me…” You look around like this is the first time you've seen a room before saying“Wow, you two have a nice place” with what looks like a sparkle of awe in your eyes.

“Thanks,” Mark finally decides to pipe up after exiting the kitchen and leaning against the wall. “Sorry for the mess though, I didn't know we were going to have company.” Mark forces through a fake smile as he looks over to Colin with thinly veiled, panicked irritation.

“Ah, so the clutter and dirty dishes aren't a half-baked preparation strategy?” You jest, dawning a coy smirk before turning to Colin and asking, “Shoes on or off?”

Colin's barely able to get in an ‘either is fine’ before Mark rebuts with, “You wound me with how much you underestimate my very complex plan to distract you.” Colin almost sprains an ocular muscle rolling his eyes at Mark's attempt to play it cool after nearly having an aneurysm about you coming over as the man in question ducks back behind the false wall before saying, “I'm making Pizza Bagel Bites for us.” There's a short pause before Mark pokes his head around the wall to regard you again before asking, “Do you like Bagel Bites?”

“Yeah, Bagel Bites are fine.”

“Are you sure? I can make something else if you want; we also have hot pockets, an actual frozen pizza, and we might have some leftover soup from Thanksgiving too--”

You rest a hand on your hip and sit into it before asking, with a huff, “Mark, honestly l, anything is fine; are we going to do this or are you afraid my presentation's going to be better than yours?”

At this point, Colin has sat back down on their couch and is having the time of his life watching what's unfolding before him. He looks over to the kitchen where Mark is still hidden and listens as he hears a clamoring commotion of a pan being filled with frozen Bagel Bites and the furious beeps of the oven turning on to pre-heat before he rushes out of the kitchen, picks up his laptop, sits down, and opens it.

Mark dawns a haughty smirk and a competitive gleam sparks in his eyes as he says, typing away on his computer, “Oh, you have no idea the magnitude of scrutiny you've just unleashed upon your work…”

You let out a huff of a laugh before saying, “I expect nothing less” and opening up your laptop and sharing with the two of them your paper and presentation as the lot of you get started on your moc reviews.

The process is fairly simple: one of you presents while the other two act as your panel committee, asking questions, and making suggestions at the end of your presentation. Colin goes first, presenting his findings from his literature review of surveys and short-term studies of the efficacy of popular science news and the need for more long-term studies. This is something he's practiced hundreds of times, so the questions you throw at him aren't surprising--though, he is quite taken aback by how well-versed you are in pedagogical techniques in science communication and makes a note to pick your brain about your experience later.

You go next, Mark having half-offered half-volunteered you to go next, he's probably still trying to calm his nerves, Colin thinks as he watches Mark shift awkwardly in his seat while you stand from your spot on the couch next to him after setting up your presentation on your computer. Colin tries his best to focus on the lovely presentation on flexible electronics and their use in vitals monitoring, but he can’t help but be distracted by Mark's increasingly adorable investment in your presentation, actively listening and asking questions but with a faraway look in his eyes as he gazes at you with what can only be described as adoration as you passionately expound upon the process of medication release in implantable medical sensing devices. You finish your presentation and Mark enthusiastically jumps up to present last, evidently forgetting his nerves from earlier and diving straight into the complexities of irrigation and sustainable crop cultivation in extreme environments. Colin takes note of the understated excitement you exhibit at Mark's passion for his field, so reserved that he almost missed the way you attempted to block a blush and giggle at his peculiar use of casual, nearly comical lexicon in a presentation meant to convince the academics at the top of the botany ivory tower to give him a chance at becoming a professional scientist.

After presenting you all went over the notes you made on each other's presentations, discussing why certain word choice decisions were made, how each of you dealt with being confronted with A gap in your knowledge, et cetera. Mark was chewing on the end of a red pen while looking over the notes and suggestions you provided for his presentation before making a face and asking, “What’s wrong with my wording here? I think this is a perfectly valid term to describe nutrient uptake efficiency in--”

“Mark, do I need to tell you why you can’t say ‘slorp’ in a Ph.D. qualification oral exam?” You look up from your paper, now marked up with notes from Mark and Colin, and look pointedly at Mark, your mouth quirked into a poorly concealed smirk. Mark starts falling over his words trying to explain his reasoning--or lack thereof--while failing at holding back enthusiastic laughter.

Mark turns to Colin and asks, “Well, what do you think--do you see the academic value of using slorp in a presentation?”

Colin rests a hand gently on Mark’s shoulder before responding. “Mark, my dearest friend, I absolutely do not,” Colin says through bouts of laughter and it puts you in stitches next to Mark, laughing so hard that the only noise you can make is a high-pitched wheeze as you’re doubled over by your glee.

Mark dramatically clutches his shirt right over his heart and says, “Et tu, Brute??” before succumbing to his laughter.

☆☆☆

The empty chair to your right buzzes with the vibrations your restless leg sends through the floor as you await the panel's decision on whether or not you need to reconsider your place in the Ph.D. program. Every time you try to listen in on the conversation your advisor and mentors are having in the room behind you, Hana gently squeezes your hand to remind you to at least try not to obsess about your presentation. It's done now, the ball's in their court. All you can do now is wait and try not to send your blood pressure through the roof.

I think that went alright…you think, threading your fingers between Hana's in an attempt to ground yourself. I answered all of their questions correctly… I think. They didn't say so if I didn't; would they have done that? Fuck, what if they just decided to say nothing-

The door to Hana’s and your left opens suddenly to reveal your advisor, Dr. Ameer, poking his bald and bespectacled head out from behind the door before stepping out and standing to his full height, imposing from your current seated perspective.

He looks down at you for a moment before smiling proudly and holding out his hand. “Congratulations!” You take his hand and shake it feeling like the air got kicked out of your chest, only able to let out a breathless squeeze of a ‘thank you’ that your advisor lightly laughs at. “Excellent treatment of the current gap in the literature on the use of implantables for tissue regeneration for rehabilitative purposes in particular--it makes a great start to a thesis project.” He states, taking off his reading glasses.

You nod and say another “thank you,” stronger this time now that your tensed muscles have finally relaxed and Hana's got you wrapped up in a sideways hug. “I'll make sure to, uhm, send you my availability for the next week so we can discuss how I did and how I can improve. We should also start to discuss my thesis--where to start, what we're capable of doing, et cetera.”

“Absolutely. Don't forget to celebrate too, though. You work hard, you deserve the rest.” He says, sitting down in the chair to your right.

“Oh, don't worry about that,” Hana says, clapping you on the shoulder, “I'll make sure they have at least a little fun within the next 24 hours.”

“Thank you for your work keeping them sane.” Dr. Ameer says through a laugh.

“Is this an intervention?” you ask, looking back and forth at the two of them as they both guffaw at your bafflement.

“Alright,” Dr. Ameer starts, standing back up before saying, “Congratulations again, I'll see you on Monday.”

“Thank you, and see you then.” You respond, allowing yourself to finally smile with a gleam of pride in your eyes as he nods and walks off, presumably to his office.

You wait until you know he's out of earshot before bellowing out a, “Thank fucking God…” as Hana squeals, shaking your shoulders in pent-up excitement.

“Hey, don't act like you didn't nail it in there, I heard you, you were great!! Oozing confidence and academic splendor!” Hana responds, dramatically clutching a fist over her heart. “We have to celebrate properly tonight; maybe drinks and dinner at my place--”

“Please don't make it a big thing, it's not like I just defended my thesis,” you say through an exasperated sigh.

“Fine, but we're at least inviting over Colin and Mark--they just passed their quals too.”

An Incredulous and confused look twists your face when you ask, “How do you know? I thought they were presenting just now too?”

“Trivia night people have a group chat--here, look” Hana takes out her phone and shows you a text from Colin with a picture of him smiling with his arm around what looks like Mark, his head tilted back in relief while Colin ruffles his hair.

Your eyes linger on Mark's neck a little too long before you pull your gaze away and clear your throat, saying, “I see.”

“Hey,” Hana says, putting a hand on your shoulder, “we don't have to invite them, or anyone for that matter, especially if they'll make you uncomfortable.”

“No no, thank you, uhm, there's nothing wrong with that. If anything, I probably owe the two of them a thank you, we presented to each other and they both offered some awesome suggestions that I wouldn’t’ve thought of otherwise.”

Hana regards you silently for a moment, eyes narrowing before they widen in shock as she says, “No fucking way.”

“… What?”

“I mean, the two of you becoming civil with each other finally was to be expected, but I never would've thought--”

“Oh,” you say rolling your eyes as you go to stand up, “Okay, I see where this is going--”

“So I'm right then?” Hana grabs her bag and goes to follow you.

“Absolutely not.”

“You were just gazing longingly at Mark!”

“I do not gaze at him,” you wheeze out with a laugh as you push open the doors to the Tech building.

“Okay, so why did you just freeze right now? I refuse to believe it was a nondescript brain fart and you just so happened to zone out looking at Mark's trachea--” Hana finishes her sentence in a whisper to not attract the attention of the undergrads walking past them in the courtyard.

You whip around to look Hana in the eye as you whisper-yell, “What I feel for Mark is the farthest thing from attraction, I can't possibly think of a world where he would inspire anything other than disgust--”

“Denial is a river in Egypt, my friend, and we are in the midwest--”

“God, I can't believe you--” You whirl back around and start walking off in the direction of your apartment.

“I'm inviting them over, and be at mine by 5!!” Hana shouts at your retreating form and you throw up a thumbs up to show your acknowledgment.

Your mind wanders on your way back home; you remember eating a Pizza Bagel during your moc quals with Colin and Mark, the latter suddenly saying, “Wait! Hold still” causing you to freeze in your tracks and your eyes to widen into saucers, thinking a bug or something crawled onto you. He reaches over and gently swipes a thumb across the corner of your mouth before saying“ Rogue pizza sauce” before moving on to the next thing that caught his attention. You're still frozen in place, trying to process what just happened, when Mark absentmindedly licks the tomato sauce off his thumb like he forgot that that was just on your face and not his. Now, something like this usually wouldn’t surprise you--especially given Mark's tendency to forget the simplest of things--but for whatever reason your brain short-circuited; at a complete loss for words, for once in your life not a single thought crossed your mind--just complete radio silence and a faint fluttering feeling in your chest. You didn't notice it at the time, perhaps because you didn't want to, but that fluttering felt different than you expected. You wanted to feel a flush of anger wash over you at his invasion of your personal space but all you could muster was the nauseating fondness you felt that night he walked you home after trivia night.

This realization makes your face twist into a scowl. “Shit…” you say, burying your face deep into your coat.

When you enter Hana’s apartment building, the weight and warmth from your jacket and the building hallway make your skin prickle with sweat. You unzip your jacket and tug a little on your turtleneck’s collar before knocking on her door. A muffled “Hold on!” sounds from behind the door before Hana flings the door open a few seconds later. “Come on in!” she hurries you in while carrying a pan of what looks like an attempt at caramelizing… something?

You take off your shoes and place them on the small rack set up next to the front door before hanging up your coat next to Hana’s on a nearby coat hook. “What are you making?” you question, the medley of smells hitting your nose almost making your eyes water.

“Chicken parm--assuming I'm doing this right,” says over her shoulder while rushing back into her kitchenette, trying not to spill the contents of the very hot pot on her person.

“Hana, I'm not sure if you're supposed to caramelize anything in a chicken parmesan dish?” you follow her timidly into the kitchen, not entirely sure you want to bear witness to what she is concocting.

