#but clearly one cares too much and the other is willing to risk it all

[vampiremansionpoolboy-moved]

going insane over the fact that happiness and care and concern and love is underneath every interaction between newt and hermann in pacific rim

[lilacsandpetals]

Frozen Blossoms Pt. 6

Last part here.

Next part here.

Bi-Han x F! Reader

Tags and notes: Arranged marriage AU, SFW (but some suggestive themes), exploring emotions, Pre-MK1/MK1 AU

Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping, blood, and mentions of violence.

Bi-Han had gotten far too used to you now. 

Since that night when you washed his hair, the taste of your lips lingered on his. It’s as if you’d cast some spell on him. He sought you in quiet moments of the day when no one else was around but you and him. Exchanging discrete touches, stealing kisses, and nothing more.

He inched closer to you every night as you retired to bed. You opted to wake up earlier. A chaste kiss was shared before he departed in the morning, followed by a fervent one before bed each night. 

Every day that went by brought you closer to him. 

Yet it still left much to be desired. The longing for more of you was present, but it seemed all too difficult to proceed as he hoped. Something seemed to always pull you two apart. Whether it was you pulling away from a kiss far too soon for his liking or him being dragged away to serve Earthrealm. Or maybe on occasion, it was his own apprehension.

He did appreciate the kiss of goodbye you would gift him before he’d depart. Which these days, was more often than he preferred. But he tells himself that it’s not only for Earthrealm’s safety but yours as well. 

And maintaining your safety was of the utmost importance to him. He’d strictly insist that you remain within the Lin Kuei’s walls, and when he did, he could see the disappointment in your eyes. Yet it was for your own good. He was sure that you were aware of the fact that your position was highly coveted. So slowly but surely, whispers and retaliation of your marriage clawed their way to the Lin Kuei. But he would not allow anyone from the surrounding clans to advocate or force your removal. 

Still, they were becoming more of a nuisance than he had initially anticipated. 

Many clans had approached the Grandmaster with offerings of their daughters for marriage; greedy and willing to sacrifice their kin as a bargaining chip in exchange for the Lin Kuei’s protection and loyalty. Although, what right did he have to think that way? His own father had so quickly arranged his marriage for the sake of greater resources for the clan’s advancement and well-being. He knew it was tradition, and he was nothing if not a product of his clan’s laws and heritage. But still, he wondered if his mother would have made him abide by such a standard. 

Either way, when you had married there were already unhappy whispers dancing throughout the other clans. With tensions brewing he urged your instructors to intensify your training as time went on, just in case things went south. Other than the blatant conflicts they’ve had to shut down, he had instances where they’ve caught suspicious characters lurking nearby the Lin Kuei’s estate. 

He wouldn’t worry you about all that. He’d manage that burden on his own. 

Usually, he’d be eager to use the skills he has been taught. His bloodlust is greater than he’s let anyone take note of. But when it came to you, these conflicts concerned him. He found no pleasure in engaging in disputes that may put you at risk. It causes his heart to become anxious like he needs to wipe out any threat to you the second it arises. 

That’s why he is always leaving you. Your time spent together has been cut short so often because he needs to take care of you in this way. 

———————-

For now, he sits at the bedside, his body is tired, but he is eager to spend time in your company.

He glances at your flowers and gently plucks a petal off of one of them, he’d need to pick you new ones soon. These were clearly dead, yet he found it slightly endearing that you kept it around. One night he had seen you pluck some of the flowers off of their buds and place them into one of your books. He never cared for flower pressing, but he did find it somewhat gratifying that you’d preserve his gift in such a way.

His eyes then fall to the books. You had a decent stack of them resting at your bedside. You came off as an avid reader. When he’d return home from his work, he would find you engrossed with your novel more often than not. He wonders what type of books you like. He supposes that you wouldn’t mind him flipping through them. 

Oh, how he wishes he hadn’t. You had a type of literature you were fond of and he’s not surprised. Most of the women he knew of had a preference for romance. However, he did not expect your novels to delve into such explicit situations. 

What type of filth were you reading??

You often maintained such a monotone look while you read, so he never would assume you could be reading things of that nature. 

He toyed at the collar around his neck. Were those actions what you desired of a man? Did you think of anyone while you read those novels? Have you already indulged in such actions with another? Or did you want to try them at all? He was right beside you when you read in the evenings. In his opinion, you had ample opportunity to initiate anything if you so desired. However, you two never went farther than a kiss. And it has been some time now since your first one. A slight feeling of unease settled within his chest. He could be the one to advance your relationship if he really wanted to.

What was holding him back?

The distinct sound of your footsteps approaching snap him out of his thoughts, so he clears his throat and sets the books back in place as if they were yet to be touched. 

You rounded the corner with a smile on your face, as beautiful as always. “Husband, will you walk with me to the dining hall?”

He narrows his eyes slightly, “yes.” He gets up and steals one more glance at the books before he walks with you there. He maintains his regular demeanor. As you keep up the pace by his side, your hand slowly slips into his. He allows it and gently tightens his grip on your hand. You keep your eyes trained on the path ahead, but he can’t help stealing glances at you. Your hair was neatly tied back. A few strands always managed to escape but it felt fitting for you. The necklace he’d gotten you has taken up permanent residence on your neck, he knows you are wearing it before he even looks. The pin in your hair is simple, but he wonders if you’d want one to match your necklace. He’s sure he’d be able to find one with a jewel similar in color to that of your necklace. 

———————-

Dinner went as per usual. These days your father-in-law would direct his conversation to his sons, leaving you a silent listener at the table. They spoke about their missions and their current affairs. As the matriarch-to-be, you should have been attentive to the conversation. But you often found yourself zoning out. You weren’t included in conversations of this nature that often outside the dinner table, so it made it difficult to engage properly. 

But today was different. A calculated list of questions descended upon you. Inquiries on if you’ve been sleeping well and how many hours per night, how consistent you are with training, and if you’ve been eating properly. 

You were confused for a moment, you appreciated the Grandmaster’s concern, but it felt nearly invasive. Still, you don’t think much of it until he speaks up once again. 

“If all is well, I assume an heir will be conceived soon.”

You nearly choke on your food and begin to cough a bit. Tomas pushes your cup of water towards you. ‘So that was what all the questioning was about.’ You were not ready to have a child, not yet. And you were yet to even sleep with your husband. You seem frozen in place, not knowing how to respond. Thankfully your husband comes to your aid. 

“We will inform you when the time comes, father.” 

Bi-Han eyes you briefly and you look back down at your plate. That would be a different topic for you two to breach at a different time. 

———————-

You’re off to bathe before bed. The warm water is soothing in the midst of the cold weather. Bi-Han is tempted to ask if he could join you. Yet he cannot find the words to do so. Matters of the heart have bested him far more than those of the battlefield. So he finds himself in his secondary place of pain and comfort of the training grounds. More training was beneficial. Unfortunately, he hadn’t anticipated Tomas or Kuai Liang to be present. They seemed more engaged in their conversation than the light sparring they partook in. What exactly were they talking about?

“Did you see his face?”

‘Who’s face?’ Bi-Han debates on whether or not he should ask, but before he is given the pleasure of deciding, Tomas spots him. “Bi-Han! Come practice with us.”

Bi-Han rolls his eyes, but he supposes the sparring partners would prove helpful. “What were you two talking about?” Tomas shoots Kuai Liang a certain look that Bi-Han takes notice of. “Well? Spit it out.” He snaps. 

“It’s really nothing,” Tomas says sheepishly. 

“We were just speaking on our future endeavors.” Kuai Liang remarks. He debates on whether or not he should cover up the subject of conversation, or if he should test his brother’s temper and be honest. 

“As in?” 

Kuai Liang throws some hand wraps to Bi-Han, which he snatches with ease. “Marriage and its aspects of love and responsibility.” Bi-Han nearly rolls his eyes. Both brothers assume a fighting stance. As per usual Bi-Han starts on the offensive, so he throws the first kick of the match, “Elaborate.” 

“The same subject that father spoke about at dinner.” Kuai Liang responds with a punch that Bi-Han checks. He then shoves his brother slightly rougher than he meant to. ‘The subject spoken about at dinner?’ The sparring comes to an abrupt halt. “My wife?” he hisses. 

Tomas promptly speaks up, “No! Just about the idea of having nieces and nephews soon.” 

Bi-Han inhales sharply, and Tomas takes note, “I mean unless you haven’t been trying for a child yet?”

Kuai Liang shoots him a slightly amused look, and Bi-Han knows that face. It’s the same face that his younger brother would give him before he was about to spew utter nonsense. “You haven’t yet, have you?”

“Shut your mouths, you insolent fools.”

Tomas tries not to chuckle, “The more you avoid the question, the easier you make the assumption for us.”

“Neither of you is married, so do not act as if you could even comprehend such things.”

Kuai Liang respects his older brother, he really does, but right now he has to resist rolling his eyes.”Harumi and I are not married yet, but I think I’m capable of understanding such a topic.”

“You and Harumi have known each other since you were children, I met my bride rather recently. It is not the same ordeal, so don’t speak on it.”

Kuai Liang supposes his brother is correct. “You’re right in that I wouldn’t understand your exact situation. But you misinterpret my intentions.” He placed his hand on his older brother’s shoulder, “Don’t overthink it. Whenever it does happen, you’ll be fine. And I’m sure you’ll have offspring soon enough.” 

Bi-Han will not voice it, but he hopes his brother is right. 

———————-

Steam fills the room. You sink into the hot water and let out a pleasant sigh. Lately, you’ve had to increase the amount of time you spend training, and it is safe to say that your muscles still haven’t properly adjusted to the increased burden of it. Therefore, unwinding like this was greatly valued. 

Whenever you were in this tub, you were reminded of your first kiss with your husband. The memory is still fresh in your mind and it causes heat to rush to your cheeks. He had looked stunning that evening with his hair down and his demeanor relaxed. Since then you were thankful that you had gotten close enough to exchange more kisses in private. Although neither of you breached the aspect of furthering your physical relationship. Yet you did find yourself desiring it more and more often these days. Thinking of his physique had caused your mind to wander further than you would have felt comfortable admitting. 

And then it made you think of dinner earlier.

The process of producing a child did intrigue you, but the rest seemed nerve-wracking. Pregnancy was something you knew you’d have to endure sooner or later. It excited you but scared you all the same. And then the thought of raising a child in this strict environment worried you. 

But those were problems that you would address later. For now, you’d relax, and ponder the possibilities of what may have happened if you hadn’t retired to bed so quickly after your first kiss that night.

———————-

Bi-Han eventually returned to your shared quarters. You were adorned in a silk robe, relaxing in the bed, book in hand. Your eyebrows were furrowed as your eyes rapidly scanned the words on the pages. You bit your lip briefly before a small smile emerged on your face. He wonders what about the novel could have you so engrossed; was it on the same topic he had seen earlier today?

He clears his throat and you look up, then briefly down at your book again before you shut it. Your eyes lift to meet his, “welcome back”

He cracks a small smile as he walks over to his side of the bed. “You say that as if I’ve been gone for a long time.”

“It felt long to me,” you tease and lean closer to him. Your book is still enclosed in your hand and Bi-Han can’t help but glance at the novel. “What were you reading?” 

“Oh, this?” You hold up the book a bit higher and he gives you a little nod. “It’s a romance.”

You then stand up and motion to the stack at your bedside. “The majority are romance novels. I’ve read through a lot of them.”

You set the book in your hand down gently. “Speaking of which, I want to go get more.” 

He raises an eyebrow, “More books? Why?”

‘What does he mean, why?’ You think and cross your arms rather confused, “why not?”

“Do you need them?”

“I find them enjoyable, isn’t that reason enough?”

“Can’t you find enjoyment in other things?”

You scoff and lay a hand on your hip. “I know you’re often preoccupied but the home we live in is catered to the strict nature of your clan. There are not many means of enjoyment here. My days are busy and I like to read to unwind.”

“There’s other ways to unwind.” He responds, almost in a tone that merges desire with that hesitant spite, and it only confuses you more. You step closer, “If you don’t accompany me I will go on my own.”

“You will not.”

Now you are getting annoyed. “And who’s going to stop me?” 

Bi-Han clenches his jaw and steps forward, he holds your hand, “I will. You are not allowed to leave on your own.” It wasn’t safe, you’d become an object of envy for other clans. He was not going to let you out on your own. 

You fight the urge to roll your eyes, you went out on your own accord when you had lived with your family prior to the marriage. You went out during the Mid Autumn Festival. So what was the problem now? To be frank, it was getting a bit tiring. Living out a similar schedule every day, seeing the same locations on the daily. 

Before your husband can say anything else you come up with another retort, “Okay, if I’m not allowed to go alone I’m sure Kuai Liang or Tomas will come with me.” 

“No, not happening.” He snaps. Were you purposely trying to get on his nerves? The unamused look on your face clearly told him you would not be backing down. “If you desire to go that badly. Then I’ll take you.” 

———————-

Bi-Han kept his word the next day.

It was nice to get back into the village, a much-needed change of pace from the confining walls of the Lin Kuei.

You had dragged your husband along to various shops—mostly window shopping. But you eventually made it to the shop that sold the novels you had a preference for. The shop itself was quaint, and the books were located in the back corner. You make your way there and skim the shelves, with your husband following close behind, His shadow looms over you as he tries to steal glances of the books you pluck off the shelf. You can feel how close he is so you turn around, handing him the book you have in hand. “You seem slightly interested.”

He takes the book and glances at the cover, “I assume it’s a romance.” 

“Of course, it’s a genre I like. Oh and don’t put that back, I want to buy it.”

Bi-Han flips through the pages. It appeared to follow the course of the other books you had at home. 

Maybe he’d sneak a look at the book when you were preoccupied again. If you found the actions done in the novel so enticing, maybe he could use that knowledge to his advantage. Or rather, the overall advantage of your marriage. 

He continues to follow you around the shop and ends up buying the books you picked out. As you exit the shop and make your way onto the street you see Bi-Han staring at a small establishment. It was a tad far and on the other side of the road. 

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”

You oblige and as you squint your eyes, you notice it’s a jewelry shop of some kind. You try not to ponder, but you wonder if he was buying something for you. 

So you wait on the side of the street, pacing back and forth a bit while you wait. 

But something is wrong, bit by bit, the smell of smoke starts to become apparent. At first, you consider it nothing. Perhaps a nearby eatery had burned their food or something of that nature. 

Then your stomach drops as you turn. Without warning, black smoke erupts into the air, and hot flames lick at your surroundings. Screams and shrieks of civilians ring in your ear as you attempt to make sense of what is happening.

You need to get out of here. Where is Bi-Han? 

Your eyes quickly scan from side to side. The heat of the flames are becoming more and more apparent as your skin starts to sweat. It’s getting harder to breathe. Your sense of direction is skewed. 

You need to find your husband.

But you can’t. 

It all happens too fast. You don’t know when the unfamiliar hands grabbed you, and you don’t register how quickly the cloth covers your mouth and nose. You only realize you’re beginning to lose consciousness when it’s too late. 

———————-

Your eyes can barely open. There’s a heinous pounding in your head accompanied by stinging pain around your ankles and wrists. You realize you’ve been bound there by a rope that scrapes against your skin every time you move, leaving it red and on the brink of breaking. 

You’re unable to speak due to a cloth covering your mouth. You try to remain calm, but that’s easier said than done. Tears stream down your face and you attempt to regulate your breathing. You remind yourself that the more you panic, the harder this will be.

How long have you been here? The last thing you’re able to remember is being ambushed by men you didn’t know. With a thick cloth serving as a blindfold and being in what you assumed was a darker environment, there were limited ways to estimate the passage of time. 

It suddenly hits you. The fire must have been a diversion.

You knew something was wrong. Between Bi-Han being more protective, the rise in clan conflicts, and the sudden increase in training, you should have deducted that something was off.

This would not have happened if you paid attention more or if you trained more. Maybe you would’ve been able to defend yourself and make it to Bi-Han in time. You knew risks came with your new status, why didn’t you take that into account more? 

You never thought it would affect you so directly, that you’d become a hostage. And worse yet, you didn’t know what these men intended to do. What if they meant to kill you? You would never get to say goodbye to your family back home. You would not get to say goodbye to Bi-Han. You wished you spent more time with him. You can feel yourself shaking, but attempt to take a few deep breaths.

You try to snap out of it. You have to be calm. Worrying would do you no good now. 

Your husband wouldn’t leave you like this, would he? He was a capable man. You know he wouldn’t just forget about you.

You will be fine. All you have to do is remain steadfast in your trust towards your husband. 

And so as time slowly passes, your breathing returns to a normal rate, and the tears do not stop, but they slow down. You lay your head against the concrete wall. Your mind runs over the same thought again and again. That BI-Han would rescue you, you just needed to be patient.

You don’t know how long it has been, but you’ve remained practically still.

The sound of a heavy door creaking open gets your attention. 

“She’s here!” 

Your heart pounds as you hear two familiar voices within ear’s reach. ‘Kuai Liang and Tomas.’ 

“Is she hurt?”

“I think so.”

Both of them come to your aid, first removing your blindfold. Your eyes try to adjust to your surroundings and the visual confirmation that your new family is present eases the tension a bit. Tears of relief leave you as they remove the cloth from your mouth. “Thank you.” You mumble. Drool pools at the side of your lips when you speak. Between that and the tears you briefly think of how much of a mess you might look like now. But the thought leaves as fast as it comes. Kuai Liang undoes the binding on your ankles, while Tomas tends to your wrists. It hurts, and you notice your left wrist has begun to bleed. Your lip begins to quiver and Tomas hastily wraps a cloth around it. “Don’t worry, the rope didn’t cut that deep, this cloth should do until we get back home.”

“And don’t worry Y/N, you’ll be home soon,” Kuai Liang remarks in as comforting a tone that he can muster up right now. But you catch the concerned looks that the brothers exchange.

You try to crack a smile, to show your appreciation at their attempts to make you feel better. But it’s difficult right now. 

Where was your husband? 

As if on cue, Bi-Han practically breaks down the door as he enters the room. “They’re all dead but one, I left him alive to question.” His tone of voice is harsh, practically lethal. 

You’ve never seen him like this. 

Blood paints his face and clothing. He is breathing heavily and you can vaguely hear it through his mask. His eyebrows are furrowed and his eyes have never appeared so cold. There’s a blood-soaked dagger in his hand. You can see it’s made of ice and he tosses it to the side before running towards you. His mask covers the lower half of his face, but his eyes have always been expressive, and you can see the hardened look in his eyes slightly soften. He bends down to your level, taking your ankle in his hand gently before you feel his arms wrap around you. He lifts you bridal-style. 

Exhaustion has overtaken you. The blood on his clothing concerns you, but it doesn't seem like it belongs to Bi-Han. Some of the blood gets on your cheek when you lay your head against his chest. You can faintly hear his heart beating frantically although he doesn’t show it. He carefully wipes a lone tear that cascades down your cheek. 

You want to thank him for saving you, you want to apologize for allowing yourself to be kidnapped. You want to scream and cry, and you want him to wipe away all the tears that threaten to spill over. But it feels as if no matter how many times your mouth opens, no words come out. That no matter how badly you want to move, your body is frozen in place. He carries you out and you close your eyes. 

He doesn’t say anything, and neither do you.

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Thanks for reading 💙

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[hqbaby]

three — yours

fuck ur instincts — suna x reader & atsumu x reader

you and suna are just fooling around—so why does he care so much when you start falling in love with someone else?

previous — masterlist — next

word count. 1.9k content. fwb, swearing, car sex, oral (f receiving), fingering, use of pet names (pretty girl, babe, sweet girl)

“How do you know if you like someone?”

“If they have a buttload of cash.”

“How much is a buttload?”

“I dunno, like a hundred million yen?”

“And it has to be in cash?”

“You can probably count assets too.”

“Sounds sensible.”

You and Oikawa are on the floor of his dorm room busy folding pieces of origami paper into rings. Somehow, you had both convinced each other that, if you weren’t able to make a thousand, you’d be single forever and die on the toilet. Neither of you are willing to take that risk.

“Hold on,” he says, head shooting up to look at you.

“Don’t stop!” you scold, finishing the ring he had disregarded. “Think of the toilet death, Tooru.”

His lips spread out into a grin. “Why do you wanna know if you like someone?” he asks teasingly. “Is there something I should know about? Or, more importantly, someone?”

“What? No. Ew boys. Cooties.”

“It wouldn’t happen to be the boy you’ve been seeing, would it?” he presses, ignoring how you urge him to get back to the origami. “The one Iwa said you gave your number to?”

You groan, flopping onto the carpet and avoiding your best friend’s gaze. “It’s not like that, okay?”

He squeals, like actually squeals. “Y/N’s got a crush!” he proclaims in a sing-song voice before proceeding to make kissy faces. “Is that why you’ve been so busy this week?”

“I haven’t been busy.”

“You so have,” he says. “I don’t even know who the boy is! Iwa never told me, said I should hear it from you.”

You gulp. “Right, about that…”

Oikawa looks at you expectantly. “Yes?”

“He’s kinda… your teammate.”

Suddenly, his face turns dark, a scowl now taking over his features. “Y/N,” he says in a low voice, “What have I told you about dating volleyball players?”

“Don’t… do it?” you answer tentatively. 

“Exactly! Don’t do it!” he tells you. “We’re all assholes! You know that more than anyone.”

He’s right, of course, you know he is. You’ve been friends with him since you were in middle school, inseparable since highschool. You were there to witness all the broken hearts that he and the rest of his teammates left in their wake. They didn’t mean to do it most of the time, but they did it anyway. It’s why he never let you date any of them and made sure everyone knew you were off-limits. It’s also why he never introduced you to his college teammates. He didn’t even want you to know their names.

You wonder what your best friend would say if he knew that you were not only going out with one of his teammates but also sleeping with another. You guess you’ll cross that bridge when you get to it—and you hope you never do.

“Who?”

“What?”

“Who are you seeing?”

You offer him a guilty smile as you sit up. “Atsumu?”

His eye twitches. “He’s literally the other setter, Y/N!”

“But he’s nice!”

“That cocky asshole is not nice!”

“You’re just jealous,” you shoot back at him.

“Of course I’m jealous.” He frowns. “And I don’t want you to get hurt when the pain is clearly avoidable.”

The two of you are quiet. Oikawa picks up a piece of paper and folds it up into a ring, brows knitted together in worry. As much as he hates this, he doesn’t remember the last time you actually considered that you might like someone. You were never open to these kinds of things. You dated guys, sure, but they weren’t anything serious. He hates Atsumu, but he wonders if there might be more to him than meets the eye. You’ve clearly seen something he hasn’t.

“Look, I get it,” you say, finally breaking the silence. “He’s not… perfect. He’s messy, he talks too loud, his car’s a mess—but he’s honest, you know? And I like spending time with him. I just wanna have some fun.”

He sighs and looks back up at you. “And it’s not serious?”

You nod. “Not serious at all.”

Your day is going horribly. With your summer semester still a week away, your coach has decided to take advantage of your extra time and make practice more gruesome than ever before. It doesn’t help that you’re more exhausted than usual, what with Atsumu suddenly taking up your days and Suna taking up your nights. And today, all your fatigue comes crashing down on you as you fall from the top of a pyramid.

“Y/N!” Yukie exclaims as the spotters catch you just in time. “Are you alright?”

You let yourself lie on the floor for a moment, staring up at the high ceiling of the gym. “I think I’m dying.”

Kaori holds her hand out for you to take and pulls you up. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she says with a fond smile. “Come on, we just gotta finish this last run.”

You turn to your coach and offer a bright smile and a thumbs-up before heading back to your starting position with an extra pep in your step. When you look back at your friends though, your face falls, practically wanting to weep from exhaustion. As the music starts playing and you go through the routine again, you wonder if the scholarship is even worth all this torture.

“You look rough,” Kaori tells you in the locker room afterwards. “Lip gloss?”

“Yes please,” you say, catching the tube she throws at you. You turn to the mirror and swipe the strawberry gloss on your lips, smacking them together before sighing. “I’m not even taking classes yet but I already feel so busy.”

Yukie snickers. “That’s what you get for going at two boys at once.”

“Yukie! Don’t be so loud!”

Your friends laugh at your panic. There’s no one else in the room and, even if there was, it’s not like they would even know what you were talking about.

“Relax,” Kaori says. “Why are you so worried about people finding out anyway?”

You shrug, putting the lip gloss back in her bag. “I don’t know. It’s just… weird. Rin doesn’t even want people knowing we’re friends and Atsumu’s still too new to mean anything.”

“Do they know about each other?” Yukie asks curiously.

“Kinda,” you say. “Atsumu knows we’re not exclusive and Rin knows I’m sorta seeing someone. It’s weird, I dunno.”

Kaori pats you on the back. “That’s college for you, baby.”

The three of you head out of the locker room, complaining about which muscles are sore today and being pleasantly surprised by which ones aren’t. You have the next day off though, which is rare and great and you’re all looking forward to it.

“You sure you don’t need a ride?” Kaori asks when you get to her car.

You nod. “I’m good.”

“If you say so,” she says, giving you a quick hug before getting in the driver’s seat. “See you on Monday!”

“See you on Monday!” you wave as the car pulls out of the parking lot and drives away. When they’re gone, you take your phone out of your pocket and sit down on one of the benches outside the gym.

rin: u done?

you: yep, r u near?

rin: look up pretty girl

Your eyes lift to see him walking towards you with a smirk. He isn’t wearing anything special, just a t-shirt and some jeans. You’re pretty sure he’s even wearing your pink Hello Kitty socks under those shoes of his (the ones he swears he didn’t steal). He seems completely normal to you—so why does he look so good?

You stand up and crash your lips into his, your fingers coming up to grab the fabric of his collar. He kisses you back immediately and holds your face in his hands. Everything about it is rough and hot and wet. If anyone saw you now, there’s definitely no way they wouldn’t know what the two of you are to each other.

You pull back from the kiss, forehead pressed against his. “I want you.”

His eyes pierce into yours. There’s something so intimate about the way he looks at you, something so raw and real. “You have me,” he growls. “Of course you do.”

The two of you manage to make it to his car before you’re on each other again. You’re lying in the back seat with Suna’s body hovering above yours, both your lips pressed together in fierce competition. His tongue slips into your mouth and you let out a moan as he moves closer to you.

He yanks both your gym shorts and underwear down in one motion, sliding his fingers between your legs. He snickers. “So wet for me, babe.” 

“Touch me, Rin,” you say breathlessly. “Please.”

He pulls away from your lips, ignoring your whines at the loss of contact as he moves down to bring his face to your cunt. “Only because you asked so nicely,” he tells you before eating you out like his life depends on it. “Tastes so good, sweet girl.”

You manage to lift your head to look at him, his head between your thighs. It’s depraved, the way he laps at you, the way he kisses your clit and licks at your folds. His hair is a mess and you can practically see your slick dripping down his chin. He puts one hand on your thigh to keep it from closing and uses the other hand to slide a finger inside of you.

“Fuck, baby. Don’t stop.”

“I don’t plan on it, babe,” he says against your heat, crooking his finger just right so it sends shockwaves through your body. “Always so good for me, aren’t you?”

A moan rips out of your throat. “Yes, Rin, yes!”

“This pussy is all for me, isn’t it?”

You nod, eyes closed as your back arches. You’re so close. So, so close. Practically seeing stars. “All yours. All yours,” you chant. He sucks at your clit. “Fuck!”

“Whose?”

“Yours, Rin!” you scream. “All for you, Rin!”

With one more stroke of his finger right against your sweet spot, your high comes crashing down on you, the orgasm wracking your entire body. You try to close your legs to find some relief, but Suna keeps them wide open as he continues to spear his finger into you, riding out your high. The fucked out look on your face is all he needs in that moment.

When you’ve settled down, he pulls his finger out and sticks it in his mouth, tasting you on his tongue. You groan at the sight.

“Not bad, babe,” he says, grabbing one of the wipes he keeps in his car and cleaning you up. He’s gentle about it, careful not to touch the sensitive spots and apologizing when he does. He knows how sore you can get. He knows your body more than anyone else does, even yourself.

You pull your shorts back up and the two of you lie together for a while, your head on his chest. Then, it hits you.

“Do you think anyone saw us?”

“That’s a weird way of thanking me for the greatest orgasm of your life.”

You push him away playfully. “Get over yourself,” you say. “Not even in the top 5.”

“Top 10?”

“More like 50.”

“Hey!”