“You’ve gotta have more faith in my process,” Hana says confidently over her shoulder right before the pan on the stove in front of her bursts into flame. There's a brief scramble As the two of you try to put out the fire, eventually being left with a charred mess sitting in the pan with the two of you staring at it blankly.

“... Portillo's?”

“Yeah,” you respond with a light huff.

You're drying off and putting away dishes as Hana passes them to you after giving them a thorough scrubbing to get off the char from her attempt at cooking dinner. After about two minutes of this Hana puts down the dish she's working on and huffs before saying, “I'm putting on some music, any requests?”

You pause and think for a moment before answering, “Um… I don't know; What've you been listening to lately?”

“This is gonna sound kind of weird, but I've been on a bit of an ABBA kick lately.” She says, drying her hands off before retrieving her phone from the front pocket of her ‘That's not Burnt, that's Flavor’ apron.

“Knowing you, that's not weird at all.” You deadpan before the two of you let out a stream of giggles. Hana taps away at her phone for a couple of seconds, and Chiquitita starts playing from a speaker on the far side of the kitchen to your left. “Oo, that's a good one.”

“Darling, they're all good ones,” Hana says through a playful smirk, making you laugh. The rest of the otherwise boring task goes by much more slowly but more enjoyably with the two of you intermittently stopping to sing along at the top of your lungs with whatever song caught your collective attention, Hana occasionally using whatever cooking utensil was within her grasp as an impromptu fake-microphone. She's in the middle of a surprisingly impressive belt during Lay All Your Love on Me when a confident knocking echoes through the apartment. “Ope, is that them?” she inquires in a suddenly quieter voice with what you detect as a hint of bashfulness--possibly at the prospect of being heard through the door. She briefly checks her phone while you dry the last plate and put it away. “Yep!” she says before doffing her apron and nearly prancing to her front door.

You turn around and open up a cupboard to put away the plate you're holding, but as you reach up you feel a pair of eyes on your back. You close the cabinet door and whirl around only to be met with a pair of infuriatingly disarming green eyes. In your periphery, you can see Mark’s shoulders pitch up slightly before a toothy smile blooms across his face, catching you off guard with the sincerity of it. You clumsily return his smile before congratulating him before dawning a defensive smirk and saying, “I’m glad our corrections weren’t ignored” jokingly implying that was the only thing stopping him from failing.

A grimace distorts Mark’s smile before he opens his mouth to speak, pausing for a second before finally letting out a laugh and saying, “I was about to say that I had to because Botany isn’t exactly as easy as what you do, but saying something is only biomedical sensor engineering doesn’t exactly have the punch I ‘m looking for.” He and Colin take off their shoes and you and Mark close the distance between the two of you before he continues. “Glad to hear you passed too--what is that smell, is something burning?” Mark interrupts himself, halfway through crossing his arms when he finally catches a whiff of the residual char in the air from Hana’s cooking.

“That would be the aftermath of Hana’s attempt at cooking; don’t worry, we called Portillos as soon as the pan lit on fire.” You quickly add after seeing the color drain a bit from Mark’s cheeks.

You wonder if they’ve always been that rosy before he frantically looks between you and Hana and asks, “You lit a pan on fire?!”

“Only a little bit, we put it out quickly--the alarm didn’t even go off.” Hana dismisses Mark’s worry with a wave of her hand while walking over to her speaker to turn its volume down.

“That’s a shame, we could’ve roasted non-stick flavored marshmallows,” Colin jests from his spot at Hana’s kitchen island before she sticks her tongue out at him, sending the lot of you into a laughing fit. “Well, what do we want to do until the dogs get here?”

Hana pauses to think for a second before ducking to rifle through a set of board and card games she keeps under her living room speaker and reemerges with a small red box. “‘We’re Not Really Strangers’?” she punctuates her question by lightly shaking the box, “I’ve got a few packs mixed in here, so we shouldn’t get any repeats if we’re waiting a while.”

Colin responds in the affirmative before enthusiastically walking over to her couch and plopping down with a ‘whoomph.’ Mark shifts next to you before stating in an almost whisper, “This ought to be interesting.” The two of you look at each other and you scan his face, taking in the mirth evident in his lightly freckled face and you lightly nudge him with a wheeze of a laugh before walking over to get a seat at Hana’s coffee table.

How can one person be so fucking warm?? You internally hiss to yourself while sitting next to Mark. The two of you still have about an inch of separation between the two of you but even so, you feel like the warmth radiating off his body is smothering you in a calm you’re trying to steel yourself against. You’re sitting in a half-crisscross position with your leg resting on top of your foot now to make it harder for you to subconsciously inch closer to Mark to try to remedy the ever-present chill that usually plagues you--with what appears to be little success considering the two of you stared out on this couch with about 6 inches of space between the two of you. Mark guffaws heartily at Hana’s answer to the card Colin just pulled and you can feel the seat shake with his laughter, the proximity of his person to yours making your heart ache dully. This is miserable, I’m miserable, why is this happening, why me? Why him?? You wonder to yourself with a slightly pained smile and chuckle while Hana pulls a card from the pile in the center of the table.

“Let’s see--ough, I hate this one; ‘What are your plans for the future?’ survive this Ph.D.” Hana immediately answers with a wheeze of a laugh putting the card in the discard pile.

“Honestly, same--I’m just glad my quals are done so I can focus my time and energy on research,” Colin answers before taking a sip of his water and looking to Mark for his answer.

“Alright, are we talking about, like, the next five years or more of what my endgame is for what I want to do with my life? Because I wouldn’t be able to securely pin that down if my life depended on it.” Mark laughs after Hana tells him to say whatever he has an answer for. He pauses for a moment before continuing. “Well,” he begins, crossing his arms, looking up at the ceiling, and slightly adjusting his position, spreading his legs slightly; it takes every ounce of willpower in every atom of your body not to look down at his legs as he does so. “I’m planning on submitting to the NASA GSRP soon, so, assuming I get awarded it, I’ll be working more with botanists at Kennedy Space Center to develop cultivation experiments for the ARES missions--If they ever happen at all.” Mark finishes with a scoff, making you frown. With the tumultuous nature of how government is run, it's becoming increasingly difficult to gauge if there’ll be funding for ambitious space missions like the budding ARES program. Mark abruptly turns to you--itching to turn the attention away from himself--and asks, “What about you?”

You’re given pause by the way Mark abruptly changes the subject, but answer anyway. “Oh, um, I’m headed to Pasadena in the spring; I’m working with one of the engineers there on electronics for a Lunar water surveyor--seems like we’re both NASA-bound. You’ll have to tell me more about the project you’re submitting for, it seems interesting--we might even be able to collaborate a little bit, depending on how far my work on this surveyor goes.”

You end your answer with a coy smirk and for a flash of a second, you could've sworn you saw Mark’s eyes briefly cast downwards to your lips before rocketing back up to meet yours. No, that can’t be possible. God, I’m losing it-- you think to yourself before the man in question interrupts your internal agonizing. “Oh, so you think I’m good enough to get the fellowship?” He inquires with a jesting tone, ducking his head to look up at you through his eyelashes, his vermillion eyes scrutinizing you through the varying shades of blond and brown.

You look at him incredulously and answer before thinking better of voicing your knee-jerk reaction, “Of course; I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.” The realization of what you said hits you like a ton of bricks flying at you at Mach 1 as you see Mark’s cheeks flush. Again with the rosy cheeks? Did I make him uncomfortable? Was that too much? Shit, does he think I like him now? Fuck--

“Ah, well, I’ve got nothing to worry about then--if even you think I could do it.” Mark laughs and claps a hand on your shoulder, making you let out a huff and a chuckle in relief at his jovial tone, thinking you’ve narrowly escaped being found out.

“Alright, enough work talk--” Colin captures your attention after letting out a light chuckle and motions for you to pick up a card. “Your turn, Inspector Gadget.”

You lightly chortle before reaching over to pick a card up from the top of the pile of unused cards. “‘Do you think I’m a good kisser?’ Hana, I thought you said these were from the friendship pack???” The whole table bursts into laughter while Hana chokes out a confirmation that it is indeed from the friendship pack. “Alright, out with it, what are your verdicts?” you ask through an exasperated sigh.

“Honestly, I think you’d be a great kisser, remember when we visited Vanessa’s mom in Vegas and you somehow tied two cherry stems with your tongue? While drunk no less--” Hana interrupts herself with her own laughter as you choke on the water you’re drinking at the mention of that night.

“Fuck, I forgot about that!” you cough out. “If it means anything, I had to use my teeth for most of that--I was afraid I was going to swallow the things both times,” you confess with a chuckle.

“Yeah, I don’t know how good of an indicator that is; one of my exes also could tie a cherry stem with his tongue, but the first time we kissed he practically shoved his tongue down my throat.” Colin weighed in with a scoff before continuing, “What do you think Mark?”

Mark pauses for a moment and in that calm, you notice that he’s draped his arm over the seat cushion behind you. In an unexpected wave of wreckless confidence--at least, that’s what you’d call it--you decide to lean back into his arm, immediately relishing in how warm he is. He considers you for a moment, a surprised look on his face before answering, “Honestly I feel like you could go either way; either you’re a mind-numbingly great, or criminally terrible, no in-between” Hana and Colin break into a side-splitting laugh and you ask him to please explain what his reasoning is behind that answer. “You… you--” Mark interrupts his sentence with a breathy laugh, looking up and away from you before continuing. “Alright, look, you… have a lot of surprising things about you and they’re all, like extremes--”

“Yeah???” you interject, your face contorted into an incredulous smirk.

“Yes, let me finish--”

“Please do--”

“So, I think it would be one of those things that you’re, like, inexplicably good at for no fucking reason, or you’d exceed my expectations and be worse than I thought you’d be.” He finishes, barely able to hold back his chortles.

“And what exactly were your expectations?” you ask, feeling warmth flood your cheeks at the revelation that he’s thought about kissing you before. You try your best to stamp out those thoughts before your infuriatingly lovesick brain can indulge in them, thinking God, I’m hopeless. Mark pauses for a second, looking at you apprehensively. You can feel his arm shift on the cushion behind you as he agonizes about whether or not to tell you. “...Mark--”

“That you’d be kind of mid--” he admits with a grimace.

“WOW!” you exclaim, laughing like you just got the air punched out of you. “The amount of confidence you have in me is truly inspiring--is there anything you think I do well?”

“Piss me off--” The four of you lose your minds with laughter; you go to grip your leg to brace yourself against but accidentally slap your hand against Mark’s. The muscles in his leg tense and you freeze. You feel like you should--no, have to--move your hand but for whatever reason the signals your brain is sending to your arm are getting lost in transit, leaving your hand planted steadfastly on top of his quadricep. A spark of surprise flashes through his eyes for a moment before he moves his hand to grasp at yours, still resting on his leg. “You do that perfectly--”

“Fuck off,” you draw your hand out of his grasp, laughing to yourself and unable to look him in the eye.

☆☆☆

After your Portillos arrive you all dig in, opting to put your card game away in favor of watching a Seinfeld rerun while you all eat. Mark tries to focus on his hot dog to get the memory of how your hand felt on his leg out of his mind. I suppose that’s my fault for not noticing how close we were getting. Did they want that? Why did I want that?? Fuck, I hope I didn’t make them uncomfortable-- Mark takes a deep breath after swallowing a mouthful of hot dog to try to calm his racing thoughts. He feels a pair of eyes on him while he zones out watching the TV and turns his gaze in your direction. You stare back at him with an indiscernible expression before asking, “You okay?”