You turn your head to look at him, both of you smiling. “That was nice,” you say. “Not great, but nice.”

He rolls his eyes at you and presses a kiss to your forehead. “Whatever. When we get home, I’m fucking my way to number 1.”

“Game on.”

notes. idk about you guys but i would totally let a guy like suna finger me in a parking lot. not like speaking from experience or anything but... yeah. anyway!! that was the first smutty chapter but there will be more hihihi :>

i'd love to hear what you think of the series so far!! looking forward to sharing more with you all ;)

[forever--darling]

request: and for anakin I love the idea of how he comforts his girl. hugs, nicknames, cuddling together.

summary: being in the midst of a war came with many problems, but you had never accounted for the possibility of your general anakin skywalker being one of them, especially when a specific nurse seems to be all over him

pairings: general!anakin x jedi!reader

word count: 2.7k

warnings/notes: swearing, mentions of war, mentions of death, jealous!reader, fluff, mentions of sex, 501st clone trooper battalion, forbidden love

masterlist

It appeared almost out of thin air, like a billowing blow that seemed to almost knock you on your ass. It was worse than the battle you somehow had survived only a few hours before, sure to be stuck in the same predicament again soon. After all, when in an active warzone, it was always the reality, the scenery unable to escape but practically tattooed across your skin. It was means for disaster, of a bleakness that was sure to leave you depressed at night as you lay awake listening to the constant gunfire and screams from men and women meeting their fates. 

That deserves your full attention, your care, and yet something else had appeared. It made you feel guilty, like a horrible person, at the way your heart tightened and ached. How had it come to be? 

This thick grimy green monster that had latched upon your shoulders, interfering with the only mission you had been focused on for months. When you were assigned to the 501st Clone Trooper Battalion, you hadn’t even thought of the possibility, the mere ability to let your guard down, have it risk ruining everything. And yet there you were, in complete inept with your General, with a man you had been pulled towards as if the force was willing it to occur. 

You wished then you could have run, somehow been taken captive, at least to save your heart from falling into the same fate. Captive she was, but not by the Separatist enemies; no, it was so much worse. It jeopardized everything it meant to be a Jedi, a knight, a warrior of the Republic. 

It appeared, and now suddenly, it was all you could feel. Even more so as you found her delicate hands brushing along his bicep, eyes surveying the minimal cuts that littered his perfect skin, mixing within the dirt. Blood dried, but marks that would remain for most likely the rest of his life. As she did her job, you surveyed from the corner of the tent, the large tan tent you had spent a few nights in yourself, staring at the ceiling as a lamp crowded the darkness in the softest of golden light. 

It felt diminished in some way as her eyes, so doe-like, innocent, unwilling to be caught up in a war, stared up at him through her lashes. A blush appeared on her cheeks, the same soft pink that you had so clearly seen even that first day when she had met him. She was smitten with the general, and you had never cared, and yet at that moment, you felt the rage swell in your chest. 

He wasn’t paying attention, not to the way she oggled him or the small smile that appeared every time she noted the muscles of his bicep. He was too busy staring down at the latest casualty report one of the other soldiers had brought to him. It was long, at least five pages, three pages longer than it had been for most of the course of the time you had been here. Names and ranks littering them, sure to fade into the road of forgotten ones, only to be kept alive by the mark they left on wherever they came from. 

Your chest ached then for a moment at the thought, but it only hardened further as you heard the nurse’s soft voice fill the tense air of the tent. “General Skywalker, I was told you experienced some impact that was quite severe along your abdomen. I’m afraid I’ll have to take a look.” 

His blue eyes snapped up to hers, that stone-coldness commonly there met her kind ones, and you hated how your stomach turned involuntarily. You huffed slightly, brows knitting in so much anger. His glare flickered over to you, but only for a second, barely surveying your stiff posture. 

He sighed then, almost of disappointment, before nodding, “Make it quick, will you?” 

“Of course,” she replied, almost too enthusiastic. 

Anakin peered back down at the list of his soldiers, but his face hardened again as the nurse cleared her throat awkwardly. He looked back up at her. 

“I’m going to need you to remove your clothing, sir.” 

He didn’t look at you again, and you felt your arms drop in defeat. You were crazy; you knew that much, but it didn’t stop you from turning on your heels and storming out of the tent. He had asked you there to go over some details of the battle, and yet the five minutes you spent standing there had you feeling so out of place even though you had spent the night there two nights before. He was silently staring down at the reports for the entirety of those few minutes, but you couldn’t care, and you couldn’t stay. Too blindsided by the anger that filled your chest, eliciting your veins on fire from the sudden rush of your blood going straight to your balled fists. 

It was something that could surely wait because you were too afraid.

Afraid if you stayed any longer, you would do something that would have the nurse talking, sure to have the rest of the troop and brigade in a state of knowing. Sure, to go back to the Republic, then you both would be in trouble because, after all, Jedi had responsibilities, a code to follow, and work to do. And attachments weren’t allowed, even in a state of sadness, even in the darkest places where it’s the only form of comfort to have. 

You found the only way to really deal with this sudden feeling that seemed to consume you was to take it out on anything you could. It was why you had gone and trained, your lightsaber stretched out, meeting the clashes of another soldier you commonly fought with. Your blows were more forceful, fueled by the sudden rush of feelings you hadn’t known you could even feel. You hated it, the way it seemed to never fade, never fall to the back of your mind even as hours passed. Instead, only the images of her possibly tracing his bare chest and stomach with her fingers remained. 

It was hours upon hours of training, trying to tire yourself into a state of exhaustion, even with the possibility of having to go off into battle at any moment. You couldn’t care, knowing this had to be gone when that time finally came. Not only for your survival, for the mission but to keep him from ever knowing. 

General Anakin Skywalker, the chosen one, the professed hero of this war, could never know. Never know of the sudden feelings that had befallen you. 

That night, you stood in your own tent, far smaller than the General’s, you were getting ready to sleep. Bathed as well as you could manage, you were bundled in clean robes, ready to succumb to the darkness of sleep; it somehow more comforting than being awake. However, as soon as you were ready to do so, a soldier appeared at your door with a message.

“The General requests your presence.” 

It had taken all day, hours, for Anakin to ask for you, to seem willing to want to talk to you, and that seemed to enrage you all over again. Perhaps, he enjoyed the comforts of the innocent nurse warming his bed rather than you. Perhaps she was some sort of light, untouched by the true grit and devastation of war, having never truly left the camp. She had not met death, had not drained life from someone so carelessly. You, on the other hand, were tainted, left in a wallowing sense of pain that only others could understand who had watched death parade day in and day out. 

Yet he had called for you, as he did most nights, but you didn’t go. 

You couldn’t. 

Something you had never done. Something no one had ever done. When the General requested you, you went, no questions asked, and yet your feet were glued to the ground. 

A half-an-hour later, it seemed he became tired of waiting because he had appeared in your doorway, the tent falling closed enough that not even a sliver of the outside world could see inside. He stood in clean black tunics, grime washed free from his delicate features, but that stern look was still apparent. 

He was so breathtaking, like sin itself. 

“I called for you,” he said, voice breaking the air, sounding demanding. 

You stood, fingers carding through your hair, pulling free a knot, back turned towards him. “Did you?” 

His furrowed look only deepened, somehow confused if the message had gotten to you or if you had chosen to ignore it, “Yes, hours ago.” 

“Hm, it seems I must have forgotten.” 

He could hear the spite in your tone, it unable to be hidden. He became frustrated at that point, “Forgotten?” 

Stepping further into the tent, he approached and you felt his presence seem to wrap around you completely, leaving your heart an aching mess. “You don’t merely forget. When your general fucking requests you, you come. Do you understand me, Y/L/N.” 

You turned then, anger palpitating, sure to burst any second as you thought of just how much you were suffering. Your knitted brows met his glare intact, “I was merely giving you time, sir. Time for you to recover, have your wounds tended to.” 

It seemed your words, paired with the spite in your tone, revealed something to him because suddenly his expression was waning, collapsing in on itself into one of wonder. A single brow raised, lips almost lifting in a smirk. His hard exterior disappeared, the General in him no longer there, but only Anakin himself. The true twenty-one-year-old man he was. 

“Seriously?” he chuckled then, spotting how your chest rose and fell in frustration. 

“What?” you spat.

He seemed to be enjoying it, evident in the way his smile only widened, a look of pure amusement appearing. “I wasn’t sure at first if I was imagining it, but damn it seems I haven’t.” 

He had caught on, you realized then. You were unable to truly hide it, not when the fear filled you of what exactly this could mean. Caring for a man this much who you were sure to never see again one way or another when this war ended. Sighing, you turned away again, unable to face him. 

“You can’t just call me whenever you need a woman to nestle yourself into, Anakin.” 

It seemed your words had pulled all air of the room, the amusement he felt somehow falling away at the way your shoulders slumped into themselves. “Y/N.” 

You couldn’t reply then, too shocked, too afraid to. 

“Baby,” he corrected himself, the name only heard at night under the stars. You hated how it felt paired with the way his hands took hold of your arms, turning you to face him again. 

You couldn’t meet his stare though, instead focusing on his shoes. 

“Look at me.” 

You denied him again. 

“Look. At. Me.” This time, his thumb and forefinger took a hold of your chin raising it so your eyes were forced to meet his, the blueness the only comfort you had found in this life. He chuckled again, “You’re cute when your mad.” 

“This isn’t funny.” You huffed then, willing to push him away but his hands stopped you, taking a firm hold of your wrists. 

“Oh, but it is. You’re so clearly jealous.” 

The word awoke something in you, because you felt your glare appear in a moment of defense. “I am not.” 

“Are you sure about that?” he goaded and you felt your entire resolve crack, it so easy when his hands traced down your sides to your hips. They rested there comfortably.

A side only you got to see of the general somehow convincing enough. 

“Does it always have to be her?” you asked then, letting it all out, “I mean, every time a nurse is requested to check you over after you return from the front, it is always her. Every fucking time, and she isn’t good at hiding it either. She is so fucking obvious with how she looks at you. How she even touches you. It’s…”

“Not anything to be worried about,” he finished then, his hand coming up to cup your cheek softly. 

Your eyes met his and softened them almost immediately. 

“You really think that I would do that to you? To us?” 

“I don’t know what to think, Anakin.”

“Why is that?”

“This is wrong, and you know it. If the Council found out, what would come of you? Of me? It seems like a lot to risk just for sex.” 

“Just sex? Since when have I ever given you that impression?” 

You couldn’t answer, somehow feeling as if the weight of the world would crush you if you did. It was all too much once again. How you felt about him, about this predicament of life that had befallen you.

“You were never and have never been just sex to me. You must know that. The way that I feel is…” 

He trailed off as if trying to find the words, find how to say the exact things he had promised himself never to say, because of the code, of his Master, of fear of what would become of him. Leaning forward, his forehead met yours, and suddenly, you could only squeeze your eyes shut, breathing unevenly. 

“When I go out on the front every fucking day, when I have to leave everything else behind to ensure that I am giving everything to these men, to this mission, to the prophecy, one thing still remains. The only comfort I have in all of this is returning so I can see you. Living for the possibility of hugging you, seeing you, kissing you. When I first convinced you to fall into my bed, it was never just for sex. It was because I felt as if you could save me. Save me from the darkness that looms too close to my heart most days.” 

“Anakin,” you whispered in disbelief, in an ache of how much you truly cared, possibly loved this man. 

“You’re the future, the only future I can focus on day in and day out. So understand when I say you have nothing to worry about. No nurse, no other woman, could take the place of that, okay?” 

You nodded, eyes squeezed shut, trying to will the tears away, so desperately hoping they wouldn’t fall in front of him. You couldn’t let them, evident in the way your hands dug into his shoulders, as if afraid of him walking away. Leaving you as you always thought he would one day. Instead, he held you back just as tightly, his forehead pressed along yours.

You heard him chuckle again, though, remembering why you had been so upset. “I still think you’re cute when you’re jealous.” 

You couldn’t help it, not as your own laugh appeared, the tears falling then as you opened your eyes to meet his kind and loving stare. “She was all over you.” 

“I’ll make a note to ask for another nurse then. Or even better, ask that you are the one to take care of me. That way, you can be the one all over me.” 

You smiled, that ache falling away, somehow being buried back where it came from. Simply cured by the man before you. How inevitably screwed you were one way or another. 

“Now, can your general request you to his tent? Or are you going to deny him of that for the second time today?”

What were you ever to do? Compassion is one thing Jedi acted upon, something so completely unable to be avoided, and Anakin Skywalker had practically laid himself out to you. There was no way not to fall inexplicably for a man. No possibility or other life where you couldn’t have loved him. Especially when you didn’t know if you would be alive tomorrow.

[oleander-nin]

Horrortober Day 12- Stalker(Yandere Rise Donnie x Reader)

A/N, not important: Sorry it's short. I just... Couldn't. Any criticism is welcome, constructive or not. This is supposed to be a gender neutral reader, so if I screwed up somewhere, please tell me.

-Ollie

CW: stalking, recording without permission, planned drugging, planned kidnapping, dark themes, yandere themes

Words: 718

Summary: It's time to take you home

Donnie's gaze flits over the many screens, a deep scowl on his face. He couldn't believe you were up this late again, despite his advice earlier. You promised you'd get sleep. He had the texts open, looking at them before looking back at you across the cameras he had planted in your room so long ago. You were up again, a pencil in your hand with the other knotted in your hair and homework on your desk. Why hadn’t you come to him if it was giving you this much trouble? He would have done it for you in mere moments. It was an insult to him to not let him help.

Donnie’s frown deepens as he leans back in his chair, trying to decide how to move forward. You clearly needed his support, needed a guiding hand to set you straight. He was completely willing to do that for you, to set you a schedule and hold you to it. He would do anything for you. Gosh, he would love to do everything for you.

He continues to watch the screen, analyzing every movement and burning it into his retinas. He could take you home. Your area in his lab was set up, the blankets and pillows in the corner to your liking. He knew this because it was an exact replica of the ‘nest’ you had in childhood, thanks to the pictures Donnie salvaged off of your old phone. He had gotten everything perfect for you. A cabinet in the kitchen was full of your favorite snacks, the fridge stocked with food that could be turned to meals of your taste, and Donnie’s own room was set to match the temperature of yours. Everything was ready, all he needed now was you.

Donnie wasn’t sure why he had held out for so long. Maybe it was because you seemed so happy the other day when he texted you, or when you hugged him for a few seconds longer than normal after he gave you your new phone. He knew the adjustment to your new life with him would be difficult, and he wasn’t fully ready to give up seeing you smile so brightly at him just yet.

But seeing you in your room, textbook open at three in the morning with tears in your eyes? It broke his heart in two. You’d never need to study like that again once he took you. Your life would be one of comfort and love. He’d dedicate every hour to you, making sure you were as happy as you could be. Sure, you wouldn’t have your freedom anymore. He couldn’t risk you going outside and getting hurt after all, but that is all a necessary sacrifice. You were too precious to be cast into the world, to hold a job and be harassed by life itself. You were something to be treasured, something to be spoiled and kept safe. He didn’t care he would be keeping you in a box that you would never leave, as long as you were safe and by his side.

He would die without you. He would wither up and collapse, his own heart breaking. Donnie knew he was being dramatic, but he felt his metaphor to be true. Without you, he would be nothing, just as you were nothing without him. Donnie looks back at the screen, watching your head loll forwards as you fight the sleep your body and mind so desperately needed. From the angle of the camera, he could just slightly see the bags under your eyes. They had grown since you last saw him, and his heart panged with worry. That wasn’t good.

Donnie scowls, standing up and leaving his desk for a moment. He crosses his lab and enters the room, searching his drawers for the small pill bottle of Ambien he kept in them. He needed to be prepared for when you arrived, just in case you were awake and still struggling. He counts the necessary pills for your weight and sets them on the desk, prepared to force you to take them if needed. Once the small gift he had for you was set up, Donnie returns to the heart of his lab, grabbing his tech bō and spider-shell.

It was time to bring you home.

[nrdmssgs]

Prazdnik (part 1)

Masterlist

Part 2

Pairing: Nikto x reader Fluff. This guy can't let himself just start a happy life, but its all fluff. AN: I swear, I don't have a single idea, how this happened, but I woke up with the strongest itch to comfort Nikto today. Summary: you are trying to express your gratitude and comfort your colleague in a not-so-conventional way.

You figured out, that Nikto is not a big fan of communicating with others, when he was off duty. You asked him to teach you how to pick locks without extra noise. And so he did - he spent much time and effort between missions to make sure, you know your ways around different types of locks. But every time, you tried to thank him after yet another lesson - he stood up and left the room. As awkward as it looked from the outside, it never seemed to bother him.

He never joined your little group celebrations. Of course, others too sometimes passed them due to various reasons, but Nikto never came. At first, you thought, he just had a full life outside the work and had no time for his colleagues, but soon you noticed, he rarely left the base, even when he had such an opportunity.

On a rare occasion, he was ok with you siting beside him in the armory, as he took care of his gear. Although every time, you approached him, Nikto 'greeted' you with 'is it going to be a question about lock picking or some more of your nonsense?'. 'Nonsense' was you asking him little, not too intimate questions about his life and culture. You just wanted to find out, what makes this man smile, what, if anything at all, brings him peace and comforts him.

Nikto never overshared, but little by little he opened up. He seemed especially at ease, when he told you something about his childhood: little children games, they played with other kids from the neighborhood, his favorite radio-shows from back then, celebrations, they used to have. You couldn't be a hundred percent sure because of his mask - but you thought, his eyes seemed softer at these moments.

There was only one way to find out for sure, if those memories really made him as happy, as you thought. And it also provided you with a way to thank him for his help. So you sank into studying endless forums and videos, to make a surprise. After weeks of preparing (after all, you didn't have that much spare time between the missions, trainings and paper work) you gave a final look to your private room and sighed. It would either humiliate you till the end of times, or bring a smile on his face. So... worth a risk.

"I taught you for almost half a year... only for you to not be able to pick the simplest lock? And where could you possibly lose a key to your own room?" Nikto grumbles, following you down an empty corridor. He was clearly not happy with you interrupting his first calm evening after the mission, and it made you regret your idea in advance.

He opens your door with such ease, as if he was holding not a picklock, but your key. You await any reaction on what he sees inside your room, but Nikto turns away and starts walking back, not even peeking inside.

"Wait! I have to show you something! Its important!" You grab him by the sleeve in desperation and drag back.

Nikto freezes on your threshold, finally seeing, what is exactly going on in your room. He looks back at you in confusion.

"What's this all about? Is it some joke?" He carefully rounds up a large sheet of craft paper laid out on the floor. A sheet, that you painted for almost a week, occasionally looking at photographs of festive tables from Russia.

"Its a surprise. I know, celebrations are not your thing really and you dont celebrate Christmas. But I thought that maybe, just maybe, youll be willing to celebrate something from your childhood with me. This is... skatert`*" You feel awkward. It's a good thing, your room is lit up only with a few candles (one covered with a peeling grater, because he told him, thats how they used to make a fancy lamp out of practically nothing). This way he won't see blush on your face.

He descends on the floor, and moves away a few plates and tangerines, you placed on the paper to be able to properly read, what you've written in the middle of your improvised festive table. You are ready to die of shame then and there, but he reaches out an open palm to you.

"Give me a pen. There is a mistake. 'S novym godom*' goes with 'M' at the end." You can't believe your ears, but pull out a pen from the pocket.

Nikto takes it, but doesn't proceed to correct your writing - he still looks you in the eyes.

"Sadis`, nauchu tebya, kak pravil`no*." You don't understand a single word, put he pats the empty space beside him and you sit down.

"So, what's about all this with a New Year in October?" You almost see amused wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, as if Nikto is smiling. But his question still comes out in a cautious tone.

"Well... Consider this a rehearsal. I wanted to give you your favorite holiday, but I probably made the wrong salad, and the tablecloth is not the same as in your childhood, and instead of champagne we will have tea and instead of a TV... a box with a hole and painted buttons. So you can tell me what to fix, and I'll work on the 'Novyy God 2.0' till the end of December."

Nikto turns to you fully and tilts his head to the side. "You're saying, this is supposed to resemble an Olivier salad?"

"I know, it looks all wrong, but hear me out!" You move a plate with your interpretation of Russian festive food to him. "It tastes much better than it looks! Try!"

He hesitates for a minute, then another. Then he moves the candles further away, so his face remains in the darkness and unfastens the straps holding his mask in place. On one hand you don't mean to make him uncomfortable with your stare, but on the other you genuinely care for his initial reaction to what you've cooked, so you glance at him briefly. You can still see the outlines of scarred skin, but everything you care for is a tiny shadow of a smile, you notice on his lips.

"Kak ty... ok, this tastes much better than it looks." For the first time you hear some unmasked joy in his voice.

For some time, the room falls into a comfortable silence. The candlelight flickers, casting vague shadows on both of you. You rejoice simply at the opportunity to sit quietly next to him and enjoy the moment, while munching on what you've prepared - even if the table is not real, and there are still two and a half months before the holiday. Nikto traces the flowers, you painted on paper with his fingers.

"You even made a TV... What for?" His voice, much softer and quieter than usual, sounds somewhere above your ear. While eating, you moved a bit closer to him and Nikto didn't seem to protest.

"Oh, that's the best part! I remember you telling me, that you used to listen to New Year greetings from the president on radio and television. So today I will work as a president... I don’t know, president of our base."

"My fucking god, you serious?" Nikto almost choked on yet another spoon of salad.

You didn't give yourself time to develop any shame or cringe and proceeded to the big box with a square cut out hole. If you are disgracing yourself for this man to have some good memories of today - you are going all the way down.

"Ok, I have a little speech here. Please bear with the shittiest version of Russian, you've ever heard..."

When you begin to hesitatingly and slowly read the congratulations, Nikto presses his fist to his face and quietly shakes in silent laughter. As you end and proceed to back to your place - he can't hold back his chuckles. It’s so unusual to see this man relaxed, maybe even happy.

"Idi syuda, prezident ty moy*." He motions for you to come over and allows you to sit down and lean against his shoulder, adjusting you so, that his face stays out of your sight. You press yourself against his side, enjoying the unexpected but warm gesture. Who knows, if there ever will be one more time, when you can feel his soft human nature?

But soon his body tenses, his hand, almost covering your shoulders, retreats.

"We don't do this stuff in Russia." Nikto gestures up, and you don't get it right away, what does he mean. But then you see, what exactly he noticed, and curse under your breath. You absolutely forgot a branch of dry eucalyptus that you hung from the ceiling of your room so that it always smells nice.

"No-no-no, Nikto! It's not, what you think, I never meant to-"

"Good thing, of course, you didn't." He jerks away and reaches for his mask. And at this moment a strange, almost crazy idea appears in your head.

"Nikto? How do you do it in Russia?" He freezes with a mask in his hands, his eyes piercing you, as if he tries to read you mind.

"...how we do what?"

"How you... steal a kiss to find out if you have chances? We have this silly thing with a mistletoe. And how do you guys do that?"

He seems to stop breathing. You see his intense gray-blue eyes, studying you, as if this was the first time, he ever saw you. What you make out are his features right now as Nikto hides his face beneath the shadow of his mask.

"We ask. Sometimes, just go for it. There is one tradition, that can be potentially used for this purpose, but..."

"Show me!" Words leave your mouth sooner than you manage to fully understand, what you are asking for.

He hesitates, looking at you, then at the candles. Then he tears off a piece of paper laid out on the floor and divides it in half. Nikto hands one half to you.

“Here you need to write your deepest wish. Don't show it to anyone.” Your wish fits into one short word. He does the same with his piece of paper and surprisingly his wish also looks short.

“Now you need to burn the wish over your glass, so that the ashes fall into the champagne.”

You do as he tells, watching ashes falling into a cup of tea, while he lights up his piece with the nearest candle.

"Now you drink. And then you must kiss somebody, otherwise, the wish never comes true." His voice is barely audible, as if Nikto talks to himself. You drink your tea, not paying attention to the smoky burnt paper taste. When you move closer to him - he doesn't pull you away. But as your face leans closer to his, he sighs apologetically, covers your forehead with his hand and presses his lips against it.

It's not even a kiss, but the strangest caress, you've ever felt. Niktos breath smells of ash and a tangerine, he was eating previously. A celebration, with a drop of sorrow. A happiest moment, that is never allowed. A feast in the middle of a battleground. That's him - that is Nikto.

"Prazdnik moy...*" He whispers and stays like this for a few moments. But then he stands up and disappears behind the door of your room with a quite "I'm sorry."

At the bottom of his mug there is still a piece of unburned paper. Two barely readable letters: "o" and "u" are still there. And if you ever notice them - you will understand, that you two share a wish.

*skatert` (here and next Russian) - a table cloth

*S novym godom - Happy New Year

*Sadis`, nauchu tebya, kak pravil`no - come sit here, I’ll teach you how to do it right

*Idi syuda, prezident ty moy - come here, my president

*Prazdnik moy - my holiday (used as a pet name here. rare one, but possible)

[haute-pockette]

The Doctor's incarnations have fears associated to what caused their regenerations Two acting childlike and whimsical because he's afraid of growing old again. He's scared of becoming a crotchety old man that will die alone. He surrounds himself with friends just as he much with surrogates, to help him feel like he isn't too old to be running about having adventures. Three having a lot of complex and mixed feelings about the Time Lords. He resents them for what they did to him and his companions, but also very scared of facing that fate again should cross their path once more. Four can't stand spiders. They didn't directly kill him, but damn did they play a big part leading up to his regeneration. They give him the willies and Sarah Jane and Romana always have to take care of invading arachnids while he is perched safely on the center console. Five hating heights might actually be canon, he's shown freaking out on a cliff in Castrovalva and hating every minute of a plane ride in Time Flight. Boy likes to keep his feet firmly where he doesn't risk falling. He'll get vertigo if too close to a ledge. Six being scared of getting sick. While this one is more vague, it was the fever of Spectrox Toxemia that kills, so I could see him being panicky and over compensating when it comes to illnesses. Pulls manflu pity every time: bed rest, tea, soup, hot waterbottle on the forehead, reciting rhetoric about his woes. Poor Peri and Mel has to tend to his drama. I can also see him hating bats but in a "why can't you fuckers make more than a tiny vial of milk, asshole???" kind of way. I think Seven's might also be canon (in the books at least) with the way he mentally locked away his Sixth self in fear of the Valeyard. Though he wasn't really a cause for regeneration, he certainly set the Doctor on the path to it. Eight terrified of medicine and hospitals. Aspirin is already deadly to Time Lords, anesthesia fucked up his regeneration. This boy won't go to a medical professional unless he's dragged in unconscious. He will look at broken leg twisted out of shape and claim he can walk it off. The Warrior/War Doctor scared of failing people the way he did Cass. His spirit for hope and brighter ending to the war broken when he regenerated. He became the one that got his hands dirty because he was too scared to let anyone else die under his care.

Nine scared of war. War Doctor held off his regeneration for years to keep fighting, and Nine clearly does his best to step away from the incarnation he hated being more than anything. Like he said, "Coward, any day." Ten is a bit tricky. He's scared of Daleks, losing companions. He's scared that people around him will be willing to sacrifice themselves for him. Scared of the heart of the Tardis, the very soul of time itself ripping away what/who he loves. After Rose is safe from it he was very careful to never let anyone open it again. Eleven scared to see another Time Lord again. He's heartbroken about being the last of his kind. Romana, Brax, Damon all gone. The Master's plans had gotten so much more violent and destructive and insane than they used to be. The other Time Lords so desperate to escape the Time Locked war that they'd destroy time to do it. He's scared of everything ending if the Time Lords return. I haven't really seen enough of Twelve or past that to give proper interpretations on them, but I'm pretty sure Twelve is determined not to be seen as an old man. It's like he sees this new cycle as starting over so he's trying to act like he's the young, rebellious first incarnation? idk

[general-cyno]

okay punk hazard was a bit shorter than I expected but still fun. and my two favorite things wrt zolu in this arc were:

1) getting to see a lil bit more of luffy and zoro as a chaotic, ride or die duo

zoro claiming he can just slice a whole ass dragon in half, luffy having absolutely no doubt that he can do it and actively encouraging him with a bit of help of his own, then both of them talking mid air about how tasty it looks/how to cook it? peak crazy dumbass x crazy dumbass behavior.

it was also cute and funny how robin immediately (correctly) assumed zoro would carry luffy across the water and that, well, it kinda ended up happening as it was zoro holding onto luffy when they fell in.