He smiles and nods, trying not to let his inner turmoil show, “Yeah, I’m good--just starting to get a little tired.” At least that much was true; the fatigue of the past couple weeks of preparation for his quals had decided to dump itself on him now that the adrenaline of the whole ordeal had dissipated. You hum and nod before patting him on the back, an alarmingly comforting gesture that Mark didn’t expect to appreciate as much as he did. The four of you continued to watch Seinfeld until he could feel his eyelids begin to droop. Shit, he thought, I can’t be this tired right now, I still need to get home-- His train of thought is interrupted when he feels you slump against his shoulder gently. He looks down at your now asleep form and huffs out a silent laugh, finding you asleep for a second time that week. He looks up to Colin and Hana, who both seem to be engrossed in the exploits of George and Jerry, before he decides to rest his eyes for a second as well, thinking there wasn’t any harm in taking a moment to rest for once. Mark nods off before he can hear Hana and Colin snicker to themselves.

===

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#the martian #mark watney #andy weir #the martian(2015)#mark watney x reader #gn!reader #mark watney x gn!reader #academic rivals #self insert #no use of y/n #two body problem

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coyotesinew · 1 year

Text

Gonna be frank for a minute, I’ve been a bit out of touch with my nonhumanity recently.

I’m not losing connections by any means, but recently I haven’t been able to engage in ways I usually do. Mental shifts are few and far between, phantom shifts come and go in short moments. The most I’ve felt recently has been triggered in quick reactions—like loud sounds making my ears swivel or glimpses of small animals outside my window making my prey drive kick in for a second—but I haven’t had the longer shifts I’m used to. Feeling wolf-brained for days, my predictable full body morning phantom shifts, all my usual comforts. It’s been unbelievably uncomfortable.

I’ve known for a bit that stress can cause me to unintentionally stifle shifts, and this year has so far proven to be one of the most stress-filled times of my life, so it makes sense that I’m feeling this way. I won’t go into heavy detail, but this past month and a half has broken me down in a way I’ve never experienced & I don’t know when/if I’ll be built back up. I’ve gotten covid for the first time and my body and brain still aren’t back to what they were before, I’m fatigued and hurting, I’m dealing with very tense close-familial strain, and a million other little issues that pile and pile. The days are hard to get through.

Though it’s unintentional, my nonhumanity has always brought a comfortable sense of escapism. Daydreams and fantasies of rainy beaches and packs, dark streets and urban forests, security and livestock, have all brought me peace when feeling the world heavy on my shoulders. It feels more right than all my thoughts of the world I have to deal with as a human, but the state of things has become increasingly hard to bear and hard to ignore without immense guilt. As such almost all of my brain power ends up going to these issues.

I want so badly to feel like myself again, like an animal. I’m working on it but it’s rough. I’m taking every little thing in my life slowly because it’s all my mind and body will allow currently, I’m hoping mind + body + animalistic experiences will come back slowly too. I’m glad to have found an alternate form of nonhuman expression through more introspection/writing and focus on community engagement and informing while my raw feelings are hindered. Im glad I still have an outlet but I’d love to feel like myself soon, I just don’t know how soon soon will be.

I appreciate those that engage with me and care for my perspectives on stuff though, thank you for sticking around! Being able to engage with this community and interacting with everyone makes the days go a little faster and the weight a little lighter. 🩶

#could’ve put this in a journal somewhere but eugh #this is kind of venty and I apologize for that-just trying to be more transparent about stuff right now and trying to write more #if you read all this thank you I legit appreciate you listening to my schpiel #I hope to feel better soon 🤞🏻#going to bed now. gn creatures #canine therian #therian #dog therian #nonhuman #long post

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merv606 · 7 months

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i kinda see daniel as growing increasingly shy as the thought of intimacy with terry becomes a reality and grows ever nearer. he seems…not exactly uncomfortable with his body/the way he looks, but not super confident, especially compared to terry who he sees as handsome and being in great shape. daniel seems like he can’t see his own appeal, and is not too happy with how he currently looks (not like himself with the longer hair etc.). anyway, that “first time” i can see daniel wanting to either keep as many clothes on as possible or staying under the covers all lights out lol. i doubt terry will comply but i’m sure daniel will try lmao.

Listen here!

You can’t just waltz into my inbox with such violence!

Oblivious Daniel™️ - my beloved.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

He can sense the sudden tenseness in the muscles of the smaller body below him.

Although they have yet to consumate this new side of their relationship in the biblical sense, Terry has been enjoying Daniel allowing more and more intimate touching.

Tonight is no exception, expect he’s getting further than ever, a hand up Daniel’s shirt, his boy whimpering as he thumbs across his nipples.

So very NSFW

His hips had jumped at the touch, his cock, while not as hard as Terry’s yet had ended up grinding into the older man’s thigh.

“Can we …. Never mind.”

“Tell me,” Terry directs. Sometimes Daniel needs things coaxed out of him. Although, right now that means stopping what he was doing, kissing down a tempting neck, he can’t be too upset. It simply means his boy feels safe enough with Terry to do this; that he knows the older man will get it out of him. This is truly a gift that Terry treasures.

Terry had been helping his boy raise his arms to help Daniel get his shirt off, those tempting little nipples of his almost Terry’s to look upon and taste - finally.

“Can we have the lights off?” the smaller man rushes out.

Absolutely not, Terry thinks.

He was not expecting that but something must have prompted this shyness. His boy is modest, which only makes revealing each inch of skin more appealing, but he is modest where he simply need not be.

“Whatever for?”

“Come on Terry. You know why.”

At a loss, because for once, he doesn’t know what his boy means.

“I honestly can’t think of why. I finally have you. I wish to see you.”

“Come on, you,” he gestures to Terry, “really want to see me.”

And This?

This Terry will not stand for.

Not now.

Not ever.

For anyone to imply Daniel is less than absolutely perfect - even if it is the man himself.

Not just that but to imply that Terry’s desire is not something that knows any bounds is not only unacceptable but down right insulting,

“You doubt my desire for you?”

“What no …. “ If there is one thing Daniel has no doubt of it’s that. Everything they endured it because of Terry’s want for him. Even if he didn’t know that, it’s also poking him in the thigh.

“Well then why would you think I’d want to have you any other way but being able to see you - now that I have you in our bed, about to make love to you?”

He huffs looking away, but Terry gently but firmly turns his head.

“Look at me.”

He does, but only because he can feel the grip tighten when he tries to pull away - a shade below painful. Daniel was the only one Terry ever gave warnings too.

“I’ve been very patient with you baby, haven’t I?”

“I know,” he sighs out.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I finally get to see you. Have you. Would you deny me that after everything I’ve done for you? For us?”

A kiss to his hand to gentle the reprimand.

“I am grateful for that, I am. You’ve been more patience than most, but it’s …. It’s only been Amanda for the last twenty years …” he trails off, self deprecating smile in place.

Is his boy actually worried that he could disappoint Terry?!!

“and I’m not even sure ……” he can’t meet Terry’s eye, and he finally is allowed to free his face from Terry’s grasp, looking away instantly.

There lies not quite the heart of the matter, Terry knows that much.

While on his mind it’s not what is bothering him.

He’ll not have Daniel tonight - not in the way he truly wants - but that day will come, and soon, it’s just going to need work.

His boy is a virgin to that type of love and Terry is a lot to take - for anyone.

And take him Daniel will, but only after Terry knows he can handle it. Handle it and find pleasure in it.

And for that to happen, he will have to be well prepared, and he will be, by Terry’s mouth and fingers, maybe even some plugs of various sizes he can wear around to get used to something large inside him, taking up space, to get him to be really open enough. Some discomfort will be expected though, as he adjusts to Terry having him in such a manner, as Terry knows this will be a regular need of his that Daniel will have to fulfil, but he will be taught, like everything else, what he needs to do,

He knows his boy will love it, and if need be, for whatever reason, of not that in time, he will come to love it.

But he doesn’t foresee the latter happening because Terry will see to it that the first time he opens his boy up on his cock, it will be more than enjoyable for them both.

After he takes Daniel in that manner, he needs his boy to willingly spread for the next time, and the time after that, and after that, and that.

Because once Terry has a taste of that which he has been craving, like an addict, he knows that after he will allow nothing to deprive him of what he craves.

His boy already knows this though - that Terry won’t be inside him, not tonight that is. Terry had hoped that assuring Daniel of that would help his nerves.

While he undoubtedly does have apprehension about that, Terry sees now, where the true insecurity tonight lies.

“I want to see you.”

Daniel opens his mooith.

“I will see you. Nothing is forbidden from me, darling. Not where you’re concerned.”

Daniel nods, and then, bless him, he tries to go under the covers.

While he allows his boy to have his way for the small things, on this Terry will not budge. Daniel will bend to fit him. In more way than one.

Terry walks to the bed, and they’re at a perfect height now, between his boy resting on the bed, promoting himself up on his elbows as Terry nears.

“I want you to touch my cock.”

A blush high up on his cheeks, his eyes darting to the obvious bulge in Terrys pants.

He does as told, sitting up on the edge of the bed, feeling him through the thin material.

“Do you feel that? How hard I am for you ….”

Daniel’s hand works the cock through the material.

“Because of you,” Terry says, a hand under his chin so his boy can’t look away - from Terry - from this.

Daniel looks up at the older man.

“Now, take it out.”

He reaches in taking Terry’s cock out as directed, and now that it’s in hand, he hesitates, not quite sure what to do, and the clear inexperience is driving Terry crazy.

“Do you see? How hard you make me?”

Daniel nods, biting his lip, his thumb rubbing across the head of Terry’s cock.

Curious, he draws his thumb into his mouth to taste the clear liquid and before he knows it, he ends up naked from the waist down on their bed, Terry fully clothed with just his cock out.

“Spread your legs now … want to see if that hole is as pretty as the rest of you.”

“Terry,” he whines.

“Put your feet flat to the bed, knees up now and the. let them fall open.”

“That’s good.”

Terry lifts Daniel’s cock gently, with a sort of reverence, which is at odds to the reason why - so his hole is more visible.

“Hold yourself open for me.”

Terry means for his boy to hold his ass open, but Daniel’s hands go to the back of his thighs, drawing his legs back and close to his chest.

“Good boy,” Terry praises, knowing the reaction that will illicit, not surprised when he hears Daniel whine, exactly what he was expecting.

Never disappointing, his boy.

Once day he’ll film this - he probably won’t let his boy know though.

He wants to get Daniel in his lap, get his shirt off to lick and suck at his chest, the nipples always seemingly peaked and visible through whatever he seems to be wearing, driving Terry mad but he know show easily he becomes overwhelmed - in the face of desire like this - desire this pure and all consuming.

He can’t wait for his boy to be bouncing on his cock though, see how those soft little handfuls of his bounce and move with him.

For now though.

“Hands and knees for me.”

“Terry,” he starts, wearily looking to Terry’s cock.

“I won’t put it inside, baby. I know you’re not ready for that,” he says. “Yet,” Terry adds. His boy has to get comfortable with the idea that soon, it will be.

“Roll over for me though.”

Spreading his cheeks, “absolutely gorgeous, Danny - you have no idea sweetheart.”

“Keep them open for me.”

Holding his cock he runs the head up and down his crack, concentrating on the furled muscle of his entrance.

“Can you really feel it now? How fucking hard you make my cock?”

“Yes,” Daniel moans out, griping his cheeks harder, his fingers turning near white and he struggles to keep himself on such open display for the older man.

“Don’t ever hide yourself from me - ever again,” he growls, a hand in brown hair, pulling his back, the column of his throat tight and smooth, Terry watching as he swallows.