2) THIS ENTIRE PAGE

(this is gonna get a bit long oops)

the thing about zoro is that he can be a big softie. he cares a lot more than ppl might think at first glance, and he worries. especially where luffy's concerned, even if his words can seem harsh at times. for all that zoro definitely trusts luffy's strength and believes in him, he worries for luffy's safety anyway. one example of this is back in alabasta when sanji points out that zoro was worried luffy might lose to crocodile despite having agreed with luffy's decision to stay behind and confront him alone.

zoro's also very aware that luffy's not really infallible, that he's got shortcomings and weaknesses of his own. but that's not an issue per se - because zoro's willing to make up for them, for luffy's sake. like in thriller bark, when he leads and convinces the crew to protect luffy's shadow and to believe that luffy would take care of everything else:

on top of that, zoro takes luffy, the crew and his own role in it very seriously and something he expects from them and from luffy, especially, is to do the same. this is clearly seen back in water 7/enies lobby when zoro refuses to accept usopp back into their group unless he genuinely apologizes first and even threatens to leave if luffy doesn't square up to be/act like the captain he is. because luffy's the captain, they rely on him and he's responsible for the crew in turn. more so since, as zoro reminds him, they aren't playing at being pirates. at this point in the story, they've gone through different adventures together, fought and risked their lives each time as well.

aaand to go back to thriller bark for a bit, zoro's also the one person in the crew who has first hand experience with the kind of pain that luffy endures for other ppl's sake. all in all, zoro truly cares about luffy, so much that he's willing to put his dreams and life aside to protect him, and by extension, the rest of the straw hats too. part of that care includes not only sacrifices like the one on thriller bark, but also anchoring luffy and setting him on the right path if needed. that scene from punk hazard? an example and byproduct of all this.

though I gotta say, perhaps what I like the most is that luffy... actually listens to zoro whenever these important moments happen. those two share a single braincell and are usually on a similar (or the same) goofy wavelength most of the time, and zoro is often one of luffy's enablers, so you can see that when zoro goes off at him for real like in water 7 or at punk hazard, luffy is surprised at first. but he listens. and in punk hazard, apologizes and reassures zoro that he won't be careless again. it's a bit of a subtle but compelling part of their dynamic, that does well to emphasize the equal footing and reciprocal nature of their relationship. it's not zoro following along blindly, nor is it luffy just being an idiot and receiving undeserved loyalty. it's really good honestly.

[tillytimeblog]

if the sea of monsters was the book where i thought the ending was mostly good vibes, the battle of the labrynth is the opposite. i mean all of percy’s friends are going through something personally traumatic/devastating at some point. some of these things get resolved, and some…don’t.

tyson meets his hero, but briares is a shell of himself and even when tyson risks his life to save briares, briares still has given up all hope and just walks out on tyson and the rest of the group. plus tyson finds out the rest of the hundred handed ones have faded into nothingness. we don’t really get much insight into tyson but you can tell it’s constantly on his mind because a lot happens between meeting briares and meeting hephaestus yet tyson feels that is the one very important thing he has to talk about.

clarisse had found chris, driven to madness by minos in the labrynth, and can do nothing but watch him slowly deteriorate worse and worse. we only get a glimpse of chris’s condition but it’s obvious it’s bad, which makes seeing clarisse’s private care for him and her softest side for the first time hurt all the more. clarisse is another person we don’t get much insight to at all, but we know her own experiences in the labrynth plus what happened to chris was enough to make her storm out of the council and swear off the labrynth forever, plus make percy promise to kill daedalus on sight.

rachel only really shows up towards the end, but being thrown into the deep end in the world of monsters getting held captive by swordpoint in the arena plus witnessing pan’s death as the daughter of a huge land developing father is obviously a lot to handle for her. plus she is totally aware of the impact she is having on percy and annabeth’s relationship (way more than percy does) and she clearly doesn’t want to make things rough for them at all, yet she still leaves needing reassurance from percy and a agreement to stay in touch, almost like a lifeline. percy was her sole introduction to the whole truth about the world of monsters after all.

speaking of pan…poor grover, man. his whole life’s ambition was to find pan and save the wild, and he arrives just in time to see the very end of pan’s life. honestly, grover gets a lot of development we only see a glimpse of too. he gets a girlfriend (juniper rocks btw), he spends months out searching, he stands up to the council of cloven elders multiple times, and he takes up the burden of saving the wild upon himself and any satyrs or others willing to listen to him. annabeth says it best when she says grover is growing up, he really is the most mature of the group and he shows it by chanelling his grief into more productivity than anyone else

nico is dealing with his sister’s death very poorly, seeking solace in the worst places (minos) and placing blame where it shouldn’t go. he’s just so, so angry and distraught on the outside and the inside, for numerous reasons. there’s really isn’t a lot to say about him that isn’t already said in the book tbh, nico gets a lot of attention because nico is the number one thing on percy’s mind besides the quest since he feels responsible for nico running away. so we get a lot of explicit nico content as opposed to implicit content for tyson/clarisse/grover. i will say that nico being convinced by minos into going back into the maze specifically to save percy, only to be tricked and captured, hurts much more knowing what we learn about nico much later on

and then there’s annabeth. man, she just has it so, so rough and it hurts so much to read all the different ways life has it in for her. she’s chosen to lead her first quest, the thing she’s wanted to do since she was seven, and everything about it is just terrible. we don’t know this until the next book but luke has already recently visited her and offered for them to run away together, and she turned him down. then she meets janus and is offered to make a choice, which definitely reminds her of the choice she made to leave luke behind. she gets her prophecy and the last line is ‘lose a love to worse than death.’ she’s so shaken by this and doesn’t tell anyone about it, not before or during or after the quest until the very end of summer when she tells percy. she chooses to travel in a group of four knowing it’s unlucky because she really needs the comfort of all the people who care about her. and then she loses them all in the span of like, an hour. tyson and grover split from annabeth and percy even though annabeth is insistent splitting up is a bad idea, then percy blows himself and a volcano up right after annabeth kisses him for real for the first time. she has no one left, and she feels like she has failed. all she can do is go back to camp half blood and cry and wait. for two whole weeks!! for two weeks she probably thought that all three of the people she had left in the world had died because they came with her on the quest!!! or percy at the very least, since grover and tyson could just be stuck in the maze. but percy is absolutely presumed dead, since he ends up crashing his own funeral. annabeth gets to be happy the guy she kissed is back for all of maybe five minutes, because she first realizes he was stranded with calypso and then he tells her his plan to navigate the maze is to call up the cute mortal girl he barely knows so she can do the thing annabeth, daughter of athena, couldn’t. nice going percy. how do you not realize why annabeth is mad at you, dude? anyways, after all that…luke becomes host to kronos. which he warned annabeth about. which wouldn’t have happened had annabeth chose to run away with him and escape his destiny. and because of that choice to not run away again, the guy who was her family after she ran away originally is gone for good. and then what does she do after telling percy the final line of her prophecy, and making enemies with hera? she runs away. before percy has the chance to say something and try to bridge the distance between them. why? we don’t know for sure since it’s percy’s pov and not hers. maybe it’s because they haven’t been able to talk about luke all summer. maybe it’s because percy told rachel he’d like to keep in touch. maybe her heart couldn’t bear to hear him say anything about luke, or rachel, or the two of them. or maybe it’s because she had already read the great prophecy years ago, and knew no matter what he could say or promise, percy was fated to die a year from now anyway.

[initforthelolzz]

Luffy’s tendency to self-sacrifice and the way he responds to loss are both incredibly telling aspects of his character. They show his level of love and dedication to other people, but most importantly they show his selflessness. Now, selflessness isn't necessarily a bad thing, but due to the level of selflessness that Luffy displays, it reveals a major character flaw.

Now, I’m not criticizing Luffy’s character, but what I am doing is pointing out something that I’d categorize as a negative character trait. And one that I find particularly fascinating.

Luffy may seem like the typical shonen protagonist on the surface (flawless, stupid, and selfless to a tee). However, if you take a look past surface level then you will find that Luffy is an incredibly complex character. Because while he is incredibly stupid, he possesses a certain multidimensionality that sets him apart from other typical shonen protags.

In regards to that multidimensionality, I’ve noticed that Luffy measures his own self worth exclusively through other people. By his value in the eyes of others. How he can serve them and how much worth he holds in their lives.

Okay but... what the fuck does this mean.

First of all I’d like to discuss Luffy’s tendency to self-sacrifice. Have you ever stopped to notice that every single one of Luffy’s specialized gears has a negative side effect of some kind? Second Gear puts so much strain on his heart that it is said to shorten his lifespan the more often he uses it. Third Gear makes his body shrink. Fourth Gear exhausts his Haki so terribly that he becomes immobile for ten minutes. And I feel like Fifth Gear speaks for itself...

Clearly Luffy has no qualms about sacrificing his body, but why is that? The answer, at least in my interpretation, is that Luffy’s self-sacrifice has entirely to do with the value he places on himself. The catch is that he doesn’t place any value on his own life. Luffy has proven on multiple occasions that he is more than willing to throw his own life away for the sake of others.

We see this in Udon prison, when Luffy was actively poisoning himself to death to make a point, even though it’s difficult to notice how close he was to getting himself killed because Toei decided that if Luffy was dying he was going to look Hot while doing it

We see this again when Luffy climbed the mountain in Chopper’s Arc, destroying his fingers and risking freezing to death all to save Nami and Sanji.

We see this when Luffy fought Magellan in Impel Down, which was the closest Luffy came to killing himself for the cause.

Then again on Whole Cake Island when he tried to let Sanji kick him to death to prove a point. And when he tried to starve himself to death to prove a point. And when he tried to rip his own arms off–

And of course we can’t forget about Thriller Bark. The entire point of Zoro taking Luffy’s pain was to show just how far Luffy was hurting himself in order to protect the crew. There was an entire conversation between the Straw Hats about how unhealthy that behavior was, and how they needed to protect Luffy from himself by getting stronger.

These are all shining examples of Luffy taking selflessness just a little too far. And while placing high value on the lives of others isn’t a negative quality, doing so to this degree isn’t exactly healthy. I say that Luffy holds no value in his own life because he cares this much about other people. He cares more about other people than he does about himself, and is more than willing to die in the process of protecting/saving his loved ones.

I came to this conclusion by looking at the way Luffy handles loss.

And the simple answer is that... Luffy doesn't handle loss. (The entirety of Whole Cake Island was just Luffy outright refusing to lose another loved one)

And when he does... he doesn’t.

Which is exactly what I’m talking about. Whenever Luffy loses people that he deeply cares about he immediately flips his lid. Water Seven and Thriller Bark seemed like all fun and games after watching Luffy grieve the loss of his crew on Sabaody. Seeing him break down like that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to watch... You can feel just how much this loss has impacted Luffy, and it hurts.

Amazon Lily was largely comedic, which served as a well needed break in between Sabody and all the Horrors of the Summit War. Because of this, the delivery of Luffy’s behavior after the events on Sabody is easy to brush off as a gag joke... but you can’t deny the fact that he overdosed on poisonous mushrooms. And while, yes, Luffy is a fucking idiot, not moments beforehand he was digging through the forest and talking about how many species of mushrooms he knew and all the wacky side effects of eating them. So clearly Luffy knows his stuff, and I think it’s just a little too convenient that he “accidentally almost died of a drug overdose shortly after losing everyone he held dear” after Oda explicitly stated that he knew his shit when it came to eating plants in the woods.

And then, of course, we have Luffy’s breakdown after Ace’s death. Which was even more difficult to watch than Sabody had been.

Are we beginning to see a trend? Luffy will try his damndest not to lose the people he cares about, but it’s impossible to save everyone. On the rare chance that he does lose someone he cares about, he immediately has a suicidal breakdown and gets extremely violent towards himself.

I’m certain that we can all agree that trying to kill yourself as a result of grief is NOT a healthy coping mechanism. Luffy is a completely happy-go-lucky character, with a suspicious tendency to over-sacrifice, yes, but the moment he fails/loses his friends he has a psychotic break. Without other people around him, Luffy suddenly loses all sense of self worth. Because he is nothing without his nakama... right?

It’s so easy to miss this detail about Luffy’s character, and it’s because he’s so good at concealing his negative emotions. Luffy puts on a brave face for the people he cares about, and he doesn’t want people to see him as anything less than a ray of sunshine and a symbol of joy and freedom. His conversation with Jimbei after Marineford was about how he needed to bury his grief for Ace even though it was unhealthy, because Luffy needed to remain strong.

Clearly he’s taken this to heart, because he hasn’t talked about how Ace’s death has impacted him even once. Luffy refuses to show emotional weakness in front of his crew, he is doing all in his power to be strong and support them while asking for nothing in return. Even now Luffy can’t hear Ace’s name without tearing up.

Luffy puts on a strong facade, and it is what makes his self-sacrifice seem so heroic, and what makes it so easy to miss how unhealthy it is. Luffy always saves people at the expense of his own life. He takes his battles incredibly too far, always ending up horrifically injured and using abilities that are detrimental to his body and his health. But he always recovers so easily, so quickly, and it is easy for the viewer/reader to move past Luffy’s self-sacrifice because he moves past it easily.

But why is he so nonchalant about nearly killing himself in almost every battle he places himself in? Simple, it is because he is not afraid of dying. Because in his eyes, he has no worth as a person unless he gives his EVERYTHING to the people he cares about.

Hence, Luffy measures his self worth entirely through other people, and therefore will stop at nothing to protect and fight for others. Because otherwise he is nothing.

I like to think that he developed this mindset as a result of his early childhood. Dragon didn’t want him. Garp didn’t want him. Dadan didn’t want him. Ace didn’t want him. Luffy was only accepted and cared for by others once he proved his worth to Ace and Sabo. Remember? They only started caring about Luffy and accepted him into their group after he got beaten violently for hours to protect their treasure stash. An act of violent self-sacrifice. It earned Luffy two brothers, but it also instilled the idea of his worthlessness unless he serves other people.

Remember when Luffy asked Ace to promise him not to die? I like to read between the lines a little. (Don’t leave me behind, Ace.) (I’m nothing without you, Ace.)

Luffy is a clingy person. He cares so much about other people, and will go to incredible lengths to keep them close. He can be happy, but only with other people. Because he needs other people in order to value his own life. He doesn’t care about himself, he only cares about others.

That is a very unhealthy mindset in this context, and is a major character flaw because of the impact it has on Luffy’s mental health.