“Don’t ever imply that you are not the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

The wet noises as Terry fists himself faster and faster.

Terry can feel his balls drawing up already.

“Play with your hole for me.”

“I … “

“Just rub your finger over it for me.”

It’s too dry, but then Terry spits, and Daniel is clumsy, clearly not used to anything near his ass, let alone on his cute little hole. He clearly doesn’t know how to touch himself there properly, how to make it feel good, but he’s trying, for Terry.

It may be hotter than if Daniel knew what he was doing - hotter than Daniel being able to be three fingers deep in his own ass - fingering himself for Terry.

These awkward little movements like he’s both embarrassed at being on display, being made to touch his hole for the older man, and like he’s almost afraid to touch himself there.

A warm splash of cum, and a deep groan, like a wounded animal, and then Terry is using his cum to wet his boy’s ass further, his fingers replacing Daniel’s. His fingertips glide over it and fuck, Daniel did not think this would feel good - that his asshole would be this sensitive. Fuck, it feels so much better with Terry doing it.

A large hand grips his cock and before Daniel realizes it, he too is coming, shooting into the bed below.

Rolling him onto his back, he takes in the sight of his boy, limp with pleasure, his cock softening.

How could this not be the most gorgeous thing Terry has ever seen?

Next time he’s going to fuck Daniel in front of a mirror.

Prove it to him.

#ask #I got an ask 🤩#cobra kai #daniel larusso #karate kid #terry silver #silverusso #silverrusso #mercy is a sharp knife

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bakumai · 8 months

Text

byler fanfic recs !

favorite of all time !

force of gravity - oceanfruit

literally the best fic i’ve ever read tbh. it’s got slow burn, angst, fluff, all the good stuff you know? idek how to describe the emotions i felt while reading this but it was an amazing experience. definitely my #1 byler fic recommendation 🫶

one shots !

i’d love to see me from your point of view - unidentifiedblackthorn

Mike and Will get high on Jonathan’s weed and Mike has an amazing idea.

you know me better than i do - unidentifiedblackthorn

Will can't avoid Mike forever, and they talk about what happened the day they got high together.

the right idea - candlelitheart

the basis for this fic is loosely inspired by the scene where jonathan and nancy get together in season two because i think it's one of the cutest scenes ever.

kiss it better - beansie

Mike and Will, through the years and in between the lines of friendship and something more.

magnetic pull - pressedviolets

Mike gets drunk at a party and kisses a boy. Will catches them together and is understandably confused.

sweeter than candy - smpshift

where Mike realizes he's head over heels for Will at 3 AM and mindlessly rides his bike across Hawkins just to tell him.

garden song - bafflingyew

Will is rooted to the ground, heart pounding. He wants this. He wants this so bad, but he needs to know that Mike is sure. He needs to know that he’s serious. He needs to know.

home is where the heart is - snoosnoom (moonsooms)

Living in a shared apartment with Will is all Mike could ask for, except for the part where he keeps thinking about kissing Will in the middle of their kitchen.

what do you do now, will the wise? - rainbownixie

The party is playing D&D together and Mike, as the dungeon master, won’t stop trying to make the Paladin and the Cleric flirt. He’s basically making moves on Will through the game. Will is caught off guard by this, and doesn’t know how to respond to the following question:

What do you do now, Will the Wise?

Everything comes down to a simple roll of dice.

the wooing of will byers (and other mishaps) - softzombieboy

With El still in confinement and Dustin increasingly preoccupied the remaining four members group together. Lucas and Max are inescapably a couple now, which makes it a little awkward for Mike and Will as they are unintentionally tagging along on dates. It is especially uncomfortable because Mike keeps insisting that he and Will do the same romantic things as their friends.

a little of that human touch - poetic patron

Will wakes up from a nightmare and Mike helps in the best way he knows how: Cuddles. Which would be fine, except for the fact he's been trying to hide his feelings for his best friend since the moment he touched down in California.

are you happy? - twistedrocketpower

Hopper doesn't care that Will is gay. He doesn't care that Will is in a relationship with a boy. He only cares that the boy is Mike Wheeler, the bane of his existence. He wants to make sure Will knows what he's doing, so he has a little chat with his stepson.

a three step plan to make will byers fall in love - romeowrites

The party concocts a three-step plan to get Will Byers to fall in love assuming, of course, that he hasn’t already.

busy tone - spaceeggscreams

Mike calls Will after a bad day, hoping to get through to his best friend after he's moved away. Instead, he's confronted with a busy tone. He talks anyway.

defensive positions - on_the_rook_cliff

Will and Mike end up cornered and Will becomes protective while Mike becomes flustered.

yes this is a byler fic but i wrote it at 5am and couldn’t think of a title - lillajoba

Just two bros being totally platonic in a motel room.

dance where the rain won’t hurt us - venusperia

mike wheeler doesn't love art — he just loves will byers.

four lessons about you - lia (liastories)

A collection of four times where Mike discovered new methods to make Will feel safe in his company, including how his ‘Will voice’ was born.

are you still mine? - shoto_scribbles

How music brings Mike and Will closer than any trauma could.

more than anyone else - idkilike5sos

An imagining of what would've happened if Will had been at home when Mike and Lucas went to apologise after the fight in season 3.

i want to dance with somebody (somebody who loves me) - beanwithaq

It's the S2 snowball but everyone is actually gay. Including the girl who Will is dancing with and Jennifer Hayes. Who really wanted to dance with that girl

birds of a feather flock together - bundibird

"You know," Robin tells Mike, her voice low and calm and soothing. "You can like both girls and boys."

Steve jerks in his seat like someone slapped him.

"What!?" he splutters, and it comes out as something halfway between a yelp and a squawk.

I Never Find Out 'Til I'm Head Over Heels - orphan_account

Wherein Mike believes he’s being obvious, Will doesn’t know what he believes, and the pair of them could use a lesson or two in effective communication. Somehow all of this has both nothing and everything to do with five years' worth of school dances.

eyecatcher - smoosnoom (moonsooms)

While volunteering at the Hawkins' help center, it seems like every girl around has a newfound interest in Will Byers, and Mike doesn't know why he feels the way he does.

you had me for a minute there - delusionaltogether (Whyyyyy)

senior year in hawkins

sealed with a kiss - astrobi

Listen. No one should ever let Mike make decisions right after he wakes up from a nap, okay? Especially not decisions where Will is concerned. This is so not his fault.

Follow Your Heart 'Til it Bleeds - teej_318

Will and Richie spend the summer bonding over their feelings for their friends Mike and Eddie. Robin gives them some much-needed advice when they hang out at Scoops Ahoy.

you got a fast car - castlebyer

it's spring of 1989, will and mike are young and in love. loosely based on how the song fast car by tracy chapman makes me feel minus the sad ending bc who wants that ?

Down to the Heart - disaster_energy

Mike doesn’t actually think Jonathan’s doing it on purpose, but he's starting to have his doubts.

Or, 5 times Jonathan shatters the moment and one time he doesn't.

dance with me (I think I really like you) - borealisaurora

Mike feels sad after coming back to his dorm from a party, and he reveals to his roommate Will that he’s never danced with anyone before. Will decides to change that :)

(College AU set in the 80s!)

Sober Thoughts - idk_ilike5sos

After an awkward game of spin the bottle at a party, Will takes Mike back to his place and receives a drunken confession about the game.

Walk of Shame - idk_ilike5sos

Mike wakes up in Will's bed, hungover after attending a party the night before. It's normal. Everything's fine... then he remembers.

make me your future history - andiwriteordie

A story of Will and Mike’s past, present, and plans for the future, told in seven parts.

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? - BoNUKA5

It's the end of 1988, and Mike is determined to confess his feelings to his best friend, Will. He hatches a plan to confess on New Year's Eve, because what is more romantic than kissing on New Year's Eve?

that funny feeling - delusionaltogether (Whyyyyy)

"So you- you haven't, like. Kissed anyone, then?" Mike asks, fully aware that he should probably just quit while he's ahead but needing to know, suddenly, if Will has any sort of romantic entanglements that he's neglected to tell Mike about. He's not sure why, but there's something in his gut that demands to know, has some sort of sudden need to know if Will has kissed anyone that's not him.

If Will has kissed anyone that's not-

Wait, what?

or: Mike is jealous of himself.

you in my heart - soukeye

It was sundown. Mike finally had the courage to look at Will straight in the face, witnessing up close the rosy blush on his cheeks and his long eyelashes. Mike Wheeler is so lucky to have a best friend like Will Byers. So lucky it made his heart hurt. Is this normal? Is this what close friendship is like? Because never did he feel so much with Lucas and Dustin, his heart practically palpitating with the only thoughts clouding his mind being the boy staring at him so affectionately.

undertow - beansie

Will has never had his first kiss. Mike is happy to lend a hand.

in progress !

why would you ever kiss me? - aghostlybreath

When Eleven saves Will from Vecna she gets more than she bargained for when they wake up in the wrong bodies. Now to prevent Vecna from infiltrating the mind of his most perfect host the two of them must pretend to be the other.

i think we have a lot in common - teddythebear

Eddie Munson Adopts Will Byers because Gay Found Family is my favorite trope!

god, just kiss already! - californiasummer

5 times the Party watched Mike and Will uselessly pine after another + 1 time they did something about it.

as the world ends, i'll find my home in you - romeowrites

The end of the world was almost peaceful. And then the screaming started.

My version of Stranger Things 5.

a loserparty groupchat - heydorothea18

Mike refuses to tell Richie anything about his friends. Naturally, this is an issue because Richie feels the need to make his cousin's life torture. After a thorough Instagram stalking (with Bev's help), a group chat is created.

When It's Over - ikrannn

Mike Wheeler disappeared from his family's household in Minnesota due to a wolf attack two years ago. One year ago, he came back to them in Hawkins Indiana, where he met his Party and the Losers Club. Now, he hopes that he can survive the turmoils of high school and balance being inhuman on top of that.

OR, haha werewolf fic go BRRR

The Search is Over - ur_ur_ur_mom

Mike moves to Hawkins from Chicago and completely changes Will Byers life.

i'll be your quiet afternoon crush - heydorothea18

Mike hadn't planned on getting arrested on his last day of summer vacation, but at least the chief of police had a cute son.

In Max's mind, getting arrested wasn't that huge of a deal. Getting arrested alongside Mike Wheeler, however, was. And El- the chief of police's daughter- was the biggest deal of all.

Rock 'n' Roll - bylerisc4non

One fateful October night in 1995, Will Byers is dragged by his step-sister, Jane, and her best friend to a rock concert. That was just the beginning…

Or, it's the 90s, Will's in college, Mike's in a band, and there's some...tension.

The Webbing of my Heart - kindoffruityig

Will Byers was a normal 16-year-old living in New York. That was until he got bit by a radioactive spider which changed the trajectory of his mundane life. As Will experiments with his new powers, he finds that he can help people, and save them from the everyday crimes that happen around the city of New York. Juggling his superhero life and his normal life is no easy job so Will has to put his all into it. Through his adventures of being a superhero, he pushes away those that were once the closest to him and has to deal with the responsibility of keeping a whole city safe and also keeping up with his ever-growing pile of schoolwork. Will he be able to keep his identity secret? Can he fight off the dangers that are headed for New York City? The only way to find out is to read, so enjoy!

completed !

i hate accidents (except when we went from friends to this) - blackdeathmamba

five times Mike kissed Will, and one time Will kissed back.

A Box of Unsent Letters Under My Bed, All Addressed To You - adhd_bisexual_nonbeany

Mike Wheeler doesn't understand why he can't just put a stamp on the envelope and place the letters in the mailbox

ill add more as i read more ! if your fanfic is in here and you want it removed, just comment/dm me. :)

also keep in mind that if you reblog this, any updates i add after that won’t show up on your reblog. if you want to see if i added more fics just go to the original post !

last updated 12/30/22 (i swear imma update soon omfg 😨)

#reposting this from my old account so that i can update it soon!!#amai talks

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padfootswand · 2 years

Text

Colloportus

pairing; wolfstar, implied moonwater, implied moonrosekiller

warnings; light NSFW (dry humping)

Sirius’s black-painted nails dug into the skin of Remus’s arm, but he barely noticed the light trace of a sting. He’d just been in the Slytherin common room about five seconds ago with Regulus, complimenting him on a good go. But the second he spied Sirius’s incredulous expression staring back at him, he found himself being dragged roughly down the corridors with Regulus’s silvery green school tie still draped around the back of his neck.

He felt Sirius all but shove him into the first empty classroom he spied, the door slamming shut and locked with an angry muttering of “Colloportus”. Sirius turned on Remus, eyes blazing with-he didn’t really know what. Remus felt his brow twitch with annoyance. “What?”

“What?” Sirius repeated in furious disbelief, followed by a scoff. He fell oddly quiet, his eyes darting to the green tie. “Get that bloody thing off of you.” He yanked one end of it, sending it tumbling to the floor in a heap. Remus felt the back of his neck burn with the intensity of the fabric against his skin - or maybe it was something else entirely.

“What the fuck’s your problem?” Remus snapped instead, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why are you so worked up over this? What’s it to you?”

“My problem?” Sirius echoed again. Remus wished he’d stop doing that. Sirius looked wild with a kind of pent up anger he could tell he’d been holding back. Remus almost didn’t want to see it unleashed. “My problem is you, for Merlin’s sake.”

“I don’t-”

“I know you did that on purpose,” Sirius bit back before Remus even had a chance to speak. “I know you’re sneaking off with him-not that subtle, by the way-because you know, Remus.”

“Know what?” Remus’s tone was hard, but hollow. An uncomfortable silence settled over the room, a silence with the weight of a thousand unspoken words. A heavy feeling rose in Remus’s stomach, and he asked again, despite knowing the answer. “Know what, Sirius?”

“What it does to me,” Sirius replied quietly, quieter than he’d been in years. Remus stared back, the right words dying on the tip of his tongue. “How it-it makes me feel-look, we don’t need to get into that. We don’t need to complicate things. Just-just forget-“

He turned back around, reaching to lift the lock charm on the door. Remus’s hand shot out and gripped his sleeve before he even knew what he was doing. “Wait.”

“Wait-?” Sirius raised his eyebrows, his expression unreadable.

“I-“ Remus sucked in a breath. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

Sirius furrowed his brows, and it was a long while before he spoke again. “I’m listening.”

“Feelings are complicated,” Remus agreed, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest. He didn’t know what he’d said until he heard his own words echo back to him. “Maybe we could get rid of them.”

A step forward. Fingers tracing the knot of Sirius’s tie, slipping behind it so his knuckles brushed his white collared shirt. Sirius’s eyes refusing to meet his. He pulled him closer, and he made no effort to stop it. This was really happening. “Elaborate?”

“All I’m saying is I think we could help each other out.” Remus was becoming increasingly aware of the gap between his chest and Sirius’s closing, and his skin prickled. “Are we in agreement?”

Remus barely caught the raspy whisper of a heavy “we are” before his mouth met Sirius’s in an explosion of light. His fingers tugged his tie, and his thoughts were drowned out by the pounding of his heart. Only one made it through as his other hand drifted to his shoulder-length hair: not like this. Not like this.

But like this was the only way he could be sure they wouldn’t mess up what they already had. Like this was the only way it would be okay.

Sirius’s fingers gripped the back of Remus’s waist, his lips travelling along the side of his neck. “Listen,” he continued quietly, sending shivers up and down his back. “I can treat you better than Crouch ever did.” His grip tightened. “And Rosier. Believe me?”

Remus tilted his head, biting back a gasp. He hadn’t known Sirius had noticed, but maybe that was foolish of him to think so. “Don’t know yet,” he muttered. Sirius’s teeth nipped the skin where his lips had been, and Remus failed to contain a sort of breathy noise. “I’ll have to see what you’ve got.”

Sirius pressed against-wait, no, into him, and Remus allowed his head to fall back. Dizziness shot through him like a bullet, and all he could think to do was tug Sirius closer. “Oh, fuck, okay,” he heard himself murmur faintly, and Sirius let out a heavy exhale in his ear.

How many times had he thought about this? This could hardly be a reality, more of a manifestation of Heaven in an empty classroom.

“Fuck.” Remus blinked, gazing up at the ceiling as Sirius settled into a steady rhythm. The clouds in his head began to clear a little bit as he stared at the chopping paint. “Fuck-wait, stop.”

Sirius’s body froze against his almost immediately, hesitating.

“I’m-I’m not going to do this with you in an empty classroom,” Remus’s fingers caught his wrist. “Anyone could-could-“

“Right,” Sirius whispered, his chin still resting on Remus’s shoulder. Remus could feel his heartbeat through his shirt. “Right.” He drew back a little awkwardly, his breathing still irregular. “So I’ve-I should go.”

“Where?” Remus’s fingers traveled back up to Sirius’s collar. “I didn’t say we couldn’t continue anywhere else.” He arched his brow, and Sirius shuddered.

“Fine, then, love. Let’s go.”

#(( colloportus ))#wolfstar #wolfstar smut #remus lupin x sirius black #marauders smut #wolfstar fic #wolfstar fanfiction #wolfstar fic rec

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luzuraaa · 1 year

Text

byler fanfic recs !

these are all of my byler fanfic recs :)

also, you may have seen this post on my old account @scrunklykou but i decided to just copy it to here so i could continue updating it. i am not copying them given that they are me lmao

favorite of all time !

force of gravity - oceanfruit

one shots !

i’d love to see me from your point of view - unidentifiedblackthorn

Mike and Will get high on Jonathan’s weed and Mike has an amazing idea.

you know me better than i do - unidentifiedblackthorn

Will can't avoid Mike forever, and they talk about what happened the day they got high together.

the right idea - candlelitheart

the basis for this fic is loosely inspired by the scene where jonathan and nancy get together in season two because i think it's one of the cutest scenes ever.

kiss it better - beansie

Mike and Will, through the years and in between the lines of friendship and something more.

magnetic pull - pressedviolets

Mike gets drunk at a party and kisses a boy. Will catches them together and is understandably confused.

sweeter than candy - smpshift

where Mike realizes he's head over heels for Will at 3 AM and mindlessly rides his bike across Hawkins just to tell him.

garden song - bafflingyew

Will is rooted to the ground, heart pounding. He wants this. He wants this so bad, but he needs to know that Mike is sure. He needs to know that he’s serious. He needs to know.

home is where the heart is - snoosnoom (moonsooms)

Living in a shared apartment with Will is all Mike could ask for, except for the part where he keeps thinking about kissing Will in the middle of their kitchen.

what do you do now, will the wise? - rainbownixie

What do you do now, Will the Wise?

Everything comes down to a simple roll of dice.

the wooing of will byers (and other mishaps) - softzombieboy

a little of that human touch - poetic patron

are you happy? - twistedrocketpower

a three step plan to make will byers fall in love - romeowrites

The party concocts a three-step plan to get Will Byers to fall in love assuming, of course, that he hasn’t already.

busy tone - spaceeggscreams

Mike calls Will after a bad day, hoping to get through to his best friend after he's moved away. Instead, he's confronted with a busy tone. He talks anyway.

defensive positions - on_the_rook_cliff

Will and Mike end up cornered and Will becomes protective while Mike becomes flustered.

yes this is a byler fic but i wrote it at 5am and couldn’t think of a title - lillajoba

Just two bros being totally platonic in a motel room.

dance where the rain won’t hurt us - venusperia

mike wheeler doesn't love art — he just loves will byers.

four lessons about you - lia (liastories)

A collection of four times where Mike discovered new methods to make Will feel safe in his company, including how his ‘Will voice’ was born.

are you still mine? - shoto_scribbles

How music brings Mike and Will closer than any trauma could.

more than anyone else - idkilike5sos

An imagining of what would've happened if Will had been at home when Mike and Lucas went to apologise after the fight in season 3.

i want to dance with somebody (somebody who loves me) - beanwithaq

It's the S2 snowball but everyone is actually gay. Including the girl who Will is dancing with and Jennifer Hayes. Who really wanted to dance with that girl

birds of a feather flock together - bundibird

"You know," Robin tells Mike, her voice low and calm and soothing. "You can like both girls and boys."

Steve jerks in his seat like someone slapped him.

"What!?" he splutters, and it comes out as something halfway between a yelp and a squawk.

I Never Find Out 'Til I'm Head Over Heels - orphan_account

eyecatcher - smoosnoom (moonsooms)

While volunteering at the Hawkins' help center, it seems like every girl around has a newfound interest in Will Byers, and Mike doesn't know why he feels the way he does.

you had me for a minute there - delusionaltogether (Whyyyyy)

senior year in hawkins

sealed with a kiss - astrobi

Listen. No one should ever let Mike make decisions right after he wakes up from a nap, okay? Especially not decisions where Will is concerned. This is so not his fault.

Follow Your Heart 'Til it Bleeds - teej_318

Will and Richie spend the summer bonding over their feelings for their friends Mike and Eddie. Robin gives them some much-needed advice when they hang out at Scoops Ahoy.

you got a fast car - castlebyer

it's spring of 1989, will and mike are young and in love. loosely based on how the song fast car by tracy chapman makes me feel minus the sad ending bc who wants that ?

Down to the Heart - disaster_energy

Mike doesn’t actually think Jonathan’s doing it on purpose, but he's starting to have his doubts.

Or, 5 times Jonathan shatters the moment and one time he doesn't.

dance with me (I think I really like you) - borealisaurora

Mike feels sad after coming back to his dorm from a party, and he reveals to his roommate Will that he’s never danced with anyone before. Will decides to change that :)

(College AU set in the 80s!)

Sober Thoughts - idk_ilike5sos

After an awkward game of spin the bottle at a party, Will takes Mike back to his place and receives a drunken confession about the game.

Walk of Shame - idk_ilike5sos

Mike wakes up in Will's bed, hungover after attending a party the night before. It's normal. Everything's fine... then he remembers.

make me your future history - andiwriteordie

A story of Will and Mike’s past, present, and plans for the future, told in seven parts.

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? - BoNUKA5

that funny feeling - delusionaltogether (Whyyyyy)

If Will has kissed anyone that's not-

Wait, what?

or: Mike is jealous of himself.

you in my heart - soukeye

undertow - beansie

Will has never had his first kiss. Mike is happy to lend a hand.

I don't quite know what to say (but I'm here in your doorway) - mikeslawyer

Mike confesses to Will - then kisses him. They don't talk about it, but maybe they should.

he's gonna notice me (it's okay, we're the best of friends) - mikeslawyer

Will gets sick and tired of never knowing if someone has a crush on him, so he asks for advice. Why do all the signs point to Mike?

in progress !

why would you ever kiss me? - aghostlybreath

i think we have a lot in common - teddythebear

Eddie Munson Adopts Will Byers because Gay Found Family is my favorite trope!

god, just kiss already! - californiasummer

5 times the Party watched Mike and Will uselessly pine after another + 1 time they did something about it.

as the world ends, i'll find my home in you - romeowrites

The end of the world was almost peaceful. And then the screaming started.