But it also shows an incredible duality.

Selflessness is a highly valued characteristic. But in Luffy’s case, he brings it to an extreme. What could be considered his greatest strength is also his greatest flaw.

Luffy is a very admirable character because of this, and I love him a totally normal amount

[peanutpinet]

You Belong with Me - Idol! Jaemin x staff! fem reader

A/N: I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but if you follow me on my Instagram, you might have seen my Instagram reel where I mentioned that Jaemin is definitely my comfort idol. For some reason, no matter what I’m feeling that day; whether it is good or bad, whenever I see Jaemin’s comforting yet encouraging messages, seeing him work so hard to make nctzens happy yet he himself is able to be so mature and still prioritizing others before him is just another level of my respect towards him and it just brings comfort to me and hopefully to many other nctzens

Dedication: To all nctzens who feel lost and anxious, this one is for you

Main Pairing: Idol! Na Jaemin x staff fem reader x slight idol! ex Jaehyun

Warnings: mentions of cheating, “unintentional” cheating act, violence, swearing, angst, slight possessiveness, light fluff, comforting scenes, anxiety

Additional Info: This is a slight spin-off of “Try Again” (a Jaehyun angst fic)

Disclaimer: this story is completely fiction and not a defective representative of what the members are actually like. Please take everything with a grain of salt

[08:16pm] - don’t expect too much. Don’t let your guard down. Everything seems too good to be true. Those were all the warnings that your mind was trying to tell you. But just like a hypnotized person, you were blinded by the good things of being together with someone whom you thought would be your significant other till death do you both apart.

It wasn’t until it was too good to be true that it instantly went downhill. Just as you were reaching your one-year anniversary with Jaehyun. You thought that your life was finally being put together and that you can finally see the end of the tunnel as if you were on a train and finally reaching your destination until the train took a “wrong” turn.

You, Renjun and Chenle were going around the company after a photoshoot for a Chinese magazine when you heard an unfamiliar female voice was ringing around the NCT floor’s hallways; confusing you, Chenle and Renjun.

You didn’t think much about it because you were more focused on surprising your boyfriend of almost 1 year. You were more than thankful for the universe to be able to let you to have such a caring and supportive boyfriend. Someone who was willing to risk his career for you. To take care of you when you yourself never did. To be able to give you more than you could have ever wished or hoped.

But the universe clearly had other plans because when you made a turn, there you saw your boyfriend’s back with an unfamiliar woman right in front of him who was kissing him and your boyfriend didn’t even pull away but you felt that your heart did.

Lost for words, you turn around to avoid the scene unravelling before you as you walked away with Renjun quickly following you whereas Chenle took a quick look at what you saw before following both you and Renjun.

When the three of you have gotten to one of the unused recording studios did you finally break down in front of your two friends. You dropped to the ground pulling your knees close to your chest as you slowly sobbed that you passed out.

When you did regain consciousness, you noticed you were in one of Chenle’s guest bedrooms since you have stayed at his house a couple of times just to hang out with the other dreamies. Sighing, you thought that it was all just a nightmare but when you grabbed your phone and Jaehyun’s parents’ message was the first thing you saw, you remembered that you were currently living with Jaehyun’s parents and that it was already late at night.

You quickly texted Jaehyun’s parents that you had some work to do so suddenly that you decided to stay over at Chenle’s place because the shoot ran pretty late and you had to quickly go over the shots and video before forwarding it to the head content manager. Lucky enough, Jaehyun’s parents believed you and told you to get more than enough rest and to let them know whenever you were free because they wanted to take you out.

Sighing, you take a deep breath on how to face Jaehyun and confront him. Frustrated, confused, sad, all those negative emotions started to swallow you down. Especially whenever you close your eyes, your mind would consciously replay the scene over and over again even though your heart is still holding on to that last bit of hope that it was all just some misunderstanding.

As your thoughts slowly tried to take control, you started to sob once again until you felt a warm arm wrapped around you. Startled, you almost pulled away while also kicking the person but when the person’s voice came out, your whole body immediately recognizes it and slowly lower your guard because who else would be able to calm your nerve-wracking state other than Na Jaemin himself.

“It’s not good to check your phone in the dark” Jaemin softly pointed out, taking your phone out of your hand and placing it on the bedside table

“D-did Chenle or Renjun…” you asked but Jaemin beat you to it

“Chenle told us in the dreamies’ group chat. Don’t worry, nothing was spilled to the other group chats. Rest assured that it’s just us that know” Jaemin softly replied, patting your head as you sigh in relief

“How about we go have some dinner first? You probably haven’t eaten since morning. Chenle made some hotpot for us to eat. Do you want me to bring the food to you or…” Jaemin asked but I held his hand

“No. It’s alright. Let’s go out to eat with the others. It would be rude of me to ask you to bring the food that Chenle made. I’ll be ok” you reassured Jaemin who extended his arm for you to grab

Both you and Jaemin then head out of the room and saw the other Dream members in the dining room, gathering around. Renjun, Mark and Haechan were playing whereas Chenle and Jeno were cooking and Jisung just brought out some of the cooked meat onto the dining table.

“Oh?! Noona?! You’re awake?” Jisung stated, putting down the plate of food, grabbing the other dreamies’ attention

“A-are you okay? You passed out for a long time” Renjun asked, walking towards you along with the others

“Y-yeah. I’m fine. Thank you, Renjun, Chenle, for bringing me back here” you replied back, hoping that none of the dreamies would question you just yet

“Hey, why is everyone standing? C’mon, let’s sit and eat. Chenle and Jeno worked hard in cooking for us tonight” Mark stated as everyone sat at the living room and ate together because the dining room was too small

“Thank you for cooking, Chenle, Jeno” you stated as you sat on the couch, Jaemin handing you a plate of rice and meat already

“No worries about 姐姐. Eat lots of it. No dieting in this household” Chenle joked, dividing the hotpot equally

You were more than thankful that you were closer to dreamies’ age because at times like this, you just feel more comfortable talking with them or even doing some mundane things with them because it reminds you of the times when you were in school and was having a sleepover with your friends.

Being around with friends around your age who were not judging was another level of comfort and it even made you forget about what actually happened until Haechan brought it up which the other dreamies glared at him.

“So, did you actually see Jaehyun-hyung’s face or was it from behind?” Haechan asked, earning a glare and smack from Mark and Renjun

“Dude. Can you be more sympathetic?!” Mark scolded Haechan

“Ya!! You think she was there alone? Don’t you remember who brought her back here?” Chenle argued

“Whatttt? I was just curious. I’m sorry okay!” Haechan tried to defend himself. “You’re lucky that (y/n) is nice. If it were me, I would duck tape your mouth and only open it when you have to sing” Renjun threatened

“Hyung, I don’t think that we should be arguing or even touch on that subject. Noona is probably still sensitive about this…” Jisung tried to stop his hyungs from arguing. “See, even Jisung understands the situation” Chenle argued back

“YAAAAA” Jaemin growled, grabbing everyone’s attention, slightly scaring you but Jaemin was quick to wrap his arm around your smaller body, rubbing your shoulder with his thumb. “Can’t you all how uncomfortable (y/n) is with all of you arguing? Hasn’t she gone through enough today?” Jaemin reminded the others who instantly fell silent and apologised

“I’m sorry (y/n). I shouldn’t have asked because it should be you who would tell us first whenever you’re ready” Haechan apologised and you shook your head

“It’s alright. Jaemin-a, don’t get angry at them. Everyone but Chenle and Renjun were just curious” you defended the other dreamies as Jaemin sighed, giving your shoulder a light squeeze to let you know that he’s here to support and defend you

“But yea. Though I did see his face from a side, I didn’t get a closer look at what actually happened. Maybe, I was looking at a wrong angle and just assuming….” you started but Chenle was quick to correct you

“You weren’t hallucinating, 姐姐. I also saw what happened after you turned and left. It was clearly him and that weird girl was clearly kissing him but he didn’t pull away” Chenle bluntly stated

“Ya! Zhong Chenle! Enough okay?! It’s been a long day. Let her breathe” Renjun scolded the younger Chinese as Jisung tried to get both his hyungs to calm down

“Renjun. It’s okay. Chenle is right. I wasn’t hallucinating even if I wanted to. What happened, happened. I just have to accept it” you softly muttered, all the dreamies looked sad and worried upon hearing what you said

“Let’s not discuss that further unless you want to, okay?” Mark mentioned as you nodded slowly and all the other dreamies prepared the living room to be a mini theatre

Jisung got to pick the movie because everyone was sure that he wouldn’t really choose any kind of romance film. In the end, you guys ended up watching Spirited Away because it was one of your comfort films. Towards the end of the film, everyone was slowly drowsing off and you then suggested to Chenle that everyone should stay over.

Though you were alright with sharing with any of the dream members, Jaemin debated that it was not right and you should have your own space after what happened but you argued back that it was pretty late and you felt bad that you made the others stay and if anyone had to sleep like a can of sardines, you would instantly feel worse

“It’s really alright if the rest of us have to sleep in Chenle’s room or even on the floor” Jaemin debated

“I know you guys might be alright with it. But not me. The other guest bedroom isn’t as big and probably could only fit 3 people max. Chenle’s bed could also only fit another person which leaves 2 more of you and the bed I have can fit 2 more” you argued back as the rest of the dreamies were far too lost in the debate

“one of us can sleep on the couch. I wouldn’t mind doing so. Or the other 2 can sleep on the living room couch. Perhaps even on the floor. Really. We’re practically used to it” Jaemin reasoned with you but you stood your ground

“Jaemin, if you or anyone sleeps on the couch or floor without some surface between your body and the floor, you’re going to wake up with a sore back and I don’t want that to happen to any of you. 2 of you sleep on my bed and that’s final or I’ll sneak out to the living room to sleep on the floor if any of you don’t sleep on my bed” you argued and Jaemin sighed, pulling some of his hair out of frustration

“Fine. But that 2 people should be me and Jeno because I would never touch you and I’ll be between you and Jeno so he wouldn’t touch you either” Jaemin made his final statement

“I don’t mind either of you all because I trust you guys. Now let’s just get ready for bed” you mentioned, helping tidy up the shared blanket that you guys used

“姐姐, if you’re hungry or can’t sleep in the middle of the night, we bought some of your favourite biscuits and snacks in the fridge and cupboard. Feel free to take and eat anything, alright? Good night” Chenle mentioned and you thank him

Right before you, Jaemin and Jeno head to your room, Mark called out for you. “Hey, (y/n). Don’t worry so much about what happened alright? Me and Haechan won’t say anything to the 127 hyungs but we will try to find out what happen. Don’t feel obligated to have everything figured out because you’re not alone, kay? Also, don’t feel obligated to tell everyone about your situation and that includes hyung’s parents. Take care of yourself first and foremost because I know that everything will be alright” Mark rambled whilst patting your head and slowly wiping the tears that were threatening to spill like a waterfall

After the short talk with Mark, Jaemin wrapped his arm around your shoulder and directed you back to your room where Jeno was already setting up some pillows for him and Jaemin.

“You alright, (y/n)?” Jeno asked as he saw you sniffle

“Am okay, Jen. Sorry, let me just go to the bathroom and change” you replied, grabbing your things and heading to the bathroom to change

Once you’ve changed, you saw Jaemin and Jeno were talking on the floor which made you worry that they were planning to sleep on the floor until Jaemin stated what was on your mind.

“I promise you that we’re not sleeping on the floor. We were just talking down here because it would be rude for us to sit on your bed” Jaemin mentioned and you just chuckle at his politeness

“It’s not rude at all. C’mon, let’s just sleep” you mentioned as you went towards the side of the bed that was closer to the wall

Both Jaemin and Jeno followed you shortly with Jaemin laying in between you and Jeno and Jeno who was sleeping closer towards the other edge of the bed that was closer to the floor.

“Jeno, are you alright over there? You guys can move closer, it’s still quite spacious” you mentioned, peeking your head as Jaemin softy pushed your head back down, indicating you to just lay down and sleep

“I’m fine (y/n), don’t worry about me. Thanks for letting us sleep on your bed. Good night” Jeno mentioned right at the same time Jaemin turned his head and faced you

“You sure you’re alright? You know that I’m here whenever you need a talk or vent out your feelings” Jaemin softly mentioned, stroking your hair, looking at you softly

“I know, Jaem. Thank you. For taking care of me today. You should rest. You have a full day of schedules while I have to try and ask your manager if it’s alright that I get assigned more work for you guys instead of the others” you yawned because of how soft Jaemin was patting your head

“I’ll tell my manager about that. You just FYI to him. Get some time off and just figure it out slowly. If you want to go back to your home country and take a break from here, I’ll help you. Just know that you're not alone” Jaemin cooed at your sleepy state

Once Jaemin was sure that you were asleep, he leaned closer and gave a soft peck on your forehead. “Whenever you find yourself needing someone to lean onto, come to me. Let me be the one to take care of you as you’ve taken care of all of us” Jaemin whispered, softly stroking your cheek until he fell asleep as well

For the next few days, Jaemin and the dreamies have been helping you talk to the NCT manager to help you switch your job to work more for dreamies which resulted in you not having to meet any of the other NCT members, especially Jaehyun. Not only did Jaemin help you to get your mind off of the incident, but he has also been helping you to finish some paperwork for the company so that you can go back to your home country and work for the SM branch there.

Unfortunately, the universe was once again disagreeing with you and have you meet the person that you have avoided for the past week, Jaehyun.

You had just finished one of dreamies’ new photoshoot and was waiting for them outside of the studio when you saw Johnny, Jaehyun and Doyoung walking in the hallway which made you turn around and about to avoid them but Johnny had seen you first.

“Oh?! (y/n)?! Is that you?!” you heard Johnny mentioned. Footsteps coming closer to you when suddenly Johnny was right in front of you, blocking your way and crouching down to see your face

“It is you. It’s been a while. Are you okay?” Johnny asked and you shyly looked towards the floor

Before you could answer, a familiar deep baritone voice called out to you, sending an alert to your body. “(y/n)…where have you been?! I tried to reach out to you for the past few days. Do you know how worried I have been?!” Jaehyun’s voice was firm and was holding both your shoulders to face him

Instead of replying to Jaehyun, you kept looking down, avoiding both his and Johnny’s gaze. “Why are you avoiding me?! Answer me (y/n). My parents told me that you have been working overtime. Is that true? You know that I can tell the manager if you are overloaded with work. Don’t ignore me, (y/n). Did I do something to upset you?” Jaehyun ranted, gripping his hair out of frustration

Did something wrong? You were already upset about what Jaehyun did but now, you were equally frustrated and annoyed at him. Sure, it was wrong of you to not tell him or his parents about your whereabouts but did Jaehyun even consider the chance that you know what he did?! Frustrated with the whole situation, you failed to contain your tears and it spilled out before anyone could even comment anything.

“(y/n)…let’s go have some lunch toge—hyung?! What did you do?!” Haechan interrupted and rushed to your side, slightly pushing Jaehyun away from you

“Haechan-ah…” you cried. “Ya, Lee Haechan, what’s wrong with you? I didn’t do anything. Yes, I might’ve raised my voice a bit but I was worried because (y/n) didn’t contact me nor my parents for the past week” Jaehyun defended himself but Haechan just glared at him

“Didn’t do anything, my ass” Haechan scoffed, shielding your sight from Jaehyun

“Haechan, what are you talking about? (y/n) didn’t contact any of us nor was assigned to work with any of us the past week” Johnny tried to reason

“Maybe not either of you” Haechan mumbled but was clearly heard by his hyungs

“Haechan…don’t start” you mumbled. “Is there something going on between the two of you? Like, is there something that happened that only the two of you know? (y/n), did someone threaten you? Was it something that Jaehyun did?” Doyoung asked, trying to make sure the situation doesn’t escalate

“Yea. Being angry at her when he’s the one at fault here” Jaemin growled, grabbing everyone’s attention

Not caring about the older members around, Jaemin went towards you who still not dare to actually face anyone. But Jaemin didn’t mind because he and the rest of the dreamies knew the actual truth. And that was that you were hurting yet Jaehyun doesn’t seem to have any feeling of guilt for what he did.

“What did say to you? Say the word (y/n), I’ll make him regret it” Jaemin uttered, cupping your cheeks gently; completely the opposite of his venomous words

You honestly didn’t want any of them to fight and want this moment to just pass by without any casualties that you just remain silent and only mumbled “I’m okay, Jaemin. Please drop it”. As angry as Jaemin was at his older member, he knew that comforting you and getting you out of here was his number one priority.

Just as Jaemin held your arm and was about to walk in the other direction, Jaehyun grabbed your other arm, making you stuck in between the 2 Jae who were having a stare-off with each other. Neither of them let your arm go nor avoid eye contact with each other.

“Let her go. She clearly doesn't want to be here” Jaemin warned, not wanting to stay another second longer

“You should be letting go. Holding onto her makes me think that something actually happen between the two of you and I’m guessing that you were the one that started it, Na Jaemin” Jaehyun taunted which angered Jaemin

“You know what? I feel sorry for you. Because to think that the Jung Jaehyun fans worshipped turned out so wrong because it was you who neglected her in the first place. I was the one that took care of her when you didn’t. You can call a backstabber for all I care because we both know who the real cheater is, am I right?” Jaemin taunted back, the conversation was heard by everyone in the hallway

Angry at Jaemin’s statement, Jaehyun didn’t hesitate to let your arm go but immediately launched himself towards Jaemin; both of them tumbling down on the ground, making you jump and back to the wall.

Seeing the younger men tumble and fought with each other, both Johnny and Doyoung tried to get the two to stop fighting whereas Haechan immediately shielded you from the gruesome scene unveiling before everyone.

“C’mon, let’s get you out of here” Haechan suggested, gently grabbing your wrist but feeling responsible for the situation, you yanked your arm from Haechan and rushed to get in between the two men who were now shoving each other towards the wall

Though you managed to get in between the two, neither man, especially Jaehyun actually stopped. Sure Jaehyun knew what Jaemin meant when he was called a cheater. But Jaehyun wanted to argue that he was being forced by the girl he kissed. But upon seeing you getting closer to Jaemin, not making any room for him to explain, angered Jaehyun. That thought alone was enough for Jaehyun to strike Jaemin. But instead, it was you that got hit and fell.

Seeing you stumble, Haechan was quick to rush to your side whereas Jaemin got angry and punched Jaehyun to the point he fell. Before Jaemin could launch another blow, Doyoung stopped him and told him to relax and that it wasn’t worth it.

“Don’t. Take care of her first. We’ll handle this. Especially since you’re the only ones that know what happened. We’ll ask from his point of view” Doyoung reminded, trying to stop Jaemin

“What’s the point of hearing his point of view, anyways? Did you not see that he has already hurt her emotionally and physically? He doesn’t deserve to be heard” Jaemin scoffed, backing away from Doyoung, staring into Jaehyun who was being helped by Johnny

“Jaemin! Enough!” Haechan exclaimed, making Jaemin look back and saw you being held by Haechan

“Know that I’m only leaving because I’m going take care of someone that you clearly neglected and hurt. Don’t think that I would let her go this time” Jaemin warned, turning away and helping Haechan get you back to Chenle’s place.

Arriving at Chenle’s house, Haechan allowed Jaemin to take care of you while he cooks dinner and lets the other dreamies know what happened.

“You shouldn’t have jumped in like that. I was already angry at how he treated you and how he didn’t admit that he was wrong. But seeing you get hurt because of him? At that moment, I didn’t care about either of our reputation or the fact that we were in the same group. I would give him a good beating for all I care” Jaemin admitted, slowly putting the ice pack onto your cheek

“You might not care but I do. Once images of his bruised cheek spread out, fans will start some sort of rumour. Or you never know what staff might be lurking around and spreading exaggerated rumours of you both” you replied, holding the ice

“Why do you still defend him?” Jaemin asked, pulling a chair and sitting across from you

“Why are you helping me?” you asked back, not answering Jaemin’s question, making him sigh

“Because, as cliche as it sounds, you’re a wonderful person. Your cute self, your selfless side. You’re smart even when you think you’re not. You’re caring and pay attention to the small details that not everyone might. Not to mention, you always put your effort into things even when it might seem like nothing. You deserve someone that would be that shoulder for you to lean on. Someone to be the ear for you whenever you want to ramble. Someone that is warm, safe and comforting to be your home. Someone who loves you for you and never ask you to change or do anything for them” Jaemin confessed, holding your hands in his

“Jaemin…” you whispered

“Let me finish, okay? I like you. I cared for you. It was just wrong timing. How you met him first. How he got close to you first. And how I didn’t even try to put up a fight. How I trusted him to take care of you when I should be that person. I should’ve been the one to get close to you first. I should’ve been the one to take care of you. I should’ve been the one to make you smile and be your first kiss. Call me selfish but I’m glad that his shitty behaviour was revealed because I can finally take care of you the way you deserve. Because you belong with me, not him. Even if you’re not ready to open up now. At least let me take care of you and treat you well” Jaemin softly confessed and kissed your knuckles

Somehow, despite what happened, despite how messed up your feelings and situation was, you still allowed your heart to open up to Jaemin. You allowed him to do as he promised. To take care of you, to shower you with the love and care that he promised. To reassure you every day that there is completely nothing wrong with you and how he has become your shoulder, your ear and slowly become your new home.

A/N: hi!! Your author here. Yes, I have not updated for nearly a month and I apologise because so much has been going on at work and I finally gave my one month notice and will officially resign next month.

Honestly, it wasn't really a big nor hard decision. Okay, maybe I was contemplating on it because I don't have a full backup plan on what I want to do. I really want to dive into becoming a full-time makeup artist but that really takes time and I was thinking of doing another full-time job for 1 more year (with better work-life balance and salary). I won't dive deep into why I'm leaving because out of respect towards the company (maybe next time, lmao). But I hope that I would be able to relax for once and not stress out about what might happen in the future.

Also, who tf manages NCT's schedule?! Like, yes I'm quite happy that I'll be getting smtown in my city but!!! An NCT DREAM fansign the day before and another afterwards?! When will MarkHyuck get some rest :') pray that I get the tickets to smtown because I have yet to see DREAM irl :') I miss them 5x?!?!?! I mean, if this means I'll end up with someone in dream, then by all means. lmao!!

Anyways, hope you enjoy this fic as I slowly go back to the shadows and try to come up with another fic. If you guys have any requests, do send me a request and I hope that you have a great day! Stay safe and always be happy :) xoxo vinet

[its-your-mind]

Taliesin: Percy's right there, what did you expect me to do? He knew. He had no illusions.

Thinkin about Percy laying in bed at night (alone watching over Whitestone while his wife is presumably off doing world-saving shit) thinking about that annoying as SHIT earth genasi punk who keeps popping up, insults and mocks him, shows outright contempt for his authority, and so very clearly has no idea what the hell they’re doing.

Percy’s probably top three smartest CR characters, and not only that, he’s an engineer. He knows a formula, a pattern, when he sees one - haphazard group of cast-offs and overpowered nobodies trying to save the world? Walking into rooms full of powerful and important people they don’t quite know how to act around? Succeeding and surviving through dumb luck, sheer force of will, and the strong family connections they’ve forged with each other? He knows this story. Hell, he made a cuckoo clock of this story.

And while he and Ashton might be complete opposites on the surface, he knows how it feels to have the kind of family who you’re constantly running with side-by-side into danger. He knows loss. He knows exactly how heavy a weight the responsibility of “saving the world” is.

So when the Hells walk in holding a shard of a titan, bearing news that Ashton is holding one inside already? When Allura tells them that the power that’s already inside Ashton just needs something to awaken it? When Ashton sits down with her to have a serious conversation for the first time Percy’s witnessed? They talk about drawing power into yourself, unknown effects, a power too dangerous to be allowed in the world for too long, that could be used for morally reprehensible things…

And a person who has so very clearly been ravaged by life just as much as Percy had by the time he was their age. At least all the visible consequences Percy had had to deal with was the white hair - he could pass that off as premature aging. Ashton wears their damage on their body, up their arm, across their face. Their skull is translucent, for gods’ sakes.

And now, Bells Hells has to save the world. And here in front of them is an ancient shard of a titan, and the means to absorb its power. Ashton already has two of the foundational powers of Exandria in their body - a shard of the Empress of Earth, and a piece of the Luxon. Based on what Allura has said, it’s a miracle their body still holds together at all.

Percy is good at noticing patterns.

Someone who has been shown some of the worst parts of the world without any opportunity to heal properly from their past. Visibly damaged, but with their chin held high and an eyebrow raised to the world, as if daring someone to comment on it. Someone who, by all rights, should have been dead already. Someone who doesn’t have a choice but to keep living.

Offered power. The chance to make a difference, to achieve your goals, using and building on the talents and traits you already have. No clear understanding of what accepting this power may mean for you. Not caring all that much either. Being willing to sacrifice yourself in pursuit of a singular goal.

Who else does that sound like?

I wonder if some part of him almost stepped in and removed temptation. Locked the funnel away, told Allura to take the shard and go, sent the Hells off in a rush, without giving them time to remember the burning shard sitting on his worktable. Spared someone else the curse ability to make this choice at all. But of course, it’s not his job to stand between a reckless stranger and their own stupidity, especially not when the world is at stake.

So when Ashton walks up those ziggurat stairs? When they are the one to send everyone but Fearne away, to request “privacy,” multiple times? Of course Percy knows what they’re about to do.

Going off alone to take a risk onto yourself so it won’t hurt your family? Not telling them because you don’t trust that they’ll let you do what needs to be done? Accepting power into yourself without understanding exactly what it is you’re getting into?

Allowing only one person to see you broken and vulnerable?

How ironic that Cassandra volunteered the ziggurat as a staging ground. The same tunnels where Orthax was destroyed will now bear witness to the birth (or failed emergence) of a new kind of explosive elemental power. Something new to be fashioned of fire and earth. Something never before seen in Exandria. A new creation that will have the power to change the fate of the entire world.

[twin-wings]

There's a lot to unpack about Vash's perception of his own nature and powers, and how his self-worth is inextricably connected to his ability to help others. This is a very interesting topic for me, so I'm going to share my thoughts.

Several times in the manga we see Vash express how unconcerned he is about his own safety and, in a sense, how little he cares about his own life. Part of it is obviously due to guilt and trauma after the destruction of July and the Fifth Moon incident, but I get the impression that it's not just that.

Vash is aware that he is sturdier than humans, and something that would kill a normal person leaves at most a scar on him (not to mention how he could restore his own body if he wanted, like Knives does). His physical capabilities are generally far superior than those of a normal human. This in itself puts a heavy responsibility on his shoulders: he can do a lot more than anyone else, so he feels like he should. Vash is unable to stand still when others are in trouble, knowing he could do something to help them, and he always does absolutely everything in his power before giving up.

This trait is shown very clearly in the chapter where Vash helps a young man rescue his parents despite being sick himself. Wolfwood's shocked reaction at the time was understandable, since from his point of view it was an extremely reckless thing to do, but that chapter shows the extent to which Vash is willing to go to help people, no matter how much he has to risk. In a way, I think it also shows how aware he is of his own capabilities and limits, since he did manage to be of great help depite feeling unwell.

(Vash is too cute in this panel XD)

On top of this, his own brother is the one who caused the Great Fall, and Vash feels he has a responsibility to stop him because he is the only one who can face Knives as an equal. He's been doing this for a long time: watching over the people on the planet, protecting them from Knives' destructiveness, in order to preserve Rem's legacy and protect the people she gave her life to save. His whole life has pretty much revolved around this very purpose, to the point that his own safety has become almost irrelevant.

Besides, the fact that he and Knives are both Plants – the only two independent Plants on the planet – is the reason they're all in this situation in the first place. Vash is the only person (other than Conrad) who knows the full story behind the Great Fall, who knows exactly what Knives' motivations are and what prompted him to start his crusade of hate. If Vash and Knives hadn't been Plants, if they hadn't been so different from humans and so much more powerful than them, all of this wouldn't have happened. Being an independent Plant has been more of a curse than anything else for Vash over the years, hence his complicated feelings about his own nature.

On the other hand, Knives totally embraces his nature: he sees it as a source of pride and feels superior for it. He's spent years researching and studying his powers with the help of Conrad, which allowed him to master them to a degree Vash only learns to do toward the end of the manga, after overcoming his initial fear of the destruction he's capable of causing.

This is one of the many ways the twins are so different: while Vash was spending decades honing his skills to help people, using very human methods to do so, Knives was working toward his goal of exterminating all humans by learning how to control his Plant abilities.