My version of Stranger Things 5.

a loserparty groupchat <;3 - heydorothea18

When It's Over - ikrannn

OR, haha werewolf fic go BRRR

The Search is Over - ur_ur_ur_mom

Mike moves to Hawkins from Chicago and completely changes Will Byers life.

i'll be your quiet afternoon crush - heydorothea18

Mike hadn't planned on getting arrested on his last day of summer vacation, but at least the chief of police had a cute son.

In Max's mind, getting arrested wasn't that huge of a deal. Getting arrested alongside Mike Wheeler, however, was. And El- the chief of police's daughter- was the biggest deal of all.

Rock 'n' Roll - bylerisc4non

One fateful October night in 1995, Will Byers is dragged by his step-sister, Jane, and her best friend to a rock concert. That was just the beginning…

Or, it's the 90s, Will's in college, Mike's in a band, and there's some...tension.

The Webbing of my Heart - kindoffruityig

completed !

i hate accidents (except when we went from friends to this) - blackdeathmamba

five times Mike kissed Will, and one time Will kissed back.

A Box of Unsent Letters Under My Bed, All Addressed To You - adhd_bisexual_nonbeany

Mike Wheeler doesn't understand why he can't just put a stamp on the envelope and place the letters in the mailbox

ill add more as i read more ! if your fanfic is in here and you want it removed, just comment/dm me. :)

also keep in mind that if you reblog this, any updates i add after that won’t show up on your reblog. if you want to see if i added more fics just go to the original post !

last updated 4/30

#byler #will byers #mike wheeler #stranger things #byler fanfic #🧺💐

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strawberry-lemonade-kisses · 5 months

Text

(5)

Tw: Addiction, SH Mention, Death, Drugs, Not good stuff, hurt, grief

Previous Chapter, Masterlist, Next Chapter

The day room became lively with activity by noon, prompting them to reschedule group therapy to the evening due to the announcement of a special guest, even though no one knew who or what would be presented to the group. The thought of change to the routine everyone had developed was exciting to the group, and the chatter didn’t stop as everyone sat where group therapy normally was, waiting for the guests’ arrival.

“So are we all hoping it’s a clown or someone with proper food because this hospital food is ruining my gains.” Tengen looked sullenly at his biceps, flexing and relaxing like suddenly all his progress had wasted away in the 5 days everyone was in the unit.

“The change would be nice. “I would like time outside, even prisoners get to go outside,” Sanemi said while reclining in his chair, leaning so far back that the front legs of the chair were almost lifted off the ground.

“Everyone, if we could please welcome Sanya, she will be speaking with you all about drugs and drug abuse. This talk will be graphic, it will be raw and if it becomes too much, feel free to leave the room. I will be right outside the day room sitting on the other side of the glass for you guys. Please listen closely” Dr. Gotouge led a taller woman into the room. She was lean, her age showing in the sagging of her facial features, the permanent frown etched into her skin that surely used to smile. The doctor left with a smile, shutting the door behind her as Sanya sat herself in the chair the doctor usually sat in, setting down her large purse that looked full of books. The atmosphere was tense with uncertainty, Tengen was already shuffling in his seat, uncomfortable with the thought of drugs and a lecture while he was still dealing with withdrawal, the medications had made it easier, but it wasn’t perfect and his skin still itched with urge. Sanya sat quietly, observing everyone around her with a content smile.

“Good afternoon everyone, I’m Sanya. I’ve been here at Haven hill visiting and providing information, doing therapy and I am a part time nursing assistant in the adult rehab ward. I’ve dealt with many situations in my time as a nurse. When I was younger, I was a full-time nurse, but I wanted to cut back and take time for me and my family ten years ago this year.” She sat pin straight, stopping as everyone mumbled greetings. “I’m here to share my story of the effects of drugs and drug use. 32 years ago, November 16th, I gave birth to my only child, my son Trevor. He was a very smart boy who loved me and his father, he grew up in a normal home I think, his father and him often fished together, occasionally I would join but really to just sun bathe or work on reports while they sat on the waters edge.” She took in a breath. “Trevor went to community college when he graduated high school. He got an associate’s degree in forensic science and transferred to a four-year college to get his bachelor’s in forensic science as well. He moved to campus after his associates, leaving our home at 20 years old to pursue what he had wanted for a long time, he always had an interest in the macabre you see, he was his fathers son and didn’t shy away from the stories my husband told about his time as a crime scene investigator. That side of things always interested him. He wanted to know how things worked. He was a genius with science that I felt he would make a brilliant doctor, but that wasn’t what he wanted.” Tengen was growing increasingly anxious, visibly fidgeting as the story continued. “During his time in college he found substances. He had started going to parties often, falling in with the wrong people and learning the wrong things. He kept his grades up and he was doing well, we thought. But by the time he was 22, things changed. He came home for thanksgiving break, visiting us with a girlfriend in tow. She was a sweet thing, very caring and patient with him. She was helping me clean up after dinner and we were getting to know each other. I asked how she met Trevor and she went on a whole story of finding him at a party knocked out in the bathroom, bleeding from his head. She called the ambulance and no one would claim him as a friend or significant other, so she went with him, not wanting him to be alone. Trevor had been doing heroin quite heavily, this time strung him out. Grades had fallen and he was on the verge of getting kicked out. We knew none of this. He had always made it seem like he was doing great, no notices had come to the house, we couldn’t check his grade I mean he was an adult. He survived the fall obviously, just a few stiches, head injuries tend to bleed a lot and that’s how he found his girlfriend, Rachel. After his fall he got sober, he went to counseling to help with his stress and Rachel was a big help, she said she was very proud of how far hes come in six months.” Sanya was smiling as she spoke.

“Rachel stayed only two days before going home to her family who was closer to campus. Trevor stayed with us for another day before returning to campus. We didn’t see him until Christmas. Christmas Eve he came home to stay with us for a whole week, Christmas was always a big deal for our family, we didn’t pull any punches and tried our bedt to make it magical no matter how old anyone was. So with the house fully decorated and family visiting from different places we held Christmas eve dinner at our house and Christmas day everyone sepnt with their immediate family. Trevor was quiet, he had come without Rachel as she was with her family and he just seemed melancholy, not sad but just not offering much to the conversations. He spoke only when spoken too and just listened, he hadn’t drank or anything, he remained sober and it was a good dinner with family. He retreated to the basement after everyone left, that is where is old bedroom was, a more spacious room for a young adult male. My husband and I stayed up watching Christmas movies and setting up presents, we spent time reflecting on the year and chatting before we retired for the night.” She paused drawing in a deep breath, locking eyes with Tengen who looked like he was going to sprint through the wall if anyone sneezed.

“I will never forget the screams of my husband. He was running into our bedroom speaking so fast I thought it was in tongues as he dialed the phone. I was getting dressed for the day, brushing my teeth when he screamed. He had gone to check on our son, maybe pen presents if he was awake. I didn’t realize what was really happening. I was just trying to comfort my husband, rubbing his back, trying to get him to answer me when he was on the phone with first responders. I didn’t know that until he was describing it. I think a part of both of us died that day with him. I thought it was an error, a terrible nightmare. I left my husband on the phone with the responders while I went to check. I didn’t need to get far into the basement to know it was true. He had already turned discolored, indicating that he had been dead for at least 7 hours. Heroin overdose, he had managed to get some from a family friend at the party the night before and figured after 8 or so months of being sober he could immediately shoot the same level he had worked up too.” Tengen was out of the room by the time Sanya finished her story, seated with his back against the thick panes of glass that covered most of the wall leading out of the day room. Everyone sat in silence, waiting to see what Sanya would do. The woman appeared calm and tired, as if all emotion had been washed away from her. It was eerie to witness the transformation of a woman who was likely lively at one point. Your chest felt heavy. Is that what your mother would look like? She still had your siblings, but would she be affected like this? Sanya was right when she said a piece of her died that day, because she looked it, Lifeless. She was going through the motions of life but was she really living it?

“Addiction is not something to play with, it isn’t something that someone can handle by themselves. Addiction is a disease, and it kills just as quickly as many other diseases. Like many other illnesses, it takes a support system. Without that to lean on, it becomes easier to fall into old habits. That’s where we failed. That’s what I will always regret. I knew he was recovering, and I didn’t reach out. I expected him to continue to do right. I didn’t let him know I was there for him and I didn’t tell his father. I thought I failed as a parent by not knowing before Rachel told me, but I failed by not taking action while knowing. Speak up, reach out and get help. You can find help all around you. You just have to be open to receiving it.” The air in the room felt thick, uncertain as everyone hesitated for once to speak, no one interrupting eachother or fighting to get a word in, it was uncomfortable.

“You can also get into legal trouble. I was driving in the car with one of my old friends, she slept with someones boyfriend so I dropped her but we were driving to a party one time and she was in the passenger seat with Moly in her lap, we got pulled over and started panicking, he’s gonna ask what’s in the brown paper bag that isn’t suspicious and then he’s gonna search it and were gonna go to jail forever. So we’re sweating while this cop takes his sweet time walking up to my window. He asks for license and all that we go through the routine and I’m trying not to look at her, she’s trying not top look at the officer. I got a ticket for driving with an expired tag and he left. But we immediately dumped moly at the party and went back to my house. That was enough.” Mitsuri was nervously chuckling as she finished her story, looking at Sanya for any assistance to make this less awkward.

“Wait? Whose Molly?” You asked, confused as to why they seemed to have dropped a person or even an animal somewhere and abandoned them. The group burst into laughter, even Sanyas lips lifted into a smile.

“Molly is a drug. It is a psychedelic, used often at parties. You may have heard it called Ecstasy before.” Sanya explained while the laughter died down.

“You are too funny, you poor sheltered child” You shrugged off the comment, drugs just never seemed good, to alter your mind after everything you’d been through with mental illness? Seemed like a recipe for disaster, so you stayed away.

“Is there anything you are struggling with that you feel needs more attention? Substances? Food? People? Self harm?” Sanya looked around.

“We all are, that’s why we’re here, but I think we’re doing better. I know Theres people who may not even know me but somehow care about me and my well being. You don’t want to see others hurting unless you’re a psychopath.” Shinobu was looking at you as she spoke, a soft smile on her lips.

“Well then, I will let you guys continue on with your program. I wish you all good luck on your recovery and take care of yourselves.” Sanya stood, her bag in her hand before she excused herself, Dr. Gotouge sliding into the room as soon as she leaves.

“Wonderful woman, right? She’s strong, she’s seen a lot, as a nurse and as a human, a mother, a wife. You never know what someones been through until you truly look at them, the exhaustion on their face, the red around the eyes, the hollowed cheeks. But people persevere, its human nature.” The doctor sat herself at the desk near the doorway, relaxing in the chair as everyone sat in shock of the past hour. “Anyone want to talk about that?” She offered.

“Some people can care about their kids, others aren’t made to be parents and shouldn’t be,” Obanai’s voice cut sharply, as if he could slice you with just words, but you could tell that speaking made him uncomfortable. You didn’t know what hid behind the facemask and bandages that covered most of his face, but you can’t imagine it was painless.

“I agree. We should chemically castrate a lot of people,” Kyojuro yelled.

“I’ll do your dad if you do mine,” Sanemi joked, laughing alongside Kyojuro as their dark humor broke the uncomfortable air that was suffocating the room.