But it's also interesting that when Vash seriously starts using his Plant powers, he learns to use them in ways Knives hadn't even considered.

[applebyraven]

i'm rambling to myself about dead poets society like i'm literally talking to myself and making points but maybe i'll just make a post so i don't sound too crazy. so... anderperry and chameron and how they have parallels, according to me.

disclaimer: this is just my opinion, just my perception. if you think otherwise you're wrong, just know that it's my point of view.

i Hate it when they write richard cameron as nothing but the uptight character of the group when he's pretty much not that. i mean, cameron was literally the Second person to join the dead poets society. right after charlie.

and of course, he was always reminding the poets about the rules and what could go wrong (which charlie clearly hates), but despite that and even though he could perfectly well have stayed in his room and not risked anything, he was the SECOND to join and attended the DPS meetings.

and it's important to emphasize that he did it right after charlie did it. i think a part of cameron always wanted charlie to accept him (as a friend. or more. i fervently believe that cameron comes from a very traditional family and is repressed. and liked -or even loved- charlie).

my point is that cameron was willing to "bend" his righteousness, step out of his comfort zone and take a risk. things went to shit when they went to shit, but the intention to actually carpe diem life was there when it wasn't even necessary for cameron to do so. he just wanted to.

i even believe the reason why he was always reminding them the things that could go wrong weren't even to protect himself because, again, if he wanted to protect himself, he simply would've stayed in his room and call it a day, but he didn't. i think he just truly cared about the poets' safety and well-being. even when he "betrayed" the poets, i feel he knew it was already a lost cause and everyone would lose (continue to lose, that is) if they kept going against the grain. but that's another issue.

that brings me to one of the reasons why i love chameron. besides the scene of charlie wearing cameron's shirt and the face cameron makes when charlie brings the two girls to the cave, i 100% believe they could be good for each other. which is crazy taking into account what happens in canon.

but charlie is like so fearless and kind of rebellious, that i really think that pushes cameron to get out of his comfort zone and try new things. like anderperry, but in a different way...

both neil and charlie are like two faces of the same coin in that sense of fearlessness and kind-of-rebelliousness. and they encourage todd and cameron, who usually prefer the comfort of the status quo and don't tend to try new things. one pair more directly than the other, but that dynamic is somewhat similar. and at the same time, that same fearlessness tends to get neil and charlie into trouble, which is why they also need someone to remind them of the possible consequences. and that's when todd and cameron step in.

we already know that cameron usually does it and charlie hates it and i don't think i should specify when cameron does it, because it's a frequent occurrence. and with todd, when he tells neil that keeping the lie from his dad about the play is impossible and when neil was writing the letter pretending to be his dad and he told him he was crazy for doing such a thing.

i don't know if it would be correct to say that they're their voice of reason, but at least they're the voice that tells them, hey, before you proceed, this could go wrong... and they don't do it with the intention of preventing neil and charlie from doing it, they do it simply because they care.

but then we know what happens and how it all goes to shit for both anderperry and chameron... i guess that's just another parallel: how it ends so tragically for both pairs. so, anyways, i just wanted to ramble about this random thing i thought about and that's it.

if you read this, thanks? and if u have thoughts, share them (only if you agree. i don't want to read wrong opinions /j).

[verysillycatvideos]

Cyberpunk 2077 and Autonomy

Ok ok so I might be seeing things but I think this game really gets how important bodily autonomy is. This is a rant about Evelyn, So Mi, and V. Many spoilers ahead! I played as Valerie, so I’ll be sticking to the version of the Cyberpunk 2077 story where V is a woman. 

I didn’t notice it at first, but now I can’t unsee the parallels between the three women. All of them are reduced to their bodies, their usefulness, by the ones in power. It’s a universal phenomenon in the hypercapitalist hellscape of cyberpunk 2077 - just look at the ads. But I think these three exemplify it clearly and viscerally. 

Evelyn was a sex worker, employed by and providing services for horrible people, and, if it wasn’t enough, she literally had a chip that temporarily erased any trace of her individuality. The world’s attitude toward her is accentuated by one of the first lines we hear directed at her - that disgusting comment made by Smasher. Her later fate just drives home this terrifying point. Evelyn had friends, dreams, and talents, she was a Person - but the Night City only cared about one thing. 

So Mi was forced to work for the FIA. And this job took everything from her. It’s not just her past life and any meaningful human connection, but also her own body. It was changed without her consent so that she could serve the FIA better; and So Mi still clearly feels insecure about how she looks, not at home in her own skin, because of it. She was forced to perform tasks that hurt her, and, in the end, risked erasing her identity. And I think that small moment - blink and you’ll miss it - when Kurt Hansen leads her away, inappropriately touching her, really shows that she’s not just exploited as a professional, no, she is fully dehumanized by the powerful people around her. 

And Valerie. The story would be very different if there were just some hitmen on her tail that would find her in a few weeks. No, the Arasaka Relic literally sees the living breathing, and feeling V as just a vacant body, slowly erasing her. The process of V slowly losing control of her body and identity is chilling, and portrayed so well. And just as a cherry on top, we can remember the ganger lines when fighting Valerie: they call her a c*nt and wh*re - both are just common misogynistic insults, but here I want to bring attention to how both words, again, dehumanize V.

Why am I recounting this? Because I think the game specifically separates simply dying and being stripped of autonomy and identity, and how the second is one of the most terrifying things in the world (Johnny himself says as much in Transmission).

The horror of their situation, I think, is highlighted by how all three women, if all else fails, would prefer using their last piece of agency to leave this world forever, rather than live the life they were left with. “Both Sides Now”, “Leave in Silence”, and, in V's case, you don’t have an option to just come down from the roof without a plan, but you can put it all behind.

One other thing Evelyn, So Mi, and V have in common - is their desperation, their willingness to fight, risk, lie, and step over others (even the nicest V still likely kills dozens of people on her quest). And this willingness is NOT demonized, but understood, by the narrative. 

Evelyn was never your friend, never helped you, and her mission led to a disaster. Yet, you are still prompted to raise the glass for her after Phantom Liberty, during the last talk with Alex. And I loved this moment, I loved how V recognized her bravery and respected her. How outraged she was by her fate, and how understanding and caring she was with Judy. At least in my playthrough.

And So Mi, oh So Mi. She lied to you too, it turns out, and it hurts. A lot. But I think V, if anyone, could fully understand why she did that. The whole Killing Moon quest is so tragic and tender, it is painful. And beautiful. Because So Mi found someone willing to help her escape even at their own expense, just because they understand.

V can escape too. Even with a loved one. To a new life. Because she found people who value her unconditionally, for just being herself. The people who know that all promises of NC are only lies. I fucking love this game?

[escapingrealtiylovinginsanity]

Joe Velasco Part 2 

Part One (Here) Part Three

Joe was ramrod straight with tension. He was trying to keep from pacing like a territorial animal in the space in front of the room you were giving your statement in, but it was hard. His mind had been racing since Bruno had called, and his body was telling him that there were things he should be doing. So many things, his brain just couldn’t seem to supply him with what those things were. He was frustrated and angry, and even though he had seen you and knew you were in one piece, fear clenched in his stomach. And if he was forced out of one more room, he was seriously considering decking someone. 

He didn’t care how irrational that was. He had been a detective with the gang unit for two years and SVU for three. He knew that the victims of assault were more likely to disclose all the information when they were questioned alone. They often felt like they may be judged or looked at differently by their friends and family and in turn often held back necessary and critical information. While he didn’t want to believe that you would feel that with him, he knew that statistics said you would.  

Joe also knew how annoying it was to have extra people in the room while getting a statement. They often talked over the victim, smothered them to the point they didn’t want to talk, or worse started to victim blame their own loved ones. How many times had he cut off worried partners, led angry fathers out of the room, or denied friends or family access to victims because they made his job so much harder? He was usually unapologetic in it too. He was in the right after all. This role reversal and the raw emotion building in his chest at the inadequacy of not being able to do anything, had him promising that he would go into the next situation like that with sympathy instead of irritation.  

He looked back into the window to the room that you were in. You were half slumped in your chair talking to Bruno and Finn. The right side of your face was badly bruised in black and blue splotches from the bottom of your jaw to the top of your cheekbone. There was a cut on your eyebrow, and your bottom lip was busted open just shy of the lower right corner. Joe knew that there was no way that it could be your only injury and the way that you had been favoring your left side only confirmed it. You shifted uncomfortably and looked away clearly unsettled by a question asked. Joe was luckily, or perhaps unluckily, saved from the urge to rip open the door and storm into the room by Olivia and Carisi coming up next to him subsequently blocking the door. 

“So, you and the lab tech that got attacked are together?” Joe nodded stiffly, “You know you have to stay out of this case or risk the validity of it.” Joe had the urge to punch the matter-of-factness out of Carisi. While the other man’s tone was firm, not condescending it rubbed Joe’s raw nerves the wrong way. He had the pull to call the center where you had been attending your training and demand the security surveillance that he knew they had. To locate the man that had hurt you and beat the hell out of him until he was unrecognizable. Only then would he pull out his gun and end the poor bastard's pathetic life. He had never felt more willing to pull the trigger of his gun.    

“I know,” He grumbled coldly, “I’m just waiting until she’s done giving her statement so that I can take her home.” He could feel Oliva’s heavy gaze on him as he continued to look in the window.  

“Velasco you are on mandatory leave for a few days.” 

“Already planned on it Captain.” The lack of argument made Olivia equally suspicious and concerned. Joe finally turned to look at the pair, “You really think I would leave her alone? While the guy that attacked her is out there. While she is the only witness to the rape that could put him in jail for the next fifteen to twenty years.” His voice got deeper, angrier. “I have no intention of giving him even the slightest chance of getting to her again, though I would love for him to try.” Joe’s hand rested unconsciously on the gun strapped to his hip. The words hung heavy in the air as he turned back to the window.  

Sonny was the one who broke the icy silence with a sigh, “I don’t blame you, but how about you keep those thoughts to yourself okay?” Joe didn’t bother to respond. Sonny opened his briefcase and fished out a piece of paper. “Here,” Joe barely glanced at the offered paper. 

“I don’t need that.”  

“Actually, you do. While NYPD doesn’t have a no-dating policy, they do require couples to sign a relationship disclosure. It’s a safeguard when it comes to legal issues including court-”  

“I don’t need it because we already signed one.” Joe cut off Carisi’s impending lecture. 

“You did?” 

“Yeah, six months ago. All the proper paperwork has been signed and filed. NYPD’s ass is officially and legally covered from liability.” Olivia and Carisi share a disbelieving look. SVU was close-knit and secrets were hard to keep in the unit. Keeping a relationship or hookup under wraps for six months was unheard of.  

“Joe, I never got a relationship disclosure from you.” 

“That’s because I gave it to McGrath.”  

 。°。°。°。°。°    

“Can you give a description of what he looked like?” Finn asked.  

“Not really,” You respond without much thought. You were starting to feel beyond exhausted, and the dull pain had turned throbbing. You felt like one big, irritated bruise. 

“Any little thing can help. His race, age, anything that you would be able to recognize him by?” Bruno prodded. You were shaking your head before he had even finished. “Just think about it for a minute. Tell me what you do remember about him.” You sigh heavily through your nose, rubbing at your eyes. You try to oblige him. Normally talking to Bruno was a treat, he was smart and had a wisecrack for every occasion. Right now, you wished he would stop talking altogether.  

“He was white. Maybe mid-thirties? He was wearing a black sweatshirt and navy baseball cap.” You watched Bruno start scribbling on his notepad. A snapshot of the man’s face above you flashed through your mind. A numb feeling took over you and left you chilled to your core. You pulled Joe’s shirt closer around you his sent wafting to your nose in a comforting embrace. “He had blue eyes, like really blue. And...” You pause.  

“And?” Finn prompts gently.  

“He had a tattoo on his neck.”  

“Which side?”  

“Right,” You shake your head at yourself, “No, wait it would be his left.” The picture in your head started to get fuzzy around the edges. “I-I don’t remember what it looked like. I swear I saw it though.” You admit. “I’m sorry, I guess I don’t make a very good witness. It all just happened so fast.” 

“You did great.” Finn disagreed, “Sometimes it just takes a while for it all to come back. Traumatic experiences are hard like that. Memories can come back in bits and pieces.” 

A few minutes later they were telling you that you were all set. Finn opened the door, and you stepped out. Once again Joe was waiting for you at the door. Olivia and another man were standing with him, and you pause unsure if you should interrupt. Their conversation looked serious. Joe makes the decision for you as he comes over to you and wraps his arm around you. You melt into him. You still feel cold from the inside out, and his body heat and the familiarity of his strong body bring you warmth. “I want to go home now.” Your voice sounds whiny and pathetic even to your own ears. 

“Of course, mi amor. I’ll get us a car-” 

“Didn’t you take the bike today?” Joe looked at you strangely like you were the one being weird. When he just stares you furrow your brows tilting your head in question.  

“Yeah...” The word is drug out almost comically long. “Cariño, you shouldn’t be riding... right now.” It was clear to you that he had edited himself midsentence.  

“Seriously? It’s only a few blocks. We could be back at the apartment by the time it will take you to find us a ride.” Joe looked ready to object and the others seemed uncomfortable with the idea. “Or I could just walk it, but I am not taking a cab. It’s ridiculous.” You don’t know why you were arguing with him. Logically it was more than reasonable for you to take a car. The bike would jostle your injuries and leaning for turns would be a painful endeavor. Later, months later, when you were trying to make peace with the day you would realize it had come from a lack of control. You wanted to feel like you had some power and were able to make your own decisions. 

Joe conceded under duress as he led you out to the motorcycle. He put the helmet on your head tightening the strap before forcing you into his jacket. You regretted your decision in the time it took you to get on the seat. It was one of the longest, most painful rides you ever had. You were almost in tears by the time he parked. You struggled to get down and wince grabbing your ribs. The breath had been pulled from your lungs harshly leaving a sharp pain. Joe for his part said nothing as he waited for you to gather yourself. When you find were able to catch your breath he wrapped his arm around you. The gesture was made to seem like it was out of affection and not helping hold you up as you limped to the elevator. However, when you finally made it to his apartment Joe closing the door and locking it didn’t bring you the relief you had hoped it would. 

I couldn’t seem to write anything for a few days there, but I finally got this part done! xoxo