“Hey, guys, come on. I know you're joking, but if I was anyone else, I would have to report you for saying stuff like that. So just keep that to yourselves or say it quiet enough for no one else to hear. I know you well enough to know you won’t do it.” The doctor gave a pointed look to Sanemi, who shrunk in his chair, a halfhearted shrug thrown her way.

#tw addiction #tw death #tw blood #self h@rm #tw #welcome to haven hill #haven hill #kny x reader #kny x y/n #kny x you #kny x oc #kny oc #kimetsu no yaiba #kimestu no yaiba

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vizthedatum · 9 months

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Questioning everything this past year, and I’m realizing there were things I intellectually knew but wasn’t confronting.

I know I talk about lot about being abused and/or taken advantage of and/or misunderstood and/or extremely misaligned in a relationship or connection.

One of my friends pointed out (and I’ve tried to allude to this in my blog): I also had a role to play in these relationships - my own codependence and trauma-driven attachment issues (or just my learned behaviors with or without the auDHD and CPTSD stuff) were very much of A POLARIZED FIT with the types of people I ended up partnering or befriending.

—

Example: I get reeled in because I’m desperate to be loved, seen, and understood. And then, when they know they have me, the care and affection decreases and becomes more inconsistent and (as I find out later from their resentment) transactional (“after everything I’ve done for you!!” and the like). They cite life circumstances and situations for their limited time or their decrease of care - meanwhile, they’re increasingly putting more lovers, situations, and secrets on their plate. Meanwhile, all this is perpetuated by boundary violations that are in the grey area, ambiguous relationship agreements that are based on “trust and communication,” accusations of me antagonizing them when I share my feelings, ignoring me or leaving me hanging when I’m upset about something instead of setting a clear boundary or statement that they need space (aka silent treatment), refusing to make any changes and doing what they want while accusing me of doing what I want, being so ableist about your chronic health conditions (as if I can’t withdraw my consent from an activity at will?!), etc.

AND they also treat me well - you know and can justify why you’re in love with them - we have a good time. When things vibe - they really vibe. I forget about most of the uncomfortable feelings when we are in flow - I WANT TO FORGET AND TRUST AND JUSTIFY - I want to laugh and giggle and have a great time with my fucking friend/partner. I let it go until I remember all the unresolved issues later after my dopamine hit goes down. And they… also let it go and get upset when I bring it up again - or they unempathically listen and say that’s just how they are. Nothing changes until the next incident.

—

Listen to that - it’s shitty to say “that’s how I am” when your behavior is hurting people. Would you do that?

And I must question everything - including myself.

It doesn’t make their behaviors “right” - willful abuse or ignorance when someone (in this case, me) is hurting… is so dumb tbh. I do not make it an unknown that I’m hurting.

And my hurt gets dismissed or (somehow) all about how I’m hurting them.

—

I’ve been getting myself out of misalignment better and sooner lately. It doesn’t matter to me now if the person is X traits (aka narcissistic) or immature or traumatized or whatever.

If I’m trying to communicate and not being heard… and I’m having the physical symptoms that reflects how lost and anxious I feel? Then I need to question everything.

Blind trust does not do it for me anymore. I will trust people with what they show me, and I can be just as compassionate like that.

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lupinnsa · 6 months

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why choose to be mean?

i’ve had a few bad experiences and discoveries over the past year, and one of those revelations included a weird, uncomfortable observation: that while I strive for kindness in casual conversation, often times the people in the world around me… do not.

i’m not talking about silly, comedy-tuned mockery of friends or anything either. i’m referring to, at least, semi-serious discussion about anything you could have opinions about, from other people, to current events, to trending products.

no matter how positive or negative my opinions are, i strive to voice them with as much respect as possible to those involved with the subject. i might overemphasize my positive opinions and refrain from spending too long on my negative ones, for example. More importantly, I try not to belittle other people casually just because they “aren’t in the room”. When they are, I try to be direct and honest without exaggerating my point. Negative opinions and disagreements are already difficult enough, and there’s no need to salt the wound; I try to remain kind even when discussing events or persons that actively harmed me. Even when I’m pretty sure no one else will see.

If I realize my opinions are flawed based on incorrect or outdated information, I always try to own up to those sorts of errors, and change my opinions accordingly. I try to leave room for personal growth or change to make a difference. I try to keep my expectations from coloring my attitude.

Recent events have made it very clear that others are not so interested in that same effort. I suppose it is easier to be unkind if the expectation is that the subject will “never know.” Or perhaps there isn’t enough consequence for “being mean” to choose words with care. Or perhaps this aggressive behavior comes from the increasingly antagonistic perspective of those beyond one’s personal boundaries. Or perhaps it simply costs more energy to keep your filters on.

I’m not free of this sort of sin myself. I’ve said unkind things before, especially when I was younger, especially when I was less informed, less sympathetic. Even recently, I’ve said unkind things to my own close friends simply because I was in emotional turmoil, because I was desperately craving the minimum closure I could ask, for one of the most egregious accusations I’ve ever been the target of on a larger scale. A simple, genuine, apology.

When I realize that something I did or said was hurtful beyond necessity, whether it was from the heat of the moment or a moment of carelessness, I try to genuinely apologize for it. But I’ve seen that others are all too willing to double down on their aggression instead, punching deeper without indication of a second thought. Without restraint.

Someone once said that people don’t like to own up to their mistakes because saying stuff like, “I was wrong,” is an admission of guilt. That no one wants to be guilty of being a jerk, because then they would be a jerk. And I think overall, that observation seems pretty spot on, if deeply disappointing.

I obviously want people to be more kind, passively, to other people in general. But I especially want the mindset of admitting you were wrong to change: not, “I was wrong and I am a jerk,” but, “I was wrong, I was a jerk, but I want to do better.”

Obviously there’s a lot of nuance to be had here. Like, what about the consequences of actions? Why not fight back if something isn’t interested in giving you a chance to defend yourself? How do we learn to be kind and sympathetic in a world that is, for some reason, becoming increasingly intolerant?

I wish I had the answers to all of that, but I don’t.

I just want people to choose to be kind.

#rambles #blogging #i wrote this understanding it might be seen #and i’ll just have to deal with whatever response it gets #fair is fair #but i had something to say #and so i said it #as kindly as i could

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silver-rings-and-rabbits · 1 year

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Chapter 11 of Open Heart Second Year (part 2)

This part:

The last thing Raf probably wants right now is food and drink. But he’s putting on a brave face and humouring Sienna and I just 🥺 it’s just so like him.

And once again, Sora appears to do nothing. Without the rewrites, would this have been the last time we ever saw Sora? I doubt they would have had a conversation with MC afterwards. There could have been so much GOOD drama and angst throughout this book and PB wasted every last crumb.

Sora was literally an obstacle with a human sprite.

And now I’m on to the worst part.

First of all, romancing Raf or not, MC says the exact same thing. It makes sense on his romance route, but on his platonic route it’s weirdly intimate. Can’t MC just call Raf one of their best friends? Half the angst on the romance route is made up in my head anyway, and now I get something that looks slightly romantic, it gets cheapened by appearing on the platonic.

Second, I feel like they’ve already had this conversation. More than once.

I’ve said before, Ethan’s romance is a completely different scene to his platonic, and yet Rafael gets the exact same repeated conversation…never mind that he left MC, never mind he’s moving to Brazil. All the angst and emotions…ignored completely. Case in point:

Exactly the same options given on his platonic path. Raf romancers couldn’t even get something extra when he was literally dying.

And they somehow managed to make it worse…

I don’t want any of them staying behind because THEY ARE NOT MY LOVE INTEREST.

It made me uncomfortable even during the original release. It was not enough to kill my love interest in cold blood, for no reason, for shock, abandoning any romantic and even platonic storyline he and MC had……I had to choose someone to replace him. And there was no platonic option.

(I chose Bryce just because it seemed to make the most sense for him to stay behind. Matthew friendzoned him.)

Anyway, MC is cured, Kyra survived her surgery. And I still feel like it would have been better to deal with the grief of Kyra not surviving the surgery.

And finally…

Sora…buddy…I get why you’re upset, but you think now is the time for a break-up??

Luckily for Rafael, Matthew is waiting for him right outside the door…

Honestly, I usually love this kind of life-or-death drama (the last few chapters of Twilight somehow had a chokehold on me back in 2009) and I was hooked on this chapter when it first released. But the days passed, the shock wore off, and the uncomfortable parts were becoming increasingly obvious. There’s too much behind the chapter for me to enjoy it now.

Two years eleven months on, and I couldn’t get any enjoyment out of this.

#playchoices #open heart #rafael aveiro #open heart second year #open heart 2.11 #long post

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greatbigbellies · 10 months

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2023 PREGNANCY KINK ADVENT CALENDAR (DAY 13)

Secret Surrogate: 2nd Trimester.

So today was our last day in the office before we all started working from home, and I cannot tell you how close I have skirted the line hiding this pregnancy. Due to my below average height, I’ve started showing much more than I initially expected to, since the baby has nowhere to grow but out front. I will admit, I may have been playing it a little fast and loose with my diet, and maybe giving into my cravings a little more than I should but… I AM eating for two so I deserve some leniency. It’s predominantly baby weight anyway, it should melt off after I’ve popped…

Regardless, I am rounder, mostly in my tummy but noticeably all over. One of the most inconvenient parts of that is the weather is warming up, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to justify wearing loose hoodies and sweaters. They have a nice shapelessness to them that makes them invaluable for hiding a pregnant gut but… I mean beyond looking just a little strange still wearing a sweater when its nearly 70 fahrenheit out, I’M starting to feel uncomfortably warm. I can’t articulate how important it is that we all moved to work from home, cause there wasn’t any way I could keep that up.

I’m 25 weeks now, but even going back to about 18 weeks, things started getting harder to keep tucked away. My tummy wasn’t just a convenient little fat pouch but was firm enough and sticking forward enough that it was getting a little too hard to hand wave away. I learned the hard way that loose, big sweaters have to be LONG enough too, which you wouldn’t think would be an issue for me considering how short I am. But, alas, a big yawn and stretch leaves a sliver of tummy skin exposed, and that is VERY risky for me. I haven't developed stretchmarks yet but, I have no doubt they’re on their way. This baby is weighing in slightly heavier than average for being 25 weeks, and a little bigger too. Nothing to worry about health wise, but the doctor says that it can be “indicative of more prominent growth later in the pregnancy”. I may be cautiously safe since we don’t return to the office until AFTER my due date, but every inch I gain now is one I have to whittle off later.

Still, things have been pretty good otherwise. My friend has been so supportive and doting. She’s adamant that my involvement warrants special treatment, since, in her words, I’m “going above and beyond to help her start her family”. Sometimes I wonder if she forgets how long we’ve been friends and how ride or die I am for her. I know she’d do the same for me. Still, she insists on taking me to regular lunches, and she’s bought me some VERY high end cocoa butter to rub on my tummy (It smells amazing I might use this stuff even when I’m NOT pregnant). She’s even offered to take me maternity clothes shopping when the time comes, and I might take her up on it because that day is rapidly approaching.

It’s honestly really sweet though, how much she’ll dote on me… it kind of takes me back to when we were sweet on each other in college. We ended up mutually rolling it back after a few months. We loved each other a lot but, we worked better as friends. Still, having her buy me food and gifts and rub my pregnant tummy now, reminds me of when she’d take me on dates and do little surprises for me, and give me back rubs when we were together. She’s just always been very sweet. It’s cute the way she praises how much her baby is growing but almost immediately rolls it back for fear of offending me, because if her baby is bigger, so am I. I appreciate her concern but my body image is honestly the best it’s been in years.

I can’t say I strictly dislike the changes I’m experiencing, actually… if it wasn’t for the work drama, I think I’d honestly lean into it a bit? My hips are widening, tummy is bigger, I can definitely feel my thighs have MORE to them. Once I’m done, I might not even stress too much about taking the weight off. Being out of the office for almost 5 months is a reasonable time to gain weight, who is to say the sedentary lifestyle of working out of a bedroom office didn’t have its effects? I guess what I’m saying is, if it wasn’t for outside pressures, I’d have no shame showing off this pregnancy. I’m doing something amazing helping someone I love, and it’s something I should be proud of.

That has easily been my biggest struggle with everything, the tension between feeling proud of my pregnancy and what I’m doing, and the forced hesitation I need to have at the idea of showing it off. Or, honestly, not even showing it off so much as existing with is as a visible factor. We’ve had pregnant coworkers around the office before, hell, one of the ladies in HR pops out a kid every other year for crying out loud… but she’s MARRIED. If you’re hitched you’re fine, no one bats an eye… but god forbid someone have a baby outside of marriage.

Ugh, I’m ranting too much. Or maybe I’m not ranting enough? Either way, I’m out of the office now. If I have a zoom meeting I’ll just keep the camera tilted up so I’m only in the frame chest up, the hard part of keeping it covert is over. Now’s just… the hard part of carrying a baby.

#2023 pregnancy kink advent calendar #long post #writing

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hearteyedbunny · 6 months

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i wrote this for my boyfriend, its his lone wanderer and butch deloria from fo3 <3 love these dorks so much they are SO gay and SO stupid

“Hey,” Butch gently elbowed the man next to him as he spoke up. They had been sitting on the floor for some time now, mostly in silence as they both did their own thing. Warren was intently reading some book about explosives that he had scavenged, while Butch busied himself with patching up a hole in his leather jacket. Butch still didn’t know why Warren had chosen to sit on the floor to read his book when there was a perfectly good bed right next to them, but at this point it was usually better not to ask about any decisions Warren made. “You, uh, you ever kissed anyone, man?”

Warren looked up from his book quizzically, his green eyes giving Butch all of his attention.

“Hmm...no. Have you, Butch?” He answered so honestly, not even curious as to why his friend was asking in the first place. Sometimes Butch admired his naivety, and sometimes he wondered how Warren had managed to stay alive so long with that attitude. He supposed pure luck would do wonders.

“Ah…yeah. I’ve kissed loads of chicks…” His lips twitched nervously, but Warren didn’t seem to pick up on it, only staring at him as he listened. “But that don’t surprise me, you never exactly been a ladies man. Didn’t get no action, even after you left the vault, huh?”

Butch was laughing, playfully slapping Warren on the shoulder. The sound was pleasant to Warren’s ears and he smiled as he gazed at Butch. Warren thought he always looked so pretty when he laughed.

“I guess not, but being out here in the wasteland…it keeps me busy. I didn’t really think about girls,” and he never really did, if he was being honest. He couldn’t remember a time where he ever thought about a woman, or about kissing one. He thought about Butch all the time, though, even when they were kids. Warren always thought that was normal, but nowadays he was starting to become anxious about the whole thing, wondering if maybe he was different after all. He was twenty years old, and had never kissed anyone, let alone a woman. Was there something he was missing?

“Well, y’know…” Butch cleared his throat awkwardly, the sound snapping Warren out of his thoughts. His eyes avoided Warren’s own intense gaze. “I was thinking, uh…I could teach you. If you want. Y’know…so you’re ready when that unlucky dame finally takes pity on you. Wouldn’t want you embarrassin’ yourself or anythin’...”

Butch’s face burned bright red, but Warren was still giving him that sweet and trusting smile. Goddamn, he smiled like he could never be mad at anyone. Butch couldn’t count the amount of times he had given Warren a hard time when they were kids, and still he looked at Butch like he was the whole world.

“Like, practice kissing? On you?” Warren laughed nervously, but didn’t seem uncomfortable, “That’s nice of you, Butch. Sure, we can do that.”

“Um! C-Cool, yeah…” Butch felt himself stutter and was internally beating himself on the head. He thought about kissing Warren all the time, maybe more than was normal, but he always managed to push it down in the end. This time he supposed he just couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself. Ever since they had been traveling together, it was becoming increasingly harder and harder to keep his thoughts quiet. Every time Warren looked at him, smiled at him, rested up against him when they sat together, when there was only one bed and Warren insisted it was alright to share it…Butch’s head had been swimming for months now. “J-Just…Whenever you feel like it, I’m here for you, man.”

“Oh…What about now? I-I’m not busy, or anything…” Warren had to admit he was a little nervous as well. He had seen people kiss before, and even read about it, but the action still seemed so foreign to him. He was afraid of messing it up, but was grateful that Butch would be the first person he ever shared this experience with.

“Sure!” Butch almost squeaked, clearing his throat again in an attempt to hide how quick and enthusiastic his response had been, “I mean. Yeah, sure. Yeah…Just, sit in front of me…Come here.”

Warren did as he was told, placing his book to the side and moving so that he and Butch were sitting across from each other now, looking each other directly in the face. Warren couldn’t ever remember seeing Butch so red. He must have been nervous too, but Warren couldn’t understand why, if Butch had so much more experience than him…

“You’re gonna wanna close your eyes,” Butch couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Sure, he had been the one to suggest it, but it was just a stupid little idea, almost a joke, and yet he shouldn’t have been surprised when Warren went along with it. Sweet, stupid Warren…Butch’s head was full of thoughts again. “Just…just close your eyes and I’ll lean in. Uh, just move your lips against mine, when you feel me…”

“Okay, Butch,” Warren was obedient, fluttering his eyes closed without a second thought. His hands were folded in his lap, his fingers nervously rubbing against the fabric of his pants, “Don’t be nervous, it’s me.”

“I ain’t nervous,” Butch retorted quietly, allowing himself a heavy sigh that he didn’t realize he had been holding in his chest.

His heart was in his throat as he hesitated, staring at the man sitting in front of him. Even after being out in the wasteland for so long, Warren was still the same boy he was in the vault. He still had the same face, despite the several burn scars that imprinted themselves in his skin. His cheeks were pink and dusted lightly with a few freckles, his eyelashes long, and his honey-blonde hair fluffy and soft. His slicked back locks were starting to curl slightly around his ears and against his neck, while a few strands came loose and hung freely against his forehead. Butch made a mental note that maybe he should do the man a favor and give him a haircut soon, he seemed overdue for one.

Finally finding his courage, Butch leaned in. His own eyes slowly shut as their faces grew closer. He could hear his heartbeat thump-thump-thumping in his ears, drowning out any other noise that might have been around them. His palms were sweaty, his hands shaking slightly as it finally dawned on him just what was about to happen. He was going to kiss his long time crush, the man he had his eyes on for as long as he could remember. He wondered if Warren was as nervous as he was, or if he was just as carefree as he’s always been.

Their lips finally joined together, their mouths pressing softly and eagerly against each other. It was awkward, their teeth clinking together a few times as they excitedly and hurriedly breathed each other in. Butch tried to take control, his shaking fingers cupping Warren’s rounded jaw and keeping him steady. The kiss only lasted for a few moments as Warren broke away to catch his breath, forgetting to breathe in their haste.

Butch blinked open his eyes to meet the emerald green ones in front of him. Warren’s face was flushed, and he looked starstruck.

“Was that okay?” Warren asked nervously.

Butch only blinked in response, his head filled with nothing but the thought of those velvety, pink lips against his own. They were as soft as he had imagined so many times before.

“Butch?” Warren waved a hand in front of Butch’s face, finally freeing him from his thoughts.

“Uh…” Butch blinked a few times, “Yeah…Yeah, was good. A little sloppy, could use some work…”

“You wanna try again?”

“Yeah…” Butch’s voice was low as he stared at the blonde, almost like he was in a trance, “C’mere…”

Butch shifted forward on his knees a little, the hand cradling Warren’s jaw wrapping around the back of his head to thread through his golden locks, causing Warren to moan quietly as their lips collided once more.

This time was just as heated, but slow and careful as they took their time. Butch softly gripped the back of the other man’s neck and, goddammit, Warren wouldn’t stop making those little hushed moans as their lips moved together. Butch wondered if Warren was even aware of what those noises were doing to him, or if he knew he was even making them at all. He sounded so sweet. Butch wanted to devour him whole.

Caught in the moment, Butch flicked his tongue out to lick his way into Warren’s soft mouth. The blonde flinched away at the sensation, breaking their kiss and sending Butch into a panic. God, I fucked up, he thought, I went too far and now he’s never gonna talk to me again…

“Shit. I’m sorry man, I–”

“It’s okay,” Warren interrupted, placing a hand on Butch’s arm, “I’ve never, uh… It surprised me,” He smiled sheepishly and Butch wanted to tackle him to the floor, “I liked it…can we keep going?” It killed Butch how soft Warren’s voice was, like he was equally afraid of scaring Butch off.

Butch only nodded in response, their faces still so close to each other that all he had to do was lean in again to press their lips together for a third time. Warren accepted him eagerly, wrapping his muscled arms around Butch’s neck and pulling him close to his own body. Butch was the one to moan at that, a noise he didn’t even realize he was making until it already escaped him.

Pushing gently at Warren’s chest, Butch ushered him to lay on his back before climbing atop him in his haste. Warren didn’t seem to object, allowing Butch to straddle him and do what he pleased. The arms wrapped around Butch’s neck began to explore, one feeling along his back and the other entwining into the back of his thick, dark hair. Butch shuddered.

Warren whimpered this time when he felt Butch’s tongue slowly trace along his top lip. He opened his mouth tentatively, allowing Butch to lick his way inside. It was…an odd feeling, but Warren didn’t dislike it. He wasn’t sure what to do with his own tongue, so he just let Butch take the lead. He shivered as Butch felt his way around, exploring Warren’s mouth and drinking up every muffled moan that the blonde couldn’t keep to himself. Warren didn’t mean to be so noisy, but it was so hard when Butch was right on top of him, invading his mouth and biting softly at his bottom lip.

The sudden grind of Butch’s hips made them both groan. Warren tightened his fingers in Butch’s hair, desperate to keep him close even as their kiss broke. They nuzzled against each other, both gasping quietly at the friction.

They stayed that way for a few moments, bodies glued to one another as both of them attempted to catch their breath. Warren leaned his head back against the floor, just breathing softly and fluttering his eyes shut, his hand still coiled in Butch’s hair. Butch looked down at him, admiring his flushed cheeks and the way his chest rose and fell as he breathed. He was beautiful. Butch realized he was hard, and then he realized Warren was too. Butch felt himself grow hotter, if that was even possible at this point.

“You…I…” Butch’s tongue suddenly felt too heavy in his mouth, “That was–”

“Good…” Warren finished his sentence, smiling up at Butch serenely. He was petting the back of Butch’s neck, and Butch felt it tingle along his spine. “I mean…did I do good?”

“Yeah…” Butch felt lightheaded, his courage from just a few minutes ago suddenly nowhere to be found. He realized he was shaking. “Great. You did great.”

Warren slid his fingers back into Butch’s hair, pushing him forward so that their lips were almost touching. They looked into each other’s eyes, and Butch shivered again as he realized Warren’s looked hungry.

“I want more,” Warren’s words were punctuated by an experimental roll of his hips. It was Butch’s turn to whimper. “Show me, Butch…”

#kas writes stuff #warren my BELOVED. I LOVE HIM SO SO SO MUCCHHHH #this is the longest thing ive written in so long. what the hell.

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